Easy fix for annoying smartphone problem: ow to Sync All Your Calendars Onto One Smartphone

It’s a simple request: I just want my online calendars to sync with my smartphone… is that too much to ask? It took some initial research and finesse, but I’ve discovered the best ways to get your Yahoo and Google calendars to appear on either an Android or Apple IOS mobile device.

Google Calendar on Android Phone
When you first set up your Android phone, you had to create or enter your Google account info, so the phone already has the login info for your Google Calendar. Now you can go to your phone’s Settings, choose Accounts, click the Google account and then make sure “Sync Calendar” is checked. Then go to the Calendar App on your Android phone and it should be there.

For multiple calendars, hit the Settings button and then Calendars to customize which Google calendars you see.

Yahoo Calendar on Android Phone
Although it seems like it should be easy to add the Yahoo Calendar to your Android, I never got mine to sync. Theoretically, you would open the Android calendar on your phone, hit the Settings option, and Add Account. But depending on the flavor of Android I tried, I either couldn’t add a Yahoo account or when I did, it didn’t sync. It could just be me, but I found a lot of people online with the same issue. So I tried one of the most recommended apps to solve the problem – Smoothsync for Yahoo. It costs just under three dollars, and once you install it, you can sync all your Yahoo calendars into the native Android calendar. Ah, sweet relief.

[Related: New Tricks for New (and Old) Androids]

Yahoo Calendar on iPhone
On your IOS device, hit Settings. If you haven’t added your Yahoo Account yet, do so by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.” Once you’ve input your Yahoo login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure calendars is on. Hit the Home button, open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see all your calendars listed under Yahoo. If you only have one Yahoo calendar, make sure you check to have it show in your IOS Cal. Also, many people have multiple Yahoo calendars: a family calendar, a work calendar, a soccer team calendar for the kids, and a personal calendar. You can customize which of these Yahoo Calendars show up by checking or unchecking them in this screen.

Google Calendar on iPhone
It’s a little more complicated, but you can also put a Google or Gmail calendar on the iPhone. Here’s how:

If you only have your one personal Google calendar to sync, you do things the same way as with Yahoo: Go to Settings on your IOS device, add your Google account (if you haven’t done so yet) by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.”

Once you’ve input your Google login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure Calendars is on. Hit the Home button, then open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see your calendar listed under Google. You can track those Google dates in the IOS calendar and multiple Yahoo calendars at the same time. But if you want multiple Google calendars, you need an app for that. Google does let you do this through their mobile site, but that’s basically just a website without the power of notifications and all the extras you like from your calendars. So I suggest getting the CalenMob app. It’s free with ads or $5 ad-free. It syncs all your Google calendars to the app (not the native IOS calendar) and adds in notification options, SMS functions and email alert options. It also syncs simultaneously to your Yahoo calendars.

Buffalo Sabres want to have your babies (as hockey fans)

It’s said that hockey fandom is a cult. So it’s only fitting that the Buffalo Sabres would be engaging in some sort of infant indoctrination ritual at local hospitals involving hoods and a message from their high priest.

The team has started a “Buffalo Sabres Newborn Program”, in which every baby born at Millard Fillmore Suburban and the Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo in 2013 is given a Buffalo Sabres baby blanket and a certificate from Sabres owner Terry Pegula, who apparently owned a few Cabbage Patch Kids as a young billionaire.
From John Vogl of the Buffalo News:

“Fandom in Buffalo is something that runs much deeper than in most other places,” said Sabres President Ted Black, who will visit Millard Fillmore this afternoon to kick off the program. “Even from birth, people here know that hockey and the Sabres are a part of life. This program is a way for us to welcome the newest members of our community and hopefully plant the seed of passion that will grow into a lifetime of embracing the game that we all love so deeply here in Buffalo.”
The gold, hooded baby blankets are emblazoned with the Sabres’ logo and “We Live Hockey” on the back. They also have “’13” to signify the year and Kaleida Health’s “Buffalo Baby” logo.

And what baby wouldn’t proudly share a sweater number with Yuri Khmylev?
[Also: Young fan dons mohawk and blackface to meet soccer star]
This is pretty shrewd move by Buffalo. In the sense that no matter what happens, Ryan Miller will no longer be the whiniest person wearing a Sabres logo…
Here's a look at Terry Pegula's Sabres Babies:
In all seriousness, this is exactly what the NHL needs to do in the U.S. We’d go a step further and hand every newborn a stick, a helmet and tiny baby skates, although we acknowledge that could be awkward for the mother during breastfeeding.
We look forward to other teams stealing the Sabres’ idea. Like when babies in Philadelphia are handed a Comcast cable box and a 12-year contract. Or when a baby is born in Jersey and is given a "Rangers Suck" onesie. Or when babies in Boston have their lifeforces sucked out of them by a vampiric Jeremy Jacobs ...
If the Leafs attempted to give every newborn a blanket and a message from Brian Burke, could it be considered child abuse?

