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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Related Articles

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Editing your blog's template:  advantages and disadvantages

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How to make a real website, using Blogger

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

Finding things while editing in your blogger theme

Adding CSS formatting rules to your blog, without editng the theme

How to remove the "powered by Blogger" attribution from designer-theme blogs

Putting a gadget on the homeppage only

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

How to edit your Theme in Blogger

Applying conditional formatting to widgets

Finding the widget-id for a gadget in Blogger

Top iOS App Development Tools That You Should Checkout

As we all know that the market for iPhone applications is abundant with more than 2 million applications obtainable in the Apple app store. However, if your application has a wonderful user experience and becomes more popular like Instagram, it will be more lucrative.

However, there are lots of good ideas for new applications; but it is important to execute the Design and Development accurately to boost the chances of success. It is recommended to hire an experienced firm with a proven track record like Worry Free Labs to help in Design and Development.

But if your budget is limited, you would find a lot of tools and programs available that can you design and visualize how the end-product must function and look. In this post, you will find some of the incredible iOS tools that help you to design and develop an app with rich features.

Let’s Have a Look at the Top iOS App Design & Development Tools

Balsamiq

When it comes to talking about the Balsamig tool, it is a rapid wireframing tool, allowing users to instantly develop a wire frame mock-up of their application idea. Using this tool, you can work faster and smarter as it reproduces the experience of sketching on a whiteboard, but using a computer.

As you know that the functionality of an application is most important and app designers need to make sure that their app has an excellent user experience. Moreover, the tool also has a few third-party plugins and tools that can be used for easy collaboration, making it instant and simple for teams and developers to use Balsamig and share they wireframe mock-ups with one another.

AppMakr

AppMakr is considered as one of the best iPhone app development tools for the starters. Using this tool, you can develop a high-end iPhone app for your business even if you do not have a good in the coding part.

AppMakr is one such tool that is completely free of cost and delivers you the impressive additional traits, including Ad support, HTML5 integration, AQI, Live updates and more. So far, millions of people have used this tool and developed their own apps with this powerful tool. You can also get started and make your own mobile app.

Buzztouch

Talking about the Buzztouch tool, it is a software and a wonderful community, which helps people to make native iOS applications without any hassle. Unlike many app builders, there are no limits to what kinds of apps you can make using this advanced tool.

You can use Buzztouch control panel so that you can make an application, download the iOS project and you are all set to begin. Make use of Xcode to install your application on your device. When you are ready, you can easily submit it to the App store.

Invision

Invisionapp is a highly-advanced prototyping tool, which enables users to develop and design a clickable prototype of an iOS mobile application. Using this tool, you can instantly transform your designs into beautiful, fully interactive prototypes complete with gestures, transitions & animations for web, iOS and Android.

Invision tool will also help coordinate communication and feedback and has an excellent method of marking that screens are approved for the next phase of design or development.

A lot of professional iOS app development firms are there that use this tool on regular basis, and it helps the team show clients how the application is going to work and look. For the development team, as well, it is a great tool because it allows them to better plan and comprehend how the final product will work.

Blueprint

Blueprint is a widely-used tool that you should have in your list when you are planning your prospective application. However, the list already contains some best tools that help you visualize the layout of your app, but Blueprint is useful for visualizing the functional side of the application.

You can use this tool and get help in making a very easy-to-follow and comprehend storyboard for your app and its function. This wonderful tool make use of an easy to learn and drop method of organizing the pages of the app.

It also allows for arrows and lines to placed. Finally, this tool is extremely helpful in visualizing your application and is perfect for testing the functions and navigations before having to write and revise the code.

Swift Express

Swift Express is a simple yet most advanced tool that is written in Swift. The tool has a framework and a simple routing mechanism, helping users to run the application while managing the dependencies of the project.

Being the native platform Swift language, OS X with xCode features the best development experience yet. iOS and OS X developers will be pleased with a familiar environment.

So, these are the top iOS app designing and development tools that make designing and developing iOS applications a lot simpler. If you are looking forward to hiring a leading iPhone app development company that has a proficient team of iPhone developers.

Showing a PowerPoint file in your blog

This article is about options for showing the contents of a PowerPoint file inside your blog.

