Thursday, November 13, 2014

5 people who might try to ruin your wedding


THE TESTY BRIDESMAID

The Problem: "I love my maid of honor, but getting her in a dress that wasn't black or covered every inch of her was a task. If we found a color or a print, she would tell me that she didn't want to take attention away from the bride."

Our Advice: If one of your bridesmaids is a little nervous about showing some skin or wearing a bold color, it's better to find her an alternate option than to force her into something she's not comfortable with. For a modest maid of honor, make a strapless dress more conservative by incorporating a wrap, a fun cardigan, or a vintage bolero jacket in a complementing shade. Or play up your color palette in a subtler way with jewelry or hair fascinators. And look at the bright side -- compromising now will give you a little leverage when you serve as a maid in her wedding.

THE WEDDING KNOW-IT-ALL
The Problem: "My future sister-in-law is telling me I shouldn't wear a white dress because it would be too harsh with my skin tone, wants to register for gifts with me (as well as tell me what to register for), and is suggesting where we honeymoon!"

Our Advice: When wedding suggestions cross the line from helpful to aggravating, it's time to redirect that input so that you don't end up arguing over something that might not seem so significant a few years down the line. Assign specific tasks to keep her busy but still involved, like helping you confirm orders with vendors or assembling favors.

THE DOESN'T-KNOW-HER-PLACE WEDDING GUEST
The Problem: "One of our guests keeps insisting that we invite everyone on her 'party guest list' to our destination wedding -- I even found an open invite on her MySpace page!"

Our Advice: Some wedding guests take it upon themselves to suggest a few invitees. And then some guests invite everyone on the Internet. Unless you want Tom from MySpace raising a glass to toast your union, make sure it's clear that there's only one guest list for your wedding. Luckily, rationalizing a small guest list is a lot easier when you have a destination wedding -- just explain that you're having an intimate wedding with close friends and family only (she should feel honored that she's one of them!).

HE OVER-EAGER WEDDING GUEST
The Problem: "A woman my mother works with wants to do my ceremony music, and a customer of my mother's always volunteers to help and acts like she is family. I hardly know her!"

Our Advice: You know that expression about too many cooks in the kitchen? Meet its wedding equivalent. Having a lot of people offer to help you plan sounds like a blessing, but when assistance comes from left field, it can feel like more of a hindrance. If you feel like someone's eagerness is a bit more than you need, let her know how grateful you are for the offer, but that you're in great shape, planning-wise, and that if anything comes up that she could help with, you'll be sure to call.

THE CHILDREN-OR-BUST WEDDING GUEST
The Problem: "My husband-to-be has a niece and nephew (both under five), and his sister, her husband, and his parents said they would refuse to come if the children aren't allowed."

Our Advice: A lot of couples choose not to invite kids to their wedding, but if you risk a boycott by some VIPs, find a way soothe the situation. Offer to hire a babysitter and set up a private area with games, coloring books, and a few comfy pillows for little ones to crash on if the reception runs past their bedtimes. Your relatives might even offer to chip in once they see how accommodating you're being, but if they don't, the extra expense will be worth bypassing the drama of a fight with your new family.

Source:
www.msn.com

15 Things Not to Apologize for in Your Relationship


Whoever said “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” clearly hadn’t spent an hour in a house with two married people. For most couples, sorry serves as a convenient catch all that can stand for anything from "You knew it was your turn to do carpool duty" to "Yup, honey, don’t bother looking for that pint of Haagen Daz from last night." But even though it may smooth the waters in the moment, sorry isn’t doing your bond any favors in the long term.

“Women, especially, have a habit of saying ‘I’m sorry’in order to smooth the waters,” says Julia Colwell, Ph.D., a psychologist in Boulder, CO, and author of The Relationship Skills Workbook. “But it creates an odd power dynamic, especially when you’re apologizing to mask how you really feel.” Instead, Colwell urges you to go deeper and explain what’s really going on. For example, you arrive home an hour late. Yes, you’re sorry that your husband was suddenly solely responsible for dinner prep, but you’re likely also stressed-out, overwhelmed, and feel like you need some pampering. “By letting someone see the complete picture, including the fact that being on time sometimes just isn’t feasible, you’re forming the basis for a real conversation,” says Colwell.

