Tech Tip

Tech Tip – Crono App

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you’d like to get better integration between your PC and phone, the Crono app enables you to get all your notifications straight from Chrome.

If you spend a lot of time using Chrome on your computer, the Crono app lets you see all your notifications and calendar events without looking at your phone i.e. you get mobile notifications on your browser and you can respond to those notifications through your browser.

The app, which requires a Chrome extension to work also allows clipboard sharing between your browser and device with a single click, and if you can’t find your phone you can ring it directly from your browser.

Crono is available for Android from the Google Play Store.

Tech Tip – Bouncer App

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you’re concerned about privacy on your phone, and if you’d like to stop power-hungry apps from abusing their permissions by running processor-heavy tasks in the background the ‘Bouncer’ app enables you to grant permissions for applications temporarily.

With the Bouncer app, you can grant permissions for apps for a temporary period and once permission is granted, the Bouncer app will automatically remove that permission either when you exit the app in question or when a certain amount of time has passed.

The Bouncer app is available (Beta) on the Google Play Store.

Tech Tip – Note-Taking Apps

Posted on by Andy Miller

There are often situations in business where it helps to take notes and keep them in a handy, tidy and easy to access place.  Google Keep and Apple Notes provide users with easy note-taking on the go.

Google Keep is a Web-based note-taking app for your computer or Android and iOS phone. It has a variety of tools for note-taking including texts, list, images, and reminders. Everything you add to Keep syncs across your devices (your phone, tablet and computer) so you’ve always got your important information to hand.  Google Keep – Notes and Lists are available from the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

Apple Notes for iOS and macOS operating systems also offers helpful note-taking tools including text, video, images, scanning, note search and information from other apps.  Your (latest version) iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch should have Notes, and to use its latest features, make sure that you set up Notes with iCloud or have notes saved on your device.

Tech Tip – The F-Secure Data Discovery Portal

Posted on by Andy Miller

The free online Data Discovery Portal from F-Secure shows you what personal information you have given to tech-giant free services Facebook, Google, Amazon, Snapchat, Twitter and Apple over the years.

If you visit https://data-discovery-portal.f-secure.com/en/ and click on the logo of each of those companies you will be taken straight to the page where you can download a copy of the information that they have collected about you (Apple requires a login).  With Amazon, for example, you can even discover the way to review, listen to, and delete any voice recordings associated with your account.

The F-Secure Data Discovery Portal is, therefore, one easy way in which you can take steps to protect your identity and guard your personal data going forward.

Tech Tip – Citymapper

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you’re out and about on business in a city at home or abroad, the Citymapper app provides trip planning, real-time information about departures, offline maps, alerts about delays and disruptions, and much more.

The app covers many cities around the world, and the European cities of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Paris, Lyon, Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg.

To find the app go to the Google Play Store.

Tech Tip – Apps To Stop Pocket Dialling

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you’ve ever accidentally pocket-dialled someone or accidentally clicked through things on your phone while it’s in your pocket, apps such as ‘Pocket Screen Lock’, ‘Pocket Mode’ and ‘Pocket Sensor’ can prevent this from happening.

These kinds of apps include a proximity sensor to enable them to detect when the phone is in your pocket whereupon it is locked and is unlocked again when it’s taken out of your pocket.

To find these and similar apps for Android, go to Google Play Store.

Tech Tip – ‘Over’ App

Posted on by Andy Miller

Stylish and engaging social media posts are an important part of marketing communications.  The Over app has the tools to help you to quickly and easily create stylish designs packed with photos, images and text, ready for Instagram, Facebook and other social sites, as well as for posters and flyers.

Over has over 84,000 graphics, over 350 fonts, and over 500 customisable templates so that you can create posts to suit your requirements.

To get ‘Over’, go to the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store.

Tech Tip – A Free Online HTML Editor

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you’d like to be able to quickly write or edit a piece of content so that it can be easily used online without having to download or purchase HTML editors, try using a free, online HTML editor.

For example, go to https://html5-editor.net/

Type or paste your text into the right-hand side window.  The HTML appears in the left-hand window.  Both are editable.

You can, for example, select all the text in the right-hand window (click in the window, CTRL + A), select ‘Format’ (top bar), and select ‘Clear Formatting’.  This will clean up the code so that you can add your own formatting, links, bold, etc.

If you’d like to save your work as an HTML page, click in the left hand window and use CTRL + A (to copy the HTML code), open Notepad by typing Notepad the Windows search bottom left, CTRL +V to paste into the notepad file, and save the notepad page as a HTML page.

Tech Tip – ExpressVPN App

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you’d prefer to keep your communications from your mobile device as secure as possible you may like to try a secure VPN app such as ExpressVPN.

The Express VPN app is straightforward to use, offers both a virtual private network and a number of advanced features such as the choice of connecting to 100+ servers around the world. ExpressVPN, which hides your IP address and encrypts your network data offers apps for every device you own on a single subscription: Windows, Android, iOS, Linux, routers, and more.

The app is available from the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store / iTunes.

Tech Tip – Night Light For Windows

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you leave your computer on and/or need to work late into the evenings, for example, the Windows 10 ‘night light’ feature enables the gradual limitation of the colour spectrum from your computer so that your body’s Melatonin (the bedtime-indicating chemical) isn’t impeded.

When a screen is left on it emits blue light which can keep you overly awake.  With the night light setting on, warmer colours are displayed which can help you sleep.  Windows knows what time zone your computer is in so scheduling it for your sunset and sunrise should be easy.

To activate night light:

Go to ‘Settings’, click on ‘System’.

Put night light ‘On’ and click on ‘night light settings’ to select ‘colour temperature’.  You will also see a ‘Turn on Now’ button to help you get the right colour temperature.

Under ‘Schedule’, toggle ‘Schedule night light’ to ‘On’.

Either select ‘Sunset to sunrise’ or select ‘Set hours’ and enter custom times for the night light to turn on and off.