How to Convert Image to Text on iOS and Android

Can you imagine your life without smartphones? Probably you can, but it would be a catastrophe. How would you connect with your family and friend from anywhere? How would you take a quick selfie whenever it is a good moment? How would you remember to do all the things from your list? In a nutshell, mobile phones have become indispensable gadgets today that make our life much easier.

Another occasion where smartphones give us a hand and make our life easier is note taking. Nowadays you don't have to lose time on trying to find paper and pen to write down notes, contacts or schedules. Just snap a photo of them and there you go. All important data is preserved quickly and effortlessly. Also, all notes are always at your fingertips given that your mobile phone is always by your side.

However, apart from these positive aspects, there is, unfortunately, a downside, too. For instance, those pieces of information are unusable since they are locked inside the image format. So, when you want to speed up the process and directly copy them to make a call or to forward them through email, you need to do it manually and to squander your time additionally.

Luckily, there is a quick fix for this issue. Image to Text app will accurately convert your images into editable text files. In that way, your data won't be sealed and you'll be able to use it further. Besides, this productivity app has many other helpful features:

• First-rate recognition and conversion quality
• No limitations on the file size or number of converted files
• Screenshots can be converted as well
• Easily share converted documents or open them in another app
• Converted documents are editable so, if it's needed, you can quickly make small adjustments in any text editor on your phone or a computer

In addition, Image to Text has a very clear and user-friendly interface. Therefore, it's adapted for every user type. So, let's cut a long story short and let's see how to convert image to text on mobile devices.

• Firstly, download Image to Text from App Store or Google Play
• Select a photo you'd like to convert or take a new picture
• Finally, you'll find your text among converted files

A positive side is that the file is being converted on the servers, so the entire conversion won’t drain your battery. Also, the file is deleted right after the conversion, therefore your data is safe and protected.

The only thing left to do is to download this helpful app and to get the most of your notes!

How To Maximize Your Content's Reach

Today, even the largest organizations and companies struggle with creating successful content marketing strategies. So of course, it’s no surprise that a business with a strict budget and minimal resources can find themselves facing an uphill battle when it comes to creating a solid content marketing strategy.

When it comes to content marketing, creating content can be a challenge in itself. The real challenge, however, comes with what you do with the content after it’s been published. A good publishing strategy is what determines the success of any content marketing effort. When factors like budget get in the way, the key is to tactfully maneuver available resources and create a smarter distribution strategy that will align with your needs. This will ensures that you're getting the most use out of your content efforts without burning a hole through your pocket.

If you're looking for the best way to utilize your resources and improve your content marketing strategy, here are 3 low-cost distribution tactics that can help:

Establish Syndication Ties

To reach a larger audience on a budget, get your content syndicated with popular publishers or social influencers within your industry. These channels will allow you to share content to their audiences. There’s no sure-fire way to promise a syndication partnership with a major publisher, but a few strategies can help you pitch your content.

Start by identifying publishers who publish content that aligns with your target market’s interests and then develop content that aligns with the desires of both audiences. A tech company could write a detailed article about their industry that would appeal to the interests of platforms such as The Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, and Forbes.

Be sure to establish a rapport with editors before beginning your conversation with a request for a favor. Instead, work to show what value you can provide them to help reach their goals. This approach will help you to establish long-term relationships with these editors. As you move forward, share your content with an editor from the desired publisher and give them the rights to republish the content to their readers.

Go For Low-Cost Paid Promotions

Organic reach and engagement metrics on social media are increasingly becoming underwhelming. These days, simply promoting content on social channels is not enough to build an engaged audience, drive conversions, and/or meet key marketing benchmarks. So if you find yourself limited by a tight budget, you ought to consider using paid adverts to promote your content, especially when it comes to content that consistently drives revenue or create sales opportunities.

Start by experimenting with Facebook ads or Pinterest promoted pins to determine which tactics will help you to fulfill your business goals and align with your budget concerns. Both platforms have been proven to drive results for business of all sizes and industries. Be sure to use a limited budget across all of your advertising platforms to keep financial risk at a minimum. This will help you to focus on establishing methods to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. This will help you to understand which channels will be the most effective for your business while preventing you from blowing through your budget all at once. As soon as you find a strategy that produces positive returns, scale your efforts.

