YASI | Tech News

LG Gram 15 review

2016-01-11T10:59:00.001-08:00

LG hasn't always been known for its laptops, but it's made some major headway in the states, bringing forth two lightweight 13- and 14-inch models.

Now, with the Gram 15, LG says it has introduced the world's lightest 15.6-inch laptop – and with the Gram 15 Weighing in at 0.98kg (2.16 pounds), the same as its 14-inch notebook, LG is pretty much on the money.

The new notebook is freakishly light, and when viewed from the side it's also bafflingly thin. Just to put the Gram 15 in perspective, the 11-inch MacBook Air weighs 1.09kg (2.38 pounds). The weight savings come largely thanks to the LG Gram 15 being made of a magnesium shell, which is considerably lighter than the aluminum alloy used by most laptop manufacturers.

LG's minimalistic styling of the Gram comes as a refreshing and stark contrast to other laptop manufacturers. You won't find any specially cut edges, soft-touch paint or overbearing logos. The only bit of flair you'll find on the Gram 15 is LG's logo, pushed over to the top-right corner of the screen lid.

The lightweight material choice comes at the cost of some rigidity, however. While the laptop's base feels nice and solid, the display is unsettlingly flexible, almost to the point of feeling flimsy.

That said, there are some things to like about the Gram 15's design. Firstly, the bezels are slim all around the edges of the display, and LG has even moved the webcam to the hinge just to shave off a few millimeters of black border around the screen. These tweaks make the Gram 15's footprint just a tad smaller than your typical 15-inch laptop.

LG as also bumped up the display resolution to 1,920 x 1,080 given the larger screen. The display largely comes off as average, with decent viewing angles and accurate colors, but nothing about it makes me smile with glee.

Despite all the nip-tucking this machine has seen, you'll still find a set of full-size ports along its sides, including two USB 3.0, one USB 2.0, HDMI, USB-C and a SD card slot. What's more, there's Intel Core I power bubbling under the hood, with the choice of either an i5 or i7 processor. 8GB of RAM comes as standard, leaving you to choose between 256GB and 512GB storage options.

However, a few details are being kept in the dark. LG has been mum on expected battery life, and the South Korean firm has also yet to release the all-important pricing details, while announcing a wide availability window of sometime in mid-2016.

The LG Gram 15 is without a doubt the lightest 15-inch laptop in the world, but I'm concerned that too much may have sacrificed in order to hit this headline point. The flimsy screen is inadmissible by today's build quality standards, and the lack of a battery life figure isn't encouraging either.

However, LG is on the right track with certain elements of the Gram 15. The minimalistic styling is a nice change of pace compared to some over-designed laptops, and the screen bezels are a treat too.

Top 10 keyboard shortcuts everyone should know

2016-01-09T15:16:00.000-08:00

Using keyboard shortcuts can greatly increase your productivity, reduce repetitive strain, and help keep you focused. For example, to copy text, you can highlight text and press the Ctrl + C shortcut. The shortcut is faster than moving your hands from the keyboard, highlighting with the mouse, choosing copy from the file menu, and then returning to the keyboard.

Below are the top 10 keyboard shortcuts we recommend everyone memorize and use.

Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert and Ctrl + X

Both Ctrl + C and Ctrl + Insert will copy the highlighted text or selected item. If you want to cut instead of copy press Ctrl + X.

Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert

Both the Ctrl + V and Shift + Insert will paste the text or object that's in the clipboard.

Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y

Pressing Ctrl + Z will Undo any change. For example, if you cut text, pressing this will undo it. These shortcuts can also be pressed multiple times to undo or redo multiple changes. Pressing Ctrl + Y would redo the undo.

Ctrl + F

Pressing Ctrl + F opens the Find in any program. Ctrl + F includes your Internet browser to find text on the current page. Press Ctrl + F now to open the Find in your browser and search for "shortcut" to find each time shortcut is mentioned on this page.

Alt + Tab or Ctrl + Tab

Pressing Alt + Tab switches between open programs moving forward. For example, if you have your browser window open and other programs running in the background press and hold Alt and then press tab to cycle through each open program.

Ctrl + Back space and Ctrl + Left or Right arrow

Pressing Ctrl + Backspace will delete a full word at a time instead of a single character.

Holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the left or right arrow will move the cursor one word at a time instead of one character at a time. If you want to highlight one word at a time, hold down Ctrl + Shift and then press the left or right arrow key to move one word at a time in that direction while highlighting each word.

Ctrl + S

While working on a document or other file in almost every program, pressing Ctrl + S saves that file. Use this shortcut key frequently if you're working on anything important in case an error happens, you lose power, or other problem that causes you to lose any work

since the last save.

Ctrl + Home or Ctrl + End

Ctrl + Home will move the cursor to the beginning of the document, and Ctrl + End will move the cursor to the end of a document. These shortcuts work with most documents, as well as web pages.

Ctrl + P

Open a print preview of the current page or document being viewed. For example, press Ctrl + P now to view a print preview of this page.

Page Up, Space bar, and Page Down

Pressing either the page up or page down key will move that page one page at a time in that direction. When browsing the Internet, pressing the space bar also moves the page down one page at a time.

Does Valve writer's resignation mean the end of the Half-Life 3 dream?

2016-01-09T10:01:00.000-08:00

Marc Laidlaw, one of the driving forces behind the design of the Half-Life series, has left his position at Valve and seemingly retired from the business of game-making.

That's a blow for anyone expecting a third chapter in the series - Laidlaw was the man in charge of scripting the first two instalments as well as designing the levels for them. In an emailed response he said he's left Valve to focus on other writing projects.

