Once I start using Windows 7, I noticed that this features is there only in Desktop, not for other folders. I was keep looking for a solution to disable auto arrange and enable align to grid whenever I want it. Finally I found a way.

How It Works?

When you go to folder in Windows 7 you won’t be able to see the options ‘Auto Arrange’ and ‘Align to Grid’ in the right click menu. If you want those back you have to change the System Registry with some values.

That sounds too geeky. How can an average person going to enable those options in right click menu? Here we go with the solution.

• Download this file
• Save it in a known location of your computer
• Run the file by double clicking on it.
• It will give you the below pop up window.

• Say “Yes” to continue and of course this is a trusted file. It won’t cause any harm and you have nothing to worry about.
• Then it will give you below pop up confirmation

• Click “OK” and we are done.

Then you can go to a folder and right click. Under “View” you will be able to see the options “Auto Arrange” and “Align to Grid”. You can enable and disable them for any folder any time.

Tips

If these options won’t appear even after following these steps, you may try restarting your PC.

These options will be disabled for “List” and “Details”. If you are in such a viewing option change it to “Medium Icons” or may be “Large Icons” to enable those options.

Now you have total freedom to drag and re arrange the files in any folder the way you want. If you want to apply any specific configuration to entire folders, follow below steps.

Alt-> menu bar appears -> Tools -> Folder options -> View -> “Apply To Folders”

Ex: You disable “Auto Arrange” in current folder, then follow the above steps, auto arrange will be disable for the entire folder in your PC

But that doesn’t solve the problem completely. If you are not in front of your own PC and you want to check email, again you will run in to same problem. As a solution what you really need is an “Online Mail Client”. The best web application that can act as an Online Mail client is your Gmail account.

Background Preparation

In order to download emails to your mail client, mail account must have POP3. Make sure you enable it in every account that you want to connect with Gmail. In order to send emails you need SMTP, which has to be enabled, yet optional.

Any type of E mail service will give you configuration details to connect to email account using mail clients. That may include Username, Password, POP server, SMTP server and Port. Organize all those details before you start linking your mail accounts to Gmail.

Steps to Follow

Send Mail as Another Mail Account

Now you are good to go! As the first step, try to send email as any of your mail account in Gmail account. To access the configuration follow the below path.

Gmail -> Settings (Right Top Corner)-> Accounts and Imports -> Send Mail As

There you have to click “Add email address you own”.

Once you click on that, it will give you below pop-up.

There you have to fill your name and Email address that you want to send email as from Gmail. Then click next. Ti will take you to below window.

There you have 2 options. If you go for “Send through Gmail”, it’s very easier to configure, just one click away. But in that case, receiver will see something like “Sent through Gmail” depending on Email that he is using. In Technical terms, the mail actually is sent through Gmail, only the header information is changed to given email as sender.

The best way is “Send through SMTP server” which is actually sending the email using your remote mail server. There you will have to enter SMTP configuration details for that server. Once you click next, it will try to verify the configuration details entered. On success it will take you to the next level where you have to verify the ownership of the mail account. For that verification mail will be sent to remote mail account. Click on the verification link and you are done.

Now try to compose new mail. There you will see new drop down menu named “From”. Using that you can select what is the mail account that you need to send mail as.

Receive Mail from Another Mail Account

To configure Gmail to receipt of mail from multiple accounts you have to go to below configuration page.

Gmail -> Settings (Right Top Corner) -> Accounts and Imports -> Check mail using POP3

Then click on “Add POP3 Mail account you own” to get below configuration pop-up window.

There you have to enter the email address which you want to download email from. Then click next to proceed. It will take you to below window.

Here you have to enter POP3 Configuration details for the specific email account. You can easily get these configuration details from control panel of your mail account or from the help section.

Other than POP3 configuration there are 4 check boxes which are very important.

• If you check 1^st one, it will leave a copy of email in the original mail account as well. This will be good as a back-up. If you feel like you don’t need another due to limited space leave it un-checked.
• If you check the 2^nd one it will always use secured connection to connect to remote mail account. But mail account must support secured connection to enable it.
• 3^rd one is very important! It will let you label incoming mails which will be very useful to separate email that came from different mail addresses.
• Last check box is letting you to directly send the incoming mail from selected remote account to Archive. In that case those mails won’t appear in inbox, yet can access through the folder ‘archive’.

After the configuration Gmail will periodically download email from linked email accounts and they will appear in your Gmail inbox with the label if you assign any. Right there you can reply to those mails as same email account.

If you want to check mail now from any email account connected you can go to below configuration section.

Gmail -> Settings (Right Top Corner)-> Accounts and Imports -> Check mail using POP3

Then click “Check Mail Now” link which you can find in front of linked Email accounts.

Now you have an online email client, where you can check all your email accounts, send mail from any of your email account from anywhere in the world any time.

First of all let us understand the problem.It should be clearly understood that this is NOT an ‘Error’, but a ‘Notice’. A notice can be ignored if it’s not critical while an error must be fixed. You might have observed that even though a notice appears, rest of the output will be displayed on the browser.

Coming back to our topic, when the ‘Undefined index’ notice occurs, most of the time it is a good practice to fix this than ignoring.

How to Fix

One simple answer – isset() !

isset() function in PHP determines whether a variable is set and is not NULL. It returns a Boolean value, that is, if the variable is set it will return true and if the variable value is null it will return false.

More details on this function can be found in PHP Manual.

Example

Let us consider an example.

Below is the HTML code for a comment form in a blog.

<form name=”myform” id=”myform” method=”post” action=”add_comment.php”>
<h2>Please leave a comment:</h2>
<input type=”text” id=”username” name=”username” value=”Enter Username” /><br />
<input type=”text” id=”email” name=”email” value=”Enter Email” /><br />
<textarea id=”comment” name=”comment”>Enter Comment</textarea><br />
<br /><br />
<input type=”checkbox” id=”notify_box” name=”notify_box” value=”Y”>
Notify me when a new post is published. <br />
<br />
<input type=”submit” value=”Post Comment”>
</form>

Here is the PHP file ‘add_comment.php’ which takes the data passed from the comment form.

