Technology Innovations - Technology Tips, Gadgets and Innovations

5 LinkedIn tips you may not have heard of

2015-01-12T03:42:00.000-08:00

From turning your LinkedIn profile into a resume, adding videos to your profile and creating your own personalized URL, here is a list of 5 LinkedIn tips guaranteed to bring a smile to your face

#1 Turn your LinkedIn profile into a resume

Your LinkedIn profile is one of the most powerful ways that can be used to demonstrate the potential of your professional abilities.

Use LinkedIn’s Resume Builder tool to quickly turn your LinkedIn profile into a resume:

http://resume.linkedinlabs.com/

You can choose a template, edit and export your profile as a PDF which can be later used for printing, e-mailing or just sharing.

#2 Personalize your public profile URL

Many of us who want to share our personal profile on LinkedIn have to share a URL with a number of characters attached to our URL.

If you want to simplify this, go to:

http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?editwp=#

Now, on the right hand side, you will get an option titled, Customize your Public Profile

Scroll down, and you will see an option titled, Your Public Profile ID. Type your desired name in the empty field after in.linkedin.com/in/ …………………………….

Save your profile. After 5 minutes or so, enter the url now, in.linkedin.com/in/jamessouza

(assuming the desired name is jamessouza)

Your custom LinkedIn URL is ready. Now, you can share your personal LinkedIn profile easily

#3 Add videos, images, documents and presentations to your LinkedIn profile

Did you know that you can add a variety of different documents to enhance your LinkedIn profile.

You can use this option to showcase the creativity or diversity of your work.

Learn how to do this here:

https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/34325/ft/eng

#4 Rearrange sections on your profile

Based on your preference, you can also re-arrange or remove sections on your LinkedIn profile . Go to the edit mode and hover your mouse over the two sided arrow option to enable the option of ‘Drag to re-arrange your profile sections’

#5 Get the best out of your LinkedIn account by exploring free LinkedIn webinars

LinkedIn Learning webinars allows one to attend free online presentations. You must register at least 24 hours in advance to receive the confirmation email containing instructions on how to join your session.

Learning Webinars are listed on LinkedIn’s page.

For more details, check:

https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/530

Latest in Medical Technology - First mind-controlled bionic leg

2013-10-16T02:35:00.003-07:00

Earlier amputated legs had to use sticks or wheel chairs for moving from one place to another. Technology is trying very successfully to bring more into use for medical use.

There is one such update in the medical line and that is world's first mind-controlled bionic leg.

Researched and launched by the Center for Bionic Medicine at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago revealed a new bionic leg. This bionic leg is designed with a robotic tech that operates based on feedback from the brain of the person connected to it.

The leg makes possible for people who have problems with knee-amputations, full leg amputation. The person with the use of this bionic leg will be able to walk, climb stairs and move the leg when seated. Working will be like a natural leg.

Bionic arms are already available but bionic legs are newly launched. A person who uses this leg will be able to walk around safely without anyone's help. This device obeys the instructions sent by brain and moves the leg as specified.

Pebble E-Paper Watch (iPhone & Android)

2013-09-20T14:17:00.003-07:00

A Smart-Watch is today's latest technology trend. Everyone is behind it , searching for new and grabbing the watch. The newly introduced Samsung's Galaxy Gear is one of them . The other being Pebble E-Paper watch.

The new range of smart watch introduced is Pebble E-Paper. This is a device that connects to your iPhone and Android device by Bluetooth.

Description will never end when you see this device. This is compatible with all iPhone ( 3GS, 4, 4S, 5). With Android devices it will work with OS 2.3 and later versions.

Technical Details

144 x 168 pixel display black and white e-paper
Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR and 4.0 (Low Energy)
4 buttons
Vibrating motor
3 axis accelerometer with gesture detection

What makes it good as compared to other smart watches:

The good points:

1. You don't have to reach into your pocket to see who is calling. That's especially handy when you are sitting down in a meeting and your pockets are as full as mine.

