MELANCHOLY404 TECHNOLOGY

How to Get Volume and Brightness Gesture Controls in the YouTube Android App

Sunday, 29 May 2016

Almost all Video Players on Android provide gesture controls to set volume and brightness as the video plays. It easy and handy to have this feature. Now, what if you get this feature in the official YouTube Android app? Maybe you’re too lazy to stretch out your fingers to the volume buttons or pull down the notification bar to increase brightness. Whatever the case may be, if you’re interested in getting this feature then read on.

youtube-gesture-control — Controlling YouTube with gestures on Android | Bloomua / Shutterstock

There are many apps on Play Store that can give you gesture controls to perform different actions. But, that will take its affect system-wide. You need to have an application that can track a specific activity (as in our case a video playing in the YouTube app) and turn on the gesture control for that specific activity. That way the action performed will only affect the specific activity in the app and not system-wide. So, here I’d like to share with you an app that will do exactly that.

Turning back the time wheel : In the past, we had share with you a gesture-based app that you’ll ever need, a Gesture Launcher to perform system tasks and a guide on setting swipe gesture for external links on Android. So, do check them out.

Volume and Brightness Gesture Controls in YouTube for Android

Step-1: Download and Install this app.
Step-2: Open the app and you’ll be asked to turn on the Accessibility Settings for the app.

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Step-3: Turn on Accessibility for the app. This will enable the app to track when the YouTube video is playing on your Android phone.
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Step-4: You’re now all set to use the gesture control in the YouTube app. Play a video on YouTube. Swiping up/down on the left will control the brightness and on the right will control the volume.
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The Annoying Message

As you can see in the above screenshot, you get a full sized banner asking you to buy the full version. Yes, this comes up every time change the brightness and volume. It stays for around 2 seconds. But, it’s still annoying. The full version costs $2. If you really want to have this feature in YouTube app then go for it.

Settings

In the settings of the app, you can set the velocity of the swipe and enable the option to show brightness and volume levels in percentage.
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Xposed Framework User? Here are 2 Xposed Modules to enhance your YouTube Experience on Android.

Any Other Way?

The free version of the app will surely annoy you. But, the full version is worth the buy (it also contains settings for tap anywhere to pause/start and auto brightness). However, if you have any other way to do this in the YouTube app then do mention it down in the comments and help other readers.

3 Awesome Tools to Customize the Boring File Explorer and Folders on Windows 10

Tag : Apps, Productivity, Review, Windows, Windows 10

We’re just a few days away from receiving the next iteration of Windows 10. The aptly named Anniversary Update. Certain new features and some design changes are included. But in all these changes one thing is gonna remain the same. The same boring folders and file explorer. Yes, no doubt, Microsoft totally nailed it with the design language of Windows 10. The sleek and minimalistic design are eye pleasing. But, I still find File explorer and folders to be boring in looks. Well, if you feel the same and are a “Tweaker” then let me show you 3 tools that will help you customize the look the folders in Windows 10.
customize-folder-in-windows-10

There are many tools available for customization in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. No specific tools have yet been developed for customizing Windows 10. The below tools are updated versions (compatible with Windows 10) and some are not (but, they work). I’d still recommend you to take a System backup before performing any tweaks. By the way, there weren’t any damaging issues in my usage. So, it’s safe to proceed. Let’s dig in.

1. Folder Colorizer: Add Colors to Your Folders

Folder Colorizer is the tool that you must have used in Windows 7 to add colors to your folders. The tool is not updated for Windows 10 but it still works.

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The usage is pretty simple. After installing go to the folder location. Right-click on the folder. Choose Colorize! and select your color.
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Now, after you select the color it will do some loading and present you an error. Just hit OK and the folder color should change. Restoring the color back to original works fine. The custom colors option doesn’t work. The dialogue box does show up but crashes after few seconds of opening.
folder-colorizer-error

Also, there are few things to note:

The sub-folders of the customized folder will also change their colors.
The thumbnail view of the folder icon won’t show the preview of files that are stored in it.

2. Folderico: Completely Customize the Folder Icons

Folderico has full compatibility with Windows 10 and works perfectly. With this tool, you get the freedom to completely customize the look of the folder icon. You can add custom color, images, and overlays.

