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Ideas for better websites

Quick adds for Google contacts

3/25/2023

If you are a GMail user, keeping a Google Contact list is essential and having all your contacts easily available makes life much easier. You can always open Google Contacts and manually add a contact, but there are much easier ways.

Save a contact from an email

With Windows, open a Gmail message and hover your mouse over the email address in the "to" addresses or "copy" addresses, then click the little icon with a plus sign next to a person to add that contact to your contact list. Edit to add more detail on anything you want to remember about this contact.

Adding multple contacts at the same time

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You can also add multiple contacts at the same time. Open an email with, say, a long copy list. Click the down arrow so that you can see each email address.Then select and copy this list including both names and emails. Open Google contacts, and select "import" in the left hand panel. Choose the option "create multiple contacts", then paste this list there. Hit create and all the emails will now be in your contact list. Now click "Merge and Fix" to see where you now have duplicate contacts and merge together any duplicates.

If you have a CSV file with names and emails, you can just import this file directly, using the "import" option again. if you have first name, last name, and email identified, Google contacts will create a contact for each line in the file, with any additional columns in that files being added to the "Notes" field on the contact. If you have say, a PDF file, instead of a CSV file, you can use the PDF export option to convert to a CSV. If you only have a PDF reader and not the paid PDF editor, there are free programs that allow you to convert. Zamzar Online File Conversion offers free options.

Adding Google contacts with an IPhone

We sometimes answer phone calls from unknown callers. For example, if you are waiting for the plumber to call, you probably want to pick up for that unknown caller. With an IPhone, hold down that number in the recent calls list, and then select "Create New Contact". Then just type in the name of the caller, say, "ABC Plumber" and save. The next call from that caller will show up on you phone with the plumbing company name. You must have chosen "GMail" in you Contacts Accounts settings for this to work. You can do the same thing with your text messages.


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ChatGPT: Will you use it?

2/05/2023

If you have not yet heard of ChatGPT, where have you been!! ChatGPT is an advanced bot that interacts with us in a conversational way and can either answer questions or generate almost any kind of text. We are hearing everywhere how ChatGPT will complement the skills we have as humans or, in some cases, even replace us. You may groan at another bot, but if ChatGPT can be as good as a human, I welcome it. Not all human help desk people have met my expectations.

But ChatGPT is not measuring up on all counts. Sometimes, when I address an audience, I like to wow them with a good joke. However, I'm afraid that ChatGPT has not been able to produce when it comes to jokes. For example,

ChatGpt: Tell a joke about computers. Result: Why was the computer cold? Because it left its Windows open!

Ha! Ha! Not! I guess I'll have to find my opening jokes elsewhere. However, ChatGPT is not easily offended.

ChatGPT: Your joke was not funny. Result: I apologize if my joke didn't bring a smile to your face.

ChatGPT does better with recipes.

ChatGPT: Give me a recipe to use the tons of zucchini that my friendly neighbor gave me. Result: Here's a recipe that uses a lot of zucchini: Zucchini Bread. etc.

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A good result, and CHatGPT is really listening to what I am saying, unlike those aforementioned help desk personnel. Also, hyperbole is no challenge to it. If you are not happy with the result, just resubmit, and ChatGPT will give you a different recipe. My second recipe was for zucchini noodles with tomato sauce. I'm not sure about this one. I think I'll stick with Zucchini bread.

ChatGPT can do so much more. I tried this.

ChatGPT: Where is Niagara Falls? Tell me in Chinese.

Amazingly, I got a response in what sure looks like Chinese, but I won't attempt to reproduce it here.

ChatGPT and its less intelligent competitors that have already been on the scene are here to stay. I'm sure I will find ways to use it, but I don't mind at all scrolling through the links that a Google search produces. At least, that way I know the sources of the information.