<?php
$uName  = $_POST['username'];
$eMail  = $_POST['email'];
$comment= $_POST['comment'];
$notify = $_POST['notify_box'];
// send the data to the database
?>

What happens is, when the check-box is CHECKED, the code works fine. But when it is not, then I am getting the warning as mentioned above.

“Warning: Undefined index:”

So to fix this, let us make use of the magic function. Now the code appears like this.

<?php
$notify = “”;
$uName  = $_POST['username'];
$eMail  = $_POST['email'];
$comment= $_POST['comment'];
if(isset($_POST['notify_box'])){
$notify = $_POST['notify_box'];
}
// send the data to the database
?>

What happens here is, I am checking first whether the check box is CHECKED (or set) using a condition. And if the condition is true I am getting the value passed.

The same fix can be used for the above warning when working with $_SESSION, $_POST arrays.

But, there instances where harmless notices can be ignored.

For an example,

I have a page which can be accesses in below 3 ways.

www.someexample.com/comments.php

www.someexample.come/comments.php?action=add

www.someexample.com/comments.php?action=delete

All these URL’s go to the same page but each time performs a different task.

So when I try to access the page through the first URL, it will give me the ‘Undefined index’ notice since the parameter ‘action’ is not set.

We can fix this using the isset() function too. But on this instance, we can just ignore it by hiding the notices like this.

error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);

You can also turn off error reporting in your php.ini file or .htaccess file, but it is not considered as a wise move if you are still in the testing stage.

This is another simple solution in PHP for a common complex problem. Hope it is useful.

Most of the news about hybrid cars came from Japan. Toyota came with their Prius while Honda came with their Insight and Civic. There are some cars from Europe as well such as BMW 320D diesel hybrid but Japan was the one to dominate the hybrid market according to the sales statistics.

The American vehicle legend was always about performance and safety. They were not much concerned about fuel efficiency. Therefore, most of the American vehicles were having a hardy metal body and huge engines which does less than 20 MPG. They survived for decades, yet could not give good competition to highly economical Japanese cars which do more than 30 MPG. The sales of American cars continued to drop for the past few years putting most of the American Automobile manufacturers in great financial danger.

However as it appears to be, Americans never gave up. For the year 2012 they introduced a new line of Yukon SUV from legendary GMC (General Motor Cars). They are having the same huge engine and maximum safety as any American vehicle has, plus considerably good fuel efficiency. And they introduced Hybrid version of GMC Yukon as well which does more than 20 MPG which is too much to hope from this metal monster and he is under today’s spotlight in Notes Of Genius.

Special Features

Exterior

Most of the previous versions of GMC SUVs were having a hardy metal look. But new Yukon is has a very smooth curved edge design. In order to improve aerodynamics they have undertaken many measures including lowered front, smooth leading edge of hood and rear spoiler. Other than that they have included light weight 18” alloy wheels with less rolling friction.

Yukon has good ground clearance and at the same time it’s having lower center of gravity which gives maximum stability and safety to the vehicle. All the air intakes are carefully placed not to disturb the smooth air flow around the vehicle to ensure the stability.

The catchiest feature in exterior is placement of lights. The main lamps are powered with Dual halogen bulbs. Other lights are also nicely designed and adds extra value to the vehicle.

Interior

Yukon Hybrid has 8 leather passenger seats with more leg space like no other SUV. This will give the ultimate conformability to the passengers and maximum safety with the 3 point seat belts. Dashboard is having a very simple design yet giving all the required information to the driver.

There is an information display in the middle of the dashboard to display the status of the hybrid controls including power flow, power ratio used, battery power remaining etc.

Engine and Transmission

GMC never seemed to like to go for a smaller engine displacement. Most of the Asian SUVs are having approximately 2.5 Engine displacements while GMC Yukon Hybrid is having 6.0 L V8 engine which gives 332 hp @ 5100 rpm. Of course this huge engine will deliver quick performance which will provide a  great driving experience with great responsive controlling.

Unlike in older versions of GMC vehicles, they are focused on fuel efficiency as well. In new Yukon Hybrid there is a technology named Active Fuel Management. This is having an algorithm to engage and disengage pistons to save fuel according to the driving conditions.

Ex: When you are accelerating, all 8 pistons will be engaged. When you are in constant cruising speed, 4 pistons will disengage since it only needs power to maintain the speed.

If you take a closer look in to the hybrid technology, the GMC Yukon hybrid is powered by 2 Mode Hybrid engine. This technology allows the engine to run on electricity, fuel or combination of both. The controlling unit will decide what the best fuel source for the condition of drive. Same as in any other hybrid vehicle Yukon Hybrid is also having Regenerative Breaks. The 300V battery which powers up the hybrid engine is placed under the 2^nd row seat.

The entire information related to hybrid engine will be displayed on the above mentioned information display in dashboard.

Yukon Hybrid comes with 6 speed hybrid automatic transmission. 4 Wheel Drive is not a standard option yet it’s available for special orders.

Hi-Tech

Yukon Hybrid is equipped with many high tech features. If you take a look in to the car’s audio and video, it’s having 9 speaker sound system with 8”display and a DVD player. There is a separate display in between rear seats as well. Adding an extra value this multimedia system supports wireless head phones for the rear seats.

In case you need to use your mobile phone while you are driving, you can connect it to car audio system using blue tooth connectivity and then it works as a hands free system.

Yukon Hybrid comes with lots of other sophisticated features such as rear view camera, GPS navigation system and touch sensitive display.

Why You Should Go For GMC Yukon Hybrid?

Safety

The main reason to buy GMC Yukon is its great safety features like no other Asian vehicle offers. Mainly it’s having a solid metal body and sub frame to ensure safety in a collision. It’s having 360 degrees safety which comes from air bag system covering not only front, but sides and other areas. There is a children safety seat as well. As additional safety system there is an intelligent breaking assistant, tyre pressure monitor and parking assist.

This is one major factor that GMC vehicles are still here in the automobile market though they have very low mileage compared to Japanese vehicles. No Japanese vehicle can ensure the safety that GMC vehicle can offer its passengers. Therefore, people who are willing to pay extra to get that level of safety still go for GMC regardless of the very low mileage.

