How to Save Google Maps Offline on Android and iOS

Google maps for android has been a reliable navigation system for me. It doesn’t matter where you are on earth, if you have access to a internet connection, google maps will help you find the way to your destination. But as we all know Google maps heavily depends on your phone’s data connection to download maps. When you are connected to a somewhat fast internet connection, loading maps on Google maps would be a breeze. But as soon as your connection speed drops, Google maps would take a long time to load maps.

This is where you can make use of Google Map’s new Offline mode for saving specific areas of a map onto your device’s storage. The offline storage mode is a new addition to Google maps, which was released just yesterday alongside the integration of Uber with Google now and Google maps. The updated version of Google maps is now available both for Android and iOS devices.

Before this new update, there was no such thing as a true offline mode in Google maps. However there were a few tricks by which you could cache offline maps for a specific area, but this was less than initiative.On the new version of Google maps, that is version 3.0 for iOS and version 8.0 for Android, the process of saving offline maps has become very streamlined.

For those who need to save a section of an map for offline use, the instructions below will show you how to save maps offline on the android version of Google maps.

How to Save Google Maps Offline

• Step 1: Update Google maps to the latest version from the links provided for the respective versions of the app at the bottom of this page.
• Step 2: Once you have the latest version of Google maps installed on your iOS or Android devices, launch Google maps.
• Step 3: Browse the map of a place which you want to save offline and tap on the profile icon next to the search bar.

• Step 4: On the next page, scroll to the bottom and tap on “ Save map to use offline “

• Step 5: You have now entered the offline maps section. Pan or Zoom the area of the map which you want to save for offline use
• Step 6: Tap on the Save at the bottom of your phone’s screen.

• Step 7: Type in a name for the saved maps and tap on Save to save the entire area of the map visible on your phone’s screen.

Google maps will now save the map for offline use. For those who have a slow data connection, you can use the offline mode in Google maps to save maps offline and later use them to navigate though the place. As for limitations, you should know that offline maps will be stored for a duration of 30 days, after which they will be purged to free up space on your phone.

Download: Google Maps for Android | Google Maps for iOS

Source fromhttp://www.techverse.net

Get 50GB of Free Cloud Storage with the new Box App on Your iOS Device

Popular cloud storage service Box has quietly announced the launch of its completely revamped iOS app for the iPhone and iPad. And with that, the company has even decided to give a whooping 50GB of free cloud storage to everyone who downloads the new Box app within the next 30 days. The free storage space is definitely more than its previous allocation of 10GB per new user.

According to Box, the revamped Box app is now deploys an entirely new user interface which makes the new app much faster than its previous versions. The new Box app is now capable of previewing more than 100+ file types and even supports full text search within documents.

With the new Box app, the company expects to offer the best user experience to securely store and manage data from mobile devices. The 50GB of free cloud storage is definitely a big attention grabber but what box actually wants to do is to create a big user base and eventually introduce new services to them like their own BoxNote. This seems like a good plan but feature wise box is still lagging behind its contenders.

You can download the Box iOS app to grab your complimentary free storage space of 50GB. Do remember the offer lasts till the 15th of february. Let your friends and family know about it so that they can benefit from it too.

Source fromhttp://www.techverse.net

How to sync Google Docs to your PC, Dropbox-style

Ever wish your Google Docs account could perform the same syncing magic that Dropbox does? Now it can.

Working within the Cloud using Google Docs is a great way to ensure that your content is available whenever you need it. Well, almost whenever, as there are some situations (power/Internet outage, Google services down temporarily, etc.) where relying on the Cloud can leave you stuck. KumoSync is a tool that can prevent you from being stranded without your data. It works by syncing your Google Docs data to your PC (even your shared content), so you can work on your computer at work or home and have the changes uploaded for you automatically. Follow these seven steps to set the program up.
What you’ll need:

• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or higher installed

• A Google account

• Microsoft Windows XP / Vista (32 & 64 Bit) / Windows 7 (32 & 64 Bit)

Begin by downloading and installing KumoSync. When exiting the installer, make sure the box is checked to load KumoSync immediately.

