gdeditor: August 2014

Friday, August 29, 2014

9 free tools to manage a startup efficiently

Starting a business can be a daunting endeavor, especially if all you have is a cool product and not enough capital. In the tech world, or in any other niche for that matter, most startuppers fail not because they have bad products but because they are unable to generate enough consumer interest in their products.

Considering overheads and other back-office expenses, this scenario doesn’t come as a surprise. So if you’re still starting out and find yourself strapped for much needed funding to keep your startup afloat, the following free business productivity tools are worth checking out.

# 1. Bitrix24.com

If you need a collaboration tool your staff are most likely to adopt with relative ease and minimum training, take the social intranet route.

Bitrix24.com is the fastest growing social intranet that’s free for businesses with 12 employees or less. The application comes as a combination of several different work tools like CRM, project management, real-time streaming, activity planner, file sharing, to name just a few. As it is cloud-based, access can be anywhere, whether using your computer or smartphone. An upgrade to unlimited users starts at $99 per month.

# 2. GotFreeFax.com

In this era of e-mail and instant messaging, you’d think fax machines are no longer relevant. But if aLinkedIn survey as reported by Mashable is to be believed, fax machines are still in until 2017 steps in.

As you might have already guessed from the site’s name, GotFreeFax.com is an online service that allows you to send up to three pages of fax for free (maximum of two faxes per day) to any number in the United States or Canada. The site also offers premium pay-per-fax service should you need to send more.

# 3. RememberTheMilk.com

RememberTheMilk.com is an online productivity tool that assists in task and time management. Remember The Milk essentially functions as your all-in-one task manager, electronic calendar and to-do list. Aside from allowing you to share and split tasks with other people, the application can be integrated with GMail, too.

The pro account is priced at $25 for one year and comes with exclusive mobile app features and Microsoft Outlook integration.

# 4. Kolab.org

Kolab.org is an open-source group collaboration server that allows for sharing of notes, e-mail access, calendar organization, task management, address book maintenance, news aggregation, phone sync and journal integration. Kolab is secure, scalable, reliable, mobile and professional, ensuring productivity every step of the way. As a whole, the application requires some getting used to. But once you get the hang of it, the hassle can be all worth it.

# 5. WaveApps.com

Formerly WaveAccounting.com, WaveApps.com is an accounting software that’s fast, simple and easy to use, offering unlimited invoicing and expense tracking. 100% free for small businesses with nine employees or less, it’s accountant-approved and specifically designed for non-accountants. You can also securely connect your bank and PayPal accounts or other sources of data, and your transactions are automatically imported into the accounting software.

# 6. PRLog.org

To make your business presence known, one surefire route to take is through the distribution of press releases. PRLog.org is a site where you can dispense press releases for free. And if you feel you don’t have the necessary expertise to create a killer press release, the site provides instructions on how to write one, even how to embed videos where necessary.

# 7. Weebly.com

One cardinal business rule is that businesses should have their own websites to boost their market presence online. Weebly.com is a free website creator that doesn’t require website creation expertise. Until you’re ready to go for more complex and/or self-hosted sites that would require monthly or yearly payments, Weebly.com is a good alternative.

# 8. Join.me

For those meetings or web conferences on the fly, Join.me is a simple-to-use teleconferencing application that allows you to review documents and designs, train staff, do product demonstrations – basically to get everyone apprised of company updates. You can do transatlantic web conferences and presentations, too.

# 9. IFTTT.com

IFTTT.com, which is short for “if this, then that,” functions like a computer program repeatedly uttering if/then logic all day long. With IFTTT, you set up “recipes” to assist you with task automation. For a recipe to work, you have to have a channel, a trigger and an action. Examples of channels are Facebook, e-mail, Evernote, LinkedIn, just to mention a few.

For instance, if you’re tagged in a photo on Facebook, you can create a recipe that would automatically download the image into Dropbox.

What other free business productivity tools can you suggest?

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HACKERS NOW USING APPS TO HIJACK OTHER APPS ON YOUR DEVICE

According to a recent study, one of the latest tricks hackers have employed is the use of malicious apps to not only spy on you, but also steal sensitive information like passwords and financial data from your smartphone. Security researchers from the University of Michigan have found a weakness in Android, iOS, and Windows operating systems that allow these malicious apps to run in the background of your phone and spy on other popular apps such as email or banking applications.

