iPhone Storage Full? Here Are 3 Ways To Save Your Photos & Videos

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Despite the iPhone's immense popularity – with a market share in the U.S. as high as 65%, according to Counterpoint Research – many still struggle with running out of storage on the device.

After all, unlike Android smartphones, you can't add more capacity with microSD cards. You're stuck with what you purchased – for an iPhone 12 (from $829 for 64GB).

It could be tough to get photos and videos off an iPhone, so you can delete the media to free up some room. It can be done, however, with a "good," "better," and "best" approach.

The following are three ways to back-up your precious memories from your iPhone or iPad – and freeing up some valuable space in the process.

Good

A free way to remove photos and videos from an iPhone or iPad is to connect your device to a PC or Mac, and manually drag and drop all the media over to the computer.

You can do this with the phone or tablet's charging cable.

Simply plug the cable into a computer's USB port, and in Windows Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac), click the drive letter of your phone or tablet (such as D: or E:), and enter the folder called DCIM, which holds all your captured photos and videos.

They may be in subfolders, too, but they'll all be here. Now drag and drop (or cut and paste) them onto your computer or an external drive. It could take a while for longer videos, and you might find some stubborn files that don't easy copy over, so double-check that it all worked.

This solution works, and it's free, but it does require some tech savviness.

If you're on a Mac, you can also Airdrop the images over. On an iPhone, find the photos or videos you'd like to send. Locate and tap the share button (square with up arrow) and tap the Mac you'd like to send the files to. Look in your Downloads folder on your Mac to find the images.

Better

Another way to back-up photos and videos – and then delete the local files to free up space – is to consider a cloud service.

Magically, over Wi-Fi or a cellular connection (if you have a healthy data plan), your photos and videos can be uploaded to a password-protected server in cyberspace, just in case you iPhone or iPad is lost, stolen, or damaged. You can also set up your device to automatically upload a copy of a photo or video whenever you shoot them. Convenient, but free options have storage limitations.

That is, there are several services – such as Apple's own iCloud, Google Photos, Amazon Photos and Dropbox – but be aware you only get 5 GB of remote storage for free with iCloud, and many others. Five gigabytes is likely fine for documents, but probably not enough for photos and videos, and so you'll have to pay for more storage. And remember, you need an internet connection to upload and access cloud-stored content.

And once you buy into a monthly plan, you need to keep paying or else you're without your files (like any subscription service).

As an example, OneDrive offers 1 TB of storage (more than 1,000 GB) as part of the annual Microsoft 365 Personal subscription ($69/year), which includes Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and so on.

Best

The quickest, easiest and most affordable solution is to consider one of the specialty thumbdrives available. If you haven't seen these, they're flash drives that snap into an iPhone or iPad's proprietary Lightning connector at the base of the device.

No internet connection or subscription is required.

In fact, the new SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe (from $45 for 64GB) has a Lighting connector on one end and a USB-C on the other, making it easy to move files between your iPhone and iPad to a Mac, PC, and other USB Type-C devices, including Android phones and tablets (a well as iPad Pro and iPad Air).

You're prompted to download the SanDisk companion app once you plug in the drive (for the first time), which lets you then select what files to back-up onto the drive (or restore to a new iPhone or iPad).

You can also view files from within the app. In fact, you can load up the drive with photos, videos and music – say, from your computer – and then access this content on your iPhone or iPad right from the USB drive itself. That way, you don't have to use up any internal storage.

Again, this drive works for Android phones, too.

You can password-protect files on the SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe, in case you lose it, plus there's a key loop in case you want to clip it to a set of car keys, a purse, or backpack.

There is also a 128 GB storage option for $59 and 256 GB version for $89.

Credit: Marc Saltzman via usatoday.com

Microsoft Accelerates Edge's Release Cycle to Every Four Weeks

Taking a page from Google’s book, Microsoft is speeding up the release schedule for its Edge browser and will issue updates every four weeks instead of six weeks, the company announced Friday (3-12-21).

If reading that gave you déjà vu, that might be because Google issued a similar announcement last week in which it stated that it’s accelerating Chrome’s release cycle to - you guessed it - every four weeks instead of six weeks starting in Q3 2021.

“As contributors to the Chromium project, we look forward to the new 4-week major release cycle cadence that Google announced to help deliver that innovation to our customers even faster,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

This way, Edge users will gain faster access to Microsoft’s new features and security patches. And since, as of 2020, Edge has been rebuilt in Google’s open-source browser project Chromium, matching its release schedule with Chrome’s makes it easier to keep the two browsers in sync.

The new schedule will go into effect with Edge 94, which is currently slated for a September release. Also following Google’s lead, Microsoft is offering its enterprise customers the option of a longer, more manageable release cycle, which translates to a release every eight weeks along with biweekly security updates for “the most important fixes.” However, the four-week cycle will be the default, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft’s got the right idea if it makes for a more seamless online experience. Collaborating with Google seems to be working out for Edge a lot better than attempting to go toe-to-toe with Chrome did for its predecessor, the beleaguered and often ridiculed Internet Explorer.

Credit: gizmodo.com

Executive Board Minutes

Computer Technology Club, Inc. – Executive Board Minutes
March 12, 2021

The Board meeting was cancelled by COVID-19 venue closures.

Tracker Pixels In Emails Are Now An ‘Endemic’ Privacy Concern

Critics suggest the practice is marketing gone too far.

Invisible pixels used to track email activity are now an "endemic" issue that breaches our privacy, analysts suggest.

