TRICKS AND TIPS

How do I remove a computer virus?

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:30:00 -0700

Here are a few things you can try to remove a computer virus:

Keep your antivirus program up to date. If you have already installed an antivirus program on your computer, it's important that you keep it up to date. Because new viruses are being written all the time, most antivirus programs are updated frequently. Check your antivirus program's documentation or visit their website to learn how to receive updates. Be aware that some viruses block common antivirus websites, making it so you cannot go to the website to download antivirus updates. If this happens, check with your antivirus vendor to see if they have a disc you can use to install the latest updates. It might be possible for you to create this disc on a computer that is not infected (for example, on a friend's computer).

Use an online scanner. If you don't have antivirus software installed, visit the Windows Security Software Providers website for more information about security and virus prevention. Some of the partner sites offer free online scanners which will search your computer for the latest viruses. These scanners will not protect you from getting a virus, but they can help find and remove viruses your computer already has.

Use the Malicious Software Removal Tool. Microsoft offers the Malicious Software Removal Tool, which is updated once a month. Visit the Malicious Software Removal Tool website to install the tool and learn more about it. The tool scans your computer for most new viruses and malicious software. After you run the tool, you will get a report that describes any malicious software found on your computer and lists all the viruses it scanned for.

Stop a runaway virus. Viruses are often created specifically to take control of your computer and send copies of themselves from your computer to other computers. You can usually tell this is happening if your computer is performing slowly and accessing the network more frequently than normal. If this is happening, you should disconnect from the Internet and network (if you're on one). If you are connected to the Internet through a physical connection, disconnect the network or phone cable from your computer. If you're connected to the Internet through a wireless connection on a laptop, turn off the wireless adapter on the computer (either by turning off a switch or removing your wireless adapter card). Once your computer is disconnected from the Internet, run your antivirus software (from a disc or software on your computer) to remove the virus.

Manually remove viruses. Sometimes a virus must be removed manually. This is often a technical process and should only be attempted by computer users who have experience with the Windows registry and who know how to view and delete system and program files in Windows.

The first step is to identify the virus. Run your antivirus software to identify the name of the virus. If you don't have an antivirus program, or if your program does not detect the virus, you can still identify the virus by looking for clues about how it behaves. Write down the text in any messages displayed by the virus or, if you received the virus in e‑mail, write down the subject line or name of the file attached to the message. Search the antivirus vendor's website for references to those specific things you wrote down to try to find the name of the virus and instructions for how to remove it.

My virus is gone. Now what? Once a virus is removed, you might have to reinstall some software, or restore lost information. Doing regular backups can go a long way toward easing the pain of a virus attack. If you haven't kept backups, start now. To learn how to help prevent future attacks, see How can I help protect my computer from viruses?

How To Use Facebook Places For Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:49:00 -0800

Want to have your own business show up within Facebook Places? For companies that have a physical location it makes sense to have a Facebook Place in order to track the people who are stopping by your store, office, or venue. As such, Facebook has released a new guide for businesses to learn how to merge Facebook Pages and Facebook Places into a single Page. The final result is a newly designed Facebook Page which includes location-relevant information.

While you can view the guide below for all the steps required to claim your Facebook Place and merge it with your Facebook Page, we’ve broken down the process into 3 easy steps.

Step 1: Create Or Claim Your Place

If nobody has checked in to your company’s venue, you’ll need to load up the Facebook iPhone application or Facebook for touch devices on a compatible phone and check if your place exists already. You can do this by searching for the place. If it doesn’t exist, you can quickly create it by clicking on “Add” or the “+” sign depending on whether or not you are using Facebook for touch devices or Facebook for iPhone.

Step 2: Claim The Place As Yours

Facebook will discover the phone number. If the phone number is incorrect you can quickly change it. However before getting to the phone number confirmation, you’ll need to log in to Facebook and search for the Place that you’ve created or check in to. Once you find the venue you can click on the “Is this your business?” link at the bottom of the place as pictured below.

If there is no associated phone number, Facebook requires a more manual verification process. You can find the full explanation in the document which is embedded below.

Step 3: Merge Your Place & Page

The final step is to merge the Place and the Page once you’ve completed the verification proces. The result is a combined Page which effectively serves as a local business page. The design is substantially different from existing Facebook Pages, however it’s possible that Facebook will move in this direction for all Pages.

Done!

In three steps you’ve easily claimed your business and merged it with your Facebook Page. We will be providing more comprehensive guides to Facebook Places for business in the near future. In the meantime, feel free to email us with details about how you are using Facebook Places for your own business!

Nissan Leaf electric wins Japan car of the year

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Sat, 3 Dec 2011 09:57:00 -0800

TOKYO: Japanese motor giant Nissan won Car of the Year Japan at the Tokyo Motor Show on Saturday for its Leaf electric model, its makers said, the first time an electric vehicle has picked up the award.

Electric cars with cutting-edge green technology and vehicles remote-controlled by smartphones have been a star feature at this year's show, which runs till December 11 and features 179 exhibitors from a dozen countries.

"Nissan is proud to announce that its 100 percent electric Leaf car has won the Japanese Car of the Year prize," Japan's second-largest automaker said in a statement.

The Nissan Leaf electric is a zero-emission vehicle fitted with rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Since its launch on the market at the end of last year, some 20,000 models have been sold, notably in Japan and in the US.

"All these accolades show that zero-emission vehicles can clearly be competitive alternatives to conventional ones," Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn said.

Nissan, which is part-owned by France's Renault, has invested some 4 billion euros ($5 bn) in the development of these electric cars.

Ghosn said that in five years, Nissan and Renault will have sold 1.5 million of the vehicles, and estimated the world market for electric cars would jump from 0.05 percent today, to 15 percent in ten years. The hybrid (fuel and electric) would also see an increase from 1 percent today to between 5 and 10 percent over the same period, Ghosn added.

Nissan is trailing several electric concept vehicles at the Motor Show, including the Pivo 3, which can be remotely manoeuvered with a smart phone. It has installed automotive telematics in the Leaf electric car, allowing drivers to remotely control the air conditioning system and check on a car's battery using their smart phone or personal computer.

Several major foreign manufacturers who skipped the last show are also back this year, including Germany's Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche; French carmakers Renault and Peugeot-Citroen and Britain's Jaguar and Land Rover.

Siri hacks, mods, and tricks

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Fri, 2 Dec 2011 05:01:00 -0800

Since the iPhone 4S launch, hackers have been trying to figure out how to make Siri do more than Apple has designed it to do. Now it's being ported to other Apple devices, and enterprising iPhone 4S owners are using it to control their lights, theromstats, and even their cars. We'll be keeping track of the most ingenious hacks we can find right here.

The latest SiriProxy hack controls an entire room

Thanks to SiriProxy, iPhone 4S users have been figuring out ways to start cars, queue up Plex, and adjust the thermostat just by telling their phone to do it for them. Now we're seeing video of an even bigger home automation hack, with a hacker known as phildman14 closing his curtains, turning on his overhead fan, and dimming several lights just by asking Siri for assistance. phildman14 noted on YouTube that it's based on an iPhone app he wrote that lets him perform the same controls, but now he's been able to hook Siri in to do everything by voice. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like phildman14 has posted the code he's used for this hack, but it seems pretty heavily customized for his particular setup anyway. Still, we're getting ever closer to the day when we can just tell our phones to do whatever we want.

youtube link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2iZ34lMAQk&feature=player_embedded

Learn how to improve your blog! This Blog offers you basic tutorials on how to improve your blog quality, search engine rankings and how to get more visitors.By following our tips your blog or website can become search engine friendly. You have to note that optimization for search engines is long process that take lot of time and effort,but your website or blog will show some amazing results over time.

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 11:52:00 -0800

On Page optimization to get better ranking part 1

Most important factor on your website must be your content,having a quality blog or website means providing your visitors fresh and unique content that is relevant to your choosen subject,because content is king.If you have quality content it is more likely someone will link to you,getting you traffic,better page rank,more visitors and more important blog/web site.

Quality content = more visitors = more natural backilinks = better pagerank = better ranking

In this post we will discuss On page Seo factors like:
-Interlinking your web pages
-Unique content on every page
-Unique Meta tags for each page
-Proper use of H1-H6 tags
-Proper url setup
-Use of Alt tags and descriptive title on images
-proper use of ancohor text when interlinking
-making sure that there is only one version of page available
-proper use of rel="nofollow"
-Making sure your code is valid

Interlinking your pages means that you have to set up navigation on your web site correctly so any web page on your web site can be accessed from any other page.This is important so users as well as robots can reach every signle web page on your web site.

