Create an Apple ID without using a Credit Card

Some apps, Google Earth for example, are available as free downloads in the iTunes Apps store but you need a UK or US based Apple ID to install them on to your iPad or Phone. Similarly, some iBooks and podcasts have geo restrictions and may only be available to iTunes users who are logged in with an Apple ID for one of the available countries.

The workaround is simple. You can create multiple Apple IDs – like one for UK and another one for US Apps Store – and easily switch between them inside iTunes. So if you are signed-in from India, you can switch to the US store, login with your US based Apple ID and download the app that is otherwise not available in the Indian Apps Store.

There’s however a problem. When you create a new Apple ID, iTunes will require you to enter your credit card and the billing address of your card should be in that country. In other words, you need a US based credit card or PayPal account to create a Apple ID for the US iTunes Store. Apple will not let you create an Apple ID without entering valid payment information (see screenshot above).

That said, you can take an alternate not-so-obvious route in iTunes to create an Apple ID for any country without requiring a credit card. Here’s how:

Create Apple ID in iTunes without your Credit Card

1. Launch the iTunes software on your computer and sign-out of your existing Apple ID. Choose Store in the menu and select Sign-out.
2. Next scroll to the bottom of the iTunes page, click Change Country and select one from the list for which you need an Apple ID. Alternatively, you may click the country’s flag to switch to the iTunes store of another region.
3. Now open the Apps Store inside iTunes, select any app that is free and click theGet button to download that App.
4. iTunes will now prompt you to enter your Apple ID and password. Do not enter your existing Apple ID. Instead, click the Create Apple ID button, agree to the terms & conditions, enter your email address &amp password and minimum age.
5. Proceed to the Payments screen and here you’ll see a new option that says NONE (see screenshot below). Select the None option, enter a dummy postal address and submit to create your new Apple ID that will be valid in the iTunes store of that country.

If you have kids at home, you can use this trick to create a separate Apple ID for the iPads, one that is not associated with your credit card and so they’ll never be able to make any accidental purchases.

An Easier Way to Create a New Apple ID

If you need another Apple ID but do not intend to use it with the iTunes store for download apps, there’s an easier way. Go to icloud.com, click the Create Apple ID link and choose a different country from the dropdown. Your Apple ID will be created instantly but if you decide to use it for downloading iTunes content later, you’d still need to supply the credit card.

You Cannot Create An Apple ID Because You Do Not Meet The Minimum Age Requirement

You need to be at least 13+ years old to create an Apple ID inside iTunes. However, if you enter an incorrect date, iTunes will refuse to create your Apple ID and no matter how many times you try the process, you will keep getting an error saying “you cannot create an Apple ID because you do not meet the minimum age requirements.”

This is most like a caching related bug in the iTune software but can be easily. Open Preferences inside iTunes, switch to the Advanced tab and choose Reset Cache. Quit iTunes and launch the Safari browser. Go to Preferences and under Privacy, choose the option “Remove all Website date” to clear the cache.

Open iTunes again, try downloading an app and it should not allow you to create an Apple ID without issues. 

Sync Any Folder on your Mac with Dropbox

Cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive allow you to have only one folder on the computer the content of which will always remain in sync with your online account. Any files that you place in this particular folder can be accessed from the web or any of your other computers and mobile devices.

If you would you like to store files from other local folders in your Dropbox, you can either move these folders inside the main Dropbox folder or you can get hold of a free utility called MacDropAny. This app will allow you to sync folders outside your main Dropbox folder with Dropbox but without you having to move these folders anywhere.

To get started, download MacDropAny and copy it to your Mac Applications folder. Now launch the app and it will ask you select a folder on your Mac that you would like to sync with Dropbox (or Google Drive). Next select the folder inside your main Dropbox folder where you would like this external folder to go. You may even choose the root Dropbox folder here.

There’s an alternate way as well. Just drag any Mac folder, drop it over the MacDropAny icon and choose the location of the Dropbox folder.

That’s all it takes to add any external Mac folder in your Dropbox queue. What the MacDropAny application just did is it created a symbolic link, or soft link, in your Dropbox folder that points to the external folder. Advanced users can directly run the command “ln -s” inside the shell terminal to create these links manually without requiring any app.

MacDropAny is available for Mac only and works with Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and other cloud storage services that impose the one-folder-only restriction. Windows PC users may download the free SyncToy utility from Microsoft to backup external folders with Dropbox.

