Number of Facebook users is reaching the 1 billion milestone. It’s already reached World number 1 in Alexa traffic ranking. Numbers are astronomical and Facebook is continuing to become an important part in human life.
Facebook is a once in a Millennium invention. But same as any other innovations, Facebook is also having a dark side. Actually it’s a representation of human society. Most of the inappropriate behaviors in real life could be found in Facebook as well.
One of the major problems you will face in FB is spamming. There are many types of it. Message spamming, timeline post spamming, Tag spamming etc. In order to get rid of them what you should basically do is not to add unknown profiles as your friends. But it may not be the best solution.
If you need better control over spam, solution is in the box. Facebook provides most updated and comprehensive security features. But unfortunately, most of the people are not using them right. I’m leaving this note to help you to save your Timeline from spamming by altering privacy settings.
Stop Tag Spamming and Timeline Post Spamming?
These are the most annoying type of FB spam. You won’t be able to prevent them. But at least you can prevent them by appearing on your timeline without your approval. Here is how to do it.
Go to Facebook and sign in.
In top navigation bar, next to home button, there is a drop down menu. Go to Privacy Settings through that.
Go to edit settings in Timeline and Tagging.
Set Who can post on your time line to Friends. If you have lots of annoying friends set it to No one.
Switch on Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline. After that even if someone tag you in a photo or post, it need your approval before it appear on your timeline.
Other than above, make sure you have used most narrow down visibility options for your profile and its content. My best suggestion is only friends. Whenever you see a spam content anywhere in FB, always remember to report them as spam.
With the above settings you can save your timeline by spam posts and tags. I love to keep a clean timeline and I know you do too. I’m sure this setting will work for you and save a huge amount of time.
Hibernate is a useful power saving mechanism in Windows platform. When the computer is in hibernate it lets you save all the data in RAM to hard disk drive persistently and switch off the computer. Then you can switch on the computer with exact same settings and opened applications.
In order to hibernate, your computer consumes few gigabytes of hard disk space and it’s permanently allocated. If you don’t want the hibernate feature, you can empty that space and use it for some other work.
I was going through the windows control panel and could not find how to disable hibernate feature and free that space. Narrow shot, I tied to delete the hibernate.sys file and failed.
Few days ago we used the DOS command “powercfg” to get energy consumption report and suggestion to improve.
Quick Catch-up
How to Save Your Laptop Battery Life?
We can use the same command to disable hibernate feature. Now you know what kind of magic you can do with Command prompt.
Disable Hibernate
Go to Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt
Run Command prompt as Administrator (right click on it and select “Run as Administrator”)
Type the command, powercfg –h OFF
This will disable the hibernate feature.
Here after you won’t be having hibernate function in power management window.
Now restart the computer.
Now you won’t be able to see hibernate.sys file in your system drive.
If you can still see it, simply delete it.
Now you have successfully disabled hibernate and free the hard disk space.
Control the Hibernate File size
If you want to keep hibernate function, but consuming limited amount of hard disk space, you can use –size switch in powercfg command.
Open command prompt as administrator
Type command powercfg –h –size 60
This will allocate hard disk space only as 60% of RAM.
Couple of years ago in the business world the main choice of Smartphone was BlackBerry. The main reason behind this was its typing experience. Most of the popular BlackBerry phones were having physical QWERTYkeyboard.
Due this innovative feature it made BlackBerry a good device to handle email, To Dos and notes. Of course this attracted lots of business community and professionals rather than general public. With the time having a BlackBerry became an exponential fashion trend.
However with the introduction of iPhone and Android Phones, BlackBerry could not stand tall in the market anymore. The main reason was its operating system and its limited capabilities. iOS and Android was having way more advanced capabilities and was delivering a great on-screen typing experience which burnt the BlackBerry fortress to ground.
Couple of weeks ago, in BlackBerry World 2012 event, they demonstrated new BlackBerry OS 10. There I could notice some promising features which might be able to give a solid competition to Android and iOS as well.
Features Spotlight
Flow UI
The application support is the major success factor in any mobile OS. In the early time iOS didn’t support multitasking and even today, it doesn’t have true multitasking capabilities. If you take a look at Android, it’s true multi tasking platform.
In BalckBerry OS 10 they have came up with even better multitasking platform and well streamlined interface to support that as well. They call it the “Flow” UI.
The BlackBerry OS 10 is capable of running many applications at the same time. Most interesting part here is they are not just paused there in back ground, they are actually running.