Previously I've described how to load content from MS Word to your blog.

But some people have material in PowerPoint (or other presentation software) files, that they want to show in their blog.   So far, I've identified three options for doing this.

These approaches should work on any PowerPoint formatted presentation, no matter what tool it was prepared with - except of course if it was Google Docs in which case you go straight to option 2.

Option 1: Each slide as an image

Follow these steps:

• In PowerPoint, choose Save-as, and choose an image format (eg .png).   
• When the system asks if you want all slides or just the current one, choose All.
• Upload all the image files that were created to your blog - it's your choice whether you put them all in the same post, or one-per-post.
  I usually upload them firstly to Picasa web albums or another picture-hosting service, and then just link from my blog to there)

At first, I thought that this was a backward approach.  But recently I wrote an article based on a presentation that I gave several years ago.   After trying various ways of displaying the presentation and  the article, I realised that I was trying to find a way to include all the comments that I made when I used the presentation face-to-face.  To do this, I needed to show each slide individually, so I used this option because it gives full control over what commentary goes with each picture.

Option 2: Convert to a Google Docs Presentation

This is described in detail in  Using Google Docs's publish-and-embed option - I believe it's better than trying to use Google Web-elements, because it achieves much the same thing, and takes one piece (web-elements) out of the equation.

Option 3 Copy and Paste

As with MS Word, copy-and-paste from PowerPoint to Blogger is NOT recommended, because the PowerPoint content can have all sorts of extra HTML codes attached to it, and these can cause negative effects in your blog.

But you may want to copy-and-paste, either because you don't want the content as images, or because you want other things like presenter notes etc that are not stored in the presentation slides.

To do this, you need to:

• Copy from PowerPoint, 
• Paste into a text-editor (eg Notepad in Microsoft Windows)
• Copy again from the text-editor
• Paste into your blog.

An alternative may be to export the presentation as an outline (ie rich-text or RTF format), and then convert it via Google Docs in the same way that you would for a Word document.   You would need to test this to check if it brings in the items that are stored outside of the slides.

Option 4   Use a slideshow host

Another approach would be to set up on account on SlideShare or a similar service that allows you to upload slideshows and gives you code that you can add to your blog in the usual way, which embeds the slideshow in your blog.  

I haven't tried this one out myself, but in theory at least it should work.

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Related Articles

Showing a PowerPoint presentation as a slideshow in your blog

Converting from MS Word to Blogger, via Google Docs

File hosting options - places to keep your files on-line

Tools for applying copyright protection to your blog

Putting embed code from an outside service into your blog
.

How to Generate Substantial Leads From Your Blog

Many businesses have a blog on their page. However, unless you utilize it properly and effectively, it won't bring you the results you need. If given proper attention, your blog can be a vital - and inexpensive - tool in your digital marketing toolbox.

Here are three tips to generate leads using your blog:

Create Unique and Valuable Content

As always, you will need a strong content marketing strategy that provides consistent, current, and relevant material. More than anything, you’ll need to create unique, valuable, and interesting content for readers in order to generate an audience, leads, and revenue. Authentic, related content is the most valuable to not only your users, but also search engines.

If you want to impress your users and improve your SEO, you'll want to create unique and valuable content on a regular basis. This will help gain interest, get your readers coming back, and engage them in the material that you produce. It will help them remember you and come back, choosing you as their source in the future. Once you’ve developed some loyalty and authority with them, they will become converting customers. In order to do this though, you’ll need to give them something that they actually want and appreciate.

Comment, Like, and Share

You should be creating content that is shareable and will motivate people to like and comment on it. This will help it spread, growing your audience, traffic, and conversions; it’s also probably the most important thing to do when trying to generate leads.

It will get you spread across multiple channels and to the most amount of users. More than likely, you’ll end up drawing in people that are interested in the same things through being spread among users that are interested in your content. There friends will see it, and it will spread from one to another, drawing in any one interested in what you offer.

More than just having people like and share your material, you want to make them respond to it! Create blog posts that make your readers respond to what you’re writing, getting them active with your content and your business. This will get them returning to your page and help build confidence in your audience and customers. In turn, this will establish you as a knowledgeable authority on the subject.

