Technology Option is the most perfect place to find all of what you need and know about the most used technology and also the most interesting softwares and ways for entertainment.
Lines of different widths and sizes representing data, that when read determine what the scanned object is. Barcodes
are often used to help organize and index information or prices about
an object. Barcodes used by the U.S. postal service that helps speed the
delivery of mail is another perfect example of how a barcode could be
used. The picture is an example of what a barcode of an address.
Barcode readers and scanners
A barcode reader (BCR)or scanner, also known as a point of sale (POS) scanner
is a hardware device capable of reading a barcode. It can also print
out the details of the product or log information about that product
into a database. A perfect example of a barcode reader is a super market
barcode scanner that reads and logs the price of a product. In the
picture is an example of a Barcode reader from HP.
Today, many smartphones with the proper apps are also capable of scanning and reading barcodes.
Barcode Printers
A hardware device capable of printing out
adhesive barcodes that can be attached to a product and identify a
product and help keep inventory.
Barcode companies
Barcodes Inc: http://www.barcodesinc.com/
Barcodes
Inc. is a company dedicated to barcodes and has a wide variety of
barcode products such as barcode readers, barcode printers, labels, and
much more.
Barcodes Inc also has an online generator
that enables you to create your own barcodes over the Internet and a
free downloadable barcode font that can be found at: http://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/
Which smartphone to
buy is a highly personal choice: If you're after the fastest phone or
the best phone for games or web browsing the answers you need are in our
benchmark results. Here we break down the processor-, graphics- and web
performance results of each smartphone to find out what's the fastest
smartphone 2015/2016 UK.
We all have our own opinions on which is the best smartphone, as is evident from the comments on our best smartphones article.
While opinions and reviews are subjective, the
one thing you should be able to count on is that the benchmarking
numbers do not lie. Except they do. Benchmark boosters are not a
conspiracy theory by advocates of rival smartphones and platforms; they
are real. There's little we can do about that, except point out that
even benchmarks should be taken with a pinch of salt.
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In this article we hope to show you which is the fastest
smartphone 2015/2016 by listing the numbers we've recorded in our own
tests using Geekbench, SunSpider and GFXBench. You can also keep an eye
on our chart of the best smartphones on the market.
We'll update this page with every new smartphone that we review, so
keep on coming back to keep in touch with the latest in smartphone
performance.
Note that until recently Windows Phone did not support two
of the three benchmarking apps we use, Geekbench and GFXBench. GFXBench
support has recently been added so we will be using it to test phones
from the Microsoft Lumia 640 onward, and you'll find SunSpider scores
for Windows Phone below.
What's the fastest smartphone 2015/2016 UK: Processor performance
We use Geekbench 3 to chart the single- and multi-core
performance of each smartphone we review. In Geekbench a higher score is
better. More recently we've also begun running AnTuTu, although we have
few scores with which to compare phones for now.
We've all got bad
habits when it comes to technology, whether it's relying on 'password'
as your password or shutting down via the power button and not the
Windows Start Menu. However, there are some tech bad habits that will
cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the 25 worst tech habits that
are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of hassles.
We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether it's
relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the power
button and not the Windows Start Menu.
However, there are some tech bad habits that will cause permanent
damage. We've rounded up the 25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to
cause you all sorts of hassles.
1. Avoiding security software
So you thought you could get by without security software,
just by being mindful of what web links you click and what email you
open. How's that working out for ya? Use something – anything - to
protect your PC from the bad guys, who are happy to have you as a
target. You can even start with free antivirus software.
2. Failing to back up your computer
The funny thing about people who admit that they don't back up is
that they always preface it by saying, 'I know it's bad, but...'.
Listen: All hard drives crash eventually. All of them. Yours will, too.
For help, see our simple guide to getting started with backup.
3. Neglecting offsite backup
A thief breaks into your house and steals your laptop.
No problem: You just backed it up last night. Oh, wait, he stole your
backup drive too, because it was sitting right next to the laptop. Store
your data in multiple locations, with automatic backups scheduled for
hard drives kept away from your PC - and make a backup plan to prepare
for worst-case scenarios.
4. Replying to spam
Why do spammers do their dirty work? Because enough people respond to
it to make sending junk worth their while. Yes, clicking the 'remove
me' link counts as a response - though on rare occasions, if a message
is clearly from a legitimate brand-name company, using that link is
worth a try. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
problem. In addition to following this commonsense advice, you can take
an extra step to harness the spam-fighting powers of your email service.
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5. Travelling with an operating computer
Taking your computer from the kitchen to the living room while it's
running? No problem. Taking your running PC from the office, on the
subway, for a mile-long walk, and up the stairs to your house? Terrible
idea. Spinning hard drives can crash, and computers can easily overheat
in cramped quarters. Shut the PC down. (Extra demerits if your hot,
whirring laptop is sweating it out in a closed briefcase for the entire
ride.) Windows offers custom settings for the power button and lets you tell a laptop to power off when you shut the lid.