  

Step 1: Right-click on the KumoSync icon in the System Tray and select Settings.

Step 2: A new window will open with the Sync Mappings pane open by default. Click on New in the bottom right corner of this pane.

Step 3: Enter your Google account information in the window that appears.

 (Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 4: Select a local folder that you’d like synced with your Google documents. You can also choose an entire drive.

Step 5: Make sure the box labeled Enabled is checked in the lower left-hand corner.

Step 6: In the pane to the left of the Settings window, select the Preferences option. If you want your Google Docs to be synced between the Google servers and your computer automatically, the sync interval can be adjusted where it says Sync Interval. If you wish to disable automatic syncing, simply remove the check from the box labeled Enable automatic synchronization.

If you chose to allow automatic syncing, KumoSync will do its thing once the appropriate amount of time has passed. To sync manually, whether you enabled auto-syncing or not, just right click on the KumoSync icon in the System Tray and select Sync.

Use Two Different Profile Pictures on Facebook

Yes you can use Two Different Profile Pictures on Facebook, Anxious to know how ? Stay with me and i will show you.

The Bug Was Originally Founded by Khalil (Security Researcher) UPDATE: The Bug Seems to be Fixed

Here in this Facebook Trick i will show you how to Use Two Different Profile Pictures on Facebook, Check out the Below Picture to get more Idea.

In the Above Picture You will notice that The Profile picture on my timeline and the Profile Picture in my Status are Different. Let us See how it is done.

---

Steps to Use Two Different Profile Pictures on Facebook

---

Step 1: First you have to Open your Timeline and Open your Profile Picture Album by clicking on Photos Tab, Choose a Picture that you want as another Profile Picture.

Step 2: Open that Picture in a New Window By Holding Ctrl and Clicking on it.

 

Step 3: Now Check the URL of that Picture, you will get something like below URL

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=491366447588908&set=a.108695719189318.5863.100001466701828&type

All you have to do is Copy the fbid, Here in the above url, my photo fbid is 491366447588908.

Step 4: Open your Timeline, hover your mouse on your Profile Picture, you will see  Edit Profile PictureOption,Click on it and Select Edit Thumbnail.

Step 5: A popup window will appear, now Right Click on your Profile Picture and Choose Inspect Element,

Scroll down till you find <form action=”https://upload.facebook.com/save_square_pic.php”

Step 6: Now click on the Small arrow to Expand the Code Further.

Scroll down a bit, you will find <input type=”hidden” autocomplete=”off” name=”photo_fbid” value=”491366447588908“>

Now all You need to do is Replace the Current fbid Value with the one you Copied earlier in Step 3, You can do it by Double Clicking on the Current fbid Value and Replace it with the one you Copied earlier which is in my case :491366447588908.

Step 7: Click anywhere , Close Inspect Element Window and Now Click on Save, All Done, Now Check your timeline, update any status and you will see Different Profile Picture.

Step 8: Liked it? Learned Something new ? Then its time to Let your Friends Know about it. Have Fun!!!

Source from http://www.smarttricks.net

5 Tips to Improve Your Blog

Just about anyone can blog. But not everyone can blog well. There are several factors that go into setting your blog apart from the millions that are out there competing for attention. Here are 5 tips that you can use to make sure that blog stands ahead of the crowd:-

1. Self-host
Self-hosting your own website is one of the easiest ways to give your blog more credibility. It’s a lot easier for readers to remember a website that istweakandtrick.com over tweakandtrick.blogspot.com. It also shows that you take your blog more seriously than someone that is utilizing a free blog site. And these days, it’s relatively cheap to host your own domain name. HostGator, Dreamhost, and Bluehost are three hosting companies that charge you about $10 a month (or less!) to self-host your website. You can even add a custom domain in most free blogging platforms if you don't want to move away.

