Android security apps that don‘t drain your device‘s battery

If you've been thinking about installing a mobile security tool for your Android phone or tablet but you're worried about the impact it may have on your battery, the folks at AV-Comparatives have some good news for you. They tested 16 different mobile antivirus apps, and none of them seriously drained the battery. 

AV-Comparatives tested 16 different products, including some of the most reputable names in mobile security like Lookout, ESET, Sophos, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, F-Secure, and Avast!, among others. They put each suite through its paces, testing to see if it caught all of the over 3,000 malware applications they tried to slip past it, and how much battery drain each app was responsible for. Maximum PC explains: ...

Surprisingly, there wasn't a whole lot that separated one product from another. Starting with a look at battery usage, AV-Comparatives found that most of the products only had a minor impact on battery life. The worst offenders in this category were Qihoo and Webroot, the former because it uses "fancy animations" and the latter due to its real-time protection component. Though they came in last, the battery drain still only amounted to around 3%. 

When it came to testing malware protection, AhnLab and Kingsoft both detected 99.9% of the nearly 3,000 malware applications that were collected in the four weeks prior to the start of the test. Kaspersky came in a close second at 99.7%, followed by Baidu and ESET (both detected 99.6%), Bitdefender (99.4%), and Avast (99%). Several others scored in the 98 percentile, while Ikarus took last place with a 91% detection rate.

AV-Comparatives concludes that the days when the value of mobile security apps was questionable at best is long over, and the threats facing mobile devices (specifically Android users) are significant enough that "mobile security software protects the user against the great majority of threats, and should not, in our opinion, be regarded as merely optional." 

You can see how each of the products fared in the chart above. Keep in mind that many of the suites may not be available in your market because they were designed for other countries (and to catch malware threats more prevalent in other regions). Even so, if you've wondered whether Android antivirus would come into its own, it has-and if you were worried about your battery, 

Facial recognition: Facebook may use profile photos

Facebook is considering incorporating most of its 1 billion-plus members' profile photos into its growing facial recognitiondatabase, expanding the scope of the social network's controversial technology. 

The possible move, which Facebook revealed in an update to its data use policy, is intended to improve the performance of its "Tag Suggest" feature. The feature uses facial recognition technology to speed up the process of labeling or "tagging" friends and acquaintances who appear in photos posted on the network. 

The technology currently automatically identifies faces in newly uploaded photos by comparing them only to previous snapshots in which users were tagged. Facebook users can choose to remove tags identifying them in photos posted by others on the site. 

The changes would come at a time when Facebook and other Internet companies' privacy practices are under scrutiny, following the revelations of a U.S. government electronic surveillance program. 

Facebook, Google Inc and other companies have insisted that they have never participated in any program giving the government direct access to their computer servers and that they only provide information in response to specific requests, after careful review and as required by law. 

Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan said that adding members' public profile photos would give users better control over their personal information, by making it easier to identify posted photos in which they appear. 

"Our goal is to facilitate tagging so that people know when there are photos of them on our service," Egan said. 

She stressed that Facebook users uncomfortable with facial recognition technology will still be able to "opt out" of the Tag Suggest feature altogether, in which case the person's public profile photo would not be included in the facial recognition database. 

Facial recognition technology has been a sensitive issue for technology companies, raising concerns among some privacy advocates and government officials. Tag Suggest, which the company introduced in 2011, is not available in Europe due to concerns raised by regulators there.

Google's social network, Google+, also employs similar technology, but requires user consent. And it has banned third-party software makers from using facial recognition technology in apps designed for its Glass wearable computer. 

Egan said Facebook was not currently using facial recognition technology for any other features, but that could change. 

"Can I say that we will never use facial recognition technology for any other purposes? Absolutely not," Egan said. But, she noted, "if we decided to use it in different ways we will continue to provide people transparency about that and we will continue to provide control." 

Facebook also amended its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities on Thursday, adding and tweaking the language so that members under 18 years of age are deemed to have affirmed that a parent or legal guardian has agreed to allow marketers to use some of their personal information in ads. 

The language was the result of a recent court-approved legal settlement regarding its "sponsored stories" ads.

