Geeky Ninja » Internet

7 Great Photo Sites for Your Blog

Guest — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

This is a guest post written by Melanie Slaugh.

Melanie Slaugh is enthusiastic about the growing prospects and opportunities of various industries and writing articles on various consumer goods and services as a freelance writer. She writes extensively for internet service providers and also topics related to internet service providers in her area for presenting to consumers, the information they need to choose the right Internet package for them. She can be reached at slaugh.slaugh907 @ gmail.com

Finding photo content for your blog that is legal to use can sometimes feel like pulling teeth. Not that painful, of course, but equally frustrating. The various licenses, individual author requirements and the (usually) poor quality of pictures available means that you’re likely better off paying for stock photos than use any random image off the Internet.

Don’t get lost in a mishmash of legal obligations. Here are seven websites that offer photos for you to use, most of them free of charge, and all of them perfectly legal. Just pay attention to the citation rules of each site and you’ll get along fine.

Morgue File

Weird name aside, this site is fun to use and offers a great selection of amateur photography. What exactly is a morgue file, though? Well, this site defines it as, “a morgue file is a place to keep post production materials for use of reference, an inactive job file”. The photos are usually of good quality and interesting dynamics. Check out the front page for featured photos that really stand out.

Public Domain Photos

Public Domain Photos has over 5,000 free photos and 8,000 free clipart usable by businesses and individuals alike. Anything you are looking for, public domain wise, you can find on this site. They may not be the most exciting of photos, but sometimes you just need something simple for you blog post.

ImageBase

This website is easy to navigate and has photos separated into different categories on the first page. It also has a search tab if you are looking for something specific, as well as high resolution pictures (1600 x 1200 or 3072 x 2048). A great site for photos that need to be large or very, very clear.

Free Digital Photos

This website groups its photos into two different categories – you can download good quality stock photos for free, but for their highest quality photos there is a charge. I love the way they separate the photos. It makes it so easy to search, though be aware these are stock photos, and most look like it.

EveryStockPhoto

The photos here are license-specific, so you have to be sure to check the licensing terms before downloading them. You also are able to rate, tag, collect, and comment on their photos. Like number four, these are stock photos. That means a lot of white backgrounds and grinning people. This site may not fit every blog, but once in a while stock photos are just what you need.

Stockvault

StockVault has 27,000 free images to choose from and download. They define themselves as, “Stockvault’s sole purpose is to collect and archive medium and high resolution photographs that designers and students can share and use for their personal and non-commercial design work”. Much more than just stock here, these photos are create and eclectic.

OpenPhoto

OpenPhoto is another website that has all of their categories separated by easy to use buttons on the front page of their website. With a Craigslist feeling, this site makes sense in a lot of ways, notably the navigation. Don’t expect a lot of flair here, but do expect to find just what you are looking for.

Finding photos for your blog doesn’t have to be a struggle. Check out a couple of these websites and see which one fits your needs best. Don’t forget, the picture doesn’t have to be bland or boring. Take a chance and have fun with your photos.

How to Transfer Contacts From Android to iPhone

Sharninder — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:08:11 +0000

I recently purchased a new iPhone 4S after having used the original Nexus One for over two years. Now, like most of you who’ve changed phones more than once, I was prepared for the hard (and irritating) work of transferring my contacts from the Android to the iPhone.

In the good ‘ol days this meant either making a list of all the important contacts in one phone and then manually entering them into the second phone, or transferring contacts from the first phone to the SIM card’s internal memory and then transferring them back to the second phone. Both fairly inefficient and time consuming tasks, more so, because most of the time the SIM’s internal memory wasn’t enough to hold all the contacts one might have.

With the advent of cloud based services, though, this process has become quite easy. In this post, I’ll be teaching you how to transfer your contacts from an Android phone to an iPhone.

Android phones, by default, backup all the contacts to Gmail, so the first step to export your contacts out is to login to your Gmail account and display all the contacts stored in Gmail.

Now, select all the contacts that you want to transfer over to the iPhone. If you want to transfer all the contacts, mark the appropriate check box.

Just be wary of one possible bug, when I tried exporting my contacts list of over 300 contacts in one go, Gmail stopped responding for me. The only way I could manage to get all my contacts out of Gmail was by selecting max 60-70 in one go.

So, now the next step is to export all the contacts that you’ve selected in the vCard format since that is the format that the iPhone understands.

Click the More drop down and select Export. In the window that pops up, select “vCard format” and hit Export.

Your browser will now open a file download dialogue for you to save the contacts on your desktop. The next step is to imp or the contacts to iCloud so that the iPhone can sync them from there.

