Happy Independence Day 2015

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10 Innovative Ways of Using a Smart phone

Cellphones are quickly becoming a thing of the past, as smartphones are becoming cheaper and more accessible to millions of people around the world. It’s no longer enough for a phone to be able to call someone or send them a text—consumers expect them to do just about anything you can think of and more. The explosive popularity of apps in the past few years have helped the smartphone become the must-have tech device of our generation. The smartphone is a cellphone, but it’s also so much more than that.

So what exactly can you do with a smartphone other than call and text your friends? Let’s take a look.

1 Conversation starter

This is probably my personal favorite use of the smartphone. Whenever I’m having a conversation with someone, we’ll invariably come upon a topic or a question that neither of us knows much about. Instead of arguing about what the answers could be, I turn to my iPhone for some help. Wikipedia and Google can work wonders, especially when you’re looking for something to talk about in a crowd.

2 Banking

Smartphones are also amazing financial planning tools, with countless apps available to help you manage your money and maximize your savings. Apps like Mint and various bank-sponsored mobile services can make banking and money management so easy that you’ll rarely have to set foot in an actual bank to handle your finances. The best part is that these apps are secure and trustworthy, so you can manage money on the go with confidence.

3 Blogging

Tumblr, WordPress, and Blogspot all have mobile apps meant to help a blogger get things done on the go on their smartphones. You can draft blog posts on any major blogging platform from the palm of your hand, so you don’t have to let your work suffer when you’re away from the computer. Some of the best microblogging services out there are literally designed with the smartphone in mind, so you know smartphone blogging is a smart option.

4. Photo sharing on the go

One of the standard features of a smartphone is the camera (now typically found on the front and back of the device). There are all sorts of apps that allow you to manipulate and edit your photos as you take them, so you can put a funny backdrop on a group photo or give a landscape picture a nice sepia finish. More importantly there are apps like Instagram that help you reach other photographs with whom you can share and exchange photos, regardless of where you are in the world. Welcome to the 21st century!

5. Restaurant critiquing

Anyone with a smartphone is a critic, whether they’re reviewing products on electronics sites or tweeting about how much they like or don’t like some new social media tool. I’ve found that many people use their smartphones to comment on restaurants, either in their city or while visiting another on vacation. Apps like Yelp and Urbanspoon make it easier than ever for someone to write up a quick review about a restaurant, turning them into a causal food critic.

6. Gaming

I couldn’t even begin to estimate how many games are available for smartphones. There are addicting word games like Words With Friends, puzzle games like Bejewled, action games, fighting games, strategy games, learning games, and much more. Even classic arcade games like Pac Man and Space Invaders are available for smartphones. There’s a game for every taste and every generation, and I’ll bet you that every smartphone user has at least one that they play from time to time.

7. Filming

Smartphones have created as many amateur film directors as they have photographers. Apps like Clash Video Editor have completely changed the way that people can edit and polish video taken from a mere phone. It used to be the case that cellphone videos were a grainy mess that didn’t look like much of anything, but now they’re approaching professional-grade quality. I think it’s only a matter of time before some enterprising college film student or amateur director makes a great film solely with their phone. Here’s hoping!

8. Finding new music

You can also use your smartphone as a net with which to catch new tunes. There are apps that identify songs for you as you hear them playing on the radio or in a club (Shazam and SoundHound come to mind), as well as apps that help you find new music based on your tastes (Pandora, Spotify, and Grooveshark). If you really invest some time in these apps, you’ll find yourself discovering new bands, artists, and sounds like you never have before. Go on, expand your musical horizons with your smartphone.

9. Shopping

Of course there’s online shopping to consider, too. Just about any online retailer has a mobile app to help you find easy access to their products while you’re on the phone. Amazon, eBay, and Newegg are just a few of the bigger retailers that offer intuitive mobile shopping apps, but there are so many more that specifically cater to just about any niche. Clothing, books, tech, kitchenware, movies and videogames are among the many general categories available to the ambitious online shopper. If you do shop from your smartphone, be sure to check your banking app to make sure you have the money for your purchases!

