20 April 2018
Netflix Launches Short Video Previews on Mobile
Anyone who has watched Netflix on their TV recently will be familiar with its preview videos. These give you an instant indication of what a movie or show is about, allowing you to make an informed decision as to whether to watch it in an instant.
After introducing video previews to the TV interface in 2017, Netflix is now bringing them to its mobile apps too. And rather than just port the previews over from the TV app, Netflix has built them from the ground up to ensure that they’re mobile friendly.
Netflix’s Mobile Video Previews
Netflix’s new mobile video previews are all around 30 seconds long, and presented in a vertical format. The short length means you can watch them in their entirety without getting bored, and the format means you don’t have to turn your phone to watch them.
The previews occupy their own separate space on Netflix’s mobile app. And they’re presented like a slideshow so you can easily choose which one(s) to play and which to bypass. After watching one you can tap to play the piece of content or add it to your list.
"stories" format now on @Netflix
— vertical video format for previews arrives on iOS app
— watch our demo$NFLX pic.twitter.com/K6KjrdA5go— Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) April 18, 2018
Netflix explained the thinking behind the mobile previews on the Netflix Media Center, saying:
“Years of testing has made it clear that video previews help our members browse less and discover new content more quickly. With the launch of mobile previews, we are bringing a video browse experience to your mobile phone in a fun and mobile-optimized way.”
Netflix has already updated its iOS app to include the 30-second video previews, and the feature will be coming soon to Android. But whatever mobile operating system you use, Netflix has clearly designed these previews with smartphone users in mind.
Proving More Useful Than Annoying
When watching Netflix on a TV the video previews can sometimes get annoying. Especially when they start playing automatically as soon as you dare click on anything. However, these mobile-friendly previews should prove useful without also being annoying.
If you’re a fan of the streaming service you should read our ultimate guide to Netflix to make sure you know everything. And if you’re looking for content, try our list of the best period dramas, dark comedies, and Disney movies to watch on Netflix!
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Twitter doesn’t care that someone is building a bot army in Southeast Asia
Facebook’s lack of attention to how third parties are using its service to reach users ended up with CEO Mark Zuckerberg taking questions from Congressional committees. With that in mind, you’d think that others in the social media space might be more attentive than usual to potentially malicious actors on their platforms.
Twitter, however, is turning the other way and insisting all is normal in Southeast Asia, despite the emergence of thousands of bot-like accounts that have followed prominent users in the region en masse over the past month.
Scores of reporters and Twitter users with large followers — yours truly included — have noticed swarms of accounts with generic names, no profile photo, no bio and no tweets have followed them over the past month.
These accounts might be evidence of a new ‘bot farm’ — the creation of large numbers of accounts for sale or usage on-demand which Twitter has cracked down on — or the groundwork for more nefarious activities, it’s too early to tell.
In what appears to be the first regional Twitter bot campaign, a flood of suspicious new followers has been reported by users across Southeast Asia and beyond, including Thailand, Myanmar Cambodia, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka among other places.
While it is true that the new accounts have done nothing yet, the fact that a large number of newly-created accounts have popped up out of nowhere with the aim of following the region’s most influential voices should be enough to concern Twitter. Especially since this is Southeast Asia, a region where Facebook is beset with controversies — from its role inciting ethnic hatred in Myanmar, to allegedly assisting censors in Vietnam, witnessing users jailed for violating lese majeste in Thailand, and aiding the election of controversial Philippines leader Duterte.
Then there are governments themselves. Vietnam has pledged to build a cyber army to combat “wrongful views,” while other regimes in Southeast Asia have clamped down on social media users.
Despite that, Twitter isn’t commenting.
The U.S. company issued a no comment to TechCrunch when we asked for further information about this rush of new accounts, and what action Twitter will take.
A source close to the company suggested that the sudden accumulation of new followers is “a pretty standard sign-up, or onboarding, issue” that is down to new accounts selecting to follow the suggested accounts that Twitter proposes during the new account creation process.
Twitter is more than 10 years old, and since this is the first example of this happening in Southeast Asia that explanation already seems inadequate at face value. More generally, the dismissive approach seems particularly naive. Twitter should be looking into the issue more closely, even if for now the apparent bot army isn’t being put to use yet.
Facebook is considered to be the internet by many in Southeast Asia, and the social network is considerably more popular than Twitter in the region, but there remains a cause for concern here.
“If we’ve learned anything from the Facebook scandal, it’s that what can at first seem innocuous can be leveraged to quite insidious and invasive effect down the line,” Francis Wade, who recently published a book on violence in Myanmar, told the Financial Times this week. “That makes Twitter’s casual dismissal of concerns around this all the more unsettling.”
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How to See Who Has Access to Your Google Drive Files
If you’ve shared Google Drive files with a bunch of people, it can be easy to forget who exactly has access to which files. Managing your shared Google files can be a hassle, but finding out who you’ve given permission to—and revoking that permission—is a simple process.
How to Check Who Has Access in Google Drive
You can easily manually check who has access to your Google Drive files by doing the following:
- Navigate to the file or folder in question, right click it and select Share from the menu.
- If you’ve shared it with just one or two individuals, you’ll see their names listed in the window that pops up, under People.
- If you’ve shared with more than two individuals, click their names and the full list will open up.
