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Category: Tech Mantra

Tech Mantra

Some new interesting apps to make our daily lives easier:

MyMind

This is an app which is an extension of your mind – it is called MyMind. It is one beautiful, private place for all your bookmarks, inspirations, notes, articles, images, videos and screenshots. You can share anything with MyMind and save it.

You can find it later with a simple search. No need to organize anything yourself, the app does it for you automatically! The in-built AI engine understands the stuff you have saved and retrieves it based on simple English keywords without the need for your tagging it. There are no folders, no collections, no wasted time in organizing. Just think of it as a search engine for your brain. Of course, if you like to tag stuff for any project or topic, you are welcome to do so!

Sharing to MyMind is simple on the phone – just tap on Share and select MyMind – that’s it! There is also a Chrome extension to clip stuff from the web and store it in MyMind. The more you use it, the more efficient it gets! Similar notes with images or videos or text will all be automatically linked to each other.

Just one place to save everything you care about and just one place to find it! Amazing – a game changer!

mymind is the extension for your mind.

Quick Compare

This simple app helps you to check prices and delivery time on Instamart, Zepto, Minutes, DMart, Blinkit, JioMart and Big Basket. With real-time price comparison and delivery estimates, you can make smarter shopping decisions.

Quick Compare thus helps you save on your grocery bills and find the fastest delivery option across multiple platforms instantly. Instead of opening multiple apps and manually comparing stuff, this app allows you to do this in one single app.

The comparison is also available on their website – quickcompare.in – just enter your delivery area and the product and it will get you full details of the price and the estimated delivery commitments.

Once you choose where you wish to purchase from, you can just tap on it and purchase through the app as usual!

Android :https://tinyurl.com/quickcompare

Website :https://quickcompare.in/

TapScanner

This is an AI-enabled scanner which does much more than just scanning your documents. Of course, scanning is the primary function – you can scan anytime with your phone. But it is after scanning that the real magic starts!

You can edit and sign your pdf files after scanning and then share the files to your preferred platform. IDs and passports can be scanned in Digital Format. After scanning, you can convert the scans to multiple formats – .jpg, .txt, .doc or .pdf. An eraser is in-built to remove unwanted material from scanned documents. And then, AI kicks in – if you take a scan of multiple objects, AI can count the number of objects and display the results. And, if you scan a food item, it will even calculate the number of calories in that dish! Scan plants and get AI plant tips, along with recommendations!

A very interesting way to scan using AI – there is a free trial and if you like what you experience – go ahead and buy it!

Android :https://tinyurl.com/tpscn

YouTube Create

Convert your phone into a dashcam with Droid Dashcam!

Droid Dashcam is a great driving video recorder (dashboard camera, BlackBox) app for car / vehicle drivers that can continuously record videos in loop mode, add subtitles with needed information directly on those videos and record in the background, auto start recording, and much more.

You can overlay captions directly on the Recording Video file, including Timestamp (Date), Location Address, GPS Coordinates, Speed (based on GPS data), etc. You can continue recording in the background and use other apps that don’t use camera. You can also use the notification panel to start/stop recording while this app is running in the background. You can use any camera for recording (rear / front) but only some devices allow you to choose a camera with a wide-angle lens.

Overall, it is a great app if you will use your dashcam sparingly and do not need it daily.

Android : https://tinyurl.com/ytcrte

Tech Mantra

Some more productivity apps for this edition:

Simple Login – Anti Spam

When you give away your personal email ID online to anyone, there is a good chance that the same would end up with a spammer or a hacker. SimpleLogin acts as a firewall to protect your personal email inbox.

SimpleLogin is an open-source solution to protect your email inbox. It allows you to quickly create a random email address, an alias. All emails sent to that alias are forwarded to your personal email address.

You can use the alias when subscribing to a newsletter, signing up for a new account, or giving your email to someone you don’t trust. Not only an alias can receive emails, it can also send emails. An alias is a full-fledged email address.

Later, you can simply block or delete an alias if it’s too spammy. That’s it!

Android: https://bit.ly/4gjd8dy

 

USB Lockit – Pendrive Password

This app allows you to lock / unlock your USB drives. If you have USB drives with photos, audios, videos, etc. and would like to lock them with a password, this app is for you. Once the drive is locked, nobody can access your files without unlocking it by entering the password!

The locking / unlocking can be done easily, by inserting the USB drive in your phone / Laptop C-Type port and going through 3 quick steps:

1. To lock the USB drive and protects all your files, simply set a PIN and click on LOCK button.

2. To unlock the USB drive and access to all your files, enter your PIN and click on UNLOCK button.

3. To relock the USB drive without entering the PIN every time, just a click on the LOCK button.

ATTENTION: If you lose or forget the PIN, it cannot be recovered. It is advisable to write it in a safe place.

Android : https://bit.ly/3PVFQ9S

Windows : https://www.usblockit.com/

 

Auto Answer Call—Raise to Ear

If you are tired of always having to swipe in order to answer an incoming call, Auto Answer Call lets you answer a call by simply holding your phone to your ear. When your phone rings and the app detects that it is near your ear, it will beep once and automatically answer the call. It’s that simple!

NOTE: The app does not currently work for WhatsApp calls.

It works with your existing call screen / phone app and is very easy to enable and disable. You also have an option to end an ongoing call by turning the phone face down and to automatically turn down the ringer volume once the phone has been picked up.

A very simple and efficient app for daily use – for a small price.

Android : https://bit.ly/3WBPwdn

 

Droid Dashcam – Video Recorder

Convert your phone into a dashcam with Droid Dashcam!

Droid Dashcam is a great driving video recorder (dashboard camera, BlackBox) app for car / vehicle drivers that can continuously record videos in loop mode, add subtitles with needed information directly on those videos and record in the background, auto start recording, and much more.

You can overlay captions directly on the Recording Video file, including Timestamp (Date), Location Address, GPS Coordinates, Speed (based on GPS data), etc. You can continue recording in the background and use other apps that don’t use camera. You can also use the notification panel to start/stop recording while this app is running in the background. You can use any camera for recording (rear / front) but only some devices allow you to choose a camera with a wide-angle lens.

Overall, it is a great app if you will use your dashcam sparingly and do not need it daily.

Android : https://bit.ly/42svgi6

Tech Mantra

Padlet

Padlet is an online Bulletin Board for group collaboration. It helps you to collect, organise and present anything.

Every Board begins as a blank slate. You add text, image, video and more. Then you can share the board with others who do the same. You can grow the group to collaborate to create something wonderful. It is simple, beautiful and capable.

You can post almost anything and organise your ideas visually. It helps you present and share in many ways and collaborate in real-time. You can post almost anything — images, audio, video, link to YouTube, Tweets or any web page. You can draw, sing and dance!

You can keep your group private — with invite only access, password protected. You can even go public and decide who can view and who can contribute.

You can use Padlet anywhere on any device — it is available in 45 languages with Apps for web, Chromebook, Mac, PC, iOS, Android.

With 40 million users in Business, Education and Home, it is one of the most popular Sharing Boards available. Try it — you might just get hooked!

https://padlet.com/

Gamma.app

Gamma is a new medium for presenting ideas —powered by AI. Create beautiful presentations, documents and even websites by giving just textual prompts. No design or coding skills are required.

You can access best-in-class AI for text, images and search for your presentations and apply eye-catching, expert-level designs and layouts. You can even quickly rewrite or autocomplete your content.

The app allows you to import documents, presentations or just plain text to create eye-catching presentations instantly. Once done, you can share the link to the presentation online or export it to PDF or PPT files instantly.

Gamma is more visual than a document, more collaborative than a slide deck, and more interactive than a video. Try it today!

https://gamma.app/

Lumolight

Lumolight is an open-source flashlight app that can perform both front and back flash.

It uses the screen as a front flash by brightening up and showing some static colours (defined by the user) and it uses the flashlight for the torch mode. It has “Tile support” where you can use the front flash without even opening the app, and also adjust the brightness using the volume keys.

The customisation option is one of the strong parts of this app. For the front flash, you can choose:

Colours: Which color do you want to light up

Duration: For how long it will be active.

Brightness: The level of brightness you want.

For the back flash:

Duration: For how long it will be active.

BPM (Blink per minute): You can blink your flashlight and also adjust its value.

Flash-strength: You can also adjust the flashlight’s strength. (Supported devices only)

A very interesting app for managing the flashlight functions

Android :https://bit.ly/3Zmf6oo

Braindump

Braindump transforms your voice memos into accurate, ready-to-use text notes, with AI summaries that highlight your main ideas. Just record your voice and convert it into text for easy review later. Instead of the full-length audio, you also have the option to summarise the session. You may use it for meetings, lectures, and even the occasional spontaneous ideas!

You have the option to playback your voice notes to review a lecture or a meeting discussion to ensure that Braindump has captured the essence accurately.

There are options to organise your notes systematically so that finding them becomes a breeze.

An interesting productivity tool worth considering!

Android: https://bit.ly/3CC93TK

Tech Mantra

This time we present a few nifty productivity tips for
Accountants – from the must-haves to the exotic. Each tool
has its advantages and some are those which you simply
cannot do without!

 

SENDTHISFILE.COM

Very often, we need to send
large files to colleagues, friends or family. They may be
image files or video files or just pdf files. Sometimes, it may
be large medical reports which need to be sent to a doctor
abroad for a second opinion. Most of the email clients
cannot handle file sizes of more than 20-25 MB at a time –
gmail has a limit of 25MB for attachments.
www.sendthisfile.com comes to the rescue. This is a very
simple but powerful utility which helps us send large files. You
just need to logon, create an account – yes it is free – and send
your file. As simple as that! What it does, is that it uploads the
files to a secure server, and sends the link of the uploaded
file to the email recipient. The email recipient just has to click
on the link, and she can download the file directly. So neither
your email account nor the recipient’s email account is used,
except for a brief line communicating the link.
It works pretty efficiently. The speed of the uploads and
downloads depends on the total no. of files that you have
transferred. The first time, it goes at full speed and then,
as your traffic increases, the speed slows down. However,
the counter is re-set every month for your account. So the
first file which you send in any month is super-fast and the
speed keeps deteriorating as you send more and more
files. Also, you can send only one file at a time. The other
limitation is that the recipient can download the file that you
have sent, only 3 times. And the file is held on their servers
only for 3 days. But in spite of all these limitations, it works
extremely well for most users without any problems.
If you go for a paid account, these limitations are eliminated.
Besides, it offers encryption of the data also, just in case
there are peeping toms around! Check it out the next time
you are stuck with a LARGE file to send or receive. http://
www.sendthisfile.com is a great transporter of large files!

 

NEEDTOMEET.COM

When you wish to organise a meeting of 3 or more people,
it is a challenge to check with each one about their available
timings and trying to synchronise a meet. Needtomeet.
com is a simple tool that helps you effortlessly find a
time to meet. The design principle used in creating this
service is simplicity. Meetings can be created in just three
simple steps. There is no need to register for an account
or provide any information not pertinent to the task. The
unique calendar interface allows you to select meeting
times in an intuitive and user-friendly manner and to see at
a glance which times work best for your group.
You can setup a meeting in just 3 simple steps:
1 Define a meeting and select available times. The
site gives you a link which you then send across to the
prospective attendees.
2 Attendees indicate their availability by clicking on the
link.
3 Find the best time to meet when the majority are
available!
So go ahead – schedule that meeting, organise that
event, book that trip, or set up that conference – all with
the convenience of a few clicks and an easy to use and
uncluttered interface.

 

IRFANVIEW

One of the best and lightest image viewers
that I have come across is Irfanview –
available free at irfanview.com
IrfanView is very fast, small, compact and innovative and
hence, very popular too. It is very simple for beginners and
powerful for professionals. It creates new and/or interesting
features in its own way. You need no knowledge of any
graphic programs when you use Irfanview. Just download
it, install it and run it – as simple as that. The variety of
graphic files it can handle, is to be seen to be believed. And
coupled with the Plugins / Addons available, it can manage
multimedia audio and video files too.

Although primarily it is a viewer, it gives some basic but
powerful image editing options too – you can adjust the
brightness, contrast and color of your image at the touch
of a button with a visual preview online. Rotation and
giving special effects to your images like a professional,
is a breeze. Format conversion, is as simple as clicking on
Save As, and re-sizing your large camera images before
uploading online, is child’s play. The batch-processing
mode helps you run several repetitive tasks, like re-sizing
of hundreds of photos, in a single click.
An added bonus is that you can play slide-shows of your
favorite pictures and also play movies in a large range of
formats – which used to be a daunting task for the lay user.
Capturing snapshots of your screen, running the multiimage
viewer, flipping images – one can go on and on. All
this, and much more, is available in a very light, easy to
use, intuitively designed interface.
Now, go ahead, be a PRO at image viewing and editing
with Irfanview.

 

MOVING EXCEL SHEETS – VERY EASY !!

Moving Right Next Door!
As I’m sure we all know, you can rearrange worksheets in
an MS Excel file with a simple click-hold-and-drag of the
sheet tab.

But, did you know that you can also move
worksheets from one workbook to another
using the same method? No? Well, the
good news is, you can, and it’s really as
easy as it sounds.
First, open both workbooks. (The one with the worksheet
and the one to which the worksheet needs to be relocated).
Next, arrange your workbooks side by side.
Next, you need to click and hold the sheet tab to be moved.
Now, still holding down the left mouse button, drag the
sheet tab into the other file.
You’ll see the small triangle that appears when a sheet is
moved, so you can tell where it will be located.
When it’s where you need it to be, simply release the
mouse button.
Voila!
The sheet is moved from one workbook to another. No
fuss, no muss!

