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How to Access iCloud from an Android Device

Companies like Apple tie you into their products by locking their services on their own devices. That means sharing services between your Android and iOS devices isn’t easy, but not impossible either. There are some loopholes to help you access your Apple iCloud services on your Android device or to help you transfer your content from one service to the other if you’d prefer to stay platform-independent. Syncing Your iCloud Emails If you want to start syncing your iCloud emails, you don’t need any additional apps on your Android device. All you need is an Android device with Google services installed, as you’ll need to… Read more

The History (and Meaning) of Alexa Rank

Alexa is an Amazon-owned marketing company that offers SEO, analytics, and marketing tools and services. Their premium marketing stack plan will help you do keyword research, check competitor keywords, optimise your website pages for SEO, check backlinks, improve SEO performance, and more. The company is best known for their Alexa Rank metric which ranks the… View Article

The post The History (and Meaning) of Alexa Rank appeared first on WinningWP.

How to Remap the Fn Keys on macOS

All of the Fn keys on a Mac are mapped by default to perform specific functions that can be quickly accessible by users. For example, the F1 and F2 keys, when pressed, increase and decrease your screen’s brightness respectively. While some of the Fn keys and their associated functions are used regularly, some of them, like F3 – Expose view, might not be used that much, and it will be more useful to remap it to perform another function. Here we’ll show you how to remap the Fn keys on your macOS. Related: How to Add Options to macOS’s Services Menu The first thing we… Read more

Posted by / August 13, 2019 / Posted in Mac

How to use your Amazon Echo Dot as a Bluetooth Speaker

ARTICLE – A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about How to listen to audiobooks and read eBooks for FREE. Since then, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying using the Libby app to listen to free audiobooks by checking them out (virtually) from my local library.

I listen to the audiobooks through my phone (Huawei P30 Pro) and the car stereo in my MINI Cooper while I’m driving to and from work each day. The problem is that these brief sessions only allow me about 40 minutes of listening per day. That’s not much time to get through a full-length novel in the time allotted for a Libby loan.

I have tried listening through the built-in speaker on my phone while getting ready for work in the mornings, but the Huawei speaker’s max volume setting isn’t loud enough for me to hear over the sound of the shower and the bathroom fan.

I thought about buying a small waterproof Bluetooth speaker than I could put in the shower with me, but I already have a speaker in my bathroom – an Amazon Echo Dot which is actually what started my new found love of audiobooks in the first place. If only there was a way I could listen to Libby through the Echo Dot like listening to an Audible book. Sure, I could use a line out cable to plug my phone into the speaker,  but the way my Echo Dot is mounted in my bathroom (see lead image) the 3.5mm line out jack is blocked – and who wants to use cables anyway, it’s 2019 for goodness sake!

Then a light bulb flicked on in my brain and I thought, what if I could use the Echo Dot as a stand-alone Bluetooth speaker? Is this possible? A quick Google and I learned that yes, it definitely is possible!


Through the Alexa app, you can set the Echo Dot to play music from other certain other streaming apps like Pandora, Spotify, etc. But as you will notice, Libby isn’t included in that list. But a little more Googling helped me learn that I can pair the Echo with my phone and use it just like any other Bluetooth speaker. Yay!

All you have to do is say “Alexa, pair Bluetooth” and Alexa will reply with “Searching…” Then you open the Bluetooth settings on your mobile device and look for an Echo-XXX entry in the devices list, click on it to connect and you’re done! Alexa will confirm that the connection has been made and then any sound that normally comes from your mobile device will now play through the Echo until you disconnect.

Now when I am getting ready in the morning,  I just say “Alexa, connect to my phone” and wait for her to say that she’s connected. Then start the Libby app. When I’m done listening, I press pause in the Libby app and say “Alexa, disconnect” and Alexa will confirm that the connection has been disconnected. Nice and simple!

I like that I’ve found another use for my Amazon Echo Dot in addition to just using it to listen to music, read the news, or listen to podcasts.

Now if I can just solve the issue with not being able to turn off the wake alarm in the morning because Alexa will say that there’s no connection to the internet…

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How to use your Amazon Echo Dot as a Bluetooth Speaker originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 13, 2019 at 12:08 pm.

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5 Ways to Put Raspberry Pi 4 to Good Use

With its combination of a low cost of entry and relative ease of use, the Raspberry Pi quickly became one of the go-to single board computers for hobbyists after its initial release. Among the only things that kept it from enjoying even wider use were the modest hardware specifications. That has changed with the release of the Raspberry Pi 4. This latest model is the most powerful iteration of the hardware yet, opening up entirely new categories of what you can do with the app. 1. Desktop Computer You could always technically run the Raspberry… Read more