6. Using a laptop on a bed
Use your laptop in bed all you want - it's when you leave the machine
running on your feather pillows that the problems begin. Fluffy
cushions and the like can block ventilation ports, overheating (and
ruining) your PC. Use a lap desk or a coffee-table book to keep some
airflow between the two. Plus, you can hurt your body if you're typing
in an unnatural position, so pay attention to ergonomics. NEXT PAGE: Printing everything
We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether
it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the
power button and not the Windows Start Menu. However, there are some
tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the
25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of
hassles.
7. Printing everything
You already have a digital record - why do you need to print it out? Even forms that require signatures often can accept a 'digital' signature that you create in Microsoft Paint. Save completed files as PDFs for even easier transportation and archiving.
8. Taking a camera to the beach
One grain of sand in the shutter or zoom mechanism, and it's toast.
If you must shoot beachside, put the camera in a waterproof case or a
plastic bag. Better yet, get a waterproof camera.
9. Leaving a laptop in the car
Thieves stake out hot parking spots and wait for fancy-pants business
types to leave their laptop bags in the car, even just for a few
minutes. All they have to is smash a window and grab it, and they're
gone in 10 seconds flat. Or, maybe you thought you got smart, and you
put your laptop in the boot, out of sight - too bad you waited until you
got to the dodogy part of town to do it, where the bad guys watched you
every step of the way. Boots are even easier to pop open than windows.
Stow your rig in the boot before you embark on your trip. Better yet,
take the laptop with you, or try a travel lock.
10. Keeping all of your email
Every email message you've ever received is sitting in your inbox in
chronological order. Congratulations! You now have an unassailable
historical record of your communications...and a guarantee that you will
never find anything of any importance whatsoever. Use folders or tags
to organise your inbox, and be liberal with the Delete key.
11. Failing to learn keyboard shortcuts
Did you know that some people out there still aren't aware that
Ctrl-C is copy and Ctrl-V is paste? I'm not saying you need to learn
every Alt-Ctrl-Shift combo, but the more Alt-F4s you pick up, the sooner
you can go home. Drop the mouse and try a few essential shortcuts for shutting down a PC and more, and several specific shortcuts for Windows 7.
12. Installing too much junk
Why is Windows so slow? You installed three instant messaging clients
and seven browser toolbars on your machine. Once some of this stuff is
installed, the damage is already done, as many of these apps leave
behind traces that are impossible to eliminate. You can try uninstalling
as much as possible, but a clean Windows setup is often your best bet.
13. Discarding receipts
Murphy's Law dictates that consumer products will always break
immediately after the warranty has expired - but once in a while they
break sooner. You might be able to get the thing fixed...if you saved
your receipt. Keep a folder next to your medical records. Once you
collect some receipts, you can scan and organise them with the Neat Receipts system. NEXT PAGE: Waiting in line
We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether
it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the
power button and not the Windows Start Menu. However, there are some
tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the
25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of
hassles.
14. Waiting in line for tech stuff
Remember when you slept in a tent so that you could be the first guy in your 'hood to own a PlayStation 3?
Your parents are probably just proud of that achievement as when you
finally completed Angry Birds. Trust us: The gadget works the same 24
hours later. You can probably even pre-order it online and let it come
to your door.
15. Hitting your computer
Be mad. Seriously, Windows aggravates everyone - get angry! Remember,
though: We can offer a lot of aid, but throwing, kicking, or otherwise
abusing a PC physically will not help. And shelling out a few hundred
quid for a new computer will actually make you feel even worse in the
end. Meditate, and restrain yourself. If your laptop is sick from a
latte that you tossed on it in a fit of rage, clean it carefully.
Luckily, you can try a few emergency tech fixes that can restore hardware to health if your tantrum goes too far.
16. Saving files anywhere and everywhere
When you get your electric bill, do you just throw it on the table,
mixing it in with family photos, flyers, the Sunday paper, and your CDs,
or do you take 20 seconds to file it away where it really ought to go?
Wait, don't answer that. As with your inbox, folders are your friend.
17. Checking in with location-based services
The only people who care that you're at the pub or on your
high-street are people you really don't want to know. Exceptions: If
you're someplace really cool - like Mount Fuji, Versailles, or Chernobyl
- check in all you want. We've looked at some practical uses for
services like Foursquare; stick to those.
18. Citing Wikipedia
When you need a fact to make a point, the perfect place to go is a
gargantuan website that anyone can edit anonymously, and where hoaxes
and gag entries can have a life span of years. If you must use
Wikipedia, click the links in the footnotes on the page to get the real
story, and to see how credible the information digested there really is.