Log into your iCloud account at iCloud.com, open the Contacts application and drag and drop the vCard formatted contacts that you just exported to the iCloud Contacts application.

That’s it. Your iPhone will now automatically sync all the contacts using iCloud as the backend.

Read, Create and Edit PDF Document Online with PDFescape

Ashish — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:00:25 +0000

PDF files are the lifeline of organisations. PDF, along with .DOC files have to be easily the most important formats for exchanging documents all around the world. The reason I always insist to work on PDF files while working on documents is that PDF is an open standard and doesn’t always require specific software (like .docx needs Word 2007 and above) to open. All you need is a decent PDF reader and almost all PDF readers are available for free.

There are many desktop PDF tools available that can create a PDF file out of a document in but if you are in a hurry and all you are looking for is an online tool, PDFescape will definitely impress you.

PDFescape is an online service using which you can read, create and edit PDF documents online. There is no software or plugin needed and all you need is a JavaScript Enabled browser and an internet connection.

Though I would recommend that you register on the site but you can continue unregistered if you have a deadline to meet. The only problem of being a guest user is that all the files and settings are deleted after you logout. If you’re fine with that, continue without registering.

To get started, click on the edit link and select one of the available options to start from. You can either start from very scratch or edit a pre-composed PDF loading it from your computer or from an online source. The only constraint is that, the PDF file must be less than 10 Mb or 100 pages in size.

The PDF editor is excellent for a free online editor. You can create professional looking PDF documents and edit existing ones without any difficulty. Let’s have a look at all the amazing features that PDFescape provides its users.

Features of the Reader

User can rotate and zoom PDF document to suit their needs
Copy text items to clipboard
Search for text and keywords in the documents
You can save download and print documents directly from PDFescape

Features of the Editor

Ability to add shapes whiteout, images and hyperlinks to PDF document.
Encrypt PDF contents using a password
Sign PDF documents using your scanned signature

My Verdict

For the first time ever; I have come across a complete online PDF creator, reader and editor which offer the service for free without any catch. There was no watermark of any kind in the documents to discriminate between a free and premium user. My opinion is that this is an excellent PDF editor that’ll get your work done in a jiffy.

Do you guys use an online PDF editor ?

How To Make Your Google Account More Secure

Gourav — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:00:17 +0000

Have you ever pondered upon the consequences of losing your Google login information to a malicious hacker on the Internet? However frightful the thought may be, the truth cannot be denied that users often lose their usernames and passwords and this generally occurs because of users accessing their account from public computers which are flooded with viruses, Trojans, Keyloggers etc.

Google’s 2 Step Verification method adds an extra layer of security to your Google account and keeps it secure even when you lose your login credentials. Whenever you try to access your account from an unauthorized device, Google will send you a code via a text or voice message. This code needs to be entered in order to successfully log into your Google account. This way, even if someone steals your username and password, they cannot access your account until they get hold your phone.

2 Step verification can be enabled for all Google services such as Gmail, Youtube, Blogger etc. To set up your additional layer of security go to your Google settings page and click on the edit link next to the 2 Step Verification text.

The next step will be to set up your mobile or landline phone number where you want to receive the code. Once you do that, verify your phone by entering the code that Google will send to your phone.

You will then be asked if you want to make the computer a trusted one. Trusted computers are those which require the Google verification code only once every 30 days. This prevents the annoyance of having to enter the code every time you log into your account from your own PC.

Do not make a public computer a trusted one as it will defy the whole purpose of setting up 2 step verification. However, if you have multiple computers, you can add all of them to the trusted list of computers from your Google account settings.

The last step requires your final confirmation and just a click on the ‘Turn On 2 Step Verification’ button.

Accessing your account after enabling 2 step verification does not change for trusted computers. However, if you try to login on an unrecognized device, a code will be sent to your phone immediately which needs to be entered for a successful login.

Since the 2 step verification method heavily relies on your phone for sending code, there can be problems in situations when you do not have your phone or there is no cell coverage. To counter this problem you can go to your Google account page and either add a backup phone number for your account or download an application (only for Android, iPhone or Blackberry) to generate the code. As a last resort, you can also keep a hard copy of upto 10 verification codes, each of which can be used only once.

To sum up, Google’s 2 step verification method is indeed an effective way to enhance the security of one’s account and strongly recommended for anyone who accesses his account from public computers.

Top 8 Must Have Chrome Extensions

Gourav — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:00:11 +0000

Google’s Chrome is an excellent web browser that has rightfully climbed to the top of the charts as far as usage across the web is concerned. Apart from the speed and excellent feature set of the browser, the thousands of extensions give the browser an edge that is hard to beat for it’s rivals.

