Hands On Review- BoomBotix Boombot2 Wireless Speakers

The BoomBotix Boombot2 Wireless Speakers took the concept of vinyl toys and has added some more functionality to it. Although most of us, may never have been into the concept of a vinyl toy collectible, kids love them. The BoomBotix Boombot2 Wireless Speakers or the BB2 wireless speakers has Bluetooth function and can be customized to play music through your Android or iPhone device. It can also function on Bluetooth enabled MP3 players and laptops.

The BoomBotix Boombot2 Wireless Speaker is about 3.8 inches in width, 3.6 inches heigh and is about 1.8 inches thick. It weighs about 5 ounces  and is made from vinyl plastic. It comes with a belt clip that can be used to latch the speakers on to the users' dress. The belt clip is rather handy, especially when the kids are skateboarding, skiing or just hanging out with friends. It is also small to be thrown into a shoulder bag or backpacks as it does not require any wires and you don’t have to frequently charged (except when the Bluetooth mode is ON and the battery drains). Up on top of the BB2’s skull is the power button, and there are two buttons on either side for volume control. On its back are the belt clip, one auxiliary jack and a Micro-USB port (that is used for charging). The BB2 looks best when it is stationary. Although personally, I feel that the BB2’s design appears a bit quirky, more like a gothic skull the kids really don’t care as they consider it rather cool.

The price is about $65 and as it is mainly for the younger consumer segment. For this reason, the sound does not have to be great. It comes with poor bass but that is enough to satisfy majority of the kids. The weird things that kids seem to like have always been a bit of a mystery to me, but as long as they are kept occupied, no one really complains!

For most kids though, the BB2 continues to impress with its versatility, durability, and portability. Be it rain or shine, the little guy still has the juice to blast out surprisingly decent sound. The fact that it can be controlled through their iPhones and that it always gets a reaction from people; make the kids give it a 5 on 5 user rating.

The bottom line is that it may have a quirky skull like design, but it goes well with the youngsters and they have a good value for money. It is portable, rugged with reasonably good sound quality and has wireless playback (thanks to the Bluetooth function) with the battery lasting a real long time. However, a lot of people have complained about its poor bass quality and its awkward skull like design!

Author's Bio: This is a guest post by Ron Schiff of xfinityonline, a site that offers savings and current information on xfinity internet, as well as xfinity.com services.

Facebook timeline will be default

Facebook's timeline will become default for every Facebook user from 27th August 2012. This date is now final and is being displayed on your Facebook profile, if you don't have Facebook timeline published on your profile.

Now, it is advisory to be used to it then to accuse it. And to help you a little bit with getting used to timeline, Facebook is welcoming you with a preview version.

How to set custom Page Not Found or error 404

When you open a website or a page, it sends a request to the server where the files are and then the server sends the files and you get access to your requested web page. But if the page do not exists on server it shows an error 404 means Page Not Found. Blogger by default has a error 404 page which is displayed when such conditions occur.

But recently Blogger has given its users privileged to edit and have custom Page Not Found message.

1. Just open your blog.
2. Go to Settings> Search Preferences.
3. In Errors and redirections you will find Custom Page Not found just edit it.

But I am not here to tell you to put some text in it. When you have the access then do something more. Below is my Custom 404 page's screenshot.

I have my logo followed by my message and then finally a search box so that users can search for something else instead of going away.

How to make your Custom Page Not Found?

Now, as you see you can figure out that HTML coding is required but I say 'no'. Just learn to play and find some way out.

1. Open up you Blogger's editor and create a new post.
2. Put your image in it make it align center.
3. Choose you fonts and font size.
4. Add your custom message if any.
5. Now click on HTML tab just adjacent to Compose tab in Blogger's editor.
6. In HTML tab you will find your required HTML codes, just copy it all and paste it in Custom Page Not Found section.
7. Save it.

Adding a search box?

Here, you do require to copy paste this code just after completing step 6 above. Here is the code-

<form id="searchThis" action="/search" style="display:inline;" method="get"><input id="searchBox" name="q" type="text"/> <input id="searchButton" value="Search" type="submit"/></form>

How to preview it?

To make sure that everything is going right, you need to preview you page. It is simple just open a new tab and then open a link and edit it a bit. Like add an extra letter.

Use search description for better SEO in blogger

WordPress vs Blogger, an unofficial fight. WordPress has always been on top because it is more SEO friendly, and that is true. But that does not means that Blogger is not SEO friendly. The reason is WordPress rely on meta tags.

What are meta tags?

