Pc Tools Lover

Simple Blogger Tips and Tricks For Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 23:22:00 +0000

Blogging becomes a huge new phenomenon now because many people out there wants to make money simply from blogging. If you are one of these peoples, to make money from your blog you need to drive web traffic to it. Here's how to attract traffic in two hidden tricks no one will told you.

Trick 1: Publish only good contents all the time.
What actually a good content is? It has many different meaning for different bloggers.
However, the main criteria of a good content are the one that makes people feel good. So if you are a blogger, you need to write your blog post to make your reader feel good.
You need to learn the skill. To make you professional in performing that skill, you need to practice consistently. Please take an hour or two polishing your skill in writing original good contents.
The good factor used as a start is to produce a lot of how-to articles.

Trick 2: Drive targeted traffic from top 3 sources only.
The top three sources are article marketing, blog commenting and forums. You need to become highly active in doing all three.

During your initial months of blogging, do not use any other way to promote your blog. Just focus on previous threes sources I told you before. When done with a focus, the result will make you happy.

Sign up for a free account in top article directory. They have certain rules but if you follow to rules and you always produces good article, you can get more traffic when people click on your profile in the resource box.

Become the first reader to give comment in any new posts in the blogs you loyally followed. You will get more traffic to your blog when many readers click on your name in the comments box. It will add number of incoming links to your blog too, thus helps your blog to build good page rank at the same time.

Super-Lightweight Drone Autonomously Avoids Obstacles

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 16:30:00 +0000

The age of commercial and private drones is upon us, exemplified by increasingly common stories of drone mishaps and even the likes Amazon announcing plans to launch a drone delivery service in the coming years.

But there may not always be enough handlers trained or available to control all the varieties of drones making their way into the skies, so one team from the Netherlands developed a lightweight unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can traverse the skies on its own.

With a 28-centimeter wingspan and weighing just 20 grams (about the weight of four sheets of paper), the DelFly Explorer uses a small stereovision system, composed of two cameras and a tiny embedded computer, to avoid obstacles in its path.

The stereovision system (which weighs just 4 grams) allows the DelFly Explorer to determine the distance between it and any flight barriers in its environment in real-time.

In the presentation video, the DelFly Explorer’s creators envision the device being used for reconnaissance missions in emergency situations and even during concerts to allow for innovative video shoots.

However, at present, there are no plans to try to bring the DelFly Explorer to the commercial market. Instead its creators are focusing on further developing the capabilities of the device.

Apple Announces Top iPhone, iPad Apps of 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 16:28:00 +0000

BY KURT WAGNER1 DAY AGO

Finishing the year atop Apple's App Store list has never been more competitive. The company announced in October that the App Store features more than one million apps that have combined for more than 60 billion total app downloads.

So, what does it take to reach the top? Apparently lots and lots of candy.

Candy Crush Saga was a star for iOS users in 2013, taking the top spot as the most downloaded free app on both iPhone and iPad this year. The addicting game was also the top grossing app on both iPhone and iPad, an impressive feat considering the app is free and relies on in-app purchases for revenue.

Candy Crush officially earned its crown Monday when Apple released its annual list of the top downloaded apps. The company does not break out specific download figures, but it did reveal a "Top 10" list for multiple categories, including top paid iPhone and iPad apps. Minecraft - Pocket Edition took the top spot on both devices in the paid app category.

Examining the lists for both devices gives a slightly better picture of how users are engaging with iPhones and iPads. Social media sites, for example, were some of the most downloaded apps on iPhone, but only one, Facebook, even cracked the top 10 on iPad.

Twitter, the company behind the year's most highly anticipated tech IPO, did not appear in the Top 10 on any list. Vine, the video sharing app Twitter unveiled in January, was #4 on the Free iPhone Apps list.

Snapchat, the photo-sharing app that automatically deletes images and videos after a recipient views them, was downloaded more times than Facebook and Instagram.

Based on the lists below, it appears as if iPads are primarily used for game playing — and gambling. Five of the top 10 highest grossing apps on the iPad in 2013 were gambling-related, including DoubleDown Casino, Big Fish Casino, and Slotomania HD; the other five were games.

Last year's most popular free apps for iPhone and iPad — YouTube and Skype for iPad, respectively — were both in the top five again this year.

Here's a look at the apps that kept us glued to our iOS devices in 2013.

Top iOS Apps of 2013

Top Free iPhone Apps	Top Free iPad Apps
Candy Crush Saga	Candy Crush Saga
YouTube	YouTube
Temple Run 2	Temple Run 2
Vine	Calculator for iPad Free
Google Maps	Skype for iPad
Snapchat	Netflix
Instagram	Despicable Me: Minion Rush
Facebook	iBooks
Pandora Radio	Facebook
Despicable Me: Minion Rush	The Weather Channel for iPad
Top Paid iPhone Apps	Top Paid iPad Apps
Minecraft - Pocket Edition	Minecraft - Pocket Edition
Heads Up!	Pages
Temple Run: Oz	Temple Run: Oz
Angry Birds Star Wars	Plants vs. Zombies HD
Plague Inc.	Angry Birds Star Wars HD
Afterlight	Notability
Free Music Download Pro - Mp3 Downloader	Angry Birds Star Wars II
Bloons TD 5	iMovie
Sleep Cycle alarm clock	The Room
Plants vs. Zombies	Bad Piggies HD
Top Grossing iPhone Apps	Top Grossing iPad Apps
Candy Crush Saga	Candy Crush Saga
Clash of Clans	Clash of Clans
Pandora Radio	Hay Day
MARVEL War of Heroes	DoubleDown Casino
Hay Day	Big Fish Casino
Big Fish Casino	Modern War
The Simpsons: Tapped Out	Bingo Bash HD - Free Bingo Casino
Modern War	The Simpsons: Tapped Out
Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North	Slotomania HD - FREE Slots
The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth	GSN Casino

Smartphone App Uses Selfies to Check Your Cholesterol Level

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 16:25:00 +0000

A team of engineers has designed a smartphone accessory and app that allows users to monitor their own blood cholesterol levels. Think of it as a sort of cholesterol selfie — or maybe a healthie?

