If you’ve ever had trouble figuring out how much you should tip your waiter, join the club! In this age of technology, we literally have answers our most burning questions right at our fingertips. As it turns out, tip calculators come in pretty handy! Gone are the days of struggling to figure out the math in your head. These days it’s all about knowing how to find information quickly. There are a variety of apps available to us that are designed with one purpose in mind: making your life easier. Here we compiled a list of our tried and true top favorites that will help you keep it together in the New Year.

Tip Me (tip calculator): This is a cool little app has an old time diner tag as its background; not only is this app cute, it is super convenient too! You will be able to easily input your tab’s total amount, and then decide on percentage of tip that you should leave, all within seconds. Free. Available at the Google Play Store.

Gratuity (tip calculator): This app is user-friendly, and will let you decide your tip amount by using a smiley face system, 20% for a happy face, 15% for a slightly happy face, and 10% for an unhappy face. Your tip also varies depending if you are at a bar, restaurant or paying for a delivery service. Free. Available for iOS.

EasilyDo: This is one of the best productivity apps that we’ve run into so far; it is perfect for busy folks who have trouble keeping track of their life. EasilyDo will keep track of your contacts with their most up-to date email and different phone numbers, keep your emails separated by level of importance and manage your calendar events as the days fly by. If you are a traveler, this app will keep your itinerary, including flight times and hotel reservations. Free. Available for iOS and Android.

Evernote: This productivity app is more geared toward organizing your work life. With this app you will be able to share your work seamlessly with whomever you choose, be it clients or co-workers. Evernote might end up taking the place of your PowerPoint, as these notes can be easily organized into a presentation, no slides required. This app will save all of your work to a cloud, so you don’t have to worry about space constrictions. Available for iOS and Android. A basic account is free, however through the app you can upgrade to Plus, Premium or Business, with prices ranging from $25-$120.

Pushbullet: If you use multiple devices throughout the day, then this is the app for you. Pushbullet will keep your different devices synced to each other, so you will be on the same page, no matter which one of your devices that you are currently using. This app will also send push notifications that you receive on your phone directly to your computer, so you don’t miss out on any information throughout the day. Sending files between devices is also a breeze; you can send links as well. Available for iOS and Android.
http://calengoo.dgunia.de/docs/: This app allows you to make modifications to your Google calendar. This app will allow you to pick different views of your Google calendar by day and week or by agenda. You can change the color and style of your calendar entries, so that you can keep track of them easily. You can also assign people to various events, as well as tracking recurring and floating events. CalenGoo is easily configurable, so you can tailor it directly to your needs. $6.99. Available for iOS and Android.

Are you looking for a date, but don’t want to go the Tinder route? There is a plethora of new dating apps at our fingertips, but which ones are good? We checked out a few shining stars, who’s using them and what they’re all about.

The average U.S. household has a plethora of electronic devices that are constantly connected to power sources. With all the money that’s spent on these valuable products, it’s important to protect them from things like electrical surges and power outages. Of course one of the best and easiest ways to do this is with power strip surge protectors.
When it comes to buying power strip surge protectors, CableWholesale has a variety of quality products to choose from, but there are few things you should know before making your selection. Here are three of the most important.

Know the Difference: Not every power strip is a surge protector. Most people consider them to all be the same thing, but in reality there are some that are merely extensions of the wall outlet that provide a couple extra slots. While some of these will have basic circuit breakers, they don’t offer the level of real protection power strip surge protectors do.

Know the Specifications: Even when it comes to real surge protectors the quality and service can vary. For surge protectors that means looking at the number of joules it is made to protect against. Basically, this is the amount of electrical damage a protector can absorb before it breaks down.
Another important thing to look at when browsing is the amount and output power of slots for USB cables. Many devices such as smartphones, which have an average lifespan of two years, are now charged through USB 2.0 cables. Many surge protectors now include these slots, but the amount of amps will vary. Generally, the more amps it has, the faster your device will charge, in the same way more watts in the charger chord will speed up charging for iPhones and iPads.

Know the Shelf-Life: Power strip surge protectors are important to any home, business, or office that plugs things in for power, but they do have a lifespan. In the event that your space suffers an electrical surge the surge protector will start to lose some of its joules and will eventually need to be replaced.

Check out the great selection we have to meet any and all of your surge protector needs and rest assured with our included lifetime warranty.

