Future Vision Computer Institute

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

WhatsApp Messages Backup

Every one who uses any messaging app has accidentally deleted messages at some point. Like photos, these conversations hold some valuable memories and it is indeed a tragedy when a person deletes them by mistake. The most popular messaging app in the world, WhatsApp, allows people to take a backup of their conversation history (including media). In order to avert the disaster that is losing your precious WhatsAppconversations, here's how you can create backups.

Android
By default, WhatsApp for Android automatically creates a daily backup of your conversations and stores them in the WhatsApp folder on your phone's internal memory or microSD card. But if you wish, you can also create a backup manually. Here's how.

Open WhatsApp and hit the menu button (three vertical dots on the top-right) > Settings > Chat Settings > Backup conversations.
This file will be stored as "msgstore.db.crypt7" in your phone's /WhatsApp/Databases folder. WhatsApp recommends that you rename this file to "msgstore.db.crypt7.current", without the quotes, to make it easy to find when you want to restore the backup.
To restore conversations from a backup, uninstall WhatsApp and find the correct backup file from the WhatsApp folder. Slightly older backups are named "msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt7". In order to restore any of these, rename the file to "msgstore.db.crypt7".
Now reinstall WhatsApp. Once you verify your phone number, WhatsApp will show a prompt saying that it has found backed up messages. Tap Restore, choose the correct backup file and wait for the conversations to appear in the app.

iPhone

WhatsApp for iPhone uses Apple's iCloud service to back up your conversations. This backs up everything except videos. Here's how to use it.

In your iPhone, go to Settings > iCloud > Documents & Data > On. You need to turn this on to save WhatsApp conversations.
Now open WhatsApp, tap the Settings button at the bottom-right. Select Chat Settings > Chat Backup > Back Up Now.
In the same place, you'll see an option called Auto Backup. Tap it. By default, this is set to Weekly. We suggest that you change this to Daily to avoid data loss.
To restore backups, uninstall the app and reinstall it. Select Restore after verifying your phone number.

BlackBerry

Your WhatsApp conversations are backed up every day on your BlackBerry 10smartphone. Here's how to create a backup and restore it.

Open WhatsApp. Swipe down from the top of the screen to access the application menu. Select Settings > Media Settings > Backup conversations.
This file will be saved as "messageStore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt" in the /device/misc/whatsapp/backup folder on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone. WhatsApp recommends that you save this file as "messageStore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt.current" so that you don't have trouble finding it.
Now uninstall WhatsApp. Make sure that you know the name of the correct backup file.
Reinstall WhatsApp. After verifying your phone number, select Restore and pick the correct backup file.
If you are using a BlackBerry 7 smartphone, you need a microSD card to backup chat history. This is because message history is removed from the internal storage after restarting BB7 phones. If you have a microSD card in your phone, here's how to back up conversations.
Open WhatsApp and select the Settings tab at the top.
Select Media Settings > Message History > Media Card. This ensures that all your messages are saved on the memory card.
If your chats have stopped showing up in the app, uninstall WhatsApp.
Switch off the phone, remove and replace the battery. Restart the phone.
Open your BlackBerry Media folder, press the BlackBerry button > Explore.
Open Media Card > databases > WhatsApp and look for the "messagestore.db" file.
Rename it to "123messagestore.db". This will ensure that WhatsApp restores the next most recent chat history that was saved.

Windows Phone

Here's how to create a chat history backup on WhatsApp for Windows Phone.

Open WhatsApp and tap the three dots at the bottom-right.
Select settings > chat settings > backup. This will create a backup of your WhatsApp conversations.
If you accidentally deleted your chats, we suggest that you don't create a new backup. Instead, check the time of the previous backup, which can be found under the backup button mentioned in the previous step.
If this time is after you received the chats you deleted, uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
After verifying your phone number, WhatsApp will ask you if you want to restore a chat backup. Select yes.

Nokia feature phones

If you use WhatsApp on a Nokia S60 phone, here's how to create a backup.

Open WhatsApp and select Options > Chat History > Backup chat history.
Now tap Yes to create a backup.
To restore backups, uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
Select Restore after verifying your phone number.
If you are trying to restore chat history on another Nokia S60 phone, remember to use the same microSD card that you used in the previous phone.
Sadly, there is no way to create a chat history backup on Nokia S40 phones. The best you can do is email conversations to your personal email account to keep a record. Even this is possible only in phones that have a memory card. Here's how to email chat backups.
Open WhatsApp and open the conversation you want to back up.
Choose Options > Chat History > Email. Your chat history will be attached as a .txt file.

That's how to backup messages on WhatsApp. If you found this article useful, we have many more tutorials in our How to section.

