Get Started with Web Design Using Google Web Fundamentals - "How do I learn how to make websites?" - look around here for this Answer

"How do I learn how to make websites?"

I get asked this question regularly.

It’s a very simple question. Isn’t it? And I often feel like there should be a straightforward answer to it.

But the reality is it’s a tough question to tackle, so my response is always different. My answer varies depending on the asker’s background, learning style/preference, schedule, goals he or she would like to accomplish, financial restrictions, and so on.

That’s why I’m glad that trying to answer this question has become a whole lot easier.

Why?

Because I now have a reliable, free online resource I can point to that will help beginners get started quickly and easily.

Google Web Fundamentals.

Google Web Fundamentals is a free and open source project with the goal of educating people on how to build modern websites with best practices in mind.

Why is this resource so awesome?

Readability

You can probably finish the whole thing over a weekend even if you take your time. It’s not unnecessarily complicated with too much technical jargon, which I find often scares off aspiring web developers in a heartbeat. And there are plenty of useful screenshots, visuals and illustrations throughout the tutorials.

You’ll get something good out of it (aside from learning about web design)

There are code examples that you can use to build your first multi-device (responsive) web page.

Open source

Being open source guarantees transparency and quicker updates when things need to be edited or corrected (so it’s like a wiki governed by Google developers). If you’d like to contribute, check out the GitHub repo.

Quality-controlled

They even have style guides for maintaining and contributing to the project: See the visual style guide, markdown guide and written style guide.

It’s backed by Google

The tech company everyone loves has a reputation for being an innovator in the web design/development space.

From here on out, whenever someone asks me "How do I learn how to make websites?" the first thing I’ll do is send them a link to Google Web Fundamentals.

After the person completes Google Web Fundamentals, I’ll ask if they’re still interested in moving forward with their web design/web development career because this resource will give them a quick taste (and positive first-impression) of what it means to build modern sites under the industry’s best practices.

Then, depending on what they were able to learn from Google Web Fundamentals, I might suggest a web design book or online course [ w3schools ] that will advance their knowledge and fill in the gaps.

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FireChat for Android launched, lets users chat without a data connection

A new mobile messaging application called FireChat is empowering nearby smartphone users to stay in touch even when there's no cellular service or Internet connection.

In just two weeks since its release on the iPhone, FireChat already has provided a flicker of hope for people pining for more effective, secure and affordable ways to communicate. That's because the free messaging app harnesses a technology called wireless mesh networking, which might someday allow a myriad of devices to connect like links in a chain.

The technique might someday be used to tie together thousands of devices with built-in radios and make it possible to be online without having to pay for the access. It could also enable online communications in remote areas or disaster zones without Wi-Fi or cellular signals. Furthermore, the conversations in these so-called "off-the-grid" networks can't be easily hacked into by spies and mischief makers or shut down by governments trying to stifle free speech.

"We trying to create networks built by the people for the people," said Micha Benoliel, CEO of Open Garden, maker of the FireChat app.

Open Garden, a San Francisco startup with just 10 employees, is taking another step toward its ambitious goal with Thursday's release of a FireChat app for Android phones.

FireChat could be an even hotter commodity on Android given the demographic differences between that platform's user base and the typical iPhone owner. The app already has been installed on more than 1 million iOS devices.

(Also see: FireChat lets you chat without a data connection)

Many smartphones running on Google Inc.'s free Android software are cheaper than Apple Inc.'s iPhone. That has made Android phones the top-selling mobile devices in less affluent countries, including in regions where Internet access is inadequate or expensive.

Google is among the big Internet companies intrigued with mesh networking's potential to bring more of the world online.

Sundar Pichai, Google's executive in charge of Android, has touted mesh networks as a way to connect wearable computers, such as the company's Glass eyewear. Mesh networks also could be used to bring a wide variety of everyday appliances online, helping to build an Internet of things instead of just websites.

FireChat's reach so far is limited. When connecting off the grid, iPhone app users have only been able to send text and photos to other FireChat users within a range of 30 to 100 feet.

