Category: Technology

Short for “Random Access Memory,” RAM may not be the most exciting of computer hardware specs to consider, but you certainly want to ensure that you have enough RAM to satisfy the demands of your laptop work and play. To find the right amount of RAM for you, think about how you tend to use your laptop.

What activities do you commonly ask your laptop to perform? What are your favorite platforms, programs, and applications? Your answers to these questions will determine just how much you need to spend on RAM.

8GB RAM and Below

Your laptop uses RAM to hold temporary data that facilitates immediate user access. For example, open applications, files, and browser tabs are all stored in RAM, not, as you may assume, on your hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD). This means that wise shoppers comparing the websites of multiple retailers, graphic designers working on large Photoshop files, and gamers who gravitate towards elaborate and memory-intensive games may find their computers operating sluggishly and unresponsively if they don’t have enough RAM.

For the average laptop buyer on a moderate budget, 8 gigabytes (GB) of RAM are generally sufficient. While most high-quality laptop models currently offer 8GM RAM standard, budget shoppers can generally find 4GB RAM laptops to meet low-level needs such as basic internet surfing and word processing.

For very good reasons, few computer brands continue to manufacture and support laptops with 2GB RAM or less. At these levels of RAM, laptops may become overwhelmed with even lower intensity programs and having a few browser tabs simultaneously open. Fortunately, many laptops of any age and existing RAM can be upgraded with additional memory as needed or desired.

8GB RAM to 16GB RAM

Average computer users who are willing and able to spend at least $500 on a new laptop are generally quite happy with 8GB to 16GB RAM. Just consider how many apps, large files, and browser windows that you might want to have open at the same time. As these numbers go up, your RAM capability should follow accordingly.

Overall, even a fairly demanding laptop owner who might play the occasional game or two can maintain a highly responsive and consistent user experience with between 8GB and 16GB RAM. Many people choose RAM in the double digits as a hedge against unexpected but possible memory needs. For example, a company may only require simple Excel spreadsheets at the moment, but will be working with complex financial data on multiple documents and records in the near future. Likewise, a gamer may progress to more and more complicated games that take place in increasingly intricate and graphically rich worlds. As a gamer, it is important to check the minimum RAM requirements of the games that you most want to play.

16GB RAM and More

Beyond serious gamers, content creators who work on large files and anyone who benefits from keeping dozens of tabs open in multiple browsers will want to consider RAM of 16GB or more. From architects to animators, large numbers of people who use their laptops to plan, execute, and/or store professional projects tend to require more than 16GB of RAM. These professionals are typically quite willing to spend extra money on RAM if it enables them to slash the time it takes to complete tasks.

Google has provided a lot of free services online that have eliminated the need for expensive software for the most part. From having a word processor to spreadsheets and pretty much everything in between, Google Forms has made life easier for people to be more efficient. While larger companies may use Microsoft products like Word and PowerPoint, Google Forms offers similar products entirely for free for those that are self-employed or simply want to use them for fun.

With that said, there are a lot of different ways that you can use Google Forms to increase your efficiency and learn a lot about collaborating with people and creating surveys. Let’s take a closer look at how Google Forms works and give some tips on how to get the most out of the web application.

Let The App Guide You

Those that are using Google Forms for the first time will likely be treated to a pop-up window showing you the basic ins and outs of the application. While a lot of people will skip this and try to figure things out themselves, it’s important to take heed of the advice that Google offers when you open Forms.

These pop-up windows will show you how to add a question, how to format, change the style, and much more. If you ignore Google’s guidance, you might miss out on some of the key features that Forms offers and not finish your document the right away. Just like video games, it’s best to not skip the tutorial.

Quiz Grading

One of the many uses of Google Forms is the ability to create a quiz. Whether you’re using this option for a fun quiz on your blog or you’re a teacher that’s running a quiz that counts toward a grade, Google Forms can help. What some users might not know is that Google can automatically grade a quiz for you.

Under the settings options on Forms, you can set the document to be a quiz and assign set answers and point values. From there, you can set the Form to immediately show the grades and even the answers after they’ve been guessed. This can help students know what they got wrong right away, allowing them to jot down what they should be studying.

Get Your Responses

You don’t have to wait until everybody has finished the form to see the results, and you can have those real-time results sent right to you. Under the responses tab, there will be an icon of three dots that allows you to find more options. From there, you’ll be able to change the destination for the results or responses, creating a spreadsheet that gets emailed directly to you.

This spreadsheet will also change in real-time so that you can see the trends in the responses. You can set up notifications so that you get an email for each new response, or set a number of responses before you get an email. After all, if 10,000 people are taking your survey, you don’t want an email for each one.

