02 August 2013

6 Best Netvibes Widgets For Bloggers And Journalists



netvibes_widgets

Through the years, we’ve always had an interest in good Internet start pages here at MakeUseOf. Of course, one of the most popular and well-used start pages, iGoogle, has been sacrificed by Google. This provided Netvibes with a surge of new users and of course even greater interest here at MUO. We’ve offered interesting ways to to use Netvibes to do things like manage your life, or use it as a feed reader. The growing volume of widgets and tools that are available on Netvibes makes it a useful tool for all sorts of great things. One of the uses...


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Moto X: All About User Experience



After so much hype, many people were disappointed to see Motorola's first phone influenced by Google. Motorola was acquired by Google two years ago for $12.5 billion, but the real reason why Google bought Motorola wasn't clear. Motorola's patents weren't that useful, Motorola's market share is declining and the company continues to lose money every quarter.












source: Wired



Moto X is supposed to be Motorola's "hero" device, the flagship that shows the new direction of the company. More than 70 Google employees work at Motorola: from Motorola's new CEO, Dennis Woodside, to Steve Horowitz, Motorola's head of software and one of the original members of the Android team. "Nobody's buying products because of minor incremental improvements to Android. So let's rely on what the Android team does and build experiences that will leverage Google services," says Steve Horowitz.



Motorola's phones now use tweaked version of the stock Android. There are some changes, some new apps and some new versions of the stock apps, but they're added on top of the stock Android, so you'll see faster updates. Motorola not only uses Google's Android software, but it tries to create hardware that makes it easy to use Google's software and enhances its features.



Moto X is assembled in the US, in a former Nokia factory. "Motorola placed its entire assembly operation for the X in Fort Worth, Texas. Components come from 16 states and countries around the world, but 2,000 or so workers assemble the phones in Texas and ship them all over America," informs The Verge. Phones are personalized using an online service called Moto Maker, which lets you select the color of the backplate, the front and of the volume buttons, add a signature, pick some matching headphones and make the phone your own. In the future, you'll also be able to pick a different material: wood instead of plastic. At launch, Moto Maker will be limited to AT&T. Motorola will open it to the other US carriers in the near future: Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular.






"When a car company allows you to choose your interior details or Nike allows you to design your own shoes, it creates what Moto X head product manager Lior Ron calls 'the Ikea effect.' 'Once you finish assembling it, you're emotionally attached to that furniture,' Ron says. 'It's now yours. We see the same attachment here. You've basically gone through the process to build your phone - you are now emotionally attached to that phone.'"



The phone uses two low-power processors that are used by Moto X's most important features. Moto X is always listening, so you can say "ok google now" and then ask something. It's called touchless control and it always you to use your phone without having to touch it. The hotword feature is available in the Google Search app, but Moto X's hardware makes it more useful because you don't have to interact with the device first. There's also a gesture that quickly launches the camera app: just shake your wrist.









Moto X always shows the time and some notification icons. This feature works well because the phone has an AMOLED screen and black pixels are unlit, saving power.



So why are people disappointed? The phone doesn't have great specs: a 4.7-inch 720p AMOLED display, a dual-core Snapdragon S4 Pro 1.7GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, 2200 mAh battery, 10 MP camera. So last year, you might say. A mid-range phone that costs the same as Samsung's Galaxy S4 or HTC One ($200 on contract for the 16GB version)? Non-removable battery and no SD card?



"We could go and make a higher-resolution screen, but it would just suck battery and nobody would know the difference," says Motorola's Jim Wicks. Most likely, Motorola couldn't source from Samsung a 1080p AMOLED screen and the 720p display was good enough. The dual-core CPU is cheaper, improves battery life and has a similar performance with the quad-core S4 Pro. It uses the same GPU from Nexus 4 and the new Nexus 7 and that's great. A phone is not about raw power, it's about responsiveness, battery life, ease of use. Most of the time, that raw power is left unused. Phones are more about GPU than CPU because responsiveness is more important than performance.



