Stop Gmail from automatically downloading images

It has long been the case that Google has not automatically downloaded images embedded in emails as a security measure. But a recent update has changed the way things are done. Now all images will be automatically loaded, but there is far less of a security risk as they are now delivered through Google’s own proxy servers.

But if you are concerned about bandwidth usage, or just want to stay in control of what appears on your screen, you may prefer that images were treated in the way they used to be. This can be easily done as a quick change in Settings is all that is needed.

Open up your Gmail inbox, click the gear icon to the upper right of the screen and select Settings from the menu that appears.

Move to the General tab and look for the External content section. Here, select the option labelled Ask before displaying external content.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Save Changes button to apply the new settings.

That’s all there is to it. When you load an email in your inbox, you will only see the text by default and will be able to manually choose to display images for individual emails.

Backup your Facebook photos and videos with IDrive

I’m pretty sure some of us already know about IDrive, an online service that provides online backup for unlimited PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices into a single account! If you sign up for a free account, you’ll be given 5GB of free space which can be used to backup your files easily.

Even though they’re providing so many features like Multiple Device Backup, Remotely Manage your backed up files, easy shares; they’ve introduced a new feature called ‘Facebook backup’ which gives you the ability to easily backup Facebook photos and videos uploaded by you or tagged by your friends.

If you don’t have an account, you can create one. Start with the free account if you want to test them out first. You’ll be given 5GB of space with amazing features. On left side, you’ll see “Facebook Backup” button. Click it and it’ll bring you to a page with the backup option.

From there, click on ‘Backup Facebook’ and upon a pop-up; login and give access to your account. Don’t worry, IDrive does not store your Facebook information, so every time you wish to backup your Facebook data, you must provide your Facebook account credential. You can easily backup multiple Facebook accounts to your account. You’ll notice a folder with your Facebook profile name will be created in your IDrive account after the backup is complete and you can access all of your backed up files from there.

Check out iDrive

Backup your Facebook photos and videos with IDrive

I’m pretty sure some of us already know about IDrive, an online service that provides online backup for unlimited PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices into a single account! If you sign up for a free account, you’ll be given 5GB of free space which can be used to backup your files easily.

Even though they’re providing so many features like Multiple Device Backup, Remotely Manage your backed up files, easy shares; they’ve introduced a new feature called ‘Facebook backup’ which gives you the ability to easily backup Facebook photos and videos uploaded by you or tagged by your friends.

If you don’t have an account, you can create one. Start with the free account if you want to test them out first. You’ll be given 5GB of space with amazing features. On left side, you’ll see “Facebook Backup” button. Click it and it’ll bring you to a page with the backup option.

From there, click on ‘Backup Facebook’ and upon a pop-up; login and give access to your account. Don’t worry, IDrive does not store your Facebook information, so every time you wish to backup your Facebook data, you must provide your Facebook account credential. You can easily backup multiple Facebook accounts to your account. You’ll notice a folder with your Facebook profile name will be created in your IDrive account after the backup is complete and you can access all of your backed up files from there.

Check out iDrive

Fast Startup in Windows 8.1

If you have used Windows 8 or its successor, version 8.1 of the operating system, then you have likely noted that boot times have been considerably improved. This is due to a number of factors, but one of those is a feature called “Fast Startup” that Microsoft has built into the OS and enabled by default.

For the most part, this is harmless, but some customers have complained of startup issues and traced the problems back to this feature. While the number of affected users may be relatively small, it’s still useful to know how to disable this to at least find out if it has been the cause of any woes you have been experiencing.

Accessing the switch for this option is relatively easy â€" there are just a few simple steps to walk through and you’ll be all done. It’s a painless process.

To get started, head to the Charms menu and click search, then type in “Power Options”. Click on the utility â€" it should be at the top of the results.

There are a number of options here, such setting a password for wakeup, changing power options, and more. The one we are looking for is under “Choose what power buttons do” in the left column of the screen.

Scroll down and you will find “Turn on fast startup” listed under “Shutdown settings”. The box is most likely checked, as Windows 8.1 comes this way by default.

This may not solve your woes, but there are enough reports of this causing a problem to make it worth giving it a try. If it doesn’t fix the issue then simply re-enable it and move along in your search for a solution. You will need to restart your computer after making this change â€" either off or back on.

