It's not just about better interface, multitasking and powerful processing speeds, but nowadays smartphones are gradually turning into full-fledged digital information powerhouse. Developers are coming up with new and intuitive applications that add more convenience to your daily life. Applications based on voice and face recognition are quite popular among smartphone users.
blippAR is one such application that uses advanced image processing technology to assist you in getting more information about any object (image, link, video, barcode, logo, advert, physical entity). Simply point your phone's camera to the object and the application will instantly scan it against its database to fetch the most useful information (coupons, availability, general information) that is relevant to your query.
This application is available both for Android and iPhone. It's like a smart engine that recognizes objects in real time and fetches relevant information from it's database and different sources to give you the most recent and accurate information.
This information is intermixed with highly relevant adverts to assist you in getting the solution in an easy manner. blippAR application automatically re-fetches latest information for previous searches to keep the most latest information in the database. You can also share the received information to popular social networks directly from within the application. blippAR is free and runs smoothly without consuming too much resources.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
How To Turn Your Smartphone Into An Information Hub
Monday, October 24, 2011
3 Best Ways To Find Detailed Information About Your PC
Sometime while finding a driver or a system software, we require information about motherboard model to download the correct driver. Generally an average PC user struggles to find system information from his PC. However with smart system information software you can easily find detailed (hardware & software) system information with ease. Here are 3 popular system information gathering software.
Auslogics System Information - It's an impressive suite of software modules that gives detailed information about your computer system. This includes complete hardware information, drivers, software installed, peripheral devices reports and much more. The interface is very good and the information is presented in such a way that a non-geeky person can also grab the details easily.
Belarc Advisor - This excellent software not only gives you system information but also works as a smart system auditor giving you information about missing updates. This includes information about outdated drivers, missing operating system updates, incomplete anti-virus updates and much more. The application is light and generates required information very quickly.
Speccy - This nice little system information application from Piriform is an excellent option for all users. It can be used on old systems as well without losing any performance. You can save all the generated system (snapshots) information in various file formats as per your requirements. It also shows temperature (wherever detectable) in different components of the system in real-time.
Friday, October 21, 2011
How To Be A Productive Web Surfer
Often we browse web without any purpose wasting our precious time that can be used in a more useful way. This purposeless browsing habit not only affects our work but also our health. However, with some simple tricks, you can keep control on this habit and can get more out of web that will not only refresh your mind but will also aid in your work.
Keep your desk and desktop clutter-free - This is the first step towards productive web surfing. It's not just your desktop but your computer table should also be free of any distracting elements. Do not populate your desktop with countless shortcuts and folders. Keep them to bare minimum by including only those applications that are used heavily on regular basis. For example, my desktop has only 3 icons - Recycle bin, Firefox and Filezilla. The cleaner your desktop, the less is the distraction.
Use filters for web access - Generally we use default DNS provided by our internet service provider. Although it works quite well, but it doesn't offer any blocking or filtering capabilities. Use OpenDNS and use it to filter content from certain categories (porn, drugs, or sites falling under specific category). This greatly reduces your time being spent on crap and you can focus on something better. This service also offers family shield option that protects you from phishing sites.
Temporarily block internet - If you're working on an important assignment and couldn't concentrate due to email notifications and some random surfing activity, the best way to get things done is temporarily blocking access to internet. I use an excellent application called Freedom that works both on Mac and Windows machine. It lets you to block internet for a specified period of time. I use it whenever I'm writing a post or doing some other freelance work that doesn't require internet connection.
Use filters for your mail - Often we spend lot of time in processing our daily mail. Fortunately, with some simple tricks we can greatly reduce this time to focus on important things. You can optimize your GMail account for better mail processing by setting filters and adding tags to your mails. This way, not only your inbox will be clutter-free, but you will also get a chance to process the most important mails first.
Install only essential browser add-ons - Nowadays there are thousands of add-ons available for Firefox, Google Chrome and other modern browsers. Make sure you install only the most (only work-related extensions) essential add-ons to your browser. Sometimes we try out different add-ons for a similar service and waste our precious time in testing countless browser extensions. Carefully prepare add-ons requirement, research and install only those that will help you in being more productive.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
How To Access All Your Cloud Storage Services From One Place
There are so many cloud storage services available for users today. Freelancers, web developers and professional bloggers use them extensively to store their critical data. Generally some of these services offer a desktop client to access your account, but some of the services only provide web interface. Sometimes we struggle to sync and transfer files across these different cloud storage services.
