I’ve looked at using a GoPro as a webcam in a couple of recent videos, but if you have a Insta360 One R or One X2 they can also be used as pretty handy webcams, and with a couple of additional features GoPro’s don’t have. I’ll discuss how to set up the webcam mode which works on a PC or Mac, and I’ll compare the quality to the GoPro Hero 9, the popular Logitech C920, a … [Read more...]
Use any GoPro as a webcam | GoPro webcam mode vs cheap capture card vs wireless | Free to $10
GoPros with their compact design and wide angle lenses, have the potential to make handy webcams for Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Skype. But only the latest models actually have a dedicated webcam mode. Before this feature was released a few months ago, I wrote an article with an accompanying video about a free way to use your GoPro as a wireless webcam - but it only worked with … [Read more...]
Use your GoPro Hero 7, 8 or 9 as a webcam for free in Zoom & OBS wirelessly | No capture card needed
[I've just published a more general guide to using any GoPro as webcam, which might be a useful accompaniment to this article: Use any GoPro as a webcam | GoPro webcam mode vs cheap capture card vs wireless | Free to $10] The GoPro Hero 7 Black, Hero 8 and Hero 9 support live streaming directly from the camera, but frustratingly don’t have any native support to use them as a … [Read more...]
Use your phone as a webcam in Zoom (or anything else) on a PC
Your phone most likely has a camera far more capable than even an expensive webcam. With the help of an app you can turn your phone into a webcam that you can use with Zoom or any other app for that matter; and even use it for live streams with software like OBS. You could just use your mobile device itself for a Zoom call, but especially for longer calls, being able to … [Read more...]
Best budget Bluetooth keyboard for iPad? | Arteck HB220B review | Most useful iPad accessory for under £15 or $20?
Adding a keyboard to your tablet can transform it from a device that’s great for consuming content to a genuinely useful extremely lightweight and portable laptop replacement for content creation, which comes on instantly, is super fast and lasts for ages. If you own a more recent iPad you can add one of Apple’s smart keyboards, but they start at £159 or $159. The Arteck … [Read more...]
Free unlimited storage for your iPad or iPhone, using your Mac or PC
Limited storage on iPads and iPhones has always made purchasing a device with enough capacity a difficult decision. Apple charges a lot of money to jump up to their larger capacities, as much as £1 or $1 per GB for example to increase the basic iPad’s rather paltry 32GB to 128GB. And you don’t always know exactly how much capacity you will need. Apple still don’t let you … [Read more...]
How to use Google Lens to identify anything. And without a Pixel phone …
https://youtu.be/e_2kNYjMqpk Google recently announced that even users without their premium Pixel phones could try Google Lens, that lets you learn more about real life objects. It's able to recognise landmarks, flowers, animals and food and can grab text from business cards or anything else for that matter. With the latest version of Google Photos, you can tap on a photo … [Read more...]
How to fast charge your new iPhone wirelessly or with a cable
https://youtu.be/2cJF6Ju3g5g The iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X all support fast charging both via a cable and wirelessly, which theoretically makes it possible to bring your empty phone up to 50% charge in as little as 30 minutes. This sounds great, but working out how to achieve the fastest charging is not as straightforward as you'd think. In the box with all these phones, you … [Read more...]
How to back up your iPhone photos and videos (with the new HEIF and HEVC file formats), and make more room on your device
iPhone (and iPad) storage is expensive. For example, Apple charge £150 to jump from a 64GB iPhone 8, 8 Plus or X, to the next model up with 256GB of storage. Uploading your files to the Cloud, not only keeps them safe, but it also allows you free up space on your phone. It also has the added bonus of making them very easy to share. There are a number of services that will … [Read more...]
Sonos adds Alexa voice support to its entire range of wireless speakers – how to get it working
Sonos has finally enabled voice control across its entire range of wireless speakers using Amazon Alexa. They announced their intention to do this over a year ago, and I wrote an article a couple of months ago with a roundabout way of getting this to work while we were waiting. But now if you have any Sonos speaker, any Alexa device (for example an Echo Dot), and the latest … [Read more...]
