Instagram confirms it’s testing video tagging with a percentage of users

Instagram is testing a way to allow users to tag their friends in their video posts, not just in photos, TechCrunch has learned and the company confirmed. The option works similarly to tagging photos, but instead of pressing the small icon at the bottom left to see the list of tagged names appear over top of the content – something that would be more difficult with videos – the button links to a list of tagged people.

When you tap this button, you’re directed to a new page titled “People in this Video” with all the Instagram users who have either appeared in the video, or who the original poster wants to alert in some way.

As far as we can tell, these videos don’t also copy over to the tagged users’ profiles, where tagged photos typically appear today. But that could come further down the road.

Video tagging is also not appearing on the web version of Instagram at present, only on mobile.

Instagram didn’t want to share much information about the test, nor discuss its plans for a larger rollout of the feature – which is currently unsupported for anyone who hasn’t been opted in to the test by the company.

However, it would say that the experiment is underway right now with a “small percentage” of Instagram’s users.

“We’re always testing ways to improve the experience on Instagram and bring you closer to the people and things you love,” a spokesperson confirmed, in a statement.

Above: video tagging spotted on Instagram account @cablegirlsrd

Instagram has offered photo tagging since 2013, and later rolled out support for things like tagging products and tagging friends in Stories. But although video sharing arrived on the platform in June 2013, Instagram has yet to introduce a way for users to properly tag their friends. Rather, its FAQ suggests that users should mention friends in a comment so they’ll get a notification.

That may have been sufficient for some time, but video is a more critical aspect to Instagram’s platform these days, especially as it explores how to enable better video discovery through its user interface, direct people to its newest product, IGTV, and connect larger groups together in video chat sessions.

Tagging videos, then is an obvious, if long past due, next step – and one that can drive increased engagement as the tagged users relaunch the app following their notifications.

The feature could also make way for shoppable videos, not just photos, and allow Instagram influencers to post videos of their favorite products and places, while pointing fans to those brands’ own Instagram accounts in a more structured fashion than is possible today.

 

 

Read Full Article

How to Stop Chat App Notifications Annoying You

Apple’s 5G iPhone conundrum

Wednesday is Apple’s big product release day, where analysts expect the company to release the next edition of the iPhone. While the usual upgrades to the screen, CPU, and storage are expected as always, one major lingering question is how the company is going to handle 5G, the next-generation telecommunications standard.

The conventional wisdom among analysts is that Apple will ignore 5G in 2018 and 2019 just as it took extra time to rollout 3G and 4G chipsets in its phones. A typical example of this analysis comes from Chris Smith at BGR, who says that “We already saw what Apple did when 4G LTE came out. The company waited for carriers actually to offer decent coverage before launching the first 4G iPhone. That was the iPhone 5, by the way, which launched more than a year after the first Android-based LTE phones came out.”

I’m not nearly as convinced. There are many reasons for Apple to ignore the tech this year, which I will get to in a moment, but one major factor could drive an earlier discussion of 5G than expected: Apple’s growth markets, particularly in China.

China is becoming one of Apple’s most important markets for its smartphones, and particularly for its flagship iPhone X. It’s greater China revenue in the third quarter of this year was $9.6 billion, and its operating income from the region was just shy of Europe’s. More importantly, greater China is just slightly behind the Americas as the fastest-growing region for Apple’s sales.

That makes 5G a particularly challenging issue for the company. China has made 5G leadership a critical pillar of its industrial strategy, and many analysts believe the country will set the pace for 5G rollouts globally. Furthermore, Chinese consumers are deeply interested in buying premium products and experiences, and adoption for 5G is expected to be strong and rapid.

With the technical specifications around the 5G standard complete, companies are racing to build the chipsets and deploy the infrastructure necessary to enable this new standard in smartphones and other devices. Early networks are expected to be deployed in 2019, and chipset maker Qualcomm has publicly unveiled more than a dozen handset manufacturers who are partnering with it on 5G. For instance, Vivo, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, announced today that it was developing its first “pre-commercial 5G smartphones” for launch next year.

The speed and timing of the 5G rollout is awkward for Apple, which has traditionally timed its iPhone events for September. It almost certainly will make no announcements this week, but its next iPhone launch would likely be September 2019 — giving Chinese handset manufacturers with early 5G devices nearly exclusive access to the local market for the first three quarters of next year.

Apple would find itself falling behind its competitors in a fast-moving and critical growth market. While the company has built a brand in the country with devoted fans, its place in the market is not nearly as secure as in the U.S., particularly as the trade war between the two nations reaches a fevered pitch.

There’s no doubt that the challenges for Apple to include the technology are immense. First is the patent licensing cost, which Jeremy Horwitz at VentureBeat put at roughly $21 per device, up from around $9 for 4G. Second, the leading American company in 5G is believed to be Qualcomm, which Apple has been fighting in a long-running patent war, to the point that the company has been actively trying to remove Qualcomm equipment from its phones. Apple’s name was notably absent from Qualcomm’s 5G partner list.