Unique content is very important,if you have indetical content on different web pages you can even get penalty for duplicate content,so keep that in mind!

It is best if you can set up unique meta Title and Meta description for every single post or web page,if you are using blogging platforms like blogger you will probably need to make code tweaks in template code to make this work.There are many tutorials on how to do this.

Headlines on web pages should be put in code tags like tags like this <h1>Big Title</h1>,it is advisable that you have only one h1 title.In pratice the minimum you should use would be one h1 tag for main title of your web page or blog and h2 for any small titles. The proper use would be to use h titles in hierarchy like this(Html example):

<h1>Big Title</h1>

<h2>1.Title</h2>
<p>Content</p>
<h3>1.1 Title</h3>
<p>Content</p>
<h4>1.1.1 Title</h4>
<p>Content</p>

More on on page Seo in part 2..

Basics about Optimization for Search engines

Most bloggers quit updating their blogs because of low traffic, having a blog is not just putting new content or reuglar basis.Putting new content is only half of the job of having a sucessfull blog,other part of job is to ensure your blog gets visitors.There are two types of traffic: paid and unpaid.Paid traffic comes trough advertising on other websites and is only usefull if you can make more money with your blog or website than what you pay for advertising.

Unpaid or organic traffic comes from search engines and other web sites or blogs that have link to your blog/web site.This is the best traffic because you can be sure that people will only come to your blog if they are really interested in content rather than accidently clicking on ads.

Most webmasters and bloggers aim for organic search engine traffic because of that.There is whole area in marketing that deals with website rankings in search engines and its called Search engine optimization or SEO.

Serach Engine Optimization or SEO is technique that is used to get the best available spot in SERP(Search engine Result Page) for choosen keyword.SEO involves many factors that must be improved to get higher rankings.It's lot harder to do SEO on blog because of limited acess to code.There are many things that blogger or webmaster should watch for if they want to get good place in search engine results.

Better place in Search Engine = More Visitors.

SEO is devided in two sections - On page SEO
- Off page SEO

On page SEO involves any factors that can be changed on page or in the source code of page such as Meta tags,Right use of H1-H6 titles,Keyword density and so on, and Off page seo involves some factors that can be changed outside of page such as Number of backlinks your website or blog gets,Google PageRank..etc.

Backliniks are links that lead to your blog/post/web site/web page from some other web site or blog.Backliniks can be DoFollow or NoFollow.DoFollow links pass PageRank from page that links to you and your Web site or Blog.No Follow backlinks are useless.

This is how NoFollow backlinks look like in HTML code:

This is how DoFollow backlinks look like in HTML code(only missing the rel="nofollow" attribute):

PageRank is algorithm that was devloped by Larry Page and it shows importance of the web page by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms.PageRank is shown with numbers that go from lowest 0 to highest 10(note that there are only few websites with PageRank 10 such as Facebook,Google..)

PageRank is only relevant for Google Search engine and it can be checked by installing Google Toolbar on your web browser and going to web site wich PageRank you would like to know.Toolbar PageRank is updated once evry three months or close to that while real internal PageRank of websites is updated on constantly.

More about Seo in new posts...

Basics about Meta Tags

Meta tags or Meta Elements are HTML and XHMTL elements that provide information about Web Page.Most used meta tags are: Title,Description,Keywords,Author etc..Altought in most cases only Meta Title and Description are used.Meta tags also contain technical data about web page code language,charset and to allow or disallow crawling of web page by different search engine robots.

Robots(Web crawlers,Web spiders) are computer programs used by search engines that creates copy of crawled web page in search engine index.Index is database of copied web pages crawled by robot.Index is used by search engines to provide user almost instant results when they are searching the internet.

Meta tags(Title and Description,sometimes Keywords) are one of the biggest factors that shows search engines what your web page is about.Web pages with no meta tags are seen in eyes of robots like low priority web pages and therefore they mostly will rank at end of search results for given query.

On most blogging platforms Meta Title and Description can be set in options of blog,so there is no need to change any source code of blog.
If you are owner of blog or website you can use tools like meta blog stats to ensure that your meta tags are set up correctly.Your meta tags should be related to your website or blogs content.

If you host blog for example about gaming,you should metion words like games or gaming in your meta title and description so that the users and the robosts know what your blog is about.This way Serach engine will give you better place in Search results for keyword gaming or games, and the users will have better idea on what to expect on your blog before they enter.

So you don't only write your meta tags for robots,you write it for human visitors too.
Keep in mind that if you put something like this:"Games,Gaming,Gamers,Fun games" as yout meta Description you will get penalty by search engines for keyword stuffing,and probably users wont click your site form search engine results if they see unattractive text like that in description.

Keyword stuffing is action where user tries to manipulate search engine results by putting alot of keywords in title,description and body of the page, making the page unreadable for human visitor in exchange for higher ranking in the search engine results.Search engines algotihm has evolved trought the years and is now fully capable to recognize when someone is trying to do this, some users have done keyword stuffing by putting keywords in the bottom of page and putting it in the same color as web page background,that way they did stuffing and it doesn't bother visitor to read normal text in body,in most cases visitor can't notice that web page is doing keyword stuffing,luckly agian search engine algoritam is designed to recognize this and people caught using this tehniques can get they web site or blog banned permenatly from search engines.

Almost all search engines(Bing,Yahoo,Google..) today uses only Title and Description Meta tag while Keyword meta tag is only used by Yahoo.

For optimal results your meta tags should look like this:

<title>Site name - Page title - Keyword description</title>
<meta name="description" content="Describe the content of the page here in short using relevant words" >

Wi-Fi and Laptops Can Cause Male Infertility

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 11:49:00 -0800

New research has indicated that using a laptop with a wireless Wi-Fi connection could leave up to a quarter of men infertile.

The study involved placing specimens of sperm under a laptop connected to the internet via Wi-Fi and it was proven that the sperm under the computer were far more damaged than those away from the signal.

At the end of the experiment, a quarter of the sperm had stopped moving, 9 per cent showed some damage compared with just 14 per cent that were away from the Wi-Fi had stopped moving.

Scientists from the United States and Argentina believe that the wireless connection creates electromagnetic radiation that could damage semen

Conrado Avendano, the lead researcher of the group conducting the experiment, Nascentis Medicina Reproductiva said: “Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality.

“At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the internet or what use conditions heighten this effect.”

Dr Robert Oates, the president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology doesn’t believe laptops are a significant risk to men’s health.

“This is not real-life biology; this is a completely artificial setting,” he said.

“It is scientifically interesting, but to me it doesn't have any human biological relevance.

“Suddenly all of this angst is created for real-life actual persons that don’t have to be.”

How To Protect Your Facebook Account From Hackers And Phishing Scams Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/05/14/businessinsider-how-to-protect-your-facebook-account-from-hackers-and-phishing-scams-2010-5.DTL#ixzz1fJPupnEx

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 11:21:00 -0800

Yesterday, Facebook introduced some new features to help users protect their accounts from being accessed by others without the users' knowledge.
The new features let you register the computers and mobile devices you regularly use to access Facebook, then notify you via email or SMS whenever your account is accessed from a device Facebook doesn't recognize.
This is a good security innovation for Facebook (and comes at a time when the company needs some positive news about how it handles privacy). Unfortunately, setting it up isn't entirely straightforward, especially if you want to be notified via text message.
Never fear: we've put together a step-by-step guide to setting up these notificati

Go to Facebook, and choose 'Account Settings' from the Account drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of the window

Click the 'change' link across from 'Account Security'

Toggle this to 'Yes' and click submit. From now on, you'll have to register each device you log in to Facebook with, and you'll get an email whenever your account is accessed from a new device.

Here's what happens when you log in from a device Facebook doesn't recognize. My work computer is now named Fred.

A few minutes later, an email arrived telling me that a computer named Fred has accessed my account.

You can also get these notifications via SMS, but if you don't already get texts from Facebook, you need to set that up. Go back to account settings, click the 'Notifications' tab, and click on the 'Send notifications to my phone' link.

That brings up this pop-up window. Choose your mobile service provider. (Weep softly to yourself if this is your choice.)

Send a text to the number they give you with the letter 'f' in it.

You should get a text like this back from Facebook almost immediately

Enter the code from your text, and click 'Confirm'

WARNING: Now that you've activated text updates, Facebook will text you very frequently by default. Uncheck all of these boxes if you don't want texts about normal Facebook activity.

Scroll down, and continue to customize when you want to hear from Facebook. When it's all set, click 'Save Preferences'

Now when you go back to 'Account Security', you'll have the option to get texts whenever your Facebook account is accessed from a new device. If anyone has your password, you'll know immediately. That's it!