If you want to switch to other applications running, there is a special gesture. You can swipe the current application to the side and you can see all the other running application behind that. If there is any process going on in application behind the current one, you will be able to see the real time updates. Notification also could access in the right panel while you are running any application.
Keyboard
Keyboard was always special for BlackBerry Phones. Previously they mater the physical QWERTYkeyboard and now they war trying to compete in on screen keyboard as well.
The keyboard they layout they demonstrated is pretty much standard and looks almost alike to Anroid keyboard. You can swipe it down to get the number pad easily.
The most unique feature here is predictions. You can find the same feature in Android keyboard as well. There it displays suggested word in a row on top the keyboard. Here the magic is the suggestions are coming on top the relevant key. All you have to do is fly them up to the text editor.
This is my favorite feature in BlackBerry OS 10. This keyboard layout is advanced application we never witnessed and as it appears on the demo it’s way better than android keyboard and iOS keyboard. I sense a solid competition here.
Time Shifting Camera
Another interesting feature which was there in demo is the “Time shifting camera”. Of course camera is playing an important role in success of any Smartphone and seems BlackBerry has understood it. Time shifting camera is taking series of images once to click the button. Then you can rewind a specific part of the image frame by frame till you get the optimum out come.
Here is a video demonstration how it’s going to happen.
Wrapping Up
I identify this new BlackBerry OS 10 as a great come back of a dying trend. Most of the features they have demonstrated here are very unique and not be able find the same thing in any other mobile OS. Mainly engineers have put extra effort to deliver a great typing experience to the user following previous BlackBerry philosophy.
Even when you take a look at the camera features, they are very unique, never seen and never thought of. The main objective seems to save time of the users, probably to attract previous business community went away from BlackBerry for Android and iOS.
It’s too early and not enough data to jump in to any conclusion. However what I could see was promising and good enough fuel for solid competition for Android and iOS.
Once Windows Vista came to market, the main attraction there was the ‘Aero’ theme. It was a new experience to Windows users. However, due to severe performance bottlenecks Windows Vista was a huge failure.
However Microsoft never stepped back and came up with Windows 7 solving all the major performance issues that were there in Windows Vista. Now we can really enjoy the Windows Aero Experience.
One of the most attractive features in aero theme is live preview of Minimized tasks. When you take your mouse over to a minimized task in task bar, after certain period of time you can see a small preview of that window. The most interesting part is you can see all the live updating content in the preview. If it’s a video, you can see it plying.
The default time it takes to pop up preview is 400 milliseconds. If you want to change the time it takes to show you the preview, unfortunately there is no standard Windows setting. For that you have to tweak the Windows registry. Here is how to do it.
Steps to Follow
Click on start button and type “regedit”
It will take you to Windows registry editor.
There you have to go to KEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelMouse.
In the right had side panel, find the entry “MouseHoverTime”
You can see the default value there is 400.
Double click on it. It will give you a pop up.
Change the value as you want. 100 millisecond worked good with me.
Click OK and close the Windows registry editor.
Restart your computer and try to get task preview. Now it’s taking only 100 milliseconds.
This change is applicable to all the move hover events such as Tool tip display.
Hardware: Intel Core i5 2nd Gen // 4GB DDR2
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium // 64 Bit
Note: Be careful when you tweak the windows registry. One mistake may lead your system to instability or total crash. Make sure you change the value only if you know what it exactly does.
If you are using many applications at the same time in Windows 7 OS, your desktop gets really messy. When you try to minimize them one by one, of course it takes a lot of time and sometimes you accidently close few windows.
Sometimes you need to take a look at both windows at the same time. That means you need both of them open and visible. With all these you need to quickly minimize and maximize windows may be using shortcuts.
Here I’m going to present you some tips to manage and solve all the above problems using advanced features in Windows 7 OS.
Shake to Minimize
Click and hold the window that you want to work with from title bar.
While you are holding the click shake the window.
You will see, all the other windows are getting minimized. It’s easy as that.
Do this again to reverse the effect.
At the end of task bar, next to clock, you can find the show desktop button.
It will minimize all the opened windows with one click.
Mouse Gesture for Minimize and Maximize
Click and hold a window from its title bar and push it to the top edge of desktop.
It will get maximized.
Drag it back from the top edge. It will go back to original size.
Same way, push the window to left or right edge.
Windows get exactly half size of desktop and align to edge.
Using this you can open two windows in left and right side of the desktop.
Use Window key + arrow keys to get the same task done with keyboard, without touching mouse.