As researchers from Cornell University explain in a paper in the journal Lab on a Chip, all you need — aside from their attachment and a smartphone — is a reagent test strip and a willingness to draw your own blood. Cholesterol tests tend to rely on reagent strips that turn different colors, depending on the cholesterol levels of the blood placed on them. The researchers’ achievement was to design an attachment to be placed over the smartphone flash and camera that can illuminate and capture the color of the strip, rendering unnecessary specialized equipment or an in-person health professional. The lab is working on a smartphone app that can determine vitamin D levels, too.

The technology is relatively straightforward, and the research group is one of many developing smartphone tools such as these. Already, apps can turn smartphones into heart-rate monitors,sleep monitors or ultrasound machines, to name just a few. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, half of the more than 3.4 billion smartphone and tablet users worldwide will have downloaded mobile health applications by 2018.

Whether they use them regularly is another question. Still, the continuing spread of smartphones globally and the determination of health policymakers to drive down costs make such cheap, idiot-proof (at least, idiot-resistant) technologies all-but inevitable.

Apple's New Mac Pro Goes on Sale Dec

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 16:22:00 +0000

BY STAN SCHROEDER2 HOURS AGO

Apple's new Mac Pro will be available to order starting on Thursday, the company announced on Wednesday.

The oval-shaped desktop machine for professionals will start with a 3.7GHz, quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of VRAM each, 12GB of memory and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage — with a price tag of $2,999.

More demanding users can opt for the 3.5 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of VRAM each, 16GB of memory and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage, starting at $3,999.

If you really need a powerful machine, upgrade to the 8-core or 12-core Intel Xeon E5 processors, AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of VRAM, up to 64GB of memory and up to 1TB of PCIe-based flash storage.

Why 'Time Spent' Is One of Marketing's Favorite Metrics

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 17:51:00 +0000

Time is money. Time is the enemy. Time is on your side.

We talk a lot about time, but the one thing we definitively know about time is there's never enough. For a marketer, that means you're going to have to work hard to get a minute or two from a consumer. You need to earn it, so if your site can garner a high time spent, pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

"Time spend is not a very actionable metric, it's more a sign that you've done the right thing," says David Marks, VP of product at StumbleUpon, whose average session length is an impressive 30 minutes for women, 22 minutes for men. Marks attributes the site's high time spent to the experience on StumbleUpon. "There are many reasons why people come to StumbleUpon, but a lot of it is focused around inspiring them, surprising them, entertaining them with unexpected content," he says. When users are browsing a category, they see hundreds of things they've never seen before that are very high quality about a specific topic of interest. "It's all about the experience, and a lot of it just holds people's attention," he says.

How Time Spent Is Earned

Marks says the StumbleUpon team pays a lot of attention to the very first user session, which correlates to how often users come back and how well the site retains them. "The longer that first session is, the more likely the user is to be happy and refer us to friends — it's a great predictor of how things are going," he explains.

But for StumbleUpon, that means the site needs to hit a home run on the first swing. Three things help determine how much time a consumer will spend on-site, the first time and any time thereafter — specifically for StumbleUpon, but also applicable to any content site — are:

Do I care about this?
Should I care about this?
What's the quality of content?

StumbleUpon results for a search of "Mars"

One element that can't be overlooked when analyzing time spent is a site's organization and design. "The better the content and site organization, the longer users will want to spend on a site," says Jason Squardo, EVP of optimization at ZOG Digital. More time on-site means more engagement, which indicates a greater likelihood to purchase, sign up and share the content.

Time spent should be monitored along with bounce rate and pages per visit — knowing where users are spending more time and where they're bouncing means you can make real-time tweaks to optimize engagement. "While bounce rate is a great tool for identifying pages that are severely underperforming, time spent offers another angle by showing you how long users are spending on your site before moving on," says Jordan Bell, marketing manager at Advertise.com.

What Time Spent Can Teach You

Time spent also indicates user satisfaction. Unless you're masochist, you're not going to spend time engaging with a site if you're not enjoying it. The digital team at Discovery Communicationshas made the most of this idea. After several one-off live animal camera events with impressive time-spent results, like Shark Week's Shark Cam, the team launched Animal Planet L!VE in April 2013. The site is a digital destination for "ambient entertainment" with more than 20 streams of animals, from kittens to reindeer, and streams are viewable via AppleTV and on Roku, Samsung Smart TVs and Xbox. "The addictive, unfiltered content has spawned new cams and set a high bar for future products, with visitors averaging more than 12 minutes in the simple but engaging experience," says Stephanie Fried, VP of digital insights and marketing at Discovery.

Live video by Animal Planet L!ve

Of course, Animal Planet L!VE is primarily a desktop activation, and most consumers won't stream long videos like these on their mobile devices. And that's key to think about when analyzing time spent — the statistic can be different across different platforms, and even across devices on the same operating system, says Marks. People using an iPhone are going to have a different time on site than people using an iPad, and Android users actually spend 15% more time per page on StumbleUpon than iOS users. More broadly, mobile stumbling sessions are 13 minutes, much shorter than the site-wide average of 30 minutes (meaning desktop stumbling is closer to 40 minutes), since mobile is usually on-the-go, such as when people are commuting or waiting at a doctor’s office. That said, if you want to increase time spent for all of these variables, you have to research into the habits of users on various devices and platforms and optimize for that.

You can't "disentangle" product design from engagement and user experience — they hinge on one another, says Marks.

