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What to do if your keyboard on the screen. And if there are dozens of screens: At CES, the Russian design Art Lebedev, the company shows upcoming Optimus Aux Optimus popularis keyboard with a mini and a series of six unique keyboard for data input devices on the key to the home screen.
Showing posts with label Everything. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Everything. Show all posts
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Everything for Windows Updates, Adds Better Filters and Search Options
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Friday, October 4, 2013
CPU-Z Tells You Everything About Your Phone's CPU, Battery, and More
Android: Getting detailed information about your device isn't always easy. Apps like Speccy help on the desktop, and now CPU-Z can do the same for your phone or tablet.The app requires Android 3.0 and above (sorry Gingerbread users). Once installed it will give you extensive information about your device, including display resolution, SoC architecture, active RAM usage, battery health, temperature, and a ton more. In most cases, this app will probably be overkill, but if you've ever needed to know what kernel architecture your device uses, CPU-Z has your back.CPU-Z comes to Android | NirmalTVWednesday, September 11, 2013
Everything You Didn't Know You Could Do with Google's Voice Commands
Voice search is one of those features that seems silly, but is awesome once you start using it. Not convinced? Here are a few ways to turn voice search from a silly gimmick into a useful productivity tool.Google's been pushing voice actions for awhile, adding tons of new features and trying to make it seem more appealing. I, like many of you, thought the whole thing was pretty silly until I actually started using it. Now, I realize that it actually solves my biggest cellphone annoyance: typing on phones sucks.Voice search, on the other hand, is fast. Really fast. On Android, all it takes is a quick swipe up from the bottom of your screen to access Google Now, after which you can just say what you want and be on your way (iPhone users have to do a bit more work, unless they're jailbroken). No tapping, no correcting typos (as long as you're in a reasonably quiet room, of course), and no scrolling through menus for contacts if you're trying to call a friend. You can do everything nearly instantaneously—and it's more than just search.Obviously, searching the web is one of Voice Actions' biggest features, but it's more than just a faster way to type a search query. The more Google's "Knowledge Graph" grows, the more voice search actually becomes worthwhile, since it gives you a very straightforward answer to the things you ask. Here are some of the cooler things you can ask:How many quarts are in a gallon? Everybody knows Google can make calculations and perform conversions, but boy, it's a lot faster to ask it than it is to type it in. This is especially handy when you're in the kitchen and just need a quick answer, when you want to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, or...anything having to do with the imperial and metric systems, really.Define "bellwether." My friend and I didn't know what this word actually meant, so I just asked Google.Show me a video of how to peel garlic. If you specify that you want a video, Google will ensure videos show up at the top of your search results. The same works for images, too: Show me pictures of the Playstation 4 will push image search results right to the top. You can even give it more detail, like Show me pictures of the Lincoln Memorial at sunset.When does Whole Foods close? This is way faster than looking it up on Yelp or Google yourself.What's the weather like this weekend? Weather apps are usually just a tap away, but this is nice if you want to see the weather for a specific day without having to scroll through a bunch of information, I suppose.When is Father's Day? I hate holidays that change every year.What's a good Thai restaurant near me? It'll search nearby Thai restaurants. If you change your mind, you can then ask How about Mexican? It'll understand you're still searching for restaurants nearby and act accordingly.How long is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? As if you didn't already know the answer was "too long."What is area code 909? This is awesome for when you get those unnamed calls.Who is the CEO of Ford Motor Company? Google knows who a lot of people are.When is the next Red Wings game? You can also ask for the score of the last game, and other such things.What time is it in Tokyo? Never try to convert time zones in your head again.What is the status of US Airways flight 200? There are already a lot of other apps that deal with stuff like this (and can do more), but it's good to know that Google can do it too.What's the theme song to Firefly? Shocker: it's not called "You can't take the sky from me."You get the idea. It knows a lot more than you probably think it does, and anything you can ask, it can probably answer. Of course, if you're doing real research, this isn't helpful—but it's great for that quick stuff that you just need an answer to right away.That's all fine and dandy, but if you're on Android, voice actions also integrate with a lot of apps on your system—and not just the built-in apps, either. Here are some really cool uses for it:Text