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Understanding the New Google Photos

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By Chantal Bechervaise

I have been using the new Google Photos since it launched about two weeks ago. Google Photos is a new, standalone storage app for photos and videos, with some cool new features that were previously only available in Google+.

Automatically Backup Your Photos and Videos

I admit that I forget to backup my photos to the cloud from my phone, tablet and Chromebook. I usually remember when I go looking for a particular photo to email to a friend or to post on Twitter and realize it is not on the device that I am using. I have a Homer Simpson moment – ‘Doh!’ – and have to figure out where I can find the original photo.

Now with Google Photos, I can automatically backup my photos and videos from across all my devices just as long as I am logged into my Google account. I don’t have to worry about which device the photo was originally on. I can access all my photos on any of my devices and even my desktop.

Tip: You can also upload all your old photos from your desktop with the Google Photos Uploader by going to photos.google.com. The desktop version is available for Windows and Mac users.

Storage

Google Photos provides free, unlimited storage but will automatically compress photos that are larger than 16 megapixels, or videos larger than 1080p. If you would like to save and store higher resolution photos, there is an option available in Google Photos called ‘Original.’ These images will then count against your Google Drive storage.

Google Drive allows you to sync and save up to 15 GB free of charge. After you reach 15 GB, Google Drive will prompt you to pay for extra storage space ($1.99 a month for 100 GB or $9.99 a month for 1 TB). I am currently using the free, unlimited option with my photos. I find the compressed versions fine to sort through and share on social media.

Let the Organizing Begin

Once you have uploaded or taken a bunch of pictures and have saved them in Google Photos, this is where the fun begins. Google Photos will use facial recognition and geotagging to sort and organize your photos into the following categories: people, places, and things. You can further organize your own photos into albums and timelines, referred to as ‘stories’ in Google Photos.

Having your photos organized by category also helps when you are trying to locate a particular photo. For example, if I am trying to find a photo of my dog, I can do a keyword search using the word ‘dog’ or by the place the photo was taken (e.g. ‘beach’).

Assistant

This is my favorite feature of the new Google Photos. If you missed the Assistant when opening Google Photos, you can locate the menu on the left hand side of your screen. It is accessed by either a slide-in panel (on the app or website) or by simply swiping to the right across the main gallery view page.

Photos-AssistantAssistant provides information about your photos using cards similar to those used by Google Now. These cards provide information, such as your photos are being backed up, your phone is waiting to charge before uploading photos, and when new ‘Creation’ cards appear.

Creation cards indicate some sort of action that the app would like you to perform or accept. I received a creation card for a color photo I took of the parliament buildings in Ottawa. It provided me with an option to save it as a black and white photo. You can accept the action or suggestion by tapping on the card or dismiss it by swiping it away.

Most of the time there will be no actions to take and the Assistant will display the message ‘All caught up.’ You can set up notifications in the Assistant menu so that you don’t need to check for Creation cards all the time. The app will notify you if there is anything that needs your input.

One of the best uses of Assistant is when you have taken a lot of sequential photos of the same thing. Sometimes you might take a series of photos from slightly different angles or to capture that ‘perfect’ action shot. Assistant can take those photos and compile them to create an animation or collage.

Assistant will also detect pictures that are similar and stitch them together to create panoramic shots. Even if you are on vacation and didn’t intend to take a panorama of the beach, Assistant will detect the similarity of the photos and location and create the panorama for you.

Security

As with all cloud services, security and privacy can be an issue. According to Google, Google Photos provides the same security and privacy as their other products. Google will not share your information with others unless you explicitly choose to do so. I recommend using strong passwords for your Google account to help protect information across all their products. If you are not sure how to create a safe and strong password, read this article.

You can learn more about Google Photos on their About Page or leave a comment/question below.

CBechervaise67Chantal is located in Ottawa, Ontario. She is passionate about everything related to the World of Work: Leadership, HR, Social Media and Technology. You can read more from Chantal at her TakeItPersonelly blog or follow her on Twitter @CBechervaise.

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You’ve Bought a New Smartphone, Now What?

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By Chantal Bechervaise

It is exciting to get a new smartphone. I love the feeling of unboxing it and holding it in my hands for the first time. It can be overwhelming too, as there are always new features to get used to and learn and I just want to start playing with it right away.

Here are some tips and guidelines to help you set up and learn how to use your new smartphone, so you are up and running as quickly as possible.

Fully Charge Your Phone

This is the hardest part for me. I am impatient, so waiting a couples hours before being able to play with my new phone is torture. It is important to charge your phone first. Your new phone will more than likely have to update its operating system (OS) so it is better to have a full charge.  Plus respecting your battery is the best way to prolong its life.  I recommend never letting it drain completely and topping off the charge whenever you can. If you are out an about and need to prolong your battery life, try turning off the Wi-Fi and GPS locator.