But, there's an excellent cloud storage management service called Otixo that lets you manage all your popular cloud storage accounts from one place. Otixo supports Dropbox, Box, Picasa, Google Docs, MobileMe, SugarSync, FTP, WebDav and Amazon S3 cloud storage services. Simply link your accounts with it and let the magic begin. Generally we download the file to our desktop for transferring it to another cloud storage service. With Otixo, that's not needed at all. Simply drag-n-drop a file from within the application to transfer your file from one service to another.
You can also mount your Otixo account as a network drive on your PC, so that you can manage all your cloud storage accounts from Windows explorer. Otixo provides a secure sharing mechanism too. You can specify the access level and the expiration date of the shared file. This way it ensures that only authorized users are allowed to access the file. You can also use Otixo on your smartphone or on your iPad.
Otixo's strong search mechanism lets you search a file from all your cloud storage accounts in one go. You can also use wild cards to match multiple files. The desktop mounted version (as a network drive) is available both for Mac and Windows system.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
7 Best WordPress Plugins For Podcasting
Podcasting is getting popular day-by-day among bloggers. It is effectively used by thousands of publishers to build traffic and audience. Unlike text posts, podcasting makes a much closer connection with the listeners and gives you a completely new channel to connect and engage with your subscribers. Here's a collection of WordPress plugins that can turn your blog into a podcasting machine.
podPress - It is one of the most popular podcasting plugins for WordPress. It supports over a dozen podcasting file formats to choose from. You can create categories, and can also have preview options for the listeners. If you're offering paid subscriptions, podPress has enough options to support pay-only content. Once you've uploaded your podcast you can either configure it to play within the web page or can allow visitor to generate a popup window. podPress also maintains enough statistics to keep track of your podcast performance.
Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting plugin - This is yet another hugely popular podcasting plugin used by thousands of bloggers. It has lots of configuration options and supports over 2 dozen podcasting file formats including full iTunes support. If you're using podPress and want to make a switch, this plugin has in-built migration tool fo seamless switch with minimum hassle. It also includes impressive statistics and reporting module.
Podcasting Plugin by TSG - This handy plugin have enough options to run a stable and easy-to-access podcast. Like other new podcasting plugins, it also have full iTunes support. What I like the most is an option to create custom podcasting feeds depending on the categories and other variable factors. Quite similar to Blubrry plugin, it also includes a migration tool for podPress users.
Buzzsprout Podcasting Plugin - If you have Buzzsprout account, you can easily use this plugin to integrate your podcasts hosted on Buzzsprout into your WordPress blog. It uses shortcodes to embed podcasts at your desired location. Buzzsprout also have in-built migration tools to let your transfer your data from other podcasting systems. You can embed your podcast as HTML-only link or as a flash player.
WP-iPodCatter: WordPress iTunes Podcast Directory Plugin - As the name suggests, this plugin fully support iTunes podcast durectory-based custom feeds for the subscribers. You can create unlimited custom feeds from the iTunes directory based on topics and other variable factors. It's lightweight and is very easy-to-use for bloggers who regularly use iTunes as their podcasing medium.
MTR Podcast Recorder - You can think of it as your own podcasting server built right within your WordPress dashboard. Through this plugin your can directly record a podcast from within the dashboard which is then uploaded in real-time on your web server. All files are saved in MP3 format and you also have the option to segregate them in different playlists. It also includes a widget for displaying your podcasts as well as full support to embed your episodes into posts and pages.
Podcast Channels - It's the ultimate plugin for podcasters who are publishing episodes in large number of categories. Maintaining different channels and podcasting categories through this plugin is a cakewalk. It has flexible in-built options to keep the podcasts segregated in different groups including custom feeds for each category.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Google+ Introduces Improved Mobile Web Browser Interface
Nowadays millions of netizens are using their mobile phones to stay connected with their contacts on various social media services. No social network can survive in the absence of easy-to-use mobile extension. Recently, Google+ has launched a completely revamped interface for Nokia, Blackberry and Windows phone users who generally use their mobile web browsers to access this fastest growing social network.
The new interface is much cleaner and elegant with a new Google+ home screen. This home screen has a nice and streamlined collection of hyper-linked icons for streams, photos, circles, profiles and notifications. It also includes a link for help forums and a dedicated link for sending feedback.
The notification icon on home screen shows the number of unread alerts quite similar to the navigation bar alert system present in desktop interface. The stream has a new layout and design that's soothing to eyes with sliding comment options. Now you can also add your location while writing comments with a separate screen for editing your comments. The new comment system also shows number of comments, +1's and the number of shares a post has received.
