How to make an Android app easily for your website/blog and share it in an Application store

 

If you own a website, whether a business site, blog or any other type, at some point of time you might have searched in Google on How to increase your site's traffic. That is because traffic plays an important role in the sustainment of a website. You might be a person who have struggled a lot to get some traffic or someone who realized its importance just after reading this. Whoever you are keep in mind that you should always research on utilising available resources to gain traffic to your website. For your knowledge website traffic is mainly classified into three.

Types of website traffic

Direct Traffic

Direct traffic is that traffic you usually get from your regular readers.In other words,  if a person types your website URL directly in the browser to visit your website or use a bookmark, it is called direct traffic. In order to get such type of traffic you should keep in mind certain factors.

• Your domain should be something striking and easy to remember.
• Domain name should be related to your niche.
• Try to avoid using sub-domains.
• Avoid using long and confusing names

Sharing quality and useful posts regularly will eventually gain you some readers who contribute more to direct traffic.

Search Traffic

The traffic that you attain from different search engines are called Search Traffic. It is the most important source of traffic for your website. You will have to gain some knowledge in Search Engine Optimisation(SEO) in order to get properly benefitted from search engines like Google, Bing etc.

Other Traffic

All blog visits apart from Search and Direct sources will come under this classification. It can be from other blogs, forums, social networks or any other sources. YouTube can also plays a major role in building traffic as it is the most used search engine after Google. You will need to learn to use these services in an efficient way to make them generate traffic for you. Traffic from Android app also comes under this category. But developing an Android app is not at all easy as it sounds. You should have some programming skills in Java and certain other fields as well.And that is not everyone’s cup of tea. The next option available is to shed some money by hiring a developer to create an app for your site. That is the best option if you have enough fund. But what if you are on a tight budget or have no plan to hire a developer?  Then you are in the right place. Below you will learn to create a simple Android app to open your website link directly in a phone's browser. I bet this is the easiest method as it is done completely online and you won't need any coding or such stuffs.

Creating  an App

The app created will be more like a bookmark rather than a normal Android app. The end result will be an apk file that can be installed on any Android device. I have found half a dozen of websites for creating android apps online but i recommend the best one i’ve found. I prefer this because there won't be any Ads of the website in the app generated. Not just that, the app will be less that 100kb in size!

STEPS:

Open Makeapk.com in your browser. In the first pace you will notice that the site is not complicated at all. You can complete the whole process in the first page itself.

• Enter your website URL
• Enter title (this will be the name of the app)
• Give email ID
• Select a default icon or provide an icon of your choice.(if you don’t have an icon now just use any of the icons listed. I will explain an easy way to change the icon without corrupting the file).
• Press Submit and you are good to go. Simply download your official Android App.

Upload your App to an App store

That's it, you have just successfully created your Android app. You can now share your app with your friends or your regular readers. But its more important to share it in a reputed application store so that your app will be available to a whole lot of users worldwide. You can select any third party stores of your choice.

In case of Opera Mobile Store, you will need to create a developer account first. PRESS HERE to sign up for a free publisher account with Opera Store. Read the simple instructions to upload your apk file. Your app will be available for download after it is verified which usually takes 12 hours. You will be notified via email.



If you have created your First Android app for your app, you can share its link in the comment section below. Sharing is caring, so do share this with others.

 

 

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Beware, Android malware NotCompaitable is back in action

Recently, Android smartphones worldwide are said to be affected new virus, NotCompaitable. As many of you may have heard of this malware before and this is not a new virus. This is an improved and dangerous version of NotCompaitable which first appeared in 2012. In this third version, the creators behind the bug have rewritten the code and that makes it harder to defeat. In this modern world, people spend more of their time with smartphones and tablets rather than using desktops. Activations of new Android devices per day are increasing at a huge rate which the hackers are well aware of. So this makes them aim to Android as well as iOS platforms.

