iPhone Hacks and Online Photo Fun

The iPhone/iPad Lightning charging port is great at collecting lint that ends up making it hard to tightly plug in the charging cable. You might even think the port is broken. But save your money, because it is easy to clean out with a tweezer.

Do you sometimes have trouble on your iPhone with moving the cursor to where you want it? To make it easy, press and hold down the space bar button and then move around the screen (while still holding down the button). When you release the space bar, your cursor will move to where you indicated.

Save Your Battery

Smartphone battery life can be extended by using Airplane mode, even when you’re not on a plane. Turn it on for charging, when you need to focus on just one task, in the car, in any building where cell signal is weak, or when traveling on mountain roads where cell towers are not nearby.

Skype Upgrade

Microsoft added a potentially useful feature to Skype, their video call program. Real-time captioning in audio and video calls, along with coming real-time translations for over 20 languages, could make Skype easier for users who are deaf or hard of hearing. Like most new features in free software, Microsoft is rolling it out in waves. On a call-by-call basis, you can turn it on with the blue plus (+) symbol in the lower-right corner of the Skype screen. Or go into Settings, under your profile picture icon, and then Calling to toggle on those features.

Online Photo Manipulation

AI (artificial intelligence) on the web can help you edit your photos or at least have fun with effects. Making a child-drawn cartoon can be done at Cartoonify (kapwing.com/cartoonify) or turn your photo into a “famous artist” style painting at GoArt (goart.fotor.com). And with DeepDreamGenerator (deepdreamgenerator.com), you start with a normal photo and then change it into something almost from a dream.

Look Beyond the Lock

The iPhone/iPad Lightning charging port is great at collecting lint that ends up making it hard to tightly plug in the charging cable. You might even think the port is broken. But save your money, because it is easy to clean out with a tweezer.

Do you sometimes have trouble on your iPhone with moving the cursor to where you want it? To make it easy, press and hold down the space bar button and then move around the screen (while still holding down the button). When you release the space bar, your cursor will move to where you indicated.

Save Your Battery

Smartphone battery life can be extended by using Airplane mode, even when you’re not on a plane. Turn it on for charging, when you need to focus on just one task, in the car, in any building where cell signal is weak, or when traveling on mountain roads where cell towers are not nearby.

Skype Upgrade

Microsoft added a potentially useful feature to Skype, their video call program. Real-time captioning in audio and video calls, along with coming real-time translations for over 20 languages, could make Skype easier for users who are deaf or hard of hearing. Like most new features in free software, Microsoft is rolling it out in waves. On a call-by-call basis, you can turn it on with the blue plus (+) symbol in the lower-right corner of the Skype screen. Or go into Settings, under your profile picture icon, and then Calling to toggle on those features.

Online Photo Manipulation

AI (artificial intelligence) on the web can help you edit your photos or at least have fun with effects. Making a child-drawn cartoon can be done at Cartoonify (kapwing.com/cartoonify) or turn your photo into a “famous artist” style painting at GoArt (goart.fotor.com). And with DeepDreamGenerator (deepdreamgenerator.com), you start with a normal photo and then change it into something almost from a dream.

Look Beyond the Lock

Just because a site has a padlock does not mean that it is still not phishing for your information. You know to look for that padlock before entering credit card info and passwords, but that padlock just means that your typed information is encrypted as it travels to the website, not that the site is legitimately the site you think it is. Always look at the URL or web address displayed in that top one-line address box to make sure you are where you think you should be.