So how exactly does this work and what can you do to protect yourself?

First the user downloads what they believe to be is a harmless, such as a ringtone or wallpaper app from the app store. However this app is actually running a program in the background that is hijacking your shared memory as it records everything that you are doing on your phone in real time As part of this study, Researcher Qi Alfred Chen has posted a video which demonstrates how this attack occurs as it steals the login credentials and the social security number from an H&R Block app. Once this malicious app is launched, it also begins to track user behavior and record sensitive information, which is then relayed back to the attacker. The scary thing is that these apps do not require any special permission from you to gain access to your shared memory, making them all the more dangerous.

To protect yourself from such an attack, it is wise to think twice before you download any random app, and make sure you check out the reviews and developer information. Often these malicious apps are difficult to identify, as they masquerade as something else. Only download apps from ligament sources and remove any apps from your device that do not meet your expectations or are no longer in use. Report any suspect activities to your provider.

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s typical that you will often be running several or more applications at the same time. And even more typical is that the more applications that you have running, the more likely it is that you will find your workspace to become so cluttered and confusing that you have a hard time staying focused and organized. This is the beauty of Mission Control, and often overlooked featured by many Mac users.

When running multiple applications, of course you can navigate between them by simply clicking on the application window or the dock icon. You can even utilize the multi-tasking keyboard shortcut Command + Tab to quickly switch between applications on your screen. However, often you will find that you just need to take a quick peek of everything that you on your screen to help you get organized and stay on track. This is where Mission Control comes in.

To access the Mission Control feature, either click on the icon in the dock or simply press the F3 button on your keyboard. By doing this, you will see all of the applications that you currently have open tile out, giving you a quick snapshot of everything you have going on at the moment. From here, all you need to do is just click on whichever window you would like to be active, and that window will now come to the top and become active.

However, to truly take advantage of what Mission Control has to offer, using a touch-sensitive pointing device such as the Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse will make life much easier for you. To quickly access Mission Control with a trackpad, simply place four fingers on the surface of the trackpad and swipe up. From here you can select a window to become active or swipe down to return to leave Mission Control and return to normal. Likewise, if you’re using a Magic Mouse, all you need to do is tap twice on the surface of the mouse with two fingers, and all the windows will tile out. Tap twice again to return, or select a window to become active.

The Mission Control feature in Mac OS X also allows for you to arrange windows into several different screens (or spaces) that you can quickly switch between. This is a great solution if you find that you often have multiple applications running with multiple windows cluttering your screen, as it allows you to utilize multiple desktops to feel as if you have more than one display. When in Mission Control, if you move your mouse all the way over to the right at the top of the screen, a plus button will appear. Clicking on this plus button will allow you to create additional or new desktops (spaces). Once you have created additional desktops, you now have the ability to drag and drop windows from one desktop to another, which is particularly useful when working on a laptop.

Once you have your desktops set up, you can quickly move between them in several ways. On your keyboard, you can hold the control key and hit your arrow keys either left or right to flip between these spaces, however if you are using either a Magic Trackpad o Magic Mouse, you will find navigating between desktops to be much easier. If you’re using a trackpad, you can place four fingers on the trackpad and swipe left or right to quickly jump between desktops. Or, if you use a Magic Mouse, you can place two fingers on the surface of the mouse and swipe left or right to navigate as well.

Once you begin using Mission Control, you will find that desktops (spaces) are really handy and a great way to keep your screen organized.

Google Nexus 9 blasts through AnTuTu with LTE on board

A couple of days after allowing us to catch a glimpse of its specs in CPU-Z, the yet to be announced Nexus 9 tablet showed up in the AnTuTu benchmark database. The HTC-made Android 5.0 tablet posted the impressive score of 45,923 in the popular benchmark.

The data from AnTuTu confirms the Nexus 9 specs we already know. They include 64-bit Nvidia Tegra K1 SoC with top clock speed of 2.5GHz (it explains the higher benchmark score than the non-64bit version we tested in the Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9).

The AnTuTu cameo of the Nexus 9 also reveals that the tablet will be available with LTE connectivity when official. The cellular connectivity was confirmed by the presence of an IMEI number on the device.