Are You Tokenised Yet?

 
 

WHY?

When we shop online, say on Amazon/Flipkart, we make payments, inter alia, by using our debit/credit card. We usually enter the card details, including the card number, name, expiry date and the three-digit CVV. To make it more convenient for repeat purchases, the seller/merchant asks us for our one-time permission to store the card details on their server. If you provide permission, the data is securely stored on their servers, with encryption and masking technology. Now, if their security measures are inadequate or broken-into by a hacker, your entire data, including card number, CVV, etc. is vulnerable and susceptible to misuse, which could lead to a loss up to the value of your card limits.

Tokenisation is primarily designed to prevent such online or digital breaches.

HOW?

At the merchant’s end

Since October 2022, the RBI has mandated that the merchants will not save the customers’ card numbers on their servers. Instead, they will store a generated ‘token number’ for each debit/credit card that they want to be used recurrently on their servers.

  • What it means is that a random token number will be generated by the system, which will be stored at the merchant’s end.
  • This token number will be a unique combination of the debit/credit card number and the merchant. So, e.g., if you are shopping on Amazon, your card will be tokenised and a unique token number generated.
  • This token number can only be used to make purchases with that card on Amazon. It cannot be used on any other merchant website. Hence, a unique token number will be generated each for Flipkart, Rediff or any other shopping site.
  • Your card details will be held safe in a secure token vault.
  • This process will eliminate the possibility of hacking at the merchant’s end. Even if the data is hacked, all the hacker will receive will be a token number that will be unusable anywhere else and hence will be of no use to the hacker.
  • Thus, essentially, your card will have multiple tokens based on the number of merchants you have tokenised your card with.

For the user

 For the users (the debit/credit card holders), tokenisation is optional and not mandatory as of date.

  • As far as the user is concerned, the next time you pay online for something using your debit or credit card, you will be asked if you wish to ‘save the card as per RBI guidelines’ or ‘secure your card’. If you respond positively, you will immediately get an OTP on your mobile number linked to your card. Once you enter the OTP on the merchant site, your card will be automatically tokenised. It is as simple as that!
  • You will not have to remember your token number, nor will it be displayed to you.
  • However, you will still see the last four digits of your card at the merchant checkout page.
  • You can request tokenisation of any number of cards at a merchant website.
  • Whenever your card is renewed, reissued, or upgraded, you must visit the merchant page and create a fresh token by following the same instructions.
  • Each card you have, including add-on cards, will need to be tokenised, since each card has a unique card number.
  • If you wish to delete the token number already generated at a merchant’s website, you just need to disable that card at the merchant’s website/app, and your token number will be automatically deleted.
  • If your card has not been tokenised, it will be automatically removed from apps and websites, and you will be required to fill in all your card details every time you transact on that merchant platform.

Security

Tokenised transactions are more secure since the generated tokens are normally not reversible. In encrypted transactions, the process is reversible by decryption using a unique key, and decryption is mostly necessary to complete each transaction. It is, therefore, felt that tokenisation is relatively more secure than encryption.

Thus, from now onwards, you can transact online confidently, with the assurance that your transactions are more secure than before.

Happy shopping!

SOME INTERESTING WEBSITES

In this issue, we cover some interesting websites useful for daily use to increase our productivity.

PEXELS.COM

 

We often need to use photos from the web in our presentations, blogs, brochures or websites. Looking up images online and using them is always fraught with copyright and proprietary risks. You never know when you could be sued!

Pexels is a free stock photo and video website and app that helps designers, bloggers, and everyone looking for visuals to find great photos and videos that can be downloaded and used for free. If you see an image or video you like, simply download it – no strings attached! All photos and videos on Pexels are free for commercial use also. The only condition is that you should not profess that the projected pictures endorse your product or service. Of course, you cannot sell the photos or videos unless you have edited them or added value to the original.

If you wish, you could create your account at Pexels, which would help you create collections, follow photographers you love and get a customized, curated homepage depending on your preferences. And, if you’d like to contribute your work to Pexels, they accept photos and videos from everyone.

So go ahead and get world famous with your pics and videos!

Website: https://pexels.com  
Android: https://bit.ly/3uOKzke       
iOS: https://apple.co/3BeoZad

REMOVE.BG


This very simple website does what it says – it just removes the background from any of your photos. More often than not, when we have wonderful pics, they are marred by the background, and it is painfully difficult to remove.

In such cases, you need to head to https://remove.bg and upload your pic there, and within seconds, you can get the same pic without the background. The AI engine that drives the entire process is very efficient and can instantly give you the pic with a transparent background. You could use this for portraits, pets and even objects.

And, if you want more than the original with a transparent background, you may automatically turn that image into a design with another elaborate background with a single click! With various embellishments available, you can surprise yourself and your friends with an excellent pic with a background of your choice!

Website: https://www.remove.bg/

EMICALCULATOR.NET


 
This is a very simple and efficient EMI calculator online. Just enter the principal amount, interest rate, and loan period, and you will instantly get the EMI. It also gives you the calculations and the working for the entire calculation, the principal amount repaid, the interest you are paying each year, and their totals over the entire loan period.

If you are working for a bank or financial institution and have to do these calculations daily, they have a mobile-friendly EMI Calculator widget that you can install on your phone.

If you have a Banking or Financial Website developed on WordPress, they also provide you with a WordPress plugin which you could incorporate directly on your website and allow your users to do the calculations right on your WordPress website.

Website: https://emicalculator.net/
Android: https://bit.ly/3HNrz9B      
iOS: https://apple.co/3rGfA86

MANUALSLIB.COM


 
In this modern age, we purchase and use many devices and gadgets in our homes and offices. They all come with a warranty and a manual. The manual is invariably misplaced and difficult to find when the warranty is over. And after five years, the company website may not have the required manual or may be very difficult to locate.

In comes ManualsLib.com, with manuals of over 3.9 million products belonging to more than 1,07,000 brands. Just type in the Brand Name, Product and Model Number, and you will instantly get a pdf version of the manual you are looking for, no lengthy multi-level searches which may take a while.

They also have an Android App which performs the same function – you may also add manuals and guides to your ‘My Manuals’ list, create folders for easy access and even search inside a document!

A very valuable tool to get your manual instantly at your fingertips.

Website: https://www.manualslib.com/
Android : https://bit.ly/3BinKGX

TELEGRAM

In the world of instant messaging, Whatsapp is the number one. However, with increasing discovery of security issues in Whatsapp, Telegram is fast catching up. Telegram is a Whatsapp alternative which is fast, simple, secure and available across devices. You can send media and files without any size limitation (Whatsapp has limitations) – your entire chat history will require no disk space on your device and will be securely stored in the Telegram cloud for as long as you need it.

In Whatsapp if you create groups there is a limitation of 256 members. On Telegram, you can create groups with 2,00,000 members!

Telegram can be used on multiple devices simultaneously. This makes it so much more flexible to handle. Also, if you change your mobile number, you can easily migrate to the new number without any problem – in your settings you just go and change your number.

You can also create polls on the fly – no need to have any programming knowledge. In a group conversation just tap on attachments and the option for poll will be visible. Once you tap on that, you can create your own poll, define your questions, propose multiple choice answers and launch your poll instantly. The group members can respond – the results are visible online. Very neat!

There is a facility to neatly organise your chats in folders. So you can have a folder for your office chats, family chats or any other topic of your choice. Once you create folders and assign groups and any individual conversations there, it becomes very easy to search / locate any conversation.

There are a host of options when you send messages – you can send silent messages, schedule messages for a later date and time, send self-destructing messages, edit or delete messages after sending them and even save messages for future reference. There is an option for setting reminders for yourself, too! And just like Whatsapp, you could share your live location to your contacts / groups.

If you wish to send YouTube videos or GIFs you may search directly from your text-send window. Telegram has its own browser also, so if you click on a link, it will open in Telegram itself. It also has powerful photo and video editing tools and an open sticker / GIF platform to cater to your creative genes. It is 100% free, without ads, and there is no third-party access to your data.

In terms of privacy, Telegram offers many features – you can turn notifications on / off for multiple actions, individually or for groups. You can choose not to be added to groups by random people and also by your friends.

For those interested in maximum privacy, Telegram offers Secret Chat. Messages can be programmed to self-destruct after a pre-determined time frame after reading. This feature is now available in normal chats also.

All in all, Telegram is a growing, safe and secure platform for instant messaging. Try it out today!

Android: http://bit.ly/2Povr7E /iOS: https://apple.co/2VjExqd  

PAYMENT GATEWAYS

A Payment Gateway is a service that provides a payment transaction interface between a customer and the supplier. It can be used for direct payments in-store or for e-businesses or online commercial transactions. Earlier, banks were the primary payment gateway service providers. However, today specialised Fintech organisations are the preferred providers of this service.

When a customer makes a payment using a Payment Gateway, the following tasks are performed to complete the transaction:

1. Typically, the credit / debit card number is entered online, or a credit / debit card is swiped or scanned using a contactless card-reading device. In the case of online transactions, the CVV and the name on the card is also requested.
2. The card number is encrypted as soon as it is entered and transmitted to the Card Association (Master / Visa / Amex) through the Acquiring Bank.
3. The Card Association then routes the transaction to the appropriate Card Issuing Bank.
4. The Card Issuing Bank verifies the debit or credit available on the card concerned and sends a response back to the Acquiring Bank and subsequently to the Payment Gateway with a response code, i.e., whether approved or denied.
5. The Payment Gateway then conveys the response back to the device or website from which the transaction originated.
6. The merchant will then process the transaction for goods or services based on his own internal guidelines.
7. The entire process will take not more than five to ten seconds!
8. At the end of the day, or at periodic intervals, the Issuing Bank will settle the aggregate of transactions to the Acquiring Bank after deducting its commission on the same.
9. The Acquiring Bank will pay the Payment Gateway service provider who will in turn settle all amounts received on behalf of the merchant after deducting its charges for the same.

Many payment gateways also provide tools to automatically screen orders for fraud, blocked card lookups, velocity pattern analysis, ‘black-list’ lookups, IP address lookups, etc.

Points to be considered by a seller of goods and services while choosing a good Payment Gateway:

(i) The Payment Gateway needs to be fast and secure. Speed and security are the main considerations, since without either of them the Payment Gateway would be unsuitable for use.
(ii) A good Payment Gateway also needs to provide a variety of payment options to the user. Apart from Credit Cards and Debit Cards, many Payment Gateways in India also allow use of e-wallets, Online Banking and Virtual Cards. This gives total flexibility to the client and ensures that the client can complete the transaction, irrespective of his preferred mode of payment.
(iii) If your business is global, multi-currency options would be a great advantage.
(iv) Many Payment Gateways make it extremely easy to integrate them in your website or other software platforms, which can get you up and running immediately.
(v) The settlement cycle may vary from a day to a week which will depend on the number and value of transactions.
(vi) Earlier, there used to be one-time setup charges being levied by Payment Gateways – nowadays, the one-time setup charge is waived by many providers.
(vii) The per transaction fees may vary for each Payment Gateway and for each type of transaction. This is negotiable with the Payment Gateway service. The higher the value and volume of transactions, the lower will be
the per transaction fee. Typical transaction costs may have a fixed component and a variable component. The variable component may range from 0.25% to 3% of the value of the transaction.

PayPal is one of the pioneers in the field. It has an international presence and handles a variety of currencies. It is different in the way it handles payments. You have to enter your credit card information only once and create a user-id and password. PayPal will then handle all your payments going through its gateway. The merchant never gets to access your credit card information at all, hence it is completely safe.

Amazon Pay is designed for Amazon merchants and shoppers. It facilitates easy payment through its wallet which needs to be refilled from time to time.

Square is a Payment Gateway which also has its own hardware, making it very easy to acquire payments. The hardware may be in the form of a POS terminal, contactless slide-in, magstripe squares connected to your mobile or in-Stand form.

Among the Indian Payment Gateways, the most popular are Razorpay, CCAvenue, PayUBiz, Instamojo, PayTm and Atom. Each of them has similar features with ease of use and a variety of payment options. PayTm is easiest to deploy – both for the customer and the seller for offline and online transactions. However, Razorpay and Instamojo are the easiest to integrate
into your website. A detailed comparison between the 15 popular Payment Gateway providers is available at http://bit.ly/pgcomparison.

As for the risk factors, all Payment Gateways are regulated by Reserve Bank of India and have strict reporting norms. Transactions are encrypted with 128 bit (or higher) security protocol and are therefore extremely safe and reliable. Breaches, if any, are to be instantly reported and monitored. Hence, most of the popular Payment Gateways are safe and reliable on all counts. RBI Guidelines on Regulation of Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways are available at https://bit.ly/3tpmCwm.

In these days of growing online transactions, a Payment Gateway for your website is a must-have tool, not only for selling goods and services but also for easy and smooth collection of payments!

THE IMPORTANCE OF STRONG PASSWORDS

We have all been there – any website that we visit wants us to share our email id and insists that we create a userid and password. The normal tendency is to use our regular email id and password on all sites. This is the primary mistake we commit while accessing the online world.
 

At the same time, if you are a business owner and have a website of your own, you need to know the people who visit your website and have their email ids. Besides, you would not like anyone and everyone to access and nose through your website without proper authentication.

 

Unauthorised access to your digital world is a major problem for anyone who uses computers or any other devices, especially if connected to the internet. The effects for victims of these break-ins can include the loss of valuable data, including bank account information, money, or even having their identity stolen. Moreover, unauthorised users may use someone else’s computer to break the law which could put the victim in legal trouble.

