Sometime when you Google for some content, specially a product that just released, probably you won’t be able to find good content about that. The content that you really need is in the future. That means you will have to Google for it may be after a week.
If you want to get latest news about your favorite Music Band, again you will have to keep searching the web periodically and check whether there are any new storied listed.
In these kinds of cases you will have to monitor the search result till the required content gets listed. If you have to do it manually, of course it will consume a lot of time. And sometimes there is a chance for you to miss some important content as well.
However, there is a Google product that saves all the trouble for you which is named as Google Alerts. It monitors search results under a given keyword and update you about the latest content via email.
How to Set an Alert
Go to Google Alerts.
Once you go there it will open up the windows where you can configure an Alert.
Set the search query, result type, how often and how many updates you need and what is the email address that you need search result to be delivered.
When you are typing the search query you will be able to see real time updating search result in the right panel.
Finally hit Create Alert.
You will get an email update as you configured contain updates of the matching search result to the given search query.
Manage Alerts
Go to Manage Alerts. You can access it by pressing Manage your alerts button.
There you will see a list of alerts you have already created.
You can change the configuration of an alert by pressing the Edit button.
If you want to delete an alert check it and press the Delete button.
By pressing the button Switch to text emails you can receive plain text email instead of default HTML version. You can change it other way round as well by pressing the same button.
You can export all your alerts as CSV file by pressing the Export Alerts button.
That’s how it works and you have to pay attention to set a specific narrow downed search query to get the optimum results.
Annual Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona introduced many unbelievable Smartphones to the world. The leading manufactures were HTC, Samsung, LG etc. Out of the entire introduced products the Smartphone with strongest hardware muscle was HTC One X. Not only hardware, it came with lots of other innovative software improvement and accessories which make it an overall performer.
HTC is one of the very first companies that came in to Smartphone market. Their history goes back to few decades. They are not only producing handsets for Android OS, but for Windows Mobile OS as well. In the last year they were behind the other competitors such as LG and Samsung. With HTC One X they are back in the game.
Spotlight Features
Processor and Storage
HTC One X comes with 1.5 GHz Quad Core processer running on latest Nvidia Tegra3 chipset with 4-PLUS-1 technology. This chipset is a very popular choice of many Smartphone manufactures. It comes with ULP GeForce GPU which will give superb gaming performance.
The device comes with 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. However, according to many reports only 26 GB is available for user. Major drawback is that it doesn’t have any expandable memory option.
Display
The display is massive 4.7 inches with resolution 720 X 1280 pixels which make the pixel density 312 ppi. This is a true 720p HD display and would be great for HD video playback and gaming. The display technology used here is Super LCD 2. This is expected to be good competition to AMOLED display used in most of Samsung devices.
However If you consider the technological aspect AMOLED displays will always be better than LCD displays. They can show you the true deep black color with high contrast colors and saving power as well. The display technology used in HTC One X could be a minus point for this device in the market.
Operating System
Operating system is Android Ice Cream sandwich with HTC sense UI. If you compare HTC sense UI with Samsung TouchWiz UI you will definitely notice that HTC Sense is clearer, streamlined and performance optimized. So this will be a competitive advantage for this device.
HTC Media Link
This is the most attractive feature that comes with HTC One X. Using Wi-Fi device called HTC Media Link you can mirror the display with an externally attached display. To activate video mirroring there is a specific 3 finger gesture as well. This is a DLNA certified device so you should be able to couple this with other Android devices as well.
Wrap Up
HTC One X is of course a great device with powerful hardware, latest technology and Android ICS. Currently in the market there is no device that can compete with this. In addition HTC media link adds extra color to the device enabling lots of professional and gaming usage. HTC Sense UI is very popular among users and user experience would be amazing.
However, Samsung didn’t show their colors in the Mobile World Congress completely. That means they will come up with lot cooler Smartphones and Tablets soon in a Samsung Event. There are rumors about Samsung Galaxy S II as well. HTC One X will have to compete with them in the market, especially with advanced Samsung display which is the hook in any touch device.
No matter what HTC One X is ready for competition this year. With this specification and accessories there is a greater chance that it could be the “Best Smartphone in 2012” and take the crown away from Samsung Galaxy series.
Apple Inc. has called for a special media event on March 7 at San Francisco. It’s believed to be the release of new Apple iPad 3. In their promotional marital they said that “We have something you really have to see. And touch”
However, there is no official release of specification yet, still we have some strong clues about the shape of iPad 3. As usual there are millions of rumors spreading too about the forthcoming features.
