Apple’s Retina Display Vs. Super AMOLED From Samsung

RainbowIf you own an Apple product such as the latest iPad, iPhone 4S, or MacBook Pro (the latest version), then you have seen one of the boldest advancements in display technologiesRetina Display.

[Update: There are other phones with better than Retina Display now]

This is the Apple standard of displaying content with pixelation that human eye cannot detect. That means if you view your Apple screen from a natural viewing distance, you will not be able to distinguish any pixels. This makes Retina Display a ravishing new development as far as display technologies go.

On the other hand, Samsung has pioneered in developing new display technologies for handheld devices, and they have come up with Active-Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) technology (an improvement over the OLED system). ‘Super AMOLED’ and ‘Super AMOLED Plus’ are variants of this. You will find a comparison of Retina and AMOLED here.

Architecture of Mobile Displays

AMOLED as the name suggests is a display based on organic compounds, which luminesce on contact with electricity. The display has an organic layer above a thin film transistor (TFT) substrate that injects electricity into the organic layer, making it generate the necessary colors. Look at the image here.

amoled technology

The individual pixels on AMOLED are capable of creating their own light, and hence they don’t require a backlight unlike other liquid crystal displays. This is one of the reasons why AMOLED gives the best possible black levels.

Retina display by Apple employs the traditional LCD TFT with IPS (In-Plane Switching, made to widen the display angle, pioneered by Hitachi) technology, but they have made the pixels too tiny to notice (78 micrometers as claimed by Apple). Thus iPhone 4S is capable of displaying more pixels per square inch. iPhone 4S has a ppi ratio of 326, one of the highest among smartphones today. To get some advanced information about Retina display, go to Jonesblog.

Power Consumption

LCD displays require a dedicated backlight to generate colors. This is also the reason why LCD doesn’t give you perfect black levels (even to display black it needs backlight!). This obviously increases the power consumption level of LCD.

Winner: AMOLED

Clarity & Color Reproduction

 

clarity and color reproduction on samsung vs iphone

Viewing the image on an LCD screen and an AMOLED screen and then judging the consistency of clarity would easily suggest the superiority of LCD over AMOLED.

The latter has a problem with sunlight. It doesn’t display well under it. In fact you wouldn’t be able to recognize if the phone is turned on or not under sunlight. This is the reason why Samsung innovated and developed a variant known as Super AMOLED that displays better under sunlight.

AMOLED has another issue. It gives an oversaturated image and doesn’t come up with the naturalness in colors. However, LCD screen generates the most natural of colors. Considering the pixel density and brightness of Retina display, Apple has scored here.

Winner: Retina Display

Pixelation

You will not notice any pixelation on iPhone or the latest iPad. High ppi ratio and small size of pixels make the display lifelike. On the other hand, you can notice a slight amount of pixelation on AMOLED phones like Samsung Galaxy S3. Although this is not exactly a display technology issue, we still rate it here.

Winner: Retina Display

Display Thickness

As you saw earlier, OLED displays lack one layer, the backlight. This makes the display much thinner than the Retina display.

Winner: AMOLED

Viewing Angle

 

viewing angle

OLED displays have no bar on their viewing angles. Retina display on the other hand employs IPS technology to improve their viewing angles.

Without this innovation, LCD screens have just the same viewing angle as old laptops. The clarity goes down as you move to a side.

With LCD IPS, Apple has achieved excellent viewing angle on iPhone. However, AMOLED display is like a printed paper when viewed from the sideit’s clear and blemish-free.

Winner: AMOLED

Brightness and Contrast

Apple iPhone 4S is brighter than Samsung Galaxy S3 at the first look. The Retina Display regulates brightness of the screen efficiently so that you get the best battery life and the best brightness. However, if you go higher on brightness or try to achieve the same amount of brightness on both the devices, you will find AMOLED screen on S3 to be slightly brighter. Check this image out from Engadget…

samsung galaxy s3 vs iphone 4s


Winner: AMOLED (due to savings on battery life).

Conclusion

Looking at the display technologies available today, you can expect to see several developments in the coming years. Also, there are a lot of other technologies out thereOLET, SED, QD-LED, FLD, etc. Difference between AMOLED and Retina is that the former is one of the best new technologies and the other uses the best possible improvement on an existing technology.