While some early chip designs are available, they are hardly ready for primetime, and certainly not for a flagship phone like the iPhone X. Nor do I expect that Apple will imply on Wednesday that the company will support 5G in future releases and dampen enthusiasm for its newly-released devices. No one wants to be told that next year’s devices are going to be better than one released just minutes ago.

Instead, I expect Apple will use smoke signals to clearly demonstrate that it intends to remain at the cutting edge of 5G deployment. That could include joining certain industry trade groups, testing the technology in a more public fashion, and potentially releasing a roadmap next year, say at its Worldwide Developers Conference, which is traditionally held in June and thus earlier in the year than its September iPhone events.

What would be concerning though is if we get to the end of 2018 and into 2019 with nary a peep from the company about its plans for the technology. Given its commitment to China, as well as its leading position within the smartphone market, the company has to engage on the technologies around 5G in a public manner in order to prevent a loss in its competitive position.

Ultimately, much will depend on China Mobile and other telcos in China as well as around the world on how fast they can deploy 5G infrastructure (sadly, it looks increasingly like the U.S. faces a bumpy road in that direction). Beyond gold iPhone rumors, 5G may well be the first time that China drives the company’s product roadmaps, and it should be wary of finding itself on the defensive.

Read Full Article

Facebook Lite adds additional crisis response tools

Facebook Lite, the social network’s product for people in areas with low connectivity or limited Internet, is making Community Help available to people in more than 100 countries. Facebook Lite uses less data, and installs and loads faster than the standard Facebook app. Facebook Lite also works on lower-end devices and slower Internet networks.

Facebook first launched Community Help last February to help people find and give help in the areas of food, shelter and transportation in the aftermath of natural disasters and building fires — two types of crises in which Safety Check would likely be activated.

“Our priority is to build tools that provide people with ways to get the help they need to recover and rebuild after a crisis,” Facebook Crisis Response Product Manager Jeong-Suh Choi said in a release. “By making Community Help available on Facebook Lite, event more people can get the help they need in times of crisis.”

This past February, Facebook beefed up its efforts to enable companies like Lyft, Chase, International Medical Corps and Save the Children to provide similar services to people in crisis.

Read Full Article

The Best 4K Gaming Monitors for All Budgets

WhatsApp hits India’s Jio feature phones amidst fake news violence

False rumors forwarded on WhatsApp have led angry mobs to murder strangers in India, but the Facebook-owned chat app is still racing to add users in the country. Today it launched a feature phone version of WhatsApp for JioPhone 1 and 2’s KaiOS, which are designed to support 22 of India’s vast array of native languages. Users will be able to send text, photos, videos, and voice messages with end-to-end encryption, though it will lack advanced features like augmented reality and Snapchat Stories-style Status updates.

WhatsApp was supposed to launch alongside the JioPhone 2 that debuted last month for roughly $41, but was delayed. 40 million JioPhone 1s had already been sold, and it’s been estimated to control 27 percent of the Indian mobile phone market and 47 percent of the country’s feature phone market. Coming to JioPhone should open up a big new growth vector for WhatsApp as it strives to grow its 1.5 billion user count towards the big 2 billion milestone.

Meanwhile, it could make the Reliance-owned Jio mobile network more appealing. It could also strengthen the KaiOS operating system, developed by a San Diego startup of the same name that recently took a $22 million investment from Google. WhatsApp rolls out on the JioPhone AppStore today and should be available to everyone by September 20th, and we’ve asked if it will come to other KaiOS devices made by Nokia and Alcatel.

WhatsApp has scrambled to safeguard its app after numerous reports of rumors circulated on its app about gangs and child abductors led angry mobs to kill people in the streets. Five nomads were recently beaten to death in a rural village called Rainpada after residents watched inaccurate videos forwarded through WhatsApp about kidnappers supposedly rolling through the area, BuzzFeed reports.

WhatsApp recently limited how many people you can forward a message to, and began a radio PSA campaign in Hindi on 46 India stations warning people to verify things they hear on WhatsApp before acting on them. But it’s clear that parent company Facebook still sees spreading WhatsApp as part of its mission to bring the world closer together, even as that comes at a cost.

Jio’s “transition” phones that offer a few third-party apps but not full-fledged smartphone capabilities, alongside its affordable mobile data, have significantly reduced the cost and friction of being online in India. But with that access comes newfound dangers, especially if not combined with news literacy and digital skills education that could help users spot false information before it sparks violence.

Increasingly the tech world is learning that connecting people to the Internet also means connecting them to the worst elements of humanity. That will necessitate a new wave of pessimists and cynics as product managers in order to predict and thwart ways to abuse software instead of allowing idealists to blindly build tools that can be weaponized.