10. Learning new things

If anything, smartphones are designed to help you learn new things and become a more informed person. There are a ton of apps out there to help facilitate your mobile learning experience, from instructional apps that read like a college textbook (with just as many diagrams and loaded with educational videos) to those that offer stimulating daily facts in an easily digestible format. It doesn’t matter if you’re in college or if you haven’t cracked open a textbook in thirty years; there’s something for everybody in the vast body of educational smartphone apps, and that’s something worth celebrating.

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20 Best Graphic Design and Image Editing Softwares

Graphic design and image editing softwares are the most essential tools for a graphic designer. These softwares let them keep innovative and organized in their graphic designing.Adobe photoshop is one such software that makes the task of designers extremely easy and advanced. Beside Adobe Photoshop, there are numerous other graphic design and image editing softwares available in the market. Some softwares cost a bit and some are available with no cost. Among all, we have compiled 20 best graphic design and image editing softwares, that are showcased in this post.

20 Best Graphic Design and Image Editing Softwares:

1. FatPaint

Fatpaint is a free, online graphic design software, image editor and custom printed products webshop that assists you in painting & editing bitmap images/photos, writing rich text, making page layout and displaying graphics on products from Zazzle. Furthermore, images can directly be added to the project by searching on Wikimedia, Picasa, Flickr, Google, Yahoo and Bing. The completed project can be saved on Fatpaint’s server or your own computer.

2. Gimp

It is a free software used for  photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It can also be used as a simple paint program, an online batch processing system,  an image format converter and so on.

3. Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is the most popular and widely used software for graphic design. The primary functions of Photoshop are photo editing, graphic designing and creating elements for any type of web project.

4. Paint.NET

It is free image and photo editing software that has an spontaneous and advanced user interface.

5. MyPaint

It is a fast, easy and open-source graphics design software for digital painters. It allows you to work on your canvas with less distractions.

6. Blender

This is a 3D animation software for graphic designers which is available free of cost.  This software enables graphic designers to create 3D applications.

7. 5DFLY

This is a robust and brilliant Photo editing software.

8. Pixelmator

It is a fast and powerful image editing software for the Mac operating system , which has spontaneous and stunning graphical user interface.

9. Inkscape

It is an open source vector graphics editor just like Adobe Illustrator.

10. Skitch

It enables users to capture screen shots rapidly  and drag them into email for sharing.  You can even compose images with text and sketches, and share them with your friends.

11. Iconfinder

It provides high quality icons for web designers and developers in an effortless and efficient way.

12. Picnik

This is a free software that enables you to change colors of any image, do editing, add text to an image. Moreover, if you have creative ideas, you can make buttons, banners, and headers for your blog.

13. Artweaver

It enables you to paint creatively by utilizing various painting tools.

14. GraphicConverter

It is an apple photo software for image editing and  graphics conversion.

15. DrawPlus

It is a robust and versatile graphics studio perfectly developed for digital art, illustration, and painting.

16. ArtRage

It is an easy to use, stylish painting package for Windows, Mac OS X, and iPad.

17. Paintshop

It is a powerful Photo-Editing Software for graphic designing.

18. Photoscape

It is a fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos.

19. Image Tuner

It is a free software for batch resizing, converting, watermarking and renaming your digital photos and images from and to JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF and GIF formats.

20. PhotoFiltre

It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image.

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How to Restore Deleted Photos & Videos From a Digital Camera

A big advantage of digital cameras is the delete button which erases photos with a simply tap, letting you to choose which pictures you retain. This feature has its dangerous part too, because only one mistake is needed to lose all pictures stored on that memory card. On traditional cameras this would be possible only if you would expose the film to sun, but the simplicity that came with newer technology may have its downsides too.

For instance, what happens when you accidently remove a picture? It is lost forever or there are ways of recovering the file? Luckily, the short answer favors those careless and in the following lines we are going to explain why deleted photos can be recovered from a digital camera and most important, how.

How a digital camera actually works?

These days everybody owns a digital camera and uses it for different reasons, from capturing important family moments to just taking photos of a beautiful landscape. All in all, they represent a better solution than old cameras in many ways, such as the capability of organizing photos much better or the possibility to share pictures via social networking sites.