Later this year, Open Garden plans to upgrade FireChat's iPhone app so off-the-grid users will be able to hopscotch through a daisy chain of devices to extend the reach of a local network. If this works, a FireChat user sitting in the right-field bleachers of a baseball game would be able to text with a friend on the other side of the stadium if enough other iPhone users in the ballpark also are on FireChat.

This extended range will be available immediately on FireChat's Android app because Open Garden released a mesh networking app for that operating system nearly two years ago.

FireChat's iPhone app piggybacks on an often overlooked feature called the Multipeer Connectivity Framework that Apple Inc. included in its latest mobile operating system, iOS 7, released last September. Apple says more than 80 percent of people using its mobile devices rely on iOS 7.

For now, Android phones and iPhones with the FireChat app won't be able to engage in off-the-grid conversation. Open Garden, though, believes it will eventually be able to make mesh networking work on phones running on different operating systems.

As the mesh networking software improved, Benoliel realized Open Garden needed to come up with application to demonstrate what the technology could do. In that practical sense, FireChat is similar to the word processing and spreadsheet programs that Microsoft released decades ago to help broaden the appeal of its Windows operating system for personal computers, said Christophe Daligault, Open Garden's marketing chief.

FireChat's development was driven by the popularity of other mobile messaging apps such as Snapchat and WhatsApp that enabled smartphone users to text and send pictures to their friends and family without having to pay smartphone carriers.

Like texts and photos sent on Snapchat, nothing transmitted through FireChat is saved. All content evaporates once the app is closed. FireChat also allows all its users to remain anonymous, another feature that is becoming popular on a variety of mobile messaging apps, such as Wickr and Rumr.

There still aren't enough people using FireChat to ensure users will find someone nearby to message. To pique people's interest in the app, FireChat offers an "everyone" option that allows users to enter a digital chat room with up to 80 other random users located in the same country. This option requires a Wi-Fi or cellular connection.

Dailigault concedes FireChat's chat room isn't as high-minded as mesh networking.

"We are finding a lot of people are using it when they are just looking for something to do for a few minutes," Dailigault said. "Some of the discussions there are turning out to be more interesting than anything they can find on Facebook."

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FireChat lets you chat without a data connection

Move over WhatsApp. Here comes a revolutionary chatting app that has taken the mobile messaging to another level.

With this, you are able to send and receive messages even when you do not have an actual Internet or Wi-Fi data connection.

Yes, you read it right.

This iOS-enabled app uses Apple's Multipeer Connectivity framework essentially a peer-to-peer feature that lets you share messages with other app users nearby.

"FireChat allows the device to connect directly to others nearby using Bluetooth, peer-to-peer Wi-Fi or traditional Wi-Fi networks so you do not actually need a data connection," Micha Benoliel, CEO of Open Garden firm that developed the app was quoted as saying.

The Apple's Multipeer Connectivity APIs can be used for everything from collaborative editing and file sharing, to multiplayer gaming and sensor aggregation, said a report in wired.com.

How does it function?

The app browses for other users nearby while simultaneously broadcasting to peers that it is available to connect to. According to the company, this "Nearby" mode works best when the devices are within 30-feet.

This allows you to be invited into a "session" with multiple users. Each user has to be within range of just one member of the chat, so the mesh can spread outwards and cover a lot more range as more people join in.

Once a session invitation is accepted, you can directly communicate with those other users independent of a cellular signal or Wi-Fi access.

This creates what is called "wireless mesh network".

According to Benoliel, "Messages also get deleted as soon as you close the app so you remain anonymous."

However, in "Nearby" mode, you do not have any choice over who receives your messages they go out to anyone within range, the report added. There is also an "Everyone" mode, which sends the messages over a data connection so you can chat with friends who are not physically nearby. This is being segmented into chatrooms of 80 users each as the initial rush of downloads made it untenable to keep all users on a single chat.

Apple sold 700 million iOS devices by last October. Many are already using the latest Multipeer Connectivity-supporting version of iOS.

