iOS 7 and iPhone 4: Buddies or Enemies?

As early as in December, 2013 Apple made a statement requiring developers to optimize all updates and new apps for iOS 7 by February 1, 2014. And here we are in February. According to iOS 7 adoption statistics there are still 20% of devices run on previous operational systems, which persumes not all the Apple’s cusumers will be able to update their apps.

What keeps users from upgrading to the lastest OS? Could it be the fear of “ruining” your not-the-latest-generation-devices? Let’s say you have an iPhone 4, since it’s the oldest iOS 7-friendly device, what would happen if you upgrade to the latest operating system and how to fix drawbacks.

Why you might want updating iPhone 4 to iOS 7?

Since the iPhone 4 is the oldest model capable of upgrading to iOS 7 many users are full of doubts if it would worth adopting it and what impact it would have on their phone functionality. As it was said above, starting February 1, 2014 all native apps and app updates must be iOS 7-optimized. That means if you keep your device running on the previous iOS version your apps would be no longer up-to-date, not to speak of brand new apps. But what else would you get upgrading to iOS 7 besides upgraded apps? Well sure enough it would bring you:

• New interface


• New control center


• Upgraded notifications


• Enhanced Siri functionality

Till now everything sounds quite nice, isn’t it? But don’t hasten to happy-upgrading-station right away and let’s exercise caution first.

Pitfalls or hardware issues

It should not be ignored that iOS 7 is optimized for iPhone 5S with 1GB RAM and 1.3GHz dual-core A7 processor. If you claim that it’s also perfect for iPhone 5C you would be correct but still it’s equipped with A6 processor while the iPhone 4 has only 512MB of RAM and an A4 processor. No need to be a tech geek to suspect there would be a huge difference in the way iOS 7 runs on the iPhone 4. This device isn’t as powerful as the latests generations and it would be wrong from the beginning to expect it to work as efficiently as the iPhone 5S, 5C, 5, and even 4S.

Slowing down after adopting iOS 7

Let’s presume you have upgraded to iOS 7 what you would find out. As I already mentioned above you would get new features and enhancements. What also I was happy with is that even if the new operational system slowed down the phone it made it work smoother. If you don’t mind to wait an extra fraction of a second to switch between apps you would enjoy more smooth transition between them through multitasking.

Battery drain

The only real issue that might would disappoint you since upgrading to iOS 7 is the battery drain. Battery dies much more faster, even if the iPhone is turned off.

But no panic, there are ways to prolong the battery life. And, without any further ado, let’s run through tips to save the battery:

• Turn off Parallax Motion


• Disable Location Services


• Swipe away/delete unnecessary apps from Notification Center


• Turn off Background App Updates and


• Switch off Auto Updates


• Don’t forget to erase Background Apps


• Turn off Wifi and Bluetooth when you don’t use it

Second thoughts?

When everything is done, and hopefully you would find yourself happy having your iPhone 4 running on the iOS 7 and not having second thoughts, anyway it would do no good having them since you can not downgrade back to iOS 6, how might you feel?

By disabling most of the eye-candy and fancy features your phone would be able to live on a single charge as long as it used to do before the upgrading. You might think if you upgraded your phone and then turned off its new key features what was the reason for upgrading. One important issue it that now you could get your apps updated and also since iOS 7 has a totally new design, your iPhone 4 gets a new look and becomes literally a new device all over again. Not bad, isn’t it?

I would be happy to hear from you, so please let me know what you think in the comments below.

Byline:
Faina Babintseva is a contributor to mobile and web development resources and blogs. She mostly writes about iPhone app development tips and tricks, project management and implementation.

How to Copy Files with Xcopy Command in Windows?

Xcopy is a command-line tool from the days of DOS (Disk Operating System), before the Windows operating system took off, It still works today, and is much quicker at copying a large number of files than clicking and dragging in Explorer.

Press Windows+R and type cmd to open a command prompt window, then type: xcopy /? to show the Help information.



 

It looks complicated, but the format is basically ‘xcopy source destination options’.

For example, to copy a folder from one place to another, such as to a USB drive, you would type:

[code]xcopy C:\MyFolder D:\AnotherFolder /S /Q[/code]

The source is C: \MyFolder and the destination is D:\AnotherFolder, where the USS drive is D:. The /S option copies all sub-folders (not just files) in C:\MyFolder, and the /Q means quiet, which speeds up the job by not displaying anything on the screen and just getting on with the work.

So, to copy your personal folder, music, documents, pictures and more to a USS drive, you would type:

[code]xcopy C:\Users\Yourname D:\YourName /S /Q /H /C[/code]

The /H means you want to also copy Hidden and system files, and /C means Continue, even if there is an error. A file that is in use cannot be copied (a sharing violation) but /C will ignore this and continue anyway.

How to Play YouTube Videos in HD?

When you watch video on youtube then You can not magically turn low-resolution video into HD, but there are add-ons and programs that “upscale” videos for larger screens. Output quality depends on your screen and the original video, but the results can be very impressive.

Best add-ons for turning Low to HD resolution videos-



Chrome extension Magic Actions for YouTube has an excellent Auto HD tool that forces the best possible quality from Flash and HTML5 videos. It also has an auto wide screen mode and supports Ultra HD 4K (4,000 pixels), though your PC may not.