Practically, a digital camera stores all photos on a flash memory card which can be a SD, CF, Memory Stick, MMC card or other types. They are made by different manufacturers, have different sizes and appearances, but they have the same essence – one very similar to a floppy disk or a hard drive.

When you choose to delete a picture or a video, your digital camera will locate the space allocated and mark that space as available for future usage. The picture is not actually deleted until another image takes its place. So basically, the photo is still there and it is very important to stop taking other pictures or the chances of recovering pictures that have been accidentally deleted will be reduced.

So plug-in your camera or connect the memory card to your laptop’s card reader and use one of the tools presented below:

Asoftech Photo Recovery Software

Asoftech Photo Recovery Software is a specialized program in recovering deleted, formatted or corrupted photos and videos from your digital camera. It supports all memory card types including MMC, Memory Stick, CF Card, SDHC and several file types.

The interface is bright purple, easy to use and even allows a personalized search, limiting file types for better and quicker processes. Users reported that the software showed some problems in recovering movies in .mov format, but for pictures everything functioned smoothly and quick and they were all recovered.

To undelete files, simply launch the program and choose the mounted memory card. After that, specify the save path, click “Start” and all recovered data will show up. From the results page you can also choose only certain photos or videos which you want to save on the personal computer.

A big disadvantage of Asoftech is the price, because even if it’s so good at recovering pictures you will have to pay $29.95 to really use it. The demo version will only find lost pictures and videos on a memory card, but it will not offer the possibility to save them. Also, the compatibility in the demo version is limited to four major file types: JPEG, BMP, GIF and PNG.

PhotoRec

PhotoRec is a powerful application which can recover photos and videos from almost any device. Developers are saying that it recognizes over 390 different file types and it works with every memory disk, hard disk or USB stick that exists on the market.

However, the interface may represent a big disadvantage for some users because the program runs in a DOS box or from a command line, which may not appear so user-friendly. Another problem is that PhotoRec is actually a surrogate program to TestDisk and if you want to get it, you will also have to install TestDisk.

Once you have it, simply open the program and a menu will pop-up with a list of all storage devices that are connected to your computer, including hard-drives, removable drives and mounted cards. Choose the problematic memory stick and select search parameters, which can be for example “Bruteforce” that recovers more fragmented JPEG files or “Low memory” if your computer has crashed during past recoveries.

Next, select the place where you want to save all recovered pictures and wait, because everything else is automated. In case the process takes too much, the program allows you to stop the operations and to resume later.

Besides the Windows version, PhotoRec is available also for Linux and Mac OSX and can be downloaded for free from their official page.

Recuva

In case you deleted photos or videos from a digital camera, Recuva may represent a viable solution. This program is developed by Piriform, the same company which made the famous CCleaner optimization tool. Recuva has a nice interface, user-friendly and a wizard that will guide you through the process of recovering pictures. It can make personalized searches for different file types, specific drives or enable a deep scan that will find pictures even on a damaged memory stick. To do this, just follow this simple guide:

1. Start the application and click “Next” on the “Welcome to the Recuva Wizard” page.
2. Now choose the type of files you want to recover.
3. Choose the location of the memory card from the “File Location” page and click “Next”.
4. The next page allows you to select a deep search option, which is preferred in the case of a corrupted memory stick.
5. Click “Next” and wait until the search finishes. Select the desired pictures and press “Recover” to save them on the computer.

After searching finishes, a list with the found pictures is shown along with their health and other detailed information. Health refers to the fact that the picture was partly overwritten or not. Results can be also shown in a thumbnail view which will might help navigating between various results.

Besides major file types (JPEG, PNG, GIF) the program is able to recover also Nikon RAW and Canon RAW (.CRW) formats, representing a good choice even for pro consumers. The interesting thing about Recuva is that it comes also in a free portable version so that in case you don’t have internet you can move it between the laptop and computer. The free version is fully-featured, while Pro and Business Editions cost $19.95 and $24.95 and they will only add support from developers.

CardRecovery

CardRecovery is an application specially designed to recover files from memory cards used by digital cameras. It supports all main file formats and memory cards, from compact digital cameras (JPEG, PNG) used by common users to DSLR cameras (raw format) used by professionals.