 

Surprisingly, although strong passwords are the most important in keeping our information secure online, this fact is often also the most overlooked. It may surprise you to know that in 2013, 90% of all online passwords were considered vulnerable to hacking. It was also found that 70% of people do not use a unique password for each website they access and more than 33% users share their password with others!

 

Another study showed that a majority of users use passwords which are so easy to guess – e.g., 123456 or ‘password’ or 111111. Using such passwords is suicidal as they are easiest to guess and hack.

 

The following points need to be kept in mind for ensuring your password security:

* Passwords must be long and complex – never use personal information like name of self or spouse, kids, pets, birthdays, etc. They are very easy to guess. Never use common words.

* Passwords should contain at least twelve characters. It has been calculated that if a hacker generates 1 billion passwords per second, a 5-digit password can be cracked in 0.38 seconds, while a 12-digit password would take 12,386.42 years to crack!

* Passwords must have at least one upper case, one lower case, one numeric and one special character (like !@#$%^&) each.

* Never write down passwords, as that makes it easier for the passwords to be stolen and used by someone else.

* Never use the same password for two or more devices, as someone who breaks into one machine will try to use the same password to take control of the others.

* Never use the same password on multiple sites, especially banking or transactional sites.

* Try and change all your passwords periodically – preferably once in six months.

* Use a good password manager (like LastPass) to manage all your passwords, since it is impossible to remember so many passwords.

 

Passwords are undoubtedly essential to security, but they are not the only method that can or should be used to protect one’s computers and devices. In addition to creating a good password, Windows 10 allows face recognition (Hello Windows / Hello Asus / Hello HP). Facial Recognition uses the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) protocol. Many laptops have fingerprint and / or iris recognition devices also, which provide an additional layer of security for your devices.

 

SECURITY FOR MOBILE DEVICES

On mobile devices, a PIN or passcode is used. This is like a password for a computer, but it may have a minimum of four characters or digits and should be something that is not personal or easily guessable. Passcodes for devices should also be set to time out after a short period of time. On time-out, the code will then need to be re-entered. Ideally, the timeout should occur in no more than ten minutes, although shorter periods between time-outs are best. Besides, these days many cell phones allow fingerprint and face recognition options which make your device more secure.

 

2 FACTOR AUTHENTICATION (2FA)

The use of 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) adds another layer to your security. For every large / reputed site you visit, this option is always there. To enable 2FA, you need to download an app like Authy or Google Authenticator.

 

In the case of Google, for example, once you have the app installed, go to your Google / Gmail account (myaccount.google.com/security) and look for 2-Step verification. Once you enable it and link your phone to your Google account, every time you login to your account from a different device, in addition to your password, it will also ask you for the 2FA code. You will have to go to your Authenticator App, read the code there for Google and enter it when prompted on your computer. This ensures that even if your password is hacked, the hacker cannot get into your account without the 2FA code which is unique to you and your device. Similarly, for your Amazon account – go to your account, login & security, enable 2-step verification and follow the same process as prompted. Facebook has similar options in Settings & Privacy, Settings, Security & Login – Two-Factor Authorisation.

 

The online world is dangerous and unforgiving. Sensible use of passwords, face recognition, 2FA all add to your security levels and allow you to conduct your online affairs safely. Stay safe, stay protected in this hazardous world by using the above tools sensibly and effectively.

 

Happy Browsing!

MICROSOFT WORD TRICKS

Microsoft Word is one of the most overused and probably underutilised softwares across the board. There is so much to explore and discover to make our day-to-day working more productive. Let us see some of the daily-used tricks which make working on Word faster and more effective.

Inserting horizontal lines in Word is super simple, just enter a – (dash) 3 times and press enter and you will immediately get a horizontal line across the screen. If you want a different type of line, you can experiment with = or ~ or * or # and play around till you get what you want.

Inserting a symbol of copyright? Just use (c) and magically it will change to a copyright symbol like this ©. The same holds true for the Trade Mark symbol – enter ™ and watch it change to ™ instantly.

Para numbering in Word is something which all users MUST use. Here again, you start the first para with 1. and automatically it will start para numbering. This is most useful since it numbers all paragraphs serially and, most importantly, if you wish to rearrange your paragraphs, the numbering will change automatically. In cases where you have a large document and need to rearrange the paragraphs in multiple edits, it takes the load off renumbering the paras over and over again.

Writing fractions is very intuitive in Word. Just type it as you would want it – like 1 1/2 and it will transform into 1 ½ as you move ahead!

In all the above cases, be sure to press a space after each word to make it work seamlessly.

All accountants use Excel for Tables – we can’t live without Tables. But what if we need to insert a Table in a Word Document? There are several ways of doing this:

1. You could make a Table in Excel and Copy Paste it into Word directly. This is the easiest and most obvious. Moreover, you could make the pasted Table live in Word, meaning, if you make changes in your original Excel Sheet, the same changes would be reflected in your Word Document, live. This applies not only to Tables, but also to Graphs and Charts which are copy-pasted from Excel.
2. Creating a new Table in Word is also simple – just go to the Insert Menu and click on Table – it will show you a dummy table and you can move your mouse around and insert a Table with as many rows and columns as you like. The other option is to click on Insert Table and specify the rows and columns you want in the Table. In both cases, the Table will be inserted at the point where your cursor is currently located.
3. The next option under Insert Table is to Draw a Table manually. Just click and drag your mouse wherever you want the Table lines to be drawn, and automatically, Word will draw the Table for you.
4. Another way of inserting a Table in your document is to enter the following:
+———+————+———+ Press Enter
Here, the number of dashes that you insert will determine the width of each column. You may enter your data in the cells and move to each next cell with a Tab. When you reach the last column and press the Tab, automatically another row will be inserted and you may continue filling the cells. This way, you are not limited by the number of rows that you declare in the beginning, under the earlier methods.

Did you know that Word also allows you to sort a list of values or text or dates, one below the other? Just select the list and in the Paragraph Tab on the top, click on A?Z and voila! – Your list is sorted instantly.

In the Office 365 ecosystem, in Word Excel or PowerPoint, there is an inbuilt Clipboard which you can use across all the apps during each session and also across devices. On the Home Tab, under Clipboard in the right bottom corner, there is an arrow pointing diagonally downwards – just click on that arrow and you will get the entire clipboard history for your session.

Word and Windows also have the option to insert emojis in your documents in any text area. Just press the Windows Key + ; together and the possible emojis will pop up for you to select.

It is interesting to know that you can open most open PDFs directly in Word, and even edit them. This will work only if the PDF document is not password-protected or encrypted. However, it’s worth a try.

And if you want to share your document with others, just head to File-Transform and you will be able to publish your document on the web and share it with friends / colleagues / clients and the world at large. This could be very useful for quickly making an FAQs page or for collaboration and sharing large documents.

Now that you know what all Word can do, try these simple tricks and enhance your computing experience with Microsoft Word. Happy Wording!

PDF VIEWERS / EDITORS / CONVERTERS

PDF stands for Portable Data Format, meaning a file format which can be ported across Operating Systems. Whether you use Windows, Mac, iOS or Linux, if you get a file in a PDF format it will look just the same – the formatting does not change or get distorted. As per Wikipedia, Portable Document Format, standardised as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1993 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware and operating systems.

Opening and viewing a PDF file is very simple – most web browsers will open a PDF file directly within the browser. If you need to view the file multiple times, it may be easier to download it and view it later in any of the PDF file viewers which are easily available online for free. Adobe Reader is one of the most popular PDF viewers available across operating systems.

Creating a PDF file is also very simple. If you are using Word, Excel or Google Docs, just head to the Print option and select PDF from the list of printers available. This allows you to create a PDF of anything that you could otherwise print, including documents, sheets, emails, etc. In any of the above, you could also Save the file as PDF and that would do the job.

By definition, PDF files are ‘read only’. But there could be many situations where you may need to edit them, for example, it may be a PDF form which you need to fill, or a document prepared by a colleague which you need to edit. You may also need to convert from / to PDF format in many situations. Let us see the possibilities and the options available.

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
This is, by far, the best PDF editor available. It is different from the Adobe Acrobat DC Reader on your PC, which is just a plain reader. If you sign up for the Trial Version of PRO, you get to use the full features of the pro version. You can use PDFs on any device and stay connected to your PDF tasks wherever you go. You can pick up right where you left off across your desktop, laptop, mobile phone or tablet. You can even convert scans, images, web pages and more to PDFs and work on them on any device, anytime, anywhere. You can edit text and images, fill, sign, and work on your PDFs seamlessly and even send a link to multiple reviewers to track status, gather feedback and collect signatures. This version supports a variety of languages across your devices.

The free trial lasts for just seven days and if you wish to use it beyond the trial period, there is a price to pay. It is a bit steep, but it will give you all the bells and whistles that you may desire to use with your PDF files.

Sejda
Sejda (Sejda.com) is an easy, pleasant and productive PDF editor. Apart from editing PDF files, you can merge files, edit and sign files, and also split and compress files. By way of security you can Protect and Lock your files and also insert a Watermark. Conversion to and from PDF format from / to multiple formats is supported – Excel, JPG, PPT, Text, Word. You can extract and / or delete pages selectively within PDFs. A special utility allows you to extract images from a PDF file. OCR is supported with the ability to Resize and Rotate the contents.

You can use Sejda directly online, on the web, or download the Desktop version and use it offline. The Web version works in your browser. Their servers process the files and send them back to you after editing / conversion. Your files stay secure and after processing they are permanently deleted. The Desktop version works offline just like the online version, and the files never leave your computer. You can use the desktop version on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

The free version has daily limits such as three tasks per day, documents up to 50 MB and 200 pages and images up to 5 MB. For a reasonable, nominal fee you could unlock these limitations and use it for unlimited tasks.

XODO PDF Reader
One of the best PDF editors for Android. It lets you create and edit PDFs. You can also write directly onto existing PDFs, highlight and underline text, fill forms, sign documents and take notes on blank PDFs. You can auto-sync the work that you do, with your cloud storage and annotate PDFs with others in real time!

Drawboard PDF
Drawboard PDF is the most intuitive PDF app on the Microsoft Store. Designed to replace pen and paper, an extensive array of tools and intuitive interface make Drawboard PDF the #1 rated productivity app on the Microsoft Store. With a wonderfully intuitive layout and the radial menu button, you can switch quickly between documents and customise your layout style. If you are using a touch screen, the pressure-sensitive ink with colour choice, custom opacity and thickness create an experience even better than pen and paper. You can insert editable shapes, lines, arrows and insert dynamic content like ink signatures, images, text boxes and notes. And, of course, the regular PDF editing tools are all there – rotate, insert, delete pages, annotate, import and export and much more. Available in multiple languages, it also provides relevant industry tools for drafters and engineers to project managers.

ILovePDF
ILovePDF (ILovePDF.com) gives you every tool that you need to work with PDFs in one place. All are FREE and easy to use. Merge, split, compress, convert, rotate, unlock and watermark PDFs all with just a few clicks. Conversion of PDFs is such a breeze with this tool. You may convert to or from the PDF format to multiple formats. All conversions are online and easy to use. You need not download any app for the purpose.

However, if you need a desktop version, you may download from ILovePDF.com/Desktop and use it from the comfort of your device. And, of course, if you need an Android or iOS app, you can install it from ILovePDF.com/mobile. A very efficient tool to manage your PDFs from any device!

There are so many other such tools which help you to handle PDF files on the go. Which one do you like and use? Write to me and share your experiences.

SOME INTERESTING FREE WINDOWS 10 APPS & DOWNLOADS

We have all been using Windows 10 for many years now. However, there are some hidden, little-known apps and some free third-party apps which can make our productivity soar in multiple ways. Here are a few of them which you can use in your day-to-day work life.

STICKY NOTES
We have all used Sticky Notes some time or other at the workplace. Windows 10 offers you digital Sticky Notes right on your desktop. Just press the Windows Key and type Sticky Notes and you will be presented with the Sticky Notes app. You may create as many Sticky Notes as you desire and paste them at your desired locations on your desktop. You can format the Sticky Notes, add pictures, create bulleted lists and assign some basic colours to your Sticky Notes based on your preferences and categorisation of each or a group of Notes.

If you are using a Microsoft Launcher on your Android phone, you will be able to sync the Notes to your phone automatically and effortlessly.

This is a very simple tool to boost your productivity and comes in-built with Windows 10. Try it and use it – it is free, right on your desktop.

NIGHT LIGHT SETTINGS
All computer monitors emanate light which hits our eyes all the time. Prolonged usage could tire our eyes. Besides, after sunset, the blue light emanating from the monitor could even affect our eyes adversely. Windows 10 allows us to change our display settings to reduce the strain on our eyes.

On any blank area of the desktop, right-click with your mouse and then select Display Settings. In the Find a Setting box on the top left, just type Night Light and select the item displayed for Night Light. The Night Light Settings will be displayed. Here, you can turn Night Light on or off manually. You may also select the strength or intensity of the light when the Night Light is on, based on your comfort level.

If you wish to automate the process, you could set the time when Night Light comes on and when it would be turned off. Further, if you switch on your location settings for Windows, the system will automatically turn it on at Sunset and turn it off at Sunrise.

Pretty cool and comfy!

EVERYTHING
This is a very simple and extremely fast utility which allows you to search all areas on your computer in a jiffy.

Very often, we just remember the name of the file, but just can’t remember where it is buried in the plethora of folders and multiple sub-folders on our hard disk. For all you know, it may be lying on the external drive of our computer or even on a data card, inserted into our computer. Sometimes, we may not even remember the file name accurately, but we may just remember that it is a document file or an image file.

