New UI for Google's Weather Card

Google redesigned the weather card to include more information and images. The new weather card is only available in the Google Search app for Android, at least for now. "When you search for 'weather' or ask Google, 'will it rain today?' in the Google app on your Android phone, you'll get a wealth of new information, including: hourly sky conditions and chance of rain, severe weather alerts, a detailed 10-day forecast, air quality, UV index, sunrise and sunset times, and more," informs Google.

Google's new UI has 3 tabs for "today", "tomorrow" and "10 days". There's also a "humidity, wind, sunrise, and more details" link at the bottom of the card which allows you to expand it. You can also tap anywhere inside the card.

Google added an option to add a location to the weather list. This way, you can search for "weather" and see a list of all the locations you've added and the corresponding weather information. The search bar is now optimized for finding locations, so it's easier and faster to switch to a different city.

The "today" tab now includes information about sunrise, sunset, solar noon, length of the day, remaining daylight, dawn, dusk, dew point, pressure, UV index and visibility.

The "10 day" shows weather forecast for today and the following 9 days. Tap a day to find more details, including hourly weather forecast, wind, humidity, UV index, sunrise and sunset.

How to Record your Desktop Screen with YouTube

Screencasting is simple. You download a software program, hit the record button and a video of your computer screen is created, ready for uploading to YouTube. There are a plethora of screencasting tools to choose from but did you know that you can also create screencast videos inside YouTube without requiring any desktop software? All you need is a YouTube account and a web browser.

Here’s a step by step guide on how you can make screencasts of your desktop windows with YouTube.

How to Create a Screencast with YouTube

Step 1: Sign-in to YouTube with your Google Account, click the Upload button in the upper left corner and choose Events under Live Streaming. If you never done this before, YouTube make require you to verify your phone number to enable streaming.

Step 2: You are on the Create Event page. Give your screencast video a title, set the privacy of the video to either Unlisted or Private and click the “Go Live Now” button.

Step 3: This will open the Hangouts on Air page. You can click the camera icon to turn off webcam recording. Similarly you can toggle the microphone icon if you do not wish to record audio.

Step 4: Now click the Screenshare button in the left toolbox and select a desktop window that you wish to record for your screencast. Remember that if you using multiple virtual desktops, it will only show program windows that are active on the current desktop.

Step 5: Click the Start Screenshare button to share your screen and then click Start Broadcast to start recording the screen. This is a private session so nobody can watch your broadcast while it is being recorded. When you are done with the recording, click the Stop Broadcast button and switch to the YouTube website.

That’s it. Go your YouTube video dashboard (http://youtube.com/my_videos) and you’ll see the new screencast video that you’ve just finished recording. You can download the video to your Google Drive or share it withe world.

The videos are recorded in 720p HD and this it would be a good idea to resize your desktop window to the 16:9 ratio before hitting the broadcast button.

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The story, How to Record your Desktop Screen with YouTube, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 19/01/2016 under Screencasting, YouTube, Software.

How to Use Pluralsight Training for Free

Pluralsight is among the best places on the web to learn programming through videos. Whether you are a complete beginner or a pro looking to advance your coding skills to the next level, you’ll find a video course at Pluralsight that will meet your needs.

They have courses on practically all programming languages from JavaScript to PHP to Java to the trending technologies like AngularJS and React (see complete list). It is a subscription based service and you have shell out $30 per month to get access to their entire video training library.

Now here’s the interesting part. If you join the Microsoft Visual Studio program, which is also free, you automatically gain free membership to the entire PluralSight library for 6 months. No credit card or coupon codes required.

Here’s how you can activate your Pluralsight subscription in a minute:

1. Go to signup.live.com and create a new Microsoft Account. Skip this step if you already have one.
2. Go to my.visualstudio.com and sign-in with your Microsoft account.
3. This will open the Visual Studio Dev Essentials page. Here choose Pluralsight among the benefits (see screenshot) and click Get Code.
4. You’ll taken to the Pluralsight website to activate and redeem your 6-month subscription.

That’s it. Your subscription will be active for 6-months from the day you redeem the code. Pluralsight has iPhone and Android apps as well so you can learn on the go. And they have a desktop player that you can use to download videos and watch offline.

On a related note, you should definitely give Visual Studio Code a try. This is light-weight code editor from Microsoft that covers most programming languages and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It feels snappy, supports themes & extensions and has most features you would look for in a code editor.

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The story, How to Use Pluralsight Training for Free, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 19/01/2016 under Code, Internet.

Twitter Guide: How To Do Everything With Twitter

The first tweet was published almost 8 years ago and Twitter has come a long way since then. There’s a whole ecosystem of apps and services available now that allow us to use Twitter in more ways than ever before. This guide curates the best tools that will help you get the most out of Twitter.