Kathleen "when are you coming home?" Okay, you probably already knew about this one—it's been around forever. But, did you know you can give your contacts "phonetic names" so Google can understand the more complicated ones? Just head into your address book, edit that contact, and add the phonetic name field to help it out. You can use a similar command to make calls, too.Create new calendar event, lunch with Zach at 12:30 pm. Creating calendar events is a lot faster than it used to be on your phone, but it's still one of the slowest, most annoying processes I've come across. This is so much faster.Note to self: I'm parked on level C3. This used to just make a draft in Gmail with that text, but now you can use it to add a note to Google Keep, Evernote, or Catch, which is awesome.Set alarm for 30 minutes from now, label, get laundry. This is much faster than opening up the clock app and setting it manually.Remind me to call Mom tomorrow at 2 pm. We've talked about this one before, but no list of productive voice commands would be complete without it.Navigate me to The Alibi Room. This immediately starts navigation to my favorite taco restaurant, no searching or addresses necessary. You can also add phrases like "on foot" if you want walking navigation.Call the Culver Hotel. Similar to the above, if it can find what you're talking about, it'll help you skip the search step and get straight to your call.Listen to Never Gonna Give You Up. This will start searching your music library for that song, but you can also pull it up on YouTube if you don't have it on your phone, which is pretty cool.What's this song? No need for Shazam anymore. This trick will work for finding out what's playing wherever you are. (You can also just tap the mic, then tap the music note icon instead of saying "What's this song?")Integrate it with tons of web services. If you have an app that doesn't integrate with voice actions, you can usually work around this. If it integrates with SMS or email, then you can make it work with voice actions by adding its SMS code or email to your contacts. For example, you could add your Facebook email address to your contacts, call it "Facebook Post," and say something like Send email to Facebook Post: I'm using Google Voice search! and it'll post that status to your Facebook.Do voice commands work perfectly every time? Absolutely not. It doesn't really work in loud rooms, and sometimes it just doesn't understand you (I tried to look up what a "morel" was the other day, but it just kept telling me what "morals" were). But, once you start using it, you'll get the hang of which stuff it does well and which stuff it doesn't. After that small initial learning curve, you'll realize you can save a ton of time with it over opening your browser and typing.
Obviously, searching the web is one of Voice Actions' biggest features, but it's more than just a faster way to type a search query. The more Google's "Knowledge Graph" grows, the more voice search actually becomes worthwhile, since it gives you a very straightforward answer to the things you ask. Here are some of the cooler things you can ask:How many quarts are in a gallon? Everybody knows Google can make calculations and perform conversions, but boy, it's a lot faster to ask it than it is to type it in. This is especially handy when you're in the kitchen and just need a quick answer, when you want to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, or...anything having to do with the imperial and metric systems, really.Define "bellwether." My friend and I didn't know what this word actually meant, so I just asked Google.Show me a video of how to peel garlic. If you specify that you want a video, Google will ensure videos show up at the top of your search results. The same works for images, too: Show me pictures of the Playstation 4 will push image search results right to the top. You can even give it more detail, like Show me pictures of the Lincoln Memorial at sunset.When does Whole Foods close? This is way faster than looking it up on Yelp or Google yourself.What's the weather like this weekend? Weather apps are usually just a tap away, but this is nice if you want to see the weather for a specific day without having to scroll through a bunch of information, I suppose.When is Father's Day? I hate holidays that change every year.What's a good Thai restaurant near me? It'll search nearby Thai restaurants. If you change your mind, you can then ask How about Mexican? It'll understand you're still searching for restaurants nearby and act accordingly.How long is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? As if you didn't already know the answer was "too long."What is area code 909? This is awesome for when you get those unnamed calls.Who is the CEO of Ford Motor Company? Google knows who a lot of people are.When is the next Red Wings game? You can also ask for the score of the last game, and other such things.What time is it in Tokyo? Never try to convert time zones in your head again.What is the status of US Airways flight 200? There are already a lot of other apps that deal with stuff like this (and can do more), but it's good to know that Google can do it too.What's the theme song to Firefly? Shocker: it's not called "You can't take the sky from me."You get the idea. It knows a lot more than you probably think it does, and anything you can ask, it can probably answer. Of