#techtuesdays – Sherri Ross

Category: #techtuesdays

19
Jan
2016

Do you Periscope? You should Katch.

It’s time again for #TechTuesdays with You Got Rossed!

A friend of mine recently started broadcasting on Periscope. If you don’t know what Periscope is, it’s basically live video streaming wherever you are while you’re doing or watching whatever. Anyone with a Twitter account can Periscope. Think of it as your own personal YouTube channel without a lot of the YouTube fuss. You download the app, you press a button, and viola – you’re live streaming to the world!

The good thing about Periscope is the ability to start sharing with anyone, anywhere, doing anything. The bad thing about Periscope is it doesn’t live on the internet indefinitely for people to watch later. Well, not on its own. When you start a Periscope broadcast you can choose whether to make it accessible after you finish the broadcast or not. If you choose to save it, people can open the app after you’ve finished and still watch your broadcast for up to 24 hours. If you don’t choose to save it, it’s deleted as soon as you’re done broadcasting. Until now…

Katch is a great application that integrates with Twitter to allow you to keep and share your Periscope (or Meerkat) broadcasts as you like. This is extremely beneficial for someone who has missed your ‘scope (as they’re called) and won’t be able to watch it for some time. With the Katch app, you can provide a link to it and they can watch it any time.

You can find out more about Katch at their web site here including learn how to use it and sign up for it.

Happy ‘scoping!

03
Nov
2015

#TechTuesdays: 5 Tips for Extending Your iPhone’s Battery Life

categories: #bloglikecrazy, #techtuesdays

Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons License — Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

There are many ways to help prolong the battery of your iPhone, no matter if it’s on iOS 8 or 9 (though some work better on 9 than 8). Below are a few tips & tricks to help you get the most out of your battery.

First and foremost, for iOS9 users, there is now a ‘Low Power Mode’ built in. It will prompt you to switch to Low Power mode when your battery life reaches 20% or less, but you can turn it on any time you wish by going to Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode. I use this all the time when I know I will be away from a power source for hours. I can still send and receive text messages, but mail retrieval (among other things) is disabled until I exit Low Power Mode, making the strain on my phone very little.
Turning off Location Services in Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Again, anything that doesn’t need to be running in the background (including fetching your location for no good reason, which many apps do) will help extend your power. Note: Turning this feature off does prohibit “Find My Phone” from working (located under Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Settings) so please use this sparingly when needed.
Turn off ‘Background App Refresh’ for apps you don’t use frequently. You can find it under Settings > General > Background App Refresh. I have this turned off period, but that’s a personal choice. The setting helps apps refresh data when needed, but I’m still able to get my live plays and scores from the ESPN app with it turned off.
Turning off sounds (as in keyboard clicks), vibrations, screen brightness, and more all save power. Setting your phone to auto-lock (Settings > General > Auto-Lock) also helps, too.
Manage Notifications. If you have notifications turned on for all, or most, of your apps then your phone is constantly checking for activity in those apps, reducing its battery life. Setting notifications for only your most important (or critical) apps can help reduce drain on the battery. Go to Settings > Notifications and click through each app in there to see what notifications you have turned on. Anywhere you are able, slide the button to turn OFF all notificationsfor that app and you will save some power. Seriously, do you need to know the minute Payless has a sale or someone repinned you on Pinterest?

I hope this helps you get a bit better battery life from your phone. If you would like more information or help with any of these tips – or any other technology questions – you can reach me at sherri [at] yougotrossed dot com. Happy Teching!

29
Sep
2015

#TechTuesdays: Data Plan, Money Saving Tip (+ BONUS) for iOS9

categories: #techtuesdays

Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 9, came out September 16th with a slew of new features and upgrades including improved Siri, Apple Maps, and expanded Apple Pay. Along with the upgrades came a few hidden features aimed at optimizing battery life and phone performance. One of the gems they slid into iOS 9 is the new “Wi-Fi Assist” feature designed to help stabilize your connection when on a wireless network. This option is turned on by default in the new iOS and allows your phone to silently switch over to your data plan if the wi-fi signal you’re on or near is less than stellar. If you have an unlimited data plan, this option really isn’t a problem and can be left alone. However, for the majority of us without unlimited data plans, having this feature on can quickly eat through our allocated data plan. Scroll down for instructions on how to disable “Wi-Fi Assist” on your mobile device in iOS 9.

Go to Settings
Choose the Cellular menu (usually the 4th option – see Screen Shot #1 above)
Scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN to the bottom of that menu, past the Cellular Data, Enable LTE, Roaming, SIM, etc., past all the applications listing cellular data use, to the very bottom of the page. It should look like Screen Shot #2 below. (And now you also know I’m addicted to Yatzy.)
Listed under the list of apps is the “Wi-Fi Assist” option.
Slide the button next to “Wi-Fi Assist” to turn it off – it should turn grey (from green) when you do, indicating it is off.

