Historical Findings in Astronomy

Historical Findings in Astronomy

Taking a look at the history of astronomy will allow us to understand the many advances made and give us the knowledge we need to further explore the universe. The Babylonians were amongst the earliest astronomers in the 17th century B.C. and recorded the motion of the planets in the sky. Their discoveries paved the way for future generations to learn more about the universe. Galileo (1564-1642) invented telescopes that allowed him to get a better picture of what makes up the night sky. Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus and several moons around other gas giants. Over time, scientists have been also able to develop technology that has changed the belief of a geocentric universe to the heliocentric model it is today. The Hubble Space Telescope and the Kepler Project are two other major undertakings that continue to shape our view of space. Take a look at the following infographic to learn more about astronomy over the years.

Created by Labroots, the leading social networking website for scientists, engineers, and other technical professionals.

Top 10 Tips for Online Shopping Security

Top 10 Tips for Online Shopping Security

Just as fun as it can be to shop online, it can equally be risky at times. Not because you might just end up ordering the wrong size (thank god to the fact that there’s always an exchange window and you can courier it back) but because there are some safety issues that you need to keep in mind while swapping that plastic card of yours. With a dramatic increase in numbers of online purchasing portals, online flick stores, shopping windows, etc. it is becoming more and more crucial to keep a watch on where exactly you are stashing your card numbers in. There are scammers flopping in the online world like never before. So it helps to keep an eye before you decide to lay your hands on that beautiful dress or shoe you just spotted on the screen.

Here we lay down few safety procedures which once you ensure will make your experience equivalent to one that you have while visiting your nearest mart for picking stuff up.

1) Your computing environment should be very secured

Almost a no-brainer yet half the online population neglects this as a safety step. When you make purchases online, everything is encrypted. So if your computer is not protected of malicious software, your financial information and passwords will be stolen (as a matter of fact everything stands the chance of being stolen that are saved in your computer). So it is the first thing to ensure that the firewall is on. Also adding to it, try avoid shopping online from cyber cafes or using a public network. Financial transactions are better done through trusted computers.

2) Verify as to just how much you trust the store

There are correct ways of going about the shopping portal/ website you are trusting:

- If you already know the outlet of the brand or store you are purchasing form, go-ahead and have trust. In case anything goes wrong during the financial transaction, you can always walk in to the relevant store and get the problem sorted.

- If you have friends or family buying from a particular store/ portal, there’s nothing to worry much in that case then.

- If you do not know the store at all, BEWARE! Keep your eyes open. Read customer reviews or best is, do the store’s background check by looking at sites dedicated to reviewing e-stores. You find your store there, go ahead and make your picks.

3) Avail discount

Why pay extra when there can be options o availing discounts. There are many sites like indianprice.com, etc. which provide massive discounts via coupon codes. They have lots of stores registered with them and if your chosen store is registered, there you go hitting the jackpot. Cross-check and who knows you might just be lucky!

4) The too-good-to-be-true offers are not all that good always

You got no idea about the extent deceits can stretch. It’s not just on the online space but everywhere but when you are putting your money online, you can just be extra careful. It won’t hurt after all. Do not fall for the too-good-to-be-true offers. If they sound too unrealistic, there is no harm checking their reliability. They can be pretty unreal. Often purchasing from those sites can just be calling for bad luck. They can be low quality or stolen items or can also be cheap substitute of tall brands. The products might just never reach you or the portal merchant might just be playing all of it up for trading your bank details with someone else.

5) Stay alert while buying a gift-card

It is always nice to make your dear ones happy with the fabulous gift cards which are available online these days. But always read the terms and conditions carefully when buying one. Also, ensure the store from where you are buying is legitimate.

6) Do not trade too much of information

If the purchasing site is asking more information than you think is required, back off. It clearly is not reliable. The reliable sites would not go beyond asking name, contact details, email address, some method of payment, and at max your interest/ hobbies. But if you come across ones asking for driver’s license number, bank account information, social security information, etc. be cautious. It is a fraudulent one. There are hints that the merchant resell, rent or share your information. Alternatively, check the site’s privacy policy.

7) Make a unique password if required

Often online purchasing stores ask you to create an account with them. You need not do it but just in case it seems important to you or easy, then carry on. But ensure you choose a very strong password for the account. Make it unique.

