Technology News, Tips, Tutorials & Techniques

I’ll probably be writing about technology for the rest of my life. It’s only been since March of 2015 that I began, but things have been going very smoothly. I’ve written over 270 posts in that time and I figure that if I keep this pace, I’ll pass the 1000 mark in just a few short years.

When I began this blog, I fought the urge to write about only the “cool” cutting edge things (such as drones, GoPro and editing video in Photoshop, which you can bet I’ll be getting into very soon). This is not only a place for me to express my thoughts on what’s going on in this space, it’s also a guide for me to look back on when I get stuck with something. It’s remarkable how much I do that. It’s for this reason, I forced myself to start at the beginning with everything I write. I know I’ve strayed here and there, but by and large, I’m progressing well. It’ll be no time before I’m all caught up (yeah right) and I can focus on things that are happening more currently. As I told a friend a while back, I can’t do that until I do this.

Android is huge. I can remember sitting in my car somewhere in Connecticut years ago listening to the radio. I heard the DJ say something about how Google was going to launch an operating system for mobile devices. In the same story, they were talking about how Blackberry was going down the tubes. I think there wasn’t as much definition in the market back then. Now, we have the big players. What is there – Symbian, Android. Apple iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows OS and a few other inconsequential brands. What I know is that Android is winning this race. Apple iOS has some fierce competition here, which is fine, in my opinion. As we all know, competition makes people work harder and encourages better products.

Since you’ll be seeing a good number of posts on this site that have to do with Android, I figured that I should begin with describing one of the very first things you need to know when looking into operating a mobile OS. That’s what version you’re running. Browsing through tutorials isn’t going to do any good if you don’t what type of technology you’re dealing with.

How to Locate Your Mobile OS Version Number

Since I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4, I’ll be using screenshots from that. The idea is similar across all brands and makes though – start at the home screen, find your settings and then navigate to the “About” page. Even on desktop computers, it’s the same story. Manufacturers don’t hide this information. They makes it very easy to find.

I’ll start off in the Home screen.

Just so you know, I changed a setting so the weather isn’t updated anymore. It’s not really 38 degrees outside.

From here, I’ll click the Apps icon at the bottom of the screen. That should bring me to a page that shows about half of my installed apps.

I’ll press the Settings icon, which will bring me to an area that controls all the mobile settings for my device.

Once there, I’ll click on the General link at the top of the screen and then scroll to the bottom of the left column. There, I’ll press the About Device button.

As you can see, I circled an area that’s titled Android Version. Written directly below this title is 4.4.2, which translates into Android KitKat. Even though this isn’t the newest iteration of Android, it’s still a popular system version. Many folks have tablets and phones from a few years back.

Well, there you have it. How to located an Android OS version number. Now, let’s take a look at some Android version history.

Android Version History

I always enjoy looking at older versions of operating systems. It gives me an idea of where I stand in the world. I’m what marketers consider a laggard, which means I like to wait until something has been released and tested before I jump in and purchase it or get involved with it in any way.

If you look below, you’ll find a list of both older and newer versions of Android, along with their code names and release dates.

N/A – 1.0 – September 23, 2008
N/A – 1.1 – February 9, 2009
Cupcake – 1.5 – April 27, 2009
Donut – 1.6 – September 15, 2009
Eclair – 2.0 – 2.1 – October 26, 2009
Froyo – 2.2 – 2.2.3 – May 20, 2010
Gingerbread – 2.3 – 2.3.7 – December 6, 2010
Honeycomb – 3.0 – 3.2.6 – February 22, 2011
Ice Cream Sandwich – 4.0 – 4.0.4 – October 18, 2011
Jelly Bean – 4.1 – 4.3.1 – July 9, 2012
KitKat – 4.4 – 4.4.4 – October 31, 2013
Lollipop – 5.0 – 5.1.1 – November 12, 2014
Marshmallow – 6.0 – 6.0.1 – October 5, 2015
Nougat – 7.0 – August or September 2016

Boy, looking at this makes me want to purchase a newer device. Perhaps I’ll wait until Nougat is out and then I’ll act. This time though, I’ll upgrade my 7 inch tablet to maybe a 10 inch or something around that size.

Would you like to read more about versions of Android OS? If so, check out these posts:

How to Find Out Which Version of Android You Have – How-To Geek

Android 101: How to check your OS version – Android Central

How To Find Your Android Version & Build Number on Phone/Tablet – Android Authority

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Beyond talking, texting, browsing, taking photos and videos, I’d say the most popular thing to do with a smart phone or tablet is to take screenshots. We’ve all seen them. The back and forth between two hilarious people in some sort of a chat session. One person thinks they’re texting someone and it ends up to be the wrong person. Correspondence ensues. What was written is shared on the internet for all of eternity. This “sharing” wouldn’t be possible without the ability to take screenshots of what’s shown.