Windows 10 provides native search across the entire ecosystem. But if you have ever tried it, it can be very tardy and time-consuming, especially if you have a large hard disk with multiple levels of folders.

This is where Everything steps in. Once you download and install it, just enter the name or part name of the file you are searching and you will be amazed at the speed of the results. You can even search for part of the file name or for a type of file in combination with its name. The Advanced Search option allows you to specify matching case, any or all words in the file name and much more.

From the list of files displayed, you may double-click any file to open it.

You can download Everything from https://www.voidtools.com/. Try it once, you will never use Windows Search ever again.

FILE-CONVERTER
There are loads of file converters available online. Zamzar.com is one of the popular options which allows you to convert files from one format to another. For using the online file converter, you must upload your file to their servers and then specify to which format you wish to convert the file. It takes a few seconds to perform the conversion and you can then download the file back to your computer when it is ready. Since this involves uploading your file to their server, many times users are worried about the privacy of their data.

Enter File-Converter – a very simple and light utility that will change the way you convert files on a day-to-day basis. Just head to https://file-converter.org and download and install the file converter. Don’t worry if you don’t see anything on your screen yet. Once installed, go to any folder and right-click on the file which you wish to convert. You will see the File-Converter option in your context menu. When you hover over it, you will be able to see the types of files to which you can convert your original file. For example, if you right-click on a pdf file, it will show you the option to convert it to a png file! Just click on your option and the conversion begins. It’s as simple as that. No need to upload any files or install any more programmes.

You also have the option to configure the pre-sets and set your choices, and the conversions are instant and free. You may choose to convert multiple files at once and either retain or delete the original files after conversion.

You may find some limitations in case of certain types of files or files which have very complex formatting, but for a major part of daily usage, this is a very sleek, swift and light utility.

So now, open up Windows and let your productivity soar by using these tips on a daily basis. Good luck!

OFFICE ON YOUR PHONE!


We are all used to working
on Office (earlier Microsoft Office) on
our desktops and laptops. Most of us use Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
routinely without even having heard of anything else. They are a natural part
of our computing life.

 

And now, Microsoft has come
up with an Android and iOS version of Office. Anyone can download the Office app on phones for Android and iOS.
The app is free to use, even without signing in. An Office 365
or Microsoft 365 subscription
will also unlock various premium features, consistent with those in the current
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. Just head to the Play Store or App Store and
download the version appropriate for your use.

 

Now, who will think of
typing letters on his mobile phone? Or making spreadsheets? Welcome to Office
on your phone – Word, Excel and PowerPoint, all rolled into one. On your phone
you can open all original Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint
presentations which you may have received by email, WhatsApp or SMS. But you
can do even more. Let’s explore.

 

In Word, you can scan text directly into a Word
document. So, if you read any printed text in a letter or book or newspaper,
you can just point your camera to the text and scan it right into your Word
document. This allows you to edit, save or forward the document for further
use. This is a real cool feature which helps you create Word documents without
having to type them.

 

Besides, if you wish to
create a totally new document, apart from typing it (boring and cumbersome) on
your phone, you may just dictate it directly. Just tap on Dictate and you will
be able to create a new Word document seamlessly. A few spelling errors, when
the microphone does not accurately catch what you are saying, may just need to
be edited and you will have your document ready in a jiffy. An easy way to
dispense with your secretary or at least not be fully dependent on him / her!
You can dictate while you are travelling or even on a Sunday when you get
bursts of inspiration.

 

Of course, the traditional
methods of creating a document right from scratch or using a pre-configured
template are also available, just in case you want to type out your document.

 

Coming to Excel, you have the option to create a
new spreadsheet the old, boring way – by entering the cells manually or from a
pre-configured template. But now you have another exciting way to create a
spreadsheet – just scan a printed table on your phone and get your cells
populated instantly into an Excel file. If the original is well printed and
your phone has a reasonably good camera, you may not even have to edit the file
– else a bit of editing may be required. But the very idea of having a full,
ready table imported directly into an Excel sheet is a dream come true – you
have to try it to experience the joy of importing.

 

PowerPoint has
the option to create a new presentation right from scratch or from a
pre-configured template. You may choose pictures from your phone and also
create an outline for the presentation. It’s a bit difficult, but still doable.
The best part is that you can Rehearse your PowerPoint presentation with a
built-in coach. Just run the PowerPoint presentation and start speaking as if
you are presenting it live. The Rehearsal Coach will analyse what you are
speaking and give you tips to improve your speaking skills – it could give you
hints such as ‘Do not read out your presentation verbatim’ or ‘Vary your tone
and pitch’ or ‘Don’t use too many filler words like “umm”, or “you see”’ or
even help you with the speed of your speech – whether you are too fast or too slow
or just right. Indeed, a wonderful in-built tool to help you prepare a
perfectly timed and worded presentation.

 

Apart
from the expected tools of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Office also helps you
with PDFs in a variety of ways. It allows you to sign any PDF document with your
signature and you can scan a document directly to a PDF file on your phone. You
can even convert your pictures to PDF, convert your document to PDF, or convert
PDF files to Word documents. Extremely useful for day-to-day functioning.

 

With QR
codes becoming more and more prevalent, Office allows you to scan a QR code and
decipher what it says – you can save it as Text or even save it as a Note.

 

Office also allows you to
create Surveys and other Forms which you
can share and solicit responses to from your clients, suppliers or co-workers.

 

And finally, Office helps
you create Yellow Post-it Notes
which can be stored on your phone and are searchable instantly.

 

The Search function in Office is very
powerful. It allows you to Search for keywords in your Office files, your media
(including text within images) and in your notes. The Search works on all your
folders within your  phone, or on
One-Drive, or on your Google Drive or any other drive that you connect it with
(e.g. even Dropbox or Box.net).

 

Now,
with so many wonderful, unique and time-saving features, why would you not use
Office on your phone regularly?

 

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your
shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And
you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…

—  Dr. Seuss,
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

USEFUL APPS AND EXTENSIONS WHILE WORKING FROM HOME

These days when we are
working from home and / or working with a reduced workforce, it is a good idea
to be digitally enabled with the latest Apps and Extensions which make our life
easier and our efforts more productive. Here are some Apps which are designed
to make a difference on a day-to-day basis.

 

Zoom
Scheduler: This nifty Chrome extension helps you schedule and join meetings
instantly. Once installed, just click on its icon on the top right and you can
either join a meeting or schedule a meeting right away.

 

It also allows you to
schedule Zoom meetings directly from your Google Calendar. Once you have set up
a Zoom meeting from Google Calendar and invited others, the invitees can join
the Zoom meeting with a single click. Makes life super simple!

 

StretchClock:
This simple extension reminds you to stretch from time to time. The timer runs
in your browser and is configurable. When the countdown timer reaches zero,
StretchClock shows easy, no-sweat exercises that you can do at your desk in
business attire. It includes some easy Office Yoga poses also.

 

You can change the settings
to match your working style. Easy to pause when you don’t need it and easy to
unpause so that the hurt doesn’t come back. You can browse through the
different exercises during your break and use the ones you need.

 

It’s a professional break reminder
for desk warriors. Take a break and follow the simple no-sweat exercises to
avoid pain and stay fit. The easy way to feel better and be more productive!

 

Free
Video Email by CloudHQ: This is a unique extension which
allows you to record and send videos directly from Gmail. If you want to stand
out in your emails or you’re just too busy to type an email, you can send a
Video Email by using this extension.

 

Video Email is 100% free
and allows you to record your video, overlay multiple filters on it and send it
directly through Gmail – all with just three taps: record, upload, and send.

 

You can also upload your
video privately to YouTube, Google Drive, or create video file (which you can
then send as an attachment).

 

This is ideal for
salespeople, realtors, lawyers, marketers, and anyone who’s looking to cut
through the noise of boring text emails.

 

Grammarly:
This free Chrome Extension is a marvellous free tool which makes a huge
difference to the quality of your communication.

 

Whatever you type in Gmail
or on Messenger or in Google Doc, or Social Media, on Chrome, Grammarly will
automatically check your Grammar, point out mistakes and offer suggestions for
the correct grammatical syntax. You may accept what is suggested or just ignore
it and move ahead. It will even suggest reframing of sentences based on the
context and what you wish to convey. Grammarly is totally AI-based.

 

From grammar and spelling
to style and tone, Grammarly helps you eliminate errors and find the perfect
words to express yourself.

 

Recommended for anyone and
everyone regardless of where they work or what they do.

 

Export
Emails to Google Sheets by CloudHQ: This is an
excellent tool for all workplaces. The data sitting in your Gmail emails can be
a goldmine. With this extension you can parse and export your Gmail messages
and labels to Google Sheets, CSV or Excel.

 

All
you have to do is to install the extension. Then on the left, select the label
to export and select ‘Save Label to Google Sheets’ in the Label menu. Once the options dialog box opens,
you can just tick the columns you wish to export, such as Subject, Sender, etc.
In options, you could select continuous export, name of a spreadsheet, etc.
Then start the export – and you would have exported all your data in Spreadsheet
/ CSV format and use the goldmine to further your analysis, tracking, etc.

 

A very neat tool to analyse
your emails.

 

Mercury
Reader: The Mercury Reader extension for Chrome removes ads and
distractions, leaving only text and images for a clean and consistent reading
view on every site. It just clears the clutter instantly.

 

Once installed and enabled,
with just one click you can read text on your webpages in a clear, uncluttered,
ad-free environment. You can eliminate all the ads and the noise surrounding
the text on your webpage. You can even adjust typeface and text size and toggle
between light or dark themes for ease of reading. Options to optimise printing
are also available to print a webpage without ads and unnecessary clutter.

 

An interesting add-on to
browse the web comfortably.

 

Now that you have so many extensions to ease
your job, you can breathe easy and enjoy working from home. Best Wishes!

SOME USEFUL APPS

In this month’s edition we
look at some apps which are useful to us professionally.

 

McKINSEY INSIGHTS


 

The McKinsey Insights
app offers business insights and analysis on the biggest issues facing senior
executives today – from leadership and corporate strategy to the future of work
and AI’s impact on business and society. In addition, explore new articles on
digitisation, marketing and analytics across industries such as consumer goods,
financial services and tech. In fresh content updated daily, McKinsey
consultants and contributing experts look at the latest in climate change,
diversity and inclusion in the workplace, organisational restructuring,
bringing data to bear on business strategy and more. Content includes articles
from McKinsey Quarterly, reports from the McKinsey Global Institute, podcasts
and videos.

 

This app allows you to
view recent and most popular content, save articles for offline reading and
register to personalise your app experience.

 

The best part is that all
content is free. Go ahead, get insights into your business and professional
world today!

Android: https://bit.ly/2Q1Un4TiOS:
https://apple.co/3l2fylN

 

LINKEDIN – SLIDESHARE


 

LinkedIn SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing
presentations and professional content, with 60 million unique visitors a month
and more than 15 million uploads. It is much more than just slides. Find
infographics, videos, how-to guides, data and analytics reports, industry
research, thought-leadership articles, Q&As, DIY instructions, visual
guides and more. You can follow companies and organisations like Dell, Ogilvy,
the White House, Netflix, NASA and more, who share their expertise on
SlideShare.

 

Students can use
SlideShare for academic research, professionals can deepen their industry
knowledge and everyone can explore interesting topics to learn something new.

 

You can save your
favourites to read later (even offline) on your phone or Android tablet. And
now you can even clip the best content on SlideShare and organise your research
into Clipboards, all in one place.

Android: http://bit.ly/2GpTq1PiOS:
https://apple.co/2Z3fjet

 

LAYOUT FROM INSTAGRAM: COLLAGE

 

This is a simple app which
allows you to stitch up to nine images together and load them onto Instagram.
Instagram allows you to add only one image at a time. However, sometimes you
may wish to combine multiple similar selfies or landscape shots to fit into one
collage picture. This app lets you do just that.

 

It also helps you tweak many
parameters for each photo, including the size, border width or zoom. You are
the editor, so feel free to experiment and get creative – tell a story, show
off an outfit, or just splice, dice and change the look of your regular photos
to convey a mood or theme.

 

The app also has three
handy buttons at the bottom to replace an image, mirror it or flip it upside
down. The final product can be quite neat and impressive. It can be further
enhanced by using Instagram’s native filters.

Android:
http://bit.ly/2L5glDI iOS: https://apple.co/2L5ljAl

 

TICKTICK

 

TickTick is a simple and effective to-do list and task manager
app which helps you make schedules, manage time, remind about deadlines and
organise life at work, home and everywhere else. It is very easy to get started
with its intuitive design and personalised features. Add tasks and reminders in
mere seconds and then focus on important work. The app syncs across devices, so
you are always up to date.

 

You can add your tasks by
voice input or by typing. With Smart Date Parsing, the date info you enter into the new field will be automatically set as due date for task reminder with an
alarm. You can set multiple notifications for important tasks and notes to
never miss any deadline.

 

You can even get easy
access to your tasks and notes by adding a checklist widget to your home
screen. That is pretty neat.

Android: http://bit.ly/2KF9uAG iOS:
https://apple.co/2N9Tp7R

 

 

INSTAPAPER

 


Instapaper is the simplest way to save and store articles for
reading: offline, on-the-go, anytime, anywhere, perfectly formatted. It
provides a mobile and tablet-optimised text view that makes reading Internet
content a clean and uncluttered experience. Read offline, even on airplanes,
subways, on elevators, or on Wi-Fi-only devices away from Internet connections.
It saves most web pages as text-only, stripping away the full-sized layout to
optimise for tablet and phone screens with adjustable fonts, text sizes, line
spacing and margins.