What I like most is the mobile version of people search facility that let's you find and connect with your friends and colleagues easily. The new interface is light and works well with a general GPRS connection.
Friday, October 14, 2011
How To Get Your Book Published Through Your Social Network Friends
If you're an avid writer and want to publish your own book, you can get the same at no cost. There are several publishing house that charge hefty amount to get your book published, but with the help of your social network contacts, you can publish your own book completely free of cost. 
So how you can get your own book published via social networking? Simply go to PUBSLUSH Press and upload the 10 best pages of your book with the summary. You can also upload your own video describing the book in a more effective way.
Once your submission is over, it is showcased on the web site in a separate section, where visitors can browse author's book submissions. They can read the sample excerpts and can also watch the author's video. Once a visitor likes the book excerpts he can click the support button. Once the support count reaches 2000, PUBSPLUSH publishes that book.
If you have active friends network on popular social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, you can easily share your book submission page link and can get 2000 votes in no time. This way you'll be able to get your book published very easily with the help of your online friends.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
15 Best Android Applications For Web Developers And Freelancers
If you're a web developer or a freelancer, you must be working with clients across the globe. For completing business related tasks, you must be using some of the most essential business applications on your desktop. This can be a graphic editor and or a todo-list task manager. But when you're on the go without your laptop, do you carry some of the most essential applications on your Android smartphone that are vital for your freelancing business related tasks?
Here's a list of must-have apps for freelancers and web developers.
Documents To Go - This handy application lets you view Word, Excel and Powerpoint files on your phone. It's light weight and supports almost all versions of Microsoft office files.
Adobe Reader - The name says it all. Nowadays lots of important documents and data is stored in PDF files. Adobe Reader lets you view and read from simple text to graphic intensive PDF file.
CamScanner - Phone PDF Creater - This application is a life-saver for freelancers. You can easily turn your Android smartphone into a document scanning machine. It works perfectly with text as well as graphic documents.
ColorNote Notepad Notes - It is one of the best note taking applications for Android. You can also organise and schedule your to do lists tightly integrated with calender. It's yet another must-have app for every freelancer.
TeamViewer - If your clients are located in remote locations and you need access to their desktop, TeamViewer application is the best choice. It's simple yet powerful remote desktop control application.
Google Docs - The name says it all. With this excellent application you can maintain your Google Docs account with ease. You can easily upload, download, view and edit your business documents hosted at Google Docs.
Dropbox - If you're not using Google Docs, Dropbox is an excellent option to manage your online documents. This awesome application brings the power of cloud storage and document synching on your smartphone.
Evernote - Through this application you can store just about anything (notes, graphics, datasheets, diagrams, contact lists, todo-lists) in your Evernote account. It's like a database of information related to your business available on your smartphone anytime, anywhere.
World Clock & Widget - This application is absolutely essential for freelancers working with clients in different time zones. You can keep track of their local time and can fulfill your commitments in time.
Adobe Flash Player - If you're developing and testing flash applications or widgets for your clients, you must have this application. It's very popular among web developers across the world.
Adobe AIR - Similar to Flash application, Adobe AIR applications provide useful productivity and business applications for freelancers. To run them, you'll need this base application.
Android Terminal Emulator - This application is designed for professional web developers and programmers. You can emulate a Linux terminal on your smartphone to test and run various applications and commands as per your needs.
Unit Converter - As the name suggests, this immensely useful application converts various metrics. I like this application because of its currency conversion module. It's ideal for freelancers getting payment in different currencies.
Doc Converter - This useful application converts various popular file formats into another format. Ideal for converting complex graphic intensive files into much simpler text-only version.
AndFTP - Simply install this application and bring the power of full-fledged FTP client on your smartphone. It's a must-have application for every web developer and freelancer.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
A Beginner's Guide To Google+ Privacy Settings
If you're on Google+, you must be familiar with its innovative friend's management system (Circles). Security and privacy are the cornerstones of a successful social network, and that's what every user must know to protect his account from intruders and spammers. Fortunately, Google+ has a robust privacy mechanism that is flexible and fully customizable.
Notification types - There are several notification types that allow you to receive an alert whenever a specific type of event occurs. This can be a follow, a direct message or a photo tag. If you upload large number of pictures, you may want to switch off photo-tagging notifications. These settings can be tweaked as per your requirements, and largely depends on your account activity and the general browsing pattern of your friend's network.
