Articles | Shweta Taneja

February 14, 2013June 16, 2016

Love clicks

Online dating ideas for couples stuck in different cities on Valentine’s Day

Harish Atharv Thakur, 26, is an entrepreneur based in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. His girlfriend, Anjali Suryavanshi, 23, works as a physiotherapist in Jabalpur in the same state. In the last few years, they have only been able to meet sporadically. “But we don’t really feel that we are away from each other, thanks to the Internet,” says Thakur.

The couple uses Viber and WhatsApp for free messages. “For special nights like birthdays or dates, we set up video-chatting on Skype, light a candle for each other and talk for hours,” says Thakur, who feels a long-distance relationship would have been impossible without the Internet, though he concedes that distance and doing the same old things virtually can become boring. “You can call on the phone, email, IM or even text, but you sometimes need something innovative to keep the zing going.”

So for couples who cannot be in the same city on Valentine’s Day, here are some ideas to light up your relationship…all you need is an Internet-enabled device.

A movie date

Watching a movie at the same time, seeing each other’s reactions, laughing at a scene together and hearing comments while the movie is playing is a memorable experience.

You need: A device with high-speed Internet, a video-camera and a tub of popcorn.

How: Log in to your Google Plus Hangout (plus.google.com/hangouts) on your laptop (or any other device enabled with a video camera and Internet). Click on the Start a Hangout button on the top right side of your screen. Install the Hangout plug-in (it will take 2 minutes). Make sure your mic and camera are working on both ends by looking at your video feed at the bottom of the page. Now invite your partner by entering his/her name in the Add Names section. Once that’s accepted, open another browser window and choose a movie to screen from YouTube (www.youtube.com/movies) offerings. Now click on the Screenshare button on the side of your screen on Hangouts. In the window that pops up, choose your browser with the YouTube movie playing and click on Share Selected Window. You can watch the movie along with a video box to see each other’s expressions and voices at the same time.

Post some smiles

If you and your partner are in different time zones and there’s no way you can even be online at the same time, then here’s something you can do: Record your day as it happens, the things you do and the moments when you miss your partner the most. When your Valentine wakes up later, he/she will have all these video messages waiting in their Tango app. All he/she needs to do is open an app and smile at your day’s antics.

You need: A webcam-enabled laptop or a smartphone.

How: Download the Tango (www.tango.me) app for desktops, iOS, Android or Windows Phone 7. Tango works like other IM chat apps like WhatsApp and Viber, except that you can send messages in video format. Once you have installed it in your phone, it automatically includes contacts from your Contact list. Choose your date’s contact and then click on Video Message. Record a message and tap Send.

Share your entire day

Sometimes a mere email or even a series of messages are not enough to convey your life to each other or what you have been going through. Sharing messages isn’t enough for some people and if you’re one of them, then Couple is a way to share every part of your life.

You need: Internet-enabled smartphones.

How: Couple (trycouple.com, free for iOS and Android) is a social network app for just the two of you. You can share photos, text, “miss you” moments, take pictures and post things you see and go by, video-chat, create to-do lists, put in special dates and even sketch together. You can even thumbkiss or match your thumbs on your phones’ screens and get a vibration. Other apps which are similar and act like a digital dropbox for all your memories are Between (appbetween.us, free for iOS and Android) and Avocado (avocado.io, free for iPhone and Android).

Play a board game

From Scrabble to Pictionary to Euro-style board games—almost all the popular games are available to play for free online. Pick something you both like, and start playing.

You need: A computer.

How: OMGPOP (omgpop.com) offers cute 3D games ranging from card games to Pictionary. It has about 30 games on its list. All you need to do is take your pick from the Games list on the top and press Play Now. That leads you into a “lobby” area where you can invite others to play with you. Click on the Invite link below the game, and you can send the link generated to your partner.

Go to a concert

Love attending music concerts together? With live streaming you can go to an online concert with your partner as a date.

You need: An Internet-connected device with external speakers (laptop or tablet speakers would not suffice for a good music show).

How: IRocke (irocke.com) is a collection of live-stream concerts from around the world. Most of their concerts are free and there are many choices in terms of timing, genre and artistes. Log on to the platform and filter the shows available by Genre or Rating.

Read the complete story on the HT Mint website

February 5, 2013June 16, 2016

The coolest compact options

Digital cameras are doing more than ever before—from printing instantly to recording your life or a giving first-person view of sports

Smartphones are taking over the role of basic point-and-shoot digital cameras, but the camera industry is reinventing itself and a number of new devices really push the limits of what was possible for a compact camera. Basic point-and-shoot cameras are being replaced by smarter cameras that are able to record your life, tweet a picture right after clicking it, or even take a print to hand to the people you’re with. We take a look at some compact cameras that are changing digital photography.

GoPro Hero3

Like its predecessors, the Hero3 is meant to be worn and captures photos and videos from the perspective of the one wearing it, making it perfect for athletes. It is wearable, mountable and water-proof (up to 60m). It can capture ultra-wide HD videos at 1080p and 60 frames per second (fps) and 12 MP photos at 30 photos per second. To reduce recording distortion, the camera has a six-element aspherical lens and gives more perspective-capture options, apart from reducing wind noise in recording.

