Tons of places online offer computers for free, but are these real or are these scams? Believe it or not most are real. Can you imagine getting your first free laptop online? I know it would shock most normal people but with how businesses operate these days, and especially in the internet world, it shouldn’t anymore.

Even the new Microsoft Windows, also known as Windows 7, caused the large Bill Gates Company to give away 400 free laptops. Can you imagine getting these computers for free? As with Microsoft, what they are looking for is feedback on the software they released… some of the recipients even received airtime on a commercial for the product. Do you think this is something you could do? I once received a free antenna booster from AT&T because I had bad cell phone service in my house. The requirement for keeping this $150 product was a 5 minute phone call after using it for 6 weeks. No bad in my opinion.

These days I like to use feedback and survey websites to get my computers for free. The computer I am typing on now was free and it is a brand new Dell! These feedback companies take all the information they gather for your demographic and sell it to companies interested in marketing better to your segment. They first require you to complete the requirements which involve, your name, age, shipping, and many questions about what you are interested in or not. Sometimes they may require you to do a bit more work, but you can complete them generally in one hour.

After creating an app, you have to spread the word and have to advertise it in order to ensure its success. If you are a pro in app creation, but not so much when it comes to marketing, read on to learn how to promote your app effectively.

To cater to one of the largest market in the world, ie; China, you should sign up for App Store China and do the following:

Seek Assistance from an SEO Expert
First off you need to seek assistance of a professional search engine optimizer, this will aid in understanding what keywords are suited specifically to your app that will ultimately help you step up the ranks in app store china. The keywords are meant to be used in an appealing description of your app.

Create An Eye-Catching Logo
In addition you must fashion a logo fit for the app you created. Logos are mostly the first thing that helps attract the customers when he or she is browsing through the long app store china list.

Generate Traffic, Even If Your Sales Are Low
Do not focus on the number of downloads at first. Right now your priority should be the number of people who visit your app in the app store china. The fact is, the more people open your app, the higher your ranking will go. So invest your time in making it all seem as much appealing as you can.

Keep Track of number of Downloads
Remember the usual number of downloads every day starts from the figure of 100. You can use this information in the beginning as you list on app store china to review whether you did enough to make your app attract potential consumers or not.

Ask for User Feedback
If 100 are not enough for you and you are aiming for a bigger market share, the best way to grow is to ask your app users to rate your app. Their feedback will help you loads on improving your creation.

The basic app promotion 101 is only the starting point in your journey to make your masterpiece a lucrative form of spending your time. From here on you can grow to app sharing on a social network site. Your app may not only serve as an additional stream of income, it may open up new avenues and career prospects for you. Therefore, it is a good idea to focus on your marketing efforts and promote your app in a way that it earns you the maximum possible ROI.

If you use a file manager to browse through the folders on your Android Device, you will find a very peculiar, nameless entity randomly throughout your phone with the file extension NOMEDIA. This file is a placeholder that tells the operating system that this folder does not have any media files, hence the file extension NOMEDIA.

NOMEDIA files help speed up the device by telling it to not scan particular folders. These folders can range from sensitive, operating system folders, to random application folders that either do not contain any images, or do not contain images that the user would want to see in their gallery. As soon as the device sees the file extension NOMEDIA, it stops scanning the folder and moves on to the next. This makes a significant difference to the overall performance of Android devices.

What Do the NOMEDIA Files Contain?

They do not contain anything. The file extension, NOMEDIA, itself is what does the trick here. They are empty files. Placeholders that do not need to contain any code or other data, and are simple text files with this extension, that do not occupy any real space aside from what is required for the name and file type itself. Gallery apps and media players have this rule programmed into their file scanning subroutines that tells them to stop looking for media in any folder that contains this file.

Why Was It Made?

These files were originally made in view of Google's privacy compliance and the sole objective of their existence was to stop third party apps from seeing any media files in critical locations. This, however, had a rather pleasant side effect of making the phone faster, so it stuck. This is also a great way to keep certain folders from showing up in the gallery app if you are trying to hide personal photos. This is also a great way to keep your voice messages folders from popular messaging apps, like WhatsApp or Viber, from showing up in the music player app.

How Can You Access or Make a NOMEDIA File?