Download Mac Updates Once and Install on Multiple Computers

Mac OS X updates are huge with the installation files running into several gigabytes. The same is true for Mac apps like iMovie or Microsoft Office that have massive installers. The problem is compounded when you own multiple Mac computers and you need to upgrade them all to the latest OS X update. It will not just take too much time but you may end up consuming your monthly download bandwidth.

A simple and obvious workaround to the problem is that you download the installer files on one Mac machine and then transfer the downloaded apps to all your other systems through AirDrop or WiFi. The Apple website says that “Apps [downloaded] from the Mac App Store may be used on any Macs that you own or control for your personal use.” This is however easier said than done.

Install Mac OS X Updates on Multiple Macs

You download a 5 GB Mac OS X installer from the App Store, the machine restarts, your system is upgraded to Mac OS X Yosemite or El Capitan but wait, where has the installer disappeared? Your Mac, in a bid to save space, deletes the original installer automatically after the upgrade and thus you cannot reuse it on other machines.

To get around the problem, after the installer has downloaded, quit the installation routine and do not restart the machine. Go to the ~/Applications folder on your Mac, find the installer file and Option+Drag it to another folder like ~/Downloads to make a copy that will stay even after the machine is restarted.

For minor updates, like OS X 10.10.8 or 10.10.9 updates, Apple releases standalone installers as .dmg files that you can download once and install on multiple machines. The releases are available as incremental updates (containing only changed files) or combo updates (all changed files since the last major release).

A simple Google search for “download mac ox x 10.10. combo” will reveal the direct download links for the .dmg files on the Apple support website.

Install Mac Apps from the App Store

In the case of apps downloaded from the Mac App Store, you’ll find the .app files in your /Applications or /Users/username/Applications folder that you can easily copy to your other Mac machines. Internally though, the App Store downloads the installer as a package file (with a .pkg extension) and this will not reside in the Applications folder but in a separate hidden folder.

You can grab these Installer Package files and install the same Mac app on other machines without having to download it again thus saving data. To get started, open terminal on your Mac and run the following command to know where the App Store has downloaded the installer files:

defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true

Now open the Mac App Store app and you’ll see a new Debug menu (see screenshot). Click the “Show Download Folder” menu and it will open the location of the download folder inside Finder where the Mac apps are temporarily download. You can find the .pkg files inside one of the sub folders that you copy to your other Mac systems via Airdrop.

Essential Apps and Utilities for your Mac

Whether you are a new Mac user or seasoned veteran looking to do more, here’s a collection of essential Mac apps & utilities that you must download on your computer. These apps, most of them are free and created by third-party developers, will help you get more productive and do things that are otherwise not possible on your Mac.

The Best Mac Apps & Utilities

The Mac collection includes mostly lesser-known apps so the usual suspects likes Evernote, Dropbox, OneNote, or Google Drive are all missing from the list. Also, all the apps listed below are compatible with Yosemite, the current version of Mac OS.

Let’s get started.

