13 April 2019

Spy on your smart home with this open source research tool


Researchers at Princeton University have built a web app that lets you (and them) spy on your smart home devices to see what they’re up to.

The open source tool, called IoT Inspector, is available for download here. (Currently it’s Mac OS only, with a wait list for Windows or Linux.)

In a blog about the effort the researchers write that their aim is to offer a simple tool for consumers to analyze the network traffic of their Internet connected gizmos. The basic idea is to help people see whether devices such as smart speakers or wi-fi enabled robot vacuum cleaners are sharing their data with third parties. (Or indeed how much snitching their gadgets are doing.)

Testing the IoT Inspector tool in their lab the researchers say they found a Chromecast device constantly contacting Google’s servers even when not in active use.

A Geeni smart bulb was also found to be constantly communicating with the cloud — sending/receiving traffic via a URL (tuyaus.com) that’s operated by a China-based company with a platform which controls IoT devices.

There are other ways to track devices like this — such as setting up a wireless hotspot to sniff IoT traffic using a packet analyzer like WireShark. But the level of technical expertise required makes them difficult for plenty of consumers.

Whereas the researchers say their web app doesn’t require any special hardware or complicated set-up so it sounds easier than trying to go packet sniffing your devices yourself. (Gizmodo, which got an early look at the tool, describes it as “incredibly easy to install and use”.)

One wrinkle: The web app doesn’t work with Safari; requiring either Firefox or Google Chrome (or a Chromium-based browser) to work.

The main caveat is that the team at Princeton do want to use the gathered data to feed IoT research — so users of the tool will be contributing to efforts to study smart home devices.

The title of their research project is Identifying Privacy, Security, and Performance Risks of Consumer IoT Devices. The listed principle investigators are professor Nick Feamster and PhD student Danny Yuxing Huang at the university’s Computer Science department.

The Princeton team says it intends to study privacy and security risks and network performance risks of IoT devices. But they also note they may share the full dataset with other non-Princeton researchers after a standard research ethics approval process. So users of IoT Inspector will be participating in at least one research project. (Though the tool also lets you delete any collected data — per device or per account.)

“With IoT Inspector, we are the first in the research community to produce an open-source, anonymized dataset of actual IoT network traffic, where the identity of each device is labelled,” the researchers write. “We hope to invite any academic researchers to collaborate with us — e.g., to analyze the data or to improve the data collection — and advance our knowledge on IoT security, privacy, and other related fields (e.g., network performance).”

They have produced an extensive FAQ which anyone thinking about running the tool should definitely read before getting involved with a piece of software that’s explicitly designed to spy on your network traffic. (tl;dr, they’re using ARP-spoofing to intercept traffic data — a technique they warn may slow your network, in addition to the risk of their software being buggy.)

The dataset that’s being harvesting by the traffic analyzer tool is anonymized and the researchers specify they’re not gathering any public-facing IP addresses or locations. But there are still some privacy risks — such as if you have smart home devices you’ve named using your real name. So, again, do read the FAQ carefully if you want to participate.

For each IoT device on a network the tool collects multiple data-points and sends them back to servers at Princeton University — including DNS requests and responses; destination IP addresses and ports; hashed MAC addresses; aggregated traffic statistics; TLS client handshakes; and device manufacturers.

The tool has been designed not to track computers, tablets and smartphones by default, given the study focus on smart home gizmos. Users can also manually exclude individual smart devices from being tracked if they’re able to power them down during set up or by specifying their MAC address.

Up to 50 smart devices can be tracked on the network where IoT Inspector is running. Anyone with more than 50 devices is asked to contact the researchers to ask for an increase to that limit.

The project team has produced a video showing how to install the app on Mac:


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Don’t Want to Learn Coding? 5 Ways to Still Make Powerful Automated Tools


No-coding development tools.

Learning to code helps. But you don’t have to learn coding to build tools on the web. With the right no-code development tools, you can quickly create automated docs that are just as powerful as apps. Think about it… you can take short cuts through everyday chores that would take complicated scripts or an expensive app. You don’t need to call a software engineer or learn a programming language on your own.

Just bring your creativity and create simple apps or automated documents that get the job done. Dive into these five no-code platforms here.

1. Coda: Stretch Your Docs and Spreadsheets

Coda is a powerful automated doc

Think of Coda as what a spreadsheet can be with some clever automation. Coda starts with a blank canvas. Then add a table, add a few rows and columns, and integrate a few pre-built automated building blocks. The humble text document or spreadsheet starts behaving like a native app.

Coda is designed with automation and flexibility in mind. You can use automatic triggers to do away with any repetitive tasks. For example, Uber used Coda to build a team tracker that helped them re-design their taxi-hailing app. You can automate your to-do list to autogenerate both daily and weekly tasks without typing them every time.

Coda is a collaborative tool that is free for now. Expect price tiers to come in once the tool matures. You can start with a blank canvas or use the many templates available. Any documents you create can be used with the iOS app too.

Download: Coda for iOS (Free)

2. uCalc: Make Your Own Calculators

Make your own calculators with uCalc

Not every calculator is about math. But it is always about different types of calculations. There are a variety of free calculators online. But uCalc helps you build your own. It is a visual DIY builder for calculators and forms that don’t need any coding skills.

You can make calculators and intelligent forms for every need—personal or professional. For example, you can build one that calculates the cost of pizza based on its ingredients. Or make a calculator that adds up the cost of an interior decoration project.

Create a calculator in minutes with the drag and drop visual editor. You can take advantage of templates too. After you customize it, take the code and embed it on the platform of your choice. uCalc supports uCoz, uKit, WordPress, Joomla, Wix, Drupal, ModX, OpenCart, Magento, and many others.

uCalc has a pricing tier. The free calculator allows three projects and limited CRM.

3. Carrd: Build a Single Page Website in Seconds

Build single page websites with CarrdIf you do any kind of work on the web, then you should advertise your presence with a simple portfolio or a website. Gone are the days when you had to labor over HTML and CSS, or even Adobe Dreamweaver. A slew of drag and drop DIY website builders have made it so easy. Add Carrd to the list.

