Some useful apps
Some useful apps
I have a Note20 Ultra 5G 512gb mobile phoneAnd a Galaxy S8+ 256gb tablet.
Both the above with extra memory cards - 400gb on the phone and 256gb on the tablet.
When i talk about an app I will prefix the app name with P- if on my phone, and if it is an app I use on the tablet, I'll prefix the app name with T- Occasionally I have tha same app on both, so then I'll start with B-
The phone is with me all the time but i keep the tablet at home under lock and key as it has my financial dealings and major political exchanges on.
T-Procon mailI use this secure email program for all my financial dealings. It hasn't many bells and whistles but like all Swiss companies, it has a lot of security built in. I prefer to keep my tablet at home under lock and key.
P-Fairemail I use this for normal email. It is a terrific program, on two levils. A basic email app on the lower levil which means you can start using it straight away as a basic email app. When you are used to it and get to know it, you find it can do everything all the other more technical apps can do. I run a business and keep all mail on a particular subject or person in a specific folder which is very handy at times. It also handle multiple email providers and I have many email accounts.
B-Website shortcutA handy little utility app which allows me to set up an icon for a specific website of a company who haven't built an app. It doesn't sound very much but I use it extensively.
B-Zoho NotebookNow this is something else!!! I've used many notebooks in the past but none so easy and pleasant to use. Enter a note, a voice recorded note, a captured note with the camera, a todo list with tick boxes, a sketch note and a section to attach files. And you can you tie it in with zoho mail,
Then there's their 'SmartMail'. Save a recipe link and Notebook will automatically find the recipe photo and description, create a checklist for ingredients, and provide step-by-step cooking instructions. Find supported recipe websites here.
Notebook also shows you a video preview for Youtube and Vimeo links, and starts playing it in a distraction-free space once you open it. The headline or page title, along with the main image, will appear front and centre when you share a link to Notebook.
T-Saleform Plus A build it yourself database, free if you dont want the relational database version. I use it for a description of whats in every cupboard and we must have over 50. I can find where anything in our home within three seconds flat. Also the membership database for a group I run is on this.
P-Our GroceriesA shopping app, allows us to have product lists for Tesco, Waitrose and Aldi, a West End South African food shop, our local Indian spice shop, Our local shop and the internet shop I use. My wife also has the app geared to me and if I've gone shopping, she can add something she's just remembered, and when I get to the shop, it's in my app.
T-Whats on tbe menuA great menu planner, now we are 82/79 respectively we like to make life simple, so we now have four separate weekly menus, and they are listed as A menu, B menu, C menu & D menu. We run them in consecutive weeks.
I have 600 apps on my phone and approaching 400 on my tablet. I wrote an article on a great way to choose a new app. It's in Section 5 called "Articles about Technology",
Finally, a little tip. If you have an old tablet, and you have updated to a more modern version - don't throw the old one away, it still has a use. You can buy a Bluetooth keyboard for around £25.00 with a slit along the top where you can slide your old tablet in, and "Hey Presto" You have a small notebook computer. All for a few pounds! This is where the Zoho Notebook comes in handy. I type on the keyboard/tablet and instantly it appears on my phone and my new tablet. This is extremely useful.
Social Media - a pain or a blessing?
There has ben a lot of soul searching since the various large Sociial Media conglomerates have stifled the right to free speach and welcomed control wholeheartedly. And, the fact checkers who lie terribly to stifle free speech.
I, for one, have left Twitter - or, to be honest, have been banned twice! And, I've never liked Facebook as it was too inward looking but have rejoined it temporary to promote Lion-Net. WhatsApp apart from being dictatorial, is too buggy as every hacker and his dog has delved into the members database. I use a old tablet with only facebook on,
There are many alternatives springing up and, after careful consideration, I decided to stay with Youtube for the Afrikaans music which I love, but use Bitslide for the all the materiial banned by YouTube.
I find Telegram a great alternative to WhatsApp and totally secure. It's banned in Russia as the two Russians used to have a WhatsApp look-alike in Russia and their Government forced them to sell. The Russian Government were very upset when the two took off and left Russia to operate the software. The two Russians first tried to set up in th USA but the FBI insisted on a backdoor. Thy were having none of that, so relocated to Switzerland. They have servers in different countries and America or Europe would have to land on everal governments which would not bee praticable!