Performance

Another reason to buy a GMC Yukon Hybrid is its power. It’s giving 332 hp from its 6.0 L V8 engine. There are very few SUVs which will give that kind of power to your drive. And this power will give you a nice driving experience since driving controllers are snappy responsive. To control this iron monster there is a 4 wheel anti-lock disk brakes system.

With all these power, Yukon Hybrid can accelerate 0-60 mph within 8.1 seconds.

Fuel Efficiency

If safety and performance are your concerns of course you cannot expect that vehicle to be highly economical. Most of the previous versions of Yukon were doing less than 15 MPG. Still most of the people who bought Yukon were happy with it when it comes to other great features it offered.

The new GMC Yukon Hybrid is doing 20 MPG in city driving conditions according to its specification which gives you fairly economical drive in this huge vehicle. In a Highway, a Yukon hybrid will do 23 MPG.

No matter what, these huge metal monsters are having very a limited market due to global economical conditions. Most of the countries who used to buy GMC vehicles such as Saudi Arabia are  also now going for economical Japanese vehicles. Even in USA Japanese vehicles, especially hybrid vehicles sales are sky rocketing because they are doing more that 40 MPG.

If GMC want to compete in this market, they have to scale down their vehicles to meet the general requirement of the automobile users. But as it appears they are not willing to go on that track. They still believe in huge vehicles with huge engines. Hope this hybrid version of Yukon will give them a hope to survive in automobile market and continue their ledged started from 1908.

The simplicity and text based nature of twitter opened many windows for surfers such as bloggers, researchers, and marketers and politicians. For a general user you can express yourself with short text message using web interface or may be using your mobile phone. Researchers can see what the hot topics are right now while politician used “tweets” to develop social behavioral models to support their campaigns.

If you plan to do massive online promotions using twitter, you came to the right place. But main thing is, before you proceed you have to have a considerable amount of “twitter followers” who are interested in what you are going to promote. Here I’m trying to give you a few tips on getting more targeted twitter followers to get the maximum benefit out of your online promotion.

Make Your Profile Visible

The main thing, everyone on internet should be able to see your twitter profile even before they sign in to twitter. It’s not only your profile your tweets also should be publicly visible. To get this thing done you can follow below path.

Twitter -> Settings -> Account -> Uncheck “Protect My Tweets”

Now your tweets are publicly visible. If you insert a appropriate “Username” it will further increase the search engines visibility. To make your profile looks cool, brand it with your logo or relevant content. For that you have to go to below settings page.

Twitter -> Settings -> Design -> Change background image ->Upload a custom branded background

Now you are ready to tweet.

Tweet Interestingly and More Frequently

After setting up the twitter profile correctly, you should start tweeting. When you tweet make sure you tweet interestingly to the target crowd with targeted keywords and with good frequency. Additionally, if you tweet in peak hours, there is a greater probability that many people will see your tweets in “Public time line” and through Searches.

If you have a blog you can setup automated tweeting of your blog posts using TwitterFeed. If your blog is running on WordPress platform, you can use the plug-in WordTwit.

Following Targeted and Relevant Twitter Profile

Now your twitter profile is filled with relevant, interesting tweets which will lead your target users towards interesting content. Then the main target is getting more twitter followers. Once you have followers your tweets will be visible in their home page.

Easiest way to get followers is to find the relevant twitter profile and follow them. There is a higher probability that they will follow you back since you have relevant and interesting tweets.

To find relevant twitter profiles you can try searching targeted keywords. In the search result, go to the profiles and follow them.

Follow Back Your Followers

After sometime, you will figure out that you are getting followed by people whom you are not following. Make sure you follow them back to return the favor and keep them as followers in the long run.

Sometimes they might not be the targeted crowd you need. But it would not cost you any to keep them in your profile as followers. More the followers you have more the value it will add to your profile.

Automated Profile Following

There is some software developed to automate the above mentioned steps. However you have to use them with the risk of getting banned from twitter. To minimize that risk avoid excessive usage of the particular software.

My suggestion for such software is TweetAdder. It automatically finds relevant twitter profile based on given criteria such as geographical location, bio, keywords in tweets etc. Then you can configure the application to automatically follow the profiles which you already listed. Further you can automatically un-follow the people who didn’t return the favor within a given period of time.

This software will help you to increase the number of followers drastically with in short period of time. Use it very carefully following the Software guidelines. If you use its default configuration, there will be a minimum risk of getting banned.

Paid Service to Get Twitter Followers

If you need to further speed up the growth of followership, you can go for a paid service and buy twitter followers. There are lots of services providing targeted guaranteed twitter followers to your account in a short period of time.

Some of the services ask for your username and password which they need for following and follow back in order to get more twitter followers to your account. In that case make sure you go for a trustworthy service. “BuyTwitterFollowers.org” would be a good choice if you need to pay to get more twitter followers in a short time.

Additionally there is another service who doesn’t ask for your twitter account password, yet they take a long time to give the expected results.

Through this post I am providing an organized set of techniques to acquire more Twitter followers in both less time consuming and more time consuming, yet secured ways. It is now your call to make a good use of it according to your business requirement.

Recently Nikon introduced to the world the new KING of DSLR cameras – Nikon D4. This is a high end professional camera which attracted many photographic lovers around the world and it is coming as advancement to the Nikon 3Ds. This camera is having many of exciting advanced high tech features for photography as well as cinematography like no other camera in the world ever offered.

Special Features

Expanded ISO Range

The main noticeable feature in Nikon D4 is its unbelievable ISO performance. It’s having 100 – 12, 800 standard ISO range and 50 – 204, 800 extended ISO range. There are few other cameras which offer similar ISO range but the main attraction here is noise performance.

Normally when you shoot in lesser ISO, sensor is less sensitive and has lower noise. It’s good if you have good light conditions in shooting environment. But when you have low light environment you have to increase ISO to achieve adequate shutter speed which also will make the images noisier. Due to that, having higher ISO alone is not enough. It has to be less noisy in higher ranges as well.

