Joyce's Wall

Monday, 7 March 2016

App of the Month

App of the month March 2016

Do you ever find yourself drawing a blank on the name of a song? Or how about a type of dog? Or plant? Find out what you’re listening to or looking at with these great apps.

What-Dog or Fetch

Using advanced artificial intelligence, this app can identify the breed of a dog by analysing a photo of it. The Microsoft-developed app uses image-recognition software to determine the dog breed. At the moment it is quite accurate, although I’m not sure how it will perform at recognising crossbreeds, but what makes the app so much fun is what it will do if you submit a picture of a person. The app is well and truly smart enough to tell the difference between a human and a dog, but just for fun, when you upload a photo of a person it will tell you what type of dog they would be. So while you probably already know what breed your dog is, why not find out what breed your friends and family are?

Available for free on iPhone and iPad.

Can be accessed on all other devices by visiting the website www.what-dog.net

Shazam

If you hear a great song on the radio or while you’re out and about, this nifty app can, using your device’s microphone, listen to it and then find out its title and artist. Shazam does this by sending the segment of the song you recorded to its database and comparing it to the millions of songs it has stored there until a match is found. For the most accurate results, try to get as close as possible to the speaker from where the music is coming and try to not talk whilst recording.

Available for free on iPhone, iPad, Android and more.

PlantNet

Developed by French scientists, this app will identify a plant or tree based on a photo of one leaf, flower, fruit or piece of bark. The app supports over 4000 varieties of plants and trees. At the moment, the app primarily focuses on flora that grows in the French territory, but the amount of supported species is constantly growing as more people use the app.

Available for free on iPhone, iPad and Android.

Friday, 4 March 2016

Google Plan

Travel: how to plan your next holiday using Google Plan a Trip feature

As if we all needed another reason to use Google each day. The savvy search engine and ‘all-seeing distributor of information’ can now also plan your next holiday for you, with the recent, yet relatively unknown, addition of its ‘Plan a Trip’ feature.

To use the Plan a Trip feature, open the Google app on your smartphone. If you don’t have it already, you can download it for Android, iPhone or iPad. I’d love to tell you that you can do this on your computer, but it’s currently only available through Google’s smartphone app.

Okay, let’s go. Say you’re interested in visiting Italy. In the Google app search bar, type in “where to go in Italy” or “destinations in Italy”. It is important that you use the keywords “where to go” or “destinations” for the Plan a Trip feature to work properly.

Now that you’ve told Google where you want to go (i.e. Italy), hit enter, then scroll down to the “Destinations” or “Points of Interest” tabs.

Once you’ve specified the city you wish to visit, Google compiles all the information you’ll need to plan your journey, as well as other assorted Italy-related content. You’ll find flight information, accommodation options, restaurants, top tourist sites and weather details.

It even goes as far as presenting total flight times, which are calculated from your departure point, peak/offpeak travel times and the current climate. Scroll a bit further down, and you’ll find destination-related videos to inspire you even more.

Now this next feature is where Plan a Trip comes into its own. You can book your airfare and make hotel reservations all from within the Google results page. You can even modify your search by including the stopovers you wish to make, your preferred airlines, cabin class and flight times.

So, instead of fiddling about with fifteen different websites to find the information you need to plan a trip, Google presents all the details you’ll need to make travel planning a simple, hassle-free experience. At the very least, it’s a great starting point for planning your next dream holiday.

Ah, Google. You’ve done it again.

Private Browsing

How to browse the internet without leaving traces

Do you know that most websites you visit keep tabs on you so that they know how often you visit and any products you are interested in purchasing? Find out how to stop this with private browsing.

When you visit a website, it will usually download a small file and put it in your computer, which will tell the website when you next browse it whether you’ve visited before, among other things. This file is called a ‘cookie’ and is part of the reason why you will see ads on the internet for a product you recently viewed. Some suspect that websites also raise the prices on products you have looked at before.

If you don’t want annoying ads showing you every item you looked at recently, or to risk being charged more for products you buy online, here’s how you can stop these cookies from being left behind.

Most browsers come with a mode built in that prevents websites from storing cookies on your computer and stops the history from being recorded while you are in that mode.

Google Chrome users can open an ‘Incognito Window’ by opening up Chrome and pressing ‘Ctrl + Shift + N’ on Windows or ‘Command + Shift + N’ on Mac.