19. Posting hilarious pictures online
'Hey, co-worker! Looks like you had a great time at your friend's
stag do. Oh, is that you posing with a Heineken in your hand? How
original! Yeah, you and that girl look pretty drunk in that one. At
least, that's what our boss said when he emailed it to me. Good luck
with that evaluation!' Save such moments for posterity in private - or else.
Pay close attention to the privacy settings on Facebook (and untag
yourself in those compromising pictures) and on photo-sharing sites. On Flickr, for example, click Edit your profile privacy from the 'Manage your profile' page to control who can see what.
20. Believing the salesperson
Let's put it this way: If that guy really knew a lot about computers,
would he be wandering the aisles in a blue shirt asking if you need
help? No. No, he would not. Do your research by googling for consumer
reviews and comments before you get to the store, and learn which stores
offer the best services and deals. NEXT PAGE: Ignoring the specs
We've all got bad habits when it comes to technology, whether
it's relying on 'password' as your password or shutting down via the
power button and not the Windows Start Menu. However, there are some
tech bad habits that will cause permanent damage. We've rounded up the
25 worst tech habits that are guaranteed to cause you all sorts of
hassles.
21. Ignoring the specs
The big idea in tech today is to offer three classes of product: A
bare-bones version, a power-user version, and an 'extreme' version, each
with an escalating price tag. The problem is, the extreme edition may
not really do anything that the bare-bones version can't do - or it has
features you don't actually need - but you buy the expensive one anyway,
because you didn't really read the specs. It can take a lot of web
research time to figure out the which of the jargon translates to
something that's really important - but this is time well invested.
22. Using one password for everything
All it takes is a single data leak at your mobile phone company for a
crook to get into your email, bank, investing and online shopping
accounts. It's one-stop shopping for identity thieves! Having a unique
password for every site is unrealistic, but use a series of several
passwords and save your best for the most critical sites. Password
managers can help.
23. Not having a disposable email address
Don't give out your regular email address to newsletters, iffy web
services and girls or boys you meet after midnight. A disposable email
address that you check once a fortnight is a better solution. This is
why Gmail was invented.
24. Failing to lock your smartphone
When an unsavoury type finds a lost phone, his first order of
business is to call as many international numbers that he humanly can.
Then he harvests all the data on it for identity theft and spam
purposes. Or you could, you know, prevent all of that by putting a
simple PIN on the thing. You can find tools built to manage security for
Android and other mobile operating systems.
25. Commenting online
I know: You have the perfect bon mot to counter one of the points on
this list, and you're going to enter it painstakingly into the web form
at the bottom of this article so you can be clever comment #86 on page
four. Congratulations, sir or ma'am. Touché. Seriously, people, this is
2010. If you have something snarky or inflammatory to say, at least have
the common courtesy to tweet it (politely). See also: 15 technology myths: what's nonsense and what's not?
So you think you know everything about Twitter?
I thought I did, too. Then I discovered this amazing, secret Twitter hack. Then another one! It was like being part of a club for years and then finding out that there’s a hidden, inner part of the club that’s only for very special members.
I wanted more. I was hooked. I had to find out more secret Twitter tips. More hidden tricks. More crafty hacks.
And so I did. Check the list below for 10 secret Twitter tips, tricks and hacks that you probably don’t know.
1. You Can Schedule Tweets On Twitter
Scheduling tweets is a huge Twitter timesaver, as it allows you to
plan out your day – or even your week or month – well in advance and not
have to worry about always being on Twitter to take care of
business. You might already be using apps such as Hootsuite, Buffer or
TweetDeck to schedule your tweets, which are all great tools.
But did you know you can also schedule tweets on Twitter.com? Yep: simply head on over to ads.twitter.com, login (or signup if you haven’t already done so), click on the ‘compose tweet’ button and then the ‘scheduling’ tab. Et voila!
To view your scheduled tweets, click on ‘Creatives’ and then ‘Tweets’
and then the ‘Scheduled’ button. You can schedule both organic and
promoted tweets up to one year in advance.
2. Twitter Has Keyboard Shortcuts
Some people are die-hard keyboard users and occasionally you get the feeling that they would rather touch a real
mouse than the computerised one on their desk. Twitter feels their pain
and has a ton of keyboard shortcuts that can have you whizzing around
your tweets in no time.
For example, if you hit the ‘N’ on your keyboard whilst on
Twitter.com, you’ll be able to immediately start writing a new tweet.
Hit F to mark a tweet as a favourite, R to reply and T to retweet.
Check the visual below for all the details, which comes courtesy of James Traf.
3. You Can Embed Tweets Into Any Website
Embedding
tweets into your website or blog is brilliant way to drive engagement
back to your Twitter profile. Why? Because an embedded tweet is
interactive, and anyone logged into Twitter can do all sorts of cool
things (like reply, retweet, favourite etc) to your tweet when it’s
embedded on your site (or any site). It’s also a far more elegant
solution than doing a screen grab of a tweet and pasting that on your
site, and even if somebody deletes the original tweet the embedded tweet
will still be visible.