Here, I’m trying to discuss about the expected features in Applie iPad 3 which it should have in order to stand out in this “Tablet War”.
Expected Features
Processor
The main thing I expect in any tablet would be its processing power and RAM. However Apple devices managed to give unbelievable fluid performance even with very low hardware configuration in their iPhone. So I don’t expect it to have very fast processor which kills the battery fast.
So my expectation is 1.2 GHz Quad Core processor, probably A6 with 1GB RAM. This would be more than enough for iPad 3 to give a solid competition to all the other tablets.
Operating System
When it comes to iOS 5 I have no many things to demand for. However it must be optimized for higher resolution display.
Siri beta version is coming with iPhone 4S. I expect the Apple developers to include more updated and powerful version on iPad.
Display
Increased display size won’t help unless it’s having increased resolution. That is the main problem with any kind of display. Previous iPad 2 was having 9.7 inches display with resolution 1024 X 768 which make the pixel density 132 ppi.
In iPad 3 they might try to increase pixel density to make it a retina display. Therefore they will have to double the resolution of previous iPad at least. It will result in 9.7 inches display with 2048 X 1536 resolution with ~263 ppi.
Pixel Density Calculation
[Sqrt (Width px^2 + Height px^2)]/ display size in inches = pixel density in pixel per inch (ppi)
Camera
iPads were always having poor camera compared to most of other tablet devices. Therefore I expect them to break it this time with 8 MP rear camera and at least 1.2 MP front facing camera. In addition to still images 1080p video recording also would add an extra color.
Connectivity
Same as the camera apple products are way behind when it comes to connectivity compared to competitors. I expect a change in there as well. In order to hit this problem hard they should make iPad 3 LTE enabled.
Wrap Up
If you take a look at last Mobile World Congress there were amazingly powerful Android Tablet Devices with more than 1.5 GHz Quad Core Processors, 8MP cameras, 10 point muti-touch displays and LTE connectivity from various manufacturers such as Asus, Huawei etc.
In order to compete with them iPad 3 also should bring something solid in to the table which is going beyond traditional features such as touch screen. Probably they will focus more in software upgrades and optimization to give a good user experience rather than keep upgrading hardware.
The competition is tight and we have to wait till 7th March with fingers crossed to see how exactly it’s going to look like.
Every item of commercial software produced is the result of a sustained and expensive development process and yet it is sold in a volatile market in which the sales window may be measured in months. Customers demand upgrades and enhancements and competitors are ever-willing to encroach on market share. In no time at all, software products can become obsolete. But does it have to be that way?
All software designers are keens to future-proof their products as much as possible but they all recognize the difficulty of predicting the future. There are very many possible futures and building in future-proofing can also mean backing the wrong one. And the costs involved in making the product adaptable, capable of evolution in the market and responsive to changing customer demands, can mean that the product life has to be greatly extended to recoup the investment through sales.
The technical problem is one of abstraction. How can we separate out those aspects of the product which are likely to change frequently, perhaps in substantial ways in response to customer and market needs, from those which can be kept stable and unchanging during the longer life of the product?
Building software using a framework in which components can be placed to meet changing customer needs is far from a new idea. Component technology has been around for decades but it has always failed to live up to its promises. Components inevitably need to interact and the coupling we end up with often compromises those beautifully modular designs.
So even building on a framework is no guarantee of a simple solution to the problem of obsolescence. The framework itself suffers from obsolescence pressure. Libraries and collections of components evolve as the problem domains are better understood and the technologies are fine-tuned to be better performing, and there is a significant cost even in maintaining a stable application framework.
And the frameworks themselves also have to undergo changes often in response to the capabilities of new hardware. Sometimes it is the manufacturers of the frameworks themselves who drive the change. The various incarnations of the .NET platform and the attempts to preserve interoperability with previous generations of code, have led to substantially increased complexity.
By modifying the existing architecture and code, we will meet current customer needs but at the expense of gradually increased complexity. Despite the good intentions, constant re-factoring of the underlying code is not a commercial reality and so there is an understandable tendency to add rather than substitute. Interfaces proliferate, additional components appear, supplementary functionality is introduced.
Brian Foote and Josef Joder described (from a suggestion by Brian Marick) such a system as a “big ball of mud” showing how with the best will in the world, constant updates and fixes can obscure an elegant design under layers of coding which eventually make it impossible to repair and develop further.
But there are some strategies which can reduce the risk of a system becoming a big ball of mud.