Screen mirroring with your Roku device

1/03/2023

Screen mirroring might be one of those handy computer tricks that are convenient but that you just never got around to trying. But mirroring, meaning where you duplicate what is on one screen to another screen, is probably a lot easier than your thought. If you have a ROKU device connected to your TV or built-in Roku for your TV, screen mirroring is not at all difficult. And with millions of ROKU devices in the wild, you may already have what you need.

Allow mirroring in Roku settings

First, from the Roku home page, select settings => System => Screen Mirroring. In the screen mirroring mode, set "always allowed." Now you are ready to connect another screen.

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Mirroring from an iPhone

Do you want to mirror from an iPhone? Swipe down from the top right-hand corner of your screen to show the control center. Then click on the double rectangle icon. Choose the Roku Premiere option and your iPhone screen will begin mirroring on your TV.

Mirroring from Windows

Do you want to mirror your Windows Computer? Open your settings, and choose "Connect to a wireless display." Then click "Connect" and choose "Roku Premiere." Your computer screen will duplicate on your TV.

Videos, live feeds, webinars

Relax on the couch and watch videos mirrored to your TV. I discovered a new use for mirroring when I wanted to watch a video I found in the library. Although I didn't have a DVD player for my TV, I did have a computer with a built-in DVD player so that the movie could just be mirrored to my TV. With mirroring, you do need to go back to the original device to interact. So, don't plan to mirror during a Zoom call. However, with recorded feeds or even live feeds where you don't plan to interact, a feed mirrored to your TV will allow you to watch it in a more relaxed seting, letting you step away from the computer and watch with your feet up.


Big layoffs for Alexa

11/22/2022

I love my Amazon Echo. Somehow I can never find my phone. "Alexa, Find my phone" always comes to the rescue. When I am not driving, "Alexa, play KWMU," , KABC, KDEF, KXYZ, etc. is the only way I listen to the radio . However, Amazon has announced mass layoffs of 10,000 people with a large share coming from the Worldwide Digital division that houses Alexa. Although the Echo device line is one of the best selling items on Amazon and Amazon reports a billion with a "B" interactions per week on Alexa, Amazon is losing serious money in this division.

Amazon is unable to monetize the handy device. "Alexa. What is the weather?" is a much less profitable interaction than making any purchase. Also, it's unquestionably a lot simpler because there is no learning curve, no set-up, and no preconditions. For example, to make a purchase on Alexa, you must first be an Amazon Prime subscriber.

Monetizing Alexa

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Presumaby, there is a way to monetize Alexa purchases, but it has not worked out so far for Amazon. As one Amazon insider is quoted as saying, Alexa is a "colossal failure in imagination." However, I don't blame the Alexa product engineers since I, myself, can't see the value of telling Alexa to add a fleece jacket to my cart and then being invited by Alexa, to open the app and review my cart to verify the selection. There are very few purchases that I would just go ahead and confirm without further inspection. Not to mention reading the reviews.

Fewer improvements in the future

With huge cuts to the Alexa team, we will likely see a drop in innovation for Alexa skills, such as setting the temperature on the furnace, turning out the lights, or other conveniences that fail to earn money for Amazon once you have purchased the Echo device. Although Alexa may be a money loser for Amazon, it's still very handy for most of us users, as are many other voice activated apps. I would hate to go back to sending texts where I had to "thumb" in all the text.


Filter your Gmail for a clean inbox

10/11/2022

If your inbox has dozens, if not hundreds of emails, this is usually a sign that you are using your inbox as a to-do list. Resist the temptation and use a real task manager. Task or to-do list managers abound, paid or free. Free up your inbox and archive emails as they arrive to the proper task category and let your own priorities take the lead. Leaving those emails in your inbox is just a constant non-welcome reminder of things undone. Use your task manager to choose your own priorities and to not neglect important tasks just because there is an email in your inbox representing someone else's hot project.

We've all had that depressing feeling that our important-to-us email was either ignored or just pending forever in our correspondent's overburdened inbox. Don't be that unreliable correspondent. Use the Gmail filter option to make it easier.

Filtering email

For emails that you know in advance you will address later, but not now, you can clear them from your inbox automatically using a filter in Gmail.