And then there are other times when you’re actually not sorry at all. Instead of pretending, cop to the fact that you enjoy and are entitled to the harmless guilty pleasures you enjoy—and allow your husband the same self-indulgent freedom in his quirks, habits, and preferences. ”Every time we don’t tell the truth, which includes insincere apologies, we’re throwing dirt on the fire that sparks the connections between ourselves and others,” says Colwell. With that said, here are 15 things you should never apologize for in your relationship.

1. The fact that you really, really want another baby. Does saying it mean it’s going to become a reality? No. But whether or not expanding your family is feasible, it’s a desire that deserves attention and consideration. Otherwise, you risk becoming resentful and forever playing the if-only game.

2. That you can be a bitch without your coffee. We aren’t going to change certain things about ourselves. You may be cranky before 8 a.m., even if you love everything else associated with your newborn’s face. Being honest about it is part of living in a multidimensional, emotion-filled world. Offer your husband the same grace to be totally who he is. You’ll both be happier, if a little more disgruntled—and that’s okay.

3. That sometimes you think that if Handy Manny weren’t a cartoon and if you were single, there really might be something between the two of you. Just think of all the home-improvement projects that would get done. But seriously, a little what-if-ing is normal and nothing to be sorry about, especially if it’s limited to the realm of animated children’s characters.

4. That the barista at the coffee place is the only person in your life allowed to call you honey. Your husband can call you babe, hot stuff, whatever… but honey is between you and the man who makes your PSLs.

5. That you love his mom—but you know your lasagna recipe is better. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

6. That you loved the purse he picked out for you. And by "loved," you mean you loved the fact that he included a gift receipt. It’s the thought that counts.

7. That you will never tell him what an inside joke between you and your BF really means. Because, really, it’s not funny at all if you weren’t there.

8. That his sweat-stained, holey Madison High School Lions ’99 T-shirt is missing. And yes, you may have had something to do with it.

9. That you were right about when you should have left to get to the airport on time. There are some moments when it’s good to gloat. This is one of them. Give yourself five minutes of full on I-was-right-ing, then get those tickets rebooked.

10. That your toddler is mid-meltdown… and you’re late for book club. But remember, this means not waiting for him to say “I’m sorry" the next time he’s heading to band practice right as your toddler breaks down.

11. That you think his butt is "adorbs." And yes, that is the word you use when you describe it to your friends.

12. That you used his razor. It just works better.

13. That dinner tonight is cereal. Unless he has a better option.

14. That you distracted him at work with a suggestive text. Who said sexting is for teenagers?

15. That there’s no one you’d rather be driven nuts by than him, and that you hope the feeling is mutual. Because, really, isn’t that what love is?

Source:
www.msn.com

20 Things You Didn't Know About 3-D Printing


1. We’ve heard so much hype about the wonder of 3-D printers, but they aren’t really printers at all. They’re “additive manufacturers” more akin to Star Trek’s replicators, building incredibly complex three-dimensional objects by spraying materials in successive layers through special nozzles.

2. Unlike Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, you can’t yet order “tea, Earl Grey, hot,” but several foodstuffs are already in testing, including scallops, cookies and burritos.

3. Mmmmm, burritos. Thingiverse, an online community for sharing 3-D designs, has dozens of templates for print-at-home bongs, bubblers and other items that elicit the munchies.

4. From spaced-out to space itself: NASA is sending a 3-D printer to the International Space Station so its crew can build spare parts — a far cry from the 1970 Apollo 13 misadventure when that crew stayed alive by MacGyvering a carbon dioxide filter using duct tape, cardboard and a plastic bag.

