Ultimate guide to Google Home, Android tune-up, and more

We’re early in the year, and it’s still a good occasion for tuning up your Android device.

This article goes through several steps that take less than half an hour to complete. The steps reduce inefficiencies and save system resources. The suggested actions range from tweaking the system settings to cleaning up the home screen.

If you subscribe to this newsletter you likely already have an Android device. But, if you’re on the fence and are considering migrating from iOS, this guide tells what to do. It explains how to transfer several types of data and provides a very short primer for new Android users.

Chrome OS can run Linux apps but the installation process is still rough around the edges.

This article tells how to install popular Linux apps with Flatpak, a cross-distribution package management system and app store. This simplifies installation, but some simple terminal commands are still required.

Among the popular apps prepackaged for Flatpak you’ll find Minecraft, Spotify, VLC, Audacity, and more.

This is the most comprehensive guide to using Google Home devices and other speakers with the Google Assistant built-in. It provides tips and tricks to understand these smart assistants and make the most out of them.

It starts from the basics and goes through nearly all the features and settings. You’ll find also examples of how the author uses these devices in various rooms and environments at home.

Exporting a document in ePub format from Google Docs is straightforward, but the outcome depends on the document’s complexity.

This article reminds how to export to ePub and reports on testing the generation of an ebook with elaborate layout and formatting involving images, custom fonts, drop caps, and more. By examining the exported file, it points out the limitations of the tool and indicates what to expect.

This is my favorite Android screen recording app. It packs all the features and tools you’ll ever need for recording, annotating, editing, and livestreaming screencasts. It can also capture app audio and the front camera feed.

If you do Android tutorials or demos, this is the tool for you.

There are plenty of keyboard apps and options for entering emojis on Android.

Desktop operating systems can insert these symbols too, but the process is more arcane and not as straightforward. Enter CopyChar.

CopyChar is a web tool for copying to the clipboard emojis and special characters, which you can paste into any editing field. I use it all the time on my Chromebox — particularly for special symbols like the em dash.