Sponsored
Techradar |
- Palm code hints at names for new WebOS devices
- Queen and Royal Family join Facebook
- Tutorial: 25 Ubuntu tips for beginners
- In Depth: User experience design explained
- Tutorial: 25 tips for using the internet on the move
| Palm code hints at names for new WebOS devices Posted: 08 Nov 2010 12:28 AM PST  Hints at the new names for the next generation of Palm devices have surfaced – with the latest WebOS 2.0 build suggesting the likes of Mantaray, Stingray, Broadway and, oddly, Windsor. With HP's high profile buyout of Palm, the likelihood of multiple phones running WebOS was clear, following on from the launch of the Palm Pre 2. WebOS Internals was the site that outed the potential names, after digging through the latest builds. Ray, ray, way and no way As well as Roadrunner, a code string mentions Broadway, Mantaray, Stingray and Windsor and all are now being tipped as names, or more likely codenames, for multiple phones from Palm. TechRadar can understand the reasoning behind cool sea creatures like rays, but we are expecting the Broadway phone to come pre-loaded with the cream of musical theatre. And as for a Windsor phone, we're just knot happy at all. Sorry. Perhaps it's a one off device for Harry, Charles, William and Her Majesty. 
| ||
| Queen and Royal Family join Facebook Posted: 08 Nov 2010 12:20 AM PST  The Queen is set to launch an official Royal Family Facebook page later this week. Regular updates on what the British Monarchy is up to will be put on the new Facebook page. Buckingham Palace has issued a statement to confirm the new Facebook page, plus to stress that the page is not a personal profile page for the queen. Royal Twitter, Flickr, YouTube The new British Monarch Facebook page follows official Royal Family Twitter and Flickr feeds which launched earlier this year and back in 2009, respectively. A Royal YouTube channel also launched in 2007. The Queen's new Facebook page is set to feature the Court Circular, which is a full record of the previous day's official engagements. The Facebook updates will also keep the citizenry informed of official royal events and ceremonies, which will you be able to search on a map of Britain. You will be able to virtually befriend and give the Queen a royal poke when the new official British Monarch Facebook page launches later this week. 
| ||
| Tutorial: 25 Ubuntu tips for beginners Posted: 07 Nov 2010 04:00 AM PST  Taking a trip into the weird and wonderful world of Linux with the world's most popular distro isn't always the easiest of tasks, particularly if you're used to Windows' clean embrace. This isn't helped by the fact that Ubuntu isn't as fully featured as it should be from the start. Learn a bit about the OS, and get up and running with some interesting and helpful tools by following this guide. 1. Run essential updates Any Linux installation worth its salt will alert you immediately to any changes that need to be made after installation, particularly if you've installed from a Live CD that might not be entirely up to date. Ubuntu alerts you to this with an orange flash in its taskbar. Click on it, enter the administration password you set during installation and use the Update Manager to install the essentials. You'll also find it at 'System | Update Manager'. 2. Manually update packages The auto-updater isn't the only way to get your system up to speed. The package manager – which deals with downloading, installing and configuring new programs – might need a little kick, however. Open a terminal window (select it from the menu, or hit [Alt]+[F2] and type gnome-terminal), then type sudo apt-get update to ensure that Ubuntu's knowledge of packages is up to date. 3. Perform package upgrades The next step is to turn your installed packages into the shiny new versions, which you can do using a slightly different command in the terminal window: apt-get upgrade. Insert it (remembering to prefix it with sudo, which tells Ubuntu to perform the action as a super user) and apt-get will hammer through the list, marking and installing any packages that have fallen behind the times. 4. Upgrade the distribution Apt is a monster of a tool. It can help you stay right on the cutting edge with little or no effort on your part. Let's say, for example, you've had an Ubuntu installation running for a while, but you want to install the latest version of the OS. You need to do a full backup, burn a new disc, sit through a reinstallation process and cross your fingers, right? Wrong. Type apt-get distupgrade to bring your installed distro in line with current standards automatically. 5. Manage repositories easily Apt doesn't conjure packages out of thin air. It uses repositories – vast databases of software packages that ensure the latest versions of software are always easily available from (almost) one place. To add more repositories, we recommend starting by installing a repository manger. Type sudo wget http://mac4deb.googlepages.com/addrepo -O / usr/bin/addrepo into a terminal window to install addrepo, then sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/addrepo to set its permissions properly. 6. Add new repositories Adding another source for software is easy; once you've installed addrepo, you can do it in the terminal by typing something along the lines of addrepo deb http://mirror2.ubuntulinux.nl/ lucid-seveas all. If you find new repositories online, they will usually give you the right details to enter. You could also do it graphically by going to 'System | Administration | Software Sources | Third Party Software | Add'. 7. Check the package manager Ubuntu's package management tools are, as you might have noticed, not restricted to the command line. Synaptic Package Manager is an excellent graphical interface for apt. To open it, go to 'System | Administration | Synaptic Package Manager'. Part of the fun of repositories is hunting around them for interesting packages – feel free to have a poke about! 8. Install restricted extras Ubuntu is free software, so many features are left out by default for licensing reasons. That doesn't stop you installing them yourself, though. To get the Flash plug-in, support for MP3 and DVD playback, and standard TrueType fonts (among other things), search Synaptic Package Manager for 'ubuntu-restricted-extras' and install it. All the essentials are in that single package. 9. Get some games Ubuntu's default selection of games is a little weak. There's a wealth of gaming gold on the default repositories, though.