DxOMark.com has not yet tested Nikon D4 sensor, only previewed. However according to professional photographers who have tested this camera, noise level in Nikon 3Ds at ISO 6400 is equivalent to noise level in Nikon D4 at ISO 12800 which is amazing. This will let you shoot in higher shutter speed even under very low light conduction.

Image Sensor

The image sensor in Nikon D4 is nothing special other than its above mentioned ISO performance. It’s a Full Frame FX format CMOS sensor which is having 16.2 Mega Pixels.

However if you take a closer look in to the pixel size, it’s bigger than other similar type sensors. Its pixel size or pixel pitch is 7.3 µm. Most of the similar images sensors have pixel pitch less that 5 µm.

These bigger pixels give this camera the amazing capability of capturing maximum amounts of light and shoot under very low light conditions.

Super Speed Auto Focusing and Image Processing

Nikon is all about performance. It let you shoot fast action and time critical snaps like no other cameras. But with Nikon D4, it’s taking it to the next step.

The camera is coming with EXPEED 3 image processor which will give you amazing performance to your photography. 91, 000 pixel RGB metering sensor will give you accurate light metering in many different complex scenarios. MultiCAM 3500FX autofocus sensor works in very low light conditions and delivers super fast auto focusing with 51 point auto focusing system.

The auto focusing system offers a range of options for you. Mainly it gives you single point focusing (SF), area mode (AF), continuous (CF) mode and 3D tracking, same as in most of other Nikon DSLRs.

In addition to that Nikon D4 is having Object Tracking System which identifies the object in the given focal point and keeps focusing on to that object with any type of movements. This will be a great option for sports photography.

These features turn Nikon D4 in to a high performance low light shooting gear which is also having unbelievably fast low light auto focusing. Without having these advanced metering sensor and auto focusing sensor, Nikon D4 won’t be able to utilize the maximum power of its ISO range.

To make this high performance fast action photography capability even stronger, it comes with 10 fps continuous shooting mode. That allows you to shoot 10 pictures in one second with variable exposure and auto focusing as well. If you are using exposure lock you will be able to achieve the speed of 11 fps.

Live View

Same as in Other Nikon DSLRs, D4 is also having live view mode. It let you control different parameters to change the light and other image processing with real time reflection in the live view.

The specialty here is Nikon D4 is having two different live view modes for photography and movies with specialized set of features. In photography live view mode, it let you shoot in completely silent mode up to 24 images per second at 2 mega pixel resolution.

Full HD Videos @30fps

Nikon D4 comes with advanced movie mode which let you capture 1080p videos at 30fps. If you need to capture video and make it slow motion you can shoot at 60fps in 720p resolution.

The duration of a clip recordable at stretch has been increased from 20 min to 29 min and 59 seconds.

The most attractive feature here is Nikon D4 is capable of sending uncompressed video streams through HDMI out. It let you use a separate video storage device by-passing the camera’s storage. This is really a cool feature since there are lots of movie recording devices in the market which accepts HDMI input as the video source.

Connectivity

Nikon D4 is having USB connectivity which can be use to connect the camera to a PC and transfer the file. The brand new feature here is, it comes with LAN port as well, which will give you even better and faster data transfer.

Other than that it supports wireless adaptor like most of other Nikon DSLRs. But unlike other Nikon DSLR it let you control the camera remotely, through a PC, tablet or a Smartphone. Further, it’s capable of directly streaming the live view through Wi-Fi to a destination controlling device.

Storage

Nikon D4 is not supporting standard SD cards. It supports Compact Flash and XQD chips mainly having the objective of higher data transfer rate. There are other DSLR cameras which support CF, mainly the gears which are fine tuned for cinematography. But Nikon D4 is the first DSLR camera that supports XQD chip.

XQD is the next generation of removable storage which delivers ultimate reliability and performance. The main reason to include XQD in Nikon D4 is to get the speed and reliability to turn the device in to high end movie camera. This will be a huge advantage to win the Nikon-Canon war in DSLR cinematography.

Usage of Nikon D4

Low Light Photography

When it comes to Photography the main usage of Nikon D4 would be low light photography. Its exceptional ISO noise performance advanced metering and auto focusing sensor will make this possible. Photojournalists who are covering various music concerts etc will love to use Nikon D4.

To control the camera functions in low light environments, it comes with illuminated buttons in rear panel.

Other than that even when you are using an external light source, you will have the flexibility to control the light and capture what you really need. You will be able to minimize the usage of external lights as well. This will help you to save the battery life of your flash gun.

Sports Photography

Sports photography will require higher shutter speed to freeze the motion. To achieve higher shutter speed you need strong light and wide aperture. In the case you don’t have strong light condition, like in early morning or evening only wide aperture won’t help. There you have to increase the sensitivity of sensor to go for a higher shutter speed which is Nikon D4 is well capable of.

Other than that, it comes with ultra fast image processor, light metering and auto focusing sensor which will never let you miss a moment. When you do sports photography, you will use continuous focusing mode, 3D tracking mode or most importantly subject tracking mode.

These snappy performances will probably make the Nikon D4, the best gear for sports photography. Other than that, it is having a solid build with full Magnesium alloy body which is moisture and dust proof. Hence, you don’t have to worry about the durability when you take your camera to the sports fields.

For Cinematographers

Most of the advanced features of Nikon D4 are focusing on cinematography. Most of the previous Nikon DSLR also came with 1080p HD video but not 30fps. Most importantly there was no way to make real slow motions till this camera came with 60fps.

As a special feature there is a function to produce time lapse videos automatically. It takes pictures in a given interval and you don’t have to worry about producing it manually. Camera exports the entire set of images captured as a movie in 1080p resolution and given frame rate.

Nikon D4 is the first DSLR which streams uncompressed video through HDMI output. These open lots of new opportunities for movie producers. They can only use the sensor and image processor of the camera, with external display and recording device. This will give them the opportunity to expand storage unlimitedly and easily plug external video monitor.

Wireless adapter which comes as optional feature of Nikon D4 gives you the opportunity to connect an external device, stream live view and control the camera remotely. This will let the video producers to control the camera when it is mounted in to cinema rig.

