Taylor’s
Technology Tweet #18: Saving Money
Having recently come back from the UK I thought I’d take
this opportunity to remind you about overseas data charges on your phone or
mobile device. As soon as you land in a foreign country you may be liable for
data charges if you don’t take the correct steps. I have heard of colleagues and
parents returning to Thailand only to find excessively large phone bills just
because they forgot to switch off ‘push’ email or simply accessed Google Maps
to find directions to the nearest attraction. Be careful with phones of loved
ones too, children continuing to text their friends whilst abroad is one of the
biggest ways phone companies continue to make money.
On an iPhone check the following: Settings > Cellular > Data
Roaming (slide to the left to switch off). To be really safe you may
want to switch off the Cellular Data tab also, restricting all data transfer to
Wi-Fi only locations. In addition, for ios devices in smaller fingers make sure
that the restrictions are set not to allow cellular data: Settings > General > Restrictions
> Enable Restrictions (enter a 4 digit passcode) > Cellular Data Use >
Don’t Allow Changes.
On an android device do the following: Settings > Data Usage > Turn
off Mobile Data. You can download an android app that allows you to
control this for you here: http://goo.gl/X9yq0.
If you own an android device make sure you read this article on 11
Ways to Trick an Android into Using Less Data.
Taylor’s Top Tech Tip
Those nice people over at Google have also given us a way to
save money: Google Chrome for iPhone and Android now offers an option that can
reduce your mobile data usage. To enable it, open Chrome's Settings screen on
your phone, tap Bandwidth management, and enable Reduce data usage. Pages you
visit will first be sent to Google's servers, where they're compressed so they
use less data when you download them. There also an interesting graphic showing
how much data usage (hence money) you have saved.
App of the Week
Our Primary School students are away on residential over the
next two weeks so I thought the app of the week should be all about story
telling. Storehouse
is a free app that allows you to combine photos, videos, and text to
meaningfully document your experiences. You can publish your stories for
friends and family, or share them by email or the popular social networks.
Keep warm and safe.