Siri, Are You Anti-Abortion? apple

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 10:42:00 -0800

Is Siri a pro-lifer? It seems that Apple's amazing, voice-initiated personal assistant has a decided lack of knowledge about abortion services and emergency contraception.
At least that's what a growing number of iPhone 4S owners are reporting. They say that when they ask variations of "Where can I get an abortion?" Siri directs them to so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), organizations that do not provide abortions but instead advise women seeking them to go through with their pregnancies.
Siri users in Washington D.C. report that Siri points them to CPCs in Virginia and Pennsylvania rather than directing them to the Planned Parenthood inside the Beltway. In New York, users of Apple's iPhone 4S say that Siri responds, "I didn't find any abortion clinics," despite there being many in the city.
The Raw Story, meanwhile, has helpfully put together a list of "things the iPhone Siri will help you get instead of an abortion." It turns out Siri is happy to provide questioners with everything from Viagra to escort services if asked—which makes the celebrated AI's blind spot when it comes to abortion services all the more puzzling.
But puzzling enough to suggest an anti-choice agenda foisted upon iPhone users by Siri's creators? That's what some folks appear to be wondering.
They should rest assured that Siri is definitely not out to overturn Roe v. Wade or insert itself into the political arena at all, if it can help it.
"Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information and while it can find a lot, it doesn't always find what you want," an Apple spokesperson told PCMag.com Wednesday. "These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone, it simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks."
What's likely is that asking about abortion services confuses Siri because of what's turning up in its searches when it tries to help its interlocutors. It may be that CPC websites use the term "abortion" in their keywords more than organizations like Planned Parenthood, because it's a politically charged word.
After all, iPhone 4S users have also reported having no trouble getting answers from Siri when they specifically ask for a nearby Planned Parenthood by name. If Siri really was out to misdirect women seeking abortions, wouldn't it bury those results, too?
Siri may also be having trouble with the default search engine it uses, Wolfram Alpha, which is a "computational knowledge engine" that presents results to queries in a much more dynamic way than Google and other search engines that provide simple, hierarchical lists of links.
"Ask WolframAlpha about abortion, contraception, Planned Parenthood and you get the most confused responses," notes one commenter on The Abortioneers blog.

28 iPad 2 Tips and Tricks

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 10:28:00 -0800

Your new iPad 2 might not be as full-featured (or as complicated) as a laptop or desktop PC, but a few neat tricks are still hidden between the surface. Read on to learn how to secure your iPad, sync your bookmarks, and more.
Download the free iPad User's Guide: You may have noticed that your iPad didn't come with a big printed manual--that's not Apple's style. However, you can download the PDF version of the iPad User's Guide from Apple's Web site, or you can read it in iBooks if you have that installed (iBooks is available as a free download in the App Store). Make sure to download the manual for iOS 4.3.
Take a free guided tour: Apple provides video tours for each of the preinstalled apps, so you can get a good look at how to use them.
Use the Side Switch: You can use that neat switch on the side either to enable and disable audio alerts (this doesn't affect video/audio playback) or to lock the screen's orientation in portrait or landscape mode. You can toggle which function is assigned to the side switch by opening Settings from the Home screen, selecting General, and choosing the function you want under the 'Use Side Switch to' heading.
Multitask in iOS: You probably already know that you can press the Home button twice to bring up a list of currently running or suspended apps. However, you can also swipe the multitasking bar left to right to quickly access audio/video playback controls, a shortcut to the iTunes app itself, and volume controls. Also, when you choose whether the Side Switch should mute alert sounds or lock the screen orientation (see the item above), the function you didn't choose will appear in this shortcut bar.
Speed up your sentences: Double-tapping the spacebar while typing a message will type a period and then a space.
Don't let AutoCorrect mess you up: If you don't like the option AutoCorrect gives you, reject it by finishing the word as you prefer, and then tapping the suggestion. If you want to use AutoCorrect's choice, just type a space or punctuation mark, or tap Return, the moment it pops up.
Secure your backups: You can encrypt your iPad's backup data in iTunes. Just open the iPad in iTunes, click the Summary tab, and check Encrypt iPad backup under the Options heading.
Prevent automatic sync once: Sometimes you don't want to sync your iPad when you connect it to your computer. In this case, hold down Shift-Control (or Command-Option, on a Mac) in iTunes while plugging your iPad in, and iTunes will skip the automatic sync just once. Alternatively, you can safely interrupt a sync by dragging the unlock slider while the iPad is midsync.
Toggle data roaming: If you're using a 3G iPad, you can turn data roaming on in the Settings, Cellular Data menu in case you want to try receiving cellular Internet through a different provider (fees may apply). You can also check your data usage by going to Settings, General, Usage.
Make your passcode more complicated: iOS defaults to a four-number passcode, but you can turn it off by going to Settings, General, Passcode Lock, Simple Passcode. Now you can use any full keyboard password to lock the iPad. The password also helps to encrypt your mail and attachments on the iPad, so you probably want to make it safer than a four-digit number.
Set the iPad to self-destruct in 10 seconds: Okay, not really--but you can set the iPad to erase all data after ten failed passcode entry attempts by checking the Erase Data option under Settings, General, Passcode Lock.
Tweak AutoFill: You can choose to enable Safari's AutoFill feature in Settings, Safari, AutoFill. From there, you can tell Safari to fill forms automatically either by using your specified contact information or by remembering the names and passwords you've entered while logging in to Websites in the past.
Sync your bookmarks: You can use iTunes to sync your iPad's Safari bookmarks with your PC's Web browser. Open the iPad tab in iTunes, click the Info tab, scroll down to the Other heading, check Sync bookmarks with, and choose your preferred browser.
E-mail photos: The easiest way to e-mail photos from an iPad is to open the Photos app, select a photo, press the button in the upper-right corner (the rectangle with the arrow, not the trash button), and choose Email photo... to send.
Know your Web links: You can check a linked word's actual destination URL by touching and holding down on the link--it's a perfect way to sniff out phishy links.
Choose an app for e-mail attachments: You can open a file attached to an e-mail message by tapping the attachment in Mail, but if the default app isn't the one you want to use, you can press and hold and wait for a menu that lets you select an app.
Use the iPad as a picture frame: Not for physical photographs, silly. You can press the Picture icon in the lower-right corner of the Lock screen to have the iPad display its available photos.
Show traffic conditions: Open Maps, press the dog-eared page icon in the lower right, and then turn the Traffic overlay on. If your iPad has an Internet connection, Maps will show real-time traffic conditions in the displayed area. Green means traffic is going at the posted speed limit, yellow means traffic is slower than the posted speed limit, and red means traffic is stop-and-go.
Share podcasts with friends: Listening to a podcast that you think a friend would like? You can share the link while you're listening to it by pressing the Email button while it's open.
Don't forget your downloads: You can immediately see if your iTunes account is due for any incoming downloads by opening iTunes on your PC, clicking the Store menu, and selecting Check for available downloads. This trick can come in handy if your download process is interrupted, or if you missed some bonus iTunes content that came with an album you purchased.
Turn on Universal Access: You can enable options such as closed-captioned movies, VoiceOver screen reading, zoom magnification, and inverted white-on-black text by selecting the iPad in iTunes, opening the Summary tab, and clicking Configure Universal Access under the Options heading.
Forget Wi-Fi networks: So you accidentally connected to a network once, and your iPad remembers it for life--whether you like it or not. On your iPad, go to Settings, Wi-Fi, and find the network under the 'Choose a Network' heading. Tap the blue arrow next to the network you want to remove, and tap the button on the top that says Forget this Network.
Specify your Spotlight searches: The iPad uses Spotlight for its built-in search functions, and you can tweak it to your needs in Settings, General, Spotlight Search. If you have a lot of data on your iPad, for example, you can selectively disable search in different categories (Contacts, Applications, Audiobooks, Notes, Events, Mail, and so on) that you don't use so that your desired results show up faster. You can also simply change the order in which the search-result categories display by dragging them up and down, so that your more frequently used search categories show up at the top of the page.
Turn off in-app purchases: Go to Settings, General, Restrictions and tap Enable Restrictions to selectively enable restrictions that apply to your apps, content, Game Center, and more. If you're worried about other people breaking your bank account on in-app purchases, just disable In-App Purchases under the 'Allowed Content' setting.
Switch up the fetching frequency: Your iPad automatically grabs new data, such as incoming e-mail. However, the iPad periodically activates apps that don't support iOS's Push feature so that they can go "Fetch" new data--which uses the tablet's battery life. You can tweak your Push and Fetch settings in Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Fetch New Data.
Change your e-mail signature: Don't be one of those people who leave the default 'Sent from my iPad' signature on all their messages. Change it in Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Signature to...well, anything but that.
Swap the search engine: Too good for Google? You can change Safari's default search engine by going to Settings, Safari, Search Engine. Alas, you can only choose from Google, Bing, or Yahoo--no bringing back AltaVista for you.
Take a screenshot of whatever is on the screen: Press Home and the sleep/wake button simultaneously. The screenshot will automatically appear among your photos.
Patrick Miller mostly covers how-tos and HDTVs for PCWorld, but every now and then they let him play with an iPad. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Chrome poised to take No. 2 browser spot from Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 09:58:00 -0800

