The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Android Apps Google Apps

Organize your life with Taskary

Calendar apps are a popular way to organize your schedule and keep track of upcoming events and deadlines. One issue I have often had with these sorts of apps is that they tend to consider everything as an “event”. For example, if all I really need to know is that a paper is due on November 20th, I don’t really need to build in an arbitrary hour long “event” that’s happening on that day just to remember that my paper is due.

What I really want is a To-Do list, in this case, and that’s where Google calendar comes in. Even though the default item you can add to a calendar is an “Event”, with a start and end time, if you click beside it on “Task”, you can just add a single item with a name and a description.

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Then, all it has is a checkbox for you to select once you’ve done it. No notifications about “upcoming events” or anything of the sort, just simple items on a calendar.

However, one downside to this is that the Gmail calendar apps don’t sync tasks. For Android, there is a solution. The app “Taskary” is a great choice, with both a free and premium version, to sync tasks to your phone. You can quickly look at your schedule of to-do list items, as well as check them off once you’re done. And it all syncs back to your google account.

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For iOS users, or Android users who don’t want to install another app, the browser version of Google Calendar should let you access your tasks as well. But if you’re looking for a simple way to plan your schedule and deadlines, and have it accessible in a quick app, Taskary and Google Calendar are a great choice.

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Google Apps

Organize your Gmail with filters

If you are an undergraduate at UMass Amherst, you have a Google Apps account for your student email. And, if you’re anything like me, sometimes your inbox can get a little cluttered from different classes and announcements.

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If you find yourself wishing to keep all of your emails but don’t need to see all of these mass emails every time they pop up, a Gmail filter might be of interest to you.

To see the options for Gmail filters, start by navigating to Settings and then click the “Filters and Blocked Addresses” tab.

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Click “Create a new filter”.

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You will now see a few options for what your filter can be based on. For example, you can filter emails “From” a particular person or mailing list, you could filter emails with a certain keyword in the subject, or you could filter emails based on having or not having certain keywords.

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Once you’ve selected what types of emails you want to filter, click “Create filter with this search” and you will be presented with options of what to do with those filtered messages.

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Like the previous step in choosing what to filter, these options are basically up to you depending on what you want to do. Personally, I find it convenient to use the “Skip the inbox” and “Apply the label” options. The drop down will let you create new labels, with my example screenshot having a label named “homework”. This way, you aren’t deleting emails but won’t see them in your inbox until you click on the label you applied them to. In the following example, I created a filter for emails from Doodle which causes them to skip the inbox and go under the label “doodlemail”.

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Now my regular inbox won’t be flooded with notifications every time someone replies to my Doodle poll, and I can check it whenever I want. However, this is only one example of what you can create with the different filtering options. Maybe you want to star every email from career services, or make sure certain newsletters never get sent to spam. The choice is yours, and the power of filtering options will allow you to keep your inbox as organized as you’d like it to be.

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Google Google Apps

Thankful For Google

I created my first Gmail account right before I started high school. I figured that my aim.com email, with my cheesy instant messaging screen name attached, would be unsuitable to send emails from in the future. It never crossed my mind that this one account would later link all facets of my life together in a neat, user-friendly package. With this one account, I am able to sync my email, calendar, documents, photos, notes, alarms, mobile apps, and music across my phone, tablet, and PC.

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Android Apps Google Google Apps iOS Web

How Does the “Cloud” Really Work?

cloud

Cloud Computing is becoming increasingly popular among both businesses and consumers; but what is the “Cloud” and how does it work?

A Cloud Computing System can be divided into two parts: the Front End and the Back End.  The Front End consists of either a user’s computer or a network of computers connected to the Internet.  The Back End is comprised of many different servers, computers, and storage databases that are all interconnected; these components, functioning together as a whole, form a “Cloud”.  A central server exists to administer the entire system, constantly monitoring it to prevent failures.  All these different components interact and communicate with each other through the Internet, forming a web of inter-connected, redundant devices.

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Google Apps

Using Google Drive with Your UMass Google Apps Account

Your UMass Google Apps account comes with many cool and useful features you may not know about. With 30 GB of storage it gives you plenty of space to back up your documents to the cloud so you can access them from any computer. No more need to back up your PowerPoint to a thumb drive and risk losing it the day of a big presentation. Google Drive is also quite useful when trying to send a file too big for an email. With your Apps at UMass Amherst email account you are able to send emails with a link to your drive where you can allow the recipient either viewing or editing abilities, which can be great for peer editing. There are a few ways to go about this:

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Google Apps Web

Productivity with Apps at UMass

Have you ever had a hard time finishing your school assignments? Is everything last minute? Do you often forget about that online quiz that is due on Friday? Then you, my friend, may have productivity issues. But don’t worry, it is nothing serious and can be fixed as easily as checking your UMass email.

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Apps Google Apps Security Web

Digital Wallets The Future of Buying Products.

 

Technology has become integrated in our society, we are using it every day at work, home, and in some states there using IPad’s to teach kindergarten class. With technology becoming more of a necessity than a luxury in past years, the number of people shopping online has increased at an astounding rate. The online shopping market is projected to be worth 370 billion dollars in 2017.

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Apps Google Apps Learning Management Systems

Collaborative Tools at UMass Amherst

You don’t need to keep track of emails, attachments with revisions, and addresses when you collaborate with Google Apps at UMass Amherst.

When you’re ready to share a document or presentation, just click File>Share… and start typing your classmate’s name in the search box. The UMass directory is built into Drive, so just select the right name and click “Share & Save.” The document will appear in that user’s drive right away, and you can start working on the same document in real-time.