These Android skins race is not going to end anytime soon, these skins are the main reason we don’t see Android version updates immediately after the official release of the Android next version. These Android skins customized by the device manufacturers doesn’t give you pure Android experience, except in the case of Google Nexus devices.

HTC already released HTC Sense UI 4.0 with HTC One X and Samsung recently updated the TouchWiz UI that will come with the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S III. Now LG has announced that its Android user interface Optimus UI has been updated to version 3.0 for its Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices. The new version will bring new features like Quick Memo and, unique unlock functions and other features according to LG.

The Quick Memo feature allows users to make notes on their phone screens and these notes can be shared with others on social networks, messages or by emails. This feature reminds us of Samsung TouchWiz UI. Other features that are included are, you can unlock the phone by dragging anywhere on the screen. Users can now preset the most used function, like opening camera, with the pattern unlock.

Optimus UI 3.0 will come with LG Optimus LTE II launching this week in Korea, rest of the World has to wait till the launch of LG Optimus 4X HD launch later in June. LG announced Optimus 4X HD during the Mobile World Congress this year in February, but till now it is not debuted, it will make its way in June according to LG.

Source: LG

HTC One X Spcefications

HTC / Android 4.0

Add to Comparison

LG Optimus 4X HD specifications

LG / Android 4.0

Add to Comparison

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Photos carry metadata containing details of the picture like its size, nature of the camera used, camera settings like shutter speed, aperture and more. This may not be lot of importance to us but for some these settings are very important as they reveal how that shot is taken.

Some photos taken with devices might carry geo location data that might allow others to identify your location or where you are at the moment when you immediately upload them online.

To avoid these kind of issues you can remove metadata selectively, that is by removing sensitive information but keeping other useful information in the images. This can be achieved in Windows, right clicking on and selecting properties, details tab, you can remove metadata from here. But if you have large number of photos that you want to remove Exif or metadata Windows Explorer is not the convenient way to do that.

Metanull is a portable Windows application that can remove metadata from your photos or images. It can be used to remove exif data from single or multiple images. The program is simple to use, select a single image or select a folder to batch remove meta information. Then select where you want to store meta data stripped images. Once done just hit the Null It button.

It will do the job in a min or so depending on the number of images you through at it. See the below image showing before and after stripping exif data with the program.

Metanull is a free download for Windows. Download Metanull

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Google Chrome tab syncing feature was announced a while back, it allows Chrome users to access the open tabs of device on the other. You need to sign-in to Google Chrome for this feature to work, once signed-in your open tabs are synced to the cloud and when you access another computer or an Android device you can see all your tabs by accessing other devices menu of the new tab page.

Google Chrome 19 is rolled out already and your browser should get updated soon, but the tab syncing feature is not ready for everyone, if you can’t see this feature you may have to wait a little longer as this feature is pushed gradually to all users.

Open tabs are not the only ones that are synced when you sign in to Google Chrome, it also syncs your bookmarks, apps, extensions, history, themes and other settings to give you a unified browsing experience on Chrome.

Source: Chrome Blog

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Safari is the default browser on iPhone, iPad and iPod devices, if Google Chrome will come to iOS it will give tough competition to Safari on iOS. But Apple is stingy in allowing third-party applications that replace the functionality of core iOS applications. Apple guidelines suggest that third-party browsers should use WebKit as the rendering engine in their browsers.

Currently Google pays around 50-60% of the search revenue share that is generated through Safari to Apple, and launching Google Chrome for iOS will allow Google to keep all the revenue generated through Chrome search box to themselves, the analyst note suggests. It also suggests Google will market Chrome for iOS with advertising similar to the desktop browser marketing.

Another point to note that in iOS devices there is no way to set the default browser, if you click any link from applications like twitter they will open in Safari forcing you to use the Safari browser more and more. For browsing you can use Opera Mini which is also an option other than Safari. Google Chrome for Android recently released but is only available on devices running Android 4.0. Google Chrome for iOS is a welcome addition to take advantage of the syncing capabilities it offers.

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• iPhoto for iOS hits 1 million users in 10 days

You can use htaccess files to many purposes including rewriting urls, adding error documents, and restricting access to certain files or directories and much more. Here are few tips that are helpful if you have a site or blog.

Set TimeZone

You can set the timezone for your server using htaccess.