2. Promote via social media sites
Facebook and Twitter are two great resources when it comes to promoting your blog. You can create a fan page on Facebook where you can link to your blog site and keep your readers engaged as well as grow your readership. Facebook is such a huge social media resource with the ability to reach millions of potential readers… why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that? The same goes for Twitter, where you can post links to your current (and past) blog posts and also find different chat groups to participate in. Participating in chat groups is a great way to find people with the same interests as you. You don't have to be limited to just Facebook and Twitter. There are many websites you can be active on.

3. Headlines
You should write strong headlines that easily define what you are going to be talking about in your post. This not only peaks a readers interest, but also allows your blog to be more searchable. Strong doesn’t necessarily mean something with flair though, it means something direct that immediately identifies what readers can expect to find in your post, and that will pop up in a search engine when someone types in a particular topic.

4. Write well
Readers can tell the difference between a post that has obvious time and effort put into it and one that is just slapped up to get something out there. Put time into what you’re posting about. People appreciate posts which are original and well thought out.

5. Layout
Your blog layout should be clean and easy to navigate. The design should be visually appealing without being overwhelming. No one wants to have to guess on where to find information. You should have a search bar where people can easily search topics and archives that readers can look through to see what else you’ve written. You should also include a contact page so that it’s easy for others to get in touch with you if they have questions or comments about something you’ve written, or want to get in touch with you about a potential business deal.

By putting these tactics into play you should be able to market your blog in a more effective way and increase your readership. It may take a little time on the forefront, but you will reap the benefits of these efforts in the end.

Source from http://www.tweakandtrick.com

How to Move a Blogger Blog to Your Own Domain: Tips and Tricks

What a week this has been for this tech blog! I finally moved it from blogspot subdomain to a custom domain. I have been wanting to do this since a long time (ever since this blog started getting some attention) , I somehow couldn't manage to do so because of the fear of losing search traffic.

Google's recent move to redirect blogspot.com to country specific sub domains helped me solidify my decision to the extent of finally moving. I made a lot of other changes as well and have listed as much of them as possible as they might help some of you who are also planning to make the move. I have listed them in the order in which I made them.

1) Registered TweakAndTrick.com.

2) Changed my domain's settings to hide personal information from being displayed in the who is database.

3) Modified my domain's CNAME and A records to correctly point to Google's servers. Check this page from Blogger for details regarding this step.

4) Generally, it takes some time for your domain registrar to completely update the settings mentioned above. So, if you immediately point your new domain to your blog, users will see a 404 error. To avoid this, I created a new blogspot blog and modified its settings to point to my new domain.

5) When my domain correctly started loading the temporary blog, I modified this blog's settings to link it to the new domain. Now my new domain was correctly loading my blog. While doing this, I made sure to select redirecting the non www version to the www one.

6) Downloaded my blog's template and opened the downloaded XML file in Wordpad. I then used Wordpad's Find and Replace function to replace each occurrence of tweakandtrick.blogspot.com with www.tweakandtrick.com and uploaded the modified template. This automatically changed all navigational links to use the new domain.

7) Some widgets still had links pointing to the blogspot subdomain. I changed them manually.

8) Went to Google Webmaster Tools, added my new domain and submitted the full sitemap. Normal Blogger feeds show only 20 URLs, so in order to submit all the URLs, I submitted a custom queried feed that includes 500 URLs.

Normal Feed: /atom.xml

Feed I Submitted: /atom.xml?redirect=false&orderby=updated&max-results=500

9) Bing also brings considerable amount of traffic to this blog. So, I added the new domain to Bing Webmaster Toolsand submitted the same sitemap.

10) Blogspot uses 301 permanent redirects to redirect visitors to new domains. This should have normally allowed Google to immediately index my new blog's URLs but it did not. So, I resubmitted my old blog's complete sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools. As the Blogspot blog had some authority in Google, GWT quickly processed the sitemap and immediately noticed that all those posts had moved to the new domain. This notified Google to index my content under the new domain and after almost 12 hours, my old blogspot URL's started getting replaced by the new ones.

11) Notified readers of the move on Facebook and Twitter.

12) After making the move, my search traffic is way lower than normal. This should change and traffic should return to normal once search engines completely transfer my Blogspot subdomain's trust and authority to this new one.