BONUS TIP: This is also a good place to review the apps listed above the “Wi-Fi Assist” button to see which ones are data hogs for your phone. If you consistently run out of or over your data plan, consider accessing some of those apps via their full sites on a computer (if applicable) or deleting them all together if not needed.

I hope this helps some of you and feel free to submit any #TechTuesdays question you’d like answered to sherri (at) yougotrossed (dot) com. Happy Tuesday!

11
Aug
2015

#TechTuesdays: Getting Alerted When You or Your Blog is on Google

categories: #techtuesdays

Time for #TechTuesdays with yours truly!

A few years ago I heard about a neat little tool that has helped me stay on top of my blog showing up anywhere online. The tool is a Google Alert and if you’re not using it yet, you likely will be the end of this post.

Alerts are online, FREE tools that Google created to allow you to get emails for any keyword(s) you like. I have Google Alerts set up for my blog name (YouGotRossed), my personal name (Sherri Ross), my organizations (Birmingham Girls Club, Birmingham Dance Walk), and many other things. I get an email in my Inbox each time those search terms show up in a result somewhere, along with the link to the source, and I can see if someone has mentioned me or is sharing my blog.

To set up your own Google Alerts:

Go to http://www.google.com/alerts in any web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, etc.).
In the “Create Alert About” box type in your keyword or words that you want Google to search for.
Once you’ve typed in your criteria, you will see options underneath the search box that say “Create Alert” and “Show Options”.
Click the “Show Options” arrow to customize the alert for you and then click “Create Alert.” “Show Options” is where you can set the frequency of alerts you receive, where you received them and more.
You’re all done! Now when Google finds something matching your keywords, you will get an email.

Google offers some helpful tips for setting up your searches here. Feel free to reach out to me at sherri (at) yougotrossed (dot) com if you have any questions about this or any tech queries. Happy Teching, Blogloves!

04
Aug
2015

#TechTuesdays: What is DNS and How Does it Affect My Blog?

categories: #techtuesdays

Today kicks off a new feature on the blog called Tech Tuesdays (thanks to suggestions at the Bloganista Mini-Con this past weekend). With the series, I am hoping to help demystify some common technology terms and issues I’ve had bloggers ask me about. If you have a question you would like me to tackle in the series you can email me at sherri [at] yougotrossed dot com. While I do not know everything, I have a good handle on many subjects and will be glad to offer what I do know. I will try to explain it in simple terms, so please keep that in mind when reading.

DNS stands for domain name servers which are basically the “pointers” that direct people to your blog on the internet. There are DNS servers all over the world and they all work to direct internet requests to the proper web sites. All web sites on the internet are actually associated (attached) to an Internet Protocol (IP) address and DNS associates a web name (your domain name, for example) with its corresponding IP address. A request comes into a DNS server for a name and the server quickly runs through its DNS records (address book) and finds the requested name and then the corresponding IP address. It then points the incoming request to the IP address and boom, your site comes up!

For those who may not be familiar with technology terms, a server is (or can be) basically just a powerful computer. When I refer to “your domain name” I mean the internet address used to get to your blog. As as example, my domain name is http://yougotrossed.com. All you see and all you know, as a reader, is http://yougotrossed.com, but servers store web sites by IP address so when you type in my domain, a request shoots through the internet to the domain name servers (DNS) for my site and finds that domain in the DNS records, then finds the corresponding IP address, and then goes to get the web site associated with that IP address. Once that happens, YOU get my blog in your web browser.

One of the biggest problems with DNS arises if you move your blog or web site to another place (host). Many times the DNS will need to change on the back-end to point people to your new address. That can be confusing if people are not familiar with how DNS works, and – by default – it can take up to 48 hours to propagate once the change has been made on the DNS server. That propagation sometimes means that your site may be “down” for a while if you make a change to your host or the location of your blog or site.

DNS can be a tricky beast for newcomers and it took me years to master it, but I love troubleshooting it now. Typically, if you own your own domain (like I do – yougotrossed.com), then your DNS servers are with your registrar or hosting company (where you bought your domain or where you host your blog). But that doesn’t have to be the case – you can have DNS in a different place than your blog, but that’s a complicated story for another day.

I hope this helps you understand how people get to your blog on the internet a bit better and what issues can happen if you move it. Just remember, even if problems come up, everything is fixable when it comes to DNS. If you would like more information or help with DNS – or any other technology aspect of your blog – I’m happy to meet with you one on one if you reach out to me at sherri [at] yougotrossed dot com.