One Cool Tip .com

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Coolest Tips in June 2015

It's been a busy month of June with the relaunch of www.OneCoolTip.com.

What have been the coolest tips in June 2015?

NASA Ring Tones Just Launched
This popular tip from 2008 zoomed to the top of June's list with thousands of views. Who knew that NASA's sound files were so popular. Learn how to use many famous sounds as ring tones for your mobile phone.

How Do I Get Windows 10 for Free?
The newest version of Windows is coming. For many PC users, it can be a free upgrade. Learn how you can get your free version.

Blocking Calls on Your Smart Phone
Ring Ring Ring. Learn how you can block annoying calls to your mobile phone.

Snapseed: Google's Best Photo App You Don't Know About
Learn how Google's Snapseed app is the best mobile photo editor.

How to Restart Your iPhone or iPad
Learn how you can restart your iPhone or iPad for better performance or to recover when it is frozen.

Enjoy!

One Cool Tip.com

http://www.onecooltip.com

Cool Tips for a Cooler Life!

#NASA #Windows 10 #iPhone #Android #Snapseed

How to Turn Off or On Emergency Alerts on Your Phone

Why is my phone making a weird siren alert?

Because many Americans no longer get their news from their living room television.

The modern version of American television's Emergency Broadcasting System is the Wireless Emergency Alerts phone on newer smart phones.

The wireless alerts are designed to notify mobile phone users about local emergencies, such as kidnappings (Amber Alerts), severe weather and even national emergencies from the office of the US President.

Alerts are localized by geography so you'll only receive notifications from the authorities based upon where your phone is located. However, roll out of the service has not been perfect. There have been cases where phones noisily alerted phone users in the middle of the night for child kidnappings hours after the child had been found safe. Fortunately, the system has gotten better as authorities have learned how to coordinate and time the alerts.

But as a phone user, you can also turn off the Amber and Emergency Alerts. Or chaeck that the alerts are enabled. There's no way to disable a presidential alert.

Android

To enable or disable emergency alerts in Android, go to Settings then click the More option in Wireless & Networks. Then scroll to Cell Broadcasts to enable or disable alerts. Android is fickle so you may find settings in a different location based upon the version and the phone carriers implementation.

iOS (iPhone and iPad)

Alerts can be changed by going to Settings, then Notifications. At the bottom are two settings under Government Alerts, Amber Alerts and Emergency Alerts which can be enabled or disabled.

More information on Emergency Alerts is available from FEMA at http://www.ready.gov/alerts

#iPhone #Android #EmergencyAlert

READ MORE

One Cool Tip.com

http://www.onecooltip.com

Cool Tips for a Cooler Life!

Monday, June 29, 2015

The Single Best Tip To Take Better Videos With Your Smart Phone

Do you take videos with your smart phone? You might be doing it wrong. And by wrong, I mean you are holding your phone wrong.

Grand Canyon Video Screenshot in Portrait Mode on Monitor

The single best tip for taking better videos is to always take your videos in landscape mode.

Put down that selfie stick. You might have to use two hands to take a video.

But it will be worth it.

Taking videos in portrait mode (vertical) will leave black bars on each side of the image when the video is played on a PC monitor of a high def TV screen.

Landscape (or horizontal) videos will fill your monitors and TV screens correctly.

So always, always, always, take videos in landscape mode.

Enjoy!

#video #iPhone #Android #horizontal #landscape #portrait

READ MORE

One Cool Tip.com

http://www.onecooltip.com

Cool Tips for a Cooler Life!

Sunday, June 28, 2015

ICYMI: Cloud Storage, Mobile Photo Editor, NASA Images, Blocking Calls, "Unsend" from Gmail, Group Chat

Did you catch all of the cool tips this week?

We covered a wide range of cool topics including the best cloud storage, the best photo editor for your smart phone, a new NASA image gallery, how to block annoying calls to your mobile phone, Gmail's new "Undo" feature and finally the best group chat app that works across difference devices and platforms.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

One Chat App to Rule Them All

Are all of your family and friends on the same group chat application?

The answer is probably no.

Even before AOL's Instant Messenger service, chat applications have been fragmented with various services and device reluctant to communicate with one another gather a large enough userbase to be useful.

Perhaps today's worse offender is Apple's iOS iMessage app which works with other Apple devices and thus all other mobile devices only via cellular text messaging. That leaves Android phones and tablets out of the conversation.

So what's the answer?