2. You have an option to send the call to voice mail from your watch if the call isn't urgent.

3. You can see text messages easily.

4. It's extensible.

5. Bluetooth connectivity is easy to setup

6. Waterproof

7. Screen is easy to see

Best buy from here:

Enjoy this latest gift of Smart watch by the new trend in technology.

New Smartwatch by Samsung - Galaxy Gear

2013-09-05T22:34:00.002-07:00

A new watch designed and introduced recently is the Samsung's Galaxy Gear Smart watch.

Looks like a watch , has exciting features which includes a Touch Screen, camera 1 M.P, play music, Apps, Settings, Contacts, Logs, Phone calls, etc.This smart watch is much bigger than any other watch.

This watch is not a replacement for your cellphone, if you are thinking so , whether the future tech will replace you cell. It has some other features which will excite you like connecting to any phone via Bluetooth, Memographer to take the photos and videos , Pedometer which tracks your physical activities. It has 512MB of RAM and an 800MHz processor.

Behind all this , I am very proud to state here, is the Indian brain, named Pranav Mistry, a Research Assistant , a PhD candidate at MIT’s Media Lab.

About Pranav Mistry: Born in Palanpur in Gujarat, he completed his masters of design from IIT Mumbai, following masters degree in media arts and sciences from MIT. Has worked with Microsoft as a UX researcher.

Moving on, with this Galaxy Gear Smart watch, you can make calls and receive too without your mobile , but the cell phone has to be there in your pocket. As I stated earlier, this smart watch is not a replacement for your cellphone, only thing is that you can make and receive calls without you taking the cellphone from your pocket.

This smart watch is announced and introduced in IFA 2013 on Wednesday, 4th Sept . But the official launch will be on 25th September 2013 across the globe.

The colours are Jet Black, Mocha Gray, Wild Orange, Oatmeal Beige, Rose Gold, and Lime Green.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/tech/all-you-need-to-know-about-samsungs-galaxy-gear-smartwatch-1085683.html?utm_source=ref_articleThe

smartwatch at IFA 2013 in Berlin at around 11.30pm IST on Wednesday. T

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/tech/all-you-need-to-know-about-samsungs-galaxy-gear-smartwatch-1085683.html?utm_source=ref_article

IFA 2013 in Berlin at around 11.30pm IST on Wednesday.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/tech/all-you-need-to-know-about-samsungs-galaxy-gear-smartwatch-1085683.html?utm_source=ref_article

The processor is 800 MHz and the smartwatch comes with 512 MB RAM and 4GB memory space. It has a 1.9 megapixel camera on the strap. The camera has BSI Sensor, Auto Focus and the ability to record and shoot videos as well. It has two microphones, ( 1 noise cancelling) and a speaker as well.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/tech/all-you-need-to-know-about-samsungs-galaxy-gear-smartwatch-1085683.html?utm_source=ref_article

How to find and sort Gmail messages by mail size

2013-09-03T23:26:00.003-07:00

Even though Google has constantly amazed us with new cool features such as themes, some basic features such as sorting Gmail sorted by size have been left out.

So, what is the solution? One solution is to manually search for big e-mails with attachments, by using the 'Show Search options' located at the top .

Another solution is to use the filename:pdf or filename:ppt or filename:mp3 in the Search Mail box to quickly find out messages which have attachments. For example, using filename:pdf will fetch you messages that have PDFs as attachments.

The other option is to use Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird, and use the sort by size criteria.

But, if you do not want to use any of the above suggestions, you can use an online tool that allows you to sort and find your large messages in Gmail. You do not have to download or install anything.

Just go to a website called www.findbigmail.com

Enter your Gmail address

The website will ask you for permission to access your Gmail. Just click the Grant Access button. The website will proceed to scan your Gmail box for large messages. Depending on the size of the inbox, it will neatly label large messages such as: FindBigMail > 2 Mb, FindBigMail > 500 KB. This can be seen on the right hand side of your Gmail inbox. If you click on any of these labels (say, FindBigMail > 2 Mb), you will get all the messages that are greater than 2 Mb. You can select these messages and delete the ones that you do not want.