Meta tags are used to store information about data. Previously, search engines used to rely on keywords for providing better and relative search query. But now, search engines use meta descriptions for accomplishing above task.

When it comes to blogging, there are two different places where you can user meta description, 

1. home pages (important)
2. article (the main game)

Here, our focus will be only on the article. Putting description is not a hard job, more over it is a single time task once done. You can leave it untouched for several months.

Optimum length for meta descriptions?

It depends on search engines, different search engines have different limits. So, you need to put the search description anywhere, between 120 to 180 characters. Just remember to include most relative keywords and search queries within the first 120 character.

In case your, meta description exceeds the maximum limit of search engine, the exceeding content is simply trimmed. Nothing to be worried about. You won't get penalized for exceeding the limits. But still it is unnecessary effort, to place a meta description of 500 - 600 character, that would be insane.

There are a number of Blogger users who don't include meta data in their blog posts. And this causes lowering of organic searches. Adding meta data is easy in Blogger just add Search Description while creating blog post and you can enter or modify meta data any time.

How to add search description?

In blogger's editor on the right hand side, is Post settings pane that has search description option.

How to know that search description is a meta tag?

This is quite simple to confirm that these Search Descriptions are meta tags and they contain description about you blog post. In this very blog post the search description is-

Using search description for better blogger blog SEO and higher organic search result.

Now, you need to open page source of this blog post that contains the coding of this blog post. If you are using Google Chrome or Firefox just right click inside the window anywhere on the websites'/weblog's canvas except links or images. In the menu that opens you will find View page source in Chrome/Firefox and View source in Internet Explorer, just click it and in a new tab the codes will open up and don't worry these codes cannot be edited. Now use "Ctrl+ F" to find search description entered.

Author's Bio: Shubhashish Shukla (follow him) is the person behind Sector Techno (twitter, facebook), a technology blog. An always learning web developer.

Facebook's friend request shows like

This is the native way to see new likes that your Facebook fan page has received. This is the only way by which Facebook fan page admins can see when they receive new likes. New likes are highlighted with blue color. Well, till now I thought this is the only way, but now there is one more way to see new likes.

When you will open your Facebook fan page after logging in, you will see that the Facebook friend request notification will show likes as well as if you have new like you will see them in a very similar way as you see new friend request. This feature has been launched recently. I encountered this today. And so it is all here for you to see.

This is the list that opens when you click on friend request notification icon when on your Facebook fan page.

I won't call it an excellent feature because either ways are equally handy and provide you with ease to access.

This feature may still be in trial if you are not able to access this with your friend request icon. Even I just saw it once, possibly it will be live soon. Till then we probably have to wait.

Are Clouds safer anymore?

Considering that even companies like Amazon and Apple are rethinking their security measures, for a layman internet seems to have become an entirely unsafe place. While you can do your best by encrypting files, keeping backups, changing passwords etc, the question that we are examining today is whether the latest form of storage – cloud storage – is as safe as it seems. On the outset it seems that cloud storage is definitely safer than other backups which you could create either on the hard drive, on email clients or anywhere else online or offline. For one thing, you can access the cloud from anywhere, which means even if you lose your primary source of data you needn’t be out of action while you dredge up the hard drive. For another – and this is more relevant – your data is stored in a cloud, over millions of bits and different computers – and is retrieved from different locations when you require it, which makes it very difficult for anyone to really steal it.

But this advantage could so easily be a problem too. Because your data is not consolidated on a single server, but is spread over hundreds of them, there is more transportation of data when you are attempting to retrieve it. In this case, there are many participants, which makes the security “weak” for if only a single participant is weak, the entire data can be disrupted. It can also be interpreted in a manner where because there are so many participants, there are more ways for problems to occur, and more opportunities for hackers etc to break into the data stream. You are always reliant on a network to bring your very important data to you, and if there is a chink in the armor somewhere you may lose your very online identity.

It is also important to consider what would happen to your information if the cloud you are dependent on goes out of business or disappears altogether one day. You are completely reliant on the cloud company to not only protect your data from cybercriminals but also to ensure that it remains private and is not shared with third party vendors etc.  Not all of us read the privacy statements that we so readily click on after all – and that may be an undoing when it comes to cloud storage. Even big companies have suffered with cloud. Foundation Management Associates lost a year’s financial data with Dropbox, and though Dropbox said information could be recovered, it still highlighted that cloud storage could have its own problems.