Google's Chrome is on the brink of replacing Firefox as the second-most-popular browser, according to one Web statistics firm.
Data provided by StatCounter, an Irish company that tracks browser usage using the free analytics tools it offers websites, shows that Chrome will pass Firefox to take the No. 2 spot behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) no later than December.
As of Wednesday, Chrome's global average user share for September was 23.6%, while Firefox's stood at 26.8%. IE, meanwhile, was at 41.7%.
The climb of Chrome during 2011 has been astonishing: It has gained eight percentage point since January 2011, representing a 50% increase.
During that same period, Firefox has dropped almost four percentage points, a decline of about 13%, while IE has also fallen four points, a 9% dip.
That means Chrome is essentially reaping all the defections from Firefox and IE.
If the trends established thus far this year continue, Chrome will come close to matching Firefox's usage share in November, then pass its rival in December, when Chrome will account for approximately 26.6% of all browsers and Firefox will have a 25.3% share.
StatCounter is not the only Web metrics company that publicly posts browser share statistics, however. Data provided by U.S.-based Net Applications, for example, shows a much bigger gap between Firefox and Chrome: In its numbers for August, Net Application had Firefox with a 22.6% share of desktop browser usage, and Chrome at 15.5%.
Using Net Applications numbers, Chrome could have a 17.8% share by the end of 2011, short of Firefox's projected 22.3%. But if the pace of change lasts, Chrome should pass Firefox on Net Applications' chart by mid-2012.
Because Net Applications weights its numbers to more better estimate usage share in countries from which relatively few users navigate to sites it monitors, the company's data theoretically paints a more accurate picture because it factors in the huge Chinese market.
Some browser makers -- Microsoft in particular -- cite that as a reason why they regularly defer to Net Applications' numbers. Not coincidentally, Net Applications pegs IE with a much higher share -- 55.3% -- than do other metrics firms such as StatCounter.
Both Net Applications and StatCounter, however, have traced the same trends: usage declines of IE and Firefox, and a corresponding climb in Chrome.

Angry Birds Launches "The Hunt for the Golden Pistachio"

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 08:44:00 -0800

A new Angry Birds game is released called “The Hunt for the Golden Pistachio“, which is possibly the first fully branded Angry Birds game. Wonderful Pistachios and Rovio’s Angry Birds have entered into this new level of partnership to create this Angry Birds experience.

Use the Google Chrome browser to Play Angry Birds Golden Pistachio game right now. This Angry Birds game is similar in all ways except that the birds can now crack open pistachios as well as destroy pigs. You can also original play Angry Birds Online, or try Angry Birds Live on your website!

PHOTOGRAPHY

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 08:14:00 -0800

Learning photography starts with knowing the gadget with which you can freeze and capture that moment in time—your camera. But before that, you have to understand the fundamentals of photography; aspects such as focal length, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc. Wikipedia is one of the best resources to learn about these terminologies. Knowing

what they mean will give you a better understanding of exposure control, and will allow you to move away from the basic Auto mode and scene presets in favor of Program and Manual modes with which you can get more creative. After you’ve got your basics

clear or if you’re already a level up from a beginner, move on to learning the art of composition and framing subjects. It’s the composition that makes photos stand out. composed well, even a photo taken with a simple point-and-shoot camera can look outstanding. Composition is a vast subject and can’t be learnt in a day; it’s an on-going process that you have to keep developing and improving. Websites like ‘www.digital-photographyschool. com’ and ‘www. all-things-photography.

com’ have excellent articles and tips on photography techniques and composition. You’ll fi nd articles on how to photograph fi reworks, waterfalls, beaches, children, pets, water drops, silhouettes, etc. with examples. There are also some specifi c topics such as how to photograph a spider’s web, mushrooms and subjects in candle light.

These aren’t rules that you have to follow, but some useful tips from experts that will

help you capture better photos. Black and white, food, wildlife, wedding, sports, interiors and glamour are some of the vast areas of photography that you can pursue as a career. There aren't many dedicated websites that will give you a detailed insight into these subjects, but you can fi nd articles on these subjects on various websites. For example, an article on wedding photography at ‘www.digitalphotography-

school.com’ talks about the equipment required, the most precious moments during the wedding, checklist of what you need to arrange for, etc. But on a broader level, you need to learn about flashguns and lighting, lenses suitable for wedding photography, customs and traditions of various religions, wedding rituals, studying the venue, black and

white conversion, photo retouching, and so

on. We suggest you join a reputed institute,

read books and train under a professional

to hone your skills. If you’re an amateur

looking out for a good online resource, you

can take up online courses at websites

such as ‘www.schoolofphotography.com’

and ‘www.betterphoto.com’, which have

excellent lessons on diverse subjects.

Online Web albums like Picasa

and Flickr are excellent platforms for

showcasing your talent. Put up your best

work on these websites and post your

images to groups that interest you. Make

sure you copyright and watermark your

photos and add as many tags as possible

to describe your photo. This will increase

the probability of people coming across

your photos when they use search engines.

You’ll fi nd people appreciating your work

by the number of votes and comments

your photos get. The search tool on Flickr

and Picasa can also be a good resource to

improve your composition. For instance,

you can search for ‘bird in fl ight’ and see

what kind of photos others have shot and

fi nd out the exposure settings they have

utlized.

Some photos come out

great and can be used as

is straight off the camera,

but certain photos have to

be cropped and enhanced

so that the colors and

details stand out. You may

want to remove blemishes

from the skin, make teeth

appear whiter, or make skin

appear smoother. You don’t

need to be a Photoshop

guru, but you should have

basic skills and know-how

to use Adobe Photoshop

Lightroom or Apple Aperture

for enhancing photos and

managing digital assets.

Lightroom is a very powerful

tool for photographers

and it doesn’t take too

long to master. ‘www.

lightroomkillertips.com’

has some very good tips

and articles, and is a great

site for both beginners and

advanced Lightroom users.

Photography is an

expensive hobby, and if

you’re planning to take it

up as a profession, the initial investment

is high. DSLR cameras, lenses, fl ash guns

and studio lighting equipment don’t come

cheap. If you’re a hobbyist or an amateur,

you can start off with a basic model like

the Canon EOS 1000D or Nikon D3100 and

invest in a decent zoom lens with image

stabilization (55-250 mm), but if you’re

planning to invest in high-end cameras,

lenses or fl ashguns, read detailed reviews

on websites like ‘www.dpreview.com’ or

‘www.kenrockwell.com’ before buying

anything. DPReview has very good

comparisons and buying guides, which are

good references for all types of users. We

all see things from a diff erent perspective

and there’s a unique artist in each one of

us. Keep enhancing your skills, develop

your own style and you’ll soon get there.

16 Powerful Google Analytics Features

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 07:57:00 -0800

Google Analytics is much more robust than most people give it credit for. Contrary to popular belief, it can do most of the things more advanced analytics suites can do, except Google does it for free.
Many web designers and developers complain about the limitations of Google Analytics. At first glance, it doesn’t seem as powerful as some of the other web analytics suites out there because it doesn’t let you track outbound links or see data in real time. So, developers flock to premium products like Clicky and Mint, but those services can be expensive, especially if your web project isn’t generating any income yet. Also, while they fix some of the limitations inherent in Google Analytics, they lack some of the Google-only tie-in features, such as Adwords and Adsense tracking.