Curate Content That Is Relevant

Crafting content can get pricey relatively quickly sometimes. Most businesses with limited budgets often struggle to push original content across all of their networks on a regular basis. This problem often results in gaps to editorial calendars and more often than not, leads to missed opportunities of engagement with their audience. To ensure you close any gaps in your content strategy, consider curating or republishing content from industry thought leaders, social influencers, your customers or even content from other businesses within your space. Always be sure that this content is in alignment with the interests of your customer base and done sparingly. Ensure that your site has has more original content than ones that are curated. Remember, your audience wants to be fed original content.

Adding a content curation strategy to your marketing efforts can help you create a consistent stream of relevant content to share with your audience without the financial effects that come with producing original content daily. It’s an effective technique for filling the gaps in your calendar and establishing relationships within your industry.

8 Astonishing Facts About Technology

Technology and its constant progress throughout history is quite fascinating, and over the last few decades the progress has been incredibly fast-paced and mesmerizing. There are a lot of things in the world of technology that make it so filled with awe, let's take a look at a few facts related to technology and what to expect from it in the near future.

The Origins of Amazon

The whole world knows Amazon as THE online store to go to if you want to buy anything. However, when Amazon first started out in 1994 it began as a bookstore, from here it slowly evolved into the all in one online store that it is today.

The First Braille Printer

A young teenager known as Shubham Banarjee just invented the first ever low-cost braille printer out of Lego bricks. The printer is called the "Braigo" and holds a lot of potential as the foundation of affordable braille printers that might be available on a larger scale in the near future, providing blind people with access to more reading material.

3D Printing is Older Than You Think

We all think of 3D printing as a relatively recent invention that only came out a couple of years ago. However, the truth is that 3D printers are older than the first iPhone. The first 3D printer was invented in 1982 by Charles Hull and was called a Stereolithography device, the technology became popular only recently since it needed time to be refined and improved to make it more practical.

3D Printing Construction

Speaking of 3D printers, the technology is quickly advancing, and there's talk of implementing it in construction work in the near future. NASA is also looking into developing automated 3D printing robots that can be sent into space to construct entire space stations. However, this kind of implementation of 3D printing is still pretty far down the road.

Computing Power And The Climate

It's common knowledge that computers produce heat when they are running, an average laptop can easily get as hot as 70 to 80 degrees Celsius when in use, so imagine how much heat can larger setups produce. Extremely large setups can produce heat and carbon dioxide in large enough quantities to have an impact on the environment itself, Google's servers are reported to produce up to 200 tons of CO2 on a daily basis!

Microsoft's New Take on Large Scale Cooling

Producing CO2 isn't the only problem with large computing setups and data centers, the heat being produced effects performance, and therefore companies spend significant amounts of money on cooling solutions. Microsoft has recently come up with a proposal to build an underwater facility in the ocean to house their cloud data center. Named Project Natick, if it becomes a success, then the largest problem that every data center has to face might be eliminated in the future, turning large scale computing more eco-friendly and more efficient.

Storage Medium That Can Last Forever

Just last year scientists came up with a solution to help store data and have it withstand the test of time. Transparent 5D digital data disks made of glass are capable of holding 360TB of data for as long as 13.8 billion years, the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old. These discs are created with a process known as femto second laser writing and store data in five dimensions, each dimension consisting of nano structures, all of which combine to provide an extremely non-volatile storage medium.

The Storage Capacity of DNA

The oldest and most intricate piece of technology in the universe is perhaps the human body, our DNA has a staggering data storage capacity of 455 Exabyte; a single Exabyte contains one billion gigabytes. Just to put things into perspective; data from the entire world can be stored in just 4 grams of DNA.



Author Bio
Tom Carter is a passionate blogger, web developer, and a die-hard game lover. When he is neither writing his next blog post on his blog The Geekly News nor playing games, he often hangs out with his friends at the bowling alley.

What You Should Know Before Taking Your PC to a Computer Repair Shop

We have all been there. You finally carve out some time to work on that project, to locate and e-mail some files, or just to browse the internet in order to conduct some research into a possible purchase. But you can’t. Your PC simply will not cooperate. It fights you at every turn. You go right, it goes left. You end up chasing your machine around in circles until, finally, you are left just staring at a circling wait icon, a stack of error dialog boxes, or worse even, a blank screen. The next step seems to be crawling under your desk and fighting the dust bunnies to unplug dozens of cables before packing the whole thing up to be taken to an expert. Stop. That might not be necessary. These are the things you need to know before taking your PC to a computer repair shop.

Five Easy Fixes You Can Do at Home Before Paying for Computer Repair

Before you spend time, energy, and money, sending your computer out, try a few easy fixes. These do not require any technical expertise, so don’t worry.