The bottom line then is this. Cloud storage is only as safe as its weakest weakness. Whether that is the dependency on networks, the reliance on a third company to hold all your information, the problems of new systems of cyber crime or the lack of interest on the customer when they are agreeing to terms and conditions, it differs from person to person. In order to be truly safe online, clouds should be used not as a primary source of storage but as backups of backups. 

Author's Bio: This guest post is brought to you by cabletimenc.com, a site that offers savings and current information on cable time nc. Visit here to learn more about savings on internet bills.

Facebook's new album viewer is live

After the timeline and some more features that are launched recently Facebook also launched a new layout for Photos. Apart from being cool, the new layout also offers many advantages or basically ease of access. Now you don't require to open photographs or albums to like and comment.

You can use the star icon to highlight any photo. And just adjacent to it, there is the pencil icon that is used to edit photo's info. The liking and commenting is now much more easier, all you need to do is hover your cursor above the photo and all the buttons and descriptions will be visible.

Every user is now far away from unnecessary time spending, opening the album then open the thumbnail's then you can like or comment. 

Mobile Payment And NFC To Make The Wallet Redundant In Near Future

With the growth of mobile technology, there are newer and better updates arriving almost every month. The latest and hottest mobile technology topic currently is mobile payments and the NFC technology. Looking at the ease of use, low cost implementation and safety, it is safe to assume that mobile payment procedures will replace the traditional credit and debit card payment system pretty soon.

Mobile payment is the technology that lets you pay for the things you buy with your mobile phone. No cash, credit or debit cards are required for these transactions. Apart from online digital content, mobile payments can also be used for general expenditure like grocery shopping or filling up your car with gas. Web technology companies like Google, several banks and other merchant companies and mobile service providers have collaborated together to make mobile payments a reality. Combining all mobile payment services, the total market of mobile payments is expected to cross the 600 billion mark in 2013. There are several mobile payment methods followed in various parts of the world. Some popular ones are mobile billing, NFC, mobile web payments and SMS based transactions.

Direct Mobile Billing Services

This mobile payment method lets users shop online without the need for entering sensitive credit and debit card details over the web. Instead, using a onetime password and secure pin, the transaction is completed and the payable amount is added to the user’s telephone bill. This method does not require any online registration and the involvement of banks. Direct mobile billing is very popular in many Asian countries due to the fast and easy payment process. It is also highly secure due to the use of two factor authentication. According to recent data, in some parts of Asia almost 70% of all online purchases are done through direct mobile billing.

Mobile Web Payments Service

This technique requires the customer to pay through a webpage opened in their phone via internet services. Some variations of the method may also require download and installation of additional software. While paying, the user is supposed to enter his credentials and payment details one-time and they are then stored for later use. After the payment account setup is finished, the payments can be made by directly adding the payable amount to user’s mobile bill. This is also a very popular payment method and some network operators even make mobile web payment mandatory. It is fast and easy to access as users can bookmark frequently used payment pages and thus speed up the subsequent payment processes.

Near Field Communication Technique (NFC)

It is the most talked about and fastest growing mobile payment technique offered today. The technology uses RFID technology to establish communication between two devices by bringing them close together without the need for setting up Bluetooth or infra-red networks. An NFC chip also known as “Tag” is used in NFC powered devices to institute the communication. In mobile payment scheme, the idea is to establish NFC reader payment devices similar to credit card swipe machines. The users need to bring their NFC powered mobiles close to the readers and contacts get created automatically between the two devices. Stored data about user’s credit and debit cards are then read from the cellphone directly and transactions are processed according to that.

To implement NFC payment, an online wallet service like Google Wallet has to be present in the mix. Google wallet stores all payment data and credit and debit cards numbers that are to be used by the NFC reader. Prior to establishing NFC communication, the user needs to open Google wallet service on his device so that the relevant data can be read properly. This additional step of opening Google Wallet has been a drawback for the process and efforts are being made to eliminate this step altogether and create a direct relationship between mobile phones and NFC devices. Many retail chains in the US have already set-up NFC devices and others are expected to follow the same mode. By 2013, almost all major retail chains and shopping plazas in developed countries are expected to implement NFC payment services.

Smart-phones and tablets have made the world a simpler place to live in by letting us do more and more with them every day. In the case of payments, the quantum leap from credit and debit cards to mobile payment is an expected and welcomed one. Successful implementation of mobile payment can decrease loss or theft of cards significantly and make the payment processes faster and more sheltered. Hence it is a first-class idea for mobile users to welcome the advent of mobile payment techniques with open arms.

