22 January 2014

5 Tools To Help You Make The Most Of Your Rewards Accounts



rewards-programs

Many companies offer rewards programs — not just airlines, but also gas stations, rental car companies, pharmacies, grocery stores, and coffee shops, just to name a few. In recent years, more and more companies have been jumping on the rewards bandwagon as a way to retain customers, generate loyalty, and gather information on your spending habits. It’s easy to sign up for all of these programs, but it can be difficult to keep track of them all. Do you know how many Delta miles you have? What about Hertz points? Are you at the Gold level at Starbucks yet? If...


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Coursera Launches Specialized Vocational Programs For Continuing Learners



coursera

Coursera has brought out “Specializations“. Diverging from the single-course track, Specializations are more focused multi-course series built around popular topics like Data Science, Cybersecurity, Android Development, and Foundations of Teaching. These specialized programs will be acknowledged by participating institutes with a Specialization Certificate on successful completion. The Specializations will mirror real-world requirements by enforcing a unique capstone project or exam before students are awarded a Specialization Certificate. Coursera is launching ten courses in the first salvo. Mobile Cloud Computing with Android (from Vanderbilt and the University of Maryland) and Reasoning, Data Analysis and Writing (from Duke University) are the two...


Read the full article: Coursera Launches Specialized Vocational Programs For Continuing Learners



Which Operating System Should You Choose For Your Next PC



pc-os

Buying a new PC? You have more operating system choices than ever. Windows is still popular, but Macs are now surprisingly affordable compared to higher-end Windows PCs. Google also offers Chromebooks that are simple and cheap, and Linux laptops are an option, too. You could even use an Android tablet or iPad with a keyboard as a laptop replacement. But which should you choose when it’s time to buy a new computer? We’ll give you an overview of all your choices, along with their advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a spoiler: There’s no one best option for everyone. Windows You probably...


Read the full article: Which Operating System Should You Choose For Your Next PC



Which Operating System Should You Choose For Your Next PC



pc-os

Buying a new PC? You have more operating system choices than ever. Windows is still popular, but Macs are now surprisingly affordable compared to higher-end Windows PCs. Google also offers Chromebooks that are simple and cheap, and Linux laptops are an option, too. You could even use an Android tablet or iPad with a keyboard as a laptop replacement. But which should you choose when it’s time to buy a new computer? We’ll give you an overview of all your choices, along with their advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a spoiler: There’s no one best option for everyone. Windows You probably...


Read the full article: Which Operating System Should You Choose For Your Next PC



Make Memes On The Go With Imgur’s New MemeGen App



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Last Summer Imgur, the most-used image hosting service on Reddit, launched a meme generator for the web, making it easy for users to create and host images in one place. Now, it is bringing that service to iOS with the launch of its dedicated MemeGen app. Users can now waste time making memes whether at home or on the go. The app is very simple, allowing users to simply choose their meme from the massive list, and add the text that overlays on top of said image. There is also a search feature that allows you to search for specific...


Read the full article: Make Memes On The Go With Imgur’s New MemeGen App



Useful Regular Expressions for your Google Forms



Your organization has a few vacant positions and you are planning to use the Google Forms service to prepare a pre-interview questionnaire for job applicants. You have created a form and it has all the standard fields where candidates can enter their name, email address, website URL, phone number, zip code and other essential details.


The form is ready for publishing online but before you make it live, how would you ensure that candidates have entered data in the correct format? And even if the format is proper, is the data itself valid? Can you add a CAPTCHA to Google forms to prevent spam bots? Can you include a profanity filter to block people from submitting entries that include obscene words?


When you are expecting dozens, or even hundreds, of responses in your Google Forms, it is always a good idea to have some rules in place and respondents data should be matched against these rules even before they submit the form. For instance, if your form is asking for a person’s year of birth, they should only be allowed to enter a number between 1900 and 2014.


Advanced data validation in Google Forms using RegEx (regular expressions)

Advanced data validation in Google Forms using RegEx (regular expressions)



Regular Expressions in Google Forms


Google Forms makes it relatively easy to add such advanced date validation rules to individual fields through Regular Expressions (or regex or regexp). Think of them as search patterns and every character entered in a form field is matched against that pattern – the form can only be submitted if the patter and the user-input matches.


Let’s understand this with a real-world example.