The newer version of NotCompaitable found is as complex as malwares found in computers. The virus is being spread by spam and through various download sites that are hijacked. Mobile security firm Lookout reported that the new version is much more stable and uses end-to-end encryption, peer-to-peer networking and stealthy operating procedures which makes it hard to detect. The phones that enabled to install apps from unknown sources are more exposed to this threat. If you happen to land on an infected website while browsing with your phone browser, a file 'update.apk' will be downloaded and installed automatically. The phone may pops a notification for a security update. If the user grants permission, thinking that its just a normal security update, the virus will gain full control over your device. The phones affected are found to be sending spam emails, buying tickets on bulk, attacking blogs etc

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The rate of mobile malwares are rising as more time being spent on hand-held devices. They are normally spread through apps and games whose apk files are repacked with files that harm the device. Wirelurker, Masque, Dendroid etc are just three of a variety of malwares released worldwide. Android being an open source project, makes it less secure, especially the devices that have root access. In one way or the other, this just motivates the cyber criminals. They are keen to get access to other devices so that the user's data can be acquired without his consent or knowledge. This sensitive data can be used for various uses. Hackers can sell the data, use it for sending phishing emails or even get access to victim's bank account. It has been found that 70 percent of people reuses the password across different sites so it also helps hackers to access victim's social accounts.

How not to get affected ?

Always try to follow these simple steps while using your phone. Following these strictly will be an annoyance but what if you get a phone bill of $500 for bad SMS calls or lost $2000 from your bank account because your credit card details got stolen from your phone? I’d prefer getting annoyed with following some of these rules.

• Never Root/Jailbreak your smartphone if you are not much aware of it. Rooting may allow you to Superuser access but also strips away some essential security features.
• Only download apps from trusted app stores like Google Play, Amazon or 1Mobile but try to stick with Google Play.
• Be cautious when allowing permissions to the installed app.
• Try not to install cracked apps and games. These files may be repacked with harmful contents.
• Use an antivirus program in your phone. TrusttGo, LookOut, Norton are recommended.
• Try to update your phone software to latest version.
• Don’t use Banking and other private apps on public WiFi.

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Free subscription for Saavn Pro if you purchase from Snapdeal

Indian e-commerce firm, Snapdeal announced its partnership with Saavn today, for providing two month free subscription for Saavn pro app for Android users. Saavn is an online music service that offers millions of Indian songs in various languages just like Spotify. The pro version is priced at 220 INR ($3.60) per month and provides ad-free listening and even offline access to tracks.

Snapdeal,  competing with Amazon.in, Flipkart and some other online retail sites in India, has raised an amount of $6.27 million of its own. The company said that 70 percent of its orders come from smartphones and tablets and it is found that 90 percent of smartphones in India are powered by Android. Saavn also has its competitors in the industry. Rdio and Gaana also offers services similar to Saavn. The giveaway is found to be one of its kind. If you purchase something from Snapdeal with the Android app, you will get notified with a promotion code after the purchase. This will lead you to the download page of the app and after renewing the code, you will have access to the pro services for the next two months.

Each user can redeem only one promotion code. So it seems like you cannot get a free subscription again after your first chance. But, practically thinking, the two month subscription is an awesome deal as you are getting it at free of cost. The partnership is agreed for a whole year so there are hope for more such offers from both firms. So start purchasing from Snapdeal and steal the deal.
Source: Techcrunch

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How about Windows 98 in an iPhone 6 Plus?

The recent release, iOS 8 on iPhone 6 and 6 plus is said to be the most elegant mobile OS yet, from Apple. The phone is packed with such a nice user interface and certain iOS-only features like Credit Card scanning, WiFi phone calls, Real time Talk-To-Type, iCloud Photo library, App download via Siri, Recover deleted photos, ad blocking in Safari, Speak Screen, AirPlay etc. These are some well known information and there is nothing new. But what if you are bored of using iOS 8? Or need to try something else in your brand new iPhone 6 plus, like the legendary Windows 98? I know it sounds odd but there may be a hope.
According to a recent post on bbs.feng.com(a tech forum), a Chinese hacker xyqo58775, claims to have installed Win98 in his brand new iPhone 6 plus. He seemed to have used a Chinese version of the OS.  The classic grey window frames now looks so vibrant on the 6.9" retina display. The hack was made possible with an emulator app available on the app store. iDos can be used for playing original dos games on your iPhone or iPad. Although this is not the first time a version of Windows was ported for an Apple device but it is, in this case, for an iPhone 6 Plus. He has done it without actually jailbreaking the device.
iDos basically helps to emulate old 16bit dos games and no wonder why it supported Windows98. xyqo58775 has also made it clear that he used existing resources and tools to make it happen. He also tried to install Windows XP but failed and couldn't find a solution to bypass the error. As XP is a 32 bit OS and he may need to try with some other emulators available. He also claimed that he is currently working on bringing a stable version of XP to use in place of iOS 8.