1. Nuzzel – This works as an intelligent filter for Twitter and helps you discover the most popular news stories shared across your Twitter network. All signal, no noise.

2. Flipboard – Connect your Twitter account to Flipboard and it will create a beautiful magazine for all your Twitter feeds that you can flip through on the web (example), mobile and Windows 10 devices.

3. LifeOnTwitter – Get interesting statistics and facts about your Twitter account (example).

4. TallTweets – It lets you send tweets of any length by slicing your long tweet into multiple 140-character tweets (sample) and sending them in sequence.

5. IFTTT / Zapier – Whether you want to tweet by email, cross-post tweets to Facebook, or need a way to easily upload your Instagram pictures as native photos on Twitter, these tools can easily automate such tedious tasks.

6. Spruce / Canva / Adobe Post – Pick a photo, write some text and watch as these tools transform your text into a typographical masterpiece.

7. Storify – A web-based app that helps you find and curate tweets around topics and turns them into stories. You can also pull in YouTube videos, Facebook posts and other content from the social web in your stories.

8. Twitter Curator – This is like Storify for Google Docs (demo). You can search, filter and collect tweets right inside a Google Document.

9. Buffer – The best app for scheduling tweets. They offer useful analytics and the same tweet can be simultneously published to Facebook and LinkedIn as well.

10. Twitter Archiver – Specify a search phrase or an #hashtag and the archiver will pull in all matching tweets into a Google Sheet where they’ll live forever.

11. Twitter RSS – Easily create RSS feeds for Twitter search results and subscribe to them inside Feedly or any other feed reader.

12. CrowdFire – A handy tool to keep track of your unfollowers, send auto DMs to new followers, find dormant users in your Twitter timeline and more.

13. Egg Followers – Find all your Twitter followers that are still using the default egg as their profile picture. They are likely spam accounts.

14. TwitterCounter – See how your Twitter circle has grown over time. Some of this data is now available inside Twitter Analytics.

15. TweepsMap – It creates a Google Map of your followers so you know where they are coming from.

16. Daily140 – Get a daily email with most recent follows and favorites of any 5 Twitter users of your choice.

17. Tweriod – The tool analyzes the time when your followers are most active on Twitter. You can time your tweets accordingly for maximum reach.

18. Sleeping Time – Know the time period when a particular Twitter user is least active online.

19. TwitterFontana / VisibleTweets – Show tweets for any search term in real-time  on a big display. Useful for events.

20. PayWithTweet – Tweets are a form of social currency and some websites will happily give away design goodies, PDF ebooks, coupon codes, etc. in return for tweets.

21. ClickToTweet – The site will transform your text, say a quote, into a tweetable link. Useful for putting links in email newsleeters.

22. TheHash – It aggregates the most popular tweets around trending hashtags for the day and puts them in a beautiful visual design.

23. Direct – It brings a messenger-style interface to Twitter allowing you to chat with anyone through DMs.

24. Twitter Merge – Send personalized Tweets or DM multiple peope in one go from a Google Spreadsheet.

25. Twipho – A search engine for Twiter but limited to tweets with images.

26. Twitter Bots – Learn to write your own Twitter bots that can auto-reply, retweet or like tweets.

27. T4BP – Short for Twitter For Busy People, the site lets you quickly see updates from all your Twitter friends in single page.

28. Out Of Office – Setup an out-of-office reply bot similar to the one you have in your email program.

29. Web TweetDeck – The only reliable Twitter client that works in the browser without having to install any app. Includes tweet scheduling as well.

30. Instacurate / Vellum – These will turn your Twitter timeline into a visual Pinterest style news site.

31. Fake Tweets – With a little CSS, you can change the text of any tweet and create fake screenshots similar to the ones you regularly see on satire websites.

Bonus Tip: If you tweet labnol.org, Twitter will convert your text into a link pointing to the actual website. In order to prevent Twitter from doing so, insert a zero-width space after the dot. See how.

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The story, Twitter Guide: How To Do Everything With Twitter, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 19/01/2016 under Twitter, Internet.

New File Picker in Google Inbox

Google Inbox has a new attachment picker. When you compose a new message and click the paperclip icon, Google now shows a list of recently received attachments, a list of recently sent attachments and the latest photos uploaded to Google Photos. Click "show more" to see the rest of the attachments and photos. You can also select files from your computer. Unfortunately, there's no Google Drive integration yet.

"Inbox by Gmail on the web now makes it easier to share memories with instant access to recent photos and attachments," informs Google.

{ Thanks, Jonah Langlieb. }

Google Play Music Family Plan

Google Play Music started to offer a new family plan: $14.99/month for up to 6 family members, just like Apple Music. You and 5 other family members can subscribe to Google Play Music All Access and keep your own playlists, radio stations, ratings and recommendations. The new family plans are available in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, France and Germany, while also requiring regular Google accounts (no Google Apps, for now). You can only sign up from the Google Play Music app for Android, but everything else works for all the platforms supported by Google Play Music.