1. Infinit.io – Easily send files and folders of any size from your Mac to another device be it a Windows PC, iPhone, iPad, Android phone or a Mac itself.
2. Spectacle – This is a useful windows management app for Mac that lets you move and resize windows with configurable keyboard shortcuts. You can also move windows between multiple displays too.
3. Duet Display – Use your iPad or iPhone as an extra display for your Mac. Connect the iOS device to the Mac with the USB cable and use the touch-screen to interact with your Mac apps.
4. Knock – You can unlock your Mac by simply tapping your iPhone screen or your Apple Watch without having to type any passwords.
5. ImageOptim – Always run your images through ImageOptim before upload them on to your website. The Mac app will crush the size of your image files without affecting the visual quality.
6. HiddenMe – If your Mac desktop is cluttered with folders and files, you can hide all the icons with a single click or with a keyboard shortcut.
7. Site Sucker – Download entire websites includes images, PDF files and mirror them on your local disk for offline browsing. Like wget but with a visual interface.
8. App Cleaner – Deleting the .dmg file is not enough. If you are to properly uninstall any Mac app, you need to delete the residual hidden files as well and that’s where App Cleaner can help.
9. Download Shuttle – A download manager for your Mac that splits the file into multiple parts and downloads the individual parts simultaneously for faster downloads. Can pause and resume downloads too.
10. Toggl – Time tracking software for your Mac that sits in the status bar for quick access. Add #hashtags to tasks and your tracked hours are also synched with the web.
11. Fluid – This will turn your favorite website into a real desktop app for Mac that will reside in the Applications folder and you can launch from Spotlight search.
12. Transmit – The perfect FTP client for Mac OS X that just works. You can create droplets to instantly upload files to your favorite destinations from anywhere.
13. Caffeine – It helps your Mac stay awake. Click the Caffeine icon in the menu bar to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep or from dimming the screen while you are watching videos.
14. NoSleep – Your Macbook goes to sleep as soon you close the lid. The NoSleep extension will keep the screen awake even when the lid is closed so you can continue downloading files over the network.
15. Air Browser – This will put your favorite websites in the menu bar so you can access them from any screen with a single click. The sites can be configured to auto-refresh on open.
16. MacDropAny – You can easily sync any Mac folder with Dropbox or Google Drive without having to move them to a common folder.
17. Self Control – Stop procrastinating. This open-source Mac app that will temporarily block access to time-wasting websites, emails and everything else that you find distracting.
18. Gas Mask – This is a hosts file editor for Mac that can help you permanently block access to certain websites from your computer.
19. Authy – Not exactly a Mac app but a Google Chrome extension that you cannot do without. It lets you log into online accounts that require 2-factor authenticationwithout requiring the phone.
20. Pixel Winch – An easy-to-use screen measurement app where you take a screenshot of an area and then use the built-in controls to measure the dimensions of any element inside no matter how tiny it is.
21. Buffer – You can easily publish status updates, share links and photos to multiple social websites in one go from the menu bar itself.
22. Hocus Focus – It helps keep your Mac desktop screen clutter free by automatically hiding app windows that are inactive or haven’t been used for a while. You can even choose to hide windows as soon as they lose focus.
23. AirDroid – It connects your Android phone to the Mac. You can access messages, manage photos, transfer files and more, wirelessly.
24. PushBullet – A universal copy-paste solution for all your devices including the Mac. Copy something on your phone and it instantly becomes available on the Mac’s clipboard and vice-versa.
25. Unarchiver – A useful compression utility for Mac that can handle all the popular zip formats including RAR, TAR, MSI, EXE, GZIP and even ISO file. It can extract sounds and images from Flash and PDF files too.
26. iBrowse – Access the files and folders on your iPhone or iPad inside this Finder-like app and copy images, videos and other files from the iOS device to your Mac easily.
27. GIF Brewery – This helps you convert video files and screencasts into animated GIFs and offers tons of options to fine-tune your GIF images.
28. Karabiner – A key mapping application for the Mac that lets you remap existing keys to perform a different command. For instance, the CAPS lock key can be configured to work as an Escape key.
29. Better Touch Tool – It lets you easily configure the behaviour of existing gestures of your Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad or define new multi-touch gestures.
30. Hazel – A folder monitoring app that lets you specify rules and the files added to these watched folders are automatically arranged based on your rules. You can run complex rules too, like run Apple Script, when a file is added.
Also see: Print Files on Mac with Dropbox
31. Helium – An Always on Top like app but for your Mac. The browser window will float on top of other windows and you can also change the translucency level.
32. Dropzone – It make it easy to copy or move files to your favorite folders and you can also upload files to web destinations right from the menu bar.
33. RSS Bot – Access your favorite RSS feeds from the Mac’s menu bar. Get notifications when new items are available and apply filters to only show articles that match certain keywords.
34. XMenu – It provides Finder like access to your favorite folders and Mac apps from the menu bar. You can launch apps, access documents and files inside folder right from the menu bar.
35. Flux – It automatically dims the brightness of your screen based on the time of the day – warm at night, bright during the day – so your eyes feel less strain. Also see the 20 20 20 rule.
36. EVE – The app helps you learn Mac keyboard shortcuts. Every time you use the mouse to perform an action, the app displaying the equivalent shortcut as a notification. Also see CheatSheet, it display all the available shortcuts for the currently active app.
37. BootChamp – If you have installed Windows on Mac through Apple Bootcamp, BootChamp will save you a few clicks. It adds an icon in the menu bar that will you restart your computer into Windows mode directly without having to press any keys during start-up.
38. aText – A text expander program that accelerates your touch typing by replacing pre-defined abbreviations with corresponding phrases. For instance, say ;sig to add your rich signature in the Gmail window.
39. Flashlight – It adds more power to Spotlight search on your Mac. You can search different, quickly add events to your calendar, create reminders, run terminal commands and more all from within Spotlight.
40. Alfred 2 – Apple has vastly improved Spotlight with Yosemite but Alfred is still a better app at finding files both on your local disk and online.
41. Disk Inventory – If your 256 GB SSD on the Macbook is running low on space, use the Disk Inventory app to quickly discover large files and folders that are hogging up the space.
42. Sync – From the makers of BitTorrent, Sync helps you keep files and folders on all your computers and mobile devices in sync with each other but without using the cloud. There are no size limitations either.
43. Bartender – If you have too many app icons cluttering the menu bar of your mac, Bartender can bring some order. It lets you hide the menu item you don’t need or you can push them to the secondary bar that will not show by default.
44. CloudUp – From the company that develops WordPress, CloudUp lets you quickly upload and share local files and screenshots from the menu bar.
45. Filepane – The invisible app improves your drag and drop workflow. Select one or more files and the app will offers a list of actions that you can perform from resizing the files to sharing via AirDrop to moving it to another destination and more.
46. Unclutter – A clipboard history manager for your Mac that preserves snippets copied to the clipboard and also gives you quick access to your frequently used files and folders. Use ClipMenu or CopyClip if you only need a basic clipboard manager.
47. TextBar – You can specify terminal commands and the app will add the text output of those commands to the menu bar that can also be configured to auto-updated at set intervals. For instance, ‘ipconfig getifaddr en0’ will print your current IP address in the menu bar. You can also have these as desktop widgets with Übersicht.
48. Handbrake – Whether you are looking to convert videos from one format to another or need to extract videos from a DVD, HandBrake is probably the only utility you need. FFmpeg is powerful too but works only from the command line.
49. Soundflower – If you are to record the Mac audio, like the sound coming out of the speakers, you would need SoundFlower to route that sound to the recording app instead of the speakers.
50. QuickCast – Record quick screencasts of any area of your desktop screen and save the video files locally or publish them online. It can record mouse clicks and sound too. The other alternative is QuickTime.
51. MuteMyMic – Like the speaker volume, you can now reduce the volume or completely turn off the mic from the menu bar or through keyboard shortcuts. Should come handy for online meetings and voice chats.
52. Onyx – It provides access to hidden settings, you can perform system maintenance tasks and also configure system apps like Finder, Spotlight and Dock. TinkerTool is also a good alternative.