To embed a tweet, find the tweet you want to embed, click on the more
button (…) below the tweet (which is the ellipses symbol – the three
dots in a row) and select ‘Embed Tweet’. Now just copy and paste the
supplied HTML into the desired location on your website.
4. Twitter Supports Advanced Search Operators
Twitter Search is a super powerful but criminally underused part of
the Twitter core. You’ve probably searched for one or two things in the
past using the search box at the top of the screen on Twitter.com, but
did you know that this also supports really advanced search operators?
For example, if you want to search for just tweets with links, you can use the filter:links operator.
Example: amazing filter:links
Click on the link above and see what happens (it opens in another
tab). This is a search for any tweets published on Twitter that contain
the word amazing and also contain a link. This is good stuff!
I wrote a whole article about Twitter search hacks – check here for all the details!
5. You Can Setup Multiple Twitter Accounts Using The Same Email Address
This one’s a real time saver. When you setup a new account on Twitter
it wants you to use an original email address – that is, an email that
isn’t in use anywhere on the system. If you work in a business or agency
that manages lots of Twitter profiles this can be a real pain.
Thankfully, there’s a fairly elegant way around it.
This tip requires you to have a Gmail account as your main email (or,
at least access to a Gmail account). Most people don’t know that Gmail
supports the use of the ‘+’ character to let you filter your main email.
You don’t have to do anything on your Gmail account. All you do is add
the ‘+’ and another word after the first part of your email address –
the part before the @gmail.com – and you can use this as a “new”,
standalone email address around the web. Here’s the sweet part: all
emails sent to this “new” email will still go to your main Gmail inbox.
For example, if your email address was johnsmith@gmail.com, if you use johnsmith+twitter@gmail.com on any website, any email sent to the latter would go to your inbox (johnsmith@gmail.com). Gmail knows that the part before the plus symbol is your username, but Gmail understands the part after the plus symbol, too.
If you use Gmail you can try this yourself now – fsimply send an email to yourusername+whatever@gmail.com, where yourusername = your Gmail username.
(You could even use the word whatever if you wanted!)
Now you can go ahead and use yourusername+twitter@gmail.com for a new
Twitter profile, even if yourusername@gmail.com is already in use on
Twitter. You could also set up Twitter profiles using
yourusername+twitter2@gmail.com, yourusername+clientname@gmail.com,
yourusername+facebook@gmail.com, and so on.
Even better, you can configure Gmail as usual so that it filters and labels these “new” email addresses however you want.
Cool, eh?
6. You Can Turn Off All Twitter Emails With A Single Click
When you join Twitter all the emails you receive can be a real PITA,
and it seems like a month doesn’t go by without Twitter adding yet
another email notification to its roster. Thankfully, you can turn all
of them off with a single click: simply log on to Twitter.com, visit
your profile settings and click on the ‘Email notifications’ tab. From here click on the ‘Turn off’ button to disable all email. Nice!
7. If You Start A Tweet With @Username, It’s A Reply
This is a mistake I see people who have been using Twitter for years
and years make every single day. If you start a tweet with @username
it’s a reply, and will ONLY be seen by the person you’re sending the tweet to and anyone else on Twitter who is following BOTH of you. Nobody
else will see that tweet in their timeline as Twitter assumes it’s a
reply and won’t deliver it (although it will be visible on your profile
and in Twitter search results to everybody).
If you put someone’s @username ANYWHERE ELSE in the tweet but right at the very beginning, it’s a mention and will be seen by everyone who follows you. You’re welcome!
8. You Can Send a Promoted Tweet That’s Invisible To Your Followers
Twitter’s Promoted Tweet advertising tool is a powerful way to reach a
targeted audience and drive engagement, awareness and clicks. But did
you know that you can select to show a Promoted Tweet only to your target audience, and not your existing followers?
To do this, simply select the ‘Promoted-only’ option when you’re constructing your Promoted Tweet.
Why would you want to do this? Showing very specific content to a
select group of people is a very effective way to drive new business,
especially if it’s a promotion that may not be as valuable to your
existing fans, or might be something they’ve already seen. Or, it might
be something you only want to give to new customers – for
example, 25 percent off of their first order. With a promoted-only
Promoted Tweet, you can do that!
(Note: while promoted-only tweets won’t be visible on your timeline or be delivered to your followers, they will show up in Twitter search.)
9. Twitter Gives You Free Advanced Analytics For The Last Month Of Your Tweets
Did you know that Twitter gives free analytics tools to everybody?
Yessir, they do, and you can get all the goodness by simply visiting analytics.twitter.com and logging in with your account.
From here you want to choose the ‘Tweets’ option which lets you look
at detailed analytics for the last 28 days of your tweets, including
overall impressions, engagement rate, link clicks, retweets, favorites
and replies.
