Author: Emmanuel Boakye Yiadom

Mobile phone usage as of 2020 is 3.5 billion. Meaning 3.5 billion people use mobile phone devices. Looking at the figure shows that mobile phone usage has fast spread throughout the world.

The whole world populace is projected at 7.7 billion. This shows that the rate of mobile phone users is 45.4%. This is huge right?

In recent times, there has been a lot of public concerns about the use of Mobile phone. Medical researchers have raised a lot of concerns about the health risks associated with the use of mobile phones.

It is very important to understand the health risks involved in the use of mobile phones before you advise yourself to use one.

Health Concerns Related To The Use Of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones use Radio Frequency (RF) radiation for communication. If the RF is high enough, it has a thermal effect raising body temperature.

According to medical researches, if there are low levels of RF radiation generated by mobile phones, it could cause health problems such as headaches or head tumors.

Radiation is a combination of electrical and magnetic energy that travels at the speed of light. It is also known as electromagnetic radiation (EMR).

In terms of mobile phone usage, radiation has been classified into two groups. Ionizing Radiation (IR) and Non-ionizing radiation (NIR).

Ionizing Radiation (IR)

Ionizing radiation is said to be capable of causing changes in atoms or molecules in the body that can result in tissue damage such as cancer. Long exposure to your phone will expose you to long-term health risks.

Non-Ionizing Radiation (NIR)

This does not cause changes in atoms or molecules but can prompt the vibration of molecules leading to a rise in temperature and other health effects like headaches.

Safe Radiation Level For Phones

Specific Absorption Rate (SARS) is the measure of the amount of radiofrequency absorbed by the body when using a mobile phone.

There has been an adoption of Safe radiation level for mobile phone to Radio Frequency which is 1.6 watts per kilogram (1.6 W/kg) Any mobile phone at or below the Specific Absorption rate (SARS) is safe to use.

Any number above 1.6 W/kg is at risk. When you realize you are above the number, quickly change your device.

How To Check Your Phone’s SARS Level

You can check your device’s radiation level SARS by dialing the USSD code *#07#. If your SARS level shows below or equal to 1.6 W/kg then you are good to go.

If your phone does not support the USSD code, check your phone’s user guide.

SARS Of Popular Phone Brands

• Iphone >> 1.59 W/kg
• LG G2 >> 1.44 W/kg
• LH G3 >> 0.99 W/kg
• Samsung Galaxy Note 2 >> 0.42 W/kg
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 >> 1.07 W/kg

iPhone 6 is said to have the lowest SARS with just 0..01.

Conclusion

With the mobile phone being one of the essential things we use in our daily life, the health risks are also increasing. You can check your SARS right and see if your phone is above or below the normal frequency.

Any photo you take with your phone goes straight to your gallery. All photos including personal ones you can’t afford any third party seeing. Some curious friends and family who want to always peep on our phone could find them easily.

I remember personally some time ago I wanted to transfer some images from a friend’s phone to my device, in the process of scrolling her gallery to find the images, I bumped into her personal picture she had taken with her boyfriend.

This was very embarrassing to her, that was a picture she couldn’t afford anyone seeing apart from her. I don’t think you can afford neither if you find yourself in such a situation.

If you are looking and searching for how you could hide your personal images from your gallery then this post is for you.

Two main mobile manufacturing giants, Samsung and LG, have built-in privacy options that can help you hide photos.

Samsung

If you are having or using a Samsung phone running Android Nougat 7 and above, you can make good use of Samsung’s Secure folder feature. This helps you keep files, images, and apps in a password-protected area.

To access and set up the Secure folder as a first time user, go to Settings>>Lock screen and security>>Secure Folder. You would have to sign in with your Samsung account.

After signing in, you would be asked to choose a preferred lock method. After setting your password, the Secured folder will be accessible on your Home and Apps screen. To hide photos in the secure folder, open the app, and Tap Add files.

LG

With LG users, there is a different approach. Go to Settings>> Fingerprints & Security>> Content lock. You will be prompted to secure the feature using a PIN, password, or fingerprint scan.

To hide your personal images, go to the gallery. Select all the photos you want to hide and tap Menu>> More>> Lock. If you have an entire photo folder you want to lock, select the folder, and perform the same function.

