Brothers4Ever Blog

Awesome Prezi

2012-09-28T16:58:00.001-04:00

Just found this amazing Prezi. This is probably one of the best Prezi's we've seen and it's definitely recommended that you take some time to watch it. It seems like the creator put a lot of effort into it and overall everything just looks great on this Prezi.

The magical theory of relativity on Prezi

This is the start of our new posts on Brothers4Ever. We will now have content on books, pictures, videos, photos, art and much more coming to this blog every week!

Google+

2012-06-02T12:19:00.001-04:00

Google+ (Google Plus) is Google's newest and most successful take on social networking. Google+ is one of the best social networks because of its ease of us and fluidity as well as integration with other Google products. Google had originally experimented social networking with its other projects such as Google Buzz, but none of them seemed to take off as well as Google+. Google+ is extremely easy to signup for, and if you have a Google account already, its even easier. Once you have signed up, you can add people to your circles. Circles are groups of people. What makes these important, is that when you post something, you can choose which circles you want to share with. You may only want to share a funny pic with your Friends, and not your Family and Colleagues, and circles lets you do that with EXTREME ease.

Posting is also really easy. Simply head to the homepage and post whatever you'd like. You can add images, videos, and links, and all of this can be done extremely quickly. Videos are also really easy to post, because of integration with YouTube. Then, you can select what circles you want to share with, and then just hit share. There is no lag and no problems and things just appear quickly. Below the tool for posting, there is your stream. In your stream you will find posts by the people that you have added to your circles, and you can easily re-share (like retweeting) and +1 (like or recommend) any post unless its locked. From the top of your stream, you can also choose to only view posts by your various circles and this is helpful if you want to focus on only staying quickly updated on your friends. There is also a slider to choose how many posts you have on your page, this helps from things getting too cluttered.

On the side, you will find various other helpful tools for enhancing your Google+ experience. You can easily arrange the buttons in the sidebar by dragging them around to meet your needs. For example, someone who uses Hangouts a lot may want to keep it out of the "more" folder, and put something less used such as Games in the "more" folder. Hangouts are Google+'s way of hanging out, or video calling. These are extremely easy to set up, and you can easily add people. Hangouts are one of the best things about Google+ because they work so smoothly. Also, you can run Google Docs and Hangouts at the same time. This is another amazing feature because you can be video calling with your colleagues, while working on a Google Doc. You may also want to consider this if you are working on planning a trip with family, you can use Hangouts to talk and edit the Google Doc at the same time. The Explore tab, simply offers a quick way of exploring new things on Google+ and seeing what's hot. Another helpful feature Google+ has is trends. You can easily view what's trending and see whether the trend is going up or down.

Then there is the photos tab. Google+ offers instant upload from your iPhone or Android, so any photo you take will be automatically uploaded to their cloud and kept privately. They offer unlimited storage of photos under 2048 by 2048, and unlimited storage of videos under 15 minutes. If your media isn't in the limit, they will quickly resize it so it is. The circles tab is the easiest way to manage your circles and is very similar to managing contacts. You can easily manage circles and the UI offers great animations which is lots of fun. Lastly, you will find the Games tab. Games are always updated and work really well. There are so many great games on Google+ that you can easily play with your friends.

Although Google+ still isn't as popular as Facebook, we do feel that with its strong integration with other products, features, and interface, it will eventually become part of our lives. This means that it will not be only for sharing, but we will always use it for storing photos and quickly staying updated with news.

Be sure to add us to your circles from our Google+ page

We recommend you use Google+ with Google Chrome

EasyBib

2012-06-01T17:24:00.000-04:00

Tired of creating bibliographies manually? Well, now there's a solution. Why don't you check out EasyBib. EasyBib is the easiest way to create a bibliography. All you have to do is head to their homepage and fill in some minor information. Then, using their database, they will find more information about the source. Be sure to double-check the information and add more where necessary. Then simply create the citation and it will be added to your bibliography. You can add more citations and then export it into Word, Google Docs, or even save it for later. The service works very smoothly and is so far the best online bibliography maker we've seen

iOS Repays itself?

2012-05-21T11:17:00.002-04:00

Many people do not purchase iOS devices because of their price. The iPod Touch starting at $200 may be a little bit too much for many people who want an entertainment device however this money that you spent might refund itself and you might get a little bit of profit. You can get money from your iOS device in various ways including:

App Trailers
JunoWallet
FreeMyApps
other iOS related giveaways

Networking on iOS

2012-05-18T18:12:00.000-04:00

iOS is a great mobile platform, and is one of the main reasons why people prefer iPhones. iOS offers a great app store filled with many apps that can help you communicate. Below, we have created a Prezi to help outline the various services available on iOS to help communicate.