More than anything, you should try to make them want to come back for the next blog you write!

Guest Blogging

Writing blogs for other pages and blogs is a great way of spreading your content across other communities. If you pick the right pages (within your niche) you can generate a lot of traffic already interested in your niche, and therefore more likely to be a converting customer for your business. A guest blog not only lets you connect with a community that may be interested in what you offer, but it also gives you a chance to directly tell them what you offer! By tapping into relevant pages for guest posts, you’ll draw in an audience and traffic that is related to your services and products, helping you gain loyal customers that will convert and buy.

By using these 3 basic tips to blogging, you should be able to make your blog an effective part of your digital marketing strategy. This will help you draw in an audience, increase your traffic, and improve your conversions.

How to not show any posts on your blog's home page, using Blogger

You can set your blog up so that no posts are shown on the main screen - provided you have used some of the other "home page" approaches to give readers other ways of getting to your content.

Previously I've explained how to only show one post on the main page of your blog.

But some people who want to give their blog a home page go further than that, and don't show any posts on the main screen at all.   (Remember, the main screen is where people who navigate to your blog, rather than to posts within it, go.)

This sounds like a strange thing to do - after all, blogs are about posts.

But actually it's fine, provided you use some other tools to let readers move around the blog.  I've made a 150+ page blog this way, and it works very nicely because I have organised the information and used some index-pages (containing lists of bus-routes, suburbs, maps etc) with tables that link to many other posts.

How to show no (ie zero, 0) posts on the main screen

Some people want to do this, as part of the process of giving their blog a home page.  It's not possible if your blog has a Dynamic thene, but can be done for blogs with Layout themes.

There are at least two ways of doing it.

Option 1 - use a custom re-direct for your home-page

Make a new Page (Pages > New Page) and add the material which you want to show on your main screen.    Publish this page.

Take a note of the URL of the Page that you use created.

Go to Settings > Search preferences > Errors and re-directions . Custom re-directs

Click Edit then New re-direct

In the dialog box which opens:

• Enter a back-slash (ie   /  )into the first (From) box.

• Enter the URL of the page that you noted earlier into the second (To) box
• In the To box, remove the blog-address, because Blogger already adds that for you.
  Eg if your URL is     http:/www.myBlog.com/p/home.html
  then just enter           /p/home.html
  
  (note that you keep the backslash (/) just before the P.

Click the Permanent checkbox.

Click Save just under the entry you just made - it now looks like this:

Click Save changes.

Job Done!   Anyone who goes to your blog's home page will now go automatically to the alternative page you made - and the effect is that no posts are shown on the home page.

Option 2 - use the Posts and Comments setting

Choose the Settings > Posts and Comments panel from the left sidebar.

Enter zero (0) into the Show at most field

Click Save Settings in the top right hand corner of the screen.

About this method

The method in Option 2 works:   no posts are shown on your home page.

But by default, nothting else is shown, either.    Unless you take steps to avoid it, your readers will see a grey box saying "0 Posts" when they look at your blog's main URL.   

Some of the things you can do to avoid this include hiding the "showing posts with label XXX" message, and creating a gadget that only shows on the "home" page.

Recommended option

The custom re-direct option is probably the best approach - and is certainly what I've used for my blogs recently:   it's clean, and doesn't need any special messing around with gadgets etc to put content onto the "home" page.

But there may be cases where the second option is better - and I have recently confirmed that it still works.

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Related Articles

Limiting your blog to only have one post on the main page

Giving your blog a home page

What are dynamic view themes?

Blogger theme types
.
Using tables in your blog

Displaying a gadget only on the home page

Growth of Ecommerce industry in India - An Insight

How instantly we make our mind to buy certain products online which is giving the highest discount? We, do without second thought. Isn’t it? Considering the shift from traditional shopping to online one, the craze these days for online shoppers is more towards searching for the products with the highest tag of associated cashback offers, discounts and deals. Why not, when the users are enjoying this new found way of possibly saving a lot of their money with every single shopping they do.

So, how ecommerce industry is able to register growth of roughly 35% every year?

There are so many offers and deals waiting for you to grab them that you literally want to shop the entire list. I mean, they are too enticing to be refused and this is a thing, which creates quite a marketing mechanism for companies whose modes of profit results from "mass sales".

