🙏Tuesday Tech Tip - My Personal Tech Life Hacks with a School Tip

I have established in previous tips that Stuart Thomas hates things that fall under the umbrella of “damaging to his soul”. Apparently hanging pictures does this because it puts holes in the walls and “do you even understand what that means?” he says to me. He actually says that to me about a LOT of things. Well, packing our entire personal portfolio of physical personal objects into a POD to store while we build a home damages his soul also. So much so that his sour mood offended my face. So he got my “look dude, work while you complain and by the way stop being negative” talk. THANK YOU TO MY JESUS LORD WHO FIXES MY LIFE DAILY that my children were at their grandparents. I shudder to think of the metaphors that would have ensued from his mouth and spirit if children who do annoying things would have been around while we packed and moved and packed and then made lots and lots of decisions. I digress. So we are living with my in-laws in their basement. (that sounds really bad except that I’m pretty sure their basement is nicer than my entire home so #blessed) We are in a smaller space and have strictly FORBIDDEN our children from behaving as if they have revolving door access to their grandparents. I adore my in-laws and would like to keep it that way. So nutshell--condensed space, husband recovering from a soul-damaging experience, full-time life that doesn’t care you are moving, extracurricular activities (no details needed there), being an owner of too much stuff that requires you to be a decision-maker more than you care to be--equals the need for things to be #convenientplease. As usual, I use my technology to make my life easier if and when I can. Below are a list of things I do that are basically tech life hacks and :

• Take pictures of sticky notes to get rid of desk mess, favorite them or create a folder in pictures on your phone for them, then throw them away
• Take video or pic notes and add to a Google Keep note
• Create a personal YouTube channel with a personal Gmail to upload your videos, set to private and delete them off your phone
• Image search in Google and Pinterest - drop an image in the search bar to search by image
• Ctrl f in a long document to do a keyword/phrase search
• Use your phone camera in selfie mode as a mirror in case you need to pick your teeth in a pinch
• Run the sticky part of a sticky note in between keys on a keyboard for a quick-clean
• Putting your cell phone in an EMPTY DRY cup or bowl while playing music can give more volume
• Use an old phone as an iPod for music and movies. That way you don’t clutter up your current phone
• Leave the “To:” field in an email blank until you have proofed and are ready to send an important email. I do this for EVERY tech tip.
• Put an emoji or number sign (or any character that is not a letter) in front of the name of a folder or a doc in a folder that you use all of the time. Then sort your folder list alphabetically so that this stays at the top. Brandy, Tiff and I do that  for a few of our folders that we are in and out of a lot.
• Use Alexa to find your phone in the house
• Test your remote control batteries by aiming the remote at the lens of your iPhone camera. If you see a dim light you have low batteries. The lens registers that light better than the human eye.

Got a tech life hack? I would LOVE to hear it!

School Tip:

Book Creator for Chrome is an excellent tool for any classroom. You can create books or students can create their own books digitally then export and share as a epub (all ebooks professional and no are in epub format). Account and book creation are very user friendly, and the end product is very engaging. Need help? Reach out!

P.s.  As a small PSA------while you are creating your ebooks in Book Creator with your students on your chromebooks, remember that the flu season is upon us. Kids + vomit = disaster for chromebooks. Sanitize hands with water and soap because anti-bac doesn't cut it, then sanitize your chromebooks with damp not soaking cloths.

 Stay healthy friends!

🤯 Tuesday Tech Tip - iPhone's Merge Calls Feature!

That’s it. My absentmindedness has reached a pinnacle. So far, applying deodorant to my toothbrush, putting my dish towel in the refrigerator, partially driving into oncoming traffic, and forgetting my phone in random bathrooms has hurt NO ONE but me. Today, that changed……...I forgot my keys in Walmart in my haste, and it harmed another human being.