8) Go a step high to ensure the security of the site

Hold on! Just before you enter any personal or credit card info onto a shopping site please do look at the URL. See if the web address on the page begins with "https:" and not "http." That little ‘s’ tells you the information is being encrypted to protect your information.

9) Wiring money through Western Union or Money Gram is not suggestible

Reliable sites generally do not make it a mandate for you to pay through wires. It is always wise to pay via credit or debit card. Wiring is suggestible to people you know but not to random strangers. So do not take the risk unnecessarily.

10) The grammar matters!

Might just sound very funny but do read the content that has gone on the website. If the content hosted by the portal/ the site is full of errors, typos, poor content, you can already sniff danger. They are not professional.

All in all, novice shoppers who are going to just start buying online should better stick with well known brands and famous online shopping portals rather than breaking their head in the smaller, less known ones. Once you get a grip of the online shopping fundamentals, you can always start your journey towards becoming the pro online shopper. But till then, have patience.

Author Bio:

This is a guest article contributed by Ajeet Sharma who works for IndianCoupons.com - a coupon site helps user shopping online by providing discount coupons, promotional codes and deals for all major online shopping stores.

Difficulties In Importing Console Games to Mobile Operating Systems

Difficulties In Importing Console Games to Mobile Operating Systems

Game consoles are built with only one goal in mind, and that is to create an awesome gaming experience for gamers.

Serious gamers are mostly to be found playing console games and the rest almost exclusively use personal computers to play games. In the past, if one wished for a portable gaming device, then their options were limited to portable game consoles such as the Nintendo DS or Sony’s PSP.

However, smartphones and tablets have been steadily gaining ground as gaming platforms due to their portability, ubiquity, increasing processing power, better and bigger screens and an army of developers with the requisite skills to create games for the various mobile devices like the Android and Windows Phones. Of course, iPhone app development is included in the mix.

This means that you as a game developer/publisher have to decide which platform/s to target first when creating your game. If you, however, decide to target the console market, you would probably want to ‘transfer’ or port the game eventually to mobile operating systems due to their widespread use and potential market. There are, however, things you will need to do and challenges to take into consideration before you can successfully deploy your game on smartphones.

Challenges in Porting Games

One of the challenges to overcome is the difference in hardware. Smartphones have grown more powerful each year yet when you compare them with game consoles, they are way less powerful. Game consoles also have very powerful GPUs and thus handle graphics better. This means that a game that placed minimum strain on game consoles would not run at all in most smartphones and strain most tablets if they were placed under similar computing needs. This means that your game must be re-designed and re-worked, taking into consideration the target devices’ capabilities.

If you are porting your game so as to target mobile devices, you must also take into consideration the various hardware capabilities available on mobile devices but not on games controllers, such as the ability to control game play via a touchscreen.

Games targeted at mobile devices much also allow for the different functional purpose between mobile devices and game consoles: while a game can hog all resources on the game console assured it has all computing resources to itself, on mobile operating systems the game has to ‘play nice’ with other apps installed on the mobile devices. Given that no one would ever play your game again if it were the reason they missed an important interview or a deal fell through because a phone call was made but the game was using the CPU or speaker, you must change your game so that gives some activities (like incoming calls) priority, and resume gaming when the user returns.

You must also factor in the differences between the controllers for a game console and a mobile device. Most game controllers have some input devices such as joysticks not available to mobile devices, which similarly will have different controls such as swiping for mobile devices with touchscreens. Telling a gamer using a touchscreen smartphone to move the joystick to the left does not inspire much confidence in your game and shows lack of attention at best on the side of the game developer.

You may and probably will have to change the way the gamer interacts with your game, for example, by substituting touch motions for key presses. Another motivation for changing the interactivity mode and intensity of play not only due to computing resources required and controllers used is the target audience. Most game titles for home consoles are targeted towards hard-core gamers who will create time in their schedule for gaming and end up not sticking to it after they start playing, while most mobile devices games are for casual gamers catching a break in between classes or work. Thus, they need to be hooked to the game the first few times they play it and it must have shorter playtime.

Languages for the devices may also vary, requiring automatic code conversion and tweaking or a complete rewrite in the language supported.