Switch Windows
From the windows XP time we used alt+tab combination keys to switch opened windows. You can still use that. But if you want it with a graphical preview use window key + tab.
Long awaited Google Drive is out there and lots of people are using it as a personal cloud storage service already. If you are using lots of Google products this would be an ideal solution for you with its seamless integration.
Few days ago I was talking about how to start using Google Drive and relevant information about using file syncing client.
Quick Catch-up
Getting Started With Google Drive
Today we are going to focus on how to manage sharing in Google Drive. If you were using previous versiosn of Google Drive which was called as Google Docs this would be nothing new to you as it operates the same way.
Email Collaboration and Attachment
Whenever you want to share a file with someone else, normally what you do is send it as an Email attachment. Sometimes you face problems with attaching big files using your web browser. Google Drive gives you a solid solution.
Setup Google Drive file syncing client following the instructions in previous article.
Drag and Drop the file that you need to send as Email attachment to local Google Drive folder.
Wait till they get uploaded.
Google Drive system tray icon will indicate the progress of uploading.
Then go to Google Drive web.
Right click on the file -> Share -> Email as Attachment.
It will give you a mail composing window with file attachment.
Type the sender’s email address and Contact suggestion will work here same as in Gmail.
Fill in the subject, message and hit send.
If you and few other people are working on the same document, sending it in email attachment is not a Good solution. Then every time someone makes modification you have to manually integrate it with the final version of the file.
In this kind of situation what you actually need is collaborative editing of the file and Google Drive has this feature built in.
Make sure all the documents are in Google Drive folder and properly synced.
Go to Google Drive web.
Right click on the file -> Share -> Email collaborators.
Here you can add people to the file as collaborators by providing their email address.
You can choose them from your contact list or auto suggestions.
Set the privilege to collaborator as can edit, can comment or can view.
Check Notify people via email.
Finally Click Share and Save.
Now depending on the given privilege collaborators can edit, comment or view the file right there in Google Drive.
Share with Link and Public Sharing
The best thing in cloud Storage is, whenever you have to send a file to someone, you don’t have to use email attachment or anything, you can just send the link. Google drive is also providing very flexible features to share files with people who are not even using Google Drive.
Hats off for the Google team, they have made this really simple and highly secured at the same time.
Go to Google Drive web.
Right click on the file or folder than need to be shared.
Go to Share -> Share
In the “who has access” list as the first item you can see the file visibility scope. By default it’s private. That means, only you can explicitly share person can access it.
To widen the visibility, click on change.
There you have another 2 options.
Anyone with the link, create non-searchable, non-editable public link. You can share this with anyone.
Public on the web create searchable, non-editable public link.
Here also you can set the access privileges as can edit, can comment or can view.
After clicking save button you will be able to see the sharing URL.
You can send it to anyone via G+, email, Facebook or Twitter.
The best thing about Google Drive is the entire user interfaces are well streamlined and highly user-friendly. Anyone from any background would be able to use this tool with no trouble like any other Google product.
The best and unique part of Google Drive, online document editing is coming up in next article. Stay tuned with Notes Of Genius.
If you are using a iPad Wi Fi you know how limited it is when you are travelling or not around a Wi Fi hotspot. In such a situation iPad will become just a dead display without life since most of the activities you do with your iPad need active internet connection.
The solution is getting an iPad 3G. Good, it works but you have to pay nearly $150 extra. If you are a frequent traveler still you’d be willing to pay extra and get a 3G or LTE version.
But, if you look around very carefully there is an amazingly simple and low cost solution for this problem. It comes as Mi Fi router which is a mobile Wi Fi hotspot.
What is a Mi Fi Router?
To connect to 3G data networks on the go you might have used an USB HSDPA modem. There you have to insert your SIM card and through USB port your Laptop can connect to internet.
iPad comes with USB interface, but unfortunately there are no drivers for you to use this device with iPad or any other tablet.
Mi Fi router is almost as same as your USB HSDPA modem. Only difference here is it’s not using USB connectivity but Wi Fi. Since its using universal protocol any Wi Fi enabled device can connect to a Mi Fi router and access internet. It comes with built in USB chargeable battery.
When you want to access internet, all you have to do is enter your 3G SIM card, switch on Mi Fi router and connect to it using iPad Wi Fi. Then it act as a Wi Fi hot spot and let you access internet where ever you go as long as you have coverage.
How to Setup?
Setting up Mi Fi router is easy and any non techy person would be able to do it.
Contact your mobile service provider and get a Mi Fi router with 3G data package.