For the second installment of our “What’s Your Device” series, we will be focusing on laptops and televisions. Whether you need to register your device for a warranty, or you need support for the product, it is important to be able to find both your device’s model and serial numbers.
Finding your laptop’s model and serial numbers can be relatively easy depending on who manufacturers the device.

Zipcord fiber optic cables are a type of fiber optic cables that consist of two or more conductors that are connected by an insulating jacket, which can be easily separated just by pulling the two conductors apart. They’re typically used to carry related optical signals so that the conductors remain together to avoid confusion, and also reduce the potential for tangled and messy cables.
This style of cable can also be purchased for electrical signals as well, and many people probably use it in their homes every day without even realizing it. Common uses for this would be in speaker wire and lamp cords. Zipcord fiber optic cable is usually either used for fiber optic internet connection or in a commercial, like an interstate trucking scale location that transmits data to a central location.
Unlike the HDMI Standard cables and HDMI Highspeed cables, which come in three and two different types respectively; zipcord fiber optic cables typically only one come as duplex cords.
Duplex is simply a cable in which two separate fiber optic strands exist. Typically, they are designed in the zipcord way so that they can be separated, thus turning them into simplex cables. The primary difference between duplex and simplex fiber optic cables is that duplex transmits data going both directions, while simplex unsurprisingly is usually utilized for one way operation. There are, of course, many exceptions to these standards, but this is sufficient for a basic level of understanding.
Many people believe HDMI cords will cost $50 or more even though you can find them for cheaper. It’s really fiber optic cable that can cost you a bit more because of the quality. One way to be more financially savvy is to buy bulk fiber optic cables. CableWholesale offers high-quality cables for reduced, wholesale prices. Even if you don’t need it all today, chances are you’ll need more of it down the road.
Life expectancy is an important attribute when it comes to cables. For example, CAT 5 Cable constructed of top grade materials will typically last between five and 10 years. The best part of buying zipcord fiber optic cable from CableWholesale is that it comes with our lifetime warranty.
Another quick tip when buying fiber optic cable is to always go with the zipcord fiber optic cable as you can always easily turn this into single, simplex cords, but will have a much harder time doing it the other way.

Apple is one of the most successful, innovative, and largest technology companies in the world today for many reasons. First and foremost though is the fact that they produce a quality product. From the beloved iPhone to no-tower desktops and now, of course, the revolutionary line of iPads, they’ve done an exceptional job in virtually all aspects of business. However, even a company like Apple has its faults.
One of the not-quite-devastating, but certainly incredibly frustrating is their lightning cables used to connect USB cables and charge the iPhone. As Tony Bradley recently pointed out in a piece for Forbes, one of the company’s most important cell phone accessories essentially comes with a hidden surcharge of sorts.

“The Lightning cables are required to charge Apple’s latest mobile devices, but the cables are expensive and fall apart easily,” Bradley wrote. “I have tremendous respect for Apple quality and attention to detail… However, we have a lot of Apple devices in my house — six iPhones, and two iPads — and not one of the eight Lightning cables that came with those devices has survived.”
Smartphones usually have a lifespan of about two years, but when it comes to cell phone cables Apple has fallen much shorter. Bradley is right when he points out that this issue, while not significantly detrimental to the device’s overall use, it is a major annoyance that ultimately results in a phantom-style surcharge. New lightning cables from Apple will cost you around $19.
Don’t let the alleged faulty nature of Apple’s cell phone cable accessories turn you off from all the great products they do offer, though. CableWholesale offers replacement lightning cables for Apple products at less than a third of the price! For just $6.50 you can buy a one-and-a-half foot long charger that comes with our signature lifetime warranty.

Another reason you’re going to want to replace your lightning cables at the first sign of significant damage is because of the safety risks they pose. Damaged, frayed phone charger cables have several times been the cause of electrical fires, electrical failures, and malfunctions that altogether resulted in about 53,600 home fires in 2008. These fires caused more than 500 deaths, injured 1,400 people, and did $1.4 billion in property damage.

The iPhone 6 takes about an hour and 50 minutes to charge using a 12 watt USB power adapter, but it could take a heck of a lot longer if you don’t realize it’s not even charging when you go to bed for the night. Apple’s got enough money, save a little of yours by buying your replacement lightning cables with us.