For those of you who don’t know, Google Analytics is a web statistics service that allows you to see how many people visit your site, what pages they go to, and where they are coming from. It’s a free service, and it works by sticking a piece of Javascript in your HTML code that loads when someone visits your page.
But, that only scratches the surface: it also allows you to create specific campaigns, goals, funnels, and reports that builds actionable data-sets and provides key insight into otherwise nebulous data. Most people have analytics set up, but a lot of them fail to dig into the data and miss golden opportunities to optimize their site. Every time you change the copy, structure, or design of your website, your web analytics suite will tell you what you should change (and whether you should make any changes in the first place). By using the advanced features in Google Analytics, not only will you obliterate most of the reasons for paying for another analytics service, but you will understand your audience and your website in ways that your competitors on the web often won’t.
Here are six advanced features you can use to power up Google Analytics and turbocharge data-driven decisions:

1. Figure Out Where Your Audience is Going By Tracking Outbound Links

Even if your bounce rate is low, it is still key to understand where your visitors are going when they exit your page. By understanding the outbound link behavior of your users, you can optimize your website for conversion and your brand messaging for strategically maximum effect. This is true for two reasons.
First, many web business models rely on driving traffic to a page that is located on a different domain. A good example of this is affiliate programs where you have to drive traffic to a landing page to make money. If you track the behavior of that outbound link, you’ll know which domains convert the best. Paired with an 80-20 work ethic, you can then focus all of your marketing efforts on those media channels, and reserve your new found free time to test out new ideas, perform freelance work, or take a nap.
Second, by tracking outbound links, you’ll know which spots on your page convert the best, and then you can plan according as to which links you want to put in that prime position. For instance, you might want to remove a low value link and replace it with a link to your best content, or to an outside blogger who has helped you significantly. If you find that none of your inbound or outbound links are converting well, you can easily pair up Google Analytics with Google Website Optimizer to do some split testing.
Now that I’ve convinced you to track outbound links, here’s a crash course in how to do it. If you’re using a custom-made CMS or web app, the best way to do it is to stick the following code into the <head> portion of your page:

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<script type="text/javascript">
function recordOutboundLink(link, category, action) {
try {
var myTracker=_gat._getTrackerByName();
_gaq.push(['myTracker._trackEvent', ' + category + ', ' + action + ']);
setTimeout('document.location = "' + link.href + '"', 100)
}catch(err){}
}
</script>

This will delay links from loading by fraction of a second, giving Analytics time to record the click before the user leaves the page. Thankfully, the delay is so small that it won’t affect the user experience, so you need not worry. Then, you can track any link you want by adding the following onClick function to the links you want to track:

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<a href="http://www.example.com" onClick="recordOutboundLink(this, 'Outbound Links', 'example.com'); return false;">

There are two parameters in recordOutboundLink that you might want to change to further customize your report. The second parameter, which has the value of Outbound Links in the example above, refers to the folders that will be used to organize your data when you view it in Google Analytics. Renaming Outbound Links is a good first start, but it isn’t descriptive enough to properly segment all of the data you’re going to collect. A better way might be to classify outbound links by type: either “blog,” “landing page,” or “social media.” Or, you can do it by the position on the page: “top,” “sidebar,” or “bottom.” The third parameter in the list is the individual identifier of the page. The truncated domain is a perfectly sane value for this, but you could also rename it to something more memorable if you would like, such as “Hongkiat” or “Facebook.”
Outbound link tracking is even easier to implement if you’re using a popular CMS or web framework. If you’re using WordPress, you can track links automatically with the Ultimate Google Analytics plugin. On Rails, you can bake this into your models with the Google Analytics Gem.

2. Get Real Time Statistics (Kind of)

One of the main reasons why people use something other than Google Analytics is because they want built-in real time statistics. And they’re right when they complain about how Google Analytics can’t do that. But you can use a simple trick to get almost up-to-the-minute statistics without shelling out cash for a premium service. Google updates your statistics on an hourly basis. To get that data, all you need to do is click on the date selector calendar in your Analytics report, and select the current date as the end date. Of course, this data isn’t completely up-to-date, but up to the hour is likely close enough to take fast and intelligent action when your content goes viral.

Normally, when you click on the date drop-down, you’ll notice that the blue bar indicating the selected date only goes up to yesterday. To get it to show real-time data, select the first date in your preferred range, and then click the latest date that isn’t grayed out. And voila! You have almost real time tracking.

3. Track Social Media Buttons

Social media is a powerful way to drive traffic to your site. Most bloggers encourage their readers to share their content via Facebook and Twitter – and when their users actually do so, it can be enough to bring in tens of thousands of new readers, subscribers, and consumers. We all want to go viral on social media. Therefore, it makes sense to track which users click on the buttons so we can focus our attention on the users that will reliably make our content go viral.
When I launched Auric, my newest blog, I wanted to make sure that social media was incorporated as a key part of the experience. That meant tracking social media actions in the same way that I tracked page views so that I could view all of the information in the same report (and hopefully affect both with the same action). If you use the Facebook OpenGraph API to incorporate the ubiquitous “Like” buttons into your content, it’s incredibly easy to track the users who click on it. First, though, if you aren’t already familiar with embedding Facebook buttons on your site with the Javascript API, you’ll want to read up on it over at the Facebook Developers site.
In a nutshell, you’re going to merely add an onClick function to your FBML code that allows the event tracking engine in Google Analytics to fire up when people click on the button. Here’s what the modified code will look like:

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<fb:like onclick="javascript: _gaq.push(['_trackPageview', 'example.com/facebook']);" href="http://www.example.com/"></fb:like>

When a user clicks on the Facebook button, Google Analytics will track it as a pageview, allowing it to show up in your reports in much the same way that a blog post or landing page would. Here, _trackPageview has one parameter that specifies how the click will appear in your reports. I recommend customizing each of the buttons on your site by including something like the blog post ID, the permalink, or a URL-escaped title (like advanced-google-analytics), followed by /facebook on the end. Then, you can see how each individual button is performing, and also easily aggregate the data together by searcing for all instances of /facebook in your Google Analytics reports.
You can use this technique to hack together event tracking for almost any clickable element on your page. For instance, it’s simple to implement this on Twitter’s official retweet button. All you have to do is call _trackPageview asynchronously, and you’re good. Here’s how I would do it:

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<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical" onclick="javascript: _gaq.push(['_trackPageview', 'THENAMEOFYOURPAGE/twitter']);">Tweet</a>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

Just like in the Facebook example above, you can edit the sole _trackPageview parameter to customize how retweets appear in Analytics. I generally set my tracking identifiers to end in /twitter, but you can make it whatever you want.

4. Create Custom Campaign URLs to Track the Effectiveness of Link Building Campaigns

While tracking how many users interact with your social media buttons will give you a level of insight significantly higher than most other sites on the web, it won’t automatically tell you how effective social media buttons are at getting new users to visit your site (a la viral media). Of course, with a few modifications, you can easily change that. Google Analytics allows you to set up custom campaign URLs that automatically categorize and track the users who come in via those paths. To do it, all you need to do is add some parameters after the URL in the standard ?variable=value format. Here’s the variables you can use:

utm_campaign identifies a specific product or campaign. You might set this to retweet_button or facebook_like.
utm_source identifies where the traffic is coming from. Think of it as the site name or the URL. For a social media tracking campaign, you might set it to facebook or twitter.
utm_medium describes the type of traffic, such as cost per click, organic search traffic, or RSS. Here, you might set it to social_media.

For tracking a social media campaign, I would use a URL like the following:

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http://www.example.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=like_button

Now, the trick is to make sure that this is the URL that is shared on Facebook and Twitter. All you need to do is to append the tracking variables to the end of the URL set inside the settings for the social media buttons, and you’re all set. Building on the Facebook like button code illustrated above, it would look like this:

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<fb:like onclick="javascript: _gaq.push(['_trackPageview', 'example.com/facebook']);" href="http://www.example.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=like_button"></fb:like>

Of course, social media is not the only use for campaign tracking URLs. I also use it in my RSS feeds in order to get a more accurate snapshot of content usage within feed readers. It allows you to calculate the true value of a new subscriber, and focus your energy on the subscriber segments that will provide the most value to your site.

5. Use Custom Variables to Refine Data

Out of the box, Google Analytics only tracks pages, and it tracks each page in exactly the same way. For most, this is fine because you can usually tell which page is which by looking at the URL. However, Google Analytics is much more powerful than that – the system is flexible enough to let you build a model of your site’s content organization scheme right within Google Analytics. Then, you aren’t limited to tracking mere pages anymore. In fact, you can adapt it to track categories, tags, sections, or whatever other taxonomy you can think to throw at it. This is especially helpful with web applications and e-commerce sites where you might want to track specific actions or types of products.
Harnessing this power is as easy as sticking custom variables directly into your page code. The only sticking point is that variables are restricted to specific scopes of visitor engagement. Google Analytics offers the following three scopes:

Page
Session
Visitor

You can read about the scopes in Google’s custom variables documentation. It can be a bit confusing at first, but the best way to think about it is by the thing you’re trying to segment. For instance, if you want to compare pages that are in one category versus another category, you would use the page scope. If you want to compare whether a user is logged in, you would use the session scope. The visitor scope is best used when you want to compare different types of users.
Here’s the basic code you’ll need to put in the <head> section of your page to get started with custom variables:

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_gaq.push(['_setCustomVar', 1, 'Category', 'Photoshop Tutorials', 3]);

The 1 in the code above refers to the index. Analytics only gives you five slots for custom variables, so you can pick a number from 1 to 5 to assign it to a slot. You can only use a slot once, so you’re limited to having only five custom variables at a time.
The Category text is the name of the variable. You can set it to whatever you want. If you wanted to track tags on your WordPress blog, for instance, you might set it to Tag.
Photoshop Tutorials is the value of the custom variable. In the tag example mentioned above, you would set this to the name of the tag. If you’re using WordPress or another CMS, you’ll want to use the appropriate function to set this dynamically.
Finally, the last parameter sets the scope. 1 is the visitor scope, 2 is the session scope, and 3 is the page scope.

