Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Take Full Advantage of Your Google Account With These Useful Apps



For some, they believe that their Google account is only for accessing Gmail. Although that is correct, you should be aware that your Google account also offers lots of Google services for free. If you have a Google account, here are some not very familiar services and apps that you can enjoy to use for free. You may want to check them out and see if there's one that will suit your needs.

Google Fit

Google Fit is a free fitness app that you can use on your Android device including Android wear. This app lets you track your activities like walking, running, or biking using your Android device's built-in sensors. You can set fitness goals and track them as well as how many calories you have burned. It can also be personalized to get more accurate illustration of your activity.

Google Web & App History

Google monitors and tracks all the searches you have made in its search engine, and it can be accessed via the Google Web & App History. With the help of this app, you can check which websites you visit the most, see an Internet activity graph, and check search history. It is also separated from your browser history, which means anything that us deleted from your browser history can still be seen and accessed from here.

Google also tracks these searches to provide custom search results and relevant ads, which makes it a good way to find what Google actually know about you.

Google Photos

Need an app that you can singlehandedly use for syncing all your photos? Google Photos is the app you're looking for. This app lets you upload all your photos to Google servers, which can be accessed from any device including Android, iOS, and PC. It help you sort photos according to time, faces (face detection), and place, and even creates collages for you -- that's all done automatically. Google Photos provides unlimited storage for photos below 16 megapixels, and photos higher than that are saved in your Google Drive account.

Google Keep

Described as a note-taking app, Google Keep will surely please many people who just want a quick note-taking app with reliable features. It works well on Web. Android, and iOS devices, and you can save notes to Google Drive to be easily accessed from your PC and phone. You can take written notes, photo notes, voice notes (that will be transcribed), location-based notes and checklists. The notes are color-coded for easy categorization, and search its option is very reliable with universal search.

Google Cloud Print

The Google Cloud Print app lets you attach your printer to the web so you can print from anywhere and from any device using an internet connection. It connects to both old and new printers, including Wi-Fi enabled and dial-up printers. Aside from printing from anywhere, you can also share your printer with other users in order for them to print through it as well.



Thursday, February 4, 2016

What is the Best Thing to Do When Your Laptop Suddenly Stops Working

At one time or another, someone who owns a laptop – usually one that is around 2 years and older – is working or just browsing on the laptop when it suddenly just conks out, completely turning itself off. The natural thing to do is to turn it on again, right? What if it turns itself off again? What do you do in this situation?

Try System Restore
Sometimes it’s not really your laptop that conks out but it’s Windows. It might just ground to a halt and won’t respond. After you restart your laptop and encounter the same problem, you might need to reset Windows as your only option. It won’t wipe away your files and it’s safe. It simply restores all systems on your computer when a particular ‘restore point’ was taken. You can launch System Restore from the Start Menu or the Start menu search box.

If your screen went blank but the power and battery indicator are still glowing
On top of this, you can hear the laptop humming and the hard drive spinning; you can try taking the battery and charger out, hold the power button for up to 1 minute and then tap it off and on for another minute. Allow the laptop to sit without battery power for 20 minutes and then boot up. This apparently gets rid of any static build up that is the cause of your laptop going blank or preventing further booting.

Try simply booting up without the battery
With laptops that are more than 3 years old, sometimes, the battery may be going away, and so is incapable of giving enough stored power to the laptop. Try removing the battery and then booting up using only AC power with your charger and cord. If you booted successfully, it’s time to replace your battery.

It may just need cooling off
Laptops that are more than 3 years old may tend to heat up faster, especially if there isn’t proper ventilation to allow its heat to escape and dissipate. Try cooling off the laptop for 10 – 15 minutes and then boot up. Before booting up, try putting a fan underneath and another beside it so it can stay cool faster when you’ve been working for hours on it.

Use your computer’s recovery tool
If your computer is supplied with a recovery tool or recovery partition (part of the hard drive), then you can activate this and restore your laptop to an as-new state and fix any software problems in the process. However, everything you’ve stored on your laptop since you first bought it will be lost because the restoration processor will create a fresh version of Windows, along with any pre-installed software from the manufacturer. So it’s vital that you back up anything you want to keep before selecting this option.

The best option is still a computer tech support company
When all is said and done and you don’t know or aren’t sure how to handle the above, you can always call for computer tech support and let the professionals handle it. It’s worth the time and effort after all.

Click here for more tech tips, guide and troubleshooting techniques. Feel free to comment and ask me questions.