Digital Idea

You have been using Google Analytics to track visitors (or page views) on your website but did you know that the same analytics service can also be used for tracking views inside Google Spreadsheets. You insert a little snippet of tracking code inside your spreadsheet and when someone opens the sheet, that visit will be recorded permanently in your Google Analytics account. Google Analytics provides a JavaScript snippet that can be inserted into web templates for tracking visits. You cannot insert JavaScript inside the cells of a Google Spreadsheet but we can use the  IMAGE function  combined with some  Apps Script  to enable tracking inside spreadsheet. The visit is recorded as an “event” and not a “page view” and thus your spreadsheet opens will not artificially inflate your Google Analytics reports. To get started, go to your Google Analytics dashboard and make a note of the Google Analytics tracking ID which is a string like  U...

Google Forms are a perfect tool for creating online forms and surveys. The forms are responsive and mobile friendly, and they look beautiful as the colors and typography are based on Material design philosophy. Whether you need a basic  Contact Me  form to a more complex  Event Registration  form, there are readymade form templates to get you up and running in minutes. There are other advantages too with using Google Forms. The form responses are automatically saved in a Google spreadsheet that can be easily exported to other formats like PDF or CSV. Unlike other online form builders that follow the freemium model, Google Forms are absolutely free and can accept unlimited responses . You can also schedule Google Forms to stop accepting responses after a given date. There’s one limitation though with Google Forms. Google Forms can send email notifications as soon as people submit you...

Pluralsight is among the best places on the web to learn programming through videos. Whether you are a complete beginner or a pro looking to advance your coding skills to the next level, you’ll find a video course at Pluralsight that will meet your needs. They have courses on practically all programming languages from JavaScript to PHP to Java to the trending technologies like AngularJS and React (see  complete list ). It is a subscription based service and you have shell out $30 per month to get access to their entire video training library. Now here’s the interesting part. If you join the Microsoft Visual Studio program, which is also free, you automatically gain free membership to the entire PluralSight library for 6 months. No credit card or coupon codes required. Here’s how you can activate your Pluralsight subscription in a minute: Go to  signup.live.com  and create a new Microsoft Account. Skip this step if you already have one. G...

The first tweet was published almost 8 years ago and Twitter has come a long way since then. There’s a whole ecosystem of apps and services available now that allow us to use Twitter in more ways than ever before. This guide curates the best tools that will help you get the most out of Twitter. 1.  Nuzzel  – This works as an intelligent filter for Twitter and helps you discover the most popular news stories shared across your Twitter network. All signal, no noise. 2.  Flipboard  – Connect your Twitter account to Flipboard and it will create a beautiful magazine for all your Twitter feeds that you can flip through on the web (example), mobile and Windows 10 devices. 3.  LifeOnTwitter  – Get interesting statistics and facts about your Twitter account (example). 4.  TallTweets  – It lets you send tweets of any length by slicing your long tweet into multiple 140-character tweets (sample) and sending them ...

W hat do you do when your mobile phone has limited storage and there’s no option to add an external SD card? How do you carry all your videos and documents where there’s not an iota of space left on the device? Yes, you do have cloud-based services like Dropbox or Google Drive that add virtually unlimited storage to your phone but you’ve to be connected to the Internet to access your files. This week I’ve been testing a wireless USB stick from Sandisk that adds storage to your phones and tablets much like a regular USB drive. To get started, you plug the USB device into your laptop or desktop computer and let it charge for about an hour or two. You can also transfer the files to the stick from the computer through Windows Explorer or Finder on Mac. Once the device is charged, you tap the little power button on the stick to turn it on. Now install the Sandisk Connect app on your mobile phone, go to WiFi settings on your phone and connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot created by the...

Wireless Networking (Wi-Fi) has made it so easy for anyone to use Internet on your computer, mobile phones, tablets and other wireless devices anywhere in the house without the clutter of cables. With traditional wired networks, it is extremely difficult for someone to steal your bandwidth but the big problem with wireless signals is that others can access the Internet using your broadband connection even while they are in a neighboring building or sitting in a car that’s parked outside your apartment. This practice, also known as piggybacking, is bad for three reasons: It will increase your monthly Internet bill especially when you have to pay per byte of data transfer. It will decrease your Internet access speed since you are now sharing the same internet connection with other users. It can create a security hazard* as others may hack your computers and access your personal files through your own wireless network. [*] What do the bad guys use  – There ha...