How Much Is Too Much?

Time spent is clearly a handy metric for interactive products (i.e. a game or choose-your-own-adventure piece) or content sites, but some businesses actually focus on cutting downtime spent. Take, for example, an ecommerce site. If a user has items in the shopping cart, the company will want to focus on making the shopping experience faster and more efficient, says Christopher Penn, VP of marketing technology at SHIFT Communications. He cites a statistics from Amazon, which said back in 2007 that every 100 milliseconds of latency — time when a customer is waiting for something to load — represents a revenue loss of 1%. (Similarly, then-Googler Marissa Mayer had said "Users really respond to speed.") So while content wants to suck the audience in, microsites and landing pages often want to focus on reducing time spent on a page. Because once the user discovers the desired action.

Ask a Dev: Should Every Website Have an App?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 17:46:00 +0000

If you want to build an app, one of the first questions you should ask yourself is whether to build it on the web or "go native," meaning write it specifically for iOS or Android.

Our developer this week, Jake Riesterer, says the best performance is likely to come from designing the app with a particular operating system in mind. Both iOS and Android provide frameworks to make writing the app easier; your app will probably look better than anything designed through the web because you can use the graphics processing unit that comes with the hardware Android and iOS devices use.

If you go the web route and use web graphics library, a type of JavaScript that lets you render 3Dand 2D graphics with any compatible browsers, web tools might be right for you. But Riesterer cautions that web graphics library isn't compatible with iOS devices.

But let's backtrack — do you need to build an app at all? Depending on your user base, a mobile site may be sufficient.

If you already attract a lot of traffic to your mobile site, an app might not be worth the trouble. But apps are great for discoverability, and if you want users to get to your brand quickly, it could be worth it, Riesterer says.

Our developer experts are from Mutual Mobile, a leading development and design firm that builds mobile strategies for top companies such as Audi, Google and Citigroup. The team is eager to answer your questions about mobile, so ping us with your top queries on Twitter, using the hashtag #AskaDev. Don't forget to check out our Ask a Dev YouTube channel and subscribe.

Pebble Update Adds 'Do Not Disturb' Mode

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 17:43:00 +0000

The Pebble smartwatch just got a nice update that offers a "do not disturb" mode and better support for notifications and alarms.

The update comes just a month after Pebble received a major overhaul for iOS 7 users, including full notification support.

The new update tweaks iOS performance, sending notifications more quickly from iOS to the Pebble. The update also improves how notifications work on the smartwatch. You can now easily choose if you want to receive all notifications on your smartwatch, just phone calls or turn notifications off.

This notification control plays well with the biggest feature, a new "do not disturb" mode that lets users set a period of time when notifications will be off. This is great for people who sleep wearing a watch and don't want to be roused by a vibration on their wrist. As someone who sleeps with my Pebble on a nightstand, the vibrations in the middle of the night can still be a nuisance, so this is a great new feature.

Pebble also improved its alarm app and now you can create multiple alarms, toggle an alarm to be on or off and edit existing alarms. There's also a new "snooze" alarm, for people who want to put off dealing with their alarm.

To update to the latest version of the Pebble firmware, just open the iOS or Android app and click the update button when prompted.

Google Tips Helps You Do Cool Stuff With Google Products

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 19:48:00 +0000

Google has launched Google Tips, a website with a smorgasbord of helpful tips and less-known features of various Google products.

The site is a very simple affair, consisting of rows of cards with helpful tips, which range from setting up Gmail on your mobile phone to grabbing your customized birthday Doodle.

You can sort the tips by topic or by category such as "On the go," "At home" or "At the office" by clicking on the menu button in the upper left corner.

Power users will likely be familiar with most of the included tips, but the site does contain a fair amount of obscure tricks, such as setting up an Android device to act as a pedometer.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Microsoft Sets Dates for Build 2014 Developer Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 19:45:00 +0000

Microsoft formally broadcast the dates for its three-day Build 2014 developer seminar. It will take location from April 2 to 4 at San Francisco's Moscone Center.

This will be the second consecutive construct held in San Francisco, a move the company made last year in a attempt to cultivate more developer interest in Windows 8. construct seminars in 2012 and previous years were held in Microsoft's dwelling territory of Redmond, clean.

Microsoft is furthermore booting off developer season early this year. By holding construct in early April, it will likely arrive before Google I/O, BlackBerry Live and Apple's WWDC. No designated days have been set for those other conferences, but they normally begin in late April or early May.

Microsoft utilised Build 2013 to display off many of the characteristics of Windows 8.1, which shipped this drop, and the business broadcast several big-name apps would be coming to the platform, encompassing Facebook, Foursquare and Flipboard.

In 2014, we'll probably see more about the next iterations of Windows, most expected called Windows 8.2 and rumored to have the code title "Threshold." numerous users have called for a complete come back of the start menu in the desktop; the present button, reintroduced in Windows 8.1, only takes users back to the start computer display. It will be intriguing to glimpse if Microsoft brings back on vintage characteristic one time again to appease users that aren't yet warmed up to the new, touch-friendly up to date UI.

Where in the World Are Facebook's Developers?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:27:00 +0000

Facebook users come from all corners of the globe and, apparently, so do its third-party developers.

This new heat map from Facebook shows which countries around the world claim the most developers. The social network released the map on Tuesday at LeWeb, a global startup and tech conference in Paris, France.

The company considers a third-party developer to be anyone who incorporates the Facebook login into their app or builds with the company's software developer kits (SDKs) made available for iOS and Android, according to a company spokesperson.

Third party Facebook developers are not Facebook employees, but rather app developers who build Facebook functionality into their product. Apps that allow users to log in with their Facebook IDs or that post back to Facebook, like Words With Friends or Nike+, are examples of these kinds of partners.