 

You
have the option to sort and search downloadable files for easy access. You can
download up to 500 articles on your phone or tablet and store unlimited
articles on the Instapaper website. Dictionary and Wikipedia lookups, tilt
scrolling, page-flipping, preview links in the built-in browser without leaving
the app are all available, just like in Kindle.

 

A great app to consume
content at your own time and space.

Android:
http://bit.ly/2FxujtG iOS: https://apple.co/2FAjrv5

 

I hope you will be able to use these apps
effectively to become more productive in your professional life.

C: CORONA ! C: CYBER CRIME !! C: CAREFUL !!!

With new
technological innovations all over the place, when I heard for the first time
about corona I thought it was a system virus. Somewhere, I correlated corona
with computers. My interest to know about the coronavirus increased when I saw
in the news that it’s a disease born in China. Now I’m afraid of the letter ‘C’
as it denotes ‘Corona’, ‘China’ and so on.

 

I went back to
the history behind this virus and something interesting came out of it. This
virus is similar to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) born in China in
2003. SARS-COV-1 was a virus from the animal kingdom, generally bats, that
spread to other animals and impacted humans as well. Corona-2019 is quite
similar to SARS-2003.

 

How it is
going to impact companies or individuals and why we must all be extra vigilant
and careful in this situation.

 

Someone’s fear
becomes an opportunity for someone else. But who? Any views?

 

it’s cyber
criminals!

 

It’s very
obvious that in the environment of fear about corona which came up suddenly in
December, 2019, people will be eager to know about the cure for corona disease,
the medicines, treatments and so on.

 

Suddenly,
millions of people started searching cures for the disease and these searches
gave an opportunity to cyber criminals to earn money out of this fear. Cyber
criminals are always a step ahead of the general public. And coronavirus is an
excellent opportunity for them to launch their nefarious activities while the
world is busy searching for a cure for the disease.

 

How will the
cyber criminals achieve their objectives?

 

Through phishing
and malware.

 

Phishing is a cyber crime in which a target or targets are contacted by
email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution
to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally
identifiable information, banking and credit card details and passwords.
Through emails, hackers send malicious emails containing malicious URL’s. Once
a person clicks the URL, his personal information gets shared with the hackers.

 

Another way to
send malicious messages is by inserting an exciting link on the websites that
people are searching. Once someone has searched for ‘Cure for coronavirus
disease’, a malicious window gets opened; and if the person clicks that window
he will lose his personal information, in fact, he might even lose his entire
computer database.

Why we must
be extra vigilant and ‘C’: Careful while searching about coronavirus.

 

Hackers are
writing city-specific malware to trap curious citizens. As governments across
the world are trying to minimise the risk of coronavirus, steps are being taken
to limit gatherings of people by cancelling public events, closing malls,
halls, schools, etc. Hackers have been using city-specific messages which
contain information about these government orders and asking users to click on
a link which takes them to an outside page.

 

In this example,
an email intimating the closure of schools, colleges and cinema halls in Mumbai
is used to lure the user and draw him into clicking on a suspicious link. Once
you click on any one of the outside links, it will prompt the system to open a
new outside web-page which might contain harmful malware.

 

How to be
safe in such a situation.

 

1.     Don’t click on Links: Avoid the habit of
clicking on links shared via social media, instant messaging applications, or
any other source;

2.     
Don’t open unfamiliar emails: Do not open
emails if you don’t trust the sender. Don’t click on links in emails with
coronavirus in the subject line under any circumstances;

3.    Reporting fake emails:  Report such mails to your email service
provider or to your organisational security team;

4.     
Updates on government websites: Rely only on
known sources for healthcare updates (these include the official websites and
social media channels of government health departments, union or state
governments, news publications of repute and your local healthcare
professionals);

5.     
Important thought: In today’s environment,
if someone cares for you and wants to reach out to you with some emergency
communication, they will call you or text you.

They will not
share any URLs;

6.   Updating of software: Do update all your software,
Operating Systems and mobile applications. Don’t skip updates;

7.     
HTTPS: Check the URL of websites very
vigilantly every time. A single typo could lead you to an infected website.
Refer only https websites and not ‘http’ websites.

 

These are a few suggestions which we must implement in our day-to-day
life as well.

 

BE AWARE! BE ATTENTIVE!! AND BE SAFE!!!

GOOGLE MAPS – GETTING BETTER AT 15!

Google Maps is the gold standard
as far as maps are concerned. Wherever you want to go, in any part of the
world, Google Maps guides you through accurately and, in some cases, even
beyond your imagination.

 

On its 15th birthday,
Google has announced further updates to this winner App. Here are some of the
updates it has announced. If you do not see some of them in your Google Maps
app, please be patient – they will be selectively rolled out when you refresh
the App from the Play Store within the next few weeks (plans are afoot to roll out in March, 2020), depending upon where you reside.

 

Google Maps thrives on the data
that it collects through crowd-sourcing, i.e., each of us who has Google Maps
installed, is directly or indirectly supplying data to the Google Maps central
server, to enhance the user experience for the entire population; for example,
when you look for the time estimate to reach a particular destination in real
time, Google has already collected data from thousands of commuters who are
already on that route, or have recently completed their journey. This data is
aggregated and then served to you as an estimate of how much time you will take
to reach your destination. And we all know how accurate that is. The updates
that Google Maps proposes to take this crowd-sourcing of data to the next
level. Let us see what the actual updates are going to be like:

 

Currently, there are three tabs
at the bottom of the App – Explore, Commute and For You. These
are now transformed into five tabs – Explore, Commute, Saved, Contribute
and Updates. Let us see what they represent and how they are different
from the existing tabs.

 

EXPLORE
AND COMMUTE

These remain largely unchanged.

 

Explore
allows you to explore places around you, at the current location. If you are
looking for a place to have lunch, go for a movie or to play games, Explore
will help you find the best place close by. Ratings, reviews and pictures of
more than 200 million places around the world are available, including nearby
attractions and city landmarks.

 

Commute
checks traffic around you and gives you the estimated time to reach your
favourite destination. If you are at work, it will show you the Commute
time to your home and vice versa. This happens in real time. There is also a
‘crowded-ness’ feature which tells you how crowded public transport is likely
to be at a particular time of the day.

 

Saved –
this new tab helps you locate your saved places instantly. Users have Saved
more than 6.5 billion places on their individual apps. This tab will help in
planning trips and making travel plans. It will also recommend places based on
the user’s map history.

 

Contribute: Here, again,
Google is looking at making crowd-sourcing more direct and interactive. You can
share information about a local area, traffic jam, diversions, reviews (for
hotels and businesses), photos, addresses, etc. You can add missing places,
too, and enrich the content of the maps. All your contributions would then be
pooled for the benefit of the entire user community. This could make sites and
apps like Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc. redundant.

 

Updates will
present to the user the latest trending and must-visit places near him / her.
The latest real-time Updates will always be available so that you do not
miss out on any of the new, popular places. In addition to discovering, saving
and sharing recommendations with your friends and family, you can also directly
chat with businesses and get more information about them.

 

To help you plan your journey,
Google has also added some cool new features such as:

 

Temperature –
you can check the current temperature at the destination before you start;

Women’s section –
this will help in commuting in areas where there are special sections for women
in the transportation system. For instance, it will indicate trains which have
women’s compartments, women’s specials, etc.;

Security –
this feature will guide you about security cameras, helpline numbers and
security guards available in a particular area;

Accessibility –
differently-abled people can find accessibility option also listed on the
places they plan to visit, such as special ramps, seating arrangements,
accessibility in public transport, etc.;

Live View – is a built-in feature, which
helps people to quickly decide which way to go, when they start walking with
Google Maps on. By combining StreetView’s real-world imagery, machine learning
and smartphone sensors, it can show you the way, using augmented reality.

Some of the above features are
available only in certain countries, depending on the information available in
the public domain or supplied by the users in their reviews.

 

In India, Google Maps now
provides information about public toilets around a particular location. The
company is also looking to introduce a mixed-mode commute feature across cities
in India that will show multiple public transportation modes available for
commuting to a specific destination.

 

Meanwhile, Alphabet and Google
CEO Sundar Pichai has sent his wishes through social media.

 

‘Happy 15th Birthday @GoogleMaps! Reflecting today on some of
the ways it’s been helpful to me, from getting around more easily to finding a
good veggie burrito wherever I am:) Thanks to the support of our users, Maps
keeps getting more helpful every day,’ Pichai tweeted.

 

 

 

OFFICE SUITES FOR PRODUCTIVITY

Office Suites are suites of personal
productivity products for primarily creating documents, spreadsheets and
presentations. Of late, the trend has been to move away from installed,
licensed software products towards online products that are accessed over the
Internet and are paid via a monthly or annual subscription, with free updates
during the period of subscription. In earlier days, we all started our
computers with Wordstar and Lotus 1-2-3. Office Suites have ‘graduated’ since
then, with additional features and extended capabilities which are barely used
in our day-to-day working. But we cannot do without them either. Here, we take
an overview of some major leading Office Suites for productivity at the
workplace.

 

MICROSOFT OFFICE

Microsoft Office is the king of Office
Suites comprising a complete collection of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive,
Outlook, OneNote, Skype and Calendar. If you are comfortable and used to the
Microsoft eco-system (who isn’t?) this is the best choice for you. Microsoft
365 Family (originally Office 365) and the allied range is the latest online
version of the Suite, is quite affordable, auto-upgradable and allows you to
backup and store your documents online with a whopping online storage of up to
1 TB per user, for multiple devices. You can work online and offline and the
.docx, .xlsx and .pptx formats are the gold standard for office suites. The
entire suite encompasses a plethora of features and you can utilise them as you
grow your proficiency in handling them. They also have Android and iOS versions
which work seamlessly on your mobile phones.

 

G-SUITE / GOOGLE DOCS

G-Suite is the office suite from another
online giant – Google. It offers Gmail, Docs (including docs, sheets,
presentations, forms, drawings), Drive and Calendar for business – all that you
need to do your best work, together in one package that works seamlessly from
your computer, phone or tablet. The pricing per user is very attractive in
India. You can use either the online or the offline mode as per your convenience.
Of course, it has Android and iOS versions also, which makes it easy to use the
suite from any device you own.

 

Google Docs is the free version of G-Suite
with the same powerful features, but with scaled-down capabilities and reduced
storage online.

 

Most of the features of Microsoft Office for
day-to-day use are found in G-Suite. Of course, being a Google product, the
search function is very powerful and innovative. If you are comfortable with
the Google environment, G-Suite is the best choice for you.

 

LIBREOFFICE

LibreOffice is a powerful and free office
suite, a successor to OpenOffice (.org), used by millions of people around the
world. Its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your
creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice includes several
applications that make it the most versatile free and open source office suite
on the market: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress
(presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases) and Math
(formula editing).

 

LibreOffice is free and gets updated
regularly. It is compatible with a wide range of document formats such as
Microsoft® Word (.doc, .docx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
and Publisher. But LibreOffice goes much further with its native support for a
modern and open standard, the Open Document Format (ODF). With LibreOffice, you
have maximum control over your data and content – and you can export your work
in many different formats, including PDF.

 

WPS OFFICE

WPS Office is a complete, free office suite
with a PDF editor. It is available across platforms and can be used on Mac, PC,
Android, iOS, Linux and also online. It includes many useful templates (just
like Microsoft and Google offerings) which help you to start creating excellent
documents right from the word go.

The documents created have high level of
compatibility with Microsoft Office, Google Docs and Adobe PDF. The entire
package is ultra-light with an ultra-small installation and ultra-fast startup
speed. It is available off the shelf with 8 languages for PC and 46 languages
for Android. So if you have a lot of multilingual correspondence with
international clients, this would be the best option for you.

 

With PDF, Cloud, OCR, file repair and other
powerful tools, WPS Office is quickly becoming more and more people’s first
choice in office software.

 

SMARTOFFICE

SmartOffice lets you view and edit Microsoft
Office files and also PDFs on the go. It is an intuitive, easy-to-use document
editing app with a sleek design inspired by the familiar UI of a desktop Office
document. Users can view, edit, create, present and share MS Office documents
directly on or from their mobile devices. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF are also
supported. Besides, you can print wirelessly directly from the App to a host of
printers which are WiFi-enabled.

 

Documents can be saved in original file
formats or quickly converted to PDFs. All editing and formatting functions are
supported. Support is available even for password-protected documents. Full
Cloud Synchronisation is available and you can open and save documents to the
Cloud with effortless ease with Box, Dropbox and Google Drive.

 

A must-have tool in your suite of apps for
productivity on the go.

 

So now you have many options, many of
them free – just choose the one best for you and go right ahead with improving
your productivity at work. Best wishes!

USEFUL FEATURES OF WhatsApp

WhatsApp, launched in 2009, is incredibly popular across all age groups. It’s a free service and allows for messages and calls across various mobile, tablet and computer operating systems. It is continuously introducing new features, some of which are not known to all. Awareness of these lesser-known features will definitely help us to communicate more efficiently and securely.

In the previous article (in the December, 2019 issue of the BCAJ) we covered ten useful features of WhatsApp, such as pin user, search, mute conversation, mark message as read, starred messages, chat without saving mobile number, group call, invite link, voice messages and WhatsApp desktop. In this concluding part, we shall cover some additional useful features of WhatsApp.