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Car-for-Hire Services Now Available in Chennai, Mumbai and Pune - UberX

After launching its cheaper UberX service in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, Uber has now expanded its UberX service in India to Chennai, Mumbai and Pune.

The base fare of the UberX service starts from Rs. 50 in Chennai and Mumbai, and Rs. 30 in Pune. UberX would cost Chennai, Mumbai and Pune customers Rs. 14, Rs. 15 and Rs. 12 per kilometre. Pune appears to be the cheapest out of the three cities, with a Rs. 42 minimum fare, followed by Chennai (Rs. 64) and Mumbai (Rs. 65).

The Chennai, Mumbai and Pune UberX users can also use a promo code mentioned on the company's respective city blog posts to get Rs. 500, Rs. 400 and Rs. 300 off on their first ride. The service can also be accessed via the Uber app. Users of the Uber app will see an option UberX at the bottom of the app's screen, which they have to slide to from UberBlack (the regular priced version).

The company launched its Uber services simultaneously in four new Indian cities last month - Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur and Kolkata. The US-based startup launched its India operations in August last year, starting with Bangalore.

In July Uber also re-launched its Windows Phone app for consumers. Last year, the official Uber app for Windows Phone was pulled from the Windows Phone Store when users realised that the app offered access to Uber via its mobile site.

Notably, Uber is yet to react to Reserve Bank of India's circular mandating two-step verification of all credit card transactions in the country.
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Brides Track Down the Perfect Wedding Gown with the help of apps

ing the perfect wedding gown can be a daunting task but new apps can help women narrow the options by helping them find and virtually try hundreds of designs.

Brides spent on average $1,281 dollars on their wedding gowns in 2013, according to wedding website TheKnot, which surveyed 13,000 couples who were married last year.

With the new augmented reality iPad app called Wedding Dress Studio, women can see how they would look in more than 300 gowns with different silhouettes, necklines, details and fabrics.

"There are so many styles available today, and walking into that blindly, brides need all the help they can get," said Hillary Sica, executive director at Toronto-based Wedding Reality Inc, which created the app.

"Our goal is to help give the bride-to-be an idea of what will look good on her so that she's not trying on dresses that won't work when she gets to the boutique," she said.

With the app, women upload a body image of themselves wearing tight-fitting clothing that does not interfere with the contours of their bodies, and mark their shoulders, hips, and waist. The app overlays gowns, based on the details requested, on the image.

The app uses patented fabric-remapping technology to mimic how fabric flows and stretches around the contours of the body, according to Sica.

But she added it is only the first step toward finding the perfect dress.

"It's not meant to replace the experience of going to a store and having that moment but we're hoping it's a stepping stone in the process," she said.

The company plans to partner with local boutiques in the future to make their dresses available through the app, which is free and available worldwide.

Another app for iPhone and Android, called Wedding LookBook, created by TheKnot, also helps women find gowns. They can browse more than 5,000 gowns that can be filtered by designer, shape, price and style. The app also shows nearby stores where they can try it on or purchase it.

Leslie DeAngelo, a co-host of the reality TV show "I Found the Gown," and president and owner of the wedding dress website Bridepower based in Massachusetts, said shopping for a bridal gown can be a very emotional experience.

Apps can also be especially helpful for women who do not live near bridal shops, she added.

"We've heard some people say they haven't tried anything on because they're 300 miles away from the nearest bridal shop. Not everyone lives in a metropolitan area, so many brides browse websites and order that way," DeAngelo explained.

She suggests brides-to-be keep an open mind and try different silhouettes.

"You don't know what will look good. It's not like shopping for jeans," she added.

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Gaana, Hungama, Saavn, or Wynk: Best Music Streaming Service in India.

Streaming services such as Saavn, Gaana and Hungama let users listen to music on the Web for free (with ads) and come with premium subscriptions that allow you to save songs for offline use as well. Even without the premium subscription, using a music service can involve a lot of time invested in setting up playlists and favourites, so no-one wants to keep switching between apps.

Today, four major players are trying their best to take the crown in India. Hungama, Gaana, Saavn and Wynk are in the fray, but which one is the best? We used each of these as our primary source of music for a time to find out.

Wynk
Airtel's Wynk is the newest entrant in the market, which launched in India last week. One of Wynk's strengths is manual curation - the playlists and songs you see on the home screen of the app are hand-picked - we found that Wynk's curation was in line with our taste in music, but that may not hold true for everyone.

When we first fired up the app, we found it easy to find the songs we wanted - there is a lot of Bollywood music, old Hindi songs, hit international songs and classic rock music that is all easily discoverable through Wynk's curated playlists. Of all the services we tested, Wynk's default playlists served us the best.

