10 Best Google Search tricks to find exactly what you are looking for in 2020

By

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January 16, 2020

We all know Google is the crowned king of search engines. Now Google is just more than a search engine — with Google now anyone could find anything, literally anything. But what if I say, with some advanced Google search tricks you can find the exact results more quickly and effortlessly.

Now Google holds the solutions and references for almost any query around the world. And still, some people fail to get the perfect answer while some others retrieve that same information in a matter of seconds. And we think they are some tech pro that’s why they are getting quick and correct results. Instead, they know how to search in Google — they are better “Googlers”. They know how to use hidden Google search tricks to get precise information.

With these Google tricks, anyone can search like a pro. These hacks will change the way you search, it will utilize Google’s under the hood powerful tools to improve search results. These tricks for Google Search will help you search smarter and find what you’re looking for easily and conveniently than ever before.

Contents

1 Best Google Search tricks and hacks:

Best Google Search tricks and hacks:

1. Search by image

We usually search by typing keywords, but there may be times that you needed a different size or version of an image you found on a website or on your local drive. Google image search is the best tool to use. Google reverse image search feature helps you to search with an image URL or by simply uploading an image file to get different sizes or more details of a photo.

If you are using Google Chrome, then reverse image search of a picture in a website can be done by simply right-clicking the photo and choosing the option “Search Google for image”. If you are using some other web browser or like to search an image from your local drive then head on to Google Images — where you can see a camera icon, click that to get options to enter image URL or to upload from your hard disk.

2. Use Google Search tools

Use the search tools option in Google to narrow down search results. With this tool, you can sort different search category results according to time, type, size, color, usage rights etc.

3. Search for an exact phrase

By using quotation marks (“) around the phrase you’d like to search to find the exact phrase, with the same words in the same order. This search trick comes in handy when you want to find the use of a particular quote on different website.

e.g: “May the force be with you” — searching this will find different websites that used the same ‘May the Force be with you’ phrase.

4. Find missing word in a search phrase

Using an asterisk (*) within the search as a placeholder for any unknown terms to find the different versions of that phrase. This trick helps you to find different varieties of a particular phrase.

e.g: May the * be with you — search different variations of the phrase. In the place of asterisk, Google search will show you different words used in results.

5. Search operators

Using plus (+) and dash (-) along with search queries to include or exclude a particular keyword from search results.

e.g: smartphone +android — search for keyword ‘smartphone’ also including all the results showing the word ‘android’ along with ‘smartphone’.

e.g: smartphone -android — search for keyword ‘smartphone’ and exclude all the results showing the word ‘android’ along with ‘smartphone’.

6. Using And/Or in Google search

Using and/or in a search query to filter search results one or more of the cases it connects.

e.g: Windows 7 and Windows 10 — shows all results where keywords Windows 7 and Windows 10 come together.

e.g: Windows 7 or Windows 10 — shows all results with either keyword Windows 7 or Windows 10.

7. Convert currencies and measurements

Use Google search as a measurement converter or currency converter. Just add ‘in’ or ‘to’ in the search query.

e.g: 10 USD to INR
e.g: 10 $ in INR
e.g: 22.45cm to meter
e.g: 5 liters in milliliters

8. Search within websites

Say you are interested in a topic covered by a particular website, so you like to read all other articles related to that topic on that website. The thing is either you can go to that website and search for the topic or you can do a website focused search on Google. Searching <keyword>:<domain> will show all results related to that keyword in a particular website.

e.g: kali linux:techlog360.com — searching ‘kali linux’ topic in website ‘techlog360.com’.

e.g: Artificial intelligence:.edu — searching topic ‘Artificial intelligence’ in all ‘.edu’ (educational) websites.

9. allin Google search trick

Use allin search trick to filter the search by titles and URLs of web pages.

intitle:<search term> — to search for a particular keyword in the title of different web pages.
allintitle:<keyword1> <keyword2> <keyword3> — to find the multiple search term in the title of pages.
allinurl:<keyword1> <keyword2> <keyword3> — to find the multiple search term in the url of pages.

e.g: intitle:Google — search for ‘Google’ in title.

e.g: allintitle:Google Apple Microsoft — search for results where ‘Google, Apple and Microsoft’ come together in the title.

e.g: allinurl:tricks Google search — show webpage URLs that has search term ‘tricks, Google and search’.

10. Use advanced search option

To narrow down the search results further, you can use the advanced search option in Google settings. Tap “Settings >> Advanced search” to get options. In advance setting, you can find dozens of options to filter your search. But this setting will end up with few results sometimes none at all.

These Google search tricks are just the tip of the iceberg, there are more to list. Soon we will update them to the list. Also, if you know any do comment below.

WordPress Plugins That Will Speed Up Your Site

By

Bhasker Das

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January 12, 2020

When it comes to your website, there are several factors that go into ensuring enhanced user experience – such as the loading speed.

Recent stats show that almost half of us would abandon a website if it took more than two seconds to load.

What does this mean for your website? And why does it matter so much?

Users find it extremely frustrating when a website doesn’t load as quickly as expected; worse, your user retention and conversion will take a major hit. Even worse, Google will list your website lower on its SERPs.

If you have a WordPress-based website, you can make use of the large collection of useful plugins WordPress supports. These plugins can make a significant difference to your site’s performance – and CDN’s can help too.

First, let’s take a look at what a WordPress CDN service is and what it can do for you.

Contents

1 Start With A CDN Service
2 Install Plugins That Can Speed Up Your Site

Start With A CDN Service

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) has servers set-up in many locations around the world – these locations are known as Points-of-Presence or PoPs.

CDNs help by retrieving the site’s content from the host server and caching it on the PoPs so your site’s available on more server locations. This helps deliver your content swiftly and efficiently to your visitors no matter where in the world they are from.

It ensures that your website data travels the shortest distance so it loads faster, resulting in increased user satisfaction.

In addition to using a CDN service, you can also install WP plugins to make your website load faster.

Try out the following plugins to help cache and deliver content for a fast loading website.

Install Plugins That Can Speed Up Your Site

Here are our top picks for WordPress plugins that can do wonders for your site speed:

1. W3 Total Cache

Caching allows storage of crucial website data, only to retrieve it quickly when needed. The W3 total cache plugin can help increase the speed of your site by caching data that would otherwise take a lot of time to load.

Here are some of the features of the W3 Total Cache Plugin:

Minifying code to reduce loading times
Browser caching
Database caching
Object, i.e. image caching

Additionally, you can also integrate it with your WordPress CDN service to decrease loading times. However, its setup can be difficult because of the sheer number of caching options available.

2. WP Rocket

This is a very powerful plugin that offers excellent caching capabilities along with a few other features like lazy loading, database optimization and Google Analytics code hosting for your website.

That’s not all! Here is a comprehensive list of the WP Rocket plugin features:

Little tweaks to improve performance and speed
Page caching
Image lazy loading
Easy integration with your CDN service
Database optimization
Google Analytics integration (load the code directly from your server)
Minifying JavaScript, HTML and CSS code
Easy to import and export settings

Some caching plugins require in-depth knowledge to set up, but the WP Rocket plugin has a straightforward and intuitive setup process. The user-friendly interface is also an added advantage of this plugin.

3. WP Fastest Cache

This plugin has the sole purpose of caching data easily and effectively.

Install the plugin, activate it and go through the settings to get started. Save the changes you’ve made to the settings and your website will be ready to load at a moment’s notice.

With the WP fastest cache, you can even set cache expiration times for some URL strings.

WP Fastest Cache has a few distinguishing features, such as:

Setup is easy
Minify CSS and HTML Easily
Integration with your CDN Service
Set cache expiration times for all your posts and pages
Clear cache and minified CSS and HTML with a single click
Exclude some elements and areas from posts and pages that are slowing your website down
Upgradable to the premium version with more features

This plugin has a massive fan base of more than 200,000 webmasters who are already using it, and glowing reviews on WordPress offer ample credibility to it.

4. EWWW Image Optimizer

Images that take way too long to load can harm your website speed leading to a significant reduction in traffic, subscriptions, and customers.

The EWWW image optimizer plugin can easily fit in with your CDN, store images there and optimize them for faster load times. You can even compress those images and achieve faster loading times.

Here are several reasons why the EWWWW Image Optimizer should be in your WordPress arsenal:

Free backup stores original images for 30 days
Secure with SSL encryption
Optimizes every image on a site beyond the media library
Compresses images by 80% of the original file size

This plugin is easy to set up and can be used with multiple sites.

Conclusion

The right plugins can help you speed up your site’s loading times to drive more traffic, find more customers and generate increased revenue.

Hopefully, you can use some of the plugins mentioned above and integrate them into your WordPress CDN service to create a site that’s geared for better results.

How To Jumpstart Digital Art With A Drawing Tablet

By

Adwaith

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January 10, 2020

It’s crazy to think that because of how advanced technology has become, we’re starting to develop new skills and talents that otherwise would not have been possible multiple decades ago. For instance, the ability to seamlessly arrange music and produce engaging pop songs isn’t something that can be done without a computer. Nowadays, it’s almost entirely impossible to whip up a successful radio hit single without the help of a long list of devices, held together by inventive science.

Digital art is another perfect example. Many sketch pad artists and illustrators are now investing time, effort, and money into learning how to continue doing what they do best, but with digital tools. Still, the shift in platforms can be tricky and frustrating if you’re not determined and patient enough. For several digital art newbies, it can take a lot of time to master a new medium.

If you’re an artist more accustomed to traditional methods and you’re looking for ways to better go about the tricks in your digital sleeve, this one is for you. For this article, we’re going to talk about how you can easily improve your drawing experience using your tablet.

Let’s get right started!

Contents

1 Match the movements on the screen with your hand movements
2 Controlling with your wrist?
3 Controlling with your elbow?
4 Sit right in front of the tablet and monitor
5 Check the friction between your pen and tablet
6 Online classes

Match the movements on the screen with your hand movements

When you’re just getting started, the first thing you’d want to align is the size of your screen to your drawing tablet’s ratio size. For instance, if you use a tiny drawing tablet paired with a huge monitor, even the pen’s slightest movement can cause a huge impact. Conversely, using a big drawing tablet attached to a small monitor may have opposite effects.

All this factored in, one massive reason artists find tablet-drawing to be inconvenient is because of the mismatch between the distance moved on the screen and the distance moved by one’s hand.

To prevent this from happening, adjusting one’s drawing environment and ratio settings is the most effective thing to do.

Controlling with your wrist?

It’s said that the pen stroke distance when drawing with the wrist is between 9 to 12 centimeters. In effect, drawing tablets don’t need to be expansive. If you want, you can try pushing your monitor a little further to the back to give the impression of a smaller screen. This lessens the discomfort of your cursor and hand’s mismatch compatibility.

Controlling with your elbow?

Every artist knows that big strokes demand that you use your whole arm to draw. These lines can turn out to be 25 to 35 cm in size. Still, snagging a big brand-driven tablet isn’t always the smartest move. So instead of doing that, look for a large drawing tablet. Pen strokes using a big tablet make it easier to match your cursor movement on a large monitor. If your monitor is larger than usual, try the old trick where you push it back a little further to make the screen seem smaller on your end.

Sit right in front of the tablet and monitor

If you still find your drawing experience inconvenient after having fixed the settings to suit your cursor-to-hand dynamics, the monitor angle and tablet placement may be the problem. If your tablet or monitor is in anyway slanted and not aligned, you’re bound to feel a mismatch and a disconnect in one way or another.

For instance, let’s pretend you want to draw a horizontal line. If your tablet sits on your desk in a manner that isn’t aligned with your monitor, you’re likely to see a diagonal line on the screen even if you’re meaning to draft something horizontal. This is referred to as an angle mismatch.

To prevent this, bear these two things in mind:

Position your tablet literally in front of your screen and face your screen directly.

Doing so also gives you a better grasp of space and perspective. When you match the direction of your tablet, monitor, and yourself, actualizing what you have in your head becomes much easier and faster.

Check the friction between your pen and tablet

One common feedback new digital artists talk about a lot is how slippery a drawing tablet is as opposed to traditional drawing materials like a sketch pad or a piece of paper. Because it’s true. The materials used in coming up with these devices are made of slippery items, so there’s bound to be less friction.

If this is what gets to you the most, resort to protective overlay sheets. There are plenty of these you can buy at your local store. If not, check online. The internet rarely disappoints. Using one of these almost immediately solves the “slippery” concern.

If you feel like your drawing tablet isn’t at fault, try replacing the nib of your pen. Do note, however, that nibs and protective sheets differ by model number and manufacturer, so research what kinds of accessories they come with best. By adjusting your pens and tablets, and making the effort to use other products when needed, drawing becomes much more desirable and easier to work around.

If you feel like you’ve done everything on the list and still something seems off, you may want to have your drawing gear checked at a credible repair shop. Sometimes, you never really know something is broken until a professional will take a look. BREAKFixNow is a fantastic example of where you can find experts to help you with damaged devices, so you may want to consider that, as well.

Online classes

If you’re not exactly gifted with painting and drawing and you’d like to start now, that’s okay, too! There are now hundreds of online classes that teach you how to start drawing using tablets. Whether it’s wanting to master a drawing software or wanting to learn how to draw, to begin with, Skillshare, Master Class, and Udemy all have internet courses you can take to help you improve. If you’re not the subscribing type, there isn’t exactly a scarcity of Youtube videos, too. You can start there and keep learning as you go.

Whatever your case, the creation of art is supposed to be therapeutic and being able to realize visions, drawings, and graphics in your head is meant to be a delightful thing to do. Take it slow and don’t be too hard on yourself. Good luck!

Going Beyond Tradition: 5 Characteristics of Modern BI Reporting

By

Avinash A

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January 6, 2020

Becoming a data-driven organization is not something that happens overnight. In fact, the opposite is true. A lot has to happen between deploying business intelligence (BI) tools and seeing the returns on your investment (ROI) in the form of optimized business outcomes. There are opportunities for improvement every step of the way.

Companies can start by critically evaluating their approach to BI reporting — is it as good as it could be? Consider these five characteristics of effective BI reporting.

Contents

1 Accessible to Non-Technical Users
2 More Data, But Fewer Reports
3 Reduces IT Backlog
4 Has a Single Source of Truth
5 Drives Business Outcomes

Accessible to Non-Technical Users

The first hallmark of effective BI is accessibility to all, even non-technical users with little to no background in data. In other words, people outside the IT team should be able to query data and create visualization models based on their findings. With access to self-service analytics, “professionals are enabled and encouraged to perform queries and generate reports on their own, with nominal IT support.”

The longer it takes for employees to get insights — and the more convoluted the process is — the more adoption rates will suffer. This is why data accessibility is key; it allows people to work with data directly when they need answers, rather than having to wait for the IT team to create a report for them.

More Data, But Fewer Reports

It may sound counterintuitive at first, but another characteristic of effective BI reporting is fewer reports. Self-service tools like ThoughtSpot allow employees to ask questions and drill down into data insights immediately whenever a question arises or a decision needs to be made.

As a result, there’s less need for scheduled reports generated by IT and delivered to other teams. Instead of having to wait for that Friday afternoon performance report, employees can see where things stand moment by moment and make decisions based on the findings. BI reports can now be generated automatically around key KPIs as they change and automatically pushed to the right user thanks to active monitoring.

Reduces IT Backlog

There’s room for improvement if your IT people are experiencing ongoing backlogs of report requests on behalf of other departments.

Giving employees access to self-service BI tools empowers them to query data directly whenever an answer is required. This can free up IT specialists to work on more impactful projects and get out from under the mountain of reporting requests that piled up under legacy BI tools. IT teams can also focus on data governance and strategy in lieu of a reporting backlog.

Has a Single Source of Truth

It’s irrelevant how quickly or conveniently employees can get data insights if those insights aren’t trustworthy. It’s also a problem if different teams think they’re on the same page but are actually working from different data sources telling different stories. Transparency is key.

Make sure you’re working from a common BI platform — one providing a single source of truth to all users, offering transparency about the insights themselves as well as from where they came. This will help users better understand, validate and trust perceptions before factoring them into decision making. This single source of truth must be able to incorporate data from multiple sources, including on-premises and cloud tech.

Drives Business Outcomes

Effective BI reporting must drive business outcomes demonstrably. Thus there needs to be a practical application for the data insights users are generating on a regular basis. The ability to query data and get an interactive chart in seconds is great — but the next step is using that information to actually improve business in some way, like tapping into a new revenue stream or correcting an operational inefficiency. So, track the measurable impact your BI reporting has on your bottom line to gauge its effectiveness. Business leaders must also be able to determine what data and insights are actually needed to affect business outcomes rather than thinking of all that is technically possible to generate.

