Sunday 21 February 2016

The 101 Most Useful Online Websites

These sites solve at least one problem really well and they all have simple web addresses
(URLs) that you can easily memorize thus saving a trip to Google.

1. screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube.
2. ctrlq.org/screenshots – for capturing screenshots of web pages on mobile and desktops.
3. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.
4. unfurlr.com – find the original URL that's hiding behind a short URL.
5. qClock – find the local time of a city using a Google Map.
6. copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren't on your keyboard.
7. postpost.com – a better search engine for twitter.
8. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc.
9. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes.
10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents.
11. followupthen.com – the easiest way to setup email reminders.
12. jotti.org – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching - see more wolfram tips.
14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter.
15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper.
16. ctrql.org/rss – a search engine for RSS feeds.
17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.
18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN.
19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.
20. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself.
21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the browser.
22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites.
23. dabbleboard.com – your virtual whiteboard.
24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam.
25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email.
26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product.
27. myfonts.com/WhatTheFont – quickly determine the font name from an image.
28. google.com/webfonts – a good collection of open source fonts.
29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools.
30. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen.
31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs.
32. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d.
33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web.
34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs - see other OCR tools.
35. flightstats.com - Track flight status at airports worldwide.
36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.
37. hundredzeros.com – best-sellers on all subjects that you can download for free.
38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors.
39. marker.to – easily highlight the important parts of a web page for sharing.
40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people.
41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all.
42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones.
43. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.
44. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online (review).
45. imo.im - chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place.
46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents.
47. kleki.com – create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes.
48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already.
49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds.
50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.
51. kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs.
52. liveshare.com – share your photos in an album instantly.
53. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own.
54. midomi.com – when you need to find the name of a song.
55. bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers for mobiles.
56. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services.
57. feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter.
58. ge.tt – quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading.
59. pipebytes.com – transfer files of any size without uploading to a third-party server.
60. tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds.
61. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read.
62. boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps – alternative.
63. chipin.com – when you need to raise funds online for an event or a cause.
64. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not?
65. ewhois.com – find the other websites of a person with reverse Analytics lookup.
66. whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website.
67. google.com/history – found something on Google but can't remember it now?
68. aviary.com/myna – an online audio editor that lets record, and remix audio clips online.
69. disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that self-destruct.
70. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words.
71. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight.
72. sxc.hu – download stock images absolutely free.
73. zoom.it – view very high-resolution images in your browser without scrolling.
74. scribblemaps.com – quickly create custom Google Maps online.
75. alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important events.
76. picmonkey.com – Picnik is offline but PicMonkey is an even better image editor.
77. formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here.
78. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.
79. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam.
80. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
81. mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam.
82. timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images.
83. stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips.
84. safeweb.norton.com – check the trust level of any website.
85. teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that looks like your paper dairy.

86. deadurl.com – you'll need this when your bookmarked web pages are deleted.87. minutes.io – quickly capture effective notes during meetings.
88. youtube.com/leanback – Watch YouTube channels in TV mode.
89. youtube.com/disco – quickly create a video playlist of your favorite artist.
90. talltweets.com – Send tweets longer than 140 characters.
91. pancake.io – create a free and simple website using your Dropbox account.
92. builtwith.com – find the technology stack of any website.
93. woorank.com – research a website from the SEO perspective.
94. mixlr.com – broadcast live audio over the web.
95. radbox.me – bookmark online videos and watch them later (review).
96. tagmydoc.com – add QR codes to your documents and presentations (review).
97. notes.io – the easiest way to write short text notes in the browser.
98. ctrlq.org/html-mail – send rich-text mails to anyone, anonymously.
99. fiverr.com – hire people to do little things for $5.
100. otixo.com – easily manage your online files on Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.
101.ifttt.com – create a connection between all your online accounts.

Tuesday 9 February 2016

How To Get More Followers With 21 Ways That Will Boost Your Social Media Traffic

How on earth do they do it? How do your favorite brands, bloggers, and personalities get more followers that seem to be raging, shout-it-from-the-rooftops fans?