This week, the Hey messaging service analyzed its traffic following a request from the BBC and discovered that roughly two-thirds of emails sent to its users' private email accounts contained what is known as a "spy pixel."

Spy pixels, also known as tracking pixels or web beacons, are invisible, tiny image files (including .PNGs and .GIFs) that are inserted in the content body of an email.

They may appear as clear, white, or another color to merge with the content and remain unseen by a recipient and are often as small as 1x1 pixels.

The recipient of an email does not need to directly engage with the pixel in any way for it to track certain activities. Instead, when an email is opened, the tracking pixel is automatically downloaded,  and this lets a server, owned by a marketer, know that the email has been read. Servers may also record the number of times an email is opened, the IP address linked to a user's location, and device usage. Similar pixels are also widely used on web domains to track visitors.

Tracking pixels have been around for some time but are not well-known. For marketers, pixels can be an invaluable method to measure engagement levels, estimate the success of marketing campaigns, and potentially to send follow-ups and more personalized notes when a message has been read, but not responded to.

However, according to Hey co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson, they also represent a "grotesque invasion of privacy." Hansson told the publication that on average, the company processes one million emails and over 600,000 pixel tracker attempts are blocked every day. If you bring these levels up to the millions and millions of emails processed by services such as Gmail or Outlook, the suggestion that pixel tracker usage is "endemic" may be realistic.

In Europe, GDPR demands that organizations tell recipients of the use of such pixels. However, the water has been muddied surrounding the transparency necessary to implement pixel tracking, as consent is not always required -- and when it is, this could be 'obtained' automatically when a user signs up to an email service and is asked to read a privacy notice published on a website.

The UK's own Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which acts as a data protection watchdog, uses pixels to track email openings in its newsletter, as noted by the publication. Users are clearly told of the trackers at sign-up; however, the ICO intends to remove this functionality soon.

It is possible to prevent tracking pixels from triggering by disallowing automatic image uploads in your web browser, or by downloading email and browser add-ons to block trackers.

Credit: zdnet.com

Should You Reboot Your Computer Every Day?

There are few certainties in life: Death, taxes, and turning your computer off and on when there’s a problem. This advice is usually the first tip you get from friends, family, and tech support.

Rebooting your computer helps keep it running smoothly. It clears the memory, stopping any tasks that are eating up RAM. Even if you’ve closed an app, it could still tap your memory. A reboot can also fix peripheral and hardware issues. If your computer is still running slow, this one insider trick could definitely help.

So, how often should you be rebooting your computer? Let’s take a look at how rebooting can impact your system and when exactly you should be doing it.

Give your computer a fresh start

It is recommended that you shut down your computer at least once a week. A reboot process returns everything to its bootup state, from your computer's CPU to its memory.

Many people will shut down their computer by holding in the power button. This way may cause additional problems.

Rebooting your computer involves two steps – shutting down the computer and then starting it up again. When you reboot/restart your computer, it will lose power during the process and start up again on its own.

Your computer itself will occasionally prompt you to restart it, usually after downloading an update. Newer machines need fewer restarts, but a major software patch usually requires one.

Reduce wear and tear

Your computer is full of moving parts. Its CPU, essentially the brain, has a fan. High-end graphics cards also need a cooling system. Though solid-state drives are becoming more popular, most PCs still use hard disk drives, consisting of spinning discs.

All of these components wear down over time and the longer you keep your computer running, the shorter their lifespan will be.

It's easy to fall into the habit of leaving it on to avoid having to go through the bootup process, but it will help you get more life out of your machine. If you are stepping away for a few hours or would rather not wholly shut things down, you can put your PC down for a nap.

Sleep it off

Sleep mode puts your computer into a low-power state. The fans will stop spinning and the hard drive will stop functioning, so things will get quiet.

With sleep mode, your computer’s current state stays in the memory. When you wake up your machine, your open apps, documents, music, etc., will be right where you left them. Tap or click here to see how your iPhone and Apple Watch can help you improve your sleeping habits.

To put your PC in sleep mode:

1. Open power options:

   • For Windows 10, tap Start > Settings > System > Power & sleep > Additional power settings.

   • For Windows 8.1 / Windows RT 8.1, swipe in from the edge of the screen, tap Search (or if you’re using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down and click Search), enter Power options in the search box and tap Power options.

   • For Windows 7, tap Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options.

2. Do one of the following:

   • If you’re using a desktop, tablet, or laptop, select Choose what the power buttons do. Next to When I press the power button, select Sleep > Save changes.

   • If you’re using only a laptop, select Choose what closing the lid does. Next to When I close the lid, select Sleep > Save changes.

3. When you’re ready to make your PC sleep, press the power button on your desktop, tablet, or laptop, or close your laptop’s lid.

On most PCs, you can resume working by pressing your PC’s power button. However, not all PCs are the same. You might be able to wake it by pressing any key on the keyboard, clicking a mouse button, or opening the lid on a laptop. Check the manual that came with your computer or go to the manufacturer’s website.

It takes less time to wake up a computer than it does to turn it on after a shutdown, but sleep mode still consumes power. To clear out bugs, memory leeches, nonfunctioning network connections, and more issues, a reboot is the way to go.

It takes less time to wake up a computer than it does to turn it on after a shutdown, but sleep mode still consumes power. To clear out bugs, memory leeches, nonfunctioning network connections and more issues, a reboot is the way to go.

Credit: USA Today