Image Credit:  franky242

Worst Rank-Destroying SEO Mistakes

Worst Rank-Destroying SEO Mistakes

World of SEO is full of do-it-yourself experts, who only have a very basic grasp of what actually goes into a potentially successful campaign. If you believe that you belong to this category, you should know about some common, and potentially, very serious mistakes that are easy to avoid, but that could otherwise lead not only to all of your effort being completely futile, but actually cause the site that you are working on to be deindexed.

Choosing Inadequate Hosting

Naturally, if you intend on working on an already existing website, the owner may not be willing to change their hosting, but if you are considering optimizing a website that hasn’t been built yet, you should carefully consider your hosting options.

The provider has to be able to offer support for all the scripts and tools that your site will need, as well as afford you with enough resources so that the site doesn’t freeze as soon as your traffic spikes for the first time. Likewise, you need to make sure that you are not in a bad neighborhood, which is to say that your provider is not hosting spammy sites, as that might label you as a spammer as well.

Using Restricted Techniques

You have probably heard about three approaches to SEO – White, Gray and Black hat. Black Hat is the worst possible resort when it comes to Google-approved practices, it is considered to be unethical and because of these wrongful methods your website might easily get deindexed. This means strict avoidance of keyword stuffing, site scraping, cloaking, and others.

White Hat is completely different aspect of increasing your website’s visibility; it is the key to effective SEO. It allows keeping the integrity of the website while still existing within the frame of search engine’s terms of service. Provide great content made especially for the readers – not for the sake of links, find a solid keyword phrase that precisely represents your webpage, make your way to inbound linking and pay attention to page elements – visually break up your page with SEO-appropriate headings. If your methods do not comply with White Hat postulates – none of the SEO techniques are effective.

Not Doing Your Onsite Properly

A lot of people who are new to SEO focus on off page factors, like building the link portfolio and reaching out to people on different social networks. While these are important parts of an SEO strategy, you should only start dealing with them once you have a solid base, which is to say a site with decent onsite. This includes a number of things, like making sure that your page titles contain the keywords that you want to rank for; that you have optimized your internal linking structure for the best effect; that your page loading times are as low as possible; that you have an XML sitemap to help out the crawlers; that your bounce rate is at its minimum, as well as a number of other things.

Duplicated Pages

While it is sometimes impossible not to have several versions of a page, you should at least try to designate the canonical one, marking it as the one that crawlers should pay attention to. While having several versions of a same page is admissible in some instances, you should always be careful not to let this happen with your home page, as that could lead to significant loss of link value.

A little bit of planning goes a long way. Every bit of the effort you invest in preserving your good rankings is worth your time because it most definitely delivers great results.

Author Bio:     

Leana Thorne is a devoted blogger and a regular contributor to several tech blogs. She enjoys sharing newly found information, and loves writing –currently is exploring ways of organic search engine optimization, and is always happy to be of help.

Which Gaming Platform is Really the Cheapest?

Which Gaming Platform is Really the Cheapest?

The price differential between gaming PCs, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 is something that is hotly debated, and as this infographic shows, there are far more things to think about than just the up-front cost of the console. Which games platform really is the best long term investment?

The Xbox One may be expensive out of the box, and have a monthly fee for online play, but Xbox One gamers get Kinect included in the cost of the console, and they get free games every month with Xbox Live Gold - games that they can keep even if they unsubscribe from the service.

In contrast, PS4 gamers pay less for their console up front, and aren't obliged to subscribe to PS+. The PS+ service also includes free games, but you'd better play them while you're still subscribed, because if you cancel the subscription you lose access to the games.

PC gamers pay the most to "buy in" to gaming, but they enjoy better performance. PC gamers have had super-high resolution games running at 60FPS, and with full modding support, for a long time now. They also enjoy huge discounts on downloadable games. While new console games cost £40 on release day, and can remain fairly expensive for several months, PC Gamers can enjoy bundle sales which offer several games for a few pounds, and Steam sales with AAA titles at 75% off. The problem with PC gaming is the high initial cost of entry, and the extra maintenance workload required with installing drivers and keeping the PC running well.

Sourced and created by the guys at Juice Electrical.

Kids And Texting - 3 Dangers They May Face

Kids And Texting - 3 Dangers They May Face

Many of my friends communicate with their children via text message. It’s easy for the kids to send a quick message from school or when they are at a friend’s house to update so their parents know what they are up to. In my generation, you didn’t need a cell phone when you were in middle school or high school, but now with families having busy schedules, it almost has become a necessity. Keeping in contact with your kids is the biggest benefit of text messaging. You can see an example of how text messaging was a lifeline to this parent whose child was on lockdown during the Arapaho shooting. Without his child having a cell phone, he would have been in the dark if his child was okay.

