December 2021 News: Samsung S21 Ultra - surprise, Google Photos, Smartphone Settings

December 2021 | Issue 172 | Archives

What’s up with Jim and Chris – the Geeks

Keys

Home again

We were home for the whole month of November. It looks like December will be the same. In January, we’ve booked a tour of Central America. Something different. All the planning is done for us. I still laid it out in Google My Maps so we could grasp the concept of where we’re going. We will add notes and photos to the map when we’re there.

During the past month we presented a few classes over Zoom and YouTube. Here are links so you can review them:

In this newsletter:

As usual, we have an eclectic mix of smartphone and technology tips for you.

Chris’ new Galaxy S21 Ultra phone: an unexpected surprise feature!
As we’re ending the first year of paying for Google Photos storage, people are asking “What happens if I stop paying?
A Smartphone Tip about using Search to find those settings on your iPhone or Android device…

We also did 2 episodes of our “What Does This Button Do?” YouTube show:

Recent Tutorial Videos

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What’s coming up – Our Calendar December 2021

We’re Presenting Online

Things are all online-only on our calendar this month.

Live YouTube Shows Sundays at 2pm Eastern time “The Button Show”

Also on our Facebook page

Be sure to subscribe and like the page

December

Dec 12, 2pm ET- Episode 225 of What Does This Button Do?
Dec 12, 3pm ET Backstage Pass for Members Only Zoom meeting
Dec 8, 7pm ET- Sun City Center Computer Club Zoom meeting: How do I use LastPass?
Dec 26, 2pm ET- Episode 226 of What Does This Button Do?
Dec 26, 3pm ET Backstage Pass for Members Only Zoom meeting

January We’ll be out of the country most of January but we plan on going live on YouTube and Facebook during our travels. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and Like us on Facebook.

Stay safe. Wash your hands. Get vaccinated.

Q&A

Ask the Geeks Q&A forum. Anyone can read the forum, only members can ask questions. This is a valuable benefit of membership. Join Today! Here are some recent discussions

Taking photos with Chris’ new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra phone – A Surprise Feature

I bought this phone because of the lenses. I knew that taking telephoto shots was going to be awesome. What I did not know is that the Samsung Gallery app has a feature called Object Eraser. I strongly considered getting the Google Pixel 6 instead of the Samsung, and one of the reasons is the Google Photos
feature called “Magic Eraser” which is only available on the Pixel 6.

I usually do not use the Gallery app that comes with Samsung phones because I use Google Photos instead. Read More
…

What happens to my Google Photos if I don’t pay for storage?

If you think of your Google Account Storage like a real world storage unit, these concepts will be easier. Let’s say you had a small storage unit that would hold 15 boxes of stuff. Once it gets full, what happens? You can’t store any more stuff! If you take out some of the old boxes, you can put in new ones, but
you’re limited to 15 boxes total.

3 Choices when your storage is full

It’s the same with your Google Account Storage. Google gives everyone 15GB of storage for free. Once you fill that up, you have 3 choices:

Do nothing
Get rid of some stuff
Pay for a bigger storage amount

If you choose #1, you won’t be able to add any more photos to your Google Photos but you will be able to access what is already there. That may be acceptable but there’s a catch. Read More …

How to use Search to find those pesky Smartphone Settings

All smartphones have dozens, maybe hundreds, of settings that customize the way your phone works. For example, does your phone’s screen go black when you don’t want it to? If you’re writing an email and you take a minute to think about what you want to say, your phone thinks it’s time to go to sleep and your screen goes dark just as you’re about to type the next word. That’s aggravating, right? Well, there’s a setting for that. On Android phones it’s called Screen
Timeout. On iPhones it’s called Auto-Lock. Yours may be set to 30 seconds, which means you don’t get much time to think before the screen goes black! You can change it to something more reasonable, like 1 or 2 minutes – IF you can find it. Read the Article and watch the short videos to learn how.

Have you seen these tutorial videos?

How to put a Multiple Clock Widget on your Smartphone Tutorial Video 717

Making a Web Page for Your Google Photos Albums Tutorial Video 716

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