What is 99fiction?

99fiction is a new social network on the block which is powered by Ning.com. What’s it all about, you ask? Story writing, and yes its tagline reads as “Hey!! What’s the story?”. Basically in here, writers from all over the world can join and share their stories. Did your grandmother tell you stories when you were little? Why not share it here.

Apart from story telling, you can also win real competitions. 99fiction holds monthly contests in which you have to write up a creative story of 99 words or less (hence the name) and if you win, your story will be listed on the Winning Story page. Other stories which didn’t make it, will also get turns and be listed under Todays’ Story page.

At the end of your story, you can also include any promotional links such as to your official website or your twitter handle. Chance for a great exposure, ain’t it?

The prizes are pretty wierd such as they award you with a free bottle of wine, haha but they are alcohol free, i think that sounds all right! They will even ship the wine if you live in an international area. Alternatively you can also choose to receive a voucher from Amazon worth $25.

How to engage on 99fiction?

99fiction gives you a lot of space for engaging into discussions. From Chats and Groups, to Events and Forums, you can talk about any topic to anyone and share your thoughts.

You can also start your own group, where you can collectively collaborate on something. Have questions?  Just fire one, in the forum, such as a person named Vicki asked ‘is listening to music while writing good?’. You can chat with the members even if you aren’t his/her friend and yes you have the option to insert smileys too.

If you have a big news coming in a while (such as a book launch) why not make it as an event. Other members can see your events and RSVP as to whether they can make it. Its a good chance to hang out with like minded people outside internet.

Profile Pages

Your Profile page is pretty basic. On the left it displays your profile pic, name, sex, and where you are from. But the customising option is very flexible. You can change themes and alter colour of every element of your profile page like Header, Navigation, tabs, buttons, links and Footer where it gives you a live preview too.

On your Wall, it displays your Latest Activity where you can share a blog post, start a discussion or an event, share music, photos or videos. You can also share your update directly to twitter.com by connecting 99fiction with the twitter app. It also displays all your profile information and a comment wall where other people can leave comments. Its interesting to note that all the button’s here are similar to Facebook’s.

Adding a new friend is as easy as going to his/her profile page and clicking the Add as friend button. You can also message them personally.

You can also “Like” conversations and things you find interesting which will then be displayed on your like page. Ssshh, you can also like your friend’s profiles too!

In the Photos and Videos page you can check out the pics other people have posted and comment or like them too. Additionally you can also follow the thread.

Privacy and Vanity URLs

Rest aside your privacy concerns because you can easily alter all your privacy settings from your profile settings page such as your blog posts, photos, videos visibility. Moderation settings, such as who can add comments on your wall, photos and videos.

You can also adjust your email notifications like when you want 99fiction to email you or all together stop emailing you.

Want a vanity url to your 99fiction profile page. Change it by going to Settings -> My Page.

Right now, there are about 154 members on 99fiction. Most of them are from the UK and US. If this social network sounds fun, get on right with it and invite your friends too. Oh, and don’t forget to add me as your friend!

For inspiration for you, here is a short story written by Natalie Cone, featured on 99fiction.net which goes,

The grass was soft beneath her knees. Shafts of sunlight blinked kaleidoscope patterns onto her skirt and glinted off the knife nestled in her lap. Today, her last thread snapped.

Looking away, she prayed desperately for God’s forgiveness as she pressed the blade to her wrists.

Her eyes fell on a carving in the trunk of a tree. It was a single word.

Purpose.

In that moment, something inside her shifted.

She pulled herself to her feet. Using the blade that was intended to end her life, she carved two more words above the one already there.

I have.

Disclaimer: "99fiction The New Social Network for Creative Story Writers" is a post from: revthatUP

This feature might be pretty familiar to you if you are a twitter user, and some might even say that twitter invented it, though that’s not exactly true.

Facebook revealed in their official blog post,

Starting today, hashtags will be clickable on Facebook. Similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest, hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you’ll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic.

How can Hashtags be helpful?