Notification scope - As the image shown below, now you can select who can send you notifications. This is fully customizable and applies on the profiles, circles and extended circles regardless of the type of notifications activated in other section.
This means that if you've activated photo-tagging alerts, still you can block a circle or a profile to send any photo-tagging alerts. This won't affect their photo-tagging capability. Only their tagging alerts won't reach your inbox. Sound cool?
Photo settings - Pictures are an important part of any social network and require more flexible and custom privacy settings. Fortunately, any photo uploaded to Google+ is private by default. You can also opt to add a Geo-location to the photo which is disabled by default. This does make sense as you may not want to reveal your location. You can also disable your photo download link provided it is public. Google+ also lets you select profiles and circles who can tag your pictures without any prior approval from your end. You can do the vice-versa such that everyone on Google+ must need your approval before their photo-tag is made public.
Post privacy - Apart from regular privacy settings that limits the visibility of your post (circle, individual, extended circles or public), you can also disable comments on any post. This prevents anybody from commenting on that post. For more flexibility you can also lock your post. This ensures nobody can re-share or repost your update on their profile.
I'd like to know which other security and privacy hacks you use on Google+. Probably some of these are used with the help of extensions and plugins. Share in comments below.
Monday, October 10, 2011
How To Create Diagrams And Collaborate In Real-Time Online
I've used several desktop and online diagram creation tools. Some of these were commercial solutions and other was freeware. Several of these tools have quite powerful diagram-creation features, but they lack real-time online collaboration with team members. How about editing a website mockup diagram in real-time with your web development team dispersed across the globe? Sounds good?
Cacoo makes it possible powered by rich diagram-creation tools. It's a free online service having rich set of options that can be used to create different types of diagrams.
Cacoo has extensive stencil sets in various categories (flowchart, network, office layout, people) that enables you to create just about anything conceivable. It is ideal for engineers, web developers, programmers, students and hobbyists. Apart from online collaboration (real-time editing by team), Cacoo lets you maintain change history of a diagram. This helps in reverting back to the older version with ease. While collaborating as a team, all team members can also exchange instant messages for better coordination.
It also lets you embed your diagrams on web sites. The good is this that any changes done on the original diagram are automatically reflected on the embedded graphics. You can create a unique url for your diagrams for sharing on various social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Cacoo also lets you export your diagrams in various popular formats like PDF and SVG that allows you to import them in various image editing applications.
If you work on diagrams with your team located in different locations across the globe then this application is must for you.
Friday, October 7, 2011
How To Validate Email Newsletter HTML Against Popular Email Clients
Email marketing is one of the most popular methods of generating leads and selling products. It is also used to deliver content in different formats. There are several popular email marketing services like Aweber and Mailchimp that reliably process large lists with dead accuracy. Experienced email marketers are well equipped with all the knowledge about creating result-oriented newsletters. But, there's a hidden danger that may affect the performance of the most neatly designed newsletter.
This danger is none other than distorted rendering of newsletter in various email clients. This results in loss of information or illegible newsletters that may trigger instant unsubscription. More than that it may damage your hard-earned reputation and may kill your brand. To get rid of this problem, you email newsletter's HTML must render smoothly across all major desktop and mobile email clients.
Are you thinking about hiring an expert web developer to validate your newsletter's HTML code? Wait a minute; you don't need to hire anybody! Fractal is an excellent free service that intelligently scans HTML emails for any shortcomings that may lead to inaccurate rendering in email clients. Fractal supports over two-dozen popular desktop and mobile email clients and checks the HTML against all these email readers. It also checks over 100 common CSS properties mostly used in email newsletters.
The good thing about Fractal is that it not only detects the shortcomings, but also provides fixes for it automatically. That means you automatically get the corrected and optimized HTML version that renders uniformly across all major email clients. I've tested it with MailChimp sample newsletter and it showed some issues of rendering in Lotus and blackberry clients. I also got the optimized version instantly.
This service is highly recommended for professional email and affiliate marketers. It's simple-to-use, free and reliable.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
How To Use Writeboard For Collaborative Writing
World Wide Web has made this world smaller. Our online connections are now more refined and more personal. Editing an online document and that too by multiple contributors is a tricky thing. There's a risk of over-written or corrupt versions that may lead to chaos. Luckily, there are several online document editing services that smoothly manage multiple users for a single document.
One such service is WriteBoard that gives you a powerful and free collaborative document creation and editing service. Several team members can work on a single document in real-time with version and roll-back support. This ensures that no changes are lost and you can revert back to previous version with ease.