Facebook wouldn't confirm the total number of developers in any given country, but with the exception of Greenland, much of Africa and the Middle East, it appears that Facebook's developers truly have taken over all corners of the globe. In the United States alone, there are 20 cities with 1,000 or more developers.

Countries with more than 10,000 Facebook developers include (in alphabetical order): Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Instagram Direct, Facebook's Pursuit of Snapchat Is Over

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:24:00 +0000

I was mostly wrong about Instagram's plans and also mostly right. I know, that oxymoronic statement makes little sense unless you consider that Instagram Direct, unveiled on Thursday in New York, is the very first big step into a full-scale encroachment on Snapchat's territory. It also means Facebook, to borrow a Taylor Swift lyric, will never, ever, ever bid on Snapchat again.

A couple of days ago, I predicted Instagram would unveil some sort of direct image messaging system and I almost called it Instagram Direct: "The ability to make chat-based or direct Instagrams temporary." Instagram Direct is, as I guessed, a way of sharing images "between only a group of Instagram friends or with just one other user."

However, most of the other features I predicted are not a part of this new direct communication tool. You cannot mark up photos and videos with avatars, meme text or a digital magic marker. Nor do the images disappear. Instagram's skeletal contact system remains mostly unchanged.

Some might say that Facebook just proved how you can save $3 billion dollars. More than once over the last 12 months, the company reportedly sought to acquire Snapchat, but was spurned, with Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel later telling the BBC, "We're enjoying being an independent company." Since then, Facebook has increasingly dealt with charges that its teen user base is dwindling. The company denies this, but its efforts to gobble up Snapchat may say otherwise.

The decision to move forward with its own image-centric direct message platform (on the back of its most popular image-sharing social network) means that Facebook won't return to the Snapchat acquisition well a third time. If investors are paying attention, Facebook's stock should, right now, be on the rise. (At the market's close Facebook stock was, at $58.84, up a little over 2%).

So Wrong I Was Right
I got a lot wrong and yet I know that with Instagram Direct, Instagram has just opened a huge door. A private messaging platform, which is more or less what this is, means it's much more receptive to feature enhancements that users can choose to utilize in a mostly hidden setting. In other words, changes Instagram makes to Instagram Direct don't have to appear network wide. Most users can ignore them, if they like.

And for the most part, Instagram Founder and CEO Kevin Systrom, who unveiled the feature in NYC, did not rule out many of these changes.

The groups, which can comprise of up to 15 people, will eventually support names, which means you can then easily select which group you want to share with. Currently the system intuits sets of people you follow on Instagram and people you often Instagram Direct with and presents them at the top of the list of people you can share with directly.

Mark-up is not part of the toolset right now, but Systrom did not rule it out when I asked him about it.

Snapchat-style image evaporation, on the other hand, may not be in the offing. When asked about "ephemeral" photos, Systrom replied, "Instagram is focused on capturing and sharing the world's moments and what we're best at is archiving those moments and sharing with your friends."

Instagram Direct in the Future
These, though, are early days. Once Instagram execs see how people are using Instagram Direct, Systrom may change his tune, or perhaps Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook bought Instagram in 2011) will make him change it. Systrom told us that Zuckerberg was very excited about Instagram Direct and served as an early beta tester.

As it stands, Instagram direct has almost zero connection to Facebook. Systrom explained that you cannot currently use Instagram Direct to privately share an image with a Facebook friend. Even so, Zuckerberg must see all the opportunity in this new platform. If he wants Systrom to add Snapchat-like features to Instagram Direct, like disappearing images and markup, they will get added.

To be fair, Zuckerberg is probably not the only one who will be calling for these features. Instragram users will be privately sharing some pretty racy stuff on Instagram Direct. It's only natural that they'll want the ability to expire some of those images.

What Might Have Been
Founder and CEO Even Spiegel is probably kicking himself right now. Sure, Instagram Direct poses no immediate threat, but Spiegel knows Zuckerberg considers the Snapchat user base and feature set valuable. When some of those signature Snapchat features do start appearing in Instagram Direct, Spiegel will know the courtship is officially kaput.

The decision to build or buy is one that weighs heavily on most businesses and especially tech entrepreneurs. If you build it, you have total control, but you've also spent countless resources and possibly had to bring in or develop skills your company didn't even have. Buying is easy, as long as the technology or platform is a good fit.

With public social image-sharing, Facebook chose to buy Instagram. That went so well, it was reportedly ready to buy again. But as soon as Snapchat, allegedly, rebuffed Facebook, the company got to building.

Instagram Direct is no Snapchat and it may never eclipse the functionality or popularity of it, but one thing is certain, Facebook's days of coveting Snapchat are over.

Twitter Buckles Under Pressure Lets You Block Users Again

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:17:00 +0000

Twitter reversed its stance on impeding a second time Thursday evening, reverting to the initial principle in the face of what it admitted was marvellous opposition on the service. "We not ever desire to insert characteristics at the cost of users feeling less safe," Vice President of merchandise Michael Sippey wrote in a blog mail. The initial story is underneath.

If you're having problems with a stalker, you don't need a restraining alignment just wear a blindfold. That at smallest appears to be the reasoning behind a policy change Twitter announced Thursday, one its users are calling baffling.

before, the service allowed you to block any troublesome follower, rejecting them get access to to your tweets. Now, in an about-face, the method of blocking easily mutes the client in inquiry, significance you can't see their tweets. But they can retweet you, permitting their followers to communicate you in turn.

"If your account is public, blocking a client does not prevent that client from following you, combining with your Tweets, or obtaining your updates in their timeline," the business states in its amended "blocking users on Twitter" help page.

A business spokesperson clarified to Forbes that the change had been made because "people would glimpse they had been blocked and get mad," producing in "antagonistic behavior."