5. Speaking of MacGyver, the TV character hated guns, hence his reliance on a pocketknife as sharp as his wits. He would have been dismayed to learn about the The Liberator — a plastic, single-shot pistol made on a 3-D printer — which easily gets past metal detectors.

6. Should you prefer making love, not war, the following will help: The sex toy industry has embraced 3-D printing with such gems as a toy shaped like Justin Bieber. Don’t ask.

7. It’s not only Beliebers rejoicing in their heroic figures. Engineers at Loughborough University in the U.K. used a 3-D printer to rebuild the skeleton of King Richard III.

8. Even more exciting than entire skeletons are individual bones. Replacement jawbones and hips are among the medical uses of 3-D printing.

9. Fitting, considering the fumes from 3-D printers may necessitate a new set of lungs. Research in the journal Atmospheric Environment shows many desktop 3-D printers produce emissions linked to health issues ranging from asthma attacks to strokes.

10. Some emissions come from certain plastics used as printer feedstock. But 3-D printers can use many other base materials: metal alloys, paper and even soil.

11. Not bad for technology that can cost as little as $300.


3-D printed pieces of the RepRap Mendel.

12. Or you can buy a printer to make your printer. The RepRap Mendel 3-D printer can build about 50 percent of itself and counting. Can anyone say The Matrix?
13. If this is starting to freak your mind, you’re in good company. President Barack Obama devoted some of his 2013 State of the Union address to the technology, saying it has “the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.”

14. Perhaps Obama got inspired after the White House viewing of the James Bond movie Skyfall. The Aston Martin DB5 that Bond appeared to drive was one of three models created using a 3-D printer.

15. Those DB5s were models. The URBEE isn’t: This hybrid car in development by Kor Ecologic aims to reach over 200 mpg on the highway. The car’s entire interior and exterior will be made with a 3-D printer.

16. First a car, then a house. Researchers at MIT have developed a 3-D material modeled after bone — denser on the outside than the inside, and seriously strong. It could be the next big thing in framing buildings.

17. The very small has its appeal, too. Northwestern University researchers are using low-cost desktop printers in nanofabrication. Several pint-size projects are in development, including gene chips, protein arrays, stem cell controls and electronic circuits.

18. There’s also cause for old-school audiophiles to party hard. An engineer at the project-sharing site Instructables has figured out how to convert digital music files into vinyl-like LPs.

19. Old wax must also be on the minds of artists at Madame Tussauds. It takes up to six months for a team of artists to create one of the wax figures. Yet a solo American 3-D designer, Dan Roarty, recently created a lifelike, printable 3-D model based on his belated grandmother in a third of the time.

20. If you’d like to extend the believe-it-or-not family portrait theme, you can order a 3-D model of your unborn baby. Several new fetal Fotomats specialize in turning sonograms into sculptures, lending new meaning to the term “prenatal development.”

What exactly is a landing page?



If you are using a home page as your landing page, be assured you are losing valuable sales leads. The home page of a website is designed to be general purpose and explains what it is your business does, and why you do it so well. Imagine your home page is the shop front window: the buyer may stop and admire your products, but if you cannot engage the buyer’s interest, they are just as likely to continue window-shopping onto the next website, and chances are you will never see them again.

A landing page, on the other hand, might be considered an open door. It is a standalone page that appears in response to clicking on an advertisement or email link, engages directly with the potential buyer, and captures data to generate sales opportunities.


Source:
www.creativebloq.com/

9 Spotify tools for hardcore music fans


What more could music fans want from an app that contains more than 20 million songs? Quite a bit, it turns out.
There are several tools you can use to get more out of using Spotify, whether it's a brand new Premium feature that connects your phone and desktop, a website that creates a playlist to relive that incredible show you went to last week, or a browser extension that opens up a Spotify search whenever you right-click text (just don't try searching "Taylor Swift").