All you need is a simple text editor; just save an empty notepad file with the name, ".NOMEDIA." Then copy that file over to your Android device into every folder you do not want scanned, and you are good to go. However, there are dedicated files available for Android devices that let users create and manage NOMEDIA files without any problems. These vary by Android version and devices but some of the most popular utilities for this are "StudioKUMA" and ".nomedia Manager." These apps are very useful if you want to manage and create NOMEDIA files directly on your phone, instead of from a PC. There are several other, free apps available as well though.

The total number of apps available in the Apple App Store is rapidly increasing while giving momentum to the mobile industry. Every now and then, millions of users search apps in the App Store for almost everything and anything which, can make their lives better.

Though, every professional has their own business principles and ideas, however, Apple has given importance to certain patterns which, can greatly influence the user experience. While addressing these implications, here are some of the evolving trends of iPhone app development trends which, would shape the course of 2017.

Swift coding
Swift has become the popular name in this genre because of its inclusive range of coding technologies and frameworks. It operates on an advanced compiler infrastructure which, helps in using the Xcode tools to write stable codes. By now, Objective-C has become more popular over Swift Programming. However, as Swift became open source in the year 2015, the number of users increased rapidly to a great extent. This, in turn, exceeded the total number of Objective-C users as well.

iMessage Apps
By the fall of 2016, iMessage apps started gaining momentum. The latest iOS 10 update has set the ideal base for developers to develop and deploy high-end custom app extensions. With its launch, Apple intends to get back to the some of its users that it lost because of the other popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. These apps are about to create more opportunities for startups especially while developing AI-powered products and chat-bots.

Apps supporting Augmented Reality and GPS
The small and medium-sized enterprises are rapidly implementing location-based app services. It is highly beneficial in offering customers with information on products and services, price comparison, reviews and various other activities related to mCommerce. As the newest driving force, GPS has become widely popular with Pokemon Go's success in 2016 and in the domain of retail and automation as well. Thus, expectantly, users will deploy combination of GPS and AR in the near future and in 2017 as well.

Security
iPhone has always been the favorite choice when it comes to privacy and security concerns. Mobile data security has rapidly grown to an unprecedented level thus, becoming a crucial area of ​​concern for IT giants. Apple has already moved forward with the App Transport Security (ATS). This year, it's going to bring stronger and more creative data encryption technologies thereby, facilitating enhanced security.

Final word
Though, Android wins all the volume battles, however, Apple continues to win in all the margin battles, thereby securing the top place in terms of revenue. Revenues from these apps are pretty high and with better margins and thus, it will continue to incentivize action and innovation in the mobile industry.

NET NEUTRALITY

What is Net Neutrality all about?

When we log onto the Internet, we take a lot for granted. We assume we will be able to browse any website we want, whenever we want, as many times as we want, at the fastest speed, whether it’s a corporate or a mom-and-pop site. We assume that we can use any service we like – watching online videos, listening to songs or podcasts, sending instant messages – anytime we choose. What makes all these assumptions possible is Net Neutrality.

Telecom operators/ISPs are access services providers, and can control either how much you access, what you access, how fast you access and how much you pay to access content and services on the Internet.

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet Service Providers (ISPs/Telcos) and government should treat all data on the Internet equally, should give their customers equal access to all lawful websites and services on the internet, without giving priority to any website over another.

This means Net Neutrality is about:

• All sites must be equally accessible

• No telecom-style licensing of Internet companies

• No speeding up of specific websites

• No “zero rating” or making some sites free over others.

Why there is Sudden Buzz and debates about Net Neutrality in India

• Telecom companies have lobbied to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and are trying to bring regulations into the usage of Internet, putting at stake our freedom to choose & privacy.

• If this happens in India, our ISPs will decide which website or app we will be given access to and how much we’ll have to pay for accessing each website/app.

• If you are an app publisher or a website owner, you’ll have to pay to each ISP to make your app/website visible to the people on their network.

For Ex: In an Airtel network, Airtel may ‘charge’ us to use WhatsApp while Hike Messenger will be free to use since Hike is an Airtel product.

With the rise of wireless broadband, the debate intensified and created major differences in perspectives. While the debate is going on globally, India’s TRAI has sought recommendations (for the first time from the general public, and not just the industry) by circulating a consultation paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services, seeking comments from the public. The buzz about Net Neutrality increased when Airtel, India’s leading telecom carrier, launched “Airtel Zero”, a platform designed for partnering with various internet-based companies in order to generate revenues. There has been significant furore in the public domain and a campaign against Airtel Zero, leading to the company’s withdrawal of the program.

