Are you too lazy to open facebook and upload clicked photos?

Why not have a direct access to these photos from windows explorer to upload and keep all clicks in sync. That’s a nice idea! This make life more easy and we can also control the photos easily.

This weekend I discovered a tool called SocialFolders which does this job very effectively. Not only Facebook, we can also sync Google Docs, Flickr, Photobucket, Youtube, Picasa, Box and so on. Yes this tool keeps a backup copy on desktop that remain in sync with the online version. All sync operation is automatic and uses organized way to keep folders and files in sync. So, it becomes easy to maintain online visibility of the files.

Check out the video demo here:

Setting up whole system is quite simple, download the setup file from here: socialfolders.me start installation process and you will be asked to create a new account in setup itself.

After completing the registration process, proceed with linking online accounts. Here’s a screenshot of connecting a web service to SocialFolder.

If you are using dropbox, then you must be aware about its background sync feature. Yes, this is same here in case of SocialFolders too. It silently updates the old version of file on PC and inform the user about the updates.

Overall, it is a great package with awesome features that can make life easy and save time!

Keeping track of friends career growth and comparing it is good bench-marking tool for personal growth. This will let you know where you stand and how much you are worth, with the same degree as your friend have. Today in this interconnected complex world keeping track is little difficult. But at the same we have few hack around to make the thing easy.

It is Facebook that will help you to keep track of these things. Making use of Facebook “Where you work” feature, the free web app careernotify will notify you when your friend changes any Job or get promotion in same company. So, this way you can:

1. Anonymously track high value candidates and keep up-to-date about their career.
2. Beat your competitors by finding out about the best talents from Facebook first.
3. Be informed of when a target is hired by a competitor or resigns from their job.

Getting registered to the service is dead simple, just log-in with your Facebook credentials and on next screen select friends whose career path you want to track. You can also select all friends at once. After selection hit Next button and add e-mail address on which notification will be sent. Finally hit save.
This will enable you to receive an email when your friends or contacts get a new job, promotion or resign!

Next, not only this you can also create notifications for keywords to watch/ listen out for. This means you can add a word here that when said by someone in your circle of friends and pages, you will get email notification about that word. You can use this to track about your company name, and get notified whenever anyone talk about it. Offcourse you can also also add your girlfriend’s name to keep track on who is talking about her! You can add infinite number of words that you want to keep track on facebook conversation.

Overall this service is wonderful, that save a lot of time and make the information timely available. So, now you have updated information about your friends career changes!

www.careernotify.com

Being a start-up company, one think a lot before spending money on technology. And everything you want to be perfect and fast in first time itself. You do not want to take a lot of risk, invest time and money on adapting any technology. So, here I have prepared a list of 7 most productive start-up tools, which is being used in almost all start-up companies and most of these tools are free of cost!

1. E-mail tool

In this category most famous are Outlook, Godaddy, Rackspace, Lotus and Google Mail. Comparing all these tools you would like to have a tool that must be universally acceptable, flexible and resourceful. Well, here except Outlook and Google Mail, others are paid services and no doubt you will get custom domain mail. Now coming to these free tools, Google App gives 10 free custom e-mail address for small businesses and similarly Outlook does. Comparing service integration with docs, calendar, map and accessibility, Google App will definitely win the race. Since, Google has restored the feature to access Mail offline, one would definitely say this is the best e-mail tool for start-up.

2. Accounting

A department which need to keep every in and out record of the company perfect. This is where the future of any start-up can be predicted. Well, a lot of tools are there, from our very own known software, Excel to Xero, Quickbooks and Freshbooks.

QuickBooks – is more than just accounting, it is a flexible system adaptable to everyday small business management, which includes all accounting functions and reports. You can send checks, bills (invoices), accept payment by credit card, scan the checks directly to the bank, calculate and pay wages/ taxes – all without leaving the program from/ to office/ home – ‘paperless’ way. You can structure the system differently, depending on the type of business and the preferred monitored parameters of business, export reports to Excel for business forecasting and financial modeling. Not only this QuickBooks has a market for add-ons for different types of business and types of needs. You can either hire a professional QB-who ‘deliver’ (setup) the system and can teach the basics of using, or all of the study on their own, if you have extra time, which you can not spend more usefully, by developing Business Sales. You can conduct a simple income/ expense in Quicken Home & Business . Later, if/ when needed, you can always do upgrade / convert’ to QB.

3. Web Analytics

Analytic, where we need to analyze the type, demography and volume of the traffic that we get from various sources to measure the effectiveness of marketing. Even in this category there are Webtrends, Omniture, Google Analytics and Mixpanel as providers. Most of them are free of cost but with some limitations. Comparing everything there is clear one sided advantage of using Google Analytics, it’s the features that they provide and the detail of the traffic with other integration features. You can analyze various demographics among any length of time. You can get details about the traffic from different Countries and places along with details on sources, type of users, page views, clicks, bounce rate, new visitors and so on. All in all , it is the best tool available in this category.