What is great, is that this website will even send you a scan report after the complete scan. For example, a scan of my Gmail inbox revealed that I have 702 mails over 2 Mb, 2300 mails over 500 Kb and 5000 e-mails over 100 Kb. All I have to do now is to go to my Gmail inbox and clear out my mails which are huge in size.

Try this out and let me know

Tablets introduced for your kids too

2013-08-31T11:05:00.003-07:00

Technology is not only for grown ups. The future of Technology depends upon their hands and that they will bring some new innovations in the latest gadgets, tech devices, etc. Thinking of the fact that children are the future, Samsung has introduced a tablet that is for children only.

Latest updates in the world of technology and new innovations in technology is that Samsung has brought a child friendly tablet that is of 7 inch and which works on Android version 4.1. So you can say , that now children can also have an Android tablet.

The tablet is Galaxy Tab 3 kids which is presented with a parent friendly features. The apps that you can look forward to are educational apps with some games apps.

Have a look at the beautiful look of this latest tablet which will make your kids' eyebrows go up. Like any other tablet it has some special specifications.

Colorful, impressive makes it more attractive for kids. You and your kids will enjoy the other features like, 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 3-megapixel camera on the back and a 1-megapixel camera on the front, 8 GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot. C Pen which is useful for them to draw anything on it, etc.

It will be introduced in early Septemberin South Korea then later in U.S., Europe, China, Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.

Waiting is not so long. You can grab this for your toddlers and make them put their step in the new world of technology of Gadgets and Tablets.

Create snow fall, draw a heart, tilt and spin your screen – 5 amazing Google tricks you did not know

2011-12-28T04:14:00.000-08:00

We all know the power of a search engine like Google. You may also have explored all the relevant tips and tricks – but there is always something new and Google never ceases to amaze me.

Now, how about discovering some hidden gems in Google?

Let us start:

1. Copy paste the query below in Google:

(sqrt(cos(x))*cos(400*x)+sqrt (abs(x))-0.4)*(4-x*x)^0.1

Wait for a few seconds. Google will generate a graphical heart for you, that looks like this:

2. Type ‘let it snow’ in Google, and hit the enter button

Wait for a few seconds, you will see snowflakes coming from the top of the screen. Gradually, this fills up the entire screen with snow.

After some time, the whole page freezes, and you are not able to do anything. Use your mouse pointer to write on the screen, by holding down the mouse button. You will be able to write exactly as you write on your car window – when the rain or snow is falling outside. What’s more cool is the fact that you can click the + button and share this image with others.

Now the fun part - Google has also added a defrost function that allows you to defrost.

I have tried this in Firefox – and it works perfectly.

3. You can also search for ‘Merry Christmas’ and watch the screen decorated with Christmas lights.

4. If you type, Tilt, then you screen gets tilted

5. If your type, do a barrel roll, your screen will do a roll – literally!

Try this out and let me know your feedback! If you have more tricks, kindly share in the comments box below

How to identify unknown people from photographs?

2011-12-27T04:36:00.000-08:00

What do you do if you just had a photograph and desperately wanted to find out the name of the person? The digital file name of the photograph is named ‘DSC00980.jpg’. So the file name too does not help in understanding who the person could be?

Well, trust the king of search – Google to come up with an answer. You can use Google’s reverse image search option to find out similar images, and come up with an answer.

Here is how you can do this.

Type images.google.com on your browser

On images.google.com, you will find a ‘camera’ icon – located at the extreme right hand side of the search box. Click the ‘camera’ icon , and select ‘upload an image’. Select the image you want to use. Alternatively, you can also paste the image URL in the search box that opens up after you click the camera icon.

You will be pleasantly surprised by its accuracy.

Try it out and let me know your feedback!

How to send attachments via tweets in Twitter

2011-12-15T02:19:00.000-08:00

While Twitter is great for sharing information quickly, there is one thing that it does not have today - the ability to send attachments.