Google Gboard – the keyboard app you might not be able to live without
https://youtu.be/i-fLHA_3dqs If there's one app on my iPhone I can't live without, it's Gboard from Google. Gboard provides a new keyboard for your iPhone or iPad that enables typing via gliding your finger across the keyboard rather than tapping. The app has other features built in like searching Google right from the keyboard without switching apps, but it's the Glide … [Read more...]
Apple’s latest iOS 11 for iPhones and iPads – top 5 new features
https://youtu.be/kgFiophu8L4 Apple's latest iOS 11 operating system for iPhones and iPads arrived this week, in time for its new iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X. But you can also install the update on on your old iPhone 5s or iPad Air, and newer devices. You should be prompted for the upgrade, or you can force it from your Settings | General | Software Update menu. Here are … [Read more...]
Strava routes on your Garmin Edge – the easier way …
Up until a few days ago, transferring a route created in Strava to your Garmin Edge cycle computer was a painful task. This was disappointing since Strava is very good for creating interesting routes, exploiting its colossal database of popular segments. Previously you had to export the Strava route as a gpx file, connect your Garmin unit physically to a computer via USB, … [Read more...]
How to control any Sonos speaker using voice (Alexa)
**UPDATE 10/10/17: There is now a native Sonos Alexa skill - take a look at my more recent article.** Sonos announced some time ago a partnership with Amazon to enable Alexa support. This would allow voice control of your Sonos system via an Amazon Echo or Dot. It's almost a year later and there is still no support. But if you're getting tired of waiting, it's possible to … [Read more...]
How to use your camera to create 360° panoramas for Google Street View using free software, and without a tripod
I'm going to describe from start to finish how to create this interactive 360° spherical image (click and drag around the image - use the scroll wheel to zoom): 360° panoramic photography is a unique way of capturing images that can be interacted with, either via dragging and zooming with your mouse, or with a VR headset. There are three parts to creating an image … [Read more...]
The confusing range of Panasonic mirrorless cameras, and why I chose their Lumix G80/G85
I've owned all sorts of digital cameras over the years, my first decent one being the Olympus C2020z back in 1999. I looked through my Lightroom catalogue out of idle curiosity and counted that since then I've owned 18 cameras, and that's not including smartphones or action cameras! What surprised me, was that I'd still taken more photos with digital SLRs than nearly all the … [Read more...]
Bringing a vintage 25 year Nintendo Game Boy back to life
https://youtu.be/xfXGBvBlcIQ (Please see my video above for a detailed walk through of this repair) Cleaning out the attic I stumbled across my old Nintendo Game Boy with its 4MHz processor and 8kB of RAM - which has to be around 25 years old! I switched it on and amazingly it immediately sprung to life, with the nostalgic sounds of Tetris. The only issue was that the … [Read more...]
Apple iOS 10’s top five new features
The headline features relating to the Messages and Maps app didn't hold my interest for very long, but there are a few genuinely useful new features in iOS 10. Here are my top 5: No more swipe to unlock Since the very first iPhone, to unlock the phone, we've had to swipe across the screen, and then either tap in a pin or use a fingerprint. This is no longer the case, although … [Read more...]
Turn your ageing laptop into a speedy Chromebook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeqQxBlnYRQ Please take a look at my detailed video walk through above. A Chromebook is a basic laptop that runs the Google Chrome operating system (Chrome OS) - effectively based around a web browser. Chrome OS relies heavily on a network connection, but has fewer hardware demands than the latest version of Windows. Neverware has … [Read more...]
The gaming console your may already own. Using you PC for gaming. Part 2.
https://youtu.be/qWSusJg0ogg At the end of last year, I wrote an article on how you could turn your desktop computer into a gaming machine that will rival the very latest offering from Sony or Microsoft. So assuming you've read this article and have your memory and video card at the ready let's get started. Firstly, slide off the side of the case, after releasing the … [Read more...]
App of the week – Photoshop Mix
Adobe has released a lot of apps for smartphones and tablets recently, and they're mostly free. Adobe's intention is you purchase an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, so you can continue your creations in their powerful desktop apps. But for the average user, there's a decent amount of power in the free apps themselves, and they are much easier to use. Here I'm taking a … [Read more...]
Apple TV vs Amazon Fire TV vs Roku vs Chromecast vs WD TV – choosing the perfect media streamer
In last weeks post I described how easy it is to setup a home media server to stream your DVD collection to your TV. I briefly discussed media streamers that make this possible, effectively turning your TV into a super smart TV. There is a huge range of these devices and in this article I'll try and help you make the correct choice. What to look for Streaming media … [Read more...]