Obtain Photo Details in Chrome with ExifViewer

Exif data is contained in digital photos, though its hidden behind the scenes. The information, which is Exchangeable image file format, follows the picture from the digital camera to your computer and even when the photo is uploaded to the web. It can be stripped out, but few do this, which makes it a fairly simple matter for others get the details.

However, if you want to view this information in the easiest way possible, a Chrome extension known as ExifViewer can display it without you having to lift a finger.

Once installed in your browser, you can head to the Tools menu and click extensions, then scroll down to find it. Tap Options to get a page that allows you to alter the behavior. This isn’t necessary unless you wish to change something â€" by default it will display the camera model, focal length, Fnumber, exposure time, ISO speed, date and time the image was taken and the software used to edit it.

However, if you are looking more then there is a rather extensive list of options you can add â€" they are written out below the defaults, and you will need to manually copy what you want into the box.

You can also alter the cache size and add sites that you wish to exclude. Both Bing and Google Maps are excluded out of the box, though you can remove one or both sites from the list.

With everything set, simply browse a website and then hover your mouse above the image. Don’t be surprised if some show no data, as I said it can be stripped out and, in some cases it has been â€" a “not Exif data found” message will appear.

Photon: Edit Your Photos Right From Facebook Using Google Chrome

Editing photos (the right way) is not an easy job. Applications like Adobe photoshop, lightroom etc can be too much for an average person who has little or no knowledge on how to post process pictures. To overcome that dilemma, we have just the thing for you. Presenting Photon, photo editor for Facebook.

It’s an awesome Google Chrome based extension that adds an additional icon to facebook photos giving you the ability to edit any photo using different sets of effects. Here’s how it works.

After installing the extension, bring your mouse over to any uploaded picture on your Facebook account and you’ll notice a small icon.

Click on it and it’ll open a new tab. Amazingly, you’ll see 20 (very usable) effects. Enhance, add a frame, put stickers, focus a specific area also known as adding bokeh, adjust brightness or contrast, add text and many more!

From there, simply choose the effect, customize it to your needs and click Apply. After you’re satisfied with it, click on Save and it’ll download the edited version of your picture on your computer. Simply upload it from there and you’re good to go.

All in all, this is a great little extension that can give that cool touch to your photos without doing much.

Download Photon Photo Editor for Facebook

Optimize Your Website Speed And Performance With GTmetrix

If you’re running a website, one of your main concerns should be how optimized it is for the web. Sites that load slowly usually loses their visitors. You also cannot depend on your web hosting company to do everything for you, even though you’ve rented a good dedicated server, in the end it’ll all depend on how your website is actually optimized.

Time to analyze your website and we’ve got just the tool for you. GTmetrix is probably one of the best services out there that gives you the ability to test your website speed and performance. Visit their site, enter the website address and click GO. It will start testing your website uses Google Page Speed, Yahoo! YSlow and a few other tools.

After it has analyzed your website, it’ll break down the results and will display everything that’s good or bad on the site. You can see your page load time, total page size, and total number of requests as well. The first tab you’ll see would be the page speed. If the website is graded ‘A’ under page speed and YSlow grade, you don’t have to worry about anything but if anything’s wrong, no need to worry, GTmetrix provides actionable recommendations to fix those issues.

Click on anything that’s grade C or under and it’ll show you where the problem is and how to fix it. Usually the best thing I’d recommend is to copy the problem, for example “Minify CSS” and search for a fix on google. The solutions are although provided but as we all know, taking second advice (google) is always better. I managed to take one of my sites from grade ‘F’ to grade ‘A’ in matter of one hour.

All in all, GTmetrix is definitely something you should keep visiting and checking your website’s performance. Also, if you register for a free account, you’ll get awesome features as well like keeping track of the performance for your page and visualize your history with interactive graphs, testing from multiple regions, ecord your page loads and pin point exactly where bottlenecks or stoppages occur!, set up alerts and much more.

