Technically it still costs money, but there is a way to actually let Google pay you to pay the monthly fees for Google One.

Sounds complicated? it’s really not! All you need to do is to signup for Google Rewards (their surveys platform), answer some surveys and use the rewards balance (that’s paid to your Google Play account) to pay for Google One.

Here are the steps in more details.

Download the Google Rewards app

Go to Google Opinion Rewards home page and download the app from the relevant App Store (YES! you can do it even if you have iPhone)

Answer Surveys

Google will occasionally send you surveys, You need to make sure you answer these within 24 hours, otherwise they will expire.

You can’t control the frequency of the surveys, but from my experience the more you allow Google to know about yourself (like location) the more surverys you will get.

Most of the surveys will pay 10 – 30 cents, but they usually take just a few seconds to answer.

Once you answer a survey the reward is added to your Google Play balance,

You can review your rewards history by opening the “hamburger” menu on the top-left and taping Rewards history.

As you can see if banked up quite a few $$$, though it is over the last few years.

Set you Google Play balance as the primary method of payment

On Android:

• Go to the Play Store app
• Click on your user icon (top right corner)
• Click Payments and subscriptions
• Click Payment methods
• Select Google Play Balance as the default one. Note that you will need to have some available balance there to select it.

Sign up for Google One

Go to Google One and subscribe to one of their plans.

I doubt (if you have just started using Google Rewards) that you will have enough balance to pay for the annual subscription, so why don’t you go and subscribe on a monthly basis.

Enjoy your Google One for free on Android and iPhone

Now every month, assuming you will have enough balance on Google Play from the surveys, your Google One subscription (and any other payments in Google Play) will be deducted from the Google Play “account” and not from your other “real” payment methods.

I was using the Google Play available balance to pay for Google One as well as a few other apps and books like Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is not on my list of Books, Movies and other items mentioned in Tim Ferris Blog and Podcast (because I need to update :-))

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Creating the Google Apps Script

Go to G-Suite Developers Hub
Start a new Project

In the new Project create a new Script file (let’s call it code.gs)
Now let’s paste the below code

Most of the code is around the Google Apps script Calendar Event class

/**
 * Lists 10 upcoming events in the user's calendar.
 */
function listUpcomingEvents() {
  var filterCreatorEmail = 'mywife@gmail.com';
  var filterColorId = '10';
  var calendarId = 'primary';
  var optionalArgs = {
    timeMin: (new Date()).toISOString(),
    showDeleted: false,
    singleEvents: true,
    maxResults: 10,
    orderBy: 'startTime'
  };
  var response = Calendar.Events.list(calendarId, optionalArgs);
  var events = response.items;
  
  
  if (events.length > 0) {
    for (i = 0; i < events.length; i++) {
      var event = events[i];
      var when = event.start.dateTime;
      if (!when) {
        when = event.start.date;
      }
      if (event.creator.email == filterCreatorEmail) {
        Logger.log('%s %s %s (%s)', event.creator.email, event.colorId, event.summary, when);
        if (event.colorId != filterColorId){
          Logger.log('Updating color from %s to %s',event.colorId, filterColorId);
          event.colorId = filterColorId;
          Calendar.Events.patch(event, 'primary', event.id)
        }
      }
     //  Logger.log(JSON.stringify(event));
  }
  }
 else {
    Logger.log('No upcoming events found.');
  }
}
 

That’s it you are almost ready to try running the script. When you will run it for the first time Goggle will ask you for some permissions.

Go to View > Log to see the output of the script. Here is an example

[19-02-20 12:00:15:296 PST] mywife@gmail.com undefined 12-3 doabcdefgy (2019-02-24T12:00:00+11:00)
[19-02-20 12:00:15:296 PST] Updating color from undefined to 10
[19-02-20 12:00:15:594 PST] mywife@gmail.com undefined 11-2 Aabcdne  (2019-02-25T11:00:00+11:00)
[19-02-20 12:00:15:594 PST] Updating color from undefined to 10
[19-02-20 12:00:15:979 PST] mywife@gmail.com undefined 6:15 fashion forum  (2019-02-26T17:30:00+11:00)
[19-02-20 12:00:15:980 PST] Updating color from undefined to 10

And the colour of the events (organized by my wife) in the calendar changed from the boring default colour

To a nice basil one.