How to Print Files on a Remote Mac via Dropbox

The previous trick on printing files from mobile phones uses a VBS script that will run on a Windows computer only.

However, if you are on a Mac, you can takes the following steps, as suggested by bbedel, to print files on any printer that’s connected to a Mac.

This uses Automator, a Mac OS application that lets you automate repetitive tasks without knowledge of programming or scripting languages.

1. Create a folder called PrintQueue inside your Dropbox folder.

2. Launch Automator and choose “Folder Actions” as the template.

3. Choose the PrintQueue Folder from the dropdown under “Folder Action receives files and folders added to.”

4. Search for “Print Finder Items” inside Automator and drag it into your workflow. Now select your printer name if it’s different from the default selection.

5. Next search for “Move Finder Items to Trash” action in Automator and add it to your workflow. Save.

When you are sending a print job from your mobile phone to the printer connected to the Mac, save that file to the PrintQueue folder on your Dropbox account. It will then automatically open on your Mac using the associated application, print it and will move it to trash.

Hate Typing Passwords? Log into your Mac Computer with your iPhone

Knock to Unlock is a new iPhone app ($3.99) that lets you easily log into your locked Macbook using the iPhone in your pocket. While you are near your locked Mac, just know the screen of your iPhone twice and the app will automatically enter your password on the computer.

Knock has two components – the desktop app that runs on your Mac and the iPhone app. When you knock on the iPhone screen, the Mac app automatically enters your password and unlocks the computer. Your Mac is still protected with a password, the app just saves you from the hassle of typing that long password every time you sign-in.

And if your iPhone isn’t around, you will still be able to sign in to your Mac by manually typing the password.