Since the content lock is not available for all devices, follow the below steps to hide photos from your phone’s gallery.

Using File Manager To Hide Photos From The Gallery

There are still options available to you if you don’t use Samsung or LG. Though this is somehow technical. Not every file manager is capable of performing this function, the few I will recommend that I have used personally is ES File Manager and X-plore file manager.

If you already have any of them, Open the file manager. In my case, I am using Es File Manager in this article. Choose your phone storage or SD storage.

Choose the options menu, that is, the three-dotted bar in the far right at the top corner. Select New, and choose Folder from the pop-up menu. Clear the already written words and type .emmarniprivatefolder and hit Ok.

Note, you can replace the (emmarni) with your name or nickname or you can eliminate the name part and just go with .private folder. Always begin the name with a period (.) then the rest of the names.

Now that you are done with the hard part, go to your photos folder and select all the necessary pictures you want to hide. Cut/Move all the selected photos to the newly created folder.

Doing this will hide the selected images moved to the newly created folder from your gallery. This new folder can only be navigated by you in your file manager. No third party can view your personal images in your gallery.

The hidden images will only be visible in your folder in the file manager.

If you don’t want to pass through the technical part in hiding your photos from the gallery, there are still options available to you below.

Using Third Party Apps To Hide Pictures From Gallery

1. Vaulty – Vaulty is a leading app for hiding content. No wonder there are over a hundred thousand users with positive reviews in the Playstore. Vaulty has its own photo gallery. Any locked photos are only viewable within it. All the photos are password-protected.
2. Keepsafe Vault – Keepsafe is Vaulty’s biggest competitor. It also makes all your hidden photos password-protected with encryption. It also comes with an on-screen icon hide feature. When enabled, no one who picks your phone will notice a third-party app used to hide your images.
3. Hide Something – Hide something is also another alternative way you can use to hide your photos from the gallery. It also comes with built-in password protection and backs all photos to Google drive if allowed.

Conclusion

I have walked you through various alternative ways to hide your personal photos from your gallery. if you have Samsung or LG, you can stick to the device’s default feature to hide your contents from the gallery.

If you are not on both devices, the alternate ways are available for you. Protect your photos with full control.

We live in a time where people are so concerned about our personal matters. Immediately you leave your phone behind, either your friend, family or girlfriend will start invading your personal stuff.

By the time we come back to our phone, then all the personal stuff we wish nobody sees except us has been seen by other third party friends or family.

I will use my case as a scenario, I left my phone around a friend some time ago, I left to get ourselves food for the afternoon, not realizing the bad intention of him, I left the phone where I was seated before going out.

He took my phone and the first place He visited was my personal WhatsApp messages, that wasn’t all, He visited my messages, gallery, and even my recorded audio calls.

I had not known all this until once there was a brawl between us. He started referring me to some of the personal stuff on my phone only I thought I knew.

Since that moment, I embarked on a mission to research on how to find out everything that was done on your phone in your absence. That has brought you to this article.

You might encounter such a problem as mine, but the interesting fact is, for you, since you have landed on this article, you will have a solution and know exactly what was done on your phone in your absence.

Today in this article, I will share with you two steps in knowing what was done on your phone in your absence.

Usage Statistics

The first step I will talk about has to do with your usage statistics.

• Open your call app
• Dial *#*#4636#*#* and send.
• A popup menu will appear with some options. Including the options is Usage Statistics
• Choose the Usage statistics
• A new window will appear with your phone’s statistics/history. This will show you all the apps that have been opened on your phone with the exact time opened.

With this, you can then know which apps you opened personally and what you didn’t open by yourself.

The second method I will talk about is Google Activities. Google syncs your data and usage statics to Google for advertisement purposes. Whatever it is you do on your device will automatically be sync to Google.

Your search history, location, and applications you open will all be sync to Google. Without further ado, let’s delve into the next step.

Google Activities

• Locate and open your Chrome browser.
• In the search bar type this: myactivity.google.com and hit send. This will send you to your synced data to Google. You will be able to view all your activities that took place on your device.

You will notice the things you did on the device and didn’t do.

Conclusion

People will always be curious to know what we do on our phones. They will always try to access our personal stuff anytime we leave our phone behind.

Once we know we can see exactly what they did whiles away, we will know what to do with them.