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To filter. go to Gmail settings,. choose the tab "filters and blocked addresses", and then create a new filter. Identify the emails you want to filter choosing "has the words", "subject", "from", etc. Then hit "continue." Here you can decide what happens. Assign them a label and then click the "skip the inbox" option. Any future emails thus identified will no longer even appear in your inbox. You can later open that Gmail label and you will find these emails waiting for your inspection. This makes it easy to manage emails based on your own priorities. You no longer need to label and archive this type of email every time you receive one and you will keep your inbox free of emails that you already know that you want to handle later.

We are often advised to minimize switching tasks in order to get the most work done. To only check email once an hour, say. But even better is to have an inbox not overflowing with email, to not have distracting emails. Besides filtering, turn off email notices from Linked in and other social media. Instead, schedule a time in your day or week to check social media sites directly.


Google Drive can do more than you think

9/8/2022

There are many choices for virtual drives, but Google Drive gets an A+ rating from me and it is free, up to 15GB. Your computer probably has a C drive and a D drive. Open File Explorer to see your drives and folders. If you connect a thumb drive, also called a flash drive, File Explorer will show you that drive too. If you also install the Google Drive app on your computer, you now have a G drive in addition to the others. The G drive is virtual meaning that it is completely in the cloud.

Sync work between your home and work computers

You can use the G drive the same way that you use your other drives. For example, when saving a Word document on your at-home computer, just browse and save to the folder "My Drive" on the G Drive. That file will be saved in a storage space on a computer in a Google data center. It is not actually physically on your own computer. This is a good thing. Now, when you use your at-work computer. you can just open that same Word doc by browsing to your G drive on your at-work computer to find the file. Of course, you have to have installed Google Drive on the work computer too.

Share files

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All the files and folders on your G drive are private, but you can choose to share them with others. You can specify other people with Google accounts or just make a file available to anyone who has the link. To get the link, open File Explorer to your G drive. Right click to the option "Share with Google Drive", add permissions, and copy the link. This is especially handy if your need to share a really, really large file. Chances are your email provider will not allow you to attach anything over a certain size. So, being able to provide this link in place of an attachment is very helpful. If you are a Gmail user, Gmail makes it super easy and will just automatically copy your file to your virtual drive so that it can send the link.

See all "shared with you" files in one place

You can also view your Google Drive using a browser. Just go to https://drive.google.com/ You can see all the files you have stored in the cloud. In addition, you can see any file others have shared with you through their Google Drive. Just click on "Shared with me". You may have long ago lost that email with the attachment you want to review, but all those attachments are there for you to see on Google Drive, in alphabetic order, if you wish, with even a handy search option.

Sync files from any folder on your computer

Finally, after you install Google Drive on your computer, you can also sync any file or folder on your computer with Google Drive so that you will have an extra copy of that file on the cloud. Google Drive will automatically keep those files or folders synced so that if you make a change to a file or folder, that change will also be made to the file or folder on the cloud. In this case there are two copies of everything. If, instead you save a file directly to your G Drive, there is only one copy, and that copy is in the cloud.


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Buyer Beware! Fake reviews

8/8/2022

According to stats, fewer than 10% of us write reviews for products, although almost all of us read reviews. Because reviews sell products, Amazon often follows up my purchases with an email asking me to rate my experience with a seller. Not just a 1-5 star rating, but a headline, an essay on how I liked or disliked the product, and a further dissertation on how I used it. Amazon suggests that I upload a photo or video presumably showing myself delighting in the product. Really, Amazon! That's a big ask. Just give me some Facebook options: I like it. I love it. It brought me to tears. What a joke! Unfortunately, A 2020 study found that 42% of the reviews on Amazon were fake or unreliable, causing consumers to buy shoddier products.