"I had a good run but lately I have been feeling a need for a break from the collaborative chaos of game production, and a return to more self-directed writing projects," he wrote.

So now he's no longer at Valve, what is his ex-employer going to do about Half-Life 3? Laidlaw says he just doesn't know: "I don't and can't entirely know [what's happening]. Where Valve may choose to take it in the future is not in my hands... it would be inappropriate for me to answer questions or speculate openly on the fate of the franchise."

That leaves the door open for Half-Life 3 to eventually make a dramatic return - the second in the series came out way back in 2004 - but without Laidlaw on the team it could feel significantly different to its predecessors.

Or maybe he finished it just before resigning. We can dream, can't we?

Speculation surrounding a possible third Half-Life game has turned into something of a running joke at this point. "The only reason we'd go back and do like a super classic kind of product is if a whole bunch of people just internally at Valve said they wanted to do it," said Valve co-founder Gabe Newell last year, clearing up absolutely nothing.

Will Valve confound us all and release Half-Life 3 as the flagship launch title for the HTC Vive? Would that even be the right fit without the ability to move completely free of wires? We'll have to wait and see.

Best free Mac apps : Best apps you can have for FREE

2016-01-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

There are free apps and there are free apps. The App Store has given free apps as a whole a bit of a bad name. Take look at the top 10 free apps on the store and it’s not very enlightening. Of course, OS X Yosemite is the most downloaded free app there. Look for others and once again the results aren’t much help. It’s almost as if Apple doesn’t want you to find the really good stuff.
Sure, the free apps aren’t as fully-featured as their commercial counterparts, but how many of those missing features do you need? In every instance featured here, the free app does the basics, and sometimes much more, very well.
You won’t find any demos or trial versions in our collection, though some of our choices offer in-app purchases. Make no mistake that the in-app purchases provide additional features and functions, but they’re not necessary to do the basics.
Wunderlist is a prime example of how good free apps can be. Its free version is so good that we wonder how its paid-for rivals manage to survive. There are other benefits to using free software. Much of it is open source and uses open document formats, rather than the proprietary formats favoured by applications like Adobe Photoshop. That makes it much easier to swap documents between applications, and offers a degree of future-proofing too.
Even Microsoft Office demonstrates this; for the best part of a decade, it has used a documented XML format, enabling your documents to be opened in free alternatives such as LibreOffice, although some content may look different in them.
Can you use these tools in a professional workflow? Absolutely. Many of them are used in just that way. There are magazines laid out in Scribus, for example, and Google Docs is widely used for collaborative working in large organisations.
The best thing about free apps, of course, is that trying them costs nothing other than your time. Download them, have a go. If it turns out they suit your needs, you’ve saved yourself some money.
> Pixlr

Autodesk has a fine history of producing free apps. SketchBook Express and Motion FX are two of the better ones, and Pixlr is another. It enables you to easily edit images, add effects and filters, and blend one image with another. You can crop, straighten and re-size images.
The app’s auto fix feature adjusts colour and lighting at the click of a button. Some of Pixlr’s effects aren’t to our taste, but with hundreds to choose from you should have no difficulty finding some you like.
In addition to myriad visual effects, there are 340 overlays and 200 borders, so you can create over two million combinations.
Pixlr’s tools are laid out down the left-hand side of the image you’re working on. Clicking a tool opens a panel to display its options, with a thumbnail preview of its effect to show how it will affect your image. You can also adjust the intensity of effects before applying them.
Setting up a free pixlr.com account unlocks a few advanced features). There are no selection tools in the free versions of Pixlr, though if you pay £1.49 per month or £10.99 per year for a Pro membership, you gain access to selection and masking tools, among other things.
If you use photo-editing apps mainly for tuning up images and adding effects before sharing them, Pxlr is ideal, packed with features and it won’t cost you a penny.
> Inkscape

Inkscape is a vector drawing app with all the key tools you’d expect in an application of its type. So there’s a pen tool that enables you to draw Beziér curves, you can add text, and you can manipulate objects using the selection tools. It’s also easy to clone, copy and paste objects, and place them on separate layers.
If you’ve used Adobe Illustrator, you might find Inkscape takes a bit of getting used to because many tools they have in common have different names and aren’t where you might expect. Most are present, though. Take Illustrator’s Pathfinder palette, for example. In Inkscape, the same options for combining objects are called Boolean operations.
There’s a tool similar to Illustrator’s Live Trace, which assists in turning a sketch or a bitmap image into vector art. And the use of nodes on paths makes them easy to edit; their apperance changes to indicate different features, and they can be selected, moved, rotated, and scaled using keyboard shortcuts – a godsend if constantly clicking and selecting with a pointer drives you up the wall.
New features in the latest release (0.91) include enhancements to the Find/Replace tool, a new Measurement tool, and a feature that allows you to swap the positions of selected objects or their stacking order.
There are tools missing when compared with Illustrator; there’s still no gradient mesh tool or proper colour management, but new features are being added all the time.
> Wunderlist

Describing Wunderlist as a list making app is a bit like describing Photoshop as a tool for editing photographs. It is a list-making app, but oh, what lists! You can use it to make anything from shopping lists to work schedules, and you can set alerts to remind you to perform tasks. Lists can be shared with colleagues and tasks delegated, and you can even publish them on the web for anyone to see when you send them the address.
Best of all, Wunderlist on the Mac syncs with Wunderlist on iOS, so you can create lists on one device and have them immediately – and we mean immediately – available on another. The iPhone version also includes an app for Apple Watch, which alerts you to tasks you need to complete. It’s also possible to break down large tasks into subtasks. The Activity Center alerts you as things happen on lists that you share with others – say, when a task is delegated to you.
Wunderlist couldn’t be easier to use and sports the kind of collaborative features and syncing tools you’d normally have to pay a great deal for – Things, for example, charges you separately for its Mac and iOS versions, in order that you can sync them.
Wunderlist looks great too, with a choice of photographic backgrounds which work particularly well full-screen on the Mac. The app is quite simply brilliant. Get it.
> Scribus