Know to Unlock is currently available for Mac only but a Windows version is also in the works. You need an iPhone running on iOS 7 and not a very ancient Macbook or iMac running on Mountain Lion or Mac OS X Mavericks.

One iPhone can only be paired with one Mac computer though the website says that support for multiple Macs is coming very soon.

10 URLs That Every Google User Should Know

What does Google know about the places I’ve visited recently? Where should I go if I have forgotten the administrator password for Google Apps? What are my interests as determined by Google? Where can I get a list of ads that I’ve ever clicked on Google?

Here are some of the most important links that every Google user should know about. They are hidden somewhere deep inside your Google Account dashboard and they may reveal interesting details about you that are otherwise known to Google. Let’s dive in.

1. Google stores a list of usernames and passwords that you have typed in Google Chrome or Android for logging into various websites. They’ve a website too where you can view all these passwords.

https://passwords.google.com

2. Google creates a profile of yourself based on the sites you visit, your Google+ account and other signals. They try to guess your age, gender and interests and then use this data to serve you more relevant ads. Use this URL to know how Google sees you on the web.

https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/

3. Google lets you export all your data out of the Google ecosystem. You can download your Google Photos, contacts, Gmail messages and even your YouTube videos. Head over the the Takeout page to grab the download links.

https://www.google.com/takeout

4. If you ever find your content appearing on another website that is using one or more Google products – say Blogger, AdSense, Google+ or YouTube – you can raise a DMCA complaint with Google against that site to get that content removed. This wizard can also be used to remove websites from Google search results that are scraping your content.

https://support.google.com/legal

5. Your Android device may be reporting your recent location data and velocity (are you moving and if yes, how fast are you moving) back to Google servers. Head over to the Google Maps website to see your entire location history and you also have the option to export this data as KML files that can be viewed inside Google Earth or even Google Drive.

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory

6. Create a new Google Account using your existing email address. The regular sign-up process uses your @gmail.com address as your Google account username but with this special URL, you can use any other email address as your username.

https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail

7. Google and YouTube record every search term that you’ve ever typed or spoken into their search boxes. They even keep a log of every Google ad that you have clicked on various websites, every YouTube video you’ve watched and, if you are a Google Now user, you can also see a log of all your audio search queries. OK Google.

https://history.google.com
https://history.google.com/history/audio
https://www.youtube.com/feed/history

8. You need to login to your Gmail account at least once every 9 months else Google may terminate your account according to their program policies. This can be an issue if you have multiple Gmail accounts so as a workaround, you can setup your main Gmail account as the trusted contact for your secondary accounts. Thus Google will keep sending you reminders every few months to login to your other accounts.

https://www.google.com/settings/account/inactive

9. Worried that someone else is using your Google account. Open the activity report to see a log of every device that has recently been used to log into your Google account. You also get to know the I.P. Address and their approximate geographic location. Unfortunately, you can’t remotely log out of a Google session.

https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity

10. This is a complete list of web apps, browser extensions, Google Scripts and mobile apps that have any read or write access to your Google data. If the permission level says “access to basic account info”, it basically means that you have used your Google account to sign-in to that app.

https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions

Bonus: For Google Apps Administrators

This is important but undocumented URL for Google Apps users. If your Google Account ever gets hacked, use this secret link to reset your admin password. You’ll be asked to verify your domain name by creating a CNAME record in your DNS.

https://admin.google.com/domain.com/VerifyAdminAccountPasswordReset


[*] Replace domain.com in the above URL with your own web domain name.

Google Photos – The Good Parts

When Google launched Gmail in 2004, it bundled 40x more free storage space than competing web mail services. It seemed to solve all storage woes and there was not even a “delete” button in Gmail because, with a gigabyte available, why would anyone ever delete their emails. They’ve adopted a similar approach with Google Photos but gone a step further.

Google Photos offers unlimited online storage space for your digital photos and videos. The original images are compressed after uploading but the difference is barely noticeable, at least on the computer screen.

I started dumping all my pictures to Google Photos, the day it launched, and couldn’t be happier. The initial purpose was online backup but now Google Photos has become “the” place where I go to explore my photos. The files do not consume a byte of local storage space and yet the entire collection is always available on every device that I own.

Here are essential things that you should know about Google Photos and some tips to help get the most out of this amazing photo backup service.

