5 Apps Every Business Newbie Must Have

Starting a new business is not a joke, however, with the help of technology, this daunting process can be a bit easier to accomplish. The Web is filled with apps to help entrepreneurs get their new business up and running. Here are some helpful tools you should check out.

Small Business Inventory Control Pro

Small Business Inventory Control Pro is a handy tool for product-based businesses. It allows companies to keep track of things like product inventories and payments to vendors. It can also report on inventory cost, the retail value of the inventory, and the 30-day turnover ratio.

A couple of the tools more notable features are its ability to create purchase orders and invoices as well as its capacity for dealing with bundles, not just individual products.

You can get the Small Business Inventory Control Pro app for $259, but a free trial is available for download.

KBilling

KBilling is a recommended invoicing system that is highly customizable and modestly priced. The software allows you to build a customer database, issue quotes, and manage invoices. In addition, invoices can be billed to credit cards, and it's easy to add late fees to overdue invoices. The software can even handle shipping costs.

In addition to that, KBilling contains dozens of built-in reports that can help you to better understand your organization's cash flow. KBilling sells for $149, but a free trial version can be downloaded.

Publish-iT

Publish-iT is a tool that can help your company create its own advertisements, brochures, and other printed media. It has many of the same features found in high-end desktop publishing applications but a fraction of the cost. For example, it includes drawing tools, photo editing tools, and the ability to interact with TWAIN scanners.

The app also includes countless text and image formatting options. This tool probably won't meet the needs of professional graphic designers, but it will work fine for most other people.

You can get Publish-iT for $24, but you can also download the trial version for free.

Advertising Manager

This app is designed to help businesses make the most of their advertising budget. The tool will require you to enter some basic information about your business and then helps you brainstorm by asking you questions about things like market share and public perception.

Advertising Manager also lets you follow ad campaigns by attaching media files and tracking the campaign's duration, dates, and price. Advertising Manager sells for $199, but a free trial version can be downloaded.

Ultimate Business Plan Starter

Ultimate Business Plan Starter is a free tool that can help you build a business plan. It's structured similarly to Advertising Manager, walking you through the process of entering various types of information. For instance, you can enter information about your competitive advantage, pricing, and promotional plan.

Ultimate Business Plan Starter uses a tree-like interface, making it easy to move between parts of the plan. The plan's elements are cleanly organized into categories, such as Executive Summary, Operating Plan, and Financial Assumptions.

Instantly Turn On Your Android Device Without Pressing Any Buttons

Are you tired of turning your phone on or off every time you pick it out of your pocket or pick it up from the table? Wouldn't it be great if your phone automatically turns on whenever you pick it up? If you want your phone to do just that, you need to have an app called the Gravity Screen Off.

By using your phone's sensors (position and proximity), this app can detect the movements you make when you put your phone in your pocket and automatically blocks them. It also knows when you take your phone out and automatically lights up. This app can be very useful when your Lock button is about to break.

Pocket Sensor

When you start the app for the first time, the first option you'll see is the Pocket sensor. This feature recognizes that you have your phone in your pocket. If you turn your phone below the angle you have set up, your phone will turn off. You can get an angle as high as 90 degrees and as low as 0. Once you have the angle you want, click on the box that says Any Direction (Flip Cover). If you want to change the angle, you need to unselect this option before the app lets you make any changes.

Table Sensor

The lying face up option does exactly what its name says it does. By choosing this option, your phone will automatically turn off when you put it on a flat surface up. If in case you want to change the angle of the table sensor, you will need to unselect the Any Direction (Flip Cover) option.

Proximity Sensor

In this part of the settings, you will only find two options: Turn Screen Off and On by Proximity. This is a great feature since you can activate the screen by just swiping your hand over the proximity sensor.

Turn Screen On by Motion

Here you will see a variety of options such as turning on your device when it's moved or is facing upward. The choice does warn the user that this feature may not be supported by all devices, and if that is the case with you, you can always use the proximity way to turn your device's screen on.

There's a Timeout feature that allows you to set a time interval so you can limit the time the device can be woken by motion. The free version of the app only lets you set it as high as 15 minutes or as low as 0 minutes.