You can find the full tutorial to install Windows 98 on iPhone 6 Plus here but proceed with this only if you know Chinese. There is no real-world use for this but its super cool and weird to see the 16 year old Win 98 running on such an advanced hardware.
Source- Crunch Gear

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How to open hidden task manager to clear RAM and improve performance of your phone; Nokia Asha

Source- The Mobile Indian

Nokia Asha phones that run on the New Nokia Asha Platform comes pre-installed with a bunch of apps that uses much of its internal memory.There are ways to remove pre-installed apps in older Asha phones but no working method  has been found yet for the phones running the new Asha OS.  With the last major OTA update, Nokia has removed some of the useless games and has included many other apps. And these can’t be removed. Although this was a good move from their part but each users have their own tastes and preferences. The list of these default apps include Line, Wechat, Linkedin, Twitter, Nimbuz, OneDrive, NewsHunt and some utility apps like Pocket Word, Pocket Excel etc. Many users find these useless as for a normal person LinkedIn is not necessary. Many don’t use Whatsapp, Wechat, Line and Nimbuz at a time. Many don’t feel it good to view documents in a 3” inch screen and the Pocket apps(Word, Excel, PowerPoint) are not efficient enough to do their job. So all these factors make these apps useless and wastage of memory and makes the phone's menu look crowded.

The messenger apps eat up a lot of RAM in the phone and by 'Lot of RAM', i meant the limited 64MB RAM. With the last update, the software got pushed to 14.0.4 in which the RAM management in the phone got improved. Now a simple task manager pops up with the option to close the apps that are currently running in background. Apps like Whatsapp and Xpress Browser always run in background once opened. This will remain opened till you switch off or restart the phone. So while using some apps like Wechat, Nimbuzz or browsing in UC browser, the heap memory decreases after some time and the task manager pops up. In this situation, you must close all the apps shown there to clear memory. This prevents the phone from getting overloaded. But Its quite annoying as we were in the middle of something and now we need to close the browser. The task manager can't be opened manually. It opens itself when a situation arises. So we are not able to check what all apps are opened in the background.



The new TASK MANAGER app given an end to this problem. The app helps to open the hidden task manager in the phone thus enabling us to close all background running apps whenever we want. In my opinion, this is a handy and a must-have app in your phone. I recommend you to save the file in the phone memory of your phone so that app will still be there even if you remove the memory card. Saving in the phone's limited memory won't harm you in an way, because the app is just 16kb in size!
[ Please note that this is an app that runs only in Nokia devices running Asha Platform 14.0.4 or higher; Nokia 501, 500, 502, 503 and 230  ]
Download using UC Browser(recommended)
Source: Nokiaasha/S40 Experts


Alternate Link

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Rooms, A new blog-inspired app from Facebook

The social media giant Facebook recently launched its new app, Rooms. The message board application is more similar to a blogging platform. It lets you create tiny message boards for posting  text, photos and videos. You can create your own username and identity in each room. These rooms are invite only and requires a special code [QR Code] that needs to be scanned with your phone. The unique codes can be shared anywhere via emails, forums, social networks or even through news papers for inviting users of a particular region. This lets them gain entry to your room. The room created is a bit like mobile forum inside an Instagram styled vertical feed.

 

The NewYork Times reported earlier this month that Facebook will be launching an app that allowed anonymity. This isn’t exactly right. You don’t need to connect with your Facebook account to reveal your details or friend lists as both the platforms are entirely different. The invite system helps you to build a community based on your particular interest. The creator of the room is the Moderator and has full control over the room. There can be more than one Moderator for a room and they do the role of administrators. They can ban the unruly members and those who don’t follow the guidelines. Once banned, the user is restricted to enter the room with his banned device. Not just this, they can change the room’s look, add a nickname to the room or a background image, or use an emoji instead of the like button. The moderator can even set the room to 18+, in case.