Since I’m not the type of person who does such things (as I described above), I’ve long wondered exactly how to capture a screenshot on either a phone or tablet. Because of this, I had to do a bit of digging. What I found was startling. It’s actually really easy to do it.

In today’s post, I’m going to start off by demonstrating how to capture a screenshot on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 tablet. I purchased this a while ago, but it’s still great and rather peppy if I don’t say so myself. I’ll show you how to take the shot and then where it’s stored. After that, I’ll email it to myself right from the tablet. The reason I’ll be doing this is because I’ll need the screenshots in question for this very post.

After I’m finished with that, I’ll talk about some other phones and tablets and give instructions for how to go about doing the same thing. And finally, I’ll leave the comment section open to those of you who have different brands and makes of phones and tablets so you can chime in with your own instructions. I can’t cover everything in this post, so if you left a comment, you’d surely be helping out.

Creating a Screen Capture on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4

This operation is very simple. The way to create a screen capture on my tablet is to swipe the edge of the hand over the screen either from the left or from the right. Now, I’ll tell you this much – it takes a bit of practice. First, you have to be sure it’s the “edge” of your hand, not the flat part of your hand. Second, you have to be sure you’re touching the correct spots and putting enough pressure on the screen. I’ve found that keeping my hand relaxed, so it sort of drags across, to be the best. Again, it’ll take a bit of practice.

The reason this method works is because my version of Android (4.4.2 KitKat) has a feature called Palm Motion built in. In this next section, I’ll show how to check to see if this feature, and the others under it, are turned on.

Turning Palm Motion On

From my home screen, I’ll press the Apps icon.

After I arrive at the Apps page, I’ll press the Settings icon.

And then, I’ll press the Controls link up at the top of the next screen.

If you take a look at the above screenshot, you’ll see an area called Motion Control in the left column. Currently, on my tablet, this feature is turned on, as indicated by the switch being green in color. If yours isn’t green, go ahead and turn it on by pressing on the switch with either a stylus or your fingertip.

Once you do that, press, again, somewhere around the switch in the Motion Control area. This will bring you to the next screen, where the sub-controls are located. It’s on this screen that the Capture Screen setting is located.

If you now look in the right column, you’ll see the Capture Screen setting. Again, be sure the switch is in the On position by clicking on it until it’s green. This should allow you to swipe your hand across any screen to take a capture of it.

Where are the Screen Captures Located?

Once I swipe my hand and successfully create a screenshot, I’ll hear a nice solid camera click. After that, I’ll be notified at the top of the screen that a capture was taken. If I swipe down from the top of the screen, I’ll end up on my Notifications shade.

If I tap on the screenshot itself, that’s located under the Screenshot Captured title, I’ll see a popup that asks how I’d like to open it up. In my case, I’m asked if I’d like to use the Gallery or the Photos apps. I usually choose Gallery.

From there, the screen capture will open. And once it does, I can tap it once to email it, delete it or share it.

If you take a bunch of screenshots and want to browse through them later, that’s just as simple. Just click on the Apps icon from your home screen and then click the Gallery icon. On this next screen, you’ll see all the screenshots you’ve taken. Just click to select which one you’d like to open and, again, click on the shot to email, delete or share.

Other Devices

In this section, I’ll list a few other devices with very brief instructions for how to capture a screenshot.

Most Widely Used: Volume down + power button combination. True for most Sony, LG and Google Nexus phones and tablets.

Some Samsung & HTC Devices: Home + power button combination.

Samsung Galaxy S2 & S3: Hold home button + power button until the screen flashes.

Samsung Galaxy Note & Note 2: Home button + power button combination.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 & Galaxy Camera: Volume down + power button combination.

Samsung Galaxy Note, Note 2 & S3: Palm swipe as described above.

Samsung Devices with S Pen: Push the screen with pen and hold down until screen flashes.

HTC One X, Desire X & Desire U: Home button + power button (press power button first and then quickly press the home button).

Sony Xperia Phones (Xperia TX, Xperia V & Xperia J): Power button + volume down button.

LG Optimus G: Volume down button + power button.

Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 & Nexus 10: Volume down button + power button until screen flashes.

Remember, if you know how to take a screen capture with your device, please list the instructions in the comment section below. Thanks!

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I’s say this is one of the very first settings I edit after getting a new computer. Working with the mouse is critically important to a user’s sanity and if that mouse is too slow, too fast or all around annoying, the user might just go crazy.

Today, I offer you a quick post that will explain exactly how to go about adjusting two mouse settings in Windows 10. First, we have the setting that controls which button is the primary one and which is the secondary and second, we have the setting that controls how many lines are scrolled per one roll-click of the mouse roller. Both settings are extraordinarily simple to edit, so this shouldn’t take much time at all.