Search for and check out the following: Tremulous, a decent first-person shooter; FlightGear, a seasoned and accurate flight sim; Gridwars, a flashy topdown retro shooter; and vDrift, a track-based racing simulator. All deserve a place on your hard drive. 10. Enable more tweaks There's a single package that will open up a world of further customisation options, and that's ubuntu-tweak. You can download the DEB package installing a repository manger. Type sudo wget http://mac4deb.googlepages.com/addrepo -O / usr/bin/addrepo into a terminal window to install addrepo, then sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/addrepo to set its permissions properly. 11. Set up Gnome-Do Adding functionality to Ubuntu starts with Gnome-Do, which simplifies and speeds up searching for programs and files, or activating functions. Look in the package manager for 'gnome-do' (or install it using apt-get) to add it. You'll now find it in the Ubuntu menu. 12. Understand the panes Get Gnome-Do running, then hit [Super]+[Space]. [Super] is the [Windows] key on a standard PC keyboard. The left-hand pane contains the item you're searching for, while the right-hand pane will eventually contain the action to be applied to it. 13. Try it out We'll use Firefox as an example application for Gnome-Do. Start typing firefox and it should appear in the left window after a few letters – that's all you need to type. Now hit [Tab] to switch to the second pane, and start typing the action you wish to perform, such as Minimise or Close. 14. Use further features The arrow keys are a satisfying way to navigate around Gnome-Do. Start typing in the first pane, then hit [down] to see all the possible options. Use [right] to expand folders or panels. Choose one, hit [Tab] and use the [down] arrow to select the action to perform on it. 15. Add more plug-ins Gnome-Do can act on just about any software. Bring up the window with [Super]+[Space], click the little down arrow at the top-right corner and select Preferences. You can then add plug-ins for everything from Google tools and Twitter to music players such as RhythmBox. 16. Change your wallpaper Ubuntu features some pretty – clearly Mac-inspired – purple desktop backgrounds, but no operating system is really yours until you've plastered a picture of your cat all over it. Right-click the desktop and choose 'Change Desktop Background' to load one in. 17. Switch window styles You can change the look of your desktop's windows from the 'Appearance Preferences' window. Click the Theme tab, then click on a style to see how it will look. If you click 'Customise', you can combine elements from different themes. 18. Install hardware drivers To get the most out of your Ubuntu desktop, you'll need the optimal drivers for your graphics card. They're not installed by default, but if you go to 'System | Administration | Hardware Drivers', you'll see your options. Select the latest driver, install it and restart. 19. Set up desktop effects You'll get a fancier looking desktop if you switch on visual effects ('System | Preferences | Appearance | Visual Effects'). Install the 'compiz' settings application – search Synaptic for 'compizconfig' – and you'll have access to many more stylish tweaks. 20. Add a dock There's a neat little desktop application, based on the code behind Gnome-Do (discussed elsewhere), that emulates the dock from Mac OS X. It's worth a try. Search Synaptic for 'docky', install it, and you'll be able to configure its minutest details by simply clicking the icon on the far left. 21. Play Windows videos Type this into a terminal: sudo wget http://www.medibuntu. org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_ release -cs).list –outputdocument=/ etc/apt/ sources.list.d/medibuntu. list. Then run sudo apt-get install w32codecs to get the appropriate files. 22. Install VLC You'll find VLC listed in Synaptic under a search for 'VLC'. Like most apps, it installs a number of other programs at the same time, which it needs in order to run. However, it doesn't install the Firefox plug-in – search for 'mozilla-plugin-vlc' to find it if you want media handled in your browser. 23. Set up Samba Sharing files with Windows computers? You need Samba. Search for 'samba' within Synaptic, mark the packages 'samba' and 'system-config-samba' for installation and click 'Apply.' You can use the configuration app to set up permanently linked shares. 24. Mess with panels Ubuntu's default layout is a mix of OS X and Windows. To fiddle with its panels, right-click an empty spot and select 'Properties'. You can also add or remove elements with the appropriate command. If you've installed Docky, you may need to shift at least one panel out of the way. 25. Unleash GIMP There's one premier artistry app for Linux, and that's GIMP. If there were an award for 'most Photoshop features aped', it would win two of them. It doesn't come on a standard Ubuntu Live CD, but it deserves to, so grab it from Synaptic Package Manager and get doodling. 