 If Spotify is the first application you want to open when you wake up in the morning and find the the soundtrack to your life, this is the list for you.

1. Spotify discounts
 First, the basics: If you're a student or part of a family of Spotify listeners, you can subscribe to Spotify Premium at a discounted rate. Students pay $4.99 per month and families get 50% off the regular $9.99 per month rate. Even better, students who already subscribe to Premium can get the discount applied to their existing accounts.

2. HTML widgets
Spotify's developer website has guides to using and applying the service's HTML widgets: one for adding a "follow" button to a Spotify user page and another for adding a music player to a web page (like the one pictured above). These widgets are a great tool for aspiring musicians and fans alike.

3. Hotkeys
If you're sick of switching tabs to skip a song when you're using the Spotify web player, then you'll be happy to learn about Hotkeys. The Chrome extension allows you to play, pause and go to the previous or next track with keyboard shortcuts from any tab.

4. Spotify Connect
Spotify Connect is a brand new Premium feature that turns your phone or tablet into a remote. Connect is built straight into the app interface (make sure you have the most recent versions of Spotify), so you can start using it immediately.

VIDEO: YOUTUBE, SPOTIFY
5. Set Listener
Set Listener came together this summer as a combination of the (then brand-new) Spotify API, the Setlist.fm API and Spotify's acquisition of The Echo Nest, which uses mountains of data to create personalized radio and other customized features. Set Listener is simple, yet ingenious — input the name of an artist, and it'll create a Spotify playlist based on that artist's last show (you can also manually create a playlist with a Setlist.fm link to an earlier show). Avid concertgoers know how exciting this is.

6. Spotipedia
This Chrome extension works in concert with Wikipedia to make a great tool for quick research. Open up the Wikipedia page for an artist, click on the extension in the Chrome toolbar and a Spotify player will open with that artist's songs, ready to play.

7. Magnetify
Magnetify for Chrome opens Spotify links in the desktop application instead of in the web player, which is the default path. It'd be a useful extension if it only did that, but Magnetify also opens a mini player when you hover over a Spotify link, allows you to open a Spotify search from the browser window when you right-click highlighted text and saves your last 10 opened Spotify URLs. It's also simple and easy to use.

8. Pandora to Spotify Playlist Converter
This converter, which runs on Chrome, creates a Spotify playlist out of thumbed-up tracks on Pandora. It's best for Pandora users who want an easier way of saving their favorite tracks.

9. Equalify
Equalify, a plugin only available for Windows systems, is worth a try for audio geeks who want to make sound adjustments with an equalizer, a feature that the Spotify desktop app doesn't currently have. With Equalify, you can open a 10-band equalizer from inside the app.





Source:
mashable.com

5 Apps That Will Change The Way You Think About Photos


Your smartphone has a great camera, these apps will make the photos you take even smarter.

When it comes to taking a good photograph, the human eye is still the best sensor. What happens to the image after that is probably something a machine can do just as well or better, especially given the massive number of images piling up in our photo albums today. And that's why the breakthroughs in the next era of imagery are going to be done by computers. Apps are already arriving that help us explore the possibilities, ranging from retouching tools to software that addresses the enormous availability of images in the digital age.
Here are five photo apps that are changing the way you think about pictures.