In Sensitivity, it would be a good idea if you set it as low as possible because this will avoid you from accidentally turning on your phone various times throughout the day. That's only going to drain your battery anyway. You can set the sensitivity to as high as 100 and as low as 0. There are no restrictions here like in the Timeout feature.

If you hate it when your phone screen automatically turns on while it's in your pocket, then you may want to consider using the False Turn-On Protection in Pocket feature. The app does warn you that you should only use this feature if Turn Screen On by Motion is set correctly and works for you.

Keep Screen On by Motion

When this feature is enabled, you will prolong the timeout of your screen without touching it. It's able to keep the screen on by detecting small movements, making everything easier for you. This feature also lets you set the sensitivity from 0 to 100. If you activate the Booster option, the feature will have a quicker response time.

Be careful though -- if you turn the screen off by pressing the Power button, this feature is going to interfere and turn the screen back on. Having the screen turn back on by itself can be very annoying. That's why it's recommended to enable the Power Button Support, which can be found in the More Settings section.

Gravity Screen Off offers other features such as headphone support, running during a call, vibration, disable lock screen, and notifications. The large amount of options is just what we need in an app -- so go ahead and try the Gravity Screen Off app now.

Options You Can Consider When Customizing and Building Your Own Computer

Purchasing your computer, whether for home or office use, straight out of the box isn’t the only option available to you when you’re doing your window shopping. Consider the advantages and educational values of putting together your own computer or at least customizing most of its major parts so that the time and effort you need to invest in the project is rewarded through its many benefits.

You Save More Money

You really save more money by building or customizing your own computer rather than buying a pre-assembled model because you can focus on the features you do need and leave out the ones that you don’t. Computer manufacturers and retailers often include the cost of assembly, support, and other overheads in the total price of a finished computer. When you build your own, you only have to pay the cost of the components. The amount you can save depends on the type of components you’ll be using and buying, but it can be up to several hundred dollars.

Tailoring Means Choosing Options that Only You Can Consider

When you choose to build your own PC, you can tailor it to your exact requirements rather than relying on the fixed configuration choices of pre-assembled models. There are actually a lot of things and options to consider in tailoring the PC to your needs. Perhaps you want a few extras built in like a TV tuner card; or perhaps you want to increase the CPU and RAM capabilities. If you choose to increase your RAM capability, consider the best buy for an 8GB kit that includes two 4GB sticks of RAM; 8GB, at 1600MHz. You can also choose how large your monitor needs to be or even hang it on the wall at sight level rather than having it on the table. You may even decide to use several hard drives or graphics cards in your system. You can also choose to add more fans or select quieter fans to cool down your PC, thus, increasing its performance and lifespan. You can even shop around for unique PC casing designs or improve your sound system. Take note that in all your options and customizations, do invest in a good power supply unit.

You can choose all these without being restricted by the specification options set by a manufacturer or retailer. All of the above are options you can consider that ultimately leads your PC to its…

Potential for Further Upgrade

In building your own PC or selecting what options to customize will leave a lot of room for future upgrades, which is good news for your PC’s future lifespan as well. Not only can you plan ahead and buy a motherboard capable of expansion, you’ll also be much more at an advantage when it comes to buying better and more powerful components after a period of 3 to 4 years. Whether it’s buying a motherboard capable of running the latest line of CPU’s or buying a PSU with spare capacity, building your own PC means you can future-proof it should an upgrade become available or necessary. This also increases the lifespan of your computer to a few more years.

If you decide to become serious at building your own PC but you’re still a bit novice, here are a couple of guides that can help you start on your way.

You can check these resources to help you with your computer build.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/diy-your-own-pc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORXEXovI6s

Things You Should Avoid to Prevent Your Computer from Slowing Down Over Time

One of the biggest computer annoyances that happens to any owner/users is when the machine starts to slow down over time. This usually happens years after you get a PC or laptop. Since we use our computers for different task and activities at work or at home, the slowing down process is basically the same with any type or model concerned. When a new computer is bought and first booted up, it naturally works lightning fast, and this is because it doesn't have anything on it. As you download files. install programs, and surf the Internet over time, the computer gets bloated with files that hog your computer's system resources.