Evolving Architecture
We might think that a complex piece of software has to have a clear, well-defined design on which the functionality can rest and to a point that is true. But it is a mistake to think that the architecture is somehow immune from the process of change.
Often no-one knows the correct architecture for a large-scale application until a substantial amount of code is working. Only when the problem domain is already very well-understood will there be that knowledge of architectures that work, so in many cases it is premature to settle on a fixed architecture in a novel environment.
So architectures will change and the design of the architecture of the initial development should permit that. High cohesion and low coupling between modules will assist this process. In the early stages, complexity is the enemy because although highly skilled engineers can create complexity rapidly, they generally do not have time to explain it.
Where the architecture is expected to evolve, it has to be simple enough for this process to be managed.
Layering to Represent Abstraction
Abstraction is used to remove the specific in order to focus more effectively on the general and in software that means hiding more and more specific aspects of the system. The user interface should not care about the machine’s processor or even ideally, the operating system.
By abstracting the details away from the higher levels of the software, any machine or OS-specific details are insulated from the upper levels of functionality. This has the significant benefit that changes in user requirements can often be implemented at the higher levels without changing the lower levels.
A layered approach to software development has been common for many years but frequently the demands of performance and usability have required compromises. The promises of cross-platform development have often been tempered with the real-world needs to gain performance advantage by tapping into the native OS functionality. True platform independence has still not been reached even with the much-vaunted .NET framework and the Java language.
Hardware-induced Obsolescence
Advances in hardware design such as touch-screen technology, drive changing user expectations. Users expect to be able to use very different methods for controlling software, and expect it to run in on a variety of devices. Their paradigms of computer control shift noticeably from year to year so frameworks have to be portable and so must the functionality.
By abstracting the framework on which applications rest from the applications themselves, portability is made easier but this imposes constraints as well on the underlying code.
A framework has been able to call on uniform facilities from the underlying operating system and these will change rapidly with developing technology. We therefore see a repetition of the same problem: how do we prevent the underlying frameworks from experiencing obsolescence as well?
The layering and abstraction which temporarily solved application software’s problem, is now also essential for the underlying frameworks.
Break Away from the Hardware
With Web 2.0 and the increasing use of cloud computing, we see a separation of the services provided to applications from the platform on which they run. A small device can run an application making use of the prodigious power of a large collection of other machines, all delivering their services on demand.
Does this mean that the localized, computer application is condemned to obsolescence? Probably not, because there will always be a need for high performance local applications able to work independently of any connectivity. But it does mean that the necessarily rapid response to user demands is more likely to come from distributed computing, and the provision of services from remote sources.
The abstraction which led to layering in application architecture has reached the hardware level as well, in what may seem almost like a full circle. Fifty years ago it was common for a dumb terminal to connect to a mainframe computer which would provide all of the processing power. Now a simple but reasonably powerful handheld device can connect to an abstract cloud of processing resources.
Obsolescence in software may be kept at bay by the adoption of new ways of delivering functionality, the abstractions not simply being the separation of layers of software, but of lifting them now onto a cloud of disparate platforms in different locations. Platform independence might yet become a reality.
About The Writer
Henrik Larsson owner of a new application that enables users to install additional Facebook Emoticons writes. Emoinstaller enables users to use additional Facebook chat emoticons.
HP WebOS is popular operating system which is specially designed for mobile devices including smart phones, PDAs and Tablet PCs. Additionally it is used in high end printers as well. It’s developed by HP improving previous PalmOS. The current version of WebOS is version 3.0 and this came to the stage and attracted public spot light with latest release of Hp TouchPad. The WebOS is having many brand new concepts, cool user friendly interfaces and much more advanced functionality. Hence, after the release of HP TouchPad most of the people started talking about its uniqueness and became a one of the most discussed topic in the world media.
Bit of History
Sometimes ago there was huge trend for palm top computer and at that time mobile devices were only used for voice calls and SMS. Most of the professionals and businessman used palm top computers to access internet on the go and manage their busy life. PalmOS was the most popular mobile operation system in that time.
It started as PalmOS back in 2002 and then bought by a Japanese company after noticing its potentiality. It was getting popular and was there in many Palm top devices. After identifying its success HP bough it and started developing it. The result was WobOS. They transform it to a multipurpose platform from previous Palm Top device operation system.
Today it continuously evolves as a proprietary product of HP. It’s used in many Tablet devices, smartphones and in printers very successfully introducing many brand new concepts to the mobile device world.