How to Edit or Remove Users in Google Drive
If you want to change a user’s permissions or even remove them from the file, you’ll want to once again open up the Share window and bring up the list of users using the steps above. Then do either of the following:
- To change a user’s permissions, click the large icon next to their email address representing their sharing settings. You have three choices: they can view, comment, and edit.
- To completely remove a user, click the X next to their email address.
- Be sure to click the Save button once you’ve made all your changes or they won’t take.
How to Turn Off Sharing in Google Drive
If you’ve created a public link and have shared it with a bunch of different people without inviting them through their Gmail address, you can turn off that link, but that means that everyone will lose access.
To turn off link sharing, do the following:
- Navigate to the file or folder in question, right click it and select Share from the menu.
- If you’ve shared it you should see one of three messages: Anyone with the link can view or Anyone with the link can edit or Anyone with the link can comment. To switch the sharing settings, click drop down menu and make a new selection.
- If you want to completely turn off link sharing, click the drop down menu and select OFF.
- Once you’ve made your selection, click Done.
When you do this, anyone who previously had access through that generated link will no longer be able to open the file. If you generate a new link, you will once again have to share that link with them.
If you’d prefer users don’t make changes to your original file, you can use this little trick to encourage them to make their own Google Drive copy.
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How to Use Pandora on Linux
If you have a subscription to Pandora’s One service, you can download a desktop client for your Windows or Mac computer. You can also find apps for Android and iOS, as well as a Windows modern app in the Microsoft Store.
But if you’re a Linux user, you’re out of luck. There’s no official Pandora app for the operating system. However, there’s a workaround you can use.
Called Pithos, the app is much less resource-intensive than the web version of Pandora. It runs on Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux, and can also be installed via Flathub as a Flatpak. Let’s look at the installation process for each distro in more detail.
How to Install Pithos on Ubuntu
To install Pithos on Ubuntu, you need to use a PPA (Personal Package Archives) repo. Doing so ensures you will always receive the app’s latest updates in a timely fashion.
To install the app, open the terminal and enter the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pithos/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pithos
How to Install Pithos on Fedora
Fedora users can install the official RPM that’s available from RPM Fusion. To install the app, type the commands below:
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-X.noarch.rpm -y
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-X.noarch.rpm -y
sudo dnf install pithos
Note: Replace release-X with the version of Fedora that you are using.
How to Install Pithos on Arch Linux
Although the Pithos developers don’t advertise it, you can install the app via the Arch User Repository. You will need to use the Pacman package manager inside the terminal. To get started, just use the commands below:
sudo pacman -S git
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/pithos.git
cd pithos
makepkg -si
How to Install Pithos as a Flatpak
If you have Flatpak running on your Linux distro, you can install Pithos via Flathub. Here are the commands you will need:
sudo flatpak remote-add flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
sudo flatpak install flathub io.github.Pithos
If you’re not sure whether you should sign up for Pandora or use a different service, check out our list of free Pandora alternatives.
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How to Hide Your Last Name on LinkedIn
To take full advantage of LinkedIn, you have to be honest—but this non-anonymity of LinkedIn is what makes it a dream destination for identity thieves. That’s why you should be careful to who you let in and who you show your profile to. It’s always best to hide your personal details from those not directly connected to you.
One of LinkedIn’s security settings allows you to hide your last name from those who aren’t connected to you (i.e. second- and third-degree connections), and you should take advantage to boost your privacy.
How to Hide Your Last Name on LinkedIn
On LinkedIn, your 1st degree connections will always see your full name. But others won’t. It will also turn off your public profile, which will block your LinkedIn profile from appearing in any search engines. The steps below are from the web version of LinkedIn.
- Log into LinkedIn. Click the Me profile icon on the top right of your LinkedIn homepage.
- Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
- Click the Privacy tab at the top of the privacy settings page.
- Go down to the setting that says Who can see your last name. Click on Change.
- The section expands to display the two options available to you for your display name.
- Select the second option to turn off your last name. It will only be shown with an initial.
- The change is saved automatically.
The ability to hide your second name can serve a purpose in some situations where you do not want your second-degree connections and others to know more about you. For instance, some business scenarios might lead to a conflict of interest. It also gives you the power to choose how much of your profile should be visible to strangers.
Image Credit: Jirsak/Depositphotos
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How to Create Shortcuts to Registry Keys in Windows
While you can perform plenty of tweaks without it, experienced Windows users know that modifying the Registry can unlock many new features in Windows. And while the Registry gives you a lot of control over your system, it’s not the easiest utility to navigate.
If you often edit the Registry, chances are that you’ll find yourself visiting similar paths often. With a free utility called Registry Shortcuts, you can quickly jump to your most-visited Registry keys.
Just remember to be careful in the Registry so you don’t mess anything up.
How to Create Shortcuts to Registry Keys in Windows
- Visit the Registry Shortcuts homepage. Under the Download installer, download the 64-bit or 32-bit version depending on your system.
- Install the program. It doesn’t offer any options or third-party junk, so it should be ready in seconds.
Unlike most software, Registry Shortcuts has no interface you can open by searching for it. Instead, it adds a new entry to the right-click menu in File Explorer that only appears when you hold Shift to avoid clutter. - Open the Registry Editor by typing regedit into the Start Menu.
- Browse to a key you want to bookmark.