Move Your Data

After installing all the updates, the next step is moving over prior contact lists and data to your new phone.  If you are moving contacts from iOS to iOS or Android to Android, once you sign in with the same account information, all it should take is one sync to get you up and running. (If you are using iOS and you have backed up all your info to iTunes, then just plug your phone into your computer and sync it through the iTunes back up feature.) Another way to transfer contact information is through the SIM card. If you previously saved contact information to your SIM card and the SIM card fits your new phone, then you can save the contact information into your new phone.

Media, Photos and Songs

If you used a microSD card in your previous phone for your photos and videos, then you may be able to simply pop it into your new phone and have immediate access to them.  I highly recommend using cloud storage to back up all of your photos and videos.  That way if you lose your phone or if it gets damaged, you have not lost any of those important memories.  Apple users can backup photos, videos and songs with iTunes or iCloud, Windows users can use OneDrive, and Android users can use Google Drive.

There are many other cloud storage apps and options that are available to use as well. Some of the most popular ones can be found here. Verizon also offers the Verizon Cloud storage service, which allows customers to sync and save important contacts, photos, videos, music, documents, and even text messages.

Watch the How-To Videos on Your Phone

Newer smartphones usually have How-To Videos, a Support Center, or Help app built in to the phone. Take the time to look through this feature (which can be found in the main menu) to learn the ins and outs of your phone. Even experienced smartphone users are bound to discover some new tips or tricks that they were not aware of.

Set Up Shortcuts and Personalise Your Phone

You have finished the initial set up and updating and now the fun begins – personalising your phone and making it your own.  This is my favorite part of setting up a new phone. I always begin with selecting new wallpaper.  You can usually find the place to set up and chose the wallpaper under the settings menu (it may be called appearance or personalization).  Your phone will have some built-in options but you can also download wallpaper to match your personality through your phone’s respective app store.

Next, I start creating shortcuts for my most used apps and place them on my home screen with my favorite widgets. That way they are easy to find and quick to launch. I am an Android user and my widget of choice is the Google Now Launcher which provides me with traffic updates, weather, and updates to the sites I frequent the most.

Don’t be afraid to move apps around until you find a layout that works for you.  Try out new apps that suit your lifestyle. There are so many to choose from: Best Apps for Pet Owners, News Junkies, Keeping Kids Entertained, Streaming Music and much, much more!

Using your smartphone should help to make your life easier and not be a burden.

Accessories

The last step in personalising your new phone is accessorizing it. I start with a phone case. Besides offering protection from bumps and drops, a case can add personality and style to your phone. Verizon offers many cases to choose from, including an option to create your own personalized photo case.

Accessories don’t stop at just the case; there are many more fun things to help improve the performance and use of your phone, from portable chargers to headphones and Bluetooth speakers. There are many options to turn your smartphone into a mobile entertainment system, and even a mobile office.

Do you have any tips to share about setting up a new phone and personalising it? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below.

CBechervaise67Chantal is located in Ottawa, Ontario. She is passionate about everything related to the World of Work: Leadership, HR, Social Media and Technology. You can read more from Chantal at her TakeItPersonelly blog or follow her on Twitter @CBechervaise.

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It’s Time to Embrace the Cloud

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By Paul O’Reilly

While numerous large and medium-sized businesses have eagerly turned to the cloud for data backup and even handling day-to-day transactions, smaller businesses and individuals have been much more reticent. High profile security breaches involving household names such as Target and Home Depot have undermined what little trust many people had in the cloud, and confusion over privacy, reliability and costs have added to the uncertainty.

But however much we try to ignore it, the cloud is not going away. In fact, most of us are already using the cloud on a daily basis, often without realizing it. Whenever we check our Facebook accounts or read our Gmail, we are interacting with the cloud. When we buy something from Amazon, or stream a movie from Netflix, or seek out turn-by-turn directions on our smartphones, we are taking advantage of cloud services, transmitting various amounts of data each time we log on.

So rather than fight against a rising tide, it’s time to allay those fears and embrace everything the cloud has to offer. Here are a few reasons why:

Security

Despite the occasional headlines, cloud computing services have a growing reputation for reliability and security. Think about how much data is handled by cloud services and how few outages and other problems are reported. Even if you are not taking advantage of cloud-based applications like Google Docs, Office 365 or GoToMeeting, cloud storage solutions provide a safe way to make sure all your precious data is backed up and available when you need it. Compare this with your existing arrangements for backup and storage. (Exactly!)

Flexibility

The real benefit of cloud storage is that your data is available wherever and whenever you need it. No more waiting until you get home or back to the office before you can access a file. No more carrying a not-so-portable laptop with you wherever you go. Data stored in the cloud is available wherever there is access to the Internet, and with most people carrying personal hotspots in the form of their smartphones, that means virtually everywhere.