Templates Galore

There are options for scripting on Google Forms, but not all of us are very good at scripting and coding. With that in mind, there are plenty of templates that Google has available, and it’s best to use these if you want to make sure you have a foolproof option for making a survey. There are templates for all sorts of categories, including personal use, education, and office.

These templates are incredibly handy and perfect for those that aren’t tech-savvy. If you’re in that intermediate level between a novice and a coding master, you can add your own template from scratch. It’s fairly easy to do and allows you to give your own spin on each template.

Visualize Results

While the standard is to have the results of a survey listed in numerical form, there are many other ways to visualize the end data. When clicking on the settings tab, go to ‘general’ and then ‘respondents’ to select the different ways to show the data provided.

From there, you can select whether or not to see your summary in chart form along with the text responses. Many people love this option since it allows them to get a better visual of how the data stacks up. Don’t be afraid to play around with all of the features of Google Forms and you’ll be an expert in no time!

Since it was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, SpaceX has been one of the most talked about companies in the world. Not only has it drawn attention for privatizing space travel, but it has also helped to make the internet more accessible around the world with the Starlink satellites. SpaceX accomplished a lot in its first 20 years after a rough start, and people are curious to see where the future will take SpaceX.

The Road So Far

During the first few years of SpaceX, the company unsuccessfully attempted to launch the first privately funded rocket into orbit a couple of times before finally getting it right on the fourth attempt in September 2008. This paved the way for SpaceX to start several new missions, and in the late 2010s, the company was reaching new milestones on a near-monthly basis.

SpaceX has had the first reuse and re-flight of a crewed space capsule, the first orbital launch of a crew fully comprised of civilians, and even set the record for most launches of a single rocket in one year with the Falcon 9. Needless to say, the start of SpaceX has been a huge success for Elon Musk.

What Lies Ahead

After setting that record for most launches in a year, Elon Musk said that he wanted to reset the record each and every year that follows. Not only will this help to put more Starlink satellites into orbit, but it will also increase the use of commercial space travel. The load capacity should be increased for each launch as SpaceX finds a path for its biggest missions.

This includes a return to manned missions to the moon. There have only been 12 people to ever walk on the moon, but none of those have come since Commander Eugene Cernan did so in 1972. Musk has said that getting people to walk on the moon was one of the more immediate goals to hit by 2030 for the SpaceX program. “It may literally be easier to just land Starship on the moon than try to convince NASA that we can,” Musk said.

The Big Red Plan

Of course, you can’t mention SpaceX without talking about the plans that it has for Mars. Musk has said that he not only wants to make it possible for humans to travel to the fourth planet from the sun but also establish a colony on Mars. To do this, SpaceX is attempting to develop the Starship so that it’s capable of traveling all the way to Mars.

This means that there has to be enough fuel to make the trip, which can be tricky as the ship also needs to be able to hold a lot of weight. Once the logistics of getting to Mars are taken care of, then establishing life on the planet can begin. Musk believes that a refueling can happen while on the planet using its resources, allowing it to return to Earth and that humans can be on Mars before 2030.

Outward Expansion

The journey of establishing humans on other planets doesn’t just end on Mars, though. In the distant future, SpaceX hopes that Mars becomes a hub for travel to planets even further away. Also, many wonder what life would be like once Mars is established as a place for humans. Obviously, there isn’t food or enough water for people there currently, and the atmosphere isn’t fit for humans.

This means that humans would have to live entirely indoors while on Mars in a structure that’s able to withstand temperatures as low as 200 degrees Fahrenheit while also blocking out UV rays from the sun. It’s no easy task, but it’s something that Musk feels is entirely possible within his lifetime.

“We don’t want to be one of those single-planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species,” Musk said. “We need to get back there and have a permanent base on the moon…and then build a city on Mars to become a spacefaring civilization, a multi-planet species.”

SpaceX is one of those names that didn’t even exist as late as the 1990s, but has now become one of the most prominent names in the world. The company has privatized space travel and has plans of putting people on Mars, achieving a lot in its brief history. How did SpaceX get its start, though, and how did it become such a massive company in such a short amount of time? Let’s take a look at the brief history of SpaceX.

New Millennium, New Company

Some of the most prominent people on Earth have constantly talked about putting life on Mars, but those talks mainly involved officials from the United States and Russia. When the two countries couldn’t agree on how to get things done and had a falling-out from the end of the ABM Treaty, it looked like the project might be dead.

Elon Musk was on the board of directors for the Mars Society at the time and wanted to keep the dream alive. Once the countries could no longer agree on ways to get to Mars on a join effort, Musk decided he would play both sides by privatizing space travel with affordable rockets.

