You are organizing an online event - maybe a meeting on Zoom or a training session hosted on Google Meet - and you would like the attendees to add the event to their own calendars. Once added to their calendar, the event will act as an automatic reminder and attendees will get a notification when the conference is about to start.
There are two way to go about this:
You can create a new meeting in your online calendar (Google, Outlook or any other calendar) and add the individual attendees as guests so the event automatically gets added to their calendar as well.
You can include an “Add to Calendar” link or button in your email messages, forms and website pages. Anyone can click the link to quickly save your event on to their calendars - see live demo.
Create Add to Calendar Links for Emails and Websites
The Add to Calendar app can create links that will let people quickly save your events on to their own calendars. You can create links and event reminder buttons for Google Calendar, Outlook, Microsoft Office 365 and Yahoo! Calendar.
The app will also generate downloadable iCalendar .ics files.
To get started, add the event title and choose the default timezone of your event. Then use the built-in date and time picker to specify the event start date and end date. If the event spans the entire day, check the “All Day Event” option.
The event description field can have long text, hyperlinks and simple HTML tags for formatting. Next choose the calendar name to target and click the Generate button. The app generates plain links that you can paste in emails and HTML buttons (with inline CSS) for embedding in your web pages and email newsletters.
You can create “Add to Calendar” links on both the desktop and your mobile phone. People who click on these links can quickly save your event on their calendar, which will also remind them about your event automatically.
Whether you are a new Mac user or a seasoned veteran looking to do even more amazing things on your Mac, check out this updated collection of lesser-known but awesome Mac Apps of 2020. The majority of apps listed here are free and they’ll appeal to general Mac users, not just the techie crowd.
The Best Mac Apps & Utilities
This collection of essential Mac Apps includes mostly lesser-known apps so the popular ones — like Evernote, Dropbox, Skype, OneNote, or Google Drive — aren’t listed here. Also, all the apps here are compatible with Yosemite and Catalina, the current version of Mac OS.
Wherever possible, I have included the Mac App Store links because the store not only makes it easy for you to install apps on your Mac but, in the case of paid apps, you also have an option for requesting refunds.
Let’s get started.
Magnet - A perfect windows management app for Mac that lets you move and resize windows with configurable keyboard shortcuts. You can move windows between multiple displays too. Another alternative is Rectangle.
ImageOptim - Always run your images through ImageOptim before uploading them on to your website. The Mac app will crush the size of your image files without affecting the visual quality.
HiddenMe - If your Mac desktop is cluttered with folders and files, you can hide all the icons with a single click or with a keyboard shortcut.
Site Sucker - Download entire websites includes images, PDF files and mirror them on your local disk for offline browsing. Like wget but with a visual interface.
App Cleaner - The best uninstaller for your Mac that will automatically remove all the extra files that are left on the disk when you delete an app.
Maccy - A clipboard manager that stores all that you copy to the clipboard and lets you paste the copied snippets into other apps with a simple shortcut. [CopyClip] is a good alternative.
Clean Me - Recover space on your Mac by deleting all the system logs, cache and other temp files that your Mac can easily do away with.
Dozer - An excellent alternative to the popular Bartender app. You can quickly re-order or even hide the app icons appearing in the Mac menu bar.
NetNewsWire - A clean and fast RSS Reader for your MacOS. We have an RSS Feed too!
RSS Bot - Access your RSS from your Mac’s menu bar and get notifications when new items are available. You can also apply filters to only show articles that match certain keywords.
Flotato - It turns any web page into a native Mac app that you can quickly open outside the web browser. Also see, Fluid.
Latest - It scans the Applications folder of your Mac and checks if all your installed apps are up to date. You can also update your outdated apps. MacUpdater is an even more powerful but paid alternative.
Onyx - Perform system maintenance tasks to improve the performance of your Mac, verify disks and more.
TinkerTool - It provides access to several configuration settings that are otherwise hidden on the Mac. For instance, you can specify the default folder where Screenshots should be saved on the Mac.
KeepingYouAwake - It keeps your Mac stay awake and also prevents your screen from going to sleep. If you need more features, use Amphetamine.
Shifty - Easily toggle between dark and light mode on your Mac. You can also decide which of your Apps or websites should stay light, while your system runs in Dark Mode. Also see, NightOwl.
IINA - A modern alternative to the VLC Media Player that includes support for gestures and the touch bar in newer Macs.