4. Customer Relationship Management

It is important to have a tactics for managing a company’s interaction with customers, clients and sales. Where we need to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. There are tools available like Zoho, Sugar CRM, Highrise and Salesforce that startups can easily adapt to.

Among all these tools, Salesforce is most widely used CRM. It is an online web-based CRM service. As with all CRM software, it captures and organizes communications and information from current or prospective customers from many departments across a company.Salesforce’s CRM solution has broad category: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud, Collaboration Cloud and Custom Cloud which provides several services that can be integrated with Microsoft Office, Social Networking sites and mobile devices.

5. Web Design

For startups if the website is information based then it would be better to adopt WordPress as it is open source and anyone can easily design a website with the help templates. Moreover it has a lot of plugins which can be deployed to get new features without programming skills.

But if you want to go for some unique and creative website then there are tools like Coda, Adobe CS5, Pencil & Paper and Komodo Edit. Comparing all the extensively used and popular app, among them, is Adobe CS5. Here you will have to spend some penny to get full version of CS5. Adobe CS5 Web premium has all web developer tools including Adobe’s applications like Photoshop, InDesign, Contribute, Fireworks and Dreamweaver.

6. File Storage & Sync

Usually people involved in startups want to work from different places like from office/ home/ outside. They don’t want any type of delay in work and each time, to sync updated file from one PC to another takes time, when done manually. Not only this a safe, secure and fast collaborative tool is also the need time.

In this category of file management we have tools like DropBox, SugarSync, Box.net and so on. Although Google Docs can solve this problem but upto some extent, you can’t work offline and the space limit is only 1 Gb. Moving to other tools that silently sit on the machine and do the job seamlessly without any hassle. DropBox is the best solution, which stand out of the crowd and provide ultimate syncing solution for various device platforms. Files also have a backup in cloud and one can easily expand the space upto 10Gb through referrals. Regarding this my detailed review here would be useful.

7. Payment Processing

Receiving payments from Online customers and for smooth, safe transaction process, a reliable gateway provider is required. When you are selling your product in Global Market, an Internationally accepted brand and money conversion facility is required. Well, for this there are many providers like Square, Authorize.net, AlertPay, Paypal and Braintree. Among them Paypal is more user interactive and have widely acceptable APIs that can be integrated to the system easily. Also, in most of the countries Paypal is available for processing payments through local bank. Moreover, they have flexible plans for users who are new in business and overall path for scaling business become easy.

A lot of things are available on internet and finding them effectively is really tough task. When it comes to Study Materials it becomes difficult to get full material that could be enough to solve your problem or task. And googling them will take you to some new search results that may not be important for you in any case.

Well regarding this we have a Google Chrome extension developed exclusively for student community which not only help them in effectively search materials but also help in downloading the materials if the author of the material has allowed.

This Educational Material Search Extension can easily search free Video Tutorials from Youtube and other sites, Books from Open Libraries, Podcast, Notes, Lectures and Presentations from different universities and more with the help of simple toolbar button.

Overall, there are there are 8 search modes to extensively search the Study Material:

1. Video Tutorials
2. Video Tutorials from Youtube Educational Site
3. Books from Open Libraries
4. Books from Google Books
5. Podcasts
6. Notes
7. Lectures, and
8. Presentations

This extension is very helpful for students in School, College/ University. Any soft copy of material can be searched irrespective of courses/subjects. At the same time faculties/ teachers can also use this extension to get the study materials for reference.

Get this extension from here: chrome.google.com/extensions and don’t forget to leave comment on your experience.

Learning programming language is a time taking process for beginners who doesn’t have any programming background. It becomes a tedious task for them to understand and clear doubts on their own. Let us say an individual who do not know much about software, it is difficult for them to get to know and learn keywords easily.

Well the web-app which I am going to introduce you to is not only easily accessible but will also make the learning of programming language a fun. Through the interactive console you can easily grasp the keywords and learn smoothly. Finally, after completing the course you would be able to write complex programs too.

I am talking about the web app called Code Academy, it is beginner-focused (no programming experience required), collaborative, and intensive tool. This app provides everything you need learn to code: software and an environment that makes learning and productivity unavoidable. The Co-Founder and CEO of Code Academy, say “We believe that anyone can learn with the right support, resources, and dedication.”

You can easily guess, the way website works for a newbie.

