Gmail recently released an update to GMail that has folks throwing their hands in the air and giving up on Google. Those folks, just so happened to be the people trying to market to you through email. Yes, some people call them spammers, but we know how systems work, and as someone who uses their GMail account for work, I would much rather not allow a system to choose what email goes where. The new filters are for “Social” and “Promotion” based emails to find their way automatically into a separate type inbox within your mail client. The problem I have with this is the same problem I have had with all junk mail filters from the beginning – Just how smart is it? I feel like the Spam filter does a really nice job of catching most of the unwanted mail in my case (as you can see in the example below) but even after using Gmail for about 10 years, I still check the Spam folder before completely emptying it because I have seen important emails in there. The issue here is a matter of habit. People are not used to having to check 3 inboxes every time they want to check their email. I’m absolutely certain the good folks at Google with their trillion dollar stock would never release something like this if it was tested beyond belief but I still don’t trust it and for that reason, I am disabling the new automatically filter inbox feature. Here I will walk you through the super easy steps of removing the “Social” and “Promotions” Inbox feature from your Gmail.
1. This is what your new GMail inbox looks like.
2. Navigate your mouse to the Social tab and click it. In the middle if the Social inbox is empty, you will see some text. At the bottom of that text you will see a link in blue that says “inbox settings.” Click that.
3. A window pops up with your inbox settings. As you can see, GMail is planning on this feature being a hit as they have also included two other filtered inboxes that have not been applied yet. At this point, you want to uncheck the “Promotions” and “Social” settings.
4. Make sure you DO NOT uncheck the “Primary” inbox as you will need that on. Click Save in blue at the bottom.
5. Return to your Inbox to find all the tabs are gone and your GMail inbox has been safely restored to pre-update condition!
Many people have considered this update to be a major flaw. Email is rarely just for conversations between family members and all the other conversations you might be having related to businesses or services might end up in one of the extra inboxes that GMail has added to your account with asking. Turning them off is likely a good choice for now to ensure you receive all of the email coming your way.
Lowepro has been around for a while now. They first became popular (in my opinion) for their sling bags. Since that time, bags such as the Lowepro ProRunner 350 AW have really proven they are here to stay. As someone who constantly is searching for the perfect bag for my gear, and is also somewhat brand crazy when it comes to what I trust, I was a little skeptical at first about the quality of a Lowepro backpack. I have used a sling bag from Lowepro for years, and being that I am the first to find problems with anything I use, I think my ideas of what to expect were a little skewed.
The Lowepro ProRunner 350 AW is a great option for a medium sized backpack that will protect your gear for a very affordable price. After looking at at tons of bags, I can easily say that a supportive frame, and soft padding are really hard to find. Either the padding is too soft which gives when the weight of heavy lenses and equipment come into play, or the dividers and padding are too hard which makes me nervous if there was a drop or any other number of accidents.
Find out what the Good and the Bad are for this bag and see if it might be a good fit for your next big adventure!
Audio changes everything. So many people try their hand at film making and think that capturing beautiful video images has landed them in the Academy Awards only to realize that once the film is finished, poor audio quality completely drags the overall experience into the mud. These days, traditional methods of capturing audio have all but been lost. Boom mics are still around but most people don’t have the money or patience to pay a who crew for audio unless they are of course on a big budget. With the age of reality TV and exposed audio packs simply numbing our society, wireless and fixed microphones have really built a market and thus recorders like the Olympus DM-620 were designed.
Today, I’m talking about a recorder I just purchased with hopes of achieving great sound on budget. The Olympus DM-620 (which replaced the DM-520) is a next generation budget field recording device with some really great features. As with all me reviews, I can’t help but complain about a few small things, but overall, the recorder is very usable. I like that its very small, and there are not moving buttons on it. This allows for much more control over the lock or “hold” feature so that when you walk away from your subject, you can be assured they won’t accidentally ruin your settings.
Watch this video review to learn if the Olympus DM-620 might be a great portable option for your next production!
I’m crazy. I know it. I just really have a hard time being impressed by bags, but I do think my honest look at them is much better than most of the people I find offering video reviews. I looked online for days, watching every video I could to try to make a good decision on what backpack to get and ended up finding this bag. All the videos were fairly annoying, most of them called “whats in my bag” where they think they are showing off what camera gear they have. I don’t care about that. I want to know the ins and outs because lets face it, GAS ISN’T CHEAP. So I felt fairly confident on the choice of the Kata 3n1 PL 35 “Hybrid” Sling & Backpack. I loved the versatility. There are quite a few sling options and even more backpacks, but this one offers both – plus it has quite a few pockets. I’m a pockets freak! I want pockets every where because I like my gear to be completely compartmentalized and this one has quite a few pockets. I wanted to replace my current backpack which is a fairly high-end Swiss Army brand. In order to do that it had to hold a laptop and it does, as well as a tablet. Overall, it had to be light and durable. The Kata 3n1 PL 35 is light and durable!
BUT..
There were some downsides. I have covered it all head to toe in this video tutorial.
Many people have considered this update to be a major flaw. Email is rarely just for conversations between family members and all the other conversations you might be having related to businesses or services might end up in one of the extra inboxes that GMail has added to your account with asking. Turning them off is likely a good choice for now to ensure you receive all of the email coming your way.