Launching the Mouse Settings

To adjust these two settings, I’ll click the Start button to open the Start menu. Remember the time I wrote a post that covered the many aspects of the Windows 10 Start menu? If you don’t, you should really check it out.

When the menu opens, I’ll click on the Settings menu item, which I’ve circled in red above.

After I click on the Settings button, the Settings menu will open.

Next, I’ll go ahead and click on Devices.

The next button I’ll click on is called Mouse & Touchpad. Once I do that, I’ll find myself at the Mouse settings window. Perfect.

Switching the Left & Right Mouse Click

Do you know what the difference between the left mouse click and the right mouse click is? No? Well, let me help.

Simply put, in Windows, the left click selects something and carries out some sort of an action. You can either single click it or double click it. If you single click, you generally select something. Think of a file or a folder as a target for some action to come in the future. If you double click, whatever the possible action is, it’s carried out.

If I head into a folder, I can select a file by left clicking on it once. If I want to open that folder, I can double click it. It’s that easy.

Remember, don’t confuse the operations of working inside of Windows with the operations of working on the internet. The internet consists of hyperlinks that only need to be clicked on once to carry out an action. There’s no need to double click a link on a web page.

In Windows, if I right click, I’m presented with a menu of possibilities for action. Once the menu appears, I’ll need to left click on one of the selections to make something happen. I’ve never double right clicked on anything, so I don’t think that’s even an option.

The reason I bring this up is because in Windows 10, we have the ability to swap which buttons control the left and right clicking on our mice (or mouses). Or more specifically, which button is the Primary button and which is the Secondary. Traditionally, the left button is primary.

To switch which does what, all I need to do is locate the drop-down menu right below the line that says “Select your Primary Button.” I’ll click it and choose either the left or the right.

There is no need to hit Save. Actually, there is no Save button to hit.

Adjusting the Mouse Roller Wheel

The mouse wheel is the best invention to hit the computer in the last twenty years. I know, crazy. I can remember the days before this wheel and boy, they were tough. Every time I wanted to scroll down a screen, I had to move my mouse pointer over to the scroll bar on the right, click it and drag it down. Horrible for the carpal tunnel.

These days, I just flick my finger and the screen magically moves up and down. The thing is, if the settings for how far the screen moves are off, life is almost as miserable as they were back in the day. Just imagine rolling the mouse wheel so the screen moves down – but only moves down one line at a time. Imagine how frustrating that would be.

The next topic I’d like to discuss deals with how to edit the settings that control how far a page moves when you roll the mouse wheel one click. Most mice wheels “click” gently when rolled, so I consider that a click.

Windows 10 comes set to move a page 3 lines with one click on a mouse wheel. That’s sort of mild, so I changed mine a while back to scroll 6 lines per click. This is a very realistic setting because it’s just enough, but not too much.

In the same window, if I look at the drop-down menu right below the line that reads “Roll the Mouse Wheel to Scroll” I can make the first change.

If I select the first option that says Multiple Lines at a Time, I’ll have the ability to edit just how many lines that is with the slider I’ll talk about next. If I select the option right below that, that says One Screen at a Time, the slider below will gray out and when I roll the mouse wheel one click, the page I’m on will move an entire page worth, either up or down. To me, that’s drastic.

If I move down one spot, I’ll see the slider that controls how many lines the page will move up or down with one click of the mouse wheel.

When active, the slider handle will be blue. When you roll over it, such as I did in the above screenshot, the handle will turn black.

This setting is rather self-explainitary. Push the handle to the left to reduce the number of lines moved and to the right to increase it. As you’re pushing, the number of lines will appear above the handle. Use these numbers as a reference point when making changes.

Scrolling Inactive Windows

I use this feature a lot. I actually didn’t even know it existed until I looked into how to edit the mouse settings. It’s handy because I generally have multiple windows open when I’m working on my computer.

By default, Windows 10 comes with the Scroll Inactive Windows When I Hover Over Them setting to On. All this means is that you’ll have the ability to control the visible content of a window that’s behind the active one on your computer by scrolling. Of course, your mouse needs to be hovering over the inactive window for anything to happen, but that’s simple enough to do. If I wanted to turn this feature off for some reason, I would just click the switch in the Mouse settings window.

If you’d like to read up on how to edit more mouse settings on your Windows computer, please take a look at these fine posts:

How to Customize Your Mouse Scroll Speed in Windows – How-To Geek

How to Adjust Toshiba Laptop Touchpad Settings | Chron.com

How to Adjust Mouse Settings | Techwalla

Changing the Mouse Settings in Your Windows 8.1 Computer

How to Change Mouse Sensitivity in Windows 7 – the Tech Repo!

