Data Doctors Tech Tips

One of the most common things we hear these days is "damn auto-correct"! It's one of those love-hate situations with autocorrect, but this tip may help see it more from the 'love' side of the ledger. Did you know that you can 'hack' your autocorrect to turn it into your own personal shorthand. which is very useful for commonly used chunks of text. For instance, you can add your address to your autocorrect databases by using abbreviations, such as ADRS as your shortcut. Once added, you simply type 'adrs' and tap the space bar which will cause your address to suddenly pop-up with a minimum of keystrokes. Every device using autocorrect from your word processor to or your smartphone, can be hacked to make them much more useful. There's realistically no limit to the number of hacks that can be added, as long as you remember to not use any real words as your shortcut. Bonus Tip: Use numbers and letters to create shortcuts that aren't real words!

Tabbed browsers have dramatically changed the way we surf the web because it allows us pull up multiple websites in a single browsing session. But this convenience allows us to get carried away opening way too many tabs, which takes up a lot of memory. That's why it's prudent to close tabs that you no longer need to keep your Internet browsing to slow to a crawl. As a result of this housekeeping, you'll likely close the wrong tab on various occasions, which can result in scanning your History file to figure out which site it was that you still wanted to read. Today's tech tip is an excellent solution to the inadvertent closing browser tabs. When it happens, just press the Ctrl-Shift keys (Command-Shift for Macs) and tap the letter 'T' in any of the popular browsers. When you do, it'll re-open the last tab that was closed automatically reappear bypassing the major hassle of searching your browser history file. Whenever you want to re-open more than one closed tab, just keep tapping the same key combination and they too will magically re-appear in the order that you closed em!

Today's tip is on a subject that's a bit uncomfortable: passing away Now that most of our daily activities are tied up in online accounts, should you meet with an untimely passing, your survivors could be confronted with a time-consuming set of tasks while grieving. Should you pass without providing a survivor with access to your passwords, the process for gaining access to locked online accounts will be different for each account, so the it becomes both time consuming and frustrating. Remember, sophisticated security measures are in place designed to keep hackers out of your accounts and will become just a much of a hurdle should your family need to attempt to regaining access. Keeping passwords in safety deposit boxes or using a secure password management program can be a good option, but remember that passwords tend to change over time. The single most important password that you need to leave for your family is for your email account, because they can use it for sending password reset requests from all your locked accounts. The party responsible for managing your affairs will also be able to use your e-mail account to learn the various online accounts you've used in the past and get passwords reset sent to get in. It's not natural to think about death, but it is the reality that we all should be considering when it comes to our digital assets.

Your smartphone's camera technology has advanced so much in a relatively short period of time, if you think about it.and#8232; The image capturing capability of today's average smartphone camera is 2 to 3 times the resolution of what would have been a top-of-the-line camera just 10 years ago.and#160; But, super high resolutions means much larger file sizes and often times these huge files need to be reduced in the size in order to e-mail them or post them online.and#160; Reducing huge images to an precise pixel width and height is also very important when you're creating profile images for your various social media accounts.and#160; The next time you're in need of some simple adjustments to large images you've generated, check out a web-based tool called http://WebResizer.com The WebResizer tool allows you to change everything from the width, the height, the file size, the image quality, the exposure, the contrast to the tint and color saturation while also making it quick to crop or rotate the images too.and#160; http://www.Webresizer.comand#160;is a really simple a one-trick-pony tool and it does its one trick very nicely.

Sweetie, I have something on my smartphone that I need to print! My wife's recent request reminded me of a tip from years gone by that's even more useful today.and#160; We're all using some sort of Google-based service on a regular basis, so including their tool that allows you to print anything from just about anywhere is a no-brainer. With any type of Google account, you can setup any printer connected to your computer to be available to you via the Web.and#160; Once you've set it up, you can print from any smartphone, laptop or tablet to your Google Cloud printer. You can even send print jobs from your work computer to your home printer using their system. You can also allow others to print to your cloud printer - say a visiting friend or someone experiencing a printing problem with their primary printer.and#160; Google's web printing system works whether your printer is cloud-ready or not and it supports the printing from a wide number of apps.and#160; To get setup with this incredibly useful tool, checkoutand#160;http://Google.com/cloudprint