It feels like social media followers just flock to these people, naturally, with no effort from them whatsoever. And all the while, you’re here, working your backside off, just to pick up a follow or a like or a mention from someone.

It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

But today, that frustration is going to melt away. You’re about to learn how to get more followers on your social networks in a very scientific way. And you’re going to unlock those “industry secrets” that are going to skyrocket you to more people, better conversions, and better customer experiences.

Here we go…

1. Post After Lunch To Reach More People


Post After Lunch To Reach More People
 

Research from Chartbeat shows 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. is the optimal time to share on social media, with social traffic being at its highest in the late afternoon:

While there is still mileage in posting through the morning (more on that next), schedule the updates you want to convert most with, like blog posts, in this time window.

2. Find The Best Times For You To Share To Social Media


It’s a generality to say that posting in the afternoon is the best way to grow your audience. But there are better times to post on social media than others.

To find out when your own audience is active on social networks, grab this Google Analytics custom report we custom-built for you with love from CoSchedule. :)

It’ll tell you when your current audience is clicking through to read your content. That will help you understand what your most popular social networks are so you can use your time more effectively. You’ll be able to share your content even smarter.

So let’s use your own data to strategically choose the best times to share. First, choose the blog you’d like to apply the report to:


Find The Best Times For You To Share To Social Media


That report doesn’t look like much at first, but right off the bat you’ll see which networks are your most popular ones:


When you click through to see the data for each network, you’ll see the best days to post on that network. Take it one step further and click through on those days, you’ll see the best times to post on that network, too.

That Google Analytics custom report will work with your own data that comes directly from your audience. Use it to schedule your social messages at the best times to increase your traffic and opportunity to get more re-shares that could help you get more followers.

3. Share More Often To Get More Followers

The folks over at Beevolve recently posed the question: If you tweet more, will you get more followers?


Checkout here To Get More Followers With 21 Ways That Will Boost Your Social Media Traffic.

Sunday 7 February 2016

The Ultimate Guide to Gmail Sponsored Promotions

If you’ve been wondering exactly how to advertise on Gmail, then this guide is for you! I’ll be covering pretty much every aspect of Gmail Sponsored Promotoions (GSP), from targeting and strategies, to ad creation, reporting and optimisation. Whether you’ve already tested GSPs or you’re brand new to them, this guide will provide insights and tips that can help you get the most out of them.Each section of this post is clearly headed so you can skip to the bits that you’d like to know about, and if you haven’t got time to read this now you can bookmark if for reference later!

I’ll be covering:

  • What are Gmail Sponsored Promotions?
  • How much do Gmail Sponsored Promotions cost?
  • Where do Gmail Sponsored Promotions appear? (devices, and account types)
  • Why use Gmail Sponsored Promotions? (the benefits and when they work best)
  • What Gmail Sponsored Promotions targeting options?
  • Strategies and tactics for using Gmail Sponsored Promotions
  • Gmail Sponsored Promotions ad specs: formats, image sizes, and character limits
  • Ad Types for Google Sponsored Promotions
  • Tips for using Google Sponsored Promotions
  • Industries that can’t advertise using GSPs (it’s not just the usual AdWords restrictions)
  • Gmail Sponsored Promotions Reporting
  • Setting up Gmail sponsored promotions

What are Gmail Sponsored Promotions?

They’re ads that appear in users Gmail inbox’s, above their emails. Cleverly designed to look like an email, they expand to a full add (in a variety of formats) once clicked.

Here’s an example from my inbox:



The Ultimate Guide to Gmail Sponsored Promotions

How much do Gmail Sponsored Promotions cost?

You are charged on a cost per click basis for GSPs, however the click is counted as any interaction with your ad, not necessarily a click to your website. For example if a user clicks the teaser ad and it expands into the larger full image ad you will be charged for that click. You only pay for the first click however, so if they then click through to your website, it doesn’t cost anything.

Where do Gmail Sponsored Promotions appear?

Gmail Sponsored Promotions appear in both mobile and desktop devices, with mobiles allowing for one ad spot, and desktop allowing for two.