How to Make a DVD out of a YouTube Video?

As you well know, Google’s YouTube is one of the most popular video sharing sites out there. Millions of people watch videos in YouTube daily and probably wonder if there is any way they can download them into their computers. A few tech-savvy people do it through certain browser plugins and computer applications designed to download online video.

In order to get YouTube movies into a DVD, first you have to download the video, and then if necessary, convert the format so that it fits into a DVD. The downloaders usually do the conversion too. First, let’s look at how you download videos from YouTube.

If you have a regular Windows PC or laptop, then use one of the following applications to download videos from YouTube. Some of these applications also work with other video sharing sites like MetaCafe, DailyMotion, MegaVideo, Veoh, etc.

VDownloader

Well, if you want a free application for video download, this is the one. VDownloader is an absolutely free application, and it downloads from several popular video sharing sites. The number of file formats supported also is big—avi, mp4, 3gp, mpg, flv, and the list goes on. Besides this, the application uses a built-in proxy server that helps download from blocked video sites.

In fact, if you have an application like Nero, then this downloader is all you need to fetch, convert, and burn videos into a DVD.

ClipGrab

This is another free program for not only YouTube, but also DailyMotion, Vimeo, MyVideo, etc., among others. ClipGrab is available for both Windows and Apple Mac OS X. The videos can be converted to MPEG4, WMV, OGG, etc.

Fastest Free YouTube Downloader

Just as the name suggests, Fastest Free YouTube Downloader downloads videos from YouTube very quickly. Tests have indicated that it fetches videos at the speed of nearly 2MB/s (that’s 16mbps). As long as you have a fast Internet connection, this application could be very useful. Also, it has both Windows and Mac versions.

Here’s a how to video:

 

Tubulator


With an interface similar to your web browser, this download manager is easy on the eyes. Although it has limited support for output format, it is a free version for the time being.

Until the software development reaches version 1.0, Tubulator will remain free. And it has got a Mac version too.

 

Vixy Freecorder

Vixy Freecorder runs from your browser, whether it is Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox. The application is free and powerful. Vixy Freecorder can download videos from a number of sites other than YouTube. It also can download videos in HD format. The biggest advantage of the application is that it has what you really need—a media converter. It can convert videos into other popular file formats so that you can burn them into a DVD or a VCD easily.

Besides these applications, you can use the following website to download the video directly.

FetchVideo.com

This is a popular video download site. Just paste the URL of the YouTube video you want to download and press the button ‘Download by URL’. It will generate a download window, from where you have to click ‘Run’ in order for the download to start. However, you should have your browser’s Java plugin updated and enabled properly as the site uses Java for this purpose.

Do you have that video downloaded? Good! The video you have is probably in .flv format. If so, you need a converter to make it into the DVD format. If you already have a proprietary application installed (such as Nero Burning Rom), then the conversion is not difficult. In case you don’t have an application, here is the free alternative.

Creating DVD Directly From YouTube Videos

 

The free application developed by DVDVideoSoft, the Free YouTube to DVD Converter is a complete application that downloads and converts YouTube videos and then burns them into a DVD. Here is the ‘for-dummies’ for this application

1. Download the Free YouTube to DVD Converter from here.
2. Open up YouTube and get the links to the videos that you want to download (make it into a list), and paste the list into the application.
3. Among the presets, make your choice (DVD-NTSC or DVD-PAL).
4. Now, click on ‘Create DVD’, and off you go!

The Free YouTube to DVD converter, as you can see, is an amazing application. Maybe, you could use just that to get a DVD collection of all your favorite YouTube videos.

How to Fix Issues on Google Chrome Web Browser?

Chrome browser blue

If you are one of the guys who are always on the internet, I bet you use Google Chrome at least as a backup browser. As far as Browser statistics go, Google Chrome is number one.

An advanced user might have a huge number of add-ons and plugins to enable this browser user-friendly. With such great add-ons, Chrome is addictive, intuitive, and fast.

Check out the popularity of browsers as of 2012 July:

pie chart of browser statistics

[Data courtesy: w3schools.com]

Also, this is probably the only browser that can take you across borders with all your data—all you need is sign in using a Google account and sync your local data with Google. This way, on another location, if you want the same user experience, just log into Google with that account from Chrome. Besides all these, Chrome is the native product of Google, making it perfect for a great next generation Web experience.

