Today, when i read the article “Many World Cup Players Banned from Social Media” on mashable , it was sheer disappointment for me, as only recently i started following favourite players on twitter including, @realkaka to know the latest updates directly. I hope as a fan, millions across world would’ve felt the same disappointment over this unfair ban.

Social Media Ban

This ban made me think, Is SNS equally rated with sex and alcohol which usually fall under ban category during the World Cup seasons ?? Its not sure what kind of action will be taken on players who breach this ban.

As by report, “Players on the teams from Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Germany, Argentina and England are forbidden to use social services such as Twitter. Coach Marcelo Bielsa of Chile, banned all social networking and even put a curfew on regular or non-social Internet use during the evening. Moreover, players are not allowed to have someone else post an update or tweet on their behalf…”

Two possiblity of Ban (other than for chile):

1) One is, complete ban of using SNS by players that means no way to access these site, which i think is least possible.

2) Another is, just ban on posting updates through their account that means more chance that players can keep an
eye on the messages they receive from well-wishers (haters too).

So the point here is, whether this ban help them in any way to be focused on their goal ie, winning ‘Holy Grail of Soccer’ ??

In my opinion, it is impossible to keep players without distraction with this ban, when millions of eyes and camera lenses focusing on them in particular. Here are the reasons why the ban appears to be meaningless…

1) Communication: To express clear thoughts through SNS are far better than expressing their views in short time in press meet or after match opinions, which often put them in further controversies and pressure. SNS are best known for expressing ones own view directly and reach out millions without modification, hype or exaggeration.

2) Good Relation between Players and Fans: This ban only make the players not to have healthy interaction with the fans or at least to miss all the inspirational words from their die hard fans and pave way to no peace of mind by sudden cut of daily communication through SNS.

Ban can impose partially, but complete ban during WC season is unfair. I’m curious to know your views too.
Please share what you think as comments below

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2. Be Social with these Social Media Tools
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If you are a blogger, you probably will wonder if anyone ever like or appreciate what you have posted on your blog/site. That is definitely a common question for everyone.

For me there are 4 biggest sign to show you that people like or appreciate what you have posted on your blog/site, and they are:

1. Comment

By leaving a comment on your blog post, it shows that your reader appreciate your works and want to let you know how they feel about it. It is always an advantage for a blogger to get to know how the reader reaction to the blog/post and another way to engage with the reader and also knowing what is actually their needs.

It is strongly suggested that every blogger should reply on every comments that your readers leave for you, even the negative one, to let them know that their comment are valuable and shows that you interact with your reader. Always keep in your mind that not every reader will leave their comments on your blog (except those active spams ), so if you get any comment on your blog, treat it like a treasure and it can always be a source of inspiration for your next post.

2. Share And Subscribe

Anyone who likes your post will definitely have the tendency to share it with others through any social media site, such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. And surely they will subscribe to your blog to keep getting updates from it.

My suggestion is to set a social media icon for every post that you have, to be able to share it at the convenience way, but I’m sure every professional blogger knows how important it is to set a social media icon on their blog.

3. Pingback

Pingback is an automated cross referencing system between blogs. When you make a comment on your blog about a subject posted on another blog, pingback is used to enable that blog to link back to the comment on your blog. Unlike TrackBack, the link back does not include a title and excerpt; however, it is more automatic as a result.

Both blogs must use blogging software that supports the Pingback protocol. When the pingback is initiated, your blog software automatically contacts all the sites you have linked in your blog to see if they accept pingbacks.

So,if anyone post a link of your blog post on their blog, its one of the sign that they liked your post. Besides giving you traffic, it shows that your post are valuable to them. I still remember how happy I am when I get my first pingback from other site.

4. Blog roll

Not everyone want to set a blog roll of a site to theirs, so it is always an honor to get a spot on someone’s blog, especially from a well known blog/site that have a huge traffic. One of that days people who visited that site will eventually clicking on the blog roll. This is definitely the biggest sign of appreciation over your blog/site that surely will give you more traffics. More traffic, more readers, which will lead it back to number 1 to 3

So that was the 4 biggest sign for every blogger to get to know that their blog/site is being read, appreciated and valuable to their readers. As a blogger, it is common to have another friend who also have a blog/site, in a way to help each other; build a relationship, opinion, technical support and other things that will lead you to a better blogger.
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Thank you for reading and let us hear your opinion on the comment box below.