There is no definite and single main cause why a computer slows down over time; it can be a series of major causes that can happen within  a spanning period of time.

Using two or more antivirus software or anti-malware programs
To put it simply, having two or more antivirus or anti-malware programs can greatly slow down your computer and some may actually get in conflict with each other and damage the computer's operating system. Also, the first line of defense against viruses, malware, and spyware should be Safe Browsing. Naturally, if you're downloading shady files, clicking on ad pop-ups, or opening links from unknown emails, you'll greatly increase your chances of getting a computer infection. So practice careful and responsible Internet browsing.

Not using Disk Cleanup at least once a week
At least once a week, you need to clear your cache and temporary Internet files and empty the trash bin by using the Disk Cleanup utility. And while you're at it, clear out your Internet browsing history and then check using the task manager which programs and background services are running at startup that are needed an thus, slowing down your computer. However, be careful an don't clear out the registry thinking this speeds up your computer. Cleaning out the registry may clear out some outdated settings but the registry files are merely in kilobytes, there won't be any noticeable change in your computer's speed.

Allowing your hard drive to become dangerously low on space
If you have allowed your hard drive to become low on space, like say, only having around 2 or 3 gigabytes as free space, then your computer will drastically slow down. Your computer programs need space to dynamically grow in size, usually through the creation of temporary files. If there is no room on the hard drive to store these, you system will crawl. However, if you have more than half the hard drive with free space, your don't need to clear out personal data to speed up the computer. Getting rid of Word documents, photos, videos, and music - no matter how large these files are - have no negligible effect on the computer's speed.

In reality, we need to face the fact that as any computer gets older, it will definitely. slow down. It's a natural progression. As newer hardware, software, Internet, and application capabilities evolve, these new innovations require more space and power. So the user should never be faulted when their once zippy computer is now crawling, unless the user has a habit of dangerously download anything from the web.

Superb Online Tools That You Can Use as Alternatives to Google Docs

Google Docs is usually the first thing that comes to people's minds when it comes to online office services. The main reason is because Google makes a very competitive product, which is clearly remains unparalleled on the Web.

However, if you don't feel like using Google Docs, there are still other great alternatives out there that you can try. Check them out below.

Office Online

Office Online is Microsoft's answer to Google Docs. This online office service is nearly similar to what Google offers. Using the program allows you to collaborate while working on documents, save your documents in One Drive (much like how GDocs works with GDrive), and many more.

The main edge of this program among the others on this list -- Microsoft. MS is sharp in competing with Google when it comes to online office space, which is why you can be assured that the program won't go away. Another best thing about it is that since Office Online is a Microsoft product, you can be sure that you'll be able to easily use your abundance of MS Office files with this program directly from your browser. Go ahead and give this program a try.

Etherpad Lite

If you are not interested in leaving your important document files in the hands of big companies like Google or Microsoft, you may want to check out Etherpad Lite. It's an open source office program that can be accessed on your own website, when combined with this plugin.

Etherpad Lite is an awesome tool if your purpose is to work on a document or two. It's not as fancy and loaded with features, something as big as Microsoft can do. But still, it's a big asset if you're interested in combining the ability to collaborate online with colleagues and control all of your data as well.

PiratePad

Would you like to create a document but are not that interested in signing up for services or setting up anything? Then check out PiratePad. It's a basic, online-only office document tool that has all the features you would expect from an office program (formatting, attaching documents, etc.), along with the ability to collaborate with other people at the same time.

So if you want to make a quick document minus the hassle, PiratePad might be worth checking out for you.

Hackpad

Hackpad is an elegant, collaborative online office tool owned by Dropbox. Except for Office Online, Hackpad is the closest to Google Docs. Similar to Google's tool, you'll be able to easily create documents in your web browser (they also have an iOS app) and collaborate with friends and colleagues, too.

The reason why Hackpad is considered as a great alternative is simply because it is backed up by Dropbox. We can safely say that they're a well-known company, which is not actually into buying up tools only to shut them down later on.

The only main downside of Hackpad is that it's just a writing tool. That means you only get the ability to create text documents. However, if you're simply looking for an easy tool for documents in your web browser, Hackpad can do the job.

