How to Discreetly Read What's App and Messenger Messages

Messaging applications like face book’s messenger and what's up are not only helpful. They are making network providers a run for their money as they are free to send messages using the internet. As this is good news to users that they save money from using it, it can also be a source of anxiety to users who send them but most especially to the recipient.

Messages are meant not to be replied straightaway but using the internet to send it has a way of telling the sender that it has been read, somewhat making the recipient to reply at once or get the possibility of being branded a snob for not replying.  But of course there's a way of getting around this dilemma, if you want to read the message unnoticed by the sender to avoid compulsory response.

Read messages whilst offline

The trick here is to read the messages whilst the device is disconnected to Wi-Fi or mobile data!  How to do this? Make the messaging preview the messages on your locked screen. Messengers should have this feature on default but if you want to make sure here's how to check.

On Android

Open the messenger application and click the cog wheel icon (1) at the top right corner. Tap the notification and sounds (2) then tick notification previews (3). This will make sure that it will prefetch the message and displays it on the locked screen. 

On iPhone

Go to settings, scroll down and tap the messaging apps (4), tap notifications (5) and make sure that notification is allowed and the message is to show on locked screen (6). 

As the message is already downloaded, even if the phone loses its internet connection, the message will be retrieved from the phone's memory instead from the application's server. As the server will only know that the message is read when it is opened by the application, reading it from the notification centre or reading it using the application whilst the phone is offline will not send a read confirmation and will not tell that it has been seen from the sender's device.

How To Copy A Text From A Pop-Over Menu

There are elements in a website that are intended not to be copied or downloaded. So webmasters put some codes to disable the right mouse button. But this trick is easily resolved by using keyboard shortcut combinations, or the browser's built in copy and paste menu.

This afternoon, I encountered a challenging situation. I wanted to copy a text content out from a pop-over menu but it was not letting me. This is the type that automatically pops over when the cursor is hovered over a keyword (1).  The text can be highlighted (2); can be right clicked and even let me highlight the copy (3) menu. But when I tried to paste (4) the copied texts to a word processor or text editor, there was no output!

Interestingly, at the middle of the menu, I've noticed the selection 'Search Google for "The title should...” (5)'. It seemed like the text that was not copied in the clipboard was captured by the Google’s integrated search menu.

Clicking the search google menu (5) confirmed that the text from the pop-over was captured in the search input window. But unfortunately not all texts are copied, only 150 characters including spaces. But this was more promising.

To transfer the text  was now simpler. It was  just a matter of highlighting (7) it, and pasting (8) to the window of a text editor. I did not encountered any problem at all. I just repeated the procedure until all texts has been copied!

How To View Failed to Load Website Contents

Imagine there's an interesting story link from a site you want to see. After clicking the link, an external page loads with many web components. They start to appear one by one then the site just stops responding. The other elements on the site are there, but frustratingly,  the information you want to see did not load because of one or a combination of these  reasons,  the site crashed,  your browser crashed, or it can also be the plugin that  interprets the info you want to see did not work. Or you do not have the credentials to see the item thus you are forbidden to take a look!

 A blank spot then appears  (1) in place where the information is supposed to be.  What should you do?

 Usually, we do not have any patience in trying it again after the page fails to load on two tries. We just easily lost  interest and  move to another story. Even if your browser is failing to show you the content, there is still a way of forcing to view the blank spot.

Depending on the browser you are using, by getting the URL of the item, the information can still be seen. Here's how.

On firefox 

 This is done easily by pointing the cursor on the location of the  missing item (1) on the page. Then right click it, and chose "copy image location"(2).

 Open a new tab and paste the copied URL and press enter. This will give you the missing image you've been trying to see.

Chrome browser shows a different menu when right clicked. This time you need to choose "inspect" (3). 

 It will then show the HTML code with the highlighted line of the URL needed. Right click this and choose
open link in new tab(4).

 And the file is opened in a new tab!