The interface speaks for itself because everything is placed where it should be and the three step wizard will guide you through a very simple process. All you have to do is to enter the location of the memory card, choose the camera brand (optional) and the destination folder where to put recovered pictures.

Everything else is automated and to browse through pictures you will have to wait until the whole process is finished. Developers are saying that for an 8 GB SDHC card you will have to wait approximately 14 minutes to complete a full search. The program also offers a thumbnail preview, only for JPEG pictures and unfortunately, it will show only six pictures on a page which can be a little bit discouraging when you are searching for a particular photo between hundreds of photos.

Besides the Windows version, CardRecovery is also available for Mac OSX and can be tried before purchase. Developers offer a free version which will scan memory sticks and find lost pictures, but for the ability to save them, you will have to pay $39.

SoftAmbulance Photo Undelete

SoftAmbulance Photo Undelete is a powerful tool specialized in recovering and repairing deleted or corrupted photos / videos. It can restore images directly from a wide range of digital cameras, so that you will not need to pull out the memory card and use it through a card reader.This application is also able to recover pictures and videos from hard disk drives, DVD’s, CD’s and Blue Ray disks. Formats like JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP and RAW are all supported along with other dozens of different file types.

The interface of the program is very simple and light because this program has implemented an intuitive, easy-to-use wizard which will guide you through all processes. Just select the desired device, press scan and it will locate all deleted or corrupted photos and show previews of them, so that you can choose which one should be saved.

If the memory stick is corrupted or damaged, SA Photo Undelete has the option of deep scanning, sector by sector, which will find any available pictures in no-time.The program also comes with a free evaluation copy which allows only previewing search results, while recovering will cost $44.9.

EaseUS Card Recovery Wizard

Another interesting option is EaseUS Card Recovery Wizard which is a card recovery program that retrieves deleted photos, videos and audio files from any flash memory cards, USB or SD cards used by cameras and phones.

Connect the memory card to your computer and open the software which has two modes: Deleted File Recovery and Deep Scan. While the first is for recovering all deleted photos or videos from a memory card, the second is used to recover from damaged or inaccessible storage devices. When the scanning is over, you can choose which pictures or videos should be saved. Easy and reliable, EaseUS Card Recovery Wizard can be purchased for $39.95.

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11 AdSense Tips And Tricks to Maximize Your Earning Potential

AdSense is a great tool for monetizing your website. Unfortunately, a large number of users fall prey to some common mistakes and never even realize that they’re functioning way below their maximum earning potential.

Here are a few AdSense tips that will help you optimize your website for both higher revenue and an enhanced user experience.

1. A/B test your ad units

Experimenting allows you to pit one variation of ad settings against another variation and select the one that performs the best. You can compare the performance of text-only ad units to ad units that have both text and display enabled, or analyze the effect of changing the color of ad text on ad performance, or determine the impact on your revenue by serving ads in the sensitive and/or general categories.

Although you need a little tech-savvy to navigate your way through the entire process of preparing your experiment, creating your experiment, monitoring your experiment, and finally choosing your winner—it’s all well worth the effort.

(Note: If you’re looking for a smarter, automated solution for this, you could try out our advanced A/B testing software, which automatically creates ad multiple variations for you and then selects the combination that performs the best.)

2. Use multiple ad units to maximize conversion

A simple way to bump up your AdSense click rate and revenue is to place ad units of more than one type (AdSense for content, link, and search) and in different sizes on your pages. This way, your users are served more ads from Google’s large ad inventory, increasing the probability that they will end up clicking on one of them.

Make sure that the best-located ad on your web page shows up first in your HTML code. This will ensure that your most visible ad real-estate is taken by ads that place the highest in the auction—increasing your revenue.

And remember to adhere to the AdSense maximum ad policy, which is up to three AdSense for content units, up to three link units, and up to two search units on each page, to avoid having your account banned.

3. Limit the number of ads above the fold

In web design terminology, “above the fold” refers to the portions of a web page that are visible without scrolling. When too many ad units are placed above the fold, users get turned off because finding the content that they came in for, gets difficult, and the tendency to exit the page increases. As a result of this, Google now penalizes such pages. 