Author's Bio: John Szabo, a writer at WallaceAPC, the company best tax preparer in Los Angeles.

How to Migrate to a New Domain Host Successfully

This post gives advice to website owners around successfully migrating from one domain hosting service to another.

Why Move?

There can be numerous reasons why you may wish to leave your current web-hosting provider. Whether it is unexpected downtime and problems that take an age to resolve, poor support services, or unacceptable loading times, there are many reasons why you may wish to switch host servers.

Switching domain hosts is a difficult and stressful time, especially as you do not wish to be offline for any great period of time. We looked at how to quickly and efficiently switch domain hosts, so the impact on your website and business is minimal.

Back Up Everything

Whether it is your typed web content, coded design aspects, applications built into your website, databases, imagery, or anything else, it needs to be backed up. Hopefully the sensible part of you would have your website backed up completely somewhere anyway, however if it is not then now is the time to do so.

Depending on your current web host and where you are migrating to, it may be a simple case of simply uploading your information into the new server and away you go. However, with the domain hosting market more competitive than ever, it is also a lot more common for hosting services to have individual and unique applications, or their own content management systems, which will make this a more complex task.

Database Migration

This can be the most difficult part of the entire process, predominantly because you could be heavily reliant on assistance and support from the domain host you are leaving. If you have had a poor working relationship then this might not be too much fun.

On the brighter side of things, many modern web hosts offer the capability to copy databases easily from the hosting control panel, so either you or your web developer can do this quickly and easily.

Check The Site

Before redirecting your site traffic to your new site, you want to check it all thoroughly through the eyes of your customers, to ensure your site is ready to go. If you have simply copied and re-uploaded, do not get caught in the trap of simply taking this for granted. Check every page and function is displayed or working correctly – although this will take time it will ensure that, in the eyes of your customers and site visitors, nothing has changed.

Free Migration Assistance

If you are still in the process of choosing a new domain host services provider, then look for one that will take care of the migration and checking on your behalf. This will give you the time to concentrate on running your business and ensuring you can meet your obligations to customers.

Author's Bio: Jaguar PC is one of the leading managed VPS hosting solutions, based in the US. With guaranteed 100% uptime, free domain transfers, and affordable web hositng plans; Jaguar PC is one of the top companies in the US.

Generate QR Code with your smartphone

What is QR code?
QR Code stands for Quick Response Code. QR code is a matrix code or simply a two dimensional or 2D code that can represent information.

QR code was designed for automotive industries but has become very popular today. You can find these codes in ads and promotional offers published in news papers and magazines. The advantage is that any smartphone user can just click an image of the code published in newspaper or through any other medium. The image is scanned and details are searched over internet and the user lands exactly where you want, for example your product page or home page. Well it is more advantageous to make them land on a specific product page.
If you are running any online or offline business then you can also have this QR code made for you and that too for free with your own smartphone.

My QR Code Generator

After downloading and installing the application from Google play store. Open it and enter the data in text field area. There is a drop-down menu just below the text filed that allows you to select which type of data you want to enter. It is not necessary to put the exact data as selected from drop-down. This is just a UI privilege provided. After selecting the type of data you want to enter from menu a relative keyboard is displayed for easy data entry. For example, if you have selected URl from drop-down then the keyboard will have a '.com' and a '/' button to make entry easy. Similarly if you have selected phone from dropdown then a numeric keyboard will be displayed.
The application allows you to share the generated QR code over Gmail, Bluetooth, and all other installed sharing application like Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Instagram, Skitch. But there is one disadvantage it don't allows you to save the generated QR code to your SD card. But that can also be done if you have installed Skitch- an image editing app. It is all simple generate the QR code and share it to Skitch using your share button there you will get save to SD card button.

QR Code Generator

It works the same way as My QR Code Generator works just the interface is different. There is no drop down to choose just type whatever you want in the text box and generate the code. The only advantage it gives over My QR Code Generator is that you can save you code directly in your SD card.

QR Droid

This application is outstanding as it offers QR Code scanner and creator both together. More over it's not limited to making QR Codes from URL, text, mail id and numbers. It can create QR Codes from business cards, contacts, images, etc.

QR Droid

Images QR codes don't encodes image instead the image is uploaded to QR Droid's server and the QR code generated contains a link to that image. Limit is you can have your uploaded photo on QR Droid' server for maximum one month.

NOTE-
The input data is case sensitive so don't upper case and lower case alphabets will produce different QR codes.
In both applications the image will be saved in .png format.
Try zooming the generated qr code using your Windows Photo Viewer you'll be amazed to see that these small .png images can be zoomed up-to maximum limits.
According to me Qr code generated by Qr Code Generator is better in quality. Though both can be used because these codes are printed in small resolutions not in big.