Armstrong's moon speech not so improvised, brother tells BBC

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronaut Neil Armstrong may not have been speaking entirely off the cuff when he delivered the most iconic quote in the history of manned space flight.

Armstrong wrote out the sentence, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," before blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with Apollo astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins in July 1969, his brother now says, according to the transcripts of a documentary recently aired on BBC Two. Because of a radio communications glitch, millions of people watching on television as Armstrong became the first human being to step onto the surface of the moon never heard him utter the word "a" before man.

Armstrong, who died in August at the age of 82, had always maintained he composed the words after touching down on the moon on July 20, 1969, while he waited to leave the Eagle lunar lander.

But Armstrong's younger brother Dean, speaking in an interview for the documentary, "Neil Armstrong - First Man on the Moon" aired on Sunday, said that was not entirely accurate.

"Dean told me that Neil shared the words with him shortly before he left for the Cape, so maybe a couple weeks before the mission," producer Chris Riley told Reuters.

An Armstrong family spokesman did not reply to a request from Reuters for comment.

"I find the timing of Dean Armstrong's revelation to be curious," said Robert Pearlman, owner and curator of CollectSpace.com, a space history website.

"Why wait until after his brother died? He was interviewed for Neil's authorized biography in 2002 and apparently never mentioned this story, despite Neil giving permission to his family and friends to speak openly," Pearlman said.
Andrew Chaikin, author of "A Man on the Moon," which served as a template for an HBO miniseries produced by Tom Hanks, said Armstrong was asked many times over the years when he came up with the quote and always replied that it was spoken spontaneously.

"He had said that many times publicly before I wrote my book, so I never asked him when he made up the quote," Chaikin said.

In the documentary, Dean Armstrong said he and his brother were up one night shortly before Neil left for Florida playing the board game, Risk, Riley said.

Dean said Neil slipped him a piece of paper with the sentence "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," written out and asked Dean what he thought of it, Riley said.

Dean replied, "Fabulous," a transcript of the documentary shows.

Riley, who was commissioned to produce the documentary after Armstrong's death, said he doesn't see it as raising any real questions about the astronaut's integrity.

"Anybody making that historic step onto another world as a human being would have appreciated the significance of it, as Neil did, and would have given it some thought beforehand. It wasn't something that just sort of came to him as he headed down the ladder. But I don't think he fully decided what to say until maybe after landing," Riley said.

The documentary, produced in partnership with PBS's NOVA is due to air in the United States later this year.

At 76, grandma continues to fly high: 76 Year Old Circus Great Still Performing in Family Business

This 76 year-old grandmother is still swaying on a pole that’s 110 feet in the air.
Related Link: The Wallendas
“I love performing. The adrenaline flows when you’re up there,” says Carla Wallenda, the matriarch of America’s high-flying family, who shows no signs of slowing down. “If I’m depressed or upset, it all goes away. I plan to keep performing until I can’t climb that pole anymore.”
That determination has never dimmed even though the family suffered from the very public death of Carla’s father Karl Wallenda in 1978 while performing in Puerto Rico.
“Accidents will happen no matter where you are,” she says. “My father taught us when the Lord says it’s your time, you’re gonna go.”
Her daughter Rietta, who walks the wire and performs the sway pole like mom, vividly recalls that dark day.
“I couldn’t tell how windy it was until my grandfather actually got up on the wire. He got about three quarters of the way through and was having a tremendous struggle and I was beginning to think he’s not going to be able to recover,” she says. “Before I could do anything, my grandfather lost contact with the wire and he fell.”
Now from her family’s historic practice grounds in Sarasota, Florida, where she perfects new acts with her daredevil brother Rick and her daughter Lyric, a seventh generation aerialist, Rietta says, “You don’t ever really recover from it, you just learn to live with it.”
Arriving in the United States in the late twenties, the family invented the four-person pyramid atop the high wire and has gone on to perform record-breaking stunts across the country. Most recently, last summer Nik Wallenda crossed Niagara Falls in a live televised event.
But for all of their death defying acrobatics, perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Wallenda business is staying relevant and making money. “Right now the economy is down for everybody so we have to adjust to that as well,” says Rick.
“My husband and I are always brainstorming: what are other companies not doing? I learn new acts, my mother learns new acts, and we’re coming up with crazy characters that are going to pop,” says Lyric. “We all have to pay our bills. We all have to eat.”
Given the vast circus competition and the obvious economic challenges facing the profession, it takes a true love of the Wallenda’s timeless daring acts of entertainment to keep the family legacy—and business—alive.
“When I was a child, I wanted to go to school to be a normal kid and that lasted six months,” says Lyric. “Then I was calling my mom, ‘Please, please I need to get back out on the road.’ Now if I’m home for more than two weeks, I get antsy.”

