Read online articles without adverts
ANDROID & IOS Read online articles without adverts All browser apps display the adverts that appear on web pages when you’re reading an article. Thankfully, Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge have built-in reading modes that strip out these annoying adverts. This is especially useful when you’re reading a long article. You can even change the font, text size and theme.
To try this in Chrome, open an article you want to read. To activate Reading Mode (which Chrome calls ‘Simplified view’), tap the three dots at the top right, Settings at the bottom, Advanced, then tick ‘Simplified view’. Return to your article and tap the ‘Show simplified view’ button at the bottom. The webpage will refresh to display only the article’s text and images. Tap the three dots at the top right, then Appearance. In the pop-up menu that appears (see screenshot below left), you’ll see options to change the theme to Dark or Sepia, change your font (to Serif or Monospace) and adjust the size of the text using a slider.
The process is much simpler in IOS. Using the default Safari browser, open the article you want to read, then tap the three lines inside the address bar to remove adverts. Next, tap the Aa button inside the address bar to open a menu that lets you increase your font size, and offers a choice of three reading modes and seven fonts.
If you use Microsoft Edge for Android ( www.snipca.com/28963) or IOS ( www. snipca.com/28964), open an article you want to read, then tap the book icon in your address bar to remove adverts. Tap the three dots at the bottom right, then tap Options to see a pop-up menu similar to Chrome’s that lets you change the font, text size and theme.
ANDROID & IOS Annotate documents you scan Microsoft Office Lens, one of our favourite free scanning apps, has added a new feature that lets you add text and draw on your scans - useful if you need to explain something in detail or add a note to your scanned document.
Install and open the app (Android www.snipca.com/28966; IOS www. snipca.com/28967). You can import any file you’ve previously scanned or scan a new file. If you choose the latter option, hold your camera directly above the document you want to scan. A red outline on the screen represents your scan area. Tap the shutter icon to scan.
When you’ve captured your document, five icons appear at the top right (see screenshot above). From the left, the first icon lets you crop your scan, the second rotates it by 90 degrees and the third allows you to choose a different format
(options include Document, Whiteboard, ‘Business card’ or Photo). The last two icons (a T and a pen) select the new annotation tools.
Tap the T icon to add a text box that you can write inside. You can change its colour from the palette on the right, then drag the text box anywhere within your scan. To annotate a photo, click the pen-shaped icon at the top right. A colour palette will appear on the right. Select the colour you want, then draw on your scan. When you’ve finished, click the tick icon at the bottom right. You can choose whether to save the annotated scan on your device or to your Onedrive account.
ANDROID Unsend emails in Gmail One of the most useful features in Gmail for desktop PCS is the ability to retract an email you’ve sent by mistake a few seconds after sending it. This is invaluable if you realise you’ve sent your message to the wrong person, or you forgot to include some important information.
Now Gmail has added this feature to its Android app. When you send an email, you’ll see an Undo button at the bottom of the app (see screenshot below). Tap this within 10 seconds to unsend your message. You can then make any changes and resend it. Unlike the desktop version of Gmail, the Android app doesn’t let you change how long you have to unsend your mesage. ANDROID Set aside mobile data for emergencies In Issue 533 (page 38), we showed you how to set daily limits for mobile data using the brilliant free data-saver app Datally. The latest version adds two useful new features. ‘Emergency bank’ lets you set aside some of your data for moments when you really need it - for example, to use Google Maps or send your location to your family using Whatsapp. The other new feature, ‘Bedtime mode’, stops data-hungry apps running in the background during the night, saving your mobile data.
Open Datally ( www. snipca.com/28965), tap ‘Emergency bank’, then tap Add Balance Details. Enter the amount of data you want to keep in your emergency reserve, and also your monthly data allowance. Next, press the ‘Tap to set expiry date’ button at the bottom, select the date on which your monthly data allowance resets, then tap OK, Confirm, Turn On. In our screenshot (left), for example, the app will automatically turn off mobile data when we’ve used 1.9GB of our monthly allowance. This leaves 100MB that we can use in an emergency.
To turn on ‘Bedtime mode’, tap that option on the app’s main screen. The default is 11pm to 6am, but you can change it by tapping the From and To buttons. When you’re done, tap Turn On Bedtime Mode. Datally will now stop apps running in the background during that period.