All posts by Mirza Farrukh Baig

Facebook, Google +, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest: Any of Them, All of Them, or None of Them?

You are a business owner – no matter of what capacity, in which domain, and in which geography. To reap profit out of your investment, you need to be in the Internet and be connected to your customers. The connection has to be effortless, however stronger than your competitors. No doubt, you have put the best content in your website and have got your website created by the finest business website builder, or have tied up with the best mobile advertising company, still maybe you have to strategize a bit more. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems to be half the job done, until you integrate it with Social Media Optimization (SMO).

 

However, you are certainly in a flood. In the online arena, new inventions become a common practice within very little time. When you look for social media to put yourself and your business, you get some tens of options. Facebook, Google +, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest … and the count is goes on. So, which one or two, or all should you pick from the choice? This becomes an obvious question.

 

The performance in social media sites is not uniform for two businesses of same capacity operating in the same domain so that one company’s practice can be set as a standard for all others. Here are some supplementary ideas that will boost your decision-making and channelize you though and efforts.

 

Make a To-Do List – Define Your Objective

Ask yourself what you want to achieve with social media. This is the first, but the most important aspect. Many businesses just roam around social networking sites aimlessly just because they do not have a set of well-defined objectives.

 

Be in the League

Be very close to your customer group. This is the next important aspect in SMO. Identify the users, user groups, clubs of which your customers have membership. Participate in group activities and let your presence be felt there; however, without much penetration.

 

Get Out Sometimes and Play

At times, you may not find a suitable platform in the social sites where the information you share is listened to and discussed. This is actually aimless target. In such a scenario, just get out and find a specialized site where you can breath and the pulse of your business is heard. There are certain industry specific social platforms aka niche sites which you must check out for and participate. Here your opportunity as an authority in the industry is respected. In addition, you get the outlook of what is running around.

 

Social People are More MOBILE

Smartphones and mobile devices are like favorite playgrounds for social creatures. People connect, share, chat on the move. Embrace all such social apps which are mobile-friendly. Once your customers get accustomed with the product and start liking it, you do not sell within a limited business hour. Anytime is right time for you to sell.

So, it is not a restricted choice alone. Just do not be limited to Facebook, Google +, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest. Find out your avenues. It is not again a thumb rule to chose only one, two, or all or none. Whatever it is, it is definitely the choice of your own.

PC is definitely Live and Kicking in the Growing Economies

The present and future of the PC market is under a great uncertainty. In one-week hundred reports claiming downward trend in PC sell is all of a sudden counter attacked by the news of steady and even flourishing business in the other. Many experts and numerous tech magazines are predicting a nearly dying PC market in the coming years. Reasons shown to be responsible are many; including – growing fashion of a variety of mobile devices, the spreading culture of BYOD, ever increasing popularity of the ebooks and similar. However, good news for the PC manufacturers has yet again hit the growing economies like India.

 

Year-on-year the regular PC shipment in India in the first quarter (Q1 2013) is reported to be at a higher side by nearly 3%. Though the PC business has witnessed a relatively discouraging phase in the past couple of quarters, finally good hope has arrived.

 

It is a matter of fact that growing economies like India cannot imagine of operating in a corporate environment without PCs. Government, Banking and Financial sector, and the biggest IT/ITES industry is a regular consumer of the PCs. This is not only prevalent in the growing economies; rather, most advanced nations also share the same hardware ecosystem for a smooth and efficient functioning.

At the present scenario, PC sell may have hit, which is due to the following reasons –

 

High-End Mobile Devices:

Mobile devices of this age are more capable than a PC. Storage capacity up to 256 GB with extendable external slot, 2 GB RAM, 2.76 GHz processor; all seem to be specification of a standard PC. However, this has become a common hardware specification of a high-end mobile device. Undoubtedly, such a smartphone or mobile device can do everything that a PC does.

 

Slow Conversion to Windows 8:

Many organizations have recently finished their conversion from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7. At the other hand, Windows 8 has failed to remarkably put any strong impact so that corporate will readily swift to Windows 8. However, to get the complete feel of the metro environment, Windows 8 required compatible hardware specifications. This is why PC sell has not see that stiff growth even after a long time Windows 8 is launched.

 

 

End of XP Support Planned by Microsoft:

Microsoft has announced end of XP support by next year. This news was expected to have added to more and more Windows 8 conversions, resulting in more the PC sell; however, apparent failure of Windows 8 did not help the prediction.