WhatsApp limits message forwarding in bid to reduce spam and misinformation

Read Full Article

WhatsApp hits India’s Jio feature phones amidst fake news violence

False rumors forwarded on WhatsApp have led angry mobs to murder strangers in India, but the Facebook-owned chat app is still racing to add users in the country. Today it launched a feature phone version of WhatsApp for JioPhone 1 and 2’s KaiOS, which are designed to support 22 of India’s vast array of native languages. Users will be able to send text, photos, videos, and voice messages with end-to-end encryption, though it will lack advanced features like augmented reality and Snapchat Stories-style Status updates.

WhatsApp was supposed to launch alongside the JioPhone 2 that debuted last month for roughly $41, but was delayed. 40 million JioPhone 1s had already been sold. Coming to JioPhone should open up a big new growth vector for WhatsApp as it strives to grow its 1.5 billion user count towards the big 2 billion milestone. Meanwhile, it could make the Reliance-owned Jio mobile network more appealing. WhatsApp rolls out on the JioPhone AppStore today and should be available to everyone by September 20th.

WhatsApp has scrambled to safeguard its app after numerous reports of rumors circulated on its app about gangs and child abductors led angry mobs to kill people in the streets. Five nomads were recently beaten to death in a rural village called Rainpada after residents watched inaccurate videos forwarded through WhatsApp about kidnappers supposedly rolling through the area, BuzzFeed reports.

WhatsApp recently limited how many people you can forward a message to, and began a radio PSA campaign in Hindi on 46 India stations warning people to verify things they hear on WhatsApp before acting on them. But it’s clear that parent company Facebook still sees spreading WhatsApp as part of its mission to bring the world closer together, even as that comes at a cost.

Jio’s “transition” phones that offer a few third-party apps but not full-fledged smartphone capabilities, alongside its affordable mobile data, have significantly reduced the cost and friction of being online in India. But with that access comes newfound dangers, especially if not combined with news literacy and digital skills education that could help users spot false information before it sparks violence.

Increasingly the tech world is learning that connecting people to the Internet also means connecting them to the worst elements of humanity. That will necessitate a new wave of pessimists and cynics as product managers in order to predict and thwart ways to abuse software instead of allowing idealists to blindly build tools that can be weaponized.

WhatsApp limits message forwarding in bid to reduce spam and misinformation

Read Full Article

Adobe XD: The Free UI and UX Design Tool You Can Use Right Now

It’s not often you associate Adobe with “free” downloads, but that’s exactly what that company has done with Adobe XD. It’s a rapid interface prototyping app for mobile devices and websites, allowing designers to quickly come up with designs for specific platforms.

The best thing about Adobe XD is how easy it is to use. Even if you have little experience designing anything, there’s only a very gradual learning curve to hold you back.

Even the UI is refreshingly stark, without all the tools and panels that put so many people off apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom. In this article, we’ll introduce you to Adobe XD and explain what you can and can’t do with it.

What Is Adobe XD?

Adobe XD is a design tool. It won’t build your app for you, but it will help you present a vision or a prototype for what you want your next mobile or tablet app, website, or other user interface to look like. The app uses art boards—essentially screen mockups—to provide a visual representation of your app design.

Creating mobile apps and websites that work can take a lot of technical know-how. Adobe XD provides you with the tools to turn an idea into a proof of concept. When you’re finished you’ll have a blueprint from which to work from, and one you can tweak endlessly until you’re happy with the design.

In the same way that concept art is so important in creative endeavors (see this beautiful video game concept art as proof), a proof of concept for your desired interface design is important when it comes to software and website construction. Providing programmers with a concept that so closely matches the finished product is a great way to align your expectations with what is possible.

Best of all the app is designed in such a way that anyone can use it. Whether you’re a seasoned designer, a programmer, or someone who lacks both of these skills; Adobe XD can bridge the gap between your vision and technical knowledge. You don’t even have to learn to code to design an app.

What Can Adobe XD Do?

Adobe XD is designed with a few specific applications in mind, but you can also think outside of the box. The app makes things easy by including templates for:

• Smartphone apps: From iPhone 5 and SE through to the very latest models; and a generic Android template too.
• Tablet apps: With templates for iPad, both sizes of iPad Pro, Surface Pro 3 and 4, and a generic Android tablet template.
• Websites/web apps: With a few presets to choose from, including Full HD.

You don’t have to stick to these templates, they’re just there to make your life easier. You can also specify a completely custom interface (i.e. screen) size, and start designing for just about any platform you can imagine.

If you’re designing a mobile app, you can download the free Adobe XD app for your platform and export your designs for a live preview on your device.

UI Kits Make Life Even Easier

If you are thinking of designing for iOS, Android, Windows, or another well-established platform; you can use UI kits to get a helping hand. These are essentially project templates maintained by Apple, Google, Microsoft and others, downloadable in Adobe’s .XD file format.

With UI kits you can speed up production, allowing you to design your app within the constraints and common elements seen in your platform of choice. Since they’re maintained by the platform developers, they’re generally always up-to-date and thorough.

For example, Apple’s iOS UI kit includes blank screen dimensions for a range of devices, examples of the iOS keyboard, navigation elements like the ribbon at the top of the screen, the iOS toggle buttons, and more. You can easily copy and paste elements into your design artboards, and create accurate prototypes.