6. IP exclusion (so you don’t inadvertently measure yourself or your web team)

Whenever I launch a new site, I generally spend an hour or two fidgeting with the design and the code to make sure that everything is perfect. From there, I’ll usually do some initial link building and go to Analytics to see if I got any traffic. And every time, I would see a huge spike on the first day. For months, I thought I was an online marketing god. That is, until I dug into the data and saw that all of the traffic came from the same browser. And from the same city. And from the same IP address. Whoops.
Now, I use the IP exclusion feature in Google Analytics to make sure that my testing doesn’t skew the data (and get my hopes up for nothing). In order to do it, click on the “Edit” button for your site on the main profile page.

On the “Profile Settings” page, scroll down the page until you see the box named “Filters Applied to Profile” (below goals). Click on the “Add Filter” link, and you’ll be taken to the “Create New Filter” page.

Once you’re there, you can stick in your IP address (or range of IP addresses) so that it is excluded from Google Analytics. As soon as you’re done, click “Save Changes” and you’re all set.

Dashboards

Dashboards got a much needed overhaul in the new GA. Users can now create up to 20 personalized dashboards, developing widgets and formats that make the most sense for them or their company. For instance, each company department could develop its own distinct dashboard to quickly access site performance statistics that relate to department goals. Keep in mind: Dashboards can only be shared by users on the same login.
At a minimum, these four widgets would benefit the average user.

Visits – Timeline (can also include Metric)
Goal Completions and/or Transactions – Timeline
Source/Medium – Table
Bounce Rate – Timeline

Keyword Clouds

Rather than viewing a long list of keywords to spot trends, users can now evaluate a keyword cloud. This cloud makes it easy to visualize top keywords based on different user-selected criteria, including visits, bounce rates and pages per visit.

Real-Time Data

In the past, Google Analytics data was typically delayed up to 24 hours after the visit. For the first time, GA offers a real-time data solution. With its real-time reports, users can view the activity on the site as it happens, drilling into the top active pages, top referrals, keywords and geographic locations driving the traffic. In addition to monitoring current activity on the site, these reports can also be used to test campaign tracking prior to launching campaigns.

Site Speed

When Google released this report several months ago, it required additional code to be added to sites. Now speed reporting is standard on GA, and doesn’t need extra code. Use the site speed reports to get information about average page load time.
Why is this important? A slow site can have a negative effect on quality score for paid search, so visits can cost more to a slower site. Google has also indicated that site speed may be an important factor in organic search rankings. Additionally, a one-second delay can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. Use this report to monitor site speed and avoid these issues.

Search Simplifies Navigation

GA has activated menu search, a phenomenal usability update. The tool makes it easier for users to quickly navigate to the proper report. Google also created an account search that lets users directly access the correct profile, rather than scrolling through hundreds to locate the right one.
GA also introduced the ability to switch between multiple profiles while staying with and maintaining the settings of the same report. Previously this could only be done using a Firefox plugin.

Webmaster Tools

The new integration incorporates Google Webmaster Tools data into Google Analytics. Using this tool, users can get a better sense of which Google property (web, image, local) drove site traffic. Similar to statistics provided to paid search advertisers, Webmaster Tools provides impressions, average position and CTR data for GA.
Although the numbers are not 100% accurate, they can be used to evaluate relative trends and to provide insight into data lost due to Google’s search update. Although the Webmaster Tools report is in Google Analytics, it’s limited to a single part of GA.

Social Engagement

Use Google Analytics to track how visitors interact socially with your site. A 2010 study showed 54% of small and medium-sized businesses said they already use or plan to use social media, and 17% planned to increase their social budget again from 2010 to 2011. With more companies making a push for social, it makes sense to analyze social site interactions.
GA’s new social reports break down how many of a site’s visitors are socially engaged with the site, itemizing which social source and action occurred. That way you can determine how many of your visitors +1′d site content vs. how many Liked it, as well as the pages that prompted this social action. Social plugins ShareThis and AddThis easily integrate with Google Analytics, passing information on social interactions back to GA with minimal changes.

Visitor Flow & Goal Flow Visualization

Flow Visualization was announced in October, but only recently started rolling out to most users. Flow Visualization consists of two reports: Visitors Flow and Goal Flow. The Visitors Flow report can be used to visualize the “flow” of visitors through the site, while the Goal Flow is an improvement on the original Funnel Visualization reports.
The Goal Flow report is especially valuable, as it simplifies evaluating a conversion funnel. Have a checkout process six pages long? Now you can determine at which page people are abandoning their carts. Then improve the process and save the sales.

Event Tracking

Prior to this new feature, any goal interaction with a site that didn’t result in a new URL needed to be tracked using special code to create a virtual pageview, which resulted in inflated numbers in GA. For the first time, Events can be used as goals. Want to find out how many people downloaded a PDF? Interested in knowing how many visitors viewed more than 30 seconds of a video on your site? Now users can easily track these events without affecting other metrics.

. Multi-Channel Funnels

The Multi-Channel Funnels are a series of reports intended to help provide attribution information. For example, a person visits your site first from a paid search ad, then from an organic search listing, then from a link in Twitter, and finally from an email link. Therefore, which channel should get credit for the conversion? With many analytics platforms, the credit goes to the final funnel, thus, the email marketing campaign.
Multiple reports in the new Multi-Channel Funnels allow users to view further back than the final channel. Now GA shows every interaction a user had with the site in the 30 days prior to conversion. Using these reports, departments can take credit for their assists to conversions, and companies can make more informed decisions about which marketing activities have the highest ROI.
These are just a few of the many great advancements made to Google Analytics with the new rollout. While there are still several features missing (such as the PDF and email export functionalities, percent comparisons, missing graph by week option, etc.), Google is constantly striving to correct these with future iterations of the platform.
What’s your favorite feature in the new Google Analytics?

lap wifi may cause men fetility promblem.is it true

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 05:56:00 -0800

en beware. The Wi-Fi from your laptop could be hurting the health of your sperm.
A new study, published in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility by researchers from Argentina and the U.S., found that semen samples placed a little more than an inch under a Wi-Fi-connected laptop experienced more DNA damage and mobility issues than regular sperm. The samples were taken from 29 healthy men with an average age of 34.
After just four hours sitting under a Wi-Fi-connected laptop, 25% of the sperm samples were no longer mobile and nine percent showed DNA damage. Meanwhile, only 14% of the samples stored away from the computer were inactive, and they showed minimal DNA damage.
“Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the Internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality,” the report said. “At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the Internet, or what use conditions heighten this effect.”
The study also tested the sperm next to laptops that were not connected to Wi-Fi. They showed some damage — though less than the connected laptops. This suggests heat may also be a factor in impacting the health of your swimmers.
This is not the first time a study revealed that laptops might be harmful to sperm. A widely-reported 2010 study found that men who keep their laptops on their laps may be hurting the quality of their sperm due to scrotal hyperthermia — that is, elevated temperatures in the testes.
The latest study noted that more research needs to be conducted to learn the true effects of electromagnetic radiation generated by a laptop’s Wi-Fi connection — since it was conducted in an artificial setting.
Male infertility is not uncommon. In fact, about one in six U.S. couples have difficulty conceiving. According to the American Urological Association, a man’s fertility is a factor in 50 percent of these cases.

5 best Facebook apps (These apps help you make your networking experience less cumbersome and more fun!)

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:01:00 -0800

SCRABBLE
If you want your kids to learn as they network, or
sharpen your own word skills, Scrabble is the game
for you. Originally created as Scrabulous, the app
was pulled off due to a copyright infringement
case and the app later surfaced as Lexulous, which
was also pulled off . As a result of the impending
copyright issues two versions of the game exist; the
SCRABBLE Worldwide (excluding U.S. and Canada)
and the Scrabble Beta by EA (for players from U.S. and
Canada). Play on and beat your friends in this witty
game of words.