Irrespective of such strong facts arguing for a slower PC sale, unexpectedly, the PC market has witnessed a steady rise in the business in the growing world. Players such as hp, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba are enjoying a good share of their market coverage.

However strong, the trend of mobile devices will grip up; PCs are inherent part of business and life as usual. The coming time will only be the decider, where PCs are going to completely vanish or will stay alive.

Depositphotos Exclusive Vector Collection Lightbox

Since founded in 2009, Depositphotos has become one of the most popular stock photos agencies on the internet. Showing healthy development, this site has more than 14 million files in their library and more than 1 million users who constantly access the site for buying and selling stock files. Moreover, Depositphotos provides them with varied stock files such as, photos, vectors, and videos.

 

Everything is easy in Depositphotos. You can explore the site flawlessly thanks to user friendly interface and clear navigation system. There is also lightbox system which allows users or buyers to save their preferred stock files in their own favorite list to be downloaded now or later. In addition, Depositphotos also often offers their exclusive lightbox (collection) with special prices and discounts. One of examples is the exclusive vector collection lightbox.

 

In this lightbox, or can be said vector collection, you can browse high quality 4395 vector images. All of them available with free royalty and cheap price, and even some of these vectors are free to be downloaded, like the vector image below.

 

 

 

Pencil on paper from Depositphotos.com

You can have that neat vector illustration at no cost. All you have to do is to have an account in this site, so if you are new, you can start to register which is also for free.

The theme for the vector images included in this lightbox is varied. You can find so much interesting images in form of abstract, background, illustration, logo, sign, texture, background, and many more. All of these images displayed in this lightbox are well selected, looking on how attractive and good looking they are. One of the vector images example can be seen below.

Colorful Advertising Stickers from Depositphotos.com

How to Buy

To get those awesome vector images, first of course you must register. Just like the other microstock sites, Depositphotos also use subscription and credit method for buying files. Under this site’s subscription plan, you are given a number of download per day, which can range from 5 until 200 files per day. Subscription plan is limited by time from 1 month to 1 year. Meanwhile, you can also use credits to shop here which will give more time and flexibility, as this payment type can be used over time up to one year. You can buy minimum 50 credits, and it is up to you when you want to start shopping. There is no limit for the maximum credits number, because you can input it by yourself. As for credit, there are various prices which will cost specific amount of credits based on the quality of the file chosen.

Samsung GALAXY S4: They call it Your Life Companion

It’s just been one and a half week, since the all new Samsung GALAXY S4 is roaming around the market. The successor of GALAXY S III and the most recent entrant in the world of smartphones, the Samsung GALAXY S4 has started making sensations long before its announcement.

Gaming, group calling, making business phone call or video conferencing, photography and video creation, getting more social with Samsung GALAXY S4 is an altogether new experience. Let us picture out some of the best features of GALAXY S4.

 

Bright, Crystal Clear Display

The display of GALAXY S4 is impressive. The 5 inch (130 mm) big screen is Pentile RGBG Full HD Super AMOLED with 441 pixels per inch (1920×1080) Corning Gorilla Glass. The display technology in Samsung smartphones is the best part it.

 

Smart Scroll & Smart Pause

Samsung has implemented the eye tracking technology in this phone to bring in these features. The content can be scrolled by looking at the screen and tilting the phone slightly. The Smart pause technology automatically brings the running video into pause, if the viewer is not looking at the movie.

 

13 MP Rear Camera

The rear camera of S4 has a 13 megapixels lense capable of 1080p Full HD Video Recording at a rate of 30 frames per second. There are impressive features, such as ‘Touch to Focus’, ‘Auto Focus’, and ‘Digital Image Stabilization’. ‘Smile Detection, ‘Face Reorganization’, ‘Panorama mode’, ‘High Dynamic Range mode (HDR)’, and many more. The front camera is also not less. There is 2 MP front camera with full HD recording at 30 frames per second.

 

Network Compatibility

S4 offers compatibility with 2.5G, 3G, and 4G networks, depending on the markets. Here are more details:

  • 2.5G – Supports GSM, GPRS, EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
  • 3G – HSPA+ (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
  • 4G – LTE (700, 800, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2600 MHz)

 

Processor

The phone comes in two variants: Quad-core and Octa-core. These two variants differ internally. The Quad-core variant is based on the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 System on a Chip (SoC) with a quad-core 1.9 GHz Krait 300 CPU along with an Adreno 320 GPU. Octa-core variant is using the Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa (Octal-core) SoC with the first ARM big.LITTLE heterogeneous architecture CPU, a 1.6 GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 cluster, and 1.2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 cluster.