Rumored specs of the Nexus 9 include 8.9” display with 2048x1440 pixels, 16 or 32GB of built-on memory, 8MP camera, and built-in stereo speakers. The slate will likely debut at some point in Q3 this year.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 stars in very short hands-on video

The rumor mill sees Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 teaser videos and raises a short hands-on video. The video comes from Vietnam and features the phablet in a dummy box that conceals its design.

The device itself is the N910H, which should be based on Exynos 5433. Samsung's new chipset beat Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 in leaked AnTuTu benchmarks. There's going to be a Snapdragon 805 version too.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will be announced at IFA on September 3. It's expected to have a 5.7" Super AMOLED screen with QHD resolution (1,440 x 2,560 pixels, 515ppi), 16MP OIS camera and strange, unique sensors like a retinal scanner and a UV light sensor.

Android takes a bite out of iOS in the US

The latest smartphone manufacturer sales metrics provided by consumer analytics firm Kantar Worldpanel show that Android has increased its US market share by over 11 points compared to last year, for the three month period ending in July. Most of this gain comes at the expense of iOS, which has lost 11.8 points over the same period.

Growth in other markets is equally impressive, with sales in countries like Mexico breaking the 80% mark - a 17.6 point increase over the 3 month period ending in July 2013. China has also seen a healthy boost in OS sales, with Android gaining 8.4 points to rest at 84.6% - all at the expense of competing mobile OSs like iOS and Windows Phone, which lost 5.6 and 1.5 points, respectively.

This latest increase in Asia is attributed by Kantar to local handset manufacturers like Xiaomi and Huawei, with the former boasting a whopping 31.6% share in China. The trend is expected to continue internationally as well, as these players are expected to continue their expansion into outside markets. Not all local brands have seen success, however, as ZTE, Lenovo, and Oppo have all seen their shares drop.

The big five European markets - Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain - reflect the same strong Android presence with a 4 point increase over last year. This is attributed largely to Samsung, which saw sales of its Galaxy S5 flagship in the UK take 11.5% of all handset sales, making it the best-selling unit in the UK.

Windows Phone also saw increases in key markets, attributed to recent models like the Lumia 630 and 930. Great Britain, Italy, and Spain all saw healthy increases in WP sales figures, with the latter coming even at the expense of Android.

Nokia HERE Maps to provide free, offline navigation to Samsung Galaxy smartphones

Samsung and Nokia have announced that HERE Maps are arriving in beta form on Android, free for Galaxy phones. HERE comes with voice-guided navigation capabilities and will work offline too, something which Google Maps doesn’t allow.

The Tizen-running Samsung Gear smartwatches are getting HERE maps too. The initial announcement was a little vague but now we have the full details.

You can download offline maps for nearly 200 countries, about half of which support turn-by-turn walk or drive instructions. In around 40 countries you also get live traffic information (which does require an Internet connection). HERE also supports public transport navigation.

The Here.com site lets you pick out destinations, which will be synced with your device. You can also share destinations with your friends and family to improve the planning process.

It was February 1981. Nearly half of the Apple II engineering team at Apple Computer had been fired the previous day, and now the company's CEO, Steve Jobs, was peering over the wall of programmer Andy Hertzfeld's cubicle.

Hertzfeld was typing code for Apple II'soperating system when Jobs rounded the corner, yanked the computer's power cord out of the socket and carted the machine -- with Hertzfeld in tow -- from the corporate campus to a small office overlooking a Texaco station in Cupertino, Calif.

Hertzfeld wasn't fired; he was promoted.

He would spend his days authoring code for Apple's new Macintosh project [source:Hertzfeld]. The team had only a few months to create a new operating system that would be faster and more efficient -- and become the predecessor of today's iMacs.

The abrupt reassignment and truncated schedule were a workplace phenomenon Apple employees knew as a "reality distortion field." This Star Trek term was used to describe Jobs' ability to convince nearly anyone to do nearly anything -- and deliver it according to an unrealistic timetable [source: Hertzfeld].

Regardless of whether Jobs really could bend the time-space continuum, his drive and personality helped Apple Computers change the way people use technology. It was one of the first companies to transform the computer from an imperceptible mass of vacuum tubes stationed primarily at universities and government offices to a manageable-sized machine for ordinary people.