Charge Mi Fi router properly and switch it on.
It will automatically connect to internet and wait for Wi Fi clients.
Now switch on your iPad, and then switch on its Wi Fi connection.
Search for devices and connect to Mi Fi router.
Keep both the devices close by. Now your iPad Wi Fi is practically a iPad 3G.
Now access internet using iPad.
Most of the Mi Fi routers support up to 5 devices. So you can easily share the same internet connection with your room mates as well. And of course this will save lots of money that you have to spend to buy an iPad 3G.
Of course Mi Fi router will work with any Android tablet or Smartphone as well.
Most of the mobile service provides such as Three, Telstar and Vodafone provide this service and there are different packages. Some of the contracts will give you the Mi Fi modem for free.
Normally Mi Fi router is having 5 hours of battery life. If you are already using a Mi Fi router share your experience about battery life, signal strength and other issues with us.
Within the past few years Dropbox has become a day to day essential for many people. I never knew such an easy way to store, backup and share files. But the major problem is limited storage in Dropbox. They are giving only 2GB for free. In case you need to expand, it’s expensive compared to other services.
However Dropbox is rewarding you for spreading the word. They give extra 500MB of space for every new Dropbox user you introduce. In this way you can earn up to 16GB of space in Dropbox.
16GB is a good deal and so far we never spent a penny. But, what if you need even more storage? Here we go with the solution.
Dropbox Space Race
This is special program conducted by Dropbox itself to give more space to academic institutions. All you have to do is go to Space Race page and enter your school email address. (must be a .edu one) After that ask all your fellow students to do the same. Then everyone in your school will get extra space in Dropbox up to 25GB.
Guys this is a race. If you manage to get more students from your school to space race, more points you get. More points mean more space for whole school for two years. Make sure everyone completes the ‘get started’ guide to earn extra points.
When you go to Dropbox space race page, you will be able to see a leader board with schools and universities with most number of space racers.
Social Media Connection
You can simply get few extra MBs by connecting Facebook and Twitter profile to Dropbox account. Each connection will give you extra 125MB. If you follow Dropbox in twitter, it will give you another 125MB. If you like to give a compliment to Dropbox team, it adds another 125MB. After that tweeting the message will give you another 125MB. All together it’s 625MB. Not too bad isn’t it?
I have earned 16.9GB of Dropbox space so far. Start earning your free space right away.
Smartphone market is hot and presenting innovative technologies every week. Previously the main objective of handset manufacturers was to develop the hardware muscle, but recently developers have focused on greater level of performance optimization which is a positive trend.
Apple is always coming up with trend setting Smartphone. The credit of polishing up touch screen, fitting it in to a Smartphone and making it usable by any average person, goes to them with no argument. iPhone 4 was a blast and main attraction was retina display and Siri. 4S continue the trend with further improved multimedia capabilities.
Now it’s high time for Apple to introduce next iPhone probably iPhone 5. Compared to other handsets in market iPhone is having lesser powerful hardware configuration, but its performance is amazing. This is due to extreme performance optimization in iOS and now we have iOS 6. If they manage to increase the hardware configuration, next iPhone will be able to do magic. In addition they will focus on improving build quality as well.
Quick Catch-up
Here I’m trying to predict what will be there in next iPhone, hardware, software and other features to compete with other handsets in the market as well as surprise the hardcore Apple fans.
Expected Configuration
Design
iPhone 4S came with metal and glass body. Glass layer was there to give it a smooth surface. I don’t expect major design change in next iPhone, but construction material will be vastly different. They will probably stop using glass and use liquid metal to get the smoother finish. It will be lighter, stronger and durable. If they can add gorilla glass in to picture, it will be perfect.
Quick Catch-up
iPhone 5 with Liquid Metal Body
Processor and Storage
Storage options would be 16, 32 and 64GB as usual. But there is a possibility for them to introduce 128 GB version for heavy multimedia users. There won’t be expandable storage as the last thing Apple want is horrible user experience just because of a poor quality microSD card. RAM would be 1 GB and it’s a long awaited improvement for iPhone.
So far, even for the most advanced products such as The new iPad they were using dual core processors. They were achieving great performance by optimizing operating system and software platform. But it’s high time to move to a Quad core processor, possibly named as Apple A6 and it will be on iPhone 5. This will open a lot more creative space for application developers, especially in multimedia and gaming.
Operating System
Apple already has their iOS 6 with lots of new features. The main problem I see in iOS is less customizability which is limiting its users in a frame. In other hand more customizability leads to unpredictable performance issuers. I hope they will find the fine balance in next iPhone.