Though Nikon D4 is having FX sensor, you can shoot videos in DX format. In that case it will give you 2.7 x extra zoom for your existing lens without reducing the quality of video which is 1080p.

Drawbacks

No argument that Nikon D4 is one of the best DSLR in the world. But it also has few minor drawbacks according to my point of view.

The main drawback is it doesn’t support common types of storage cards. It’s true that if you are doing cinematography, you need extra speedy storage. But if you are doing photography, it’s not that critical. In that case it’s really cool if you can use common type of storage card like SD.

When it comes to connectivity still Nikon D4 is not supporting USB 3.0 which let you transfer the files in a super fast manner. However, most if the professional photographers don’t use USB connectivity, but external card reader.

Most of the competitors are already providing RAW format support for videos, yet Nikon D4 is still having compressed MOV format though it has other high end cinematography features. Other than that it is a bit heavy and lot more heavily when you use it with a cinema rig.

Nikon D4 will be coming in to USA market by 2012 February and will start worldwide shipping really soon. It’s not surprising if this make a sales record in DSLR camera category with all these amazing features and market price $5999.95. You might say the price is too high, but compared to the features and facilities you are going to get, it’s a worthy investment.

If you take a look at the social networks, basically it allows you to connect with your friends and communicate with them. For communication you were able to use text in the early stages, but with time you are offered the facility of using rich media as well. With the improvements of broadband internet speeds, developers could introduce better rich media features to social networks like videos. In this article I’m going to take a look in to historical milestones of ‘social video networking’, technology used, its social impact and future trends.

Reasons for Growth

In the early time on Social Networks, most of the features were limited to text based communication such as Messages, wall posts, Blog, forums etc. After some time there was some involvement of graphical media such as images and GIF animation. Trend initiating online social networks including Friendster, MySpace and Hi5 were using various different combination of above features with different brandings.

There were several limitations for web applications to use rich media, mainly the speed of internet. During the time of ‘Dial up’, web developers had to think twice before they include even an image. Therefore, most of the online communication was practically limited to text and few images. Other than that there were problems related to videos such as users had to download and watch the video and video recording required advanced professional gadgets.

With time, technology improved and mainly below factors triggered the evolution of an era of social video networking solving the problems of load time, video playing and recording.

Internet Speed

If you go back to 1990’s internet speed was limited to 48 kbps which was Dial up internet. By that time it was adequate to carry out text based online communication, yet nowhere near for online video. But with the advancement of global broadband internet technologies, global average of internet has increased to 9.83 mbps.

This speed of internet is more than enough to stream an online video without interruption and upload video quickly as well. Other than that this higher speeds made it possible for the users to share HD videos online as well.

In addition to wired internet connections there was a significant growth in mobile broadband as well. Today most of the hits coming to social networks are from mobile devices.

This growth of internet speed removed the major barrier for Social “Video” networking and allowed the users to share their lives online, more comprehensibly using videos going beyond text and images.

Web Technology

In the early time of Social networking, there was sufficient technology to let the user to upload the video and store them properly. But when it comes to playing, the technology was no sophisticated enough. In the case a user need to see a video he had to download the whole video and play it using a locally installed media player and it was a considerable limiting factor for Social Video Networking.

With the time, web technologies improved and gave birth to the concept ‘online video streaming’. This technology let the users to watch the video without downloading whole file at once, right on the web interface. The most popular application used to achieve this was Adobe Flash Player for web. Users had to install it to stream the video in a web interface.

Other than Adobe Flash player, there are alternative technologies introduced recently including Microsoft Silverlight and HTML 5. Most of the popular Social Video networks are already using HTML 5 which is a high performance replacement for Adobe Flash player and it doesn’t require any plug-in installation to watch the video.

Portable Video Cameras

Video uploading, storing and streaming technologies were developing exponentially, but the problem is how to produce these videos. Few decades ago producing video was limited to high end video production studios. But with the technological advancement, today you can carry a personal video production kit in your jacket pocket.

Lots of manufactures are releasing various different camcorders which are capable of recoding videos just by pressing few buttons. The video quality of those is also improved to a position where they are good enough to be broadcasted in a public TV channel. If you take a look at the market prices of camcorders, they were starting from approximately $250. Therefore in a short period of time camcorders became a house hold item. Video recorded from those directly came to social video networks with the time.

Other than the camcorders, lots of DSLR cameras introduced to the market were capable of recording high end, professional, quality videos other than their normal usage which is capturing still images. Those devices also helped the Social video trend to grow not only in quantity, but also by quality.

Other than all the above, the most interesting trend of social video is footage captured by mobile phones. We keep the mobile with us always and let us capture valuable moments and share them online without even the help of a computer.  Today most of the Smartphones are equipped with HD video recording capability and very high speed mobile broadband internet. Hence, users can record high quality videos and upload them to social video networks without further delay.

Big Players

YouTube

YouTube is the most popular Social Video Network which is providing most of the interesting features, specially the video streaming performance. This is managed by Google and it has been integrated with Google+ which gives it most of the advanced social networking features. It’s using adobe flash as well as HTML 5 as video streaming technologies.

It was founded in 2005 and became the trend setter for Social Video Networking. This web application changed the public image of online video in a short period of time. Today it’s hosting billions of social videos and connecting many users, as subscribers through channels.

Vimeo

Vimeo is very popular especially among video produces. It’s a Social video network where produces can share their video and get feedback from other produces and users around the globe.

Same as In YouTube this is also using Adobe Flash player and HTML 5 to stream video and provide the video player for users. Users can upload many different formats of videos including HD content.

Facebook

Facebook is THE social network in the millennium and still at the top unbeaten. It also has the facility for the users to share videos. It’s having its own video player for facebook hosted videos and at the same time users can embed YouTube videos as well.

Same as most of the social video networking sites, facebook is also using Adobe flash, HTML 5 and giving HD video support.

Social Impact

Even at the time where social networks were limited to text and images, their social impact was massive. When the era of social video rose it made that social impact even stronger. Today TV has practically been replaced by Social Video Networking sites.

The main thing that users will expect from a social network is a platform to connect with friends, already known in real world or may be the unknown, and express themselves freely like they can never do in real world. Hence the sole objective so any social network is to give maximum facility for the users to express themselves much freely and comprehensively.