Mozilla Firefox users can open a ‘New Private Window’ by clicking the ‘Menu’ button (appears as three horizontal lines) at the top right-hand corner and clicking ‘New Private Window’.

Safari users can open a ‘Private Mode’ window by clicking ‘File’ at the top menu bar and then clicking ‘New Private Window’.

Microsoft Internet Explorer or Edge users can open an ‘InPrivate Window’ by opening up the Internet Browser and pressing ‘Ctrl + Shift + P’.

One step further

If you’re concerned about other parties getting their hands on your data, or the government’s recent changes to privacy online, this article from Lifehacker will walk you through using an online anonymity program Tor.

Related articles:
Hide your browser history
The worst passwords of 2015

Thursday, 25 February 2016

Face Book emails

Facebook emails: how to turn them off

Is your email inbox always filling up with unnecessary messages from Facebook? Find out how to turn off annoying Facebook notification emails and declutter your inbox.

Facebook loves to let you know whenever something happens on your account, but receiving an email every time anything happens can clutter your inbox and get in the way of other important emails. If you use a Facebook app on your phone, this can be even more annoying as you will receive double notifications for some things.

Luckily, adjusting your Facebook Notification Settings is easy, and while you can’t turn them off entirely, you can limit them to “notifications about your account, security and privacy” –which is pretty good considering that there are 58 other events that can trigger an email from Facebook.

Desktop

To change your Facebook Notification Settings on your computer you can click here.

If this link doesn’t work for you, open up Facebook and click the little downward facing arrow at the top right corner of Facebook, then click Settings. From here, click Notifications on the left-hand side, and then click Email address. Now you can choose from three different settings for how many emails you will receive, and you can also turn specific notifications on or off.

Smartphone or tablet

To change the settings on your smart device, either open up the Facebook app or open up your web browser and then go to Facebook. Now tap the three-horizontal-lines icon (located in different spots on different devices), then scroll down and tap Account Settings > Notifications > Email.

From here you can tap to choose which notifications you would prefer to receive. Using the app, you are limited to choosing from three different settings for how many emails you will receive; if you want to customise these more, you will need to log in on a computer and follow the steps above.

Related articles:

How to make group chats on Facebook

Why join Twitter?

Too Smart Phone

How does my smartphone know where I live and work?

Has your iPhone, iPad or Android ever surprised you by informing you that you’re a 10-minute drive from home? Find out how it knows this and how you can make it forget.

Over the last couple of years, Google and Apple have both introduced features that can determine where you live and work, among other things. At some point in time you would have opted into these features, possibly by rushing past a checkbox to see any goodies the new version of iOS or Android offered

The way your device determines where you live and work is by looking at your GPS information over a few days and making some educated guesses. For example, if you sleep somewhere every night, you probably live there. And if you leave this location and go somewhere for eight hours each weekday, this is probably where you work. These services can make some more guesses about favourite restaurants and other locations you visit as well.

Apple stores all of this information on your device, whereas Google stores it all in the cloud. The purpose of this is harmless enough (on the surface anyway): your smartphone or tablet will know where you’re going based on the day of the week and the time of day, so if you open up your smartphone as you hop in the car, it’ll instantly be able to tell you what the traffic is like, and possibly show you a quicker route.

As always, this convenience comes at a cost. If someone was to gain access to your iPhone or iPad, or to your Google data, they could quite accurately find out where you will be at any given time. If you don’t want Apple or Google knowing this much about you, or you’re worried about the data falling into the wrong hands, you can disable these ‘services’.

iPhone and iPad

On Apple devices this feature is called ‘Frequent Locations’, and it can be accessed by opening Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Now scroll down and tap System Services, located near the bottom, and then tap Frequent Locations, again located near the bottom. On this screen you will be able to see Apple’s list of locations you frequent, and you can deactivate the service by tapping the slider next to Frequent Locations to the off position.

Android

On Android devices, this feature is called Google Now, and it attempts to pull together information from other services such as your email and calendar. To turn off Google Now, open up the Google Settings app on your device (this is not the same as the regular settings app you have; you will find it with other apps you have installed). Once you have found and opened the app, tap Search and Now > Now Cards. Then tap the slider next to Show Cards to the off position.

Monday, 22 February 2016

Enlarging screen

Eye strain: avoid it by enlarging the screen text on your devices

Many of us spend good chunks of the day checking text messages, reading emails, catching up on social media and generally staring at the teeny tiny screens on our smartphones. This can lead to blurred vision, headaches, dry and sore eyes, and muscle strain.