 

After the launch, Facebook is sued by Damien Rottemberg, developer of the app, Room which was launched before Rooms. Maybe a huge coincidence, both the apps offer very similar experience with an identical name(almost). Anyways, Room is more like killed now as the small company’s app has been buried in online search results. Whether the search tags are ‘room’ or ‘rooms’ it will now lead only to Facebook’s app, not the other one.

 

Just 24 hours after the app’s launch, The Facebook product manager, Josh Miller discovered that the users have hacked it. The main discovery was the hashtag search on Instagram (#rooms). Searching for the term, Miller found a room called VSCO cam, started by a college student in England which had 32 members. And someone in the room posted an invite to another room! In order to access a room user needs take screenshot or capture a picture of the QR code with the app. Miller wrote in a post “They have essentially ‘linked’ to another room in the same way forums, message boards and blogs used to link each other in the early days of the web ”

 

Rooms is the next after the release of Slingshot and Paper that didn’t created much hike in the stores. Available in US, UK and few other countries and is free to download from Apple App Store. No words yet on a Windows Phone release but an Android version is expected to be released in early 2015.

 

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Windows Phone to get next major update after Cyan; The Lumia Denim

The official Lumia Cyan update is getting available for all WP8 devices now and a few days back, Nokia Microsoft Mobile announced their next major update at the IFA 2014. The Windows Phone 8.1 update 1, nicknamed as The Lumia Denim update is said to roll out worldwide this winter. It will cover loads of improvements and features in the phone especially with Cortana and Camera. Microsoft also announced Three new devices, Lumia 730 dual sim, 735 and 830. All the three will have Lumia Denim out-of-the-box.

The Lumia Denim features :

CORTANA

Cortana is something that needs no introduction. It is the most efficient personal assistant out there in The US (hope you know how to get it for phones outside US ). And now Cortana will be made available officially in UK and China as public beta and  public alpha for countries like India, Canada and Australia. For WP users in US, Cortana is gonna get a whole lot of improvements like improved natural language, calendar improvement, car-kit integration, snooze reminders, bluetooth for contacts etc. Other two attractions are Sensor-core technology and Geo-tagging. From now on you don’t need to press any buttons, just say “Hey Cortana” and she is active, allowing it to be fully voice controlled. With Geo-tagging you can add a reminder like “ Call Dad when i reach home” and Cortana can now track you with GPS and pops up a message to call dad the moment you reach home.

CAMERA

With the update the Nokia Camera will now be replaced with Lumia Camera. This feature is hardware dependent and is only available for Lumia 930, 1520 and 830 in the first phase.  The camera will get improvements in its speed as it takes certain milli seconds(time that human eye takes to blink) to go from shot to shot. The Moment Capture feature allows you to quickly start recording 4K quality recording at 24FPS with each frame at 8.3 Megapixels. It also benefits improves image processing algorithms which delivers clearer and sharp photos and light is not a big deal anymore.
The Update 1 also brings back the Glance Screen with improvements. Bing weather, Fitness and notifications can be seen directly on the glance screen now.

LIVE FOLDERS

Long press an app for a second and drag it onto another tile. Thats it, you have created a folder in your start screen. This is one of the most awaited feature for windows phones. You also have the option to rename the folder or add more tiles in it. This will help a lot in maintaining an organised start screen and makes it look neat.

APPS CORNER

This is also a handy feature for your windows phone. With this you can create customized start screens in your phone, like when you are at work your start screen will have apps like MS Word, Adobe Reader, LinkedIn, IE. Similarly, at home it will have Facebook, MixRadio, Youtube, Flipkart app and all those related stuff. Also if you are giving it to a child, you can ensure they can only access age-appropriate contents.

OTHER FEATURES

The Windows Phone 8.1 update 1 will also have a bunch of new features and improvements in Internet Explorer as the sites will load faster. Text messages can be merged and forwarded easily and customize snooze time in alarm app, i.e if you want to snooze 12 minutes, now you can. A consumer VPN feature is also added which secures your privacy when connected to a public WiFi. The Windows store live tile will show the most popular or most relevant items but this update will be available exclusively to users in United States.

CONCLUSION

Well the features announced are pretty cool, but there wont be much for low range devices, like the Lumia 520. The Lumia Camera and its improvements wont be seen in these popular devices. The update is confirmed for devices from Microsoft, so if you are using an HTC 8X and you didn't receive the update, there is nothing to wonder because you are not in the club. Watch the video below.

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