Technology Archive

Apple Still Leading the Way in Mobile Technology

By Richard Leo | Filed in Technology
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If you have any awareness at all in regards to technology, specifically mobile technology, you know that Apple’s line of phones, tablets, and other devices are extremely popular. A recent report published on Apple Insiders shows that there is no sign of them slowing down. For the first quarter of 2012 they held the top 6 spots for new activations. While other mobile devices like Droid by Motorola and the Samsung Galaxy provide variety in the market and keep the competition ripe, Apple is still carrying the torch and isn’t going to give it up without a fight.

Mobile devices have really opened the doors for both the business and social aspects of life. You can check email, conduct video chats, and manage your LinkedIn profile all from one device, no matter where you are. IPhones take it to the next level with all of the available apps and features. It’s one device you don’t leave home without.

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Facebook Relocates Seattle Office

By Richard Leo | Filed in Business, Technology


Facebook. By far one of the largest social media sites is growing; according to TechFlash.com . The Facebook Seattle office, which began with a mere 2 employees but now employees 90 staff members and is looking to high more, is the largest for the company outside of their headquarters in California. A leading innovator for social media, Facebook is right at home in Seattle which is known for its prevalence of technology industry jobs. The new office, which could rival some of the hotels in Seattle for its views, gives the company room to expand as they lead the social media revolution.

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File Size Matters

By Richard Leo | Filed in Business, Technology

We have all been there: you spend hours crafting the perfect presentation, finish merely minutes before the important deadline, and then realize that your file is too big to fit into an email. Unless you have a teleporter and a readily-available portable hard drive, this is a situation you do not want to find yourself in.

These days, many businesses revolve around large electronic files which they need to access and share. Presentations, reports, and website media content are usually guilty of being too large for e-mails. When time is of the essence, an efficient business would highly benefit from a large file transfer service. The service is in the form of a website which allows users to upload the content to the website and which then becomes accessible to other users.

Choosing the right large file transfer service is very important. First, you do not want all of your important, confidential, and personal files floating around all loosey-goosey on a website made by a computer science intern in Russia. For this reason, you have to make sure that the website is reputable and secure. Reputation is harder to check than security but you can start by asking other business owners which service they use or by researching reviews for large file transfer services. Look out for far-fetched and too-good-to-be-true claims, as these tend to be written by the service themselves. For security, stick to websites that begin with https, have the padlock symbol, or have “secured by” logo on the bottom from a well-known company.

Second, consider the ease of use and accessibility of the website. If you are tech savvy, think about the other users of the website. Would all of your business partners and employees be comfortable with the interface? Sometimes websites get so “techy” that only a select few people in the office know how to use it. If you need a degree from MIT to use the site, then it is probably not the best choice. Also, think about the click count. How many clicks and operations do you need to transfer your files? If it takes you half of the day to successfully upload a file, then you might as well drive over the big presentation.

Your files are important to you and your business so make sure they get to their destinations properly and securely by choosing the right large file transfer service.

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Technology and Baby Boomers

By Richard Leo | Filed in Technology

We’re all aware of the incredible advances technology has brought with it in the last twenty years. Most of the people who grew up in the 70s remember when their family purchased their first home computer. In addition, they didn’t have cell phones, which didn’t exist for individuals of this, generation, and earlier, until they were into their adult years. And for all of us that sprang from these earlier generations, we well remember when email first entered our lives, which for most of us was our introduction to the Internet. As as we see Montel Williams money mutual commercials on Youtube and other Internet sites, we remember commercials and various other ads were once available in print and on television only.

My how things have changed, this is a common phrase people use to describe the world that exists in their middle-aged years versus the one that they grew up in. And while it seems to happen with every generation, much the same as the youth seems to become more “out of control” every twenty years, it’s difficult to fully understand the incomparable difference between this world and that of twenty five years ago. This is perhaps something that won’t be understood for a few generations, and this has to do with the way in which we are socialized. One of the ways that technology has changed our lives is that many of us are awakened by our cell phones, which also have one or two messages waiting for us and we’re basically connected to them throughout the day. Never before in history has our population been so interconnected to technology and the effects it’s having on our daily related.

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With this in mind, it’s essential that we dinosaurs don’t become lost in the web. In a world where basically every daily need, minus those direct physical ones, can be attended online, it’s important to understand how this can interact with our lives. Most people, even those well into their golden years, have email accounts, and there’s even quite a few Baby Boomers who have accounts on Facebook and various other social service networks. Meanwhile, transitioning all of our payments, bank activity and other financial activities online is something that the younger generation will take for granted, while we from the older generations still feel ill at ease applying for money mutual loans online, though in actuality, it couldn’t be easier or more safe.