But that didn't clean with numerous users who'd experienced real harassment on the service. "This is a gigantic and very serious problem for persons, like me, who have obtained recurring rape and death risks on Twitter on a fairly reliable basis," wrote Zerlina Maxwell, a famous feminist activist, analyst and author, in a Change.org appeal requiring Twitter restore the impeding function.

"I utilize the impede button almost every day," Maxwell supplemented. "While that is not a perfect answer because users can simply log out to view your timeline even if you have impeded them it at smallest forbid harassers from following you, and at inferior retweeting you into their feed, which can easily permit their followers to also harass you ... Twitter should not be in the enterprise of making it simpler to stalk someone.

You'll Make More Money If You Can Code

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:12:00 +0000

Being adept to discover marketadept digital skills is sluggish and tough — or so they say.

Adda Birnir noticed a gender divide between a newspapers company's business and mechanical edge (read: men) versus the editorial edge (read: women). She conceived online tech learning platform Skillcrush to give women a way to learn marketable abilities that could lead to stable, high-paying jobs and applicable, satisfying work.

The five-year-old business educates digital skills: We're conversing about mechanical jargon, cipher, construction a website and understanding client know-how. You do so by signing up for classes that are conceived to be fun and finished on your own time. But that wasn't habitually the format for Skillcrush.

"Our dispute is really not assuring people that tech skills are actually important," she states. "It's assuring persons that getting tech abilities is certain thing that they can do."

primarily, Birnir and her team went to SXSW and seeded the first 250 people the old-school way: By beating the pavement and having heart-to-hearts.

But the next step — getting persons to pay for the merchandise — was a gigantic red flag.

answer: really seated down with dozens of users, one-on-one, to pinpoint what discouraged them and what they hoped to discover.

This led to a lightbulb moment for the business, and it turns out users just needed some structure and a human feel.

"You can't take the human component out of learning, even when it's online," Birnir states. "You have to have instructor support."

So they conceived the first class, which was commanded by an teacher and adhered to a agenda (which you don't necessarily have to follow).

Using Skillcrush is like discovering from your amicable, accessible best girl ally (not that it affairs — about 25% of Skillcrush users are men). Buying into a class encompasses get access to to the Skillcrush 101 class courses and group consideration, three 20-minute video agency hour meetings with class instructors, downloadables, individual feedback and fast office hour meetings by Google Hangout.

Users are also placed in a community with their young person students. This camaraderie, Birnir finds, actually assists people come to their goals.

"The Skillcrush secret to success is that we have a actually pledged practice of habitually conversing with our users and working with them to realise what their pain is, and how we can solve it," she says. "Whether your customers like what you're doing is top-of-mind at all times for any startup CEO."

Birnir calculates the company's development by the amount of user engagement in the community. Users are what Birnir calls "hyper-engaged" — they stick round and competently serve as TAs for newer scholars. One client even voluntarily copy-edits the whole website.

"A lot of our development has arrive very organically, from phrase of mouth," Birnir says. "People will share inside their business and we'll get 100, 150 workers all at the same company, marking up in one day."

Some of her own workers actually took it upon themselves to search Skillcrush out because they accept as true in the company’s objective. Skillcrush employs more than a dozen minds — still somewhat minute, but with a big, large-scale goal.

Watch the video above to glimpse how Birnir grew Skillcrush from a noble concept to being the friendliest tech teacher around.

Spotify's Free Mobile Offering Everything You Need to Know

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 21:01:00 +0000

Spotify on Wednesday expanded the free tier of its service to all devices, including smartphones and tablets.

In the past, free Spotify users could only access Spotify Radio on mobile devices and tablets, but like other radio services, this prevented them from listening to a specific artist or music in their own playlists. The new offering expands on-demand listening to free users on tablets, and allows smartphone users to listen to their own playlists or music from a specific artist in shuffle mode.

Spotify created the following chart, which shows the access options that users have:

When it comes to specifics on how everything works, it becomes a bit more complicated. Fortunately, Mashable spoke with Charlie Hellman, Spotify's vice president of product, who broke down the company's new mobile offering.

Can Free Users Listen to Any Song They Want on Mobile and Tablet?

You can listen to any song you want, and in any order, if you use Spotify on a tablet. On iOS, this means the iPad or iPad mini. On Android, Spotify is setting 7-inches in diagonal as the screen minimum for tablets. The app will determine which version of the experience you see in Android.

On the tablet, the play-on-demand feature works the same as it does on desktop. You will have ads every five to six songs, and you can't save playlists for offline listening. Spotify decided to treat the tablet as a desktop after observing how people use the product.

In a post-PC world, the tablet is increasingly becoming the main home computer for many consumers, including Spotify users; for that reason, the company chose to make the experience on-par with what you'd get on the desktop.

On smartphones, only Spotify Premium users have the option to listen to specific songs on-demand.

How Does Free Listening on Mobile Work?

Although Spotify doesn't offer free on-demand listening via mobile, it has substantially expanded the types of music you can listen to, and how you can listen to them.

You can now listen to music from any artist in "shuffle" mode; this means you can search for an artist, then instantly listen to a station that only features that particular artist. It's a big switch from typical online radio services, such as Pandora and iTunes Radio, which may let you create a station around an artist, but wind up having other artists in the mix, too.

What's more, you can listen to your own Spotify playlists in shuffle mode. Be aware, however, that there are a few rules about how they work.

What Are the Rules for Free Shuffle Mode?

Your playlists will need to meet several parameters to work in free shuffle mode. (Don't worry, Spotify will automatically fill out your playlist if it doesn't meet these requirements.)

They include:

A playlist must have at least 20 songs
A playlist must consist of at least three albums
Even if you list the same track 20 times in a row, it still only counts as one

Spotify said the vast majority of playlists have more than 20 songs, and include many different artists. Although this means you can't listen exclusively to a shuffled mix of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, you can listen to Rolling Stone's playlist for its top 100 tracks of 2013.