As far as bad reviews go, I assume you can count on them to be real, although some fake reviewers will throw in a few minor reservations about the product just to not gush too much. Maybe the product arrived a day late or had some minor packaging issue. Sellers who play it straight are facing unfair competition from these sellers who buy fake reviews with five star ratings that push them to the top of the search listings. This especially works for moderately priced consumer electronics, makeup. and dietary supplements. Not so much for books.

Who writes these fake reviews?

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Inauthentic reviewers can find sellers through Facebook, Craig's List or other social media and write a review in exchanged for a deep discount or refund after the review. The Verge reports that Amazon is taking legal action against the admins of over 10,000 Facebook groups that it says facilitate fake reviews. Amazon officially banned incentivized review in 2016 but a recent Financial Times report shows that nine out of 10 of the top reviewers on the UK Amazon site were engaged in suspicious activity.

Not just on Amazon

Amazon is the big dog, but fake reviews are everywhere. Time magazine investigator, Kay Dean, found fake reviews for dental clinics, locksmiths, dry cleaners, and more. They can be found on every platform, including Trip Advisor, Yelp, and Google. Fake reviews will continue as long as cheaters profit.


Bots Everywhere

7/1/2022

More than 2/3 of internet traffic is now bots - those little software bits that handle gazillions of repetitive tasks and live on the internet. Many bots are for good purposes and many bots have less than good, even malicious intentions. Google bots crawl your website looking for new material to index its search engine thus performing a valuable service for us. This is one of the good ones. The kind of bots that simulate real people are sometimes malicious bots. For example, multiple countries have accused Russia of using bots to influence elections and spread lies about candidates.

Twitter bots

Twitter bots are front-page today because of influential gripes by Elon Musk. A Twitter bot imitates how real people use Twitter. It can tweet, retweet and follow people, but doesn't engage in real online dialog. Twitter bots can spread misinformation or troll people. Harry and Meghan have famously been the victims of hate trolls.

Are you wondering how many of your Twitter followers are bots? You can use the Botometer to check out your followers. https://botometer.osome.iu.edu/ . I prefer their former name BotOrNot.

Chat bots - Exasperating or welcome?

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A lot of bots are just annoying. Chat bots, not to be confused with chat boxes where you chat by text with a real person, can be especially aggravating. Chat bots for product support simulate a real help desk person and use artificial intelligence to understand your product question. Ideally, this is a good thing because the chat bot is available 24/7 and doesn't require a person with both good technical and good language skills. However, if your question does not fit the pre-programmed product questions, this can be extremely frustrating.

Help Desk Hell

I recently had an exchange where the responses repeatedly failed to address my question even after multiple attempts to explain it more clearly. I finally recognized I had just been sending keywords to a bot and not having a conversation at all. A Google engineer was recently suspended for claiming that a chatbot he was working on had become sentient and was thinking and reasoning like a human being. I'd like to meet that bot and skedaddle away from these dummy bots who have been wasting my time.


When Google is more than a search - screening and guarantees

5/16/2022

When you need a plumber, do you want more from your search than just a listing? Google has you covered. It offers Google Screened and Google Guaranteed for service providers who can make the grade and who sign up with Local Service Ads (LSAs). Unlike Google My Business free listings, LSA's are not free to the service provider. The service provider pays per lead where a lead is usually a phone call made through the LSA. My first search sample was for "real estate agent."

Sample of Google Screening

The badge shows "Google Screened." This means that LSA has checked that these real estate agents have valid licenses to practice in their state. The screening process depends on the type of service. Only certain types of services are eligible for this badge, for example, lawyers and financial planners.

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The next search was for "locksmith" and in this case, I found some locksmiths that were Google Guaranteed. This is more than a screening and means that not only were the businesses screened, but Google will back their services and will reimburse the customer if the customer is not satisfied with the quality of the work. The guarantee has a lifetime cap of $2,000 in the United States. To get the money back guarantee, you must have used the LSA to book the service and submit a claim where Google will decide on a fair resolution. This is generally for home services, such as electricians and plumbers.

Sample of Google Guarantee

Google's continuing expansion into screened and guaranteed services has got to be a challenge to Angi, formerly Angie's list, that offers its own badge called Angi Certified.