Google says you can "share a payment method on Google Play so your family can purchase apps, movies, books and music." It looks like Google will add a family sharing feature for Google Play, so that purchases are shared between family members, just like in iOS.

Save Google's Image Search Results

If you find beautiful images using Google Image Search's mobile site, you can save them and organize them using a new Google service. Just tap the star icon next to a search result and the image is saved to your account. Go to google.com/save to see all the images and add tags or notes (the link only works from mobile Chrome and Safari).

"When using your phone or tablet's web browser, you can easily save images you find in Google search results as links. You can see your saved images, which are similar to bookmarks, when you're signed in to your Google Account. You can return to your saved images at any time and add tags to organize them," informs Google.

Reminders in Google Calendar

Google Calendar's apps for Android and iOS now let you add reminders, just like you can do using Google Keep, Google Search or Google Inbox. This feature is rolling out this week if you have the latest version of the Google Calendar's mobile app. Until now, you could only see your reminders in Google Calendar.

"You might already create calendar entries to remind you to call the doctor or pick up groceries on the way home. But while those entries come and go, Reminders stick with you over time so you can track them until they are actually done. If a Reminder isn't completed, it will appear at the top of your Calendar the next day. And the next. When you do finally call the doctor or pick up those necessities, just swipe the Reminder away ... and you're onto the next to-do," informs Google.

Calendar events are different from reminders, but you can now manage them from the same app. Google promises to bring this feature to the Google Calendar web app in the near future.

All Tab in Google Search

Google has a new name for the "web" tab from search results pages. It's now called "all", which better reflects that Google no longer shows only web pages, but also quick answers, facts, images, videos, news, maps, apps, books and more. That's the whole idea behind Universal Search, which was launched back in 2007.

Travel Guide Snippets in Knowledge Graph Cards

Google's Knowledge Graph cards include a lot of information from Wikipedia. Google usually shows a snippet from a Wikipedia article and links to the article. I was surprised to notice that cards for countries and big cities from all over the world no longer quote Wikipedia and now include detailed information from travel guides.

Here's an example for [France]: "France, in Western Europe, encompasses medieval and port cities, tranquil villages, mountains and Mediterranean beaches. Paris, its capital, is known worldwide for its couture fashion houses, classical art museums including the Louvre and monuments like the Eiffel Tower. The country is also renowned for its sophisticated cuisine and its wines. Lascaux's ancient cave drawings, Lyon's Roman theater and the immense Palace of Versailles are testaments to its long history."

The snippet from the corresponding Wikipedia article is less poetic: "France, officially the French Republic, is a sovereign state comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European part of France, called Metropolitan France, extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France spans 640,679 square kilometres (247,368 sq mi) and has a total population of 67 million. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre."

Show Zoom Slider in Google Maps

Are you missing the zoom controls from the old Google Maps interface for the desktop? Mouse over the "-" or "+" button at the bottom of the Google Maps page and click "show slider". You'll get the old zoom slider which allows you to quickly control the zoom level of the map.

If you want to go back to the default interface, mouse over the "-" or "+" button and click "hide slider". The nice thing is that Google remembers your preference.

Big Offline Google Maps

I don't know about you, but my Google Maps for Android has just enabled the new offline features. Even if you have the latest version of the app, you still need to wait until these features are enabled because they're gradually rolled out.

My first disappointment is that the new features are still limited. The biggest size for an offline area you can download is 120,000 square kilometers and there are many countries that are bigger than that. I downloaded London's map and checked the size of the map: 332 MB. It also expires in 29 days (maps need to be updated at least every 30 days).

It looks like Google's maps include too much information, they take up too much space and there's no way to download some simplified maps.

Let's try one of the smallest countries in Europe: Liechtenstein, which has an area of only 160 square kilometers. The offline map has 62MB. New York? 409 MB.

Forget about downloading the map for an entire country. Google Maps still can't replace the Here app or paid navigation apps.

A Wireless USB Stick that Expands your Phone’s Storage (And a Giveaway)

What do you do when your mobile phone has limited storage and there’s no option to add an external SD card? How do you carry all your videos and documents where there’s not an iota of space left on the device? Yes, you do have cloud-based services like Dropbox or Google Drive that add virtually unlimited storage to your phone but you’ve to be connected to the Internet to access your files.

This week I’ve been testing a wireless USB stick from Sandisk that adds storage to your phones and tablets much like a regular USB drive. To get started, you plug the USB device into your laptop or desktop computer and let it charge for about an hour or two. You can also transfer the files to the stick from the computer through Windows Explorer or Finder on Mac.

