The Latest on iOS Ad Blockers, E-Mail Marketing Issues and Removing Unwanted Android Apps

Regardless of your personal feeling about whether the use of ad blockers is right or wrong, they’re in widespread use. If you use a device that runs the iOS operating system (e.g. iPhones and iPads) and are interested in trying out some ad blockers, I came across an article titled “Best ad blockers for iPhone and iPad” at the imore.com website.

The article identifies and discusses some ad blocking apps that you may want to consider. If/when you start using ad blocker apps you’ll likely encounter websites that request that you do not block their ads (e.g many ads supported sites) or, in some cases, some sites may require that you disable your ad blocker before you’ll be able to access the site’s content. For these reasons, I encourage you to spend a little time after installing ad blockers to learn how to turn them on/off and how to “whitelist” sites to ensure that you can fully access and use the sites that you frequent. Here’s a link to the article…www.imore.com/best-ad-blockers-iphone-and-ipad

Note: To find ad blocking apps and software for use on other computing platforms and browsers, simply visit Google’s Advanced Search page (www.google.com/advanced_search) and when you get to the page try entering “best ad blocker” and “for Windows” (or “for iOS”, or “for Android”, or “for Mac”) in the “this exact word or phrase:” field, and in the “last update” field, select the “past month” option to help find the most recent articles on the topic. If Google’s Advanced Search page is new to you, take a moment to see what’s available on this page. There’s a good chance you may conclude that using Google’s Advanced Search page is an easy way to improve all your Google search results!

Before you start your next e-mail marketing campaign, you may want to review this— e-mail is an effective marketing tool. However, when planning bulk e-mail marketing activities, you should pay attention to spam-related issues. One example of an issue that you may want to pay attention to is whether your e-mail service provider has any limitations regarding the number of e-mail messages that you can send all at once or within a certain time frame. I came across an article titled “Bulk E-mail Sender Guidelines, Feedback Loops and Blacklist Removal” at the www.group-mail.com website. By following the link to your e-mail service provider (that’s hopefully included within the article), you’ll be led to an area at your e-mail service providers website that provides important information that you’ll want to pay attention to before you hit send on your next bulk e-mail activity. Here’s a link to the article…www.tinyurl.com/ya6kobs4

Data Extraction/Harvesting/Scraping Tools And Services

Have you ever considered using data mining, extraction, harvesting and/or scraping software tools and services to help you mine contact information out of e-mails, web pages, documents, etc.? Does this topic interest you? If so, one way to get started would be to do Google searches using combinations of search keywords such as “data, extraction, harvesting, scraping, software, services.” The results from these types of search engine queries will yield quite a few relevant links to possible solutions. Here’s an example…www.tinyurl.com/yc8p3kv4

Another resource that you may want to investigate is the “Data Extraction Software” category that you’ll find at the Capterra.com website. Here’s the link…www.capterra.com/data-extraction-software

If you’re primarily interested in extracting e-mail addresses from data sources, the following Windows Report article titled “5 best e-mail extractor software to collect e-mail addresses from the Internet” will likely interest you. Here’s a courtesy link for you…
http://windowsreport.com/email-extractor-software/

Tip For More Advanced Android Smartphone Users

Many Android Smartphones come with pre-installed apps that are often unwanted. Worse, sometimes you can’t (easily) remove some of these unwanted apps. If you have some difficult to remove and unwanted apps on your Android Smartphone and would like some help with their removal, check out an app called “BK Package Disabler.” This app may be able to solve your problem. Tip: View the video at the following web page to get a better idea of how the app works…www.tinyurl.com/y8hcp8kd

Groupy Is A Neat New Software Tool For Windows Users

Stardock Corp’s “Object Desktop” software package is a compilation of interesting/helpful software tools. One of the included software products in the software package is called “Groupy.” What does Groupy do? It allows you to assemble groups of applications and documents into a single multi-tabbed window that makes it easier for you to be able to navigate between these items. Eventually, the Groupy software application is expected to be available for sale as a separate product, but for now, it’s only available as part of the Object Desktop software package. I would encourage you to visit Groupy’s product web page, review its features and watch the product’s demo video to better understand how the product works. Some have said that Groupy can be used as an interesting alternative to Window’s Task View and Virtual Desktops features.

Microsoft is working on a Windows product/feature that is currently known as “Sets.” The new “Sets” (or whatever its final name ends up being) will offer features like those found in the Groupy application. So far, I think Groupy will be the more robust product between the two, however, Microsoft’s “Sets” application will likely have deeper ties into the Windows operating system, which would likely mean that over time Microsoft’s “Sets” product/feature could end up offering some benefits that Groupy may not be able to offer. My current thinking is, if Groupy can offer you a capability that you want or could benefit from today, you probably would be better off to get it now and not wait for Microsoft’s “Sets” to become available.

The following links will lead you to Stardock Corporations “Object Desktop” and “Groupy” product pages.
https://www.stardock.com/products/odnt/
https://www.stardock.com/products/groupy/

The following link will lead you to a Google search results page that contains links to information about Microsoft’s upcoming “Sets” product/feature…
www.tinyurl.com/y7dfmmf9

If you have comments, suggestions, tips, questions or just want to say “Hi,” you are invited to contact me at john@johnvrooman.com. I always enjoy hearing from you!

John Vrooman
John Vrooman keeps an eye out for cool new hardware, software, apps, gadgets; SaaS solutions; social media developments, trends as well as personal/SMB productivity and related solutions. He gathers information for his column from a diverse range of resources and he enjoys sharing his discoveries with others. He has been authoring this column since August 2000 and welcomes feedback from his readers.