Carrd is an automated website builder for clean, one page portfolios. The responsive portfolios look just as good on any screen. Start off with a blank page, or choose from the beautiful templates. Then, design your page with the drag and drop content blocks: drag text under an image, make a row of links across the top, or even add some of your own code.

The free plan allows you three sites per account. With the Pro plan ( $9/year), you can have custom domains and Google Analytics.

4. Glide: Create a Mobile App From a Google Sheet

Build an app from Google Sheets with Glide

Everyone seems to be creating mobile apps these days and earning “millions”. Well, it isn’t as easy as it sounds and a fraction move up with their checking accounts. But mobile app development isn’t going anywhere. Even then you must be feeling a bit left out? How about learning Android app development or Swift? No? Well, try Glide then.

Glide isn’t alone in helping you make a mobile app from Google Sheets. But it does offer a comfy free plan. The Google Sheet acts as the database. Glide imports the data and assembles a default app which you can customize with layouts, images, icons, and more.

The finished app gets a landing page of its own from where you can share it with others. Glide has Free, Pro, and Business plans.

5. VoiceFlow: Voice Bots for Alexa and Google Assistant

Yes, you can even build voice bots without any coding. It takes just a bit of logic to sequence the flow of information that the voice app will process. Voiceflow makes that easier with its pre-built lego style block system which you assemble step by step.

For example, the starting greeting from Alexa or Google Assistant is one block. Your query could then be handled by the different choice blocks, with each leading to different results. Voiceflow connects to APIs & 3rd party services for queries and interactions.

Voiceflow gives you one visual designer from where you can make and launch both Alexa and Google Assistant bots. Thanks to the absence of coding, you can become an Alexa (of Google) Skills builder in a fraction of time.

Start with the Free plan that allows for three projects. Professional and Business plans are paid tiers.

Be Creative Without Learning to Code

Code is all around us. But these “no-code” platforms show that the future of our digital society need not depend on coders alone. If you can think “out of the box” it will be yours too. Of course, the code-less apps you build will not instantly turn you into the next Mark Zuckerberg but will turn you into a person who can design solutions.

There are many other things you can build online without code. Get your confidence up with these no-coding templates for personal websites.

Image Credit: wowomnom/Depositphotos.com

Read the full article: Don’t Want to Learn Coding? 5 Ways to Still Make Powerful Automated Tools


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The 7 Best Microsoft Office Alternatives for Mac Users


msoffice-alternatives-mac

It’s fairly easy to leave Windows behind. Just buy a Mac, take a couple of days to settle in, and never look back. But for Microsoft Office users, the need to buy Office for Mac again can be a hassle.

If you work in a traditional office environment that runs on Excel and Word, you might have to bite the bullet. But if you’ve outgrown that world and still need to edit and send Office documents every now and then, you have alternative options.

If you’re not ready to buy Microsoft Office, here are your best free Office alternatives for Mac.

1. Google Suite

mac office alternatives google docs

If you’re going to let go of the Microsoft world, your best bet is to join the Google alliance. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the three alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There’s no real alternative to Outlook beyond Gmail, and you can get OneNote on Mac for free.

Google’s suite is really good and integrates well with your Google account. You’ll be able to open an Excel file you received via Gmail in Google Sheets with a quick button press.

You can easily import Microsoft Office files to work on them, then export them again in Microsoft Office formats to pass them around. And if what you’re doing is fairly basic, with standard fonts and formatting, you can get away with it. The other party will never find out that you’re not using Microsoft Office proper.

In some ways, Google Docs is more powerful than Microsoft Word. There’s an extensive add-on gallery, beautiful templates, superior research tools built-in, and Google search capabilities to boot.

Plus, there’s the advantage of Google’s cloud prowess. Collaborating with multiple users simultaneously in a document is a pure joy. It’s a little benefit, but it does wonders for productivity.

The entire suite is free and you get 15GB of storage included. The only problem is that there’s no real desktop app for any of these (though you can work offline on documents in Chrome, using the Offline mode). Accompanying apps for iPhone and iPad are great too.

Visit: Google Docs | Google Sheets | Google Slides

2. LibreOffice

mac office alternatives libreoffice writer

LibreOffice is widely recognized as the best open source alternative to Microsoft Office suite. This means it’s completely free and available on a host of platforms. It’s the best Office alternative for Mac.

If you’re used to the Microsoft Office user interface (pre-Ribbon era), it won’t take you long to adjust to LibreOffice. Unlike Google’s apps, the LibreOffice suite comes with fully featured offline desktop apps with all the pro features you expect.

To make the deal even sweeter, LibreOffice recently added an online component. So you can sync files from Google Drive or OneDrive and edit them right in LibreOffice (there’s no collaboration feature, though).

LibreOffice also does a good job in regards to formatting when importing Microsoft Office documents. Even complex Excel spreadsheets imported into LibreOffice Calc work like they should.

LibreOffice actually grew out of OpenOffice, which used to be the de facto alternative to Microsoft Office. But OpenOffice hasn’t seen any meaningful updates recently, and its management is considering retiring the project. So we advise you to stay away from OpenOffice. Conversely, LibreOffice’s track record in the recent past has been great.

Download: LibreOffice (Free)

3. iWork Suite

mac office alternatives pages

Included with your Mac is the iWork Suite: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. These are Apple’s own alternatives to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Pages, for instance, is the best Word alternative for Mac.

As these are Mac-centric apps, the UI is quite different. Instead of being top-heavy, the options show up in a contextual menu on the side. And you don’t have as many options as the Microsoft Office suite. Since all three apps are now matured, all the basics are covered.

Once you get used to them, they’re actually pleasant to use (something we can’t necessarily say about Microsoft Office). While customization options are limited, everything that’s available is quite polished. When you create a presentation in Keynote, chances are you’ll end up creating something beautiful. The same goes with Pages—moving text, images, and graphs around is a seamless experience that doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out.