| ||
| In Depth: User experience design explained Posted: 07 Nov 2010 02:00 AM PST  For many companies, user experience design is a luxury. Limited resources and tight budgets often mean software developers design interfaces based on their own preferences and assumptions, without anyone to challenge them. We've all used these systems, and have grimaced when they don't work the way we expect them to. This isn't a dig at programmers. The same thing happens with graphic designers, marketers, project managers, technical writers and others. People of all levels, regardless of title, are making decisions based on experience and instinct – and their bosses expect them to be right, all of the time. I see companies like this every day. A business manager waves a white flag and says, "Our customers aren't doing what we want them to do!" The message makes its way around the office, until someone somewhere suggests that they hire a user experience designer to come in and tell them what to fix. Then someone calls me. My name is Whitney Hess, and I'm a user experience consultant. I help firms make their stuff easier and more pleasurable to use. I really love what I do. I wake up every day thrilled that I get to fight for what people really need, not just what companies want to give them. I believe the work of a user experience designer is about doing good: not just creating innovative, well designed products, but helping people improve their lives. But at the risk of losing some potential clients, I want to let you in on a little secret: you're a user experience designer, too. Every single one of you. Whether it's in your title or your job description, you make decisions in some way or form that fundamentally affect the experience people have with your product. Whether or not you plan it, user experience happens. This article is to help you start doing it on purpose. You have the opportunity to make people truly happy. There are relatively simple activities you can add to your everyday practice to greatly increase your chances of doing so. And your boss doesn't even have to know. I've interviewed dozens of companies on how they "do UX" without a user experience designer on staff, and while the manner in which they do them varies, the techniques fall into three basic categories: design research, web analytics and usability testing. I'll go into each of these in detail, providing advice on how to do them easily and inexpensively, and get powerful results. It all comes down to one thing: listening. To your users, to your coworkers, and to yourself. Design research First we need to ask the question, "What do our users actually need?" Not just what our companies need them to do for us, but what do we need to do for them? Who are our target customers and what is unique about them? What are the problems they're currently facing that we could help relieve, and which problems are the most common? What is the environment in which they're using our product, and how does it affect the way they use it? It may seem daunting to answer these questions when you have an existing user base of 100,000 people, or worse if you have only 100. But you don't have to talk to every single person in order to gain some really valuable insights on the whole. While of course every individual is unique, you'd be surprised by the commonalities you'll find across them – for the most part, we all have the same basic needs, constraints and worries. It's your job to find out what those biggies are. This is meant to be qualitative; you aren't looking for hard numbers here (I'll address that in the next section). Design research is your opportunity to discover and investigate the general qualities of your users in order to better understand who you're designing for. The common methods of conducting this kind of research are all about giving people the opportunity to share themselves with you through user interviews, observations and surveys. There's an academic approach to doing this stuff that's rigid, rigorous and aimed at 100 per cent accuracy. Most of us don't have the time for that. But there are shortcuts to get you most of the way there with far less effort: Feedback forms: Enable users to reach out to you from anywhere in the product. Perhaps they've spotted a bug (or what they think is a bug), have a new feature idea, or simply have a question about how something works.
