Author: Clinton

US-based carrier Verizon has released the Android Marshmallow update for the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 to customers on their network.  The update brings all of the goodness of Marshmallow but also brings some specific features from Verizon like Wi-Fi calling and improvements in Live Broadcasting.  As you would expect, this update is hefty, so you will have to be connected to Wi-Fi in order to download it to your device.  Once downloaded, it will take up to 10 minutes to install and will require a reboot of your Note 5.  For those keeping score, you will be looking for build MMB29K.N920VVRU2BPB2 for your Note 5.

One of the challenges of today’s smartphones is… their camera. Yes, you heard me right.  The cameras in many of today’s phones are amazingly good, fast and because our phones are always with us, gives us the freedom to snap a photo whenever and wherever we want.  The challenge of course is that your phone doesn’t have unlimited storage and at some point you will have to clear off some photos from the device to get some space back for apps and other data.  If you are a user of Google Photos, there is a built in tool that makes this easy and worry free.

In this How To I’m going to go over the Free Up Space feature in Google Photos for Android and for iOS.  I’ll walk you through how to access it and what it does exactly with the photos on your phone.

After debuting on AT&T some four months ago, the Blackberry Priv is finally making its way to Verizon.  You can now order the Blackberry flagship device and their first running Android on the Verizon website while in store purchasing will be coming on Friday, March 11th throughout the United States.  Online, the carrier is offering the Priv for $30 per month for 24 months (a total of $720) or you can buy it outright for $720.

Today over at Amazon you can pick up another great deal, this time on the Dell Venue 8 Android tablet.  This 8.4″ tablet has been around for a while now and the review on it have been glowing with the exception of the pricing.  Originally the 32GB model was $449 but now is down to $249 at the online retailer.  At that price, it is certainly hard to beat.

In his second How To and troubleshooting video in as many weeks, Google Photos Top Contributor Scott Peachey has put together a great video outlining the various steps you can take when you can’t find photos in Google Photos.  The 8:30 video covers a wide range of things to investigate and research on your device if you can’t find some photos or if you can’t find any photos.  Even if you have not had the issue yourself, it is well worth watching this video so you can avoid some of the pitfalls that Scott and other contributors, me included, see often in the forums.

The Chromium team has released Chrome 49 for those who use the browser on Windows, Mac and Linux.  The update, build 49.0.2623.75 for those keeping score at home, brings a long list of bug fixes and security improvements to the browser.  It is highly recommend that if you are using the browser on your PC that you update as soon as possible.  Updating can be doing by going to chrome://help and letting it automatically update for you.  You’ll have to restart your browser once it is done but otherwise it is pretty straight forward.