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How and Why You Should Use SEO on Your Blog

By Richard Leo | Filed in Technology

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), being the method of escalating the website’s publicity to different search engines, aims to acquire first-page rankings if not the top rank in every search engine. As most Internet users would impatiently put it, they will utilize only the first few search results from whatever search engine they employ.
Tech savvy bloggers and Internet users would know that within a search engine, a so-called spider reaches out into the Internet as it comes across pages, recognizing only the words but not the images or the videos. With this, search is possible using words (called keywords) as the search engine pulls that up in its results; thus, the more keywords or combination of keywords, the better rank the webpage gets in the search.

The search engine spiders also refer to the title and meta tags on the page as well as to the heading and content to be able to link from one site to another. These areas should be stuffed with a sufficient number of primary keywords used to optimize your site; however, you don’t have to overdo it–pages get banned somehow by the spiders if they detect “keyword stuffing.”

Keywords: A preferred standard number of keyword density is about 2% to 7%. The relevance of the keywords to the content is also a factor; therefore, if the keyword sounds good and relevant to the content, it is all right to increase the keyword density to 12%. As a rule of the thumb, a webpage can be optimized by three keywords or phrases. It is also wise to put secondary or tertiary keywords or phrases that are related to the page. Using alternative keywords and phrases should be used in every webpage just like you use your main keywords.

Titles: Optimizing titles would mean making sure that your title is short and vivid and has the targeted keywords that are related to the site. Optimizing the titles will manifest good rankings in the search engine results. Therefore, the title should visibly describe your site’s content so that your readers will be interested to come to your site.

Meta tags: There are two-fold portions to a Meta-tag, namely, description and keywords. The description must be concise and should sound consistent and vivid to the reader. This is commonly the transcript perceived underneath the title during the search procedure. It would be wise to provide the reader an overview of the page. A text that will describe to them what page is pertinent to will somehow compel the readers to visit your site. The keywords are just the same keywords that you utilize for your SEO and are in the text of your webpage or blog.

Links: The spider counts it as a show of support when other sites link to your site. Higher ranking in the search engine results when more quality pages link to yours, and this can be attained if you happen to have a directory submission and/or if you have remarkable, unique contents in your page. If you happen to have these informative and fascinating contents, most likely other sites will be linking to your sites and will be enticed to make referrals for their visitors as well, thus populating your site with more visitors and links, thus giving a higher search engine ranking to your site.

The whole face of Internet marketing is continuing to change each day and with the emergence of more technology, 4G network phones and more computer tablets, SEO and conversion techniques will continue to evolve.

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India’s $99 Android Tablet

By Richard Leo | Filed in Business, Technology

For years tech companies in India have been claiming that they could one day produce a $100 tablet computer suitable for consumers — something powerful and useful — and it looks like that day has finally come. In fact, Lakshmi Access Communication Systems or LACS, makers of India’s affordable Android tablet have even beat out that previous $100 price goal by a whole dollar. According to After Dawn, the device will be called the Magnum Pepper Tablet, which certainly isn’t the best name, and will have 3G, Wi-Fi, 4GB of internal memory, a 4.3 inch display, and will all run on a 800 MHz processor. Clearly, the tablet’s specifications certainly don’t make it the best Android table on the market ,but for only $100 dollars or (Rs 5,000) it’s much better than most people expected. And as Hewlett Packard (HP) can attest can to after the recent fire sale of their tablet the HP Touchpad following a price reduction to $100, a good $100 tablet is practically guaranteed to sell. Any country would be lucky to have a well-built $100 Android tablet but in India – home to many of the tech hubs in the world – this tablet could be transformative for cities like Mysore and Bangalore. A company like Marlabs Inc which has offices in both Mysore and Bangalore, India  could one day see all of their employees with tablets.

On a related note, no doubt by releasing an affordable $100 tablet Android tablet, the mobile operating system market share of Android will no doubt grow. This growth is good news for any person or company that develops mobile applications like Marlabs as more and more people will be looking for quality Android applications as the platform continues to saturate the market. Additionally by putting Android tablets in more people hands that also means that there will be more people that will be motivated to create applications for Google’s Android OS themselves. What’s more, is that if the Indian market is saturated with tablet then it’s likely that the country may create even more tech hubs.

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Software Help On Home Loan Ratios

By Richard Leo | Filed in Home, Technology

If you are looking to finance a loan for a home and you want to determine your house payment then there are two ratios that are usually used by lenders when figuring out how much the borrower can afford.  This process is known as pre approval of the loan.

Ratio number one is determined by looking at your total monthly income and comparing it to the total monthly housing costs.

To figure out this amount you should determine your gross monthly income.  This amount is pre tax.  Lenders will expect you to be able to pay in a range of 28 – 40% of your gross monthly income.  So lets use the 28% figure.  if your gross income is say $5000 per month then you can multiply that amount by .28 to get your monthly house payment amount.  That would be $1,400.  Therefore you would be pre approved for a payment of that amount.  If your credit rating is really good then they may use a higher percentage – say 40%.  In this case you would multiply your gross income $5000 by .40 and you would be pre approved for a monthly payment of $2,000.