Cool Features
‘Card’ Interface
One of the major and brand new features in WebOS is its card interface. It could be identified as a major competition for popular Windows based interface which was there for long time. It’s mimicking organization deck of card. You can go through cards, select one and make it full screen, if you don’t want one any more flick it away to the top.
Interface normally gives you icon dock at the bottom for you to open a card. One card represents one open application. If there are many application opened, they will displayed in the main window once you hit the hardware button available in the device. You can use touch screen to go through cards. Tap on the card will make it full screen and you can use the application. To close an application, you can flick the card to top in the all card view. There is a gesture area at the bottom of the display. Using that you can use few touch gestures to control the behavior of the applications that are opened including ‘Go Back’ and ‘Go Forward’
I see this as really cool and convenient lay out for mobile devices with relatively smaller screen than desktop computers. You can easily manage your ‘Cards’ and go though them even in a smaller screen very easily. And the way they have designed to close a card impressed me without wasting extra screen area and making it very user friendly. With the combination of touch and gestures it make pretty solid and streamlined way to interact with the device.
Multitasking
Multitasking is ignored as an important feature by some competitive operation systems for a long time. However, WebOS provide multitasking to the application platform utilizing devices hardware to the optimum level. With the aid of ‘Card’ interface you can easily manage applications that are opened simultaneously. Whenever there is a notification, it will be displayed in the bottom line of the screen. So you can switch to the required application very easily without closing the current one. This comes in handy when you are dealing with SMS and emails.
Other than communication application this will be useful to run multimedia application. You can listen to your song while you surf. In the case you need to switch to another open application, all you have to do it, hit the phone main hardware button, flip the card and tap the one you want.
Searching
Searching is one of my favorite feature in WebOS. It allows you to search ‘Everything’ on the phone in one search application. This reminds me new searching in Windows 7. Most of the other operation systems use separate search for each items like contact, SMS and Email. In WebOS it’s really convenient to search whatever you want and also see the related other items to the search term in the same interface. If you search for email sent by ‘Malinda’ at the same time you will be able to see the Malinda’s contact details as well.
Communication Management
When it comes to calling and SMS WebOS provide very user-friendly interfaces to get the work done with minimum steps. However, nowadays calling and SMS has became the least important feature in a mobile device with the latest web surfing and social media. However, WebOS has put extra effort to make SMS, IMs and Emails more readable. They are arranged in a threaded discussion way, so that you can get a very clear idea about what you are discussing very easily by looking at previous messages in the thread.
Synergy
Synergy is another feature that attracted me a lot. It crawls through all the types of data in the device and prepare a index. Using that index it could display personal data related to individual in once single card which is really smart. This comes in handy when you need find some ones email address, SMS number, Web address and Facebook profile at the same time. Synergy will collect entire data from your activities and present to you in once single card.
It Goes Online
WebOS is having a browser named ‘Web’ and its providing entire facilities required to surf web in a easy and fast way. Its main page allows you to keep some quick launch icons. Other than browsing WebOS having facility to synchronize your files to a online space which will be very useful for professionals and businessman. It could be used as a global access point as well as a backup mechanism. The built in service is called as ‘Hotsync’ and it keep your files online in a cloud based service.
Application Development
One of the major contributing factors to any mobile operation system would be its third party application support. That was the main reason to iPhone and Android to be popular. As long as there are many applications user won’t get bored with the device. Every day they can try out something new.
Having the objective of giving the maximum support to WebOS application developer, HP has come up with HP Palm Developer program. They provide all the required development tools, emulators to test application in the development environment and support documentation. They allow you to develop application using standard HTML, CSS and JS as well as C/C++. As a result there are many applications out there for WebOS, yet it’s not much as iPhone and Android as it seems.
Conclusion
WebOS is pretty solid looking stuff, and probably it will give tight competition to iOS and Android in the near future. As the same time it has good hardware support as well with HP’s most advance technology. As a big plus points they have really cool brand new features like ‘Card’ interface and Synergy. I believe these will take the WebOS to a significant market share in near future.
Google Buzz is a newly introduced social media component for Gmail by Google Inc. it’s providing similar functionalities as Twitter where we can update our status message as text. In addition to that in buzz you can share hypermedia as well. And your “Buzz” going to be share among your Google contacts and with the people who follow you. There is a facility to import external status updates to buzz using RSS, twitter and many other sites you follow.