Within a week of its launch, FireChat has been being downloaded from the App Store more than 100,000 times a day. soource by NDTV.gadgets

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A new programming Language Introduced by Facebook - { hack }

Facebook has just released [ Introduced ]  a new programming language called 'HACK', designed to build complex websites and other software quickly and without many flaws and also the main motive of decreasing resource conservation. The company has already migrated almost all of its PHP-based social networking site to HACK over the last year, but it has nothing to do with Hacking.

Facebook :- 

Today we're releasing Hack, a programming language we developed for HHVM that interoperates seamlessly with PHP. Hack reconciles the fast development cycle of PHP with the discipline provided by static typing, while adding many features commonly found in other modern programming languages.
We have deployed Hack at Facebook and it has been a great success. Over the last year, we have migrated nearly our entire PHP codebase to Hack, thanks to both organic adoption and a number of homegrown refactoring tools.
We're also proud to release an open source version of Hack to the public at http://hacklang.org/ as part of our HHVM runtime platform, which will now support both Hack and PHP.

Download Link:- http://docs.hhvm.com/manual/en/install.php 


Official site :- http://hacklang.org/

Thus, Hack was born! Facebook Team decides to develop a new programming language that could combine elements of static-type programming languages such as C or C++ with dynamic-type languages like PHP, now called "HACK Programming Language".

"Hack has deep roots in PHP. In fact, most PHP files are already valid Hack files." Facebook said, "We have also added many new features that we believe will help make developers more productive."

HACK is a new version of PHP, requires Facebook’s HHVM (Hip Hop Virtual Machine) which is designed to execute programs written in Hack and PHP. The top 20 open source frameworks on Github run on HHVM.

by Facebook's - { hack } official site  :- 

The following are some of the important language features of Hack. For more information, see the full documentation, or follow through the quick interactive tutorial.

• Type Annotations allow for PHP code to be explicitly typed on parameters, class member variables and return values:

<?hh
class MyClass {
const int MyConst = 0;
private string $x = '';
public function increment(int $x): int {
$y = $x + 1;
return $y;
}
}

• Generics allow classes and methods to be parameterized (i.e., a type associated when a class is instantiated or a method is called) in the same vein as statically type languages like C# and Java):

<?hh
class Box<T> {
protected T $data;
public function __construct(T $data) {
$this->data = $data;
}
public function getData(): T {
return $this->data;
}
}

• Nullable Types are supported by Hack through use of the ? operator. This introduces a safer way to deal with nulls and is very useful for primitive types that don’t generally allow null as one of their values, such as bool and int (using ?bool and ?intrespectively). The operator can be used on any type or class.

• Collections enhance the experience of working with PHP arrays, by providing first class, built-in parameterized types such as Vector (an ordered, index-based list), Map(an ordered dictionary), Set (a list of unique values), and Pair (an index-based collection of exactly two elements).

• Lambdas offer similar functionality to PHP closures, but they capture variables from the enclosing function body implicitly and are less verbose:

<?hh
function foo(): (function(string): string) {
$x = 'bar';
return $y ==> $x . $y;
}
function test(): void {
$fn = foo();
echo $fn('baz'); // barbaz
}
Other significant features of Hack include Shapes, Type Aliasing, Async support, andmuch more. 

Stay tuned to +Techno World  for more Technology updates  

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Micromax Canvas Knight A350 review: Octa-core phone for Rs 19,999

First things first. This is a phone from Micromax, but it does not look like a phone from Micromax. In fact, it looks like a phone from a well-heeled international brand, the sort that Micromax wants to become in the near future. This is the Micromax Canvas Knight, the phone that will take over the flagship mantle for the company from today.

Quick Tech Specs: 5-inch IPS display (1920×1080 pixels, 443 ppi) | 2GHz Tru Octa core MediaTek MT MT 6592 processor | 2GB RAM | 32 GB storage + no microSD slot | 16MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, 1080p Full HD video | 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 | 2350mAh battery | Android 4.2 JellyBean
Price: Rs 19,999

Design: As I said this phone does not look like a Indian phone. In fact, it has the cuts and sides of the Apple iPhone 5s and even reminded me a bit of the Lava Iris Pro 30, which also had a similar design language. The unibody design is reinforced by what seems, and feels, like a graphite frame. There are mico-SIM slots on both sides that can be accessed by a pin. And, no there is no space for a SD card. Another thing that sets this phone apart is the power key, that is now placed along with the volume keys on the right. This take a bit of getting used to.

