YouTube Tricks, Tips & Secret Features You Might Have Missed

Hi,Fellas

YouTube, the extremely popular video sharing website averaging more than 3 billion page views per day needs no introduction to its fans who spend a considerable amount of their time watching and sharing videos on it. While most of these users know every nook and corner of this website, there are some features that are hidden deep within, in a manner that only few of the most experienced users seem to know about them. This article contains some such features, tips and tricks. 

03:38

When I switch to my first android smartphones, I was shocked to see the battery life, it won’t last more than 6-8 hours. So I looked over the internet and found many tips. After testing them on my android I found some were effective while others were not.

If you have brought a new smartphones and not impress by it’s battery life, Don’t get freak out. I would suggest you wait for a week befor you go and complain about the bad service. Initially the battery is prime and need 3 to 4 charge/discharge cycle to get back to it’s form.

01:17

If you are reading this then you might have lost your android or just want to prepare yourself for the disaster. If you happens to be from the first group then you have my condolence. And if you belong to second group who are just anxious, then I will really like to congratulate you for taking this wise decision. It’s good to be prepared. 

Now moving on, there is no better way to find out what can be done after you lose your smartphone other than taking advice from the loser (one who has lost his android) itself. Yes it might sound little weird to you, but trust me one who lost his/her smartphone has more experience of what can be done than others.

And I consider myself as a winner of losing smartphones as this is second time in the year I lost my Android. Today I have lost my second android and I will be sharing tips on what can be done after losing your phone.

Here are few things that I learned from this experienced.

Key to get you phone back is to act immediately.

Don’t panic
I know it sounds old school but always remember you can do nothing about what has just happen. Now it’s time to be strong, act fast and start looking for it asap and be more careful with your Phone in the future.

Don’t Block the sim card Right away
Sim card is the only thing that is left of you on your phone, if you block it you won’t be able to send message, call or send remote apps to your android.

If you had set pattern lock to your handset then this might be important thing for you, contact the nearby mobile shops, explain them your situation and leave them your contact info in case the any person come there to reset the lock .

Install app Android lost
There are many apps in the market that let you remotely control your android but one that beats all the other is Android lost. This is most useful when you have leaved it some place like gym, school, restaurant. All you need to do is install the app and go to their website www.androidlost.com and Login with you Gmail account .

                               

The best thing with it don’t require any pre-installation which means you can actually install after you lost your phone. Features

• Activate alarm even in the silent mode
• Find it’s Geo location on Google Maps
• Wipe out the SD card and lock you phone remotely

Download Android lost from here

Its better to have a copy of Contacts....Save a copy of contacts in your Gmail

What to do If above methods don’t work ?

Ok, So none of the above ways can get your phone back so what to do now, this is the Final Step. Get your device track by the

Service provider itself using IMEI number which you can get on any handset by pressing *#06# and if not noted it earlier you can find it on the copy of your bill or you can find it under Google dashboard.

First get the copy of FIR from the nearby police station and then go to your service provider office with the copy of your FIR and IMEI number and they will trace it.

FYI

You might be wondering what happen to my Android, did I get it back ? Well No, I didn’t get it back. And this brings me to my final lesson.Always take care of your possession. Using all these methods stated above, can only increase your odds of getting your device back, especially if it’s lost and not stolen.

In my case, I believe that it was stolen. So I didn’t hope much to get it back. But every time, I go back to that place, it reminds me of my lost android.

Update:

Got Cerberus for me and my dad. Have been using it for a while now, and can say it’s the best security apps ever made. It’s paid though. Read more about it an other security apps here.

01:14

Most of the people asked me "How to have a copy of  my Android contacts online"? In this article you will find out different ways that you can use to sync your android contacts to Gmail with few clicks.This helps a lot when your phone get lost or stolen.Even if you change the Device.


                   

It’s always better to have your important data on cloud so that you can access it from anywhere.

You will need

SIM card and Gmail in your PC both with internet connection.

Follow the steps

If you had not already added your Gmail account to your android to it first by going to Settings>> Account and .vcf >>Add Account. 

Next go to your home screen >> Contacts >> setting>> account >> gmail  >>and make sure the active sync is on for gmail.

Log in to your Gmail account on your PC. Navigate to Contacts (top left) and you will find your phone contact automatically sync there.Be while when it is in Progress

There are no contacts available there what should i do know

Ok , so you find no contact there , don’t worry the same thing happen to me too.

Reason: Contacts are entered on the phone or sim memory are sync to Gmail.

Solution: Move all the contacts from sim memory to gmail memory !!