$399.99 (around Rs.22,130), plus shipping, at Amazon.com.

Lytro light-field camera

Turning camera technology on its head, Lytro lets you take pictures where you can adjust the focus even after saving the picture. You can shoot photos in 3D or reorient and shift the perspective of the photograph as well, using a special light-field technology. Though the Lytro is a basic device, it produces interactive, living pictures in a light-field picture (.lfp) file format which can be stored for free on Lytro’s website (Lytro.com) and viewed on any smart device.

$399 for 8 GB storage and $499 for 16 GB on www.lytro.com. Currently ships to the US, with distributors in Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore, so you have to organize shipping yourself.

Polaroid Z340E

Digital photography has made printed photos rarer, but this makes the new Polaroid really stand out. You can use it just as you would any other digital camera, but the 14 MP camera with a 2.7-inch LCD screen has one extra option–you can print the photo on instant paper, and the print is smudge-proof, water- and tear-resistant and also prints dry-to-touch.

$299.99 for the camera and $19.99 per pack of 30 prints/sheets of 3-inch x 4-inch ZINK Zero Ink Paper at Amazon.com.

Autographer

Power up this automatic wearable camera with a 136-degree eye-view lens, a GPS unit and five inbuilt sensors and you have a smart camera that gives you unusual photographs. Autographer weighs a mere 58g and is 37.4mm wide, 90mm long and 22.93mm thick. It has 8 GB memory and takes 5-MP-size photos. It doesn’t have a preset time for a click but chooses smartly according to its built-in sensors based on changes in light and colour, motion, direction and temperature. It might click when you start running suddenly, or move from a warm pub to a snowy street or turn to greet a friend.

Available for £399 on Autographer.com in the UK and select European countries, available worldwide in a couple of months.

Sony NEX-6

The NEX-6 pushes a compact camera into the DSLR category without compromising on its size. The feature that makes it stand apart from a myriad of premium point-and-shoots is that it gives full manual control on shutter, aperture, or ISO.

December 31, 2012June 16, 2016

Boring party survival 101

Bring in some cheer at a lacklustre get-together with the help of your smartphone

It’s that time of the year again—when long-lost aunts, bosses you can’t stand for more than 5 minutes in a day, and colleagues whose names you don’t remember invite you to parties you cannot always refuse to attend. So you dress up and head out for evenings that are full of forced festive cheer. Instead of skulking in a corner and morosely nursing a drink, here’s how you can convert your phone into a one-stop entertainment hub and perhaps scrape through the dull dos. And no, our entertainment means are not restricted to watching a movie, checking notifications or playing a game on a smartphone.

Break the ice

It’s easier to slip into the virtual world in a place where you are a stranger or snoop around other people’s lives on social networks. Instead, try something a bit harder—like starting a conversation with someone new. Take banter cues from Conversation Shaker (iOS only) which offers interesting topics based on different situations. Shake the phone to see the next conversation starter. If your style is witty, head on to Hypotheticals, an iPhone app with a huge collection of funny conversation starters.

Conversation Shaker and Hypotheticals are available for free on iTunes.

Gaze at the stars

Not able to come up with clever quips? Get people to look at the night sky instead. Head out into the open to see all the constellations you have heard of (and some you haven’t) with Google Sky Map (www.google.com/mobile/skymap). Sky Map turns your Android-device into a window to the night sky. All you need to do is launch the app and point it to the sky. The app reflects the night accurately in terms of stars, constellations, planets, meteor showers and more. You can zoom in to the Sky Map, turn on the night mode so your eyes don’t need to adjust and even “time travel” by seeing how the same sky looked in another time and date. The perfect way to happily spend time without saying a word.

Google Sky Map (www.google.com/mobile/skymap), available for free on Google Play.

Meet a stranger

There are others out there in the party, equally socially-challenged, bored and looking for some company. The Locals’ button in MeetMe, a proximity-based chat app and social network, uses your location through GPS to tell you of people in the same area as you. Start chatting and you might just hit it off. If you don’t find anyone in your party on the app, try Twoo, yet another app which helps you meet new people using your GPS. Play a game, hangout in the virtual world and you might just want to meet in the real one. Or choose to keep it anonymous with WhosHere, which allows you to chat with people nearby without revealing your phone number, email or instant messaging (IM) address.

MeetMe and Twoo are available for free on iTunes and Google Play. You can also visitwww.meetme.com and www.twoo.com. WhosHere is available for free on iTunes and Google Play.

Swap faces

A good laugh can turn a boring party into a fun one in seconds. Click a picture of the people in front of you and swap their faces in the photo. Face Swap automatically detects faces and makes it easy for you to switch, rotate, and adjust the heads on other bodies. If you prefer replacing faces with zombie cartoons, do it with Trollolol, which automatically detects faces in pictures and swaps them with troll and zombie faces. Share the images with the new friends you make.