But here’s the best stuff – click on any tweet to load a pop-up of
all the key metrics for that tweet, including impressions, clicks,
favorites, follows, retweets and more.
Magnifico!
10. You Can Pin A Tweet To The Top Of Your Profile… Permanently
Twitter came relatively late to this party – Facebook has supported
pinned messages on its Pages for quite some time now – but anyone can
pin any tweet to the top of their profile, where it will sit permanently until it’s unpinned or replaced by another pinned tweet.
To do this, find the tweet you can to pin, click on the more button
below the tweet (which is the ellipses symbol – the three dots in a row)
and select ‘Pin to your profile page’. Click the ‘Pin’ button on the
pop-up and that tweet is now permanently fixed to the top of your
profile.
To unpin a tweet, click on the more button again and choose ‘Unpin from profile page’.
Conclusion
I hope you’ve enjoyed these 10 secret Twitter tips, tricks and hacks – I’ll bet there was at least one that you didn’t know! Do you have any Twitter secret hacks of your own? Hit the comments to let us know!
We all use Facebook, and we all get annoyed by the miscellaneous new "features" Facebook often imposes upon us.
But what about the awesome features that don't get as much attention?
We put together a list of our favorite Facebook features to help you take advantage of everything Facebook has to offer.
Create a group of people to hide your photos from
Using Facebook's "Lists" feature, it's easy to make a list of people you want to hide your pictures from.
Whether it's parents, coworkers, or anybody else, all you need to do
is put them all into a "List." To do it, click Account in the top right
corner, then click "Edit Friends."
Click "Create a List," then find friends and add them to your new
list and name your list something you can remember. Next, click Account
again but this time click Privacy Settings afterwards.
Click "Custom" in the left panel, then "Customize settings" below the
chart. Scroll down to anything you want to hide, click the drop down
menu next to it, then click "Custom" yet again. Yes--this takes a while.
Facebook likes people to be open.
Finally, under "Hide" enter in the name of the group you just
created, and you're done. To be extra sure, go back to the top of this
screen and click "Preview my Profile," then enter the name of a person
in the list you created to see how your profile will look to them.
Use these quick tips to make viewing photos a lot better experience.
Does anyone actually like the new photo viewer on Facebook?
I'm talking about the one that makes Facebook look like a slideshow.
If you hate it, all you need to do is wait for the picture to finish
loading, then click refresh in your browser. You'll be taken to the old
fashioned photo page that looks like the one pictured at right.
Another useful photo-browsing tip is using your arrow keys to
navigate a ton of pictures. Hold down the left or right arrow key to see
your life flash before your eyes.
Remove apps you aren't using anymore--they still have access to all your information
When you install Facebook apps or permissions, the apps often get access to your wall, pictures, friends, and more.
It's easy to change your privacy settings, but not as easy to
remember that apps can still mine your information even when you're not
using them.
Click Account in the top right corner, then Privacy Settings, then
"Edit Your Settings" under Apps And Websites in the bottom left of the
privacy screen. Then click "Edit Settings" to the right of the Apps You
Use panel.
Click the little gray "x" to the right of any apps you no longer use, and they'll no longer have access to your information.
Enable these handy security features to make sure your account doesn't get compromised
Two features we had no idea existed (until we scoured Facebook's
settings) were the HTTPS setting and the Login Notifications setting.
If you enable HTTPS, it greatly reduces your chance of getting your
password swiped when logging into Facebook on a public Wi-Fi at
Starbucks.
If you enable Login Notifications, you'll get an email whenever someone logs onto your Facebook account from an unrecognized.
Personalize your Facebook URL, making it easier for people to find you
Many people use Facebook and LinkedIn as the bases of their business
lives, and it's nice to have an easy to remember URL you can refer
people to.
Click "Account" in the top right, then click "change" next to
Username. Type in something you like, then check the availability to see
if anyone has taken it.
Your new username will create a URL for you, facebook.com/ellishamburger is an example.
See a picture you like? Download it in full quality
Since Facebook switched gears to their new slideshow-ish picture
browser, you can no longer drag pictures to your desktop to save them.
Screen grabbing is annoying, so look down in the bottom corner of the
picture viewer and click "Download" to get a full-quality copy of the
image you're looking at.
Wish you could see all your friends' birthdays in iCal, Outlook, or Google Calendar?
This could be a little overwhelming for people with tons of Facebook
friends they don't talk to, but for many, this quick tip could be a big
time-saver.
All you need to do is access your birthday page by clicking here, then scrolling down to the very bottom and clicking "Export Birthdays."
Click the link to subscribe to the Birthdays calendar using your
computer's default calendar app. Or, open up your favorite calendar app
and add a calendar subscription. If you don't know how, Google how to
add subscriptions for your calendar. Then, copy in the link from
Facebook.