Upload your pictures to Google Photos

Google Photos has desktop uploaders for both Windows PCs and Mac OS X. Alternatively, you can drag folders from the desktop  to photos.google.com and they’ll be uploaded instantly. Android, iPhone and iPad users can install the Google Photos app and their mobile photo will be backed up automatically.

There’s no support for Windows Phone. Linux users can upload photos from a web browser but it is not a very convenient thing when you have too many folders to upload. And if you are already storing photos in places like iCloud, OneDrive or Dropbox, you’ll have to download them locally first for sending to Google Photos. There’s no cloud-to-cloud transfer option.

Organize your Google Photos

Google Photos will arrange your uploaded pictures by location and by date taken automatically. It can also recognize the subject of photos using machine algorithms so if you search for “food” or “dinner”, you will likely see all your family dinner photos. You can find “selfies” too. The results aren’t always accurate but a useful option nonetheless.

Facial recognition, the most useful feature of Picasa, is also available in Google Photos but not outside the United States. There’s no way to search for photos by date or tags either.

If you have painstakingly organized your photo in albums manually, you’ll be disappointed to know that Google Photos will ignore these albums and instead dump all the photos in one big pool. You can create photo albums inside Google Photos but it will not maintain the local album structure during upload.

Duplicate Files in Google Photos

Google Photos can smartly detect duplicate photos and will skip uploading them if a copy has been uploaded previously. The file names of your photos can be different and they can reside in different folders of your hard disk but the service will still recognize the duplicates and remove them from the upload queue.

There are two kinds of duplicates – exact duplicates and near duplicates. If you take a file and slightly crop it or change the EXIF data, it is a near duplicate of the original file. Google Photos will however treat this is a different photo and upload it as well along with the original image.

If you have too many “near duplicates” on your computer, use a desktop tool like Picasa to remove the duplicates before adding them to the upload queue.

Deleting Files in Google Photos

You can delete a file from Google Photos and it will go to the trash. It sits there for 60 days and is then permanently removed so you have enough opportunity to restore your accidental deletes.

Here’s an important detail you should know though.

Let’s say you have a file holiday.jpg in a local Google Photos folder. If you delete this file from the Google Photos app and also empty your Google Photos’ recycle bin, the local file will get re-uploaded to Google Photos. This will happen on mobile as well. If you delete an item from Photos, the item may get re-uploaded from the phone’s gallery.

Thus, always remove files from the local folder as well after the upload it complete else they’ll be re-uploaded if you ever remove the corresponding files from Google Photos.

Editing & Sharing Google Photos

You can select one or more photos, hit the Share button and Google Photos will create an semi-private album with your selected photos. If you choose to share on WhatsApp or other messaging apps, Google Photos will download and send the actual photos and not just share the link to the album.

Google Photos include a suite of image editing tools that let you perform basic edits and you can also apply Instagram-like filters to your images. I was impressed with the photo editing capabilities of Google+ earlier and the same set of tools are now available in Photos. You can even produce animated GIFs and photo slideshows and send them to YouTube straight from the app.

When you share a photo or album in Google Photos via a link, anyone with that link can view your shared photos. There’s no way to limit sharing to specific email addresses as we have in Google Drive.

Google Photos – Tips & Tricks

• The Google Photos uploader is a one-way client and, unlike Dropbox, it will not sync your photos on multiple computers or mobile devices. You can however use Google Takeout to download all your Google Photos on another computer.
• In Google Drive, go to settings and turn on the option that says “Automatically put your Google Photos into a folder in My Drive.” You can now see all your uploaded photos inside Drive and you can even sync your Google Photos with other computers just like any other Google Drive folder.
• There’s no Google Photos API available but if you want to programmatically access Google Photos, the good old Picasa Web API may do the trick.
• The Google Photos app is not Chromecast compatible but you can cast the entire phone screen to see your photo collection on the TV.
• The desktop uploader for Google Photos may not upload screenshot images.
• If you not sure if the desktop uploader is working, go to this secret link and confirm whether files are getting added or not.
• Google Photos are not available inside Gmail but if you have linked your Photos to Google Drive, you can easily attach any of your Google Photos in email messages.
• Go to the YouTube website, click the upload button and you’ll see a new option that says “Import from Google Photos.” You can pull any video from Photos and send it to YouTube.

The hard disks and CDs, where you are currently storing those precious memories, will go defunct in a few years. With Google Photos now available, there’s no reason not to upload your pictures to the cloud because all you need is a decent internet connection.