Open the tool and browse to the folder which you’d like to customize. Now, you can replace the icon with an image or else add a color and overlay to it.
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You can use any PNG or JPEG image as an overlay. Here I’ve used the Counter-Strike logo. You can also add color to the background. If you think you want to use the icon again with other folders then you can even save it by clicking on Save to User Icons. Also, there are some preinstalled icons that you can use.
folderico-preinstalled-icons

3. Windows 10 Skins

One of the way to completely change the look and feel of the file explorer and the folders is to install skin packs. There are many cool themes and skins available for Windows 10. Skins for your favorite games, metro themes, and Android themed skins.
ac10

I recommend you to download skins from skinpacks.com. I’ve been using their skins since Windows 7. There’s also a Skin Pack Creator and IconPack Creator to create your own custom skins. One thing to note here is that the whole Windows UI will change not only the file explorer. If you don’t want to change the whole UI then you can use the SkinPack creator to create your own customized skins for file explorer and folders.

Few Other Add-ons

In the past, we had shared a tool that gives Chrome-style tabs in the file explorer. Also, if you know the file explorer doesn’t show folder size in details view. So, in order to quickly view the size of the folder, you can use this tiny tool called Folder size.

How to Search Almost Everything Right From Your Keyboard on Android

The keyboard app is one of the most used software components on any phone. It is the source for your data input. Now, what if you make this source more smart that it will let you search, share and access almost anything across the web? Well, that’s what Google did by launching GBoard on iOS. Yes, iOS. As per my knowledge, this is the first time Google launched its software product on some other platform first. Also, it’s the first keyboard app by Google on iOS. And, they just nailed it. It will come to Android in the near future. But, who likes to wait?
search-almost-anything-android-keyboard

Search and Share Inc. grabbed this opportunity and developed their own version of Gboard for Android. (By the way, it’s actually the Android version of their already popular keyboard app on iOS– Slash Keyboard). So, let’s dig in and see how you can make the best use of this app on your Android phone.

A quick overview of Slash Keyboard – Slash keyboard will let you search through different web services such as Google Search, YouTube, Amazon, Google Maps, Giphy, Apple Music and more. Not just web services but also your phone contacts and gallery images. All of that is accessible right from the keyboard.

Search and Access Almost Everything using Slash Keyboard

Download the app from Play store and set it up. Set the Primary Input to Slash keyboard. And, you’re good to go.

The Keyboard Interface

After you’ve enabled the keyboard, open any chat/messaging application to try it out. On the top of the keyboard, you’ll get shortcuts to different web services. Now, you won’t see all services shortcuts. To access them all, tap on the button with three dots. Or else you can tap on the slash button down at the bottom and search for the service.
slash-keyboard-interface-3

Using the Services (aka /Slashes)

Tap on any service that you’d like to use and enter your search query. For example, I’m using WhatsApp here and sharing the Official Music Video of 7 Years by Lukas Graham with my friend.
slash-keyboard-using-services-1

Tapping on the YouTube shortcut will open a new panel where you can enter your search query. Search results will be displayed as rectangular cards. You can swipe through these cards and select your desired result. As shown above in the screenshot, the link to the YouTube video will be shared directly when you tap on the result. Tapsla.sh is their shortened URL which will redirect you to the actual link.

FYI: Companies and App Developers use shortened links to keep track of how many people clicked that link, from what location did they click it and some advanced uses that help them to gain knowledge about their user’s activities.

Other services work the same. Even the local search for contacts and images work really well. It’s one of the fastest ways to share images from your gallery.
slash-keyboard-images-gallery

Also, if you’re a GIF fanatic then you also have GIPHY as web service to quickly send GIFs. Also, you can quickly search for tweets of specific users by typing in their Twitter username and also search for tweets using hashtags.

Customization

You can further customize the shortcuts on the keyboards in the app settings. You can change the order of the shortcut and also disable the services that you don’t want to use. Or completely disable the Shortcut bar and search only through Slash button.
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You can also create your own /Slash which just works like a Text Expander.
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You also get different themes to please your eyes.
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Better than GBoard?

Well, can’t say until GBoard lands on Android. Becuase, iPhone users have mixed reviews about GBoard. Some say it lags while typing and some say it’s the best innovative keyboard on iOS and some are just afraid of Google stealing their data. So, let’s wait. Till then, Slash Keyboard is definitely the best app on Android to experience your favorite web services right from your keyboard.

How to Retrieve Lost or Deleted iPhone Data

Tag : iPhone, Productivity, Tutorial

Tenorshare’s iPhone Data Recovery tool makes several promises about its software. It can recover data from your iPhone you may have deleted by mistake, get data from an iPhone if it’s damaged, lost or stolen, and even retrieve your information if you forgot your Lock screen passcode.

shutterstock-iphone-lightning-plug-sync-backup — If you’ve ever accidentally deleted important data from your iPhone, Tenorshare can help | Shutterstock

The iPhone Data Recovery software can function in one of three ways. It can recover data directly from your iPhone when it’s plugged into your computer, recover data from an iTunes backup file, or recover data from your iCloud backups if logged in.
We reviewed the software to determine if it’s as good as it claims to be at recovering lost information. You can get Tenorshare’s iPhone Data Recovery as a free trial or for $49.95 on Windows and $59.95 on Mac.

