How Important is VPN and How Can It Protect Your Browsing Habits?

What is VPN?

VPN, or Virtual Private Networking, is becoming a popular Internet security technology that is basically an added layer of security for private and public Internet networks. A VPN allows users – individuals or group entities – to send and receive data while maintaining secrecy and anonymity for its private network.

Having a VPN is like creating a “secret tunnel” for any network to enjoy access to private internal systems. It also means that users can browse in complete anonymity online and access content not allowed by an ordinary ISP (Internet service provider) such as Netflix or BBC’s iPlayer.

Why is VPN a must these days?

In many countries, privacy is of utmost importance. Thus, when using a VPN, you prevent your ISP and government from seeing your Internet history. VPN’s are also emerging as popular tools for those conscious of their freedom of speech rights in order to avoid censorship by their employers, by third parties, and by the government. Therefore, even if you write negative reviews against your employers anonymously on another site, your employer won’t find out.

VPN can also be used to either hide or “geo-spoof” the exact location of a user. Users can customize their location settings to either bounce off their location from different countries or to be able to use overseas services not available to specific countries because of legal or licensing issues, such as TV streaming services.

VPN’s can also protect users against hackers since the technology protects when using a public Internet hotspot or third-party networks. This is important with business trips that necessitate using public Wi-Fi in places like coffee shops or open office networks. When using VPN, cybercriminals will find it difficult to penetrate into your gadgets, and even preventing phishing and malware attacks.   

What VPN service should users choose?

In reality, there are over 400VPN services all over the world, some specializing on mobile devices only. We did our research and found at least 3 of the best.

ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN is the best all-round VPN service for speed, privacy, and unblocking. It has 1800 plus number of servers, 148 server locations, and at least 30,000 IP addresses. Maximum devices supported are 3.

§  15 months - $6.67/month

§  6 months - $9.99/month

§  1 month - $12.95/month

§  Wide range of secure VPN apps

§  Superb 24/7 live customer support

§  Ultra fast VPN servers in 94 countries

§  Only supports 3 connections

IPVanish

This VPN service is awesome for torrenting and other P2P traffic. It has 950 plus number of servers, 60 server locations, and up to 40,000 IP addresses. Maximum devices supported are 5.

§  24 months - $2.87/month

§  12 months - $6.49/month

§  3 months - $8.99/month

§  No traffic logs

§  Excellent download speeds

§  Configurable software

§  No free trial

VyprVPN

Another service that’s great in performance and security is the VyprVPN. It has 700 plus number of servers, 73 server locations, and over 200,000 IP addresses. Maximum devices supported are 3-5.

§  12 months - $5/month

§  12 months - $6.67/month

§  1 month - $9.95/month

§  Very fast performance

§  Good value annual plans

§  Powerful, configurable clients

§  Monthly plans are more expensive

Apps that Can Help You Save Time and be More Productive

Technology – for all its advances – has long been known as one of the biggest productivity killers, instead of helping people become more productive. Many people, in fact, lose many hours in a day glued to their computers or mobile devices in a constant state of staring and searching, all in the name of trying to improve work. However, the advances in technology and growth of mobile app development has given rise to some incredible apps that can actually help people create balance in their work by promoting positive mental health, tracking and managing work and home to avoid stress, and protecting the most valuable resource: time.

These apps can help you achieve work-life balance by being more productive and saving time for a better quality of life.

Timeneye (for smart time management)

Timeneye is a free, visually appealing, and non-distracting time tracking app for personal use to monitor how you spend your time on work projects, hobbies, home chores, and virtually everything else. You can easily sync it with other software like Basecamp, Google Calendar, Asana, Trello, and track your time without switching between them. In time the app will learn about your habits and automatically create suggested time entries for you. That means you spend less time on dull work and have more room for creativity and innovation. Timeneye is available as a web service, Android and iOS app for free for personal use. It costs $9/month for teams up to 5 people.

Focus Booster (for staying on task)

Focus Booster is an app to help you stop wasting time on unnecessary tasks and get straight to the real work. The app allows you to set “focus time” windows and breaks and switch on the timer to start work. During your work time, you can’t stop the timer as your session won’t be recorded and added to your time sheet. This app is essential for freelancers to bill their clients correctly by setting up hourly rates for each client and have auto-tracking for time spent on the project. Available as a desktop app for free with premium features starting from $2.99 per month.