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I’ve been thinking a lot about website marketing lately. I don’t do much of it because I’m so busy writing. Currently, between this site and my other one (IndustryEats), I produce about five posts per week. If you’re not in the blogging world, let me tell you – that’s sort of a lot. I know folks who write one post per week or even one per month. Conversely, I know people who post more than once per day, which makes me very jealous. I wish I had that sort of tenacity. Five is good though and I’m happy with that number – for now.

I feel as though the posts I write are informative. I think I share my personality as well as some good information in each and every one of them. It’s a shame that the content I manage doesn’t just magically fly out into the interland by itself, because I think many would benefit from it. Alas, I must market, which is, if you haven’t noticed, not one of my strong suits. At least it’s easier to accomplish today than it’s ever been.

Currently, I have a few social media profiles active for this blog. They are on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and now, just today, Instagram. Feel free to follow me on any and all of them. Hint, hint.

It’s taken a while for me to jump into the social media pond. I’ve been blogging since 2006 and I’m not from the school of being “popular.” The way things used to work is that I would write something interesting and helpful, the search engines would find it and index it and people would visit my site through them. Although that still happens, it takes a lot longer these days and the competition is fierce. While I’m confident in my posts being helpful and having them indexed, I’d like to take advantage of every marketing channel I have at my disposal. And to be honest, it would be rather foolish of me not to share content with those who may be interested on their turf, not mine. They’re on social media, so that’s where I should be too.

As I just mentioned, I set up an Instagram account this morning.

As I’ve done with my other accounts, I’ll be posting the leading photos for each post I write. When I came up with this idea, I thought it was great. That was…until I ran into a bit of a snag.

Apparently, Instagram was created as a mobile app. The developers worked around the premise that if you had a smartphone in your pocket, it would be super easy to snap a photo of something and zoom that photo off to Instagram. And in theory, that works perfectly for the everyday user. The thing is, I’m not an everyday user and I don’t take many photos with cell phones. The most I do is photograph our gardens in our back yard with my Samsung tablet to send out to family members. But those photos aren’t what I’d like to share on Instagram. I’d like to actually upload images from my desktop computer that represent the blog posts I produce.

It took a few moments to gather my thoughts after I read the following statement on Instagram’s help page:

Note: You can’t take or upload photos from a desktop computer.

I told myself that couldn’t be true. Who in the world creates something like this? Honestly, there are still folks out there who use computers, whether they be Windows users or Mac users. That’s a huge market that they’re making things difficult for. I’m not sure of the reason, but I think it’s silly.

Anyway, I discovered a method that makes it extremely simple to upload photos or images from your desktop computer to Instagram and I thought I’d share it with you. It’s through an app called Deskgram.

This tiny app basically gives you the power to log right into your Instagram account and manage it from your computer. It’s genius. Let’s go over the steps of what’s necessary to get rolling with this. It’s really easy.

First, you’ll need to visit Deskgram and download their app. After you download it (I downloaded the .EXE file because it uses an auto-installer), you’ll need to install it. Simply double-click on the installer icon and off you go. Follow the directions and, when finished, you should see a shortcut on your desktop. I deleted that and created a shortcut from my Start menu.

If you’d like to know how to create this shortcut, please read this post:

How to Customize the Start Menu in Windows 10

Anyway, after you have the shortcut in working order, go ahead and double-click it to launch the program. When you do, you’ll be presented with the login dialog box.

Simply log in with your Instagram credentials, click the Login with Instagram button and when that’s done, you should see your start screen.

Click the Upload Photo icon (outlined above) and you’ll see another window. This time, you just drag your photo into the box at the center of the window or click the center box to browse your computer for the photo.

Once the photo is selected and uploaded, it will appear in the window.

Yes, I’m uploading the leading image for this post.

When the picture appears in this window, there will be a “resizer” overlaying it. You can grab the corners of this resizer to dictate the visible areas of the image after it’s applied to your Instagram account. In my case, I would like as much visible as possible, so I dragged the corners to show everything. When finished sizing the image, click the blue arrow in the top right corner of the window. When you do this, the next screen will appear.

On this screen, you can select an effect for the photo, if desired. I’m not a fancy man, so I didn’t choose anything other than Normal. After this, click on the green check box at the top right of the window to bring you to the Caption screen.

Since I’m uploading an image for this post, I merely filled in the post title. When done with this, I clicked the small Upload arrow in the upper right corner of the window to complete the process. When I do that, a small box appears that tells me my image is being uploaded. After a few seconds, it will complete and I’ll need to X out of the box to close it. That’s it!

Now, if I visit my Instagram page and refresh it, I’ll see the image I just uploaded. And if I click on that image, it’ll pop up to show the entire thing.

And that’s the entire process. Do you have other methods to upload pictures from your desktop computer to your Instagram account? If so, please share them in the comment section below. Thanks!