Around one in four people with eye concerns complain about sore eyes due to spending time reading text on a small screen. The problem is that while we naturally blink once every three to four seconds, we only blink every six to eight seconds when we stare at a screen.

I didn’t believe this when I first read it, so I reread it – which took me about 12 seconds – and you know what? I didn’t blink. I looked away and immediately blinked four or five times in rapid succession.

The other thing I noticed was that I squinted to read the screen. That can also contribute to eye strain as well as neck, shoulder and muscle fatigue.

One way to combat these problems is to enlarge the text on your screen. Here’s how to do just that.

On your iPhone or iPad, head to ‘Settings’ then click on ‘General’. Next, select ‘Accessibility’, then tap ‘Larger Text’. Now, select your desired text size, then press the home button to exit the menu.

If that’s not enough and you want to make your text stand out even more, you’ll be happy to know that you can bold your screen text. To do this, just go to ‘Settings’ then click ‘Display & Brightness’ and flip the ‘Bold Text’ switch. Now restart your phone and your bold text will appear.

You can also use the good old ‘pinch apart’ gesture – which is when you put two fingers on your screen and pull them apart to magnify any images and text. Head to www.lukew.com if you’d like to know more about gestures.

If you’re using an Android phone, go to ‘Settings’ and click ‘Display’, then ‘Font Size’. Now you can choose from one of four settings: small, normal, large or huge.

While a standard Android phone doesn’t have a ‘bold text’ option, it does have a high-contrast feature. This adds a black outline around some of the text on your screen to make it easier to read. To access this feature, go to ‘Settings’, then tap the ‘high-contrast’ text box.

If you’re using a Mac computer, you can hold ‘Command’ and use the ‘+’ or ‘–‘ to enlarge or reduce the text and images on your screen.

For PC users, click on ‘Start’ and head to ‘Settings’ and click on ‘Control Panel’. Now double click ‘Display’, then ‘Settings’ and move the tab under screen resolution to the left to enlarge images and text on your screen.

Do you know of any other ways to reduce eye strain? Why not share them with our members?

Thursday, 18 February 2016

Find Missing iPhone etc.

How to find your missing iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch

If you ever have the unfortunate experience of misplacing or having your Apple device stolen, you’ll be glad to know there’s a way you can locate it with Apple’s handy ‘Find My iPhone’ feature.

First, you’ll need to enable the ‘Find My iPhone’ function. To do this, go to ‘Settings’, scroll to ‘Privacy’ and tap ‘Location Services’. Flip the switch so it’s in the green position. Then scroll down and find ‘System Services’. Here you’ll see the ‘Find My iPhone’ switch, which you can now turn on. You may be prompted for your Apple ID and password when you first activate this feature.

Now that ‘Find My iPhone’ is on, you can use it to locate your device.

Not only can the ‘Find My iPhone’ feature locate your missing device, it can also help you to take action that can keep your data safe in the meantime.

To use Find My iPhone:

· Sign in to your iCloud account on a Mac or PC, or download and access the Find My iPhone app on a friend’s iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

· To locate your device, simply open Find My iPhone, and select a registered device to view its location on a map. If it’s somewhere around your house or in your car, Find My iPhone can make it play a sound so it’s easier to find.

· If it’s in someone else’s hands, or some dubious location, you can use ‘Lost Mode’ to remotely lock your device using a four-digit passcode. You can also display a message showing your phone number on the device's Lock screen, which can make it easier for the (hopefully) honest citizen who finds your device to contact you.

· If you have credit card or payment information on your device, you, or whomever has your device, won’t be able to access these details whilst your device is in Lost Mode.

· Even if your device is off or out of range, you’ll still be able to put it in Lost Mode, and you’ll be able to track the location of your device once it’s turned on again. Once you find your device, you’ll need to enter your four-digit passcode to disable Lost Mode. You can also do this from your iCloud account.

· In a worst-case scenario, you can erase all of your your data remotely. This will stop anyone accessing any of your private information. Be careful though, because once you’ve erased your device you will no longer be able to track it using Find My iPhone.

If your device is stolen or misplaced, and Find My iPhone isn't switched on, it’s best to immediately change your passwords, including your Apple ID, social media accounts, banking and email, and report your device as missing. You can report it to the police, as well as your carrier, who should be able to disable your account, preventing phone calls, texts and data use.

Have you ever lost your device or had it stolen? Did having Find My iPhone help you find it?