Check out GTmetrix

Easily Create Flipbooks Using PDF’s or JPEG’s with FlipSnack

FlipSnack is an amazing web tool that gives you the ability to turn your images or PDF files into a more dynamic reading experience. Whether you have an educational website, a food related website, real estate, tourism etc, FlipSnack is for you. You can easily render any PDF or an image into a flippable book. You can then embed it into your website and your readers can go through the pages without having to download or install anything on their computers.

FlipSnack is free of cost and all you need to do is register an account. As soon you’ve done that, head over to “New Flip” and click on add documents.

You can either drag and drop, upload a file from your computer or simply import it from a URL. After importing the files, click on Next or Customize.

You’ll see 5  templates to choose from, Classic, Hardcover, Coil, Interactive and Simple. Browse to the one you like the best and customize it more to your likings. You can choose the widget type, Shelf or classic. Choose the presets size or add in your custom width and height.

There are a lot of other customizable controls, like setting up cover, title, background options, show share buttons, enable files download and much more.

It’s definitely an ideal tool for web designers who want to engage their users in an interactive way instead of boring them with those flat documents. And it’s very easy to create one.

Check out FlipSnack

Kindle Fire HDX Gets an Updated OS — Here’s How to Install it Now

Amazon customers everywhere rejoiced upon the release of a new tablet â€" the company had been riding the Kindle Fire HD for a fair amount of time. With the Kindle Fire HDX, in both 7 and 8.9-inch sizes now officially out in the general population, the retailer can turn its attention to the details of its highly customized Android operating system. And it is doing just that, with a new update.

The roll out of Fire OS 3.1 is gradual, but if you don’t want to wait then you can go ahead and grab the update now, but there are some specific steps you will need to follow to make it work, and BlogsDNA takes no responsibility for you device if things happen to go poorly.

First, you will need to download the update, by visiting www.amazon.com/kindlesoftwareupdates â€" a word of warning, as the file is 795 MB.

Once you have grabbed the file, then plug your Kindle Fire HDX into the computer and launch Explorer. The tablet should show in the left column, listed simply as “Kindle”.

Locate the file you have downloaded â€" it’s called “update-kindle-13.3.1.0_user_310079820.bin” â€" and drag it to the Kindle. Make sure you place it within internal storage, but not within any of the folders that are contained there.

Now, unplug your tablet from the PC and access its Settings, by swiping down from the top of the screen. Click on Device and then tap System Updates. Finally click Update and the device should immediately find the file and begin installing it.

The process is surprisingly fast â€" much quicker than the average Android update. The Kindle Fire HDX will reboot while this is going on, so don’t panic when this happens.

Once the rather quick process is complete, you’ll find a few new goodies in version 3.1 of the mobile OS, including GoodReads integration and the ability to group programs is the same way that traditional Android devices allow.

How to Keep Hard Drives and Removable Storage Separate in Windows 8.1

There have been quite a few changes in the upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 â€" some make sense while others are rather less logical. Open up Explorer by pressing the Windows key and E and you’ll notice that â€" assuming you are running Windows 8.1 â€" your local removable storage is all grouped together under the single heading of Devices and drives.

You may well like the idea of keeping things separate. It makes sense as you probably use local drives and external ones for different things, but you could well be annoyed by the fact that when you plug in a USB drive, camera, or other storage device, your drive icons are rearranged.

Thankfully, it is fairly easy to get things back to the way they used to be, so external drives and internal drives are kept separate. In My PC, right click an empty area of the window and select the Group by option followed by More.

Tick the box labelled File System and then click OK.

You can then right click an empty space again and select Group by followed by File System.

Should you change your mind and decide you’d like things back the way they were, just select the Name option instead.

Copy Entire Playlist of Any User on YouTube using this Web Application

We have plenty of channels and videos available on YouTube. To avoid getting bored of our old videos, we should update our playlist with interesting videos from different channels. Even though we see a lot of videos on YouTube, finding an interesting one to add to your playlist is quite tough. You might have seen some users having very good collection of videos in their playlist. Instead of manually copying those videos URLs, here is a web app to copy the entire playlist of any user on YouTube.  The name of the app is “Copy YouTube Playlist”, developed by a popular Indian Blogger Mr. Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration. Let’s have a look at the features and  functions of the app below.