Face Swap is available for Rs.110 on Google Play and Amazon, and for Rs.55 on iTunes. Trollolol is available for free on iTunes and Google Play.

Have some fun with drinks

If the party is so boring that there’s no other option than to give in and get drunk, why not drink in style? Ask the bartender for the list of spirits available and then choose the most exotic cocktail name for him to make. Take help from Mixology Drink & Cocktail Recipes (www.mixologyapp.com),which helps you browse through more than 7,900 cocktails, martinis, shooters, jello shots, hot drinks and punches. There’s a Random Drinks tab if you want to explore drinks and recipes and a Liquor Cabinet tab that lets you enter all the liquor you have and then gives you a recipe accordingly. Or choose to get drunk in spy style with The Covert Cocktail(www.spymixology.com), which catalogues…

Read the complete article on Live Mint website

December 31, 2012June 16, 2016

How to fortify your stomach

In this season of partying and eating out, the digestive system can go for a toss. Take precautions like avoiding salads or having an early dinner before heading out

Our stomach might be able to bear partying once a week but an every night affair plays havoc with it. “Eating rich food that too at odd hours is not good for anyone,” says Rupali Datta, nutritionist at Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj, Delhi. Add to that excessive consumption of alcohol and before you know it, you are stricken with flatulence, nausea and that feeling of wanting to throw up. So does that mean you ignore all invites to parties this season? Not really.

“Moderation is the key. If your limit, for example, is two glasses of beer, then stick to that, even if it’s free,” says Datta. Moreover, if you are partying everyday, give your system a break by having an early dinner at home before you head to the do.

Once at the party, avoid raw food, including salads, and all milk-based products as they spoil easily. “Caterers during the party season buy in bulk, so the ingredients might not be fresh,” says S.P. Misra, professor, department of gastroenterology, Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, adding: “Uncooked food items have pre-formed toxins that can cause infections and lead to food poisoning, gastroenteritis and loose motions.”

During the day, go on a diet of liquid and semi-liquid foods. “Liquids not only give your stomach a break, they also help in dissolving fats allowing substances to pass through more easily,” says Datta. Keep away from caffeine which dehydrates the body and rehydrate your body with lukewarm water, fruit juice, lemon water, herbal tea and soups. Here are some other ways to prepare your stomach for the festive indulgence.

Preen on prebiotics

Prebiotics, the non-digestible food in your intestine which helps probiotic bacteria thrive, help in preventing food poisoning and stomach aches, according to the study “Probiotics, Prebiotics, and Synbiotics: Gut and Beyond” by US-based biotechnology company Kibow Biotech Inc., and published in July in the journal Gastroenterology Research and Practice . The research revealed that prebiotics are effective in preventing not only gut-based disorders like IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), digestion and traveller’s diarrhoea but also in maintaining general health. Help the little invisible bacteria friends of yours with a healthy dose of onions, garlic, leeks, legumes, lentils, bananas or asparagus, all of which contain prebiotics.

Sip on red wine

Who said all alcohol is bad for the stomach? A cup (272ml) of red wine daily can improve the bacteria composition in the gut, lower your blood pressure and reduce levels of a protein associated with inflammation. This surprising result was from a study “Influence of Red Wine Polyphenols and Ethanol on the Gut Microbiota Ecology and Biochemical Biomarkers”, published in the May edition of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In the study, the subjects were divided into three groups—one group drank a cup of wine, one had no alcohol and one group had gin. Though even gin was found to be good for gut flora, it was wine which was the most effective. The study suggests drinking a cupof red wine a day to improve digestive health.

Do yoga

Fifteen minutes of morning yoga can strengthen your stomach, says Sanjib Kumar Patra, assistant professor, department of yoga and life sciences, at Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA), Bangalore. He suggests a combination of 5 minutes of Surya Namaskar and 10 minutes of Pavanmuktasana. “Surya Namaskar is like a general tonic for your health which regulates the endocrine functions of the body and Pavanmuktasana, which in literal translation means ‘release of the winds’, helps empty your intestine of flatulence that you develop due to a disruptive eating routine,” Patra says. After partying, he suggests a day of eating only fruits to eliminate accumulated toxins and relax your stomach.

Wash your hands

A habit as simple as thoroughly washing your hands with soap before eating and after using the toilet can reduce diarrhoeal infections by up to 42%, according to a study carried out by researchers from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London. Published in October, the study also revealed that most people didn’t wash their hands properly. Of the 272 participants the researchers interviewed, only 39% washed their hands before eating. Besides washing your hands, also ensure that your nails are scrubbed clean.

Spoon up triphala

A spoonful of triphala powder—an ayurvedic concoction of three herbs: amalaki, bibhitaki andharitaki —every day increases the body’s immunity and makes it difficult for you to fall ill. In the research for the study “Significant Increase in Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes and Natural Killer Cells by Triphala: A Clinical Phase I Study”, published by researchers from Thailand in the October edition of the journal Complementary and Alternative Medicine , a daily dose of 1,050mg of Triphala was given to healthy volunteers….

Read the complete article on the Mint website.