The iWork Suite lets you import and export documents in Microsoft Office formats (it will save to the default iWork format, though). And as long as you don’t use a Mac-specific font, doing a back-and-forth with Office documents shouldn’t be a big problem.

iWork also has online collaboration options but frankly, I wouldn’t recommend using them. They’re nowhere near as reliable as Google’s offering.

Download: Pages | Numbers | Keynote (Free)

4. Office Online

When nothing else will do, just open Office.com. It essentially gives you access to free Office for Mac. Office Online is Microsoft’s free and basic Microsoft Office service that works in any browser.

While the feature set is limited, the basics of document editing, spreadsheet formulas, and presentation options are all covered. You’ll get access to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Visit: Office Online

5. Edit Office Documents in Dropbox

mac office alternatives dropbox

Dropbox’s partnership with Microsoft means you can open a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document shared with you on Dropbox. You don’t need an Office 365 license, but you’ll require a free Microsoft account. Using this option opens your document in Office Online.

6. Ditch PowerPoint for Better Online Tools

PowerPoint is powerful, but it’s also pretty old-school. If you want to stand out with your presentations, try some more modern online presentation tools:

  • Slides: This is my personal favorite for creating beautiful presentations easily. The free account lets you create and present documents online. To export, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account.
  • Prezi: While this service is geared more towards startups, the visual tools offered by Prezi are beyond anything you can get with PowerPoint.
  • Canva: Canva is an online image editor, but it has an extensive library of presentation templates. Plus, Canva gives you all the important tools for creating a customized presentation.

7. Embrace Markdown

mac office alternatives ulysses markdown

Here’s an idea purely out of left field. If you given up Windows and embraced the Mac platform, you must have started appreciating macOS’s simplicity by now. If you want more of that for creating and editing plain text documents, you should try using Markdown.

Markdown is a syntax like HTML, but it’s much simpler. When you use a Markdown app to write, you don’t get lost in dozens of menu options. All the formatting happens using shortcodes.

So for example, to make a word italic, you wrap it with asterisks. You can create a complex formatted document without ever lifting your fingers from the keyboard. Plus, Markdown exports as clean HTML and you can generate beautiful PDFs using apps like Ulysses.

If Needed, Use Microsoft Office Without Paying for It

Buying the latest version of Microsoft Office will cost you a few hundred dollars (or a subscription for Office 365). Most of the time, the options listed above will suffice for you. Google Docs works as a great alternative to Word, and the same goes for Sheets and Excel. If you’re looking for offline alternatives, LibreOffice should be more than enough.

But there might be times where you have to use Office for a particular task or for a limited period of time. There are a couple of ways to do this without paying, including using Office Online or one of the mobile apps. We’ve outlined all your options in our guide to using Microsoft Office without paying for it.

Read the full article: The 7 Best Microsoft Office Alternatives for Mac Users


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Need Free Blog Hosting? Try Blogger With a Custom Domain


start-a-blog

There are few popular blogging platforms including Blogger, Typepad, and WordPress. So why should you use Google’s Blogger? Because it’s free and has a strong backend infrastructure support from Google. Although free hosting is a bad idea, Blogger doesn’t compromise on features, and it’s easy to get started.

Once you get a custom domain of your choice, you can start blogging with a small investment. This step-by-step tutorial will help you register a domain name and connect it with your blog. I assume that you already have a Blogspot blog.

What Is a Custom Domain?

When you sign up for Blogger, you get a domain like “yourblog.blogspot.com.” Your blog is under the sub-domain of blogspot.com. In contrast, the custom domain is a top-level root domain in the form of “yourblog.com.” They appear in the address bar of web browsers.

You do not have to be a technically savvy person to set up a custom domain, but it may help to understand a few key blogging terms.

  • Domain name: They’re a vital part of internet infrastructure. Without them, you would need to remember the exact IP address for each web site you visit.
  • Domain extension: Also known as Top Level Domains or TLDs, it refers to the last section of your domain name. For example, “.com” is the commonly used domain suffix.
  • Domain registrar: These are companies like Namecheap, GoDaddy, Google Domain, and many others that host or manage domain names for an annual fee.

Many newbie bloggers who begin with a free blogging platform or hosting don’t invest in a custom domain. They keep on blogging for several years with the blogspot domain.

And when their blog starts getting traffic, they switch to a custom domain. That’s not the right strategy. You should invest in a custom domain if you are interested in doing this long term. It has many advantages.

Advantages of Blogger on a Custom Domain

Buying a Domain Name Is Cheap

Registering the domain typically costs between 10-$15 per year. Google doesn’t charge anything for hosting the content on Blogger. There are many domain registrars available, choose anyone and stick to it. Unlike WordPress.com, you don’t have to pay any money to set up a custom domain on Blogger.

Personal Branding

A custom domain helps you to establish your blog as a professional brand. They also look better in advertisements, business cards, and in other marketing material. It also removes the impression that you’re using a free blog for promoting spam.

Better Exposure in Search Engines

A blog with a custom domain generally gets higher search engine ranking than blogspot.com domain. You’ll also get new readers, search traffic, and social media credibility. Having a custom domain also ensures trust among other website owners and increases the chance of backlinks.

Portability

If you decide to get a full featured website in the future, it is possible to switch to a different host yet keep the same domain name and search engine rankings. But if you use a blogspot address and later on change to a custom domain, you lose all the domain authority, backlinks, traffic, and analytics you had built up.

Custom Email Address

A custom email address is always in the form of the name attached to your domain name. You can get this type of email address only when you buy a custom domain. It’s easy to set up an email address with your domain on Google Apps.

Google Adsense for Blogger

With Blogger, you can make money by running ads on your blog. You’ll see a Sign up for AdSense button right in your Blogger account backend. If you don’t see the button, it means your blog might not qualify for AdSense. Check out the AdSense eligibility checklist to find out why. With a custom domain, the chance of getting AdSense approval increases.