One of the main reasons the Internet has been so successful is that people have generally been able to use it according to their wish. It’s important for access to knowledge, services and free speech, as well as freedom and ease of doing business online, for this access to be neutral. Internet service providers (ISPs) can’t restrict the best access or pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. The worst thing policy makers could do to the network would be to allow telecom companies to mess with that. Rather, they should focus on what it will take to make broadband accessible for everyone.

Due to competitive mobile internet packages, subscribers availing GSM-based internet services showed a tremendous growth of 161 percent by the end of June this year.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s statistics were printed in the Daily Times, which reported that the number of internet subscriptions on different cellular networks reached 14.4 million by the end of closing financial year 2009-10; it was recorded at 4.4 million at the end of FY 2008-09.

Telenor grabbed the biggest share in terms of number of mobile internet users; however, penetration-wise, Zong led the market with its lowest-cost internet service packages. Industry analysts said that the PTA may have overstated internet subscription numbers, since cellular subscribers do not often stay with one specific cellular network. They were, however, of the view that cellular operators’ revenue saw a healthy increase from the usage of mobile Internet on GSM technology.

The growth of mobile internet subscribers outpaced the growth of internet subscribers utilising broadband and dial-up connections in FY 2009-10. As per estimated figures, the number of internet users had reached 19.5 million in 2009-10 as compared to the 19 million recorded in FY 2008-09.

Now, Pakistan is also toe to toe with other developed countries in Asia. As PTA has shown their reports with assuming that users will reach a high mark in the next coming year and Pakistan will be on top of all the other countries in Asia. This shows that Pakistan is establishing it’s mark in the technology sector.

Over the years, air conditioning systems have evolved. With newer technologies and functionalities being developed everyday, it’s challenging to keep up to date. This rapid improvement in technology has shaped our everyday life so much that we now totally rely on the use of technological devices just to carry out simple and basic day to day tasks. This recent development in advance technology is a beautiful thing when weighing in on the good side of it. Unlike our great grandfathers who rode on horses to travel from one point to another which is very time consuming and energy draining. This generation now boast of super jets that can get you from Adelaide to Sydney within two hours without breaking a sweat.

This is a tremendous and mind blowing advancement in human history. The fact that we can do more within little time has helped us accomplish more than the generation before us could. Before the development of computer and telecommunications systems, long distance communication was super slow. As a matter of fact, kings rely on pigeons to carry and deliver letters from one kingdom to another. This generation on the other hand now enjoy instant messaging such as; Facebook communication, whatsapp, emails and so on. Now we can seat at the comfort of our room right in front of our computers and have a live communication with our relatives that lives in another continent with the help of brilliant computer software such as Skype. The rate at which technology is being improved on is almost at the speed of light. This is no different in the air conditioning industry. From the use of fanning system to ducted and reverse cycle air conditioning system. Air conditioners now come with the ability to create compartment in your home. You don’t have to run your air conditioning system for the entire house anymore, you can easily turn one room on and leave the other off within the same system. The Zone air conditioner has made it possible to save more on electricity.

When you run any air conditioning system that is not split air conditioning you must keep in mind that you might be running a risk of having your entire home heating or cooling without the option of partitioning. Split air conditioning systems are good for just one room, either bed room or living room. It’s difficult to rely on one split air conditioning system to keep a four bedroom house warm during the chilling cold season or cool during the blazing hot summer. Therefore, all other types of air conditioning system was introduced to household, solving this problem once and for all. Even though all other air conditioning system such as duct and evaporative air conditioning have the capacity to keep a relatively large house cool and warm, another challenge present itself. This is the fact that it’s not enough to have an air conditioning system that possess high capability to run an entire house, but also have the functionality to partition it high capability.

Study has shown that majority of homes have different temperature within themselves. What we mean by this is that; if you have a house with three bed rooms in it such as bed room A, B and C, there are possibilities that bed room A has a different temperature in comparison to bedroom B and C. Bedroom A may be warmer than the other two bedrooms depending on the location of the same. We know that when a room is exposed to the heat of the sun more than other rooms in the same house, the room that get the most heat takes the most time to cool when you turn on your air conditioning system. This mean that even if you run an air conditioning with high capability that could get every room in your house cool within fifteen minutes, the room that got the most of sun scourging heat will take longer than fifteen minutes to cool. This itself is a problem that needed to be addressed. Also, running an air conditioning that could saturate your entire home at once possess its own disadvantages. One of which is the fact that you get to pay more bills, and even if there is no need to cool the entire house because no one is in it, your air conditioning doesn’t understand that so it cools the entire house anyway, wasting energy and mounting up your electric bills. This list goes on.