December 19, 2012June 16, 2016

Beyond Instagram

Looking for image-editing apps to share your photos along with your tweets? Skim through our list.

Twitter and Instagram might have started off as a match made in heaven, but over the last couple of months, signs of a break up have been showing. First, Twitter deactivated the ability to transfer your Twitter friends’ list to Instagram, and this month, Instagram removed the ability to post images directly into your Twitter feed, forcing you to visit the Instagram site to see images.

At the same time, Twitter also added Instagram-style image filters to its iPhone and Android apps, and it doesn’t seem like the two networks are going to see eye to eye again anytime soon. But if you don’t want to use the official Twitter app, there are still plenty of alternatives with image editing and timeline image-sharing built in. We list some of our favourites.

Pixlr Express

Free

One of the smoothest edit apps in the market, Pixlr Express offers you capability to minutely edit your photos in a simple, clean and easy-touch layout. It has four levels of editing. Adjustment can sharpen, whiten, remove red eye, touch up, focus, blur, crop, rotate and autofix. In Effect you can choose vintage, creative or default effects. Overlay adds masks to your photograph and Border adds various styles of borders.

Shareability: Pixlr supports Twitter, Facebook and some other photo-sharing networks, and has a feature that lets you share large, medium or small versions of the picture, depending on whether you want a fast upload or a high-detail picture online.

What we like: It’s simple, clean and has an easy-to-manoeuvre layout.

Get it: Pixlr Express is available on Google Play, iTunes, and web

Aviary Photo Editor

Free

One of the most popular photo editors on Android, Aviary Photo Editor comes loaded with simple features like auto enhance to beautify your photographs with a single tap. Other features include enhance, effects, stickers, orientation and crop. You can edit colour brightness, warmth, contrast, saturation as well as draw and add stickers on to the image.

The Aviary Photo Editor is made by the same company which also created the image-editing filters for the official Twitter app.

Shareability: The app automatically picks up social networking apps on your phone to share with. You need to choose one by one to share as there is no share-all option.

What we like: The layout is simple and changes made to the photos are fast. The editor gives you a high-resolution output and you can customize your tools.

Get it: Aviary Photo Editor is available for free on iTunes, Google Play and Windows Phone. Effects packs such as Grunge and Nostalgia cost Rs.53.72 per pack (each pack comes with six filters).

Decim8

Rs.55

If you are tired of photographs that look pretty, opt for Decim8, an editing app which lets you systematically destroy the photographs you have taken. The app applies filters which make your photos look glitchy on purpose. When you apply a filter through Decim8, it goes into the image file and corrupts the data resulting in hi-resolution messy images.

Shareability: Direct upload to Flickr, Instagram, Twitter, and Postagram.

What we like: You can save combinations of your own favourite effects and use them on more photographs. And the fact that the app comes with a warning sign: “This app is capable of completely destroying an image. If this doesn’t appeal to you, there are lots of apps out there to provide all the ‘safe’ effects you could ever want.”

Get it: Decim8 is available on iTunes. A desktop version will launch in 2013.

Snapseed

Free

A popular editing app for professionals on iPhone, Snapseed was recently bought over by Google and made available on Google Play free of cost. Earlier this year, it was designated the Best Mobile Photo App of 2012 by the Technical Image Press Association (Tipa). The app which is meant as an editing tool for professional or advanced amateur photographers, comes loaded with different enhancement options for cropping, straightening, adjusting focus and fine tuning hues by adjusting white balance, saturation, contrast and more. You can even choose to use Selective Adjust and make changes to a part of the photograph (like removing shadows on people’s faces) and add on filters and borders for a finishing touch after your basic editing is done.

Shareability: With a click share to Google+, Facebook, Twitter and
others.

What we like: It gives you a stronger control on editing your photo as well as undoing edits, filters or reverting to the original.

Get it: Snapseed is available for free on iTunes and Google Play (Android OS 4.0 or later)

Hipstamatic

Rs.55

Hipstamatic makes your iPhone feel like an analog camera. You can choose the type of lens, kind of flash and the film that you want, with hundreds of different combinations possible. Once you set up the shot, the screen looks like an analog camera, complete with a small view finder with a faux leather finish. And the final photograph is a replica of what you’d get with the same combinations in a real, analog camera….

To read the complete article head to the Livemint.com website.

December 5, 2012June 16, 2016

Going virtual for real networking

Location-based networks and apps to connect with people in the neighbourhood who share similar interests

When Bangalore-based IT professional Pankaj Dugar settled in his third house in a new city in three years, he was left without any buddies to bike with. “It seemed like way too much work to ask around in the neighbourhood again to find someone who might like to play a quick round of golf or go biking with,” recalls Dugar. The stress to start over again in a new city made him wish that there was a better way to meet people who were interested in the same things as he was. “Facebook is used more to update your status or chat and connect to your existing friends and family online than to do offline, real-life things,” he says.

Dugar quit his job last year and set out to develop Treetle, a geo-location-based website which connects people with similar interests in the same neighbourhood, putting the focus on real-life activity and meeting rather than just online hangouts.