Today, Apple is as relevant as ever, thanks to new releases of Apple operating systems, software and hardware, and related products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Apple products are vertically integrated; the company makes its own hardware, software and accessories, and delivers the product whole to the consumer [source: Dalakov]. Instead of making decisions about what components and software to use and then manually installing them, Mac users can simply power up their computers and use them right out of the box. And if they have a problem with any component -- from keyboard to hard drive -- there's a single point of contact at Apple's customer service.

By contrast, PCs have hardware and software components made by multiple outside vendors. Users may need to communicate with several vendors to diagnose and fix a PC problem. However, being able to pick and choose components also makes PCs easier to customize than Macs in terms of both cost and capabilities [source: Nutter].

The ability to migrate information between Macs and PCs can be challenging because of each system's inherent differences. Macs are considered a "closed" system because their components -- software, hardware, operating systems -- are not compatible with non-Macs [source: Chaffin]. However, non-Apple-developed apps, accessories and even operating systems are becoming increasingly Mac-accessible.

Macs have a reputation for being more expensive than PCs, but feature-by-feature breakdowns have shown that show the fees are quite comparable. Building a laptop with similar features as a MacBook Pro, for example, may cost as much or more [source: Finnie].

For some Mac fans, however, price is not the point. It may be the lingering effects of reality distortion, but Apple's managed to create a computer with a virtual federation of loyal fans.

Seagate announces the first 8TB 3.5″ HDD for enterprises

Following the launch of its 6TB hard drive, Seagate today announced its 8TB HDD. Unlike Western Digital,which uses helium for its high-capacity HDDs, Seagate has opted for an alternative method.

Sadly, the company is mum on the method in question. Seagate has been known to use a shingled magnetic recording technology to bump the areal density of its disk platters.

Seagate says its new 8TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5″ HDD increases storage capacity using fewer components, while requiring less power than before. Moreover, the drive boasts the best watts-per-gigabyte for enterprise bulk data storage, but no specifics were mentioned.

The company is making the hard disk available for select customers, which are not specified. A wider release of the 8TB monster of a hard disk will happen in Q4 2014.

'BioShock' for iOS Will Arrive on Your Phones Tonight

BioShock for iOS has just landed and costs $14.99. The developers from 2K Games announced the arrival of the legendary title to Apple’s mobile platform earlier this month.

BioShock for iOS is a full port of the original 2007 game, so the premium pricing is hardly a surprise. The newcomer will feature slightly scaled-down graphics in order to be able to work with iOS hardware, as well as fit into the 2GB file size limit imposed by Cupertino.

Most importantly, the game is now available for you to download and try out.

BioShock for iOS will expectedly be compatible only with newer iOS hardware. The list of devices includesiPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPad Air, iPad 4, and iPad mini 2.

Olympus announces PEN E-PL7 mirrorless interchangeable lens camera

Olympus has announced the newest member of its PEN series of compact mirrorless interchangeable lens micro four thirds camera. The E-PL7 has some feature, many of which have been optimized for taking self portraits.

The E-PL7 has a 16.05 megapixel Live MOS sensor with TruePic VII processor. The camera features in-body 3-axis image stabilization, 81 auto focus points, 8fps burst mode (up to 20 RAW and unlimited JPEG images).

On the back is a 3-inch, 1.04 million dot articulating touchscreen LCD. The display can fold down and face forward to take self portraits. In fact, the camera seems almost optimized for this purpose, with several software features, such as an on-screen shutter button when the screen is facing forward that shoots a second later after you touch it so you can get into position, custom self timer with delay between 3 successive shots so you can change your pose between shots, ePortrait mode for better looking skin textures, and an improved iAuto mode that automatically detects and optimizes when a self portrait is being taken.

The E-PL7 also has built-in Wi-Fi and works with the improved OI.Share app to transfer images to your phone or control the camera through the mobile application.

The Olympus PEN E-PL7 will be available in late September in black and silver for $599.99 (body-only) and with M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 II R lens for $699.99.

Microsoft Surface 3 Pro now available in 25 more countries

Microsoft is expanding the availability of the Surface Pro 3 (which recently got a price cut) with 25 new countries (up from just 3!). The Docking Station is available for pre-order in those same regions.

The company calls the Surface “the tablet that can replace your laptop” and has an infographic to prove the need for its hybrid device. The company surveyed 2,900 professionals in eight Asia-Pacific markets and found that half travel between different cities for their work and four out of five carry three different devices devices.