The ads appear under the promotions tab of Gmail accounts, however this shouldn’t deter you from using them as Gmail automatically sorts users mail into tabs so many genuine emails land in the promotions tab and it’s not just a tab filled with ads and junk!

Ads only appear in ‘free’ Gmail accounts, not in Gmail accounts that are custom domain business accounts on paid plans. This means the format isn’t perfect for B2B ads as you probably won’t reach businesses on their Gmail accounts, but you might reach them on their personal Gmail accounts.


Why use Gmail Sponsored Promotions? - Find out full story here, http://goo.gl/omyiGq

Thursday 4 February 2016

Microsoft Tests Underwater Data Centre

Microsoft Tests Underwater Data Centre


Microsoft has come up with a radical new way to store data - under the sea.

Testing of the firm's first underwater data centre - dubbed Leona Philpot after a character in an Xbox game - has just been completed in an initiative called Project Natick.

Data centres are believed to consume up to 3% of the world's electricity, according to researchers.

Large technology firms are keen to find energy efficient ways to store their increasing amounts of data.

Microsoft said its reasons for experimenting with underwater data centres were twofold.

Firstly, half the world's population is located within 125 miles (200km) of the coast so data centres in the sea would reduce latency - the time its takes data to travel from its source to customers.

But there were also environmental reasons for the trial. Putting the data centre in the ocean eliminated the need for cooling and, in future, if such centres could be colocated with offshore renewable energy sources, they could also produce zero emissions, according to Microsoft.

Its first underwater data centre operated 0.6 miles (1km) from the Californian coast from August to December 2015 and is now back at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters for analysis.

It was encased in steel and equipped with sensors to monitor the environmental conditions.

Greenpeace, which produces an annual report on how clean the the big technology firms are, believes Microsoft could do more.


first underwater data centre


"Experimental underwater data centres could be more sustainable if connected to offshore wind power, but Microsoft must focus more on investing in new renewable energy now. Microsoft is far behind Apple, Google and Facebook in sourcing renewable energy for existing data centres," said Tom Dowdall, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace.

Many tech firms are now considering new options for housing data - including moving them to countries with colder climates.


Source from BBC: http://goo.gl/DO8GO5

The Head Of Google Search, Amit Singhal Is Leaving The Company

The Head Of Google Search, Amit Singhal Is Leaving The Company
Dear Friends,

My life has been a dream journey. From a little boy growing up in the Himalayas dreaming of the Star Trek computer, to an immigrant who came to the United States with two suitcases and not much else, to the person responsible for Search at Google, every turn has enriched me and made me a better person.

As I entered the fifteenth year of working at Google, I've been asking myself the question, "what would you want to do for the next fifteen?" The answer has overwhelmingly been: give back to others. It has always been a priority for me to give back to people who are less fortunate, and make time for my family amidst competing work constraints--but on both fronts, I simply want to give and do more.

Now is a good time to make this important life change. Things are in amazing shape. Search is stronger than ever, and will only get better in the hands of an outstanding set of senior leaders who are already running the show day-to-day.

It fills me with pride to see what we have built in the last fifteen years. Search has transformed people’s lives; over a billion people rely on us. Our mission of empowering people with information and the impact it has had on this world cannot be overstated. When I started, who would have imagined that in a short period of fifteen years, we would tap a button, ask Google anything and get the answer. Today, it has become second nature to us. My dream Star Trek computer is becoming a reality, and it is far better than what I ever imagined.

I love Google. It is a company that believes in doing the right thing, a company that believes in doing good in the world, a company… that cares. I look back at my time here with a profound sense of gratitude that I was a part of building this. Now, with pride, gratitude, and joy in my heart, I need to define my next fifteen years. I am eager to see what kind of impact I can make philanthropically, and of course, to spend more time with my family--especially with my wife who I miss spending time with given our incredibly busy lives, and our son who will go to college soon, leaving an empty nest behind.

Feb 26 will be my last day at Google. My relationships are the most important thing I’ve accumulated in life and I’d love for that to continue. Please do drop me a line occasionally and we can have a cup of tea.

As Chief Si’ahl said “Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints!” I am taking so many fond memories with me, and hopefully I’ve left a small footprint here.

With Love,
Amit