Getting Started
Add to Gmail
To add Google buzz in to your Gmail account you can follow this link. And there may be an introduction page for Google Buzz when you open G mail. By clicking “Try Buzz in G mail” you can activate Buzz. Once you finish that step there will be a new section in your G mail account named Buzz. There you can see the status updates of your Friends and you can update your status as well.
Configuration
Once you click on the Buzz section in your G mail it will open Buzz main interface. At the top there is a Text box to enter your Status update and publish it. Next to that there is a link to update your Google Profile which is tightly coupled with your Buzz account. Then next link there is very important, using that you can import your status in other applications. Once you click on that it will give you some suggestions where you update your status including twitter, G talk, YouTube, Picasa, Flicker and all the other sites you follow using Google Friend Connect. You can add sites to buzz and the status you update in those sites will be added to Buzz time line. Next link will display the list of your followers. If you wish to follow or un-follow people, there are text links to do those in front of each contact. Just below the text editor, there are link to following people and find people. Using find people link you can include more people in your buzz time line. In each buzz there is a link to comment on it, mark it as “like” and Email the one who buzzed.
Functionalities
Same as Twitter you can update your contacts by a status message using Buzz. But in Buzz you can share hypermedia. Once you share a link with some images or Videos, Buzz will identify them automatically and add them below the Buzz Text. And you can do the same with RSS feed as well. Simply buzz is a combination of Status updates, photos, videos and RSS feeds. And it uses your Gmail friend list, so you don’t have to worry about creating new contacts for Buzz. The facility of connecting other sites to Buzz makes it easier to follow them right inside of your Gmail box. Especially in Twitter we may miss our friend’s Tweets, because there are mixed with so many other Tweets. In here you can clearly indentify that there are new updates.
The best and unique feature here is you can comment on Status. Here buzz is one step ahead from Twitter. And once someone posts a comment on your Buzz, it will generate an Email, so you won’t miss any of the comment. In the case you need to send an Email explicitly to someone about your comment you can use very popular @ and the desired ones Email address.
Buzz works with your Smart phone and in there you can connect it with Google Latitude. Using that you can see your friend shared location through Buzz and update yours automatically.
What’s Next
Google are dominating all the Cyberspace in an exponential rate. Practically according to the current situation there can’t be a cyberspace without Google. But the main Internet concept they couldn’t dominate is Social networking. The most popular Social network is Facebook and twitter is also competing with its new concept which is micro blogging. Through Google Buzz and many of their products like Google Friend connect, they are trying to dominate Social networking concept.
But so far Google didn’t show decent result in this subject. Even with the Buzz I cannot indentify a strong hook to get the market away from the Facebook and Twitter to Google Buzz. It’s true that there are some interesting features like commenting and Location sharing. But still it doesn’t giving the classic feeling like in Facebook with so many Hypermedia and total online life sharing. And Google Buzz is not giving the awesomely simple user experience like in twitter.
The main point is, behind the screen Google is weaving a web to launch massive social networking product though they are still behind compared to other products in market. Google buzz may be an introductory and experimental product. I feel like there are so many things yet to come. All we can do is waiting and watch what the Google going to do.
Mozilla Firefox is the world’s most widely used web browser. It’s popular for its high security and exceptional performance which will provide excellent user experience. Firefox browser has come a long way from its beginning. It’s always totally free and community development which make it the most successful web browser ever. Additionally, customizability of the Firefox with Add-ons make contributed significantly for its popularity. As the next step of development Mozilla is about to release Firefox 4.0. The beta version is already out and active Mozilla community and its lovers are contributing to make it not just a good web browser, but the greatest browser ever. Here is a snapshot of its most significant and path changing evolution.
Performance
Memory Footprint
One of the major problems faced in previous version of Firefox was its huge memory footprint. If you open many number of browser tabs its start consuming large amount of memory which is way beyond the expected allocation for a web browser. Sometime it leads to total system crash always iterated its users. The Mozilla team has identified that problem and make it’s a higher priority development in forthcoming version of Firefox. However during my tryouts of beta version, I didn’t notice a significant change. It’s still consuming 100s of megabytes if you open many number of browser tabs. Yet, we can have a hope the problem will be solved with the stable release. If the technology engineers will come up with a solid solution to this problem, Firefox will be unbeatable and obviously win the browser battle with Google Chrome.
