Orange is launching three new low-priced Android smartphones for people who live for Facebook in an attempt to lure more of its global customer base into the smartphone fold. Roughly 50 percent of Orange’s European and African customers have smartphones today, but the operator thinks it can boost that number by another 10 or 15 percent if it provides not only inexpensive devices and data plans but also cuts through the application clutter of the typical Android smartphone, focusing on social media applications that its less technically savvy customers are already well familiar with.

“There are over 400,000 apps in Android market, which is mind boggling,” Orange Group Devices vice president Patrick Remy said in an interview today. “We believe that there is a certain point where that level of choice will become a bit too much for our customers, that they’ll become a bit lost with that level of complexity.”

Orange polled its customers over what mobile data features would coax them into buying a smartphone. “One name kept coming back on a consistent basis,” Remy said. Several iterations of the Facebook phone have emerged from companies like HTC and INQ, but Orange opted to work with directly with Facebook and TCL, which makes handsets via license under the Alcatel Brand, to create its own line of devices. Remy said Orange wanted to make the phone Facebook-centric, but not Facebook exclusive. By allowing customers to utilize the fill capabilities of the Android platform, they would then gravitate to other applications and platforms.

But Orange is doing plenty to keep Facebookers happy. The phones are designed to make the device almost an extension of a customers Facebook account. Facebook birthdays are automatically loaded into the Calendar client, contacts are synched with Facebook friends and photos automatically populate the phones’ photo albums. A physical Facebook key allows performs a variety of functions depending on what the customer is doing on screen. If the customer is surfing the Web, a press of the Facebook button automatically loads a link. If pressed in the camera mode, the photo is posted as an update, and so forth. Many of the features are similar to those designed into the HTC Status used on AT&T’s network.

It’s first device is the Orange Vancouver (Orange has a thing for phones with city monikers like Boston and Monte Carlo), which will launch in Romania with a price tag of 100 Euros (USD 5) with 9 Euro monthly plan, including 50 minutes of voice, 200 SMS and 60 MB of 3G data. Facebook usage is excepted from the data limited, leaving social networks to update their statuses, send messages and upload and download photos to their hearts’ content. Orange plans to launch two other Android Facebook phones at even lower price points (though without 3G) will begin offering them in all of its markets from continental Europe to sub-Saharan Africa through 2012.

Unlimited Facebook access won’t be available in every market. So far, Orange is only planning to make that a basic feature in Tunisia and Romania, though in other countries customers can subscribe to special unlimited social networking plans. The idea is to make customers feel comfortable with data by not metering their data usage on their favorite application, Remy said.

It sounds simple enough, but customers might find themselves confused as to what exactly counts as Facebook and what doesn’t it. A link update, for instance, is no longer under the Facebook umbrella once a customer clicks on it and exits to the browser. A YouTube video embedded in friend stream could be particular problematic. Opening the video means opening YouTube’s Android app or website, and nothing can drain a 60 MB plan faster than streaming video.

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• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

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Building a computer network in your great residence with two storey building is more difficult compared with a flat with only one floor building and is sometimes frustrating. Thick concrete building usually contributes signal attenuation and dead spots in wireless. Running network cable is a hard work. But Powerline Ethernet adapter helps you build the network easily.

Should you build a pad computer network from the scratch which are made up of first floor where your Cable television / DSL internet connection starts and the second floor where you would like to Expand the network wirelessly, you should assess your requirements to meet your needs. On the first floor, how many computers you need, how you connect them– wired or wireless. On the second floor, this is important because you need to get in touch the first floor to the second floor where a thick concrete building will be a hurdle whether you run the network cable or wireless connection.

In the first floor where your router gateway (with 4x Ethernet slots) is located connects two desktop computers which are close each other with the gateway router– a wired connection for each of the computer is easier. You just need to run a network UTP cable television from each of the desktop computer to the router Ethernet slots.