course, if you're doing real research, this isn't helpful—but it's great for that quick stuff that you just need an answer to right away.That's all fine and dandy, but if you're on Android, voice actions also integrate with a lot of apps on your system—and not just the built-in apps, either. Here are some really cool uses for it:Text Kathleen "when are you coming home?" Okay, you probably already knew about this one—it's been around forever. But, did you know you can give your contacts "phonetic names" so Google can understand the more complicated ones? Just head into your address book, edit that contact, and add the phonetic name field to help it out. You can use a similar command to make calls, too.Create new calendar event, lunch with Zach at 12:30 pm. Creating calendar events is a lot faster than it used to be on your phone, but it's still one of the slowest, most annoying processes I've come across. This is so much faster.Note to self: I'm parked on level C3. This used to just make a draft in Gmail with that text, but now you can use it to add a note to Google Keep, Evernote, or Catch, which is awesome.Set alarm for 30 minutes from now, label, get laundry. This is much faster than opening up the clock app and setting it manually.Remind me to call Mom tomorrow at 2 pm. We've talked about this one before, but no list of productive voice commands would be complete without it.Navigate me to The Alibi Room. This immediately starts navigation to my favorite taco restaurant, no searching or addresses necessary. You can also add phrases like "on foot" if you want walking navigation.Call the Culver Hotel. Similar to the above, if it can find what you're talking about, it'll help you skip the search step and get straight to your call.Listen to Never Gonna Give You Up. This will start searching your music library for that song, but you can also pull it up on YouTube if you don't have it on your phone, which is pretty cool.What's this song? No need for Shazam anymore. This trick will work for finding out what's playing wherever you are. (You can also just tap the mic, then tap the music note icon instead of saying "What's this song?")Integrate it with tons of web services. If you have an app that doesn't integrate with voice actions, you can usually work around this. If it integrates with SMS or email, then you can make it work with voice actions by adding its SMS code or email to your contacts. For example, you could add your Facebook email address to your contacts, call it "Facebook Post," and say something like Send email to Facebook Post: I'm using Google Voice search! and it'll post that status to your Facebook.Do voice commands work perfectly every time? Absolutely not. It doesn't really work in loud rooms, and sometimes it just doesn't understand you (I tried to look up what a "morel" was the other day, but it just kept telling me what "morals" were). But, once you start using it, you'll get the hang of which stuff it does well and which stuff it doesn't. After that small initial learning curve, you'll realize you can save a ton of time with it over opening your browser and typing.Thursday, August 22, 2013
Everything You Need to Know About Gmail's New, Super-Confusing Layout
If you haven't heard yet, Gmail is rolling out a new tabbed interface for the inbox on both desktop and mobile. At first glance, this looks great for email organization. On further inspection, these new tabs are confusing as hell. Here's how to make sense of the new tabs and customize them for your own filters.Google describes the new tabs as a way to "put you back in control so that you can see what's new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read and when."You get five optional tabs, described by Google below. Google automatically sorts your inbox into these tabs using its special algorithms (essentially matching many of Gmail's existing Smart Labels, which automatically filter incoming messages):Primary: person-to-person conversations and messages that don't appear in other tabsSocial: messages from social networks, media-sharing sites, online dating services, and other social websitesPromotions: deals, offers, and other marketing emailsUpdates: personal, auto-generated updates including confirmations, bills, receipts, bills, and statementsForums: messages from online groups, discussion boards, and mailing listsYou can also choose to force starred emails from all tabs to display in the Primary tab (in addition to the other tab). To enable the new tabbed view, go to the Gear icon and select "Configure inbox." Once you do that, you'll be prompted to choose which tabs to enable and Gmail will start doing its magic, auto-sorting your inbox.You can drag-and-drop emails from one tab to the next; when you do that, Gmail will ask if you want to create a filter for that sender to send messages in the future to that tab. Handy! It doesn't, however, move existing emails into that tab.You can also create your own filters to send emails into specific tabs, as we'll see below, but that's tricky if you don't understand how the new tabs differ from Gmail's existing labels and which messages get sorted into tabs.The tabs do give you a convenient way to automatically sort your inbox according to Gmail's preset categories and get notifications at a glance for when new emails come in. However, the tabbed view introduces a new, not-so-clear element in Gmail called "categories."
