Tips for Using Facebook

If you are a regular user of Facebook, there are a few things you should do or know in order make a better social networking experience for yourself. Here are the tips on how to browse facebook and have a better experience this time: -

1. Full-Screen Photo viewing – You can view photos on facebook in full-screen mode which will give a better gallery experience. Here is how to do it; once you click on a photo you will see a floating menu. Scroll down and click on options and you will see the “Enter Full screen” option. To get out of the full screen mode press “X”.

2. Hide what you read - There are many social reading apps and they have good articles but you might not want others to know what your read during your free time. There is an option to hide what you read on facebook and it is Account setting > Home > App. Click on “edit” and you will see options to hide what you read.

3. List of Interests – You can create a list of your interests in your profile on facebook. Go to interests section and click on more and then on add interests and Create list.

4. Add locations to images - You can add locations to Images and they will be placed in your map as well. This way your map will be populated with and people who are viewing your map can see with photo where all places you have been to.

5. Reposition Photos on Your Timeline – You can reposition a photo on your time line to look better by clicking on “Edit or Remove” icon on the top-right and select “reposition photo”.

6. Hide from certain friends on facebook – Everyone has quite a few people whom they would rather not chat with. If you want to chat with other people but still appear offline to certain people you can do so by clicking on that person’s name in the chat window and hit the cog icon on the top right. Then click on go offline to name of that person.

7. Pre-Approved Tags – you can change the setting of your account in a way that any tagged content before appearing on your timeline will need your approval.  Go to Privacy Settings > Timeline and Tagging > Edit Settings and set both “Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline” and “Review tags friends add to your own posts on facebook” on.

8. Hide content in your News Feed – you can hide annoying and unwanted content from appearing in your news feed.  Go to News feed > Edit Setting and you can ban certain friend’s updates to come in your newsfeed.

9. Create a Secret Group – You can create a secret group that only appears to selected people. This way you can share content with only a few selected people.

10. High Quality Images – If you want your images to be of good quality, while uploading them select high quality mode. It might take longer but the quality will be great.

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See the world with Google Map Street View

Google Street View is a new technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth. Google Street View provides panoramic views from position along different places in the world. In a simpler language, Google Maps Street View allows you to explore various places around the world with 360 degree imagery.  You can view landmarks, natural wonders, restaurants and many more as if you are actually there.

Imagery of Street view is collected by using a car with Cameras, GPS devices etc. So The Street view vehicle whatever it may be amongst Car, Bike, Trolley or snowmobile depending on the environment of a particular area has a camera which collects images as the vehicle passes through different places.  So when we view Google map Street view for a place we can have 360 degree look around the place where the Street View Car has been ranging from a street in Las Vegas to Sydney Australia or New Delhi in India.

How to use the Street View?

The first step is to go to Google map and find the place that you want to visit in street view. After finding that place you can pick up the Pegman icon on the top left of the map and drop it to the location where you want see in street view mode.

To rotate your view in the street you can either use the rotate wheel on top left of the screen or your can user your mouse or keyboard to do so. If you are using the mouse you can click and drag to change your view and for keyboard you can use the left and right arrows on the keyboard.

To walk down a place you can either click on the white arrows on the screen or use the up and down arrows on the keyboard.

To exit the Street view mode of Google map, either click on the top right corner or zoom out to view the map.

Google Street View is currently available in North America, parts of South America, Most of Europe, and South Africa, parts of middle-east, Australia and parts of Asia.

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Facebook and Twitter

Everyone today is Familiar with the terms Facebook and twitter. The purpose of the two is helping the world to connect through different ways. Some of you are learners while some can use them effectively.

Apart from the daily buzz Facebook and Twitter sever the purpose of   e-learning and inspires many students to learn.

As a result, the question arrives How can we use Facebook & twitter for educational purposes?

There are a certain applications in Facebook which serves the purpose.

Slide Share

You can create and share presentations on Facebook. At the same time you can add documents.

Flashcards

You can create flashcards to help you study on Facebook.

NewsRack

You can use information relevant to your course and share it with your other learner friends.

Mathematical Formulae

As a teacher you can distribute the mathematical formulae to your students and they can use them even if they have not added the application.

WorldCat

You can do research, catalog your library’s collection and share it with others.

Quiz Monster

Create your own quiz Facebook application.

Study Groups

You can quickly and easily collaborate your classmates and discuss the courses.

Koofers

Share your old testes, quizzes and study guides with other students.

If you are interested to explore how you can use Facebook for  e-learning you can join the Facebook group “Facebook for e-learning”.

Talking about Facebook there is more to the list, where as twitter does not lack behind in serving educational purposes.

Twitter could be used for classroom teaching.

• Summarize topics- view as tweets
• Really simple story- tweetstory
• Collate classroom views
• Twitter could be a guidebook for teachers, and they can project brainstorming sessions for their students..
• Atlas- Audio files of Twitter can be used in school…Great stuff!!

If we move away from the casual purpose of these social sites, we may come across a variety of purposes served by them. It’s just a matter of interest!

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Ten tips on creating an effective blog

Blogging has become a very common online trend during recent times. The year of 2010 recorded a total of around 152 million blogs on the internet. It is very simple to establish a blog and therefore the trend. Because of the humongous number of fellow bloggers, it is important for you to work something out in order to help put your blog on the forefront.