Adding Triggers

Well, we successfully ran it once, but how will it continuously / periodically run. That’s what Triggers are for.

You can access it in 2 ways

• While you are on the project page click the little clock button (Current project’s triggers)
• On the main G-Suite Developers Hub page click the … for your project and the Triggers.

Since I wanted my Google Apps script to run every time the calendar is been updated, here is my trigger condition

That’s it. Now every time my calendar is updated the Goole Apps script runs and updates the colour of events that were organized by someone (very special in my case :-)).

P.S.

You don’t have to have G-Suite to have the Google App Script functionality. On the other hand, if you do want to sign-up for G-Suite ping me on twitter @IlyaReshet to get 20% off your first year of G Suite Basic or G Suite Business

The post Colour code Google calendar events automatically using Google Apps Script appeared first on ISbyR.

Just go to https://www.donateblood.com.au/ to find the closest location to you.

When I came in they said “Hey looks like you have donated blood a lot of times before and currently we have plenty of your blood type in the bank, but would you consider donating plasma today?” I said why not , read some material, signed some forms and proceeded with it.

Later when I came to office (I did the donation 7:30AM on my way there, YES they open this early so there is no excuse not to donate) I decided to google how healthy it is to donate plasma vs regular blood donation.

So I’ve opened a new tab and typed “Is it healthy to” and here is what I’ve got as the suggested searches

I almost fell of my chair laughing. Is that what the general google search user in Australia is concerned about when it is regarding his/her health?!

I’ve decided to dive a bit dipper into the subject and, when I found some free time one of the evening, I sat and compared the results across 9 countries which have the highest percentage of population with English being their first language [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population]. “Why 9?” you might ask. Keep reading and you will get your answer.

The countries are:

• Jamaica
• Ireland
• United Kingdom
• New Zealand
• United States
• Australia
• Canada
• Singapore
• South Africa

So I opened a new incognito window , so that the search suggestions will not be impacted by my own search history and typed the same phrase again, “is it healthy to” and…. no , still received the same suggestion, so it is not me, that have these weird questions, it is the the whole population (of google users in Australia).

Next step was to go to search settings, change region for search results to the next country of interest, type the same search again and be amazed by google search suggestions each time.

By the way I have results for 9 countries since one of the 10 ones is Liberia, but google would not let you set it in it’s search settings.

Here are the top 5 repeated suggestions across the 9 countries:

• 1st place –  was suggested  for 8 out of 9 countries
  “is it healthy to fart” – no comments
• 2nd place –  was suggested  for 7 out of 9 countries is shared between
  “is it healthy to be vegan” – well I understand that it is quite trendy now and people are worried about their diet
• 3rd place-  was suggested  for 6 out of 9 countries is shared between
  “is it healthy to cry” –  why are you crying the much? Is it because of the 1st suggestion or the second
  “is it healthy to fast” – makes sense, if you want to stop crying because of your vegan diet or your eyes can suffer anymore of your farts may be you should stop eating at all.
• 4th place – was suggested  for 5 out of 9 countries
  “is it healthy to donate blood” – finally!! Humanity is saved! People are interested (or at least considering donating blood)
• 5th place – was suggested  for 4 out of 9 countries is shared between
  “is it healthy to eat eggs everyday” – may this is the reason for most of your previous questions
  “is it healthy to have sex everyday” – yeah, noo, I don’t think so, not sure if anyone will want to bearing in mind the questions you were previously asking

Below is the full list, sorted by number of repeated suggestions across the 9 countries

Dont’ forget to Donate Blood go to https://www.donateblood.com.au/ now!

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