• Reboot Your Computer - Hitting Control+Alt+Delete will bring up your start screen and present you with a few options. Select power off. Wait a few minutes and turn the machine back on. Often, rebooting will shut down competing processes and applications causing your issue.
• System Updates - If you have not been great about allowing updates to your computer to download, it may be running slower than normal, or not at all. Make sure all system updates are installed before panicking and calling for repair. Find your updates by locating "settings" on your home screen and then selecting "updates". This can take some time, but it is well worth it.
• Check Your Internet Connection - Often, slow speeds are caused by unstable or poor wi-fi connections. This is not your PC's fault. Blame your router, modem and ISP (internet service provider) instead. Power down your router and modem for a few minutes and then start them back up. Wait for the blinking light sequences to finish and then check your performance.
• Check for Malicious Software (Viruses) - We all know that the internet is swarming with bits of software designed to take over your computer and ruin your life. Did you know that your machine probably has a very capable defense system against this already installed? Locate "settings" on your home screen and then select "security". The pre-installed anti-virus software provided with major operating systems is really quite good. Run a full scan and see what is identified. The software will quarantine anything suspicious and delete the malware upon your request.
• Clean Your Machine - Most of us take great care of our keyboard and monitor. Those are the things guests see. But what about inside your case? Computers generate heat. To cool the electronic parts air flow is created through a series of fans and vents. If those vents become clogged your machine will run very hot and begin to work more slowly before eventually just dying altogether. The case can usually be opened by removing two or three screws. Carefully vacuum all of the dust you find. Your machine will breathe more easily and perform better when needed.

Maintenance is Important

These are five easy steps you can take before taking your PC to a computer repair shop. Most likely, one of them will fix your problem, saving you money and time. The key is to remember that like a car or any other complicated machine, computers require maintenance to continue to run as quickly as the day they were purchased. Fortunately, this maintenance is free and easy to do.

This was a guest post by Garrett Tate of Don’t Panic IT Solutions - www.dontpanicit.com

The different between themes and templates in Blogger

This article explains the difference between themes and templates in Blogger, Google's blogging tool.

What is (was) a Blogger template

How a blog that is made with Blogger is shown to a visitor is controlled by four sets of information:

• The posts which the blogger writes (ie the content)
• A user-editable "configuration file" which records the overall formatting options which the file designer and then the blogger have chosen
• Another configuration file, called the post-template, which records choices that the blogger has made under Layout > Blog posts (edit), but cannot be edited elsewhere.   
• Blogger's own software, which puts the other things together with some internal rules to make "web pages".   Bloggers cannot control the rules in this at all.

Originally, the first "configuration file" was called a template.   In fact, officially it was called a design-template, to distinguish it from the post-template.   However because most people aren't aware of the post template, usually just the word "template" is used to mean design-template.

What is a theme

Other blogging tools (eg Wordpress, Tumblr) called their equivalent file a theme.    Most (or even all) of those tools provide less access to change things in the Theme file, for example if you use a Wordpress free-hosted blog, then you cannot change any of the code in your theme, you can only make formatting changes which are allowed for in the Wordpress front-end.

Many of the Wordpress themes have had a lot of  graphic design work done on them - using them gives a blog-site which looks very attractive (or otherwise suited for their purpose) on a wide range of screens.    Many large websites have been made using Wordpress, and so very many professional designers have created Wordpress themes.    Because of this, many people believe that it's easier to get an excellent-looking website from a theme than from a Blogger template.

Blogger templates have now become themes

Recently - I noticed it in March 2017 - Blogger started calling their templates "themes".  

• They've changed the menu option on their dashboard from "Template" to "Theme".
• They've changed the action button names in the template/theme editor to say things like "Save theme".
• They've written various help articles which refer to themes.

What hasn't changed

• We can still edit our templates themes extensively.
• The Blogger tools that make the changes in our themes haven't changed:  All the items under the Themes tab on the dashboard are the same as the ones on the Templates tab.
• The contents of our existing themes are still much the same  (I cannot guarantees they haven't made any changes, but I haven't seen any)
• The themes that we can choose from when making a new blog, or changing the format of an existing one, are the same.
• There are hundreds of help and how-to articles written by blogger-helpers like myself, which all refer to templates.   (I've started changing mine - but it's going to take a while!)

What else is going to change?   