1. Content - Since content is the highlighted aspect in a blog, ensure that the content of your blog appeals to a variety or a particular segment of the readers. There should be some continuity or consistency in the matter of the blog.
2. Layout, design and typography – Having a layout that relates to the theme of the blog is a very good idea. It will add to the visual appeal of the blog and also has a lasting impression on the minds of the readers. An aesthetically appealing blog with interesting typography is bound to bring the reader back to the blog.
3. Credibility – There should be some credibility for the source material used in your blog using links, references etc. The more credible your information is, the more regular will be your blog readers and the possibility that you may have a constant following.
4. Advertising – Ensure that your blog is well advertised through social networking sites or through word of mouth. However interesting or attractive a blog may be , lack of awareness may restrict it from its way to popularity.
5. Blog elements – Ensuring that elements like pictures, videos, widgets, audio tracks etc. are in high quality and easily accessible is the responsibility of the blogger. These elements add more life to the blog.
6. Effective feedback – Make sure that your blog has a comment section so that the readers of the blog can share opinions and suggestions. Also pay heed to their opinions. It might actually help you take your blog to a higher level.
7. Regularity – A blog tends to be almost useless if the blogger does not frequently update it through his posts. Frequent updates will prevent your blog from virtual spider webs and dust.

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How to make money in YouTube

What is money?? That rumpled piece of paper in your pocket that the world bows to its power? The answer lies within you. You know it best, the way you adapt the methods to outgrow yourself. Well, youtube can be considered as one such sources of making MONEY. But how can you make money in youtube? Though presently youtube is not profitable, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t make money on the video sharing site. However friends, the road to making money on Youtube isn’t smooth. It takes plenty of time, patience, and luck to see a payout of any sort. So here are a certain things to be kept it mind if you really really want to earn that big money from YouTube.

• YouTube will NOT let you make money off your video of it.

• Don’t bother uploading videos of pop singers who are really “Cool” in that sense. Remember the usage of double quotes!

• To get started, make an awesome video by recording something that can turn itself into a viral hit and edit it into a watchable video.

• Upload your video on YouTube and follow it up by a catchy, attractive, meanster, bitchy but easily searchable title. Make sure that the title is self explanatory and conveniently understood.

•  A youtube user should know how to distribute and market their video to maximize viewership. You need to regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of other users. So, keep making videos and distributing them to social networks and media outlets.

•  Check your inbox regularly. Incase any one of your videos does well, youtube will send you an email saying- “Apply for revenue sharing for your video”. However, if approved, you can only make money from the specified video only.

•  Apply through Youtube’s Partnership program page. Once you have finally uploaded enough videos and have got a lot of views, you can apply directly for partnership on Youtube’s Partner Program page. Once approved, you’ll be able to turn on revenue sharing for all your videos and so you can even rent out your videos. Ensure that you’ve read the YouTube Partnership program tutorial thoroughly, and double- check that you haven’t violated any of their rules.

•  Once you are done reviewing the guidelines, you need to link a Google AdSense account to your youtube account. This is how Google/Youtube will pay you for your videos.

•  After all this, all you have to do it to be patient. Youtube could take upto two weeks to review your video.

•  Incase youtube approves your video; you can turn on overlay ads that pop up on the bottom of a video, banner ads that appear next to the video that plays in front of it.

•  If by any chance youtube rejects your application, you have another two months before you can apply again; so get back to working on your videos.

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E-books

With the growing arenas in technology , even the traditional habit and activity of reading has upgraded itself to a completely new level.Electronic books , popularly known as e-books are basically electronically displayed copies of regular printed books.There are devices ie- e-book readers are specially designed only for the purpose of reading such books. However e-books can also be read on laptops , computers , tablets etc.

Advantages of E-books
1)  Portability
With the help of an eBook reader , laptop etc it is possible to read multiple books on a single device. It gets rid of the problem of trying to accommodate  multiple books in limited space while travelling or even for storage purposes.

2)  Lighting conditions
In the case of an e-book , it is possible to read it under all lighting conditions especially in the absence of light because of the prevailing background  light in the electronic device which contains the e-book.

3)  Easily Readable
It is easier to adjust the e-books according to your convenience like adjusting the fonts , page size , zoom functions etc.

4)  Great for new releases
E-books are a great option in the case of new book releases. Not only are they available for cheaper but you can also avoid the problem of sold out copies which are often prevalent during the initial launch of the book.

Disadvantages of E-books
1)  Strain to eyes
Looking at the screen of an e-book for long hours can be a huge strain on the eyes. Apart from causing temporary irritation , constant and prolonged  exposure can lead to more serious eye problems.

2)  Power
Ebook readers , laptops,tablets or other devices have a power of maximum 2-3 hours and you may not always have access to power supply. This is a negative point considering how the paper books does not require any other supplementary device.

3) E book formats
A wide variety of ebook formats are available.Many of them are specific to certain ebook readers only whereas one particular book may not be available in all formats.

4)  Destroys the novelty of books
Many argue that no technology can replace the pleasure of flipping through pages of the book .The smell of pages and the feeling of printed paper holds a special place in the hearts of many and it’s hard for such people to change their reading habits.

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Top 10 Amazing Structures of the World

It is said that history repeats itself. As we go back in history, we come across the ancient wonders, which used to be peculiar on both shape and size. The Colossus of Rhodes was known for its height and the legs stretching at impossible distance. The Hanging Garden of Babylonia was another amazing structure and till date scientists are unable to find out the logic – how can a garden hang? Unfortunately, none remain today except the Pyramid of Giza. Talking of the modern wonder, they are called wonders for its historical evidence. There now exist some unique structures that finally prove the statement – history repeats itself. Finally, the modern age man has taken the architecture to its zenith. Though they could not build another colossus, they certainly built something far more intriguing.