Another of Wynk's strengths is its pricing. On iOS, Wynk offers unlimited downloads at Rs. 60 per month - half the price offered by competitors. On Android the pricing is closer to competition, but Rs. 99 per month is still the best price in the market.

However, Wynk is not perfect just yet. Saavn and Gaana offer music streaming and downloads at 320 kbps to premium subscribers, while Wynk has capped this at 128 kbps. On iOS, we were quite annoyed with the lack of support for iOS 7's back gesture (swipe from the left edge to go back, which is supported by Saavn and Gaana) as the tiny back button at the top is hard to hit accurately. The app also doesn't seem to remember the shuffle command - it kept the playlist and even the position in the song we were listening to correctly, but when we launched the app later, it had turned shuffle off. But these are still early days for the app and one can hope these things are ironed out as we go along.

Airtel talked up the fact that Wynk's music streaming service is completely ad-free and that Airtel subscribers can pay Rs. 129 per month to download 'unlimited' songs (Android-only) via 3G with no data charges i.e. the app won't eat into your regular 3G quota. This sounds good, but Airtel has included a fair usage policy. Android users on the unlimited plan can download 500 songs every month at Rs. 129 but data charges will apply if you download more songs. While the free tier has no ads, it lets you stream only 100 songs per month. Wynk's FAQ reads, "If you do not have active Wynk subscription, you can stream up to 100 songs per month." Honestly, all this sounds a bit too complicated for our own heads, so we believe the consumers may well be confused, and indeed, annoyed, when they realise they aren't getting what they thought they signed up for.

PROS: Good curated songs list; Competitive pricing

CONS: UI needs some tweaking; Hidden FUP; Complicated usage policy/ quotas; no Web view

PRICE: Free streaming (ad-free, streaming up to 100 songs per month; Rs. 60 per month (iOS, unlimited streaming and downloads), Rs. 99 per month (Android, unlimited streaming and downloads), Rs. 129 per month (Android, unlimited streaming and downloads, and no data charges for first 500 songs.)

AVAILABLE ON: iOS, Android, Mobile Web.

Gaana
Gaana has a vibrant interface which looks more inviting than the other options. The service also supports gapless playback (by preloading the next song), unlike others where you'll hear a brief pause between two songs. This is a setting that can be turned off, but we recommend that you leave it on.

We were largely happy with Gaana's library, but oddly enough, some songs such as the ones from the Dil Chahta Hai album are only available via the website, and not through the mobile app, something which wasn't a problem with rival apps. A Gaana spokesperson told us that the company is working on a deal with record label T-Series to change this soon.

(Update: Gaana added T-series songs to its catalogue a day after this article was published, which brings its Hindi song library on par with competitors.)

The one real issue we have with Gaana is the way it handles playlists. Gaana stores saved songs and saved playlists separately, which means that if you've added songs from Gaana's playlist to your download queue, you can't quickly find them among your downloaded songs. Instead, you have to go to the playlists tab in downloads, and then find the songs you want. Switching between the different songs you've downloaded to listen to in this manner can be very annoying, and doesn't make sense.

Another issue with Gaana is that if you log into it via Facebook or Google to try the premium service, then it automatically follows Gaana users from your contact list, and starts spamming you with notifications about their activity. This can be turned off though after a little bit of digging around.

We still liked Gaana though, because its pricing is good - Rs. 120 per month for unlimited streaming and downloads. Gaana also offers a discount if you pay up front (Rs. 300 for 3 months and Rs. 1,100 per year). It is also available on all smartphone platforms.

PROS: Good looking UI; Available on all platforms

CONS: Buggy playlist system; App spams notifications

PRICE: Ad-supported streaming; remove ads and enable downloads for offline listening: Rs. 120 per month (iOS), Rs. 129 per month (Android)

AVAILABLE ON: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Web

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Data Privacy Protections Questioned - Apple Watch

Apple has reportedly been asked to clarify the security related questions around theApple Watch launched last week. Connecticut Attorney General, George Jepsen, who raised his concerns, is also said to have asked Tim Cook for a meeting with the representatives of the company.

According to Bloomberg report, Jepsen has raised security concerns related to personal data such as health tracking with Apple's new smartwatch. Notably, Apple Watch is slated to come early next year starting at $349.

"When new technologies emerge in consumer markets they inevitably lead to new questions, including questions about privacy," said Jepsen, while speaking to Bloomberg. "Asking those questions and engaging in a proactive dialogue about privacy concerns before a product comes to market is an effective and mutually beneficial way to ensure that consumer privacy is protected."

