With the creative flexibility that photo editing tools like Adobe Photoshop offer, many rely on post-processing to improve their photos. However, if you are not keen on getting all techie and learning the ropes of photo editing tools, you can still come up with nice photos. Below are seven simple tips to improve your photography skills: 1. Go through your camera's user manual. With all that excitement that comes with purchasing a new camera, it can be easy to overlook the user manual. But what most people don't know is that it contains a lot of key information that can help you make the most out of your camera and learn how take better photos. Granted that you still have your user manual stashed away somewhere, it is not too late to retrieve it and go through it from beginning to end. Know what each button in your camera is for and what you can do with its different settings. 2. Apply what you've read. What better way to retain your newfound knowledge about operating your...
WhatsApp Tricks and Tips
1. Control Privacy: Hide, Profile Picture, Status, Read Receipts (Double Blue Ticks) etc
WhatsApp gives you full control over what things you want to show to others and what things you want to hide.
This can be done from the Settings-Account-Privacy
2 Manage WhatsApp Media Files Clutter on Your Android Smartphone
If you use WhatsApp a lot or have joined a lot of active groups, you might be aware of the number of photos your phone is storing.
Though the photo files won’t take a lot of space on your phone, it can add up to be a lot in a few weeks.
Stop WhatsApp from downloading the files automatically, you can turn it off from Settings -Data usage. Turn off media auto-download by unchecking all the options.
Also, most of the smartphone doesn’t show images from different folders in the Gallery App, but in case your phone doesn’t do that itself, you can do it manually the ‘.nomedia’ the trick still works well.
To do that, go to the WhatsApp Media Folder then the Image Folder on your phone (you can use ES Explorer) and create a new file with name.nomedia. This will hide the images from that folder in the Gallery App.
3. Read Messages without Notifying Others (without Turning Off read Receipts)
Read receipts are actually useful to know when a person has seen your message. So I keep it turned on.
But there are times when you want to cheat and see the messages without notifying the sender. Here is a neat trick for that.
If the message appears in the Notification Bar. Swipe using two fingers, it will reveal the last message.
If you want to read more messages,
Turn off mobile data, or put your phone in Airplane mode, open WhatsApp, read the messages and turn on the mobile data again or disable Airplane mode. Neat isn’t it.
4. Create a WhatsApp account without your phone number
If you are an Admin of a WhatsApp group and looking to expand it by asking random people to join it, you may not want to share your personal number with them.
Or if you want to share your WhatsApp online
It could be any reason for not sharing your personal phone number. You can get an online phone number using apps like 2ndLine (Android app) – You just need it to verify the WhatsApp.
Note: Online phone number can be assigned to others if you delete your account on their service, 2ndLine, in this case, so make sure you do not delete your account as long as you want to use the WhatsApp.
5. Send Any File Format to WhatsApp Contacts (Dropbox)
WhatsApp has expanded the file support in last few years. Users can now share Images, Videos, Audio Files, PDFs etc. But you can literally share any file format you want with this cool trick.
You can even share large files, as big as a movie, you need Dropbox for that.
The Free account of Dropbox offers 2GB of space (enough for two HD movies. What you need to do is, upload the file to Dropbox, create a link by tapping on the ‘Share’ option, copy and paste the link into your WhatsApp Contact.
6. Pin Frequently Use Contacts on top to message them quickly
Small features like these can make life really easy, such a the ability to Pin Chats. If you are a frequent WhatsApp user, mixing up the chats will sound familiar to you.
A new update allows you to pin the chats are that are important, long press on the chat and a Pin icon appear on the tip, tap the Pin icon and the chat is pinned at the top.
No more searching through all the frequent chats to find important ones.
7. Use WhatsApp as a Personal Space for Saving Important Notes, File etc and Access it from Mobile and PC
Now that you know you share any type of file on WhatsApp, you can use WhatsApp as your personal space, a personal diary, a note-taking app or a place to dump ideas.
I have been using it lately for things like, checking a website link later or watch a video, or a document, the best part is, ability to access them from PC using WhatsApp Web.
Use this tip #6 to Pin your Personal Notes Group to the top so that it comes handy.
8. Create GIFs from Videos Captured via your Smartphone
WhatsApp enabled the GIF support a few months ago, According to me, they are better than small videos because they don’t open in full screen and can be viewed as an image.
WhatsApp also allows you to turn 6 seconds of your videos into GIF.
Capture a video, select the start and end point (it has to be 6 second or lesser part), you will notice ‘GIF’ option appear on the top, which turns the video into a GIF.
9. Quickly know who all are in a WhatsApp Group
This one is simple, You might know this already but I use it for finding who is there in the group. Type @, which lets you tag a Member in a WhatsApp group (and notify them even if they’ve muted the group).
But if you only type ‘@’ it gives you a list of all the members, which comes in quite handy sometimes to see who all are there in the group or how many members are they outside of your own contacts (only their phone number will display)
10. Find who all are inactive in a WhatsApp Group
Talking about groups, they are quite popular and are basically used by Families and Friends to keep in touch all the time. There are also Business groups, Office Colleagues Groups, Students groups, you name it.
Most of us are so many groups that we tend to keep them muted and next get to check what’s going on. If you are on the opposite side of this situation and want to know who is inactive in the group.
