Microsoft Office Quick Reference

 

I like to learn hidden features from Quick Reference Sheets. Also they are handy as their name implies for a quick reminder of how to do tasks. These are a free download PDF.

Click Here to download.

Open AI and Chat GPT

You may have heard about Chat GPT by Open AI. Here is an explanation in it's own words. Followed by links to both websites.

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. Founded in 2015 by a group of entrepreneurs, researchers, and philanthropists including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and Wojciech Zaremba, the company aims to promote and develop friendly AI in a responsible way.

One of the key projects developed by OpenAI is the GPT (Generative Pre-training Transformer) family of language models. These models are trained on a massive amount of data to generate human-like text in a variety of languages and styles. GPT models can be fine-tuned for specific tasks such as translation, question answering, and summarization, and have achieved state-of-the-art results on a number of benchmarks.

GPT has also been used to generate realistic text in chatbots and other conversational AI applications. When given a prompt, GPT can generate responses that are coherent, coherent, and appropriate to the context of the conversation. This has led to the development of chatbots that can hold natural, engaging conversations with users on a variety of topics.

Overall, OpenAI and its GPT language models represent an exciting development in the field of artificial intelligence, and have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with machines and technology. However, as with any powerful technology, it is important to use it responsibly and ethically, and to consider the potential impacts and implications of its use.

Open AI

Chat GPT

Google Messaging Problems On Your Android Device?

It seems like messaging has a lot of issues. Here are some ideas to make it less of a problem. Also if you know someone who has problems receiving your messages send them to this article.

SMS = Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS ~ Wikipedia

MMS = Multimedia Messaging Service ~ Wikipedia

Here is a great article for changing settings on your Android device. Click Here

MMS can have problems mostly due to WIFI carriers not supporting it. Here is an article on what to do to fix MMS problems. Click Here

Still having problems? Sometimes using Facebook's Messenger instead of Google's Messages will work better. Not a Facebook member? Try the WhatsApp messaging app.

Links:

Facebook Messenger

Google Messages

WhatsApp 

Wireless Charging and a Warning!

 I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here. This is a link to about as good a description as your going to find of the circuits and electronics function of wireless charging. >> Click Here <<

What I do want to share here is a warning. Wireless charging is done using a process called induction. Two coils close together. One sending out waves that the other coil takes and converts into energy inside your device.

Induction is a word familiar to the electronics world (Technicians, Engineers, Scientists). It's used a lot in circuits transferring signals and energy.

You may be more familiar with the term involved with a way to cook. Induction can heat certain metals very quickly. You've probably seen the ads promoting that the cooking surface doesn't get hot itself but can rapidly get your pan to cooking temperature.

I recently discovered this same heating effect on my phone case. My case has a metal ring with iron in it to attach the phone to a magnet on my cars dash. Iron really responds to induction. So when I picked up my phone from the charger I noticed it was really hot. Luckily no harm was done to my phone or the case. Still I considered the amount of heat  a threat to the case, the phone, and the charger. If you are not sure just check after 10 seconds on the charger. Remember induction works fast. Just feel the phone or case. You will be able to tell. You might prefer to plug in your phone.

I hope this saves someone from damaging their devices.

Find Your Phone - Control or Erase It

 If you can't find your phone goto  https://www.google.com/android/find. 

From there you can locate it. Stolen? Secure it and it is locked but still locatable. Get the police to go get it. Can't get it? Erase it so no one can access your info or data. I hope you never need it but if you do here it is.

Rapid Fire Notifications From Chrome On Your Phone

You click on the wrong thing and suddenly your getting slammed with notifications. Here is how to stop them. Open the Chrome app on your phone. Tap the 3 dots in the upper right corner. 

Find settings and tap it.

Next find Notifications and tap it.

Tap / throw the switch to the off position.

This should solve the problem.

PHONE DATA

Even if you have an "unlimited" phone data plan, there may be a clause in the contract that allows your carrier to slow your phone when you reach a "limit". To avoid this annoying breach you can take a couple of step to avoid hitting that barrier.
Most plans will probably have at least 1 or 2 gigabytes of data before you hit the speed reducing barrier. For most that should be plenty. For power users of anyone under special circumstances this limit can come too quick.
The number one thing that can eat up your data is streaming video. Phone screens have reached amazing resolutions. Before streaming a movie or other video source ask yourself if you need to see it at the highest resolution.
The best solution is always to get on a trusted wifi source. Then you won't be using any data from your plan.
 The next data gobbler is sending video and still pictures to friends and websites. Here is an important fact: You can't see 16 megapixel resolution on a phone or computer screen. So most of the time you don't need to shoot at that high of pixel count. Go into settings and set the pixel count to something that make more sense. If your going to print the picture above a 4x6 go ahead and use the highest resolution you can. For screen viewing something around 1200 horizontal pixel count should be fine.
I use a separate camera app preset for lower resolutions for most snapshots. See the settings screens below. Suit your own taste, but if you want to reduce your data use this is a good place to start.

I hope this helps someone with hitting your data caps.

Free Up Space On Your Android Phone With Google Photos

You can set up Google Photos app to save your pictures automatically to your Google Drive. First make sure you have Google Photos installed. If not here is the link. https://goo.gl/y7Hmdw
Now open Google Photos app.

Tap the three dashes in the upper left corner. Select settings.

 

Look for Google Drive and make sure the slide switch is on. Next tap Back up & sync. Make sure the slide switch is on there as well. If you have added camera apps you made have additional folders that contain images. if so tap on Back up device folders and activate the slide switch.

Now give it a day or so to back up your pictures.

If all this was already set you can go back into settings. Your ready to free up space.

So here is the part that will free up storage space on your phone. 

Go back into settings and tap Free up device storage. Or on the previous menu Free up space. A pop-up window will tell you how many files photos and videos will be deleted. It will also tell you that the pictures have been safely backed up to your Google drive. 

So you can easily free up hundreds of megabytes of space on your phone or tablet with this feature. I hope you found this helpful.