Giving them the opportunity to get in touch without having to exit the experience will make the feedback more salient and timely, and will probably also help them describe it better. You can put a simple form on your site that sends submissions to an email address, or you can use a service like Get Satisfaction or UserVoice (although leading your users to a third-party service might reduce the amount of feedback you receive). Log the requests you receive and use them to prioritise upcoming features. Also be sure to track the contact info of those who've requested it so you can keep in touch when the feature is ready to be used and tested. Open-ended surveys: If your product has a trial period or a subscription renewal process, now would be the time to find out what your customers really think of you. A survey doesn't have to be expertly crafted to get great responses from it. The sticklers say that you should only have five or six questions with only one question (usually the last) as an open-ended multi-line text box, but remember that you aren't trying to get statistically significant responses here. You want to hear from people in their own words, so give them the opportunity to do so. Put a link to a survey in a prominent and consistent location, or link to it in a mailing, in order to get as many responses as possible. SurveyMonkey, Wufoo and Kissinsights are some quick ways to get started. Email: Once a user has got in touch via a survey or a feedback form, now is your chance to get to know them better ... by emailing them back. They've told you what, now probe for why. Why is this feature necessary for them? Where have they seen it implemented elsewhere? Why do they use your product in the first place? Ask as many questions as necessary to get at the underlying problem they're facing, and how it's relevant to what your company is trying to solve. Phone: When you come across a user who's particularly vocal or intriguing, ask if they'd mind you scheduling a phone call. You won't have to spend more than 15 or 20 minutes asking them those follow-up questions about their motivations and attitudes in order to gain a wealth of knowledge you wouldn't have otherwise. Most people will be more than happy to help without incentive. Take copious notes or record the conversation if you can (with their explicit permission of course) – this stuff is gold. By capturing just a few good case studies, you'll be able to understand the whole ecosystem in which your product is being used, not just the specific, current flaw in the design that people are complaining about. Iridesco, the maker of the billing and time-tracking web-app Harvest, uses many of these techniques to continuously improve their product – they follow the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, which focuses upon continuous improvement of processes. "We don't just want to patch," said co-founder Shawn Liu, "we want to address the core problem." This might seem like a lot of new information, but the goal should be to make it as easy as possible on your users, not to make it as easy as possible for you. The fewer obstacles you put in their way to share, the more openly and frequently they will, and the more valuable anecdotes you'll have at your fingertips when the time comes to advocate for the right design decision. For more on design research, see Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky. Personal narratives are key for giving us context, but the reality is that people are very bad at telling you the truth about themselves. Put another way, we rarely understand ourselves. That does not invalidate everything you learned in design research; instead it just requires that you balance those qualitative findings with good, hard data.
Web analytics are a quantitative way of answering the question: "What are our users actually doing?" Not just, "What are they saying they're doing?", but "What are we seeing them do with our product?" Data is a great weapon. Matthew Marco of NavigationArts and formerly a visual designer leading the redesign of House.gov says, "Stats let me refute the client's notion of how their constituents are behaving." It's far more effective to point to actual behaviour than to get in a never-ending battle against presumption. Remember: while web analytics answers the question of what users are doing, no amount of data will tell you why – that's why you still need to actually talk to people. But numbers can tell you where to start looking for answers, and that's worth a whole lot. The most common way to collect data is with a service like Google Analytics, Omniture, Statcounter, Mint and others that track the activity on your website in a variety of different ways: page hits, unique visitors, average time on site, bounce rates, referring sites, referring keyword searches and so on. The charts, graphs and lists of all this rich information are yours for the learning. Use them to identify the recurrent usage patterns – when people are typically coming to the site, what pages they're typically going to, what path of pages they're usually following – and then to recognise the outlying behaviour. Does one page have way more visits than every other page in the site? Does one page have an inordinately high bounce rate? Do you have really low use on Mondays? Avoid the temptation to answer these questions with your assumptions; instead, get the findings down in writing and use them to inform your research and investigation. Keep in mind that while the aforementioned page stats are worth knowing, you aren't learning which components on the page are being used, and how. There are lots of free and cheap measurement tools that get you a much deeper view into what people are doing: Crazy Egg overlays visualisations such as heatmaps on your pages to show where users are clicking.