Despite some obvious benefits, there are some drawbacks to allowing your kids access to text messaging as well. Here are just 4 dangers that they may face when they have a cell phone and send texts.

Cyber Bullying

It seems like everyday that you turn on the news there is a new story about kids getting bullied or committing suicide because they were bullied. The attacks can come from people they know or even people that they meet on the internet. It’s becoming an epidemic.

Sexting

As kids get older and head into their teens, they start to get curious about their bodies and start wondering about their sexuality. Some teens have started to practice sexting, which involves sending naked pictures or suggestive text to people they know or would like to know. Many scandals have arisen from those text messages getting forwarded. Teens need to work hard to protect their reputations in a digital age and refraining from sexting is one way to do so. Since their relationships are young and volatile, a person who they trust now may be an enemy next week. What’s to stop that person from sharing those private texts that were sent?

Phishing Scams

Another way kids can become victims is through phishing scams. Even with the FCC cracking down, they still exist and kids are easy pray. They usually come in the form of a text message that tricks someone into replying. Once they reply, they are signed up for a premium service and their bill gets charged. They may never know they are being scammed.

Predators

Online predators are everywhere. They lurk on social media, forums and chat rooms. Make sure that your kids aren’t making themselves susceptible to these predators. Tell them to be wary of anyone who they don’t know contacting them online.

What’s the solution? Teach your kids to not give their number out to just anyone. Also, they should never be sharing their phone number on social media sites like Facebook. Unfortunately many have their number on Facebook right on their profile and may not even realize it. Some of those phone numbers show up in their “friends” contacts in their phones. I was surprised when I linked my social media accounts to my phone how many private phone numbers showed up. If their phone number is in their profile someone that they don’t know could be text messaging them.
Image Credit: David Castillo

Author Bio:

Jill Myers is a mom and drivers education instructor. When not helping others learn to drive, she is contributing her knowledge to the blog at Phone Sheriff, parental control software that helps parents keep track of what they are doing online.

Future of Mobile Applications

Future of Mobile Applications

At the end of the year 2013, Google and Apple still remain the two prominent and strongest players in the mobile application development industry. The recent report of WSJ states that both of these mobile giants have more than 700,000 applications in their bucket and the rate is growing very fast. The report also explains that both these players have sued the technological sophistication very deliberately, as applications have gone beyond the circle of mobile only. There are now devices of Tablet PC, mobiles, gaming devices and recent television sets which these companies are eyeing on. But if we give a closer look then we cans see that the turnover rate of application from users’ download and usage point of view is very little in comparison to rate of production. The rate of iPhone apps that get some market exposure and prominence is 6% while that of Google is 9%. Therefore, if 1000 apps are produced every single month, then only 60- 90 apps are able to generate revenue while the other dies without being noticed.

One consideration for the iPhone application makers today is to analyze the market scope and also the market traffic. What is there are a number of cars available for cheap rates, but no roads to drive on? It is apparent that the sales of cars will be affected directly with the road traffic and availability, and the same applies for mobile applications. Though, the market is booming currently, the overall performance in terms of the profitability rate has decreased for both Apple and Google. It is apparent that if one thousand apps are produced and only 20 get market acceptance, the profitability rate will shrink.

For this reason, the application makers now have to put more attention to both the functioning and need of an application, along with its marketing strategies. With so many apps available in the market, consumers have a big choice pool available, and if the changed behavior of speediness, the decision is often made in the first few minutes. For this reason, it is quite apparent that if the application is not able to click in the first few minutes and is not presentable, there are high chances that it will end up being confined to the app stores only.

Jackson Richie, the CEO of a Muscovy, illustrates that there are nearly thousand, if not millions mobile applications for music and video. All applications are more or less same, as application makers cannot leave the basic parameters and requirements of a music or song application. So, what required here is extensive marketing and advertising of the application. If you are a little late in launching the app, you might be outrunned by the app that launched just before yours and offer nearly the same features. On the other hand, if you launch an application and your competitor launches a better app with more features, it will again menace the profitability and sustenance of the pap in the market. Thus, the question today is not what to produce, but how to market it!

Image Credit: kromkrathog