The tabs are based on these new categories. When you create a filter, in addition to being able to label a message, you can now categorize it as: Personal, Social, Updates, Promotions, or Forums from a drop-down box. These, as you see, match the tabs. The problem is, you already have labels that also match these categories. Gmail, for example, adds Social Updates, Promotions, and Forums as SmartLabels in the left menu. The "Notifications" SmartLabel corresponds to the Updates tab (I wonder why they didn't just call the tab Notifications), but SmartLabels are not the same as Categories. Gmail's pre-designed SmartLabel filters makes it seem like that, but they're really two different things.I also noticed one problem where certain messages would show up under a SmartLabel, but not a category. For example: Some auto-labeled "Notifications" didn't show up under my "Updates" tab. It turns out the tabs only include emails from your inbox, not archived emails. In other words, the tabs are really just another view of your inbox. You can have more emails in the corresponding label than in the tabs if some of those emails are archived.So, a few things we've discovered from testing:If you have filters for daily deals emails and similar emails that would get categorized by Gmail as "Promotions" but have it set to skip the inbox (archive them), you won't see them in the Promotions tab unless you change those filters. The same goes for the other tabs.If you want to filter messages into a specific tab, you'll have to use the new "Categorize" option, not the labels. Gmail has added a new "Categories" label in the left menu with sub-labels for the categories, which match the tabs. In other words, all the messages under specific tabs are also in the corresponding Categories sub-label. Tip: If you want to briefly switch away from tabbed view and see all the emails at once across all the tabs, click on the Categories label.Now you'll have labels and categories with the same names. If you want to avoid confusion, you can just delete the old SmartLabels, since you can still access them through the categories in the sidebar. Alternatively, you could just hide them from the sidebar so they don't clutter it up.If you want to see the unread count for messages in the tabs, you have to click the Categories label name to expand the sub-labels. The tabs themselves only show when you have new messages, not the number of unread messages.Continuing on that theme, the unread count in the inbox label and browser tab only show the Primary tab number of unread messages, not all of your unread messages. That is by design.As mentioned above, when drag-and-dropping across tabs, you can create a new filter for future messages. However, this doesn't work if you select multiple email messages and drag them, unfortunately.Confused yet? Gmail's SmartLabels aren't perfect, and neither are the tabs. Gmail has been consistently labeling some personal emails as Promotions and putting some promotional emails in the Primary tab for me. It also seems like there's a fine line between Social and Forums messages.All of this said, it may be possible to harness the organizational power of the new tabbed interface to suit your needs better.As mentioned above, you can now create your own filters to categorize messages, thus putting them in one of these tabs. So if you have no use for the "Forums" tab, you can instead use it to collect messages from specific senders or keywords. Unfortunately, there's no way to change the tab name.The key is to make sure the filter doesn't overlap an existing filter that might counteract what you're trying to do. For example, you can't have "Skip the inbox" on a matching filter, otherwise it won't appear in the tabs at all (since the tabs are organization for the inbox).To customize the tabs:Create a new filter for the messages you want moved to one of the tabs. (For example, since I have no use for the Social tab on my work email, I'm using it instead to store emails I send to myself from my personal email address. In the search box, I put in "from:[my email address]" and click the down arrow in the search box to find the "Create filter with this search" link.)In the filter options in the next screen, choose the category that matches the tab for the "Categorize as" option. (E.g., I chose "Categorize as: Social.")You'll also have to check "Exclude from SmartLabels" just in case Gmail tries to categorize your email differently (as it did for one of my test emails to myself). Then hit "Create filter."If you also want to prevent Gmail auto-categorizing other messages in that tab, you could also go into your Settings > Filters and scroll to the bottom for the SmartLabel Filters and disable or edit the corresponding filter. However, do this with caution, as it seems there's no easy way to restore the built-in filter. It might be better to configure Gmail's SmartLabels so they skip the inbox and thus skip your tabs. About.com's Email site has the list of each SmartLabel (e.g., "label:^smartlabel_promo" for Promotions). When creating your filter, search for that "label:^" term to filter it out as you'd like.At the very least, the new "Categorize as:" filter can help you correct any Gmail errors when it comes to SmartLabels. For example, by creating a filter to categorize fellow Lifehacker editors' emails as "Personal," they now appear in my Primary tab, instead of, oddly, the Promotions or Forums one. They're still strangely "Smart"Labeled as Promotions, but at least they're in the right tab. Thinking about Gmail's new tabs, SmartLabels, regular labels, and filters can feel like you're trying to solve an annoying circular reference error in Excel. However, the new tabbed view might come in handy if you know how to harness it.And, if it's not for you, it's easy enough to get back the old, non-tabbed view if you prefer that Priority Inbox or other option.