The Confetti feature lets you slice and dice those clicks based on a variety of facets such as referrers, search terms, operating system and browser. Clicktale records full browsing sessions that enable you to replay your users' every mouse movement, click and keystroke. It also tracks how far down the page your users scroll, the performance of your web forms, and other in-depth functionality for a price. Google Website Optimizer tests design variations of your webpages using an A/B or multivariate testing method (one or multiple variables). Different versions of the page get displayed to different users, and it works in the background without anyone knowing about it but you. The tool will help you determine the duration of the test based on your site traffic, and identifies which variation is most effective at achieving your goal. ABtests.com lets you share the results of your A/B tests (conducted elsewhere), and learn from the results of others. You can see the percentage improvement of one variation over the other, as well as browse the examples by page type (home page, landing page, product page and so on).
If the product you work on is not web-based, don't fret. You might not get the pretty pictures automatically generated for you (at least not for free), but you can still rummage through the activity logs of your app to see where people are clicking and what screens they're pulling up. If your product doesn't currently allow for this, talk to your developers immediately about putting tracking in. Even if the analysis is difficult, there must be a trail of information for you and your team to follow, otherwise you're at a dead-end. Usability testing Usability testing is the final technique I urge you to bring into your arsenal. In the most basic terms, it's the act of evaluating whether the design of your product successfully enables people to accomplish the intended tasks. This answers the question, "How well does our stuff actually work?" And if you don't know the answer to that, you don't really know much about your product, do you? Quite often, usability testing is referred to as "user testing" instead, and it's a phrasing I want to dissuade you from perpetuating. It may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but the way in which the exercise is perceived Рboth by your organisation and by your participants Рwill change dramatically. You aren't testing your users; you're testing the usability of your design. It's a major semantic difference that needs to be popularised. You may have heard of usability testing, but how many of you are actually doing it on a regular basis? Sometimes it just seems so involved, so costly. Many UX folk advocate for usability testing in formal labs with one-way mirrors and fancy A/V equipment. I assure you, none of this is necessary. If your product has any users at all, then your company has access to them, somehow someway. But maybe your manager isn't so keen on you taking time out of your schedule to do this work, or maybe the sales team with the customer data just won't return your calls. Not to worry! You don't really need to do usability testing with your existing users in order for it to be valid. Start with a friend you can rely on for honesty. Academics may tell you that using the same participants again and again will confound your findings, but I say some data is better than no data at all. You need a pressure tester, and using someone you trust is a great way to start. Most of us are designing systems meant for people with average tech savviness and average intelligence to accomplish average, everyday tasks. Of course, if you're working on an expert system, like a customer service call centre desktop app or a car manufacturer web app, or designing products for kids, it's obviously worth testing with participants drawn from your target audiences. Otherwise, I stand by my premise that conducting usability testing with basically anyone is totally fine. The best participants are folks who work in your office but don't work on the product: the receptionist, anyone from human resources, guys in the mailroom. Just ask for five minutes of their time. If you'd rather go outside of the company, you can always find willing individuals on Twitter (who'll be more than willing to look at your stuff if you look at theirs) or sitting around at your local Starbucks (who'll be more than willing to look at your stuff for a refill on their latt̩). Consider using a process I like to call Usability Testing Light. Sitting side-by-side with your participant, show them build, or a prototype, a comp, a wireframe, a sketch Рwhatever you have available to you Рand start by asking one simple question: "What does this do?" People's answers will probably knock you off your chair, but do your best to maintain your composure. Whatever you do, don't give them the answer. Don't talk at all, just ask the question and then shut up and listen. Don't settle for their kindness. The guys at Iridesco say, "'It looks good' is the worst feedback we can get." Encourage harshness. Using the same people time and again can help because they'll learn not to be afraid to speak their mind, so make sure you prompt new participants to do the same.
Give participants one task at a time: for example, "Add a new bank account", or "Find all yellow dresses". Ask them to walk you through how they'd go about achieving it, using the keyboard and mouse if you have a functional or semi-functional prototype, or just using their finger if you're working on paper. Either way, they must think aloud as they are going through it. If they get quiet, gently remind them to tell you what they're thinking, or just ask, "Why did you do that?" Two things: 1) This is going to hurt; It might be hard to stomach that you and your team created something that doesn't work on your first try, but none of us should be expected to be mind-reading geniuses. Instead, take solace in the fact that you're doing the right thing by testing it in order to make it better. Most of all, learn to acknowledge your poor design choices. "You need to have humility and listen," says Iridesco. "Users aren't always right, but you need to hear them." It's our job to design the product, not theirs; but to do so, we need to understand where they're struggling and why. Ultimately, nurturing our humility is what we all need to do. Key takeaways If you forget everything you've read in this article, I want you to remember this list: Always listen I can promise you one thing: If you make your users happy, they will thank you. And being appreciated for what you do makes all this work worth it. Go do it yourself and find out. 