However, developers do spot opportunities - and accordingly, Pigeon Carrier, has been created to combine the strengths of Twitter and DropBox to create a service that is extremely useful.

With a Google Chrome or Firefox extension, you can effortlessly upload files to your DropBox using Twitter and then share the link with everybody.

You can download the Firefox extension here:
http://pigeoncarrier.com/pigeoncarrier.xpi

Here is how you can start using the service:

1. Visit Twitter and start a tweet
2. Click the "Add Attachment" button [This should be visible after you install the Firefox or Chrome Extension]
3. Authorize the extension with Dropbox
4. Attach the file required to Dropbox
5. Click "Attach" to insert the attachments
6. Send the Tweet

Future of construction - Flying robots build 20 feet tower

2011-12-10T00:07:00.000-08:00

How would you react if you were told that flying robots have actually built a 20-foot-tall tower at a museum in France. This is not a scene from a sci-fi film, but the reality. The constructed tower is 20 feet tall, and can house 30,000 people.

Called the "Flight Assembled Architecture", this was demonstrated at the FRAC Center Orleans, and is the work of Zurich robot maker Rafaello D’Andrea.

All an architect has to do is draw up a blueprint for a building, and computers and robots complete the task. This includes understanding the blueprint and controlling the flight of the flying robots. To fly safely, the robots reserve airspace so that only one flying vehicle flies in a particular flight path. This avoids collisions. The tower (once constructed) is also considered as reserved airspace – to avoid collisions with the tower itself. Each flying root uses three pins to puncture, hold, and carry the bricks while a motion capture system on the ceiling directs where the foam bricks have to be placed.

The possibilities are bright. Think of a village devastated by earthquakes or any such natural or man made disaster where people have to be quickly provided shelter. These flying robots could provide the necessary shelter much quicker than anybody can do.

To watch the flying robots in action, see the video below:

How to shade alternate rows in Excel for easy reading

2011-12-03T06:08:00.000-08:00

If your job entitles poring over boring Excel sheets, and you are straining your eyes to identify information in such sheets, here is a nice and useful technology tip to shade alternate rows in Excel

Shading alternate rows in Excel can be extremely useful for identifying numbers or text quickly. For doing this, you can take advantage of a featured called 'Conditional Formatting' in Microsoft Excel.

This feature is extremely useful when we have Microsoft Excel sheets running into huge number of rows and columns. Identifying information or data in this maze of rows and columns is extremely difficult.

Just follow the steps below for doing this:

1. Highlight the range of cells that you want to format
2. Choose Format from the pull-down menu
3. Select Conditional Formatting to display the Conditional Formatting dialog box
4. Select Formula Is from the first drop-down list box, and enter =MOD(ROW(),2)=0 in the second box
5. Click the Format button to bring up the Format Cells dialog box
6. Select the Patterns tab and specify a color for the shaded rows. Choose a light color so the black text will still be legible
7. Click OK twice to return to your worksheet

You will find that you have successfully managed to paint alternate rows in different colors - allowing information to be easily identifiable.

How to open more than 70 different file types with one free application

2011-12-03T05:56:00.000-08:00

Don't rub your eyes. Yes, you can open not one, but 75 different file formats with just one application.

Appropriately named Free Opener, you can download the application at the following link:

http://www.freeopener.com/

This free file viewer has the capability to open up Microsoft Office files, PDF files, music files, video files, zip files and more.