Plus, as long as you add a few songs from other albums to your Random Access Memoriesplaylist, you'll be guaranteed to hear the whole album during your listening session.

How Is This Better Than Pandora, Songza or iTunes Radio?

The biggest change is that you can choose to only listen to a specific artist — something the other services don't offer. What's more, you can listen to playlists you create.

Songza is a playlist-oriented Internet radio product, but its licensing rules mean that users can't listen to playlists they create themselves.

This is also true for other streaming services that offer access to curated playlists. Usually, it's fine, especially when users are passively listening to tunes. Where it becomes problematic is if you've collected a bunch of tracks for an event, such as a holiday party. What's the point of having the ultimate holiday playlist if you can't even play it back on your own device?

Can Free Users Create Playlists on Mobile?

Yes. Free users can create their own playlists or add songs to existing playlists in the app; this means if you want to add a track from Spotify Discover to an existing playlist, you can do so without having to worry. You can also create new playlists with music or artists you come across.

How Do Ads Work on Mobile and Tablet?

Just as they do on the desktop and within Spotify Radio now. Interruptions and ads will come every five to six songs.

Should I Bother Paying for Spotify Premium?

This will totally depend on how you listen to music. If you mostly listen to playlists while on your phone, and avoid selecting albums and tracks, you may not feel the need to pay for Spotify Premium. What's more, if you use an iPad or Android tablet for most of your listening, you no longer need to pay to play any song you want.

Still, Spotify Premium continues to have advantages. On the smartphone side, the biggest advantage is that you don't have to deal with ads, and you can save music for offline listening; this is really useful when on an airplane or the subway. Spotify Premium users can also stream audio in higher quality, so if you're an audiophile (at least in the context of streaming music), you get higher fidelity sound.

Spotify told Mashable that getting rid of ads and offline playback are actually the two biggest reasons users upgrade to Spotify Premium. The goal of the new Spotify freemium offering is to encourage users to listen to as much music as possible.

"We've found that the more stuff we give users, the more users are willing to pay us," Hellman said. It's a good point. I know I have personally found that the value in subscription music services really shows itself the more I use it. Having more mobile listeners gives Spotify a chance to convert more of those listeners into Premium subscribers.

How Do I Get Started Using the Free Mobile Offering?

Make sure you are running the latest version of Spotify for iOS or Android, and the option is available now. For free users, browsing artists or accessing your playlists will show an option to "Shuffle Play."

On Android tablets and the iPad, you now have the ability to listen to any track you want at will.

Dell Chromebook 11 Offers 10 Hours of Battery

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 20:58:00 +0000

Google has announced the launch of a new Chromebook device, aimed primarily at students — the Dell Chromebook 11.

Besides 10 hours of battery time, the Dell Chromebook 11 boasts an 8.4 second boot time, an Intel Celeron 2955U processor and a 16GB SSD for storage.

The resolution of the 11.6-inch screen is 1366x768 pixels, powered by Intel HD graphics. On the connectivity side, the device offers Wi-Fi, two USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 4.0 and an HDMI port.

The Dell Chromebook 11 will be available in two versions: one with 4GB and another with 2GB of memory, but both will be priced under $300, Google claims. The more powerful of the two will become available in January 2014, while the 2GB version is coming sometime in Q1 2014.

Gmail Will Never Ask You to Display Images Below

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 20:52:00 +0000

Gmail will no longer wait for your permission to "display images below."

Google rolled out improvements to how Gmail handles images on Thursday, specifically related to its automatic display of pictures within emails. From now on, you'll never see that pesky prompt again.

The message was initially aimed to protect Gmail users from unknown senders who may try to compromise the security of your computer or mobile device using images.

Now, all images are checked for viruses and malware ahead of time, so it doesn't matter whether the picture came from someone you know. Google is now serving images through its own secure proxy servers, instead of directly from external host servers.

Users who still want to give Google an OK before viewing an image can select the “Ask before displaying external images” under the general tab in settings.

The update is available on the desktop version of Gmail on Thursday and will come to mobile apps in early 2014.

Hackers Compromise 2 Million Facebook, Twitter and Gmail Accounts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 07:02:00 +0000

More than 2 million anecdotes have been compromised from popular sites such as Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn after malware apprehended login credentials from users worldwide, according to a new report.

According to world wide world wide web security firm Trustwave, hackers have stolen login usernames and passwords across diverse sites in the past month with the help of Pony malware, a bit different than a usual breach.

"Although these are accounts for online services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google, this is not the result of any flaw in those businesses networks," said Abby Ross, a spokesperson for Trustwave. "Individual users had the malware established on their machines and had their passwords stolen. Pony robs passwords that are retained on the infected users' computers Pony steals passwords that are retained on the infected users' computers as well as by apprehending them when they are utilised to log into world wide web services."

whereas the culprit behind the hack continues unidentified, Trustwave wrote on its blog that two targets were Russian-speaking communal networking sites (vk.com and odnoklassniki.ru), which could sign at the virus' source.

"The malware was configured so that the most of the credential data was sent to a server in the Netherlands," Ross said. "The server does not display from which nations the data came from so we cannot shatter down exactly how numerous users from each homeland were affected. although, we can affirm the attackers aimed at users worldwide encompassing in the U.S., Germany, Singapore, Thailand and others."

It's furthermore significant to note that the thieved credentials were not ever publicly posted online. Trustwave researchers were adept to get access to a command and command server utilised by the Pony botnet and recovered the passwords from there.

"We have come to out to the foremost service providers influenced and they are taking steps to announce their users or remediate the compromised accounts," Ross told Mashable.