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UPDATE: Apparently, the software I recommended in this post only lets you use it for a specific period of time before it stops functioning and asks you to pay for the premium or pro edition. I don’t recommend using it anymore. I now have a new method for uploading to Instagram:

1. Post your photo, description and hashtags to Google+ via your desktop.

2. From a smart phone or tablet, access your Google+ account and download the photo to your device.

3. In Google+ edit your post and copy all text to your device clipboard.

4. Access your Instagram account and use the image from your gallery to begin your post.

5. Then, paste the text from your clipboard and save your post to Instagram.

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If you’d like to read about this topic further, please check out these great posts:

How to Upload Photos to Instagram from a Desktop Computer – Have Camera Will Travel

Can You Post to Instagram from Desktop? 10 Options to Try – Louise Meyers

5 Ways to Upload Pictures to Instagram From Computer – RTT

How to Upload Photos From PC to Instagram | Fstoppers

5 ways to post to Instagram from desktop | DETart Blog

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If you’ve enjoyed today’s post and found it helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, if you’d like to continue learning and would like our posts sent directly to your email inbox, simply sign up for our newsletter. We’ll send each and every post directly to you. Thanks!

The Start menu in Windows 10 is a pretty serious area of the operating system and as such, it’s worth digging into and learning about. There a many new features built into this menu as well as a good number of changes that are incorporated from both Windows 8 and Windows 7. Overall, some would consider it the best of both worlds.

I’ve been using Windows 10 for quite a while now and I’ve been impressed with it. Other than the “forced” updates, everything is fine. I personally prefer to restart my computer about once a month, but with the new update scheme, I find myself restarting a bit more often. Excluding that, I find the operating system to be smooth and responsive. It does offer somewhat of a learning curve though and that’s the type of thing I’ll be discussing on this website.

In today’s post, I’ll be taking a close look at the Start menu. If you’ve already been using Windows 10, you’ll find it somewhat familiar looking, while simultaneously fresh and new. The standard application list is right where you think it would be, along with some other features. What you may find overwhelming or intimidating is the inclusion of the Windows 8 desktop – right in the Start menu. Don’t worry. It’s all very simple to understand.

How to Open the Start Menu

This is going to be a very brief section. To launch the Start menu in Windows 10, you simply need to click the small Windows icon that’s found in the lower left corner of your screen. I have that button circled in the screenshot below.

Overview of the Start Menu

Below, I’ll give you a very broad overview of the Start menu. I’ll outline important areas in red and then describe those areas below.

User Account Menu

Let’s begin at the top left. This section controls the user that’s currently logged in. If you click the username, you’ll be presented with three options; Change account settings, Lock and Sign out.

If you select the Change account settings option, a dialog box will appear that shows the current settings and gives you the opportunity to change them.

If you select the Lock option, you’ll lock your account so unauthorized users can’t access it and if you select the Sign out option, you’ll completely sign out of your account.

Most Used

This next section is greatly beneficial to the Windows workflow. At first glance, one might simply say, “Yeah, it’s the applications I use the most. What of it?” They’d be correct in saying that. In its own right, having your most frequently used applications in a list at your fingertips is extremely useful. It’s when you click to the right of each application that things become extraordinarily handy. Here, take a look:

If you view the screenshot above, you’ll see that I clicked to the right of the Photoshop list item. More specifically, I click the right pointing arrow. When I did that, a menu appeared that showed a few things. First, I’m able to pin this application to my Start screen (the Windows 8 desktop that’s in the new Start menu), which is the large area I’ll be discussing later on in this post.

If I click the More menu, I can choose from Unpin from task bar, Run as administrator, Open file location or Don’t show in this list. And below that, I can begin the Uninstall process for this application. This is great, but what I really like is directly below these menu items – my most recently used files that pertain specifically to Photoshop. Ahh, what a beautiful thing.

I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of work on my computer and one task I truly don’t enjoy partaking in is navigating folders in search of a file I worked on a few days ago. It’s not that I don’t know where it is, it’s just that the process is cumbersome. With this Recent list, I’m able to jump around much more quickly than ever before. If you read through the list items in the above screenshot, you’ll see that many of them have to do with the images I’m using for this post right now and many of them have to do with a food blog post I wrote last night. Now this is what I like.

Operating System Controls

If we look at the bottom section of the left column, we’ll see that there are a few important items. The first item is called File Explorer.

If you take a look at the above screenshot, you’ll see that this menu looks familiar to those in the previous sections. At the top of this menu are two sub-menu items; Pin to Start and More. If I select the arrow to the right of the More item, I’ll see even more choices. They are Unpin from task bar, Manage, Properties, Map network drive, Disconnect network drive and Don’t show in this list. While I won’t be going over these items in detail in this post, I will be talking about them and taking a very close look at them in later posts.