However, if you come across any issues on Chrome, then here you will find what you have to do. I have looked through some of the known issues in Chrome and prepared this article. If you find your issue here, the solution will help you. If not, please comment and we can work on that and update the article later.

The ‘Aw, Snap!’

 

Aw snap! Chrome issue

This message is displayed on a number of occasions. When a web page is not displayed properly or has crashed, the message will appear. It would say, “Something went wrong while displaying this web page. To continue, press Reload or go to another page.”

Certain security applications may cause this sort of an error occasionally. Google has identified some of these applications—Spyware Doctor, McAfee Virus Scan (also Enterprise), Comodo Firewall, etc. If you have any such application installed, you may have to create an exception for Chrome browser.

A malfunctioning browser extension could also cause this error. If you have several of them, you may have to disable one at a time to see how the browser is performing. This way, you can pinpoint which extension is causing the issue.

Sometimes presence of malware can also cause this issue. Check for malware using the free edition of Malwarebytes Antimalware.

If none of these works, go ahead and create a new user profile for Chrome. Here’s how to do it.

1. Close Google Chrome
2. Find the user data folder for Chrome (on Windows XP, go to Windows Explorer and browse to “%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\”; on Windows Vista or 7, go to “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\”;
On Mac OS X, “~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default”).
3. Rename the folder ‘Default’ and restart the browser. This will automatically generate a new user profile. In order to restore the contents on the original profile, just rename the folder back.

“Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed.”

This message appears when Google Chrome has been terminated unexpectedly. In this case, just try to reopen the browser and see if it works. If not, just follow the troubleshooting steps outlined for ‘Aw, Snap’ above, and that should fix the issue.

Here’s a video from Google:

In case it’s still not fixed, you may need to check for errors on protected system files on Windows. For this, you can use the System File Checker (SFC) utility.

Depending on the Windows version you are using, just type in ‘SFC /scannow’ on the Start Search box or the Run window. In case any system file replacement is required, Windows will ask you for the installation DVD. Otherwise, the system files should be fine.

Google Chrome Not Saving Passwords

 

What if google chrome does not save password

Depending on the version of Chrome you have on, you should have the option to enable saving web-based passwords. In the latest version, under the settings, get to advanced settings. From there, select the checkbox, ‘Offer to save passwords…’

After doing this, normally all passwords should be saved without any issues. Google Chrome will automatically display a bar on the top asking you if you want to save a password. If you don’t want to, select ‘Never for this site’.

In certain websites, Google Chrome neither saves the password nor auto-fills anything in username and password fields. In case, Chrome is still not asking for the password and you haven’t excluded the site from this feature, then it may be because the site itself is blocking Chrome from doing that.

If you look into the source code of the website in which password saving is not working, you may find that the autocomplete feature is turned off (this feature automatically fills in the rest of the data as you are typing into a web form). You need to enable the autocomplete option. In order to do this, right-click on the page, click ‘Inspect Element’, and then delete the ‘autocomplete=off’ option (just right-click and choose ‘delete node’).

In order to automate this process, you can also use a plugin available for Chrome. Install the ‘autocomplete=on’ plugin. This plugin automatically checks for autocomplete option and turns it on.

However, certain websites take extra measure to stop browsers from remembering passwords. In such cases, these efforts may not work.

“A script running on this page is taking a loooong time to do its job”

This long message comes up when you have a web page having JavaScript that is taking too long to respond. This is the case with pages studded with JavaScript codes. You can either let the browser wait till the script completes or stop the script.

“He’s Dead, Jim!”

If Windows itself interferes and deletes a particular tab that you opened from memory, this message appears. This happens when you are low on system memory and the operating system has to make adjustments. You can reload the tab and see if it starts working.

Use Google Chrome’s Task Manager (different from the Windows task manager; click on the wrench icon and then click on Tools to open it) to free up memory by closing unnecessary tabs and plugins. Windows task manager also displays multiple Chrome processes which you can terminate in order to make the system faster.

When you use the Task Manager, Chrome may display error messages related to crash in plugins that you have closed. You can restart the plugin if required.