Splashtop Remote Desktop (for spending less time using a desktop)

If you need to get things done on the go and need to leave your desktop, install Splashtop Remote Desktop. The app allows you to access all your PC or Mac files and programs from a smartphone or tablet so you don’t need to turn off your desktop. It also streams video and audio from your computer, and can interact with PowerPoint, Keynote, Word, Excel and other applications. Starting at $4.99, Splashtop Remote Desktop is available for all operational systems and numerous types of devices.

Make Things Easier With Your Large Screen Device With the Help of These Cool Android Apps

When the era of smartphones began, screen real estate became one of the most significant features. In an instant, people are now after for bigger screens, which is why most manufacturers are producing larger smartphones.

Unfortunately, phones with larger screens can have an impact on usability. Attempting to operate a large device with only one hand can often lead to screen shattering drops or unintentional commands. Luckily, manufacturers have noticed this growing problem and attempted to remedy the situation.

Apple has a feature called “Reachability mode” for one-handed operation of iOS devices, and companies like Samsung and LG have similar settings you can enable for certain Android devices.

However, if you happen to use an Android device that doesn’t have a “one-handed” mode, don’t worry. Below are some apps to help you operate your large device easily with only one hand.

Simple Control

Reaching down to the bottom of your device to tap your Home, Back or Overview buttons can require some serious dexterity. Users of bigger phones often have to awkwardly adjust their grip on their device in order to reach these buttons. This can increase the risk of dropping the phone.

Fortunately, Simple Control places virtual Home, Back and Overview buttons on the edge of either side of your screen. This enables users to access these functions without having to stretch their thumb to the bottom of the phone. Furthermore, the buttons disappear from view when not in use, so they won’t obstruct your homescreen.

Circle Sidebar

With a large device, simple tasks like opening your app drawer can be a dangerous balancing act. Luckily, Circle SideBar allows users to organize and access apps easily via a radial menu. After installation, users can determine what action opens Circle SideBar, like a swipe from the left edge of the screen. Once open, users can scroll through a customizable list of apps and settings using a single thumb. There are numerous customization options, including the size of the wheel and app icons. While Circle SideBar is a free app, there is a premium version that boasts additional features.

Omni Swipe

Phones with larger screens simply require bigger hands. Unfortunately, if you have smaller hands, this can pose a problem. Simple things like launching apps or pulling down your notification bar can be a chore.

Omni Swipe is an easy way to access your favorite apps, contacts, settings and notifications, all with a single flick. Users simply swipe from the bottom left or right corner of a device to open a fully customizable radial menu that houses all of your most used shortcuts. In addition to being easy to use, the app is tiny at just over 1MB and completely disappears from view when not in use.

Assistive Touch

Assistive Touch places a small button icon anywhere on the device’s screen. Tapping on this button opens a floating panel that allows users to access their favorite apps, settings and toggles. The button is fully customizable and can open your notification bar, adjust the brightness and much more. In addition, you can assign commands for double tapping or holding down the button.

For example, you can make it so that double tapping the button opens your camera, and holding it down shuts off the power to your device. This gives the user access to a wide variety of controls all in a single spot, with no more reaching.

Google Keyboard

The keyboard from Google is one of the best available, with speedy performance and accurate text prediction. In addition, it supports swipe typing. Unfortunately, large screen devices typically have to be held with both hands, rendering the user unable to reach all of the keys to make use of the swipe typing feature.

Fortunately, Google Keyboard has a one-handed mode that makes typing with one hand easy. To activate one-handed mode, simply hold down the comma key for a few seconds. The keyboard will shrink and shift to one side of the screen, enabling users to reach all keys with a single thumb.

Great Financial Statement Tools You Need for Your Business

For any business, strategic P&L (Profit & Loss) management is important to keep earnings positive and minimize expenses. If you’re tired of not knowing where your business stands financially, create a simple profit and loss statement or give one of our favorite accounting systems a try.

Choosing the right financial software can streamline the P&L management process. But with so many P&L reporting tools out there, which one is the most suitable for your business? Here’s a roundup of some great accounting tools that also offer profit and loss statements for small businesses:

QuickBooks

QuickBooks helps business owners make an accurate and professional profit and loss statement. Its P&L reports show total income, subtotals for income or expense accounts, profit margins, categorization of expenses and losses, detailed transaction lists for any entry, customized percentages, and identifications of over- or underspending. Plus, QuickBooks offers easy integrations and affordable monthly fees.