The main problem with tablets and laptops is that a single device doesn’t meet all needs. Two out of five carry both a laptop and a tablet and of the other three, over 70% said they didn’t get a tablet because they couldn’t find one that will replace the laptop.

Microsoft points to the deficiencies of tablets but it’s really the laptops that will take the bigger hit. The survey showed that 30% of people plan to get a hybrid device in the next 12 months, matching the 30% who are looking at tablets. 27% said they will buy a laptop.

And here are the countries where you can buy a Microsoft Surface 3:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
China
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Hong Kong

Ireland
Italy
Japan
Korea
Luxembourg
Malaysia
the Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway

Portugal
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
the United Kingdom
the United States

Microsoft updates Windows Store app policy, removes over 1500 fake apps

Microsoft recently reported that a large number of its Windows Store apps are misleading users with inaccurate titles and descriptions. This has prompted the company to purge more than 1500 apps from its app catalog.

The removal of the apps in question comes as part of an attempt by Microsoft to improve the quality of its app selection, and is also reflected by the company’s updated app certification requirements.

The new requirements include:

Naming – to clearly and accurately reflect the functionality of the app.
Categories – to ensure apps are categorized according to the app function and purpose.
Icons – must be differentiated to avoid being mistaken with others.

The new policy also applies to submissions to the Windows Phone Store.

Besides purging the 1500 apps that it has found infringing upon these new rules, Microsoft will be refunding the purchase cost to any users who downloaded the apps because of a misleading title or description.

The latest move can be seen as admission of sorts by Microsoft that it may have become overeager of late to build its app catalog without paying much heed to app quality. Although it still has a ways to go to provide a truly robust app selection, it’s a step in the right direction.

Samsung’s Gear smartwatches to get HERE services from Nokia

Nokia has teased the inclusion of its robust HERE services suite, which includes Maps and Navigation among others to make its way onto Samsung’s Gear series of wearables.

Among those devices slated to get the HERE services is Samsung’s just-announced Gear S smartwatch, which will get turn-by-turn pedestrian navigation courtesy of Nokia’s service.

Currently, most of Samsung’s Gear wearables run on the company’s in-house Tizen OS, which Samsung debuted with the latest generation of the smartwatches. It’s unknown whether Tizen will be able to support more robust HERE applications than the pedestrian navigation on the Gear S.

The teaser, which Nokia posted on Twitter, is accompanied by the message “Tune in for more news tomorrow at 10am London time.” We’ll have to wait and see what Nokia has in store for Samsung wearables – maybe one day we’ll see an Android Wear-powered Gear with HERE maps to boot.

FADED: A POWERFUL (AND COSTLY) PHOTO EDITING APP FOR YOUR IPHONE

I don’t need to be the one to tell you that the photo editing and effects corner of the App Store is crowded. You already knew that. Fact is, you’ve probably already got more than a couple photo editing apps on your iPhone right now. You may even have a happy little routine all sorted out, something like: iPhone camera to VSCO Cam or Mextures possibly to Over and then to Instagram.

Sp do you have room for one more iPhone camera app in your life? Do you really need a new one? If you’re anything like me, that comes down to features and then ease of use.

Not long ago I ran into an app called Faded ($.99 + in-app purchases). It bills itself as the premier all-in-one photo editing app for the iPhone. Big talk, for sure, so of course I had to check it out.

What I found was a powerhouse photo editing app that is capable of producing beautiful results but that takes a bit of getting used to and tries to bilk me out of my hard-earned money too often.

In terms of design, I like the look of Faded. It’s got a chic-hipster feel to it that seems to put you in a creative mood. The app’s user-interface ranges from pretty-good to really great. It’s at it’s best when using the editing tools, but I’m not a fan of the way the app pulls photos in from various libraries on your iPhone. I expect the camera roll to be the first option—it’s very unlikely I’m going to want to re-edit an image I already edited in Faded, so I wish they’d move the Faded library down a few notches on the import screen.

In terms of features, I’ll start off by mentioning the first menu item you see once you open a photo in Faded: actions. Actions let you save a group of edits in order to make them easily repeatable. Love it.

Faded does have some compelling filter and effect options. Choose from categories such as clean, film, instant, portraits, hazy, moody, black and white and retro.