Some other changes I made

1) Used Feedburner's MyBrand feature to transfer my FeedBurner feed to my own sub-domain.

2) Modified my social profiles to link to my new domain.

3) Earlier, my about page and categories on this blog were simple posts that included dates in the URL. This made them look ugly, so I shifted these to independent Pages and canonicalized the old pages to new ones.

Some Noticeable Benefits
It is too early to say this but ever since I moved to my own domain, the subscription rate has gone up considerably. It has also increased the percentage of users who are completing the subscription process. 

Source from http://www.tweakandtrick.com

Why Facebook is Blue in Color?

When you open Facebook, the first thing that you notice is the blue color it uses. Ever wondered why is Facebook so blue in color and not changing its color scheme?

Ever since they started as 'thefacebook', Facebook has stayed with the blue color. Although major changes have been made in the Facebook theme since then, the major unchanged thing has been the blue color.

Facebook from its early days when it was known as  thefacebook

An exciting fact: In its earlier days, thefacebook.com required you to have an  .edu email id to join.

Everywhere from its login page to Facebook groups, you find only blue.

Facebook Login Page. All Blue!

The reason for this is that  Mark Zuckerberg, the young founder of Facebook is red-green color-blind and blue is the richest colour for him which he confirmed in an online interview with Leo Laporte.

Another important commercial factor for using blue color is the fact that most colors tend to distract the viewers. Blue on the other hand acts as a transparent background to the main content as visible to the human brain due to which most popular websites tend to use the blue color. It can easily be called a webmaster's favorite color. Blue color is also sometimes referred to as 'Nirvana' for the brain.

All these factors make blue a prominent color on Facebook.

If you are bored with Facebook's blue theme and want a stylish theme, visit Change Facebook Theme.

Source from http://www.tweakandtrick.com

Safety and Security Risks When Using Facebook

There is no doubt that the biggest social networking site taking over the whole globe is Facebook. Since it’s the biggest thing the online world has ever seen for the last several years, it’s critical that you understand the guidelines and policies listed on the site. They’re very useful in keeping you informed with various aspects of the site and how it runs.

You should know by now that for every website that you go to, there’s always a good chance of encountering good and bad users. Facebook can be accessed by just about anybody so it’s imperative that you are wise and conscious with how you distribute or share information about yourself on it (and other social networking sites for that matter).

Identity theft is one of the biggest concerns in the online world today. They are real and can devastate a person’s life if the person isn’t aware of what’s going on.

The internet is fun to be on nowadays since it helps you to keep in touch with your old and new friends, family and associates. You can share content such as pictures with anyone who has an internet connection, play games seamlessly through a virtual portal, being aware of announcements and updates of certain events and entertaining friend requests. Such things have prompted users to come back for more and what many aren’t aware of is the fact that they are vulnerable to online predators and criminals.

So what should you do to help protect yourself from the bad guys out there? Here are just some helpful things that can help you in the long run if you follow them religiously:

1. Understand how the security feature works on Facebook.
As you are well aware, Facebook is known for periodically modifying its security settings. You will observe posts from the site of the changes being made with regards to its security features that lets other users see content that you don’t want them to view. It’s critical that you look into this carefully and see if the changes can significantly affect you in some way.

2. Don’t reveal too much information on Facebook.
One of the most obvious ways of getting in trouble within the biggest social networking site is by revealing too much information on just about everything (including yourself). You should be aware of the things that you’re sharing, be it your profile, wall posts, messages and even the content that you share such as pictures and videos. You’ll never know, criminals would use whatever it is you post for their own evil means.

3. Pay attention to links, e-mails or friends
Social networking sites these can be penetrated by online criminals who use sites like Facebook to gain information about you. This can occur through a sent or posted link, which will in turn eject a virus or spyware to retrieve personal information about you. If you happen to receive a link that you find suspicious, ask your friends about it or simply delete it.

With the evolution of technology, cyber criminals are more smarter than ever. If you are constantly paying attention for any suspicious activity that comes your way, you can shield yourself from identity theft and other online criminal acts.