Find and Rid of Duplicate Images on your Computer

You can have duplicate images on your computer for three reasons:

1. You transferred a set of pictures from the digital camera to your computer but did not erase them from the camera. Thus when you re-connected the camera, they got copied again to your hard drive but in a different location.
2. You made some minor edits to a picture – let’s say you cropped it or fixed the rotation – and your image editing program saved the edited image as well as the original picture.
3. You may also have images on your computer that are “loose duplicates” of each other.  That means the images are mostly identical except for very minor variations – often happens when you capture multiple frames in quick succession.

How to Delete Duplicate Images

If you are only looking to find and remove images that are “exact” duplicates of each other, Google’s Picasa desktop software could be a good solution. Just import all your picture folders into Picasa and then choose Tools –> Experimental –> Show Duplicate Files to see a list of potential duplicates.

While removing duplicate images with Picasa, please remember that the software will list all copies that are found of an image including the original one. You therefore need to keep one of these copies and delete the rest as demonstrated in the above screencast.

Alternatively, create a separate folder that’s not included in Picasa and move all the potential duplicate photographs to that folder instead of deleting them.

Find and Delete Similar Images (not exactly duplicates)

Now Picasa is a good solution for deleting identical duplicates but your disk may also be storing have pictures that look similar visually but may differ as far as pixels or bytes are considered. Such files won’t be recognized by Picasa as duplicates but VisiPic, a tiny utility for Windows, can come really handy here.

To get started, launch the program and click File – > Add Folder to add folder(s) that you want to scan for duplicates. Then slide the Filter to somewhere between “Strict” and “Basic” so that program may group images that are similar or only slightly different. Hit play to begin scanning for duplicates.

To eliminate the duplicates, just move your mouse over the thumbnails and left-click the pictures you want to delete. They’ll be marked with a recycle bin icon and you may then either choose “Delete” or even “Move” to transfer them to a separate folder.

The tool is also smart enough to auto-select images for deletion that either have lower resolution or lower file-size than the original image.

Tools for Managing EXIF Data of your Images

When you capture a photograph with your digital camera, the camera will not only store the current date and time into the image file but even the camera settings.

Exif Metadata in Photographs

The information that is recorded by the camera into the photograph may include details about the camera model itself, the lens that was used, shutter speed, aperture, focal length and so on. Some modern digital cameras and camera phones are GPS enabled and they can therefore save even the location co-ordinates (latitude and longitude) with the photographs.

All this “metadata” is embedded into photographs using the standard Exif format that can easily be read by most image editing programs as well as online photo sharing websites like Flickr and Picasa Web Albums.

1. How to View Exif Data of Images

If you are impressed by a photograph and would like to know more about the camera make and the lens settings that were used when capturing that picture, here’s what you can do do.

Go to Jeffrey’s Exif Viewer and upload the photograph (or if you found the picture on the web, simply copy-paste the image URL). The tool will create a nice summary of all the meta data stored in that photograph along with the location information (see example).

Alternatively, you may use Google’s Picasa, Windows Live Photo Gallery, or any other photo viewer programs to display Exif data from photographs on your desktop.

2. How to Edit Exif Data in Photographs

Why would anyone want to modify the Exif data of photographs? Well, there can be several genuine reasons.

For instance, the internal date of your camera was incorrect and therefore all the pictures were captured with a wrong timestamp. Or you want to add your name to the photograph’s metadata so that people immediately know who the owner is. WIth an Exif editor, you can also geo-tag your photographs manually even if your camera doesn’t have GPS.

You may be a bit surprised but Windows Explorer is actually a wonderful Exif editor. Just right click any image file, choose Properties and click the Details tab. You can now edit a wide range of metadata associated with that image from the camera model to the shooting date to copyright information and more.

Windows Explorer won’t let you edit GPS related information of photographs but Google’s Picasa software is a good choice for doing that.

Finally, if you want to change the Exif data in tons of photographs, you can edit them all in one go using a dedicated Exif editors like Geosetter or Microsoft Pro Photo.  Geosetter can pull Exif tags from one photograph and apply them to all your other photos while Pro Photo is more suited for geo-tagging pictures.

Similar stuff can also be done with the help of command like utilities like jHead and ExifTool – these are very powerful tools but implementation is obviously a bit geeky.