Online industry has bridged the gap by creating an affordable mechanism for buyers to go for branded products

If I can say about myself, I was quite poor at bargaining during the days of traditional shopping. However, the glorifying journey which online shopping has offered seems to help me save a lot. Even the branded products which were very expensive, perhaps an impossible thing for middle class people like me, has now turned to be so cost effective after available promocode discount bash.

Considering the digitalized world we are heading, where all of us have smartphones to book anything from the comfort of our home be it railways or movie tickets, order food etc. Online shopping has actually fulfilled the expectations of masses where they don't have to take out time from their busy schedule.

One can shop at any time, it is so easy that even older generations who have never been so aware about the smartphone’s functioning, can be seen booking products with ease and are paying cash on delivery.

Rural areas are not de-attached from online industry

So, the usual misconception of how Indians by and large take it forward has ended a long time back and since many years, the online industry is only growing in leaps and bounds. Yes, this growth couldn’t have been possible without the love and support of people even from rural areas who are now actively seen purchasing products.

There are hot deals for specific time which may end in few hours. Then they are deals on weekends and likewise, lots and lots of offers continuously displaying with them.

Final words

Now, the biggest drawback which one used to face towards the last days of month due to mis-management of money will end once and for all. Yes, you will be in a budget. According to a saying, "money saved is money earned". So, your earnings will indirectly improve with all the savings in store for you. We, Indians are traditionally known towards making ways to save money and this new shift (which is also seeing a continuous rise) will continue to create smiles on the faces of Indians for ages to come.

Author Bio:

I am Jessica, a blogger, passionate about writing articles related to travel, Fashion, Health and technology. Apart from writing blogs, I love to explore the world by visiting different places and share my experiences with people. Now I am working for an e-commerce website that provides Amazon, Jabong, latest Myntra, paytm, freecharge, eBay coupons and many more hot deals.

How to get a valid URL for a picture in Google Photos

This article explains the problems with getting valid, SEO-friendly links to images that are in Google Photos - and shows a way of doing this using Google products.  

Previously I've explained how to get a URL for a picture stored in Google Photos - and the difference between Photo's "shareable links" and real photo URLs.

The sort of link you get with this procedure looks like this:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRMHdvKXlpSCxh3J_mlldObX5TfDPyqyiF3siOV1OZMh_wWi74Hq_TjigDfg6SFS1810DEIL4L6haFBZUdeMO6pBVz3bBl25yaDboyd-pNcGHhUvIcWxOyvtCgvWJQ0EcChIqo7qFrRksA/w1006-h566-no/

There are some issues with using URLs (aka web-addresses) obtained like this:

• They aren't recognised as valid image file links by many online tools which ask for the URL for an image (eg phpBB, Blogger - and many others)

• Sometimes they stop working
  (I've not been able to track down exactly when, but there are reports around the internet from people who say that links like this work for a while and then stop).

• They don't include the SEO-targeted keywords which you carefully used to name the photograph file before uploading it to Google Photos.  
  (Not everyone does this, and it's a lot harder for photos that were taken on your phone.   But some people do it, and to them not having the keywords in the photo URL is a big deal.)

Luckily, there is a way around these problems, which gives you a web-address for a picture stored in Google Photos that ends with the same file extension which you uploaded to Photos  (eg .jpg, .png  .bmp), and which includes the keywords which you used in the file name.

How to get a valid URL / web-address for a picture in Google Photos, using Blogger

1    If you haven't done so already, then upload the photo to Google Photos, in whatever way you usually would  (if you have your smartphone synched with your Google account, you may not even notice uploading it).

2    In Google Photos, find the photo and put it into an album.  
(It doesn't matter which album you use - and  you can delete the album again later, you just need the photo to be in an album for now, and you need to remember which album this is).

3    Using a desktop or laptop computer (ie not your phone), go to Blogger

• If you've never used Blogger before, you may be asked to accept the terms and conditions.   Just say "yes" to this   (you are't actually going to use Blogger to publish anything).