Clip and share YouTube video

4/15/2022

Sometimes you want to share a YouTube video, but only the funny part or the part you found most useful. It's now a piece of cake. YouTube shows a "Clip" icon next to the "Share" icon allowing you to clip out up to 60 seconds and share it on social media.

Normally, YouTube does not want you to download and edit videos, but, in this case, Youtube allows and promotes this otherwise copyright infringing activity. The clip you share actually points to the original video, not a copy, and the video creator is attributed the full credit for the minute you share. If a creator does not want to allow clipping, he or she can disable clipping before publishing the video.

Why Clip?

If you are the video creator, sharing 30 second or 60 second clips of your longer video on social media can earn you many new viewers. You can also embed a very short video into your website as a preview to nudge visitors to learn more by watching the longer video.

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The rest of us can benefit for many reasons. Dress up your sales presentations with video clips. Both Powerpoint and Google Slides make it easy to add a Youtube video to a slide. And now you no longer need to slow down your delivery stopping to slide the video progress or timeline bar to just the segment you want your audience to see at that moment.

Must be logged in to google to use

You must be logged in to your Google account to see the Clip icon. This does not mean that you have to have a Youtube Premium paid subscription or pay for YouTube TV. If you are a regular Gmail user, you may not realize that you are logged into a Google account, but, in fact, you are and you will see the Clip option. Otherwise, go to Google.com and sign in. If you don't have a Google account, an account is free and provides many other benefits.

Clipping works on desktop computers, but not IPhones or Androids


Your webpage in a nutshell as Google sees it

3/15/2022

When your business publishes a webpage, you want people to see it. If by art or luck, you got your webpage near the front page of a Google search, users still have to choose your page over all the others they find there. They will pick your page - or not - based on the title and the mini description underneath. These descriptions represent Google's best attempt to tell people what this page is about and how it can help them.

Where does Google get these descriptions

If your page came up because you paid for a google ad, you have more control of the resulting text. For organic ads, it's not entirely up to you. About 30% of the time, Google will use your "description" meta tag. Meta tags are HTML tags that don't show up on the screen, but are used in various ways. In many cases, Google will just use the content of this description tag to tell Googlers what this page is about. But not always.

Google rewrites descriptions more often than not. For example, I tried a search "lawn dandelion" and found a result from lawnstarter.com titled "The Top Benefits of Dandelions in Your Yard." Underneath was the description:

"Dandelions are very good for the beneficial insects and pollinators in your yard,” she said. “And they have tap roots that accumulate nutrients ..".

This hardly looks like what anyone would write in a meta tag. Especially since Google just picked up a quote out of context and even cut it off in the middle. The description that this webpage publisher wrote reads:

"The dandelion, that yellow flower that turns into a puffable white ball may be a weed to some, but there are many benefits of having them in your yard.."

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What is even more surprising is that Google will change the description depending on the search. For example, if you search "lawn dandelion roots" instead of "lawn dandelion", you get the description:

"Dandelion roots may be a real pain to remove from your lawn, but when you see how good they are for you, you just might want to keep them ..."

for the same exact webpage. In this case we see that Google tried to pick up the gist of what the Googler was looking for including information about "roots" and save him from loading a page of no use to him.

Always include title and description tags

Even if Google does not always use the meta tag description that you write for your webpage, it is still important to include it. Otherwise, you might find in Google search results just the top words Google encounters in your webpage, such as "home, contact us", and these will never persuade anyone to open your page.

One thing to note is that Google does not use your description meta tag to decide whether to show your link. However, it will use your title meta tag to rank your listing, making this tag especially important to include.

In the old days, people spent a lot of effort adding keyword tags. Since Google hasn't used these tags for a long time, adding these tags are now hardly worth the effort, although you might find a few minor search engines that take them into account.