If we take a step back, we’ll notice that we’ve got two very helpful primary sections. The first one is Pinned and the second one is Recent. In the Pinned section are some standard important tools and areas that belong to the operating system. You can either add to this area, remove items from it or both. Below that are the most recent folders that were accessed. This is different than what we looked at above because these folders are system-wide, as opposed to simply application specific.

Situated directly below the File Explorer menu item is Settings. If clicked, this will open a dialog box where the system settings can be managed.

Since I recently wrote a post that talks about these system settings, I won’t be going over them here. If interested, I encourage you to read my previous post.

How to Change Settings & Use the Action Center in Windows 10

Below Settings is Power. If you click the Power menu item, you’ll be presented with three options, Sleep, Shut down and Restart.

Sometimes, there will be a fourth item in this list. It says something like Shut down and update or Restart and update or something like that. It’s fairly obvious that it means your operating system would like to apply the most recent update.

To turn the computer off, click Shut down. To restart the computer, click Restart. To put the computer to sleep and lock it at the same time, click Sleep. I use this last option the most often because I made a habit of locking my computer while I’m not sitting at it years ago. It’s been pounded into my head for a very long time.

Finally, at the bottom of this list is All Apps. This is where the fun begins.

Every application that’s installed on your computer is listed in the All Apps section in alphabetical order. They’re usually listed as single items, but if there is a cluster of related items, they’ll be listed as sub-items and indicated as so by a downwards facing arrow on the right side of the menu.

You can’t customize the All Apps section. What you can do, however, is pin a frequently used app to the Start area that sits directly to the right of this left column. I’ll be talking about this area next.

Start

The Start area in the Start menu it a compromise between Windows 7 and Windows 8. It looks strikingly similar to the Windows 8 desktop. I have to say, it’s really cool and very helpful at keeping your desktop clean.

Let’s say that I used Photoshop all the time (which I do). Instead of placing a shortcut on my desktop or opening up the All Apps menu and scrolling down through a big long list, I could just scroll to Photoshop once, right click on it and choose Pin to Start. By doing this, I’ll be placing a tile in the Start area of the Start menu.

If you look at the above screenshot, you’ll see the Photoshop tile I just added to the Start area surrounded by a red box. If I want to launch Photoshop, I would click the newly formed shortcut tile.

Now, if I want to remove a tile from the Start area, I would right-click on the tile I want to disappear and select Unpin from Start. If I remove all tiles from a titled section, the section title will disappear as well. I like to do this with any Dell tiles, since I have never used them in my life.

To move a tile, I can click and drag it to the location I wish to move it to.

Moving a tile is fairly sensitive, so you have some wiggle room with where you put it. I just moved the Photoshop tile to the very top, but noticed that I don’t have a name for the section it’s in. To name the section, I’ll click above the tile and fill in the field that appears. When I’m finished, I’ll hit the Enter key on my keyboard. Similarly, to rename any existing section, all that needs to be done is the same thing – click the title and fill in the field.

To make a tile smaller or larger in the Start area, you can right-click on the tile itself and select the Resize option. From there, click on the size you’d like to see the tile.

To change the accent color of the tiles in the Start area (and many other areas of the system), I’d click the Settings menu item and then Personalization. From there, I’d choose Colors from the left menu. Finally, I’d click the color I like from the boxes in the right screen.

Now, when I return to the Start menu, I’ll see that the boxes have changed color.

If I’m using a background image, I could let Windows choose the accent color for me. In the same Colors dialog box, I’d turn on the Automatically pick an accent color from my background switch. If this is done, the accent color would change every time the background image is changed.

If I scroll to the bottom of the Colors dialog box, I’ll find two more settings. The first is to Show color on Start, taskbar, action center and title bar. If I turn this feature on, all the areas that are currently gray or black will take the color I choose in this box. Next, I can Make Start, taskbar and action center transparent. This is on by default. The transparency isn’t too strong, but if I turn this feature off, the once transparent areas will be solidly colored.

Giving Windows 10 the Windows 8 Look

I know people who loved Windows 8. They explained to me that while it took a while to learn, they appreciated the navigational aspects of it. After they upgraded to Windows 10, they were disappointed to find that their tiles had disappeared. Well, they’re in luck because there’s an option in Windows 10 to give your desktop the Windows 8 look again.

If I click the Start button to open the Start menu once again and then click Settings, I’ll be presented with the dialog box I saw earlier on. From here, if I select System and then Tablet Mode, I’ll find the area that controls the looks and functionality that comes with working on a tablet, which is what the folks at Microsoft had intended for Windows 8. Don’t worry, you can use a mouse in tablet mode.