These disadvantages erupted the need for a Zoned air conditioning system. Zoning systems are pretty brilliant and simple all in one. The system is built on a multiple thermostats that is wired to a central control panel. This control panel operates within the ductwork of the system. The thermostats constantly read the temperature of their specific zone location, then open or close the dampers within the ductwork according to the thermostats’s settings. Not only is system zoning helpful for houses with inconsistent room temperatures, it’s also a brilliant system that cools or heat individual rooms based on the desired temperature pre-set by the occupant of that room. The right application of this beautiful system could save homeowners about 30 percent on their energy bills.

Even though the highly regarded zoning system has proven to be energy effective with unprecedented advantages, many homeowners are hesitant to make the transition from unzoned system to zoning system because of the installation cost that come with the transition. The truth however is the fact that the long term saving will offset the initial installation cost that comes with the transitioning helping you save even more on the long run. If you are looking at making the switch today and you don’t know where to start, why not pick up your phone and speak to Rite Price Heating and Cooling for one of their ongoing deals.

Beware the tiger!! The tiger!!

Kids rushed with fearsome screams. They complained that they have been hearing roars of a tiger from different places, sometimes from behind the generator room, sometimes from the dark corridors of the building wings and sometimes from behind the wet garbage pits recently built in our society.

“What you saying, Son? I know you are afraid of dogs but this is the limit of exaggeration. You are grown up now”, I ignored like other moms on our floor had ignored. I saw my son going mad and he shouted even loudly to tell me what he said was true. Kids know by now that the protests or morchas and shouting has been a way to make ignorant authorities pay heed to the problems faced by public. Very unfortunate!. I quickly reached out to my mobile and dropped message in WhatsApp group of our society ladies with lot of hesitation: “Our kids are kidding. They saying they heard tiger roar hehe “. Waited for a few seconds to see no reaction from the ladies on my message. What a fool lady I am to drop that message!

Oops! But data connection is off. I turned it on and saw hundreds of messages were already floating on the group. Oh my god! They suspected some animal may be a leopard, which is not rare to find in areas in Mumbai that are close to SGNP (Sanjay Gandhi National Park) .

I busted in anger “What the hell the watchmen have been doing, why didn’t they inform? And where those dogs were who madly used bark on people. “

Calmly my father-in-law, Anna told me to control my anger that was out of fear and told that, everyone values his life, so the watchmen. They are not trained hunters nor are they equipped with things to face such unique situation. He further said “We have been encroaching the forest area and leaving the animals homeless and frustrated. We have been enjoying cool breeze and beautiful forest views and now it’s time to pay the real prize”.

While I knew Anna has a point in saying that I became more anxious and reacted with irritation, “Anna, this is not time for lecture, we need to do something”. I realized, we got to inform forest authorities, BMC, animal friends, whoever who can help.

I rushed to bed room to inform my husband who was getting ready for office. And in a moment we both noticed where our younger one, Ninu is? Oh! He too had gone down for cycling with Jishnu. We both rushed to the lift, Anna also rushed with us. Within those few seconds while we were going down I could not control myself, tears started rolling down my face, all weird thoughts were hanging in my mind. My husband assured me that he will go look out in garden areas. “No, no, we both will go”, I insisted. Anna said “Wait, only I will go. I have lived my life, if something happens I will be the one to face first” We all were on the verge to burst into tears at the same time we were all alert to take next actions, nothing but to rush in different direction to find the kid. Lift landed on the ground floor, watchman had closed the shutters and anxiously watching in different directions. Some small kids were there in the lobby and Ninu and his friends were there. “Thank God”, I cried, “Ninu, Ninu! Where have you been, I was about to die out of fear, my child”. “There the tiger is, he will pounce on us, and he will kill us”.

And my husband shook me to me wake up, “what happened? Are you OK? Get up!”. “Oh! Was I dreaming! Thank God I was dreaming”, I took some time to recover and pacified myself that it was just a dream not the reality. However that dream made me wander in the loop of thoughts, it made me think from altogether different perspectives.