Adobe also maintains a few other UI kits, including watchOS-compliant smartwatch samples, an e-commerce website kit, and a set of examples for creating digital currency smartphone apps. You’ll need to download the appropriate UI kits for iOS, Google’s Material design and Microsoft Windows separately.

A Simple Set of Built-In Tools

Unlike Adobe’s other complex graphics and design apps, XD has a nice clean UI with only a few simple tools. You’ve got your basic shapes: rectangles, circles, lines, and a pen tool for creating custom shapes. There’s also a simple text tool, with access to the Typekit font library (but not all of it).

You can then change various attributes relating to these elements, like opacity, fill color, borders, shadows, and scrolling behaviour. Finally there’s a magnifying glass and an artboard tool for expanding your design.

Adobe XD helps you place elements in aesthetically pleasing places by “snapping” into place around the edges of the screen, the center point of the canvas, and to other elements. You can override this if you want by holding down a button (on the Mac version it’s Cmd).

Along the top edge of the app you’ll see two toggles: Design and Prototype. Design is where you’ll spend most of your time creating your vision. Switch to Prototype mode to add various interactions between elements on-screen. You can trigger events and switch to different artboards, providing a simple user experience run-down without writing a line of code.

This is done via a simple drag and drop interface, for example: create a button with the circle tool, create a new artboard with the desired result of that button press (e.g. a different tab in your app), switch to the Prototype mode and drag the arrow from the button to your new artboard. Hit the “Play” button or preview on your live device to see how it plays out.

You can even specify transitions and effects to make it look fancy. There are some pretty big limitations to Prototype mode. You can’t really get too in-depth with it, but it serves a purpose and it’s simple implementation makes it easy to use.

How Limited Is the Free Version of Adobe XD?

Being a free product, Adobe XD is designed to get you hooked to its simple workflow and user-friendly tools without spending a penny. The biggest drawback to the free version is the inability to have more than one active shared prototype or set of design specifications at one time.

So for your first design or project, the free version may suffice. When it comes to sharing more designs or projects with your team or app developers, you’ll quickly hit a wall. You can always export your various artboards as .PNG files for free, forever via the File > Export option.

However the shared prototyping and interactivity between artboards is one of the standout features here. The app is still useful without it, just not to the same extent. You can’t build a fully realised prototype, but you can quickly lay down your design.

The other limitations of the free version include a limited number of Typekit fonts, and 2GB of cloud storage (as opposed to 100GB) for Creative Cloud subscribers. If you do decide to stump up the cash for the paid version, Adobe XD will cost you $9.99/month for this app alone or $52.99/month for the full Creative Cloud suite.

We think Adobe Creative Cloud is worth the money, provided you’re able to get enough use out of it.

Adobe XD Is a Surprisingly User-Friendly Tool

Adobe XD is a useful tool, whether you intend to pay for it or not. In some instances, you might get away with the free version for working on small personal projects. When it comes to serious work and sharing with teams, you’ll need to upgrade.

Adobe XD is not the be-all and end-all of UI design. Designers have been using graphics tools for years to create mockups for websites, app designs, and more. Check out the best Mac vector graphics tools for designers on a budget to see some capable alternatives.

Read the full article: Adobe XD: The Free UI and UX Design Tool You Can Use Right Now

Read Full Article

Twitter hires former Refinery29 COO Sarah Personette as Head of Client Solutions

Twitter announced this morning it has hired Sarah Personette, previously COO at Refinery29, as its new head of global Twitter Client Solutions. Personette will start in mid-October. She will be based in New York, where she’ll report to Head of Customers Matt Derella, also previously head of Twitter Client Solutions.

The company says this will allow Derella to focus on his expanded role leading Content Partnerships, Self-Serve Advertising, Operations, and Twitter Services.

Personette, meanwhile, will oversee all of the global regional TCS leaders, Client Solutions Development and Global Brands.

Derella welcomed Personette this morning in a series of tweets.

1/4 Some news…Thrilled to welcome @SEP as Twitter’s new head of Twitter Client Solutions. Sarah will be taking the reins in overseeing our our strategy and execution in helping the world’s largest businesses grow with Twitter.

— matt derella (@Derella) September 10, 2018

“Sarah will be taking the reins in overseeing our our strategy and execution in helping the world’s largest businesses grow with Twitter,” he said. “Sarah has a career anchored in putting the customer at the core. She’s led global marketing and agency teams across publishing, tech and advertising. We are thrilled to bring her range of expertise and her leadership to Twitter and our partners.”

Personette was not long in her last role as COO at Refinery29, where she had been only since January 2018. Before that, she was VP of global marketing at Facebook from 2014 to 2017, where she ran a 500-person group focused on getting its ad products into the hands of clients. She also built and led Facebook’s Global Agency Team.

Prior to Facebook, she was the U.S. President of Universal McCann Worldwide, Inc. and Senior Vice President at Starcom Mediavest Group.