The tiny YouTube HD add-on for Firefox plays videos in HD by adding code to the end of the URL. However, it does not work on embedded videos and only pushes resolution to 720 pixels, which is accepted as HD online but would be laughed out of a cinema.

Best Tips for Copy files faster in Windows

Every file read from and written to your hard drive is checked by your anti-virus software. When you run a single program or open a document, this happens so fast you don’t notice, but if you copy or move a thousand files, this checking process will significantly slow down your PC. If you know you have got a lot of files to copy, right-click your anti-virus software’s icon on the right-hand side of the taskbar and disable it while you copy, then turn it back on again afterwards.

Windows displays thumbnail images of photographs, which is handy when you’re browsing, but because the thumbnails are refreshed every second or two, this slows down your transfer when you’re moving lots of photos from one Explorer window to another. Close the Explorer windows once the copying has started, to stop the thumbnails refreshing and speed up the job.

Xcopy is a command-line tool from the days of DOS (Disk Operating System), before the Windows operating system took off, It still works today, and is much quicker at copying a large number of files than clicking and dragging in Explorer.

Robocopy, which stands for robust file copy, is another command prompt tool and it’s even better than Xcopy.



If you do not like typing commands, you can run Robocopy through a Windows interface using WinRoboCopy.

10 Favorite must have Portable Software

You can find portable versions of most free programs, although they won’t always be official releases from the publisher itself.

PortableApps does an excellent job of packaging up portable versions of popular software, which don’t even need the PortableApps software to run. So if a publisher does not offer a portable version itself, take a look at portableapps.com/apps.

Here are our 10 favorite must-have portable programs.

#1. Google Chrome Portable

Like the portable version of Firefox, this Chrome build is produced by PortableApps. There are portable versions of the browser’s Dev and Beta releases, too.

Link - Google Chrome Portable

#2. cCleaner Portable

cCleaner is easily the best PC cleaner around and it’s available in a portable version from Piriform’s website. The download comes with 32- and 64-bit versions. Just run the one you want.

Link - cCleaner Portable

#3. Recuva Portable

cCleaner’s publisher Piriform makes portable versions of its other tools too.

Recuva is an excellent recovery tool which can find and restore deleted files from hard drives, cameras and MP3 players.

Link - Recuva Portable

#4. Defraggler Portable

The third of the portable Piriform tools, Defraggler is a powerful disk defragmenter that can optimise entire hard drives or individual files. Don’t use it to defrag solid-state storage (such as USB flash drives), though, because it can wear them out.

Link - Defraggler Portable

#5. GIMP Portable

This build of the popular image editor is packaged by PortableApps. If you’re using the software on your PC, you can copy over your current settings. The optional GIMP Photoshop Layout add-on emulates the Adobe software’s tool layout.

Link - GIMP Portable

#6. Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition

A great example of an existing program packaged by PortableApps, this version of Mozilla’s browser installs in a single directory and holds all your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords, so you can take them with you.

Link - Mozilla Firefox

#7. VLC Media Player Portable

If you want to guarantee that you’ll be able to play any audio or video file you encounter - MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, WMV, MP3, OGG, as well as DVDs and VCDs - you’ll want the portable version of VLC’s multimedia player to hand. Bear in mind that the portable version doesn’t remember which skins you use between sessions.

Link - VLC Media Player Portable

#8. uTorrent Portable

This build of the world’s most popular BitTorrent client automatically downloads torrents and files to directories inside the
portable folder. This is easily changed if you’d prefer to have them stored elsewhere.

Link - uTorrent Portable

#9. Foxit Reader Portable

Adobe’s PDF reader is an adequate tool for the job, but Foxit’s alternative is more powerful and lets you create your own PDFs from scratch. It can also convert other files into the popular document format, and comes with comprehensive security protection.

Link - Foxit Reader Portable

#10. PrivaZer

This PC cleaner and privacy tool gives you the option to install it, run it without installation, or generate a portable version that you can use on a USB flash drive.

Link - PrivaZer

How to Download your Facebook Data?

If you want to delete your facebook account - the facebook advises you to download your information before delete facebook account.

You can do this by going to Account Settings => General => ‘Download a copy of your Facebook data’ and then clicking Start My Archive.



Facebook will then prepare the download, which includes anything you have posted on your Timeline; sent and received messages; photos and videos; and your friend list. Facebook will then email you when it is ready (this can take several hours).



Interestingly, you can also download an Expanded Archive that contains even more account info, such as the dates and times of all your Facebook sessions, adverts you have clicked and “a list of topics that you may be targeted against based on your stated likes, interests and other data you put in your timeline”.

You can’t remove any of this information without deleting your account, but it’s useful to learn exactly what Facebook knows about you.

How to Recover Deleted Files?

If you accidentally empty your Recycle Bin, or your computer crashes and you lose something important, you can restore your files using Recuva.

The software scans your hard drive for deleted files, including photos, music, documents, videos and compressed files, plus emails from Thunderbird, Outlook Express and Windows Mail. It even works on drives that have been formatted.

To restore files, select them using the check boxes, then click Recover. The files will be restored to their original location. Recuva also works with any rewriteable media you may have, such as USB sticks, memory cards and iPods. This means you can recover songs you have lost, or pictures that were wiped from a digital camera.



Additionally, if Word crashes and Windows’ built-in auto-save feature does not recover your work, Recuva can rebuild the document using temporary cached files. The program can also permanently delete files so they can not be recovered, which is useful if you are selling your laptop, for example.