Moto X is not about specs, it's about experience and that's a lesson from the Apple school of thought. Specs are great, but only if they're actually used to build a great experience. A 400+ PPI 1080p screen and a quad-core CPU have their drawbacks and they're probably overkill. Apple's products don't use them, but they work well and are often more responsive than Android devices. The secret is probably software optimization and the integration between hardware and software.



"We've done additional optimizations on top of that such as optimizing the entire Linux user space to move it to an ARM instruction set, cache optimization, Dalvik just-in-time optimization, and we've changed the file system. It's full hardware-software integration to deliver best-in-class performance," says Iqbal Arshad, Motorola's senior vice president of engineering.



It's more about a high-end experience than high-end specs and that's hard to measure. People read the specs and assume that the phone with the fastest processor is the best one, but that's not always true. It's also about tricks that make the device appear more responsive than it really is, tricks that conserve battery, animations that make the experience more pleasant, squeezing every bit of performance from the hardware.



Moto X tries win the specs wars by ignoring it and focusing on something else: the human factor. Patriotism, esthetics, customization, efficiency - all of these try to make the phone more appealing. It's a new Motorola and they're just getting started.






"The Moto X will go on sale in the United States at the end of August or the beginning of September for a suggested retail price of $199.99 to customers who sign a two-year contract at five of the biggest U.S. mobile network operators," informs Reuters.

Flipboard Now Offers Web Based Magazines [Updates]



usingflipboard

Flipboard, the popular social magazine app for mobile users, announced on July 23rd that its socially curated magazines are now available via the web, accessible from any desktop PC. Flipboard users are able to create virtual magazines by sharing collections of articles and content from around the web. Up until now, after creating a Flipboard magazine covering any topic imaginable, those Flipboard curators were only able to share those magazines with other mobile users. Now, anyone can read Flipboard magazines that are published to the web by mobile users. The content of these online magazines cover everything from health and...


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How To Hide Macintosh HD (Partition) In Windows



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Many Mac users have installed Windows on their Macs with the help of Boot Camp Assistant software from Apple to get access to games and software that are exclusively available for Windows. Users who have installed recent versions of Windows on Mac via Boot Camp probably have noticed that Macintosh drive appears in Windows Explorer [...]

Try A Visual Shopping Wishlist With Wantworthy



wishlist

Today’s web apps and extensions seem to have finally cottoned on to the idea that pictures are extremely useful when it comes to creativity and desirability. I guess we have the likes of Pinterest and Tumblr to thank for that. A collection of images manages to express so much in a quick viewing. It gives a great overview to the sorts of things that appeal to the collector, and makes you wonder if you like the item yourself. However, in order to have people make a beautiful collection of images, we need to ensure it’s easy for them to do...


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4 Vital System Tools Every Windows User Should Know About



windows-tools

Not sure why your computer keeps crashing? Investigate – all while getting to know your Windows system better – using built-in tools that come with Windows. If you’ve been afraid to poke around your system and figure out how to maintain it, don’t fear: it’s simpler than you think. There are plenty of articles on this very site pointing out third-party tools for maintaining your Windows system. What we occasionally overlook, however, are the tools Windows provides out of the box for doing the same things. Sure, they may be less feature-filled than some of the downloadable options – but...


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Use Google Search as an Online Timer



Learn about a simple search command that will let you use Google as an online timer to help you remind of any upcoming tasks.



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Digital Inspiration @labnol This story, Use Google Search as an Online Timer, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 01/08/2013 under Google, Internet.



The LinkedIn Connections You Don’t Want — How Marketers Target You



linkedin

Before the days of the Internet, most marketers were stuck using the tried and true vehicles for obtaining business or sales leads. They turned to things like cold-calling over the phone, sending out mass mailings, and other efforts to reach as much people with as little effort as possible. With the advent of the Internet, and particularly social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, Marketers now have a whole toolbox full of tricks to convert you into a buying customer. The reality for most people on social networks is that they want to spend time connecting with others, having meaningful...


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