Since 2016, she has been serving as a corporate director for publicly traded retailer, Build-A-Bear Workshop, which was recently in the news for a disastrous “Pay Your Age Day” deal that overwhelmed stores with crowds.

Personette is also a director of Northwestern University’s Alumnae Board, She Runs It, and the Reisenbach Foundation.

“I feel incredibly honored to be joining Twitter at this time and with this team,” Personette said, in a statement. “Twitter creates the forum for people’s voices to be heard, and that is hugely meaningful for brands who want to make genuine connections. I look forward to working with the top marketers in the world to help them move consumers from inspiration to action.”

The hire comes at a difficult time for Twitter, where it’s being hauled into the Senate to face questions over how foreign influence is impacting domestic politics, and how consumer data is protected.

The company also recently banned Alex Jones from using its platform, following a backlash that saw tens of thousands of Twitter users blocking the accounts of major brands like Nike, Pepsi, Uber, McDonald’s, Red Bull, Starbucks, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Visa and Capital One, and others in an attempt to pressure the company into banning Jones.

Some are saying @Jack only made this move b/c #BlockParty500 affected Twitter's ad revenues. That may or may not be true, but I think it's important to acknowledge it when companies do the right thing for any reason b/c it's not inevitable they will, even w/ coordinated pressure.

— Shannon Coulter (@shannoncoulter) September 6, 2018

The brand boycott had been led by #GrabYourWallet, an organization headed by Shannon Coulter. She had created a brand block list that included nearly 500 major companies, which Twitter users could subscribe with a click. Coulter said she would automatically unblock every company on the list when Twitter kicked out Jones – which she did on September 6.

The ease with which users could take a stance against Twitter’s policies – a stance that greatly impacted brands ability to do business on the platform – could continue to be trouble for the company, and a challenge for Personette, if users revolt against other executive decisions in the future.

Read Full Article

What makes Apple’s design culture so special

A few days ago, I interviewed Ken Kocienda at TechCrunch Disrupt SF — he just released a book called Creative Selection. After working at Apple during some of the company’s best years, Kocienda looks back at what makes Apple such a special place.

The book in particular starts with a demo. Kocienda is invited to demo to Steve Jobs his prototype of what is about to become the iPad software keyboard.

And it’s the first of a long string of demos punctuating the book. As a reader, you follow along all the ups and downs of this design roller coaster. Sometimes, a demo clearly shows the way forward. Sometimes, it’s the equivalent of hitting a wall of bricks over and over again.

Kocienda’s career highlights include working on WebKit and Safari for the Mac right after he joined the company as well as working on iOS before the release of the first iPhone. He’s the one responsible of autocorrect and the iPhone keyboard in general.

If you care about user interfaces and design processes, it’s a good read. And it feels refreshing to read a book with HTML code, keyboard drawings and other nerdy things. It’s much better than the average business book.

Read Full Article

Google Chrome Isn’t Responding or Keeps Crashing or Freezing?

It’s frustrating when Chrome keeps crashing. Whether you can’t even get it open or Chrome crashes on certain websites, you might be tempted to switch to another browser.

But don’t do that just yet. We’ll show you fixes for common Chrome crashes and how to get your browser back to a stable state.

Google Chrome Not Responding: Troubleshooting

When Chrome starts crashing or freezing, first try completely restarting it.

To do so, go to Menu > Exit or press Ctrl + Shift + Q. Then re-open Chrome and see if the issue improves. If you just click the X in the top-right corner, Chrome will continue running in the background if you’ve enabled that option.

Next, you should look at how much you have open in Chrome. If your computer is low on RAM (often a problem with Chrome due to its high memory usage), it may cause websites to crash. Try closing all tabs you’re not using, pausing any Chrome downloads, and quitting other programs running on your computer.

If none of the above fixes seem to work, you should restart your computer. As you may know, rebooting fixes a lot of issues, and could clear up any temporary quirks with Chrome.

Finally, it’s a good idea to check for Chrome updates at Menu > Help > About Google Chrome. New versions can patch up glitches.

Google Chrome Keeps Crashing: Advanced Fixes

If the first steps above didn’t clear up your problem, continue on to some further troubleshooting methods.

Disable Extensions

You should next check your installed extensions on the Menu > More tools > Extensions page. Disable or remove anything that you don’t actively use. And make sure to toss anything that’s on our list of Chrome extensions you should remove.

Having too many extensions can bog down your browser, while malicious extensions can interfere with Chrome’s operation.

If you have a lot of extensions and don’t want to disable them all manually, try opening an incognito window. By default, this disables all extensions. Visiting the website in question while incognito makes it easier to determine if an extension is at fault.

Scan for Malware

While not all Chrome issues are caused by malware, it’s worth ruling out before you proceed. A malicious program could mess with your browser’s security or network settings and cause connection problems.

Chrome has a built-in malware scanner, but you’re better off scanning with Malwarebytes for a more thorough check.

