Tag Archives: What Does This Button Do?

2018 was a good year for old dogs to learn new tricks with technology.

If you think technology is passing you by, Jim and Chris, of Geeks on Tour are here to help.They love to teach, so they pick a topic every week or two and produce a live YouTube show. Below are links to all of the episodes they recorded in 2018. Take a look and see if any topics peak your interest.

If you like the shows, you’ll love the show notes! If the list below looks interesting to you, but you’re not interested in watching 27 episodes of a 45 minute show, then you’ll really appreciate our show notes. If you are a Geeks on Tour member, you can enter your username and password after clicking on any link below and skim thru the notes. There are timeline links throughout the notes where you can click and go to that specific spot in the video. Also, if you are a member, you get an email after every show with a link to the .pdf version of the written notes.

What Does This Button Do? All episodes recorded in 2018

132. Google Photos for Picasa Users
133. Facebook Privacy
134. Scanning photos with Google PhotoScan
135. Copying files from USB _thumb_ drive
136. Editing photos with Snapseed
137. Understanding Accounts
138. Google Photos_upload from computer
139. What are Widgets on Smartphones
140- Facebook Privacy, 5 action items
141. Music on Smartphones
142. Using Snapseed with Google Photos on a Chromebook
143. Scuba Diving videos, Sharing Google Photo
144. Smartphone camera tips
145. Google Photos – Your Questions Answered
146. QR Codes and Smartphones
147. Video Editing on Chromebook with Quik
148. Geeks on Tour Live Seminars – how to learn when you can’t attend
149. Internet and Battery when you’re Off-Grid
150. Using Google Photos to Edit Videos
151. Trip Planning
152. Trip Planning Apps – International
153.Favorite Apps with Eric and Tami of TechnoRV
154. Cellular Boosters
155.Apps-Install Uninstall Organize
156.Scan to PDF
157.Sending photos from phone
158. Choosing a phone case

Is that all?

That list is just our “Button” shows, we also posted over 50 of our short tutorial videos, created new Learning Guides, answered hundreds of questions, and updated Mrs. Geek’s Guide to Google Photos to the second edition.

We also presented live seminars at events all across the country. At 22 events from Las Vegas to Gillette, Wyoming, Sevierville Tennessee, and Tampa Florida we taught 7,500 learners in 55 different seminars. You can see a map of all our stops on our travel maps page.

Test your Smartphone Smarts #9

Here is the ninth in our series of Review Questions from our “What Does This Button Do?” show. These can’t be graded, but if you want to see the discussion of our answers to these questions, you can click the link provided. The link will take you to the time in the specific episode where we start the discussion of review questions. Since we have produced 93 episodes so far, this “Test Your Smartphone Smarts” will be an ongoing series of posts here.

Click here to watch our answers
Episode #34: Transferring Photos #34 Show Notes

  • Where do you get the USB cable for connecting phone to computer?
  • What is one reason not to use a wireless (cloud-based) method of transferring photos?
 34:50
Episode #35: Google Now #35 Show Notes

  • T/F You must speak OK Google in order to use Google Now
  • You can teach Google Now what cards you want by: __________________________
 41:29
Episode #36: Apps or Mobile Websites  #36 Show Notes

  • T/F: To Share with Facebook, the Facebook App must be installed
  • Widgets are only available for: a)Apps or
    b)websites
 40:56
Episode #37: Live from an RV Rally

  • No Questions!

If you click the time link, you will be viewing the Youtube video for that episode. The link takes you directly to the end of the show where we discuss the review questions. You can always drag the video playhead to the beginning to watch more of that episode. And, if you are a premium member of Geeks On Tour, you have access to the show notes for each episode. You will find all show notes on the Weekly Show page. So, how did you do on the questions? Leave any comments below! See previous “Smartphone Smarts”

Navigate with GPS by Taking a Picture!