The camera, the 16 MP sensor that it houses, results in a significant bump on the rear and there is an extra rear cover to sort of protect it. This feature is a bit like the one on the Nokia Lumia 502 and it becoming common in slim phones with large cameras. The phone is very light and easy to handle despite the large screen.

Screen & Audio: The Full HD IPS panel is one of the best features of this phone. To start with, there is hardly any light bleed on the sides. The phone can be bright enough to be legible in bright sunlight. The audio quality is good, but not great. The overall experience, however, is quite good.

Performance: This is a Tru Octa core phone. So performance should not be, and is not, and issue at all. In fact, the Antutu benchmark scored it in the top draw and exclaimed ‘amazing’. Yes, that doesn’t mean much for an average used. What matter for him is the fact that there is no lag anywhere and that multi-tasking is a breeze. We tried multi-tabbed browsing on Chrome and the experience was superb. However, with some games we noticed that the device did heat

Micromax has officially launched the Canvas Knight Smartphone in India for Rs 19,999. The company launched this device first in Russia while it launched its operations there. Micromax Canvas Knight is the company’s first Octa-Core smartphone and also the first to have 16-MegaPixel camera on board. This device comes with a powerful 2GHz Octa-Core MediaTek processor coupled with 2GB of RAM.

This smartphone is the most advanced and the best one from Micromax till now. The design of the device looks inspired from iPhone 5 but what it does different is have different layout and larger screen. It sports a 5-inch multi touch HD display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels with an amazing pixel density of 443 pixels per inch.

This smartphone come with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Operating System and is expected to get Android KitKat Update soon. Other features of the phones include a 16-MegPixel camera on the rear side with LED flash and Autofocus for photography and a 5-MP front facing camera for Video calling. This smartphone uses a 2,350mAH battery for the power supply. Previously the company launched the Canvas Turbo and Canvas Turbo Minismartphone with amazing price and features.

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Google’s Project Ara of a Modular Smartphone Could Start at $50

Last year, designer Dave Hakkens positioned the concept of a modular smartphone--or Phonebloks--as a way to cut down on the electronic waste of handsets. Motorola would go on to work with Phonebloks to eventually bring the idea to fruition, with the end result being Google's Project Ara. And according to a report from Time, these customizable phones could be out next year for an incredibly affordable price point.

"The smartphone is one of the most empowering and intimate objects in our lives," said Paul Eremenko, who heads up Project Ara for Google ATAP. "Yet most of us have little say in how the device is made, what it does, and how it looks." Interestingly, the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group was one sector Google kept following the sale of Motorola to Lenovo.

Google thinks Project Ara could offer an entry point into the smartphone market for emerging regions, citing the over five billion people in the world who are still without one. According to the Time report, Google wants Ara smartphones on the market by 2015, for as little as $50.

On January 29, Google announced that it had agreed to sell Motorola, its phone-manufacturing business, to Chinese electronics giant Lenovo. Thus concluded the company’s brief, unprofitable foray into smartphone hardware, which began when it revealed plans to acquire Motorola Mobility in August, 2011.

Granted, the $50 handset will only have base features--perhaps even lacking cellular functionality--but it's still an interesting starting point. Since users could swap out the modules for better features at whim, Ara has the potential to be a fully customizable, truly affordable smartphone.

The current plans call for three different sizes of modular smartphones, from the $50 mini up to a large phablet. And given the opportunity for unique modules, there's no telling what developers may dream up. Google will host a series of developer conferences for Ara, beginning in April. But anyone can check the devices out, thanks to a free live-stream.