While creating a new WriteBoard you get a unique url and an option to add team members via their email addresses. A handy RSS subscription and notification system ensures that each team member is updated of any changes made to the master document.
You can also backup and archive entire collection of document in a secure way. If required, you can also export your WriteBoard data to a file for local editing. The entire document editing process is secure, fast and very reliable. It's ideal for freelancers and project teams where team members are geographically dispersed.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
OpenMeetings: The Ultimate Open Source Web Conferencing System
Although there are several web conferencing software and applications, but almost all of them provide basic or limited features. They may support voice, video or text as a medium but lacks some advanced features that may be required for professional web conferencing sessions. Commercial solutions are quite expensive and small businesses couldn't afford these premium services.
However, there's an excellent free and open source solution call OpenMeetings that not only provides regular web conferencing feature, but also includes advanced features. These features include screen sharing, advanced file explorer, whiteboard, calendaring, polls & votes and backups facility. It is a highly configurable and scalable conferencing application that supports wide array of external hardware (webcams & microphones).
You can download and host this powerful conferencing solution on your own server. This ensures that there's no limit or restriction on the number of users taking part in a conferencing session. OpenMeetings lets you start a conferencing session in various modes. You can initiate a video + audio, video only, audio only or image only session as per your requirements. Each session can be recorded in AVI/FLV formats.
Every OpenMeetings conferencing session is initiated by a moderator that configures various options and allots resources and features to each participant. While screen sharing you can opt to share the entire screen or can choose a custom region. It also includes the quality of screencast for low bandwidth participants. Fortunately, each configurable feature can be fine-tuned on per user basis.
You can also integrate OpenMeetings system with various content management systems and social media services. It supports integration with Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, SugarCRM, Facebook, Paypal, Elgg and many more.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
How To Create A Custom Dashboard In Google Analytics
Almost every web site uses a web analytics system to track and analyze the traffic. Interestingly, directly or indirectly (ppc ads) your web site traffic is captured by Google Analytics software. The new version 5 of Google analytics has some powerful features that has taken web analytics to a new level. It has the features to make you a ninja in no time.
One of such features is custom dashboards with custom widgets. This essentially means that you can create your own data visualization board populated with your choice of metrics and dimensions. This is a very powerful feature that allows you to mine and visualize different data sets on different dashboards as per your requirements.
Creating a custom dashboard damn simple! What matters is how you populate it with real information that can be used to optimize your web site. So the real challenge is to come up with useful widgets that make any custom dashboard a goldmine of information.
Select a web site profile and open the dashboard creation dialogue box by accessing Dashboards -> +New Dashboard. This presents you with two options for creating either a blank canvas or a dashboard pre-filled with default widgets that can be customized further. If you're a novice user, choose the latter option, else you can opt for a blank canvas. Custom dashboard's canvas is a placeholder for widgets that can be arranged as per your requirement.
You can create several custom dashboards for a single web site profile. For example, you can create a separate dashboard for analyzing social media traffic or you can create one more to keep track of goals and a/b tests. Opportunities are infinite and the only limitation is your imagination. Make sure you give a meaningful name to each custom dashboard that clearly explains the purpose or goal of each respective dashboard.
Now comes the important part of creating custom widgets that are the life and blood of any custom dashboard. Simply click +Add Widget on top of the custom dashboard and you will be prompted with a widget creation dialogue box.
You get four types of widgets - Metric view, pie-chart view, timeline view and table view. For each view you can choose metrics and dimensions supported by advanced filters to extract the exact information needed by you. Beginners can start with simple metric view widgets and can experiment with filters.
So go ahead and activate v5 of Google analytics to take advantage of this powerful feature.
Monday, October 3, 2011
How To Correctly Claim Content Authorship With Author Markup [VIDEO]
Google has recently introduced a new markup for web publishers to claim ownership of their content in Google's database. This not only associates you clearly with your content but also builds authority giving you better visibility. Since the launch of Google+ service, Google profiles are more important than ever before. Google is knitting all of its web services around Google profile and making it a centralized hub to identify an individual or business.
And that's the cornerstone of authorship markup, where you as an author are associated with your Google profile. Using the authorship markup significantly boost your authority that helps in projecting yourself as a trusted source of information. This eventually helps in elevating your content rankings in search engine result pages.
Here's an excellent video where Google's head of webspam team Matt Cutts and Othar Hansson - software engineer (Google search) explains about content authorship markup and its positive implications for web publishers.
If you're not able to view this video in your feed reader, here's a direct link for the same - Google Authorship markup