| ||
| Tutorial: 25 tips for using the internet on the move Posted: 07 Nov 2010 01:00 AM PDT  Cloud computing, smartphones and netbooks mean more of us than ever before are free from a desk-bound PC. To make the most of your mobile experience, check out our essential tips for computing on the move… 1. Use a tethered modem If you aren't away from a wireless network often, then getting a broadband dongle might not be worthwhile. Instead, try tethering your mobile phone, provided your network supports it. Essentially, your laptop uses the mobile's internet connection for its data. Some phones include tethering options, but there are also tethering apps for most platforms. Joikuspot will do the job for Symbian-based phones, while Proxoid performs a similar task for Android devices. 2. Make MiFi work You can share the connection from a 3G dongle across your network using Internet Connection Sharing. In the Network and Sharing Center, choose 'Change Adapter Settings', then right-click the connection for your dongle and select 'Properties'. On the Sharing tab, tick 'Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection'. On the Network and Sharing Center, choose 'Set up a new connection or network | Set up a wireless ad-hoc (computer to computer) network'. Follow the instructions. Ad hoc networks can be fl aky, so if you need to share a connection regularly, try a MiFi. The telco 3 does pay-as-you-go units from £50 – see www.three.co.uk/ Mobile_Broadband/MiFi. 3. Call with Skype Save money on expensive hotel phone bills by making your calls over Skype. If you have a decent wireless connection and a laptop with a microphone, you can buy flat-rate calls to landlines using Skype for £2.24 per month, while 3 permits you to make Skype calls via its 3G broadband service. Other networks restrict VoIP data over 3G. Many Wi-Fi-capable phones support Skype too. 4. Find Wi-Fi hotspots Check out where you're travelling in advance to see if there are any free Wi-Fi hotspots about. To find them, simply browse to here and enter a postcode or location. It will provide a list of nearby hotspots and connection details. 5. Get local SIMs Call and data charges for roaming can be steep, even when you take EU caps into consideration. With an unlocked phone, it could be much cheaper to buy a local pay-as-you-go SIM. Check out the providers' websites before travelling to see which company offers the best data plans. 6. Buy a Skype number A further way to save money on phone calls abroad is to invest in a Skype number. You can get one free if you buy a month's landline calls. Give this to your contacts and they'll be able to call you at a normal UK landline rate. If you're not on Skype when they call, they'll be able to leave you a voice mail. When you call them back using Skype via Wi-Fi, you'll only pay the cost of a UK landline call. 7. Install Dropbox Whether you're home or abroad, it helps to be able to get access, at any time, to the most recent version of whatever documents you're actively working on. Dropbox provides online storage and synchronisation with as many computers as you install it on. The first 2GB of storage is free, which is enough for most people's active documents. When you make changes and save them to your Dropbox folder on your computer, these are uploaded to Dropbox and then replicated on your other machines as soon as you log on. 8. Use Portable Apps If you're on the move and your laptop dies, then you need a way to access your data and most common programs. Install Portable Apps on a USB flash drive alongside your most useful files and you can enjoy your own virtual desktop on any public PC, without worrying about leaving browsing traces, so long as you use Portable Firefox. You can even use your favourite Firefox plug-ins and carry them around with you. The full installation of Portable Apps includes the OpenOffice.org software suite. 9. Secure your passwords Keepass is an open-source password management program that stores your passwords in an encrypted file. Install the program on your laptop and then save the password database file in your Dropbox folder. Do the same on any other computers that are running Dropbox and you can access your most up-to-date passwords from any of your PCs. Ensure that Dropbox is secured with a strong password. If your laptop breaks, you'll still be able to get to your password database using the Portable Apps version of Keepass and web access to Dropbox. 10. Use the cloud Dropbox is a good example of a cloud-based service that can be invaluable when you're on the move, but it's worth considering using other services to increase your storage. You can use a combination of photo services, such as Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket, along with Google Docs, Zoho and gOffice for documents. Then you can get general storage at Humyo or Mozy, which both offer a lots of space. Remember to select encrypted providers for sensitive information. Most of these services also provide sharing options that make sending someone else a document as simple as passing on a URL. 11. Set up offline mail Even in the world of mobile broadband and ubiquitous Wi-Fi, there are still places where you won't be able to get a signal and you'll have to work offl ine. Plan for this by ensuring that you have an offline mail client such as Thunderbird installed, even if you use a web-based email service. Download your messages before hitting the road so you can refer to them and write responses while you're offline. For Gmail, you can install Google Gears or get a simple backup of your messages by getting Google Desktop to index them. An offline client is still the best option, though. 12. Extend battery life Consider ways to extend your battery life if you have to spend extended time away from a source of power.