You don’t need to sign up or register for using the application. You can go to the web app using the link at the end of this post. To start using the application, first you have to log in with your YouTube account by click the “Sign-in with YouTube” button. If you have logged in already, once you click the button, YouTube will ask your permission to let the app to manage your account. Click “Accept” to connect the app with your YouTube account.

Once you connect your YouTube account, it will redirect you to an other window as shown in the screenshot above. In the window you have to paste the playlist URL from YouTube. To copy a playlist URL, go to  YouTube and search for the keyword you need. Click the “Filter” button  below the search box, and select “Playlist” to see different playlists created by users on that keyword. Once you find an interesting playlist, right click on the title and select “Copy link address” option in the list.

Now comeback to the application and paste the URL in that box and click “Copy Playlist to my YouTube” button. In the same window you can alsoselect the new playlist to be kept private or visible to public. Based on the number of videos in that playlist, the copying time will differ. Maximum it will be around 5 to 10 seconds. Once it completes the process, it will show a list of all the videos in that playlist. Now go and refresh the playlist in your YouTube account, it will be updated with the new videos you have copied. You can easily add or remove videos from that playlist on your account. Watch the video tutorial below to understand more about the application.

This application is so flexible, you can easily disconnect and connect the app from your YouTube account at any point of time. Also you can add any number of playlists to your account using this web app. If you are YouTube lover, you should definitely try this application. Share your thoughts about this app in the comments. Thanks for reading, do share this post with your friends.

Go To Copy YouTube  Playlists

Easily Find Movie And TV Shows Information, Trailers, and Subtitles Via Your Context Menu

I love TV shows and most of the times I’m spending time checking out information about the seasons, their trailers and subtitles for somes as well. Presenting Portitle, an awesome app that lets you search these via your windows context menu with a click on a button.

If you need to search for, lets say, subtitles for a certain show or a movie, just right click on the file and click on ‘Portitle’.

As soon you’ve clicked on it, Portitle will open a link that matches your file name. You’ll see 5 tabs, Information, Trailers, Subtitles, Download and Watch. Its sources include Filamaffinity, Google, IMDB, LocateTV, MovieMistakes, SideReel, TVDB, TV.com, Wikipedia and a number of torrent sites as well.

Lets assume that you want to download subtitles for a certain movie or a TV show. Click on Subtitles and you’ll see some subtitle sites like opensubtitles, podnapisi.net, subscene and subtitles bank. Upon clicking on any of those sites, it’ll take you directly to the page where the subtitles are present.

I tested 5 â€" 6 files and the everything was accurate! â€" Although, I’ve heard that it can mislead you if you’re looking for more information on documentaries. I don’t have any of those with me else I’d check that rumor out as well. It worked perfectly fine for me.

You can download Portitle for your windows desktop, google chrome and VLC (Video Lan) extension. Windows 8 and Android support is coming soon as well. Give it a try if you’re a movie/TV fanatic as well.

Download Portitle

Keep Your Android Homescreen Visible Whilst Locked

It makes sense to lock the screen of your Android handset when it is not in use â€" it prevents accidentally launching apps or performing other actions when picking up your phone for one thing. But at the same time, many people find the idea of a lock screen irritating; you may well be one of those people who would like to be able to see what is going on with homescreen widgets as soon as you press the power button.

This is why Invisible Lock was created â€" and there is a clue in the name that suggests what makes this a little different to other lock screens. It offers an adjustable level of transparency so you will be able to see you homescreen and any widgets you may have set up on it.

You can download a free copy of the app from Google Play.

Once you have it installed, before you proceed any further, you should disable any lock screen that you currently have in place. Head to the Lock Screen section of Settings on your phone and make sure that the None option is selected â€" if you do not do this, you will run into problems as two lock screens try to compete with one another.

Once this has been done, start Invisible Lock from the launcher. Tap the Invisible Lock setting so that it changes from Off to On.

When you have done this, you can then tap the Unlock Action setting to cycle through the various gestures that can be used to unlock the screen â€" a swipe to the left, right, up or down.

Click the Close button and the new invisible lock screen will now be activated. When your screen turns off, there will be a delay of five seconds before Invisible Lock kicks it. You will have to use your chosen gesture in order to unlock and use your phone.