Register Your Domain With Google Domains

Google Domains is a domain name registrar. You can use Google Domains to search, buy and manage domains, transfer a domain you already own from another registrar, and more. Google Domains is only available for users in selected countries including US, UK, India, and more. Check your location in the country availability checklist.

To search for a domain, navigate to Google Domains and click Get a new domain. Enter a few keywords in the search box, then review the results to find out if the domain is available.

search for a domain in Google Domains

Note: Make sure that you log into Blogger with the same email ID you use to log in to Google Domains. Also, confirm that you add the domain owner as an administrator of the blog.

Filter Your Search

When you search for a domain, Google Domains automatically searches for that domain with several domain suffixes (for example, .com, .net, .org). Click the Filter Domains button to further refine your search.

  • You can search for a specific ending suffix. Under the Endings section, choose a relevant domain suffix from the dropdown menu.
  • Type in your preferred domain name and let Google Domains show you some available variations. Toggle All Endings at the top of your search results page to view all the possible domains. There is also a price filter to list domains within your budget.

filter your domain search in Google Domains

Buy the Domain

Once you identify the domain you’d like to buy, click Add to cart. Review the following settings:

  • Enable Privacy protection is on to keep the contact information private. If someone tries to look up your data in WHOIS, then they’ll see alternate contact information given by a third-party provider.
  • Enable Auto-renew is on, so you don’t have to worry about domain expiration.

Click the Checkout button at the bottom of your cart. Enter the Contact information for the domain. Select your payment method and click Buy.

add the domain to your cart

Connect Your Domain With Blogger

Step 1: Sign in to Blogger and select the blog you want to update.

Step 2: On the left sidebar, click Settings > Basic.

Step 3: On the right panel, under the Publishing section, click +Setup a Google Domain URL for your blog.

connect your domain with blogger account

Step 4: Enter the sub-domain you want to use or leave it blank to keep www.

Step 5: Select your domain in the list under Google Domains settings and click Save.

review the Google Domains setting

Redirect Non-WWW to WWW

To change your domain (example: bloginoptometry.com) to www.bloginoptometry.com, set up a redirect. Under Publishing > Blog Address, click Edit.

set up the redirection in Blogger

Check the option which says Redirect mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com. Click Save. Google will then take care of redirection part, and if anyone opens your blogspot address, they’ll get automatically redirected to your new custom domain name.

final set up of the redirection in Blogger

Turn On HTTPS for Your Blog

Users expect a secure online experience when using a website. We recommend you to adopt HTTPS to encrypt their traffic with your website, regardless of the content on your site. Blogger lets you enable HTTPS easily.

To turn on HTTPS for your custom domain blog, click Settings > Basic. On the right, under HTTPS availability and HTTPS redirect, select Yes.

enable HTTPS for your blog

Even if you don’t use a custom domain, HTTPS is automatically turned on for your blog, but the HTTPS setting remains hidden. And when you turn on HTTPS redirect, visitors always reach the encrypted version of your blog.

Final Check

Once you set up your custom domain and enable HTTPS, it’s time to check everything. Type in your blog address, and you should be able to access your website without any errors. If not, wait for a few moments and let Google take care of all the technical steps.

Blogging With WordPress

Ease of use and simplicity are the main advantages of Blogger. Once you buy a domain from Google Domains, it just takes a few minutes to start your blog. The whole process may look technical, but once you’re inside the Blogger dashboard and follow all the steps in this article, it’ll be easier for you to implement.

After getting used to the basics of blogging, your next step should be to migrate from Blogger to a self-hosted WordPress site.

We highly recommend managed WordPress hosting with WP Engine, which takes all the headache of running a website out of the picture. Need something a bit more affordable? MakeUseOf readers can get a special discount at InMotion Hosting by signing up using this link.

Then check out our guide on how to set up your blog with WordPress.

Read the full article: Need Free Blog Hosting? Try Blogger With a Custom Domain


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The 10 Best Camera Apps for Android and iOS

The Best Ebook Reader for PC: 6 Apps Compared


Computer and Notebook

Most people probably read ebooks on their tablet or a dedicated e-reader; it’s more convenient than whipping your laptop out every time you want to read a few pages.

However, there are times when a reliable ebooks reader for Windows is essential, for example, if you need to use an ebook for reference on a school project or if your main reader’s battery dies while traveling.

When the time comes, you need to make sure you have one of the best ebook readers for PC. Keep reading to discover our top six picks.

1. Kindle

kindle pc ereader app

Just as Kindle is one of the best e-readers for Android, so too is it among the leading e-readers for PC (there’s a Mac version as well if you’re interested).

As you’d expect, use the Kindle app to sign into your Amazon account, and all your Amazon ebooks will instantly appear. Be aware that you need to manually download the books onto your machine by clicking on their thumbnails if you want to do some reading while you’re offline.

Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited subscribers will also be able to use the Kindle PC app to access their books.

And if you’re not an Amazon subscriber, don’t worry. You can still use the Kindle app to open other ebooks on your computer. Unlike the Kindle e-readers, the Kindle PC app will even let you open ebooks in the EPUB format.

Download: Kindle for PC (Free)

2. Calibre

calibre ebook reader

If you’re a bookworm, Calibre is a must-have app. It is perhaps best described as iTunes for ebooks.

The app lets you manage your library, edit books’ metadata, convert ebooks into different formats, and—most importantly for the purposes of this article—read ebooks using the built-in reader.

Indeed, if you’re looking for a multi-purpose app for all your ebook needs, you really don’t need to look anywhere else.

If we had to criticize anything about Calibre’s e-reader, it would be the design. It’s just not as slick as some of the other ebook readers for PC.

However, despite the dated looks, from a functional standpoint, Calibre is great. The e-reader’s tools include adjustable font size, bookmarking, a reference mode, and a full-screen mode.

Download: Calibre (Free)

3. Icecream Ebook Reader

Another ebook reader for PC that’s been around for a long time is Icecream Ebook Reader.