Your mobile devices are likely to be a 'digital pacifier' in most households today because, frankly speaking, they keep kids occupied.and#160; It can be very effective in crowded restaurants or in any situation that keeping a restless child from turning disruptive is the goal. But giving a small child full-access to the entire contents of your smartphone is a pretty bad idea, so you need to learn how to 'childproof' devices before you hand them over.and#160; The Android and iPhone platforms have lots of built-in option available that will control user access but they need to be turned on, but so many people don't seem to be aware of how to do it.and#160; You can control what apps the child can use, limit Internet access, lock down purchasing options and block the famous 'in-app purchases' if you just take a few minutes to set things setup.and#160; They all have their own setup options and procedures, so if you need guidance, here's a good starting point: iPhone and Android:and#160;http://www.pcworld.com/article/2921718/2-easy-ways-to-child-proof-your-android-or-ios-device.html

We all know that phishing scams and various spam are commonly used by hackers to exploit victims, often using clever traps.and#160; Most users keep their guard-up when it comes to scam e-mails, but that's not the only screen that is likely to be presenting these traps.and#160; A regular scam known as comment spam has been around for a while and it's only going to get worse.and#160; Early on, it was pretty simple to sniff out posts that promoted working from home or other completely out-of-context posts, but the scammers are getting much more devious.and#160; Whenever you see a breaking news story hit the web or all your social media channels or even on legitimate news sites, comments from users are bound to follow.and#160; Even when you see posts that are making a good point but they include links to learn more, being as suspicious as you are with email is important.and#160; Even if you are certain that a comment is from a real person, you shouldn't click on the posted link. I suggest that you do your own manual search for the supposed info, usually by using the headline, just to stay safe from this common form of trickery.

Using your smartphone to make stop-motion videos has been possible for a while thanks to the many available apps, but the Stikbot app uses an entirely different approach.and#160; Their free app will work like all the others that you may have tried by taking your first shot and using the ghost of the first image as a guide to setup the next frame.and#160; For instance, you can make a fork move around your plate by keeping the plate lined up in every frame while you randomly move the fork around it in each frame.and#160; Stikbot differs from others by adding optional stick figures that they sell for around 10 bucks.and#160; The stick figures are designed to help make more interesting stop-motion movies because they have flexible arms and legs as well as suction cups on them all.and#160; It's an interesting combo of options for that emerging young movie maker:and#160; http://www.stikbot.toys

Making use of a Wi-Fi connection on airplanes is pretty commonplace these days as virtually every airline offers a connection, making long flights more productive.and#160; But keep in mind that everyone else on the flight is sharing your same connection, so it's never going to be a very fast pipe, but it's generally better than going without it.and#160; Since we tend to travel with a lot of devices, it's nice to connect them all the same time, but who wants to pay an extra charge for each gadget?and#160; When you're in that situation, remember that a laptop can easily be turned into a wifi hotspot so you can share that expensive connection to the rest of your devices.and#160; Mac and Windows computers both have the ability to use Internet-connection sharing so you can also connect to Wi-Fi on your smartphone and tablet for the price of one device.and#160; It's not just useful on airplanes because many places will charge you by the device for their Internet connection, like a hotel.and#160; Windows users may find that the built-in tool is a bit too complicated, so their's an easier alternative in an app called 'Connectify Hotspot'.and#160; You can learn more here:and#160; Mac -and#160;http://imore.com/how-turn-your-macs-internet-connection-wifi-hotspot-internet-sharingand#160; Windows -and#160;http://howtogeek.com/112050/how-to-turn-your-windows-8-laptop-into-a-wireless-access-pointand#160; Connectify Hotspot -and#160;http://www.connectify.me/hotspot

Everyone that has used word processors and spreadsheets on a regular basis is likely familiar with using macros that record a combination of keystrokes and commands and assigned a key-combination for future use.and#160; Did you know that iPhones also have a tool available which allows for a similar creation of macros? It's possible with an app called Workflow! The Workflow app provides users with the ability to create automated interactions between popular apps on the phone and it's done by simply 'dragging and dropping' the tasks you want to work with.and#160; With over two hundred different 'actions' you can setup processes between contacts, calendars, reminders, your browser, reminders, maps, music, photos, your camera and even things like AirDrop, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Evernote and your iCloud account.and#160; For instance, road warriors that often are in search of a nearby coffee shop can create a single tap function in Workflow to make it fast every time.and#160; There are lots of existing workflows created by others that you can use in their gallery, so you don't even have to create your own to get started.and#160; Anyone wanting to kick their iPhone into high gear should look into the Workflow app in Apple's App store.and#160; https://my.workflow.is