Photo of our location for purposes of navigating thereThat’s right! Take a picture of a place you need to return to. Take that picture with a smartphone that has the GPS tagging feature turned on. Now, when you need to return, you can view the picture, see the GPS location and navigate back. Pretty slick.  Here’s the details:

  1. I used a Samsung Galaxy S5. This should work with any type of Android device as long as you have Google Maps version 9.21 or higher. It does not seem to work on an iPhone … yet.
  2. I used Google Photos to view the photo
  3. Before taking the picture, be sure you have the Location Tags (aka Geotags) turned ON in your camera’s settings. I leave mine on all the time.
  4. Now, when you take a picture, view it using Google Photos and tap the i (for Information) you should see a map with a marker.
  5. Tap the map marker and it will open Google Maps, then tap the Blue car button and it will navigate to the place where the photo was taken.

If you are an RVer – this is SO useful! For a long time now, we’ve been teaching people about the ability to save a location with a star in Google Maps, then you can navigate back to the star at any time. I still use this technique, but my Google Maps is getting to be covered with stars! This method of using a picture and navigating to it is great for situations like yesterday. We were staying at a large RV park for only one night, we really didn’t have a feel for the directions within the park at all. So, I took a picture of our motorhome on our site. Then, after going out to dinner, I opened the picture (using Google Photos) tapped the i, then tapped the map and we were getting directions back to our exact site. It would be really useful if you’re trying to return to a boondocking site in the middle of nowhere!

  • App: Google Maps and Google Photos
  • Author: Google
  • Cost: $0
  • Platform: This feature only works on Android right now

Some tutorial videos related to this topic:

  1. Episode 74 of What Does This Button Do – at timeline mark 24:50: Navigate to a Picture
  2. 403. Google Maps – Saving a Location with a Star
  3. 419.Google Navigation – Add a Stop

Also our What Does This Button Do? Episode 15: GeoLocating Photos, Waze app

Geeks on Tour Member Benefit: Show Notes

Geeks on Tour is member supported! We don’t take advertising and we don’t sell any product other than our own teaching. This newsletter is free for all, and our weekly “What Does This Button Do?” show is free on Youtube. So what do you get when you sign up for a Premium Membership?

  1. Access to all (over 400) of our Tutorial Videos
  2. Ask the Geeks any question in our Q&A Forum
  3. Show Notes for the “What Does This Button Do?” Shows

We Use the Show Notes Ourselves

Just like the owner of the “Hair Club for Men” Smile – we think it shows the value of our Show Notes when we use them ourselves! Here’s what happened:

I was using my Android smartphone and I was looking at the complete list of tutorial videos on the GeeksonTour.com website. Someone had asked for a link to the video about migrating from iPhoto to Picasa and I wanted to get the specific link to our video on that topic. If I was using a computer, I could go to our page where all the videos are listed and use the CTRL-F command to “Find” any text on that particular page. I could type iPhoto and find that video. But, I was using a smartphone, there is no way to do a CTRL-F on a smartphone. I remembered that we had done one of our weekly “What Does This Button Do?” shows on using web-browsers on smartphones, and we even covered how to search within a page using that browser. But, I didn’t remember how to do it!

First I needed to find which of our shows (we’re up to #47 now) was the one where the beginner’s lesson was on Web Browsing, so I went to GeeksOnTour.com/weeklyshow where all the shows are listed with a description and I did a CTRL-F (on a computer) for “brows.”  I didn’t know if the description mentioned “Browser” or “Browsing” or “Browse” but I was sure that “brows” would be found. This led me to episode #28 from 1/25/15. At this point, anyone can watch the Youtube recording of the show without being a member, but only members have access to the Show Notes. I opened the Show Notes for episode 28 and skimmed until I got to the section on “Web Browsing on Android” … here is a screenshot of that section:

image

Notice the numbers in red. Those are direct timeline links to the places in the Youtube video where that particular topic is discussed. So, if you want to watch the video, you don’t have to watch the entire 45 minute show to get what you need.

In my case, I didn’t even have to review the video because the info I was looking for was written out in the notes: “To search within a page: View the page, tap the 3-dot menu … Find in Page…” YES! That’s what I was looking for, and it worked great.

Now if only I could improve my memory!