4 Android Apps That Could Save Your Life

If in case you happen to be someone who needs to travel alone or who usually comes home late at night, you would often feel quite uncomfortable, especially when you feel like someone is stalking you. When that happens, all you can probably think about is getting out of that place or call your friends. At times where anything can happen in just a split second, wouldn't it be great to have something that can help you get in touch with your family and/or friends in just a few taps.

Luckily, if you're an Android user, below are some great apps that you can use whenever you feel like you are in danger. These apps help you connect to your friends so you can let them know about your predicament and find a way out of it.

1. SOS - Stay Safe!

SOS - Stay Safe! is an app that can help you if you feel like you're being stalked. It allows you to connect to your loved ones quickly and easily just by shaking your device. By calibrating the shakes and your device, you can send an emergency message to your chosen contacts without the stalker knowing anything. It does not only send a plain message, it also sends out a recorded clip of the audio, the battery level of your device, as well as your location. This way, they will easily find out where you currently are.

You can get the app for free from the Google Play store.

2. One Touch SOS

One Touch SOS lets you send out your location information to your chosen contacts with just one touch. This means you don't need to rush around just to find your friend's or family member's number in your phonebook, type your message, and then send it out. You cannot possibly do those things if you're in danger at that minute.

You can download One Touch SOS from the Google Play store without any cost.

3. SOS Emergency Rescue

The SOS Emergency Rescue app rescues you from any unwanted situation and makes sure you are in a safe condition. The app places images of your chosen contacts on the screen, and then you can tap on any of those contacts that you want to call. The app is specially designed for elder people who may have poor eyesight and cannot browse through the menus to find their family members. The user just needs to tap on the contact, and you will be connected to that person in just a few seconds.

You can get the app for free from the Google Play store.

4. VithU: V Gumrah Initiative

The VithU: V Gumrah Initiative app sends out your location information to your chosen contacts simply by pressing the Power button twice. It sends out your updated location info every two minutes so that your friends will know which way you are heading so that they can easily find you. It will send your contact a predefined message saying "I am in danger. I need help. Please follow my location."

If you think this app will be a great help to you, get it for free from the Google Play store.

Reasons Why Your Computer's Performance May Seem Inconsistent

We sometimes call it lagging or sluggish, but regardless of how it is described, we simply cannot deny that our computer may eventually become slow over time. So, what could be the factors that can negatively impact on a computer’s performance? What should you be looking out for?

In reality, computer performance is very consistent. This is because the computer will always run as fast and as properly as it possibly can, of course, within the constraints of the hardware and software inside the computer. Some programs might run up against one another when it comes to resources. It all depends on what constraint a particular program runs up against.

Compared to their counterparts as far back as the turn of the 21^st century, today’s modern computers are amazingly fast. The only thing that they may run into and can’t keep up with is the human expectation that what’s already fast, may not be fast enough for them.

So here are some possibilities for any inconsistent computer performance:

You don’t have enough RAM or some other resource – perhaps when you bought your computer, you didn't ask if the specifications are good enough for the kind of work you need to do. For example, your computers only have 2MB of memory, when you need is at least 4MB of computer memory to properly run your online ticketing business. Little things like this may be overlooked.

Too many programs are running and taking a lot of resources – probably the most common mistake many people make, and they start thinking that their hardware is slowing down and needs repair. For instance, many web professionals open too many websites all at once that slows down the browser and memory. Another problem is having two or three antivirus programs running all at the same time when all you need is one. Antivirus programs may be very resource intensive.

It may be your network that’s slow, not the computer – you may think that it’s your computer that’s being slow, but there is also a possibility that it’s your network that’s running slow. This happens when you notice that your web pages take a long time to open.

Admit it, your computer might be old – unwittingly, you might just have realized that your computer is almost 10 years old and you’re trying to run newer software that exceeds the capabilities of the old computer.

You might have a computer virus – this occurs if you don’t have an antivirus program or you don’t regularly update your antivirus program. If your computer does have a computer virus infecting your files and programs on your system, this will definitely slow down the computer.

You might have some configuration or setup issues – if you suspect such, or see no reason to suspect anything else, perhaps you might want a tech support to check out your computer.