Except that it didn’t really end there. It turned out that Google was holding onto one organization within Motorola: the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group. Headed by Regina Dugan, the former director of the U.S. Defense Department’s fabled Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ATAP aims to bring the same approach to mobile-gadget innovation that DARPA used to kickstart the Internet, satellite navigation, stealth fighters and other technologies that started small and eventually mattered a lot.

In retrospect, it’s completely logical that Google would choose to retain ATAP. The technologies and projects it specializes in are the wildly audacious ideas Google likes to call moonshots. The company already has another group devoted to such efforts — Google X, which is working on Google Glass, self-driving cars, broadband balloons and more — but it’s hard to imagine it handing off any moonshots in progress to Lenovo or anyone else.

Among the ATAP initiatives that have been announced, one in particular is quintessentially Google-y. It’s Project Ara, which aims to reinvent the smartphone by breaking it down into modules that can be assembled and customized in a limitless number of configurations. The company first disclosed that the project existed on October 29 of last year, when it released some intriguing photos but little in the way of concrete details. Today, it’s lifting the veil further as it prepares for an Ara developer conference it’s holding at Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum on April 15-16. A year or so from now, it hopes to have a product on the market.

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Sony Xperia Z2 a next level Gadget with 5.2-inch display, and built in Camera captures 4K ultra-HD recording launched

 
Sony Corp. is borrowing innovations from its audio and camcorder businesses and incorporating its new Xperia Z2 smartphone with noise-canceling technology and ultra-high-definition video recording.
Noise cancellation works with an in-ear headset sold separately, while the Z2's built-in camera can capture video in so-called 4K resolution, an emerging standard that offers four times the details as current high-definition video.
"With Xperia Z2 we have taken our premium Z series to the next level, delivering unique experiences that only Sony can offer," Kunimasa Suzuki, Sony Mobile's president and CEO, said in a statement.

Monday's announcement at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain, comes just weeks after Sony said it was selling its Vaio personal computer operations and making its Bravia TV business a subsidiary company. Sony also plans to cut its global workforce by about 3 percent, or 5,000 people, by the end of March 2015.
Sony, once an electronics powerhouse when its Walkman music players defined what portable gadgets should be, has had difficulty keeping up with Samsung and other rivals in various consumer electronics.
Phones are no different. Despite favorable reviews, Sony phones haven't had much traction in an industry dominated by Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.
With the Z2, Sony is trying to innovate on hardware, while many of the groundbreaking features in rival devices have been in their software.
The Z2 sports the same 20.7 megapixel camera found in its predecessors, the Z1 and the Z1s. Most other smartphone cameras have 8 to 13 megapixels. The Z2 is waterproof, like the Z1 phones, and its screen is slightly larger, at 5.2 inches diagonally instead of 5 inches.
Sony also announced a high-end tablet and a separate, mid-range smartphone.
The tablet is also called the Xperia Z2 and features a 10.1-inch screen, larger than most full-size tablets. It is also waterproof. The Wi-Fi-only model weights 426 grams (0.94 pound), which is lighter than Apple's lightweight iPad Air, despite the Z2's larger size.
Sony's Xperia M2, meanwhile, is meant as a cheaper alternative to the Z2. Its camera isn't as powerful, at only 8 megapixels, and the screen is only 4.8 inches.
Sony is making a version of the M2 with two SIM card slots, something in demand in emerging markets, where plans vary so much that people often have service with multiple carriers and use what's most economical for the circumstance.
Both Z2 devices will be available in March, while the M2 is slated for April. Sony did not immediately announce prices or specific U.S. plans. Sony sometimes makes phones available in the U.S. later than elsewhere around the world.
Sony also took the wraps off its latest premium tablet, dubbed Xperia Z2 Tablet and mid-range Xperia M2 smartphone, at MWC 2014 in Barcelona.

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Google's - new Project " Tango! " bringing real 3D technology to smartphones

Google announced a new research project Thursday aimed at bringing 3D technology to smartphones, for potential applications such as indoor mapping, gaming and helping blind people navigate.

The California tech giant said its "Project Tango" would provide prototypes of its new smartphone to outside developers to encourage the writing of new applications.