Page Rendering
Firefox was always famous for its super speed page rendering technology. It was one of the major contributing factors for its current success. With the upcoming development the engineers have improved its page load engine to work 3 times faster than Firefox 3.0 which is amazing. During the tryout of beta version I noticed the sign of this super speed page loading. Most importantly they have focused on JAVAScript engine performance. The major reason is most of the modern web sites are using Rich web interfaces and they using heavy JAVAScripts and related technologies to deliver a flicker-less web experience to the Surfers. Further, with those kinds of interfaces, surfer can experience PC application experience in a web page. With the development of JAVAScript engine Firefox will be the best browser to use Rich internet application which is the next big thing in World Wide Web. In order to support the speed load time, browser engine has improved its caching capabilities to work with latest web servers and technologies.
Security
Same as the previous version of Firefox, the forthcoming version also will provide private browsing, clear history, parental control and Potential harmful site warnings. In addition to that they have improved the warning mechanism for Malware and Phishing sites which is really good news for Surfers who are looking for safer ride. Its identified that some of the installed third party browser plug-ins lead to security vulnerabilities. As a solution to these problems, forthcoming version is capable of identifying the outdated plug-ins which are installed and generate appropriate warning message to users. As always like in previous versions Firefox working hand in hand with Windows antivirus programs to protect your computer from the security threats which could be downloaded as file to your local storage device.
Customization
Firefox was always having a great strength over other browser which is availability of Add-ons. Currently Add-ons library is having more than 6000 Add-ons and counting. Using these Add-ons you can transform your browser in to a total multimedia browsing mode, social media connector or a web development platform. There are various famous Add-ons used from different purposes like Firebug which gave a great support for web developers. There is an Add-on manager embedded having the objective of easy Add-on management, upgrade and searching. In addition to Add-ons you can insert Browser toolbar, search engines, Quick access buttons, Bookmarks and RSS links to further customize your web experience with Firefox. Have to mention that availability of different themes add an extra color to browsing experience with Firefox.
User Interface Design and Others
Tabbed based browsing was a one of the most significant contributing factor for Firefox browsers popularity. However with the arrival of Google Chrome, it introduces further optimized and user-friendly tabbed based browsing style. In the latest development of Firefox has also following the same style and tab is wrapping the address bar as well. Previously address bar was on top of the tab which was confusing. The address bar is further improved and they call it ‘Awesome Bar’ where you can search not only URL, but important key words/tags in the titles and URLs. Same as the previous versions of Firefox new version also providing one click bookmarking, password manager, Auto complete, download manager, spell checker and free auto updates.
New Technologies
There are various new technologies are introducing to improve the web interfaces which are mainly focused on developing artistic designs. The major issues with those technologies are cross browser compatibility. However Firefox is always step ahead in that area. It supports almost all of the latest web technologies including CSS3, HTML 5 and latest JAVAScript techniques. There is a trend to use vector graphics for the web pages data presentation. Google map is one of the significant examples for that. The new Firefox will support advance SVG rendering to present those graphics in a performance tuned smooth manner. Additionally the graphic engines has improved to present hypermedia including streaming audio and video in a effective manner with high quality color and contras. As previous versions new Firefox also will provide streamlined integration with external application like local email clients and Fire browsers.
Browser Battle Continues!
Long time ago there was very few options to internet surfers. Windows people were using Internet Explorer and Apple people were using Safari. There was so many browsers came and go and according to my memory the first significant challenge to above was Opera browser. By that time some people were using Dial up internet connection and Opera provided way faster browsing experience in those connections than other browsers. However with the improvement of internet connection speeds, importance of Opera was reduced and people were again started using default browsers, yet Opera was rocking in Mobile browsing. With the introduction of Mozilla Firefox, it made shattered previous operating system default browser monopoly. It was free and open source, gained popularity as a sky rocket. People started saying ‘IE is a great browser, The greatest usage of IE is downloading Firefox’. Then Google Chrome made a significant impact on Firefox world with its exceptional performance and memory management. The browser battle continues, Firefox 4.0 is coming, Chrome is there and IE 9 is also in the game. No one gives up and Surfers are always benefited.
The amount of money you can save when you sign up for freebies from various retailers and manufacturers is staggering. If you take the time to sign up for programs that will send you free products in the mail, as well as free coupons, the effort will pay off in the future.
A surprising number of people don’t sign up for these types of programs. Why? Maybe they feel like it is simply too much work. Those who don’t think the workload is too heavy often think that the free products and coupons aren’t all that great a deal. Others are concerned that their mailboxes, both real and virtual, will start to fill up with nothing but spam. Still more people would sign up if they knew where to start, but aren’t really sure where they should begin.