Affordability

The price for online storage is cheap and getting cheaper. With Google Drive, the first 15GB of online storage is free, which will almost certainly take care of most individual’s needs. If you are a small business owner or store a lot of movies or other large files, then 100GB costs just $1.99 a month. Even more impressively, a terabyte of storage (that’s 1000GB) costs just $9.99 a month. At these prices, you don’t really have to look anywhere else, but there are still dozens of options to choose from, including Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud and Amazon Cloud Drive. All of them offer a certain amount of free storage, with additional paid options if you need more.

Privacy

As Edward Snowden and certain Sony Entertainment executives will tell you, privacy is one of the biggest problems of the digital age. But again, stop and think about the personal data that we already store in the cloud, mostly because we put it there. Facebook and Instagram accounts, Gmail, banking apps, messaging, Apple Pay – the list of cloud-based computer programs and smartphone apps containing sensitive information is almost endless and each of them probably holds significantly more personal data than we store in the majority of our PC-based Word and Excel files.

That’s not to minimize the risk associated with uploading large amounts of personal data to the cloud but to emphasize that we have already passed the point of no return. The cloud is already a big part of our lives and to not acknowledge that fact is to close the door to myriad opportunities for improved security and efficiency.

Follow Paul on Twitter.

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Celebrity Hacking Scandal Exposes the Risks of Online Backup

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The current celebrity hacking scandal is a stark reminder of the dangers of posting risqué photos to the Internet, but some of the comments of the parties involved suggest that they might not have known the photos were actually online. How is this possible?

Welcome to the age of automatic backup and cloud storage. Originally regarded as a life-saver for compulsive smartphone photographers and on-the-go office workers, online backup services are now giving users pause for thought.

In the current scandal, both the victims and outside observers have been quick to point the finger at iCloud, Apple’s backup service for iOS devices. Introduced in 2011, iCloud now has over 300 million users, who take advantage of the service to store music, photos, apps, documents, contacts, and more.

But as mentioned earlier, not everyone is aware that they are using iCloud or what iCloud is backing up and storing on their behalf. There is also an iCloud sub-service called Photo Stream, which automatically pushes photos to all the other devices registered to an iCloud user. These include not only phones and tablets but laptops and computers and even Apple TV.

Of course, Apple is not alone in offering these kind of backup and cloud storage services. Google has Google Drive, Microsoft offers OneDrive, and there are a host of third-party services such as Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, SafeSync, and more. Once activated, each of these services works quietly in the background, periodically scanning content folders on various devices and updating to the cloud.

Playing the blame game

But even if we backup photos and other content without realizing it, aren’t these services supposed to be secure? The answer is clearly ‘yes,’ but once content is uploaded to the Internet, it immediately becomes vulnerable to hackers and all kinds of security breaches.

In the case of the celebrity photos that are currently circulating the Internet, Apple was quick to release a statement claiming that there was no breach in any of its cloud services, including iCloud and Find My iPhone. Instead they alleged that the hackers targeted user names, passwords and security questions. To protect against this type of attack, Apple recommended using a strong password and what it referred to as “two-step verification.”

What does all this mean? Well, it means that most of us, including well-known celebrities, are still incredibly sloppy when it comes to password use. One of the biggest vulnerabilities is in the area of password recovery. If a hacker knows someone’s e-mail address, then it can be relatively easy to recover a password, as the answers to secondary security questions such as ‘What was the name of your first pet?’ or ‘What is your mother’s maiden name?’ can be easily obtained through social media or other public sources.

While effective, the two-step verification that Apple recommends can be time-consuming and awkward, as it involves sending a secondary password to a cell phone or other device every time you log in. Almost every cloud service offers this extra protection but only a tiny fraction of users have signed on.

How can you protect your personal information?

So how can a celebrity – or regular user – protect their personal information? First of all, avoid using easy-to-hack passwords. You should also consider using one-off e-mail addresses for each of your cloud services, so it’s harder for anyone to claim a lost password. Also, lie when you answer those security questions. If you actually have a dog called Fido, that’s the last name you should use when asked about your favorite pet!

Next, consider using two-step authentication, even if it means more of a hassle when you log on. Barring a data breach at the server level, this is the one move that can almost guarantee the security of your account.

Finally, if you want to make sure you don’t want someone to have access to your personal information, don’t put it online – period. To be honest, the idea that major box office celebrities and models would happily post nude pictures of themselves to the Internet is a bit of a head-scratcher, unless they didn’t realize they were posting online in the first place. Yes, there is an expectation of privacy, but that expectation is diminished with every new headline detailing the perils of the digital age.