If I click the Make Windows more touch friendly when using your device as a tablet switch to the On position, I’ll see some rather drastic changes. For starters, the window I’m working in will expand to consume the entire size of my desktop monitor. Also, my desktop will change from using icons to using tiles. Also, navigating the system will be much different. Unfortunately, I’m not able to create a screenshot of this because I’m working on a 27 inch monitor. It’s just too large.

I encourage you to give this last option a try though. Also, look at the two drop-down menus and the final switch below this option setting. They control what you see and when.

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I’ll be the first to tell you – I’m late to the party. I’m no expert at social media. I’ll also tell you that I like to dig into what I’m not familiar with. And when I say dig, I mean really dig. What I have very little experience with one day, I’m near expert on the next. You can thank my mother for that. Rarely did she just hand me the answers to my many questions when I was a child. Most often, she’d point me in the direction of where I might find the answer and then she sent me on my way. I hated that then, but I’m thankful for it now.

In this post, I’m going to talk about a few of the very first tasks that need to be completed right as soon as you open any social media account, as well as some that are ongoing. Most platforms (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, etc…) require the same things of you. When you hand over those things, some of them are very difficult to change later on, so it’s a good idea to consider them right off the bat. Good thing it’s very simple to do this. That’s what I’ll discuss below. I’ll also discuss your overall presence and ability to attract those who you’d like to attract. It’s easier than you think, so read on!

Who Are You?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a social media website that doesn’t ask you for a username. They all do. That’s just the way it is. What any database needs is a unique identifier and usually that can be found in a username or an email address. But really, the technical stuff doesn’t matter here. What does matter is what your visitors will see and how they perceive you as an authority on the topic you regularly discuss.

Have you ever seen usernames like kaylensmommy, pizzalover49 or funat40? Have you ever taken what the owners of these username have had to say seriously? Perhaps. The thing is, when many of us created usernames for our social media channels, it may have been 5 or 10 years ago. We never knew we’d one day become famous.

Let’s say you created a username for your Youtube account 5 years ago. At that time, you really enjoyed riding off-road dirt bikes in the desert. You uploaded a few videos and those videos gained a lot of traction. A year later, you decided to move to NYC and start creating content about food. You became a big hit and your food videos, which were uploaded to the same account as your dirt bike videos, had the username desertdirtrider001 attached to them. This might not seem like a big deal, but let’s say you one day managed to become a host for a food related channel on TV. Do you seriously want to have your food videos attached to the username with the word “dirt” as a part of it?

What’s the Point?

When creating a social media account, think about the future. Think long into the future. Think about your end game and where you’ll be if everything you plan to happen actually happens. Would you like to be part of a team one day? What’s the primary topic you want to write and make videos about? What’s your name? Should you use that as the username? Below, I’ll give you some good examples of usernames for various social media accounts.

JayGaulard – A name used for a personal account.
FoodExperience – An account about food.
MaineVacations – An account about vacationing in Maine.
PoetryCorner – An account about poetry discussion.
DirtBikeHeaven – An account about dirt bikes and riding.

When creating a username, try to steer clear of names that are too specific. If you happen to live in California at the moment, leave that off. You may not be there forever. If you have a child name Bill, leave that off. You may have another child next year. If you’re 40 years old, leave that off. You’re bound to change ages one of these days. My point is, if something can change, leave that part out of any username you wish to create. Again, think about the future.

Show Your Face

This is probably the most important aspect of creating any social media account. I’m not even going to get into what the quality of the photo is yet – I merely want to tell you that you need to use a photo for the account – of yourself. Don’t use a picture of a tree or your logo or a photo of your dog. Use a picture of your face. It’s strange how often I see social media accounts with pictures of Golden Retrievers and Black Labs as the profile pictures. It’s a turn off, even if you don’t think it is.

This used to be okay. I saw it everywhere. The folks who used to create social media accounts tried to hide behind generic photographs of random things. I used to be one of these people. I think the primary issue I had was two-fold. First, I didn’t really want to be public. I mean, I wanted to get my message out, but I didn’t want anyone to know it was me behind the message. Second, I didn’t think I had any good pictures. I was quite critical of how I looked on camera. Eventually, I got over both of these roadblocks.

If you’re attempting to convey a message, you need to build trust. As humans, we’re wired to trust those who we see. We need faces. We don’t trust large corporations until we see a commercial with the CEO, a kind and gentle looking man, sit in a softly lit room explain to us, the people, why we should trust him. Notice I didn’t say them. I said him. That’s on purpose. What the corporation is doing is creating an attachment between the viewer and the kind and gentle man. It’s genius.

Who Cares?

When attempting to build an audience, you need to think on the psychological level. You need to understand that there are real people out there surfing the web. These people needle into issues and make judgments lickety-split. I can remember trying to sell one of the houses I bought a few years ago. The realtor told me that potential purchasers weren’t looking for reasons to buy the house, but were looking for reasons not to buy it. They were disqualifying. The trick was to give them nothing to disqualify. If you can do that, you just made a sale. The same is true for social media. Don’t give anyone a reason not to trust you. Let your visitors look you in the eye. Let them make a judgement and let them base their decision on that.