HyperSwitch - An improved window switching app for Mac that upgrades your default Command + Tab experience when cycling between open app windows.
TextBar - You can specify system commands and the app will add the text output of those commands to the menu bar. For instance, ipconfig getifaddr en0 will print your current IP address. You can also have these as desktop widgets with Übersicht.
Tyke - A minimalistic notepad app that sits in the menu bar and lets you save quick notes.
Karabiner - Remap existing keys on the keyboard to perform a different command. For instance, the CAPS-lock key can be configured to work as an Escape key. Useful when using any non-Apple keyboard with Mac.
Dropzone - It makes it easy to copy or move files to your favorite folders, open applications and you can also upload files to the Internet right from your menu bar.
Clocker - Show multiple clocks in your menu bar from different timezones.
Duet Display - Use your iPad, iPhone or even an Android phone as an extra display for your Mac and PC.
Transmit - The perfect FTP client for Mac OS X that just works. You can create droplets to instantly upload files to your favorite destinations from anywhere.
AirDroid - It connects your Android phone to the Mac. You can access messages, manage photos, transfer files and more, wirelessly.
Unarchiver - It’s like WinZip compression utility for Mac that can handle all the popular archive formats including RAR, TAR, GZIP, ISO, and more.
Handbrake - Convert video files from one format to another. FFmpeg is powerful too but works only from the command line. For audio files, the recommended converter is fre:ac.
Disk Inventory - If your MacBook is running low on space, use the Disk Inventory app to quickly discover large files and folders that are clogging the storage.
Helium - An Always on Top like app but for your Mac. The browser window will float on top of other windows and you can also change the translucency level.
Setapp - A collection of premium Mac Apps and Utilities in a single package. Includes favorites like MindNode, Ulysses for writers, Cleanshot for screen capture and Capto for screen recording.
XMenu - It provides explorer-style access to your favorite folders and Mac apps from the menu bar. You can launch apps, browse files and folders right from the menu bar.
Flux - It automatically dims the brightness of your screen based on the time of the day - warm at night, bright during the day - so your eyes feel less strain. Also see the 20 20 20 rule.
Text Expander - The app accelerates your touch typing by replacing pre-defined abbreviations with corresponding phrases. For instance, say ;sig to add your rich signature in the Gmail window.
CheatSheet - Use this app to memorize keyboard shortcuts for any Mac app. Just hold the Command Key a bit longer to get a list of all shortcuts available in that app.
Soundflower - If you are to record the Mac audio, like the sound coming out of the speakers, you would need SoundFlower to route that sound to the recording app instead of the speakers.
JumpShare - Quickly upload files, record screencasts, capture screenshots and share them instantly, all from the convenience of your menu bar.
Hocus Focus - It helps keep your Mac desktop clean by automatically hiding windows that are inactive or haven’t been used for a while. You can even choose to hide windows as soon as they lose focus.
Bandwidth+ - Monitor your Internet bandwidth usage in realtime. Especially handy when you are connected to a metered Wi-Fi hotspot.
Background Music - An audio utility that provides per-application volume control for your Mac. It automatically pauses your music player when a second audio source is playing and unpauses the player when the second source has stopped.
Download Shuttle - A fast download manager for Mac that will split the files into multiple chunks and downloads them in parallel. Can pause and resume downloads too.
WeTransfer- Send big files to anyone by simply drag and drop. You get a download link that automatically becomes inactive after 7 days.
LICEcap - A light-weight screencast app for capturing any area of your Mac desktop as a small GIF file. Also see, Kap.
Hazel - A folder monitoring app that lets you specify rules per watched folder and any files added to these folders are automatically organized. Supports AppleScript and Automator actions too.
Authy - This is like Google Authenticator but for your Mac desktop. With Authy, you sign-in into Gmail, Amazon, Trello and other online accounts that have 2-factor authentication enabled without requiring the phone.
Self Control - To help you stop procrastinating, this Mac app that can temporarily block access to time-wasting websites, emails and everything else that you find distracting.
Better Touch Tool - The app lets you modify the gestures of your Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad. You can configure Touch Bar settings and actions too.
OBS - If you ever plan to set up a live stream on Twitch or YouTube, OBS is the only streaming software you’d need.
Zoom - My favorite app for video conferencing on Mac. You can do screen sharing, the meetings are automatically recorded and you can remotely control the attendee’s computer for tech support.