Saving keystrokes with Smart Compose

2/15/2022

Smart Compose arrived at Gmail in 2018, but despite its promising moniker has not yet composed a single paragraph for me. But as an autocomplete system, it works surprisingly well. Type "How" and gmail will add the words in dimmer type "are you?" Click the tab to accept or just keep typing what you really meant, such as "How was the game?" We are all familiar with "predictive text" everywhere these days, not to mention "autocorrect," on which hinge many priceless texts.

It seems natural that predictive text in used by our computer brains because, after all, our human brains use it all the time. When you listen to someone, even if you don't hear all the words, your brain fills in the empty spaces using our human version of autocomplete. How do Gmail and these other systems accomplish autocomplete? In the case of Gmail, every email that you send is data mined. Google compiles the most likely completions over many thousands of instances and then just helps you out as you type.

Personalization

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Smart Compose uses the same AI that is used to save us from spam overload. Of course, not everyone wants this extra helping hand and some people even consider it a little creepy, and so you have the option to turn off Smart Compose in your Gmail settings. While in your settings you might notice that there is another option - called "personalization"- that Google claims will tailor the autocomplete to your personal writing style. In my personal case, I have not been able to see a difference in turning it on or off and have not been able to see any examples in the Google guidance. There is one exception. If I type "My address is " or "I live at", personalization will let Gmail fill in my actual address. If personalization is turned off, no address is added.

Sometimes Google gets it wrong. I tried "How was the" and it autocompleted to "party." Well, Google certainly does not know my life. The autocompletes are not all the same. "How was" autocompleted to "your weekend." When I t typed "How are the kids?"and then "How was"," it autocompleted to "your trip." Obviously your autocompletes may not match mine.

Apparently, Google thinks that I am very sociable and willing to cooperate. "Hope to" autocompleted to "see you soon." "That sounds" autocompleted to "great." I'm hoping that's the personalization part kicking in and Google has recognized my slightly superior social skills.

Using with the IPhone

Your experience with Smart Compose also depends on your device. For example, if you use Gmail on an IPhone, there is no tab to accept the autocomplete. In this case, you just swipe your finger over the text to complete your sentence. On my very old Android tablet, no autocomplete appeared at all.


Ideas for better websites

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Look better on Zoom

1/15/2022

Lots of us are disappointed when we see ourselves on Zoom. Especially during nighttime Zooms, we see dark shadows across our faces and the background can turn black. Adding a ring light costs little and is a nice improvement. A decent sized ring light placed directly in front of you is ideal and will help to light up your face, making your zoom presence more appealing.

Zoom video manual settings

After adding a ring light, you may still see shadows. Windows Zoom app users should check their settings. After you join a meeting, click the "Zoom Meeting" icon at the top left. Then click the gear icon to go to settings. Choose video and note the setting for "Adjust for low light." If it is set to "auto", it may be saving your battery while leaving your face in the shadows. Change the setting to "manual" and move the slider to the right until the shadows on your face disappear and the background appears lighter.

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Add a USB mic

Some users on Zoom, Skype, and other online meeting platforms are often asked to repeat themselves and have to turn to directly face the laptop to be heard. Business users often set up a laptop with the Zoom call and a connected monitor to view web pages or files during the meeting. But, in that case you are not always facing your laptop and the laptop microphone may not pick up your voice well. The relatively small expense of adding a USB microphone to your laptop will solve that problem, besides much improving the quality of your voice. You don't need to be a podcast star to benefit from that external mic. My preference is a Blue Yeti, but there are many good ones.

Move your laptop up

Finally, Zoom users often set their laptops so that they are looking down at it, as you would normally do when typing. However, this generally results in an unflattering view of your face as the other meeting participants are in fact looking up your nose. Better to set your laptop on a shoebox or get a laptop stand to raise it a little higher so that you are facing the laptop camera without looking down.


Windows-V to reach your clipboard history

12/15/2021

Some of us get so used to the old ways of doing things in Windows that we don't check out the newer ways. I am that person. However, copy/paste is so fundamental in everything we do on our computers that we really need to start using the clipboard history tool found in Windows 10 and Windows 11 to let us "copy" and "paste" multiple items.