IMDb app for Android- Access movies database

IMDb stands for Internet Movie Database. A database that has information about films, television programs, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters.
IMDb application is available for Android users on Google Play stores. The application is free. The app has three sections accessible from the app header- Movies, TV, Celebs.

Movies

It lets you have a track on Latest trailers, Coming Soon, Recommended for You, create Watchlist. Recommended for You and Watchlist sections are only available after signing in. But nothing to worry you can sign in using Facebook, Amazon or IMDb account. After signing in you will also be able to rate the movies.
You can watch the trailers in Standard Quality, 480p and even 720p, not every Android device can play HD videos, only the one with proper hardware. From settings you can set two video qualities one in accordance to your connectivity, Wi-Fi video quality and Mobile Video Quality.  There is a notification section too that displays News, Box Office Mojo, Movies Opening Today, Latest Photos, Latest Trailers, Movies that are now available on DVD, Blu-Ray or Amazon Instant Video. But what must be displayed on the home screen of application and in your smartphones notification area- the status bar of Android Phones is completely at your disposal. You can select what to notify and how to notify, in your application or your status bar. To do that just open the menu and go to settings> Notifications settings> Customize your notifications, from here you can select the appropriate forms of notifications of your interests. And select whether in the app or in the status bar. The notification settings are categorized in three- general. titles and people.

MOVIEmeter- This section of the application has a list of the most viewed movies on IMDb.
STARmeter- STARmeter has a list of the most viewed stars on IMDb.
You can also search for any movie from the application.

TV

This section of the app Popular TV, TV Recaps, TV tonight and TV message boards. All these basically showcase TV series.

Celebs

Displays data about celebrities. On the top most STARmeter shows the most viewed stars on IMDb. Ratings are also available which shows if a celeb has moved up in the STARmeter list by displaying a green colored upward arrow.There is a Born Today menu and you know what it will show. But there is one more thing in Born Today section, there is a dropdown menu from where you can select any date and know who was born on that date. Especially used to know which celeb was born on your birth day.

Work at IMDb

If you want to get employed by IMDb then you can use this app for details. Just open Menu> Settings> More> Work at IMDb. All the available job vacancy will be displayed categorized in accordance to location.

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX10V Review

When Sony released the DSC-HX9V, the predecessor of the HX10V, it was acclaimed as one of the most efficient and handy travel cameras of 2011. With the HX10V, the company seems to have raised the bar even further. It has a 16x Zoom and a CMOS sensor of 18.2 MPs. This means you can now shoot in dim light conditions and still expect good results.

The Looks

The HX10V has retained most of the styling from the 9V but is more futuristic, and is slightly more rounded.  But then of course, the company has a reputation for manufacturing products that look like they could be featured on the next issue of Cosmopolitan. The 10 V looks professional, but if you just want to capture your happy or funny moments, it will suit you just fine.

The lens is pretty big but the compact casing gives it a smaller appearance. The front hand grip lets you handle the camera with ease, and click pictures single handed. The AF assist is also in the front.

In the rear is the display screen, which is 3 inches and has a resolution of 921k pixels. Next to the screen are the buttons: multifunction jog dial, button exclusively for recording video, menu key and the usual digital camera buttons.  The button quality is good, except for the jog dial. The delicate button makes accurate selection of options a little dicey.

The modes like manual, program, scene, 3D, auto options and more, are on a dial on the top of the camera. Buttons to release the shutter, the zoom, and power button are all next to the mode dial. Flash is activated from the menu and not manually.  USB and HDMI ports at the bottom offer connectivity. The build, while no Van Damme, can still withstand a couple of falls.

Features:

It has an 18.2 MP count, which is a big jump from the previous 16.2. The 3½ inch sensor size does not let you have DSLR quality pictures, but the CMOS sensor is considered by many experts as superior than CCDs that most cameras have, especially for shooting in low lighting. You can shoot images at a 4896X3672 resolution.  What’s striking about this model is the Zoom Lens. At 16X, it is considered much above the average. It has an Image Stabilizer incorporated, which reduces the blur even if you click images that are far away.  For travelers and wildlife lovers, this is really great news.

There are plenty of shooting modes; the manual mode lets you customize the settings the way you want. I only wish they had also included shutter priority modes as well. The camera also has 3D and Panorama shooting. The Intelligent and Superior Auto modes let you take awesome pictures without turning your hair grey.