Check App Conflicts

Chrome has a newer feature that lets you know if other apps on your PC might interrupt its functionality. To access it, go to Menu > Settings and click Advanced at the bottom of this page.

Scroll all the way down to Update or remove incompatible applications, and Chrome will show you problematic apps.

Whether you remove these or not is up to you. For example, it’s not worth removing Malwarebytes Premium even though Chrome says it can cause problems. Malwarebytes blocks dangerous websites to keep you safe, which may result in Chrome errors.

Try Another Browser

If you can’t get a specific site to load, you should confirm whether the issue is only in Chrome or across all browsers. Open another browser, like Firefox or Edge, and see if that website gives a similar error.

If it does, that specific site is probably having issues. You’ll need to wait for it to fix the problems; perhaps contacting the website owner via social media to let them know.

But if the website loads fine in other browsers, the issue lies with Chrome. Continue the steps below for more troubleshooting.

Disable Hardware Acceleration

Hardware acceleration is a feature that offloads heavy work to another component instead of your CPU. Often, this hands graphical tasks off to your GPU. Enabling this can help Chrome run more smoothly, but it can also cause issues in some cases.

If you’re still experiencing Google Chrome freezes after trying the above fixes, you should disable hardware acceleration and see if it makes a difference. To do so, go to Menu > Settings > Advanced and disable Use hardware acceleration where available.

Try Another Profile and Reinstall Chrome

At this point, your copy of Chrome may have serious issues that cause it to keep crashing. Try creating a new browser profile to check for corruption. If that doesn’t fix anything, you should reset or reinstall Chrome.

You can use Chrome’s built-in reset function to get to a fresh state without reinstalling. Head to Menu > Settings > Advanced > Restore settings to their original defaults to use this tool. As Chrome says, this will reset everything aside from bookmarks, history, and saved passwords.

For a complete removal of Chrome, you should properly reinstall it. Head to Settings > Apps > Apps & features and find Google Chrome in the list. Click it and choose Uninstall. Then download a fresh copy of Chrome.

Google Chrome Keeps Freezing for Every Website

If Chrome displays an error for every website you try to access, you likely have an issue with your internet connection. For that, we recommend following our simple steps to diagnose network problems.

Google Chrome Not Responding: Won’t Start at All

Chrome won’t start in the first place? First, make sure it’s not open already by checking the Task Manager. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open it. If you see Google Chrome or chrome.exe listed, right-click that entry and choose End task. Then try to open Chrome again.

If this isn’t the problem, your antivirus or some malware might be blocking Chrome. Try temporarily disabling your antivirus to see if that lets Chrome open. See the “Scan for Malware” section above for suggestions on that, and follow the complete malware removal guide if you need more help.

Should Chrome still fail to open, try restarting your PC. After that, your best bet is to uninstall and reinstall Chrome per the above instructions.

Chrome Crashing: Specific Errors

The above troubleshooting tips should work for the majority of Chrome issues. For other cases, let’s discuss a few common Chrome error messages and what you can do to fix them.

Some common Chrome errors include:

• ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED: The web address doesn’t exist. Check for typos in the URL.
• ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED: The website didn’t let your browser connect. This may be caused by using a VPN.
• ERR_CONNECTION_RESET: Your connection was interrupted mid-load. Try refreshing the page.
• ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT: The page took too long to load. This is either because it’s exceptionally busy, or your connection is too slow.
• Aw, Snap!: This usually displays when a webpage caused Chrome to crash for some reason. It may be due to a plugin issue.

Always try refreshing the page with Ctrl + R or the Refresh icon to the left of the address bar when you see these messages. You can also use Ctrl + Shift + R to ignore the cache and reload a fresh copy from the website.

As mentioned above, you should try an incognito window to open websites that display errors. Because these don’t save cookies or other browsing information, they’re a useful troubleshooting tool. If a site works in incognito but not normally, clear your browsing data.

When Chrome crashes, you can enter chrome://crashes/ into your address bar to view information about them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t provide any useful information to you, but you can send the crashes to Google for investigation.

Chrome Crashing and Freezing Issues Solved!

Since you do a lot in your browser, it’s incredibly frustrating when it doesn’t respond. No matter the cause of your issue, hopefully these troubleshooting instructions helped you solve it. You might also look at solving other annoying Chrome issues while you’re at it.

If Chrome still runs into issues after all this, you should look into troubleshooting Windows for deeper problems.

Read the full article: Google Chrome Isn’t Responding or Keeps Crashing or Freezing?

Read Full Article

The 5 Best Bullet Journal Apps to Make Bullet Journaling Effortless

You can turn any note-taking app into a Bullet Journal. But you have a lot less work to do if you start out with an app that comes with all the right ingredients for keeping a Bullet Journal.

But where do you find such an app? Start with our list of five. We have narrowed these down because they give you three key benefits:

• Make rapid logging painless
• Have ready-made icons for legends (task, event, note) or at least tagging, labeling, color coding options
• Give you a quick way to search through your journal entries

Now, on to those app recommendations.

