Blog
Notes and guides
In-depth guides on online forms, travel documents, paperwork and privacy. Written from the problems we run into while building our apps.
How to compress a PDF to 100 KB, 200 KB or 1 MB without ruining it
Why PDFs get so large, which settings actually reduce the size, and a practical way to hit the file size limit of an online application while keeping the text readable.
How to organise and back up your important documents: a complete guide
What paperwork to keep and for how long, how to scan and name it, how to track expiry dates, the 3-2-1 backup rule, and how to share and protect sensitive scans.
Passport and visa photo sizes by country, and how to take one that gets accepted
Photo sizes for the US, UK, Schengen, Canada, Australia, India and China, plus the head size, background and lighting rules that cause most rejections, and how to lay out a print sheet.
The passport six-month rule explained, with examples and a checklist
What the six-month passport validity rule really means, how the Schengen three-month rule differs, how to count the dates, and what to do when your passport is too close to expiry.
How to get a photo under 100 KB for an online form
A step-by-step guide to resizing and compressing a photo or signature to the exact pixels and file size an application form asks for, without turning your face into a blur.
Proxy, VPN, user agent and browser profiles: what each one really does
A plain-language guide to what proxies, VPNs, user-agent switching and separate browser profiles actually protect, what they do not, and which one fits which problem.
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