- Right-click the key in the left sidebar, and select Copy Key Name.
- Open a File Explorer window, then hold Shift and right-click any folder. You should see a new Registry shortcuts entry.
- Mouse over Registry shortcuts, then click Paste. This will add the key you copied as a new shortcut inside that folder.
- Now you can move that shortcut anywhere and use it for easy access to your favorite Registry keys.
If you select Create from Registry Editor bookmarks instead, you can easily create shortcuts to keys you’ve added to the Favorites menu in the Registry Editor.
For more, check out the best tools for working in the Registry.
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Don’t just stir; Stircle
Although I do my best to minimize the trash produced by my lifestyle (blog posts notwithstanding), one I can’t really control, at least without carrying a spoon on my person at all times, is the necessity of using a disposable stick to stir my coffee. That could all change with the Stircle, a little platform that spins your drink around to mix it.
Now, of course this is ridiculous. And there are other things to worry about. But honestly, the scale of waste here is pretty amazing. Design house Amron Experimental says that 400 million stir sticks are used every day, and I have no reason to doubt that. My native Seattle probably accounts for a quarter of that.
So you need to get the sugar (or agave nectar) and cream (or almond milk) mixed in your iced americano. Instead of reaching for a stick and stirring vigorously for ten or fifteen seconds, you could instead place your cup in the Stircle (first noticed by New Atlas and a few other design blogs), which would presumably be built into the fixins table at your coffee shop.
Around and around and around she goes, where she stops, nobody… oh. There.
Once you put your cub on the Stircle, it starts spinning — first one way, then the other, and so on, agitating your drink and achieving the goal of an evenly mixed beverage without using a wood or plastic stirrer. It’s electric, but I can imagine one being powered by a lever or button that compresses a spring. That would make it even greener.
The video shows that it probably gets that sugar and other low-lying mixers up into the upper strata of the drink, so I think we’re set there. And it looks as though it will take a lot of different sizes, including reusable tumblers. It clearly needs a cup with a lid, since otherwise the circling liquid will fly out in every direction, which means you have to be taking your coffee to go. That leaves out pretty much every time I go out for coffee in my neighborhood, where it’s served (to stay) in a mug or tall glass.
But a solution doesn’t have to fix everything to be clever or useful. This would be great at an airport, for instance, where I imagine every order is to go. Maybe they’ll put in in a bar, too, for extra smooth stirring of martinis.
Actually, I know that people in labs use automatic magnetic stirrers to do their coffee. This would be a way to do that without appropriating lab property. Those things are pretty cool too, though.
You might remember Amron from one of their many previous clever designs; I happen to remember the Keybrid and Split Ring Key, both of which I used for a while. I’ll be honest, I don’t expect to see a Stircle in my neighborhood cafe any time soon, but I sure hope they show up in Starbucks stores around the world. We’re going to run out of those stirrer things sooner or later.
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Technique to beam HD video with 99 percent less power could sharpen the eyes of smart homes
Everyone seems to be insisting on installing cameras all over their homes these days, which seems incongruous with the ongoing privacy crisis — but that’s a post for another time. Today, we’re talking about enabling those cameras to send high-definition video signals wirelessly without killing their little batteries. A new technique makes beaming video out more than 99 percent more efficient, possibly making batteries unnecessary altogether.
Cameras found in smart homes or wearables need to transmit HD video, but it takes a lot of power to process that video and then transmit the encoded data over wi-fi. Small devices leave little room for batteries, and they’ll have to be recharged frequently if they’re constantly streaming. Who’s got time for that?
The idea behind this new system, created by a University of Washington team led by prolific researcher Shyam Gollakota, isn’t fundamentally different from some others that are out there right now. Devices with low data rates, like a digital thermometer or motion sensor, can something called backscatter to send a low-power signal consisting of a couple bytes.
Backscatter is a way of sending a signal that requires very little power, because what’s actually transmitting the power is not the device that’s transmitting the data. A signal is sent out from one source, say a router or phone, and another antenna essentially reflects that signal, but modifies it. By having it blink on and off you could indicate 1s and 0s, for instance.
UW’s system attaches the camera’s output directly to the output of the antenna, so the brightness of a pixel directly correlates to the length of the signal reflected. A short pulse means a dark pixel, a longer one is lighter, and the longest length indicates white.
Some clever manipulation of the video data by the team reduced the number of pulses necessary to send a full video frame, from sharing some data between pixels to using a “zigzag” scan (left to right, then right to left) scan pattern. To get color, each pixel needs to have its color channels sent in succession, but this too can be optimized.
Assembly and rendering of the video is accomplished on the receiving end, for example on a phone or monitor, where power is more plentiful.
In the end, a full-color HD signal at 60FPS can be with less than a watt of power, and a more modest but still very useful signal — say, 720p at 10FPS — can be sent for under 80 microwatts. That’s a huge reduction in power draw, mainly achieved by eliminating the entire analog to digital converter and on-chip compression. At those levels, you can essentially pull all the power you need straight out of the air.
They put together a demonstration device with off-the-shelf components, though without custom chips it won’t reach those
A frame sent during one of the tests. This transmission was going at about 10FPS.
microwatt power levels; still, the technique works as described. The prototype helped them determine what type of sensor and chip package would be necessary in a dedicated device.