Continue to use Control-C to copy items to the clipboard. However, instead of Control-V to paste into into your document, use Windows-V, i.e. use the little Windows key on your keyboard. If you have copied multiple items to your clipboard, you will see a list of those items you have copied and you can choose which one to paste into your document.

Activate clipboard history

If you have not activated clipboard history, just type "clipboard" in the windows search and then slide the clipboard history toggle to the "on" position.

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Pin a clip

When you reboot your computer, everything in your clipboard is deleted. You can also choose to just clear the items within the clipboard panel. However, if you really need to keep an item for future use, you can choose to "pin" it and the item will save for the future.

Windows 11 expands the clipboard.

While Windows 10 gives you the basic functions of the clipboard history, Windows 11 goes way beyond and offers you more. If you weren't sure you wanted Windows 11, now you know you do. 😁

Need an emoji?

The clipboard comes preloaded with emojis to paste into your more informal documents.❤️❤️ Or maybe you would like the old-school symbols, such as :).

Have trouble using the international keyboard?

If you occasionally need to type non-English words into your documents, you may have to learn an international keyboard, which can take some practice to learn the key combinations that give you, say, an é or an è. With the clipboard, you can just paste these non-English alphabet letters into your document from the clipboard's symbols section.

And don't forget the handy math symbols. ¾ or ⅓.


Can't paste an image into email?

11/15/2021

Have you ever copied an image from a website, but could not paste it into an email? You right click the image and select copy, but when you paste it, you just see a blank placeholder. The problem may be your email client. Your email client is the app that you use to compose, read, and send email. Some popular email clients are GMail, Apple iPhone, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail.

Links vs base64 encoding

We always have the option to attach an image, but usually we want to show that image just at the appropriate point in our email. If the image is actually a link to an image file - like https://example.com/bliue-car.jpg. there is no problem pasting it in. However, sometimes, the picture on that website may not be a link, but instead has been encoded into text. If you view the html (right-click, inspect), you will see something like "src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAAN.........". This is called base64 encoding and email clients address this in different ways.

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Pasting a base64 encoded image into Gmail will cause Gmail to convert it into a link on the Google server. You will then see the image appear as you expect it in your draft email and none of your sendees will have any trouble reading your email. However, other email clients, as for example, many webmail clients that come with internet service providers or web hosting providers, will refuse to paste it and will just show you a blank placeholder.

Copy/paste work-arounds

If copy/paste does not work, many email clients have "insert image" functions. This means you have to download the images from your selected website before using the insert function. Copy and paste would have been so much easier.

Another solution is to right click to open just the image in a new tab or window. This converts the image to a link and allows you to copy/paste.

It may seem like an easy fix to just do a print screen and then control-V to paste it in your email. The image will indeed appear, but unless you are using an email client like GMail that converts it to a link, you will be sending the image as raw base64 encoded data. When your sendee who uses Gmail receives your message, he will see not an image, but will instead see what appears to be a string of meaningless letters which are, in fact, the base64 encoded version that Gmail does not have the capability to unencode.

Email messages have the potential to carry viruses and so a little extra work on our part makes things a little safer.


Google has replaced old backup and sync

10/11/2021

If you had been using Google's backup and sync, you recently - October, 2021, have been forced to move to the new Google Drive for Desktop that combines features of previous Google products.

Click the gear icon on the new Google Drive icon and choose preferences. Here you can choose options for Google Drive or for My Laptop. The Google Drive gives you the option to have a completely virtual drive with cloud only storage. When you open a file, it streams from online storage. Or you can choose to mirror that drive on your own PC or Mac.

The other option, My Laptop, requires actual folders on your computer. Select any folders on your computer to synchronize with backup folders in the cloud. Otherwise the two options are identical. Either way, your files will synchronize as you edit or add files from any device.