The course structure to learn new language is like this:

Overall you can learn whole course with friends, track and share your progress too. At the end of course you will be able to understand

• The Ruby on Rails Web Application Framework
• HTML5 – The new standard for web markup.
• CSS3 – A powerful styling language for web design.
• Application Wireframing/Prototyping
• Test Driven Development/Agile Methodology
• Software Product Development

Every day technology gets updated, from computer to laptop to PDA’s and now smartphone! Even our very own operating system are getting new features and platform to fulfill their custom needs.

For past few years I have been living on internet, doing a lot of stuff from the internet browser only. Sometimes, when internet goes down, I feel like my computer is almost useless and ofcourse it goes to sleep mode to get some rest!
After doing almost everything inside the internet browser, you will feel like why not have full operating system running inside it. And the answer is yes.

Yes, toady we have a number of virtual cloud OS that can be accessed from browser only. So, to use this operating system, one only need an internet browser irrespective of the devices. That means you can run this OS even on smartphone which has a native browser and keep all you file and documents in sync.

Here are few cloud operating systems that uses the power of cloud computing:

1. JoliCloudOS

JoliCloudOS aims to make Cloud computing more simple and more open. It connect users to all of their online applications, social media, videos, photos and files from any device in the world. It is also available on Android, iOS, Chrome Web Store and can also be installed on newbooks separately. This OS is best in this class and what else I can say! Just go ahead and try it yourself for free at www.jolicloud.com 

2. AmoebaOS
This online OS is advanced one, has good graphic designs and better GUI as compared to SilveOS. The user interface is similar to Mac OS. On desktop, icons are arranged in dock that gives it beautiful look. OS takes time to load into the browser. amoebaos.org

3. EyeOS

eyeOS is an open source OS and has a lot of connectivity features, uses XML to store information. As its tagline say  ”Your Desktop in Cloud”, truly it make use of cloud computing. This OS also had mobile version for file sharing and believe me its a cool service. It has its own mail client and chat agent for communication. You can also share your file through url address. You can tryout this OS from here: try.eyeos.org

4. GlideOS

Glide is commercial one but you can get 30GB of free data storage. This OS has mobile versions too glidemobile.com. Glide Write the word processing app and the Glide coloring & drawing are unique features of this OS. Glide Write handles Microsoft Word Documents with aplomb. It’s very similar to Word; it looks and performs in a remarkably similar manner whereas both children and adults can take advantage of Glide’s new drawing and coloring tool. You can keep all materials in sync. Tryout this from here: glidedigital.com

Startup company BlueStacks has developed Android environment for Windows. It enable running Android-application without leaving Windows, i.e. within Windows PC.

Of course, these simulators have already existed before, but they all strongly reduced productivity, and worked with all the explicit lags and delays. BlueStacks decided to abandon the classical simulation, and implemented everything as a program for Windows x86. They are able to achieve a fast and reliable performance without the various delays.

The problem was that Android itself is isolated and does not contributed to Porter, so many previous products were failure. Although, BlueStacks has full interoperability of Android and Windows, as well as integration file system, network settings, alerts, and more. This program allows you to launch Android-applications and even create Windows-shortcuts for them. Applications can be installed even with Amazon’s Android Market.

Currently, BlueStacks establish contact with the equipment manufacturers that supply the tablets, laptops, PCs based on Windows and that may be interested in this offer. Hope, soon we will be able to buy laptops with preinstalled Windows Android-platform. Greatest opportunity and benefit will be there for producers and users of netbooks, tablets and other devices with a touch screen running Windows. They will get access to optimized touch screen applications, without losing the full benefits of Windows.

The company intends to announce its first partners in the near future. There will be downloadable version for existing devices with Windows. The first version is intended to appear in August.

I have signed up for alpha testing program. You can also do the same at the official site BlueStacks. I am quite excited to try out Google Googles, Shazam, Google Maps and so on. There is no more detailed information, only a variety of video and other interesting things around!

Here’s a question, how many of you very badly wanted to have a Google plus invite? I know most of you did. It is very typical of Google to launch their services on an invitation-only model e.g. Gmail and now Google Plus. People around the world get desperate to have their hands on an invite. Although, thousands of internet start-ups, who are more than happy to serve you with an account, are launched every year and only a few of them we get to know of ever. It is so hard for a start-up to build a critical mass for their service/product.

However, things have got relatively easier since the 90s with more than 1 billion people online now and also with the proliferation of social media networks like Twitter and Facebook. If a service is useful and cool, they would most probably gain a good traction, thanks to all those passionate early adopters tweeting about the cool new things all the time.

A few days back I got an invite in my email from a friend of a new service called Wisely where you can create videos of your presentations and share it on your public profile and thus share your knowledge or ideas with the world. I clicked on the link: www.sowisely.com which took straight to the signup page. I dropped my email and then I was suggested to share it with my friends. If 3 friends sign up, I can get an earlier access to my public profile which would look like “sowise.ly/username”. So, basically this service has not yet been launched and they are already registering users. Cool.