I left them at the checkout counter (and by counter I mean micro-space where the debit card machine yells at you). The ANGELIC and quick-thinking cashier IMMEDIATELY mounted a strong, intentional jog to yell at me to stop. Instead of catching me, though, she caught the pole in front of her and slightly knocked her own lights out. DID YOU KNOW THAT I NEVER KNEW THIS HAPPENED until AFTER the fact??!! Correct. I made it out to the car never knowing any of this transpired. When I swanned back inside to look,  I found this sweet person sitting in a chair, looking dazed, people standing around her, HOLDING MY KEYS IN HER HAND. People she does not get paid enough for that. I hugged her. I apologized a disgusting amount. I embarrassed myself, then awkwardly walked away. And then I realized….my husband has GOT to get better at relaying important messages to me. During this debacle, I was lost in deep thought (up to the point that I realized this selfless person was physically harmed at my doing) over a piece of news I found out later than preferred, and how I wish I could hear, firsthand, any information that is pertinent to him and me both. If that could happen, my absent-minded-factor would decrease, I just know it! I find things out DAYS sometimes WEEKS later that he SWEARS he has already told me. I will not, at this juncture, name all of his offenses. I will just lovingly say, I really should be present when he hears this information (ie: birthday party plans, family dinner plans, “Hey we are having visitors in 5 minutes”-type plans). Then I remembered one of my tips in the archives: the ‘Merge Calls” feature on my iPhone. This feature allows you to talk to 2 people at ONE TIME.  Here’s the steps---

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ONE - I place a call to my husband

TWO -   I tap the + on my call menu for ‘add call’

THREE - I dial my mother-in-law which places my husband on a short hold

FOUR - Once I have her, I tap “merge calls”, which looks like this:

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#boom---then I humbly ask her to repeat anything she has told him over the last week.

YOU ARE WELCOME! Stay diligent friends!~

Tech Tip Tuesday - My Favorite iOS 12 features

Did Georgia lay down and wrap itself in the equator? I think so. I am still sleeping like a babe though. Because I am somewhat the man in my relationship with my husband. My children don’t even bother coming to my side of the bed anymore. I would giggle a little about how many times he’s been up in the middle of the night with them but he would somehow hear that and then I would suffer his wrath (which isn’t that bad because he smiles more than anyone I know.) I digress. HE, however, doesn’t always sleep like the baby I think I am. Compound this #soextra nighttime scenario with my phone dinging ALL NIGHT, driving him crazy. Who are these people that can operate during the day without sleeping a FULL 10? (If it is not at least a full 10 for me, I am a full HOT FRESH stinkin' mess that nary a cup of coffee, pumpkin-spice-or-no, can fix.) So now that Apple has released iOS 12 I have been reminded of a feature that is even better with this latest release….Bedtime Do Not Disturb Mode! My husband should sleep so much better now! So, my blue bubble friends, let’s take a look at that and dice up a few of my favorite new features of iOS 12, shall we? P.S., Brandy Nichols buy a new phone already!

DO NOT DISTURB

Although this is already a feature of iOS, you can now customize it a little more. When you go into your DO NOT DISTURB setting on your iphone you will now see Bedtime Mode. Swipe right on that sucker, then again on Scheduled and Bedtime, set your time, and voila, you are notification free with a dim screen for the time period you set!

ADD STICKERS TO PHOTOS IN IMESSAGE

I know you are all dying to learn how to better your selfie game, right? #eyeroll BUT for some, you might enjoy the new feature in the camera in iMessage. You can send a pic in a message with a sticker on it. See my elation below:

And he moves. My children will love this…. Anyway, just tap the camera icon in an iMessage text, tap the star at the bottom left, then tap the filter, text, or sticker button of your choice. Play around with it for fun!

SCREEN TIME--WHAT???

Apparently we, as a society, need to be more device-aware. I know that comes as a shock to most of you, however, Apple felt this so urgently that it created a Screen Time feature that allows one to monitor their phone usage. But guess what gives me #allthefeels about this feature? It will give you data on ALL PHONES ON YOUR ICLOUD! Just DANG Gina! Parents everywhere rejoice! I have a tween who oh-so-covets more time on her iphone (that is my old 6 with a shattered screen and no cell service), and a 5 year old that JUST WANTS TO WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEOS ALL DAY LONG. And p.s. the videos are a little awkward. You can set time limits on the amount of time they spend on their device AND you can set down time so that they can’t, I dunno, sneak their phone while you’re passed out asleep and hit up all the social media. It’s so wonderful and robust that it’s too long to include at this juncture. SO, here is a link to some really awesome tutorials with pictures! You’re welcome!

Really awesome screen time tutorial JUST for your phone

Really awesome screen time tutorial for another phone on your icloud

SAVE YOUR PASSWORDS

Not a lot of explanation needed here. There is a new feature that will scour your history to glean usernames and passwords from certain sites you’ve frequented. Remember, this is just happening on your phone/icloud account. It IS NOT floating around out there. Anyway, if you turn on auto-fill it will do just that when you visit those sites. Checkmate for convenience.

I hope you enjoy playing around with these new features. And if you haven’t downloaded iOS 12 yet, hop to it!

Information gleaned from this Digital Trends article.