Of course, it would be a bad idea to just blast video frames into the ether without any compression; luckily, the way the data is coded and transmitted can easily be modified to be meaningless to an observer. Essentially you’d just add an interfering signal known to both devices before transmission, and the receiver can subtract it.
Video is the first application the team thought of, but there’s no reason their technique for efficient, quick backscatter transmission couldn’t be used for non-video data.
The tech is already licensed to Jeeva Wireless, a startup founded by UW researchers (including Gollakota) a while back that’s already working on commercializing another low-power wireless device. You can read the details about the new system in their paper, presented last week at the Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation.
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Technique to beam HD video with 99 percent less power could sharpen the eyes of smart homes
Everyone seems to be insisting on installing cameras all over their homes these days, which seems incongruous with the ongoing privacy crisis — but that’s a post for another time. Today, we’re talking about enabling those cameras to send high-definition video signals wirelessly without killing their little batteries. A new technique makes beaming video out more than 99 percent more efficient, possibly making batteries unnecessary altogether.
Cameras found in smart homes or wearables need to transmit HD video, but it takes a lot of power to process that video and then transmit the encoded data over wi-fi. Small devices leave little room for batteries, and they’ll have to be recharged frequently if they’re constantly streaming. Who’s got time for that?
The idea behind this new system, created by a University of Washington team led by prolific researcher Shyam Gollakota, isn’t fundamentally different from some others that are out there right now. Devices with low data rates, like a digital thermometer or motion sensor, can something called backscatter to send a low-power signal consisting of a couple bytes.
Backscatter is a way of sending a signal that requires very little power, because what’s actually transmitting the power is not the device that’s transmitting the data. A signal is sent out from one source, say a router or phone, and another antenna essentially reflects that signal, but modifies it. By having it blink on and off you could indicate 1s and 0s, for instance.
UW’s system attaches the camera’s output directly to the output of the antenna, so the brightness of a pixel directly correlates to the length of the signal reflected. A short pulse means a dark pixel, a longer one is lighter, and the longest length indicates white.
Some clever manipulation of the video data by the team reduced the number of pulses necessary to send a full video frame, from sharing some data between pixels to using a “zigzag” scan (left to right, then right to left) scan pattern. To get color, each pixel needs to have its color channels sent in succession, but this too can be optimized.
Assembly and rendering of the video is accomplished on the receiving end, for example on a phone or monitor, where power is more plentiful.
In the end, a full-color HD signal at 60FPS can be with less than a watt of power, and a more modest but still very useful signal — say, 720p at 10FPS — can be sent for under 80 microwatts. That’s a huge reduction in power draw, mainly achieved by eliminating the entire analog to digital converter and on-chip compression. At those levels, you can essentially pull all the power you need straight out of the air.
They put together a demonstration device with off-the-shelf components, though without custom chips it won’t reach those
A frame sent during one of the tests. This transmission was going at about 10FPS.
microwatt power levels; still, the technique works as described. The prototype helped them determine what type of sensor and chip package would be necessary in a dedicated device.
Of course, it would be a bad idea to just blast video frames into the ether without any compression; luckily, the way the data is coded and transmitted can easily be modified to be meaningless to an observer. Essentially you’d just add an interfering signal known to both devices before transmission, and the receiver can subtract it.
Video is the first application the team thought of, but there’s no reason their technique for efficient, quick backscatter transmission couldn’t be used for non-video data.
The tech is already licensed to Jeeva Wireless, a startup founded by UW researchers (including Gollakota) a while back that’s already working on commercializing another low-power wireless device. You can read the details about the new system in their paper, presented last week at the Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation.
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The Beginner’s Guide to Comments in Microsoft Excel
Whether you’re creating an Excel workbook for yourself or collaborating on a spreadsheet with others, comments are useful for many reasons. You should master the ways to manage them when you begin your Excel training.
Consider these four uses:
- Set reminders for yourself of tasks you need to do on the worksheet.
- Add notes for yourself or others.
- Explain a formula in a cell.
- Clarify how to use certain parts of the worksheet.
Today we’re going to cover some of the basics for working with comments in Excel.
Add a Comment to a Cell
To add a comment to a cell, click the cell to which you want to attach the comment. Then, do one of the following:
- Right-click on the cell and select Insert Comment.
- Click New Comment in the Comments section of the Review tab.
- Press Shift + F2.
In the comment box, below the name, type the text for the comment.
Click in the cell again, or any other cell, when you’re done entering text. The comment is hidden but the comment indicator remains.
While working with comments in Excel 2016, I came across what seems to be a bug. Usually, when you create a new comment, the name on the comment is pulled from the User name under Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office on the Excel Options General screen.
I created a new comment and added text to it. The User name (my name) displayed at the top of the comment. After a few minutes, the name on the comment automatically changed to “Author” without me doing anything else to the comment.
I thought that Excel might have been trying to pull the Author value from the Document Properties (File > Info screen, then Properties > Advanced Properties > Summary tab), so I entered my name in that field. But that didn’t work either. It still replaced my name with “Author”.
I haven’t been able to find a solution to this problem. If you figure out how to fix it, please let us know in the comments below!
Show or Hide Comments
To show or hide the comment on a cell, click the cell that contains a comment indicator and do one of the following:
- Right-click the cell and select Show/Hide Comment.