Once the device is charged, you tap the little power button on the stick to turn it on. Now install the Sandisk Connect app on your mobile phone, go to WiFi settings on your phone and connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot created by the USB stick. That’s it.

The content of the USB drive can now be accessed from your mobile phone. You can stream audio and video files stored on the stick, you can browse photos, open PDF files and other documents in associated mobile apps and you can easily transfer files between the phone and the wireless drive. It is much like plugging a USB stick into your mobile phone but without the wires.

The Wi-Fi network has no security by default but you do have an option to add a password to prevent other nearby devices from connecting to the USB stick.

Unlike using cloud storage, Sandisk’s Connect USB stick requires no Internet connection (it will create a hotspot that your mobile device will connect to) and multiple devices can connect to the same USB drive over Wi-Fi. So if you are carrying an iPad and an Android phone, not only can the two devices connect to the stick simultaneously but it can be used as a temporary medium to transfer files between the iOS and Android device.

The USB stick itself is solidly built with a transparent protective casing though it is obviously heavier and looks bigger than regular USB sticks. The Sandisk mobile app does have some issues but none of them are a deal breaker. In my testing, the iPad app frequently crashed especially when reading big PDF files. The Android app would not allow me to browse the web using cellular connection while the phone was connected to USB drive over Wifi.

Sandisk Connect (Amazon, Flipkart) is compatible with both Android and iOS devices and is available in various capacities from 16GB to 128GB. If you are running out of storage space on your mobile phone and upgrading is not an option, the Connect stick is probably the easiest way to expand your phone’s existing storage.

SanDisk Connect Giveway

SanDisk India is giving away 5 units of the SanDisk Connect Wireless USB stick to @labnol readers in India. All you have to do is fill this short form to participate in the giveaway. SanDisk will announce the winners on November 30 (Monday). Good luck!

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The story, A Wireless USB Stick that Expands your Phone’s Storage (And a Giveaway), was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 24/11/2015 under Android, IPhone, Usb, Gadgets.

Google Star Wars Experience

Google has a new site for Star Wars fans. You can join the dark side or the light side and transform your Google experience across Gmail, Google Maps, Waze, Google Translate, and other Google services.

"We reached out to our friends at Lucasfilm and Disney, and since then we've been working together on building google.com/starwars. It's a place for fans, by fans, and starting today you can choose the light or the dark side, and then watch your favorite Google apps like Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome and many more transform to reflect your path. And that's just the beginning. We've got more coming between now and opening night — the Millennium Falcon in all its (virtual reality) glory included, so stay tuned. And we've hidden a few easter eggs, too. So awaken the Force within, and be on the lookout for things from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," mentions Google's blog.

Google's Deals Alerts

Google's mobile search site shows some ads that promote a new notification service. Google's own ads feature a "subscribe" button that lets you "stay up to date on the latest deals, promotions, and updates from popular retailers". Basically, you'll get deals via text messages, just in time for Black Friday.

Tap the "subscribe" button and then you can text "join" to Google's SMS number: +1-646-665-2745. There are multiple alerts for phones, computers, TVs and more.

How to Link to a Specific Part of a Web Page

You are reading a web page, say a longform article published in The New York Times, and would like to share it with your friend. The article is lengthy and therefore there’s a possibility that your ‘busy’ friend may skip the parts that you really want him to read. How do you thus focus his attention to the most interesting stuff on the page?

Genius and TLDRify are useful web apps that that let you annotate web pages much like the yellow highlighter pens that you would use on the printed page. The services let you highlight any paragraph or specific sentence on a web page and create direct deep links to the highlighted text. When people click the shared link, they see the original page but with the annotated text.

How to Annotate and Deep Link Web Pages

Genius is a music lyrics website but they also provide a web annotator to help you add context and commentary on any web page. The best part about Genius is that you don’t need to install any bookmarklets or browser extensions to use the annotator. Go to the browser’s address bar and add genius.it/ before the page URL.

Next sign-in with your Twitter, Facebook or Google Account and you’ll be able to add annotations to the current page. To get started, highlight a sentence on the page and click the Genius button that pops-up to add your own comment. Genius will then provide you with a unique hyperlink that will directly open the page with the annotation highlighted.

The next useful app in the category is TLDRify. Here you need a bookmarklet or a browser extension but there’s no need to sign-up for an account to annotate web pages. Also, unlike Genius which may show annotations left by other users on the same page, TLDRify links will only show your own highlights.

While you are on a web page page, select any sentence or paragraph, click the TLDRify bookmarklet and it will create a deep link to the highlighted text. When people click the link, the browser will automatically scroll to the annotated text.

Internally, these services create an exact copy of the web pages on their own servers so even if the original page goes down or has changed, your old citations may still work.

Also see: How to Archive Web Pages Forever

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The story, How to Link to a Specific Part of a Web Page, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 23/11/2015 under Bookmarklets, Internet.