10 Reasons You Can Never Have Enough Internet Bandwidth

When discussing computer performance, inevitably the term bandwidth will surface. In that context, bandwidth can refer to several rather different measures. In some cases, it means the amount of network capacity available to users. In other cases it refers to consumed capacity, as in the case of bandwidth caps. In any context, more bandwidth is always preferred, so there are plenty of reasons why you just can’t have enough of it. Here’s a list of ten such reasons:

Multimedia – Computers, and even mobile devices, have long outgrown the basic email/web surfing functions of decades past. Today’s users need far more bandwidth to do the tasks, and enjoy the entertainment that’s currently available.

Speed – The more bandwidth that a network has, the more data it is capable of carrying in a given period of time. That means the network will transfer data faster, which is something everyone wants.

Expansion – If you’ve got more bandwidth, you are better equipped to add users and/or devices on your network without any significant performance degradation. You won’t suffer from the typical bottle-necking that occurs when there isn’t enough to go around.

Population Density – By the same token, when your home network is on a shared network – as most internet connections will be – you’re sharing a finite amount of bandwidth with all other users who connect through your local ISP server.

Transferring Data – Since we’re transferring larger files up- and downstream (streaming videos, music files, movies), there is a greater need for bandwidth than before. Most of today’s apps need far more bandwidth in order to function well.

Throttling – Some ISP’s – notably satellite servers – will have bandwidth caps applied to their users in order to ensure that all users have access. These caps are known as FAP’s, or Fair Access Policies. When a user exceeds his allowed bandwidth maximum, his computer will experience the effects of throttling back the data transfer rate.

Connecting the World – The ITU, or International Telecommunication Union, an agency of the U.N., is working feverishly to “connect the unconnected by 2015”. Third world countries around the world are being brought into the digital age. With added users comes the need for additional bandwidth to carry the increased traffic.

Sites Crash – Every now and then, you’ll hear of a website crashing, because it was hit with more queries/visits than it was equipped to handle; or sites that are shut down for exceeding the amount of bandwidth they were allotted by their host server.

Apps – Anyone with an iPhone knows that apps are virtually breeding like rabbits somewhere between here and Silicone Valley. Companies are creating them by the minute, it seems, and they all take up both memory and bandwidth, as many of them run constantly in the background of the devices on which they’re installed.

Wireless/Wi-Fi – Now that so many computer users are operating more than one device, and going mobile, there is demand for internet in virtually every nook and cranny that people travel to or through. It’s no longer enough to just have connections at home, users increasingly expect an always-on, always-connected internet.

Reference: http://is.gd/QHNYls

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10 Lessons You Can Learn from a Pinterest Spammer

What do you think of when you think of spamming?  No, I’m not talking about the meat product that comes in a can, although I do kind of like that Spam.  You may think that a spammer sends a bunch of junk e-mail to your in-box, but what if I tell you there’s another kind?  A spammer who bombards social sites with information that leads to him making money.  Check out 10 lessons you can learn from a Pinterest Spammer. 