Treetle isn’t the only people-finding network—smartphone apps with GPS-location services are making it easier than ever to connect people by their interests. We take a look at some of these networks and also see how safe they are to use.

At the pool

At The Pool takes its motto “meet locals who love what you love” rather seriously. So seriously that you need an invite to join this website. “When someone requests an invite, if we don’t have members in their area or with their interests, we wait until we do before we send the invite,” says Alex Capecelatro, CEO and founder, At The Pool, in an email interview. The start-up was launched in July in Los Angeles, US, and it already has members from over 50 countries, including all major cities of India. Once you have an invite, you can log in with your Facebook account. Then you simply join pools based on your school, passion or types of people you want to meet. The pools have names like “foodies”, “hikers”, “musicians”, etc. If you are single, you can opt to meet other singles, or you can simply look for friends. Once you have made your profile, the website automatically introduces you to one person every day. “The goal is to introduce members to someone new each day in order to connect them offline, face-to-face,” says Capecelatro.

Safety set-up: You need to verify who you are through your Facebook account. The profile is only accessible to paired users. “We try to encourage members to meet in public, safe places, and to use best practices before meeting a stranger,” says Capecelatro.

Join at: www.atthepool.com

Treetle

Launched in July, Treetle has 200 clubs and 3,000 members across India. Members have a dashboard to see all activities in the community. You can join clubs that you are interested in, make friends using the “Connections” tab and you will get news of forthcoming events every month. Treetle ensures that you actually get out of the chair by paying users for organizing events in your clubs. CEO Pankaj Dugar says, “Get online, get the information you need, then get offline to actually do things you enjoy.”

Safety set-up: Anyone who creates a user ID on Treetle needs to verify their cellphone number, or connect via their Facebook account. Treetle also asks the users to give “Brave Points” to trusted members, so the more points a person has, the more credible he/she is.

Join at: www.treetle.com

Banjo

Damien Patton, founder and CEO, created Banjo in 2011 when he missed meeting a buddy he hadn’t seen in years at the Boston airport because both of them were using different social networks. “Banjo notifies you when any of your friends are near on any social network,” he says in an email interview. Once you log in your details on Banjo from other social networks (it works with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, and LinkedIn, along with Gmail contacts) and switch on your GPS, you see posts by all your friends on a world map, along with posts from strangers marked as public. “Banjo aims to make sense of all the location-based content in your lives, enabling you to experience what’s going on anywhere in the world and surfacing places, people and things that matter to you,” says Patton. According to Patton, the average age of Banjo members is between 23 and 35 years and the app is available in 10 languages with members from over 190 countries.

Safety set-up: The only posts strangers can see are the ones marked public. Otherwise users will only see posts if they are your friends.

Join at: www.ban.jo (also available on iTunes and Google Play)

Mixer

Mixer, launched in September, is an app that works around locations—neighbourhoods, malls, restaurants or cities. You log in using your Facebook account and start a discussion linked to the location you are in. Other Mixer users in the same location can see, post comments, text and photos to that location. “When someone posts a message, it’s for the local community to see rather than for a single person to see,” says Chris Connell, CEO. When you participate in a conversation of a locality, you become part of the local community. When you don’t use the app in that area frequently then eventually you are no longer shown as part of that community. Other people in the community see your profile and you can see theirs. It’s a great way to connect with locals for suggestions on what to eat and what to do while travelling.

Safety set-up: No private communication is allowed on Mixer, it’s a public space to talk. Facebook login adds another safety layer to the network which shows only generalized locations.

Join at: www.getmixer.com (also available on iTunes)

BuzzMob

BuzzMob, launched in August 2011, uses GPS information to connect you to real-life places and events in your vicinity. The app is based on the idea of a “ring”, a particular space or event that you can become a part of.

To read the complete article, click here

Copyright (c) HT Media

December 5, 2012June 16, 2016

Who’s got the remote?

TV addiction is harmful for both body and mind. Here are smart ways to end your love affair with the idiot box

Beware, couch potatoes:<br />Aimless channel surfing can lower your life expectancy</p><p>

Every morning, as soon as her husband leaves for work and child for school, Ruchika Bhutani, 30, a part-time counsellor and homemaker based in Delhi, switches on the television in her bedroom. From late morning till 2am, the television is on, with either Bhutani, her husband or their six-year-old daughter watching their favourite shows. Even while Bhutani is doing her household chores, or her daughter is doing her homework or taking a nap, the television is on. “When my daughter takes her nap, I mute the TV, but don’t switch it off,” says Bhutani, who cannot imagine a world without television. “There’s simply no substitute for it. If I switch off the telly, I will get so bored that I would have to step out of the house.”

She sometimes misses her daily walk to follow the lives of characters of her favourite soaps and even ends up frustrated when a character doesn’t see through a possible danger or act in a certain way. “When I talk to my family and friends, many a times we end up discussing characters from the shows as if they were real and we are gossiping about them. It’s not normal,” she agrees, “but everyone knows about these characters. Don’t you?”