Project leader Johnny Lee said the goal of the project, which incorporates robotics and vision-processing technology, is "to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion."

"What if you could capture the dimensions of your home simply by walking around with your phone before you went furniture shopping?" Google said on its Project Tango web page.

"What if directions to a new location didn't stop at the street address? What if you never again found yourself lost in a new building? What if the visually impaired could navigate unassisted in unfamiliar indoor places? What if you could search for a product and see where the exact shelf is located in a super-store?"

The technology could also be used for "playing hide-and-seek in your house with your favorite game character, or transforming the hallways into a tree-lined path."

Smartphones are equipped with sensors which make over 1.4 million measurements per second, updating the positon and rotation of the phone.

Partners in the project include researchers from the University of Minnesota, George Washington University, German tech firm Bosch and the Open Source Robotics Foundation, among others.

Another partner is California-based Movidius, which makes vision-processor technology for mobile and portable devices and will provide the processor platform.

Movidius said in a statement the goal was "to mirror human vision with a newfound level of depth, clarity and realism on mobile and portable connected devices."

"Google has paved the future direction for smart mobile vision systems and we're excited to be working with a company that shares our vision to usher in the next wave of applications that fundamentally alter how a mobile device is used to experience the world around us," said Remi El-Ouazzane, chief executive of Movidius.

"Project Tango is truly a groundbreaking platform and we look forward to seeing the innovation the developer community achieves," he added.

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Which Social Networks Should You Care About in 2014 and few detailed infographic view about Facebook ,twitter,you-tube,goggle+ ... from 2014

It’s hard to believe that Facebook will be ten years old this February and yet social media still seems new to many of us. Brands are struggling as much as they ever have done to understand what to do with it, and which networks actually have any real value. I noticed a number of social challenges that brands faced in 2013 but probably the two most common questions I got asked were:

1. Which social networks should I focus on?
2. How much of my time and resources should I allocate to each one?

The answers to these questions are not as complicated as people often think, but neither is there correct answer to either of them. Many people have written blog posts suggesting that they have the answer – but rather than add my own opinions to that long list, I thought I’d just look at the data to see where the world seems to have been spending it’s time over the last 12 years. (Infographic created in Adobe Photoshop obviously!)…

The figures… source by backtohack

I’ve purposely focused here on the total number of user profiles for each network*. I did this purely for the sake of comparison (rather than daily / monthly active users), so before anyone bursts a blood vessel and calls me out in the comments, let’s save the messy debate around active v inactive fans for another time. All I want to do here is look at which social networks people have chosen to join over the last decade or so.

 The figures themselves highlight a couple of interesting points that social media executives often miss:

• There are almost as many social profiles just among these 21 networks, as there are people in the world!
• Many business people forget that China has 3 of the world’s largest and most powerful social networks. (Sina Weibo for example has the same market penetration in China that Twitter does in the US).
• Some of the Middle Eastern brands I spoke to last year told me that YouTube was far more valuable to their brand than either Twitter and Facebook, and they built their social strategies accordingly.
• Many Spanish brands have chosen to focus their efforts on the local network Tuenti instead of Facebook.
• The oldest social network on the list Friendster, has a surprisingly large and active fan base (admittedly now with a different purpose than it was created for).
• Bebo is still going and planning to be properly re-launched again by original co-founder Michael Birch.
• Google+ (the network we all like to poke fun at), has become the place for commenting on YouTube.
• Market analysts suggested in 2013 that Pinterest (not even 4 years old), had double the click-through-rate of Twitter and drove 2x the average order value of Facebook, even though it only has 5% of the user base.
• Russian network VK is bigger than Instagram globally with a massive 228m registered users.
• SnapChat (hacking issues aside), 2013 saw more photos distributed on SnapChat (up to 400m each day) than there was on Facebook.
• But… old-timer Orkut (the forgotten Brazilian network owned by Google) is still “bigger” than the trendy new kid on the block SnapChat.

“All of this is very interesting, but just because these appear to be the world’s largest networks, still doesn’t mean you should be paying attention to them…”

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