The interface is absolutely user friendly, and you’ll soon get the hang of it. You can also record Full HD 1080i videos at a speed of 60 frames per second, and you can use zoom while recording video too.

Images are stored in JPEG format and the camera supports a number of memory cards.

While this is a great camera, owners of the HX9V need not rush to trade it in for the 10V because they won’t really be missing a lot.

Author's Bio: This article has been brought to you by www.buycharter.com - a site that offers savings and current information on charter tv.

Blogger app for Android

This is my first blog post typed and published via Bloggers application. The application is quit cool and offers maximum features that the web portal offers. You can put post title, post body, mark text and add hyperlink, put labels, make text bold, italic, underlined.
The features the application lacks are adding search description, permalink, changing the texts alignment. You simply cannot preview your post before publishing. Scheduling and a number of more features that web portal offers. After all it is an application limitations are obvious. But the future versions can be expected to have more options.
As soon as you log in, the application loads all the blogs associated with your account. Switching between the blogs is quit smooth and you can publish them very easily. Also you don't require to be online to create your posts.
The application does not offers changing fonts type, color, etc. You cannot make any text heading. So the only solution you are left with is saving your post locally on your phone when offline and as draft when online. You can make the required changes afterwards. This is a drawback but still you can complete maximum of your task and do the formatting later.
So overall it can be considered good for personal blogging. It is not good for the bloggers who blog to make living. Except in case of emergency.
This post is completely a work via Blogger application for Android. I am having internet problems because of which I am unable to access my blog via my desktop. It just saved me. And can save you too. Every blog post contains text and images. Thus, even a 2G connection will work fine from loading to publishing.

New Gadgets - Always Buy with Care

It seems the pace of technological advancements is never going to slow down, with many of the world’s best-known corporations, and a number of less familiar ones, constantly looking to introduce new gadgets on a regular basis. For the general public, there are constant temptations to part with hard-earned money in order to obtain the very latest in cutting edge electronics. This is all very well, of course, but most of us have a limited budget and will need to be careful about choosing what to purchase and what to leave alone.

The release of the iPhone 4 back in October 2011 is a good example of the conundrum that’s faced by gadget-hungry consumers. Although there were many updates and improvements incorporated into the design and configuration of the phone, it still basically performs the same functions as the previous incarnation, the iPhone 4, which was released in June 2010. The cameras, the connectivity and the phone itself are all improved, but they are still basically the same.

The same issues apply to laptop computers, with each new development often proving to be just an improved version of an application that already exists. With a faster processor, for example, the user can perform a series of tasks more quickly then he or she could have done with their previous model, but the actual end result is just the same as before. As always, the decision to buy a particular make and model will depend on individual taste and personal requirements.

We’ve perhaps all known someone who is wealthy enough to be able to afford the very latest gadgets and gizmos as soon as they are released. They will be among the first to buy the most up to date cellphone, the newest laptop computer and the most modern GPS unit for their cars, but for most of us it has to be a case of carefully selecting which advancements we can afford, and which ones we can justify buying. Therefore, it makes sense to do as much homework as possible before parting with any of our money.

The easiest and most convenient way of researching any potential purchase is to use the web. Those who are fortunate enough to buy items as soon as they are released are often happy to review their acquisition for the online community, so it’s best to make the most of this useful tool. Of course, this may mean waiting for a week or two to pass after the release of a new product, but it’s surely better to buy with confidence.

Author's Bio: David Showell works for a Majorca car hire company and is always looking for new gadgets.

Era of Cyber updates- 2012

The year 2012 can be marked as the era of cyber updates. A number of top online websites and portals got themselves updated.

Google-

Alongside with the launching of Google plus and Google Play. The entire of Google got an interface update for maximum of its services, like Google Apps, Gmail, Blogger, Drive (previously known as Docs), Calender, etc. YouTube is still has it's journey with its recent available layout. It had an update many years ago.

Facebook-

Facebook has also laid down the all new concept of timeline. Still timeline is under trial and is not available to every one by default. Except the new users who sign up have timeline as default. The new says that timeline will get activated to every user by September 2012. The timeline, from day one has never been appreciated among maximum of Facebook users. Well criticizing Facebook's layout changes has been a very common thing among maximum of Facebook users since it did it for the very first time. Then they all get acquainted with the new look and then start to appreciate it.

Digg-

Digg also announced on 20th of July that they will rebuild Digg from scratches. And on 1st of August they made Digg with its new look live on web. Digg has a new interface- Digg v1.