1. A Lot of money is being made: Spammers are making anywhere from $500-$2000 a day on Pinterest.  As they do more spamming their earnings grow.  No wonder they are interested in doing this.  If they kept this up for even a year they would make over a half a million dollars
2. It takes very little money to get started: No big investments are needed to do this.  You need to have a computer with a lot of bandwidth.  So you do need to have already purchased a decent computer and have excellent Internet service.  Other than that it’s all know-how.
3. Spammers use bots: I really had no idea that spammers use bots to do their ‘dirty’ work.  Apparently they have the knowledge to create a program that will pin photos onto Pinterest and note a link on that photo.
4. Not invitation only: When you go to www.pinterest.com you can look around at photos, but you can’t start pinning them to different boards until you become a user.  It says right up front that becoming a user is by “invitation only”.  The spammer tells that this is not true and that if you make a request from a valid e-mail address that you will get your invitation no matter what or you can invite yourself from a different e-mail account.
5. Easy to spot: If you spend enough time on Pinterest the bot postings are pretty easy to spot.  There’s a picture, but the words under it have nothing to do with what’s in the picture.   You’ll see a cute photo of puppies and the link will be for hand bags.  Unless you are making hand bags out of the puppies like Cruella Deville I don’t think the link really relates to the photo.
6. Pinterest not shutting spammer down: Out of the thousands of bots this spammer uses he’s only had one shut down.  His very first bot because he was posting too many photos.  He modified his approach and has had no more problems.  This seems surprising to even the spammer so why isn’t Pinterest shutting down his bots?
7. Money made through Amazon: There’s a long-time existing affiliate referral program through Amazon where they will pay a referral fee to you if you refer someone to their site who buys something.  By creating links to Amazon products this spammer gets people to buy stuff on Amazon and he gets the affiliate money from them.  You’d think they could track down anyone who is making a great deal of money from them and make sure they are not cheating the system.  This spammer is cheating Amazon.
8. Crowding out real posts: While this spammer doesn’t feel any guilt about how he’s making his living because he says he’s not hurting anyone.  He makes a point to say that he’s not uploading viruses or scamming anyone.  But he is hurting the intention of Pinterest.  When I go on to Pinterest I want to see real comments from real people.  I don’t want the site to fill up with fake stuff.
9. Artificially raising photos to popular: On Pinterest the more a photo gets pinned the more popular that it is deemed to be.  Makes sense right?  Wrong, this doesn’t work when bots are posting pictures from fake accounts and then pinning and repinning those same photos to increase their popularity so that they are more visible.  Yet another way that Pinterest could stop this spammer.  Putting in a simple fix that allows you to only pin a photo to 3 boards or something like that.
10. Always be alert: People will always try to make a buck the easiest way possible.  Some will not only cheat, but steal too.  If you don’t want to be a victim stay alert when you are on the web.  The number of scammers on the web is amazing and they would like to dupe you into giving them all your money.  Beware!

Reference: http://is.gd/TpUb5d

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Evernote Acquires Popular Handwriting App Penultimate

Evernote has acquired best-selling handwriting iPad app Penultimate. It is the fifth in a series of acquisitions that Evernote CEO Phil LIbin says will lead up to an IPO within the next few years. 

The $0.99 app, which allows users to take handwritten notes with a stylus or finger, has been downloaded more than 2 million times — making it the fourth most-popular paid iPad app.

After the acquisition, Penultimate will remain an independent brand in the iTunes store and a paid app. The “one-man shop” behind the app, Ben Zotto, will join Evernote and help expand handwriting features in its products.

Evernote’s first acquisition, image app Skitch, has also remained an independent app, but went from being paid to free when it was acquired. Evernote turned two other recent app acquisitions into Evernote Food and Instapaper-like Evernote Clearly, and a third will soon become an Evernote calendar app.

“Penultimate is the biggest acquisition in terms of revenue and users,” Libin says. “It’s the most mature company we have ever bought.”

The acquisition comes just four days after Evernote announced a $70 million round of funding that valued the company at $1 billion.

While Evernote already has more than 1 million paying customers, Libin says the funding makes it easier for the company to take risks such as acquiring Penultimate before going public.

“When you’re a small startup, you can’t take many risks other than the main risk you’re taking on the product,” he says. “When you’re a public company, it’s hard to take big risks because you’re public and have to respond to public in real-time. So this is the sweet spot for us is right now.”

Reference: http://is.gd/XocJBF

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Sparked Makes Volunteering Fun, Easy and Effective

Name: Sparked

Big Idea: Sparked is an online-only volunteer hub for people to donate their talents to non-profits, as well as an engagement tool for businesses to engage and incentivize employees to contribute to volunteer causes.

Why It’s Working: Users can donate expertise and skills instead of money, and make time commitments according to availability and interest level.

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In late 2010, Ben Rigby and Jacob Colker co-founded Sparked, a mobile app with the noble purpose of empowering non-profits. “We wanted to make volunteering fun and social,” Rigby says. But they noticed an interesting thing — nearly all the usage of their new app was happening between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. — during work hours.

So they pivoted, and recast Sparked.com as an online volunteer portal designed primarily to help companies mobilize their workforces for volunteer efforts. The site still connects non-profits with potential volunteers but makes money by letting companies such as Kraft Foods, LinkedIn and the U.S. State Department use its platform to help organize employees.

