by Prashant on April 15, 2010
in Gadgets
Apple previewed iPhone OS 4.0 on April 8, 2010. A developer beta was also released at the same time as the preview. It is expected to be available to the public in summer 2010 (northern hemisphere) for iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch (3rd Generation), and fall for iPad. The iPhone 3G and iPod Touch (2nd Generation) will also get a limited update which will include most, but not all, of the new features. For example, multitasking will not be included. This is due to the limited hardware of the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G. Other devices, such as the original iPhone and iPod touch 1G, are not expected to be supported at all. In the preview, along with 1500 new APIs for app developers, seven most significant “tentpole” headline groups of user features were highlighted out of the around 100 changes to to the new OS feature set. Listed in the order announced, these were titled: multitasking; folders; mail; iBooks; enterprise; game center; iAd.
[see the big list of iPhone OS 4.0 changes...]
by Prashant on April 14, 2010
in Gadgets
Overview
In several critical areas, the HTC Incredible is the Nexus One trapped in a different body. Both devices are Android-powered phones made by HTC, and share the same amount of RAM and same 1GHz Snapdragon processor. While the Google Nexus One runs the vanilla version of Android known widely as the Google Experience, the Incredible uses HTC’s custom-designed user interface built over top of Android. The Incredible also has a more powerful camera than the Nexus One.
Differences
- User interface: The HTC Incredible has HTC’s custom user interface called Sense built on top of Android, while the Nexus One has the standard Android interface known as the Google Experience. HTC’s Sense interface offers a number of advanced customization options for the Incredible, including sleek, custom HTC widgets, and the ability to change the layout and icons on the home screens depending on what the user is doing. Of course, it’s a personal preference, and many users may prefer one interface over the other.
- Camera: At 5-megapixels, the Nexus One’s camera is certainly powerful, particularly for a mobile device. The HTC Incredible, however, is equipped with an 8-megapixel camera — overtaking the Nexus one by 3 megapixels. Though 5 megapixels should be plenty for most, avid mobile phone photographers may prefer the Incredible. The Incredible has a bright dual-LED flash, while the Nexus One has a (still bright) LED flash.
Side by Side
Source: Wirefly
Twitter is one of the ultimate social networking tools of it’s time. It’s so much more than 140 character updates about where you’re driving to, the lady who cut you off in line at the grocery store (who does she think she is?!), and random banter about horrible haircuts from the new barber in town. Twitter allows you personally interact with industry leaders who you haven’t had the chance to meet yet (networking), monitor what’s being said about your company and it’s services/products (online reputation management), build creditability, find targeted sales leads, and so much more. But with all that said, it’s all too easy to use Twitter incorrectly as well. If you find yourself not being able to build your Twitter followers up, here are 3.5 easy mistakes you could be making right now:
[click to continue…]
Unless you’ve been living under a rock as of late, you’ve probably noticed that Hyundai has been trying to shift focus brand focus. It seems like they are trying to reimage the company from being the cheap, unreliable cars to those that compete with the likes of BMW and Mercedes Benz. The big problem is that they’ve already built up this horrible brand stigma when they came to the USA and Hyundai has yet to do anything significant to address the issue. Sure they’ve made these fallacious claims about their cars being nicer, faster, better, roomier, etc. but it’s all just heresy in my opinion. Recently, I came across a set of pictures that truly proved the epic failure of this company. The following pictures of the new Hyundai Sonata 2.0T Turbo feature some of the worst editing, and attention to detail I’ve seen in quite some time:
[see the pictures and learn why Hyundai is such a failure...]
by Prashant on April 8, 2010
in Gadgets
The new iPhone OS4.0 firmware was officially introduced by Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, and brought some new features with it today. The new features are said to be available through a firmware download this summer for iPhone 3, iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch 2nd, and 3rd generations. Of the 100+ new features that are going to be available, here are the most talked about:
[click to continue…]
When it comes to webpage design, who doesn’t like an attractive and fancy design? Cool backgrounds, random pictures of cats wearing hats, whatever it takes to “make people” like and remember your website. But contrary to popular belief, none of that truly matters because when someone comes to your website, they’re looking for information. Remember the days of Geocities when everyone had pictures of dancing babies on their webpage and a whole bunch of other misc animated pictures? Yeah…notice how those aren’t so prevalent anymore? If you want to keep people on your website, and convert casual visitors into sales, it’s text, not graphics that designers and decision makers should be thinking about.
[take a look at the heatmap guide and read the 3.5 takeaways...]
I’ve been a big fan of Sander Baumann’s vector pack of arrows for quite some time and have used them it in various projects through out the years (my favorite use being for call to action–CTA– buttons). It wasn’t until recently that I found out who the actual author of the pack was so I thought I’d share with you all. The pack is released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, meaning the vector images can be used either for personal or commercial purposes and may be changed to your own ideas.
[see all of the icons and download the vector pack...]
Since I’ve been hard at work on my 3.5th business (which I literally legally started in 30 minutes), I gave myself 1.5 days off and went on a snowboarding trip. My dad has always told me that you need to learn how to earn money and also take vacations at the same time. It’s apart of the entrepreneurial spirit right? It’s important to clear your mind and just get away from your worries every once in a while. Taking a break will help you to keep your business successful and hopefully bring new ideas because a true entrepreneur’s business thrives even when they step away. So with that in mind, I took off to Reno for a short trip.
[continue reading and see the rest of the pictures...]
by Prashant on March 26, 2010
in Business
In a previous post, I discussed why it’s important to set goals when starting a new business. With that post in mind, it’s always nice to occasionally complete those goals ahead of schedule. One of my personal goals was to finish all the paperwork that’s required to setup a business (for a sole proprietorship or partnership anyways) by the end of March, 2010. Instead of waiting until the end of the month and potentially being busy with something else, I said to myself at approx 3:55pm that I should go, file the paperwork and get it done.
The only problem, after looking up what time the Napa Recorder-County Clerk’s office closes, I found out I had less than 30 minutes to get it done if I included my driving time.
[click to continue…]
by Prashant on March 25, 2010
in Business
Setting goals is important to not only your personal life, but your business life as well. The thought process is that if you don’t set goals for the business, you won’t be able to achieve what you want on time. Not to mention, it makes tracking your progress more difficult. If you don’t set goals, you might not know what exactly you’ve accomplished over a given period of time, become frustrated at your lack of results, and give up. If you set goals, you will be able to see exactly which milestone you hit, when you hit it, and what your end results were.
But it’s not just as simple as saying, “I want $15,000 a month by the end of the year.” Instead, you have to set SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound) goals.
[click to continue…]