Outlook.com-

Outlook.com is a web mail service offered by Microsoft. This service is currently in review but reports says that it will replace Hotmail. The interface is quite cool and comfortable. Like Hotmail outlook.com still offers to connect Facebook and twitter and users online via both services can be accessed directly from your mail box.

How to Put Vendor Management Software to Use for Your Business

Many businesses struggle with trying to find a way to eliminate risk and track employee and partner performance levels. But with the help of programs such as vendor management software, companies are able to keep track of expectations and match actual job performance up with contractual agreements. Having a standardized system and holding employees accountable by documenting work that can be seen and accessed by all parties has proven to be an effective way for companies to reduce their costs and overall risk.

The following are tips for how to best put this software to use in your company:

Dedicate a group to oversee projects

Instead of having only one person dedicated to overseeing an entire project, computer programs make it easier to have an entire team overseeing one project. Data can be entered to keep every team player up to speed on the latest events, performances, and expectations.

Create standardized contracts

With technology, administrative headaches are eliminated. Standardized contracts can be crafted and uploaded into a system where every employee has access to view and print these as needed. Contracts can include requests for proposals, partner agreements and more. If any changes need to be made to multiple contracts, it can easily be done through the use of a computer system instead of manually. This saves hours of administrative work and ultimately saving money for the organization.

Negotiate contracts

While contracts are being discussed, all parties can be kept on the same page as far as expectations and revisions to meet new negotiated standards. By documenting all correspondence regarding contractual negotiations, standards are made clear, and there is minimal confusion around what each party is asking for.

Evaluate performances

Throughout the lifecycle of the contract performance levels can be monitored. This increased accountability reduces risk in the long term by being able to track long-term performance. These evaluations make negotiating contracts easier and more effective. If one party does not deliver what the other had expected, they can negotiate using solid evidence to prove standards were not met over time.

Manage expectations

In addition to monitoring performance levels, having clear anticipations of goals to reach and specific numbers to track the overall job function makes expectations easier to manage throughout the contract lifecycle. Once defined, technology can help track daily project statuses and goals reached. This information is also beneficial to clearing up any miscommunications about expectations and can be used when it comes time to decide if an agreement should be renewed.

Technology is helping businesses save money and time by making processes easier. By putting these programs to use in your organization, you can have confidence that risk is reduced, and overall job expectations are being met on a regular basis. 

Author's Bio: Raymond really enjoys writing about technology. For more information on vendor management software, please visit http://www.contractlogix.com/

Top 5 Wordpress Plugins to Improve the Loading Speed of Your Blog

One of the most important factors that could affect your blogs ranking in search engines is the loading speed; because, slower loading speeds would result in higher bounce rates and this would leave a negative impact on the status of your blog in terms of search engines.

There are plenty of aspects that would increase the overall loading time of your blog posts. Some of them include:

• Images – Images are definitely a necessity these days and if you don’t have them, you’re surely going to be a blog people won’t want to return to. But, images also increase the load time. Hence you would need to optimize them.
• Java scripts and not optimized databases – This is yet another reason for increased load timings and they could harm your blog to a point wherein you don’t receive any traffic at all from search engines.

Therefore, it is really important that you optimize your blog so as to increase loading speeds. Here are the top 5 Wordpress plugins to improve the overall loading speed of your blog.

WordPress Database Optimizer

It is really important that you organize your Wordpress database if at all you want to ensure faster load times. This plugin helps you achieve just that. Every time you delete a post or remove a plugin or maybe even delete a widget, there are tiny fragments of this data that still remains. This plugin would help you get rid of them all.

WP minify

In order to further increase the load speed of your blog, Wordpress minify combines multiple Javascripts or CSS files on your blog and removes any unnecessary comments as well as white spaces. In addition to this it further proceeds with gzip encoding as well as cache headers.

W3 Total Cache

This is a plugin that you should definitely have enabled on your Wordpress blog. It increases load speeds by a lot! It can do this because it caches almost everything that your blog needs such as the pages as well as images. Therefore, page views are really instant and don’t take time at all.

Lazy Load

What this does is it reduces the loading of images on your blog posts. Therefore the images that are further down the page don’t begin loading unless you scroll down that far. Therefore, the overall load time of their website decreases and hence the bounce rate decreases as well.

WordPress Smush.it

This plugin is certainly really useful if you’ve got a website or blog that utilizes plenty of images. There are many ways to reduce your page load time, but reduction of image sizes is one of the best. Every new image that you add to a blog post is automatically resized by smush.it so as to ensure that the page load times decrease drastically.