Musk convinced Michael Griffin of the CIA to use investment money from In-Q-Tel to the tune of nearly $400 million so that Musk could start his new company. The name didn’t take long to come up with, and Musk was ready to get SpaceX off the ground both literally and figuratively.

First Flight

With hundreds of millions to spend, Musk needed a staff for his new company. He hired all of the first employees himself, with over 150 of them making up the first staff in SpaceX history. Now, Musk had to prove that his rocket company was going to be much cheaper than NASA’s launches have been. With that, the Falcon 1 rocket was born in the mid 2000s and was ready for its first launch in 2006.

Unfortunately, the first Falcon 1 launch proved to be a failure. Things didn’t get better, either, as the next two launches were also unsuccessful, and SpaceX had spent a ton of money over four years just to have zero successful launches. Musk was on the brink of having to shut down his company before it really got started, but things turned around quickly.

On September 28, 2008, SpaceX attempted the launch of the Falcon 1 for a fourth time. This time, the flight was a success and proved to be cost-efficient so long as it worked. The fifth flight also went well, and SpaceX was on its way.

Expanding the Business

Over the next few years, SpaceX did a lot of experimenting. This included the cost-saving method of reusing rockets, as well as low-altitude landings and commercial flights. SpaceX raised a lot of money during this time, especially after the announcement of Starlink. The new internet service saw SpaceX taking satellites into orbit so that people around the world could access the web.

SpaceX as a whole would increased its valuation to over $50 billion by the second half of 2020, and the number continued to increase after more Starlink satellites were being put into space. The following year, SpaceX tried to do the unthinkable when it launched the Inspiration4 mission. This would be the first-ever mission using only civilians to go into orbit and come back safely.

The mission ended up being a huge success for Musk’s company, and helped set the new standard for what can be achieved with space travel. This also opened the door for future human colonization of Mars and potentially other planets down the road.

The Future of SpaceX

It’s hard to say where SpaceX will be in 5, 10, or 20 years. Some think that SpaceX will essentially be the Greyhound bus line equivalent of space travel to and from Mars. Between commercial and cargo flights, though, the possibilities are endless for what SpaceX can achieve in the future.

“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great,” Elon Musk said. “And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”

There are a lot of apps to choose from when looking to kill some time on your mobile phone, but nothing is quite as annoying as playing a game and then having to find out that you have to pay monthly just to use it. However, a lot of these apps offer up a free trial period that allows you to get the entire scope of the app without paying.

Many of these apps you only need for the free trial and then you can finish using them for good. If you’re looking for a great time waster for the next month, try one of these 10 awesome apps you only need for the free trial period.

Akinator

Akinator is an AI-based guessing game released in 2007, still just as popular as ever in 2022. The AI asks the users questions to determine what person, fictional or real, or animal they’re thinking of. It’s a quick and fun app really only needed for the free trial. 

Smule

Karaoke apps like Smule provide users with karaoke versions of their favorite songs and cool voice functions within the recordings you make. It’s a cool app, but you’ll most likely try out all the features and songs before the free trial ends. 

GameFly

GameFly offers you an entire month for their free trial, giving you plenty of time to rent and beat games you’ve been dying to play or just don’t want to spend the $50+ on for your console, or PC. 

PNP-Portable North Pole 

PNP-Portable North Pole is great for the holidays. What’s even better is you can take advantage of the free trial during that specific time of year. It allows you to receive and gift personalized videos from the jolly Father Christmas himself. Kids will love this little free treat. 

AI Art

AI art apps are all the rage right now. It’s a terrifyingly accurate and impressive method of turning your pictures into interesting works of art without needing to pay for an entire commissioned painting. The free trial is all you’ll need to test out the app and get your awesome AI-generated works of art to show off to all of your friends. 

Monsterfy

Monsterfy is absolutely perfect for the spooky season crowd. Since it’s a seasonal thing, there isn’t really a need to keep the app around longer than the free trial duration. It’s a fun app that kids will love that lets them swap faces with spooky monsters, turning them into ghastly ghouls for the Halloween season. 

100’s of Buttons and Prank Sounds 

If you’re the goofy prankster type, this app and its free trial is perfect for you. It’s full of silly buttons and prank sounds that you, or those around you, will probably tire of after the free trial ends. 

Reverse Movie FX

Reverse Movie FX is a fun little app you can use to play around with all of your recorded videos. It allows users to reverse fragments of their videos where someone is performing a normal action. Though a cool concept, the hype of the reverse feature usually dies off after the free trial. 