Of course, not everyone installs and uses the thousands of extensions available in the library and that is why we have compiled a list of 8 of our favorite extensions that ensure that you get the best out of your favorite browser.

Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus is one of the most popular extensions for Chrome and if you do not already have it, high time you download it now! It block displaying ads on a webpage. This makes (most) web pages less annoying and increasing the speed of browsing.

Right Inbox

With Right Inbox, you can schedule automatic emails from your Gmail account. Be it a birthday or an anniversary, schedule emails at your desired date so that you never forget sending an email ever again. It also serves as a personal reminder as you can schedule an email to yourself also.

TabSugar

If you are used to opening a lot of tabs simultaneously, managing them can become a herculean task. TabSugar allows you to create groups and then drag and drop tabs into groups or from one group to another. This reduces the clutter on your browser allowing you to manage them efficiently.

Google Dictionary by Google

The importance of having a dictionary on your fingertips need not be emphasised. With Google Dictionary you can get the meaning of any word in a small pop up bubble by just double clicking on the word. It also translates foreign words in the language of your choice.

Xmarks Bookmark Sync

If you use multiple computers or browser, synchronizing them can be difficult at times. Xmark helps you to backup and sync your browsing data such as bookmarks, saved passwords or open tabs across multiple computers or browsers. Supported browsers include Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Chrome Youtube Downloader

It does exactly what the name says, i.e. lets you download youtube videos in a variety of formats including FLV, MP3, MP4, HD 720p and HD 1080p. Definitely a must have for video junkies.

Smooth Gestures

Although it takes some time getting used to, Smooth Gestures completely changes the way you browse the web. With mouse gestures for almost every action such as reload, refresh, next page, previous page, tab management and many more, it certainly makes web browsing a pleasant experience.

Read Later Fast

Do you often come across a lot of web pages or articles which you wish to read later? Read Later Fast helps you save the webpage with just a right click. You can then browse all the saved web pages and read it whenever you want. Since the pages are saved on your PC, you can read the contents even in the absence of an internet connection.

These are just a few of our favorite extensions available for Chrome. Which other extensions do you guys love to use ?

Create A Playlist Of Your Favorite Music on YouTube with Loudlee

Sharninder — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:00:35 +0000

The last couple of years have really seen the online music scene explode. While Pandora has been around for a while, now we have Rdio, Spotify, MOG and probably a million others. The difference between these newer apps and the likes of Pandora is that the newer app really make listening to music a social experience. You can create playlists, share them with your friends, listen to your friends’ favorites and so on.

YouTube, while not considered a traditional music website, has a large number of tracks available for listening uploaded either by the artists themselves or by fans. Loudlee aims to bring all the music on YouTube together and adds it’s own special social sauce to the experience.

So how does Loudleee work ?

After you sign up for an account using your Facebook credentials, you’ll be directed to a page with the artists and bands that other people on Loudlee are listening to.

Hover your mouse over any of the albums that you see, and you’ll be presented with a choice to either queue the album to your playlist or play it right away.

You can also search for songs or artists from the Search bar in the top right corner of the page and from the search results, add a complete album or individual songs to your playlist.

When you have your playlist all sorted out, just hit play on the small video player that you see and your added songs will begin streaming right off YouTube. The video is a bonus!

You can use the social buttons right above the video player to share the current song with your friends and let them in on some of the awesomeness too.

Loudlee lets you keep a track of the music you’ve already listened and also lets you take a look at your friends and followers’ stats and the music they’re listening to.

As soon as you listen to a song, the artist is added to your profile and you can get back to it from your profile page. Your friends can also look at the songs you’ve been listening to and add them to their playlists. This is an awesome way to discover new music and I love Loudlee for implementing this feature.

Loudlee doesn’t let you save your playlists (yet) but the creators of the site say they’re working on this feature. Apart from that, a suggestion engine is also in the works and would turn Loudlee into an even better source for new music.

As you can probably tell, I’m already a big fan of Loudlee and I think you should also check it out. You won’t be disappointed!

Image courtesy: Digital Trends

Experience Web Apps On Your Desktop with Pokki

Gourav — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:30:02 +0000

If you’re a regular internet user, you’d often find yourself visiting certain websites more frequently than others. Gmail and Facebook are excellent examples of such sites that users keep visiting from time to time to check for updates. This can sometimes get frustrating as users need to open new tabs or windows on their browsers every time they wish to check their account.