Say your Google form expects the user to enter their year of birth. At the time of designing the form, expand the “Data Validation” section below the form field (see screenshot above) and choose Regular Expression from the drop-down. Next select “Matches” in the other drop-down and enter ^(19\d{2}|20[0-1]\d)$ in the input field. The field will now accept input value like 1920, 2010 but would reject other values that fall outside the range.


Regular Expressions for Common Form Fields


A regular expression may appear gibberish but they aren’t so difficult to read and understand if you can know the basic rules of the language. What you see here is a compilation of some useful regular expressions that can be used to validate common form fields like URLs, phone numbers, zip codes, dates, etc.


1. Postal Address – allow only alphanumeric characters, spaces and few other characters like comma, period and hash symbol in the form input field.



[a-zA-Z\d\s\-\,\#\.\+]+

2. ZIP Code – the regex allows ZIP codes in standard formats and it matches both US and Indian pincodes.



^\d{5,6}(?:[-\s]\d{4})?$

3. Date – accept date input in the mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy formats.



((0[1-9])|(1[0-2]))[\/-]((0[1-9])|(1[0-9])|(2[0-9])|(3[0-1]))[\/-](\d{4})

Also see: Get Google Form Data by Email


4. Email Address – the regex below should match most common email address formats, including Gmail aliases that accept the “+” sign but there’s no perfect solution.



[a-zA-Z0-9_\.\+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9-\.]+

5. URL (Web domain) – this is useful for fields that require the user to enter their website address and it even matches the upcoming TLDs like .directory or .restaurant. The other regex matches YouTube URL including those using the youtu.be domains.



https?\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}
https?\:\/\/(www\.)?youtu(\.)?be(\.com)?\/.*(\?v=|\/v\/)?[a-zA-Z0-9_\-]+

6. Character Limit – the default text box in a Google form allows users to input any number of characters but you can impose a limit with the help of regular expression. Here we limit the input to 140 characters much like Twitter.



[\w]{1,140}

7. Phone Numbers – these are often a series of numbers preceded by an optional “+” sign and the area code may be inside brackets.



\+?\(?\d{2,4}\)?[\d\s-]{3,}

8. Price (with decimal) – if a form field requires users to enter a price of an item in their own currency, this regex will help. Replace the $ sign with your own currency symbol.



\$?\d{1,3}(,?\d{3})*(\.\d{1,2})?

9. Complex Password – only accept a string that has 1 uppercase alphabet, 1 lowercase alphabet, 2 digits and 1 special character. Also the minimum allowed length is 8 characters.



(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[0-9].*[0-9])(?=.*[^a-zA-Z0-9]).{8,}

10. CAPTCHA – Google forms do not offer CAPTCHAs but you can create one using regex. Here’s a simple captcha that requires users to answer a simple question – what is 2+2?



^(4|[Ff][Oo][Uu][Rr])$

Also see: Regular Expressions for Gmail Search




This story, Useful Regular Expressions for your Google Forms, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 22/01/2014 under Google Forms, Internet

Google Glass Movies, Android Malware, LogMeIn Logs Out [Tech News Digest]



fbi-agents-mulder-scully

Today in Tech News Digest, the FBI doesn’t want you Glassing in movie theaters, Beats Music launches, Android malware is on the rise, Music Timeline reveals changing tastes, LogMeIn goes pay-only, and Spotify steals our hearts. Google Glass At The Movies This sentence horrifies me for many reasons: “The MPAA then contacted Homeland Security, which oversees movie theft.” http://t.co/9qniid3Dfa — Ali Sternburg (@alisternburg) January 21, 2014 If the experience of one man in Ohio is anything to go by, Google Glass is likely to be banned from movie theaters. The unnamed man was, according to his account on The Gadgeteer...


Read the full article: Google Glass Movies, Android Malware, LogMeIn Logs Out [Tech News Digest]



Online Reviews Are Useful, With Common Sense Applied [We Ask You Results]



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A huge number of websites now offer reviews, written by both professionals and ordinary folk, on everything you can imagine. You yourself may even have contributed a review of something you love, hate, or are indifferent towards at some point. But what does the MakeUseOf readership think about online reviews? This was the subject of last week’s We Ask You discussion, the results of which are presented below for your reading pleasure. Opinions About Opinions We asked, Do You Value Online Reviews? We had a great response to the question, with dozens of you considering us worthy of a little...


Read the full article: Online Reviews Are Useful, With Common Sense Applied [We Ask You Results]