‘HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS?’
5 digital tricks for everyday situations
Many years ago, I showed my mother how to start and stop a video using the spacebar. “Oh!” she said. “That makes it so much easier!” Over time, most computer users have learned helpful tricks like this. They press Ctrl and “C” to copy text or Command and “F” to find a phrase on a page. They use the plus sign to make their displays bigger or the minus sign to make it smaller. Once you start using these tricks, you forget what life was like before you knew about them. Here are five easy tricks for solving everyday digital problems. Most of these problems have probably only bothered you on a subconscious level, but once you realize how easy they are to fix, you’ll likely exclaim, “Wait, how did I not know about this?”
1. DO A REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH Let’s say you stumble across an image online and you want to find it in a larger size, track down its origin or find similar acts images.like a regular Reverse Google image search search but uses an image instead of text.
Be sure to share this tip with anyone you know who is online dating. A recent caller to my radio show explained that he was swiped by“a super-hot woman.” He described himself as below average in both looks and financial means. I told him how to do a reverse image search. This hottie was all over the Internet looking for love and likely scouring for her next dating scam victim.
Just go to Google’s Image Search site and upload a photo. Instantly, you’ll see other places that photo or one like it appears online.
2. REOPEN A CLOSED BROWSER TAB It happens all the time: You have a dozen tabs open in your browser. You mouse over them, click, and accidentally close the wrong tab. You could open up your browser’s history and reopen the tab from there, but many people prefer a macro, which can efficiently resuscitate your tab. In this case, just hit Ctrl +Shift+T on your PC or Command+Shift+T on your Mac to automatically reopen the tab you just closed. Now you can get back to your browsing without missing a beat.
By the way, when you want to close a tab quickly press Ctrl+W on your PC or Command+W on your Mac.
3. SHARE YOUR ANDROID PHONE WITH GUEST MODE “Hey, can I borrow your phone?”
This used to be a fairly innocent request, but now your phone contains your entire life, including your browsing history and photos you forgot you took. So how do you prevent people from seeing all your personal stuff ? If you have an Android phone, you can use the “Guest Mode” feature.
Pull down from the top and touch your user icon in the upper righthand corner. Tap it again to access the “User” screen, and you should see your own profile along with the option to “Add guest.” Click on that and the phone will switch into Guest Mode.
Guest Mode allows the user access to just the basic phone functions, such as the Chrome browser, but hides your contacts, Internet history and personal data. You can switch back to your regular profile through the same method you used to turn on Guest Mode.
4. SNAP PHOTOS WITH THE VOLUME BUTTON How many times have you tried to snap a selfie, but the phone shakes in your hand, because your thumb can’t quite hit the camera button? This can be disastrous when you realize your photos in front of the Eiffel Tower turned out fuzzy. Wouldn’t it be great if you could pull the trigger in a more stable way?
Here’s a little-known solution: You can use the volume button on the side of your phone to take photos. This can be a lot easier than hunting around for the right place to tap on the touchscreen. The volume button trick works for many iOS and Android devices. Just aim the camera and press either the higher or lower volume button. If your smartphone has enabled this function, then either button should work.
5. STOP AUTOPLAY VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE You just watched an amazing video. You’re reeling from the experience. You would love to savor this moment, but YouTube is already prepping the next video. In a few seconds, you’ll have to watch something else, something you didn’t ask for and is only semirelated. Many people don’t realize that you can easily stop YouTube’s autoplay feature. The next time you play a YouTube video in your browser, look for the small Autoplay toggle switch on the right-hand side of the screen. Toggle it to the off position and it will go gray. From now on, YouTube won’t automatically play another video when the one you’re watching is done.