Xero

Xero’s solid accounting software comes with easy-to-use financial reporting tools that allow business owners to understand their real-time cash flow. Each package covers the basics, including financial performance reporting—meaning you won’t have to worry about paying more for the reports you need. And if you run into a problem, Xero provides customer support and has an abundance of how-to articles and tutorials.

Freshbooks

FreshBooks gives business owners a detailed breakdown of profit and loss, so you’ll know exactly how profitable you are. Each one of its packages offer financial performance reports, and to better serve its customers, FreshBooks offers complete mobile access for iPad, iPhone, Android devices, and other gadgets.

Wave

Wave has recently integrated P&L statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Its financial reporting gives you the full picture when it comes to the health of your business. However, Wave’s number one selling feature is you only have to pay for extra services when you need them, which means the essential system is free with no strings attached.

GoDaddy Bookkeeping

GoDaddy Bookkeeping delivers real-time reports on profit and loss, total expenses, and more. Their platform is convenient even for business owners who don’t have accounting experience. Plus, they offer three affordable packages, ranging from $3.99 per month to $11.99 per month.

Exciting Things You Can Do With a Virtual Reality Headset

Virtual reality headsets had been conceptualized a long time ago, back in the 1960s where there were prototypes of immersive stereoscopic videos, motion-tracking headsets and interactive Google Street View-like experiences took place. It was only until recently that the technology has fully developed and these devices have been made available to the public.

Below are some exciting things you can do and enjoy with a virtual reality headset. Check them out and be amazed.

Explore Different Places

Choosing a college can be very tiring. This is especially so when you have to go through a compulsory tour. This is one of the most helpful things to do with a VR headset.

Youvisit.com is loaded with thousands of pictures and videos of international universities and colleges, and you can practically walk into the environment and look around without actually being there.

Youvisit also deals with real estate listings, where clients wear headsets and go through homes that are far away.

Create Artwork in 3D

Creating art with the Tilt Brush is definitely one of the things to do with a VR headset. The 3D effect of the strokes is mind-blowing. You can go around your work and have some of the paintings suspended in mid-air. The kind of images you can make are limitless. They range from abstract to representational and realistic. Even if you can’t paint, you’ll still be able to use the brush like a spray can.

Mountain Bike Experience

Go mountain biking with your VR headset using a stationary bike that is compatible with your VR headset and an extreme mountain biking app. There are two models you can choose from:

The Ebove Bike

The Ebove bike was designed to be compatible with VR technology. There’s no doubt that the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive initiated VR gaming, but newer ones have joined the competition.

The Ebove bike inclines and goes the opposite way, uses pedal resistance and sideways tilt, and all correspond automatically to the 3D visuals. You can choose from a range of preloaded routes and tracks that can be operated and viewed on a 15.6-inch touchscreen. You can even challenge friends in real time.

VirZOOM

The bike is compatible with Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and HTC Vive and works well with PC and PS4. VirZOOM is less fanciful than the Ebove as the reactiveness corresponds to your speed input. This is justified as the VirZOOM is way cheaper than the Ebove.

Fly Like a Bird

Humans have always been inspired by the flying of birds as is evident in many inventions. It’s only natural that it should be one of the things to do with a VR headset. Unlike other inventions, with the VR headset you are the one doing the flying.

Birdly gives you the most realistic bird-like experience. Simulate flight posture by lying on a padded platform while wearing your headset. The flaps serve as your wings, and the hydraulic mechanism of the device tips you forward when you dive.

Real Life Rollercoaster

Most people who go to fairs and parks go for Rollercoaster rides because of the adrenaline rush. Six Flags over Texas, in collaboration with Samsung, incorporated the use of a VR headset while riding the rollercoaster in real life. Instead of seeing the real world, users see themselves somewhere else fighting to prevent a space invasion.

Bedtime Story for Your Kids

The world got busier, and this affected the time parents spend with their children. They hardly have time to read bedtime 

stories to their little ones. If you are guilty of this, Samsung has provided a solution to this with their bedtime story app.

Parents uses a Gear VR while the child wears a Google Cardboard headset. Apart from the feeling of reading together and the illusion of their presence, it has the benefit of the child living in the present.

Better Blueprints for Architects

Arch Virtual creates VR apps for architectural companies. This app doesn’t have a pre-built house for you to look at but open spaces. With computer models as the digital blueprints, Arch Virtual creates a three-dimensional animation of the interior. Once in the Oculus Rift D2K, you can examine every part of the building.

