Category: Tools

Introducing Canva: Everything You Need in an Image Editor for Free

What is Canva?

Canva is an easy-to-use freemium image editor that can be accessed in any modern browser, without downloading software. One of the best parts about Canva is how many features are available on the free plan, including working with a team. Pro plans offer branding, access to additional templates and stock media, more cloud storage, and a few advanced editing options. The Pro plan is currently $120 per year, which may be worth it if you want a robust feature set to generate images for a small business or club. Take a look at the Canva pricing page to find out more about the features available at different subscription levels. Hot tip: Canva offers free Pro subscriptions for educational and nonprofit institutions.

Why would I need Canva?

Whether you post regularly to social media or just want to create a pretty newsletter for your family once a year, almost everyone can find a reason to use Canva. The intuitive interface makes it easy to create memes, promotional graphics, infographics, presentation slides, invitations, flyers, signs, brochures, videos – you name it! There are plenty of ready-to-use templates, but you can also start creating something from scratch. If you already have an image you want to incorporate into a larger design, you can do that, too!

Canva is especially helpful if you’re not a graphic designer. The built-in templates are perfectly sized for any medium and can be used as-is or provide inspiration for your own design. Drag-and-drop images, fonts, borders, backgrounds, and other elements to create your perfect design. Then download the image in the format of your choice.

Where can I learn more?

Tech-Talk, a resource provided by the East Greenbush Community Library to its members, has created several resources for learning the ins and outs of Canva. Here are a few examples:

Have you used Canva?

If you’ve tried Canva, let us know what you think about it! Do you have an image tool that you love? We’d love to hear about it! Let us know in the comments.

Introducing Biteable: The Best Free Image Resizer

If you post to a blog or social media, it is likely you need the same image in several different sizes to maintain a consistent branding experience across platforms. Manually resizing an image can be a frustrating and time-consuming experience, especially when social media networks keep changing their optimum sizing requirements.

If you are a Canva user, you may have already seen automatic resizing in action. When it was first introduced, Canva’s tool was a breakthrough. Our library relied on it for messaging across platforms. Canva requires an account and login, though. If you are looking for a free tool you can use without creating an account, Biteable’s tool may be for you. It also contains a feature that goes one step beyond Canva’s resizer.

What Is Biteable?

Biteable is a freemium suite of tools for creating and editing videos. The free tier includes puts a Biteable watermark on your videos (but not in the image resizer) and limits the resolution of your video. It does include access to stock clips and images, as well as allowing unlimited exports. For more information about features in the paid plans, visit Biteable’s pricing page.

You will need an account to create and edit videos, even at the free level. But their offer their image resizing tool with no account needed and no strings attached.

The Image Resizer

Upload Your Image

To access the tool, open a browser and point it to: https://biteable.com/tools/image-resizer. Look for the “custom resize” box and upload your starter image:

Screen shot of the image upload window in the custom resize area.
Start by uploading your image here

Don’t worry about setting the width and height here unless you have a specific size in mind. The magic starts when we scroll down a bit to set our focal point. This is the extra feature that sets it apart from Canva’s tool, in my opinion.

Set the Focus Point

Drag the white circle around the most important part of your image. Canva assumes the most important part is centered, but that is not always the case. In this image, the most important thing is a bit off to the right:

Screen shot showing the original image with a white circle over the intended focal point of the image.

Scan the Results

After setting the focus point, scroll down. First you will see all 10 different sizes Facebook requires for their image areas:

Screen shot of the original image converted to all 10 standard sizes Facebook requires for stories, page covers, event covers, ads, etc.

Keep scrolling and you will see standard sizes for:

  • Instagram (6)
  • Twitter (6)
  • YouTube (4)
  • Pinterest (5)
  • LinkedIn (9)
  • Google Display (8)
  • Email/Blog (3)

Handily, the focal point selector sticks with you as you scroll down the page, so you can adjust on the fly, if needed.

Download Some or All Images

In the focus point selector, there is a button that allows you to download all of the images for all platforms at once. These will arrive as a compressed file on your computer.

Images can also be downloaded individually by clicking on the download icon in upper right of each image:

Screen shot showing the download icon in the upper-right of the resized image.
Download icon in the upper-right

Conclusion

Have you used Biteable’s image resizer? Do you have an image resizing tool you love? Let us know in the comments.

Have Your Passwords Been Compromised?

These days, security breaches are in the news so often you may think there is no way to avoid having your information stolen. While no credentials are fully safe from hacking, using good password hygiene (not reusing passwords, using complex passwords, etc.) and staying on top of which of your accounts has been hacked can go a long way in keeping you safe.

Even if you watch or read news 24/7, it is impossible to keep up with all of the account breaches yourself. Luckily, https://haveibeenpwned.com/ exists to keep track of this for you.

The process is simple and free. Point your internet browser to https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and enter your email address.

When I put my personal email in, I got this message:

If I scroll down a bit, I can see the individual instances in which my information was compromised, along with more information about each particular hack:

What Do I Do with This Information?

Just because you have an account with a service that was breached doesn’t mean someone is actively using your account. It just means your information may be in the wrong hands. Knowing which accounts have been compromised can help you in the following ways:

  • Quickly change passwords and/or associated email addresses to prevent someone taking over your account. Also change credentials for any other account that uses the same email/password combination.
  • Get a heads up to check and make sure no unauthorized activity has happened on your compromised account.
  • Evaluate whether this is a service/account you really need. If not, delete your account, if possible.
  • Discover services you forgot you had signed up for!

Try It Out

Now it’s your turn to see if any of your email addresses have been pwned. If they have, there is no need to panic. Just follow the steps above to re-secure your accounts.