MadLipz

MadLipz allows users to take popular short clips and dub over the video, or songs featured in them. It’s a really fun activity that could keep you and others entertained for a good while, but the free trial gives you enough of a taste to see if the app is worth purchasing 

Dragon Ball Super Card Game Tutorial

An app focusing on a tutorial is pretty much perfect for free trials. Learning to play the DBZ card game is an important strategy for anime and card game lovers to learn. The free trial gives you enough time to do so without having to pay for the product. 

When assembling a new computer setup for the first time, there are a lot of things that we take into consideration. From the monitor situation to the tower, one thing that tends to be overlooked is the mouse. However, getting the right mouse can be just as important as getting the right keyboard, especially when it comes to your mouse’s click speed. In the gaming world, click speed can make the difference between winning and losing a lot of times.

FPS Gaming

Perhaps the most impacted genre of video games when it comes to click speed is the first person shooter genre. In games like Call of Duty, Counterstrike, or PUBG, it’s not enough to simply make sure that you’re aiming in the right spot, but you also have to be able to fire off several shots at a time.

If your click speed is lagging, you could be missing out on what was the perfect shot and end up taking damage yourself. Even if you have the best mouse in the world for click speed, it’s also going to depend on how fast your hand can click on that mouse button enough to get the job done. Still, you can get faster click speed by getting a mouse that features a faster response time.

To find the right mouse, search for ones that have a higher polling rate and a lower click latency. Ergonomics will also help, as a traditional shaped mouse isn’t really fit for someone to click repeatedly for gaming. Mouses like the Razer Viper fit perfectly into a gamer’s hand while also featuring lightning fast polling rates and almost zero latency.

Idle Games

Some of the best time wasters that people have found on the internet are idle games. Games like AdVenture Capitalist, Clicker Heroes, and Realm Grinder do much of the work when sitting idle, but can increase in progress speed if the player is sitting there and clicking ahead. Obviously for these games, having a better click speed will speed up your progress tremendously. 

These games may not require skill and a high reaction speed, but all of those seconds that are saved with an improved click speed will certainly add up in the long run to make these games more worthwhile.

Working

You might not think too much about it, but throughout the working day, you’re going to end up clicking on your mouse a lot. In an eight-hour work day, the average person tends to click about 6,000 times. You don’t really realize how much you’re clicking until you start counting in your head, so we want to apologize for putting that into your brain.

There are going to be some times throughout your job where you have to click repeatedly, whether it be deleting files or trying to keep up with a customer that’s talking your ear off on the phone. These seconds saved with a better click speed will add up over the work day, with one worker saying that he spent 16 hours in one year simply clicking on a mousepad. Had it been an ergonomic mouse with a low latency, it could have resulted in hours saved.

Improving Your Click Speed

While the importance of having a fast click speed is typically reserved for gamers, there are still a lot of smaller reasons why you’ll want to improve on yours. Thankfully, you can test your click speed and accuracy to see if it might just be your mouse or clicking style that needs to be changed.

There are a few clicking methods that get away from the norm, including butterfly clicking that has you using two fingers on the left mouse button and alternating between the two fingers. It would be hard to be the fastest in the world, though, as that record belongs to a man from Las Vegas who clicked over 1,000 times in just 10 seconds.

There are more than 2 billion people around the world that use Whatsapp, a messenger app that connects people around the world, with nearly a quarter of the users coming from India and Brazil. However, there are several major countries in which Whatsapp isn’t widely used, and there may be some concerns regarding data protection.

For these reasons, Whatsapp may not be the best messaging tool for everyone. The good news, though, is that there are plenty of alternatives that do the trick. Here are five Whatsapp alternatives to use if you’re looking for something that’s more commonly used in your area or perhaps safer to use.

Signal 

The Signal messaging app was developed by the Signal Technology Foundation in 2018. The company was founded by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton that same year. Signal offers a safer, encrypted, global form of communication. Similar to WhatsApp, users can communicate with people all over the world via messages, video calls, and audio calls. 

Signal is free to users and offers a secure place for your private conversations. Third parties can’t access the content within your app and you can hide conversations from your friends, or anyone who has access to your phone.

Telegram

Telegram is another free-to-use app that offers similar services to WhatsApp. Telegram gives users a private, encrypted, and safer platform for messages, audio calls, video calls, and file sharing of up to 1.5GB, unlike other communication apps. 

Also offering communication in at least 12 languages. The Telegram app was released for iOS and Android in 2013, developed by brothers Nikola and Pavel Durov. It’s one of the most popular secure messenger apps available today, with over 1 billion downloads and over 50 million active users as of 2021. 