To Do - A perfect todo and task management app for your Mac from Microsoft. Also see, Trello.
Hand Mirror - It lives in the menu bar of your Mac and quickly gives you a view from your webcam. Handy to know how you look before you join that Skype or Zoom video call.
Kap - Record quick screencasts as GIFs and MP4 videos and upload them to GIPHY, Dropbox, Vercel (Now) or Amazon S3 directly from the app.
Diagrams.net - The best tool for creating diagrams and flowcharts. It’s like Microsoft Visio but completely free.
Meeter - Keep track of your upcoming online meetings from Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and other virtual conference services and join the meeting directly from your Mac’s menubar.
KeyPad - Use the connected physical keyboard of your Mac to type on your iPhone, iPad and Android phone.
The key to effectively communicating with clients and potential leads is to relay the necessary information in a format that they like. In the past, people got information through reading articles in newspapers and magazines, mainly because any other option was too costly and time-consuming to be practical. Still, nowadays, technology has progressed at such […]
Gmail is very effective at filtering spam emails but spammers seem to have figured out a new way to bypass the spam filters and send emails that land right in the user’s inbox. The emails are sent through Google Forms and because the messages originate from Google’s own email servers, they do not get caught in the spam filters.
Here’s how spam emails are sent through Google Forms.
A public form is created with Google Forms.
The form creator uploads images for the various question fields and also adds links to spam websites in the form.
Inside the Form settings, they turn on the option to “Collect Email Addresses” including the option to send “Response receipts” when a new form is submitted.
Now the spammers can simply open the Google Form, fill in the recipient’s email address and hit the submit button.
Google Forms will automatically email a copy of the form response, including all the pictures and links contained in the original form, to the email address that was entered in the form.
Here’s a screenshot of one such email from Google Forms that easily tricked the spam filters.
How to Block Spam from Google Forms
If you would like to prevent spam emails from Google Forms from landing in your inbox, Gmail filters can help.
You can create a filter in Gmail that will automatically delete emails that have Google Forms as the sender.
Alternatively, you may open the form link from the email and click the “Report Abuse” button to report the form to Google. That is not likely to be a very effective strategy though as spammers can always switch to a different Google account.
Here are the most useful websites on the Internet that will make you smarter, increase productivity and help you learn new skills. These incredibly useful websites solve at least one problem really well. And they all have cool URLs that are easy to memorize thus saving you a trip to Google.
The Most Useful Websites and Web Apps
archive.is — take a snapshot of any web page and it will exist forever even if the original page is gone.
autodraw.com — create freehand doodles and watch them magically transform into beautiful drawings powered by machine learning.
fast.com — check the current speed of your Internet connection.
slides.com — create pixel-perfect slide decks and broadcast your presentations to an audience of any size from anywhere.
file.pizza — peer to peer file transfer over WebRTC without any middleman.
snapdrop.com — like Apple AirDrop but for the web. Share files directly between devices in the same network without having to upload them to any server first.
Regular Expressions, or RegEx, are used for searching patterns in text. For instance, a RegEx like iP(hone|ad|od)s? will find mentions of any iOS device in a document. Knowledge of Regular Expressions is essential for programmers but they can be a great skill to have for non-developers as well - people who use Microsoft Word or spend hours inside Google Spreadsheets.
Why Learn Regular Expressions?
Regular Expressions are extremely powerful, and no less intimidating, but even basic understanding of RegEx will save you time and make your everyday computing tasks easier.
For instance, you can quickly find & replace text that matches complex patterns in Word or Vim. You can easily extract phone numbers and emails in spreadsheet cells using regex formulas. If you are creating a form in Google Drive, RegEx can help you define validation rules for user input. You can use RegEx in Gmail and Google Analytics too.
How do you learn Regular Expressions? Or, if you are already familiar, how do you take your RegEx skills to the next level? You will obviously learn by doing but there are some excellent tools and learning resources on the Internet that will take make your journey to knowing Regular Expressions more pleasant.
The Best RegEx Tools & Resources
Lea Verou’s presentation will give you a good overview of what Regular Expressions are and what you can do with them. Jeffrey Friedl’s book - Mastering Regular Expressions - is still the best printed reference for RegEx newbies and masters. You can explore RegexOne, an interactive Codecademy-like online tutorial for learning RegEx or go here for learning the basics of pattern matching.