The reality is that it might not really be worth it to sign up for only one of these programs, but if you sign up for enough of them you will find that your overall expenses will start to drop quite dramatically if they are the types of products that you already use on a regular basis.
Before filling prescriptions at the pharmacy, make sure to check out NeedyMeds.org for coupons. (I’ve personally saved almost $150 in the past year alone!)
By following a few basic principles, you can make the most out of this strategy for saving money on the internet.
Start by looking for information sources that reliably provide people with the latest offers. You will most likely find the best results by searching Facebook and other social networks for socially branded websites. Stay away from advertisement-centric sites. It’s important to receive recommendations from blogs, forums, and websites that are authoritative and won’t mislead you.
Set up a new and separate email accounts specifically for each programs. (Setting up a new Gmail account is easy!) Why is this important? Spam emails quickly accumulate and this way your personal inbox will stay organized and clutter-free. I recommend setting up a different account for each program you decide to enroll in; however, one email for all of them will suffice.
It is a good idea to set up an automatic form filler on your internet browser. This allows you to automatically complete each form so that you don’t have to waste time entering in the same basic information every time you sign up for a new program. It won’t necessarily work every time, but in most cases it will.
Simple, right? You’ll be saving money before you know it if you follow these simple steps! Remember to only sign up for products that you need. It is easy to get ‘sucked in’ to the incredible deals available online. Don’t sign up for everything just because it’s free. Do you really need it? Will you really use it? Be honest with yourself so you don’t go coupon crazy.
Stumble-Upon is an upcoming web browsing paradigm where it users can browse the web randomly according to their interests. It provides comprehensive mechanism to users to add pages and vote them by themselves. According to the number of votes the visibility of the pages to other stumbles would be decided algorithmically. This can be identified as a good way to browse web in a area where you can’t do a keyword search at the same time it’s a good way to expose your web page rapidly to highly targeted set of users. In addition it is a community network where you can have friends and interact with them.
Background
IP Address and Domain Names
In the very early stage of web technologies the IP address of the web server was used to look up for a web page. That mechanism was not so user friendly and difficult to promote a specific brand name online. As a Solution for that the domain name service came in to action where users can type domain name and there is a middle man to map that name in to an IP address. This was user-friendly and businesses could use their brand name online very easily.
Search Engines
Even with domain name there was no way to find a specific content in the web using keyword and search engines solved that problem. Even though you don’t know a domain name you can go to a search engine and type a keyword and find a specific content as you want. In order to provide those facilities search engines are using robots or spiders to index entire World Wide Web. In addition to identify the important pages there are various ‘voting’ mechanism like Google page rank which based on back links.
Stumble-Upon
What will happen in the case you don’t know enough about the subject to type a keyword and search content? But still you know the outline of the subject area which you want to read about. That’s where Stumble-Upon comes to action. It keeps an index of user submitted pages and their information. Users can stumble across the web using stumble-upon tool bar based on given interests and stumble-upon will deliver pages randomly according to your interest. Same as in search engines Stumble-upon also using voting mechanism but its directly getting the vote from users. Due to that the accuracy of the vote considered to be higher than ‘back links’. The number of votes will be a factor to decide the visibility of a specific page to other users.
Getting Started
Register Account
The first step to use stumble-upon is creating an account. However you can stumble by just clicking stumble button in the main page, but in that case you won’t be able to use most of the advance features. Due to that it’s recommended to register before starts stumbling. You can access the registration page by clicking the link in hear of main page. It takes you to a simple registration form, you have to fill it and click sign up. You can prove that you are a human using captcha or facebook login. Then it will take you to a window where you can enter your interests. Tick then as you want and hit stumble. Then it will display a toolbar at the top of browser window and some web page according to your interest. By clicking the stumble button in the toolbar you can go to next web page.
Install Stumble-Upon Toolbar
The toolbar mentioned above is not yet installed in your browser, so there can be some malfunctioning. In order to avoid those you can install it locally as a plug in for your browser. When you go to main page of Stumble-upon it will display a link to get the add-on according to your browser. If you are a Firefox user you will be able to get complete set of tool in your toolbar as a Firefox plug-in. Even for other browsers there are add-ons which can be downloaded and installed. However the Firefox plug-in provides most wide and accurate set of features. As long as you have the toolbar you can always click on the Stumble button there and start stumbling, submit the current page to stumble, vote for current page and share it with your friends. In addition it can give access to your saved interest, change them and stumble only in one interest too.