Cheers.

Image Credit :
The Daily T-shirt
BBC

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This is what i was always looking forward to since I joined Twitter, many times i used to think that how about if one day i tweet and it will disappear. And this is what happened with me last night.

In curiosity I again tweeted “#Off ” from my web browser; this time also tweet disappeared. I was like “OMG is this called an Invisible Tweet”. And without thinking much i typed ” #On ” from my browser and the miracle happened again – tweet disappeared. The increasing curiosity forced me to search about this on google and look what i found.

These are no Invisible Tweets but just Twitter Text Commands

Did you know you can perform certain actions, like following or marking a friend’s update as a favorite, by using the designated Twitter commands? Use the commands listed below from your phone, the web update box, or your favorite third party application.

Please note : When using these commands, do not append an @ along with it. For example, if you want to turn on device notifications send only ON and not @ON. If you send these commands with an @, your commands will be read as a username and will not be executed as expected!

Turning Mobile Twitter Updates Off and On

• ON: turns ALL your authorized Twitter updates and notifications on.
• OFF: turns off all updates except direct messages. Send STOP again to turn off direct messages too.
• STOP, QUIT, End, Cancel, Arret or Unsubscribe: turns ALL phone notifications off.
• ON username: turns on notifications for a specific person on your phone. Example: ON alissa
• OFF username: turns off notifications for a specific person on your phone. Example: OFF blaine
• FOLLOW username: this command allows you to start following a specific user, as well as receive SMS notifications. Example: FOLLOW jerry
• LEAVE username: this command allows you to stop receiving SMS notifications for a specific user. Example: LEAVE benfu

Fun Stuff: friends, favorites, and stats!
Use the commands below to send private messages, favorite Tweets, and more.

• @username + message
  Reply: shows your Tweet as a reply directed at another person, and causes your twitter to save in their “replies” tab.
  Example: @meangrape I love that song too!

• D username + message
  Direct Message: sends a person a private message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive.
  Example: d krissy want to pick a Jamba Juice for me while you’re there?

• FAV username
  Favorite a Tweet: marks a person’s last twitter as a favorite and causes the message to show up in your “Favorites” tab.

• RT username
  Retweet: sends another user’s latest Tweet to your followers.

• SET LOCATION placename
  Updates the location field in your profile. Example: set location san francisco

• WHOIS username
  Retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter. Example: whois jack

• GET username
  Retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person. Example: get goldman

• FAV username
  Marks that user’s last Tweet as one of your favorites. (hint: reply to any update with FAV to mark it as a favorite if you’re receiving it in real time)
  Example: fav crystal

• STATS
  This command returns your number of followers, how many people you’re following, and your bio information.

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So my dream of invisible tweets is still a dream but i learn a lot, so thought sharing with you all. If you already knew about it feel free to surf other articles here..

Plz Share your thoughts as comments

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Before you check out the features of recently launched iPhone4, lets have a look at the most viewed videos so far

Video by cnet
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Video by Gizmodo
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Another Video by Gizmodo
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Best Features of iPhone4

The Retina display on iPhone 4 is the sharpest, most vibrant, highest-resolution phone screen ever, with four times the pixel count of previous iPhone models. In fact, the pixel density is so high that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Which makes text amazingly crisp and images stunningly sharp.

iPhone 4 introduces a whole new way of multitasking. Now you can run your favorite third-party apps — and switch between them instantly — without slowing down the performance of the foreground app or draining the battery unnecessarily. This smarter approach to multitasking is available only on iPhone.

Shoot your own movies in high definition. Capture impressive video even in low-light settings, thanks to the advanced backside illumination sensor and built-in LED light. Then edit and create your own mini-masterpiece right on iPhone 4 using the new iMovie app — with Apple-designed themes, titles, and transitions.

Take beautiful, detailed photos with the new 5-megapixel camera with built-in LED flash. The advanced backside illumination sensor captures great pictures even in low light. And the new front-facing camera makes it easy to take self-portraits.

Other Features are

iBooks	Folders	Home Screen	iMovie	Phone	Mail	Safari	iPod	Maps + Compass	Voice Control	iTunes

For more updates follow me on twitter Harsh_Ajmera

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Here is the collection of various images underwater what you will find amazing and rare too. Have a look at them and please comment whether you liked them or not, or which one you liked the most.

