5 Great Free Photography Programs

Computers have, without doubt, changed the nature of photography. Interacting with digital images, computer technology now allows all manner of changes to be made to an image. This throws up a whole host of questions about the idea of photographs as portraying reality or not, but it has also thrown open a door to previously inconceivable creativity. Below are some of the best free programs for manipulating our photographic images.

PhotoScape

PhotoScape offers not only standard photo editing facilities, but also enables you to turn your images into slideshows and Gifs. It has a lot of functions but you can customise all the toolbars so you only see the ones you need, meaning the program can be as advanced or basic as you make it. It also supports conversion of images from all DSLR cameras to Jpegs, with a simple and intuitive conversion and file storage system.

PhoXo

Ideal for the whole family, PhoXo is an ideal program for getting kids started on image editing. They can use the inbuilt functions to add clip art to photos or indeed draw ad paint on them. Customisable effects are easy to apply and you can watermark your images to protect them for copyright when publishing on the web.

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is an upgrade on the original Paint program for Windows that was one of the first free photo programs for Microsoft operating systems. The new version has a lot more functionality, with all the layering, effects and other tools you would expect from more expensive photo editing packages. Free to download, continuously updated and compatible with Windows 8.

GIMP

One of the first – and best – open source photography programs, GIMP is commonly regarded as the free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Available for both Mac and PC, it offers comparable functions to Photoshop, without the hefty price tag. So you get a large workspace with layers and palettes aplenty that allow for professional level retouching and manipulation. And being open source, it is constantly getting upgraded with additional functions and bug fixes. If you have a fibre optic broadband connection, you can get the latest version uploaded in moments.

Irfan View

This is a god choice for those not looking to do major alterations to their photos and who want a program that doesn’t take up a lot of space on the hard drive. At less than 2 MB, Irfan View is one of the smallest free photo programs available. As such, it doesn’t have professional editing tools, but it is perfect for resizing images, adding captions, creating slideshows and tweaking the colour or brightness of an image. Simple and user-friendly

Intel Explores Wearable Devices for Parkinson's disease Research

Intel is planning to implement wearable gadgets to keep track and monitor patients who are suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The gadgets may include smart watches or smart bands and these gadgets will allow collecting the data of the patients and then this data will be transferred to the researchers and then these researchers will do the analysis accordingly.

They are collaborating with the Michael J. Fox Foundation in order to carry out multiphase research which will include study of the neurodegenerative brain disease. According to study it is estimated that nearly Five million people from all around the world have been analyzed and diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Hence it is said to be second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's. So it’s a serious issue and must be taken care of so this is the reason why Intel took the initiation to make this research.

The preliminary target or goal is to determine the practicability of implementing wearable devices to track patients remotely and store the data which is collected using these in an open system that can be retrieved and used by scientists for further study.

In the next stage of the research and study the foundation will establish funds to monitor how patients are replying or responding to the provided medication. The array of wearable devices will be used to track the patient’s records that will be the part of research.

These wearable smart devices will provide a useful method to keep track of patients from their work or homes, and the best part is that it will also allow people in the most rural parts of the country to get involved in the research. It’s a true fact that people of rural areas don’t have much resource to get involved in such type of research practices because they neither have much money nor they have any knowledge to understand such high projects so they are only concerned with their personal life hence they are not interested in such research. But Intel has always found the technical solution of every problem and this Parkinson’s disease research is the best example of this. So hats off to Intel Corporation.

These wearable gadgets will be provided to almost every patient who is suffering from the Parkinson’s disease. The research will take place in different phases and the details that will be obtained using these smart gadgets will be stored in the system that will be open to scientists for purpose of study. And these results will be analyzed by them and thus without any actual participation of patients the proper output in the form of medication will be discovered.

Now the most interesting part is the wearable devices that will be used. It is estimated that the wearable devices would be designed in such a way that patient or participant may wear it for whole research duration comfortably. It should be light weighted and should look good on wearing. Hence the smart watches are selected as the best device for this. But also it is in the news that they will work with Basis Science which is well known for its wrist band and this wrist band will measure the heart rate of the person wearing this.

