This series of posts will walk you through the process of figuring out whether or not you can cancel your cable or satellite subscription.
As much as cable and satellite providers would like you to think they're the only ones with the good content, you do have other options.
These devices take content from the Internet to display on your TV.
We're not giving up the fight! These links take you to resources supporting the campaign to get Google to bring back Classic Maps.
While none of these alternative sites are perfect replacements for Classic Maps, they're what we've got for now. I haven't checked most of these out personally yet, but I'm linking to them anyway in case you find them helpful for your purposes.
Yeah, I hate 'em too... But if we're going to be stuck with them at least for the foreseeable future, I'll be working on some tutorial posts to try to make them a little less painful.
I’m not a huge Instagram user myself, but I occasionally post pics to my personal account. When I do, I generally scroll through my feed to look at other posted pictures and when I see one I particularly like, my automatic response is to want to share it with my friends and followers, like I do with Facebook Twitter, and other social media apps.
But Instagram doesn’t provide that functionality, which is one of the reasons I’m not a huge Instagram user. I think it has something to do with image copyright and credit, and I understand the issues involved, but this is one of those areas that they need to figure out because people will just take screenshots of images anyway if they want them badly enough. And while they’re trying to stop the bad actors, they’re making the service less useful to people who don’t want to abuse it.
So I was happy when I discovered the Repost for Instagram app from Red Cactus. It’s available for both iOS and Android devices and the Android version can be sideloaded onto Amazon Fire tablets. What this app does is add a watermark to the image crediting the account you’re reposting it from and then copies the image description to your clipboard so you can paste it back into the description when you repost it on Instagram. It’s not the most elegant solution but overall it works well and I like the fact that I can now repost images while ensuring the original Instagrammer gets credited for it.
However, there was one thing I didn’t really love about the app. The image feed in the Repost app was only available in grid form instead of a single-image stream and on smaller devices it makes it hard to really see whether it’s an image you want to share or not. Because of that, I usually stuck with Instagram for scrolling through the image feed and when I found one I really liked, I would open the Repost app and then have to scroll through it to find the same pic. An even less elegant solution.
A few days ago, Instagram changed their API so that third-party apps could no longer display an image feed in them. (Actually, I think they changed it a while back, but they turned off access to the last of the apps a few days ago.)
I learned this on via @MacRumors on Twitter:
Third-Party Instagram Apps and Websites Cease to Work https://t.co/Ef69nCiAnO by @rsgnl pic.twitter.com/rIN6c5vHGB
— MacRumors.com (@MacRumors) June 2, 2016
I immediately went to my Repost app and sure enough, there was a note that there was an error trying to reload the feed. This was my tweet in response:
@Repost app seems to be one of the casualties. Hope that means IG will provide that feature themselves or I'm out. https://t.co/78dh9Zd5mb
— Tech for Luddites (@TechForLuddites) June 2, 2016
But for some reason, I decided to check out Repost again today and I discovered that the message had changed to show a new process for reposting Instagram images. Huzzah!
While it does add a couple of steps, I find they’re actually less disruptive to the way you’d naturally want to do things now.
Using the Repost for Instagram App
Scroll through Instagram until you find an image you want to share with your followers.
Click the three dots icon and select Copy Share URL.
Open the Repost app and click the image you want to repost.
At first I thought this was an unnecessary step because there was only the one image displayed, but I later discovered that previous images you’ve sent to Repost will be kept in the list, so you do need it to pick the actual one you want to share.
Select your watermark options and click the Repost button.
This is the point where the original description gets copied to your clipboard.
Add filters in Instagram if desired.
Press on the description field to bring up the Paste option. Tap it to paste the description from the original Instagram post. Add your own comments before or after the copied text.
Post the image.
That’s it! Here’s the final posted image on the T4L page:
The reason I like this new workflow is that I start it in Instagram and I end it in Instagram and I don’t have to try to match up the two apps. The only thing now that I’m not crazy about now is after you do this and return to your Instagram home feed, it takes you back to the top of the stream, when I’d rather go back to the image I just reposted and continue scrolling from there. If anyone from Red Cactus or Instagram is reading this, please consider this an enhancement request!
Reader Tip
Today’s Blogathon 2016 tip comes from reader Malcolm and not only is it a great tip in and of itself, but it also introduced me to a Microsoft Word feature I never even knew existed!
Apparently Word includes a “Recover text from any file (*.*)” option from the Files of Type in its Open dialog as a way to recover text from corrupted Word files or non-Word file. However, when you choose the option, the dialog keeps that File of Type option so if you end up opening a normal Word doc while it’s selected, you’ll lose all your formatting, images, etc. It’s at this point that Malcolm says his reaction is “to consume the chocolate bar kept next to the keyboard for such times of crisis,” a perfectly valid tip in and of itself! 🙂 Instead, his tip is:
Once finished recovering files but before you quit Word, re-set the Files of Type to your norm and open a random file. Can save lots of tears.
This tip also proves my contention that there’s always more you can learn about something, even if you’re already pretty knowledgeable about it. I mean, I consider myself a power user of Word and to repeat: I had NO idea this recovery feature exists.
Learn more about the Recover Text From Any File feature on the Microsoft Support site. >>
Thanks again so much for sharing this awesome tip, Malcolm. (If you’re keeping track, that’s now his third entry into the tech tip contest!)
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