Durov, their head programmer, swims under the ice in Finland every Christmas!!! Rather he than I, and probably you, dear reader!
Telegram can be extremely complex with all the new things they can do, but you can, like me, use it at a simple level!
I use Signal Messaging for access. If the other person is not on Signal, it is just an SMS program but if you are both on, then it is supposed to be a totally? secure encrypted messaging program. In addition you can arrange in both computers to delete the message between 5 econds of being Read to over a minute. Ideal for people in the political or commercial sectors. However, I am only too aware that it is based in the USA and therefore probably has an FBI back door. We tend to use the five second delete rule!
Finally
I use Minds.com as a Twitter alternative. You actually get paid for participating, such as posting and replying to posts. I feel at home as I am quick-witted with my humour, as are the folk on Minds. Not many who are devoid of a fast pace humour remain on it for long. Minds.com use blockchain for their software but I am not aware of the advantages other than making pocket money!
But remember, no matter how secure you imafgine your software to be, it isnt! And if you turn it off, is it? And your routers, Amazon or google two way speakers?
Remenber, the National Security Agency NSA in the USA, or GCHQ in the UK, employ the brightest brains to listen in to every one and everything that's said.
Ampers on Telegram
Ampers' presence on the Telegram app.
I have a presence on Telegram – They have 600,000,000 users as from last December (2021). Possibly over 700,000,000 now.
Any suggestions always welcome. Complaints tolerated! You can call me anything you like except late for dinner.
I run the Lion-Net group but this is for members only. If you live in the North London postal districts - or can access them easily, go to our website at: www.lion-net.group for an application form.
I have a humour group at WRFHumour but have to admit, a few posts show an interesting interpretation of humour.
In addition, I am the anchor on the White Rose Finchley (London) group who, apart from being anti lockdowns and anti masks, don't favour being vaccinated with a vaccine which hasn't been properly tested. We are not against people volunteering to have the vaccination - just against people being forced to, as this is against the Nuremberg Code which is still very current.
A good way to get the best app
Choosing a new app?
A foolproof method of choosing the best app for the job
This article isn’t long but could prove to be very useful.
This will benefit the Android and the over-expensive iPhone user. Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple users and held quite a few shares in the company.
OK, now down to business.
You need an app for a particular purpose and when you come to the play, or app store, you find a long list of similar apps.
No worries, but this will take you a little time but – in the long run – will save you endless heartbreak.
Save every app of the type you want that has four out of five stars or more, and has over 100k downloads. No matter if there are a dozen or over, you’ll quickly weed them down to two or three. If an app has less than 4 stars but has 100k or more downloads, check back through the reviews, the bad ones may be just recent as an upgrade has gone wrong.
Once they have downloaded, open each one and search for reasons to DELETE. At this stage don’t worry about cost. If the app is worth it, it’s worth buying. Jews and Scots are supposed to be careful, but that is nothing compared to we Afrikaners! We really are careful, bordering on tight! But I am saying this to illustrate the following paragraph.
I recently searched for a good to-do app and after trying seven or eight, I decided on Todoist. It was so good and I wanted the extras, so I paid £35 for a year’s rental. And will probably extend next year. My point is, if it is going to save you time and effort, pay for it.
OK, you have quickly weeded 8 rubbish apps from, say, twenty apps and now comes the testing. Go through the remaining 12 apps, again looking for a good reason to DELETE them. By now you may have weeded them down to two or three.
Now comes the hard part, and you may want to wait until the evening so you can spend an hour or two checking them out. Deleting the worse one until you are down to two.
The next stage is to start entering data in both. It is important you enter a fair amount of the same data in both of them to get a true comparison.
After entering the data it will soon become apparent which of the two is the best one to keep.
My experience? I have over 650 apps on my Galaxy N20 Ultra mobile and 450 apps on my Galaxy S5e tablet.
Is "Big Tech" stifling us?
There has been a lot of soul searching since the various large Social Media conglomerates have stifled the right and welcomed the left wholeheartedly. And, the fact checkers who lie to help stifle free speech.
