Thursday 31 July 2014

Designing A Breakthrough App? 7 Mobile Development Blogs You Should Read

mobile-development-blogs

The landscape of mobile apps is always changing. Whatever you learn today might be outdated, or even obsolete, within a few months or years. The mobile space is so new that trends are constantly shifting and new insights are made every day. If you plan to develop mobile apps, how can you keep up without going mad? This is one area in which blogs are extremely useful. As we’ve mentioned before, programming blogs aren’t the best way to learn the basics of development, but they are useful for news, research, and supplementing your programming education. These blogs are targeted at...


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8 Geeky Tasks You Can Chunk Together For Boosting Your Productivity

chunk-tasks

Unite and conquer. That should be your mantra if you’re after better time management and productivity. When it comes to getting anything done well, multitasking is a big no-no. It involves constant switching from one task to one or more unrelated ones and back. This plays havoc with your concentration and efficiency. On the other hand, “chunking”, a different kind of multi-tasking, is good for you. It’s not a new concept, and has existed under the geeky term of batch processing for a long time now. You know how once you are in the middle of a task, you get...


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The Evolution of Touchscreen Technology

evolution-touchscreen

In the tech space, time moves quickly; a little more than seven years ago, smartphones as we know them did not exist — now, they’re the most profitable tech industry on Earth (and so prevalent that it’s actually a problem). A consequence of this is that it’s easy to lose sight of just how revolutionary and important the technologies we use really are. Touchscreens and multitouch interfaces are now a permanent part of the fundamental language of human-computer interaction. All future UIs will carry echoes of touch interfaces with them, in the same way that the keyboard and the mouse...


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Tablet Sales Crashing At Best Buy, Microsoft Goes To War Over Email, And More… [Tech News Digest]

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Also, Nintendo continues to struggle, new Samsung smartphones are incoming, the LG 5K TV you can’t afford, Sony rejects EA Access, and Windows Phone 8.1 inspires a brilliant fan-made trailer. Is The Tablet Boom Coming To An End? According to the CEO of U.S. retailer Best Buy, sales of tablets are “crashing.” Does this signal the end of the tablet boom that has taken place over the last few years? Hubert Joly told Re/code, “The tablets boomed and now are crashing. The volume has really gone down in the last several months … The issue has then been that, once...


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How To Speak Gen Z

how to speak gen z feat

Have you ever received text messages from Mum or Dad (maybe Grandma) asking,”What’s ‘LOL’?” or “What’s “FML’?” If you’re still unsure about the lingo of today’s generation Z, here’s a quick cheat sheet to get you back on track. While you’re at it, you may as well learn the alphabet the geeky way, as opposed to learning the alphabet the obsolete way. via McCrindle


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What Are Your Hopes For The iPhone 6? [We Ask You]

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The iPhone 6 is almost here, with Apple expected to unveil its new mobile hardware in September. Apple fans have been extremely patient in waiting for the iPhone 6, having to make do with nothing but rumors for the past 12 months. Now, with weeks rather than months to go before its release, it’s time to talk about the iPhone 6 and your individual hopes for the next big release from Cupertino. Will Apple deliver what its fans demand? iHope 6 We want to know, What Are Your Hopes For The iPhone 6? This isn’t about what you expect to...


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Wednesday 30 July 2014

5 Best Free Messaging Apps For Android

android-messengers

It was a strange day when text messages took over phone calls as the primary way to communicate with personal contacts. For those of us without unlimited texting plans, it can be a pain to keep up with friends and family. Need a free way to send messages with your phone? Check out these apps. Disclaimer: The “free text messages” in these apps is not the same as SMS messages. None of these apps can send SMS or MMS for free. If that’s what you want, you may be more interested in how to send a free SMS online instead....


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8 Free Endless Runners For Windows Phone 8

muo-wp81-endlessrunners-ft

Endless runner is one of the most popular game genres for mobile devices and Windows Phone 8 has a good selection, from famous names like Temple Run to exclusive titles. We’ve collected eight of the best endless runners available on Windows Phone together to show you what’s out there. What Is An Endless Runner Anyway? Endless runners are essentially platform games, with the main difference being that there is no end to a level. Instead, the player continues collecting items and avoiding obstacles and enemies. Often, the player is being chased, or alternatively has stolen something, making escape from the...


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Amazon Wants Cheap eBooks, Google Fixes Android Flaw, And More… [Tech News Digest]

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Also, Facebook kills Gifts, Netflix signs deal with AT&T, EA launches subscription service, the PS4 goes 3D, and a reminder not to play with microwave ovens. Amazon Explains Dispute With Hachette Amazon has finally addressed its ongoing dispute with book publisher Hachette, explaining its reasoning for taking a stance. In a note on the Kindle Forum, Amazon explains its key objective is “lower e-book prices,” arguing that eBooks “can be and should be less expensive.” Amazon states that with “no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out-of-stock, no warehousing costs, [and] no...


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Did You Know Of Geek Pride Day?

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This is absolute geek culture. Despite being a self-proclaimed geek, I didn’t know of Geek Pride Day, which takes place on May 25. If there’s a day to feel proud to be a geek, this is it. Did you know of Geek Pride Day, and did you geek out this year? Click to enlarge. via SteadyRain


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Smartphones Do Everything Badly [We Ask You Results]

using-smartphone

Welcome to the future. A future in which your smartphone has replaced every other device that ever existed. And yet nothing is quite as good as it should be. “Yeah, that’ll do” is the new motto. We have replaced multiple things that do one thing well with one thing that does everything badly. The future is here, the future is now. Smartphones: Digital Swiss Army Knives We asked you, Have Smartphones Rendered Everything Obsolete? We received a fair amount of comments, and everyone who contributed to the debate had something useful to add to the discussion. Different commenters took the...


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How To Create Facebook Adverts That Convert [Weekly Facebook Tips]

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When a business creates a marketing campaign, they want it to be seen. When you set up Facebook adverts, you want people to click on them. How do you go about making sure your Facebook ads convert? It involves creating your adverts in Facebook’s Power Editor. How To Use The Facebook Power Editor If previously you’ve created your Facebook adverts using “Boost Post” or “Get more likes”, you’ve probably never seen the Power Editor. But the Power Editor lets you do advanced things, such as defining your placement. New features get rolled out to the Power Editor ahead of the...


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