Social Sweepster
We are taking more photos than at any other time in history. Billions of images are being uploaded, many never to be looked at again. And they might just include something that you don't want the rest of the world to see. But who has time to scour a photo archive looking for the stray bong or worse?
The idea that we need to focus on limiting—rather than creating—images is one way in which our ideas about photos are changing in 2014.
A service that neatly explores this concept is Social Sweepster. It's a tool that scans your online social presence (currently Facebookand Twitter, but soon expanding to Tumblr and Instagram) and flags questionable images that you may not want in the public domain.
“Our primary user would be someone who has recently graduated from college and is looking to clean up their photos ready for job applications,” says founder Tom McGrath. Recruiters regularly look at Facebook and Instagram accounts as part of their employee screening process. One recent study even demonstrated that it’s possible to predict job performance based on the pictures on a person’s Facebook profile. That hilarious picture of you passed out at your end-of-year college party? Maybe not so funny now.
As with many next-gen smart photo tools, Social Sweepster doesn’t just look at the image itself to gather data. In addition to computer vision, the software also uses text recognition algorithms to sift through keywords associated with images. It’s even possible to examine the context of images, since metadata can regularly reveal where a photo was taken.
“We’re really trying to tackle one of the hardest computer vision problems out there, which is recognizing images in the wild,” McGrath continues. “Recognizing a single beer can in a photo that’s small, low-resolution, and badly lit is a real challenge. Being able to do that—and do it accurately—is very, very tough.”

TouchRetouch
Removing a stray plastic bag from a photo of people praying at the Ganges might get you disqualified from a National Geographic contest, but for everyone else it simply makes for a better picture.
Whether it’s removing a photo-bombing stranger from that lovely shot of you and your family, or taking out an ugly hotel from an otherwise stunning landscape scene, one popular request for photo apps is the ability to touch up existing photos. Unlike other methods of removing unwanted detritus from pictures, TouchRetouch intelligently carries this work out on your behalf, rather than requiring time-consuming manual work. Just select the image component you wish to remove, and leave it to the software to do the rest. Once an element has been selected, the app smartly analyzes what is going to be required to fill a certain area, and then sets about filling it using image components cloned from other parts of the photo.
The end result is impressive—and developer Kostyantyn Svarychevskyy credits it with the new processing power of smart devices, which can now carry out the kind of intensive graphical work that previously would have required a much larger graphics-oriented machine.
“Increase of computational power of smartphones provides the possibility of using new technology or advanced algorithms and user experience,” he says. “In newer versions we [also plan to] try to improve this technique on more complex backgrounds, such as buildings.”

Vhoto
The idea that the massive quantity of images we gather today opens up new possibilities for photographers is the idea behindVhoto. “We talk about camera ubiquity a lot as a team,” says creator Noah Heller. “What does it mean when everyone carries devices with multiple cameras built into them? And what happens when those cameras are on all the time? You have to ask yourself what you’re going to do with this amazing amount of content.”
Vhoto uses computer vision technology to scan your videos to find and extract the best photographic moments. “The concept that you have to press a button to take a single picture is a really old idea that goes back to chemical cameras,” Heller continues. “That no longer has to be the case. If you want a record of a great moment in your life, why not just let the camera go and then let technology sift out and sort the best end images. Our mantra is that users should think of photography as fishing with a net, not with a hook.”
Some of the metrics Vhoto examines are fairly straightforward: sharpness, clarity, color, and the presence or absence of a face or smile. But the model also takes into account more abstract features like novelty, context, and composition. Rather than the photographer having to be consciously aware of all these elements, the app learns preferences based on the past behavior of individual users so it gets better at predicting what photographic elements you’re likely to be interested in. Whatever pictures you end up sharing, saving, or otherwise interacting with will be analyzed so that future similar images can be elevated within the model.
“It’s not our job to force people to like photos a professional critic might say is better composed, it’s our job to help people get the photos that they want,” Heller says. “If our users turn out to like photos with a certain color composition or facial expression, that’s what our machine learning model needs to deliver.”