• Aqua (U.S.A.) – It is an 86 story building, used for residential purpose. It was designed by a team led by Jeanne Gang. It is the supposed to be the tallest building in the world to be designed by a woman architect. It was shortlisted for the biannual International Highrise Award in 2010. It was announced that the Carlson Hotels Worldwide was ready to spend $125 million, in the highrise for a new chain of hotels called Radisson Blu. The building is planned to have 215 hotel rooms in the first 18 floors. The skyscraper will also consist of penthouses, offices, residential complexes etc. The most interesting feature of this skyscraper is that Gang and her team plans to make the terrace big enough to get maximum solar radiation and come up with systems for rainwater harvesting, energy efficient lighting etc.

• The Crooked House (Poland) – Krzywy Domek when translated in english means the crooked house. It was built in 2004 by Szotnyscy Zaleski. The house is basically a tourist attraction and has plenty of restaurants and bars. Zaleski was highly inspired by Jan Marcin Skanzer who used to do fairy tale illustration for children. Zaleski was also inspired by Per Dahlberg and his artwork. Thus, the house features three stories and is built in such a surrounding that gives the feeling of “melted or sagged out of exhaustion.” This building has become the most photogenic building of Poland.

• The Basket Building (U.S.A.) – The Longaberger Company is an American based company that manufactures hand-made maple wood basket and other products meant for home decoration like pottery, wrought iron etc. Since the company is the biggest seller of the “Medium Market Basket”, so the owner Dave Longaberger wanted all the consultancies to be in the form of baskets. Unfortunately, only the headquarters could be completed before his death. Post death, all the other constructions were stopped by his daughters. Thus, the headquarters in the shape of a basket.

• Residence Antilia (India) – Antilia is a name given to the house of business tycoon Mukesh Ambani. The house has 27 floors. The building has been described in the media as “The Taj Mahal of the 21^stCentury”. The Antilia has been derived from the mythical island in the Atlantic called Antilia. It was categorized in the list of the 10^th most expensive house in the world in 2010. The house was designed by two architects from Canada. Features include – 9 elevators in the lobby, 3 helipads along with an air traffic control facility, parking space for 168 cars etc. Other facilities include health spa, studio, mini theatre, plenty of swimming pools, hanging gardens and a ballroom.

• Habitat 67 (Canada) – It is a housing complex designed by an Israeli-Canadian architect named Moshe Safdie. It is highly considered as an architectural landmark and one of the significant buildings in Canada. Habitat 67’s design was a project for Safdie’s thesis at the McGill University. The house has 12 stories and has 354 identical blocks arranged in a haphazard manner. All together it forms 148 residences of different sizes. The purpose of this building is to “re-define urban living”, by providing fresh air and a panoramic view.

• Waldspirale (Germany) – Built in the 1990s, Waldspirale is a residential complex. The name when translated in English means forest spiral, depicting the actual plan of the house which has a green roof. The house was designed by an Austrian artist named Friedensreich Hundertwasser and planned by architect Heinz M. Springmann. It contains 105 apartments, parking garage, a cafe and a bar and more 1000 windows. The peculiarity of the building is that the windows give the feeling of “aus der Reihe tanzen”, when translated to english means dancing out of line. None of the windows have the same design; each are unique. The doors and handles of the building are also unique. The building has a U shape and has multi-coloured ceramic look to it.

• Cubic Houses (Netherlands) – Kubuswoningen, or cubic houses when translated in English is a set of creative houses in Netherlands. The houses are designed by the architect Piet Blom and are based on the concept of “living as an urban roof”. Blom designed the houses at an angle of 45 degrees and placed it on a hexagonal shaped pylon. The design represents “a village within a city, where each house represents a tree and all houses together, a forest”. There are a total of 38 cubes, and two big cubes which now have been converted into a hostel. The house has three floors; ground floor, first floor with a living room and kitchen, second floor has two bedrooms and a bathroom and the top floor is a terrace garden.

• Central Library Parking Garage (U.S.A.) – The Central Library was founded in 1973. The garage of this library has been modified into book spines which are 25 feet tall and 9 feet wide each. There are 22 titles spines showing the name of various books of different genres. The different genres hint at the varied taste and interest the people have there.

• The Gherkin (London) – Number 30. St. Mary Axe, popularly referred to as the Gherkin for its shape is skyscraper. It is located in London’s chief financial district. It was built in May 2003 and has 40 floors. It now stands in the former site, where the Baltic Exchange building once stood. It got damaged by a bomb explosion in 1992. It was constructed by Skanska. The Gherkin name was given to it for its not so orthodox layout and appearance.

• China Television Head Quarters (China) – The CC TV headquarters is a skyscraper that is 234m tall. The architects of the building were Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren. Because of its peculiar shape it is often nicknamed as “big boxer shorts”.

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How to write effective content for a website???

All of us admire a myriad websites. According to some reliable research analyses, it has been proved that approx. 85% of people fall in love with these websites by virtue of their content. Very rightly said, “Content is the king”, it must be taken into consideration that writing effective content for a website is the key to the success and fan following of that website.

We must be well-acquainted with a fact by now that it’s not the quantity that matters but the quality. There may be huge chunks of information on the webpage but what counts for the USP of the webpage is not the length of the information, but the relevance and uniqueness of the content matter.

