Two handy tips I use…

“What have you got?”

When I was a teenager and computers were first coming in, kids at my school would often ask “Have you got a computer?” and if you said yes they’d ask “What type is it?”

Nowadays it’s all a bit different. It’s not just computers – people use tablets and smartphones too.

But it’s not so much what device you have – many people have more than one. A PC and a smartphone… a phone and a tablet. Or all three.  After all they’re all useful in different situations or for different things.

I use my phone, a laptop and an old iPad. (Of course, I use all sorts of different devices at work when I’m writing about them, but I’m talking about at home.)

Maybe you use more than one device as well – many people do. And if you do, there’s a simple trick that can make it more useful.

It’s this: use the same web browser on all the devices and make sure you’re logged into the same account on all of them. I personally use Google’s Chrome on all three, but Microsoft have recently made their “Edge” browser available on phones and tablets as well or you could use Firefox.

As long as you log into the same account on all of the devices, then it’ll remember what you were doing on all of them, no matter which one you’re using at the time.

You know how when you go to type in a web address that you’ve been to before and it fills it in for you? It’ll do that even if you’ve only visited the page on a different device.

Any pages you “bookmark” or make a “favourite” on one device will be bookmarked on the other devices too.

And anything else it remembers for you will be shared between the different devices.

Of course, it’s up to you. You might prefer to keep what each device remembers separate for some reason. But it certainly makes using more than one device that bit simpler and less hassle.

One more tip: if you’re using one device and sharing it with another person (at home both my wife and I use the same laptop), sometimes it might be annoying that it remembers things. Of course if you’re shopping for a Birthday present, you don’t want it remembering the webpage and your other half spotting it. But also if you both have (say) a gmail account… or an account for anything else, it can get confusing when it tries to log you into the other person’s one.

We get around this by simply using different browsers. I always use Google Chrome, Julie tends to use Microsoft Edge. That way Edge remembers her settings, Chrome remembers mine and they don’t get mixed up.

Again, not something you have to do, but it might make life easier.