Though the psychological effects of television as an omnipotent presence in our lives are still being researched, it’s the physical effects of the leisure activity that require urgent action, according to Lennert Veerman, a senior research fellow at School of Population Health, The University of Queensland, Australia.

In August 2011, Veerman released a study titled “Television Viewing Time and Reduced Life Expectancy: A Life Table Analysis”, published online, which conclusively shows that every single hour of TV viewing by those above 25 years, shortens the life expectancy of the viewer by 20 minutes. Make it 6 hours of TV every day and it might cost you five years of life expectancy. “Since TV viewing is a form of inactivity, the reverse of exercise, we expected an effect on life expectancy, but the size of this effect surprised even us,” Veerman says. Various studies in the past decade have linked TV viewing with diabetes, back pain, obesity, cardiovascular problems and other life-shortening diseases, but its addiction remains a fact in modern life. The first thing that many of us do as soon as we enter our homes is to switch the television on. Veerman feels that the habit is so omnipotent that researchers have to shift the focus of research from benefits of exercising to the adverse effect of too much sitting (in spite of exercising daily) in front of the television. “The good news is that if you replace just half an hour of TV watching with walking, it will be able to prevent disease,” he says in an email interview.

Reduce it every day

By reducing your average TV watching time from about 5 hours everyday to 2.5 hours, you can burn an extra 119 calories a day, according to the study “Effects of Television Viewing Reduction on Energy Intake and Expenditure in Overweight and Obese Adults”, which was published in Internal Medicine in December 2009.

“Television is a very sedentary activity, burning only slightly more calories than sleep. Reducing your television viewing time by half may result in burning calories equivalent of walking a little over a mile per day, or eight miles a week,” says Jennifer Otten, postdoctoral research fellow, Stanford University, California, US, and one of the authors of the study, in an email interview. Some of her participants who used that extra time to walk their dogs or sign up for a yoga class could turn their lives around.

Do it: Quit aimless channel surfing and instead make a TV-watching plan each week. Figure out the shows you cannot do without and sift them from the shows that you hate watching but have a habit of watching. Now set an alarm. Once the show you wanted to watch is over, switch the television off and do something else.

Keep the background noise off

According to a study published in October, titled “Background Television in the Homes of US Children”, in the journalPediatrics, children in US homes are exposed to nearly 4 hours of background television on a typical day from eight months of age.

“Researchers have found that the presence of background television significantly reduces children’s time spent playing with toys as well as their focused attention during play and decreased the quantity and quality of parent-child interaction,” says Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, one of the authors of the study and assistant professor, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, in an email interview. Piotrowski also has data which she plans to publish next year on how children exposed to background television have more difficulties with executive functions like cognitive behaviour and self-regulation.

Do it: Make it a rule—no television while the sun is still out. Encourage your child to get out and play in the sun. Take the TV out of your child’s bedroom and turn it off when no one’s watching it. Put on some music if it’s too silent for your liking.

Do chores alongside

A paper published in July in the online journal BMJ Open, “Sedentary Behaviour And Life Expectancy In The USA: A Cause-Deleted Life Table Analysis”, proves that watching television reduces your lifespan. It’s not the activity per se, but the sitting involved that shortens your lifespan, according to Peter Katzmarzyk, professor, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, US, and lead author of the paper. “People who sit most of the day have a higher risk of dying prematurely rather than those who sit less,” he says in an email interview. The study builds up on previous work that shows sitting and watching TV have an impact on not only the individual but also the population’s health.

Do it: Stand and watch television and you would be on your way to a healthier lifestyle. Do chores like ironing, paperwork, washing dishes or exercise—use dumb-bells, stretch or do sit-ups—while you watch your show.

To read the complete article, click here.

Copyright (c) HT Media

October 17, 2012June 16, 2016

Take time out to customize Timeline

Have you been switched to Facebook’s Timeline? Here’s what you can do to protect your privacy