Now the challenge is how to get in touch several laptops with Wi-Fi enabled and other Ethernet based devices in the second floor to allow them hook up and access the Internet? You have two choices– you run a network cable television from the first floor to the second floor, or you provide wireless get from the first floor to the second floor purchasers. To run a network cable television from the first floor to the second floor you need an extra work probably by drilling the hole or run the clutter of the cables that will just look messy.

You can mount a wireless accessibility point in the first floor and allow consumer computers in the second floor join wirelessly. But with the thick concrete building between the first and the second floor the wireless signal strength received by purchaser computers in the second floor would be substantially weak. Your wireless performance in the second floor would be poor.

The easiest way for your home computer network with two floors like this is to install a Powerline Ethernet adapter in the first floor and another adapter in the second floor. With Powerline Ethernet adapter, you can develop high-speed secure building wide network using the power outlets in a single circuit buster. The TPL-401E2K Trendnet Powerline Ethernet adapter is a new high speed adapter delivering the speeds of up to 500Mbps (theoretical) via the power outlets.

In this case, you can install one TPL-401E2K in the first floor and join to the Ethernet port of your router entrance. And then you can put in other Powerline adapters in each of the available power outlets in flat as necessary to meet your need. Install one adapter in the second floor where you would like to put in the wireless accessibility point.

What this TPL-401E2K Does

Trendnet TPL-401E2K powerline adapter is a high speed adapter via power outlets delivering the speeds of up to 500Mbps (in ideal conditions). The adapter is supplied with one Gigabit Ethernet slot which is ideal in delivering high speed applications such as streaming High Definition (HD) media and smooth games. You can deploy up to 16 adapters in a network. For security connection, the adapter supports advanced 128-bit AES data file encryption.

One thing to keep in mind in deploying the Powerline Ethernet adapters in a building is that the adapters should be in a single signal buster system. If there are two signal breaker systems in your building, to cover the whole building network you need to make a link between the signal busters. You need to deploy one adapter in one routine breaker and another adapter in the other signal buster and link them as a bridge.

Now you can with success build your hills computer network providing wired connection in the first floor and wireless access in the second floor using the TPL-401E2K Powerline Ethernet adapter as a bridge between the floors via power outlets eliminating the clutter of the wires.

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Always find a dedicated storage space. Organising your tools, equipment and others items can increase the usable space even further.

While many people try to cram their home office into the spare bedroom or even into a large cupboard, the workroom or office simply isn’t efficient and many homes just don’t have room for the necessary equipment. Even if you think you are overstuffed with things you have accumulated in the past years, you don’t have to resort to the same eventual solution most homeowners face themselves surrendering to the reality of disposing off their items as the only less painful process of fixing garage storage problems.

Rarely is there enough storage and workspace. You may never know what items will be of use in the future. Even if some things have reached storage for months already may not suggest they will have the same use in the future, you may find one day that you actually still have to utilize them one day. The floor is no longer available for extra storage that’s why most households have thought of one innovative way to free up the floor from so much clutter.

Reserve a space wherein you would like to install the garage ceiling storage. Remember that you would put a system in to avoid clogging or de-cluttering, not to add to it. Remove the dust and spider webs in the garage and visualize a clean, organized and good-looking functional garage. Don’t just bring them in arrange them. Pre-made closets or overhead garage storage racks may offer limited options when it comes to color and design but they all share the same characteristics–made to maximize your shelving and storage.

You may not dictate which materials to choose but you can pick whether you want wood, laminated, wire or plastic. Remember that with the carefully detailed garage storage units placed inside the room, you would have plenty of spaces to re-organize the stuffs you got there inside.

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On my last visit to New York, I stopped at apparel maker Bruno Cucinelli’s store in the West Village. In a city of opulent, luxury-brand outlets, this tiny outpost was perhaps one of the most ideal and idyllic shopping experiences. I go there again and again. There is little or no clutter, a limited set of apparel options and more importantly, everything is laid out for maximum impact.