Grab Facebook's Desktop Notifications apps to always stay up to date
Facebook
MAC
Using the official desktop notifier for Mac, you'll get a Facebook icon in your menu bar that turns blue when you have a new notification. It's a
PC
Grab Internet Explorer 9 and pin the Facebook website to your
taskbar. You'll see a red asterisk whenever you have a new notification.
Or, try Facebook Desktop, a more feature-packed solution.
Wish you could post to several friends' walls at once?
All you need to do is tag friends in a post on your wall, or on
anyone else's wall. Your post will show up on every persons' wall that
you tag.
When you're typing a status or wall post, type the @ sign and then a
friends' name. It will tag them in your post, and they'll see it on
their wall as if it were a normal wall post.
Facebook's new Groups feature is a lot more powerful than it used to be
With Facebook's new Groups (which you create by clicking "Create
Group" in your left navigation bar), you can essentially create your own
listserv for a group of friends.
When you view a group, you'll see updates from friends, have the
ability to edit documents together ("Create Doc" in right bar inside
your group), chat together in a private chat room, and send out updates.
Create a group for your closest friends, or for your fantasy baseball
team, or for anything else. If you want to leave a group, all you do is
click the little gray "x" next to its name in the left navigation bar
of Facebook.
Now that you've seen the best secret Facebook features....
The Aorus X3 Plus works well as a portable games station, providing fast
framerates with modern games at high details settings. Its
high-resolution screen is less obviously useful for its gaming role as
fewer games may benefit from its high 262 ppi pixel density, and the
Windows platform does not support absurdly high resolution displays
well. When it does work you're rewarded with a pin-sharp image but
remember that for gaming there's arguably little need to exceed 2560 or
even 1920 screen pixel widths. Overall there's definite room for
improvement by its maker but the X3 Plus should prove popular with
Windows gamers looking to combine performance and portability.
The Inspiron 15-5558 straddles budget and midrange laptop camps,
depending on configuration, asserting excellent build quality and decent
performance as you’d expect of a £500+ design. The screen is one of the
best you’ll find on a laptop around this price too.
The Precision M3800 is Dell’s take on the ‘Ultrabook’ portable
workstation notebook. It’s made from a mixture of materials, and has an
undersized battery in order to stay fashionably trim. In its favour, the
quad-core processor and midrange pro-certified graphics chipset provide
useful performance, and without too much histrionics from the cooling
fans. This year’s model now has a UHD 4K display although this still
serves to exaggerate problems in some Windows programs, while the overly
reflective touchscreen facility results in a heavier panel with poorer
viewing that drains the battery faster. For professional users even more
so than with consumer laptops, we here question the real worth of a
touchscreen on a laptop. Ultimately the Dell’s circa-3 hour battery life
means the M3800 is seriously compromised as a mobile productivity tool.
If you don't mind staying tethered to the mains, it is a good clothes
horse.
Hewlett Packard has done well to build a lighter weight 15-inch
mobile workstation laptop with much of the strength and integrity of its
traditional models that are far less mobile in real terms. Sacrifices
have been made to the main CPU by fitting dual-core rather than
quad-core, and the AMD GPU is a middleweight part rather than
fire-breathing FirePro. But importantly the 15u runs cool and quiet
enough not make itself a nuisance, even under load. Assuming the version
we tested will cost under £2000 it could provide decent value, majoring
on resilience more than style and sheer performance, but well enough
equipped to prove attractive to the target professional audience.
With the help of nVidia's recent push to make powerful mobile graphics
processors that consume less energy, the Aorus X7 Pro now turns in
gaming performance once only available to desktop machines. Just make
sure you pack some sound-deadening headphones to block out the white
noise of high-speed fans required to keep this slim chassis cool. If you
can deal with the noise you'll be able to enjoy incomparable mobile
gaming.
The Gigabyte P37X is built for gaming speed, based on a large
17-inch display chassis but in a thinner than traditional case. With the
help of the best single-chip mobile graphics processor currently on the
market it can play any game you want, up to very high rendering
quality. It may not stand out in style but it gets the job done, albeit
at a high price.
Sensibly powered for great games action, while remaining portable and
comfortable to use, the GE62 is only compromised by tricky upgrade
potential and disappointing battery life. It has a great display and
respectable keyboard for gaming, and crucially plays games at high
detail without distress.
While still not especially petite by the standards of some
15-inch laptops – its footprint is 14 percent larger than a MacBook Pro
despite its smaller display – the MSI GS60 2QD-470UK does manage to keep
within the magic size and weight figures of 2.0 kg and 20 mm, making it
the most totable gaming laptop in its category. It has the graphics
processor to take on modern games up to their highest detail settings,
and is only let down by noisy fans and a relatively short battery life.