Display
iPhone 4S came with great display with good pixel density and color accuracy. But in next iPhone Apple will include 720p display most probably. But for this they have to increase the screen size and display won’t be usable with one hand. I have a very strong feeling that at least they will increase screen size up to 4 inch. If it will be a HD display pixel density will be approximately 367 ppi which is a super retina display.
Connectivity and Interfaces
When it comes to connectivity there is nothing much for them to do. However LTE radio is a must along with 2G, 3G and HSDPA. Other than that there will be Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB 3.0, GPS and high chance for NFC as well.
Camera
iSight camera is already good enough to compete with other cameras in Smartphone. I don’t expect them to improve hardware configuration other than open the aperture to f/2.2. Camera application could use some polishing up such as in built panorama mode.
Battery Life
There are a very lesser chances that Apple will include a larger battery in next iPhone. It will increase the device weight as well as the charging time. Instead they will try to save battery life strategically and programmatically. They will optimize OS to consume lesser battery power and perform more work. Further, there might be an option to shutdown CPU cores when they are idle.
Possible Market Impact
Even when Apple launch iPhone 4S, they didn’t have significant market competition. But within last few months lots of advanced Smartphone came in to market. Most of them are Android powered and having Quad Core processor, advanced chipsets and 12 Core GPU.
By the time Apple introduce their next iPhone they will have to face serious market competition especially with Google’s Android and Samsung Handsets. iPhone sales have already dropped by nearly 25%. So they have to get everything perfect and give a huge surprise to users.
No doubt that the next iPhone will be a huge competition to other handset manufactures and mobile operation systems. They also will take this very serious and make plans to have their territory in the market by introducing exceptional Smartphone. As Smartphone users we will be able to enjoy technological cold war for sure in this year.
With the latest Google Galaxy Nexus 7, they set a trend for good quality yet very low priced android tablets. Many other manufactures try to compete in this market in near future with tablets with competitive price. After Nexus 7, the next low cost tablet you will be able to find in the market is Archos 97 Carbon.
Quick Catch-up
Google Nexus 7 – Unwrapping Android Jelly Bean
I believe that most of the Android tablet’s hardware is over upgraded and, today we are suffering its consequences such as overheating and poor battery life. With latest version of Android they are trying to optimize the OS core rather than increasing the hardware muscle to achieve optimum performance level. Archos 97 Carbon is setting a positive trend for average level android tablets in the market and today it’s under NOG spotlight.
Device Configuration
Processor and Storage
Device is powered with Single Core1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor. Details about the chipset and GPU are not stated in the official website. RAM is 1 GB and internal storage is 16 GB. If you want more space there is a microSDHC card slot support up to 32 GB.
Operating System
Archos 97 Carbon is packed with AndroidIce Cream Sandwich. If you take a closer look in to the UI you will be able to find minor tweaking such as on screen volume controller. Other than that it’s stock android which I consider as a plus point. You will be able to enjoy all the standard options in android ICS.
Display
Display is 9.7 inch IPS panel having 1024 x 768 pixels which gives you 131 ppi pixel density. Capacitive multi touch sensor is capable of identifying up to five fingers.
Connectivity and Interfaces
Device comes with most of basic connectivity features such as Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 and mini HDMI port. However there are no signs of Bluetooth connectivity. GSM and HSDPA radio is also removed as a cost cutting strategy. If you like to enjoy music with your headphone there is a 3.5 mm audio out.
Camera
Primary camera is 2 MP one which is capable of capturing stills and videos. There is a front facing VGA camera for video conferencing. There is no LED flash to shoot in dark and again a result of cost reducing.
Battery Life
Archos 97 Carbon is having Lithium polymer battery which can power up the device for 8 hours when you are enjoying videos and it goes up to 20 hours if it’s only audio playback.
Wrapping Up
After looking at the specification you might say this device is old school. But this is the hardware specification in iPad 2 which is one of the most used tablets even today. Due to the performance bottlenecks in previous version of Android they could not utilize this sort of hardware. That’s why manufactures continue to introduce dual core and quad core tablets and they came with big price tags.
On Archos 97 carbon you will be able to do most of the day to day work such as eBook reading, web browsing, social media and multimedia playback. It comes with a great price tag too. Once it comes to the market for this 9.7 inch tablet, you have to pay only $249.99. If you can upgrade the device to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean it would work great as iPad 2 or may be better.