So let’s hope that this research will be successful soon because it will help the patients suffering from Parkinson’s to get rid of this disease and live a healthy life.

Moto X+1 Front Panel Design Trickled

With Motorola (which is now powered by Google) making a comeback in the mobile market with its 3 phone model Moto E, Moto G and Moto X, time has now come for a phone with improved ultimate features that will now raise the Motorola flagships as high as possible. And that phone as per Motorola’s announcements is Moto X+1, which will be Moto X+1’s successor.

But, I’ve got a good news for everyone who is interested in knowing more about the phone, even before getting unveiled on September, we have in store for you the leaked front panel pictures and discussion of the Moto X+1

All about Moto X+1

After the successful release of Moto X, Motorola announced its successor Moto X+1. It was aforementioned to come with a box full of amazing features. A 5.2-inch full HD touchscreen, with a 5 finger touch support, two QUALCOMM Snapdragon 800 processors, a powerful graphic processor sporting a Qualcomm Adreno 330. A RAM of 2 GB, with an internal memory of 24 GB (giga bytes) it has a lot other features that might take it to earn a notable position in the market. Not only it also houses a 2 cm front camera and a 12-mega pixel rear camera both having the capability to click full HD pictures and videos.

Here’s Some Insight On The Leaked Information

It was said that Moto X+1 would house a 5.2 inch screen which would be obviously bigger than its predecessor Moto X, and that doubt was undoubtedly very much cleared after the leaked information got out.

There was a great confusion in knowing the processor being in the new Moto X+1, as it was said in the benchmarks that it would either a Snapdragon 801 or 805. But thanks to leak, if not the processor, a good outlook of the basic features of the phone’s panel could be well evident.

The front panel of the Moto X+1 houses a 1080p Full HD screen of 5.2 inches is an improvement on its predecessor which had a 720p screen of 4.7 inches. The rounded pebble shape of Moto X is still being retained in Motorola’s new phone. It is rounded but the design of the speakers similar to that it’s budget phone Moto E which also sported a front facing speaker.

Despite the blunt look of Motorola phones, the phone market could not get affected much because of the mouth-watering specifications of Moto X, and so shall it be for Moto X+1.

Some Expectations We Have From the Predecessor

We all believe this phone will also lead up to the expectations and level of its previous phones. Moto Maker, which was originally started a long time ago with a motive to carve out triumph in individualising the handsets in pre-purchase process. This concept is sure to be followed in Moto X+1, and will continue to have its effect in countries worldwide such as UK and Germany where its flagships are finally met with.

Thus, with Moto X+1’s front panel leak, it spurred out excitement even more , and made everyone all the more impatient as we now have to wait for the phone to get released, for the normal crowd to own this priced possession.

Simon Celebrates its 20th Birthday

Today the cosmopolitans are very much familiar with the Smartphone, which have a sleek body containing a wide array of features ranging from high-resolution camera, 1080p video support, and large data storing capacity. But has anyone wondered what was the 1^st Smartphone being like?

 Well, the world’s 1^st smartphone was designed by IBM Technologies and American cellular company BellSouth and marketed under the name Simon. The advent of 16^th August 2014 marks the 20^th birthday of the first ever smartphone being marketed all over the globe irrespective of the geographical topologies.

Structural Details of Simon:

 

The forerunner of the smartphone, which was marketed under the name Simon was not much like today’s smartphone. In fact, it was not regarded as a smartphone back then, reported by the curator Charlotte Connelly. It was manufactured and entered the multinational market on 16^th August 1994, and gained international acclaim within a very short span of time

Some of the features of Simon are enlisted below:

• It had a black and white 4.5-inchgreen LCD screen.

• Pixel resolution was 293x160 pixels, with a stylus touch capacity.

• It ran on 16-bitVadem processor having anx86 compatibility. 
• It had 1MB RAM and 1.8MB storage drive.

• It weighted more than 500gm (1.1lb) and it was about 20cm (9 inches) long and was powered by nickel-cadmium battery.

Apart from that, Simon has the capability to send fax and emails only when they can be synchronized with the desktop computer. Users could operate The Simon with the stylus that was provided along with the handset. Apart from that, users could create notes, draw pictures and could even synchronize the calendars as per as their needs.