Now, one word about photo quality. I’m going to tell you that there’s really not much that’s more annoying than seeing a picture that’s about an inch square that’s from 1982 used on a social media profile. When I see things like this, I think something’s up. I sense shadiness. There’s a reason why this person is hiding and that makes me think they aren’t serious. If I think that, I don’t believe what they’re sharing or what they’re trying to tell me. In just one short split-second, I made a judgement and it wasn’t good. I like big, colorful photos that were taken with being a profile picture in mind. Do this. Have someone take a really nice photo of you and use that for your accounts. Don’t take a selfie. Everyone knows that’s what it is and again, they’ll think you’re just playing around. People follow authorities and authorities have other people take really nice photos of them.

Tell Your Story

Just like on websites, social media accounts have areas where you can share your profile. A profile is a story of who you are. It better be good.

Did you read the section directly above this one? If so, you can apply much of what I wrote up there to down here. The two are connected – it’s just that one has to do with direct physical imagery and being appealing and the other has to do with text turned into physical imagery and being appealing.

Have you ever visited a blog or a social media account and didn’t see a well created “About” page or “Profile” page? I have and from personal experience, I can tell you that it’s disappointing. I can also tell you, from my own traffic statistics, people really like to check out these types of pages. I’m not sure what they’re looking for, but there’s definitely a distinct connection between a big, clear photograph alongside a well written bio and reason for being and a visitor who sticks around. Again, it’s a trust thing and it shows that you cared enough to create that type of page.

What Makes a Good Social Media Profile?

When writing a profile, you need to pay close attention to what you include. It needs to be thorough. To help out, I’ll share a few areas of key consideration that should paint a very thorough picture of yourself for anyone who chooses to stop by and read it. Take a look at the list below.

Great Looking Photo (see above section)
Well Constructed Title
A History or Yourself – Who You Are
Why the Account Exsists – What You Hope to Accomplish
Links to Related Websites and Other Social Media Accounts

If you write a good long profile, people will truly appreciate it. The key word here is long. Don’t skimp out on this and be sure to include, as opposed to less. Visitors will notice and, again, make judgements. Write, write and write away.

I do want to mention two more things about writing profiles. The first is that you should steer clear of personal interests that aren’t related to what you’d like to share in your account. If you are a vegan and are writing about auto mechanics, please do everyone a favor and keep the vegan thing to yourself. You’re only going to turn people off. Similarly, don’t talk about politics, religion or personal views. They aren’t helpful and it’s been long taught to never discuss things like that in venues where they’re not appropriate. I understand that we’re a passionate bunch, but remember, there’s a time and a place. And that time or place may be at a polling station, a church or someplace else. Certainly not around the dinner table or in a social media profile.

The second thing I want to discuss is writing quality. Simply put, not everyone is a great writer. To craft a well written piece, you may have to recruit assistance. Think about who you know – there may be someone who is secretly writing a novel. If you’re not the best writer, you can either look to better yourself or have someone write your profile for you. You need to do your homework here because this area of creating a social media account is important.

Make Them Want You

The last tip I’d like to discuss has to do with the actual content you post to your social media account. I know I keep saying that this tip is the most important, but seriously, this one really is.

I recently watched a video where someone was discussing this very topic. They mentioned their views on what should be posted to social media. Their key words were “added value” and “shareworthy.”

Added value means that you’ve, well, added value to something. If someone asks a question about how to best apply icing to a cake and you answer them, or write something that offers tips about icing application, you’ve added value. If you respond to them and claim that they shouldn’t be baking cakes or that they should only bake cakes that don’t require icing, you haven’t added value.

Being shareworthy is sort of like a test that needs to be passed. Think of an actor who regularly writes on their Twitter account. Which one of these two posts would you most likely share.

Top 5 Films I Absolutely Adored Having a Role In

or

It’s Raining Outside

The first post contained information that some would view as interesting. They’d most likely share that with someone who is a fan of the actor. And the person or people they shared it with would most likely appreciate the share and say thank you. The second post didn’t contain anything of any relevance. It was merely a statement. I’m not sure who would share that because there’s not much to share.

The point is, when posting to social media, try to limit your posts to things that add value and that are shareworthy. You’ll likely gain more followers, turn fewer people off and years down the line, you’ll have something to look back on and feel proud of.

If you have any social media tips that are related to what I’ve written above, please feel free to leave them in the comment section below. I’d love to read them.

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If you’ve enjoyed today’s post and found it helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, if you’d like to continue learning and would like our posts sent directly to your email inbox, simply sign up for our newsletter. We’ll send each and every post directly to you. Thanks!