Therefore, if at all you want to decrease the page load times and your overall bounce rate, you would benefit by installing various Wordpress plugins that would be able to help you out.

Author's Bio: Converting from psd to wordpress requires lots of skills and this task should be better left to the experts. As a SEO consultant, Abhishek works with a number of companies involved in psd to wordpress conversion.

Digg has a new interface- Digg v1

Digg has updated its interface. The new look is black and white with colored images. This new version of Digg is called as Digg v1. Digg v1, as the team's official blogger says-

V1 shouldn’t be a better Digg, it shouldn’t be a better Reddit, and it shouldn’t be a better Hacker News. It has to be different.

Interface

The all new Digg v1 interface is divided into three sections the Top Stories, Popular and upcoming. Digg button is now on the home page just below every article showcased. The new looks looks great. They build up the new version in just 6 weeks as they announced.
A great work indeed but the work still is in progress. The submit section don't have categories or maybe the team has planned to remove categories. Moreover, there are no ad displayed in any way.

Social Networking

The tweet and Facebook social buttons are also available just below the submitted articles. But there is no Google plus share button till now. Only the top two social networking sites are included. 

Social Stat

Also social stats per article are shown as the sum of number of diggs, tweets and Facebook likes that the article has received. The share button concept is used very efficiently.

Digg Profile

The Digg profile that displayed the details like Popularity, Total submissions, daily submission is not available. Now there is no one to follow or get followed. Regular Digg users never liked the following concept and now it is removed with an entirely new approach. As a user I will say that Digg v1 must have a profile where a user can see a list of stories dugged by him/her and have a social stat for every article.

Official App

Digg has also launched it official application for iPhone. Possibility says that there will be an official release of for Android devices too. If not then it is no doubt that third party app developers may look forward in developing an un official version of application for Digg v1 for Androis devices. It may all take time but there will be some better news coming the team has just started with this new version.

Top 4 Gadgets for College Students

Technology makes everything easier, even being a college student. Although having the latest and greatest gadgets won't necessarily ensure that you pass all your classes this semester, having them can certainly help. If you're going to be heading off to college or starting a new semester in college soon, consider investing in these top gadgets:

1. Monster Beats Headphones

If you're a hip college student who eats, sleeps, and breathes music, the Monster Beats Headphones by Dr. Dre Studio will probably be right up your alley. These noise cancelling headphones deliver stunningly crisp sounds and let you tune out the world around you, so you can immerse yourself in music while you study (and look cool doing it). Monster Beats headphones not only offer great audio quality. They're also really attractive and sleek. Selling for around $250, they're definitely an investment, but they should last you all four years.

2. Echo Smartpen

College students take a lot of notes, and keeping all those notes organized can be difficult.  The Echo Smartpen digitally captures all the notes you take on paper and sends them to your computer. With this pen, what you write down in class never gets lost and always stays organized. Plus, the Echo Smartpen can record between 400 and 800 hours of audio, which means you can give your hands a rest without having to worry about missing any of the important things your professor lectures about. This pen will cost you around $100. And if you think it'll help you raise your GPA, it's definitely worth the money.

3. Kindle Fire

It's easy to keep up with your reading as a college student when you have an e-reader. The Kindle Fire is an ideal choice for the college crowd because it provides access to tons of e-textbooks and e-books from the Amazon store and limitless entertainment opportunities from apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Pandora. The Kindle Fire is also ideal for students because it's relatively affordable in comparison to other tablets. For just $199, you can ditch the heavy textbooks and keep up with your class reading on a Kindle Fire.

4. Roku

If, like most college students, you can't afford cable, you may be wondering how else you can get your regular fix of TV shows. Luckily, you can stream your favorite shows to your TV using a Roku or other streaming media player. A Roku will cost you around $60, and subscriptions to Hulu Plus and Netflix will each cost you around $10 a month. Since most cable packages cost around $80 a month, using a Roku can save you a whole lot of money, which leaves you with more cash to spend on your education.

Gadgets won't determine your success and happiness as a college student, but they can definitely help keep you organized, efficient, and entertained. So, consider the gadgets listed above, and don't forget to study!

Author's Bio: Stephanie Brooks is a freelance writer and blogger who mostly enjoys covering all things education, including online universities and traditional brick-and-mortar institutions. When she's not writing, she can be found at the gym working out to Zumba and cooking healthy recipes at home. She welcomes your feedback.