Pokki solves this problem by giving you a smartphone like app experience on your windows desktop. By installing Pokki, you can access and stay updated with all your web accounts right from your desktop – with just a click.

To install Pokki, all you need to do is visit the Pokki website and hit the download button on top. Installing Pokki does not take more than a few minutes. Once you have Pokki installed on your computer, the Pokki icon will appear on the taskbar.

All the web apps can then either be downloaded from this icon or from the website itself. An icon for every web app that you install keeps appearing next to the Pokki icon on the taskbar. Sign in and authorize each app to use it. A number next to each icon indicates the number of notifications and gives you real time updates for all your authorized accounts.

The ease of use along with the number of applications available makes Pokki a must have for your desktop. Popular apps include Google Search, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Wikipedia and more. If you are still not satisfied with the number of apps and can code in HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript, you can head over to the developers page and publish your own web app.

The design of Pokki is amazingly good and user friendly. Moreover, it provides users all the controls just like a web browser. This means that one can check mails, send or mark them into folders while viewing ones email account. Similarly, while checking Facebook account, you can view your news feed, notifications, messages, events and friend requests. Since all these and more are only a click away from your desktop, it saves both time and effort to check your account besides adding an eye candy to your work.

All in all, Pokki is an excellent software that brings the best of web experience on your desktop and the only limitation being that it requires Windows platform to run. Do let us know through your comments about how you liked the software and what other apps would you like to see in it.

LiveGo : Social Network, Email and IM at a Single Place

Gourav — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:00:51 +0000

If the Internet could be summarized in 3 simple words in today’s life, then they would surely be Social Networks, E-mails and IM’s.

LiveGo is a website that takes this concept and offers the best of all the 3 to its users in a single place. With LiveGo, users can stay connected to their social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, Instant Messengers such as MSN or Live, Yahoo and Gtalk and email accounts as Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo.

The home page shows you various sign in options. A good thing about this website is that uses do not need to create a separate login account. Instead, they can directly use their Facebook, MSN, Twitter, Yahoo, Gmail or AOL accounts to sign in.

When I logged in using my Facebook account, I was extremely pleased to see the overall interface. The majority of the space was rightly occupied with the news feed and the right sidebar showed me a list of my online friends. The left sidebar was similar to that of Facebook with options for Messages, Albums, Friends, and Notifications etc. An update bar on the top allows users to share their updates on Facebook and Twitter. A separate pop-up window opens for chatting when either you receive a PM or when you double click on any icon on the messenger window. A webcam icon on the top right of the PM window indicates webcam chat option. However, this feature is not yet available and hovering the cursor over the icon will only show you a “Coming Soon” message. One appreciable feature of the news feed was that taking the cursor over any picture automatically showed an enlarged view of it, certainly saving a few clicks and unnecessary page loading.

My next step was activating my Twitter account on the site. Clicking on the “Activate” link under the Twitter tab or the “Add Account” button on the left sidebar did the job pretty fast. Also the dashboard now included feeds from both the social networks. Separate Facebook and Twitter Tabs can let the users view feeds from either of the social network. Hovering the cursor over any display pic in the twitter feed will open a pop up giving you details of the user such as webpage, bio, number of followers, updates etc and the option to follow/unfollow, message or block the particular user.

Adding an email account automatically included my contacts in the messenger window and showed the online contacts by default. All options such as composing a new email or checking the inbox, drafts or sent items along with labels were available. Moreover, users can add multiple accounts for the same email provider and simultaneously access both of them. This way, if you have 2 or more accounts in Gmail or Yahoo, you no longer need to sign in and out of each account to access them. No doubt, this will come as a bliss for users with multiple accounts.

The overall layout of the site is impressive and users who still feel the need for more space for feeds can hide both the sidebars by clicking on the left and right arrows of the top of each sidebar respectively. Ads are placed on a thin bottom bar and are non intrusive in nature.

In a nutshell, LiveGo does what it promises, that is, it helps you stay connected with multiple social networks, e-mail accounts and send and receive IM’s at a single place. Users who find themselves wasting more of their time switching among various tabs and windows will find this as a felicity and a one stop solution for most of their online needs.

2 Great Sites for Movie Buffs!

Two Search Engines To Find You Stuff Google Can’t – Part 2

Gourav — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:00:47 +0000

Google may be the unanimous choice for searching the web but it isn’t very good when it comes to finding something very particular. Google is sort of the “Jack of all trades, and master of none”. We have earlier covered two amazing search engines, Quixey and Wolframalpha, in our post “Two Search Engines To Find You Stuff Google Can’t”.

Now, let’s take a look at two more search engines that do their job remarkably well.

