Tuesday Tip: How to turn off push notifications on your Android cell phone

What are push notifications?

They’re called push notifications. And they certainly are pushy. They’re those constant messages on your phone (ding!) that alert you to a new text, sports score, promo, sale, and everything in between. Some of them you want to see like an email from your boss. Some make you want to throw your phone out the window (do not do this). If you’ve had it up to here with notifications, help is on the way!

You can deal with these distractions several different ways.

Setting up Do Not Disturb mode

Do Not Disturb mode blocks all Android Notifications, turns off push notifications and keeps your phone from making noise at inopportune times. Like when you’re sleeping or in a meeting at work (or sleeping in a meeting at work).

1. Pull down the Quick settings menu from the top of your home screen
2. Tap the Do Not Disturb button.

You can also set Do Not Disturb preferences to let through only important calls and texts. 

1. Tap Settings
2. Sound
3. Do Not Disturb
4. Priority only allows
5. Then choose your options. For instance, you can set “priority only” to include incoming calls and texts from your contacts, repeat callers, reminders and event alerts. You can receive call and text alerts from only your innermost circle by setting Calls and messages to Starred contacts only (you can star people by going to your Contacts list). The Repeat callers setting will let callers through if they call two times within 15 minutes.

Enabling Priority Mode

Choose who or what app you want to receive a push notification from by enabling priority mode. Enable this feature by pulling down the Quick settings menu, tapping Do Not Disturb and turning on Priority only.

There are three Do Not Disturb options in Android:

1. Priority only blocks some calls, texts and app alerts.
2. Alarms only blocks all alerts except your phone’s alarm clock.
3. Total silence stops all alerts.

These are perhaps the most annoying alerts, those notifications that light up your lock screen, usually, it seems, when you least want to be disturbed. You can manage them with varying degrees of rigor—cut them down or shut them down entirely.

To prevent your phone’s lock screen from lighting up whenever a push notification comes in:

1. tap Settings > Display
2. then toggle off Ambient display

Another way to do this is:

1. tap Settings > Sound > Do Not Disturb > Block visual disturbances
2. then enable the Block when screen is off setting.
3. Choosing this option will prevent any alerts blocked by Do Not Disturb from lighting up your lock screen.

Blocking notifications from specific apps

Do you wan to entirely block alerts from specific apps? There are two ways to accomplish this.

Block All or Enable Silence Mode

1. Tap Settings > Notifications.
2. Tap the app you want to silence and enable Block all.
3. Or you can choose to show an app’s alerts in silent mode only.

Long-Press An Alert

Another way to disable notifications from a particular app is to long-press an alert from that app when it appears. You’ll be given the option of blocking all future alerts or showing them silently.

Turning off the blinking notification light

You can also turn off that light that starts blinking (and keeps blinking) whenever you get a notification.

1. Go to Settings > Notifications
2. Tap the Settings button at the top right of the screen
3. then toggle off the Pulse notification light
4. Just below the Pulse notification light toggle is a very handy setting that will block all lock-screen alerts even when Do Not Disturb is not switched on.
5. Tap On the lock screen
6. Then choose Don’t show notifications at all

We hope you find these tips helpful and enjoy your new, quiet phone.

Tuesday Tip: How to Create Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories is one of platform’s coolest features. It allows you to take a series of photos or videos and post them to your Instagram profile, where they stay for 24 hours. After that, they disappear. Sort of like Snapchat. But different, because there are options that let you and others download and save your Instagram Stories. In this article, learn how to use and create Instagram stories. 

How to make an Instagram Story

1. Tap the camera icon at the top left of your Instagram homescreen. This will open your camera so you can start a new Story. At the bottom of your screen, you’ll notice three buttons. From left to right, they are the flash (where you can configure flash settings), shutter and the rotate button that switches your camera from front-facing to rear-facing (or vice versa).

2. Tap the shutter to take a photo. Or touch and hold it to record a video. (You can turn your camera orientation to landscape but Instagram will post the photos and videos in your Story in portrait mode.) To choose a photo from your phone’s gallery, swipe up anywhere on the screen.

3. Once you’ve taken a photo or recorded a video, you can add text, draw on it or add stickers by tapping one of the buttons at the top right of the screen. There’s also a new option that allows you to add animated GIF stickers. Tap Undo to start over. To remove a piece of text or a sticker, drag and drop it in the trashcan at the bottom of the screen. Tap Done to save your Story.

4. Tap the Add Your Story button to share your Story. You can also tap the save icon to save this photo or video to your phone. If you click the arrow icon, you can send this photo or video to friends. Just tap the circle next Your Story and select the friends you want to share with.