With the growth of Social video networking many new things that world never knew, came out to public. Most of the interesting video stories are recorded by non professional individuals. They contain ‘cover versions’ of popular songs and different invaluable moments captured on the go. Here is one good example.

Everyday most of the social video networking sites are getting millions of videos captured by individuals using their personal camcorders or mobile phones that contain interesting content. Those videos are shared among public and the best part is people can give feedback to those unlike in Television. This social conversion around a video made a huge impact on how people think and global life style changes.

Other than personal videos, after seing the crowd gather around these social video networks, most of the professional video produces also started releasing their videos online. Those mainly contained the videos you can already see on TV channels such as music videos, news and other programs. The number of hits those videos are getting is amazing and here is one good example, the most viewed video on YouTube.

Other than that marketing professionals are using Social Video Networking for creative promotions campaigns. The reason here is that there are billions of people around the globe connected to these sites, which is way higher that any public television channel. Once they come up with some promotional video you can easily publish it online totally free of charge and social engagement is way higher that television.

Social networks are self sustaining systems; people upload videos, watch videos, rate and comment by themselves too. The application owner only provides the platform to carry out those operations and that gives this amazing power to Social video networking. Application of technology allow the user to upload not only HD video but 3D videos as well.  It’s very difficult to say where this trend will go next, but for sure this will lead television broadcasting to its grave.

Once you digitalize your data, you will need software, to be more specific, an Information System to handle the data effectively. To cater the general requirement, there are various “off the shelf” software in the market. Microsoft Access is one of them which come as a proprietary version of software, means you have to purchase it. If you are looking for free and open source applications you can go for Open Office Base.

Custom Made Software – Nightmare or a Day-dream?

The above mentioned “Off the shelf” software will fit many businesses which are in initial stage. Once your business start growing to a certain level, you will be having more specific requirements. If you think that level has been reached, the next step is, custom made software, in other words specially designed software which cater exactly what you need.

In the time you were using “off the shelf” software, I’m pretty sure things went smoothly. That because those software are designed to fit in to most of the general requirements perfectly after doing a massive research. But of course, as your business grows your requirement become more specific and unique. That’s where you have to develop software for yourself. But the question is, “Will it run smoothly as previously used off the shelf software?”

The theoretical answer is YES, It has to be that way. It is software specially designed to cater the unique requirement of your own business. Off the shelf software is like a pant you bought from a fashion store, which is designed for everyone while Custom made software is like a pant you order and design for your own measurements by a local tailor.

But when it comes to Software in more than 70% of the cases answer is NO. But why? What will happen if your tailor gets inaccurate measurements before he designs the pants? Obviously it won’t fit you. Same as that, if the software developer didn’t identify what exactly your business is and what you really need, the software he is going to develop won’t fit in to your business. In real life, as I said before, in almost 70% of cases Software Developers are failing to take accurate measurement of your business, in other words Poor Requirement Analysis.

How to solve this problem?

Most of the medium and large scale industries are maintaining in house software professionals to accurately analyze the business requirement and develop software that they need. In the case of a large scale development, they can out source it with the supervision of an internal team. But how are you, a small scale entrepreneur going to solve this problem. Of course you are not in a financial position to hire in house software professionals. Solution is always DIY (Do it yourself)!

You can analyze your own business and document it by yourself. You will be the perfect person to analyze your requirement because no one else knows about your business like you do. But next question, “I’m not a techy person, Can I do this by myself?”

Answer is YES. Of course you won’t be able to come up with the final architectural design of your software. But you can easily carry out the basic requirement analysis process. NO rocket science, NO magic there. Take the analytical outcome of your business requirement and a few diagrams to a software developer, then he will do a classy job for you.

Software Modeling Tools

Before you start analyzing your business you will have to install some software in your PC. However, you can get the same thing done even without software. But if you use software, final document will be neater. I recommend Microsoft Visio 2010 for non technical people. (I mean normal people, not Geeks)

Workflow Diagram

As the first step you must identify the flow of work in your business and draw a diagram. This will be called as a “Work Flow Diagram”. Once you draw this anyone would be able to identify how you run your business and you also will have a clear picture about that. To draw a workflow diagram you can go to Microsoft Visio -> File -> New -> Getting Started -> Business -> Work Flow Diagram.

Once you hit the create button, it will open an empty page with lots of items in left panel. You can see that, there you can find most of the common workflow objects. By drag and drop, you can add any item in to the page.

Once you have more items, you can connect them with arrows to represent the workflow. When you take your mouse over a workflow item, you can see four arrows around it. Using them you can auto connect them with surrounding items. If it won’t work, you can use ‘Connector Tool’ in the tool bar. Using that you can click on one item and drag the mouse to next item to connect them. Finally your workflow looks like this.

It’s always better to have a documented workflow for your business processes. It will help you to further optimize the operation and let the employees to know what to do next effectively. Further, when a new employee comes in to the business all you have to do is hand over this diagram to him to minimize the learning curve.

This diagram will be useful to the software developer to identify the business requirement, specially the data and flow of data. When he designs the interfaces, this will be helpful to include relevant items, to give relevant privileges and store appropriate data in database.

Use Case Diagram

After drawing the work flow diagram you will be very much clear about the business process. Using the diagram you can identify involving employees and relevant activities. After that you have to think what are the functionalities required by each employee who plays a role in the business process. In other words you have to jump in to his shoes and see what he needs to do to continue with the business process. In order to model that there is a diagram named “Use Case Diagram”. To draw use case diagram you can go to Microsoft Visio -> File -> New -> Getting Started -> Software and database -> UML Model Diagram.

Once you hit the create button it will open an empty page and tools in the left, same as before. In there you can see a subsection named “UML Use Case” and that’s what you need. Expand it. To come up with basic use case diagram you will require actors and use cases. Actors represent employees who play a specific role in your business process and use cases are his activities for the business process. Based on the previous business process I mentioned in this article, if I draw a use case diagram for the “Manufacturing Worker” it will turn out like this. The Use Case that I have mentioned here are totally hypothetical. As I said before you are the best person to identify functionalities in your business. When you draw this, do it carefully and accurately.

