Nida Zafar’s favourite things of 2023

2023 will go down as the first year I used multiple products and features that I covered for MobileSyrup in my personal life.

Prior to 2023, my hesitation wasn’t with how good those products or features were but how effective I would personally find them. Now that I’m over the hump, I realize I use many of them daily, which helped shape this list of my favourite things from 2023.

Rogers’ Spam Call Detect

I’ve mentioned in previous articles that I’m a Rogers customer. What I haven’t mentioned is I’m a magnet for scam and spam callers. At one point, I was averaging between five and six a day. Some of the calls were easy to identify — they appeared as a barge of random numbers coming from a city or country I’ve never been to. Others were harder to detect, displaying local area codes and by all accounts, looking like a legitimate call. But they never were, leaving me with a sense of disappointment for answering a call like that. When Rogers introduced its spam Call Detect feature earlier this year, I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful I found it. The feature labels some phone calls from unknown numbers as “likely fraud” or “likely spam.” Additional descriptors, like “survey,” have been added to other calls, helping me differentiate what’s important.

Google passkey

Nowadays, everything requires a login and password to keep personal information safe. From social media accounts to some grocery apps and everything in between. And trust me, I get it. Keeping personal information safe is vital. But what trips me up is all the different passwords and usernames to remember. While I use a password manager to stay organized, I’m also a fan of passkeys and recently decided to add one to my Google account. Given I rely on Google platforms in my personal and professional life, it made sense to me. So far, I’m happy with how it’s going, as it’s faster and more convenient than relying on traditional passwords.

Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife

I love a good docuseries, and Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife was just that. While the story it told wasn’t a positive one, partially focusing on medical malpractice, it is well told. It focuses on Italian thoracic surgeon Paolo Macchiarini’s fall from grace and the actions that led him to a prison sentence. I don’t want to give too much away, but check out the trailer below.

eufy IndoorCam Mini Camera

I was lucky enough to travel to several destinations over the last year. While travelling, I wanted to have a way to keep an eye on the one living and breathing thing that depends on me: my cat Nimco. Here’s one thing you need to know about her: Nimco is very serious about her territory and the people she trusts. These two factors meant hiring someone to feed her or leaving her at a friend’s house was out of the question. I was lucky enough to have family, whom Nimco is extremely fond of, step in and help out as much as they could. For the times in between, I decided to get an indoor camera to make sure Nimco wasn’t plotting my assassination upon my return.

After doing some online research, I settled on eufy’s IndoorCam Mini Camera, and I’m so glad I did. The company didn’t require me to sign up for any payment plan to use the camera, addressing one of the biggest issues I have with such products. It also didn’t require a memory card if I was looking at live footage. So, for my situation, it was perfect. I set it up each time before I left for a trip, used the eufy app on my phone to look at live footage, and packed the camera away when I got back. It also has a mic feature, allowing users to communicate through the camera, but I didn’t use this much.

A screenshot I took from the eufy app of Nimco trying to figure out the camera.

Flipp

I’ve always been a fan of hunting down deals; why pay full price when you can get it on sale? I apply this philosophy to most things I purchase, including weekly groceries. By far, the best way to see what’s on sale at a grocery store is to look at the store’s flyer. Of course, you can check these out online and even have them delivered to your inbox. But I’ve found Flipp very useful in this situation. The app has flyers from stores in several categories — not just groceries– in one place. You can either go through each flyer one by one or search for specific products in the search bar. Flipp will show you what’s on sale online and in stores. Plus, you can save your findings and create lists all within the app, making it an effective way to score a good deal.