Scheduling Email Reminders Just Got Easier

If you’re like me, you often receive emails at a time when you aren’t able to deal with them immediately. To manage them I have tried: marking messages as unread, copying email text to a calendar item, and flagging them as Outlook tasks with reminders. For various reasons, none of these workflows were optimal for me. Then I discovered FollowUpThen.

FollowUpThen is a service that allows you to set timed reminders for following up on emails and tasks with fewer steps and a cleaner inbox. There is a free tier with limited options, and that was enough for me. If you’d like to get fancy with calendar integration, SMS integration, attachments or managing FollowUpThen for a team, there are two additional paid tiers.

How Does It Work?

FollowUpThen has lots of different functions. At its core, it uses a series of email addresses you can use to forward emails to be reminded to take action at a particular time. Here are some examples:

  • Snooze an email for three weeks by forwarding it to 3weeks@followupthen.com. The email will reappear in your inbox in exactly three weeks.
  • Send or forward an email to tomorrow4pm@followupthen.com to remind yourself to do something tomorrow at 4pm.
  • Send or forward an email to everyweekday@followupthen.com to get a daily reminder. (limited in free plan)
  • Task (limited number in free plan): send or forward an email to 5pm-t@followupthen.com you will assign a task to yourself that is due tomorrow at 5. If you have not completed the task by the due date, you will be reminded every day until it has been completed or cancelled.

You can set a time interval (x minutes, hours, weeks, months, years), a specific time of day (ex. 11pm), a specific date, a specific date/time, day of week, unique day of month (ex. 3rdThursday), relative timing (ex. tonight, tomorrow) and more.

Recurring reminders (ex. daily, weekly, or custom intervals) mentioned above available, using a different email name syntax. Visit this page to learn more about how to structure email addresses for these different functions. Keep in mind that recurring reminders are limited on the free plan.

Features

FollowUpThen has many features to help you customize your reminders. Here are some highlights:

  • To, CC, BCC
    • TO: Only you receive the followup.
    • BCC: Only you receive the followup. (No recipients can see that you are using an email reminder service. Followup includes the original email for reference).
    • CC: Everyone in the ‘to’ field (up to 15) receives a followup in addition to yourself.
  • Autocomplete: send an email to autocomplete@followupthen.com to receive a list of the most popular timing/email formats.
  • Short domain: to save keystrokes, instead of time@followupthen.com, use time@fut.io. Same email, less typing.
  • v-card: download the FollowUpThen vCard to add the addresses to address book for ease of use.

View, Edit, or Cancel Follow-ups

Your account will include a My Follow-ups page that you can use to view and edit your follow-ups. Alternatively, you can email pending@followupthen.com to receive a list of current follow-ups.

There are two ways to cancel follow-ups. If you are setting a new reminder on an existing thread with a existing reminder, you can use syntax in the new reminder address to cancel previous reminders. Or, forward a message in a thread with an existing reminder to cancel@followupthen.com to cancel all reminders on a thread.

Paid Features

The paid tiers include additional options not included in this post. To find out more, click the link on a feature:

Unsupported Platforms

Unfortunately, not all email platforms can support “email-based actions.” For example, the “Gmail” app on iOS, Mailbox for iOS and some versions of the native Android mail client do not yet allow these actions. If you rely on one of these platforms it might be best to leave this option disabled.

If you use multiple email clients – where one supports email-based actions and one does not, you can leave them turned on and then simply use the “other” postpone option if you need to act on a followup from your unsupported email client.

Summary

If you are looking for a way to streamline the process of “snoozing” emails and tasks, FollowUpThen provides a functional product on the free tier, while keeping premium tiers affordable for those who are looking for extra features. Have you used FollowUpThen? What did you think? Let us know in the comments!

Find and Unsubscribe from Unwanted Emails Instantly

Are you tired of seeing the same emails in your inbox over and over, but never get around to clicking “unsubscribe?” Or, would you prefer it if all of your subscription emails came in a single daily digest email? Enter unroll.me, a free service that will scan your inbox for subscription emails and provide a list for you to evaluate and manage. This service is available through both a browser and an app.

While the service is free, you will need to create an account. If you use Google for email and use your Google credentials to create the account, you can allow it access to your inbox in a single step. Unroll.me currently supports email accounts from Outlook.com (including Hotmail, MSN, & Windows Live), Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, and iCloud. Be sure to make sure you are comfortable with unroll.me’s privacy policy before giving access.

Edit Subscriptions

To see the list of your current subscriptions, click on “Edit Subscriptions” in the top menu:

For each email subscription listed, you will have three options: add to rollup (single digest email), keep in inbox (leave alone), or unsubscribe.

List example with options

You may notice a company’s name appears more than once in your list. This is because some companies maintain separate lists based on interests. Be sure you are unsubscribing to the one you no longer want to receive.

Keep in mind that some things may appear as subscriptions that are actually notifications you may need, like appointment reminders.

Click “unsubscribe” and the line with that account disappears, indicating you are unsubscribed. No need to go to secondary pages to explain why you unsubscribed or be pressured into re-subscribing.

Add to Rollup

The rollup is a digest that gives you an overview of all the subscriptions you receive each day. The rollup will keep your inbox clean by organizing the subscriptions you select into a single daily digest email. You can choose whether to receive your rollup in the morning, afternoon, or evening.

If you decide to remove a subscription from your rollup, you can do so from the “Your Rollup” section of the top menu.

You will still be subscribed to the email, but it will appear outside your rollup.

If you decide you no longer want to receive a rollup at all, you can deactivate it in your account settings (three-bar icon next to your email address):

You will still be subscribed to the emails, but they will not appear in digest format.

Have More Questions?

Unroll.me has created a helpful FAQ page, or you can visit their support portal.

Have you used this tool yourself? Let us know in the comments.