1. Trello

Trello’s cross-platform availability is a big plus for bullet journaling, and so are its automation capabilities. You can set up the app to create boards (for modules) and cards (for dates) on a schedule.

You don’t need the Index module and page numbers, because the powerful search functions in Trello make it easy to quickly find what you need.

To get a bird’s eye view of your tasks for the month, you can assign due dates to entries to highlight them. Color-coded labels can work as bullets and signifiers to add context to your journal entries.

Does this switch from paper to Trello sound complex? It’s not, actually, as you’ll see in our step-by-step guide to use a Bullet Journal in Trello to plan your day. The guide shows you how to bring every aspect of your paper journal to Trello. It also gives you a sample Monthly Log board that you can clone and add to your Trello account.

Trello is not the only popular note-taking app to take your journal from analog to digital. You can also use Evernote for bullet journaling. If you’re a Mac user, you could use Reminders, Calendar, or Notes as a Bullet Journal.

Download: Trello (Free, Premium plans available)

2. NotePlan

NotePlan comes with a calendar, Markdown notes, and to-do lists. The Calendar view lets you see the big picture like the Monthly Log in your paper journal does.

When you want to zoom in on your entries for a particular day, switch to the Notes view. Here, you can use a mix of tasks, lists, reminders, events, and general notes to both plan your days and reflect on them.

Thanks to color-coded to-dos, tags, linked notes, and linked dates, it’s easy to jump to the right entries in your journal anytime. You have got iCloud sync, too, so you can keep your bullet journal ready to go on all your Apple devices.

On the whole, NotePlan doubles up as the perfect bullet journal and many of the app’s users use it as such.

Download: NotePlan for macOS ($20, trial version available)| iOS ($15)

3. Taskade

It’s handy that you can use Taskade as a guest before signing up for it. The app lets you add checklists, outlines, and notes to your bullet journal. You also get various bullet formats to choose from, which makes it easy to match them up with bullets and signifiers in your journal.

The app has basic formatting options and emoji as well. For scheduling your plans, Taskade gives you Due Date and Add To Calendar options. The latter feature lets you connect with Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar.

Attachments, templates, comments, tags, search—Taskade has got it all. It’s a versatile app that lends itself to all kinds of note-taking. We recommend starting off with Taskade’s Bullet Journal template to save time setting up your journal.

Download: Taskade (Free)

4. The Bullet Journal Companion

You need to use the Bullet Journal companion app along with, and not instead of, your analog bullet journal. That makes this simple mobile app from the makers of Bullet Journal the odd one out on this list. But it’s the perfect solution if you’re not ready to let go of your paper journal completely in favor of a digital one.

The companion app prompts you to reflect on your plans and notes with reminders twice a day. (You can tweak the times for these reminders to suit yourself.) It also has a Library section that lets you search your old bullet journals.

If you’re away from your notebook, you can use the app for logging and then migrate the entries to your notebook during your reflection time. You have a 48-hour window to move your entries from the app.

The Bullet Journal Companion includes a set of guides that cover every aspect of bullet journaling. It’s sure to appeal to Bullet Journal beginners and veterans alike. If you like the community aspect of Bullet Journal, you’ll appreciate the compilation of posts from the official blog in the app.

Download: The Bullet Journal Companion for iOS ($3), Android ($3)

5. Dynalist

Dynalist is one of the best bullet-based to-do list apps and it’s becoming popular fast. It comes with Markdown support, tags, due dates, and internal links, among other features.

The app’s tree structure is great for handling your Daily Logs. For bullets and signifiers, you can use either regular keyboard characters or suitable emoticons. Since Dynalist lets you bookmark items, you get to keep your current most important modules easily accessible at all times.

Dynalist’s demo version gives you a detailed overview of how the app works. It’s the perfect testing ground to figure out if the app can work as your bullet journal.

Download: Dynalist (Free, $10/month premium version available)

More Apps for Bullet Journaling

We have lined up a few extra options for you to work with, just in case the apps we have listed above don’t appeal to you:

• DayOne: If you don’t mind paying for a subscription or doing without the premium features.
• TheBrain: To combine the power of the Bullet Journal with the flexibility of mindmaps.
• OneNote: If you love all apps Microsoft.
• GoodNotes: For bullet journaling with a stylus.

A Bullet Journal Is What You Make of It

If you need a reliable system for fast note-taking, a Bullet Journal is up to the job. It gives you a good framework to begin with, but is not so inflexible that you can’t customize it.

For those of you who want to go digital with your journal, we have shown you apps that can make the switch easy for you. If it’s inspiration you’re looking for, try these four places to gather ideas for your Bullet Journal.

Read the full article: The 5 Best Bullet Journal Apps to Make Bullet Journaling Effortless

Read Full Article

The Boring Company proves life can be a video game

The Boring Company just posted a video on Twitter showing its latest digging machine can be controlled by an Xbox One controller. Because, if you’re going to dig holes, why not make it a bit of fun?