If the design is important to you, the most recent iteration of the app is significantly better than Calibre. The in-app icons resemble the rest of the Windows operating system, almost giving you the impression that you’re using a native app.

Some of Icecream Ebook Reader’s most important features include a night mode for less eye strain when it’s dark, bookmarks, and even a book mode which displays pages side-by-side on your screen.

The app also comes with a library feature, extensive search features, translation tools, and a way to annotate ebooks with your own thoughts and musings.

It supports EPUB, MOBI, FB2, PDF, CBR, CBZ, and TXT.

Extra features, such as custom library categories, metadata editing, and the ability to copy text are only available in the $19.95 Pro version.

Download: Icecream Ebook Reader (Free, premium version available)

4. Freda

freda ebook reader

If you’ve still not found your ideal ebook reader for PC, you should try Freda.

The free e-reader app is available on both Windows and Android, so if you frequently use both operating systems and you’d like a seamless ebook experience across all your platforms, it’s definitely worth installing.

Freda supports five different ebook formats: EPUB, MOBI, FB2, HTML, and TXT. EPUBs will only work if they are DRM-free. The app does not offer any way to remove existing DRM from your ebooks.

The app’s other features include integration with your Calibre book library, support for OneDrive and Dropbox, the ability to highlight and annotate your books, and fully customizable controls, fonts, and colors.

The app can also sync with ebook repos on the web such as Gutenberg, Smashwords, and Feedbooks.

If you use the app on Windows and Android, your reading progress will be synced across all your devices.

Download: Freda (Free)

5. Bibliovore

bibliovore ebook reader

Bibliovore is a well-designed ebook reader that’s been developed with touch-screen laptops in mind. There are large buttons and several gesture controls which combine to make in-app navigation a breeze.

The app’s key features include:

  • Personalized bookmarks.
  • A night reading mode to help prevent eye strain.
  • Multiple themes, including white, sepia, and dark.
  • The ability to manually group multiple books into a series.
  • Customizable fonts and text size.
  • Advanced search tools.
  • Support for EPUB and PDF books.

Bibliovore can sync your reading progress across all your devices where you have the app installed. It includes both a landscape and portrait reading mode and can display two pages side-by-side for a book-like experience.

Download: Bibliovore (Free)

6. Bookviser Reader

bookviser ebook reader

The last popular ebook reader for PCs on our list is Bookviser Reader. It supports three file formats: EPUB, TXT, and FB2.

(Note: Check out our article on the different ebook formats if you’d like more information about their respective differences.)

Bookviser Reader is highly customizable. Not only can you adjust the font type and size, but you can also change the margins, line spacing, page-turning animations, color themes, and on-screen indicators like the battery, time, page number, and reading progress bar.

You can also set up two different themes for day and night reading, import books from OneDrive, look up word definitions, make annotations, and highlight text.

The Bookviser Reader app is free to download and use and is ad-free.

Download: Bookviser Reader (Free)

Which Is Your Favorite Ebook Reader for PC?

The e-readers for PCs that we have reviewed in this article should be more than enough for most bookworms to find something that meets their needs.

But we’d love to hear what you think, so make sure you let us know about your favorite ebook readers in the comments below.

And if you would like to learn more, check out our article how to read ebooks on a phone or tablet and our list of sites that offer free ebooks.

Read the full article: The Best Ebook Reader for PC: 6 Apps Compared


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Did you fly a drone over Fenway Park? The FAA would like a chat


Drones are great. But they are also flying machines that can do lots of stupid and dangerous things. Like, for instance, fly over a major league baseball game packed with spectators. It happened at Fenway Park last night, and the FAA is not happy.

The illegal flight took place last night during a Red Sox-Blue Jays game at Fenway; the drone, a conspicuously white DJI Phantom, reportedly first showed up around 9:30 PM, coming and going over the next hour.

One of the many fans who shot a video of the drone, Chris O’Brien, told CBS Boston that “it would kind of drop fast then go back up then drop and spin. It was getting really low and close to the players. At one point it was getting really low and I was wondering are they going to pause the game and whatever, but they never did.

Places where flying is regularly prohibited, like airports and major landmarks like stadiums, often have no-fly rules baked into the GPS systems of drones — and that’s the case with DJI. In a statement, however, the company said that “whoever flew this drone over the stadium apparently overrode our geofencing system and deliberately violated the FAA temporary flight restriction in place over the game.”

The FAA said that it (and Boston PD) is investigating both to local news and in a tweet explaining why it is illegal.

That’s three nautical miles, which is quite a distance, covering much of central Boston. You don’t really take chances when there are tens of thousands of people all gathered in one spot on a regular basis like that. Drones open up some pretty ugly security scenarios.

Of course, this wasn’t a mile and a half from Fenway, which might have earned a slap on the wrist, but directly over the park, which as the FAA notes above could lead to hundreds of thousands in fines and actual prison time. It’s not hard to imagine why: If that drone had lost power or caught a gust (or been hit by a fly ball, at that altitude), it could have hurt or killed someone in the crowd.

It’s especially concerning when the FAA is working on establishing new rules for both hobby and professional drone use. You should leave a comment there if you feel strongly about this, by the way.

Here’s hoping they catch the idiot who did this. It just goes to show that you can’t trust people to follow the rules, even when they’re coded into a craft’s OS. It’s things like this that make mandatory registration of drones sound like a pretty good idea.

(Red Sox won, by the way. But the season’s off to a rough start.)


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Facebook taps Peggy Alford for its board, Reed Hastings and Erskine Bowles to depart


Facebook’s board is undergoing its biggest shakeup in memory. On Friday, the company announced that Peggy Alford would be nominated to join the company’s board of directors.

“Peggy is one of those rare people who’s an expert across many different areas — from business management to finance operations to product development,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of the change. “I know she will have great ideas that help us address both the opportunities and challenges facing our company.”

Alford, currently Senior Vice President of Core Markets for PayPal, will become the first black woman to serve on Facebook’s board. She previously served as the Chief Financial Officer of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s massive charitable foundation.