Ratio number two is determined by looking at your debt in relation to your income.

The debt figure is worked out by writing down all of the monthly payments that you have that extend over the upcoming eleven months and totaling them.  These types of payments include auto loans or any other type of installment payment, credit card payments and other types of payment over a longer period.  Once you have a total for this amount then multiply your monthly income by .35.  As long as your total of debt does not exceed this amount then the ratio is in your favor.

These two ratios can be used to determine your pre approval.  Use them to get a good idea of what you can afford and what lenders can offer you.  You should also refer to a mortgage calculator which and help you with these calculations and others which will halp you determin your financing options.

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Video Games: Helpful or Harmful?

By Richard Leo | Filed in Entertainment, Technology

Are video games helpful or harmful? This is a question that many people are beginning to ask. The younger generation has grown up in a virtual world that is controlled by video games. They seem to permeate all aspects of a young persons life whether it be at home, at a friend’s house, or even a birthday party. Video games seem to be everywhere and it has many people questioning the value of these games.

When they were first released to the public, video games were revolutionary; they were new, exciting and were a great way to pass the time. Today, video games have adapted into an entire virtual world, where users can interact with one another. As the technology increases and more designers enter the video game field, the games become increasingly realistic. For example, in many of the car racing games you can even see the cragar rims or firestone tires. Video game developers are also beginning to come out with three-dimensional games so the user feels completely immersed in the game.

Some people are beginning to wonder if these types of games have a negative impact on kids or if they are just simply games. Some of the downsides to video games are that young people become completely immersed in the virtual world and they lose track of reality. It has also been reported that people will play these games for hours on end and will stay up till all hours of the night to win the game. There have also been rising concerns with the violence that is involved in video games. Parents are beginning to wonder if the violence in video games alters the behavior of the child.

On the other hand, some people believe that video games are helpful to kids as they teach them hand-eye coordination. There are also educational video games which are designed to help instruct in math, language, spelling, grammar and so on.

Either way you view it, video games are a huge phenomenon in today’s society and one thing is for sure, they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

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Virtual Demos: The Test Drive of the IT World

By Richard Leo | Filed in Technology

In a world that’s changing as quickly as the current one, it’s sometimes a mad dash to decide which common sense values are necessary to carry through from the last generation to the next one. It’s possible that the need for such decisions suggests hasty thinking, that just because there are rapid changes, it doesn’t mean that anything needs to be lost. In fact, because the technologies are capable of holding more and more information, people can leave the details to their computers, and keep every bit of common sense as a matter of course.

It was common sense a generation ago to take any vehicle on a test drive. It’s still common practice, but it’s also becoming more common for people to buy without taking this step, thinking they’ve already gotten all the information that they need. It might be true that someone who knows how vehicles work can know enough without the test, but it’s common sense to take that physical action. This is where the bread and butter of the thing can show themselves, and it’s very much like using virtual demos before making decisions about software solutions. Trying before buying is the one way to reveal how something really works, and how it works for the user. That’s common sense that doesn’t belong to any age, and is useful in all of them.

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Friendless and Electronic-less in Denver

By Richard Leo | Filed in Technology

As I was packing all my things in preparation for an extended stay in Denver, Colorado, I began to ask myself an inevitable few questions: ‘Do I really need this?’, ‘When did I even need this?’, and ‘What will justify me bringing this?’. Somethings were easy to part with, like my favorite t-shirts from high-school, but some of my articles, like my prior travel journals were really hard to justify packing. It got even tougher to decide whether to pack my laptop or not, I mean I do have an Iphone, but that’s not an actual laptop now is it? But, I didn’t want my laptop stolen or damaged and I’m way too attached to it for anything to happen to it. But, most of all, the most difficult part about packing was parting with my friends and family.

Being away from from my friends and family for probably 1 month to possibly 3 months made me realize how I sometimes take them for granted. I really can’t think of many groups of people who get along and share so much with each other as much as they do. As I zipped up my bags and headed out the door of my apartment to grab my flight to Denver, I remembered how last year, my friends and I all went to Moab Utah to attend our friend Rachel’s wedding, and how we came from all parts of the world and how we all forged new friendships with Rachel’s husbands friends. I mean, come on! Are we good or what?

As I arrived in the Denver airport, I found a pay phone (yes, I left my laptop and Iphone behind) to checked to make sure my reservation at one of the best Denver hotels was still good, which it was. See, I realized that’s it’s okay to not take all my precious electronics with me everywhere I go and that I can fill in the empty-void of being without fast communication devices and I can take the time learn more about myself. Because, basically, where I’m going (after about a month), hiking into wilderness, there will be no way to access my electronics anyways, so might as well get used to being without.

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