Pipl

If you’ve pronounced it correctly, chances are that you’ve already guessed what it is about. In case you haven’t, it lets you find people on the web. Pipl promises to find anyone on the web, be it an old friend, lost relative, childhood crush, business contact or anyone else whose name you can remember. Even if can’t recall the name, don’t worry. You can still search using keywords like email id, username or even the phone number.

Traditional search engines, while searching for content, usually only search static web pages. However, details of personnel are often stored in databases rather than static pages and are not found by traditional search engines. This is where Pipl comes into play. It finds information from what it calls the “deep web” and yields highly accurate results.

Using the site is as easy as it could get. Visit the Pipl homepage and enter the detail of the person you are looking for and hit the search button. A list of all the matched contacts will be displayed, some even with a display picture. If you still cannot find the person you are looking for, try refining your search by entering a location, age or any other tag.

The picture below shows the search results for “Sachin Tendulkar”.

Depending on the availability, search results include details such as photo, address, contact number and profile links to social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5, Myspace, Twitter and many more.

The search results are impressive and if you ever need to find someone, Pipl should be the first place you should be looking at.

SimilarSites

Hundreds and thousands of sites are created and launched on the internet every day. Even though many of them have great content and worth, it’s a tough job discovering them. Similarsites is a website that helps us find alternatives to the sites we know of.

All it needs is the name of a familiar site or topic from the user and it shows a list of the sites that are similar to it, along with its similarity score. The results are laudable.

Other than the list for similar websites, there are also tabs for “Also Visited” sites, “Keyword Density”, “Top Sites” and “Reviews”. The top sites tab, however, is particularly impressive as it shows the best ranked sites in several of the topics similar to the search term. No doubt, it’s a great way to discover new websites that are related to the users’ preferences.

Take a look at the results obtained when I searched for Youtube.com:

The site also provides extensions for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari browsers. Installing the extension removes the need to visit the website each time to search for similar sites. Simply visit any site and hit the SimilarSite button on the browser to see the results.

If you are an avid surfer and like to discover new websites, then SimilarSites is a service that you certainly can’t miss out.

Do you use any specialized search engine for your needs? Do let me know in the comments below.

2 Great Sites for Movie Buffs!

Gourav — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:19:10 +0000

If you ask any movie buff, Movies are serious business. Fanatics and aficianados discuss about the movies they love (or hate) and also sometimes brag about the movies they have seen. No wonder, sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes have become so popular and successful. There are thousands, if not millions, of sites on the Internet dedicated to discussion and talking about movies. If you’re a movie buff, though, that obviously can’t be enough.

Take a look at these two websites that provide an excellent platform for movie buffs to hang out together and share their movie experiences online.

iCheckMovies

iCheckMovies is a simple and user friendly website that does lets you keep track of all the movies that you’ve ever seen. All you need to do is create your profile and start striking off the movies that you’ve seen till date. In return, you get rewards and rank depending on the number of movies you have seen.

An interesting feature of the site is neighbors, which are users having the highest movie compatibility with you. You can become friends, exchange messages and view the compatibility details of your movie neighbors and of other users on the website. Another feature worth mentioning is the “Recommended for you” section. It lists down the movies that you have not yet seen but which the website believes that will interest you.

iCheckMovies has a huge list of movies and all the movies that I could think of were present. Movies are categorized into lists such as All time top 250, Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Horror, Crime, Romance, Sci-fi, 1990’s 2000’s, 2010’s and many more.

iCheckMovies is a great platform for those who like to discover new movies that might interest them and meet new people with similar film interests.

FilmBuffet

FilmBuffet is a one of its kind social network for movie lovers. It provides a great platform for movie fans to share their experiences online.

Users can either register with the site or login using their Facebook credentials. Once logged in, one can start adding movies to one’s collection, rate and mark them as Seen, Plan to See, Own it, Add to wish list or Add to favorites. Users can browse movies according to popularity and ratings, reviews, discussions or according to genre such as Drama, Musical, War, Mystery-Suspense, Comedy, Crime and more.

The home tab shows the most recent activity of the user and the recently discussed movies. A useful section at the bottom lists the Top Box Office movies, Opening This Week and Coming Soon films. You can even read reviews written by other users, rate them or write your own reviews. A groups feature allows you to create groups and to join other groups.

All in all, the site can serve as a great hangout for all movie enthusiasts and with an active circle of friends it might even become an addiction that is hard to resist.

Don’t forget to let us know how you fulfill your movie cravings online, and also how you found the above mentioned websites.

LiveGo : Social Network, Email and IM at a Single Place

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