The story doesn’t end here! The recipe of a successful website still has a lot of ingredients like correct grammar usage, clear typography, and easy navigation, clean download, so on and so forth.

Having said that, it is also a matter of fact that writing effective content for a website ain’t no difficult, provided some genuine points are kept in mind while framing the same in accordance to the website’s requirements and subject.

Smile-bringing Factor: Your content mustn’t be plain and dry. Make it humorous and fluffy wherever possible. Put yourself in the readers’ shoe and make it so much so interesting that it leaves a smile on his/her face.

Pyramid style: Know it for a fact that people usually don’t read the entire page unless it’s too grabby to keep them from leaving the page. So, follow the pyramid style of writing, i.e. structure your content in a descending order of importance.

Grammar and Spell Check: It is usually a matter of great disgrace for the website to have incorrect grammar and spelling errors. It puts the readers off. So, make sure you proofread the content and edit it wherever necessary to make it clean.

Concise: Put across your point in the briefest manner possible so that the main subject of the topic is conveyed in the minimal words possible and the reader doesn’t have to go through an altogether different site to grab more info, merely because he doesn’t want to go through the entire content of your website by virtue of its length.

White Space: Have a good amount of white space in your piece of writing in order to give a chance to the reader to breathe through the content. “Reverse” type of writing can also be followed for the same purpose, besides many others.

Response Generating: Make your content aligned in a proper formatting system and it is always a good idea to make at least one small portion of the entire website that fetches a genuine feedback, either by virtue of polls or simply a suggestion box.

Plagiarism free: Most importantly, it must be made sure that the content is purely original. Not just that, but it should be so unique that one must not feel that he has already read something on the same lines before. Non-repetitiveness of words in the same page must also be avoided.

Get started with the wonderful game play of words. Let them dance around you! Happy generating effective content for a website!

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Top Ten Richest People in the world

Once in a while we wonder who the richest people in the world are. There are changes made to this list every year as a new multi-billionaire gets a little bit richer than the other one. Here is a list of top 10 richest people in the world, 2012 :

1. Carlos Slim – Currently the richest person in the world is believed to be Carlos Slim as he has a total net worth of $74 billion. He is the CEO and Chairman of Telmex, Grupo Carso and America Movil. Carlos lived in Mexico City, Mexico where he was into business since the age of 12. He learnt his business skills and practices with his siblings at the age of 12 from his father.

2. Bill Gates – Bill Gates holds the title of second richest man with a net worth of $56 billion. Bill Gates owns one of the most successful software companies of all time. Yes we all know that it is called Microsoft. Bill Gates was a college drops out at Harvard University.

3. Warren Buffet – With a new worth of $50 billion, he is holds the title of third richest person in 2012. He is known to many people as the Wizard of Omaha, Sage of Omaha and Oracle of Omaha. He received these titles due to his limitless efforts in his study at various universities.

4. Bernard Arnault – Bernard Arnault is the fourth richest person in the world and the richest person in Europe with a net worth of $ 41 billion. Bernard was born in France and he grew up there. He is the CEO and chairman of LVMH and chairman of Christian Dior SA. He has also received the fashion person in the year 2011.

5. Larry Ellison – With a net worth of $36 billion, he is fifth amongst the world’s richest people. He is one of the founders of Oracle Corporation and currently the CEO of the corporation. The third richest person in the United States.

6. Lakshmi Mittal – The richest man in India, United Kingdom as well as all of Asia, Lakshmi Mittal is the world’s 6th richest person with a net worth of $31.1 billion. He was born and raised in India but he currently lives in London. He is the CEO of Arcellor Mittal, director of Goldman Sachs, Member the Board of the directors of European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company.

7. Amancio Ortega – Our seventh richest man is Amancio Ortega with a net worth of $ 31 billion. He is the CEO of Inditex Group.

8. Eike Batista – With a net worth of $30 billion, He is the eighth richest person in the world. He is the CEO of EBX Group. He started off by selling insurance, using the door to door method.

9. Mukesh Ambani – As the managing director and the chairman of Reliance industries, his net worth is $ 27 billion. He is the son of the founder of these Industries, the late Dhirubhai Ambani.

10. Christy Walton – With a net Worth of $26.5 billion is the tenth richest person in the world and the richest woman in the world. She is the owner of largest retailer store in the world, Walter Mart.

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Top 10 Women on The Internet

Right from setting fashion statements to making high records in the music industry, these women rule the world and the internet. Ranked by the most searched women on the internet, these ladies have captured a million hearts all over.

1. Lady Gaga: Started towards her success journey in 2007, her vocal abilities were first recognized by the singer Akon, and then there was no stopping her. Giving smashing hits to the world like the Poker Face, Bad Romance, Born This Way, Alejandro, she is well recognized for her diverse contributions to the music industry through her performance, fashion and music videos. She is also known to be the most influential people in the year 2010.

2. Ke$ha: Getting her break in the year 2009 with the super hit song “Right Round”, she has been active in the music industry since then. Her next single “Tik Tok” received rave reviews. Apart from delivering smashing records, she has even written songs for other artists like Britney Spears. Her irreverent music, personality and image led her to direct success in the music industry.