Compared to Dropbox

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The My Laptop option allows you to keep your file structure instead of moving files into a special folder. For example, Dropbox can synchronize files, allowing you to edit from any device with Dropbox installed. However, these file must be kept in a Dropbox folder.

IPhone/Ipad users

If you are an IOS user of Microsoft products, Google Drive presents some challenges. If you would like to edit or read a Word document, say, on your IPhone, normally you can select the file to open from online storage. For example, you can select from Dropbox or OneDrive or many others. However, Google Drive is not an option. Fortunately, there is a work-around. In the online storage options list, choose "Files App" From there, you can reach Google Drive - but only the files that were stored in the dedicated Google Drive. You can't reach the files that you used the "My Laptop" option to synchronize.


Painlessly add videos to your website

9/11/2021

If you don't have a full-time professional website team, you might think it is too hard to add custom video to your website. But it is easily done with Windows10 video editor and Youtube. Video howtos improve sales, software products benefit from screen recordings that capture the steps to use the software, and videos always attract attention.

Windows 10 video editor

It is impossible to create the perfect video without editing. But you can create several video clips using your smartphone and then edit and piece them together with Windows10 video editor. To start, type "video editor" in your Windows 10 search bar and open the application. Create a new project and add your uploaded video clips to your new project library. Then drag the pieces into your storyboard in the order you want to show them. The video editor will let you trim or split the clips and add some special effects. Add some background music from the music selections for a professional feel and select the "finish video" option to export to an mp4 format.

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To add this video to your website, you first need to publish on Youtube. Open Youtube.com and from the top left menu - three horizontal bars, choose "Your videos." You must be logged in to a Google account since Youtube is part of Google. Then select "Create" and upload your video. Once uploaded, you can just copy the code provided to embed the video into your own website and the video will stream from Youtube to users of your website. As a bonus, Youtube will track how many times your video was watched.

Capturing your screen

If you need to capture screen activity to demonstrate your product, Free Cam is free and an excellent product. Record your screen activity, export it, than add the export to your Windows 10 video editor project.

Windows 10 video editor accepts multiple video formats, including .,mov, .wmv, and .mp4. However, I have had better experience converting all files to .mp4 before before adding them to the video editor, especially if the clips are longer. Video editing requires more memory than other applications. You can convert files using any of several online free converters.

Don't forget to upload your new videos to your Facebook page and other social media and if you plan to monetize your videos, be careful with your music selection to be sure it is royalty free.


The new browser competition

8/10/2021

If you are a typical web user, you are using Chrome. Worldwide and on all platforms, Chrome captures 65% of the market. On desktop, that number rises to 69%, and on mobile, it descends a point to 64%. On desktops, there hardly is a second place with Safari, Firefox, Edge, Opera, and Internet Explorer all in single digits. For mobile, Safari comes in at a respectable second place with 24% of users, representing the world's iPhone users.

Firefox has lost users

I was told by a French acquaintance that Firefox was the most popular browser in Europe. However, the Firefox desktop European market share is only 12% and 6% in the U.S. Chrome really has taken over the world and left Firefox in the dust. Firefox is still a great browser with great security features, but has just lost market share.

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Compared to the world when most people were using Internet Explorer, today's web users have an embarrassment of excellent web browsers to choose from.

Choosing a different browser

Edge comes preloaded on Windows computers and doubles the market share of Firefox in the U.S. Mobile device users tend to use whatever comes preloaded on their device although you can download versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Edge for mobile devices.

Sometimes mobile users want to install the Chrome app, and instead install the Google app on their mobile phone, confusing Chrome with Google. Superficially, it looks the same, but lacks most of the features of a browser.

Testing your website

Although all these browsers are standards based, website owners still need to test their websites and web apps on several browsers and several devices to ensure there are no problems. It even happens that sometimes all browsers will work on desktop and not on mobile. For example, if a web app employs the drag and drop action and employs a "drag" listener, this will only work on desktops. A mobile device will only listen for "touch" actions. The developer needs to jump through a few hoops to emulate the same operations on mobile as on desktop.


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