In its early days, Facebook was an intimate space where people were off guard and goofed around with close friends. Then it became bigger, and before you knew it, you had your family, colleagues and even your boss there. Timeline has now changed things further by making your profile much more accessible, and by default, highly public. You need to make some changes to your settings, and quickly, if you haven’t already. Here are some things you must not do:
Don’t disclose your location
It’s tempting to tell everyone, but no place online is private, so keep your address and location to yourself—remember, anyone, just about anyone at all, can see this information if it’s published on your Timeline. As a rule, never include where, when and for how many days you might be on vacation.
Settings: Facebook’s default setting is to disclose your location. In the left-bottom of the status message box is a rounded arrow pointing downwards. If it shows your city, you can click on it to disable geo-location. For Facebook Mobile, check the app settings on your smartphone and switch off Messenger Location Services.
Don’t let the apps decide
Applications on Facebook ask for access to your personal information and post to your wall when you use them. Even apps you’ve given permission to months ago and never use are still collecting data.
Settings: In your Privacy Settings on Facebook, click on Ads, Apps and Websites. Apps You Use shows a list of apps, and you can give app-level permissions for each individual app. You can tweak these one by one, keeping in mind the needs of each app, and you can remove apps you don’t use any more.
Don’t forget the old updates
Remember the kind of stuff you were posting on Facebook four years ago? Facebook has by default made it all public and has also made it easier for anyone to see what you were up to by putting down your activities by year.
Settings: Click on the Account menu, go to Privacy Settings and find Limit the Audience for Past Posts. Choose Manage Past Post Visibility to quickly clean up your early years on Facebook. After that, it’s still a good idea to scroll down the Timeline and see if there are private posts to hide.
Don’t post to public
Public means just that—everyone in the online world can see updates marked public. By default, your name, gender, user name, user ID, profile picture and cover photo on Facebook are public information. Posts you make on Pages and in Groups are automatically public, so never get into an argument with anyone there. All your posts are also public, but you can change the setting for those.
Settings: Go to Privacy Settings. In Control Privacy When You Post, choose who all can see the status updates, photos and information you post. Change who can see posts made from your Facebook mobile app too. This will handle new posts, but for old posts, you need to go to your Timeline and manually change the visibility of each post. It’s tedious, but important.
Don’t forget Timeline privacy settings
Your Timeline can be seen by anyone on Facebook with a simple name search. Default settings are mostly public, so anyone can see your information—from relatively innocuous details such as the city you live in, to more sensitive details such as your contact information.
Settings: Go to your Timeline and click on the Update Info button. Each section of the profile has an edit button to change visibility levels.

Read the complete story on the HT Mint website.

October 9, 2012June 16, 2016

The right app(roach) for writing

Do you find it hard to actually get down to writing? Some of these apps and websites may be of help

There’s help at hand for everything—from creative ideas to a nudge, even the company of others. Illustration: Raajan/Mint

Got the feeling that you too could write a book if you had the time? If you harbour a secret wish to become a writer, we have a solution for you—technology aids which can help you overcome writer’s block, keep you motivated or help you spur your imagination.

I procrastinate/I am not motivated enough

Fear is a primal emotion. It makes you react in unexpected, emotional ways. Destroy the block in your mind which is not letting you write with Write or Die, a Web app which pushes you to write more, with gentle and harsh penalties if you don’t start typing. “The app encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing,” says the website. Write or Die gives you an online textbox to write in and comes with an auto-save feature. You can use the app in three modes—Gentle Mode, where a box pops up if you stop writing for a certain amount of time; Normal Mode, which plays an unpleasant sound if you don’t continue to write; and the desperate Kamikaze Mode, which will delete what you have already written if you don’t write more.

If you don’t want negative reinforcement, try out Written? Kitten! instead, which rewards you for getting work done. The app rewards you with a cutesy kitten photograph for every 100 (or 200 or 500 or 1,000) words that you write. The kitten photographs are selected randomly from Flickr’s “most interesting” photos matching the tags “kitten” and “cute”. You get the picture? If you haven’t, then write some more.

Write or Die is available online for Mac, PC and Linux ($10, or around Rs.525) and on iTunes for iPad ($9.99).

Written? Kitten! is available online for free.

I am overwhelmed by ideas

Whether you’re writing or filing a report for work or college, your text needs to be linear and logical, but that’s not how your brain functions. Your brain tends to send spurts of ideas, connections, links and visuals all together on the topic you have been thinking about. And collating all of it into an ordered linear progression can be an uphill task.

According to The Mind Map Book created by Tony and Barry Buzan (2010), the solution is to create a mind map of the idea. A mind map starts with a basic idea and helps you radiate outwards and develop it by putting in associated ideas, words, concepts and links, closely resembling the brain’s neuronal structure with its infinite connections and its multilateral thinking, write the Buzans in their book.

Mind-mapping is easier now with smartphones. SimpleMind offers a basic freeflowing mind-map layout with options to add in colours and icons to bubbles which you connect in your flow chart. If you want something more comprehensive, opt for iThoughtsHD, which gives you the option of attacking all the niggles in your writing not only with a free-flowing mind map but also with other corporate tools like Six Thinking Hats and SWOT analysis. The app is even used by pastors to plan sermons, developer Craig Scott tells us in an email.

SimpleMind is available on Google Play and iTunes (free).

iThoughts is available on iTunes for iPhone ($7.99) and iThoughtsHD for iPad ($9.99).

I can’t think of a good idea

Sometimes a spark is all you need to ignite your creative juices. Get phrases and words which will get you on a thinking binge for creative work by installing Fiction Idea Generator. FIG, as it is called, creates random plots with elements like tense (past, present, future), narrator type (first, second, third), period, situation, protagonist, tritagonist and their relationship.

If you don’t like a structured plot suggestion and would rather go for just a few random prompts, opt for Writing Prompts, an app by the popular writing help website Writing.com. You can opt for suggestions through sketches, current news headlines and articles or, simply, a group of jumbled words. All you have to do is shake your phone and something new will crop up on your screen.

Fiction Idea Generator is available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Samsung Apps (free).

Writing Prompts is available on iTunes, Google Play, Kindle Fire ($1.99).