You enter the store, walk down an aisle looking at the clothes hanging on your right (men’s wear), reach the end of the store, turn around, check out the middle aisle, and take in what’s on display. The whole process takes a few minutes. Once you’re done with the walk-through, you zero in on one or more items on display, and engage with the sales person. If nothing catches your fancy, you move on.

It doesn’t take much time, and more importantly, it involves fewer decisions on my part, making shopping less of a chore.

That Cucinelli store is a great metaphor for what I think is a good mobile app experience. Why? Because the store had little or no friction when it comes to the shopping process. Similarly, in order to be successful and stand out among the growing number of mobile apps demanding our attention, the mobile apps have to have little friction.

There are few ways an app can work toward a better experience. It all starts with overcoming three major constraints with today’s mobile and smartphone experience:

1. Network speeds, despite all the talk from carriers are limited and thus not conducive to heavy download activity.
2. Limited screen real estate, which puts premium on every pixel.
3. Finite number of mobile gestures (that don’t involve using the keyboard.)

Faster Is Better

The same demand that makes smartphones an exciting opportunity also turns into a liability. It doesn’t matter what device you use; even the best of 3G networks has bandwidth challenges. And while at some point in the future, the faster wireless broadband technologies are going to solve the problems, today as an app developer, you have to keep the challenges of network speeds in mind.

What you have to do is build apps that are fast. By that, I mean not only does the app load fast, but also has a lightweight experience. It’s optimized less around cool features and more around the speed with which you can use an app’s core value proposition.

Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, recently told me one of the crucial product decisions his start-up made was optimizing around speed. Knowing upload speeds on wireless networks were bad, they decided to limit photo size to small enough for a quick upload, yet looked gorgeous on the smartphone screen. The speed, he contended, would make for happier customers, who in turn would use the app more. And they were right.

Other app companies are finding out that faster execution is key to higher engagement. Foursquare Co-founder Dennis Crowley, speaking at a recent event, said the company was building a lighter version of the app for faster check-ins and to reduce the check-in time from 20 seconds to five seconds.

The easier and faster it is to check-in, the more likely one is to use Foursquare. This isn’t a radically new notion; Google has used the speed with which it can serve up search results as a lure for getting people to use its search more often. Since the search results show up blazingly fast, one is likely to search again, even if the first try doesn’t yield results.

Size Matters

A couple of months back, I wrote about what makes a hit (consumer) Internet service. Of the three reasons I listed, “clear purpose” and “simple to use” were ones that make perfect sense for mobile apps, given the limitations of screen size and touch-screen gestures. A good example of an app with clear purpose and simplicity? Instapaper: the save-and-read-later app.

That simplicity and clear purpose begins from the very second someone opens the app after downloading. Signing up for your app/service should be done within seconds, not minutes. One of the reasons why I loved Beluga was that it probably had one of the simplest sign-up processes. Not many questions asked — enter an email, get a username and password, and you’re ready to go.

Better yet, use Facebook Connect, which removes any friction that there is in terms of sign-ups. There is a big risk of you being logged out of all these apps if your account gets hacked, like mine was a couple of months ago. But app developers are embracing the Facebook Connect, and are well aware of such risks.

Daniel Raffel, co-founder of a yet-to-be-named stealth mode company, described Facebook Connect as the “K-Y Jelly of the mobile web.” By now, most, if not all, people have Facebook accounts, so by entering their username and password, the hassle of signing up a service and remembering another password is also eliminated.

This is crucial. Too much typing on a smartphone can be arduous and time-consuming, no matter how deft you are. The less time spent between download and using the service, the faster customers can start to experience your offering. Remember, there are no second chances in today’s app-infested world.

A few days back, I wrote about why apps (and other products) have to start building the idea of “happiness” into their offerings. Speed, simple and easy sign-ups, and single focus on core values only add to that “happiness.” Those three qualities are the reason why I keep going back to that Cucinelli store. On my last trip, I almost bought a cardigan — but they didn’t have it in my size.