Facebook announced some serious departures along with the news of Alford’s nomination. Longtime Facebook board members Reed Hastings and Erskine Bowles will leave the board, marking a major shakeup for the board’s composition. Both Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, and Bowles, a former Democratic political staffer, have served on the board since 2011. Both men have been critical of Facebook’s direction in recent years. Hastings in particular has clashed with fellow board member Peter Thiel over his support for the Trump administration.

Alford’s nomination will come to a vote at Facebook’s May 30 shareholder meeting.

“What excites me about the opportunity to join Facebook’s board is the company’s drive and desire to face hard issues head-on while continuing to improve on the amazing connection experiences they have built over the years,” Alford said of her nomination. “I look forward to working with Mark and the other directors as the company builds new and inspiring ways to help people connect and build community.”


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Harry Potter, the Platform, and the Future of Niantic


What is Niantic? If they recognize the name, most people would rightly tell you it’s a company that makes mobile games, like Pokémon GO, or Ingress, or Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

But no one at Niantic really seems to box it up as a mobile gaming company. Making these games is a big part of what the company does, yes, but the games are part of a bigger picture: They are a springboard, a place to figure out the constraints of what they can do with augmented reality today, and to figure out how to build the tech that moves it forward. Niantic wants to wrap their learnings back into a platform upon which others can build their own AR products, be it games or something else. And they want to be ready for whatever comes after smartphones.

Niantic is a bet on augmented reality becoming more and more a part of our lives; when that happens, they want to be the company that powers it.

This is Part 3 of our EC-1 series on Niantic, looking at its past, present, and potential future. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. The reading time for this article is 24 minutes (6,050 words)

The platform play

After the absurd launch of Pokémon GO, everyone wanted a piece of the AR pie. Niantic got more pitches than they could take on, I’m told, as rights holders big and small reached out to see if the company might build something with their IP or franchise.

But Niantic couldn’t build it all. From art, to audio, to even just thinking up new gameplay mechanics, each game or project they took on would require a mountain of resources. What if they focused on letting these other companies build these sorts of things themselves?

That’s the idea behind Niantic’s Real World Platform. This platform is a key part of Niantic’s game plan moving forward, with the company having as many people working on the platform as it has on its marquee money maker, Pokémon GO.

There are tons of pieces that go into making things like GO or Ingress, and Niantic has spent the better part of the last decade figuring out how to make them all fit together. They’ve built the core engine that powers the games and, after a bumpy start with Pokémon GO’s launch, figured out how to scale it to hundreds of millions of users around the world. They’ve put the work into figuring out how to detect cheaters and spoofers and give them the boot. They’ve built a social layer, with systems like friendships and trade. They’ve already amassed that real-world location data that proved so challenging back when it was building Field Trip, with all of those real-world points of interest that now serve as portals and Pokéstops.

Niantic could help other companies with real-world events, too. That might seem funny after the mess that was the first Pokémon GO Fest (as detailed in Part II). But Niantic turned around, went back to the same city the next year, and pulled it off. That experience — that battle-testing — is valuable. Meanwhile, the company has pulled off countless huge Ingress events, and a number of Pokémon GO side events called Safari Zones.” CTO Phil Keslin confirmed to me that event management is planned as part of the platform offering.

As Niantic builds new tech — like, say, more advanced AR or faster ways to sync AR experiences between devices — it’ll all get rolled into the platform. With each problem they solve, the platform offering would grow.

But first they need to prove that there’s a platform to stand on.

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

Niantic’s platform, as it exists today, is the result of years of building their own games. It’s the collection of tools they’ve built and rebuilt along the way, and that already powers Ingress Prime and Pokémon GO. But to prove itself as a platform company, Niantic needs to show that they can do it again. That they can take these engines, these tools, and, working with another team, use them for something new.


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Harry Potter, the Platform, and the Future of Niantic


What is Niantic? If they recognize the name, most people would rightly tell you it’s a company that makes mobile games, like Pokémon GO, or Ingress, or Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

But no one at Niantic really seems to box it up as a mobile gaming company. Making these games is a big part of what the company does, yes, but the games are part of a bigger picture: They are a springboard, a place to figure out the constraints of what they can do with augmented reality today, and to figure out how to build the tech that moves it forward. Niantic wants to wrap their learnings back into a platform upon which others can build their own AR products, be it games or something else. And they want to be ready for whatever comes after smartphones.

Niantic is a bet on augmented reality becoming more and more a part of our lives; when that happens, they want to be the company that powers it.

This is Part 3 of our EC-1 series on Niantic, looking at its past, present, and potential future. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. The reading time for this article is 24 minutes (6,050 words)

The platform play

After the absurd launch of Pokémon GO, everyone wanted a piece of the AR pie. Niantic got more pitches than they could take on, I’m told, as rights holders big and small reached out to see if the company might build something with their IP or franchise.

But Niantic couldn’t build it all. From art, to audio, to even just thinking up new gameplay mechanics, each game or project they took on would require a mountain of resources. What if they focused on letting these other companies build these sorts of things themselves?

That’s the idea behind Niantic’s Real World Platform. This platform is a key part of Niantic’s game plan moving forward, with the company having as many people working on the platform as it has on its marquee money maker, Pokémon GO.

There are tons of pieces that go into making things like GO or Ingress, and Niantic has spent the better part of the last decade figuring out how to make them all fit together. They’ve built the core engine that powers the games and, after a bumpy start with Pokémon GO’s launch, figured out how to scale it to hundreds of millions of users around the world. They’ve put the work into figuring out how to detect cheaters and spoofers and give them the boot. They’ve built a social layer, with systems like friendships and trade. They’ve already amassed that real-world location data that proved so challenging back when it was building Field Trip, with all of those real-world points of interest that now serve as portals and Pokéstops.

