Sep 25, 2020

Making narrated videos, advanced Gmail templates, and more

By Paolo Amoroso • Issue #36 • View online

If you make videos, you spend hours shooting footage, recording yourself narrating, and editing. And even more hours re-shooting or re-narrating scenes that didn’t turn out as expected.

Narakeet is a mind-blowing tool that can automate most or all of this work. It adds the visuals, generates the narration with advanced voice synthesis systems, synchronizes media, and renders the video. And, as a web app, it fits into the Chrome OS cloud lifestyle.

Narakeet is great for quickly making instructional and marketing videos. See later in this issue for more details.

— Paolo Amoroso

PS To celebrate my new online store, you can get my book Space Apps for Android at $4.99 instead of $7.99. Only for the next 2 days.

Android

How to sign PDF documents from your Android device

In these pandemic times, we do even more things online. Including signing contracts and documents for purchasing products or services. This brief article reviews some apps for signing PDF documents from Android devices and explains how to use them.

www.androidcentral.com • Share

Chrome and Chrome OS

A Chrome extension for YouTube floating full screen

If you’re a multi-tasker, you want to watch YouTube videos while browsing other web pages. The preset YouTube video player sizes and Picture in Picture mode may not be enough for you, so try the Chrome extension this article presents. It gives you a separate window with a video player you can resize.

chromeunboxed.com • Share

How to get 100 GB of free Dropbox storage for a year on your Chromebook

An unusual thing Google does is it often features and partners with its competitors. Would Apple do that? It’s a thought for another time. For now, in case you have a Chromebook, you can get 100 GB of free storage for a year from cloud provider and competitor Dropbox. Learn here how to redeem the offer.

www.aboutchromebooks.com • Share

Gmail, Google Photos

How to save time with advanced Gmail templates

Do you send the same replies from Gmail over and over again? This forces you to type or copy and paste the same text. Or you can automate the task with the range of options this guide discusses, from built-in Gmail features to third-party extensions and templates.

www.computerworld.com • Share

How to hide people, pets, dates, and certain creation types in Google Photos Memories

Viewing the past photos Google Photos reminds you of is fun. Unless they bring up painful memories, such as old photos of your beloved deceased pet. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to prevent Google Photos from featuring in creations specific people, pets, or time ranges.

www.androidpolice.com • Share

Android apps

The best 7 favorite weather apps, now that Dark Sky is dead

Dark Sky is one of the best weather apps. It’s especially appreciated by amateur astronomers for its accurate predictions of observing conditions. But Apple recently acquired Dark Sky, and the app is no longer accessible on Android. This article goes through the best Dark Sky alternatives.

www.androidpolice.com • Share

Web apps

Narakeet

Narakeet is an amazing web tool for creating narrated videos using machine-generated, lifelike voices. You create videos by uploading PowerPoint presentations with the narration text in the speaker notes, or use a Markdown-based scripting language.

Read my Narakeet review featured in issue 26 of the Creator Tools Weekly newsletter.

www.narakeet.com • Share

Thank you

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By Paolo Amoroso

Weekly practical resources on Google products and related tech. Links to tips, tutorials, apps, and other resources that will expand your Google toolbox and help you do more.

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Paolo Amoroso, C.P. 343, Via Cordusio 4, 20123 Milano, ITALY