Software makes it easy to map PC controls to an Xbox pad. Instead of developing and fabricating a custom controller, using an Xbox gamepad is a cost-effective alternative for a lot of organizations. The military services agree. In its latest subs the US Navy tapped the Xbox 360 controller to maneuver submarine periscopes and the Army’s anti-drone laser uses an Xbox controller. They’re used to control robots and drones, too.

The reasoning is simple: A lot of research goes into game controllers. Microsoft reportedly spent over $100 million on the Xbox One controller, which, is just an updated version of the Xbox 360 controller. More than that, these controllers, whether of the Microsoft or Sony variant, are already familiar to most users. Operators do not have to learn a new set of controls. They can pick up a controller and be familiar within seconds.

And if the Xbox or Playstation controller doesn’t offer enough buttons, companies could always look to repurposing Steel Battalion controllers.

Best video game ever pic.twitter.com/DlGFsji76l

— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) September 8, 2018

Read Full Article

How to Use Gestures in Android 9 Pie

How to Follow Instagram Hashtag and User Feeds Using RSS

If you find yourself spending too much time on Instagram, and want to follow only a select few user accounts or hashtags without going down the Instagram rabbit hole, you might want to take your Instagram viewing into an RSS reader instead.

Since Instagram itself doesn’t make it possible to get the RSS feed for a hashtag or user, you can use a third party service to get that RSS feed.

The easiest way to do this is to create a list of Instagram hashtags and usernames you want to follow in your RSS reader. You can then use one of several third-party Instagram websites to create an RSS link.

Websta.me

Wesbta.me offers the cleanest rendering of the posts. The title of the RSS post is the account username while the caption will be included in the post itself, and it allows you to subscribe to hashtags and Instagram users.

• You can create an RSS URL for an Instagram user with the following link format: https://ift.tt/2Biac1d
• You can create an RSS URL for a hashtag with the following link format: https://ift.tt/2wVTSA8

QueryFeed

QueryFeed posts in your RSS feed are a little messier, but in addition to subscribing to hashtags and users, you can limit search results geographically.

QueryFeed also sets itself apart by providing a lot more posts per RSS feed when you first subscribe.

• You can create an RSS URL for an Instagram user with the following link format: https://ift.tt/2BLUtIz
• You can create an RSS URL for a hashtag with the following link format: https://queryfeed.net/instagram?q=%HASHTAG

FetchRSS

• You can create 5 free RSS URLs per month using FetchRSS. Just paste the link to a page with hashtag results or the link to an Instagram profile to generate the RSS feed.

Once you settle on the method of your choice, just subscribe to the feed in the RSS reader of your choice as you would subscribe to any other feed.

The disadvantage to following Instagram RSS feeds as opposed to following in the app directly is that you won’t get immediate updates. When you first subscribe, you’ll get around ten or less recent posts and then you’ll have to wait a bit until the feed refreshes.

Instagram isn’t the only social site you can take into your RSS reader. You can also keep up with your YouTube subscriptions using RSS. If you use an RSS reader like Inoreader, you’ll then be able to star posts you want to come back to, easily share the posts elsewhere, and of course, view the original post.

Read the full article: How to Follow Instagram Hashtag and User Feeds Using RSS

Read Full Article

3 Awesome DeviantArt Features and Resources You Aren’t Using

DeviantArt is one of the largest digital art communities on the web. It is also a large social network with more than 44 million registered users. If you are a wannabe digital artist or photographer, you shouldn’t ignore it. DeviantArt not only provides exposure but it also has a few handy features that anyone interested in digital art can tap into for free.

Here are three such resources you may not be using on DeviantArt yet.

1. DeviantArt Muro

DeviantArt Muro is a browser based HTML 5 drawing application you can find inside the site. You have to sign-up to the site but joining is free. The app has around 21 brushes, filters, and a number of presets. The drawing app also supports layers and that gives you a lot of leeways to create complex drawings.

You will get the best results if you pair Muro with the Wacom tablet or the iPad. Draw your first artwork and submit it directly to the DeviantArt gallery.

2. MotionBook Tool

MotionBook is a cloud-based and collaborative storytelling tool you can use to create immersive stories or digital comics. You don’t need any arcane knowledge of coding to use the authoring program. DeviantArt connects to the Madefire platform which hosts the tool. But, you can sign-up via DeviantArt and create your work.

When it is complete, you can use the DeviantArt Premium membership to even sell the comicbooks.

3. Free Stock Images

DeviantArt is known for its huge stockpile of free images. Sort through them with the filters on the left sidebar. The collection is wide-ranging from abstract to cartoons, from landscapes to cool fractals. You can download the stock images in high-definition and even order prints.

Do note that many of the images are covered by the Creative Commons license. So, do read the fine print and credit the artist if it is clearly mentioned.

We haven’t mentioned skins and themes for operating systems and devices. That’s another treasure trove. For instance, you can customize your Windows 10 desktop with some eye-catching downloads from DeviantArt.

Read the full article: 3 Awesome DeviantArt Features and Resources You Aren’t Using

Read Full Article