3. Madonna: This singer, song-writer, actress and entrepreneur has sold over 300 million singles worldwide, making her the world’s top selling female recording artist of all time. Throughout her successful career, many of her songs hit the number one position at the charts, some of them being “4 minutes”, “Hung Up”, “Like a prayer”, “Frozen” and many more. Critics have praised Madonna for her diverse contributions to the music industry as well as for serving as a lightning rod for religious controversies.

4. Beyonce: Beyonce Knowles rose to fame in the early 1990’s, being a part of the R&B group, Destiny’s Child. In 2010, she stood second on the list for being one among the 100 most influential celebrities in the world. She has spawned many commercial successful singles like “Put a Ring n it”, “Halo”. With a powerful voice yet a pleasant personality, people would still love to see her going a long way.

5. Rihanna: Delivering one single after the other, she received several accolades for her immense contribution the music industry. Giving chart-topping singles like “Umbrella”, “Disturbia”, and “Don’t Stop the Music”, she went on to being the youngest artist on Billboards charts history to achieve eleven number-one singles.  Her latest song “We Found Love” topped the music charts in over ten countries.

6. Britney Spears: An American recording artist and entertainer, she started her career with “Baby..One more Time” and “Oops! I Did it Again”, which became sensational and international hits. These two initial albums of Britney broke sales records and tagged her as a pop icon. She has been credited to the revival of teen pop during the early 1990’s. Sold over 100 million record worldwide, she is recognized as the best selling female artist of the first decade of the 21st century.

7. Miley Cyrus: Adorning the character of Hannah Montana, she established herself as a teen idol. She released her first solo album in 2008 named Breakout, which went on to be a commercial success.  Also reprising herself in the character of Hannah Montana in its movie version in 2009, she proved her versatility as an actor and singer. For 2011, she is named as the “Most Charted Teenager” by the Guinness Book of Records.

8. Paris Hilton: Her work in modeling and her role as a businesswoman and a socialite, led her to make a place for herself in peoples’ hearts. She is popularly known in the recent times for her reality show, Paris Hilton’s My New BFF. She is also recognized as an example of a celebrity who rises to fame not because of her talent and work, but because of their inherited wealth and controversial lifestyle.

9. Avril Lavigne: A Canadian singer and a song-writer, she not only pursued a career in music, but also went on to make a mark in film acting and designing clothes and perfumes. Her international album “Let Go” made Avril the youngest solo performer to reach No.1 in the UK charts in 2002. Sold over more than 30 million records worldwide, Lavigne is one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S.

10. Shakira: A Columbian singer and a song writer who emerged in the music industry in the early 1990’s. She is the highest selling Columbian artist of all time, and the second most successful Latin female singer. With s few hit singles like “Hips Don’t Lie”, “Whenever Wherever” and “Waka Waka”, she purely demonstrated her powerful voice and her rock and roll style. Her most popular song, “Waka Waka” was chosen as the official song for the FIFA World Cup of 2010, and gained immense accolades and positive reviews.

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Spams

Spam is basically flooding the internet with multiple copies of the same message. It is mainly done with the attempt to force someone to choose to read it, even if he does not want to, and today, spamming has become like a very frequent every day job over the internet. A frequent internet user would come across either spamming of emails and notifications every now and then, such increased is the activity of spamming these days.

Most spam is commercial, which include advertising for dubious products, or claiming to give you an ‘opportunity’ for easy and free earning, and making a queer attempt to make you indulge in activities over the internet which is quasi-illegal. They are a threat as they can be luring lots of innocent internet user into misleading activities. From here comes the need to learn more about spamming and how they can be prevented or reduced from spreading, because stopping a spam is sometimes definitely out of reach.

There are two main types of spams- Cancellable Usenet spam, which s a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. Usenet spam is aimed at “lurkers”, people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away.

Another very common form of spamming people is email spam. It targets individual user by sending them direct mail messages using emails id’s from Usenet groups, stealing internet mailing lists, or searching the web for addresses.

Spam is pretty common, specially for advertising because of the sole reason that spamming does not cost anything to the sender but is heavily borne on the receiver.  Anyone with measured phone service, read or receive their mail while the meter is running. So to speak, spam costs them additional money. Moreover, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers. So compressing as to what is spam, anything which is sent in bulk, or any email that is not a part of your subscription or was never asked for, or emails sent from unknown companies or people can be termed and recognized as spam.

The reason why spamming still continues is that not many people are aware of what exactly is spam, and thus the advertisements sent by spammers are very thoroughly read and received well by few ignorant people, and thus this process of spamming never comes to a standstill. Also for the people who are aware of what is a spam, the most common thing is of refraining from using anti-spam software’s and anti spam techniques. This is surely an encouragement for spammers as half the people have no complete information on spam and the other half are just too careless to do anything about it.

For the people who really care about such a thing, there is a list of techniques both at the person and non personal level, which could help reduce and prevent spam online. At the personal level, all you could do is never responding to it, filtering it out of your e-mail, and complaining to providers about it. Sharing an email address only among a limited group of correspondents is one way to limit spam. For this reason, avoid forwarding mails to people whom you do not know, and thus try using the ‘bcc’ tab for forwarding any email in case of emergency and refrain from forwarding mails to other unknown people or group through the ‘to’ tab.

Also try your best to avoid responses to spam. Even reverting to a spammed email saying, “Don’t spam me” will give them an automatic confirmation that this is a valid and an active email id and thus will spam mail you more. Also, no matter how much that junk and spammed email might look convincing and attractive, but it is very important for one to know that only if you stop responding and encouraging will this activity come to a stop.