Facebook Messenger 

Facebook Messenger is the most popular messenger app in North America and is the official messenger for the Facebook app. It was first developed as a feature on the Facebook website in 2008, years later becoming its own messenger app for iOS and Android in 2011 and adding the audio and video calling features in 2018. 

The app allows you to send money back and forth, take and share pictures, share your screen during calls, secret messaging, and communicate with users all over the Facebook world. Users can communicate with over 100 languages offered through the app. Although a great alternative to WhatsApp, the Facebook messenger doesn’t offer anonymity. 

Viber

Viber, also known as Rakuten Viber, is a free app, with paid calling options available, for iOS, Android, and PC. It was released in 2010 after being developed by Viber Media, which was later bought out by the Japanese company Rakuten in 2014 for $900 million. 

Users can send encrypted messages back and forth, audio calls, and video calls, send photos, and share group chats with unlimited members and plenty of admin features. 

Kik Messenger 

Kik Messenger is a free app developed and owned by MediaLab AI, Inc. Released in 2010, Kik quickly became popular among the younger crowds, with about 40% of teenagers using the app in 2016. Kik is a simple and easy-to-use messenger. You don’t need to enter much personal information to sign up, just your username/email, birthdate, and password. 

The app does log your IP address and doesn’t offer message encryption, but allows for total anonymity otherwise. You can message worldwide, audio call, video call, share photos, and join group community chats based on your interests. A great feature included in the app to prevent nefarious acts is the addition of SafePhoto, a feature that prevents, reports, and deletes exploitative images of children. 

Websites are essentially real estate in this virtual age, with some domains being worth thousands of dollars just for having the right name. Then, there are those that are worth millions and even billions. There are only a handful of domains that find themselves in the billion-dollar and up category, with these five being the most valuable on the internet.

5. Bilibili

Video sharing is one of the best aspects of the internet, and has changed the way that people consume media. In China, Bilibili is the king of video sharing, with the service also offering mobile games in six different languages. It was founded in 2009 by Xu Yi, who took on the role of director and president while Chen Rui became the CEO.

Bilibili became the fifth website to be valued at over $2 billion, which also made it the second Chinese website to reach that total. There has been steady growth throughout Bilibili’s history, too, with its ability to appeal to the younger generation being a huge reason for its growth and value. Unlike another certain video-sharing website that we’ll get to later, there is no parent company for Bilibili.

4. Baidu

Baidu was founded on New Year’s Day in 2000 and became China’s go-to search engine as the country’s answer to Yahoo and Google. Robin Li and Eric Xu founded the company and hold a share of more than three-quarters of all of the searches in China and employ over 45,000 people. Along the way, Baidu has acquired several websites to grow the empire.

Baidu is the most valuable website in China with a valuation of over $2.2 billion, and it’s easy to see why as there are so many services that Baidu offers. The company has billions in assets and continues to grow as the years go on, putting a stranglehold on the top of the Chinese website list.

3. Facebook

While social media started in earnest with MySpace, it was Facebook that truly helped it to take off. At first, the Mark Zuckerberg-founded website was exclusive to those with a collegiate email address but soon branched out to being fully public on a global scale and eventually publicly traded. Facebook made Zuckerberg a billionaire, which makes sense with around 3 billion active users per month.

Due to the global outreach and massive revenue that comes in from advertising, Facebook was valued to be $2.6 billion. Sure, there have been plenty of controversies regarding Facebook over the years, but there’s no doubt that the website has been extremely influential during its lifetime and has changed the way we use the internet.

2. YouTube

While Bilibili is the top video-sharing website in China, nobody comes close to the type of success as YouTube. The website was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in 2005, launching on Valentine’s Day. Since the first video was uploaded by one of the founder’s day at the zoo, YouTube has exploded into basically being a utility for households around the world.

YouTube makes an insane amount of money from advertising, which has perturbed some people, but no alternative without advertising has proven to be a threat. Because of this, YouTube is valued to be over $3 billion and in 2006 was purchased by Google’s parent company Alphabet, Inc., and became its biggest source of income.

1. Google

Speaking of Google, the search engine that also serves as a verb is the most valuable website on the planet. The simplicity of Google helped to make it the top dog, and the search results algorithm makes it the top of its class. Though there have been many competitors, Google still reigns supreme for much of the same reason as YouTube, with people not really wanting to explore other options.

Because it’s the homepage for countless people, Google is the most valuable website in the world with a valuation of $4.8 billion. Google is unlikely to ever lose its place at the top, either, as there’s a massive gap and has been far and away number one for a very long time.