If you need a free tool for a printed project, this one’s well-worth a try. Scribus is an open-source page layout app which claims to offer press-ready output. Several small magazines use it in their production workflow and it’s not difficult to see why when you look at the available features. Colour separations? Check. Support for CMYK and spot colours? Check? ICC colour profiles? Plenty of control over PDF output? You get the idea.
Scribus uses an open-source file format, which has been updated in the latest release, 1.5, and doesn’t support older versions of the app. That’s not a problem if you haven’t used Scribus before. More of an issue might be the lack of support for InDesign and QuarkXPress files. But don’t let that put you off.
Scribus can open just about any image file you’re likely to need, and the latest version is able to store bitmap images, rather than just link to them.
There’s also a new feature called Symbols, which modifies instances of an object when the master item is modified. Version 1.5 also includes new type features. Associated licensing costs means there are no Pantone colour palettes in Scribus, but there are over 100 other colour palettes including several with colour schemes of large organisations.
The interface, like many open-source tools, takes a bit of getting used to, but you’ll find plenty of help and tutorials in the Scribus wiki.
> Dashlane

Dashlane is a password manager which uses 256-bit AES encryption to securely store passwords and other private data. Browser plug-ins for Safari, Firefox and Chrome enable you to generate secure passwords and save them, autofill those you’ve already saved, and automatically fill out forms. Unlike 1Password, Dashlane lacks a menu bar icon, so you’ll either have to open the app or a browser to access Dashlane’s features and data.
In addition to logins, Dashlane can store payment data (credit card numbers and bank account details), secure notes, and receipts.
In addition, its bold, bright dashboard leaves you in no doubt as to the integrity of your data.
You’ll have to pay £20.99 per year if you want to sync passwords between your Mac and iOS devices. If not, Dashlane is free and a match for 1Password.
> Sunrise

Sunrise was recently acquired by Microsoft. But don’t let that put you off, because it’s still free. It’s often billed as an alternative to OS X’s Calendar app, but it’s much more than that.
Sunrise can connect to Google Calendar, iCloud and Microsoft Exchange, as you’d expect. Of course, it’s also able to import your existing calendars. Beyond that, you can also link Sunrise to social media accounts such as FourSquare. By doing so, when you use FourSquare to check in every time you go to work or the gym, Sunrise will display a record of how many times you’ve gone to that place during the month.
The app also supports Facebook event invitations, enabling you to respond to them within the app rather than going to the website. And, like all the best calendar apps, Sunrise supports natural language input for creating events.
> Cross DJ Free

Well-practised and aspiring DJs will love Cross DJ Free because it can import tracks from your iTunes Library, and from elsewhere as long as they are MP3, AAC, AIFF, FLAC or Apple Lossless files. It sports a mixer with three-band equaliser, volume faders, cross-fader, and level meters. Naturally, it includes beat matching too.
The app works with all the major brands of decks and controllers, with the exception of those designed specifically for Traktor Pro. You can only use two decks, rather than the four available in Traktor Pro. There’s no automatic cueing or cross-fading of tracks, and no automatic key detection either.
However, Cross DJ Free has plenty to offer the bedroom DJ, and if you want to go further and mix video too, the full version of Cross DJ is only £22.99.
> Darktable

Darktable takes photos in the Raw format captured by your camera’s sensor and makes non-destructive edits to them. It works as a database, with a series of modules that perform operations on records (photos). For example, the Collect module enables you to search for images by tag, rating, and other metadata.
Other modules enable you to crop and rotate images, perform curve adjustments to change a picture’s tonality, and recover blown out highlights. Several modules add artistic effects: watermarks, frames, and vignettes, and you can soften images, add grain and simulate human low light vision.
Darktable’s modular, openâ€‘source nature means it’s constantly evolving. Check it out if you miss Aperture’s processing tools and don’t want to spend on Lightroom.
> LibreOffice