The following file formats can be opened:

1. Web Pages (.htm, .html)
2. Photoshop Documents (.psd)
3. Images (.bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .tiff)
4. XML Files (.resx, .xml)
5. PowerPoint® Presentations (.ppt, .pptx)
6. Media (.avi, .flv, .mid, .mkv, .mp3, .mp4, .mpeg, .mpg, .mov, .wav, .wmv)
7. Microsoft® Word Documents (.doc, .docx)
8. Archives (.jar, .zip)
9. RAW Images (.arw, .cf2, .cr2, .crw, .dng, .erf, .mef, .mrw, .nef, .orf, .pef, .raf, .raw, .sr2, .x3f)
10. Icons (.ico)
11. Torrent (.torrent)
12. Flash Animation (.swf)
13. Rich Text Format (.rtf)
14. Apple Pages (.pages)
15. Microsoft® Excel Documents (.xls, .xlsm, .xlsx)
16. Outlook Messages (.msg)
17. PDF Documents (.pdf)
18. Icons (.ico)
19. Torrent (.torrent)
20. Flash Animation (.swf)
21. Rich Text Format (.rtf)
22. Apple Pages (.pages)
23. Microsoft® Excel Documents (.xls, .xlsm, .xlsx)
24. Outlook Messages (.msg)
25. PDF Documents (.pdf)
26. vCard Files (.vcf)

This application is perfect if you ever had a challenge in opening up a file, or if you needed multiple programs to open different types of files.

The only problem with this free application is that it installs a lot of software without confirmation such as .NET or Adobe Flash ActiveX Object.

But when you consider the advantages of a free application that opens up multiple file formats without the need to install specific application software, Free Opener is a good choice.

Check out and download Free Opener at the following link:
http://www.freeopener.com/

Circle Hack: Get circles in Facebook like Google +

2011-10-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

If you have been raving about the Circles feature in Google +, you now have the option of having the same in Facebook too. This comes courtesy a Facebook application, called Circle Hack (www.circlehack.com).

To use this, first go to the website, www.circlehack.com

Allow the application access as you normally do for any other Facebook application.

Once logged in, you will be presented with a page where there are two distinct sections. The first section, shows your friends, and the bottom section, shows circles. You can select an appropriate circle, and add them to the circle or group.

Once you have finished adding or grouping your friends in circles, you can click on the ‘Create List’ link that appears in the center of your new circle. This new list is now listed as an option in the ‘Friends’ section.

While this sounds to be great, there are some minor (or major) problems. For starters, you simply cannot remove a friend from a list by dragging them out of it. Deleting circles is also not possible. You also have to change privacy settings, by logging in to Facebook

All in all, a nice start – but a long way to go!

20 free zip software and alternatives to Winzip and WinRar

2011-10-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

While Winzip has enjoyed huge popularity all these years, it is unfortunately paid. Fortunately for us, there are numerous alternatives in the form of free zip software, which are equally good, if not better for zipping files and unzipping them.

Here is the list:

1. jZip (http://www.jzip.com/)
2. 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/)
3. PeaZip (http://www.peazip.org/)
4. Zipgenuis (http://www.zipgenius.com/)
5. ArcConvert (http://sourceforge.net/projects/archivconvert/)
6. ExtractNow (http://www.extractnow.com/)
7. QuickZip (http://www.quickzip.org/)
8. PowerArchiver (http://www.powerarchiver.com/2010/07/01/powerarchiver-free-happy-4th-of-july/)
9. ZipSelect (http://www.muenster.de/~dambergj/archive/zipselect.htm)
10. FreeZip (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/)
11. IZArc (http://www.izarc.org/)
12. CoffeeCup (http://www.coffeecup.com/zip-wizard/
13. CAMunzip (http://www.camunzip.com/)
14. Bitser (http://www.bitser.org/)
15. ZipitFast (http://www.zipitfast.com/)
16. ZipArchiver (http://ziparchiver.hamstersoft.com/en/)
17. ALZip (http://www.altools.com/Downloads/ALZip.aspx)
18. ZipWiz (http://www.zipwiz.com/ZipWiz/download_main.html)
19. ZipReader (http://comm.pkware.com/zipreader-download.html)
20. JustZipit (http://free-backup.info/justzipit.html)

If there are more, please let us know

Classify and identify photographs automatically using Picasa

2011-07-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

How wonderful would it be if we had a software solution that automatically identifies names of people from a bunch of digital photographs? Well, you now have a solution, thanks to Google, which owns Picasa.

