Welcome to yet another edition of the Tech Tips Monthly roundup. This month we have tips that will help you get more done on Android and iOS devices as well on a few tricks that you might find handy when you browse the web. There are also some pointers for users of the hard-to-masterPowerPoint application. If you know of a quick and better way to do things, do share it with us by sending an email to editor@theapptimes.com.
Tech Tips We Shared in June 2015
Android Tips
- To add new words to your personal disctionary in Android 5.0 go to Settings-> Language & input -> Personal Dictionary. Tap the + mark at the top of the screen and then type the word you want to add.
- You can turn your Android device into a remote control for managing your Powerpoint presentations by installing and configuring the Swoosh app for Android.(http://www.getswoosh.com/).
- You can disable the auto correct settings in your Google keyboard on Android 5.0 by heading to Settings-> Language & input -> Google Keyboard. Then Text correction and then tap Auto-correction and choose Off.
iOS Tips
- In iOS 8.3, you no longer have to enter a password to download free content from iTunes or the App Store. To activate the feature, go to Settings-> iTunes & App Store-> Password Settings. (If you already use Touch ID for your iTunes and App Store purchases you don;t have to use this feature.) Under Purchases and In-App Purchases, select Always Require or Require After 15 Minutes. Now, in the Free Downloads section, you can turn off the Require Password option.
- To send a video message on your iPhone 6, open the Messages app, select a recipient, and tap the camera icon at left corner of the screen. Select a video from your photo library and hit Send. You can also tap the camera icon, select Take Photo or Video, swipe right to activate video mode and then tap record to record a new video. You can then tap Use Video and hit Send to send it.
- If you are driving and want to make a call on your iPhone, just tell Siri to call your contact via speakerphone. You can say Hey, Siri, call (contact name) using speakerphone.” to have a hands free chat. Works on iOS 8.3
PowerPoint Tips
- If you want to see what your presentation will look like in a slideshow, just hit the Reading View icon at the right side of the Status bar to do it. This is a much more easier way of seeing how your presentation will play out instead of switching to the slideshow mode and back.
- Chart data in a PowerPoint slide is often the most boring element. You can make it fun by adding animation effects to it. Once you've inserted a chart, click the Animations tab, then in the Advanced Animation group, click Animation Pane. Next, click Add Animation and select an animation effect. In the Animation Pane right click the first element and select Effect Options. In the dialog box that appears, select a sound effect and set the animation timing. Then go to the Chart Animation tab and select the Group Chart option as "By Category." Now when the chart is displayed, it will appear one element at a time making for an eyecatching entrance.
- If you are working on multiple elements and layers in a slide in PowerPoint, you can use the Selection pane to organize the various elements more easily. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Select->Selection Pane. Here you can name elements, rearrange the order and make them invisible.
- If you want to capture a screenshot of an open window into a powerpoint slide, open PowerPoint, on the Insert tab, click Screenshot. You will see a thumbnail of open windows, select the window you want to capture and it will automatically be inserted into the slide. If necessary, you can resize the window before you take the screenshot.
- You can open a Powerpoint presentation instantly by simply renaming your PPTX file with a PPS extension. this will open Powerpoint as a Powerpoint show and a double-click will take you right into the slideshow. As usual, hit Esc to quit the slideshow.
Other Tips
- You can now better manage every Flickr photo you've taken with the Flickr Uploadr tool. Just install the tool on your PC, login to Flickr and select where your photos are stored. The Uploadr will automatically bring these photos into the Flickr cloud for you.
- Your browser always saves a cache of most of the pages you visit but this is available to view only if you are online. To access the cache in offline mode in Chrome for desktop and Android, here's what you need to do. Go to chrome://flags and search for either Auto-Reload or Show Saved Copy and select Enabled or Enabled: Primary from the drop down menu.
- To undo an email sent from Gmail, click the Gear icon at the top right corner of your Gmail window and in the next screen, select Labs.Scroll down and enable Undo Send. Click Save Changes. The next time you send an email a yellow bar appears at the top of the screen offering you the option to undo the send. You only have 10 seconds to do it in, but you can extend it upto 30 seconds by going to Settings->General->Undo Send and changing the options.
- If you want to save your Meerkat videos to YouTube, you can make use of the services of Katch (http://katchkats.com/). Adding #Katch to your Meerkat video stream tites or comments will enable you to save and upload your video to YouTube. You will then get a link to the video via your Meerkat comments.
- If you want to see how your website will look on different screen resolutions and devices, just head over to http://whatismyscreenresolution.net/multi-screen-test and input your URL.
- If you want to block domains that are known to track users in Firefox, type in about:config in the location bar and hit enter. Then,click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”. Search for privacy.trackingprotection.enabled and double-click it to toggle the value to true. This might also cause a possible improvement in page load speed.
- If you want to extract images from a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file with file extensions DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, rename the file to a ZIP entension. So if your Word document is called EXAMPLE.docx, it will now become EXAMPLE.zip. Next, extract the contents of the ZIP file to a folder. When you open the folder you will have a seperate folder called Media containing all your images. You can now rename the EXAMPLE.zip folder to EXAMPLE.docx.
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