This is the big question:   Is the rename a precursor to some other changes, eg restricting how much control we have over our themes? - or is it just a cosmetic change to make Blogger seem more modern?

Will there be some new themes released - ones that look better across a range of devices, maybe even some that are optimized for mobile instead of desktop use?

Will there be new theme-editing features introduced into Blogger's interface, to let us control things we cannot control now?

Conclusion / TL-DR

Only Google's Blogger product managers know exactly what the future plans for Blogger are - and they're not known for talking about the future direction  until they're just about to introduce new features.   

But until they do, my conclusion is that there is no difference between templates and themes in Blogger.  They are simply two different words for exactly the same thing.

NB:   Blogger product a announcements are usually made in the Blogger Buzz blog - and I see that template were still called templates in their most recent post in November 2016:

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How to edit your Theme in Blogger

This article is about how to edit your theme in Blogger.

It supports many other articles on this site, which suggest specific theme changes needed to solve particular problems.    Note that until early 2017, themes were called templates.   In practise, "edit your template" and "edit your theme" mean the same thing.

In Blogger, a theme is a file which controls how your blog are displayed on the screen when someone reads it using a browser or a mobile device.   Themes used to be called templates, but were renamed "themes" in early 2017.

Previously, I've looked at whether it's a good idea to edit your Blogger theme / template or not.   Because themes are the same thing as templates, the same principles apply to editing your theme.

For many people, editing the theme is simply something which they need to do, because it's the only way to do what they want (remove the attribution, show a gadget on the homeppage only, add a Facebook like button to posts, etc).   And Blogger is often preferred because it allows users to edit aspects of their theme which other blogging tools done allow changes to.

Overview - how to edit your blog-theme

In general, the process to edit your theme is:

• Make a back-up copy of the theme, as it is now
• Open the theme-editor
• Make the change
• Check that it works, and if not, go back to the previous theme.

The following sections have more details about each of these steps.

How to make a backup copy of your current theme

I know:   It's tempting to skip this if you're only making a small change. I even skip it myself sometimes. And it's not needed if this is the first time you've ever customised your theme - because you can recover from problems by just reinstalling the standard theme.

But if you would be upset to lose any theme changes you made earlier, or if the change you are making now is not minor, then I strongly recommend making a copy before you start, just in case.  To do this

• From the Blogger dashboard, go to the Themes tab
• Click the Backup / Restore button near the top right of the dashboard
• Click the Download Theme button, and then wait while the file downloads.
• After the download has finished, find the place where your computer puts downloaded files.
• Find the file that was just created,
• Rename it to something sensible
   (eg MyBlog theme backup before change 31 Jan 2012.xml)
• Move the file to somewhere safe: usually somewhere on your computer is fine - or you make like to upload it to somewhere like Google Docs, to be absolutely certain that it won't get lost.

How to open Blogger's theme editor

• From the Blogger Dashboard, to to the Themes tab
• Click Edit HTML

Now you have your theme open in the theme editor, the next challenge is making changes successfully - or backing them out if your changes were not successful.

How to make the change to your theme

• Find the code you need to change:
  See Searching for text in Blogger's theme editor if you need help with this.
  
  Note:   some of the older "how to" articles say to make sure that the Expand Widgets checkbox off or on.   This checkbox has now been removed from Blogger's theme editor.    If the instructions you are following says to leave it "off", then you should just be able to follow them as is.    However if you are told to turn Expand Widgets off,  then you need to find the correct part of the code by searching for the widget-id or section name, and then "unfold" that to see the complete code.   

• Make the change (This article doesn't go into the principles of theme design, there are plenty of other articles and websites about that: I'm assuming that you know what you need to do).

• Click the Preview theme button
  If Blogger can make sense of the change you made, then view of your blog is shown in the theme-editing area, with what looks like your blog's homepage. It's not a real copy of your blog (the links won't work, the spacing might not be quite the same), but it shows you how the home-page will look with your theme edits.
  
• Do a quick check that the screen looks right - for some changes you even be able to tell if the change has been successful just from this preview screen.
  
  However:  If the new window/tab shows an error message like

Your theme could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure that all XML elements are closed properly. <br/> XML error message: The element type "div" must be terminated by the matching end-tag "</div>".Error 500 

or

Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure that all XML elements are closed properly. <br/> XML error message: Element type "b:widget" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>".

 then Blogger has not been able to understand the change you made. Sometimes the error message gives a clue about what's wrong, although it can be misleading.   Check that you made the change correctly - fix any errors and click Preview again.  If it still doesn't work, ask for help from the place that suggested the change you are making 

.