Download Files Directly to Dropbox Using Chrome

With a steadily growing regularity, we are using the cloud to store and access our files. Services like Google Drive, Amazon Cloud Drive, Microsoft’s Skydrive, Box and Dropbox have transformed the way we look at storage. Granted, the services can, and do occasionally, go down, and it happens without warning and sometimes at rather inopportune times. But most boast somewhere in the neighborhood of 99-percent uptime, making them more reliable that many home networks. All are also redundant, meaning files do not get lost â€" they are mirroed with multiple copies to ensure protection.

The biggest problem may well be father time â€"it consumes time and bandwidth to get your files up to that cloud. When bandwidth is scarce it can become especially vexing. That’s shown loud and clear when you download a file online and then wish to store it on Dropbox, which means uploading what you have just finished receiving.

There is a better way â€" a Chrome extension called Download to Dropbox can improve the experience and save you more than half the time (remember that upstream is generally slower than downstream).

Once you’ve installed the app, an easy process in Chrome, a new icon will appear on your menu bar, showing an arrow pointing down to an open box. lick this, and you will be whisked away to the Dropbox page, There you will be asked to authorize the app to access your account (you will likely need to login first).

As far as options go, there are a few of those also. Head to settings and hit extension, scroll down to the Dropbox one and hit the link for “options”.

There isn’t much here, as you can see in the above image. You can show the folder that files download to and also switch your Dropbox account, if you happen to have more than one.

As far as actually using the app, you will find it easy enough. Simply right-click the file you want (you can grab images from web sites as well) and choose the Dropbox option.

There are countless Chrome apps and extensions that can interact with your cloud storage destination of choice. Download to Dropbox is only one, but if this happens to be your storage solution then this the right one. Its simple to use and doesn’t hog Chrome resources, making it an ideal solution.

Taking Screenshots in Chrome OS

With the recent release of new Chromebook computers from both HP and Acer, Google’s browser-based operating system moves a step closer to the mainstream. This means a growing number of people will be purchasing the devices, or perhaps receiving them as gifts this holiday season.

It also likely means a number of confused users. Chrome OS may resemble Windows, but there are a few major differences in both the style of the operating system and even the keyboard.

They keyboard, for instance, doesn’t have a PrtSc button, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a screenshot. It just means the process is a bit different. Here is how to do it â€" note that there are also extensions that can handle this for you.

To grab a shot of the entire screen, hold down the Ctrl button and, at the same time, press the box key along the top of the keyboard â€" its the one that displays a box followed by |||.

Now, where does the operating system store this image? Look to the bottom of the screen, in the taskbar, and, towards the right side, you will find a number â€" it generally shows “0″, but once you have grabbed an image this will display a “1″ (or higher depending on what you have grabbed). Click it and the file interface pops open, showing your image. This is the same menu that will open if you attempt to attach a file to an email or perform a similar type of action.

Alternatively, if you want to take a screenshot of a specific part of the screen, follow the same steps listed above, but hold down the Shift key along with Ctrl and box one.

Getting around in Chrome OS isn’t difficult, just different. This is one simple tip to get new users on the right track. Stay tuned to Blogs DNA in the coming days and weeks to learn more.

CloudSave Adds a Handy Cloud Option to Chrome

Chrome rose to popularity partially because of its speed, but also thanks to the number of extensions available. While the web browser has gained some bloat since those early days, the web store has grown in a much better way. The number of apps and extensions has jumped exponentially, while Chrome features and Google offerings continue to increase.

With more people saving files in the cloud, a growing number of dedicated extensions are popping up. However, if you are looking for an easy way to integrate multiple services, and get them all in one easy location then an extension called CloudSave may be your ticket.

“Right Click items on a webpage and save them directly to the cloud. Many cloud storage services are supported. Great for Chromebooks”, the developer describes.

Options

To customize how things work, head to Chrome setting and click the Extensions option. Now scroll down to CloudSave and click on the “Options” link.

This opens a tab that display a rather compact list displaying choices for hosts, search and marketing. There is also a dropdown list that includes a rather long list of cloud services.

Conclusion

CloudSave is a simple extension that adds big functionality to Chrome. With more people storing files on services like Dropbox and Google Drive, this makes a very handy solution. And, as the developer pointed out, is very handy for Chromebook users. Its well worth the free download.