SetEnv TZ Asia/Calcutta

Set 301 Permanent Redirects

Redirect 301 /old.html http://www.example.com/new.html

Remove WWW

There is a debate whether to keep www along with the domain name or remove it for SEO purpose. Adding www or skipping it won’t change anything, but it is always better to follow one rule for SEO benefits. If you prefer to skip www from your domain name use the below code.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

If you are among those who prefer www along with the domain name use this code.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Rewrite URL

Create pretty permalinks for search engines from dynamic urls

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^([^/]*)/([^/]*)/([^/]*)\.html$ /shop.php?cmd=$1&category=$2&product=$3 [L]

In this case the original URL is http//www.yourdomain.com/shop.php?cmd=product&category=gadgets&product=mobile, with the above rule it will be rewritten to http://www.yourdomain.com/product/gadgets/mobile.html

Hotlink protection

Hotlinking is bad for not only that the other site is stealing your images but in the process waste lot of your bandwidth, to get around this problem you can use these .htaccess rules to prevent that.

This will block images from being hotlinked from your site

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ - [NC,F,L]

You can also show an image in place of the hotlinked image

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ /images/hotlink.jpg [NC,R,L]

Skip the download dialogue

When you try to download files like pdf or doc you will get a request asking you to choose whether to save or open that file for you. To avoid that you can use the below code so the prompt will go directly to save as dialog.

AddType application/octet-stream .pdf .doc .ppt .xls .mov .mp3

Change default index page of a directory

DirectoryIndex myindex.html

Create a custom error page.

If you want to create custom error pages on Linux Apache server, you can use .htaccess to show pretty error documents. After creating the error documents you need to specify them in your .htaccess file. Don’t forget to set the path and filenames to reflect your server path and filename.

ErrorDocument 401 /401.php
ErrorDocument 403 /403.php
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
ErrorDocument 500 /500.php

If you don’t want to make error documents and just want to show a message, you can do that too.

ErrorDocument 401 Authentication Required
ErrorDocument 403 Forbidden
ErrorDocument 404 Not found
ErrorDocument 500 Internet server error

Block certain IPs Using htaccess

You may want to block some IPs from accessing your site (for example referrer spam), you can block them by putting this code in your .htaccess.

allow from all
deny from 72.45.10.110

Not only single IPs but you can block a range like this

deny from 72.47 

Compress files

Compressing files will help in reducing the loading time for your site

# compress text, html, and other files
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript

Prevent directory browsing.

You can prevent visitors to a directory which doesn’t have an index file with this rule.

Options All -Indexes

Alternatively you can allow visitors to browse directory with no index file

Options All +Indexes

Restrict file upload limits for PHP

Restrict the uploading file size in PHP, and set the maxiumum execution time for PHP scripts. See how to edit php.ini for increasing memory limit.

php_value upload_max_filesize 10M
php_value post_max_size 10M
php_value max_execution_time 200
php_value max_input_time 200

Set Cache-Control Headers

Set cache control header for different file types, set longer times for static files like images as they won’t change often.

# cache image, pdf files for 5 weeks
<filesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=3024000, public"
</filesMatch>

#cache css, js, xml and text files for 2 days
<FilesMatch ".(js|css|xml|txt)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=172800"
</FilesMatch>

# cache html and htm files for 2 hours
<filesMatch "\.(html|htm)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, must-revalidate"
</filesMatch>

Protecting files

You can use htaccess to protect specific files from accessing by others using the files directive, protecting .htaccess itself

<Files .htaccess>
order deny,allow
deny from all
</Files>

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The new design also makes photos 3 times larger making it easy to view the photos as they stretch from one end to the other end of the screen. Earlier photos are displayed as small thumbnails and you need to open them to see clearly. With the new design you can see single photos in full screen something like Instagram photo views. Facebook might have inspired from Instagram design which it acquired recently.

News feed items now display as individual boxes unlike before, they use to display in a continuous stream. This new design is much nicer and clear on mobile devices, but Facebook users are not happy as you can see from the comments on the Facebook announcement thread. Open Facebook from Android or iPhone to see the new look, or go to m.facebook.com from your mobile browser.

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WP Pinner is currently in beta and offers Pinterest integration with WordPress dashboard. After installing the plugin you will find WP Pinner in the WordPress admin menu. You need to login to Pinterest from WordPress admin and select a board to which you want to auto-post from WordPress to Pinterest.

When making new posts in WordPress you can see the WP Pinner box below the publish box, select to post on publish and select the image it will be auto-posted to Pinterest. The pins can be linked to Posts page or blog homepage, depending on your choice.

You can track pin statistics from your WordPress admin area, it will display clicks, likes and repins etc.