If Office 2016 seems too expensive, you’ll find plenty of alternatives both as web and Mac apps. The best of the latter category is LibreOffice, a full-featured office suite which surpasses Microsoft Office for Mac when it comes to the sheer number of apps bundled within it.
It lacks an equivalent of Outlook, but in other respects LibreOffice matches Office 2011. As well as modules for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, there’s a database, a drawing program, a database tool, a formulae and equations tool, and an app for creating and editing charts. There are also add-ons created by a huge community of developers, demonstrating one of the suite’s strengths as open-source software.
What’s more, LibreOffice supports a large number of file formats, including Microsoft’s proprietary .doc and .xls and XML-based .docx and .xlsx extensions.
If you think LibreOffice may be a lightweight alternative to Microsoft’s behemoth, think again. Writer, for example, includes features for adding comments, tracking revisions, and accepting or rejecting changes. It’s spelling and grammar checker are excellent, and it has a large gallery of symbols, shapes and other graphics. Long document support is also great thanks to support for creating indexes, bibliographies, and tables of contents.
However, Writer does lack the page layout mode available in both Microsoft’s Word 2011 and Apple’s Pages, meaning that everything must be done inline. You can’t, for example, create text boxes and place holders for images and drag them around the page. For a free way to do that, try Scribus.
The inestimable value of free
Calc, the spreadsheet tool, doesn’t support Visual Basic macros, but it does have plenty of other commendable features.
The conditional formatting tool is excellent, for example. There’s a Scenario Manager to allow you to perform complex ‘What If…’ analyses, and a solver component which allows you to solve optimisation problems where the optimum value of a particular cell is dependent on constraints provided in other cells.
LibreOffice’s presentation component, Impress, lacks some of the user interface refinement of Keynote and PowerPoint, and it lacks keyboard shortcuts, but it’s powerful enough for most of us. It has drawing and diagramming tools, animation and effects, and the Fontwork tool enables you to create 2D and 3D images from text. When it’s time to deliver your presentation, the slideshow mode allows you to choose between automatic and manual modes, set the duration for which slides are shown, and decide whether the pointer is visible. Impress supports multiple displays, enabling you to see the upcoming slide and your notes while the audience sees the current slide in the presentation.
Base, the database tool, acts as a front-end to several engines, including MySQL and Microsoft’s Access. However, it can also be used as a simple, standalone database. There are wizards to help you set up a database, and it can integrate with other LibreOffice apps. So, for example, Base can be used to hold records for a mail merge in Writer.
Draw can be used to create anything from quick sketches to technical drawings up to 300x300cm in size. It’s strength, though, is as a diagramming and charting tool. Whether you need to draw an organisation chart, flowchart, or network chart, you’ll find the tools you need here. Smart connectors and glue points make it relatively simple to put charts together, and dimension lines automatically calculate and display linear dimensions as you draw.
Math, the equations and formula editor can be run as a standalone tool or provide its services from within any of the suite’s other components. Formulas can contain a range of elements including fractions, integrals, mathematical functions, and matrices. Like Math, Charts can be called from within any LibreOffice component. It allows you to create different types and styles of charts by simply providing it with the data to be presented.

Bursting with content
The latest version of LibreOffice, 4.4.3 or later, includes several new features, including the ability to digitally sign PDFs, and to share them on SharePoint, Microsoft’s OneDrive, and CMIS-based content management systems.
This version also sees an overhaul of the user interface, with new menus and toolbars, a re-designed sidebar and a new colour manager. Version tracking capabilities have been beefed up too.
Key to LibreOffice’s appeal are the vast array of extensions and templates that are available for it. These are developed by a community of developers and LibreOffice enthusiasts, and they cover a wide range of features. Among many others, there are extensions to add a clip art gallery, support for importing and exporting to Google Docs and Zoho Office, several language tools that add support for dictionaries in languages other than English.
While the templates available may lack the polish of those included with Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps, that’s made up for in sheer quantity. There are hundreds of templates covering just about every kind of use you can image for a word-processing tool or spreadsheet.
If you’ve tried LibreOffice in the past and found it lacking, give it another go now because the latest version really is excellent.
> GIMP

Gimp, an open-source bitmap image editor, has been around for as long as OS X. If your Mac runs Mountain Lion or later, you can install it as a native application, otherwise you’ll have to install X11 first.
While the app’s interface is very different to Photoshop, many tools found in Adobe’s heavyweight image editor are also provided here. There’s the lasso and magic wand for selection, a pen tool for drawing Bézier paths, a paintbrush, and a clone stamp. You can build up your images on multiple layers, too.
Some tools can be hard to find if you’re used to something Photoshop – the Levels dialog is in the Color menu, for example. The good news is that the interface is customisable, so you can set it up just how you like, and have different environments for different tasks.
The app includes a full set of painting tools, including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, and Clone. It features a powerful gradient editor and a blend tool, and you can import custom brushes and patterns. There’s full support for multiple layers and channels, including alpha channels, and the number of undo operations you can perform are limited only by the amount of disk space that’s available.
Tailor-made features
For selecting pixels, familiar rectangle, rounded rectangle, and lasso tools have you covered, as well as advanced path tools for creating Bézier curve and polygonal selections. Transformation tools include rotate, scale, shear and flip, and there are tools to fix lens distortion, barrel distortion and vignetting.
Perhaps Gimp’s most important feature is that it’s extensible. Anyone can create plug-ins for it and share them – over 100 are already available. Plug-ins can be written using the Scheme, Python and Perl languages, and this scripting language support allows Gimp to be automated too.
Gimp isn’t perfect, of course. Its Text tool is in need of much improvement, and there are none of the 3D tools available in Photoshop to be found here. Nor does it support anything like Photoshop’s non-destructive Adjustment Layers for easy experimentation with colour changes. Other missing features are taken care of by third party plug-ins, such as support for the CMYK colour space, which is available in Separate+.
Gimp is not a complete replacement for Photoshop, but it provides so many features found in Adobe’s venerable bitmap editor that, for most purposes, it’s a perfectly usable alternative. Thorough documentation and tutorials make it relatively easy to get started, and a large development community and user base mean Gimp’s constantly evolving.
> PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a free online photo editor that is able to import photos from your Mac, or a Dropbox, Facebook or Flickr account. It includes an auto-adjust feature that enables you to make one-click improvements to your images. It also includes tools that enable you to crop, sharpen, resize and adjust the colours in your photo.
The app’s portrait tools enable retouching of skin, removing blemishes and even giving someone a spray tan. You can dramatically alter the look of your pictures with a cross-process effect, giving them unusual contrast and colours, and you can embellish them with text, an overlaid texture or a frame.
The basic editing tools are free, though you’ll have to put up with banner ads. For $4.99 (about £3) per month or $33 (about £21) per year, the Royale version removes ads and has more filters, fonts, and themes.
> Blender