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Printer cartridges can be a surprisingly large drain on your budget if you print frequently. The prices seem to go up all the time, and they need to be replaced often if you use your printer regularly. In economic times like these you want to save your cash for more important things, we’ll help you do that where your print cartridges are concerned here in this article.

You have to be sensible when you print otherwise you will spend a lot of money. If you need a hard copy for a specific purpose that is one thing. Most business transaction are done paperless, therefore they dont require printing. Do you need more memory or want to make sure that your files are protected? Less clutter in the home and office are benefits of printing less.

You will make better use of your printer cartridges by using your printer the most econimical way. Frequent bouts of turning your printer off and back on can cause ink to be wasted. While you will find this isn’t true of every printer many will automatically clean the print heads every time you turn the machine back on. If this is true for your printer, be aware of how often you’re doing this. The ink you use will probbaly cost more than the power you might save by turning your machine off. Ink consumption can be affected by your paper settings as well. Set your printer options for the paper you are using.

You can extend the life of your printer, plus save money on ink by cleaning your printer on a regular basis, with a lint-free cloth. When the printer’s nozzles are blocked by dust, you can get streaks and smears on your printed pages.

This not only reduces the quality of your pages, it wastes ink. The directions that are provided with the printer will most likely explain how to clean the machine, however the only thing that’s really essential is a cloth and cleaning fluid that you can pay for at an office supply store or from the Internet. Ensure that the printer is not plugged in, and take the printer tray and ink cartridges out and lightly wipe away and dust, paper bits or other matter. Even though you can’t do anything about the price of printer cartridges going up, there is still much you can do to keep your costs down. It helps to shop around to find the lowest priced replacement cartridges, and also to conserve on your printing as much as possible. If you keep the aforementioned advice in mind when you print and look for replacement cartridges, you can save a significant amount of money on your printing.

The particular only trouble in changing print cartridges is that your printer is generally a little way from your very own desk consequently most people roll across there upon your rolling seat and thus ruin the laminate floor surface. To defend any carpet it is recommended to make use of a carpet chair mat, to read more about a click here take a look at http://www.computerchairmat.org/.

Blu-Ray players and HD DVD had been in a war for hd playback of optical discs. The Blu-Ray players were the winners of the battle and are available in the market. There are a few guidelines that you’ve got to follow when buying a Blu-ray player and some are listed here. However the laser which reads the disc in the player is known as the blue laser. The Blu-ray Disc Association was the first manufacturer of the disc.There are different types of options for someone who is willing to purchase a player. The players offer many functions some of which are Internet ability, gaming system, 3D features and connections. As the 3D television was devised, Blu-ray 3D players have also become readily available.

An additional function that is well-known in the recent years is the WiFi feature. Together with WiFi capability you can easily get connected to the Internet with out requiring any wired connection.This feature is readily available in the players at a affordable rate. Using this, the online streaming of music or movies will become super easy.3D is a fresh function in TV as well as in players and is not widely available currently. Somebody having a 3D TV may go for a Blu-ray 3D player. The BD players will also play the normal DVD that most of us have.

A high speed HDMI cable must be used to get the best picture quality with the Blu-ray 3D player and 3D TV. The 1080p resolution that the Blu-ray sends to the TV can be delivered only with this cable. You receive picture and sound from only one cable and it carries both video and audio signals and hence HDMI cables are very convenient.  When you connect multiple devices this cable reduces the clutter that you encounter during the connection. You must make sure you get a HDMI cable when you have a 3D set up as most of the players don’t come with one included.

Any good player provides you with these: You will get a video output of 1080p/24 and most recent high resolution audio platforms. You will also get access to WiFi capability, DLNA support for your home network, online streaming media service, playback of media platforms like AVCHD, DIVX Plus and many more. The Blu-ray 3D players transform your living room to a hi-tech media center.