Follow the steps given below:

Go to contacts >> setting >> More >> Import/Export >>Select Import from SIM card >> Create contact under account >> Select the gmail option there.

After all the contacts has been copied,refresh the sync gmail contacts once again.

And now,check your gmail on your desktop and you will find your phone contacts at this time!

Method 2:-

1) On your android Navigate to the CONTACTS  >>  settings >>  Import/Export

Now look for the option which lets you send .vcf file to your gmail account (I found this option to be with different name on different devices)

Fill in the email address and send the mail

Login to your Gmail on your pc look for the mail you sent — under the attachment  click on“Import to contacts” — and it will automatically import to your Gmail contacts.

Some Google Facts(Off Topic) :

Search “atari breakout” in Google Images and you can play the game. Try it now.

 Go to Google homepage and type the words “I want to commit suicide”. Above all the search results, Google provides the Suicide Helpline number of your country.

Type any number in the search bar and Google will spell it out for you. 

Google’s home page has 28 validation errors and five warnings. Check it out here: Google Validation 

Should a U.S. Google employee pass away while under the employ of the 14-year old search giant, their surviving spouse or domestic partner will receive a check for 50% of their salary every year for the next decade.  

Google is a wedding planner. Yes, you heard it right. Plan your special day with Google Wedding.

Google Sky Maps allows you to view stars, constellations, galaxies and planets. Check out www.google.com/sky.

Thats it ! Enjoy! Please Share if you found this is a helpful article !! Thanks for Visiting

01:09

So you are planing to buy a new Android for your old folks, but wondering if they can use the complex interface? First solution that pops up, is to install less apps and increase the font size. But then, you would also be limiting the power of the gadgets. Right? So what do we do.

Android apps for Senior Citizens

You can install apps that are made for older people. These apps make the interface simpler and bigger. A good place to start is by using big launcher. The full version cost around $10 but for most of us the free version is sufficient.

Its interface is minimal and design specially for seniors having vision problems.

First time you open this app, you have to configure it. This is one time only and later it’ll apply your settings, every time your device boot.

Following are some screenshots of big launcher. Notice how this launcher changed the android interface

When you long press home screen , you have the option to switch back to default launcher (screenshot) Best of both world.

However the free version of ‘big launcher’ use default android keyboard, which is not ideal for older people with poor vision. Therefore I suggest, you use the Big Keyboard.

With big launcher, they can easily make calls, take pictures and send sos text. But let say they want to explore more apps, like use Facebook, WhatsApp. Then you may have to teach them how to use these apps, but it’s difficult if you are not living with them.

To avoid such situation install TeamViewer. With this app, you can remotely control their android and troubleshoot problem. It’s easy, cross-platform and most importantly don’t require root.

----Off Topic---- 


Things you should know about android kitkat 4.4

So the latest android version is finally here. While most of people were speculating the next android updated after 4.1 Jellybeans to be KeyLime pie but surprisingly it wasn’t. Rather Google decided to go with the name of  famous Cadbury chocolate kitkat with version name of android 4.4 instead of 5.0. In this article you will find about some of the most common question that came to our mind. So let’s get started.

When Kitkat is going to realised officially ?

Kitkat has been released few days before but as it turn out only nexus 5 are coming out as kitkat Os for now. While Google has announced the update will be coming soon for other devices in the coming weeks. So for only nexus 5 (realised in few countries only) users has access the official kitkat while others will have to wait for the update which will coming few weeks. However curious mind can try the some custom rom developed by xda developer .

Whats new on android kitkat 4.4 features?

I didn’t find major changes then the previous version. But some of the cool feature include Ok google where you won’t have to press any button. Just say ok google when the device is unlock follow by your search queries and Google will search it for you , more like what we saw in Google glasses.

Some tweaks to the notification tray has been added. The black horizontal strip for notification has been replaced by transparent background. Some are saying that recording the screen has also been added which I think is great.

Watch this video by Android developer on whats new on Android 
4.4 Kitkat

 Read more here promotional offer

When our devices will getting this update?

Google is known for preferring android update first to it’s devices than others.So it’s expected that Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and Google Play Editions Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One would be the first one to get the update follow by the others devices.

Why the name kitkat?

Every android version are named after a sweet dessert like cupcake, eclair gingerbread etc. And as Google says” As everyone finds chocolate so tempting, we decided to name the next version of Android after one of our favorite chocolate treats, the KitKat”. Although Google has confirmed that there has no official promotional link between them and Cadbury the chocolate company is giving way Google nexus 7 tablet for free as a promotional offer.