There are a number of apps trying to solve this problem. Snapchat, WhatsApp, GroupMe, Skype, and Google Hangouts are just a few of the apps trying to be "the next big thing" in group chat.

But Facebook Messenger is the clear winner. At least for now.

It has a large built-in user base, great features and can be accessed from multiple platforms:

Mobile - Available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
PC - Available from within the Facebook website
PC - Available from the www.messenger.com stand alone website

Some of the key features include:

Make audio and video calls to other Messenger users
Know when people see your text
Make High Def phone calls to other users worldwide
Snap photos and shoot video
Record voice messages
Chat with your favorite groups of other users

Facebook announced this week that Messenger will no longer require a Facebook account to use.

That helps adoption by users who may not want to have a Facebook account.

Group chat is a rapidly growing market for the mobile world. Facebook has with a winning chat strategy for both mobile and desktop users.

Enjoy!

READ MORE

One Cool Tip.com

http://www.onecooltip.com

Cool Tips for a Cooler Life!

#chat #facebook #messenger #Android #iPhone #Windowsphone

Friday, June 26, 2015

You Can Now "Unsend" an Email from Gmail

Did you just send an email in anger?
Did you just send the wrong message to your boss?
Did you get your girlfriend and your wife's email mixed up? Only kidding.

Google can help you solve these modern first-world problems with a new feature available to all users in Google's Gmail service.

Google announced this week that an "Undo Send" option has become part of the official product. It had been in testing as part of Gmail's Lab options.

When enabled, you have between 5-30 seconds to "unsend" the message.

Here's how to enable this feature and use it in Gmail:

Log into your Gmail account.
Click the "gear" Setting icon in the upper right-hand corner.
Select "Settings".
Select "general" tab if not already.
About half-way down, look for the "Undo Send" option.
Click the check box to "Enable Undo Send".
Click the dropdown box to choose 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds.
Scroll tot he bottom of the page and click the "Save Changes" button.

When you next send an email, a message will appear that says "Your message has been sent. Undo.". Click the Undo option to unsend the message. Your message will not be sent. You can edit or close the message and return it to your draft folder.

That's it! Save yourself some grief by turn this new feature on.

Enjoy!

READ MORE

One Cool Tip.com

http://www.onecooltip.com

Cool Tips for a Cooler Life!

#email #gmail #google #unsend

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Blocking Calls on Your Smart Phone

A major annoyance to almost everyone is unwanted telemarketing calls. Sometimes they are for alarm systems, vacation property or home repairs. Other times they are from legitimate charities seeking donations. But they always seem to come at the wrong time. Is there ever really a good time?

There are a couple of options to minimizing unwanted calls:

Register your phone number with the national Do Not Call Registry from the FCC - Federal Communications Commission (https://www.donotcall.gov/). Legitimate marketers will cease calling your number usually 31 days after registration.
Check if your state also has a Do Not Call registry. For example, Missouri residents can register phone numbers with the state of Missouri at https://ago.mo.gov/divisions/consumer/no-call To find out if your state has a list too, Google your state name and Do Not Call registry.
Create a Contact - For callers you know but may not want to answer, for example, a fundraising call from a local charity you support. Once you have received a call from their number, add a contact entry in your phone's contact list. That way, when the call comes in, you'll see the call listed by the name and can decide if you want to answer the call,

To block a specific number from ringing on your smart phone, use these following instructions.

iPhone

To block specific phone numbers, you can do it two ways:

If you've a received a call from a telemarketer, select the Phone app and then select the Recent call list. To the right of the phone number you want to block, select the i within a circle icon that is to the right of the number. Scroll up if needed and there'll be an option to "Block this Caller". That number will now be blocked on this phone.
If the number you want belongs to a contact on your phone, go to Settings > Phone > Blocked. Scroll to the bottom if needed and choose "Add New" to select the contact you wish to block.

Android

To block specific phone numbers, you can do it two ways:

From the call log, select the number you want to block by selecting the 3-dot menu in the upper right-hand corner and select "Add to reject list". This will block future calls from this number.
For a specific number, go to Phone app > Call Rejection > Auto Reject List. Enter the exact number to block.

Note: Android devices can be inconsistent on this feature and it may not be as simple as these instructions.

If you should inadvertently answer a telemarketing call, remember to be nice. It's someone's mother or brother trying to make a living. But be firm and request they remove you from their call list. And need be, you can block their number.

Enjoy!

READ MORE

One Cool Tip.com

http://www.onecooltip.com

Cool Tips for a Cooler Life!

#iphone #android #iOS #block #DoNotCall