At around £1500 the G751 is a battleship in mobile gaming, in build
quality, looks and firepower. We’ve seen costlier machines but this Asus
is a bargain in relative terms, a solid desktop replacement and a
bruiser of a games station.
After some extensive testing, we found the MacBook Air (13-inch,
Early 2015) to be little different overall to the 2014 model. The
Thunderbolt 2 update will prove useful for connecting to high-resolution
UHD displays, and a few percent of added processor power is never
unwelcome. But hoped-for improvements in graphics performance and
battery longevity did not arise in our testing, in spite of a new Intel
processor which was expected to shepherd benefits in both areas.
Launched at the same price as last year’s model it still deserves
attention as one of the finest ultraportable laptops available - doubly
so now that its flash-drive speed has shot up another 100 percent - and
it will remain the more affordable option in lightweight notebooks when
the new MacBook launches this month.
RRP: £749 (128GB model), £899 (256GB model). More expensive build-to-order options available
Available at the same price as last year, the new 11-inch MacBook
Air has the same super-fast storage as before, and around 10 percent
increase in performance. Gaming performance was always
borderline, and now we find it no better and even fractionally slower.
But overall battery runtime increased by almost a third in our tests, a
very useful upgrade on the already very decent 10 hour-plus battery life
of the previous generation.
The new ZenBook is a great home for Intel’s new Core M processor,
which proved up to basic daily tasks in Windows with no obvious lag in
the interface. Good battery life and decent screen quality are further
plus points to a well-made case with a familiar design to Apple fans. At
a price of £650 this is an attractive package as a carry-anyway Windows
laptop.
A very decent laptop replacement, and an okay tablet, the Surface Pro 3
is undeniably impressive. If you need a single device to do everything
we can't think of any better device. And when you consider the cost of
buying a discrete laptop, tablet and desktop PC the Surface Pro 3 is
priced to shift. The question remains as to whether people want a single
device rather than multiple gadgets that are better at their individual
tasks. Microsoft's latest results suggest that Surface Pro 3 is winning
hearts and minds. Has it won yours?
For under £600 the Aspire V3-574G is easy to recommend. It's a
commendable balance of virtues from the IPS screen, to the precise
trackpad and highly regarded CPU. Nvidia graphics allow fluid gameplay
up to 720p. The five-hour battery life, while half that of the best, may
even get you through half a day’s use away from the mains.
The Dell XPS 13 9343 stands as a
shining beacon of hope in the world of Windows laptops, a compact laptop
that outdoes the obvious competition in some key respects like screen
quality and near-borderless display. Here is a 13.3-inch laptop that
takes up little more space than an 11.6-inch model. Poor thermal
management needs to be improved, while a non-touchscreen version could
answer other outstanding issues.
While it looks just like every Retina-screened 13-inch MacBook
before it, the Early 2015 revision is streets ahead of earlier models.
Its storage speed is up to double the already ground-breaking speed of
the 2013 model. The new Force Trackpad brings tangible benefits in touch
control, with an intelligent coprocessor that helps interpret our
digital movements. And the Broadwell processor, with other running
changes too, has spearheaded just about the greatest upgrade any mobile
computing user could ask for, namely insanely long battery life.
Improvements in graphics performance were less emphatic in our tests,
but at least always positive changes. The world’s finest 13-inch
notebook is now unassailable, especially given it’s kept the same
sub-£1000 price point as its predecessor.
Most ultraportables we test are dumbed-down MacBook Air clones with
cheap construction and low-grade components. That's why it makes a
particularly refreshing change to find a Windows laptop that not just
matches but surpasses Apple's popular ultraportable in a key area like
screen quality. The price is much higher than even the Retina-display
13-inch MacBook but if you must have a laptop built for Windows that can
make a statement in build quality and top-class components, check out
EliteBook Folio 1040 G1.
The Alienware 13 is a compact yet very powerful laptop, suited to
playing all modern Windows games. It’s chunky thick but relatively
light in weight, and has been well designed and equipped to be a premium
yet still portable powerhouse.
The Aorus X7 v2 is a sturdily made all-metal gaming laptop that
keeps its waistline to around 1in, even if it still tips the scales
beyond 3kg. With its dual-GPU setup it proved itself the fastest gaming
laptop in the group, albeit with an unsurprising price premium.
Read our Aorus X7 V2 review
The sixth generation of
Intel’s Core processors, known more approachably as Skylake, will start
invading new laptops and desktops over the following weeks and months.
With them, they’ll bring a few enhancements you should know
about—especially if your current rig is starting to show some rust.
Before we get started, though, it’s probably healthy to manage some
expectations. Better processors will always be welcome, but chips aren’t
progressing in a way that results in huge performance leaps the way
they did a decade ago, says 451 analyst Peter Christy. Rather than raw
computing power, the focus has shifted to size and efficiency.