• Hashtags can help you search for important topics and news
• Get up to date results of a news item
• Follow up on other people’s conversation involving your topic
• Get deeper insights about your Business or Brand

Hashtags have been around for ages and its time people took advantage of this feature. Social networks such as Twitter and Google+ have already branded this as one of their own, now its Facebook’s turn to get in on the race.

Thank god, Facebook didn’t define a new character for representing hashtags otherwise we would all be in for a real treat (pun intended).

How does Facebook Hashtags work?

You can use hashtags as you normally would on Twitter. Just post a status update with a #hashtag. For example, “Its a sunny day in #Hollywood”. The hashtags will of course be clickable.

Once you click on a hashtag, there will be a popup box displayed known as the hashtag feed. Here you can join in all the conversation happening around say, #Hollywood. Alternatively you can also post an update directly from the hashtag feed.

Note: Hashtags you post will receive the same privacy settings as the status update. So they will be visible by default to your Friends, unless you make them public, which of course will mean that people will then be able to search for it.

Searching for a specific hashtag can be accomplished by using the Search box. Just enter a hashtag you want to search for, such as #Rihanna and you will find conversation relating to your favourite celebrity.

Also note hashtags are currently enabled only on the desktop site. It will be a while till you see it working in the official Facebook apps for Android and iOS.

As hashtags are now official, be prepared to have your newsfeed flooded with these, people can also use this to create spam and turn your feed really ugly. Let us know if the integration of hashtags on Facebook was a good decision and how will it affect your lives.

Source: thenextweb

Disclaimer: "Facebook Hashtags – The Innovation of Twitter now on Facebook" is a post from: revthatUP

Andreas Tuerk, Project Manager for Google, revealed it on the official blog post,

Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind. So today, we’re launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account.

Google’s Inactive Account Manager

You will find this new feature in your Google Accounts settings page or can also visit Inactive Account Manager from here to set it up. You can choose to do things when your account remains inactive for a long period of time say, 3, 6 or 9 months. You can set your own timeout period too.

The company determines your inactivity by checking when was your last sign-in, your web history, and also the last time you used your Android. So much for allowing Google to use your data. Hehe.

Google allows you to do 2 things:

• Send your data to a trusted friend or a family member, or
• Optionally delete your data permanently (you won’t be able to use the same username again)

Before deleting or making necessary changes to your accounts, Google takes a precautionary measure to notify you by sending a warning message on your cellphone first and then sends an email to your recovery email address.

These changes will affect all the Google Products you use such as, Blogger, Drive, Gmail, Google+ Profiles, Google+ Pages, Picasa, Google Voice, YouTube, etc.

Further he adds,

We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife — in a way that protects your privacy and security — and make life easier for your loved ones after you’re gone.

Tell us if you liked this new feature. I know nobody will like it, because nobody really likes the idea of having to die one day, but nevertheless let us know if you will enable the inactive account manager!

Source: Official Google Blog

Disclaimer: "Google Tells You “What To Do With Your Account After You Die!”" is a post from: revthatUP

Why You Need a VPN?

VPN acronym for Virtual Private Network, is basically a connection of a group of computers (private network) around the world i.e. Internet (public network). VPN’s are usually used to enforce a strong encryption mechanism over your connections to the internet, so that no other person can invade your privacy. They use many protocols and methods to protect your transmissions.

With the help of VPN you can download movies, watch videos which were previously unavailable in your geographic region, for example, VEVO in India. You can also stream from Netflix and watch live telecasts of international channels. These are just few of the many advantages a VPN can offer you.

Some irresistible features of Kepard VPN:

• Servers in USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Netherlands and France
• Supports OpenVPN, L2TP, PPTP
• Connect to your VPN from two locations at the same time
• NAT Firewall
• 256 Bit based encryption for all your Internet traffic
• Unlimited traffic and unrestricted speeds
• Supports Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and iOS operating systems
• Ability to access banned and restricted sites in college or at work
• 24×7 customer service and support
• Go completely anonymous while surfing the internet

Why Kepard VPN is a high quality VPN service?