- Click Show/Hide Comment in the Comments section of the Review tab.
To show all comments on all the worksheets in a workbook, click Show All Comments in the Comments section on the Review tab. Click Show All Comments again to hide all the comments in the workbook.
The Show All Comments option shows all the comments on all the worksheets in all open workbooks and any workbooks you create or open while the option is on. You can’t show all comments for only one worksheet in a workbook. The only way to do that is to show each comment on the worksheet individually.
You may discover that some of your comments may overlap. See the next section, “Move or Resize a Comment” to find out how to fix that.
Move or Resize a Comment
If some of your comments are blocking other comments or cells, you may want to move them.
To move a comment, the comment must display without you hovering over the cell. So show the comment using the method in the “Show or Hide Comments” section above.
Move the mouse cursor over the border of the comment box until the cursor turns into a plus sign with arrows. Then click to select the comment box. You’ll see sizing handles appear on the sides and corners of the box.
Keeping the mouse cursor over the border of the comment box, click and drag the comment box to another location.
In our example, cell C3 is now not hidden by the comment on cell B2.
You can resize a comment by moving the mouse cursor over any of the sizing handles until it turns into a double-sided arrow. Then drag the handle to resize the comment.
Edit a Comment
Editing a comment after creating it is easy. To edit a comment, click on the cell containing the comment you want to edit and do one of the following:
- Right-click on the cell and select Edit Comment.
- Click Edit Comment in the Comments section of the Review tab.
- Press Shift + F2.
If the selected cell does not have a comment, the Edit Comment button is the New Comment button instead.
Add, change, or delete text in the comment. When you’re done making changes, click on the cell again, or on any other cell.
Delete a Comment
To delete a comment from a cell, select the cell and do one of the following:
- Right-click the cell and select Delete Comment.
- Click Delete in the Comments section of the Review tab.
There is no confirmation dialog when deleting a comment.
Format a Comment
By default, the text in comments using the Tahoma font in size nine. You can’t change the default font and font size, but you can format the text you’ve entered in a comment.
To format a comment, make the comment editable as described in the “Edit a Comment” section above. Then, highlight the text you want to format. Right-click on the selected text and select Format Comment.
On the Format Comment dialog box, make any changes you want to apply a different format to the text. For example, we’re making some text bold and red using the Font style box and the Color dropdown list.
Your new formatting displays on the comment when you hover over the cell to show it or when you show the comment as described in the “Show or Hide Comments” section above.
You can also use the formatting tools on the Home tab to format the selected text in a comment. But you cannot change the font color or the fill color using the Home tab. You must use the Format Comment dialog box to change the font and fill colors.
Copy a Comment to a Different Cell
If you want to add the same comment to multiple cells, you can add the comment to one cell, then copy and paste it into other cells. But there is a special way to do this.
Click on the cell containing the comment you want to copy and press Ctrl + C. Then, right-click on the cell where you want to add the copied comment and select Paste Special.
On the Paste Special dialog box, click Comments in the Paste section and then click OK.
Only the comment is pasted. The contents of the cell remain unchanged.
Remove Comment Indicators From Cells
If you have a lot of comments, the comment indicators (little red triangles) on the cells might get distracting, especially if you’re presenting the worksheet to someone.
You can easily remove the comment indicators from all the cells. Go to File > Options. Click Advanced on the left side of the Excel Options dialog box.
On the right side of the Excel Options dialog box, scroll down to the Display section. Under For cells with comments, show, select No comments or indicators. When this option is selected, hovering over a cell with a comment will not display the comment.
While both the comments and the indicators are hidden, you can’t use the Show/Hide Comment option to show the comment for individual cells. Instead, use the Show All Comments option in the Comments section of the Review tab to show all the comments. This also shows all the comment indicators again.
The Show All Comments option is connected to the For cells with comments, show option. So turning on Show All Comments changes the For cells with comments, show option to Comments and indicators.
You may not see the comment indicators right away. For me, switching to another program and back to Excel seemed to make the indicators display. This may be another bug.
When you turn off the Show All Comments option, Excel goes back to the default action of showing the comment indicators only and showing the comments when you hover over cells. The For cells with comments, show option changes to Indicators only, and comments on hover.
Review All Comments in a Workbook
To review all the comments on a worksheet, you can hover over each cell one at a time, but that can be time consuming if you have a lot of comments.
A faster way is to step through each comment using the Next and Previous buttons in the Comments section on the Review tab. The comments are displayed one at a time each time you click Next or Previous.
Print a Worksheet With Comments
It’s better to review your comments in your worksheet digitally, instead of printing the worksheet. But if would really prefer to review your comments on a paper, you can print your worksheet with the comments.
To print your worksheet with the comments, click the tab at the bottom of the worksheet you want to print.
Show all the comments, or only the comments you want to print, using the methods described in the “Show or Hide Comments” section above. Then, move or resize the comments as necessary using the methods in the “Move or Resize a Comment” section above.
In the Page Setup section on the Page Layout tab, click the Page Setup dialog box launcher.
On the Page Setup dialog box, click the Sheet tab. Then, select one of the following options from the Comments dropdown list:
- If you want to print the comments where they are, select As displayed on sheet. Note that printing comments as displayed on the sheet will block some cells.
- If you don’t want to block any cells, select At end of sheet. This prints a list of all the comments at the end with the cell reference for each.