BLOOM
If
you have tried uploading multiple pictures on
Facebook with a poor bandwidth, then you know how
frustrating it can be to upload fi ve pictures at a time.
Instead you can use the Bloom photo uploader tool
that enables you to upload your photos and videos
with ease from your desktop to Facebook. You can
even download saved albums and view your friends’
photos without too much of a hassle. The versions are
upgraded periodically to stay in sync with Facebook’s
privacy policies, so that you are not inconvenienced.
download a free version of the tool, visit www.
antaki.ca/bloom. The app is compatible with
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems. If you still
can’t get the app to work, you can use the Java Web
Start link from its Facebook page

DOCS
Microsoft Offi ce 2010 and Facebook have come together to come up with a
personalised partner site called Docs for Facebook, which enables you to create
and collaborate on Word, Excel and PowerPoint all online. Moreover, it gives
you a standard set of tools in the Offi ce 2007 ribbon style layout to use the
application better. For details, visit http://docs.com.

TWITTER INTEGRATION
If you have been using Facebook and Twitter in tandem for promoting your
business or venture extensively, or are a social media manager, and need to
ensure that a status on one medium simultaneously updates on the other
as well, you can use the Twitter integration app on Facebook. However, if
you have a diff erent set of friends on both platforms, or need only certain
relevant tweets to appear as your Facebook status message, you can opt for
the selective tweets app. Only tweets suffi xed with a #fb hash-tag will be
displayed on your Facebook profi le. You can customise the app to in a way that
it picks the #fb hash-tag anywhere in your tweets. You can also specify custom
words for the app to recognize as tweets for Facebook.

UNO
If you have ever had trouble fi guring out what exactly
to do with a deck of cards, UNO is a good game to
start with. And if you have enjoyed a lot of fun family
times with the game, and the family now lies scattered
around the world, you can head over to Facebook to
play the game all over again. Using the UNO app, you
can wait in the lobby for your friends to join or you can
you can start a fresh game of UNO, and be assured, no
one can cheat!

USE OF INTERNET...............

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:49:00 -0800

Today, people use the Internet for a plethora of reasons;
shopping, chatting,
learning, earning,
job hunting,
marketing, and
even socializing Ever since the IT boom of the 1990s, the
Internet has been revered as a source
of information beyond geographical
boundaries. With the dot-com bubble in the
late 90s and more recently with the social
networking phenomenon, we’re beginning to
tap into more and more of the potential of the
Web medium.
Today, people use the Internet for a plethora
of reasons; shopping, chatting, learning, earning,
job hunting, marketing, and even socializing.
However, the most fascinating fact is that most
people do all of this from a single platform.
When Classmates.com and later Friendster
fi rst surfaced, they were limited to the student
fraternity, that too from select schools. A
decade later, it is not just limited to socializing,
but has also emerged as a strong career and
business propagation option as well. A report
from Experian reveals that the medium has fast
grown into an integral part of online business.
Forecasts estimate that $4.3 billion will be spent
advertising through social networks in 2011, a
29% increase from this year.
A look at the users of social networking
websites reveals that India is the seventh largest
market for these websites, behind only the US,
China, Germany, Russia, Brazil and the UK. The
Experian fi nding further states that the average
session time for a user visiting Facebook is 21
minutes and 39 seconds. A survey by TNS Global
of 50,000 Internet users spanning across 46
countries shows that the developing countries
contribute the most to the social networking
phenomenon.
please comment

FB cancels phone number sharing

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:27:00 -0800

Narrowly avoiding yet another uproar over sharing users' private information with third parties, Facebook
has decided to temporarily
roll back a feature that would grant application developers
access to its users' phone numbers and physical
addresses. The capability will be reintroduced when a more
transparent system for opting out can be implemented. Apps
which use this information will be able to target users
and send notifi cations directly to their phones,
possibly including unsolicited advertisements.

Hackers circumvent industrystandard image signatures

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:09:00 -0800

Photos taken with
professional Canon cameras
can be embedded with an
ODD signature (Original
Decision Data). This is
designed to ensure that the
photo cannot be altered or
retouched without being
detected. However Dmitry Sklyarov, a safety expert from
ElcomSoft, has now showed how he can forge this signature,
at the CONFidence 2.0 hacker trade fair. The expert read
out and analyzed the fi rmware of his Canon EOS 30D using
a self-built adapter. He then reverse-engineered the secret
encryption code and was thus able to forge ODD signatures
and deceive the offi cial Canon signature reader, known as
the OSKE3 Security Kit. Canon is aware of this shortcoming
but has not commented on it till now. News agencies and
insurance providers have been using ODD for years in order
to be able to check the authenticity of a photo—such as its
recording time and place. Several controversial photo edits
have made the news in the past few years, embarassing the
responsible agencies and leading to allegations of bias or
manipulation of the news.

Mixed reactions to Xbox no longer being a game console

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:04:00 -0800

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confi rmed long-running suspicions
in the gaming community that his company is no longer focusing on
the Xbox primarily as a game console. In
a recent interview with a major US news outlet, Ballmer spoke about his enthusiasm
for the Xbox and Kinect motion-contro system as a family-oriented device. "Xbox
isn't a gaming console. Xbox is a family entertainment center. It's a place to socialize.
It's a place to watch TV", said Ballmer in his interview. Reactions have ranged from
disappointment to outrage, with questions
being raised about how many game
developers will continue to support the platform in the future, and what quality of
games will be available. On the other hand,
many other respondents on gaming forums
have agreed that the device's multimedia
features have made it a suitable familydevice for years, and it's only an expansion
of features.
Still others have taken exception to Ballmer's view of the Kinect system being
more "female-friendly" than controllers and joysticks, accusing him of sexism and being
out of touch. Meanwhile, Microsoft is getting
ready to launch TV streaming services on the
Xbox platform.

Renewable Technologies: Harnessing Power

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:04:00 -0800

Today, we're grappling with power cuts due to the massive disparity between demand
and supply. Looking for alternative sources of power is not merely a necessity, but the
need of the hour

Taking a step forward in this
direction are the techniques
conceptualized by Praveen
Krishnan from Tamil Nadu, who
has a degree of M. Tech. Chemical
Engineering from the Coimbatore
Institute of Technology. Environmental
consciousness coupled with the urge
to resolve the problem of intermittent
power supply urged him to come up with
three simple yet innovative techniques
of generating power. We spoke with
Praveen to know more about his work.

How did you come up
with the idea for these
techniques?

I have been always interested in nonpolluting technologies. The existing
technologies cause a lot of pollution with its dangerous by-products, such
as radiation wastes and CO2. The only pollution-free techniques of producing
power are those that utilize wind, solar and water energy, but production
through such sources is very low compared to the demand. Today, we are facing major power cuts due to lack of production to meet the ever-increasing demand. All this made me to think of alternative sources, and I came up with three techniques that I think are environmentally friendly

Can you explain the
techniques?
OWES (OCEAN WAVE ENERGY
SYNTHESIS)
In OWES, a fl exible diaphragm is stretched by a spring arrangement. The diaphragm consists of two openings joined to pipe lines, one for sea water inlet and other for the outlet. Both the pipe lines are fitted by one-way valves, so that water can fl ow only in one direction. The diaphragm may be made into a cone shape to focus the force at one point. The diaphragm is placed facing the waves. The inlet pipe line is dipped in the sea and the outlet is taken to the
overhead tank. So while the waves hit the face of the diaphragm, it begins to
reduce, thus creating a positive pressure which causes the water to fl ow through
the outlet valve to the overhead tank. At the same time, the inlet valve closes so
that water cannot escape. As the wave recedes, due to spring
action, the diaphragm enlarges and creates a negative pressure, which
makes the inlet valve open, allowing the sea water to enter the diaphragm
unit. At the same time, the outlet valve closes. Thus sea water is pumped to
the overhead tank intermittently. Anumber of similar units are constructed
close to each other so that water fl ows continuously to the over head tank. From
this tank, the water is made to fl ow over the turbine unit, which is connected to
the dynamo. The dynamo produces the required electrical energy...
OMT (OSCILLATING MAGNET
TECHNIQUE)
In this technique, a freely suspended magnetic pendulum oscillates, so that
the magnetic fl ux cuts the coil and creates an Electromotive force (EMF).
By coupling the EMF from numerous such units, we can achieve the required

SECURITY 3 probs

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:22:00 -0800

SECURITY                                       SECURITY                                                                SECURITY
                                                NYT claims evidence that US and                                         FBI warns of
NEW SECURITY                                    Israel jointly created Stuxnet                                          banking Trojan
RISKS DETECTED
                                                An article in the New                                                   The US FBI's Internet Crime

AND PATCHED                                     York Times dated                                                        intelligence center has warned

                                                January 15, 2011,                                                       businesses of a Trojan that

                                                claims that recently                                                    logs into users' online bank

                                                uncovered Wikileaks                                                     accounts on compromised

                                                cables contain evidence                                                 computers. While the

                                                that the Stuxnet worm                                                   technique isn't particularly

                                                that spread rapidly                                                     new, the payload delivery

                                                around the world in                                                     method is. The Trojan is

                                                late 2009 was in fact                                                   attached to emails designed

                                                deliberately developed                                                  to look like responses to job

                                                by the US in collaboration with Israel, speciﬁ cally to target          application advertisements.