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10 most useful Google Tools

Google has numerous useful tools which are very helpful to the users. Google is considered to be great company as it does not have any evil rules and they make life easier for the users. Some of the tools that help the users include Gmail (Google mail), Google Chrome, Google Analytics, Google Reader, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Docs (Google documents), Google Agenda, Google Friend Connect, Google Adwords (Keyword tool), and Google Translate (Language Tool). Here we have listed top 10 Google tools in details and descriptions: -

1. Gmail – This tool is considered as one of Google’s best and most useful tools. Gmail has a quick interface and it is very user friendly. Its spam filter is very effective. Gmail has a storage capacity of 7.4 GB which is more than adequate. There is also a chat available on Google mail which has great functionality.

2. Google Chrome – Google chrome, according to me is the best and most efficient browser. It is lighter than other browsers with more functions. There is a tab system in Google chrome which has been done perfectly. You can also manage you bookmarks and pages that you view most often.

3. Google Analytics – This tool is the best analytics solution available and it is free for websites who have less than 5 million page views per month or those who have an Adwords account. By using Google Analytics you can find out about number of page views and the traffic that your website has in the form of number metrics and graphs. You can even make reports and analysis through this internet tool.

4. Google Reader – Google reader is an internet tool which can also work offline with all downloaded article in advance.  This application also has social networking features such as commenting and sharing favorite articles.

5. Google Webmaster Tools – This tool is quite necessary for webmasters as you can manage all your websites through it. You can verify your sites and see how many pages are linked to your websites and what key words are of higher significance to you.

6. Google Documents – Google Docs is actually an online application which helps the user create and share documents, presentations etc. You can share the created documents with anyone who has a Google Account. Google Docs is a very powerful feature and it has various uses. You can edit any kind of document in Google docs.

7. Google Agenda – By using Google Agenda you can keep your appointments in track and you can also create events and share the information with anyone who has a Google account.

8. Google Friend Connect – This is a social networking feature of Google in which you can create a community around your website.

9. Google Adwords – Google Adwords, keyword tool is an online application on Google which allows the user to find most searched keywords based on a specified title by the user.

10. Google Translate – This is a language tool which can translate a script from any language to another.

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Windows 8

Windows 8, the latest version of Microsoft Windows Computer Operating System comes after windows 7. In comparison to windows 7, windows 8 is much more advanced as it has many changes. This version of Microsoft windows will work on ARM microprocessors as well as on Intel and AMD microprocessors. The windows 8 release date has not been specified yet but it will be sometime in late 2012. Windows 8 consumer preview release date has been specified to be on 29th of February and it will be available for download on that date between 3:00 to 5:00 PM. Windows 8 Beta is also called as Windows 8 Consumer Preview as it is still in the process of testing.

Windows 8 Pre beta version or Developer Preview version is currently available online and it comes in three packages which includes the following: -

• 64-bit version – OS
• 32-bit version – OS
• 64-bit version with developer tools

Windows 8 Features
Windows 8 is a big improvement of windows 7 and it is going to come with numerous useful features such as Windows App Store, better security features and many more like I mentioned before Windows 8 will work on ARM based tablets as well as x86 PCs based on ARM processors of Intel and AMD.

Here are the features of Windows 8: -

Windows To Go - Windows To Go is a feature of Windows 8 that lets the windows boot from a USB device. This includes settings, files and user’s programs. Windows To Go will work on both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. This feature will not allow the user to Hibernate.

Windows Store – Windows Store is quite similar to Mac app store where the users can look for various applications. Windows Store offers various Windows applications to the users and developers can publish their apps on other devices with Windows 8.

Windows 8 User Interface – Windows 8 has a very interactive user interface. This UI will give you the important information you need and allows you to control it in a very simple manner. You can navigate with the User Interface with Touch or Mouse and keyboard.

Windows Defender – Windows defender came up with Windows Vista and now it is getting better with the upcoming Windows 8.  Windows defender will be a complete anti malware which will protect your windows as well as device from all kinds of malware like virus, worms, Trojans and rootkits.

Internet Explorer 10 – Windows 8 will come with the new version of Internet Explorer 10 which does not have any browser plug-ins and extensions but it will have a full screen browsing mode by default. It also adds more security to web applications. Some of the other features of Windows 8 include: -

• Kinect
• Hyper-V
• Better Windows Phone Sync
• Better File Management
• Multi-User Tablets
• Live Tiles
• Reset and Refresh

Here are some of pre installed Apps that are available on Windows 8: -

• Camera
• Messaging
• Mail
• Calendar
• SkyDrive
• People
• Photos
• Video
• Music

Here are the games that will be available on Windows 8 Beta: -

• Hydro Thunder
• Toy Soldiers
• Reckless Racing
• Angry Birds
• Ilomilo
• Rocket Riot
• Full House Poker
• Tentacles
• Crash Course
• Ms Splosion Man
• Wordament

Something that’s in all of our minds about Windows 8 is if we are going to be able to install Windows 8 on our old laptops. Well I guess the right way to ask this question would be what are the Windows 8 minimum System Requirements?

Do not worry, because it is said that Windows 8 has the same requirements of Windows 7 which include: -

• 1 GHz or faster 32-bit or 64-bit processor
• 1 GB RAM 32-bit or 2 GB RAM 64-bit

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How to erase Google web history

It is a well known fact that all internet browsers have the ability to store the websites that the users visit as Web history. Well it is not only the internet browsers who save such information but Google also stores all the websites that you visit. Here are the steps on how to delete search history on Google: -

1. Log into your account and go to Google.com

2. You will be able to see setting in the top right corner of your screen. Click on the setting and then Google account settings.