Senate panel to examine CIA contacts with "Zero Dark Thirty" filmmakers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After the Senate Intelligence Committee's chairwoman expressed outrage over scenes that imply "enhanced interrogations" of CIA detainees produced a breakthrough in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the panel has begun a review of contacts between the makers of the film "Zero Dark Thirty" and CIA officials.

In the latest controversy surrounding the film, Reuters has learned that the committee will examine records charting contacts between intelligence officials and the film's director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal.

Investigators will examine whether the spy agency gave the filmmakers "inappropriate" access to secret material, said a person familiar with the matter. They will also probe whether CIA personnel are responsible for the portrayal of harsh interrogation practices, and in particular the suggestion that they were effective, the person said.

The intelligence committee's Democrats contend that is factually incorrect.

Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatized account of the hunt for al Qaeda leader bin Laden and the May 2011 U.S. Navy SEAL raid in which he was killed. Government e-mails and memoranda released to the conservative group Judicial Watch show that both the CIA and Pentagon gave the filmmakers extensive access.

But the film has also produced a series of awkward political headaches for President Barack Obama. Early on, Obama's Republican critics suggested it was a gimmick to boost his re-election campaign. But now, some of Obama's liberal supporters are attacking the film and officials who cooperated with its creators for allegedly promoting the effectiveness of torture.

The CIA had no comment on the latest congressional inquiry regarding the film.

One of the intelligence officials whom the documents show as having met with the filmmakers is Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy director at the time and now the agency's acting chief.

Current and former national security officials have said Morell, a highly regarded agency veteran, is a favorite to succeed retired Gen. David Petraeus as the agency's director.

CLOUD OVER MORELL?

But some of the same officials now say the controversy over the film's content has cast a cloud over Morell's prospects.

Last month, Intelligence Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein joined Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and former Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in sharply condemning what they described as "particularly graphic scenes of CIA officers torturing detainees" in Zero Dark Thirty.

The film has been screened in New York and Los Angeles but does not premiere nationwide until January 11.

In a December 19 letter to the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which produced the film, the senators alleged it was "grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location" of bin Laden.

The three senators claim Zero Dark Thirty "clearly implies that the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier" for bin Laden, who would unknowingly lead the agency to his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The senators assert, however, that their own review of CIA records proves that the story told in the film is "incorrect" and "the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program."

Sony, in response, released a statement from Bigelow and Boal, which said in part: "We depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden.

"The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes."

Boal said in an email that he was unaware of the Senate committee's interest and had had no contact with the panel.

The person familiar with the committee's plan to review administration dealings with the filmmakers said initially this would involve reviewing uncensored copies of CIA records regarding the film. The committee presently does not plan to contact the filmmakers directly, the source said.

A 'DRAMATIZATION'

Last year, the CIA and Pentagon, in response to a freedom of information request from Judicial Watch, released hundreds of pages of internal documents discussing the agencies' arrangements for dealing with Bigelow and Boal.

The documents, many heavily redacted, show that top CIA and Pentagon officials, including Morell and Michael Vickers, now the Pentagon's intelligence chief, talked to the filmmakers.

One Pentagon email exchange with Ben Rhodes, a senior White House national security aide, said Boal had been briefed by CIA officials "with the full knowledge and full approval/support" of Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director and then Secretary of Defense while the film was being prepared.

A second person familiar with the matter said the committee had acquired copies of the CIA records last year.

The committee originally obtained the uncensored records at the request of Republicans, who were looking for evidence that intelligence or Pentagon personnel inappropriately shared classified information with the filmmakers, this source said.

Other Congressional Republicans, most notably Representative Peter King, outgoing chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, complained loudly about dealings between the Obama administration and the filmmakers following reports it would be released shortly before the 2012 Presidential election. Ultimately, the film was not released until after the election.

Two days after the Senators made public their letter to Sony, the CIA released a statement by Morell, who said that Zero Dark Thirty was a "dramatization, not a realistic portrayal of the facts," and that while the agency had "interacted" with the filmmakers, it did not "control the final product."

Morell's statement was equivocal on whether "enhanced interrogations" had produced information critical to finding bin Laden.

"Whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved," Morell added.