• If you don't already have a blog, the click the Create a blog link, and follow the steps to create one.
  (You won't be publishing this blog, so it doesn't really matter what name you give it or what template you use - just pick anything that's available.   )

• Or if you do have one or more blogs, just pick one (any one is OK: you're not actually going to publish to it) and go into the Blogger Dashboard.

4    Click New Post

This opens up the post editor.  

5   In the tool-bar at the top of the post editor window, click the Insert image icon.

6   Choose the From the Google Album Archive tab.
(Google have changed the name for this a couple of times since they introduced the feature - right now it says exactly what I've listed here - the name may vary, but you get the idea:   choose your Google Albums).

7   Navigate to the album that you put the picture into, in step two.   Open it, and find the picture, and select it.

8    Choose Ok.  

9     Wait a moment while the image is placed into your blog-post, and automatically resized.   

10    Click on the Edit HTML tab (currently at the top left side of the post-editor) to go into Edit HTML mode.     You will see HTML code like this.

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_iGHTOqK9CKaKPdLGxmQlOlRUBo14GGyKGldX9pCfoq5XqrDjcjimMoGdi2YrvMnTeqs55pTzgXEwntH5itbPX1SVOPEz5NEmDGl-3SNc92pEPn57qxBoPqpqGgZlSYmVOqfwTIgv0hM/s1600/tarmacadam-promenade-sunny-september-day.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_iGHTOqK9CKaKPdLGxmQlOlRUBo14GGyKGldX9pCfoq5XqrDjcjimMoGdi2YrvMnTeqs55pTzgXEwntH5itbPX1SVOPEz5NEmDGl-3SNc92pEPn57qxBoPqpqGgZlSYmVOqfwTIgv0hM/s320/tarmacadam-promenade-sunny-september-day.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>

Or like this, if you didn't give the image a better filename before uploading it:

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbl3axFbu9zqjAgKSGfRUesjSvbW_kfjzGOwpYCpQPmD1VeTeRlnu_hHQTiua_anzZe7t6KYXWrneI7cKxJfICdgvo0ARChee7TTC_zlSDM7fXU0fTbfe5Pprk3ndAYOfOdXuUFSbTMWM/s1600/DSC_3573.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbl3axFbu9zqjAgKSGfRUesjSvbW_kfjzGOwpYCpQPmD1VeTeRlnu_hHQTiua_anzZe7t6KYXWrneI7cKxJfICdgvo0ARChee7TTC_zlSDM7fXU0fTbfe5Pprk3ndAYOfOdXuUFSbTMWM/s320/disc0137.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>

11   Find the part which starts   src="     and ends with a closing quote-mark.      This is the URL for the picture you chose.   In the example above, it's the part in bold-red

12    Select and copy the text between the two quote marks after src=    ie   the equivalent to the piece of code shown in red.

Job done!     A general-purpose, valid, well-formed, web-address for the picture you want is now in your computer's memory, and can be pasted into anyplace where you want to use it.

To get out of Blogger, click Close (near the top right of the screen), and agree to leave the page anyway even though it means you will lose your work.

Troubleshooting / Extra for experts

Finding the image code in your post

If there is other material in the post that you are using, then you may want to put some marker text before and after the photo while you are still in Compose mode, to make it easier to find the right  part when you are in Edit HTML mode.

Getting a valid link to someone else's photo

You may want to find a valid URL for a photo that someone else has shared with you - but of course you cannot add this to one of your own albums.   In this case, the solution is to download a copy of the photo which was shared, then upload it to your own Google Photos.

Using the blog you've made for other things

Maybe using Blogger like this has given you ideas about other things you can use it for:   that's great, Blogger is an excellent tool for publishing material on the internet with a minimum of fuss - while also having enough features to let you do some sophisitcated things.   And even just the post editor can be a handy HTML generator at times.   You might like to read Getting Started with Blogger, for some tips about how to set up your Google account and very first blog.

Other challenges?

Do you have any questions around this approach, and how to solve problems with it?   Please a message in the Comments box at the bottom of the page, and I'll see if I can find a solution.

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Related Articles

How to get an URL for a picture stored in Google Photos - version 1

Using marker text to find things in your post's HTML code

Things to consider before starting to use Blogger

Using Blogger's post-editor as an HTML generator