I, for one, have left Twitter - or, to be honest, have been banned twice! And, I've never liked Facebook as it was too inward looking. WhatsApp, apart from being dictatorial, is too buggy as every hacker and his dog has delved into the members database.
There are many alternatives springing up and after careful consideration I decided to stay with YouTube for the ‘Afrikaanse musiek’ which I love, but use Bitslide for all the material banned by Google’s YouTube.
I find Telegram a great alternative to WhatsApp and totally secure. It's banned in Russia as the two Russians used to have a WhatsApp look-alike in Russia and their Government forced them to sell. The Russian Government were very upset when the two took off and left Russia to operate the software. The two Russians first tried to set up in the USA but the FBI insisted on a backdoor. They were having none of that, so relocated to Switzerland. They have servers in different countries, and America or Europe would have to deal with many governments which would not be practicable!
Durov, their chief programmer, swims under the ice in Finland every Christmas!!! Rather he than I, and probably you, dear reader!
Telegram can be extremely complex with all the new things they can do, but you can, like me, use it at an extremely simple level!
I use Signal Messaging. If the other person is also on Signal, it is like an SMS program but it is also a ‘totally secure’ encrypted messaging program. In addition you can arrange for both computers to delete the message between five seconds of being read to over a minute. Ideal for people in the political or commercial sectors. However, I am only too aware that it is based in the USA and therefore probably has an FBI back door. We tend to use the five second delete rule!
Finally, I use Minds.com as a Twitter alternative. You actually get paid for participating, such as posting and replying to posts. I feel at home as I am quick-witted with my humour, as are the folk on Minds. Not many who are devoid of a fast pace humour remain on it for long. Minds.com use blockchain for their software but I am not aware of furthder advantages other than free speech and making pocket money.
Buying a new mobile phone
Nowadays, buying a new phone is a headache.
At present, I own a Note20 Ultra phone. But my problem is, I have over 650 apps on my phone.
Soon the new Galaxy S22 is out, should I or shouldn't I? .
How long do you think it will take to transfer everything, bearing in mind that I don’t want to use the automatic copy over system which Samsung offers? There’s a lot of old rubbish on there and I want to start afresh.
I’ve downloaded an app called “List my Apps” so I can print out all my apps. Then I go through the list marking all those I want to delete. Two days later, after my sub-conscious has worked on it, I go through the list, marking some more and unmarking a few I want to keep. Then I print out the list - 545 apps to transfer!!!
Now I mark each app with A, B or C. A = must have soon. B = must have later and C = some time after everything is done.
My problem now is to source a temporary SIM card as I will want to have both mobile phones in operation as this job will take a long time.
Once I have loaded all the data in the new phone, with all the apps, I have to search for the data files for each app and copy and paste all the contents into the new phone. All being well, it will be done and dusted eventually. Probably by the time the next phone comes out!
It took a lot of hours and I have not yet finished. Fortunately I copied all the data to my new phone before zapping it and removing my SIM card and putting my wife’s SIM card in. More about this later.
A few of my purchased apps suddenly became limited free ones so I went into Gooogle Play, and to my accounts, and clicked on the Purchased Apps tab and clicked on all my previously purchased apps and these apps downloaded on top of the freebies.
I have purchased over 100 apps over the years so went through them resurrecting many I had not used for ages.
There is still a lot of work to be done, but changing phones from last year’s “top of the range” to this year’s “top of the range” is not a doddle. In addition, if I had used Samsung’s “move apps over” program, I wonder if it could cope with so many apps?
There is another problem, which I hinted to above. My wife’s detail now also appears in the Google Accounts list on my phone, and my account appears on my wife's phone. I deleted her from my phone, and Google asks her to log in again. She tries and Google sends her request for signing in to my phone. Fortunately we are also best friends so although this is going to take a lot of time to sort out, we can live with it. However, I think I have finally corrected this! ***
And no, the only thing I’ll buy from Apple and I had a good amount of those, is their shares, sold them after 20 years just before their price started wobbling! . I’m not saying their products are overpriced, but Apple are worth more than the entire 100 top British companies in the FTSE top 100.
*** No such luck!