Here’s how Sparked works: Instead of pledging time, corporate volunteers donate time and skills to selected non-profits or other bodies in need of help. An editor can do some pro bono copywriting, for example, or a social media coordinator can donate Twitter expertise. Volunteers are matched to and able to find tasks by indicating areas of benevolent interest, such as at-risk youth, public health or animals. Tasks can be simple — for example, a graphic designer will be asked to suggest five website improvements for a struggling non-profit.

Intra-company standings and gamification rewards make volunteering into a competition and accelerate engagement. Skeptical that it can work? According to Rigby, companies that have signed on have experienced astronomical engagement boosts.

“Typical volunteering engagement for a corporation is around 8%,” he says. “We’re seeing participation rates up in the 50-80% range, just because it’s so simple. You can take 15 minutes or two hours and do it when it’s convenient to you.”

Sparked is supported by a combination of venture and angel funding, with investors including True Ventures and Kapor Capital. Rigby declined to provide revenue numbers, but says the company’s success so far indicates that business and charity aren’t mutually exclusive.

“We’re not Pinterest by any means,” he says. “But it’s going well.”

Would you volunteer more if your company made it easy?

reference: http://is.gd/z4tITW

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Google+ Releasing ‘Hangouts on Air’ Feature to All Users

Google+ on Monday announced it would gradually roll out its “Hangouts on Air” feature to the masses over the coming weeks. The feature lets you broadcast live sessions for anyone to watch — just like Barack Obama did in January.

Hangouts on Air can be posted on your Google+ stream, YouTube channel or website by checking “Enable Hangouts on Air.” It also allows you to monitor the number of views, record the live session and share it.

The feature previously was available only to a small group of broadcasters starting in 2011. Google touts the creative Hangouts those people have produced such as live concerts from a living room, classes anyone can attend, town halls with politicians and roundtables about any topic, among other sessions.

“So if you have something to say — as an aspiring artist, a global celebrity, or a concerned citizen — you can now go live in front of a global audience,” Google engineering director Chee Chew wrote in a blog post.

To learn more about Hangouts on Air, watch the videos above and below.

Reference:  http://is.gd/P1NIV0

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Warren Buffett Has No Interest in Buying Apple or Google Stock

Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, isn’t bullish on Apple or Google stock. However, he isn’t betting against them either. 

Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting over the weekend, the legendary investor said he had no interest in purchasing stock from either technology company, according to All Things Digital. However, Buffett said, “I sure as hell wouldn’t short them either.”

According to the report:

He thinks Apple and Google are too risky of an investment, and he doesn’t know enough about either company to see them as “inevitable” winners. “We couldn’t predict what would happen to Apple 10 years ago and we can’t predict what will happen to it 10 years from now,” Buffett said.

Last month, it was suggested that Apple and Google could soon join the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index. Both stocks are trading near or around $600 per share.

Do you agree with Buffett?

Reference: http://is.gd/ZBU8Ia

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8 Professional Tumblr Themes for Your Small Business

Unfortunately, when it comes to your small business website, image is everything. How you present your company on the digital sphere is important, and as we’ve learned recently, people are searching for the word “Tumblr” more than “blog.”

More and more brands have migrated to Tumblr. The micro-blogging site has become a more serious platform for brands — whether it’s to show brand character, offer a peek behind the scenes, just to keep customers up-to-date on the latest from their storefront.

Some may feel slightly overwhelmed at the thought of juggling so many social media sites — why add a Tumblr to the mix?

First, you should know that it can be done. Tumblr recently made sharing to Facebook easier by integrating with Timeline. That’s a helpful step in your social media management’s direction. Tumblr has carved a niche for itself in embracing a more graphic and design-oriented aesthetic, which is a plus for your company if you’re looking to distinguish yourself in a more meaningful way than you can through a generic Facebook Page.

You should also keep in mind that there are more than 50 million blogs on Tumblr. That is a lot of people who could be looking at your site.