What is Next?

Since you draw the Work flow diagram, now you have a clear picture about the business process, involving employees and their activities. Then you draw the Use case diagram, hence you know what are the functionalities required by each employee who plays a role in your business process. Now you are ready go and meet an ICT professional.

Consult Software Development Company and talk with them based on these diagrams. These diagrams will give them a clear picture about, what is your business and what you really need. After doing a preliminary study they will give you a quotation. Take quotations from few companies and select the best service provider. Once you come to an agreement, they will identify required data to be stored in the database using Work Flow diagram and required functionalities using Use Case Diagram. However, the details in these diagrams won’t be adequate to produce the final software application. In order to collect further data, you should give your maximum support to software development team and finally, you will be able to get an effective custom made information system for your own business.

The main difference between a Smartphone and Tablet is the screen size. If you make the screen size bigger, it will become less portable but more usable for many applications like Business and Multimedia. That’s where the “Tablet Trend” started. Smartphone always fits in to your pants pocket, does things almost the same as Tablet, yet limit you with a smaller screen. Normally Tablets devices comes with 8 or 10 inch screen while Smartphone comes with approximately 4 inch screen.

In the last quarter of 2011, a brand new device came in to the mobile device market with a brand new concept which is going beyond Smartphone and Tablet. This device which took my attention is Samsung Galaxy Note. It is almost same as Samsung Galaxy S 2, yet having bigger, 5.3 inch screen, yet smaller and portable than Samsung Galaxy Tab. This would be a new beginning of Tablet-Smartphone “Hybrid approach”.

Interesting Features

Screen and Interface

The major noticeable thing in Samsung Galaxy Note is its 5.3 inch Super AMOLED screen which supports HD resolution 1280 x 800 pixels. And it’s having 285 ppi density which gives ultra sharp images, only second to iPhone 4S. This device comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Samsung TouchWiz UI which was also a standard features in Galaxy S2 as well. The touch surface is protected by Gorilla glass which is scratch proof.

Other than the bigger screen, the next interesting thing that comes with Samsung Galaxy Note is its Smart Pen. This gives you more accurate control over the screen’s touch sensitivity than finger tips. The phone is having a compartment to keep the smart pen which reminds me of older version of Palm-top computer’s stylus.

Processing Power and Storage

The Samsung Galaxy Note comes with 1.4 GHz Dual Core processor which is the fastest processer ever built in to a Smartphone. Same as in Galaxy S 2 it comes with 1GB RAM and microSD card slot which supports up to 32GB. When you purchase the device it will come with a 2GB microSD card. Additionally it is having internal 16GB storage space as well.

Connectivity

Other than the traditional connectivity, Samsung Galaxy Note comes with 4G support. The underlying technology used is LTE 700. This is another significant improvement from previous Samsung Galaxy S 2. Other than that this device also support quad band GSM, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and micro USB.

Sensors

Sensors were one of the most interesting things in any Smartphone or Tablet. Most of the devices come with Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor and Digital compass. Samsung Galaxy Note is also having all of these standard sensors and additionally a Barometer which is new to Smartphone world. It let you measure the atmospheric pressure which opens lots of possibilities for application developers.

Potential Usage

Notebook or Idea Book

The new features of Galaxy Note open new possibilities to use it as a Notebook, if you think more creatively as an’ Idea Book’. It’s having a bigger screen than conventional Smartphone, yet portable than Tablet. Therefore it gives you good space to replace your paper based notebook, further turn it in to an idea book with the extended multimedia capabilities. Since you have the Smart pen you can even use the device as drawing canvas. The faster processor, 1 GB RAMS and improved GPU will make this experience even better. The inbuilt camera could be use to make photo and video notes wherever necessary.

This opens new opportunities for multimedia professionals. They can develop concepts in any environment where they are comfortable. They don’t like to type, but to draw. In here they can do that as well with the smart pen. Once they come up with something, they can easily connect to the main office through high speed 4G connectivity and deliver the concept or the artwork.

The same system could be use for e Journalism as well. Journalist can travel to any location and create multimedia rich article which conclude, images, videos and even sketches, then upload it to a web site using high speed internet, without using a PC at all.

Business Applications

The main limitation in Smartphones to use them as business organizers was their inadequate screen size and resolution. If you try to replace it with a tablet, it solves the screen resolution problem while introducing a new problem which is portability. Samsung Galaxy Note, the Tablet-Smartphone Hybrid approach, solves both the above problems giving bigger screen to run business applications while giving the maximum portability with smaller design which fits in to your pant’s pocket.

This would be an ideal device for business organizing applications as well as Stock trading applications. The bigger screen will accommodate visual representation of business status such as charts. The faster processor will let all the operations run smoothly while advanced 4G connectivity reduce the information delay drastically.

In near future we will be able to see most of the business people will be using this kind of hybrid devices replacing Smartphones and tablets. Laptop and Palmtop computers are already replaced by Tablets and Smartphones.

Navigation Device

Most of the people were using Smartphones as navigation devices and they worked just fine. But when dealing with different altitudes GPS error is significant. This will affect especially when you are using Google Maps Indoor Application with automatic level changes in a building. In most of the cases you have to manually enter the level that you are currently in. When you are in a complex motorway system the right place you are at should be pointed out using correct altitude as well since there could be many over head ramps in there.

Other than driving, when you are going on a Hike, knowing the exact altitude that you are in is very important. In that case horizontal location only won’t help. If you are in a Hot air Balloon, again it’s going to be very important to know the altitude accurately. In such cases GPS altitude accuracy is way not accurate enough.

To solve all the above problems Samsung Galaxy Notes comes with a Built in Barometer which use to measure atmospheric pressure, could be used to calculate the altitude accurately. With the aid of Barometer and Digital compass, GPS unit can pin point your location, especially the vertical location very accurately, which turns the device in to a dependable sophisticated Navigation device. You can use this with any GPS application not only to drive, but for hikes, hot air balloon travels, air travels and to find your way in multi stores buildings.