Niantic could help other companies with real-world events, too. That might seem funny after the mess that was the first Pokémon GO Fest (as detailed in Part II). But Niantic turned around, went back to the same city the next year, and pulled it off. That experience — that battle-testing — is valuable. Meanwhile, the company has pulled off countless huge Ingress events, and a number of Pokémon GO side events called Safari Zones.” CTO Phil Keslin confirmed to me that event management is planned as part of the platform offering.

As Niantic builds new tech — like, say, more advanced AR or faster ways to sync AR experiences between devices — it’ll all get rolled into the platform. With each problem they solve, the platform offering would grow.

But first they need to prove that there’s a platform to stand on.

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

Niantic’s platform, as it exists today, is the result of years of building their own games. It’s the collection of tools they’ve built and rebuilt along the way, and that already powers Ingress Prime and Pokémon GO. But to prove itself as a platform company, Niantic needs to show that they can do it again. That they can take these engines, these tools, and, working with another team, use them for something new.


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Trump, FCC unveil plan to accelerate 5G rollout


In a press conference today in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president laid out a number of initiatives focused on helping accelerate the U.S. role in the 5G race.

“This is, to me, the future,” Trump said, opening the press conference flanked by Ajit Pai, Ivanka Trump and a room full of communications representatives in cowboy and hard hats.

“It’s all about 5G now,” Trump told the audience. “We were 4G and everyone was saying we had to get 4G, and then they said before that, ‘we have to get 3G,’ and now we have to get 5G. And 5G’s a big deal and that’s going to be there for a while. And at some point we’ll be talking about number six.”

The apparently off-script moment echoed Trump’s recent call on Twitter for the U.S. to get 6G technology “as soon as possible.” There’s something to be said for the spirit, perhaps, but it’s probably a little soon to be jumping the gun on a technology that doesn’t really exist just yet.

Trump used the opportunity to downplay earlier rumors that the government might be building its own 5G network, instead promoting a free-market method, while taking a shot at the government’s capabilities. “In the United States, our approach is private sector-driven and private sector-led,” he added. “The government doesn’t have to spend lots of money.”

In recent months, however, both the administration and the FCC have been discussing ways to make America more competitive in the race to the soon-to-be-ubiquitous cellular technology. Earlier today, the FCC announced plans to hold the largest spectrum auction in U.S. history, offering up the bands to wireless carriers. The planned auction is set to kick off on December 10.

“To accelerate and incentivize these investments, my administration is freeing up as much wireless spectrum as needed,” Trump added, echoing Pai’s plans.

Earlier today Pai and the FCC also proposed a $20.4 billion fund design to help connect rural areas. The chairman said the commission believes the fund could connect as many as four million small businesses and residences over the course of the next decade.

The focus is understandable, of course. 5G’s value will go far beyond faster smartphones, providing connections for a wide range of IoT and smart technologies and potentially helping power things like robotics and autonomous vehicles. The technology will undeniably be a key economic driver, touching as of yet unseen portions of the U.S. workforce.


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Disney Unveils Its Disney+ Streaming Service


Disney has finally unveiled Disney+, its long-awaited and much-anticipated streaming service. We now know when Disney+ will be launching, how much Disney+ will cost, and the names of the original movies and shows which will be exclusive to Disney+.

Disney Drip-Feeds Us Information About Disney+

In August 2017, Disney announced it was launching its own streaming service. At the time, details were thin on the ground. However, in November 2018, Disney revealed its streaming service would be called Disney+ and it would be launched sometime in 2019.

Now, Disney has officially unveiled Disney+, revealing the launch date, the price, and the shows which will be populating this streaming service. And if Disney can deliver on its promises, Disney+ could be a serious worry for the likes of Netflix.

How Much Will Disney+ Cost?

Disney+ will launch in the United States on November 12, 2019. It will cost $6.99/month or $69.99/year for those willing to commit to 12 months. This compares favorably to Netflix, which starts at $8.99/month for the Basic streaming plan.

Disney+ will boast movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. All of which will have their own sections in the app. Beyond that the user interface looks almost identical to Netflix’s UI, with rows of content.

What Content Will be Available on Disney+?

Streaming services live or die on content, and in that regard Disney+ is coming out swinging. Taking its cue from Netflix, there will be a host of original programming, with 25 original series and 10 original films, documentaries, and specials due within the first year.

Original programming includes The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and WandaVision from Marvel, Forky Asks a Question and Lamp Life from Pixar, The World According to Jeff Goldblum from National Geographic, and The Phineas and Ferb Movie from Disney.

As for older content, all 30 seasons of The Simpsons will be available from day one. And Disney will be adding “more than 7,500 television episodes and 500 films” including The Sound of Music, The Princess Bride, and Malcolm in the Middle within the first year.

What Devices Will Disney+ Support?

At launch, Disney+ will be available on a range of devices, including games consoles such as the PS4, media streamers such as Roku, and smart TVs. There will be support for up to 4K HDR video playback, and some content will be available to watch offline.

While it’s initially only going to be available in the U.S. Disney is planning to launch Disney+ worldwide within two years. To find out if and when Disney+ is launching in your area you can register for email updates at DisneyPlus.com.

In the meantime here’s some help choosing between Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

Read the full article: Disney Unveils Its Disney+ Streaming Service


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10 Cool PowerPoint Templates to Make Your PPT Presentation Shine


cool-powerpoint-templates

When preparing for a presentation, you need all the help you can get to launch your slide deck into success. If you’re investing your time into content that will help drive your point to the audience, it helps to hand off the slide designs to the pros that can do it best.

Throughout this tutorial, we’re going to survey 10 of the best cool PowerPoint templates that can help you skip the work of designing a presentation from scratch. With PowerPoint templates, you open the source file, add your design specifics, and create your finished presentation in less time than ever before.

How to Use Templates to Design Your Presentation

First, let’s look at why templates are so useful in designing your presentation.

If you haven’t used PowerPoint templates to build out your presentation before, it might feel like a learning curve to take on. How do you use the pre-built slides in a template, and how can you customize PowerPoint templates to match your ideas?