Supported Apps for Recovery

A quick note before we get into the process: Tenorshare supports a pretty wide array of apps and services on iOS for its retrieval of data. That list includes stock apps as well as some third-party apps too:

Phone calls
Contacts
Messages and attachments
Notes and attachments
Safari
Calendar
Reminders
Photos
Videos
Voice memos
Voicemails
WhatsApp
Tango
Viber
Third-party app documents
Facebook Messenger

Recover from iOS Device

The recovery process directly from your iPhone or iPad isn’t much different from a tethered sync. Open the Tenorshare iPhone Data Recovery application and then connect your iOS device to your computer. The software will recognize the device and prompt you to scan for files and data with recovery potential.
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The scanning process took about 20 minutes for me, but your experience may differ. I found out once the scan completed this was likely due to the thousands of recovered photos. Unfortunately, the scan wasn’t able to recover anything else — no browsing history, no messages, no videos, nothing of the sort.
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Note: Even though that recovering data directly from your iOS device is the first option to present itself, I had the least amount of success with this option. If you’re really trying to dig into the archives, you’re better off using one of the backup scans as noted below.

Recover from iTunes Backup

If you frequently back up your iPhone to iTunes, this is the option you should probably take for recovering lost data. If you never do, you won’t get much out of it. Skip to the iCloud backup section below.
tenorshare-iphone-data-recovery-4

Clicking the middle tap in the iPhone Data Recovery app offers the ability to restore data from a previous iTunes backup. The software searches your entire computer for backup files. Then you choose one to scan for data and click Start Scan.
I had only backed up through iTunes moments before starting this scan, so understandably the app quickly communicated to me that there was essentially nothing to recover. But again, if you back up frequently, you’ll have more success.

Recover from iCloud Backup

As a nightly iCloud backup user, Tenorshare’s iPhone Data Recovery worked best for me on this setting. It does require that you enter your Apple ID and password so it can log into your account, but once in it found several old backups. I picked out one from September 2015.
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After selecting what I wanted to search for and scanning for a couple of minutes, the app found calls, contacts, notes, browsing history and photos.
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The data presented was quite comprehensive. Browsing history includes URLs, call history includes everything from contact name to type and duration and notes include the full text without even restoring.
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That’s where the fun ends on the free trial, though. To actually restore any data, you need to upgrade to the paid version for Mac or PC. The free trial just pulls all of it out of the archives.

Verdict: Effective, if Pricey

Tenorshare was extremely intuitive, taking just one click to scan and retrieve old files. The interface is easy to navigate and the files found are presented in a clear and organized manner.
That said, you have to be really longing for something you deleted to justify paying at least $49.99 for the software. That’s definitely on the expensive side so it really comes down to you and your priorities. But if you do need a solid app that can deliver on its promise to find old data, Tenorshare iPhone Data Recovery does the trick.

How to Fix 100% Disk Usage Issue on Windows 10

Tag : Tutorial, Windows, Windows 10

Ever since I started using Windows 10, every time I opened the Task Manager in detailed view, the disk usage activity always touched the mark of 100%. If not a century, it was always above 90% which was quite odd. For the first few days, I thought that it might be because of the heavy video rendering that I did on my PC for our YouTube channel related work. But after a few weeks I realized that even while my system was idle with no major background processes running, it was hitting the 100% mark just for disk usage. The CPU state was mostly idle, going from just 2 to 10%.
high disk use

It was enough to convince me that it’s not the workload that’s causing my PC to be slow all the time with obnoxious disk usage. It was time to find a solution and after hours of online research, I managed to find out some working tricks. These tips solved the issue on my PC and now my computer shows decent disk usage with a significant improvement in performance.
So if you too are facing similar issues on your Windows 10 computer, here are the 4 things that you should check on your PC.
Note: If you are not sure what your disk usage in Windows 10 is, right-click on the taskbar to open up Task Manager and here enable the detailed view. In the Processes tab, you can see the CPU, Memory, and Disk Usage on your computer.