3. How to Remove Metadata from Photographs

Sometimes the Exif data of your photographs may reveal more than what you would expect. It may therefore sometimes sense to strip your images of all the meta information before uploading them to the web.

To remove all the metadata from a photograph, just right-click the files inside Windows Explorer and choose Properties. Now click the Details tab and select the option that says “Remove Properties and Personal Information.”

How to Find Out Where a Picture Was Taken?

Say you are exploring interesting places on the Internet and come across a gorgeous destination that you would like to visit sometime in future. The only problem is that the web photograph carries no text caption and you therefore have no clue of the location where that picture was possible taken.

Where was a picture taken?

Sometimes the EXIF data embedded in an image file can help you determine the location but there’s another alternative that is more likely to work.

You probably know that Google offers Similar Image search to help discover images that are visually similar to your source image. The same feature of Google Images can sometimes help you uncover the location of a photograph as well. Here’s how:

Go to images.google.com and drag* any image – either from your desktop or another web page – to the search box (see video for a quick demo).

If that photograph is of some popular destination, Google will mention the possible location of that image above the search results (see screenshot). In all other cases, you will at least know the original source of that image and that could offer enough hints for you to guess the actual location on your own.

[*] IE may not support drag and drop but in that case, you can click the “camera icon” in the Google search box to manually upload a picture to Google Images for analysis.

How to Train Siri, Cortana, and Google to Understand Your Voice Better

No two people sound exactly alike. Different people have different accents and ways of pronouncing words, and computer voice recognition systems like Siri, Cortana, and Google’s voice search aren’t as good as actual human beings at understanding every voice. Train your voice assistant and it’ll be better at understanding you.

Traditionally, computerized voice recognition systems have required some training before they understood you. Modern voice assistants are designed to “just work,” but you can still make them recognize the words you say more often by training them.

Siri on IOS 9.1

Apple added some voice training features to Siri in iOS 9. Activate the “Hey Siri” feature — which allows you to say “Hey Siri” and start talking to Siri from anywhere — and you’ll be prompted to perform some voice training.

(On most iPhones, this only works while your screen is on or while your phone is plugged in. If you have an iPhone 6s, you can also say “Hey Siri” while your screen is off to start a voice search.)

To activate this feature, open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad, tap the “General” category, and tap “Siri.” Activate the “Allow “Hey Siri”” option and you’ll be prompted to train Siri.

Siri will have you say “Hey Siri”, “Hey Siri, how’s the weather today?”, and “Hey Siri, it’s me.” This will improve Siri’s ability to understand you.

Cortana on Windows 10

Cortana includes a voice-training feature so you can help Cortana understand your voice better. Like Google, Cortana will upload your voice activity and store it to help Cortana learn your voice over time and understand you better — that’s what the “Speech, inking, & typing” privacy setting controls. You could disable it and tell Cortana to “Stop getting to know me,” but then it would have a harder time understanding you.

To start training Cortana, click or tap the Cortana bar on the taskbar, click the “Notebook” icon at the left of the Cortana pane, and select “Settings.” Activate the “Let Cortana respond to “Hey Cortana” option and then click the “Learn my voice” button. Cortana will walk you through saying a variety of phrases to learn your voice. All of these are things you can actually do with Cortana

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Google on Android, Chrome, and Elsewhere

Google doesn’t include a special training process on Android. However, some manufacturers do offer this feature on their devices. For example, the Moto Voice application on Motorola phones will prompt you to train it by saying several things the first time you open the Moto Voice app.

Instead, Google captures and keeps all the voice searches, voice actions, and voice dictation activities you perform on your phone. It stores this with your “Voice and Audio Activity,” which is tied to your Google account and used on Android, in Chrome, and in Google’s apps on iOS. You’re free to delete or halt collection of this information at any time, but leaving it enabled means Google will learn how to recognize your voice and the way you pronounce words over time.

To choose whether or not your Android device reports this information, use the “Activity controls” pane in the Google Settings app.

None of these training processes are mandatory, but they’ll help the service in question understand you better. If you find yourself annoyed that your phone, tablet, or computer doesn’t understand you as well as it should, it may just need some training.

Other similar programs — for example, speech-to-text programs — generally have their own integrated training features, too. For example, the Speech Recognition feature that’s been part of Windows for years can be trained to work better.