Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Have you ever stopped to consider just how much of your digital life is stored on your smartphone?
First, there are the names and phone numbers of all your contacts (and possibly their email addresses as well).
Then there are apps for accessing your bank account, your social media accounts and the accounts for all the other online services you use (and possibly the usernames and passwords to those accounts as well). [Read more…]
Do you have a large collection of irreplaceable photos stored on your phone?
Photos that you’d hate to lose if your phone should ever go belly-up, or get lost or stolen?
If so, there’s a very easy way to prevent losing your photos if something ever happens to your phone: Keep them backed up to the cloud!
Does it seem like the battery in your Android phone dies a lot sooner than it should? If so, you’re certainly not alone.
A while back I wrote a post listing 7 tips for extending your Android phone’s battery life, and they all help quite a bit.
Well, here’s a bonus tip that will make your battery last even longer. All you have to do is change your phone’s wallpaper to one that’s solid black!
You’re probably wondering why using a black background can save battery life, and that’s a good question. And the answer is really pretty simple: The brighter the screen, the more current the battery must supply to keep it lit up.
Bottom line: Changing from a light colored background to a solid black one allows your phone to operate with less current being drawn from the battery.
Switching your phone to a solid black wallpaper is easy. Here’s how: [Read more…]
Most laptops come with built-in webcams these days, but some older models don’t. And unless the monitor has one built-in, desktop PCs don’t typically come with them either.
If you ever find yourself in need of a webcam but you don’t happen to own one, a nifty free download called DroidCam will let you use an most any smartphone or tablet as a webcam for your Windows or Linux PC.
Do you have family photos or videos on your phone that you’d rather not share with just anyone who happens to pick up your phone?
Do you hate it when you let someone borrow your phone and they decide to take a peek at your photos before handing it back to you?
Or perhaps you worry about your phone getting lost or stolen, resulting in a total stranger gaining access to your personal images?
If so, there’s a great free Android app called Vaulty will let you put some or all of your photos and videos into a password-protected “vault”.
That way you can loan your phone to a friend (or even a stranger) without having to worry about them snooping around and seeing your private family snapshots and videos. [Read more…]