01:06

Most of the Android apps work online and why not !! Nowadays, Almost every smartphone is meant to be connected to internet 24/7.

But there times, when you don’t have access to internet like when your data pack had just expired while you are travelling, you want to save your battery or like me you are using android tablet which runs only on wifi. So I realized that it’s important to have offline dictionary for android as well.

But there is one big problem with offline dictionary. Since they have to work offline, their database is stored locally which will eat up lot of internal memory.

A typical offline dictionary app on android consume 100-200 mb of internal memory. For premium smartphones who have more than 8 GB internal memory it won’t be any problem. But for an entry level android especially if you are running short on your internal memory than you will have to compromise with the database size of dictionary and go for smaller one.

And after doing some research and try all the available options, I have come up with 3 best free offline dictionary for android ordered by their size.

3 Free offline dictionary download

1. English Dictionary – Offline

Size- 15 MB

It is best dictionary that you can have if you have limited internal memory.  Another good things that I found is that, it also has Word pronunciation option, which is really great if English is not your first language. But you need to make sure that your device support Text-to-speech functionality tough.

It also shows suggestion as you type, which is helpful if you are not sure about the correct spelling of the word. But the only drawback I found is due to its small size it doesn’t support many words but still I found it perfect is you are looking for basic dictionary app in android.

2. Dictionary – WordWeb

Size-100MB (App 28 Mb+Data 64 Mb)

I found this dictionary app better than the former one, because of it’s large database. This app has large word collection and also support words, phrases, Synonyms and derived forms like nouns and adjective similar to what we find in the other offline dictionary for android. Another good thing that really impressed me was that it has no advertisement.

So if you are an author, english teacher or need something little more than a basic dictionary then  go for this app. The only downside to this app is it consume a lot of memory space which is not suitable for basic smartphones with less internal memory.

3. Offline dictionaries

Size-Varies with package you install (usually more than 100 MB)

Although I am not a big fan of this one, it can useful to anyone looking for multi language packs in dictionary. It support  more than 40 multi-lingual dictionaries which include most common one like English to French, English to Arabic and English to Hindi.

The initial size of this app is around 2MB but after you install it, you will asked to install the language package that you like to install. Here is the screenshot of some of the size of packages. Good news is you can download the packages to your SD cards so you don’t have to worry about the size. Although I haven’t tried it myself, as I don’t have external memory card support on my android.

Try this app is you are looking for English to your regional language dictionary, otherwise stick to the previous ones.

These are some of the best download free offline dictionary for android. If you face any problem with any of them then let me know.

00:57

Dear RTT, I am using Android from a long time now, and I always wonder which is the correct way to close an app on Android? I know one can use the Home button or Back button to closes the app, I have also seen few people using task killer to close an apps. but if all three methods does the same thing , then what is the difference.

Once I closed my app, I don’t want it to run in background and use my phone resources, So I was just wondering out of these 3, which one is the proper method to close an app on Android?

Well, Mr Curious, thanks for bring this up, closing apps on android is something each of us do many time a day without giving it much thought. So which is ideal approach to close an app ? Should be press the back button, the home button or use task killer apps ? If all of them are doing the something then what makes them different from each other ?

Here is a detail guide to answer all these question.

TL;DR  You can use either of two, ie. home button or back button to close an app, both do the same thing.

Detail Explanation of Android back button vs home button

Back button: Theoretically when back button is press, it will call onDestroy(), which tell android that user wants to quit this application and system will destroy the any present information on the application. But some apps like Spotify and Google apps don’t follow this and most of the apps still remain available in recent apps. Therefore next time the user open the app he or she will see the default welcome screen of the app.

Home Button  calls the onPause() method, that tells the system to hold the information on the screen as the user will come back and use it again. And if the user don’t come back after a set amount of time these application will be reset and lost from recent apps.

Android are smarter OS. They know it well on when and how much resource should be allocated. You may have seen closed apps appearing under recent apps even if you have press the back button instead of home button. Why? This is because, retrieving apps from cache is faster than opening a new one.

And as far as allocation of resources go, Activities don’t run in the background on Android, therefore consuming very less (almost nothing) amount of memory or battery. They are just their, because the next time you open this apps, they will launch quickly.

On the contrary, it is not recommended to use task killer apps to close Apps. But sometimes, if you really need to force closed an app, then use the inbuilt force close option, available under device setting > Apps > Tap on the app you want to close > Force closed.

Conclusion

It doesn’t really matter if you press the home button or back button to close an app, it only changes what you are going to see next time you open the app while your device battery or memory remain unaffected by which method did you used for closing the app.

Via StackExchange- Android

00:54