Disable Windows Search

The first thing you must check out is the Windows Search services which are kind of buggy and cause Windows 10 on your computer to enter a search loop. Once Windows 10 enters the search loop, it starts indexing files over and again which cause the high disk usage with minimal CPU and Memory usage. I am not sure when Microsoft is going to take care of this bug, but the only option you can go with is to disable the Windows Search Properties permanently. To get started, open up Windows’ Run box and execute the command services.msc.

Once the Services window opens up, look for Windows Search and double click on it to open up the properties page. Here, the first thing you should do is click on Stop to immediately stop the service and then change the Startup Type to Disabled. That’s all, save the settings and after some time, you should notice an improvement in the disk usage activity. But if you still have the issue, don’t worry, there are still a few things you can try.
windows search

Disable Superfetch Services

The next thing you can try is to disable Superfetch services from services.msc window itself. Superfetch service caches data to RAM so that it can be immediately available to your application. Unfortunately, the service is not always right about which software you’re going to use and can keep your hard drive busy for minutes after booting and closing applications.

While disabling the Superfetch service, make sure you stop it first and then change the Startup Type to Disabled.

Disable Windows 10 Tips

Disabling the above two services did the trick for me, but if you still are not seeing any improvement, you can try a tip I read on Reddit. A few users suggested to open Windows 10 settings and then navigate to Notifications & actions. Here turn off Show me Tips about Windows and that’s all. It should just take a minute or two before you see the results.
windows tip

I haven’t tried this myself, but from the comments on the Reddit page, it looks like that the trick is working for users and is definitely worth a shot.

Conclusion

Those were the few tips you can try to get the Windows Disk usage to behave. If none of them works for you, I am afraid it might be because of some malware on your computer and you might have to disinfect the Windows 10 or clean install from the scratch in a hope that the issue is fixed.

How to Search the Web Using Multiple Search Engines at Once

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Tag : Productivity, Tutorial

The top search engines in the game — Google, Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, to name a few — all scour the web every day for millions upon millions of web pages to add to their search results. Yet still, when you search among each of these services, you’ll virtually never get the exact same results. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could search all of them at once to maximize your ability to find what you’re looking for?

shutterstock-search-engines-multiple-google-bing-yahoo-duckduckgo-keyboard — Use these services to search multiple search engines and get the best results possible | Shutterstock

Well, it’s certainly possible. There are several websites and apps that have combined all the best engines into a single search so you can get a side-by-side view of each results page. This is especially handy for gathering up all the top news articles across the Internet or a wide variety of images. Check out the best services for searching multiple engines below.

TheInfo.com

TheInfo.com is a website that lets you choose between a variety of services for performing your search. You can enable searching through Google, Overture, MSN (now Bing) and Teoma, plus directories like About.com, Google Directory and Yahoo Directory, the Metacrawler web crawler and additional services like news and WebRing.
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You can also select “All the web” with one click to automatically search with Google, Overture, Bing and Teoma. The results pop up in separate windows, so brace yourself.

Note: While the site Teoma is still alive and well, I couldn’t get searches to work with it on TheInfo.com. Perhaps try sticking to the other three engines for comparison instead.

PolyCola.com

PolyCola is yet another simple website that lets you pick two search engines from its supported list and enter the same search query to view the different results side by side. The supported engines are Google, Yahoo, Ask, Dogpile and AOL.
multiple-engines-polycola-theinfo-simul-search-1

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Initially, on the home page you can choose from searching the web, images and videos, but after performing a search PolyCola reveals you can also search through news and shopping categories as well. It’s far from the most elegantly designed website on the planet, but it works for pitting two different search engines against each other.

Smart Search for iOS and Android

Smart Search & Web Browser is a free app for iOS and Android — and one of the few — that combines several methods of search. It actually supports the widest amount of search engines and services on this list so far. Supported ones include Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Google Images, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Google Translate and Wikipedia.
smart-search-ios-android-1

While you can’t compare your results side to side, what I love about the app is that you can enter a search query, quickly tap the menu at the top and choose a new service, and the new results will automatically load. You can speedily switch between results to compare with memory.
Smart Search also has a built-in web browser for accessing any other websites too.

Simul-Search for Mac

Brand new to the Mac, the $1 Simul-Search app lets you simultaneously search Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Wikipedia. The best part is that it searches in real time, so as soon as you start typing, the results will begin loading.
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The downside is that because results appear side by side, in order to do so they have to be reduced down to their mobile versions. Simul-Search does have convenient buttons though for opening one of the results pages in Safari or all of them in separate tabs.

NooG on PC

A terrific and thorough app called NooG is available for Windows that lets you search through Google, Bing and Wikipedia.