Drawbacks

Everything comes with a price, so is Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s an exceptional device yet having few drawbacks. The major one would be its battery life. Normally Samsung devices are having good battery life, yet this one will be having lesser due to the high speed processor and bigger bright screen.

When you increase the size of display, you must increase the size of device as well. Galaxy Note is having 5.3 inch screen so the device is also bigger than Galaxy S 2 which makes it relatively less portable. However it could still fit in to your pants pocket. Other than that it’s much heavier than galaxy S2.

Trends

Mobile Movies

Even with the previous versions of Smartphones there was “Mobile Movie” trend. There are some movie producers that specially produce movies for those devices. However there was no Smartphone capable of displaying standard HD videos. In that case you must use a tablet, which is again less portable.

With the arrival of Samsung Galaxy Note, it opens new opportunities for mobile movies with its standard HD 1280 x 800 pixels screen. Therefore users can enjoy HD videos in a much portable device and of course it will be a huge leap for Mobile Movie industry.

Stylus, Welcome Back!

I was always thinking that stylus is out dated since we have multi point touch screen which can be easily controlled by my finger tips. But if you want to do fine work, the stylus or a similar device would be the perfect choice. Samsung Galaxy Note is bringing the Stylus back to the show as a Smart Pen which convert the device in to a Drawing canvas. With this you will never miss your paper notebook. With the smart pen you can use your own handwriting to make notes digitally.

The device came in to the market just two months ago and it’s already attracted many people around the globe. Application developers will use the capabilities of this device to come up with creative applications. Especially I’m looking forward to see an application using the Barometer.

Finally, this is another giant step by Samsung, the famous South Korean electronic device manufacturer to dominate Smartphone and Tablet device market. They have already made their mark in most of other electronic devices categories and seems like nothing is going to stop them here as well.

To solve all these problems, there is a precious piece of software, especially designed for your android Smartphone. And the best part is, all of it comes for free! This is known as the Bubble.

How to Install Bubble in Your Smartphone

If you want to use Bubble, you must have any type of Android Smartphone and it should have Android version 2.1 or later. Then you can download the application from Android Market for free. The installation file size is 837KB. The application’s most updated release is version 1.1.0.

Once the installation is done you can access the application from the icon which will be there in your menu. Once you open the application you will see that there are three sections named ‘contact’, ‘bubbles’ and ‘call log’. By default it will open ‘contact’.

How it Works

Once you open the application as I said before you can see the contact list by default. You can tap on one contact to open it. Once it open you can see ‘add bubble’ button there. By tapping it you can add a note related to the selected contact, and then assign a color to the note as well. When you open the same contact again you will be able to see the note on the screen. There is a cross in every note to remove it in case you don’t want it anymore. After you successfully add a bubble to a contact you will be able to see the ‘bubble’ icon in the contact list in front of subjected contact.

In the ‘bubbles’ section you can filter out the contacts which are having bubbles. By tapping any contact you can access the previous screen which let you add/remove bubbles as well as directly make a call to the contact.

After you add these bubbles, when you make a call to contact which is having a bubble or when you are receiving a call, you will be able to see the attached notes in the calling screen instead of the default screen. They will be displayed in a bubble with the color you select when you make the note.

In the third section ‘call log’, you can see the list of incoming and outgoing calls and related bubbles to that. In here you can add, remove and edit bubbles depending on your calling activity.

Eg: Suppose you added a bubble for discussing a meeting with your boss. And few minutes ago you made the call and discussed about that. Now you don’t need that related bubble to your boss anymore. So you can go to ‘call log’ and, make sure you made the call to boss, then remove the bubble. If you have anything else to talk with Boss when he calls again, you can add a new bubble.

Unlike the traditional note book you used to maintain the ‘to-do’ list you can get the right reminder, with right activity, related to the right person in right time using Bubble android application. That’s how Bubble makes your life easier.

Below you can see a video released by “Bubble” development team, “GoodFriend” which gives you good idea about usage of bubble.

How to Use Bubble Effectively

Bubble is not a replacement for your traditional note book or to-do list. It’s an extension and a different version of it. This will be a very useful tool for the people who need to interact with many other people like businessmen, academicians, politicians, management and marketing professionals etc. They can use the conventional note book and to-do list for general purposes. In case you need a reminder, especially if you need to delegate some task to another person, best way to get the reminder for that is when you make the call to that particular person. That’s exactly what bubble does.

Politicians might use this to note down the things that he “must NOT tell” to someone else, especially to journalists. All he has to do is make a small note related to contacts of all journalists using bubble. Every time he make a call or get a call from those journalists, bubble will remind the politicians about the things that he “must NOT” speak about.

This will be a useful tool to management professionals. Most of the time, they have to assign work to fellow employees. After assigning he can make a note, a bubble in subjected employees contact. When he call him again or getting call from him, the application will always remind about the work you assign to him. Things will work the same with marketing professionals as well.

Another example is when you make a call to customer service division. After you make the call, you can make a note mentioning the last time progress with the complaint. So, next time when you make a call to same customer service, application will remind you what happened last time.

There are unlimited creative usages of this application. You will be able to share your experience with us as a comment.

Popularity of Bubble

In the android market the application “Bubble” is getting good user feedback. So far it has received 60 feedbacks and 32 are having 5 starts. Average rating is 4 stars. Currently application download is categorized as 10,000-50,000. When I take a deeper look into user feedback, I could see that Bubble users are having many different types of Smartphones including Samsung, Motorola, HTC and LG. It says that it is popular among variety of Android Smartphones. Considering the last 30 days download chart, I could not see a steady growth. It’s peaked in the last 15 days and then dropped drastically. I could not find a logical reason for this so far.

Suggestion to the Development Team

The application is simple, smart and exactly serves the purpose in a very user-friendly manner. In order to develop the application further and make it even smarter I have a few suggestions to the development team.

• Online synchronization system for bubbles, especially as a disaster recovery plan
• Ability to delete a note while call is on
• A checkbox for each note to mark them as done
• More readable font colors and sizes
• Search and narrow down contacts without scrolling

Notes of Genius is looking forward to see further developed versions of this valuable piece of software in near future and wishing all the best for the development team!