The best place to start is simply setting up a Tumblr — or maybe you already have one. After that, selecting a theme will help your site stand apart and look more professional. The great thing is you don’t necessarily need to spend a ton on a graphic designer or purchase a premium theme, although both of these options most certainly have their perks.

Don’t have the budget or the patience for a custom theme? Here are plenty of great free themes to choose from in Tumblr’s theme garden. Try to go with one that works with your brand and the utility goals of the blog. For example, if you’re looking to inform customers about what’s happening within the company, you’d be better off with a classic blog format. However, if you’re looking for something more visual, a pin-board style theme might be a better option.

Still feeling a little in over your head? We’ve round up eight classic, professional themes for your small business on Tumblr so you can become cutting edge with a simple or bold design.

What theme do you use for your professional blog? Let us know in the comments below.

1. Simple Things

This theme is a basic option for a business owner who wants a simple site, but also desires a more modern look.

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2. Natural Elegance

By going with a darker background, text and images stand out, and your site looks sleek and contemporary. This site is used best when you're taking a graphical approach to your Tumblr.

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3. Simplify

The name of this theme says it all -- simple. This is a great option for a business owner who is just looking for the very basics.

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4. The Atlantic

This theme, stylized after popular news magazine The Atlantic, gives your site a newsy feel that's professional and customizable. It's a good option for businesses with more text-based posts, such as keeping customers up-to-date on the latest from your company.

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5. Art She Said

This theme has a nice italic font that makes text stand out, and its clean, classic look will make your business' site look pretty sharp.

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6. c/c/c/ theme

We really like how elegant this theme looks. It's classic, with a simple pretty font.

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7. Content Focus 1.1

What's great about this theme is the fact that it has more than 60 interchangeable options for its appearance. You can switch fonts, colors and layout to match your company's branding.

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8. Brickway

This theme lets you customize colors and the social buttons at the top give it a highly professional accent.

Reference:  http://is.gd/bTfauK

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10 Top Android Racing Games

Death Rally

Tired of opponents getting in the way in racing games? Blow them up! This game offers plenty of dangerous weaponry that you can use to deal with the opposition. Thankfully, you can earn money to armor up your vehicle, repair damage, and upgrade weapons. You know, so you can cause more mayhem.

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2XL MX Offroad

Motorbikes aren't just for trial racers. No, they're also for racing to the finish line against up to seven other racers. Motocross and ATV bikes are available, with tracks that allow riders to perform dangerous stunts in the air.

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Acceler8

Dirt and sand are the racing terrains of choice here. Off-road vehicles jockey for position around twisty tracks, where the blinding sun proves to be just as much of a challenge as the other racers. You can earn money to buy better vehicles, which makes surviving easier.

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GT Racing Motor Academy

Start a career and race for fame, money, and better cars in this free racing simulation. Tired of beating computer opponents? Take the battle online against other players.

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Parking Frenzy

Ever notice that most racing games just end with cars stopped in the middle of the track? Here's a game where that's just not allowed. Players must try to park cars in difficult spots. Players are rewarded for not hitting any obstacles and for completing the challenge quickly.

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Trial Xtreme 2

Take dirt bikes through challenges they were probably never meant to handle in this trial racer. The gist is that an improperly-armored rider must remain on his bike as he rides across ramps, rocks, and through structures. The ultimate goal is to collect stars in each level, get to the finish line quickly, and perform flips to earn more points.

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Pocket Racing

This retro-inspired top-down racing game has players trying to race time trials around six tracks. Staying on the road is important, as there's a time penalty for going off-track. The game features downloadable ghosts that you can race against. That means you can play the best players in the world any time.

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Raging Thunder 2

This is old-school arcade-style racing in a modern package. It's all about drafting and picking up turbo boosts to zoom past opponents. (If you're braking, you're doing something wrong.) Best of all, the game has a no-nonsense "instant race" function that picks a car and track automatically, then starts up a race.

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Reckless Racing 2

This isometric racing game features players racing around dirt and road tracks. The game's physics system can be a challenge to deal with, but that’s also part of the fun. It also features a cross-platform online multi-player option and some of the best touch screen controls ever.