Pre-Built PC vs. Custom-Built PC: A Guide to Help You Decide Which One to Buy

There has always been an ongoing debate between those who build their own PCs and those who buy them pre-built. Actually, there’s really nothing wrong with either option even if the outcomes are different for both. In reality, both methods can and do deliver a satisfactory product, depending on the needs of the user. Still, we need to offer some insight into both sides of the argument if you’re still undecided.

Pre-Built PCs are easy to find and actually affordable

Most major laptop manufacturers such as ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc., usually focus on pre-built desktop PCs for those who don’t have time to shop around for parts or those who don’t have any high standards of hitting, such as specs for gaming. Many people just need a budget desktop PC that can browse the Internet, handle word processing, need it for work, or just to have a PC handy at home.

Instead of waiting for sales on parts or for everything to finally arrive from different vendors, you can grab a pre-built budget PC from a store and have it promptly working for you. These budget PCs usually come in a few configurations and price points, that is if you are targeting anything in terms of specs or budget.

Pre-Built PCs come with a warranty and technical support

Brand new pre-built desktop PCs will come with a warranty, which means in the case of a faulty piece of hardware inside; you can ship the entire thing away and not have to worry about diagnosing the problem yourself. This provides a bit of peace-of-mind for those who have no knowledge how to tinker with their PC. There are thousands of legitimate online resources when it comes to getting help with your PC, but dedicated technical support from a manufacturer can be the difference between a false diagnosis and getting back to work.

But Custom-Built PCs can still have warranty and technical support

Building your own PC from components you have personally decided on does have benefits in regards to performance desires and aesthetic needs. This is especially true for those with high spec standards to reach such as for gaming PCs or for those who are into huge video and image editing. Remember that along with each component decision manufacturers provide their own set of warranties and exclusions. So, for instance, your motherboard breaks down, all you need is to bring that component back to where it was purchased as it is covered by warranty.

Professional tech support is usually not a problem since technical support companies with good reputation and reliability exist, with affordable monthly or even yearly subscriptions.

What does all this mean? Pre-built PCs are a good option if you don’t need anything that will raise the roof in terms of performance, whereas building your own PC can save you money in the long run when it comes to gaming or for high end work like editing or video making.

Upgrading Your Computer: A Guide on What Parts You Should Upgrade First

A desktop computer’s lifespan usually runs around 5 – 6 years, so once you reach this pinnacle and go beyond, your PC will start running slow. After countless optimizations and removing all unnecessary files and your PC is still running slow, maybe it’s time to upgrade some hardware. But, which parts or components should you upgrade first?

Although you can tailor your upgrades to suit a particular need, in general, performance must always take priority. And so, based on performance, you should upgrade in this order.

RAM

Adding more memory is the easiest PC upgrade you can make. It’s affordable and it can be done on almost any PC including many laptops. Upgrading the RAM delivers an instant performance to almost all PCs that are running slow. For resource hungry tasks such as video editing or gaming, the more RAM your computer has, the better. Even for casual use, extra RAM will enable you to have more apps running in the background and keep a greater number of tabs open in your web browser. How much RAM is needed? 4 GB is currently the baseline amount, but you’ll notice a significant improvement if you upgrade to 8 GB. For heavier tasks, you should look to 16 GB for best results.

Graphics Card

If you’re a serious gamer or do heavy work like video or image editing, then this should be an upgrade together with the RAM. This also includes work in gaming programming, 3D modeling, and 3D animation. Otherwise, you can upgrade just to improve the quality of watching videos. PC manufacturers tend to go with integrated graphics cards rather than dedicated graphics cards. If you have an integrated card, then moving up to a dedicated one will work wonders.

Hard Drive

There are usually two reasons to upgrade your hard drive. Either you’re running out of space or you want faster performance. If you’ve done everything you can to free up your hard disk storage and still regularly run out of space, then you will need to swap it out for a larger one. Not only does a full hard drive make it impossible to save new data, but it can also impact performance. At the very least, try to keep 10 GB of free space for the operating system to use. A quick option is to switch to a solid state drive. These use flash memory instead of a spinning disk and are many times faster than a typical hard disk drive, and are reliable since they last much longer than ordinary drives.

Processor

A processor is only worth upgrading if the upgrade is really important and much needed. But it’s expensive and may require you to upgrade your motherboard and it may require you to buy a new RAM. Even if your motherboard is compatible with a new processor on paper, it may need a BIOS update to work, so check before you buy. Ultimately, if your processor is the speed bottleneck in your system, you might want to consider buying a whole new PC altogether.