Picasa makes use of advanced face recognition technology to scan photographs for faces, and then groups these photographs as different sets of people.

So, once you tag the name of a person in a photograph, Picasa has the ability to automatically identify the person across different photographs. It is then our task to confirm the names against the photographs that it guesses. So, when you have a massive set of photographs located across your hard disk drive or on the web, Picasa can present a huge list of photographs with the same face, and you can confirm and label them all with a single click.

Check out the web based and desktop versions at:
www.picasa.google.com

How to transfer and send huge files

2011-07-17T02:19:00.000-07:00

What if you wanted to send a huge file to your friend, but did not want to use the standard options such as Rapidshare or any other upload website.

Take a look at Sendoid, accessible at the website, www.sendoid.com

The greatest advantage with Sendoid is that it allows you to instantly share files from your own computer. It uses peer to peer sharing technologies (P2P) to transfer large files – which means that files are never uploaded to any website or server.

Once you point to a file using Sendoid, the website will create a link that you can send to your friend for sharing – just like bit.ly does. Once your friend clicks on the link sent by you, Sendoid then directly transfers the file from your computer to your friend's PC. Think of this service like a fax that sends data from one end to another.

You can use the website to send files up to 1 GB. However, if you want to share a larger file, use the desktop edition that allows one to transfer large files beyond 1 GB.

All that one has to remember is that both your desktops need to be online at the time of transfer. In case of a shutdown of one computer, or in case the Internet connection breaks down at one or both the ends, Sendoid has the ability to resume partial downloads and restart downloads.

You can access the website at www.sendoid.com

Ensure privacy on Facebook with a simple tool

2011-07-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

As a normal Facebook user, you would want to control who has access to your wall posts. Most of the times, we are confused why our friend’s friend can see our wall posts – even if the friend’s friend is not directly connected to us.

While there are enough privacy controls in Facebook, a majority of these are so complex, that it is extremely tough for an average user to implement them.
Is there a simpler option? Yes, there is. Head over to a simple but great website called www.reclaimprivacy.org

Instead of reading, implementing and interpreting hundreds of privacy rules, this website gives us a simple and clutter free way to understand the areas where we can be vulnerable and weak with respect to privacy on Facebook.

All you have to do is go to this website, and drag the bookmark into your Firefox browser. Next, log on to your Facebook user account, and click the ‘Scan for Privacy’ bookmark. For me, it was an eye opener.

The website reveals the key areas where Facebook can share information such as contacts, connections or photos with tags to the public. It also looks at the kind of applications that are connected to your Facebook account. It then classifies the areas from where information could be leaked.

Using this website, one can then proceed to change the insecure settings, as pointed out by the website.

Check out the website at:
www.reclaimprivacy.org

How to find and sort large e-mails in Gmail

2011-07-16T04:11:00.000-07:00

While Google's popular e-mail service has taken the world by storm, it lacks one big feature. This is the ability to sort your e-mail messages by size.

So, if you get a mail size warning from Google asking you to clean up your box, you typically end up using the search function. You do this by using the 'Show Search options' located in the top bar.

Another solution is to use the 'filename:' command in the Search Mail box to quickly find out messages which have attachments. For example, using filename:ppt will fetch you messages that have power point slides as attachments.

But, the most simplest way to do this is to use an online service that allows you to sort and find your large messages in Gmail. The advantage - you do not have to download or install anything.

The website is called findbigmail.com

All you have to is enter your gmail address. The website will then ask you permission to access your gmail account. Then click the Grant Access button. The website will proceed to scan your gmail inbox for large messages. Depending on the size of the inbox, it will neatly categorize large messages such as: FindBigMail > 2 Mb, FindBigMail > 500 KB. This can be seen on the right hand side of your Gmail inbox. If you click on any of these labels (say, FindBigMail > 1 Mb), you will get all the messages that are greater than 1 Mb.

You can now quickly select the large messages and delete the ones that you do not want. You can also avail of a free scan report that the website sends to your gmail id after the complete scan.

Access the website at: findbigmail.com