Blender is an open-source 3D animation and modelling tool. It incorporates a full game engine, enabling you to create a 3D game inside the app. It has photo-realistic shading with support for Open Shading Language, and it provides shaders for glass and translucency. A comprehensive set of rigging tools makes posing characters easy, and a pose editor and sound synchronisation enable you to bring your characters to life.
> Lightworks

Move over Final Cut Pro X. Lightworks boasts supports for formats from SD to 4K and it can import, render, and export in the background while you carry on working. It has real-time effects, multi-camera editing and an interface that’s customisable. There’s a wealth of help in the form of tutorials to get you started. The Pro version (£249.99) adds support for hardware from Blackmagic, AJA and Matrox.
> TextWrangler

BBEdit has been the de facto text editor on the Mac for over a decade. TextWrangler is its free sibling and yet still packs in syntax colouring, cold folding – where you can show and hide sections of code – and direct access to files stored on FTP servers.
There are some tools missing from BBEdit, such as its Scratchpad ability to read from and write to Zip archives, but TextWrangler is a free app that should be in every Mac user’s arsenal.
> Studio One

Studio One is undergoing something of a transition, and the new free version, now called Studio One Prime, wasn’t available as this issue went to press. However, it promises unlimited audio tracks, virtual instruments, FX and buses. It also enables real-time audio time stretching, resampling and normalisation. Nine audio native effects wil be accompanied by a single virtual instrument. Going by its predecessor, Studio One 2, Prime will be worth your time.
> Cyberduck

Cyberduck costs £16.99 from the Mac App Store, yet it’s available for free (or with a donation) from its website. It’s used to transfer files to and from FTP, SFTP, and WebDAV servers, and to Amazon CloudFront and S3, Google Cloud Storage and Rackspace Cloud Files. Servers can be bookmarked and added to Finder for quick access, and files can be edited directly from a server. There’s no two-pane view of local and remote files, but the app is otherwise excellent.
> Audacity

One of the longest-standing free apps for OS X, Audacity is the perfect tool for making quick edits to audio files. The most recent version, 2.1, adds real-time previews of Audio Unit and BST effects. It also features a new noise removal tool, and the Spectral Selection feature allows you to click and drag to select frequency ranges to manipulate, as well as time periods. If you need to edit audio on a Mac, this is the best place to start.
> When it's worth paying

Although we’ve been singing the praises of free software in this feature, that isn’t to say you should ignore every app that has a price tag attached. These days you can buy highly capable apps of all kinds at affordable prices; something that might be attributed to Apple’s app stores skewing prices downwards. Many of these apps are far more ambitious than their price and your previous experience of low-cost software might suggest. We’re talking about the likes of Affinity Designer, Pixelmator and OneNote, which are strong, capable rivals to big names such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and Evernote. Spending a relatively small amount encourages developers of these apps to continue investing effort in new features, which these days often come at a steady pace, and often without having to pay for a whole new version.

Oracle Java to be removed from Android devices, says Google

2015-12-30T13:06:00.001-08:00

With both firms locked in a legal battle, Google won't be using Java APIs anymore

Android devices will no longer be using Java-based application programming interfaces (APIs), Google confirmed in a recent statement. Instead, the search engine giant will instead be rolling out an alternative OpenJDK, which is essentially an open source take on its own Java Development Kit.

While the change itself isn't too monumental (only 8,902 files will actually be affected by the switch), Google has been quick to state the change will likely better the platform, providing a single, uniform Java foundation for developers to use and modify.

And while it's yet to be confirmed, it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to assume this change has come as a direct result of the legal dispute between Google and Java creator Oracle. The spat began back in 2010 when Oracle sued Google for copyright infringement, stating the firm had been using its Java APIs improperly. In 2012, a court deemed Google hadn't breached copyright laws, but the decision was reversed in Federal court two years later.

Facebook Testing Topical Feeds

2015-12-30T12:42:00.003-08:00

According to new reports, Facebook is testing several interest-based news feeds on mobile.
First spotted by Jason Stein, founder and CEO of Laundry Service, the new mobile feature allows users to browse numerous feeds, rather than having all of the content on one aggregated news feed. "People have told us they’d like new options to see and have conversations about more stories on Facebook around specific topics they’re interested in," a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Time. "So we are testing feeds for people to view different stories from people and Pages based on topic areas. You can access these feeds from your Bookmarks, located underneath Favorites, or a navigation bar under Search." It is unclear if the main news feed would change with the addition of these content-based feeds. Facebook did not say if or when the multiple news feeds would roll out to more users at this time.
In addition to the new content-based feeds, Facebook is testing its "Marketplace" feature. Previously, called "Shopping," this feature has been in testing since October, but was hidden within the main section of the app. Now, according to images received by The Verge, the "Marketplace" icon replaces the Facebook Messenger icon at the bottom of the iOS app. The Messenger icon has moved to the top, next to the search bar (the same as on the Android app). The Marketplace icon brings users to a shopping page. For now, Facebook Marketplace is only available to a small percentage of users in the United States, and is not ready for a global rollout any time soon. A Facebook spokesperson said, "We’re still in the early stages of testing and will continue to update the experience as we learn more about what works best."

7 Laptops with Best Battery Life

2015-12-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

You might own a highly trendy laptop or notebook but what if its battery life disappoints you? After all you need a laptop which you can carry with you while traveling or touring. Your work flows along with your laptop.

But it is irritating if you have to find a power socket to connect your laptop to a charger in between work. Of course you need the latest features, but not at the cost of a poor battery life.