Backtick: How to Use Popular Internet Services via Hotkey Shortcuts [Google Chrome]

Modern web browser users have numerous extensions installed for online video downloading, link sharing, and various other tasks. But in Google Chrome, many of these extensions can now be replaced with a single one: “Backtick“.

Backtick enables users of Chrome to quickly jump to popular websites or use their popular features from any webpage, through the use of hotkey shortcuts. The extension relies on its JavaScript to display a shortcuts panel that is triggered by a hotkey i.e. they backtick key on your keyboard. The shortcuts panel can then be used to perform a variety of popular internet tasks. These tasks include sharing the webpage you are on with your friends using numerous online social networks; downloading video off the video streaming page that you are on; saving the webpage for reading later; measure the pixel dimensions of page elements; and many more.

You begin using the extension by simply installing it on your Chrome web browser. Once this is done, you will notice a newly placed icon of the extension in your browser’s address bar (see image above).

When you are on any webpage that you want to share, download, or read later, you can have the extension’s pop-up appear by clicking on the abovementioned address bar icon. Alternatively you can press the backtick key on the keyboard. The result would be a dark pop-up appearing in the top left corner of the screen.

This pop-up lets you type in the task you want to perform and then it displays relevant internet options. For example, typing in “f” will reveal the option to share the current page on Facebook, share it on Flipboard, or share it via Buffer. You can make use of any of the options provided by simply clicking on them. Subsequently a relevant sharing page will be shown with your page URL already loaded within in.

Similarly, you can use the shortcuts panel to share your website across numerous popular online social networks. Supported networks include Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, and many more.

As mentioned above, the extension can also be used to download videos off popular video streaming websites. Many sites, including YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook, are supported for this video downloading feature. All you have to do is trigger the relevant option while streaming the video.

As you can see, this tiny little extension can be your replacement for multiple extensions that you might have installed. Backtick’s ease of use is truly remarkable and makes me wonder why nobody had thought of this before. Developers will be pleased to know that custom shortcuts can also be defined into the extension’s JS files to be used from the shortcuts pop-up.

You can get the Backtick extension for Chrome from over here. The official website of the extension can be checked out over here.

How to Flush the DNS Cache in Windows

DNS settings may be something that you don’t need to consider very often, but if you have opted to use servers other than those suggested by your ISP, or have some other need to change the server you’re using, you may find it useful to flush the cache. This clears out any settings that are out of date so that you will always visit the site â€" and version of the sites â€" you expect to see.

In addition to this the DNS cache can reveal a great deal of information about your online activity, so from a privacy point of view you may want to consider clearing it from time to time.

Press the Windows key and R at the same time to display the Run dialog. Type cmd and press Enter to bring up the Command Prompt.

At the Command Prompt, type ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter

You should see a message that reads Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.

You can then close the Command Prompt window.

Flushing the DNS cache may not be something you need to do all that often, but it’s a handy troubleshooting tips to have on hand for when the need arises.

Compress Your JPEG Images to Save Space

In the days of digital photography, we are all swimming in images stored on our computers and, hopefully, backed up as well. We carry point and shoots, DSLR’s and smartphones, we use Flickr and Instagram â€" you get the point. All of this leads to a modern-day problem, in that all of this imagery uses up space, and lots of it.

You may be running low on storage, you may wish to send a bunch of family pictures to grandmom â€" there are numerous reasons you might have to compress these files. There is software that will accomplish this for you, even image editing programs like Photoshop can get the job done.

However, you can also get the job done via a web app. CompressJPG, despite the name, actually also works for PNG and BMP, which are also some of the more popular formats today.

To get started head to the web site and click on the “Select Files” button to launch an interface that allows you to browse your computer, and indeed your entire network. You will need to choose one file at a time, but you can add up to 20 image to the upload queue.

A slider bar lets you choose the level of compression and, once decided, the program is off and running. The length of time will, of course, depend on the size and number of the files you have tossed at it. Download the finished product when the web app wraps up.

If you already have a good photo editor then there probably isn’t much need for this service â€" as I said, Photoshop can handle it with the “Save for web” option, and others can do similar things. If you don’t own the software, or perhaps are working from a Chromebook, then this is a great way to handle the duty.