Google Chrome Is Too Slow

In case it’s taking ages to respond to a web page or if the browser is just sitting idle without any progress, reasons could be several. It may be due to a bad browser plugin, system issues such as low memory, Chrome using a proxy server, browser user profile corrupted, or due to cookies and temp files.

As a first step, try to reload the page. Delete the unnecessary browser data and cookies and try again. If this doesn’t work, look for a rogue plugin by disabling one plugin at a time. After spotting it, uninstall it to continue.

If in case ‘Resolving Proxy’ message appears on lower left-hand corner of the page, you may be using a proxy server. Google Chrome updates proxy server details from Internet Explorer or the Windows connection utility. Hence, you can directly check the proxy server details of IE and remove it or replace with a faster proxy server.

In order to change the user profile information, follow the steps outlined above in ‘Aw Snap’ troubleshooting.

Conclusion

Google Chrome is faster than ever today, even with a myriad of plugins and add-ons. You can open plenty of tabs and just browse through them in a jiffy. In case you come across any issues, just follow the troubleshooting steps mentioned here. If you still come across issues, please mention in comments.

How People Are Finding Jobs Through Social Media and Networking Sites?

We know how social networks have changed our lives. Led by Facebook, they crawled in and conquered us. How many of them do we know now? How many of them do we use? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google +, and it goes on. Each of these social networks satisfies a specific group of individuals, I believe.

For instance, Facebook is for the general public, who want to share their pictures and videos and want to know what is happening with their friends. Twitter is for celebrities and large organizations to immediately share their important news with the followers, and also for latest news on civilian emergency response. LinkedIn is for anybody to boast about their career and business plans or to interact with others in the same industry. Google + satisfies website owners and authors.

The social media job revolution began when Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar), CMO and Chief Customer Officer for Enterasys Networks, a wireless networking equipment provider, tweeted this:


The position to be filled mentioned by Vala Afshar is a six-figure social media job. For this specific job, there are a few requirements, such as a minimum Klout score of 60 and Kred Influence score of 725.

Marketing and Communications company, Commpro has shared these statistics:

  • employers using social networks: Linked-98%, Twitter-42%, Facebook-33%
  • LinkedIn is the favorite destination for recruiters. 48 percent of them exclusively use this social network, and an average recruiter probably has over 600 connections on LinkedIn, while they have only 245 on Facebook and 37 on Twitter.

This is one of the indications of how the industry is progressing—especially the tech industry. These tech giants already know how social networks can influence growth and sales. Only a dumb-ass CEO won’t open a social media profile for his company. Even the big corporations at the top of the industry have their own profiles in competing social networks, don’t they? Here’s Google’s Twitter page, and here is Facebook’s YouTube channel.

Klout and Kred Influence

These job offerings based on social media probably require you to have a killer profile—one that really talks about your interests, plans, achievements, and level of influence. If you are really keen about getting a job through your social media profile, you should immediately rethink the way you use it. Not just Twitter, but Facebook, LinkedIn and any other social network you are part of.

LinkedIn assumes special importance, as it is the largest professional network in the world. Within LinkedIn, people make connections with their coworkers and contacts from other companies, rather than their college buddies. Hence, pay attention to how you represent yourself on this network.

A starting point would be how to be smart on Facebook. That article discusses about various things that you should be doing in order to have a good Facebook account, such as sharing the stuff that matters, and refraining from liking everything you come across.

Klout and Kred Influence are two services that measure your social media presence. These platforms let you connect via various social networks you have—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, etc. Here, my Klout score right now is so low, but it’s okay since I am not actively trying to get recruited through social media at this point.

Klout scores you between 1 and 100 based on various factors—actually Klout says nearly 400 factors. The tweets you make, the topics you are interested in, retweets, mentions, votes that others give you, etc., all factor into your final Klout score.

Ellen Degeneres Klout score

Klout also gives you actual perks for growing your social profile. Interestingly, there were a number of giveaways, such as a Chevy Volt driving experience, Windows Phone to try out with 3 months of service, AMEX 25 dollar gift cards, etc., are some of them.

It goes without saying how important it is to maintain a good standing on your social profiles.

Kred is another platform similar to Klout that measures your social standings. We were unable to test it out fully as the email confirmation system was not working properly.