There are 34 free filters and 36 premium filters. One of my pet peeves is an app that you must purchase and then purchase again and again to get the full experience. It’s my number one gripe with Faded.

For instance: when you click on the clean filter set you get four free filters and four premium filters that you must purchase to use for an additional $.99—each. For the filters alone, there’s an additional $8.99 worth of upgrades to get the full offering! And that’s not even counting the cost of extra effects which tops out at an additional $4.95. So if you wanted to get the full experience from Faded, it’s not going to cost you the admission price of $.99. It’s really going to cost you in the neighborhood of $15!

A few of the “free” add-ons will actually cost you a social share.

Here’s what really bugs me about this approach: most of the best filters and effects appear to be premium.

Now let’s get back to what is actually good about Faded. I like the fact that you can separately control exposure and focus when taking a picture. It’s a nice touch that will let control freaks get that perfect shot.

For me one of the areas where Faded shines is the editing tools. You can easily adjust things like contrast, exposure, highlights, shadows, temperature, etc. You can also crop a bunch of ways. Thankfully these features are included in the purchase price.

I like that you can mashup two images within Faded without having to open another app for the effect. The controls for this are intuitive and it works well.

There are some frame options included in the app that I never use. With the exception of the circle frame, I’m not really a big frame person. But that is personal preference. Some people might enjoy the framing options—no additional purchases necessary.

To summarize, I think Faded is a powerful photo editing app that can help you do a lot with your iPhone images. But I resent the fact that it costs more than many Mac apps to get the full experience. To me, Faded isn’t a must-have app. Instead I view it as a nice-to-have app. I can get by without it using apps that are much, much cheaper with relatively similar functionality.

The strength of the app is that unifies various features you used to have to get by using multiple apps into one handy app. The downside is that it will cost you to make the most of it.

I almost feel weird typing this… but I recently got a new pen that doubles as a tablet stylus that just about makes me drool. It’s that nice. I’m talking about the Eco-Essential pen ($50).

Originally a Kickstarter project that raised about $20,000 more than the original funding goal, the Eco-Essential pen is something that resonated, and continues to resonate, with style-conscious techies everywhere.

At it’s core it’s very simple: it’s a pen with an optional stylus tip. But it’s more than that.

What sets it apart from a normal pen and/or tablet is it’s style and construction. It’s made from a beautiful, and sustainable, material: bamboo. Complimenting the body of the pen is a sleek aluminum cap.

It’s also customizable. Thanks to a stretch goal on Kickstarter, buyers can now use alternative cap-tips. Not only can you change the colored ring at the top but you can screw-on a Wacom-compatible tip (so all you designers out there can now have an equally design-worthy instrument).

There’s also an accessory that looks amazing that I haven’t had the pleasure of trying out, but would certainly love to: the Flex-Carry pouch. Be sure to check it out on the website.

There’s really not much else to say other than it writes well and taps equally as well. In other words, it works great and looks amazing.

While there are numerous reasons why you should and perhaps should not partition the native hard drive on your Mac, most would agree that it’s sound advice to do so prior to installing beta software on your machine. As Apple has just released their OS X Yosemite Public Beta 2, now is the perfect time to consider partitioning your drive. The good news is that the process is quick and easy, and by following this step-by-step guide, you can accomplish this simple task in less than 5 minutes.

Step 1

From Finder, navigate to Applications

HD > Applications

Step 2

From Applications, navigate to the Utilities Folder.

HD > Applications > Utilities

Step 3

From Utilities, navigate to Disk Utility and double-click to launch the Disk Utility application.

HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

Step 4

Once Disk Utility has been launched, select the drive you wish to partition from the left.

Step 5

Once you have selected the hard drive of your choice, you will see a few options on the right hand side. Select Partition.

Step 6

After you have selected Partition, you will see the current capacity of your hard drive. At the bottom left corner of the Partition Layout, you will find a plus button icon to add a partition. Click on this plus button and next you will see 2 partitions. You now have the ability to slide the bar up or down to create the size of the partition you desire based from the available space.

Step 7

If desired, rename your new partition via the Name field under Partition Information and then select Apply in the lower right corner.

Step 8

A dialogue box sill appear to confirm that you are sure you want to partition the selected disk. Select Partition.