3. Click on Web history, located under my products.

4. In web history click on Remove items

5. You will be given a list which contains the history of all the websites that you have visited since you started using Google on your computer or since the last time you erased Google history.

6. In the list you can either choose the websites that you want to clear or you can click on clear entire Web history.

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How’s privacy fading from Facebook?

Recently on 16 November, 2011 newspapers reported about the Facebook Fiasco wherein around 2 lakh Facebook accounts were hacked in Bangalore. Their pictures were morphed and put on pornographic sites and their friends were sent feeds about it. The victims were adversely affected by this incident mentally and socially. They committed social suicide by deleting all their accounts from all the social networking sites after facing so much social embarrassment and mental tension. More than 700 Bangaloreans deleted their Facebook accounts after this Facebook Disaster.

Time and again Mark Zuckerberg updated privacy settings of the Facebook to make Facebook a safer place to interact and share. But this incident clearly shows that hackers are cannier than MarkZuckerberg and that privacy from social networking sites like Facebook is fading rapidly!

With the pervasiveness of Internet and Social Media, Social Networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have become an integral part of our lives. With more than 350 million users of Facebook and most of them spending at least 2 hours on social networking sites daily, it seems as though the world is Facebook’s Oyster. A regular use of these sites has made us vulnerably addictive to them and so we can’t help but post everything that we do or feel in our daily lives on these sites in an attempt to share it with our friends. And this indeed has put our personal, social and professional life’s privacy on stake!

Privacy is a basic right of all the citizens on this earth. Our elders have always advised us to keep our personal and professional lives separate. But with the invasion of Facebook into our lives, achievement of this task seems to be impossible.

Over a period of time innumerable numbers of instances have been quoted about jobs terminations due information and pictures posted on Facebook. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles have become a necessity for job seekers and college applicants. The companies often ask if you are a member on various social networking sites and it’s a minus 10 if you are not. It becomes very difficult to get a job without Facebook and LinkedIn profiles on one hand and on the other hand it is even more difficult to ensure job security with these websites.

One of the best examples is Anthony Weiner, former U.S representative, who lost his position due to pictures posted on social networking site. Companies stalk our Facebook profiles to cross check given information and often judge our personality through Facebook profile, posts, pictures and conversations.

There have been several reported allegations of privacy invasion due to Facebook and incidents of Facebook trading users’ information. Users complain about constant tampering with Facebook’s format and privacy settings. Information and photos uploaded on Facebook is now used as a weapon by cops and advocates as evidence in prosecutions, custody clashes and other crime investigations. Not only this, many relationships have been wrecked due to exposed information on Facebook.
Even German government has been battling with Facebook over the introduction of a facial recognition feature that required users to opt-out, so as to prevent Facebook from collecting their data.

Vigorous efforts have been made by Facebook to provide the users with better privacy settings and so now the user has freedom to restrict desired people from viewing information about them. But the user doesn’t have control or command over what others are posting about him/her. Also maximum users upload all the information about their personal life, unaware of the trouble it could push them into and catastrophic consequences it might have.

From the above instances it is very much clear that our social, personal and professional life is in acute danger due to fading privacy from Facebook. So, be cautious about what all goes on your Facebook status updates, walls and photos. We must not forget that the information uploaded is shared with the whole world which includes not only our friends but also our enemies, bosses, teachers, ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, family, fans, media professionals, children etc. Keeping this in mind can help us keep Facebook at bay from interfering in our personal lives.

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How to get a great Facebook Profile Picture?

Do you wish to look awesome in your facebook profile picture? I think most of us want that! After all, it is just like a virtual high, a scrapbook of family and friends and a resume all rolled in one! So, no wonder we want to look the best! Here are few tips to get a perfect picture for your facebook profile picture without using any editing softwares like Photoshop or other.

1. First and foremost things you should do is dress your best! If you are looking a profile picture that fetches many ‘likes’; wear clothes that flatter you the most! V- Necks make you look taller and thinner.  While boat necks help balance our shoulders. Choose the look that makes you look great and feel confident.

2. Wear the right make-up, make-up is one thing that says a lot about you and your personality! A light touch up of powder will help prevent sunshine from flash! You must also make sure that you hide dark spots if you’ve any. If you are wearing a set of lenses, use light, soothing colors because, too flashy and dark picture won’t appear good.

3. Don’t use your phone camera, webcam! The obvious mistakes people make is using the phone camera. Like, many of us say, Oh Now I’m looking fab, let’s have a photo! You might look fab that moment, but trust me that picture is not suitable for a facebook profile picture.

4. Don’t post your pictures with alcohol, cigarettes or anything that is questionable- If your profile pictures are not set to private, you never know who sees your profile. You might wonder that you look cooler with cigarettes or with that tiny glass of vodka/tequila.

5. Give a great pose- it is important for you to look fantastic, so you must always give a great pose to the photographer. Look into the lens confidently. A great pose teamed up with great set of clothes and make-up makes it just PERFECT!

6. Smile! You shall get all the glitters and charm with your smile. The best pictures are the ones with a genuine and a happy smile. It should appear as if you’ve a new job or for some reason you’re genuinely happy!

So, these are some pointers you can keep in mind when you click your new facebook profile picture!