Kepard VPN has been top rated on BestVPNz.com and has been featured and reviewed by TheVPNReviewer.com. Another fact of Kepard VPN is that it offers high speed connections. Your internet speed will not be capped, other VPN service providers usually cap your speed without you knowing but as i said earlier Kepard offers you unrestricted speeds.

Kepard also offers you 256 bit based encrypted connections so that no one can eavesdrop on you. When we are on the internet, privacy and risk of viruses is the only threat we face.

With Kepard’s secure channels you don’t have to worry about your identity being compromised. Kepard gives you the ability to change your IP address. Just click the Change IP button on the application interface and Kepard will assign you a different IP address. You can surf the internet anonymously.

What are you going to Win?

We will giveaway 3 Premium Kepard VPN accounts for 90 days each.

How to Win?

Gain as many entries as you can by completing all the tasks from the Rafflecopter widget below and we will pick a winner in random. Remember to give your genuine email addresses, as we will email you back on the same.

The giveaway will begin today i.e. on 13th April 2013 – 28th April 2013, and will run for 15 days. The winners will be announced within 48 hours after the contest has ended and their names will be listed on the Rafflecopter widgetboard. We will also send email to the winners with the procedure on how to claim their prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

That’s it! What are you waiting for? Go and win Big!

Disclaimer: "Giveaway: Win 3 Premium Kepard VPN Accounts of Unrestricted Speeds" is a post from: revthatUP

The main features of HipChat are:

1. Persistent Rooms i.e. you can communicate with your team members in Real time, everything you share or say will be done in a jiff. You might have heard of Chat Rooms in Internet Relay Chats.

This is a very essential feature of any instant messaging app. If communication is not in real time, we lose most of our time in just sharing the message or in data transfers.

2. 1 to 1 Chatting where you can start a separate chat session with your team mate. Say, you want to kick off a personal conversation between you and your buddy. You can do so, by clicking a name from the left sidebar. Your 1 to 1 chat session will begin right away!

3. Chat History makes it easy to find out what was the last conversation you and your friend shared and can resume it right from where you left off. This feature can be useful if you previously had a 1 to 1 conversation with someone.

We can’t always remember the stuff we talk about with someone, especially if you had a conversation with that someone, a long time back.

4. Drag and Drop File sharing allows you to send files and projects to anyone. Sending PDF files, Word documents, images such as screenshots can be shared easily by just dragging and dropping it into the message box.

Also since the complete file is shared and not the link to file, you can access it anytime.

5. Intuitive @mention system with instant notifications

The @mentions was first founded by Twitter, then i came to Facebook and finally to HipChat. You can mention someone’s name into your chat, and that person will be immediately sent a notification. This way you can start a conversation with a group of people almost instantaneously.

You also get the advantage of instant notifications. This feature works very well with Linux system notifications, but sometimes these constant notifications can become a little annoying, pun intended!

6. Zero percent probability for eavesdropping

The conversations on HipChat are secured with 256-bit SSL encryption, thus nobody can eavesdrop on your transmission. Ok the title of this point may not be a hundred percent true, since nothing can be made completely safe. Haha, just kidding, since breaking a 256-bit encrypted stream is very difficult.

7. Beautiful emoticons for your conversations

Emoticons do really enrich a conversation. With up to 150+ emoticons already included in the HipChat library and the provision for uploading your own as well, you can makes your messages more user-friendly!

P.S. there’s also a new feature introduced known as Emoticorrect!

8. Turn On/Off Guest Access

Similar to internet forums, you can allow the public, access to your room, but hide sensitive information from them. In short, only allow them, what you want them to see. Guest access allows individuals to preview a chat room.

Another good thing is that, you won’t have to install Adobe AIR to install HipChat, as Adobe AIR is not supported on Linux anymore.

Pricing and Installation

For now, you can take HipChat on a trial for 30 days without any limitations. After the trial period has ended, you can choose to upgrade to a paid plan or continue using the free plan limited to only five members.