Networking on iOS on Prezi

Logo Comparison

2012-05-04T16:15:00.002-04:00

Take a look at another one of our logo comparisons. Today, we will be comparing-Pinterest, Path, and Philadelphia Phillies logos. Take a look below:

Don't they look similar, they all have curled P's and red and white colour schemes.

2000 Pageviews

2012-04-30T16:02:00.003-04:00

Wow, what a time its been. Today, we are proud to announce that our blog has received a total of 2000 pageviews.We had reached 1000 less than a year ago, and we are really happy with the way the blog is growing. Thank you so much for your views.

Cloud Storage

2012-04-27T16:11:00.001-04:00

As the internet continues to grow, it has now also become a reliable platform for storing your files. In these recent months, multiple companies have unveiled their cloud storage platforms, below we have outlined our favourites. We really like them because they let you have your files synced across multiple devices.

Dropbox-Dropbox is a great service for syncing across multiple devices. What makes Dropbox great is the great, stable Windows client. It can now also easily upload your photos and sharing is also extremely easy on Dropbox. Dropbox starts with 2 GB of free space, and you can add free space by completing tasks and inviting friends
Google Drive is another great cloud platform. What makes Google Drive great is the productivity features. The web client has all the features of Google Docs, so you can easily work on files on the web client and they will be synced to your desktop client. Google Drive starts with 5 GB of free space, and you can pay reasonable prices to upgrade your space. Google Drive can also integrate with other apps such as Sliderocket, simply by installing the app from the Chrome Web Store.
Microsoft's competitor to all of this is SkyDrive. This new and improved service brings great cross-device sharing. They have a nice web client integrated with Windows Live, and you can easily download desktop clients. We also like the mobile versions which look and feel really nice. SkyDrive packs 7 GB of free space for new users, and 25 GB of space for former SkyDrive users (pre-April 2012)
SugarSync is another excellent program in the market for cloud storage. The service starts at a free plan which offers 5 GB. You can complete various tasks to earn more storage. SugarSync is an excellent program for media. It is extremely easy to upload photos and music and view them across all of your devices. Playing music on an iPod Touch was extremely easy and we experienced no lag while testing this. Photos did take some time to load, but they had great quality. The Windows client may look a bit complex, however it is well worth it and offers lots of great options. The uploading system works fine and doesn't take too long either. The web client also feels a bit cluttered but does its job. The iOS client is one of our favourite parts and works very well. What's great about SugarSync, is that unlike other competitors, you can sync your folders OUTSIDE of your SugarSync folder, making SugarSync helpful for storing your work folders as well. Overall, SugarSync is a solid approach to Cloud storage.

Namechk

2012-04-21T21:56:00.001-04:00

Branding is a very important part of all companies, and activity online these days also plays a big part. Also, when you are creating a name that you will use online, you may want to have a name that is the same throughout, so your friends can easily add you. However, it would take a long time to go to every single service and search if your name is free or used, so luckily there is Namechk. The site is very easy to use, simply type in a username and it will show you whether it is available or not on various services. Their list of services is constantly growing, however many of the popular ones are already there. Visit now at http://namechk.com/

CNET

2012-04-13T15:54:00.003-04:00

Looking for some new technology, but don't know what to get? Well, then you can visit http://cnet.com to learn about new tech available that suits your needs. They have great editors who can break down almost all products. Most products are accompanied by a video showing you the product and you will be able to see what it is about. They also have top-10 lists for certain categories, and you can get to see what they think is the best available products. Also on cnet.com you will find a download section, which features great software downloads, as well as a video section featuring some videos about technology

Wikis

2012-04-06T16:38:00.001-04:00

Just got interested in a new topic but don't know enough about it? Chances are there is already a wiki about it online. Wikis are places on the internet dedicated to a certain topic. Many games have many different wikis dedicated to different areas of the game. Most wikis also allow users to edit pages, with the community keeping the wiki updated with new information. They can also contain pictures and hidden information, that may have had to have been inferred or discovered.

Know something and don't see a wiki-why not make your own?

avast! Sound Packs

2012-03-30T16:31:00.002-04:00

avast! antivirus program is great, however the voice-over for updates and other messages can get a bit boring after a while. In order to help conquer that, you can install custom sound-packs. They are available for free and extremely easy to install. Simply head to http://www.avast.com/fun and try out different sounds. If you find one you like, simply click download. It will download a small file containing the sound. Now simply click the file, and provided you have avast! already installed, it will install the sound pack

Hunger Games

2012-03-23T17:26:00.002-04:00

The Hunger Games is a movie and a book about a future North America known as Panem. Panem has 12 districts and a capitol which controls everything. The story follows the life of Katniss Everdeen in District 12. On the day of selection for the Hunger Games (a fight in which each district sends 2 individuals to fight for their life), Prim who is Katniss' sister is selected. Katniss volunteers to replace Prim and goes on to represent her district along with Peeta, a local son of a baker. Together, they train and participate in the hunger games. Read the book or watch the movie to find out who wins.