Highlighting all the non-English characters
RegExr is like a visual playground for Regular Expressions. You enter the text in one block and the RegEx in the other. As you edit the RegEx, the matching strings are highlighted in the input text. You can also hover over any character literal in the RegEx to know what it does. RegEx101 is a similar tool that also describes your RegEx in English as you write.
Regulex and RegExper are both open-source web apps that make it easy for you to understand and read Regular Expressions. You enter a RegEx and the tools will create a Railroad Diagram - for a string to match, it should be able to successfully move from left of the diagram all the way to the left along one of the available paths.
Windows users can download Expresso, a free program that will help beginners write both simple and complex regular expressions through a visual builder. Instead of coding the RegEx manually, you can select the components in a wizard. Reggy for Mac and RegEx Coach for Windows can also help you test regular expressions outside the browser.
Once you understand the basics, head over to RegEx Golf or play this RegEx Crossword to test your skills. Like with everything else, you’ll only learn Regular Expressions by practicing and mere reading won’t be sufficient.
When people submit your Google Form, a new row is inserted in the Google Sheet that is storing the form responses. This spreadsheet row contains a Timestamp column, the actual date when the form was submitted, and the other columns in the sheet contain all the user’s answers, one per column.
You can extend the Google Forms sheet to also include formula fields and the cell values are automatically calculated whenever a new row is added to the sheet by the Google Form. For instance:
You can have an auto-number formula that assigns an auto-incrementing but sequential ID to every form response. It can be useful when you are using Google Forms for invoicing.
For customer order forms, a formula can be written in Google Sheets to calculate the total amount based on the item selection, the country (tax rates are different) and the quantity selected in the form.
For hotel reservations forms, a formula can automatically calculate the room rent based on the check-in and check-out date filled by the customer in the Google Form.
For quizzes, a teacher can automatically calculate the final score of the student by matching the values entered in the form with the actual answers and assigning scores.
If a users has made multiple form submissions, a formula can help you determine the total number of entries made by a user as soon as they submit a form.
Google Sheets Formulas for Google Forms
In this step by step guide, you’ll learn how to add formulas to Google Sheets that are associated with Google Forms. The corresponding cell values in the response rows will be automatically calculated when a new response is submitted.
To get a better understanding of what we are trying to achieve, open this Google Form and submit a response. Next, open this Google Sheet and you’ll find your response in a new row. The columns F-K are autofilled using formulas.
All examples below will use the ArrayFormula function of Google Sheets though some of these example can also be written using the FILTER function.
Auto-Number Form Responses with a Unique ID
Open the Google Sheet that is storing form responses, go to first empty column and copy-paste the following formula in the row #1 of the empty column.
The ROW() function returns the row number of the current response row. It returns 1 for the first row in the Invoice Column and thus we set the column title in the first row. For subsequent rows, if the first column of the row (usually Timestamp) is not empty, the invoice ID is auto generated.
The IDs will be like 00001, 00002 and so on. You only need to place the formula is first row of the column and it auto-populates all the other rows in the column.
The IFERROR function returns the first argument if it is not an error value, otherwise returns the second argument if present, or a blank if the second argument is absent. So in this case 1/0 is an error and thus it always returns a blank value.
Date Calculation Formula for Google Forms
Your Google Form has two date fields - the check-in date and the check-out date. The hotel rates may vary every season so you have a separate table in the Google Sheet that maintains the room rent per month.
The Column C in the Google Sheet holds the responses for the check-in date while the D column is storing the check-out dates.
The formulas uses VLOOKUP to get the room rates for the travel date specified in the form response and then calculates the room rent by multiplying the room rent with duration of stay.
The same formula can also be written with IFS instead of VLOOKUP
In this approach, we’ll use the FILTER function and that could lead to a less complicated formula than using using IF function. The downside is that you have to write the column title in row #1 and paste the formulas in row #2 (so one form response should exist for the formula to work).
=ArrayFormula(FILTER(E2:E, E2:E<>"")*1.35)
Here we apply 35% tax to the invoice value and this formula should be added in the row #2 of the column titled “Tax Amount” as shown in the screenshot.
Assign Quiz Scores in Google Forms
Which city is known as the big apple? This is a short-answer question in Google Forms so students can give responses like New York, New York City, NYC and they’ll still be correct. The teacher has to assign 10 points to the correct answer.