The paid plan charges you $2 per month for every extra user you add, starting from the 6th user and you can cancel anytime.

To install HipChat on Linux just visit this page and enter the commands as given in the Terminal. Apart from Windows, Linux and MAC clients, HipChat is also available on Android and iOS.

HipChat is currently in Beta so you might expect some errors!

Source: OMGUbuntu

Disclaimer: "HipChat Instant Messaging Tool launches for Linux with Emoticons" is a post from: revthatUP

Major changes in Firefox 20:

• Per window Private browsing capability for Desktop users on Windows, Mac and Linux
• A new Download Manager which sits right on the toolbar
• Per tab private browsing for Android users
• getUserMedia and other new features for Firefox Developers

Per-Window Private Browsing for Desktop Users

As you know, previously Firefox users had to close a normal browsing session in order to start private browsing. To open a new private browsing window Firefox used to close and save all the running tabs so that they can be restored back later.

This meant a lot of inconvenience for users as they could not work with their normal and private sessions simultaneously. A per window private browsing feature for Firefox was in discussion from the month of February. So recently Mozilla decided to incorporate this feature into Firefox 20.

As you can see we can work on multiple windows. The one in the background is the normal browsing session, and the window in the foreground is in private mode.

A New Download Manager

Firefox Download manager has not been tweaked a lot but it has been made more convenient now. You can see the new download manager sits at the end of the Firefox toolbar so that it can be easily monitored.

Every time you download a file, the progress of the download can be seen in the toolbar. You can also right click to pause or resume the download anytime. If you click the folder like icon beside the download file, you can directly open the Download folder.

I find it styled somewhat similar to what is seen in the Safari browser. But nevertheless, it certainly does avoid the user to open the Download window, each time a file has been downloaded.

Per-tab based Private browsing on Android

Firefox has also added the ability to start private browsing on Android devices on a per-tab basis. Apart from this, Firefox browser is now compatible with other less powerful devices too like Samsung Galaxy Pop. You can install the browser from the Play Store.

What’s New for Firefox Developers

There’s also a good news for Firefox Developers, as the Developer Toolbox in Firefox has been tweaked a little bit to make it easy to switch between various tools.

A new utility called getUserMedia has also been added. By writing codes, you can take help of this tool to take control of the user’s camera and microphones.

Source: ZDNet

Disclaimer: "Firefox 20 New Per Window Private Browsing and a Neat Download Manager" is a post from: revthatUP

Twitter has recently pushed an update to all the mobile platforms, i.e. Android, iOS and Twitter Mobile. This update focuses on giving you Android 4.0′s native experience, and support for swiping gestures.

As soon as you open the new Twitter app, you will see a flat blue navigation bar with the Twitter logo at the left. To your right there is the usual, Search and New tweet icon.

You can now quickly swipe between your Home, Mentions, Discover, and your Profile tab. This feature is really a time saver, as we had to previously click on particular icons such as Home icon to navigate to the specific tabs. The in-app text also looks very thin and crisp. The letters are more legible and sharp.

You will also notice an ICS styled blue slider at the top, which will tell you in which tab you are currently on. A blue dot just beneath the icon will alert you that there are new notifications to be seen.

Another important functionality, or should i say ease of use is that now whenever you type a new tweet and insert a username or a hashtag, Twitter will autocomplete it for you. For example, say i want to insert the Gameofthrones hashtag, then twitter will show me a drop down list in which i can easily select the hashtag i was looking for! Pretty nifty, isn’t it?

The twitter team tells us that by adding a clean interface, and increasing the amount of useful functions available, users can now easily connect with people and find content on the social network.

Jonathan Le, the Technical leader of twitter for android said,

These updates, which are rolling out to users over the next several days, are part of our ongoing effort to make it easier for you to connect with interesting and relevant content on Twitter.

Source: Twitter Blog

Disclaimer: "Twitter New Interface on Mobile is More Ice Cream Sandwichy" is a post from: revthatUP

This app until now was available as a paid version on the Apple store but recently it has become free for Mac and iPad devices. The developer of Reeder, Silvio Rizzi told us that as Google Reader, the main service used for aggregating news on the Reeder, was shutdown recently, he will continue developing Reeder after July 1st.