You can do so by going back to the previous chats (your 7-day old message in the group), long tap on it, and tap on info (i) and look at all the members who read, got the message delivered and who didn’t get delivered.
Though the WhatsApp Groups limit has been extended up to 250 members, you can remove a few inactive members if you have to make a place for others.
11. Run 2 WhatsApp Accounts in a Single Smartphone
Most phones these days are Dual SIM Phones, and if you use two SIMs, for different purposes, like Personal and Official. I won’t be surprised if you want to run two different WhatsApp accounts.
Xiaomi phones have this feature inbuilt into their Custom ROM where you can run two accounts on the same app.If you are not a Xiaomi Phone user, you can use apps like Parallel Space.
12. Run Single WhatsApp on two Smartphones
Okay so running two WhatsApp account on a single Smartphone can be done using the trick #11, how about running the same WhatsApp account on two different phones?
Well, technically it’s not possible since WhatsApp doesn’t allow that. It only lets you use WhatsApp on your phone and WhatsApp for The Web on PC.
WhatScan is an app that uses the WhatsApp for Web feature and brings it into an App form. It works in a similar manner since it is actually the WhatsApp Web.
Open and Scan the QR Code using your WhatsApp account and you are ready to use it.
Note: Since WhatScan is WhatsApp Web, it has its own limitations, like the Calling (Voice/Video) is not supported.
13. Find important Information Messages/Image/Files Easily (Using Starred Messages Feature)
There are times when someone shares an important piece of information via a WhatsApp text (because it’s SMS 2.0) but that text can easily get lost in thousands of messages you type on WhatsApp (because it’s free and fun to use).
The Starred feature comes to the rescue as you can start any message/image/video/voice note etc so that it will be easy to find them later.
14. Listen to Voice Notes in Privately using the Earpiece
Most of us use their earphones to listen or watch anything on our Smartphones. But we don’t have the earphones all the time and it could be embarrassing to listen to a voice note sent by a friend all loud in public.
WhatsApp’s cool feature allows you to listen to the voice note via the earpiece instead of the speakers.
To do that, play the voice note and place the smartphone near your ears as if you are taking a call. Your smartphone’s proximity sensor activates and the voice note is played via the earpiece. Pretty Cool isn’t it?
15. Set Custom Notification Tones for Individuals and Groups to know who is it without even looking at the phone
I’ve set up a different Notification Tone for Groups and Individual Chats so that I can know whether to pick the phone to read the message right now or do it later, most of the times it’s a MEME sent in a group.
To set custom notifications for Contacts and Groups in WhatsApp,
- Select a Chat Conversation,
- Tap on the Contact/Group Name
- Tap on ‘Custom Conversation’, and
- Select a different tone for different Contact.
Note: Don’t use too many tones you can’t remember who is who.
16. Send Messages to Someone Without Adding them to Contact List (eg: Courrier Guy)
If you often find yourself in a situation where you have to send a message to someone who is not in your contact list, and since WhatsApp doesn’t allow anyone to send a message outside of your contact list, you end up adding the contact number then message.
This app can help you by sending messages to the numbers that are not saved. For example, if you have to share your location with a Courrier Guy and that Pizza Delivery Guy, this will come handy.
18. Hide a Chat from the list without Deleting it (aka Archive Chat)
One cool feature of Android that is rarely used is the Archive feature. By long pressing a Chat, you can archive it and it will not show up in the list.
You don’t always want to delete a conversation, and just want to stop appearing it on the list for a while. By long pressing a Chat, you can archive it and it will not show up in the list.
By long pressing a Chat, you can archive it and it will not show up in the list. You can unArchive it anytime.
19. Write WhatsApp Messages in Different Fonts Styles
This has been making rounds in mostly all the posts talking about WhatsApp tips and tricks.
Different formats actually help you present your message differently. With the combination of Bold and Italic styles, you can put emphasis on particular words in your message.
To write in Bold add an asterisk (*) before and after the text. (eg: *Hello*)
To write in Italics add an Underscore (_) before and after the text (eg: _Hello_)
To write in strikethrough add a tilde (~) before and after the text (eg: ~Hello~)
To type in a different font style add apostrophe (”’) three times before and after the text (eg: ”’Hello”’)
20. Draw Over Photos/Videos taken by WhatsApp Camera to Highlight Something in the Photo/ Video
Another update for WhatsApp has brought the feature of drawing over the photos taken from the WhatsApp Camera ( i/e Camera option in WhatsApp).
So instead of editing a photo for pointing something out, take a photo directly from the WhatsApp camera and then draw/write over it. Saves a lot of time.
21. Post longer Videos as Status Updates
WhatsApp lets you post videos that are 30 second long. Even if you try to post longer, it will chop it down for 30 seconds. Fortunately, it lets you select which 30 seconds part of the video you want to upload
22. Read deleted messages in WhatsApp
WhatsApp recently brought in a new feature that lets anyone delete their messages, not for themselves, but for everyone.
While this has saved some relationships, it also creates confusion and anger when you are at the receiving end.
22: Share your WhatsApp Trick in the Comments
If you know or have found a cool trick you use on WhatsApp let us know in the comments below. This post keeps getting updated when we find more so make sure you turn on the notifications to know about it.
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