Facebook accounted for about 57% of the compromised anecdotes, pursued by Yahoo (10%), Google (9%) and Twitter (3%).

A Facebook spokesperson notified Mashable the business has currently come to out to those with compromised anecdotes.

"While minutia of this case are not yet clear, it seems that people’s computers may have been assaulted by hackers utilising malware to scrape information directly from their world wide web browsers," a Facebook spokesperson notified Mashable. "As a precaution, we've initiated a password reset for persons whose passwords were exposed." "As a precaution, we've started a password reset for persons whose passwords were exposed."

Facebook supplemented that its users can protect themselves when using the location by activating login acceptances and login notifications in their security backgrounds.

"[These users] will be notified when anyone endeavours to access their account from an unrecognized browser and new logins will need a exclusive passcode developed on their mobile phone," the Facebook spokesperson said.

Yahoo furthermore said it implemented password resets on accounts to defend users.

"It’s expected that [user] schemes had out-of-date browsers or operating systems," a Yahoo spokesperson said.
We advocate our users to keep their schemes and submissions revised, frequently run anti-virus software and not establish programs from untrusted causes. We furthermore encourage our users to set up second sign-in verification so they're notified when somebody endeavours to log into their account from another device."

Apple Employs iBeacon to Offer Personalized Shopping in Retail Stores

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:56:00 +0000

Apple will today launch a new, personalized shopping experience in its 254 U.S. retail stores, the affiliated Press accounts.

According to the report, apple fruit will use iBeacon technology, which pathways customers' action interior an Apple shop, to offer info such as alignment rank, cost comparison and more.

For example, if you walk by an iPhone table, you might get a note asking if you desire to improvement to a newer form, together with pricing info.

The expertise is opt-in and will require customers to establish the official Apple shop app on their iDevices.

The iBeacon technology values Bluetooth to pinpoint your position. The technology has been tested by Macy's in November; Apple furthermore foresees it could be used in other places such as museums and sports stadiums.

Reactive Grip Wants Your Video Game Experience to Get Physical

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:52:00 +0000

A business called Tactical Haptics wants to give video games a sense of feel in a way that could put rumble packs to shame.

Founder and CEO William Provancher told Mashable that his business has built a virtual reality device called Reactive grab, a combination of programs and hardware that lets video game players use a focused manager to experience physical sensations different any thing before glimpsed in gaming. Reactive Grip does a twosome of things to create a more lifelike experience for virtual reality users, and he hopes the expertise will spark the next step in immersive gaming.

First comes the tactile constituent. Tactical Haptics allows users to choose up a virtual basketball and seem the divots in its skin, according to Provancher. The second component agreements with how your arm muscles answer to things you hold. If you signal an object, for demonstration, a real sword, overhead your head, the Reactive grab permits you to feel its heaviness and how the sword tilts one way or another, depending on the direction you sway it. Provancher states his business has developed a "physics motor" that incorporates that sinew repsonse into virtual reality environments.

"It's vitally creating a actually easy yet productive illusion that you have personal interaction with things," Provancher states. "What you know-how is a blend of what's called a shift component (what you seem in your muscles) and tactile (what you feel in the skin)."

Reactive grab does this by taking a digital representation of the sword you're retaining, measuring your hands and utilising that data to work out the physical force you would seem while waving it about.

The technology has obtained a number of positive reviews, but Tactical Haptics has laboured to alter those reconsiders into money on its Kickstarter crusade page. As of this composing, it has increased about $83,000, and has only seven more days to come to its $175,000 aim.

Provancher conceives that the novelty of improved virtual reality feedback is hard to express through videos and text, which is why, he accepts as true, Reactive grab hasn't been adept to appeal as much cash as he'd wanted. He also doesn't believe it assists that the expertise is only available for computer sport.

Integrating Reactive Grip with a gaming scheme is tough. For it to work, the scheme should be matching with with the virtual truth hardware and programs, otherwise the scheme won't be adept to supply user repsonse, rendering Reactive grab useless. Many sport are conceived for players utilising normal controllers, and even if new sport applied the repsonse, old sport wouldn't because the virtual truth constituents are not rearwards matching. There is no patch that allows video game players to know-how user repsonse with sport that weren't initially built for it. The blend of these effects, Provancher said, makes buyers less likely to purchase a gaming scheme that benefits his company's merchandise.

"It's a actually gigantic dispute to ever penetrate into any of these gaming fields," Provancher states.

Though he wants it occurs eventually, the CEO is checking out how Reactive grab could benefit other areas.

One such area could be minimally invasive surgery, which is well liked because it leaves only little blemishes. Surgeons make minute incisions and inject their devices into the body. Those devices have little cameras that drive video to monitors in the room that the surgeon benefits to navigate.

"The problem...is quite often you can't seem what's occurrence interior the person's body," Provancher says. "If you could sense that, you could feed that back to somebody's fingertips, the surgeon's fingertips."

But his heart still lies with the video game commerce.

"We may end up pivoting into another market and just endeavouring to convert ourselves into a money-making business with markets that are interested and prepared," Provancher says. "I despise to believe about it that way, because it kind of depresses me, because there's such promise there."

subsequent, he supplemented, "It will be one of the coolest things that 2,000 persons have tried."

Google Patent Will Let Software Do Your Socializing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:47:00 +0000

Google has filed a patent for a programs bot that would control your communal media occurrence.

The programs would first learn your voice by revising all of your communal newspapers accounts, then it would mechanically propose revisions and answers it can make for future mails. The aim is for the bot to discover how you tweet and Facebook so it can step-by-step organise that for you — effectively outsourcing how you digitally socialize.