Make Money With Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network - Review

Today, I'm going to introduce you and review Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network which is the best alternative to Google Adsense. This network is especially for those who are tired of getting disabled again and again by Google Adsense. It is true that Google Adsense is strict in their policies and we should not depend only on Google Adsense. There are also thousands of alternative networks which we can use and Yahoo Bing Ads is also one of them. I will strongly recommend to everyone to give a try to Yahoo Ads if you're unable to use Google Adsense. Well, So now it's time to discuss the main thing about this post. Let's get started.

Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network

Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network is a good network for advertising for both Publishers and Advertisers. Publishers can generate revenue with it while Advertisers will get their brand into the next level. We'll specially discuss this for Publishers as the title of the post shows that. This is one the most popular PPC [ Paid Per Click ] click which is being used by million of people around the world. If you've a good blog or website and want to monetize it then you should give a try to this network. Because, it has more great and unique features if we compare it with Google Adsense. So here I'm going to explain that how can we use it and get paid.

How To Use ? - Invite, Create Ad, Generate Revenue and Get Paid

If you want to get started with Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network then continue reading this because here I'll tell you that how to use it and get paid. First of all, You've to apply to that network. Before applying, you should check their policies and if your site is complying with their policies then surely apply it. It will take about a week to review your application and you will get the mail from them about the status of your account. Once, If you got approval then you're ready to use that. Now you've to create some ad units and after that you will get the ad code which you've to implement in your site or blog. I recommend to add ad code in header, sidebar and below the post title. Simply, now when someone will click on your ads then you will be getting paid. For the payment, they use to send payment every month to their publisher but to receive the payment your earning must cross the minimum threshold which is $100 USD Dollars. They support the most popular and easy payment methods which are PayPal and Bank Transfer.

Features Of Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network

They have some brilliant features which I'm going to share below. These features are really amazing which may not be available in other advertising networks. So let me tell you what I'm talking about.

1. Big Advertiser Pool : Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network is a big advertiser pool. It means you will get all kinds of advertisements according to your niche. No matter, on which niche your site is based, They will show the most appropriate and target keyword ads according to your niche on your site. As you can see the live demo that this blog is about Blogging and see the Yahoo ads they should be related to blogging and technology.

2. Get Keyword Based Targeted Ads : This network will show the targeted ads on your site or blog. Mean to say, If your content is about fashion, shopping, technology, cooking or whatever it is then this network will show the ads according to your content or niche. In other words, you will get the related ads on your site according to the niche of your blog or site. Which helps you to generate even more revenue.

3. Customized Ads or Ads on Auto Pilot : This is another great feature of Yahoo Bing Ads that you can customize the Ads according to your choice. They have special tools for every publisher to customize the Ads easily. If you don't have time then you can set your Ads on auto pilot. The autopilot will automatically customize your ads according to the color of your site or blog. I don't think this is any bad thing but it's great.

4. Greater Control : This network allows you to give you full control of your ads and account. I think this feature may not be available on other networks like Adsense. So, in this feature, you can control your ads easily. If you don't like any ad topic then you can block it in your site from your Yahoo Ads account. More options like Influence Targeting, Filter Advertisers and Block Ad Topics are also available in this network.

5. Mobile Ads : If you are about to use Yahoo Bing Ads then you will not lose the mobile ads. With Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network, You can also show the ads on your site if someone is visiting from any mobile device. Mobile is the next most popular generation which is being popular nowadays. So, in future, the total number of mobile internet users will increase and we should not miss mobile ads. And this network supports almost every mobile.

6. Track Performance In Real Time : One of the most pretty feature of this network is that it gives you the reporting and performance in real time. It also provides the real and accurate stats. No matter, if you are unable to track the performance from your laptop or computer, you can get the reporting also on mobiles like the iPhone or iPad.

Approval Tips

Now after seeing some awesome features you may be interested in using Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network. So, here I'm going to give you some tips to get your site or blog approved. I will not take your too much time so that I've just listed some things which your site/blog must have to get approved.

1. TLD [ Top Level Domain Name ] - .Com, .Net, .Org etc. -
2. Unique, Quality and Acceptable By The Network Content
3. Domain Age = 3/4 Months
4. 40% Organic Search Traffic
5. 1000 Daily Pageviews
6. About Us, Contact Us and Privacy Policy Pages
7. Easy To Navigate

How To Apply For Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network?

So, when you're all done about the approval tips then it's time to request the invitation. It's not any difficult task you can do it just by following the simple steps below.