Set your Power Options to dim the screen unless you're working in bright sunlight because this extends battery life significantly. Also try any tricks that will take load off the processor: disabling unnecessary background processes, closing programs you're not using and even turning off Aero. All of this will ensure that your laptop consumes less power and you'll get more life out of the battery. 13. Optimise for bandwidth Consider ways in which you can optimise your connection when you're on reduced bandwidth. You might have dropped to a GPRS connection or even had to resort to using dial-up. In these cases, a slow connection can limit your productivity. Shut down synchronising services such as Dropbox and Windows Live Sync. You can sync up again when you get onto a better connection. Turn off any other programs that poll the internet. Disable pictures in your browser, plus any other multimedia you can – the results, while ugly, will be easier to manage speed-wise. 14. Stay secure If you're using free hotspots or any that enable you to connect using an open wireless connection, ensure that you have a decent fi rewall installed. Comodo, Agnitum and ZoneAlarm provide free firewalls that generally outperform Windows' offering. Consider installing one to turn on in these circumstances. Just enable access for your web browser and email program. Ensure that you use Windows' public network settings too. 15. Encrypt files Consider what might happen if your laptop or thumb drive gets lost or stolen. By encrypting any sensitive files, you can make sure the vital data within it can't be accessed. Use TrueCrypt to create a virtual encrypted disk hidden within a file on your system and place all your most important files there. Anyone getting access to your PC won't even know that the disk is there, keeping your data safe. 16. Tether your iPhone In iOS 4, you can turn on internet tethering by choosing 'Settings | General | Network | Internet Tethering' – but only if you're with a provider that allows it. While it can be expensive to change in the middle of a contract, it's defi nitely worth confirming this feature next time. 17. Get audio channels If you're in need of entertainment and you've got a 3G signal, Tuner Internet Radio is one of the iPhone's best apps. It's not free, but for hundreds of channels, the £3 fee is a bargain. It's available to download from Apple's iTunes App Store. 18. Use Mobile Dropbox Get quick access to your Dropbox files on your phone. There's an Android app available in the marketplace, and one for iPhone and iPad in the App Store. A Blackberry app is on its way. Learn more at www.dropbox.com/anywhere or get simple mobile web access at http://m.dropbox.com. 19. Find yourself There's no need to go anywhere without access to a map. Google Maps is available for all popular phones and mobile devices. See www.google.com/mobile/maps for relevant download links or just point your mobile browser at m.google.com/maps. 20. Watch the skies Got time to look up and see the stars? If you have an Android phone, then you can get an annotated map of the sky wherever you are, thanks to GPS and Google Sky Map. It adjusts according to where your phone is pointing, so you can find out about any part of the sky. 21. Keep cool If you're using a laptop plugged in for extended periods, consider buying a laptop cooler to prevent it from overheating. These cost around £20 and plug into a USB port. They use fans to cool the underside of your laptop, ensuring you get stable performance for lengthy use. 22. Take a back-up drive Consider carrying portable back-up media with you, especially if you're travelling for any period of time. A passport drive is small enough to tuck into most laptop bags and is USB-powered. Expect to pay around £60 for a 500GB drive, which should offer enough space. 23. Charge in the car A car charger for your laptop ensures that you can top up its juice by plugging it into the cigarette lighter while you're driving. Generic ones are available for between £10 and £20. Try to get one for your specific model if possible, though – it'll cost a bit more, but it's worth it. 24. Spare battery If you're stuck on a train or plane with no charging point, a spare battery can pay dividends. You can usually find spares at a reasonable price on eBay and one could effectively double your working time. Check the capacity of the battery and don't forget to keep it charged. 25. Back up at home Your laptop is likely to undergo greater wear and tear than a static computer, making it more vulnerable to data loss. It makes sense to back it up whenever you touch base at home or at the office. Keep a copy of all your important data on at least one other PC, so that it's easily accessible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from techradar To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment