Many of us get our entertainment, news, and pay our bills online. So, it’s not a big surprise that we access our music over the Internet as well. Many individuals subscribe to on-line music-streaming services that are either free or cost money. The benefits are many. People don’t have to move their music files onto different devices plus they can listen to it anywhere they have internet access.

If you are curious about the differences in these services, we have highlighted a number below.

Pandora: Pandora is very popular because of its simple interface. After navigating to the website, you are able to input a song or artist you want to hear and Pandora will create a “radio” station based on that information. This is a terrific way to learn about new artists with similar sounds. The stations that Pandora creates are easily customizable as well. If Pandora chooses an artist that you don’t like, you can click the thumbs down symbol on the song. Pandora allows for further customization by allowing you to “seed” your station with different artists. While you can enjoy Pandora without creating an account, it is necessary if you want to save your individualized stations.

Grooveshark: Grooveshark is similar to Pandora in that it creates a “radio” station based on your musical tastes. However, you may also listen to entire albums on Grooveshark and create playlists. One unique feature of Grooveshark is the power to upload your own music to the Grooveshark database if you cannot find what you are searching for. This is a smart and simple opportunity for Grooveshark to grow its library.

Rhapsody: Rhapsody has quickly made a name for itself because of its huge database of more than 14 million songs. Users have to pay for the service – $10 a month – but by doing this, they’ll be able to stream any song from the service’s huge collection.

Spotify: Spotify is a Swedish music-streaming service that was launched in 2008. It has quickly grown to one of the most well-known and widely used services out there. People like the versatility of Spotify. When you search for an artist, you can listen to a whole album or choose to use the radio function and Spotify will find similar artists for you to enjoy. Another benefit of Spotify is that you may create your own playlists and share them with other users if you so choose.

Remember when Windows was regarded as cool? It’s been a long time. However, the Kinect – a motion and voice-sensing device initially meant as a clever feature for the Xbox gaming system – could help Windows recapture its long-lost coolness quotient.

Not surprisingly, a version of the Kinect is compatible with Windows-operated PCs. So almost immediately after this new version was launched in February, companies started identifying creative, out-of-the-box uses for it.

Innovative Uses for the Kinect

At the Chicago Auto Show the Chief Marketing Manager for Nissan North America used the Kinect in an interesting way, by creating a virtual tour of the upgraded interior of the Pathfinder. This worked out well as they only had the outer shell of the Pathfinder to actually display. Using the Kinect, participants could actually “see” what the interior looked liked.

Microsoft is encouraging companies to find different uses for the Kinect and even working with them to create applications for it. This is a great move on their part, as it not only promotes inventiveness but it also puts a Microsoft product at the center of the creative development. One company that has worked with Microsoft in this way is Boeing. They’ve used the Kinect to develop virtual tours of their jets. Another unique use of the Kinect was discovered by a medical center in Canada. They are utilizing the Kinect’s gesture-recognition to swipe through CT scans. This greatly lowers, if not eradicates, the risk of spreading germs as you don’t have to touch the computer.

Kinect: A Solid Hit

When Microsoft created the Kinect for Windows they hit a home run. Last year the Xbox 360 was the best selling video game console. In fact, since November 2010, more then 18 million Kinect devices have been sold. This is definitely transforming the way that the consumer views Microsoft products.

The excitement surrounding the Kinect and its many uses can only help to improve Microsoft’s reputation. They may be on their way to entering into the “cool” tech company category.

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There are lots of people searching for jobs today. However, as an employer, you are not looking for just anyone. You want to hire the best, most creative employees to work at your business. You recognize that your company is only as strong as your workers. How do you hire the best people? It all begins with the job interview.

Make sure that your interview questions solicit the data that will help you choose the individual with the traits you want. If you use a cookie cutter approach to the interview, it’s likely you’ll get uninspired, cookie cutter answers.

Ask the Right Questions

Rather then asking people what their past positions were, ask them the way they positively impacted their positions at their previous employers. Did they develop any processes that improved efficiency? Did they help their employers cut costs, if so, how?

One of the most typical things to ask a candidate concerns their strengths and weaknesses. Try to avoid asking them to list these; most of us have predetermined answers. Instead ask them what they bring to the culture of a company, or ask them what they do to make their job more satisfying. The responses you get to these types of questions will help you to gauge the actual ingenuity of the person you are evaluating.

Another simple way to evaluate a prospective employee’s creativity is to ask them to perform a task. For example, you could ask them to brainstorm ideas for an ad campaign, or write a short essay about their ideal workplace. Whatever it is, it is something your interviewee will not expect and it will give you a snapshot of their creativity.

Employers have an edge in today’s job market. They can choose from among some of the top job seekers available, but to find the best people, employers have to first change the way they carry out their job interviews.

No one likes traveling for business. Airports can be a headache, with all of that business of removing your shoes, paying extra to stow bags, plus the regular delays and cancellations. We have a tendency to overeat on bad fast food or at hotel buffets, also, when we’re traveling for business. Plus there is the lack of sleep. It’s no surprise that so many business people are longing for advancements in videoconferencing technology. After all, if this technology improves sufficiently – the logic goes – maybe off-site business meetings, and the business travel that goes with this, might be a thing of the past.

The End of Business Travel?

Do we want to strive for the extinction of business travel? Perhaps not, think about the differences between in-person meeting and videoconferencing.

When people across the globe sign on to a videoconference, they typically introduce themselves quickly, if necessary, and then dive into the goal at hand. Brainstorming does not often play a big role in videoconferencing; this is partially because of the worry that their connection may fail. Also, there are lots of distractions within the individual’s office that can make fluid conversation tricky.

The Benefits of Face-to-Face Time

Face-to-face interactions are more intimate and allow conversation to evolve easily. Meetings may last longer if this happens, but the advantages of it can be great. New ideas come from the creative progression of conversation. While it’s true that every meeting may not turn into a positive brainstorming session, it can be a great opportunity to develop interpersonal relationships in the workplace.

Business Travel is Here to Stay

Humans are a social species. Due to this, it’s doubtful that business travel will disappear altogether. However, in today’s economy, many business owners just can’t afford to send their sales people away every time the need to meet a client. For this reason, developments in videoconferencing are essential but the advantages of in-person meetings are so great that the savvy business owner will not abandon them for videoconferencing all together.

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Remember enjoying sci-fi movies as a kid and thinking we would have jetpacks in the future? Or teleporters? We don’t have these technologies yet but we do have many impressive technologies that seem straight out of a sci-fi movie. Our cars can guide us around a city, via GPS. We can carry tablet computers around with us that hold all of our data. And we can get in touch with associates around the globe at the push of a button.

So, why don’t we have teleporters and hovercrafts? What exactly is preventing us from taking these leaps in technology?

Building a Better Battery

First, there is battery power. Basically, the batteries powering our smartphones and tablets need to be recharged too frequently. A more powerful battery would allow us to run our gadgets for weeks at a time and then charge them again within minutes. This battery does not exist yet. However, it may be coming: researchers at Chicago’s Northwestern University are designing a far more powerful lithium-ion battery. If their prototype becomes commercially viable, it will likely be a game-changer.

Improving Internet Access

It may seem like everyone is linked to the Internet, but this is a fallacy. Most of the world doesn’t have access to the Internet. While this may not seem like it could hold back technological advancements, it does. The thought is that by limiting the amount of people who can contribute to the interconnectedness the Internet provides, we are restricting the amount of people who can collaborate. Until the majority of individuals are connected, technological developments will not happen as fast as they could.

The Business of New Tech

Finally, there’s the business end of things. Technological progress is stunted by arcane matters such as patent law. Businesses take their time introducing new gadgets and services as they must first traverse a minefield of laws and government regulations. These laws are important. However, they should be clear and easy to grasp so new technology isn’t bottled up needlessly.

Even though there are several things that are holding technology back, it is still advancing at a rapid pace. Maybe we will finally get hover boards when battery technology catches up to our imaginations.

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Adobe Photoshop is a fantastic photo manipulation tool. With it, businesses can produce professional looking marketing materials quite easily. The largest issue with Photoshop is the cost. A person looking to buy it can spend more then $600 for newer versions. This is not feasible for many small business owners, and they probably don’t need all of the features that a $600 photo-editing program comes with. Fortunately, there are many alternatives to Photoshop that are inexpensive or free.

These solutions are not quite as robust as Photoshop but they offer enough of the elements to be useful to the small business owner. What follows is a list of three that make photo-manipulation easy, without straining the wallet.

GIMP

GIMP is very simple to use and possesses most of the features from Photoshop that a business owner might need to create marketing material. The best thing about GIMP is that it’s absolutely free!

Paint.NET

Did you ever use MSPiant? It was included with your Windows operating system and was very basic. Paint.NET is its successor and is far more powerful then its forerunner. One great feature for designers is an unlimited undo button. Paint.NET is a free program; the only negative regarding it is that it only works on Windows machines.

Picnik

Picnik is fast, free, and easy to use. It works on the Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems and you don’t need to download files to use it. It has some exciting special effects as well, making it a well liked photo-editing program.

There is no need to purchase the costly Photoshop program to produce professional looking pamphlets. For the small business owner on a budget, any of these programs will do the trick and keep standards high.

Your smartphone is remarkable. It can steer you to that trendy new fusion restaurant if you’re lost. It can play your favorite sitcom as you go to work on the train. It can play your favorite song at the touch of a button. However it can’t do any of this if its battery is dead.

A Better Battery on the Way?

Thankfully, a better battery might soon be on the way, thanks to the efforts of a team of engineers at Chicago’s Northwestern University. A recent story reports that researchers at this Big 10 university are trying to develop a battery that lasts longer and can recharge itself within minutes. Smartphone users across the country should be grateful.

What they are working on is a new lithium-ion battery that has more then 10 times the life of current batteries. Additionally, after a year of operation, which the researchers estimate to be about 150 charges, these new lithium-ion batteries would continue to be 5 times more efficient then today’s lithium-ion batteries.

A Charged Battery for a Week

This may be hard to believe, particularly with all the apps we run on our devices, but this new battery could stay charged for an entire week. And the charging time could be less then 15 minutes. That will certainly make life easier but this technology may have a much more important impact then that. It could be applied to the batteries utilized in electric cars, causing them to be much more efficient, and dramatically decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Batteries Powering Technological Change

The new battery technology isn’t available yet for consumers, however the Northwestern researchers say that it could hit the market in 3 to 5 years. This is a big step. When we look at breakthroughs in technology, we often forget about the batteries that power our latest gadgets. Battery constraints are one of the factors holding back an even greater technology revolution. The hope is that the research done at Northwestern University changes this.

Google is the household name when it comes to searching the Web. However, it might not be the greatest search engine out there. Microsoft introduced Bing, a competitor, in 2009 and it should not be dismissed. Although many Internet users still use Google as their primary search engine, Bing has many features that make for a robust searching experience.

Taking Another Look at Bing

When searching on Bing, you get more information about your search results then you do with Google. Bing includes a navigation panel on the left that allows users to focus their search easily. Additionally, it organizes search results into logical categories, making it simpler to get quick answers.

Bing Goes Beyond Search Results

Another great thing about Bing is that it doesn’t just bring up search results. It also brings up related videos, music, and images. While this is an element of Google as well, Bing makes it more user friendly, as the categories are right beneath the search bar. Bing beats Google for travel searches too. They use something called Farecast Technology in the Bing Travel site; it lets users find the most affordable flights quickly and easily.

Bing Video Search Shines

Bing shines, too, when it comes to searching for videos. Before searching, users can tell Bing how long they would like their videos to be, what screen size they’d like them to be, and what image resolution they’d prefer. Users can start their videos by simply hovering their cursors over a screen capture.

These are some reasons why computer users shouldn’t overlook Bing. While Google is a household name, it’s not the only search engine out there.

Cloud computing has become increasingly more common. A very basic definition of the cloud is: a group of remote servers where people can store and access their data. One benefit of using the cloud is that powerful programs and files can be stored at a remote location so they don’t use up memory on personal computers and slow down operating systems.

Not All Clouds are the Same

However, that is not all you need to know about the cloud. You have the public cloud, which is the one most of us use, the private cloud, and the hybrid cloud. The hybrid cloud, as the name implies, is a combination of using both the public and private cloud.

To offer a hybrid cloud, a company may store some of their client’s more important or current data in-house and store older, archived, and less crucial files in the public cloud. They may also use the public cloud to store very large software programs and keep confidential information in-house.

The Hybrid Cloud Approach Makes Sense

The hybrid cloud is a great way for companies to both save money and save space. It takes advantage of the less costly public cloud while insuring that highly sensitive information is safeguarded.

It’s no surprise, then, that so many organizations today are moving toward a hybrid cloud approach. There is way too much data floating around today for small enterprises to adequately store. At the same time, businesses in today’s competitive environment do not want to reveal company secrets and sensitive consumer data to either their competition or hackers. The hybrid cloud could enable businesses to accomplish both feats.

Remote working has become more prevalent in the business world today. This is possible due to advancements in technology; i.e. smartphones, tablets, and the growing number of public places that have WiFi. There can be many advantages for the employer and the employee. Remote workers are often more productive, and they’re less of a drain on the company resources. For instance, you don’t have to have office space and furniture for remote works. And the advantage of adjusting their schedule to fit their life is a major plus for the employee.

Remote Worker Challenges

Remote workers and contractors do present at least one significant challenge to employers: It can be hard for employers to effectively monitor the hours that their workers are putting in. How do employers know, after all, if their remote employees are pounding away at their keyboards or playing Angry Birds on their smartphones all day?

Employers can solve this challenge by setting realistic deadlines for their remote employees and expecting these workers to meet them. What really should matter for employers is that work is done on time. It shouldn’t matter if workers complete their tasks from midnight to four in the morning.

Setting Remote Worker Deadlines

Setting deadlines is the simplest way to monitor the work being carried out by remote workers. Managers can set short-term and long-term goals or make something due every Friday. Additionally, a manger could have a weekly or biweekly meeting via cellphone or video chat to catch up on the growth of projects. This can put the supervisor and employee at ease.

Off-Site Not a Permanent Condition

Employers must remember, too, that remote workers do not have to stay that way. If employers find that their off-site workers are not meeting deadlines or are turning in sub-par work, they can require that these workers return to the office on a full-time basis. Trust remains the key element of a remote working relationship. Organisations must place some trust in their workers that they’ll complete their jobs on time. Workers must demonstrate that they are deserving of this trust by hitting their deadlines, delivering quality work, and responding quickly to phone calls or email messages.