I can’t find the time

It’s all about managing it right. The Pomodoro Technique helps people manage their 24 hours better by breaking them down into 25-minute periods of work called “pomodoros” (which means tomatoes in Italian), interspersed with 5-minute breaks. Created by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s, the technique sounds the alarm for you to take a break and get back to work.

“I use the Pomodoro Technique myself,” says Baris Sarer, owner of the newly launched app on iTunes,It’s Pomodoro Time!, “especially when writing. It helps focus without exhausting and overworking your brain.” He loves the technique enough to launch an app that uses all its features well. With It’s Pomodoro Time! you can set daily targets of how much you want to write, set your pomodoros and use alarms to give yourself the much deserving break (and more importantly, to send you back to your desk).

It’s Pomodoro Time! is available on iTunes ($0.99).

I need human stimulus to work

To write, you have to eschew the social world. But if you want sympathy, empathy or company, become a part of the National Novel Writing Month . NaNoWriMo is a monthly online writing forum which begins every year in November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in November, with forums and groups of participants to help you all the way. The app NaNo Saga lets you compare your progress with your buddies’ and shows your novel details and current word count as well as the number of days left. Trust us, with more than 200,000 participants from across the world writing with you (last year, a whopping 256,618 participants wrote together), you will never feel lonely again.

NaNo Saga is available on iTunes ($0.99)

To read the complete article, head on to the HT Mint website.

September 12, 2012June 16, 2016

Third-party Twitter

Fed up with the official Twitter app? Want something better? Get more with the right apps

Twitter’s rise to one of the most popular social networks was driven in part by the open nature of the service, helped along by a number of third-party apps to access the network. This started changing last year though as Twitter banned certain apps to try and create a uniform experience.

Aaron White, co-founder of the third-party app Proxlet (which was one of the apps Twitter suspended), says in an email interview, “The diversity of the third-party ecosystem certainly contributed to Twitter’s fast rate of growth, considering how long it took them to launch an official iPhone client!”

According to Paris-based analyst group Semiocast, the social network had 517 million accounts as of July. That is a lot of eyeballs, and Twitter has begun to try and market to advertisers with expandable tweets (or a short blog with pictures and videos) and sponsored accounts under #Discover. As any regular user knows, there are two basic ways to access Twitter—you can either use your browser or an app. Apps range from the official Twitter application to custom applications that can use the features of the social network and give you a different experience.

Since the new official app can also serve ads, users might want a third-party experience instead, and there are a number of different apps to choose from there.

Monika Katkute, ideator and project lead at Lemon Labs, which created the Hashtag App for the platform in May, hopes that Twitter will remain an open platform for all developers. “If a third-party app is making tweets available in a more attractive and usable format, Twitter shouldn’t have an objection to that,” she says.

Like to try different flavours of tweets? Then try some of these innovative, out-of-the-box apps for a different take on Twitter and support the third-party ecosystem that has made Twitter what it is:

Slices

Is your timeline flooded with inane tweets? Slices is a free third-party application which divides your stream into categorized information. Launched in August, Slices lets you “browse” your timeline. The app does three important things: First, it automatically divides your Twitter stream into neat categories like technology, celebrity, etc.. Second, it suggests new people to follow through its Explore tab, where it divides users by categories like News, Local, Celebs, Humour, Music, Tech and Science, etc. Finally, it lets you choose from live events and trending topics from around the world or locally, in a simple interface which is actually quite addictive to use.

slices.me

Free to download, on iTunes, Google Play and Web

Tweetcaster

With more than five million downloads on Google Play since its launch in October 2010, TweetCaster is the No. 1 app for Twitter on Android. It offers basic Twitter functions like timeline, compose, mentions, Direct Messages, favourites and lists. What sets it apart from even the official Twitter app is its search mechanism, called Search Party. It allows you to search not only your own timeline, but also someone else’s timeline, mention or favourites. It even allows you to search for tweets near your location.

Tweetcaster.com

Free to download, on Windows Phone, Google Play, iTunes, Samsung apps and BlackBerry. The ad-free TweetCaster in a unique pink-colour version is available for $10 (around Rs.555).

Tweets between

This one’s meant for those who love to eavesdrop on conversations. Missed out on what your friends were chatting through tweets? Simply type in both their Twitter IDs on the Tweets Between website and see what their most recent conversation was all about. Launched in February, the app is quite addictive.

tweetsbetween.com

Free to use, on Web

Twicca

Created by Japanese developer Tetsuya Aoyama, this lightweight Twitter app gives you great filtering tools and basic Twitter app functions. The interface is clean, without too many buttons, icons and menus. Additionally the app has features like colour codes for lists or individual users so you never miss tweets from those important to you. It mutes overzealous tweeting individuals quite well too. The app is relatively new, having launched in May, but it comes with a lot of polish. It even has a built-in image viewer that supports a lot of image-hosting services—Flickr, yfrog, Twitpic, Posterous, etc.

twicca.r246.jp

Free to download, on Google Play

To read the complete article go to the HT Mint website.