टिप्स बॉक्स से: विंडोज 7 में म्यूटिंग ऐप, आईओएस डिवाइस पर डेटा गोपनीयता, और क्लटर फ्री यूट्यूब और अमेज़ॅन ब्राउजिंग

I don’t know about you, but it’s been ages since I opened up Window’s “Volume Mixer”. Last time I opened it, circa some time when Windowx XP was new, it wasn’t particularly useful (filled with individual volume controls for obscure audio components on my computer I didn’t even use). In Windows 7 it’s actually useful! You can pick the individual device and then pick the applications piping sound through. How is this useful? When I listen to Pandora I use it to mute the system sounds and my IM client’s alerts. It’s way easier than going into the individual apps and toggling the sound settings! Maybe this is common knowledge but I figured there had to be a lot of people like me that never bothered to look at the Volume Mixer.

I’m sure you guys have heard about how leaky iOS apps can be with your private data. I found a great iPhone application in the Cydia store (so you’ll need a jailbroken iPhone). The app, Protect My Privacy, does two awesome things. First, it tells you whenever an app wants to share your data. That alone is pretty useful. But here’s where it gets even better, you can set up a “fake” data profile and opt to send that instead. So if the app must share the data to function, you can tell the app that you’re Abraham Lincoln or whatever you feel like. With this app you get the best of both worlds, notifications and the ability to share a fake profile.

I saw the post you guys did about BookFlavor to make Amazon less cluttered. There’s a browser plugin (available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) called Clea.nr that strips away all the clutter on Amazon and YouTube automatically. I don’t know about you guys but I find the stripped down versions much more enjoyable to use.