1. BACKUP / SECURITY

With most of our official communications and special moments with friends and families stored in the form of text messages, videos or photos on WhatsApp, we may be concerned about their availability in case we shift to a new mobile device. The option is to automate the back-up process so as to retrieve and replicate the WhatsApp conversation on the new device whenever required.

Open WhatsApp

Tap More options > Settings > Chats > Chat backup
Tap Backup to Google Drive and select a back-up frequency other than Never
Select the Google account that is activated on your phone and to which you would like to back up your chat history
Tap Back-up Over to choose the network you want to use for back-ups. Please note, backing up over a cellular data network might result in additional data charges.

At 2 a.m. every day, local backups are automatically created and saved as a file on your phone. So an individual does not have to deal with a situation where information in a WhatsApp chat is lost.

Restoration of data on WhatsApp

Install WhatsApp on your new device and register with your registered mobile number. Once authenticated, WhatsApp will provide the option to restore the previously backed up data. Click Restore and in a few moments all WhatsApp conversations with media files will be restored on the new device.

2. GROUP / BROADCAST

Group

WhatsApp group is like a joint family. All the members stay in one house known as the group in WhatsApp where the head of the family (group admin) has more rights and powers. When a group is created, only one chat thread is formed for everyone and all the conversations happen inside the group chat.

Open WhatsApp.

Tap More options > New Group > then select members to add to the group

Group Message aspects

WhatsApp group is a many-to-many type of communication. Members added to a group can send messages to the group and all the members can see the messages from everyone.

Broadcast

Broadcast is like sending the same message to multiple recipients being delivered as if the sender has individually sent a chat message. Unlike group chat, the response from recipient will be sent only to the sender of the broadcast message.

Open WhatsApp.

Tap More options > New Broadcast > then select members to add to the broadcast list
Broadcast Message aspects
1. You are the admin of your broadcast and only you can add or remove the recipients.
2. You cannot broadcast your message to contacts blocked by you in the chat.
3. In broadcast, only recipients who have added your number in their devices will receive their messages through the broadcast.
4. Replies in the broadcast will only come to you, not to the others who are added in your broadcast list.
5. No one can leave a broadcast that has been created by you, but if they remove you from their contacts, then they’ll not receive your messages.
6. You can easily see which one of them has seen the message that has been sent by you.
7. Broadcast lists are good for notification and replies do not need to go back to the group.
8. If you need a survey and wish to get response privately, then you can use the broadcast.
9. Other members of the group cannot bombard in the broadcast, only the admin can send these messages to the members directly in one go.

3. MEDIA FILES

When you download a media file, it will automatically be saved to your phone’s gallery. The Media Visibility option is turned on by default. This feature only affects new media that’s downloaded once the feature has been turned On or Off and doesn’t apply to old media.

To stop media from all your individual chats and groups from being saved,

  • Open WhatsApp
  •  Tap More options > Settings > Chats
  •  Turn off Media visibility.

To stop media from a particular individual chat or group from being saved,
Open an individual chat or group

  • Tap More options > View contact or Group info
  • Alternatively, tap the contact’s name or group subject
  •  Tap Media visibility > No > OK.

4. STORAGE SPACE UTILISATION

Considering the large number of messages and media files being exchanged on WhatsApp, there is a drastic increase in storage space consumed by WhatsApp. But WhatsApp facilitates identifying the chat that consumes storage space with details of category of files, viz. audio, video, documents, images, etc.

– Open the app and tap on the three dots on the top-right corner
– Tap on Settings option and tap on Data and Storage Usage option
– Next tap on Storage Usage option and you are done.

In the Android app, tapping Settings, Data and Storage Usage will take you to a list of your conversations, ranked by how much space they’re taking up on your phone.

You can touch any of these conversations to see a detailed breakdown of all the different types of messages – texts, images, GIFs, videos, audios, documents, locations, contacts – in the conversation. You can then selectively delete the data based on different type – texts, images, GIFs, videos, audios, documents, locations and contacts.

5. ONLINE LOCATION SHARING

You and your friends are planning to meet at New Restaurant in the city. You have reached the restaurant but your friend is struggling to find and reach the place. In such a scenario, you may share your online location with your friend to make it easy for him to find and reach the place identified and selected by both of you.

Start GPS… Launch the WhatsApp app and open the chat window of the person you wish to stream your location to
After this, tap on the attach option on the text input bar
Now click on ‘Location’ icon
Press the ‘Share live location’ bar and select continue
Thereafter, you need to choose the duration for which you wish to share your location
Select your desired duration and tap on the green arrow to begin the location sharing process. You may also add some text to customise the activity
To share your live location, you will need to enable location permissions for WhatsApp by going to your phone’s Settings > Apps & notifications > Advanced > App permissions > Location > turn on WhatsApp.

6. HIDE WHATSAPP GROUP PHOTOS AND VIDEOS FROM GALLERY

Most of us don’t have much control over what content is pushed to our phones via WhatsApp groups and this content showing up in our phone’s gallery can be a huge problem.

To stop media from all your individual chats and groups from being saved,
Open WhatsApp
Tap More options > Settings > Chats Turn off Media visibility.
To stop media from a particular individual chat or group from being saved
Open an individual chat or group
Tap More options > View contact or Group info
Alternatively, tap the contact’s name or group subject
Tap Media visibility > No > OK.
This method won’t remove already existing WhatsApp images in your gallery (you will have to delete them) and will hide new incoming media only.

7. HIDE PARTICULAR CONTACTS FROM VIEWING YOUR STATUS

WhatsApp status is a great way of expressing your mood and can be quite personal. If you don’t want to share it with all WhatsApp contacts, you can prohibit particular contacts from viewing your status updates or stories as they now stand.

Open your WhatsApp, tap on the dotted icon at the top-right corner of your screen and select Settings.
From there, select Account,
From there, select Privacy,
Check down and click Status. From here you can control who is permitted to see your status. You can allow it to all your contacts or select contacts who can see your status or hide your status from selected contacts.

To hide your status from selected contacts – Tap on Status and My contacts except… All your contacts are shown, select the one or two people to hide your status from and tap on the green mark icon beneath your screen.
Henceforth, these people will no longer see your stories / status updates.

8. WHATSAPP FOR BUSINESS

WhatsApp Business was built with the small business owner in mind.
WhatsApp Business makes interacting with customers easy by providing tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages.

Some of the features currently on offer in the app are:

  • Business profile to list important information, such as a company’s address, email and website
  • Statistics to see how many messages were successfully sent, delivered and read
  • Messaging tools to quickly respond to customers.

a. Setting up business profile

1. If you already have a business number which is primarily used for WhatsApp, you will first need to backup your chat data to cloud storage.
2. To do this, head to Chats > Chat backup > and then hit the ‘Back Up’ button. Ensure that the upload to the cloud is complete.
3. Next, download the app from the Google Play Store, install it and then launch it by tapping on the new WhatsApp Business icon on your smartphone’s home screen.
4. Once you open the app, you will first need to verify your business phone number. This will be the same number that you will use in your business to communicate with your customers.
5. Once your number is verified, you can choose to restore a previous chat associated with the mobile number. This would be the one you backed up in Step 1.
6. Set your business name and then once in the chat area, tap on the menu button and head to Settings > Business settings > Profile. Out here you will get a variety of fields similar to a contact card and you can fill in all the details that you want to share with your customers.

b. Messaging Tools

To set Away messages:
Tap More options > Settings > Business settings > Away message.
Turn on Send away message.
Tap the message to edit it > OK.
Under Schedule, tap and choose among:
Always Send to send the automated message at all times.
Custom Schedule to send the automated message only during specific times.
Outside of business hours: To send the automated message only outside of business hours. This option is only available if you have set your business hours in your business profile. Learn how in this article.
Under Recipients, tap and choose between:
Everyone, to send the automated message to anyone who messages you after business hours.
Everyone not in address book, to send the automated message to numbers that aren’t in your address book.
Everyone except… to send the automated message to all numbers except a select few.
Only send to… to send the automated message to select recipients.
Tap Save.

WhatsApp is undoubtedly a fabulous messaging tool and gets better with every new update.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has added several convenient and productive features over the years, but since its recent tie-up with Reliance Jio it is sure to come up with many more.

Keep messaging, keep connecting.

SHORTCUTS TO SAVE TIME AND COST

For a productive professional, time is money
and saving time is equal to saving costs. This time, we take a look at a few
tools that can help us save typing time in our daily routine. They are called
text expanders, i.e., you create your own shortcuts and triggers; so that once
you type a shortcut, it triggers the complete text. The text could be a word, a
phrase, a sentence or even an entire letter! Let’s get started right away.

 

PHRASEEXPRESS

PhraseExpress is a Text Expander software
which allows you to make shortcuts for your frequently used phrases. You could
be using multiple languages and customisable categories to store your phrases.
You can even assign shortcuts to generate text as per your definitions. Phrases
can be triggered from the snippet menu, by hotkey or with autotext shortcuts.
This simple, professional software is available for Windows, iOS and Android.

 

With this software, you can

(i)    Speed up your typing in any programme,
such as text editors, email programmes, web browsers, database applications,
etc.;

(ii)   Organise text snippets in customisable
categories for instant access;

(iii) Create signatures of your choice for multiple
purposes;

(iv) PhraseExpress can save hours of typing in
technical support, customer care, help desks, call centres and accounting and
commercial statements.

 

Besides, editing
phrases is easy and does not require programming skills. You can share phrases
with your team locally or through the Internet. Each phrase can be set for
private use or made public to select users.

 

The best part is
that if you work at a job that requires a lot of repetitive typing of the same
text over and over again, PhraseExpress will start to learn from your typing
behaviour and will actually start suggesting the remaining part of a sentence
that it believes you are about to type; this is somewhat similar to what you
find in Gmail these days, but the difference is that the auto-suggest is
available in any application.

 

There is a 30-day
trial and if, after that, you choose to retain the software, you can do so on
payment of a one-time fee. The software is free for personal use and you need
to pay only for commercial use. (www.phraseexpress.com)

 

Now, let us look at
the text expander extensions in browsers. Since Chrome is one of the most
popular browsers today (70% of users use Chrome) and since Chrome allows the
use of extensions, here are a few Text Expanders which are popularly used in
Chrome:

 

(To look for and
install an extension in Chrome, just search for Extension-Name Extension
Chrome; so if you are looking for Auto Text Expander, just search Auto
Text Expander Extension Chrome in Google and you will find a link to the
extension. Go to the link and click on Install and you are done. For Firefox,
you can just replace Chrome with Firefox in the above text.)

 

AUTO TEXT EXPANDER

The extension comes
with a few sample templates that you can edit as per your liking. This will
also help you understand what you can do with this nifty extension. Just click
on the Add button to begin creating your own templates.

 

Try using
intelligent and easy-to-remember shortcuts, so that you can save a lot of time
and make life that much easier. The maximum number of shortcuts is capped at
510 but that’s a lot, frankly speaking. I can’t remember more than 20!

 

TEXT BLAZE

Text Blaze requires
you to create an account (or sign in using Google) before you can use its text
expander service. This eliminates the need for manual backups. Text Blaze needs
you to enter / (a slash) before each keyboard shortcut to make it work. This
makes sense, so that when you type BRB it remains that way, but when you type
/BRB, it expands to something like ‘Be Right Back’. Or when you type /sig, it
will enter your entire signature. Text Blaze works blazing fast!

 

Besides, Text Blaze can also fill forms like Chrome does, so you can
fill multiple fields at once. You can right-click inside a field to choose from
a number of options to input. This is very useful in case you have more than
one home / office address or when you don’t remember the correct shortcuts.

 

The free version
gets you up to three groups with ten snippets in each = 30 snippets. That is a
lot and you may not need to go for the pro-plan at all.

 

PROKEYS

Prokeys takes Text
Expanders to the next level. In addition to the basic expansions, you can even
do mathematical calculations irrespective of the page you are on, or the app
you are using in the Chrome browser.

 

The basic concept
remains the same. You install the extension and customise it to create all your
keyboard shortcuts for email IDs, frequently-used phrases, signatures and so
on. You can also use it to enter special characters. So, when you enter (,
ProKeys will enter the other ending bracket automatically and place your cursor
right in the middle. Try it, it’s fun. Other options include date / time macros
and omnibox (address bar where you enter website URL) support, and clipboard
macros. To perform maths calculations, enter the digits inside [[]] (double
brackets).

 

These are a few of the interesting
productivity tools to save on typing time and speed up your work. If you know
more which are not covered here, please do write in and let me know.   

VOICE-BASED VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS HAVE COME CALLING!

Gone are the days when we
said, “Lets Google it”. The millennials say, “Hey Google!”
or “Alexa!” or “Hey Siri!”

 

Haven’t we seen ads of
Alexa and Google Home on local TV where songs are played, or the latest news is
delivered, or informative general knowledge is easily dispensed just for the
asking? Such devices are getting immensely popular and changing the fabric of
how home entertainment works.

 

So, how do they work?
Essentially, these virtual assistant devices have a mic (that’s short for
microphone!) and a speaker. They have the circuitry to connect them to a WiFi.
Therefore, when you ask a question, it’s captured by the mic and sent via WiFi
to the respective server where the request is processed. The response from the
server is sent back to the device from where the content is delivered via the
speakers. This content may be a piece of information or a song. Today, you can
ask via these devices to cast a YouTube video on to your TV or even play a
Netflix film!