Lenovo Thinkpad X230

This ultra 12 inch portable laptop gives you the choice of optional battery. It has a 6 cell battery that gives you relatively decent seven hours lasting time. But if you opt for the separate nine cell battery, you straightaway get the extension to the twelve hour mark.

If that still does not excite you then go for its sheet battery which when paired with the 9 cell battery gives you a record breaking 20 hours battery life. Now that should not give you any scope of complain.

Dell Latitude E6430

If you are looking for a notebook with a size of 14 inches with more than one type of staying power then Dell Latitude E6430 should be a strong choice. It has got a tri-metal frame which is built of magnesium alloy, steel hinges and chrome bumper. Now that makes a strong built up.

The keyboard is spill resistant and the MIL STD 810G provides protection from degrees, dust and drops.

With all of that, if you cash in extra $79 you get a nine cell battery with a life of 10 hour 37 minutes. The durability and the long battery life of E6430, is worth the extra cash.

Acer Travel Mate

This certainly an impressive powerhouse with the battery life of 9 hours 46 minutes. This is remarkable with its sleek look and has outlived many of its thin competitors for its battery life.

The model is well equipped with security features. Suitable for business users, this one is for you if you want peace of mind during your working day.

Apple MacBook Air

This Apple Mac Book has vouched to get better and better. It boasts of a compact 3 pound aluminum chiseled body. The compact Macbook fits in a faster Intel processor than the model before 2012. It has worthy integrated gaming graphics with an added USB port of 3.0.

But the best part concerning battery power is that it gives 8 hour and 10 minutes long duration. That calls for a thumbs up for Apple MacBook Air.

Toshiba Portege R835

There are professionals who are not always on the outlook for the slimmest notebook. This laptop is a perfect combination of power and performance which is a great companion for travel and work. It has got core i5 power, 4GB RAM and 640 GB hard drive.

In the battery life test Toshiba Portege R835 passed with battery life beyond seven and a half hours. So now you know why I claim it to be a powerful travel work friendly laptop.

Along with research and personal experience I have explored the top laptops with long lasting battery life.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it on Twitter and Facebook! Thank you ~

How to Create Wi Fi Hotspot on Windows 10

2015-12-29T11:12:00.001-08:00

1 -At this point, you’ll have a brand new Wi-Fi network that’s connected to your home internet. Keep in mind that this will only work as long as the Windows machine that’s running the network is active. This also isn’t a total replacement for a proper router, but it can get you by in a pinch.1 - Press Win+X to open the power user settings menu and choose “Command Prompt (Admin)“.
2 - Enter the following command, replacing the values for SSID and key with the network name and password you want: netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=AdHoc key=password
3 - Run the following command to start the network: netsh wlan start hostednetwork
4 - Search in the Start menu for “View network connections.”
5 - Right-click your main ethernet connection and choose “Properties.”
6 - Under the “Sharing” tab, click the box labeled “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s internet connection.”
7 - In the drop down below the above box, choose the network connection that currently has internet access. Click OK.

3 Tricks To Make Your Computer Faster

2015-12-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

1 - Ctrl+R > %temp% > Delete all Files
2 - Ctrl+R > Regedit > HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Control Panel > Desktop > MenuShowDeley > Chenge 400 to 00
3 - C > Windows > Prefetch > Delete All Files

Top Smartphone Apps of 2015

2015-12-26T10:04:00.000-08:00

Extract from Nielsen report :

From videos to music to maps, digital was at the forefront of consumers’ (and marketers’) minds this year. As 2015 comes to a close, Nielsen looked at some of the top trends in digital, including the top U.S. smartphone apps and operating systems.In 2015, Facebook again took the lead as the top smartphone app. The social networking app had more than 126 million average unique users each month, a growth of 8% from last year. YouTube came in second with over 97 million average unique users each month, followed by Facebook Messenger with more than 96 million average unique users each month.The apps with highest year-over-year change was Facebook Messenger with a 31% increase in users from 2014, and Apple Music, with a 26% growth.

Motorola Moto X Force smartphone tested to destruction

2015-12-26T09:53:00.002-08:00

Motorola Moto X Force smartphone was launched in November 2015. The phone comes with a 5.40-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1440 pixels by 2560 pixels at a PPI of 540 pixels per inch.

The Motorola Moto X Force is powered by 2GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 MSM8994 processor and it comes with 3GB of RAM. The phone packs 32GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB via a microSD card. As far as the cameras are concerned, the Motorola Moto X Force packs a 21-megapixel primary camera on the rear and a 5-megapixel front shooter for selfies.

The Motorola Moto X Force runs Android 5.1.1 and is powered by a 3760mAh non removable battery. It measures 149.80 x 78.00 x 9.20 (height x width x thickness) and weighs 169.00 grams.

The Motorola Moto X Force is a single SIM (GSM) smartphone that accepts a Nano-SIM. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, 4G. Sensors on the phone include Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, and Gyroscope.

Motorola's latest flagship Android smartphone survives over two-storey drops, stomps, trips down the stairs and being hurled at the wall only to succumbed to an intense beating with a hammer.

How To Find Missing Drivers And Fix Them On Windows

2015-12-25T09:44:00.002-08:00

Find Any Missing Drivers And Fix Them On Windows

Site : www.devid.info

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Review

2015-12-19T16:12:00.001-08:00

Ask a smartphone fan what their ideal phone for 2015 might be and the answer would likely be a 2K screen, top-end processor, 3GB of RAM, removable battery and microSD slot.

With the Lumia 950 XL, Microsoft has taken this list and run with it, adding even more features, like liquid cooling, and even the ability to sort of run like a fully-fledged PC.