Social Media Tips

It just doesn’t mean you will get a job as soon as you have a huge number of friends and followers. You really have to have influence on that group of people. There are a number of spam services in the social media world that can give you a huge number of friends and followers in very limited amount of time. Most of them work through a point-based system in which a user is given points to share another user’s Facebook profile, and the user can then spend these points to promote his own profile. In essence, it is a mutual-promotion system.

There are huge downsides to this kind of spam. Even if you manage to gather a huge number of followers, none of them may be actually interested in the stuff you share. All of your followers may have huge number of people that they follow themselves, making it difficult for anybody to share anything valuable.

In essence, it is always best to gather followers and friends naturally. Here are a few tips you should follow on your social media profiles to make it more attractive to employers.

  1. 1. Information you share should be correct and verifiable. You should not create fake profiles and share incorrect information. This also does not mean that you should share personal information. Share what you would not mind others to see, and make sure they are correct information.
  2. 2. Do not try spamming activities. If you would like to meet a specific person, do not be persistent. Try to send a message through whichever social network you are using and seek whether it is possible for you to network with that person. Within LinkedIn, you can make connections, and if the other person doesn’t know you and turns down that connection, that is a negative point for you.
  3. 3. Share only valuable and interesting things. Really put a check on what you share with your followers. If you find a dishonest marketing gimmick from the social media profile of a company, do not share or comment on it. Do not even like it. Anything you like or comment on, may appear on your timeline, appearing on your friends and followers. In essence, don’t be stupid.
  4. 4. On Twitter, do not follow too many people that you cannot manage. Follow only a few important accounts that can update you on the things that matter. Do not follow another account just because that other guy has auto-follow turned on.
  5. 5. When you are tweeting, do not simply post a link and a comment like “I like this” or the title of the story. Try to capture your observation into that tweet. Make it something like “CNN published this story <link> and I couldn’t find any evidence of <something> happening”. Make it stand out from the rest of the updates. A lot of people have Twitter updates turned on, on their smartphones. They will see your update and read it. You really want to design how you appear to them.
  6. 6. Make your Facebook timeline clean. You could turn on a specific feature called timeline review. This will help you review anything that you are tagged on before it appears on your timeline.
  7. 7. Be active!

 

Conclusion

Remember your credit score? You build a horrible credit score and you end up not being able to get a loan anywhere. A social media profile is almost the same. You post a number of spammy entries, and the Internet always has someone watching and keeping track of them. Keep your track clean and you should be good to go.

[Image: Bufferapp]

Software to Encrypt Your Files and Protect Them From Eavesdropping

Today let me discuss about encryption a little bit. You may know that the government agencies, hackers, and companies are capable of eavesdropping into your communications. It doesn’t matter how you transfer files and emails, they are always under the threat of wiretapping.

How do you hide your data? There is only one way you can safeguard from data stealers. That’s by using a software application to encrypt your files and folders. One of the best encryption software out there is being reviewed in this article. The program is known as Encrypt4All available for trial download.

Encrypt4all is a complete encryption software program that can encrypt and lock files, folders, documents in various formats, etc., into an archive with bit-by-bit encryption methods. One of the major advantages of Encrypt4all is that it has the capability to work with many different file formats, some of which include documents, text files, PDF, mp3, videos, Flash, etc. This is not a big advantage as the software developer would want you to believe. Windows encryption software is also capable of encrypting any type of file.

With Encrypt4all, you can set a password for any encrypted file. It is hence not possible to open encrypted archives without supplying the specific password. The application is available for these Windows versions—98, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, and 7. It also supports 64-bit and 32-bit operating systems. The application requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or later.

The application has a shell interface that integrates to the Windows Explorer. Hence, you can call up the encryption function directly by right-clicking on a file.

You can set a master password to safeguard Encrypt4all as well. Here are two screenshots of the program.

encryption software

 

Encrypt4all program for encryption

 

This encryption software has been regarded to be the best by Brothersoft, Free Downloads Center, FDM, Wareshare.org, etc. In order to protect your files and folders, encryption is the best method out there. With this, you will be able to hide the content by scrambling it with a key, only with which you can unscramble the data at the receiving end. This is the best way to protect sensitive data from getting into the hands of strangers.