And you’re done! Now all you have to do when you run the OS X Yosemite beta installer is select the new partition that you have just created as the destination and you will now have the capability to run the new OS X beta side by side with Mavericks on your other partition.

ZTE's Cheap, Unlocked Smartphone Has Camera Cred To Spare

Cheap, unlocked phones are harder to come by in the U.S., but you're about to have at least one more option with ZTE's new Nubia 5S Mini LTE, which ships August 27 for $280.

Joining the affordable ranks of Sharp's just-announced $250 Aquos Crystal is the Nubia 5S, which comes with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable memory, and runs on a quad-core Snapdragon 400 chip. The refreshingly not-giant 4.7-inch phone has a 720p screen, so the specs overall aren't what you'd call premium. But where it lacks in horsepower, it makes up in a respectable camera-5-megapixels on the front and 13MP on the back with manual and pre-set features. And if you break it, ZTE will fix it for the first 18 months for 80 bucks. Not bad for the cheapskates in all of us.

The phone should be available for pre-order on Amazon starting today (although we're not seeing it yet), and it will start shipping in a week.

Why Your Next Smartphone May Not Cost A Fortune

Wanting to own the very best-the fastest processor, a display packing the most pixels, a professional-grade camera-made sense in the days when nearly every smartphone was terrible. A raft of new devices, though, has cemented that cheap price no longer means cheap quality. And they're going to save you a whole lot of money.

Just this week, two impressive devices were announced at equally low prices, chilling well below the $300 mark off-contract. Sharp's Aquos Crystal is a quirky, virtually bezel-free stunner that's deceptively competent, while ZTE's Nubia 5S Mini LTE found a way to pack in a 13-megapixel camera into a sleek, styled, affordable body. These phones join a growing group of devices that offer capable performance at similar prices like the Moto G or the Lumia 630. We've even crossed the price threshold were $300 can still get all the top specs you want; just look at the OnePlus One.

If $300 sounds expensive, remember that the full retail price of that new iPhone is at least twice that. The reason you get it for less is that you're signing away the next two years of your mobile life to one carrier. And if you lose or break your device midway through that contract? You're going to feel the full weight of that $650 replacement phone. T-Mobile's already done away with the antiquated concept of subsidies to a degree, but most of us are still trapped in that two-year mindset. Having affordable options that exist outside of that system, though, could finally set us free.

The biggest factor in all of this? The actual phones. In 2008, I bought an 16GB iPhone 3G on contract (c'mon, everyone was doing it) for $300. We're talking single core processors, 128MB of memory, 2 megapixel camera. After two years of use, Apple upgraded my phone into oblivion, and I moved onto the next best thing, which was substantially better. It was like leapfrogging into the future.

That's not really the case any more. I test, hold, poke, prod, and review all kinds of smartphones-I have four on my desk right now. Switching between them and my two-year-old iPhone 5, which you can buy used (and probably in better condition) for about $350, performance-wise. is pretty negligible. Smartphone progress has moved in, unpacked, and picked out matching drapes in the cul-de-sac of diminishing returns.

That's why many companies don't obsess over specs anymore, and instead explore frontiers like waterproofing, "premium materials," optical heart rate sensors, and even iris scanners. These peripheral features help Samsung and Apple justify top-tier prices. Meanwhile the cost to make smartphones do what we use them for 99 percent of the time, like navigating without stutter, playing games and movies, taking some decent pictures, and overall just looking great, keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.

And it's not just smartphones; the same thing's been happening for years in digital cameras, music, and even military tech. Some describe it as a "Good Enough" era, but these sub-$300 options are starting to offer features and hardware that we can just drop "enough" altogether. They're just good. In some cases, they're great.

This doesn't mean wanting the biggest or greatest or most powerful smartphone makes you weird. Believe me, I'll be obsessing over the new Note 4 and the iPhone 6 like the rest of you. But even for spec-heads, there's comfort knowing that if I need to replace my phone mid-contract, I can get a pretty damn good one for less than half of what a new, full-price iPhone would cost me.

Pulling back this long-standing pricing veil as well as a swell of smartphone manufacturers trying to undercut current devices leaders with competent low cost options shows that cheap smartphones could be making serious inroads in the U.S. And that means serious savings for your wallet, without even feeling like you're sacrificing.

gdeditor

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