The book was released a while back and has gained much popularity. Hunger Games is the first book, followed by Catching Fire, and lastly Mockingjay.

The Hunger Games movie gained lots of hype following the excellent use of social media marketing by the movie marketers. Many showtimes on the release day were sold out. The movie is rated PG-13 due to violence and runs for about 2 and a half hours

Twitter

2012-03-16T22:44:00.000-04:00

Twitter is considered to be a social-networking site, however we feel that the site offers more of a blogging experience. The site allows users to easily create a free account and then start posting. Unless you make your account private, your posts will be public, and anyone will be able to read, reply, and search. This allows you to easily post news and updates that people may benefit from. Twitter allows users to reply to tweets. Also a great feature is retweeting. If you see something cool, you can easily retweet to reshare it with all of your followers. You can also send direct messages, which are private messages that you can send to your followers. So check it out at twitter.com

Cool Website

2012-03-09T16:04:00.001-05:00

ThisIsWhyImBroke.com is a really cool website. The website features some really unique products that sell on the internet. Although the name says ThisIsWhyImBroke, none of the items seemed to stand out too badly as overpriced. Many of them were priced for what they were with the exception of a few. The site is very easy to navigate around and features pricing and photos of the products. There are many products on the screen, and all you have to do is scroll down

Calendars

2012-03-03T12:27:00.000-05:00

Calendars can be a very useful tool if you are looking for a way to manage your time effectively. However, they can sometimes be very hard to difficult to update and edit especially if they are on paper. Also, making sure that all of your calendars in all your different places are in sync can also be tough. That is why you should consider using cloud-based calendars. Our favourite is Google Calendar because of its very easy to use interface. Also, your contacts' birthday's will also be imported and shown on the calendar, so you never have to worry about a birthday again.

New E-Mail and Contacts

2012-02-24T16:03:00.001-05:00

Switching to a new e-mail can sometimes be hard because your contacts and other information will not be sent over to the new account. Nowadays, when people have hundreds of contacts, adding each contact manually is not an option. Instead of not getting a new e-mail just for that reason you can import your old contacts. Most modern webmail services offer a way to export your contacts, or when you open a new webmail account you can import from the old account

TV Shows

2012-02-10T20:32:00.002-05:00

Many TV shows are available online, you should check if a TV show that you like is available online for free. You can also connect your computer to your TV to watch on a big screen. Just make sure you do not go over your internet allowance

Sports

2012-01-27T15:46:00.000-05:00

If you follow sports, be sure to check out the league's websites. They can provide reliable information in a very fast and informative way. You can receive information about all the teams and all the players and you can sign up to get notified when something major happens in the league

eBooks

2012-01-20T15:47:00.001-05:00

eBooks are a great idea, and they allow you to read books on eReaders or any of your other mobile devices. eBooks are better for the environment as they do not use up extra paper, and require less energy to transport. eBooks are also easily accessible through all of your devices if you use services such as the Amazon Kindle Store, or Google Books. They are also generally cheaper. Textbooks are also available as eReads.

New Pro Site

2012-01-16T10:42:00.001-05:00

We are working on a new pro site for the Brothers4Ever series, the site will have a better design and more features and information

App Stores

2012-01-13T16:00:00.002-05:00

If you have a smartphone be sure to check out their app stores. The app stores have many great paid and free applications available to offer some great entertainment or help you with certain tasks. Certain apps can also provide you with unlimited texting or cross-platform messaging to help communicate with all your friends

Air Travel

2012-01-06T15:16:00.001-05:00

When travelling by air be sure to check out the airport's websites. Airport websites can provide important information about the status of your flight.
If you are on the go, many apps are available for smartphones to check the status of your flight.
Here are some tips:

check your flight status
go to the airline's website to view on-board amenities
read restrictions and rules
bring something to keep you entertained

games
book

drink lots of water on-board

Important Notice

2011-12-31T23:04:00.000-05:00

We will no longer be posting the Hot 100 Chart Topper on this blog, please check the HelPus Music Blog for that.

Track Santa

2011-12-23T15:46:00.003-05:00

Track Santa on Christmas Eve with NORAD Tracks Santa. Visit their website at noradsanta.org for updates or follow them on Facebook and Twitter, they also have an app available for the mobile platforms

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!