Click Print when you’re ready to print your worksheet with the comments.
The Print screen on the File tab displays. You’ll see a preview of how your worksheet will look with the comments printed. Select your printer and click Print.
Start Using Comments to Annotate Excel Worksheets
When collaborating on documents, comments help communicate ideas, questions, and problems. Use Excel comments to make the document review process smoother and faster for everyone involved.
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Reddit hires former Time Inc. exec Jen Wong as COO
Reddit, one of the internet’s largest hubs for both traffic and controversy, announced today that it has hired former Time Inc. President of Digital Jen Wong to take on the role of COO.
She will be tasked with managing Reddit’s business strategy, working out of the company’s New York office. Wong left Time Inc. earlier this year when the company was acquired by Meredith Corp for $1.84 billion.
In a blog post, the company detailed the scope of her role as COO. A major focus will be building the company’s advertising strategy:
Her goals as COO will align closely with her past experience at Time, PopSugar, and AOL: using her media, publisher, advertising, and operations expertise to help us build out our offerings for users, advertisers, and partners; applying her experience building successful digital advertising offerings for internet media giants to our own ads platform; and, through it all, working to grow our business while staying true to the things that make Reddit unique.
Despite claiming 330 million monthly active users, Reddit is still a relatively small operation by Silicon Valley standards. A major part of that is that they’ve been slow to build out a sophisticated advertising product, though in recent months they’ve begun rolling out native ads in the company’s mobile apps.
“Jen is a seasoned digital veteran and successful executive at some of the biggest media companies in the world, her experience and vision will help carry Reddit’s momentum forward in the years to come,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a statement.
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Russia’s game of Telegram whack-a-mole grows to 19M blocked IPs, hitting Twitch, Spotify and more
As the messaging app Telegram continues to try to evade Russian authorities by switching up its IP addresses, Russia’s regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN) has continued its game of whack-a-mole to try to lock it down by knocking out complete swathes of IP address. The resulting chase how now ballooned to nearly 19 million IP addresses at the time of writing, as tracked by unofficial RKN observer RKNSHOWTIME (updated on a Telegram channel with stats accessible on the web via Phil Kulin’s site).
As a result, there have been a number of high-profile services also knocked oput in the crossfire, with people in Russia reporting dozens of sites affected including Twitch, Slack, Soundcloud, Viber, Spotify, Fifa, Nintendo, as well as Amazon and Google. (A full list of nearly forty addresses is listed below.)
What’s notable is that Google and Amazon themselves seem still not to be buckling under pressure. As we reported earlier this week, a similar — but far smaller — instance happened in the case of Zello, which had also devised a technique to hop around IP addresses when its own IP addresses were shut down by Russian regulators.
Zello’s circumventing lasted for nearly a year, until it seemed the regulator started to use a more blanket approach of blocking entire subnets — a move that ultimately led to Google and Amazon asking Zello to cease its activities.
After that, Zello’s main access point for its Russian users was via VPN proxies — one of the key ways that users in one country can effectively appear as if they are in another, allowing them to circumvent geoblocking and geofencing, either by the companies themselves, or those that have been banned by a state.
It’s important to note that the domain fronting that Google is in the process of shutting down is not the same as IP hopping — although, more generally, it will mean that there is now one less route for those globally whose traffic is getting blocked through censorship to wiggle around that. The IP hopping that has led to 19 million addresses getting blocked in Russia is another kind of circumvention. (I’m pointing this out because several people I’ve spoken to assumed they were the same.)
Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder and CEO, has made several public calls on Telegram and also third-party sites like Twitter to praise how steadfast the big internet companies have been. And others like the ACLU have also waded into the story to call on Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft to hold strong and continue to allow Telegram to IP hop.
But what could happen next?
I’ve contacted Google, Amazon and Telegram now several times to ask this question and for more details on what is going on. As of yet I’ve had no replies. However, Alexey Gavrilov, the CTO and founder of Zello, provided a little more potential insight:
He said that ultimately they might ask Telegram to stop — something that might become increasingly hard not to do as more services get affected — and if that doesn’t work they can suspend Telegram’s account.
“Each cloud provider has provisions, which let them do it if your use interferes with other customers using their service,” Gavrilov notes. “The interpretation of this rule may be not trivial in case when the harm is caused by third party (i.e RKN in this case) so I think there are some legal risks for Amazon / Google. Plus that would likely cause a PR issue for them.”
Another question is whether there are bigger fish to fry in this story. Some have floated the idea that just as Zello preceded Telegram, RKN’s battles with the latter might lead to how it negotiates with Facebook.
As we have reported before, Facebook notably has never moved to house Russian Facebook data in Russia. Local hosting has been one of the key requirements that the regulator has enforced against a number of other companies as part of its “data protection” rules, and over the last couple of years while some high-profile companies have run afoul of the these regulations, others (including Apple and Google) have reportedly complied.
Regardless, there’s been one ironic silver lining in this story. Since RKN shifted its focus to waging a war on Telegram, Gavrilov tells me that Zello service has been restored in Russia. Here’s to weathering the storm.