How to stream your entire DVD collection to your TV
Before the advent of services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, I remember when you used to buy DVDs and sit through 5 minutes of warnings about severe fines for playing back on oil rigs and such like. But then you did have all the extras like deleted scenes (that were usually deleted for a reason), and interviews (for the real devotees). Joking aside, I still buy DVDs - … [Read more...]
The gaming console your may already own. Using you PC for gaming. Part 1.
PC gaming has had a massive resurgence in recent years. Mostly because of gaming distribution services like Steam. If you're not aware of Steam, it's a small application you download on your PC or Mac (even Linux), that enables all sorts of games to be purchased and installed very easily. Steam is not the only service that supports this model. There's also Origin and Ubisoft … [Read more...]
Speed up your ailing iPhone (or iPad) – iTunes not required
I find that with all the iPhones I've owned, within a year, they start lagging more and more noticeably. A complete reset always gets things back in order, and the procedure to do this has become easier year on year. It was the turn of my iPhone 6 Plus last night. The first thing you need to do is a backup, which is easily accomplished using iCloud. The trick is to make sure … [Read more...]
How to use all your loyalty cards with Apple Wallet straight from the lock screen
If you use Apple Pay you'll be familiar with the double tap of the home button from the lock screen, to let you pay for goods under £30 just using your phone. You'll need an iPhone 6 or later for the NFC technology that makes all this possible, to be incorporated. When you double-tap the home button from the lock screen, you're actually accessing Apple Wallet which … [Read more...]
Give yourself 1000GB storage on your phone using Dropbox and Carousel
The biggest frustration using your smartphone as your camera is the limited storage. Particularly if you have a non-expandable iPhone, which currently starts at a rather paltry 16GB (12GB useable space) for the iPhone 6s! Then you'll have some apps installed - so you might only have 4GB of space for photos and videos. On my iPhone 6 Plus, a typical 30s video clip at 60fps … [Read more...]
App of the week – Readdle’s Scanner Pro. Turn your phone into a portable scanner!
Scanner Pro, Readdle, iOS This is a very handy app for iOS devices, that uses the camera on your smartphone to convert paper documents to PDFs, and then uploads them to Dropbox. It has all sorts of uses but I use it for scanning receipts, business cards, important documents and even the childrens' artwork! To get started, you hover the phone over what you want scanned. This … [Read more...]
Organise your laptop and smartphone repairs, using an old computer tower and some magnets
Having run a computer repair business for 6 years, you get to know the importance of organising all those pesky, minute screws. It’s not too difficult getting most things apart, but if you don’t take care, putting everything back together again can be a challenge. A while back I started using some small rare earth or neodymium magnets and the thin steel sides of our … [Read more...]
Fix anything with Sugru, the wonder glue?
I stumbled across this mouldable glue that sets to a hard rubber, about 5 years ago at the Gadget Show Live trade day. It's come a long way since then and I've even seen it at our local B&Q. It comes in packs of small 5g sachets and is available it multiple colours which can be mixed to make even more colours should you desire. Once a sachet is opened, it goes off pretty … [Read more...]
Holding out for the best price on Amazon using camelcamelcamel price tracker
This has been around for a while but I mentioned it to a friend recently and they'd never heard of it. The oddly named camecamelcamel website is a price-tracker specifically for Amazon. It records historical pricing on all products listed on Amazon. It can be used in two ways. The first way, is to check before you purchase an item whether you are buying at a good price or … [Read more...]
How to fix your hijacked web browser
The first sign that your browser has been hijacked is a change to your normal homepage. Typically you’ll also start seeing ad pop-ups on your screen, and your machine can start to slow down. You may also be unable to browse to certain web pages. Depending on how severe the hijack is, you may be able to fix the issue yourself. Resetting your browser can remove basic browser … [Read more...]
All you need to know about passwords
Passwords have always been a source of frustration but it’s worse than ever now with the average user having to remember at least 10 web logins. And gone are the days where you could use the name of your first pet or your mother’s maiden name. I used to shudder when a website asked me to change my password – to something I’d not used before! And rarely can you get away with … [Read more...]
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