The report suggests that Jespen wants to know "whether Apple will allow users to store personal and health information on the Apple Watch or on computer servers, and how that information will be protected." The concern also include what information the Apple Watch and its applications will collect, and whether or not the app developers will obtain consent from the Apple Watch users to collect and share their personal data.

Now that Jespen has asked for a review meeting, he will reportedly question Apple on whether "it will review privacy policies for apps, and if it intends to enforce policies requiring it to reject apps that offer diagnoses or treatment advice without regulatory approval."

Apple's security was recently in question with naked celebrity pictures allegedly stolenfrom iCloud accounts.

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Clean Up Your Gmail Inbox

Most people have a Gmail account these days, and at least some of you might have realised - with an unpleasant shock - that the space in your inbox is getting filled up. Gmail has a pretty huge 15GB limit, but over the years, mail tends to build up, and many of us are probably reaching those limits now.

Luckily cleaning up your Gmail inbox isn't a challenge, thanks to some Gmail's own tools and some third party apps as well. We've found a few reliable ways to quickly clean your Gmail inbox. Start now and we promise it won't take more than half an hour.

Gmail search filters
Gmail doesn't have the option to sort files - you can't get the inbox to display mails alphabetically, or according to the date received, or size. This might sound like a problem, but as is to be expected from a Google company, Gmail has a superb search function, which can be used to solve the problem easily. Follow these steps to clear up the emails you don't need:

1. Sign in to Gmail > go to the big search bar at the top.

2. First, let's clear out the emails taking up the most space. Type Larger:10M in the search bar > hit enter or click the magnifying glass icon.

3. This will find emails taking up more than 10MB. Now select the mails you don't want > delete (trash can icon).

4. You can experiment with different file sizes, depending on how much you need to delete.

5. The obvious next step is to clear out emails from the long ago. You can use Before:YYYY/MM/DD to specify a cutoff date, or older_than:years if you want to search for mails that are one, two or more years old. For example, if you want mails that are older than one year, you can type older_than:1y > press enter to see the list, and then select mails > delete to make space.

6. You can use combinations of commands, so if, for example, you want to delete old mails with attachments that are more than 1MB in size, then type the following into search: has:attachment larger:1M older_than:1y > press enter, then see the list, and select items > delete mails.

7. In case you're starting to worry about remembering all these operators, then you will be happy to know that Google has you covered. Click on the downward pointing arrow at the right corner of the search bar, and you will see the advanced search, which lets you apply all these filters in a simple menu.

Find Big Mail
Find Big Mail was the only way to - well - find big emails in Gmail, until Gmail added the filters we mentioned already. The app is still pretty useful because it automates the process of finding mails that should be deleted and also creates labels so you can find them again later without any difficulty.

Follow these steps to clean up that messy inbox:

1. Head to the Find Big Mail website > enter your Gmail address in the big form > click Find Big Mail.

2. Now Google will ask you to authorise this service. Enter your password (if you haven't logged in already) > click Allow access.

3. The service will now begin scanning your inbox. It claims that it only sees the size of your emails and not the content. Once scanning is complete, you will get an email alert. Ignore the email.

4. On the left side, under the links for inbox, sent mail, etc., you will see new labels. If you don't see this, expand the labels menu. You will see four labels: FindBigMail - Top, FindBigMail > 1MB, FindBigMail > 5MB, FindBigMail > 10MB. Click any of these > select the emails you don't need > delete.

5. The advantage of this method is that you don't need to repeat the search later to find the worst offenders, if you're running out of space again.

Mailstrom
If you're willing to use a paid service, then we really liked Mailstrom. The app works great and you can delete up to 660 emails for free, to get an idea of how it works. Unfortunately, using it beyond this limit involves a payment of around Rs. 300 per month.

With that said, Mailstrom's feature set is fairly advanced. It sorts emails by sender, let's you unsubscribe from newsletters quickly and bundles related emails so that you can delete several at once. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Mailstrom website > enter your Gmail address in the form > click Start Free Trial > click Authorize With Google > enter email and password > Sign in.

2. Now you will see your inbox through Mailstrom. It will take some time to sort all your emails. Once done, you will see all emails grouped by sender. We found surprisingly large numbers of emails from people we hadn't spoken to in years. We started by deleting these.

3. You can quickly clear emails using the left sidebar, which lets you view emails by size, time, emails from social networks and has a handy Unsubscribe link to help clear the clutter.

We recommend Mailstrom for those who are facing a serious email overload and have abandoned all hope of ever cleaning up their inboxes. We managed to clear over 200 emails within a minute using Mailstrom. For the average user though, the free methods we already described are probably the better choice.