We’ll update this post as and when we get responses from the big players. A more complete list of sites that people have reported as affected by the 19 million address block is below, via Telegram channel Нецифровая экономика (“Non-digital economy”). Some of these have been disputed, so take this with a grain of salt:
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Russia’s game of Telegram whack-a-mole grows to 19M blocked IPs, hitting Twitch, Spotify and more
As the messaging app Telegram continues to try to evade Russian authorities by switching up its IP addresses, Russia’s regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN) has continued its game of whack-a-mole to try to lock it down by knocking out complete swathes of IP address. The resulting chase how now ballooned to nearly 19 million IP addresses at the time of writing, as tracked by unofficial RKN observer RKNSHOWTIME (updated on a Telegram channel with stats accessible on the web via Phil Kulin’s site).
As a result, there have been a number of high-profile services also knocked oput in the crossfire, with people in Russia reporting dozens of sites affected including Twitch, Slack, Soundcloud, Viber, Spotify, Fifa, Nintendo, as well as Amazon and Google. (A full list of nearly forty addresses is listed below.)
What’s notable is that Google and Amazon themselves seem still not to be buckling under pressure. As we reported earlier this week, a similar — but far smaller — instance happened in the case of Zello, which had also devised a technique to hop around IP addresses when its own IP addresses were shut down by Russian regulators.
Zello’s circumventing lasted for nearly a year, until it seemed the regulator started to use a more blanket approach of blocking entire subnets — a move that ultimately led to Google and Amazon asking Zello to cease its activities.
After that, Zello’s main access point for its Russian users was via VPN proxies — one of the key ways that users in one country can effectively appear as if they are in another, allowing them to circumvent geoblocking and geofencing, either by the companies themselves, or those that have been banned by a state.
It’s important to note that the domain fronting that Google is in the process of shutting down is not the same as IP hopping — although, more generally, it will mean that there is now one less route for those globally whose traffic is getting blocked through censorship to wiggle around that. The IP hopping that has led to 19 million addresses getting blocked in Russia is another kind of circumvention. (I’m pointing this out because several people I’ve spoken to assumed they were the same.)
Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder and CEO, has made several public calls on Telegram and also third-party sites like Twitter to praise how steadfast the big internet companies have been. And others like the ACLU have also waded into the story to call on Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft to hold strong and continue to allow Telegram to IP hop.
But what could happen next?
I’ve contacted Google, Amazon and Telegram now several times to ask this question and for more details on what is going on. As of yet I’ve had no replies. However, Alexey Gavrilov, the CTO and founder of Zello, provided a little more potential insight:
He said that ultimately they might ask Telegram to stop — something that might become increasingly hard not to do as more services get affected — and if that doesn’t work they can suspend Telegram’s account.
“Each cloud provider has provisions, which let them do it if your use interferes with other customers using their service,” Gavrilov notes. “The interpretation of this rule may be not trivial in case when the harm is caused by third party (i.e RKN in this case) so I think there are some legal risks for Amazon / Google. Plus that would likely cause a PR issue for them.”
Another question is whether there are bigger fish to fry in this story. Some have floated the idea that just as Zello preceded Telegram, RKN’s battles with the latter might lead to how it negotiates with Facebook.
As we have reported before, Facebook notably has never moved to house Russian Facebook data in Russia. Local hosting has been one of the key requirements that the regulator has enforced against a number of other companies as part of its “data protection” rules, and over the last couple of years while some high-profile companies have run afoul of the these regulations, others (including Apple and Google) have reportedly complied.
Regardless, there’s been one ironic silver lining in this story. Since RKN shifted its focus to waging a war on Telegram, Gavrilov tells me that Zello service has been restored in Russia. Here’s to weathering the storm.
We’ll update this post as and when we get responses from the big players. A more complete list of sites that people have reported as affected by the 19 million address block is below, via Telegram channel Нецифровая экономика (“Non-digital economy”). Some of these have been disputed, so take this with a grain of salt:
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3 Unique Mac Dock Replacements You Should Try
Your Mac’s dock is probably a lot older than you think. It’s been a defining feature of the Mac experience since OS X 10.0, graduating from humble beginnings as part of the NeXTSTEP and OpenStep platforms of the 80s and 90s.
Unlike Microsoft’s Start menu, Apple’s dock hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years. That’s great, assuming you’re fond of Apple’s simplified approach to application management.
But if you’re not a fan of the dock in its current form, you can customize it or replace it with one of these apps.
1. uBar
uBar is the premier dock replacement for macOS. Few other apps go this far in search of better macOS window management. Surprisingly, this is a feat largely achieved by mimicking the look and feel of Windows. You can configure the app as a Windows-like taskbar, or as a smarter version of the Mac dock.
The app defaults to a taskbar layout, placing all your open windows along the bottom of the screen. Apps are grouped together where relevant, making it easy to find anything even if it’s spread across multiple desktops. uBar lets you skip right to the relevant desktop with a click, and another click hides the app.
It also includes a small Start Menu equivalent, with expanded shortcuts to common folders, system preference panes, Terminal, and power options. You can heavily customize the app including adding your own shortcuts and toggling auto-hiding. It also lets you choose where it appears onscreen, change the color scheme, and exclude apps from appearing.
One of my favorite features is the inclusion of a month-view calendar when hovering over the date and time, something macOS doesn’t make easy unless you open Calendar. You’ll also find shortcuts to the Trash and a button that triggers the “expose desktop” gesture where you’d expect to find it on Windows.