Where the tiger is? Yes, the tiger is very much there, but not outside, it is within me, in my mind. Probably even more ferocious tiger is living within us. The tiger of fear, the tiger of anger, the tiger of jealousy and narcissism, the tiger of stress, the beast of suspect and doubt about our own abilities, the tiger of worries, the tiger of confusion. How much attention we are giving to this beast which is nicely getting fed on our ego and on our worries and day by day getting larger than life?

What actions are we doing to conquer that wild animal living in humans? He is silently killing us from within, and why just within, isn’t he fading the beauty of our relationships with our kids, parents, colleagues and even spouse. Isn’t he messing up with our success and health? Isn’t he encroaching our peace, our bliss which is nothing but our very own right?

We have to find way to control this dangerous beast who is living within us.

Sooner the better!

For students, losing focus on the work or goals is a common thing and this usually happens more when they perform those tasks which lie beyond their comfort zone. So, here are some tips which you should follow to train your brain in such a way that you will always be able to complete your work without losing your focus.

1. Time Management: –

"Time is everything", the one who doesn't manage his time deliberately will always lose focus on his work. Now question arise "how", suppose someone has assigned you some task and give you deadline to complete it, initially you will take that task lightly because you know you have enough time to complete it, as we all know time flies, and what happens at the last moment you end up with losing your focus and would not able to put your all attention to that task due to the fear of deadline. So time management is must! Make a TO-DO list and work accordingly.

2. Be Positive: –

Positivity plays a very vital role in keeping you stay focused. If you are doing any work, try to look for the positive sides of that work because it will motivate you to complete that work without any distractions. A positive mind is more creative, hence you will be able to work with your full potential.

3. Have Good Surrounding: –

You're surrounding or environment matters a lot, when you have people with similar goals, you all will support and motivate each other to stay focused on your achievements and also, you will learn lots of new things from each other and this will give you a boost to achieve your goals.

4. Learn how to avoid distractions: –

You may think that checking your messages on Facebook, WhatsApp relaxes you but this is not true, actually these things are distracting you from focusing on your core work, you have to manage all these things in such a way, like, first you should complete your work or task more efficiently and then you can reward yourself with virtual socializing.

5. Self-motivation: –

It is the best practice to keep oneself more productive, try to self-motivate yourself whenever you feel like you are losing your focus on your work, there are number of ways through which you can easily self-motivate yourself like: –

· Think about the achievements in your life.

· Determine what other people see as your strengths.

· Listen to music that gives you energy.

· Surround yourself with a positive environment.

The world of business is now digitized, and in marketing, this impact is being felt more intensely. From email, video to social media, there isn’t anyone ignoring this ongoing revolution.

While these new branding techniques have revolutionized modern enterprise, they cannot still replace the good old business card. This is a simple tool that nevertheless boosts your credibility, adds a professional touch to your company’s profile and enables you to grow your networking capacity.

According to Statistic Brain, over 27 million cards are printed daily, highlighting how important this strategy is even in a digitalized world. A 2016 Adobe Study shows that for every 2,000 cards an organization passes out, sales increase by 2.5%. Without a doubt, this is a technique no marketer can afford to ignore.

If you are planning to launch a marketing campaign, it is important to include your company cards. This is still an effective tool in the contemporary marketing landscape for the following reasons:

1. Personal Touch in Networking

Networking still remains the best technique to grow a company. For this to work, you have to show genuine desire to connect and this is something a physical card does better than emailing your contacts or sending them via social media.

2. Effectiveness

Assume you are attending a conference and want to leverage available opportunities. It is easier to hand out your card when you meet a potential lead. This is still the most effective tool in lead generation.

3. First Impressions Matter

When you meet a potential lead and you want to start building a relationship, the best way is not promising to send an email or a WhatsApp message with your contacts. A beautifully designed card is all you need to captivate the attention of a potential lead. By impressing at the earliest opportunity, you will have done a lot towards growing your brand.

4. Versatility

A lot of information can be squeezed into this piece of paper including contacts, business location, working hours, email address, website URL, services and your logo. This simple paper instantly tells all about you and it is easier for a target customer to be inspired to learn more about your company.

5. More sharing

One reason business card printing remains popular is the fact that these are physical objects that can easily be given out. In fact, potential customers do request them and it would be good if you have some on you.

6. Preparedness

Modern consumers are more informed than ever before. They know a good company when they see one. If you don’t have a card when they request for one, you have already lost a customer. These tools enable you to be always prepared.

It might be a digital world but some old tricks in marketing still work and a business card is one of the best.