I figured that the whole sign up process thing has been powered by another start-up called LaunchRock. After doing a little more research in Google, I found out more start-ups who are registering users pre-launch. One of the more cool ones was vizualize.me. Their signup USP is that the first 10,000 sign ups get a premium account. In a world where getting traction is the more difficult part than the idea, LaunchRock is surely one of the coolest things I have come across in recent times.

Start-ups can never create ripples in the world like Google Plus has, but they can use tools like LaunchRock and Twitter to create some ardent followers. Though, there can be a flip side too. Those celebrated bloggers, entrepreneurs and investors who would usually get to test a product first, won’t feel exclusive when there are too many signups already. But thousands waiting to use your product is always cool!

Guest Post by Nilkamal Saha

Remember how often you come across a situation where you need to urgently show companion for “Photos”, or in a video/ picture? You must attempted to send it using the same client, which communicates, or open the mailbox, attached a picture to the letter and sent. Such a set of action brings boredom, and the service which I am talking, Dropmocks does this in less than 10 seconds.

Easier, perhaps, send images by thought. Because when you use Dropmocks do have exactly three steps:

1. View in the browser address http://www.dropmocks.com/ . If it is bookmarked, then even better.
2. Move the mouse over the desired image (or several) in the form appears in the browser field.
3. Copy- paste and send the unique link in the lower right corner of the screen.

Images appear instantly and single file size is limited to 900 KB. So, the raw multi-megabyte gallery show the source as a fail.

Images are displayed as thumbnails to the size of the browser window copies. But when you make a picture active and select the menu that comes by clicking the right mouse button, selecting “View Image”, you can see them at full resolution what you saved. In the case of lot of pictures, they all appear in the list on the right. There you can remove them from the set.

Most importantly – no registration required. Although, if you want you can log in using your account Google. In this case the unique name will be saved and will be available in the drop-down menu below the file list.

The only thing that remains unclear – how long images are stored until you delete from the server. Indeed this is not mentioned anywhere, but because the service can be classified as instantaneous, it unlikely store for a long time.

Whole service is made ​​solely on CSS and Javascript, without the use of Flash. Author – Glen Murphy (Glen Murphy), UI-designer of the Google Chrome browser and operating system Chrome OS.

No secret that today Microsoft showed what the interface will be like coming in next year’s Windows 8 (if you do not know what it looks like – see below, there are screenshots and video). At first glance it looks very cool, at least, is a global rethinking of the operating system interface. But let’s try to look deeper and really understand all of its pluses and minus.

Similarly, it should be noted that Apple is already doing something like that – trying to pull together its mobile iOS interfaces and desktop Mac OS X. Microsoft has a Windows Phone 7 OS for phones and Windows 7 desktop and tablet, but it is no secret that, as a tablet operating system is not very suitable Windows 7.

Main Interface

The main interface Windows 8 is very similar to Live Tiles Windows Phone 7. Almost every application has its own widget (or it is itself a widget). Appendices thumbed through one after another, and there is even the tiles – that is, although all of the programs for the new full-screen interface, one screen can display two applications. One of them will be “fine” mode – in the form of columns on the one hand, and the other just a little bit compressed.

On the left - RSS-reader, right - The Browser

Immediately we can say that if everything goes really well, as shown in the video, it will be a significant step forward for both Windows Tablet OS. About the benefits of various solutions, we can argue for a long time, but that it is definitely better suited for devices with a touchscreen – it is definitely.

Weather application in full screen mode

On the other hand, on the desktop it still looks quite strange, especially since the old interface with standard applications and the taskbar is still here – it will be run by “old” applications. Both interfaces will exist side by side, that looks a bit … awkward? However, Microsoft never was love for radical solutions, and always preferred to compromise. In any case, the use of “old” applications on the tablet will be the same anguish, as now, and users will have to wait until developers Beta.

Keyboard for the horizontal position of the screen. This we have seen - there was such, Microsoft Natural.

It is interesting that Windows 8 will be placed on a computer with an ARM, but (Warning), these computers will go only to new applications, which is quite logical. In general, summing up one can say that Microsoft’s decision to bring its desktop OSes for mobile may well bear fruit and has certain advantages. Thus, new applications will be developed for both desktops and laptops, and Tablet. And the new interface is quite good, although perhaps it could be more user friendly. But still better than the outdated “Start” button and taskbar.

Features in Snapshot:

• Quick launch apps from the tiles on the home screen, which replaces the “Start” menu. As in Windows Phone 7.
• Dynamic tiles with notices, which always show relevant information from the application.
• Convenient, intuitive switching between applications.
• Improved Snap for easy snap windows to screen edges and change their size.
• Web applications on HTML5 and JavaScript, with access to system functions.
• Optimized for touch screens IE10.