![]() If you have a roommate who needs a slight nudge to get up, here's the procedure: "Alexa, set volume to 9. Last summer, I wrote a great summary of timer tips to help you prepare for that inevitable brutal early class. To plan for that, you can set all manner of timers with Alexa. I don't know why they needed to be that cruel, but the math department seemed to revel in scheduling calculus for before any coffee had a chance to settle in. One of my biggest challenges in college was the 8 am calculus classes I had. Type in "math" or "science" for science-related skills. Type in "reference" for many different reference resources. If you're looking for school specific resources, type "college" into the search engine, and you'll see that some colleges have created their own skills. Spend the time to dig through, and you'll find translation tools, this day in history skills, and my favorite: Alexa connections to courseware like Curiosity and Great Courses Plus. That said, there are also many helpful skills. It's a bit unfortunate that Education and Reference are lumped together, because there are a tremendous number of slightly silly reference skills like Mega Millions Numbers and Sneaker Release Dates.Īlso: How to become an Alexa developer: A cheat sheet TechRepublic When you first enter the Skills section, you can choose a category. My favorite way is point my browser to, and hit the Skills button on the left. This is a good time to show you how to find the Alexa Skills search engine. Hey, fish and game majors will find this valuable. ![]() a halibut calculator, which converts dollars into pounds of halibut. I prefer not to pull up my calculator for simple math calculations, so asking Alexa to add, subtract, multiply, and divide comes in handy.Īlexa has a wide variety of calculator skills, including a scientific calculator, a distance calculator, a significant figures calculator, an area calculator, a time difference calculator, and. I use Alexa a lot when doing calculations. So don't forget to say "Alexa, switch to David's account" (or your name) to add list items to the right account. One challenge we have with our shared Alexa is that sometimes the list managers don't work with the right account. You can also link to to-do list apps like Todoist and Any.do. But with the addition of skills, you can link to list managers like AnyList (my family's personal favorite), Cozi, and Picniic. When Alexa first came out, its list synchronization was pretty anemic. If you want an antonym or a rhyme, you'll need to enable the skill "word box," and then say, "Alexa, ask word box for an antonym for excited." Word Box is a bit limited, but somewhat helpful. You can also play tunes from your own Amazon My Music Library, or turn the can into a Bluetooth speaker. You can set up Alexa to talk to Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, SiriusXM, and Amazon Music. Of course, music is one of the things Alexa does really well. Enable the Uber or Lyft skill, then set your dorm as the default pickup location, and when it's time to go home (don't forget to bring all your laundry), you can say, "Alexa, ask Uber to request a ride" or "Alexa, ask Lyft for a ride." Music and audio books Speaking of travel, if you need a ride to the airport, Alexa can help. If you want to know how long you're going to have to wait in a security line, enable "security lines" and ask: "Alexa, ask security line what the wait time is at SFO terminal 2?" If you want to know the overall status at an airport, enable "airport status" and ask something like "Alexa, ask airport status to check SFO." If you need to travel home by air during the holidays, Alexa can help you out. Just put houses on as many properties as you can and build from there. Don't try for hotels they're strategically overrated. My strategy was always to get the utilities and the railroads. There will be no more fighting, and you can go on to take Board Walk and Park Place. For example, you might say, "Alexa, ask board games how many people can play Monopoly." You'll have your answer. Instead, tell Alexa to enable board games, and then ask away. It's 2 am, you and your neighbors are all gathered in the little cove in the middle of the dorm avoiding homework, and somebody makes some outlandish claim about how many people can play Monopoly or who goes first in Scrabble.Īlso: Best back-to-school tech for under $50 in 2018 You may not realize it now, but right after ordering pizza, the next most important thing to be able to do is win an argument about a board game. I promise I'll get to some educational resources, but what you really need if you're living in a dorm room is to be prepared for what life throws at you now that you're on your own.
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