Color Thief
The rise of Instagram has made filters increasingly popular, but some tools take the concept of post-processing pictures further than others. Color Thief is an example of a great color correction app that should be on every budding smartphone photographer’s device.
“Color Thief takes the colors from one of your photos and transfers them to another,” says creator Aaron Barsky. Blurring the line between functional image modification and something entirely new, Barsky likens the app to challenging a painter to repaint your photo, using only the color palette from another photo of your choosing.
“We count how often a color is used in both photos,” Barsky continues, explaining how the app functions. “We then transfer the most frequently used color from the source to the most frequently used color in the target, and similarly down to the least frequently used color.” The challenge, he says, is in grouping colors together. “A photo could have hundreds of subtle shades that a human would identify as light blue—but the computer sees as completely different colors. We use ‘mathemagic’ to make sure the color transfer happens with smooth gradients of color.”
Although Color Thief is a post-processing step for images, rather than a camera app in itself, it still benefits from the improved quality of smartphone cameras. “Color Thief works best on photos that have a sharp in-focus foreground with a blurred background,” Barsky says. “As our users can take better and better photos with the built-in camera, the more fun they'll have remixing those photos with our tool.”

AutoStitch
It started as a computer vision research project at the University of British Columbia, and now AutoStitch is a panoramic photo app that leaves it rivals in the dust. It has two major benefits over other similar apps, as well as the built-in panoramic functionality found in an increasing range of smartphones.
It's a versatile tool that doesn't require taking a single sweep shot. As long as the images overlap in some way, the photographer is free to experiment with images in any order or arrangement—including horizontal, vertical, or a mixture of both. It’s even possible to stitch together photos taken with different camera apps, as well as those imported from other devices.
The quality of the finished images is also vastly superior to other panorama apps. Inputs are composed of full resolution images, which allows for each photo to be composed individually. The overlapping regions of these high-def photos are then automatically blended to ensure seamless transitions between images. The end result is an impressively professional panoramic photograph.
“By using the other sensors on board, and with the sheer processing power available, the door is open to create tools that will take smartphone cameras beyond what is possible with traditional cameras in many ways,” says developer Geoff Clark, speaking about the future of smart camera apps in general. “Augmented reality shooting guides that analyze the images in real time, or light-field capture that allows for re-focus of images, are a couple of examples.”
So go ahead and snap all the photos you like. Just put them somewhere accessible to the algorithm that's going to make them worth looking at again.


Source:

Samsung reveals 3D virtual reality camera, new plans for health tracking


Samsung just revealed a host of new products and tools for developers, including new details about its futuristic health tracker and a 3D camera for its virtual reality headset.

The announcements came during Wednesday's keynote presentation at the company's second developer conference in San Francisco.

SEE ALSO: Samsung Gear VR: What a Trip

"VR is about much more than games and video," Nick DiCarlo, Samsung's vice president of immersive products and virtual reality, said.

The company previewed a new experimental virtual reality project, called "Project Beyond," a 3D camera for the Gear VR headset. Samsung says the camera can capture and live stream a gigapixel a second.
Developers can now pre-register to get a Gear VR that will be available in early December and a software development kit for the headset is available now.

Samsung president Dr. Won-Pyo Hong also revealed more information about the company's plans in the healthcare space, saying it represented a "great opportunity" for the company.

"We believe healthcare monitoring technology will encourage preventive healthcare," Hong said, highlighting the company's previously announced health-focused Simband wristband.

That health-tracking wristband, which is powered by the open source platform SAMI (Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions), still doesn't have a release date but developers will soon have the opportunity to get their hands on it. The APIs and software development kits promised to developers earlier this year are now available.

On the mobile side, the company also showed off a new Advanced S Pen stylus and software development kit as a well as a "New Look" SDK for the company's Galaxy Note Edge smartphone. The New Look SDK will allow developers to take advantage of the Note Edge's curved screen in their apps.
Samsung also teased plans for Flow, a Continuity feature that will bring Samsung's many devices, including smartphones, smartwatches, and televisions, together. With Flow, your phone can be charging in another room and you will be able to see incoming phone call notifications on your television, for example.

The company also revealed more about its plans for the SmartThings, the Internet of Things startup it acquired earlier this year. All of Samsung's connected appliances, including televisions, refrigerators and ovens, will now be able to powered by the SmartThings platform. Samsung also announced a Smart Home SDK that will allow developers to build apps for Samsung appliances that can be controlled from Samsung smartphones

Source:
mashable.com/