Transitioning Windows users will find uBar a useful tool, though if you become too reliant on it you’ll likely never drop Microsoft’s methods. That’s not a problem though, as uBar is a refined and polished product that’s well worth the $30 entry fee. You’ll get a 14-day free trial when you download the app, but you’ll likely only need a few hours with the app to make your mind up.
uBar really feels like a part of macOS, and it works best if you heavily rely on Spotlight as a launcher and disable your old dock entirely.
Download: uBar ($30, 14-day free trial)
2. Station
Station is a dock replacement that uses a hierarchy of folders to organize items in any way you like. It’s more a customizable version of the current macOS dock than a complete revamp. It works best if you have a specific structure by which you like to organize your apps, documents, and frequently-used locations.
Station lets you organize anything you like in a series of nested folders. As an example, you could have a root-level folder titled Applications that contains expanded folders for categories like Adobe and Games. By grouping items in a logical manner, you’re less likely to waste time hunting around and ultimately be more productive.
Station also has the ability to launch all items in a single folder. If you have a set of applications you use for work (like Pages, Evernote, Spotify, etc.), you can quickly jump in by launching everything at once. Adding items to your Station is a case of dragging and dropping everything in place, a potentially time-consuming endeavor.
Unlike uBar, Station isn’t a macOS window manager. Running processes will not appear in Station; only shortcuts and folders you have created yourself show up. That means it might not function too well as a dock replacement, unless you’re going for a “less is more” approach.
A warning about the demo version: you will lose your folder hierarchies when you reload the app, and the app will forcibly quit an hour after you open it. This isn’t the greatest means of testing an app, since you’ll have to re-download and set everything up again if you decide to buy.
Download: Station Demo (Free with limitations)
Download: Station ($15)
3. DockShelf
Sick of only having one dock? DockShelf lets you have as many docks as you like, containing whatever you want, in any position on your desktop. While it might sound cramped and impractical, DockShelf actually makes it pretty easy to keep a ton of icons close by.
By default, the app creates separate tabbed docks for your desktop, apps, places, notes, downloads, and recent files. You can choose to create new docks with their own purposes and icons, and populate them with applications, folders, stacks (popup groups), and even smart folders.
DockShelf can even create docks for running processes (like a taskbar). This lets you switch between apps or terminate processes with a right-click, as well as access external devices like USB drives. There’s even a “desktop” dock which acts as a scratch pad for any files and folders you want to keep within reach.
These docks don’t take up much screen space since they’re tabbed. Thus, you’ll need to hover or click on the tab in order to access the items within. It looks a little basic, but everything seems to work fine. The app could do with an update, but provided you’re running macOS 10.8 or later it should work fine.
The free version of DockShelf displays a splash screen on startup and places a big unsightly “Purchase!” link in your menu bar. There are no time restraints or other limitations that I could see.
Download: DockShelf ($5, Free trial with limitations)
What’s Up, Mac Dock?
Whichever dock you decide to use, getting the most out of Spotlight is probably the best way to increase productivity on your Mac. If you’re coming from Windows, don’t forget to check out our Mac 101 guide for Windows users.
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SNK may be making a mini-console stuffed with arcade classics
If you’ve worked through the amazing selection of games provided by the NES and SNES Classic Editions, you may be in luck: SNK, the legendary arcade game creator behind the likes of Metal Slug and Samurai Shodown, is teasing what looks like its own tiny arcade cabinet.
Teased as part of the company’s 40th anniversary, the shrouded gadget definitely doesn’t look like a NEO-GEO, or even a NEO-GEO Pocket. Gizmodo notes that the description mentions a “new game machine,” but no details beyond that. The tall, boxy outline suggests a small arcade cabinet, and the slab in front of it looks a lot like an arcade controller.
It wouldn’t be a particularly original creation — there are dozens of tiny arcade cabinets with built-in games, but the truth is none of them is particularly good. They’re novelties, perfectly fun for a laugh, but the hardware – compared with the impressive solidity of real arcade controllers and the NEO-GEO’s itself – just isn’t there.
If I had to guess, I’d say this is an arcade cabinet-style console with improved internals, a decent screen to accommodate games newer than 1996, and a separate, perhaps even wireless arcade controller. Price… I’d put it at $200 or $250. Extra controller (and you’ll want it), my guess is $60. I could easily be way off, though. Maybe they’d even let us plug in our old Tanksticks?
An original NEO-GEO controller. You can feel the sturdiness from where you sit.
Inside, you’ll probably find a generous helping of SNK classics, likely limited to arcade and NEO-GEO titles. Even without SNK’s classic games for home consoles like the NES. My eyes were watering as I scrolled down the list of games the company has put out and which may end up on this device.
King of the Monsters 2? Last Resort? Twinkle Star Sprites? King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, and all the other fighters? Not to mention Metal Slug and its sequels. The amount of quarters I’ve sunk into these fantastic, beautiful games is uncountable.
If SNK is smart, they’ll make it possible to add new games to the system, too. There are plenty to choose from, as the company catered to a number of niches. Having them available for a few bucks each would be a dream — and anyway, if this isn’t a possibility, people will just hack new ROMs onto the system.
Whatever the case is, you can be sure I’m already jockeying for position to review the thing. I’ll let you know the second I hear anything.
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