Web Interface
As long as you have a registered account in Stumble-upon you can control it using the web interface. Once you login you can see a settings button in the header. By clicking that you can access preferences including profile information, theme, Manage interests and profile picture. It provides facility to import your Facebook profile image to stumble-upon. Finally it creates a public profile URL for you like http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/YourUserName/. Your profile page displays your favorites and your friend’s network. You can invite your friends to Stumble-Upon or you can subscribe other stumbles too.
Start Stumbling
Now you have fully configured stumble-upon account. Click the stumble button in toolbar and stumble across the web pages according to your interests, Submit interesting pages to stumble-upon and vote of interesting pages saying ‘I like it’ using toolbar or may be writing a review. Optimize the list of topics to have a better stumbling experience. In the case you need to shout out about a page use sharing options in toolbar including Twitter and Facebook. Furthermore you can keep a track of your likes and stumbles through the web interface. If you see an interesting user you can subscribe to him and get updates. If you have your own web page, submit it to Stumble-upon saying ‘I like it’ in toolbar, so you will be able to present the page to many other stumblers. To improve that you can add a stumble-upon button in to your web page too.
Profile Authority
When you are stumbling it delivers the pages according to an algorithm. The basic factor is ‘Likes’ to increase the visibility of the page. However each like won’t be treated as same, but there will be a weight for the vote according to the profile authority of voted stumblers. It will be decided according to the below facts.
Discoveries you have made and their popularity
Subscribers you have and their popularity.
Vote you have given to other pages and their popularity.
Number of reviews you have written.
If you are a high authority Stumbler your vote will be having a high value than others and voted pages will be having an improved visibility to other Stumblers. However stumble-upon having a paid advertising program as well. Using that you can promote your page to stmblers as a Sponsored page.
User Experience
Stumble-upon is totally different experience to surfers. You can simple stumble across the web according to your personal interest without giving any specific goal. This can be really addictive as long as it identifies your likeness and deliver pages accordingly. Most importantly it identifies the values of the page based on users’ direct vote which is highly accurate. Due to that it can deliver highly target high quality content to the users. You can use stumble-upon as a new way of learning and getting news randomly. When you become a good stumbler and have many likes it will deliver even precise content for you. Join stumble-upon now and feel this new experience.
Perhaps you’ve had digital dreams where you were connected to a peripheral device at a super fast data transfer rate, let’s say 10 Gbps. You were editing video and moving huge files around as if they were JPEG thumbnails while using an external monitor attached to the same port. You awoke from the dream as you were shouting in your sleep, “This is groundbreaking; that’s what it is, groundbreaking!” Well, it seems dreams do come true, you were likely dreaming about the connection technology called Thunderbolt™.
Thunderbolt was developed by Intel under the code name Light Peak, while they are quick to point out Apple’s collaboration as well. Thunderbolt has a long list of features that are sure to astonish any computer geek and amaze the average user. First of all, its dual-channel design enables it to run a data intensive device on one channel with additional devices on the other channel. Since Thunderbolt is also dual-protocol (PCI Express and DisplayPort), the same connection port can accommodate an external drive, a video monitor, or any compatible device. Bundle these features with the option of an optical or electrical connection, support for bus powered units, along with other technical goodies, and it seems, “They’ve thought of everything.”
Apple, who just has a way of staying in front of competitors, debuts the technology in their newest MacBook line of laptop computers. As touched upon, Apple collaborated with Intel to bring about Thunderbolt. In other words, with these parties involved, there’s a good chance Thunderbolt will live up to the expectations – and wow what expectations!
By now, you may be starting to ponder the question, “Does this mean I have to buy a bunch of new peripheral devices if I buy a computer with Thunderbolt?” The short answer is no, it seems USB, Firewire, and other compatible devices can be connected using adapters. This is important if you already own some nice external drives and other peripherals.
So what will Thunderbolt mean for users? A super fast, almost universal connection that supports many existing peripherals or another standardization to deal with? Sure it’s new technology and with that brings questions, but Thunderbolt seems well thought out in terms of backwards compatibility and its speed and agility could make a few upgrades more than worthwhile.
It is too early to tell if Thunderbolt will end up on every computer that comes to market. It may be that some premium systems have it, but budget ones do not – initially that is. One thing for sure, it is such an enticing development, it is sure to be a consideration for anyone buying a computer to be used with multimedia or any other data intensive application.
About The Writer
Henrik Larsson owner of a new application that enables users to install additional Facebook Emoticons writes. Emoinstaller enables users to use additional Facebook chat emoticons.