The tabs are based on these new categories. When you create a filter, in addition to being able to label a message, you can now categorize it as: Personal, Social, Updates, Promotions, or Forums from a drop-down box. These, as you see, match the tabs. The problem is, you already have labels that also match these categories. Gmail, for example, adds Social Updates, Promotions, and Forums as SmartLabels in the left menu. The "Notifications" SmartLabel corresponds to the Updates tab (I wonder why they didn't just call the tab Notifications), but SmartLabels are not the same as Categories. Gmail's pre-designed SmartLabel filters makes it seem like that, but they're really two different things.I also noticed one problem where certain messages would show up under a SmartLabel, but not a category. For example: Some auto-labeled "Notifications" didn't show up under my "Updates" tab. It turns out the tabs only include emails from your inbox, not archived emails. In other words, the tabs are really just another view of your inbox. You can have more emails in the corresponding label than in the tabs if some of those emails are archived.So, a few things we've discovered from testing:If you have filters for daily deals emails and similar emails that would get categorized by Gmail as "Promotions" but have it set to skip the inbox (archive them), you won't see them in the Promotions tab unless you change those filters. The same goes for the other tabs.If you want to filter messages into a specific tab, you'll have to use the new "Categorize" option, not the labels. Gmail has added a new "Categories" label in the left menu with sub-labels for the categories, which match the tabs. In other words, all the messages under specific tabs are also in the corresponding Categories sub-label. Tip: If you want to briefly switch away from tabbed view and see all the emails at once across all the tabs, click on the Categories label.Now you'll have labels and categories with the same names. If you want to avoid confusion, you can just delete the old SmartLabels, since you can still access them through the categories in the sidebar. Alternatively, you could just hide them from the sidebar so they don't clutter it up.If you want to see the unread count for messages in the tabs, you have to click the Categories label name to expand the sub-labels. The tabs themselves only show when you have new messages, not the number of unread messages.Continuing on that theme, the unread count in the inbox label and browser tab only show the Primary tab number of unread messages, not all of your unread messages. That is by design.As mentioned above, when drag-and-dropping across tabs, you can create a new filter for future messages. However, this doesn't work if you select multiple email messages and drag them, unfortunately.Confused yet? Gmail's SmartLabels aren't perfect, and neither are the tabs. Gmail has been consistently labeling some personal emails as Promotions and putting some promotional emails in the Primary tab for me. It also seems like there's a fine line between Social and Forums messages.All of this said, it may be possible to harness the organizational power of the new tabbed interface to suit your needs better.As mentioned above, you can now create your own filters to categorize messages, thus putting them in one of these tabs. So if you have no use for the "Forums" tab, you can instead use it to collect messages from specific senders or keywords. Unfortunately, there's no way to change the tab name.The key is to make sure the filter doesn't overlap an existing filter that might counteract what you're trying to do. For example, you can't have "Skip the inbox" on a matching filter, otherwise it won't appear in the tabs at all (since the tabs are organization for the inbox).To customize the tabs:Create a new filter for the messages you want moved to one of the tabs. (For example, since I have no use for the Social tab on my work email, I'm using it instead to store emails I send to myself from my personal email address. In the search box, I put in "from:[my email address]" and click the down arrow in the search box to find the "Create filter with this search" link.)In the filter options in the next screen, choose the category that matches the tab for the "Categorize as" option. (E.g., I chose "Categorize as: Social.")You'll also have to check "Exclude from SmartLabels" just in case Gmail tries to categorize your email differently (as it did for one of my test emails to myself). Then hit "Create filter."If you also want to prevent Gmail auto-categorizing other messages in that tab, you could also go into your Settings > Filters and scroll to the bottom for the SmartLabel Filters and disable or edit the corresponding filter. However, do this with caution, as it seems there's no easy way to restore the built-in filter. It might be better to configure Gmail's SmartLabels so they skip the inbox and thus skip your tabs. About.com's Email site has the list of each SmartLabel (e.g., "label:^smartlabel_promo" for Promotions). When creating your filter, search for that "label:^" term to filter it out as you'd like.At the very least, the new "Categorize as:" filter can help you correct any Gmail errors when it comes to SmartLabels. For example, by creating a filter to categorize fellow Lifehacker editors' emails as "Personal," they now appear in my Primary tab, instead of, oddly, the Promotions or Forums one. They're still strangely "Smart"Labeled as Promotions, but at least they're in the right tab. Thinking about Gmail's new tabs, SmartLabels, regular labels, and filters can feel like you're trying to solve an annoying circular reference error in Excel. However, the new tabbed view might come in handy if you know how to harness it.And, if it's not for you, it's easy enough to get back the old, non-tabbed view if you prefer that Priority Inbox or other option.
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