Since Reeder is basically a Google Reader client and the latter is no more, Silvio has plans to update it and integrate popular services such as Feedbin and also include the ability to add standalone/local RSS feeds.

Unlike Mac and iPad, the iPhone version of Reeder (v3.0) is quite ahead, and comes with a wide variety of rss services included, but the iPhone users are not as lucky as we are. Unfortunately they still have to pay the $2.99 bucks to own it.

Some of the cool features you will find in the Reeder app are:

• Add subscriptions easily by entering a RSS compliant feed url
• Manage, sort your subscriptions into folders
• Send article to Instapaper, Pocket, Evernote or share it to Facebook, twitter, or delicious
• Sync articles across all your devices
• Ability to star an item and mark them as important
• Toggle Readability mode for comfortable viewing
• Start Dictation for voice reading
• Disable internet plugins like flash content embedded in the articles, etc.

Another good news is that in the next update we will also be getting the sharing and syncing services for Reeder.

According to the official announcement,

Reeder for Mac and iPad will be updated to 2.0 in the coming months. Version 2.0 will add all the features of the iPhone version, including all sharing and syncing services. Until then, Reeder for Mac and Reeder for iPad will be free, starting today.

You are now officially qualified to grab the Mac and iPad versions of Reeder app for free!

Reeder for Mac

Reeder for iPad

Source: lifehacker

Disclaimer: "Reeder Now Free for Limited Time: The Best RSS Client for Mac and iPad" is a post from: revthatUP

What is the big change People saw in Instagram’s TOS?

Many of you who don’t know, Instagram’s new TOS states that they are free to share your info between the two groups. In Layman’s terms this can be put as, you won’t be having a copyright on your photos anymore or as John Saddington (creator of Pressgram) mentions in his video, they are free to sell your photos online.

How and what pushed Pressgram?

Pressgram was created by an idea that power and control should lie in the users’s hand. He/She should have all the rights on their personal images that they share on the social web.

We have recently seen that third party services such as Pinterest, Instagram and other photo sharing apps released a slew of updates to their Terms of Service and people are, believe it or not bound to those rules.

WordPress on the other hand, has always been a key app for bloggers, and has never raised any privacy concerns for its users. WordPress takes your content and the data what you share seriously so you won’t have to worry about your photos being distributed or reproduced without permission. Your personal images will always be 100% owned by you.

Also by connecting a photo sharing app with WordPress, we can then be able to easily upload and share photos on our blog. You are choosing where and how to host your images.

How Does Pressgram Work?

Pressgram will basically be introduced as an iOS app which can then be connected to your WordPress.com or WordPress.org account which can then host your photos. You can then decide, for every individual photo that you share on Pressgram, to be published on your blogs or be saved on to your device instead.

Like Instagram you will also be given access to myriad of photo filtering tools. You can manipulate the images and share them as you had like. Essentially there will all be features that you used to enjoy on the Instagram.

Other awesome features of Pressgram:

• Sync comments between Pressgram and your blog
• Social sharing to Twitter
• Photo traffic landing back to your blog
• 100% Free

The Very Good Thing about Pressgram

But the very great thing about this app is that you can generate enormous number of pageviews for your photo. Let’s say that you share this photo on Twitter, then everyone who clicks on your pic will be taken to your blog (the original page where your published your photo), instead of a Pressgram landing page.

John further says in his official blog post,

When you share them through your favorite social network (I really like Twitter) it’ll send your network and your friends to your own blog instead of yet another landing page where the corporate hounds are monetizing your traffic.

Pressgram is a Kickstarter project and funds to this project are increasing day by day. Let’s hope this campaign will be a success and all the best to John saddington.

Teaser Video of Pressgram

Source: TheNextWeb

Disclaimer: "Pressgram Image Sharing App: The Best of Instagram Now For WordPress" is a post from: revthatUP