Market Value of Simon back then:

IBM Technologies mastered in manufacturing a smartphone, which possess the capacity to optimize workload. However, a good technology comes with an expensive price. It was coined in the open market for a price of $900(539 GBP) in the initial years of marketing, with a 2 years contract with BellSouth (now AT&T) as network connectivity. An estimated 50,000 handsets were sold to the customers of 15 states of United States of America, and the primary buyers were business tycoons and corporate magnates.

The battery lasted only for an hour, and it had no access to internet connectivity at that time. Owing to heavy weight and shorter battery lifespan and an expensive cost, the demand of the smartphone Simon did not last long in the market and soon it became obsolete within 2 years of its launch. Nevertheless, it was a groundbreaking innovation at that era, when wireless technology was just its juvenile stage.

The Science Museum in USA bought Simon over eBay with an anonymous sum of money. Owing a wireless technological device was way too out of league for ordinary citizens, so its demand was slowly diminished. That is when Nokia introduced its Nokia 9000 Communicator to get the top-notch in the wireless device market.

The advancement of technology has ushered a technological revolution resulting in making the 1^st ever invented smartphone to be long forgotten in the pages of history. Apparently, Simon will be remembered as the first ever-designed smartphone.

How to Create a SMTP Server on Your Computer

The word SMTP can be expanded as “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol”. So SMTP can be defined as the standard (set of instructions) or rule of Internet for e-mail or electronic mail transmission. Some people want to create a SMTP server on their computer because they want to use outlook for sending mails even when ISP is not allowing to do so because they are not connected to their server because of absence of internet facility. So creating a SMTP server on the computer allows sending e-mails even when there is no connection between the user and ISP servers and thus no internet facility is required within local SMTP server.

Creating SMTP server on the computer is mostly preferred by the small businesses which do not have the facility of exchange server but still they want to send and receive emails but with the help of outlook. So in such cases creating own SMTP server is the best idea. It can also be observed in some colleges and universities. So now let’s begin to learn how to setup SMTP server on computer.


IIS SMTP Server Setup
 

Step 1:

Select the control panel and open it and click "Programs," or "Programs and Features".

Step 2:

Now click on the option of turning windows features mentioned as on or off,” which is located in the left panel if you're having the Classic view of it. Now click "Allow" if by chance you get any types security warnings.

Step 3:

Now what you have to do is to expand and increase "IIS or Internet Information Services" and please make sure that "SMTP Server" is installed for sure. In case it’s not then check the box located next to it and restarts as required.

Step 4:

Now select the Windows key and "R" to open the run menu. Now simply type "inetmgr" and select "Enter" to open the Internet Information Services or IIS Manager.

Step 5:

Now press the right-click in "Default SMTP Virtual Server" and press "New," and then select "Virtual Server."

Step 6:

Now don’t forget to input your personal SMTP settings within the new Virtual Server Wizard in order to configure the server.

Step 7:

Now simply configure the email client say Outlook Express or Thunderbird to practice the new SMTP server. Now all the email clients will route to your personal SMTP server and the server will automatically route those mails to the external addresses successfully.

Now you need to setup HMail server. Simply download it from the resources and follow the instructions to install the setup of exe format. Select the database as per your need and requirement. Enter the master user and password and keep it secure and then this way finish the setup installation and open it. Now open the administrator account and enter the domain name and remember to save it. Also save your IP values and ranges and also save the proper configuration settings and it’s done.

Now you can simply use your ISP’s SMTP. Just open the email program and look for something like account setting or settings of the email program. Email program can be of thunderbird and so on. Now look for server settings in it and there enter the information and other details from the ISP. So finally it’s done and now your SMTP server is ready to work in your local area of network. If you are facing any problem in managing the outlook contacts then you can go for MX-Contact and it will help you a lot.

So I hope that you have understood all the steps and hope you will be able to create a SMTP server without any type of errors. But still if you have any problem regarding this then please comment and let us know. And those who have any other good idea regarding this concept then please share it with everyone here by commenting below. In later posts we will come up with more amazing ideas like this so stay connected.