“What you have to do is take these better transistors, which is the
right way to think about what Intel does, and purpose them in a
different way,” explains Christy. “A way you can purpose them is by
shrinking them, or making them cheaper, or more power efficient.”
Fortunately, cheaper, thinner, and more efficient are all traits that
are still very much worth chasing. And Skylake should provide all
three.
A Big Leap From Your Old Box
Intel has focused its Skylake comparisons on notebooks from five
years ago, which is a bit like comparing standardized test scores
between a five-year-old and his 15-year-old sister. Even still, the gaps
are impressively wide.
Next to those rickety 2010 machines, Skylake delivers more than
double the speed, triple the battery life, and wakes up four times
faster. It also enables features like WiDi (Intel’s mirroring solution),
Cortana, and touch interactions that would not have been possible five
years ago.
Of course, all of these specs and facts are also mostly true of
Broadwell, last year’s latest and greatest Core processor, next to which
Skylake marks far less significant gains; a 10 percent speed boost, the
ability to scratch out a bit more battery, and a graphical bump that
will mostly be appreciated by serious gamers.
Still, Intel’s choice to point to older machines isn’t simply a
marketing ploy, says Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst
of Moor Insights & Strategies. It’s legitimately the most helpful
point of comparison for a huge number of people.
“There are literally over 600 million PCs out there that are over
four years old,” says Moorhead. “It’s not that people aren’t using their
PCs, they’re just using them less because they’re spreading their
computing across phones, tablets, and watches.” In other words, the
number of people to whom Intel’s gaudier comparisons apply is nearly
twice the population of the United States. If you’re one of them, you
may feel a bit like Rip Van Acer.
“The right comparison is to look at what those 600 million people are
using,” Moorhead continues, citing the bulk and dilapidated batteries
of those computational dinosaurs. “What they’re looking at now is for
$499 to $699 they can get a very thin PC, with touch, more than likely
seven to eight hours of battery life, weigh maybe 40 percent less. It
will probably be able to rotate back, if you want to use it as a
tablet.” Throw in features like Intel’s RealSense camera, which obviates
the need for a system password by logging you in based only on your
face, and the convenience factor of fewer cables, and you’ve got a
strong case finally to upgrade.
So no, it’s not a surprise that Skylake is significantly better than
the Core processors of 2010. What might catch you off-guard, though, is
just how much more PCs can do overall.
A Little Better Than Broadwell
For those who bought a laptop or desktop in the last year or so, the
good news is you’re not going to be missing out on much by having pulled
the trigger then. Still, there’s a little more to Skylake than just the
small spec bumps cited above.
Intel emphasizes that Skylake has been optimized for Windows 10—good, given how big a jump
Windows 10 is from Windows 8—in substantive ways. Intel Speed Shift
technology improves latency up to 30x, and impvoes overall system level
performance 20-25 percent. It includes a digital signal processor (DSP)
that was designed with Cortana in mind. And perhaps most
significantly—especially given that you’ll likely keep this PC for four
years as well—it’s able to play 4K media with low power consumption,
which will come in handy just as soon as there’s 4K media to consume.
None of this should prompt you to ditch the Dell you bought last year
(did you… buy a Dell?). It’s an iterative enough move that you’re fine
with what you’ve got for now. There’s a small segment of computing
society, though, that might actually consider trading up already:
gamers.
“If you’re into esports, and literally at $499 to $699 you could
improve your performance two to three times, that’s where regardless of
when you bought your PC you should consider one of these,” says
Moorhead, although it’s worth noting that most people in that position
will likely have a discrete graphics solution.
In either case, we’ve already seen a few Skylake PCs announced at
this week’s IFA show in Berlin; you should expect to see those and more
hit shelves in October, with plenty of time to make holiday shopping
lists. Keep in mind, too, that not all Core processors are created
equal; there’s an abundance of models to sift through that offer a range
of performance and purpose here (pdf).
Oh, one last note for Apple fans; you’ll get your Skylake as well,
although likely not until early next year, due to MacBook and iMac
product cycles. If you’ve waited a few years already, a few more months
won’t kill you—and they’ll be well worth it.
A barcode reader (BCR)or scanner, also known as a point of sale (POS) scanner
is a hardware device capable of reading a barcode. It can also print
out the details of the product or log information about that product
into a database. A perfect example of a barcode reader is a super market
barcode scanner that reads and logs the price of a product. In the
picture is an example of a Barcode reader from HP.
Embedding
tweets into your website or blog is brilliant way to drive engagement
back to your Twitter profile. Why? Because an embedded tweet is
interactive, and anyone logged into Twitter can do all sorts of cool
things (like reply, retweet, favourite etc) to your tweet when it’s
embedded on your site (or any site). It’s also a far more elegant
solution than doing a screen grab of a tweet and pasting that on your
site, and even if somebody deletes the original tweet the embedded tweet
will still be visible.