Images are taken from various sources and the respective source is mentioned after every image for your convenience.

Baby under Water - source
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Lion roaring under Water- source
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Cute Lion under Water- source
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Anger under Water- source
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Random - source
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Reading under Water- source
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Living under Water- source
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Mail Box under Water- source
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Living under Water- source
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Bed Room under Water- source
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Under Water - source
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Driving under Water- source
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Under Water - source
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Awesomest - source
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Elephant under Water- source
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Jesus Statue under Water - source
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Bear under Water- source
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Play poker under Water - source
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Parking under Water - source
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And this one is the cutest

Elephant Dancing - source
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Subscribe to Harsh Ajmera

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While you are using Google Search for your daily search and research work, the best way to be safe is to make Google SSL Search your default Search Engine.

Now you must be thinking how it gonna be safe so read the below quoted paragraph
“When you search on https://www.google.com, an encrypted connection is created between your browser and Google. This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party on your network.”

- source Official Google Blog

Now Lets see How to do it

For Google Chrome Users here you go :

1. Go to ” Options” and you will see window as below, click “Manage” as shown below.

2. Now click ” Add” as shown in the image

3. Here you fill “Name : Google SSL or anything” ; “Keyword : ssl or anything” and last but most important “URL : https://www.google.com/search?q=%s ” and click “OK”

4. Now select the newly created link and click ” Make Default”. Thats it now you are safe and secure..

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For those using Firefox, Safari, IE, Opera or any other web browsers

Just make “https://www.google.com/search?q=%s” as your default homepage or default search engine and be safe while you Google anything next time.

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Hope you enjoyed this article, for more updates be a subscriber here

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I guess at times everyone needs to resize, recolor, crop, adjust contrast or brightness of the images or pics you have. Its a feasible option that you open Photoshop/Picasa/or any other tool and edit images if the number of images are limited, how about if you want to edit thousands/hundreds of images at a time.

I used to face this problem many time and today i founded the best solution for it, and it is “Batch Processing” in Photoshop. Why i m saying its the best is because there are other tools also which allow you to batch process but the things you can do in photoshop cannot be done in any of them.

By this you can edit, resize, recolor, crop, give effects, adjust contrast or brightness, save them for web and many more things can be done to multiple images at a time.

Lets have a look how to do that -

1. Open a image in photoshop

2. Go to ” Window > Actions ” and you will see a window like shown below

3. Click on “Create new Action”.

4. A window like shown below will appear, fill the details. You can also assign a shortcut key as “Function Key” to this process. Click Record.

5. Now whatever action/steps you do will be recorded by this new Action you created, here you can resize, recolor, crop, give effects, adjust contrast or brightness, save them for web or whatever you want. When you are done with editing click “Stop Recording” as shown in the image below.

6. Now Go to ” File > Automate > Batch ” and you will see a window like below, choose the source folder where your thousands or hundreds of photos are saved. And also choose the destination folder for output.

Note : check “Suppress Color Profile Warning” to avoid color warning..

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Have Fun

would love to see your thoughts as comments down here..

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Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook recently said “In next couple of weeks you can see some very simple and more user controlled privacy options on your account.” So here are the new settings disclosed.

Before these new privacy settings users have to configure around 50 settings and now only 15 settings.

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The new privacy setting has a Basic Directory Information that will help real world friends find you, some basic information is open to everyone. We also suggest setting basics like hometown and interests to everyone so friends can use those to connect with you.

Apart from this Facebook have introduced a 5 level simplified setting also

Level 1 : Everyone

Level 2 : Friends of Friends

Level 3 : Friends Only

Level 4 : Recommended

Level 5 : Customized

And this my current setting

Choose your best suitable setting and be safe on Facebook..

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You can also catch me on Facebook here

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The creation of a PDF was once solely relegated to Adobe Acrobat. PDFs are now the accepted standard in businesses and schools for documents that are universally read without having to have the underlying programs or fonts. Acrobat has a free reader, but the Acrobat suite for PDF creation can be an expensive proposition. Here’s some of the many free alternatives to using Adobe Acrobat to create PDFs.

Bullzip PDF Printer -

BullZip PDF Printer is able to output to PDF from almost any Windows application. You can set document properties, watermark your pages and password protect your files. This powerful little program can also output to BMP, TIF, PNG, PCX and JPG.