Of course, you would first have to give Google consent to get access to your whole online presence, from communal to internet message and everything in between. This limitless get access to has some cyber privacy experts concerned. Nick Pickles, the controller of Big Brother Watch, an organization dedicated to defending privacy, warned against the possible hazards. Pickles notified the Daily posted letters:

“That sort of data is precious to both authorities and businesses, so I’m exceedingly worried about any technology that purports to offer convenience while in truth exposing more of our personal communications to prying eyes.”

Since the bot would vitally imitate your voice to seamlessly combines as you online, users would need to give it get get access to to to a wide array of accounts. They are, although, all opted-in, so it appears users would be given the option to choose and specify what Google's new software could investigate.

According to the patent:

There is no obligation for the client to set reminders or be proactive. The scheme automatically without client input analyzes data to which the client has access, and develops proposals for personalized reactions to notes. The proposal analyzer cooperates with the conclusion tree to learn the user's demeanour and mechanically adjust the proposed notes that are developed over time.

whereas Google filed the patent in 2011, there isn't yet any clues of a merchandise appearing from it.

Microsoft and FBI Claim to Stamp Out Malware That Steals Ad Dollars

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:39:00 +0000

Microsoft is working with the FBI to stop malware responsible for contaminating more than 2 million computers as a part of an effort to steal dollars from online advocating businesses.

The company's digital misdeed unit said on Friday it has "successfully disturbed" rampant malware called the Sirefef botnet — furthermore known as ZeroAccess — which lately targeted seek outcomes on sites such as Google, Bing and Yahoo seek motors.

ZeroAccess malware affects apparatus running Windows by hijacking seek outcomes and downloading malicious malware up on contaminated schemes. It administered each of its almost two million infected computers to bang on as many as 48 publicity an hour, but even though it wasn't true human traffic, advertisers were paying charges for forgery bangs. Microsoft said the strike is approximated to cost online advertisers $2.7 million each month.

"Today’s activity is anticipated to considerably disturb the botnet’s procedure, expanding the cost and risk for cybercriminals to extend doing enterprise and stopping victims’ computers from committing fraudulent schemes," Microsoft said in a declaration.

In supplement to teaming up with the FBI, Microsoft is furthermore working with the agency's European equivalent European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).

The news comes just a couple of weeks after Microsoft revealed its new Cybercrime Center

In a press issue, Microsoft cited research by the University of California, San Diego that showed 1.9 million computers were infected with ZeroAccess in October, and more than 800,000 ZeroAccess-infected computers are hardworking on the Internet every day.

“If the hacker community has not yet taken observe, today’s disturbance of the ZeroAccess botnet is another demonstration of the power of public-private partnerships,” FBI boss aide Director Richard McFeely said in a declaration. “It illustrates our firm pledge to expand coordination with businesses like Microsoft and our foreign law enforcement partners — in this case, Europol — to closed down malicious cyberattacks and contain cybercriminals accountable for exploiting our citizens’ and businesses’ computers.”

Game of Thrones Video Game to Launch in 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:33:00 +0000

HBO is teaming up with Telltale Games to create a Game of Thrones-inspired video game due out in 2014.

Telltale Games is the studio behind The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us video games. The news was announced on Saturday during Spike TV's “Video Game Awards." There was a 25-second teaser trailer aired during the awards show, but it didn't reveal too much about what to expect from the game.

It's TRUE! We're working with @HBO to create an all-new episodic game series based on GAME OF THRONES in 2014! #VGX pic.twitter.com/d5GkhS2MOw

— Telltale Games (@telltalegames) December 8, 2013

"We'll be taking advantage of all the fiction to make something great," Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games, said during the announcement. "We're just really getting into it right now and thinking about characters — who has the most at stake, who has the biggest impact on the world."

iOS-Friendly Toys for Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:29:00 +0000

Your children love your iPad, but if they're expending too much time bound to the computer display, it might not be the kind of play that will advantage them the most.

As young kids use digital apparatus more and more, they overlook out on opportunities to work on fine engine abilities, spatial reasoning and other skills that need tactile play, rather than of the rather 2D know-how of tapping on a screen.
But just when you're thinking about taking that screen away from your media-saturated young kids, a new crop of playthings pops up that utilizes the iPad by taking it out of their hands, allowing them to perform other physical abilities as well as playing on your apparatus.

Here are 10 iOS-friendly playthings that permit your progeny to play on your iPad or iPhone without rotating them into mindless screen zombies. Some of them are so joy, you might address hanging up on them for yourself.

Why Did Apple Decide to Offer a Budget iPhone?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:24:00 +0000

Since September, Apple's iPhone happening has sparked numerous inquiries about iOS wireless development.

In the newest video of our inquire a Dev series, iOS architect Kevin Harwood presents responses to those questions, including why apple fruit chose to deal its allowance" iPhone 5C. He furthermore boasts cooperative resources for those beginning to develop iOS apps.

The new apple fruit A7 system-on-a-chip found in every iPhone 5S is two times as very quick as its A6 predecessor. The A7 furthermore inserts two times the level of improvement on graphics presentation, particularly clear-cut in gaming, and it opens the doorwayway for apps to be made with much quicker and more mighty 64-bit portion architecture in the future.

When considering Apple's conclusion to offer the iPhone 5C, Harwood states, "Apple's new strategy is going to be issuing a telephone at that cost point every year that's an revised newer form to extend the attack on the smaller cost variety of smartphones."

Lastly, Harwood suggests his very popular tools for app development on iOS encompassing, Apple's developer resource page and the video tutorials on Lynda.com. He furthermore proposes buying into in some Apress books for discovering Objective-C programming and other cipher syntax for the iOS platform.

Our developer experts are from Mutual wireless, a premier development and design firm that builds mobile schemes for peak companies such as Audi, Google and Citigroup. The group is eager to response your inquiries about wireless, so ping us with your top queries on Twitter, utilising the hashtag #AskaDev. Don't forget to check out our inquire a Dev YouTube channel and subscribe.