What's This New Browser?

Vivaldi New Browser Looks Promising

First Published Date: March 3, 2015

Internet Explorer was history long ago, I gave up on Chrome because of concerns with Google, and I was not really too happy with Firefox. My quest for a brand new browser never stopped, but I found nothing good enough to replace good old Firefox. It seems like those days are over, as Vivaldi offers more than expected in a new, baby browser.

Opera’s former CEO, Jon Tetzchner, just launched this self-funding new browser with only 25 employees spread across the globe. Vivaldi shocked the tech world with 500,000 downloads in first ten days. You don’t need ads to spread good news.

Vivaldi uses Chromium as its backbone engine. However, its minimalistic looks and some brand new features make it a more distinctive browser than any other.

There is no menu on the top, but there is a menu strip on the left side panel to let you access bookmarks and other tools. This menu strip can be easily collapsed if you want.

There is also a note-taking feature built in that allows you to take notes for those sites you are visiting.

Tabs show thumbnails of the websites and stack on top of each other when you open more sites from the same tab. Also, the active tab shows the main color of the site you are browsing, making it easy to find a tab among others.

There are other features available as well, such as quick commands, email client, speed dial for one or multiple groups, etc.

As Vivaldi is at its early stage, there are lots of features still missing, but expect to get more features as time goes by.

We have seen many browsers in the past with a nice start, but they failed to live up to their expectations later on. Hopefully Vivaldi will not become one of them.

3 Free Alternatives to Microsoft Office

Free Microsoft Office Alternatives You Can Use Right Now

First Published Date: October 19, 2013 ADawnJournal.com

While Microsoft Office is considered the industry standard, especially if you work in an office environment or a writer or an editor, it does not mean everyone must use only Microsoft Office. And these days, there are more reasons for most of us not to use Microsoft than ever before, as Microsoft limits installing software only on one computer per product key. For example, I have three computers at home and I change my computers frequently. So there is no way I would keep buying Microsoft Office let’s say 1 to 2 times every year, year after year. This is where these free alternatives come handy and they do not fall short of Microsoft Office in terms of functionality. Better yet, some of these actually work better and offer more features than Microsoft Office for free.

OpenOffice.Org – This is the most famous Microsoft Office alternative that comes with its own word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and much more. It can open any other office package including Microsoft Office, it can open PDF files, and it’s even able to save as Microsoft Office files such Word, Excel, etc. OpenOffice offers lots of features that are not even available in Microsoft Office. This is my first pick as Microsoft Office replacement.

Kingsoft Office – If you are looking for an almost identical user interface or lookalike alternative like Microsoft Office, look no further than Kingsoft. Kingsoft is packed with features and customization options that will make spending money to buy Microsoft laughable. Some unique features make Kingsoft stands out better than other office suites, such as a PDF converter, multiple tabbed features, adding watermarks, and so on. Kingsoft also offers a mobile office suite for Android or IOS as well.

FreeOffice – Another free office suite by German company SoftMaker. It offers cleans interface and lots of features, yet it’s a light version of SoftMaker’s paid-version commercial office suite.

What I noticed was that the same program may not offer the best for everything. For example, for word processing I liked Kingsoft, but for presentation I liked OpenOffice better. There are many other alternatives available for free. Try a few of them to pick the one that best meets your needs. Because there is so much software with a wide array of features available these days for free, the days are over for most of us to pay for office suite software.

How Google Image Loadings in Gmail Will Affect You

Gmail Now Loads Images on Google Server

First Published Date: January 1, 2014 ADawnJournal.com

Google recently announced a policy change in terms of how it handles loading images for Gmail and other Google apps.

Here is what you need to know in brief:

– In your Gmail, images will load automatically by default (you can change it by going to settings if you don’t like it this way).

– Images now will not load from the senders external original host servers. Instead, images will load from Google’s own secure servers.

Are These Changes a Good or Bad Thing?

The positives about these changes are as Google is loading on their servers first, they will do thorough scans for possible malware or spyware, and images showing inside your Gmail will be safer when you open your email. Also, you should see emails with images loading faster as Google servers are very fast.

On the other hand, some email marketers or email tracking services may not be able to provide accurate real-time or geolocation data as it will show Mountain View, Calif.

For the majority of Gmail users, these changes are positive. If you would like to find out more, read the following links:

My Top Favourite Free Financial News Smart Phone Apps

My Top Favourite Free Android Smart Phone Financial Info Apps

First Published Date: February 23, 2013 ADawnJournal.com

In the past, I talked about Android Financial Apps. Today, I will go over some financial news apps that will make your news quest in the financial world a lot easier and you will have the latest news at your fingertips instantly.

Bloomberg for Smartphone by Bloomberg LP – View financial news, market updates, and stock quotes with this app. This app can provide so many categories for financial news that it can overwhelming and hard to decide how many categories you want to set for your phone. The best feature this app has? You can watch live Bloomberg TV and video clips. Picture quality is unbelievably crisp clear. After installing this app, I started watching Bloomberg TV on my phone regularly for important highlights.

Google Finance by Google Inc. – This is somewhat a simple financial app compared to Bloomberg. There are only 3 tabs: Markets, Portfolios, and News. On the news tab, you can’t pick any categories. It shows all news at same place. The drawback with this app is that it does not support the Canadian market or stocks. If you have created watchlists for Canadian stocks under Google Finance Canada, it will show only the names of your watchlists, but will not show any individual stocks on the Canadian market.

Yahoo! Finance by Yahoo! Inc. – Very similar to Google Finance, but it supports Canadian markets and stocks. And its news section even shows Canadian business news. Very simple layout and easy to use.

How to Read free eBooks on Amazon Kindle

Read Free eBooks on Kindle

First Published Date: January 26, 2012

I have not tried any eBooks until recently when I purchased my Asus Eee Pad Transformer Tablet. However, once I found out the convenience of buying eBooks on Amazon Kindle Online eBook store with their one click buy option, I got hooked on it and I already have loaded my tablet with hundreds of eBooks – some of them are paid and some of them are free. Today, I will discuss how you can buy eBooks for free on the Kindle store.

You don’t need an eBook Reader or a Tablet to read eBooks. You can install Kindle for PC on your desktop or laptop to read eBooks. If you have a Tablet, you need to install the Kindle application from the app market. I will go through the two easiest ways to find eBooks on the Kindle store. There may be others ways pull free eBooks, but I like these two methods as they are very simple and fast.

Procedure One: See All Free eBooks without Categories

1. Go to the Kindle Store
2. Put “free kindle books” in the search box
3. Hit the “Go” button
4. You will see all the ebooks. As of this writing, I got 29,431 free eBooks.

Procedure Two: Sort All Free eBooks by Categories

1. Go to the Kindle Store
2. Look for the categories on the left
3. Pick the category you want
4. Sort it by price, from low to high on the top right
5. Free eBooks for that category will appear on the first few pages

Once you have found your book, click on that book and then you can buy the book by clicking the “buy” button on the top right. Yes, you still have to click the “buy” button, although it is free and you won’t be charged.

These days, I am reading more books than ever as I have access to all my eBooks on my smartphone, tablet, and PCs. If I read one book on my tablet and then open the same book on my smartphone, I will be on the same page where I left of on my Tablet (or any other devices), as all devices are synced when you read, regardless of their operating systems.