In this formula, we are making use of the IFS function that like an IF THEN statement in programming. We are using REGEXMATCH to match values like New York, New York, newyork in one go using regular expressions.
The IFS function returns an NA if none of the conditions are true so we add a TRUE check at the end that will always be evaluated to true if none of the previous conditions matched and returns 0.
Extract the First Name of the Form Respondent
If you have form field that asks the user to entire their full name, you can use Google Sheets function to extract the first name from the full name and use that field to send personalised emails.
We’ve used RegexExtract method here to fetch the string before the first space in the name field. The PROPER function will capitalise the first letter of the name incase the user entered their name in lower case.
Find Duplicate Google Form Submissions
If your Google Form is collection email addresses, you can use that field to quickly detect responses that have been submitted by the same user multiple times.
Assuming that the Column B is storing the email addresses of the form respondents, we can use the COUNTIF function to quickly mark duplicate entries in our responses spreadsheet. You can also use conditional formatting in Sheets to highlight rows that are possible duplicate entries.
Email Form Responses with AutoFill Values
You can use Document Studio to automatically send an email to the form respondents. The email is sent after the formular values are auto-filled by the Google Sheet. The original form response and the calculated values can also be included in the generated PDF document.
The files and folders in your Google Drive are private by default until you decide to share them. You can share your documents with specific people or you can make them public and anyone on the Internet can view the shared files. Google Apps users have the option to share files and folders within the organization while restricting access to anyone outside the domain.
You can not only control who has access to your Google Drive files but can also assign the level of access they have on the shared files. You can set the access permissions to either view (read only) or edit (read & write). For instance, if you are to send a large file, you can upload the file to Google Drive and share it in view-mode with the recipient.
Who Can View or Edit your Drive Files
You may have a number of documents, spreadsheets and other files in your Google Drive that are accessible to other users. These users could be your contacts, someone within your Google Apps domain or some of the shared files could be public meaning they are available to anyone on the web who have the link (URL) to the file.
Would you like to know which files and folders in your Google Drive are shared with other users and what kind of access permissions they have on your files? Google Drive, unfortunately, doesn’t offer an easy option for you to figure out who you are sharing the files with either inside or outside your organization.
Meet Permissions Auditor for Google Drive, a new Google add-on that scans your entire Drive and then generates a comprehensive report revealing who has access to your shared files and what kind of permission they have on the files. If you have been collaborating with people for some time, the Drive Auditor is probably is the easiest way to find out what you’ve shared in Google Drive and sanitize it.
Here’s a sample audit report.
Google Drive - File Permissions Report
Getting started is easy. First, install the Google Drive Auditor add-on and authorize it. Internally, this is a Google Script that runs inside your Google Account, reads the files found in Google Drive and writes their access details in the spreadsheet. Not a single byte of data every leaves your Google Account.
After the Drive Audit add-on is installed, go to the Add-ons menu inside the Google Spreadsheet, choose Drive Permissions Auditor and select Start Audit. It will open a sidebar where you need to specify a query and all matching files that match the query will be analyzed by the add-on.
“me” in owners and trashed = false (all files owned by except those in trash)
modifiedTime > ‘2016-01-01T12:00:00’ (file modified since Jan 2016 UTC)
mimeType = ‘application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet’ (scan the access permissions of only Google Spreadsheets in my Google Drive)
Once the audit is complete, the report will reveal detailed information of every file including:
When was a file created and last modified
What is the file size and MIME type (file extension)
Who is the owner of the file
Who has edit, view and comment permissions on the file
Where is the file located in Google Drive
You can click the File Name in the spreadsheet to directly open the corresponding file in Google Drive. Also, you can use the find function or even filters in Google Spreadsheets to display specific files that match a certain criteria. For instance, if you wish to know about all files that are public, you can apply a filter on the Access column in the spreadsheet.
The Drive Permissions Auditor add-on works for both Gmail and Google Apps accounts. If you are a domain administrator, you can install the Drive Audit add-on for all users in your domain through the Google Apps Marketplace.
The add-on is free and lets you audit up to 200 files in your Google Drive. If you have more files, please upgrade to the premium edition and analyze every single file and folder in your Google Drive.
Bonus tip: Did you know that you can set an auto-expiry date for your shared links in Google Drive. The shared link will automatically stop working after a certain date or time set by you.