• Go To http://contextualads.yahoo.net/
• Click on "Request an Invite" button in the header.
• Now a form will come which you've to fill.

• After filling the primary form, click the continue button to proceed to the next step.
• After that, You will land in the next form which will be about the owner details. Means, it will ask for the details about the owner of a website. Simply, Fill it.

• Finally, After filling the form click "I accept" button at the bottom.
• Now a message will appear that you've successfully requested for the invite.
• That's All!

Final Words

This was the Yahoo Bing Contextual Ads Network which I've reviewed today and also told you how to apply and some approval tips. I hope this little long post will help you to gain information about this Yahoo Ads network. Once again, I recommend those who are tired of Adsense to give a try to this network. Because, It's the best alternative to Google Adsense. Get connected with us to get more and also subscribe us. Take Care and Happy Earning!

Facebook Launches Tool for Creating Embedded Posts

               Update: I had previously shared a workaround for embedding Facebook posts in your website but looks like you no longer need it as Facebook has officially launched the code generator for embedded posts at developers.facebook.com.

Just paste the URL of a Facebook post, hit the “Get Code” button and pick the HTML5 version of the embed code. Also, the warning on the Facebook page still says that “embedded Posts are currently available to a handful of news publishers” but it can be ignored as the generated embed code works just fine for any public post shared on Facebook.

You may see this sample webpage that uses Embedded Posts from Facebook though that profile hasn’t been approved for embedded posts yet.

  

How to Embed Facebook Posts

Facebook introduced an “embedded posts” feature to help you embed any Facebook post – you can embed photographs, videos or regular status updates – on another website or blog. For instance, if a celebrity has shared a photograph on his or her Facebook Page, you can easily embed that image on your website by adding a single line of code.

You may embed any content that’s shared on Facebook Pages and personal profiles as long as the content owner has set the visibility of that post to Public.

There’s a small catch though. Facebook has enabled the Embedded Posts functionality for a handful of big web publishers including CNN, Mashable and The Huffington Post. Everyone else will have to wait to see that Embed link alongside their Facebook content.

There’s however an easy workaround though that will let you embed any Facebook content on your website even if “Embedded Posts” are not officially available for that Facebook account.

Embed Code for Embedded Posts

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>
(function(d, s, id) {
    var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
    if (d.getElementById(id))
        return;
    js = d.createElement(s);
    js.id = id;
    js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1";
    fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));
</script>
<div class="fb-post" data-href="YOUR_URL_HERE"></div>

Open any Facebook Post and copy the permalink (permanent URL) of that post. You can right-click the date of the post to determine its permalink. Next replace YOUR_URL_HERE in the snippet above with the permalink that you just copied and paste the modified snippet anywhere in your website. Done!

If you wisht to embed another Facebook post on the same web page, you don’t have to copy-paste the entire snippet. Just add a new <fb:post> element and set the value of href as the permalink of your Facebook Post. The video tutorial explains this in greater detail.

Video Tutorial: How to Embed Facebook Posts

How to Make your Mobile Screenshots Look Awesome

             iPhone, press the Home & Sleep buttons and the screenshot image will be saved instantly. On an Android device, press the Volume Down & Power button simultaneously to capture whatever is currently on your screen. And in the case of Windows Phone 8, press and hold the Start and Power buttons at the same time to take a screenshot.

  It’s easy to capture screenshots on mobile devices but let’s do a quick recap. If you have an

That’s a raw screenshot saved in your camera roll but you also need to add the hardware frame around your screenshots so that the captured images appear more realistic and provides better context to the viewer.

Why is that important? A 768 pixels wide screenshot of a mobile app in portrait mode could have been captured on an Android device or an old iPad – now wrap that same image inside the Google Nexus frame and everyone is saved from playing a guessing game.

A layered photo editing tool like Adobe Photoshop makes it really easy for you to add hardware device frames to any screenshot image. Go to Dribbble and search for “freebies PSD <mobile name>” and you’ll find beautiful mockups for that mobile device.

Download and import the PSD file into Photoshop and then use the File -> Place command to place the screenshot image as a new layer over the mockup. Use the Save for Web option to export the screen capture in JPEG format.

[*] Dribbble users usually add the tag “freebies” or “free” to indicate that others can reuse their design(s) for personal and commercial use. Other than Dribbble, Deviant Art and Behance are also good places to discover high-quality mobile mockups.