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Snuggle Truck

In this game, inspired by trial racers, players must try to keep their stuffed animals in their truck, as they race across hazardous terrain. There are medals for completing levels in a certain amount of time with a certain number of animals. On Android, the game is available in both this family-friendly version, and in its original, more controversial Smuggle Truck version.

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Whether you feel the need for speed or the desire to run your fellow drivers off the road, I won’t judge. I will, however, suggest you redirect that energy into one of these Android racing games.

These games run the gamut of racing styles, but they all have the same basic goal: Get to that finish line as quickly as possible! So pick a game, rev that engine, and get going.

Reference: http://is.gd/r53Eh4

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Interactive Billboard Lets You ‘Drag Away’ Abusive Man [VIDEO]

An interactive billboard in London is making it easy for passersby to get involved in stopping domestic violence.

The ad, at the city’s Euston Station, shows a man yelling angrily at a woman. A prompt on the billboard tells viewers to go to /ncdv.org.uk/stop to drag the man away. As the video above shows, when you go to the site, you can actually do so, albeit for a short time.

The National Centre for Domestic Violence, the organization behind this latest effort, isn’t the first to try to do something different with London billboards. Last year, Lynx, the Unilever antiperspirant brand, used an ad in Victoria station to let users see — via augmented reality — angels from the brand’s ads falling from the sky.

Reference: http://is.gd/tvjDOV

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The Government Would Like You to Write a ‘Social Media Will’

By some estimates, nearly a half a million people with Facebook accounts passed away last year, leaving family and friends to navigate what to do with those pages. Leave the account open? Shut it down entirely? Convert it to an official Facebook memorial page? What would you want for your own Facebook profile? And forget Facebook, what do you want tobecome of your email account? 

If you want any say in such matters, you might want to consider creating a social-media will, as the US government is now recommending as part of its advice on estate planning. As per their blog:

If you have social media profiles set up online, you should create a statement of how you would like your online identity to be handled. Just like a traditional will helps your survivors handle your physical belongings, a social media will spells out how you want your online identity to be handled.

Like with a traditional will, you’ll need to appoint someone you trust as an online executor. This person will be responsible for closing your email addresses, social media profiles, and blogs after you are deceased.

Sounds good, but legally it’s tricky territory. As Naomi Cahn, a professor of law at George Washington University, explained to me, “Formal wills become public. So you need to be careful what you put in a will, because anyone in the world could have access to it.” Instead, you might want to consider establishing a trust or just an informal agreement with information about your passwords and how you would like your accounts to be handled.

A further complication is that people’s social-media and other online accounts are not static, nor are their passwords. Cahn says that the average person has 25 password-protected accounts and types about eight passwords a day. Most people will likely not be able to keep their “social-media wills” up to date on that many accounts.

Planning for the care of your online trail post-mortem presents different issues than planning for money and physical objects. In part this is because our legal regimes and social norms are less solidified in these areas, and, in part because they are actually different animals: A Facebook account can become a participatory memorial that many friends and family can return to over the years, in a way that’s not true of your physical belongings. But despite their differences — or, perhaps, because of them — they each require their own plans for after you go.

Reference:  http://is.gd/VmWwHq

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Lenovo to Spend $800M to Develop Mobile Products

Lenovo, best known for its PCs, plans to get into mobile in a big way with an $800 million base in Wuhan, China, dedicated to developing mobile Internet products. 

The facility, set to open in October 2013 and house thousands of employees, is charged with developing and delivering “new mobile internet products and bring(ing) them to its customers even faster,” according to a company statement. Such products include smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices.

The move comes as Lenovo continues to build market share in PCs, a tough segment. Last year, Lenovo surpassed Dell in sales to become the world’s number two player in the category next to Hewlett-Packard.

Lenovo currently offered some mobile devices, including its LePhone smartphones and its ThinkPad tablets (pictured). In the last fiscal quarter, the company shipped 6.5 million handsets and 400,000 tablets globally. Lenovo blamed its relatively slow growth in PC sales in 2011 to the growth of tablets, led by Apple’s iPad. Lenovo was the number two seller of tablets in China last year next to Apple.

Could Lenovo shake up the mobile market? Let me know in the comments.

Reference:  http://is.gd/nNe4di

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