Google keep is a note-taking service developed by Google. It can be accessed on the web and available for Android and IOS.

Just as the name sounds, sometimes something crosses our mind while walking or even having a conversation, by the time we realize then we forget exactly what it was that crossed our mind.

Google keep is available to solve that forgetfulness problem. Once something crosses your mind or you need to note something down for later, you can access Google Keep and jot them down.

Anytime you need to cross-check what you wrote to Keep, you can access it and be in the know.

Below are some highlighted features of Google Keep:

Taking Voice Note

Once you hit on the microphone icon to record voice notes, Google Voice automatically transcribes your audio. For example, when searching for a note you saved in Keep, whiles recording, Keep will transcribe your audio in the form of text. Interesting huh!

Collaborate With Others

When working on a project at the workplace and the project is broad that it exceeds the working hours, while at home, you can add team members in Keep and continue your project virtually.

Set Reminders

By setting reminders, Keep will remind you of tasks that you have set reminders for. For instance, when you saved a location and set a reminder for that specific location, once you get to that location, Keep will remind you of the location.

Photos

You can add photos to notes in Keep and add to texts. A mixture of texts and images makes Keep unique.

Organize

You can organize your notes in the form of lists or a grid. You can always drag and drop to rearrange your notes anytime.

Keep is user-friendly. It has a lot of customization features that let you be in control

With its a clean interface and easy use, it makes note-taking very interesting.

Today, am going to show you how to use Google Keep to save notes on your android forever.

As I already mentioned, Google keep is a product of Tech giant Google. Google keep works with your Gmail account.

Just like a mobile phone, when your phone gets missing and it was configured with Google account, once you buy a new phone, all your synchronized files will be restored to your new phone.

Google keep works in conjunction with your email account. It automatically Syncs your notes to cloud storage using your Google mail. The notes can be accessed anytime anywhere, by installing the app and logging in with the same email used for synchronization.

To access your notes on your Laptop or PC, visit keep.google.com and sign in with your email account. All your notes will be accessed.

Using your email account with keep on your android device will save your notes forever and can be accessed any day.

Conclusion

As humans it’s natural to forget things always, keep is there for us to remember and save notes important to us.

Truecaller is an application used to identify an unknown caller, likewise, it also shows your identity to other users. In a research made in 2020, the app has over 200 million users worldwide.

Due to privacy theft, people uphold their privacy very well. There have been many occasions where people sue others for privacy theft. Many tech giants and software developers get sued when privacy of users is less secured.

When it comes to privacy, it’s one thing people are sensitive to. Due to how Truecaller works, many people believe it violates their privacy.

Once you install and register on the app, your information is made available to whoever you receive call and receive calls from.

Most importantly, when a user installs Truecaller and registers, his/her contacts get synced to Truecaller so you on the other hand might not be registered on the app but once someone with your contact is on the app your information will be on Truecaller.

This makes people believe Truecaller violates their privacy. If you also believe your privacy has been violated, the w steps will show you how to remove your name from Truecaller so that people can’t track you.

Steps To Remove Your Name On true Caller (Android)

1. Open the Truecaller app
2. Login in to your account
3. At the corner, tap on the people present and go to settings
4. Choose about
5. Select deactivate

Steps To Remove Your Name On true Caller (IOS)

• Open up the Truecaller app
• Login to your account
• Click on the gear icon
• Select about Truecaller
• Scroll down and tap on the Deactivate Truecaller option

Once this is done, you have removed yourself from Truecaller. One more step to follow is that Truecaller has a database where it stores all of its user’s data and your data might still be present there.

In order to completely erase all your data from Truecaller, you will need to visit their unlist page. Visit https://www.truecaller.com/unlisting, enter your registered mobile number with your country code.

Choose a reason for unlisting yourself. Once done, verify the ‘Captcha’ and click on the ‘Unlist’ option.

After performing all these steps, your information will successfully be removed from Truecaller permanently.

In the near future, f you wish to showcase your information to others without feeling any guilt of privacy, you can register back to Truecaller.

People have been using Truecaller to track others since it displays your information to anybody who want to access it.

Conclusion

As Truecaller can be advantageous to others in knowing and identifying new contacts and numbers, it can also be disadvantage to others in tracking you with your location address.