Here’s an excerpt from the Google Webmaster Central blog:

“As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites that place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.“

4. Optimize the color impact of text ad units

Experimenting with the color of text ad units is essential to increasing their visibility. An ad style that work on a light website theme may look too bright and distracting on a darker one, turning users away not only from the ad but from the web page.

For the most unobtrusive user experience, match the background and border color of the ad unit to the background of the page where the ad will be placed.

For a more distinct ad, match background and border colors to your website, but don’t match them exactly to where the ads are placed. Try out different styles and measure ad performance over time to settle on the best performing format.

5. Create and implement responsive ads

This ties into a larger point of implementing a responsive design on your website (which is something you really need to do if you’re running a website in 2015). Wikipedia explains responsive design as follows:

“Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, mobile phones).”

Last year, Comscore reported that mobile platforms — smartphones and tablets — combined account for 60% of total digital media time spent, up from 50% a year ago. If your website is not optimized for these devices, you’re missing out on a big opportunity to capture this audience.

So what does this have to do with AdSense, you ask? Well, AdSense plays well with responsive design, and allows you to generate codes for responsive ad units, which automatically resize themselves to offer the best viewing experience to the mobile audience. Do this now because that 60% is a number that’s only going to go north.

6. Link your AdSense and Analytics accounts

Linking your AdSense and Google Analytics accounts gives you access to AdSense metrics such as revenue, clicks, and impressions which you can add to your favorite analytics reports to get a better understanding of how well your pages or content is monetizing.

This data can assist in optimizing your site such as the optimal ad load or what type of content to focus on.

Once you’ve linked your properties, you can use insights from Analytics to refine and optimize your AdSense ad units, improving the overall performance of your website.

7. Keep your design and content user-focusedIn the mad race to increase ad revenues, it’s easy to lose sight of the real goal of why your website or business exists in the first place—to provide value to users.

Use a judicial mix of ads and content so that users are not overwhelmed by the former. Sometimes ads are placed haphazardly on the web page and in between content without any thought to usability or aesthetics.

Even Google says that to get the most of your account, you should first consider the user and then think about anything else. Doing it the other way around is like putting the horse before the cart, it’s never going to work.

8. Publish high-quality content on a regular basisThis really is the big one, the other points are all just tweaks in one way or another—but when it comes to AdSense earnings, content really is the king.

Simply put: No traffic, no money; more traffic, more money.

But this is always easier said than done. It helps to publish content about a topic that you’re both interested in and have some level of expertise in, as people will then be more likely to view you as an influencer on your topic.

Google’s algorithm rewards websites that publish content on a regular basis with a higher ranking, and consequently, higher traffic—so make sure your publishing is more predictable than erratic.

Finally, going the extra mile to optimize your content for search engines can yield great results in terms of organic traffic, especially, in the long run.

9. Build an audience before setting up AdSenseThough it may be tempting to set up AdSense on your website right after you’ve published the first piece of content—the temptation is best avoided.

Cluttering your website with ads before anybody really knows about it will likely put visitors off, and consequently, they’ll be less likely to share or link to it. This limits your ability to emerge as an authority in your niche.

Focus instead, on winning a sizable audience in terms of email subscribers, RSS readers, and monthly visitors before you start displaying ads.

10. Go easy with the blocking and filteringEach ad that you block by URL will be one more ad that won’t be bidding for space on your website in the auction—effectively reducing the earning potential of that ad space.

Furthermore, advertisers whose ads you block may decide that they don’t want to advertize with you in the future. The same thing happens when you filter out entire categories, but on a larger scale. Don’t block ads unless it’s absolutely necessary.

11. Keep yourself updatedSubscribe to the official Google Inside AdSense blog, so that you’re always up-to-date with the latest news about the platform from the creators themselves.

Apart from this, the Google help center has this brilliant AdSense optimization overview that you could look at and take ideas from to get more mileage out of your AdSense account.

There’s also a free online course that Google runs, which aims help publishers earn more money from their website.

If you just follow the links mentioned here and treat them as your guide to AdSense, you’d do better than 90% of the people using the system.

What are some of the things you do to optimize your earnings from AdSense? Share in the comments and let us know.

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