Every cloud has a brown lining however, and the Lumia comes with something that will count as a massive caveat for most: it runs Windows 10 Mobile.

As one of two standard bearers for Redmond's latest reboot of its ill-fated mobile efforts, the XL has a lot riding on its shoulders. Unfortunately for the folks at HQ, the results are something of a mixed bag.

> Design

At the Windows 10 launch event the twin Lumia devices shown served as something of an afterthought, only getting a few minutes of exposure each; now we know why.

Unlike an iPhone 6S or Samsung Galaxy S6, which feel like jewellery, the Lumia 950 XL abandons the originality of its Lumia design legacy to embrace an aesthetic that can best be described as...Travelodge chic.

The oddly placed buttons are sharp, the sides feel flimsy and the back shows some signs of flex. Here the signature Lumia matte plastic often feels cheap rather than practical, even if the removable back can come in handy.

At 8.1mm thin and weighing in at 165g however, the handset is at least mercifully easy to handle, which is impressive given the 5.7-inch screen.

As is becoming the norm on higher-end Lumias, there is of course a camera 'oreo', evoking the Lumia 1020, along with an unusual triple-LED flash. The back really goes all out to sell the camera capabilities from first glance, while attempting to distract from the less than premium finish.

> Features

Ever taken your smartphone out of your pocket and thought “man, if only this could help me be even more productive?” If so, Microsoft has you covered with the 950 XL.

With a special dock, a keyboard and a mouse (both preferably wireless), the Lumia 950 XL can do its best impression of Windows RT on a large monitor with the new 'Continuum' feature - although all these accessories come at an additional cost.

The potential here is great, even if the execution isn't quite there. Only core Windows apps specially optimized for the task can be used, meaning that checking email and editing the odd word document are really the limits at the moment.

It has always been a “it's so crazy that it just might work” kind of idea, but the people at Redmond have really cottoned on to something here, even if it is just a bit of a gimmick at the moment.

Microsoft has also seen fit to include another slightly controversial element: a USB-C port for fast charging and data transfer. Though it might prove for gains in the future, it nonetheless proved to be more of a nuisance than anything else, as at this moment in time the only USB-C cable we have is the one that comes in the box.

Leave the cable at home and you'll be without a means to charge your phone - it's unlikely your friends will have one knocking about.

> Performance

Windows Phone has built a reputation for smooth performance. Helped by many (sometimes excessive) animations, it can run on functionally anything. Certainly the likes of the Lumia 520 and the 930, two much older handsets, mostly run at an equal pace.

As such, with 3GB of RAM and an octa-core 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor on board, the Lumia 950 XL feels overpowered, if such a thing is possible. Both the UI and demanding apps flow, slide and open without a hitch.

Matching the specifications of phones like the HTC One M9 and the Nexus 6Pwas always going to yield great results, but here it can't help but feel like Microsoft was preparing the hardware for things to come.

If there is one thing that Joe Public knows Lumias for, other than shocking orange plastic - their camera performance. The line has a reputation for imaging excellence, one that that the 950 XL proudly upholds, beating the likes of the Moto X Style and even the LG G4.

Pictures produced had an almost filmic look to them, with rich colour, excellent detail resolved and a surprisingly good dynamic range. Moreover, the 'Rich Capture' technology included makes shooting complex scenes as easy as pressing the shutter button, with the phone doing most of the work.

> Usability

For anyone even vaguely acquainted with past efforts, Windows 10 Mobile is mostly very intuitive. The endearing live tile set up is still the best way to take in 'glance-able' information - for those new to smartphones it probably the easiest ecosystem to understand.

Despite the easy set-up, the operating system still really shows signs of its infancy. Bugs and crashes were very common, and annoying. Plus, for those moving from Android or iOS the layout of Windows 10 Mobile on the Lumia 950 XL is likely to confuse and frustrate.

The lack of applications in the store also means the Lumia 950 XL struggles to offering a compelling casual experience, with the apps on there often poorer version of their Android and iOS cousins.

Luckily the screen goes some way to redeeming the 950 XL. With a 'Clearblack' polarisation filter, sunlight visibility is great, and with a pixel density of 518ppi along with the sheer size of the panel make watching videos and reading longform articles a treat for the eyes.

Windows Hello, the in-built iris recognition feature intended to replace your pin, is also a treat, that is when it works of course. Microsoft has labelled the product as a beta, meaning that this will improve with time.

Generally we found battery life to be ok, if nothing more, lasting around a solid day in normal use. If you're more frugal with your usage you may be able to squeeze a day and a half out of the Lumia 950 XL, but you'll still want to charge it every night.

> T3 Verdict

There is great potential here, with a strong camera, a lovely screen and several interesting new features, the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL is certainly different to anything else on the market. But whether you can live with the device is dependent on two things: your tolerance for bugs and your attitude towards apps.

With a cheap build and only average battery life, the hardware isn’t perfect. If you can buy the Windows 10 vision, this is the handset for you. If however, you want a head-turning flagship, you'd be best to look elsewhere.

How to choose your next smartphone

2015-12-19T16:02:00.001-08:00

High street phone shops aren't as common as they used to be, but if you walk into one of the remaining ones you'll still be met with a dizzying number of choices for your next handset. Unless it's an Apple Store, of course - then the choice is fairly straightforward.

With dozens of new mobiles hitting the physical and virtual shelves every year, picking out the right one for you isn't easy without some expert advice - and that's where we come in. Here's everything you need to consider when you're in the market for a new smartphone.