As you download cool presentation templates, you’ll find that the included presentation formats already have slides designed for practically every purpose. It’s this collection of pre-built ideas that make using templates so helpful. You don’t have to design on a blank canvas to bring your presentation to life, thanks to templates.

Here’s how you can use PowerPoint templates to save you time when designing your next presentation:

  1. Start with a template, like one of the examples featured below.
  2. Choose the slides in the presentation deck that fit with your content goals, setting aside those slides for use in your presentation.
  3. Add your content specifics to those starter slides to customize the PowerPoint presentation to your needs.
  4. Save and export the finished PowerPoint presentation with your details built-in, ready to present to an audience.

If you want to save time and create PowerPoint presentations, the solution is clear: start with a cool PowerPoint template. Let’s see some of the best examples.

Top 10 Cool PowerPoint Templates

Here’s a list of 10 of our favorite great PowerPoint templates that you can use to design your next presentation and the reasons why you should choose them.

1. Iconic PowerPoint Template

1. Iconic PowerPoint Template

Iconic is a cool PowerPoint template that you can use to design your next presentation. It has all the elements that you’re likely to find in the top presentation templates, including easily scalable icons that can add graphic explanations to your presentation.

2. Believe: Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation

Believe: Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation

The best PPT templates feature the ability to re-use the designs over and over across multiple presentations. Believe embodies this idea beautifully thanks to over 200 unique slide designs and 10 color schemes that are easy to work with. Build out your presentation using this PowerPoint template.

3. The X Note: PowerPoint Template

3. The X Note: PowerPoint Template

The X Note always has a corner as one of the most popular PowerPoint templates thanks to its slick design options. It’s an awesome presentation template that you can use to build out a professional slide deck that would feel right at home in the boardroom.

4. Buxe Creative and Multipurpose Template

4. Buxe Creative and Multipurpose Template

One of the best ways to build an informative presentation is by mixing in infographics that explain ideas with graphics. Buxe really captures this principle using easy-to-customize infographic objects; it’s packed full of easy-to-customize infographics that make it one of the best PPT templates around.

5. Baldo PowerPoint

5. Baldo PowerPoint

Choosing an awesome PowerPoint presentation comes down to selecting slides that will stand out from the crowd. Your audience has likely seen the same built-in Microsoft templates too many times, so using a cool and colorful template like Baldo is an easy way to set your upcoming presentation apart from the crowd. It’s easy to customize thanks to the drag-and-drop format.

6. Social Media Trends: PowerPoint Template

6. Social Media Trends: PowerPoint Template

There’s truly an awesome PowerPoint template for every purpose, including this Social Media Trends option. Use this cool PowerPoint template to show off your social channel trends and how you can improve on key platforms.

7. Startup Plan PowerPoint Template

7. Startup Plan PowerPoint Template

Every startup needs a cool PowerPoint presentation to get off the ground, and this template could be the perfect way to do it. Pitching your idea to potential investors and employees is about putting your best foot forward, and this awesome template full of clean slides and clear ideas will help you showcase your startup.

8. Marketing Plan PowerPoint Template

8. Marketing Plan PowerPoint Template

No matter what type of app, product, or service you run, a marketing plan can help you capture your key ideas in how you’ll spread the word. Use an awesome PowerPoint template like this one to capture all your key marketing ideas in one place.

9. Hush PowerPoint Template

9. Hush PowerPoint Template

Hush is a flexible PowerPoint template that works for a wide variety of presentation purposes. More than 90 finely tuned slide designs are a breeze to update with your details to make your next PowerPoint presentation shine. Open the template, add your details, and present it with confidence knowing you have an eye-catching set of slide designs.

10. Project Proposal PowerPoint Template

10. Project Proposal PowerPoint Template

When you’re pitching your brand-new project, it helps to capture the idea in a PowerPoint presentation. This slide deck will help you do just that in less time than ever before, thanks to easy-to-customize starter slides.

All-You-Can Download PowerPoint Templates

Great PowerPoint presentations take on a variety of formats and styles. And if you want the most variety and options for building your next presentation, the best platform to source templates is Envato Elements.

If you checked out all 10 cool PowerPoint templates in this roundup, you may have noticed that they’re all sourced from Envato Elements. Even better, all the templates are included as a part of a flat-rate Elements subscription.

However, that’s not the only reason that you should try out an Elements membership if you regularly build PowerPoint presentations.

In fact, a subscription to Elements includes all the complementary assets that can really fill out your next PowerPoint presentation. Envato Elements offers stock photos and graphics that you can add to your presentation to set it apart from the PowerPoint presentations your audience is accustomed to seeing.

Don’t forget that these assets are a part of the all-you-can-download Envato Elements subscription package. A few key stock photos or added graphics can round out a presentation nicely, and the advantage of subscribing is that there’s no added cost to including these in your presentation whenever you see fit.

Go Design a PowerPoint Presentation Now

When it comes to designing awesome PowerPoint presentations, there’s nothing wrong with borrowing the hard work of others to skip ahead. Using a cool PPT template can help you avoid reinventing the wheel as you’re building your presentation.

No matter which template you choose, there are three key principles to keep in mind while designing a PowerPoint presentation with a pre-built template:

  1. Use only the relevant slides: Most of the PowerPoint templates in this roundup feature dozens of built-in slides. The key is to sample from and use only the slides that pertain to your final presentation, deleting the unused slides.
  2. Customize the built-in slides to your style: A PowerPoint template serves as a great starting point. But you don’t have to give up using a template to completely customize it to your style; add your branding, color scheme, and content to completely transform it for your purposes.
  3. Mix and match presentations: In the 10 slide deck examples featured, you might find cool slides that you want to use from a variety of pre-built templates. You can use individual slides from each of these and combine them to build a winning presentation by copying and pasting slides between decks.

Consider using any and all of the Envato Elements templates covered in this roundup as a starting point for your presentation. Try out one of the templates so that you spend less time designing in PowerPoint and more time prepping to deliver your presentation with an impact.

Read the full article: 10 Cool PowerPoint Templates to Make Your PPT Presentation Shine


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