Source from http://www.tweakandtrick.com

Collection of Cool Google tricks – #3 is the Best

Google is the Proclaimed king among all search engines present on the internet. Among all the web based search engines, Google stands out because of its high speed and simplicity.

Everyone is familiar with the web applications provided by Google. Some of these are the Gmail, Google Drive, Google app store and a lot more. But little do people know about some very handy Google tricks that come along with this impeccable search engine.

---

 Top 10 Cool Google tricks of all times:

---

Below are Some Cool Google Tricks that i have Collected. Do not Forget to Check Bonus at the End of the Post. Enjoy !!!

1. Definition:

There is no longer the need to type a word and then visit dictionaries online to find its meaning. Using this trick, all you need to do is simply write “define” followed by the word whose meaning you want to know, This Cool Google tricks Come very handy if you use it Effectively.

You will be amazed to see that the meaning of the word, along with its synonym and antonym will be displayed on the search engine. For instance, type “define reach” and then press enter. The meaning of the word will get displayed on your screen.

2. Phone number lookup:

It is now possible to trace mobile number by simply typing the full number along with the area code. This will display the address as well as the name of the person under whose name the number is registered.(Doesn’t Work anymore)

This was the Most helpful thing i have seen from all the Google Tricks. Unfortunately its not working anymore. Check the below list.

3. Atari Breakout:

Only Few Know about this trick and so I think this is the Best Trick amongst all the Google Tricks. All you have to do is Type Images.google.com in the address bar of your browser to open up google images. Now type “Atari Breakout”  and Press Enter.

You will Definately Be amazed to see what happens next. It is Only Fair to Add this Trick in my list of Cool Google Tricks.

Note: I am not Responsible if you waste over an hour in playing this game. J/K

4.Translate:

The “Google language tool” comes very handy while translating text, words, a fully fledged web page or document on the internet.

5.Find movies and weather:

All you need to do is type “movies” or “weather” in the search box followed by the area code or name of the state in order to display corresponding information regarding it. For instance, if you type “weather 12345”, weather conditions of the corresponding location will be displayed.

Also, on typing “movies 12345”, the details of all the movies currently running at that place along with number of shows will get displayed. this is another Cool Google trick then i like and use.

6.Paged linked to you:

You can now find the web pages and links that are connected with your blog or website. Simply type “link” followed by the URL of your website and you will get a list of all the pages connected with your website.

7.Tracking airline flights and packages:

This is another handy Google trick. You can now find the arrival time and status of a flight by simply entering the name of the airline and corresponding flight number.

8.Calculator:

You can use the Google search engine as a real time calculator as well. For instance, if you will type 25+25 in the search box, 50 will get displayed.

9.Stocks:

All you need to do is type the stock symbol on Google and you will get information about stock rates, links as well as charts. For instance, to know about the stock details of “Microsoft”, you have to write “msft” on Google.

10.Finding PDF results only:

To get results matching only a certain file type, simply type “fileType:” after your search. Online manuals can be found using this trick from Google.

11.Local search:(Bonus 1)

You can now find local restaurants and other landmarks with this trick. One of the best Google tricks according to me. Simply go to “Google visit” and type the name of the area and the place which you want to find. It is capable of displaying all local landmarks and places.

12. Use Google as Timer (Bonus 2)

You Can use Google Search to Set Timers too. If you want to Complete Certain Task in so and so minutes or hours then You can simply start Timer. This is one of the Most amazing Google Tricks that very few people are aware of. All you have to do is Open a new tab in your favourite Browser and Enter the Term “Set timer 10 minutes” and click enter.

As soon as you Hit enter you will see google timer is already started.  In this Example i have used 10 minutes but you can always change it to anything.

For Eg: if you wish to set a Timer for 1 and half hour then you will enter thie term “Set Timer 90 Minutes” and Hit Enter.

With this it ends my list of Cool Google tricks, If i am Missing out on any Usefull Trick then please feel free to Comment.

 Source from http://www.smarttricks.net/