> Platform: Android vs iOS vs Windows

A crucial factor for many, a complete irrelevance for some, your phone's OS is going to go a long way to defining your experience with it. As the major players have stolen so many features off each other, the differences between the big mobile operating systems are less pronounced than they used to be, but it's still something to bear in mind.

Android is traditionally seen as the geekier and more customisable of the two main OSes. You can play around with home screen layouts, swap Google's default apps for third-party replacements, add widgets or even a whole new launcher. You get Google Now too, perhaps the most intelligent and proactive of all the digital assistants out there at the moment.

iOS is usually considered to be (slightly) more stable and secure than Google's offering, but the walls of Apple's garden are pretty thick: the OS doesn't play particularly nicely with other platforms or devices and you have to love Apple's way of doing things to love iOS (and many do, of course). The app selection is still just a little ahead of Android as well.

Then there's Windows, which many people have dismissed as irrelevant on mobile phones at this stage. Windows 10 Mobile marks Microsoft's last shot at making an impact on smartphones, so you may want to try one of the company's new flagships - app support is still lacking, but for Microsoft apps and Windows compatibility it's difficult to beat.

> Screen size and resolution

After the operating system, the second most important question is just how big you want your phone to be. Unfortunately for fans of smaller handsets, the trend is for larger and larger screens, but you can still find a few sub-5-inch displays if you look hard enough. At the top end you can find screens that arepushing 6 inches from corner to corner.

That display size affects how good Netflix is going to look on screen as well as how easy the phone will be to slide into your pocket - it really depends what you value most. If you've never tried a larger phone before you might be surprised at how quickly you adapt to always using it in two hands rather than one, but ultimately it's down to personal preference.

Resolution is listed in pixels and indicates the number of pixels packed into the display: a smaller screen size may well have a higher resolution, which means pixels will look sharper. Look for the pixels-per-inch (PPI) specification - the higher the better, but most modern smartphones have resolutions that are perfectly acceptable, so this isn't a dealbreaker.

Something else you might want to look out for is whether the screen uses AMOLED (favoured by Samsung for example) or IPS LCD (which the iPhone uses). There's no right or wrong here, but AMOLED tends to offer brighter colours and IPS LCD displays are typically sharper and cheaper to produce. There's not much between them but bear it in mind.

> Smartphone specifications

After the screen size and resolution you'll come across a wealth of specifications that may or may not mean much to you. Internal storage space is an easy one - how much room there is for your stuff - but check if you can expand this with a memory card and consider how much of your files are always stored in the cloud anyway (Spotify, Netflix, Google Photos).

As on a laptop, the processor and RAM affect the speed and thinking power of your device. They're the main - but not the only - indicators of how fast or slow your phone will be in use. Obviously the higher specced the mobile the better, but unless you're playing top-end games every day you can save a little money by settling for a decent mid-range option.

The quality of the camera is of course crucial for a lot of us: the megapixel rating tells you how big the resulting pictures are going to be, but there are so many factors affecting the image quality, and so many proprietary technologies in use, that you're probably best just checking online reviews and sample shots to work out the winners in this department.

Then there's battery life. Battery capacity is usually shown in mAh or milliampere-hours - a larger figure means a bigger battery - but again there are so many other factors involved, from the size of the screen (a large display uses up more energy) to the efficiency of the circuitry inside the phone, and this can vary significantly between manufacturers.

For all of these areas - performance, camera quality, battery life - it's better to get some real and professional opinions rather than trust what you're being told by the people who've made the handset. Specifications are useful, but they can only take you so far, and it's how a smartphone performs in use for week after week that's going to be most important.

> Price and other factors

We've left price until the end but for some it's the most important factor: you could just decide on a budget then walk into a store and get the very best phone you can at that price. No one wants a slow phone, of course, but as we've said unless you're editing video or running the latest intensive games you don't necessarily need to go for top-end specs.

There are plenty of other areas to consider too: Motorola's phones can be bought through a neat Moto Maker customisation scheme, for example, while Apple phones make a lot of sense if you've got a lot of other Apple kit around the house. In fact how well your new phone plays with the devices you already own is one of the most important considerations.

That should give you some idea of what to look out for the next time you're shopping for a smartphone, but of course the landscape is changing all the time - keep your eyes on the latest innovations and newest handsets as much as you can. Product cycles are important too, as new launches mean you can often get slightly older handsets at a much better price.

3 Amazing Google Chrome Extensions Episode #2

2015-12-13T10:00:00.001-08:00

3 Amazing Google Chrome Extensions
Episode #2

Extensions Links :

1 - Magic Actions for YouTube
Link : https://goo.gl/JaKLFA

2 - Checker Plus for Gmail
Link : https://goo.gl/24QvWb

3 - Pushbullet
Link : https://goo.gl/f4k9Kx

Subscribe! : http://goo.gl/jxswXu

EDUP EP-MS6528 10dbi Wireless Adapter UnBoxing

2015-11-09T15:20:00.001-08:00

UnBoxing of EDUP EP-MS6528 10dbi Wireless Adapter

Link : http://goo.gl/8GTrbJ
Price : US $17.28
Shopping company : AliExpress

3 Amazing Google Chrome Extensions Episode #1

2015-11-07T11:23:00.001-08:00

3 Google Chrome Extensions

Episode #1

Extensions Links :

1 - Hola - VPN Gratuitx
Link : https://goo.gl/7LOcv9

2 - Flash Video Downloader
Link : https://goo.gl/spiums

3 - Polarr Photo Editor 3
Link : https://goo.gl/hxkAlF

Subscribe! : http://goo.gl/jxswXu