PDFill PDF Writer -

With PDFill, you can crop pages and rotate pages in PDFs. You can also add descriptions, make slide shows and encrypt your files with different security levels. PDFill PDF Writer will also allow you to fashion PDFs from nearly any Windows application.

CutePDF -

CutePDF does exactly what it says it will. You can use it to print out PDFs from any of the standard Windows applications. It uses Ghostscript, a free program used to translate postscript files, to deliver its PDFs.

doPDF -

DoPDF is a virtual printer that can convert any printable file into a PDF. This application is not a memory hog, leaving a very tiny footprint on your system. It will create searchable PDFs that can be indexed by the popular search engines. It also doesn’t need Ghostscript to create its PDFs like other offerings do.

Scribus -

Scribus will create and read the PDF format, but it can do quite a lot more than simple file creation. It is the free answer to Adobe InDesign, offering many of the same functions and features that its more expensive counterpart does.

PDF Maker -

PDF Maker is best known for doing conversions to PDF without the use of Ghostscript or the installation of a PDF printer. It supports a wide range of graphics and file formats.

PDFCreator -

PDFCreator is free and can be used for both business and personal application. It allows you to secure your documents through encryption and digital signatures. Other filetypes, like TIF, BMP and JPG are also easily created using PDFCreator.

Drumlin PDF Reader -

This program has multi language support and prides itself on its security. Drumlin lets you create files that are fully secure. Users may be able to view your files, but they aren’t able to copy them or otherwise use them without your permission. The program itself has a small footprint in both file size and memory usage.

PDF reDirect -

PDF reDirect creates files that are optimizable for quality and file size. You can encrypt your PDFs, creating reliable and secure files. Merging PDF files is also a feature of this easily upgradable program.

Open Office -

Open Office can open and create PDF files. It is an office application package which offers equivalent programs to the Microsoft Office suite.

All of the programs offered here are free alternatives to purchasing Acrobat for the creation of PDF files. While some of these applications are fully capable of creating encrypted, searchable PDFs, some of them are not. Check out the software to see if it offers the features you desire. These free programs might offer the answer to your PDF creation needs.

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Twitter has taken the world by storm. Everybody is talking about it. The question is : Are you bitten by the twitter bug (or twitter bird yet?) I am completely in love with twitter. Having read opinions about how twitter is useless to some, this post is essentially an effort to  explain how twitter can be used effectively by each one of us. Here are 7 ways how you can use twitter effectively.

1.    Engage:

Twitter is a “social networking” site in the truest sense of the word. Engaging with your followers and friends can help you discover new tweeps with shared interests. It is a misconception that you cannot make good friends on twitter and there are tons of examples to prove it. Engaging is a fundamental element of twitter.

2.    Inform:

Twitter is a dependable source of news and info. You can follow or subscribe to the RSS feeds of  @Reuters and @cnn for a  daily update of the happenings of the world. There have been innumerable instances where twitter brought certain issues to the spotlight and has made a huge difference.

3.    Traffic:

Twitter is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your blog or website. In fact, you might have found this piece via twitter.  If your blog has good content and if you promote it well, twitter helps increase your readership base .Your posts might go viral on twitter with a large retweet count. Twitter is an incredible marketing tool as well.

4.    Feedback:

Twitter is all about a two way conversation. A number of tweeps use twitter to have polls or ask feedback or opinions regarding their work. You will get an amazing and honest response from fellow tweeters which will greatly enhance your twitter experience.

5.   Tweet-up:

Defined as a “meeting between two people who use twitter”, a tweet-up is a wonderful way to take online networking to another level. It is an opportunity to meet new and old twitter friends in person, in order to have prospective customers as business contacts or just coming together to have fun.

6.    Find a job:

Twitter is an excellent platform to find recruiters as well as job hunters. Great job opportunities are just a tweet away. Twitter works as a magic wand for freelancers. All you need to do is fill out a self-explanatory bio along with good tweets and just contact companies on twitter who might find your qualifications appropriate for their requirements.

7.    Content:

Twitter is an ocean of links and great information. All we need to do is start fishing! ReTweeting is an awesome way to share fantastic links or tweets. Good content is always appreciated on twitter.

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Twitter is amazing if used the right way and can be useful to one and all. How do you use twitter? Don’t forget to share your ideas in the comments below.

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