•  Once you are happy that the preview screen looks OK, click the Save theme button.

How to test your theme change

Some changes can be checked very easily, sometimes from the preview screen.

But if your change isn't visible on the front screen, you must check it after you have applied it. What to verify depends on your them type, what the change was, and what other features (eg the page-gadget as a menu, the archive widget, ) your blog uses. You need to decide what to test, based on all of these.

At least, I always click on and check on these things when I've made a major theme change:

1. the home page
2. the items in the menu bar
3. a label value
4. an archive widget entry
5. custom-search-engine results
6. comments

And if I'm being particularly reader-focussed, I'll also check these things in more than one browser:   usually in the current version of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.

What to do if your theme change wasn't successful

If you find that the theme change has caused problems, then ou have have a choice to make:

Can you and your readers live with the problems on your blog for "a while", while you look for other solutions? 

Or 

Do you need to remove the change right now, so visitors can use your blog as it was while you solve the issues.

There is no right answer to this question:   It's a personal decision, based on the blog, and your readers.   But if you do need to remove the theme change, here's how to do it:

• Open the Themes tab
• Click the Backup / Restore button near the top right of the dashboard
• Click Choose File and find the file that you downloaded earlier
• Click Upload.

It is best to restore your theme before you have changed any gadgets.  If you get a message about widgets being missing, then it means that the gadgets associated with your blog are not the ones referred to in the theme.   If this happens, you need to decide whether to deep or delete any "orphaned" ones, and may need to check their settings again.

Making complicated changes

If your theme may need a lot of "surgery" while you figure out how to make a change, then it may be a good idea to build a private test-blog to do the work in, and only copy the contents into your "real" blog theme when you are certain that you've got it correct (or correct-enough).

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Related Articles

Advantages and disadvantes of editing your Blogger theme

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Planning changes to your blog - without readers seeing what you are doing

How to find things in Blogger's Theme editor

This article explains how to find things (gadgets or text) in the Theme editor in Blogger.

Very often when you are editing your Theme in Blogger, you need to find particular text.

For example, you might need to find all places where  "</head" appears, so you can add something to the very next line.   Or you might want to find the code for a particular gadget (aka widget), so that you can put a conditional-formatting statement around it.

There are now two tools you can use to find items in the Theme editor:

• The Jump to Widget tool if you are looking for a Widget
• The Find bar if you are looking for a text string.

More information about using each of these is given below.

How to use the Jump to Widget tool

First, you need to find out the exact name for the widget / gadget that you need to find the code for.    (See Finding a gadget's name for a tip on how to do this).

Then, inside the Theme editor (see Editing your Blogger Theme for how to get there), just choose the name you are looking for from the drop down list .   (Click the arrow beside Jump to Widget to see the items in the list):

Once you have chosen an item from the list, the template editing window moves to the place where this gadget is listed in the theme code.   It usually places it in the 2nd line of the editing window.  For example, in the picture below, I chose to jump to the Followers1 gadget.

How to find any text in the Theme editor

Click anywhere inside the Theme-editor window:   this is the rectangle which shows the code in your Theme.    (It's important to click inside here first, or the next command will work differently)

On your keyboard, press Ctrl/f:   to do this, hold down the control (ctrl) key, and press the  f    key.

A search bar will now show in the top right corner of the theme editing window - like this:

Type the text you want to find into the Search bar and press Enter.   

The cursor will move to the first time that the text appears.   

To find the next place where the text appears, click into the Search-bar and press Enter again 

Repeat as often as you need to find the correct place.  

When you are finished with searching, click the X button at the right hand side of the Search-bar to close it.

How to see the details inside a gadget or other piece of code

You can now find any text that you need to find in Blogger's theme editor (previously called the Template editor).   

But if you look carefully at the Theme-editing window you will see that there is sometimes a horizontal arrow in the left-hand side of the code, and that the line numbers jump - like this:

This happens because some of the detail is hidden, to make the theme-code easier to work with.

But you can use the arrow (called an expand-arrow) to see it all:  Click on it and you will see that it changed to a down arrow, and that the code window now shows some extra lines which were previously hidden.

You won't always need to do this:   some template edits just say to find the code for a gadget and to put extra instructions before and after it.   But others need you to open up the gadget code and make changes inside.

Job done!  You can now find gadget and text items inside your Blogger Theme - so you can continue editing it.

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Related Articles

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