 

Memory & OS

GALAXY S4 comes with 2 GB Ram, sufficient to ensure smooth running of application in a multi-tasking environment. The phone is available in 16 /32 / 64 GB fixed memory options with expandable microSD slot up to 64 GB. You will love its Android 4.2.2 (Jelly bean) experience for even faster processing.

Samsung GALAXY S4 is an ultra modern smartphone with all commendable features. With so many of features, it is desirable to have included 2600 mAh Li-ion battery with optional Qi Wireless charging. Definitely, the best of the technology, GALAXY S 4 will serve as an all-on-one mobile device for the people who love to be multi-tasking, fast-moving, and fun-loving. Try this out today.

An Exhaustive List of Most Popular Free Photo Sharing Sites

Getting that few moments of fame on the Internet is a desired by most of the netizens. Be it on YouTube or any popular image sharing website, we want our videos or photos to remain at the top. Here are some of the free photo sharing websites, which have become very popular among the users recently.

 

Flickr

With a huge user base of 51 million registered members, Flickr is undoubtedly among the top in the list. The popularity of the site is also supported by its 80 million unique visitors uploading quality photos and videos daily. To get more personal and ensure all-time availability to its mobile users, Flickr has also launched mobile app for iOS, Windows phones, and Android smartphones.

 

Snapfish

Snapfish is a photo sharing and online printing initiative by Hewlett-Packard. Registration to the site is completely free. Users can only pay per download. The site has amazing integration to the popular social media sites, like Facebook, MySpace, and Blogger. Snapfish has an excess of 90,000,000 registered users.

 

Picasa

One important and consistent name in the list is Picasa. An initiative of Google, Picasa image organizer, image viewer, and digital image editor, the site offers amazing compatibility across different operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, and Linux with impressive photo backup feature.

 

Pinterest

Pinterest has a unique style of photo sharing offer. The site enables the users to pin-board their images. Launched in March 2010, the site has remarkable attracted 11,700,000 registered users so far. Along with free accounts, Pinterest also invites users to create business accounts and open business pages allowing them to promote their business online.

 

Photobucket

Photobucket is the default image sharing platform for Twitter. The site is a top-notched image and video hosting website and also an online community with more than 100 million registered members, uploading more than four million photos and videos daily. Photobucket offers 2GB of storage space and 10 GB of bandwidth for sharing.

 

Smile by Webshots

Smile by Webshots is one of the oldest entrants in this list that came into being in 1995. Operating under brand name ‘Smile’, the site is the best example of a cloud based photo and video management and sharing platform. The services are completely free of cost for the users during the transition period.

 

500px (Five Hundred Pixels)

500px aka Five Hundred Pixels came in to existence in 2003. In last 3 years the website grew from a mere 1000 users to 1,500,000 users. The site gives ratings to the photos in terms of ‘Pulses’ and allows all the users a fair chance to bring their uploads the main page of the site.

 

The list of impressive photo and video sharing sites is growing day by day. More and more new entrants are coming to market everyday with their innovative offerings. However, at the backend, every site is supported by a robust web hosting, especially speaking, image hosting set up. Website development and web hosting has reached to it ultimate height where unique and innovative style of image and video uploading sites are coming for users’ delight.

Valentines Infographic

Valentine day is coming this February 14th 2013 and everyone must have been thinking to give flowers or gifts to their families and loved ones. So why not have this calculations of infographic.

 

McLaren MP4-12C

As name suggest McLaren MP4-12C is sport car built by McLaren Automotive. I can say this is super sport car which will not kill you even you are not a racing car driver. It has twin turbo charged V8 engine and to some car expert V8 is polar bear engine. This engine has very low noise that why it is call polar bear engine. The most exciting thing is the aerodynamic design which is wholly design and built by McLaren.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tallest Clock Tower of the World – Makkah Royal Clock Tower

The Abraj Al-Bait Towers

The Abraj Al-Bait Towers also known as the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower breaks several world records in the construction world, including: the tallest hotel in the world, constructed with the tallest clock tower in the world and displaying the world’s largest clock face, the world’s largest building floor area, and is the second tallest building in the world upon completion, surpassed only by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

 

Kaba view from clock tower
Kaba view from clock tower