To make your Story a slideshow, just repeat these steps. Each photo or video you add to your Story within a 24-hour period will be part of it.

How to save an Instagram Story

There are two ways you can save your Stories so you have them after their 24-hour lifespan.

1. You can open your Story and select Save Story to save it to your phone as a video.
2. You can set your Story to remain on your profile as a Highlight, even after it has disappeared. (Highlights appear below your profile photo.) To add a Story as a Highlight, go to your profile and tap the + below Stories Highlights. Tap the Story you want to add to Highlights, then tap Next. Choose a cover photo and enter a Story name, then tap Add. You can add more photos or videos anytime by tapping Edit Highlight.

Let us know how it goes.

How to Compost and Keep Your Plants Happy When You Live in an Apartment

How to Compost and Keep Your Plants Happy When You Live in an Apartment

If you live in an apartment, you probably have plants. And if you don’t, you should think about getting some, because indoor plants are good for your health.

They produce oxygen, which helps you sleep well. They absorb CO2 and other pollutants. They release phytoncides, which boost your white blood cells and neutralize microorganisms in the air. Plus having plants around improves your mood—a bit like a pet and a lot less trouble.

But you have to play your part and keep your plants healthy. Water them, give them sunlight and feed them compost.

OK, we hear you. How do you compost if you live in an apartment? Actually, it’s easier than you might think to turn your food scraps into plant superfood. Here’s what you’ll need to make compost with the perfect balance of plant nutrients.

Container

A wood box is your best choice. It looks good and it’s easy to make yourself. Choose a shallow, wide shape—8 to 12 inches deep—not tall and narrow. Your container should have holes in the lid for ventilation and in the sides for drainage. The lower side holes should be about 3 inches from the bottom. Then, if you have to drain your container, you just tip it and the “tea” will run out of the holes.

If you don’t go the DIY route, you can easily buy an indoor composting container online. They range in price from under $25 up to $250 or more.

Paper

Cut the paper into strips. Newspaper is a good choice. Also good is shredded brown cardboard. Soak it in water and squeeze out the extra so the strips are moist but not dripping. Line the bottom of your container with the paper—about one-third of the way to the top. Then add a thin layer of soil, sand, ground egg shells or sawdust.

Some papers you should not use, like bleached white office paper or any paper printed with colored ink. And some papers you can’t use, like coffee cups from Starbucks, thanks to Starbucks’ refusal to develop a cup not lined with polyethylene plastic. (This means 4 billion Starbucks cups go into landfills every year. CREDO Mobile funds the Stand.earth campaign to pressure Starbucks to come up with a recyclable cup.)

Worms

Yes, worms. They’re your best friends for indoor composting. After all, composting is what they’ve been doing for millions of years. Use red wigglers (Eisenia fetida). They’re surface-dwellers and like to live in the top 6 inches of soil—which is why your container should be shallow rather than deep. You can order worms online and get them in the mail.

How many do you need? You should allow 1 square foot of space for 1 pound of worms (which is around 2 cups). Worms eat half their body weight in 24 hours, so if you have, say, 1 cup of worms, you can feed them 1/2 cup of food scraps a day. But don’t worry too much—they’ll self-regulate their population fairly quickly (unlike some other species we could mention).

When placing your worms in the container, dig down a short way into the paper layer to make them feel at home. Put your container in a cool place without a lot of sun, maybe under the sink. If you put it out on a balcony or fire escape, keep in mind that worms are sensitive to extremes of temperature. They prefer the 55-to-77-degree range. Wait a few days to let them settle in before you feed them.

Start composting

Now comes the fun part. You can feed your herd all sorts of different scraps—fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds. Avoid meats, fish, oils, dairy products, processed foods, chili pepers and citrus fruits, which are too acidic.

It helps to chop scraps into smaller pieces. And it’s best to feed your worms every few days in small amounts. Compost itself doesn’t actually smell but if you feed worms more than they can handle, you’ll end up with a pungent odor, which is the smell of rotting food that hasn’t been eaten yet. Feed slowly and you won’t have an odor and likely no fruit flies either.

The compost your worms produce is an earthy hummus. Keep adding scraps until you have more hummus than scraps, then let your bin sit until the remaining scraps have been eaten. Then scoop out your compost (not your worms) and give it to your plants. Keep some compost aside, mix it with new bedding (moist paper) and start the cycle over.

It takes about 12 weeks for worms to produce a bin’s worth of compost, give or take some time depending on the size of your bin.

Let us know how it goes. Or, if you’re an experienced composter already, send us your tips.