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Some amazing open source web applications

I’ve been thinking about what life would be like without open source software. How could you get through much of your daily life without it? Absent open source, Google would not have been able to easily and cost-effectively build a huge cluster of servers to power its search engine. The reason is Linux would not have been free for the company to modify and adapt to its needs. And Google is only one obvious example here. Yahoo runs its entire site on FreeBSD.

In the span of 10-15 years it  emerged as the best friend for any of the web developer, if you have experience with web development you must feel the freedom and ease of coding with open source web applications.

Here are some of the amazing open source web application :–

1.) phpMyAdmin (1998):

phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, manage keys on fields, manage privileges, export data into various formats and is available in 50 languages. Development is backed up by the phpMyAdmin team.

2.) squirrelMail (1999):

SquirrelMail is a web-based email application started by Nathan and Luke Ehresman and written in the PHP scripting language. It can be installed on almost all web servers as long as PHP is present and the web server has access to an IMAP and SMTP server.

3.) osCommerce (2000):

osCommerce is an open source e-commerce solution under on going development by the open source community. Its feature packed out-of-the- box installation allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort and with no costs involved. osCommerce combines open source solutions to provide a free and open development platform, which includes the powerful PHP web scripting language, the stable Apache web server, and the fast MySQL database server.

4.) openX (2000):

OpenX is an open-source advertising server that is licensed under the GNU General Public License. It features an integrated banner management interface and tracking system for gathering statistics. The product enables web site administrators to rotate banners from both in-house advertisement campaigns as well as from paid or third-party sources, such as Google’s AdSense. With over 50,000 publishers serving more than 300 billion ads per month, OpenX is the largest publisher-side ad server in the world. OpenX ad server is used on over 5% of the top 10,000 most traffic websites in the world.

5.) phpBB (2000):

phpBB is a fast, efficient discussion board program built in PHP with a muti-database backend. Features include: posting, replying, private messages, polls, username/ip banning, strong encryption for storing passwords, user rankings, very advanced access control for private forums, full templating, simple yet robust translation system and much more.

6.) Drupal (2001):

Drupal is a modular content management system, forum, blogging and community engine. It is database driven and can be used with MySQL, MySQLi and PostgreSQL. Its features include (but are not limited to) discussion forums, Web-based administration, theme support, a submission queue, content rating, content versioning, taxonomy support, user management with a fine-grained permission system based on user roles (groups), error logging, support for content syndication, locale support, and much more. It is considered to be an excellent platform for developers due to its clean code and extensibility, and it can also be used as a Web application framework.

7.) MediaWiki (2002):

MediaWiki is a web-based wiki software application used by all projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, all wikis hosted by Wikia, and many other wikis, including some of the largest and most popular ones. Originally developed to serve the needs of the free content Wikipedia encyclopedia, today it has also been deployed by companies for internal knowledge management, and as a content management system. Notably, Novell uses it to operate several of its high traffic websites.

8.) WordPress (2003):

WordPress is an open source CMS, often used as a blog publishing application powered by PHP and MySQL. It has many features including a plugin architecture and a templating system. Used by over 300 of the 10,000 biggest websites, WordPress is the most popular blog software in use today.

9.) SugarCRM (2004):

SugarCRM is a complete CRM system for businesses of all sizes. Core CRM functionality includes sales force automation, marketing campaigns, support cases, project mgmt, calendaring and more. Built in PHP, supports MySQL and SQL Server.

10.) Joomla (2005):

Joomla! is a free and open source content management system for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets as well as a model–view–controller (MVC) Web application framework. It is written in PHP, stores data in MySQL and includes features such as page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, search, and support for language internationalization. Within its first year of release, Joomla was downloaded 2.5 million times. Over 5,000 free and commercial plug-ins are available for Joomla.

11.) Pligg (2006):

Pligg is an Open source Social Networking Content Management System (CMS) Combining social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication and a democratic editorial system enables users to collaboratively submit and vote articles. It was influenced by the extremely popular and proprietary software Digg, where when a user submits a news article it is placed in the “upcoming” area until it gains sufficient votes to be promoted to the main page.

12) Magento eCommerce (2007):

Magento is a new professional open-source eCommerce solution offering unprecedented flexibility and control. It was designed with the notion that each eCommerce implementation has to be unique since no two businesses are alike. Magento’s modular architecture puts the control back in the hands of the online merchant and places no constraints on business processes and flow.

13) eyeOS (Cloud Computing OS) (2007):

eyeOS is an open source web desktop following the cloud computing concept that leverages collaboration and communication among users. It is mainly written in PHP, XML, and JavaScript. It acts as a platform for web applications written using the eyeOS Toolkit. It includes a Desktop environment with 67 applications and system utilities. It is accessible by portable devices via its mobile front-end.

14) Elgg (2008):

Elgg is open source social networking software that provides individuals and organizations with the components needed to create an online social environment. It offers blogging, microblogging, file sharing, networking, groups and a number of other features.

15) Open Atrium (2009):

Open Atrium is a platform for building team portals that can be extended to meet highly custom knowledge management needs for large organizations’ intranets and extranets. It starts with “out of the box” features like a blog, a wiki, a calendar, a case tracker, a shoutbox, and a dashboard to manage content. These features can be expanded to meet unique needs for large organizations so that full scale enterprise collaboration sites can be built with Open Atrium as a base. By fully leveraging Drupal, all of the strengths of Drupal can contribute to creating custom features for Open Atrium within a framework that is already tailored for team collaboration.

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