If you aren’t well-versed in Photoshop, you can make use of a web app like PlaceIt that will automatically add device frames to your mobile screenshots.

The tool offers a collection of professional-quality photographs of mobile phones and tablets placed in realistic settings. You need to drag your screenshot image onto a photograph and it will automatically get placed in the screen area of the mobile device perfectly aligned with the hardware frame.

PlaceIt can handle screenshots of your iPhone, iPad, Nokia Lumia, Macbook, Microsoft Surface, iMac, Amazon Kindle, Samsung Galaxy and Google Nexus phones.

The Device Art Generator, available here and here, is provided by Google for anyone to quickly add device frames around screenshots of Android phones and tablets.

Drag the mobile screenshot image on to a device frame and it will quickly wrap that frame around your image. You also have the option to add screen glare and depth (for perspective) to the generated screenshots.

Device Art Generator includes templates for HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Google Nexus 10 devices.

MockuPhone is another useful web app for adding device frames to your mobile screenshots with a unique feature. You pick a device frame, upload the mobile screenshot image and the tool will generate multiple screenshot images of the same device but at different angles.

The tool produces very high-resolution screenshots and they offer device frames for the iPhone 5, iPad & iPad Mini, Google Nexus and Samsung Galaxy S4.

You can also add realistic device frames to your mobile screenshots via email. Just send the raw screenshot image as an email attachment to smartphones@mailchimp.com and, within in a minute or two, they will send you the processed screenshot with the device frame. You can also send multiple screenshots in the same message.

The service will automatically detects the mobile device name and the image orientation (portrait or landscape) using the EXIF data in the image and adds the appropriate hardware frame. It supports iPhone, iPad, Galaxy Tab, Nexus and a bunch of mobile device – send an email with the subject “help” to the same address for a complete list.SOURCE

The Easiest Way to Host your Website on Google Drive

If you are looking for a place to quickly host your websites but don’t have access to any web server, Google Drive is a great alternative. You can use Google Drive to host basic websites or even complex JavaScript based web apps. You may publish any kind of static content* on your website including HTML pages, images, CSS, icons, audio and video files.

Google Drives serves your website over HTTPS and thus can be be used for hosting custom Facebook Pages since Facebook requires that custom pages are only served over secure HTTP.

How to Host your Website on Google Drive

The official procedure for hosting websites on Google Drive involves a couple of steps.

You need to upload your website files to a folder inside Google Drive, set the sharing permissions of that folder as public, open the index.html file that you uploaded in the Google Docs viewer and then click the “Preview” link to get the URL of your website.

The process may not be complicated but a little time-consuming for sure. There’s a better waythough that will let you publish your websites on to Google Drive in a single step.

From your computer to Google Drive in one step

Just put all your website assets in a zip file (you may use this sample website) and then click here to upload that zip file to your Google Drive. Once the file has uploaded, the tool will generate the public URL of your website in the same step. Isn’t that simple?

Internally, this little Google Script is doing all the hard work for you. If you are using the tool for the first time, you may have to click the “Authorize” button since the script needs your permission to upload that zip file to your Google Drive.

There are a few things you need to know before hosting websites on Google Drive. One, you need to have an index.html as that file will be served when someone tries to access the homepage of your site. Second, Google Drive websites have a URL structure likegoogledrive.com/host/ and there’s no way to change the default URL.

For instance, if your are hosting a website on Google Drive but wish to serve it under your own custom domain, that’s not possible yet. There’s a workaround though.

Public Google Drive Websites with different Web Domain

I’ll show an example here. This website is hosted on Google Drive and here’s the same websitebut hosted on a different web domain. The trick is easy – you just have to wrap your Google Drive website URL inside an IFRAME tag as shown in the following snippet:

<html>
 <head>
  <style>
    body { margin:0; padding:0; }
    iframe { position: absolute; height: 100%; width: 100%; }
  </style>
  <title>Google Drive Website</title>
 </head>    
 <body>
   <iframe src="https://googledrive.com/host/ABCD/" frameborder="0"></iframe>
 </body>
</html>

The height and width attributes of the IFRAME tag should be set to 100% for the Google Drive website to occupy the entire screen. The only downside is that the URL in the address bar won’t change if you open a different page of the website since you are now browsing inside an embedded page.