 

Now, voice-based virtual
assistants are available on the phone, too. No more clumsy typing or even
tapping on the screen. Just ask what you want the phone to do. This is the
future of interaction on the phone. The creators of these technologies
initially provided a simple way to get routine mobile tasks done via voice.
These included: “Set an Alarm…”, or “Call…”, or
“Send text to…”. But that was a few years ago. Later, they added more
capability like playing songs and so on. Today, almost any information that is
available in the public domain is accessible via voice. Such apps are available
on both iPhone as well as Android phone.

 

Another popular term is
“chatbots”. This usually refers to the virtual assistants that are
available online. Customer support is the most popular application on websites
that gets millions of support requests on a daily basis. Such requests are
usually typed on a chat window on the website and are processed by a virtual
assistant at the backend. Usually, chatbots are not voice-enabled.

 

This article focuses on Google
Assistant and how a virtual assistant can be used for an organisation or
association. But first some non-so technical understanding of how it all works.

 

The Google Assistant is a voice-enabled virtual assistant app
built by Google. It is available for free on phones (both Android and iPhones)
and allows you to ask for any information that is in the public domain. Just
open the app and ask for it. Examples of information that can be asked are:
“what is the latest news”, or “when is the next eclipse”,
or “what is today’s Sensex”, or “when was GST implemented in
India”? You will be surprised at how much of what you want to know can
just be asked and answered. Easier and quicker.

 

The only difference
between the Google Assistant app and the Google Home device is that the phone
app has a screen (the phone) to show information besides speaking out the
answer. In fact, now both Amazon
(Alexa devices) as well as Google (Home devices) have devices with a screen.
Think of them as specialised screens meant for the Assistant app.

 

What powers the ability of
such applications and devices?

 

The first technology is
the Speech-to-Text engine, or S2T. Its job is to convert the speech into text
as accurately as possible. Imagine the challenge of such a system to understand
all the different ways in which humans speak. Each one of us has a different
tone of voice, different speeds at which we speak, the depth / shrillness of
our voice and our own style / accent while speaking. Even when watching movies
we know the difference in understanding the words spoken in an American film as
opposed to a British one, and how different it is from an Aussie accent. The
S2T engine must have the ability to support all this. To add to this is the
external noises that cannot be avoided. Imagine, you are in a local train or
bus and asking for information via the virtual assistant. It needs to recognise
the difference in the sound that comes from you and those external sounds that
penetrate the mic. Once it does that, it should ignore those extraneous sounds.
And all that is done today by the S2T engine.

Unknown to most of us,
today’s technology has been improvised thanks to the work done over decades. In
the beginning, the quality of the S2T engines was very poor and required the
user to “speak” her / his voice for a few hours to get it recognised. Today, it
works with no training or very limited training. The magic behind this is a
statistical method called “Machine Learning”. Millions of sample
voices of different dialects and regions and people have been fed into massive
computers. Each of these samples also has the actual words listed which are fed
into the computers. Statistical algorithms crunch all this data and come up
with what is called a “model”. The words spoken by the user are fed
into this model which predicts the likely text being spoken. You will be amazed
at its accuracy!

 

For this to work, the
voice spoken on the phone is sent to large servers sitting in a
“cloud” to process and return the equivalent text. This is then moved
to the next stage. In fact, in the next one year even this step of sending the
text to the “cloud” will be eliminated and the voice will get transcribed on
the phone itself, making it almost instantaneous!

 

Assuming that it has
correctly transcribed the spoken words, the system next needs to interpret them
correctly. This is the most difficult part of the entire process. It is called
“Natural Language Processing” or NLP. Some also call it “Natural Language
Understanding” or NLU. Imagine that you are a librarian who has access to a
vast body of knowledge. When someone approaches you with a question, you
understand the query and, thanks to your knowledge of the library, you go to
the right section to dig out the information and give it out. That ability is
the job of the NLP. Since the request is now known (after getting converted by
the S2T engine), the NLP needs to first figure out what the information is
about. Is it about a person, or about some geographical data, or about some
prices, or about current affairs? Possibly, for each of these categories of
information, there is a source available that can provide the information. Much
like the different sections of the library.

 

Have you tried asking any
of the virtual assistants for the latest news? If not, please do. How would
people ask for the latest news? “Tell me the latest news”, or
“What is the news now”, or “What is happening in the world
now”? People will not have a standard way of asking for a particular bit
of information. Each one of us has our own style and choice of words. The NLP
needs to understand that all these are different ways of asking and mean the
same thing, viz., “Tell me the news”. Once it has established what
the user is asking, the response will be something like, “The news as
per… is…”

What the NLP engine is
doing is simple; having interpreted the request to be asking for news, it gets
the information from one of the popular sources to which it is linked. It could
be BBC, or Times News Network, or any other source with which it has a
relationship.

 

Can you guess what happens
when we ask the system to play a song? Well, once it establishes that it is a
song that it is being requested to play, it will immediately forward the
request to the songs library which could be Google Music or Saavn or Gaana from
where the song is played.

 

Have you tried asking
information about a person? Even if the person is not very famous, the Google
Assistant will provide some info with links to its source. How does it do it?
When it detects that you are asking about a person, it usually goes to one of
its two popular sources, Linked In or Wikipedia, and delivers the best-guess
person’s details. In case there are many people with the same name, it will use
some other criterion to decide which amongst them it would choose.

 

The effectiveness of the
voice-based digital assistant primarily lies in the NLP engine rightly
detecting what the user is asking for and retrieving the relevant information
from one of its sources. This is called determining the “Intent” of the
request.

 

Can it go wrong? Of
course! Just like humans can make mistakes, the NLP, too, would. Besides, the
NLP is not as wise as a human. It does not have the versatility of a human
being. But over time it does a pretty good job. The first point of failure can
come where the S2T engine does not transcribe your speech correctly. Perhaps,
re-asking it with greater care would solve that problem. Then, when you ask for
information about a person, it could so happen that it picks another person
with a name similar to yours. In which case, perhaps, the query should be more
refined. At times it may misunderstand the category. You are asking about a
place while it may misunderstand it to be something else. Most users of virtual
assistants accept that it is not perfect, yet it serves an important function
and seems to be improving over time.

 

Since the Google Assistant
is such a wonderful and easily-used app, how do we enable it to ask information
that is private or local to a company? For example, would it not be convenient
to query the HR manual of a company using such a feature? Or training all the
office personnel on the products of a company? Or know the rules of GST for a
particular category of products? Just by asking. Sounds like a perfect fit,
doesn’t it?

Google Assistant has a
feature whereby an organisation or association (like the BCA) can set up its
own channel. Google calls this an “Action”. In such cases, user requests are
not processed by the Google engine but by the company’s engine. Let’s take an
example. Suppose BCA wishes to provide information to its members which is
similar to what its website provides today.

 

BCA can inform Google that
it wishes to set up a Channel called, say, “Chartered News”. What
this will do is that if the user says, “Talk to Chartered News”, the
request will be passed on to the BCA’s server for processing. It will not be
processed by Google. Now, all that BCA needs to do is to have some relevant software
put in place which will “understand” the request and give a suitable
response. And this will continue for all requests that the user makes until the
user says “Goodbye”. If required, such a channel can be restricted to
only the members of BCA.

 

This is an extremely
potent manner in which the future of all information is likely to be dispensed.
There are tools available that will help organisations create such a channel
quite easily. These tools will have to be configured to understand the query
based on the content that is put up by the organisation.

 

Where is the technology
moving?

 

Well, today Google
Assistant supports Hindi and has announced that it will soon be adding other
Indian languages such as Gujarati, Kannada, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu, Tamil,
Telugu and Malayalam. New phones (like Nokia 3.2 and Nokia 4.2) are being
introduced which have a dedicated “Google Assistant” button. This makes it more
convenient for users to access the virtual assistant. Just click on it and ask!

 

This is the new reality:
Virtual assistants are the new way to access information. If you have not
started yet, please do so or you will be left behind!

TRAVEL APPS MADE EASY

We all travel a lot these days – be
it social or professional commitments. And travel has become so complicated –
multiple modes, multifarious options and unlimited variety. Sometimes, it could
get a bit overwhelming. Here are some apps which make travel easy and at times
enjoyable!

 

PackPoint travel packing list

PackPoint is a free travel packing list organizer and packing planner
for serious travel pros. PackPoint will help you organise what you need to pack
in your luggage and suitcase based on length of travel, weather at your
destination, and any activities planned during your trip.

 

Once your packing list is built and
organised, PackPoint will save it for you, and then you can choose to share it
with your friends and family in case they need help packing too.

 

Punch in the city you’re going to
travel to, the departure date, and the number of nights you’ll be staying
there. That’s it!

 

Different lists can be saved and
customised for different types of travel – business, leisure, activities you
plan to do, etc.

 

Use it often and never forget your
_____ Again!

 

Android : https://goo.gl/kA10CP

       

 iOS : https://goo.gl/Ji8AUd


 

Moovit: Bus Time & Train Time Live
Info

Moovit is your personal assistant for Public
Transport.  It guides more than 150
million users in over 2200 cities throughout the world. Commuters will find
updated bus time and train time, transit maps, and, where available, real-time
line arrivals based on GPS devices on-board buses, subways, and trains.

 

You can locate nearby stations,
travel with on-the-go live navigation guidance and receive get-off alerts at
your destination to ensure a smooth ride. This is why Moovit has been named one
of the best apps of the year in 2016 and 2017 by the Google Play and App
Stores, respectively.

 

You have offline maps, rate charts
and an interesting option to become a local guide for your city. You only need
one app to navigate – just MOOVIT!

 

Android : http://bit.ly/2KdWn5r  

 

iOS : https://apple.co/2Mcz5xi

 


Airbnb

If you are
travelling to a far away place, in a foreign country, or even within your own
country or city, and you are looking for some pleasant experiences on a
reasonable budget, Airbnb is for you.

 

Airbnb allows you to choose from
over 2.5 million homes in over 191 countries. Search by price, neighbourhood,
amenities, and more. Go through the reviews before you book. You may search for
last minute accommodation or even look for long term stays.

 

What is on offer, is home stays
where anyone having a spare room with decent surroundings can put up their
room(s) for rent.  You get the benefit of
meeting wonderful people, getting local guidance and a reasonable rate.  For the hosts, they can realise a decent
earning on their unused accommodation, communicate with the guests and make new
friends. A wonderful concept of matchmaking for guests and hosts effectively.

 

Android : https://goo.gl/Y3GUDu 

         
 iPhone : https://goo.gl/WdHJ7i

 


Google Trips

Google Trips
makes it easy to plan and organise your travel. Under beta testing for several
months, it is now available on the Play Store (https://goo.gl/hnBejO)

 

Once installed, it scans your GMail
account automatically to look for past and 
future trips. You can now find your travel reservations and
confirmations all in one place. Besides, it also downloads nearby interesting
places to see, hotels and restaurants, recreation activities – indoor and
outdoor and such interesting stuff automatically. These are curated by experts
and also by other fellow travellers. The best part is that you will be able to
access all of this even without an internet connection when you are in that
place!

 

Thus you can get
activity suggestions based on what’s nearby, customiseable day plans, and your
travel reservations from Gmail all in one place. And every trip you plan is
also available as a Card on your Google Home Page. A must have
for frequent travellers.


 

Guides by Lonely Planet

Lonely
Planet is world famous for its travel guides – each of them curated by travel
writers who have visited each city and presents it in its true flavour. The
guides are bulky and costly too.

 

Now with this new app – Guides by
Lonely Planet – you get the city guides for free – yes you read it right –
FREE. Each city guide gives you details of what you can see (with friendly maps
and directions and wonderful pics), where and what you can eat, where you can
stay, shop, drink and play! You can save each city for offline use and pull it
out when you are there.

 

Currently, they have more than 20
cities listed and more are being added continuously.

With real life experiences and
essential tips, Guides by Lonely Planet are a boon to first time travellers to
any city – a must have when you travel to an unknown place.


https://goo.gl/daI5Eh


 

FlightAware

FlightAware.com
is a free flight tracker which tracks both commercial and private aircrafts
across the world. Founded in 2005, FlightAware has become the leading source of
flight information across the world.

 

Once you visit the site, all you
have to do is to enter the Airline Name and Flight No. and the site will
magically show you the current status of the aircraft – even if it is mid-air.
You may browse flight data by Operator, Aircraft Type and Airport.  The interface is quite simple and easy to
understand for the lay person while advanced options are available for the
geeks.

 

FlightAware also has an Android App
with the same name, which is very convenient to use. You can even receive
real-time push notification flight alerts, view airport delays, see nearby
flights (in the air!) and more.Remember to look up FlightAware if you are
travelling or assisting someone who travels by air.

 

 

TripIt: Travel Organiser

Tripit is
one of my favorite Travel Organisers for air travel.  As soon as you book a flight, hotel, car or
other reservation, simply forward it to plans@tripit.com and your plans will be
instantly added to your master itinerary.

 

All your important details like
flight timings, confirmation no., seat no. are in one place. No more
frantically searching through your inbox for them.  Important details like when your flight gets
in, or your confirmation number will all be in one place.  You can get to them instantly in TripIt, even
when you’re offline. Plus, it is very easy to send travel plans to your
calendar, or to anyone you choose. You can even update your meetings, hotel
bookings and local conveyance bookings, to give you a complete picture of your
visit in one place.

Manage all your plans for free with
TripIt, or, for about the price of checking your bags, upgrade to Tripit Pro to
get stress-free travel all year long. When you upgrade, you get additional
features like choosing the best seat, receive real-time flight alerts, get
terminal and gate reminders, track your frequent-flyer miles and much more.

An essential for Air Travel –
undoubtedly!

