Changing payment methods on the fly in Google Play

Once you've set up your payments in Google Play, buying apps, games and music can be a breeze, but what happens when you want to use something else to pay for an app? Maybe you're saving your Google Play credit up for a movie. Maybe you don't want your partner to get upset when they see your bill covered with Google Play purchases. Maybe your debit card is almost overdrawn and you need to switch over to something else until payday. Whatever the case may be, you need to change what — or who — is billed for your latest in-app purchase spree. And the best part?

You don't even have to leave your app to do it.

Changing between your methods of payment — or even adding new ones — is a simple process that takes place right inside the purchase popup. When making a purchase, your normal method of payment will show up. If you have Google Play credit, it will default to that. Should that be insufficient, it will move on to either your Google Wallet balance or your on-file credit card. Should you wish to switch that to something else, simply tap the little arrow next to the amount due. From here, you'll be given a choice between payment options and redeeming a code.

From this page, you can either switch to an already established form of payment or tie in another one. Tapping any new method will bring up a new window atop the payment window ...

.. like this. Once you fill out the required information — such as your Paypal information or your new credit card number — the method is verified and your purchase continues. You also have the option again to either redeem a new Google Play gift card should you have one handy, to set up carrier billing if you're into that sort of thing, or to directly buy yourself more Google Play credit.

As a small note on buying Google Play credit, if you're doing this not for your own account but rather for your kids, your payment info will be saved on the kiddos account unless you quickly go delete your payment info. Something to remember the next time your little gremlins runs into the room and pesters you for more credit to keep building up his army.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' on sale in Google Play as surprise sequel is announced

Bibliophiles are understandably going a bit nuts today as publisher HarperCollins announced that a new novel by Harper Lee — Go Set a Watchman — is to be published on July 14. Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is largely considered to be one of the best novels ever written. But until today it was expected to be the only work we'd ever read from Lee, who doesn't do interviews and hasn't published anything else sinceMockingbird's release in 1960.

And if you're wondering what all the fuss is about (and somehow managed to avoid reading this one as a kid in school) or just want to snag a digital copy, you can pick up To Kill A Mockingbird from Google Play on sale for just $3.99.

Go Set a Watchman is set during the mid-1950s and features many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird some twenty years later. Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus. She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.

After To Kill a Mockingbird was published by J. B. Lippincott in 1960, Harper Lee set aside Go Set a Watchman and never returned to it. The original manuscript of the novel was considered to have been lost until fall 2014, when Tonja Carter discovered it in a secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Source: HarperCollins

Google 101: Setting up a new Google Account

Google Play, Chromebooks, Gmail ... all these wonderful services start with (and require) a Google Account. And whether you're setting up a professional account to help field headhunters and job offers, or finally offloading one of your tweens to their own account, setting up a Google account is simple and quick, but there are a few tricks to it.

Let's open the door to the wonderful world of Google.

Here is a quick link to the account creation page. As with an account in most places, Google needs some information in order to put a name to the account and so on. Giving the account name, desired Gmail address, password, and your current email — you need a current email of some sort from somebody in order to create a Google Account so there's a backup email to send information if you forget your new login — are all pretty standard. The age restrictions are where things can start to get a little tricky for some users

Google is required to ask you for your age because in certain countries and for certain products, minors of a certain age cannot use them. In the most countries, including the United States, you cannot have a Google account honestly unless you are at least 13 years of age. There are, however, a few countries with higher limits. Spain and South Korea both set the age requirement at 14, while kids in the Netherlands cannot legally obtain an account until they are 16 years old. If you give an age that indicates you're too young to hold an account, that account will be disabled.

There is also an age requirement of 18 for AdSense, AdWords, mature content on YouTube, and on Google Wallet — though your little tykes can still use Google Play gift cards in order to buy movies and games. There are whispers and rumors that there will be managed accounts for children are in the works at Google, but due to the constraints of laws like COPPA — the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which limits the kinds of information and tracking companies can collect for users under 13 — that make take a while and the results may still be unsatisfactory.

There's also another small bump that may occur for some users: you have to have a working phone number. Each Google Account is tied to a phone number, and only so many accounts can be tied to the same phone number so as to help cut down on abuse. A mobile number is preferable, but you need at least a landline in order to verify your Google Account.

You can select a voice call or an SMS message, then put in the code they send and you're on your way. Get used to doing this if you are going to protect your new Google Account and its data by enabling two-step authentication, which we strongly suggest you do.

And there you have it! Once you're in, you're encouraged to set up your Google+ profile right away — and we suggest you do that, even if you're not going to use Google+ itself. Google Accounts may seem simple, but setting them up for children — or setting them up without any previous digital presence — can get a little sticky.

Google Play Store has lots of music albums on sale for the end of 2014

Music lovers who also own Android and iOS devices should be happy that the Google Play Store is currently running a sale for the end of 2014. It has some deep discounts on a bunch of albums, a couple of which are just $1.99 each.
Those particular albums are Where It's At from country singer Dustin Lynch and the debut self-titled album from another country artist, Jason Aldean. Some of the albums that are priced at $2.99 each are Ungrateful from Escape The Fate, 5 Years of mau5 from deadmau5, and the self-titled album from Paramore. There's certainly a pretty big range of music genres on this list so there's sure to be something for anyone to download, listen to and enjoy.
Here's some more highlights:

• Pure Heroine – Lorde ($5.99)
• My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West ($5.99)
• Thriller - Michael Jackson ($6.99)
• Recess – Skrillex ($2.99)
• Pitch Perfect Soundtrack - Various Artists ($5.99)
• This Is All Yours – Alt-J ($2.99)
• SUCKER - Charli XCX ($5.99)
• Kind Of Blue – Miles Davis ($6.99)
• Greatest Hits – Motely Crue ($3.99)