                                                and disable Iran's nuclear efforts. The newspaper further               The criminals behind the scam
GMAIL
Spammers can send messages through
                                                ordinary day-to-day functioning of the nuclear facility and             have posted job notices and
a manipulated website on Google
accounts without knowing their mail            then played these back in order to mask its activities. The             are even tailoring these emails
addresses. It is enough to be logged in        article cites unnamed experts who say that Stuxnet is still             to look like responses to those
as a Google Mail user and visit a              being studied, and is far more complicated than anything                speciﬁ c requirements. Once the
hacker site in a new tab.                      ever previously encountered. If true, this would make it the            worm obtains users' banking
SOLUTION: Google has already taken             ﬁ rst known instance of a successful cyber weapon. With                 credentials, it transfers money
up the issue of this error in their
                                                such capabilities out in the wild, any kind of chaos could be           to an account registered in the
mail service—special configuration
                                                spread by forces that manage to modify it for themselves.               Ukraine.
is not required.

MICROSOFT WINDOWS
                                                SECURITY                                                                SECURITY
A zero-day vulnerability in Windows
enables offenders to provide admin              Hackers circumvent industry-                                           FB cancels phone
rights to the actual user via a
StackOverflow and install malware.             standard image signatures                                               number sharing
SOLUTION: A Microsoft patch isn’t
available up till now, however the
Software giant is already working on            Photos taken with
a bug fix for this problem.                    professional Canon cameras

                                                can be embedded with an
G DATA INTERNET SECURITY                       ODD signature (Original

The latest G DATA anti virus scanner            Decision Data). This is                                                Narrowly   avoiding   yet
raises an error alarm while visiting           designed to ensure that the                                             another   uproar   over   sharing
popular sites: the sites may be                photo cannot be altered or                                              users'   private   information
infested with JS:RedirectorEN. These
                                                retouched without being                                                 with   third   parties,   Facebook
alarms are in fact false positives.
SOLUTION: G Data has stated that it is         detected. However Dmitry Sklyarov, a safety expert from                 has   decided   to   temporarily
concerned with error alarms in all              ElcomSoft, has now showed how he can forge this signature,             roll   back   a   feature   that   would
cases. With the next update the                at the CONFidence 2.0 hacker trade fair. The expert read                grant   application   developers
websites should be shown correctly             out and analyzed the ﬁ rmware of his Canon EOS 30D using                access   to   its   users'   phone
and without an incorrect error    message being displayed.                       encryption code and was thus able to forge ODD signatures               addresses.   The   capability   will

                                                and deceive the ofﬁ cial Canon signature reader, known as               be   reintroduced   when   a   more
CLAM AV                                        the OSKE3 Security Kit. Canon is aware of this shortcoming              transparent   system   for   opting

After an erroneous update, the free            but has not commented on it till now. News agencies and                 out   can   be   implemented.   Apps
virus scanner considers Windows a               insurance providers have been using ODD for years in order             which   use   this   information
virus and then tries to quarantine the
                                                to be able to check the authenticity of a photo—such as its             will   be   able   to   target   users
entire system.
                                                recording time and place. Several controversial photo edits             and   send   notiﬁ cations
SOLUTION: ClamWin has provided a
problem-free update of its tool on             have made the news in the past few years, embarassing the               directly   to   their   phones,
its website.                                   responsible agencies and leading to allegations of bias or              possibly   including   unsolicited

                                                manipulation of the news.                                               advertisements.

mobile number portabily trick

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:19:00 -0800

Power and change

             mobile number portability is finally here! Indian consumers have been
             promised so much and given so little over the years (especially in
M terms of telecom and broadband service regulations) that it’s a little
             difficult to digest how easy the process seems to be. Ever since the
topic of portability first came up, sporadic, half-hearted discussions about which
service providers stand to win and lose have sprung up time and again, with
people wistfully imagining a world in which this promise might come true. Now
that it has, conversations have taken on a dramatically different tone. It’s the
hottest topic everywhere.

   We’ve all lost touch with people at some point in our lives because of
inaccurate contact information. It isn’t possible to avoid changing phone
numbers and email addresses all the time. For most people though, a mobile
phone sticks with them no matter where they live or who they work for.

   No one needs to be reminded that India is the largest growing and most
exciting mobile phone market in the world. Even with seven or eight service
providers in each major city, there’s no dearth of customers. Older players could
stand to lose customers who have only stuck on because of the headache of
changing numbers. Newer players who can’t keep up with customer service
might lose customers to the more established brands.
Apart from those who will switch only because they are miffed about being
on hold with customer service for too long, there are plenty who genuinely need
to change providers but have too much at stake to risk being unreachable. The
list includes people who have moved to new neighborhoods only to discover
there’s no phone reception in their new homes; people who have arbitrarily been
switched from one billing plan to another and can’t fight back; people who’d like
to take advantage of better pricing for roaming or data usage… As the simple
rules of economics play out, the service providers who truly earn and deserve
their customers’ repeat business will profit the most.

     Suddenly, we can exercise our rights! Stick it to the uncaring corporations!
   Switch without any penalties and watch as the tyrannical service providers
    who have taken us for granted all these years tremble in fear! Or, more
    reasonably, those of us who don’t have any long-standing need to make a
    move can lie back and enjoy the benefits. Customer rewards clubs will
    almost certainly start popping up, with extraordinary benefits for those who
stay loyal to a provider for years together. We can look forward to discounts,
coupons, free value-added services, enhanced customer support, and any
     number of tricks, much like frequent flier clubs or credit card reward point
       schemes. New customers won’t be the only ones wooed with free gifts
         and special schemes.

             It’s a superb step towards consumer empowerment. It’s win-win all
         the way.

Why can't I choose which pictures or videos to import?

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:11:00 -0800

Windows detects your newest pictures and videos and doesn't import duplicate versions of older pictures or videos that you've already copied to your computer, so you can import your pictures and videos in a single step. You can then review and organize your pictures in the Pictures library. For more information about managing and organizing pictures in the Pictures library, see Managing your pictures. You can also review your imported pictures in Windows Photo Viewer, where the large preview format makes it easier to decide which newly imported pictures to delete from your computer. For more information about viewing your pictures in Windows Photo Viewer, see View and use your pictures in Windows Photo Viewer.

To organize your videos, you can use the Videos library. For more information about managing and organizing your videos in the Videos library, see Managing your videos.

What about flash memory cards?

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:08:00 -0800

If your camera uses a removable flash memory card such as Secure Digital (SD) or CompactFlash, consider plugging a memory card reader into your computer. When you insert your memory card into the reader, you can copy your pictures from the memory card to your computer without draining your camera’s battery, dealing with connection cables, or installing additional software. Some computers and laptops have a built-in memory card reader. Check the documentation for your computer to determine if your computer has one.

For information about how to import pictures and videos directly from a flash memory card that's in a memory card reader, see Working with digital pictures.

What if the AutoPlay dialog box doesn't appear?

noreply@blogger.com (yoyo networks) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:07:00 -0800

If the AutoPlay dialog box prompting you to import your pictures and videos doesn't appear when you connect the camera to your computer, AutoPlay might be turned off. If this happens, you can import your pictures and videos to your computer through Windows Explorer instead. Here's how:

Click to open Computer.
In the navigation pane on the left side of the window, under Computer, right-click your digital camera, and then click Import pictures and videos.
(Optional) To tag the pictures, type a tag name in the Tag these pictures (optional) box.
By default, the folder name includes the date the pictures and videos are imported and the tag name.
Click Import.
A new window opens and shows the imported pictures and videos.

Tip

If you prefer, you can turn on AutoPlay or set AutoPlay to automatically import pictures and videos from a digital camera. For more information, see Change AutoPlay settings.