Android : http://bit.ly/2MxJfIS

              

iOS : https://apple.co/2MwOicp

 

HAPPY
TRAVELLING!

DIGITAL WILL OF DIGITAL ASSETS

You may have
decided on who to give your physical assets, but in this digital era, you will
also have to will your digital assets – your online photo albums, your Facebook
Account, your bitcoin wallet, your email accounts, your passwords and the
rest………that’s where your Digital Will comes in.

 

Death is
inevitable, and preparing for it is unavoidable! But many of us leave the
activity of making a Will pending, till it is too late. We have heard cases of
people dying intestate and the problems that follow – if the financial assets
are not in joint names / having a nominee, there are a host of problems with
Banks / Financial Institutions. If there is an immovable property, a probate
may be a must. And we all know the time and cost of obtaining a probate from the
High Court.

 

Digital
assets may be valuable intellectual property (IP) and hence planning about them
is important. An example could be that of a Twitter handle of say @SrBachchan.
In case of digital assets, the process is fairly simple, if executed by the
legator before death. And we must ensure that ALL our digital assets are
properly bequeathed so that the survivors are not put to inconvenience at best,
and pain at worst.

 

However, for
digital assets, there is this extra headache. It has been observed in multiple
studies, that few of us actually download and backup online content in a format
which is easily accessible to those after our death. And different agencies
have different rules for transmission of these assets to the rightful owner;
e.g. in the case of Facebook, parents of a 15 year old girl were refused access
to her account. However, in the case of Yahoo, a Court has overruled their
privacy policy, and allowed the legal heirs to access the deceased’s account.

 

Is there life after death on Social
Media?

Most Social
Media accounts continue online for varying periods, depending on the service
provider. A Digital Will will ensure that each of your accounts is properly
transferred / memorialised or closed, depending on your instructions.

 

Creating a Digital Will

A digital
will is an informal document that allows executors to access and execute your
instructions for all your online accounts.
Strictly speaking, it is of no legal value. If you want to transfer rights to
things such as a domain name or a website, it may be advisable to account for
these in your formal will. Certain rights are non-transferable and you need to
identify those, which will expire with your demise. Here are a few steps to
create your Digital Will:

 

1.  List All Your Online Accounts

Create a list
of all the sites where you have accounts, including social media, photo
storage, email accounts, online banking and brokerage accounts, blogs and
accounts that automatically withdraw from your bank account.

 

2.  Give Detailed Instructions

Let your
executors know exactly what you would like to see happen with each account. For
example, you may not want your Facebook page memorialised, but you do want your
photo albums shared with loved ones. If you are working on some project or have
a variety of resources which you have painstakingly collected online, decide
what you would like to be done with that. Think about stuff like copyrights
also, if you have created original material.

 

3.  Select your Digital
Executors

Select a
couple (or more) of mature persons to carry out your wishes after you are gone.
Let the executors know about your Digital Will in advance. Let them also know
how they will find the document on your demise. Be sure to name your executors
in your Digital Will. You may also name alternate executors in case any of one
or more of your executors is unable to serve.

 

4.  Store Your Digital Will
in a Safe Place

A will is
only useful if it can be found at the right time. If you store the will on a
password-protected device, make sure for that device can be accessed when you
die. Consider printing and signing your Digital Will, and storing it with your
other important personal documents.

 

Legacy Policies of some popular Websites
/ Portals

Many popular
websites / portals have legacy policies in their Terms of Service Agreement to
handle what will become of your digital footprint after you die. Policies vary
from allowing a named executor to close an account, to continue using your
account or finally how your account may be deleted after a period of
inactivity. It is a good idea to review a site’s legacy policy before drafting
your digital will. The following are a few examples from popular Websites /
Portals:

 

  •     PayPal allows an executor to close a
    user’s account. Remaining funds will be liquidated by a payment to the estate
    of the deceased on production of necessary forms / documents.
  •     Twitter does not provide log-in
    information to the executor or the legatee. The only option is to deactivate
    the profile by submitting a form with information on the deceased, including a
    death certificate.
  •     Ebay’s user agreement does not allow
    transfer of accounts to others on the expiry of a member. If you need to close
    an account due to death, you should contact their support team and follow the
    process suggested by them.
  •     Google’s “Inactive Account Manager”
    allows you to decide how your account is handled if it is inactive for a
    specified length of time. For example, if you have not logged into your email
    for more than a year, the account will be deleted. You can also add up to 10
    trusted contacts, who will receive an email that bequeaths files stored on a
    Google service if your account is left unattended between three and 18 months.
  •     Facebook lets family members convert
    the deceased’s account to a “memorialised” status or close the account. Upon
    receiving proof of death, sensitive personal information is deleted and the
    status of the account is changed.
  •     Instagram provides an option to
    memorialise an account, which means nobody can log in or change it. To
    memorialise an account, anyone can provide a link to an obituary or news
    article reporting the death. You can also request account closure.
  •     For LinkedIn, executors or even
    friends of the deceased can notify LinkedIn that someone has passed away, so
    their account can be closed and the profile removed.
  •     iTunes music files, television series
    and films are licensed, rather than owned, and cannot be bequeathed. The right
    to use the files expires with the death of an individual.

 

Password Managers

Organising a
digital will is essential, but it does take time. One way to simplify and
automate the process is to use a password manager to collect all of this
information in one, secure place. A password manager like LastPass (there are
several others) safeguards all of your website accounts, and the usernames and
passwords you use to access them. You can also store notes for other types of
important information, and even attach documents and photos for safekeeping.

 

And with
LastPass, you can designate an Emergency Access contact for your LastPass
account. That means your trusted contact could request access to your vault
should you pass or become incapacitated.

 

LastPass
thus, essentially acts as your digital will, and allows you to specify your
digital heir, then automates the process of securely transferring that digital
will with all of your passwords and important information to your trusted
contact. Not only do you have the benefit of a password manager that makes it
easy to remember your passwords and login to your online accounts, you can also
enjoy peace of mind knowing your loved ones can access the information they
need in your absence.

 

Digital Will Generator

Slate.com has
devised an interesting Digital Will Generator – you will find it at –  http://bit.ly/2MGSqHW. Just answer a
few simple questions, fill in the blanks and voila! your Digital Will is ready.
This may well be one of the quickest ways to create your Digital Will instantly.

 

Now that you
know the importance, have the information and are equipped with the tools, just
go ahead and create your own Digital Will – you owe it to yourself and your loved
ones!   

 

Have you shifted to digital note-taking yet?

I don’t remember the last time I used a
physical diary. Digital note-taking may be a bit inconvenient to start with,
but over a period of time, you start wondering how you managed without it for
so long. And you already carry your phone and/or tablet everywhere you go, and
your diary goes with you!

 

Here are several advantages of digital note
taking including recording anything, everything, everywhere:

 

–   Edit, copy and share
easily.

–    Search and retrieval
made extremely easy.

–   Synchronise across
multiple devices, access through smart phone.

–   Workflow made easy
through integration with apps such as Outlook and Browser.

–    Clip from web
important reading material to read later or for reference.

–    Handwritten notes
using a digital pen also feasible.

–    Audio, text, video or
picture, etc. formats supported adding further to the efficiency. For
example, you can include photos of say audit work paper into a note directly.

–    Organise various
work areas – Clients, Staff, BCAS and Personal through separate
notebooks, section groups, sections, pages, sub-pages, and tags.

–    Prioritise through
tags, etc. to increase productivity and efficiency. Maintain to do lists
with reminders.

–    Collaborate with
teams to work simultaneously on these notes, share and even manage simple
projects. Assign tasks and initiate Workflows.

 

With the
hundreds of digital diaries available now, it is a task to select the right
diary. Obviously, they are not all equal – some are simple and light whereas
some others are very complex and intense. Here are a few notable Note-Taking
Apps to help you become an efficient note-taker:

 

Monospace is a
minimalist note-taking app, built from the ground up. No fancy bells and
whistles for this note taking app – it just allows standard editing features.
The formatting is also minimal with support for Bold, Italics, Strikethrough,
Bullet, Quote and a bunch of size-related formatting styles. It has built in
internal sync (Pro package only) that lets you keep all your devices on the
latest version’s of your notes, and lets you edit anywhere.

 

Monospace Writer’s hashtags feature replace
the classic folder system. Simply add hashtags (which can be nested) to the
last line of a file and Monospace will take care of the file/folder
organisation for you.

 

Overall, a minimalist Note-Taker – useful
for those who take a few notes temporarily.http://bit.ly/2L1r3rp

 

Squid allows you
to take handwritten notes naturally on your Android tablet, phone, or
Chromebook supporting Android apps! With Squid you can write just like you
would on paper using an active pen, passive stylus, or even your finger. You
can easily markup PDFs to fill out forms, edit/grade papers, or sign documents.
Import images, draw shapes, and add typed text to your notes. And you can turn
your device into a virtual whiteboard or give presentations in a meeting or
conference by wirelessly casting to a TV/projector (e.g. using Miracast,
Chromecast). You can export notes as PDFs or images, then share them with
others or store them in the cloud!http://bit.ly/2Igkqng

 

ColorNote is a
popular note taking app. Very light and simple to use.

 

It is a quick and simple note-taking tool
for notes, memos, emails, to-do lists and much more. Taking notes is just like
typing into a basic wordprocessing program – just type as much as you want,
select a colour to the note, share or even set a reminder for the note. In the
to-do list mode, you can make a checklist of various to-do items, and tick them
off, one by one when each of the items gets done.

 

You can view the notes in the traditional
ascending order, in grid format, or by note colour. You can even password
protect important notes and put them as sticky notes on your home screen.
Online backup and sync cloud service is available which also allows you to
share your notes across devices. http://bit.ly/2Iek3K4

 

Microsoft To-Do
is a simple and intelligent to-do list that makes it easy to plan your day. It
combines intelligent technology and beautiful design to empower you to create a
simple daily workflow. Organise your day with To-Do’s smart Suggestions and
complete the most important tasks or chores you need to get done, every day.
To-Do syncs between your phone and computer, so you can access your to-dos from
just anywhere – work, home or even while you’re traveling around the world.

 

You can quickly add, organise and schedule
your to-dos while you’re on the go. And if you have to-dos that you need to
tick off on a daily, weekly or yearly basis you can set up recurring due dates
to remind you each and every time. To-Do also works with your Outlook Tasks,
making it easier to manage all of your tasks in whichever app you’re in.

 

It can also double up as a note-taking app,
adding detailed notes to every to-do – from addresses, to details about that
book you want to read, to the website for your favourite café. You can collect
all your tasks and notes in one place to help you achieve more.
http://bit.ly/2Id96s5

Google Keep is
one of the best tools to keep yourself up-to-date. Take notes of whatever you
need, wherever you need and recall anytime, anywhere!

 

Notes could be text, pictures or lists with
check boxes. They may be for personal or official use. You could type them from
your phone, or computer. You can also take pics or take voice memos from your
phone and store them as notes. The notes can be colour coded in eight different
colours for easy visual access. You can also share your notes with whomsoever
you desire.

 

And, of course, you can set reminders. The
reminders could be based on date and time and also on where you are! Imagine
going to the office and up pops a reminder about the numerous things you need
to do today. Or visiting a particular client and having a list of pending
issues coming up on your phone!

 

Keep is a wonderful tool which you can use
from your phone, computer, laptop or tablet. Available on Android, iPhone and
Computers. Start using Keep and you will Keep using it forever!
http://bit.ly/2L0C3W4

 

OneNote is a
multipurpose powerhouse —great for collecting and organising long-term data
like statements, minutes of meetings and task lists.

 

You can type, hand write, draw, and clip
things from the web to get down your thoughts into your notebook. You can place
content anywhere you want. You can even scan hand written notes or pages
straight into OneNote and make them searchable. You can use the Lasso Tool
to select handwritten text, then click Ink to Text in the Draw
menu to instantly convert it into text — all while retaining colours,
capitalisation, and relative sizes.

 

OneNote helps you get organised, collaborate
with others and accomplish more. It is part of the Office family and works
great with your favourite apps, such as Excel or Word to help you do more.

 

OneNote is tightly integrated with Outlook.
You can send emails from Outlook to OneNote and you can also email your
notebook pages directly from OneNote. It’s also possible to assign a task to a
specific person through OneNote. This task will appear in that person’s Outlook
task list. When they complete it in Outlook, the update will be synchronised
with OneNote. http://bit.ly/2IekJ24

 

Evernote is one
of my favourite note-taking tools. Evernote makes it easy to remember things
big and small from your everyday life, using your computer, phone, tablet and
the web. You can write notes on any of your devices and they will be
automatically synced to all your other devices. If you are in a meeting and
take notes on your tablet or phone, the minute you login to your office / home
computer, you will find them there!

 

Evernote is truly cross-platform. It
supports iOS, Blackberry, Windows and Android on Smartphones and Tablets, and
Mac OS X, Windows, Safari, Chrome and Firefox on Computers. It just syncs
seamlessly.

 

Your notes could be text, audio, picture
notes, check lists, webclips, dictations or even sketches. So remember
everything, access anywhere and find things fast. Best of all, it is free to
install on each one of your devices. Free Accounts have a 60MB upload limit,
per month, but I have never even reached half of it in any month. The paid
version has multiple levels of features and you can upgrade as per your needs
and convenience. My current favourite. No gifts of Diaries for me next New
Year! http://bit.ly/2L0ykIc

 

Which note-taking app is your favourite?
Why? What kind of notes do you take? Are there any free ones that I missed?
Please do write to journal@bcasonline.org