WP Pinner currently supports only auto-pinning and tracking statistics, but in subsequent releases you will be able to schedule your pins, better statistics tracking and manage multiple accounts. This plugin is currently in beta, you can add your email to the beta queue at WP Pinner if you are interested to use the plugin.

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Belarc Advisor is just around 3.0 MB in size, and gives information about software and hardware installed on your system. It makes a report of the software installed and displays as a html report in your browser. It will also display missing Microsoft hotfixes for Windows, anti-virus status of your system and security benckmarks.

Installed Software:

The software report includes list of software along with information on when it was used last time, this information is quite useful if you want to get rid of the software that you haven’t used for long time. On mouse hover on the little icons before each software application you can see the details like last used date, modified date, installer name, size of the application. It also displays the Software License keys of the applications installed along with the name of the application.

It displays the list of Microsoft Security Hotfixes that are missing from your system, It will also add the rating to these hotfixes (for example Important or Critical), you can also see more information about these hotfixes by clicking the details link, It will redirect you to the Microsoft security site. You can also see the list of installed Microsoft Hotfixes and their details in this report.

Installed Hardware:

Along with the list of software installed on your system you can see the list of hardware installed on your system. It displays details of the processor, mother board, hosted virtual machines if any and much more.

You can the list of USB drives used in the last 30 days along with the date and time of the usage, this information is useful to see if unknown drives were used to copy information from your system when you are not around.

The other hardware profiles displayed includes Memory modules, system drives, network drives, printers, display monitors and multimedia devices.

Overall this Belarc Advisor is quite useful application for checking your system for installed software and hardware from time to time. This is free application for Windows and works with almost every Windows installation out there, including XP, Vista and Windows 7. This freeware is recently updated to version 8.2.7.9.

Download Belarc Advisor

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Bing says they are introducing “brand new way to search designed to help you take action and interact with friends and experts without compromising the core search experience.” The new design will have three columns, the first column with traditional search results, the second column with snapshots related search results, and the final third column will include a social sidebar.

The first column will show show the core search results with out any social clutter. Google is mixing search results with social results mainly from Google+, Google has been criticized for this by many. But Bing has taken a different approach to separate social search to a sidebar with out cluttering the main search results.

Snapshot sits right in the middle column between main search results and sidebar, this will give useful information depending on the user query. Snapshot brings relevant information and services like maps and restaurant reservations when your search query matches with these services. Bing is working with OpenTable, FanSnap etc. to bring this information.

Sidebar is in the right and off by default, you can interact with it when you want to get help from your friends. Using the sidebar “you can post a question to get help from your Facebook friends as you search. You can “tag” friends Bing suggests might know about the topic. In a few simple clicks you can share your search and your friends can reply to your question on either Facebook or Bing.” according to Bing. Not only Facebook friends but Bing will include experts and friends from other social sites like Twitter, Foursquare, Quora, LinkedIn, Google+ and Blogger.

Google used to include Twitter results in the search some time back but that contract expired and Google didn’t renewed the contract and removed the Twitter search results, now it only includes information that is shared on Google+.

The new design is not yet rolled out users, it will be rolled out in the coming weeks for users in the United States, if you want to get notified when it launches for you, you can sign-up here. Via Techmeme

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Google recently released updated UI for the web version of Google+ with much simpler interface and full bleed of photos, to align with this design changes came to the mobile app today. The previous app looked like a wrapper around the Google+ mobile version, but the new app brings some nice changes, Google puts this redesign as “A feast for the eyes.”

we’re not interested in a mobile or social experience that’s just smaller. We’re embracing the sensor-rich smartphone (with its touchable screen and high-density display), and transforming Google+ into something more intimate, and more expressive. Today’s new iPhone app is an important step in this direction—toward a simpler, more beautiful Google.

What’s new in this update:

• Whether you post photos or articles or text, we’re making ‘em look good
• We’re adding crisper fonts, larger profile pics and a friendlier homescreen
• We’re making the stream easier to scan, and easier on the eyes with overlays, gradients and other visual elements
• Conversations fall into view as you move forward and backward in time
• Optical cues help the mind linger on individual posts
• Important actions like +1 now float atop the stream, making it easy to endorse all your favorites

If you use Google+ on iOS you can download the app (version 2.0.0.5888) from the app store to see the changes yourself. Android app will come in the next few weeks, Google teases that Android app will have few more surprises than what it released today for iPhone. Google is continuously adding features to Google+ or integrating it in other Google products to win users from Facebook, how far Google will be successful in establishing Google+ as Facebook alternative is to be seen.

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