If these five characteristics of effective BI reporting sound like a checklist describing your company, you’re on your way to being data-driven. If not, revisit your current approach and look for opportunities to refine it.

3DCoat — advanced software applications for creating 3D models

By

Adwaith

-

January 4, 2020

Contents

1 What is 3DCoat?
2 3DCoat User Interface
- 2.1 Workspaces
- 2.2 Sculpt & PBR Texture Paint at the same time!
3 Who is 3DCoat designed for?
4 About the developer:

What is 3DCoat?

3DCoat is one of the most advanced software applications for creating detailed 3D models. Where other applications in this market segment tend to specialize in one specific task, such as Digital Sculpting or Texture Painting, 3DCoat provides High-End capability across multiple tasks in an asset creation pipeline. These include Sculpting, Retopology, UV Editing, PBR Texture Painting, and Rendering. So it can be called a 3D texturing software and 3D texture painting software and 3D sculpting program and Retopology software and UV mapping software and 3D rendering software all combined.

In short, 3DCoat removes the need to purchase (and learn) multiple specialty software titles, which happen to be comparatively expensive, by putting all the production-level tools in a single, affordable application.

3DCoat has a free 30 days trial which can be downloaded for the following platforms

Windows
Mac OS
Linux

3DCoat User Interface

Workspaces

Like many 3D applications, 3DCoat separates major tasks and toolsets into their own unique work environment, or Workspaces (often referred to as “Rooms”) with Workspace tabs located above the viewport. The main Rooms are Paint Room for 3D texturing, 3D texture painting and PBR texture painting; Retopo Room for Retopology and Auto-retopology; UV Room for UV mapping, and UV unwrapping; Sculpt Room for 3D sculpting or Digital Sculpting as well as Voxel Sculpting and Render Room for 3D rendering.

The Paint, Sculpt, and Retopo Workspaces have their own native Mesh objects, however, Sculpt (Workspace) objects do share the Paint tools in the Paint Workspace, using a Texturing paradigm known as Vertex Paint. Color, Glossiness, Depth, and Metalness information is stored in each vertex rather than on a UV map. This allows the artist to paint PBR textures now (sculpt phase of a project) or later (after baking to a low-poly, UV mapped Retopo mesh).

PBR Texture Painting: For Texture Artists, 3DCoat has a very familiar UI layout and workflow, as well as many hotkey conventions that are shared with Photoshop. In fact, just 2 hotkey combinations (CTRL + P and CTRL + S) can send and retrieve textures between 3DCoat and Photoshop, so that both applications can seamlessly be utilized in concert with the other. When used across 2 Monitors, 3DCoat and Photoshop can feel like logical extensions of one another ensuring smooth interaction between 3D texture program and a 2D texture program.

3DCoat also has a 2D Texture Editor which can be docked anywhere within the Paint Workspace, allowing the artist to work interactively between a 3D viewport and 2D canvas. What is painted in 2D is updated live in the 3D viewport, while painting in the 3D viewport applies updates to the 2D canvas at the end of each stroke.

“Conditions” Painting is a huge part of 3DCoat’s painting workflow. It allows the user to set conditions where the paint will be applied, such as “More in Convex/Concave” areas, “More in Shadows,” etc. It’s also integrated directly into 3DCoat’s Smart Material Editor. Do you want more wear and/or metalness on the edges or extrusions? Adjust the amount in the editor and see the changes in a preview window prior to applying it to your model.

The UV and Tweak Workspaces work exclusively with Paint Objects (objects that are imported into the Paint Workspace). The Retopo Workspace can import low poly meshes, then a user can send a copy of it to the Sculpt Workspace, as a starting point for sculpting. Large Scale editing (using the Move, Transform or Pose tools) of the Sculpt Mesh can edit the Retopo mesh along with it, using a Toolbar Option to “Conform Retopo Mesh.”

This means the user can work interchangeably between Voxel and Polygon (Surface Mode) sculpting, including usage of LiveClay Dynamic Tessellation, without losing the original low-poly mesh and yet have the low poly original conform to the changes made to the High-Resolution Sculpt object. All these features make 3DCoat one of the best 3D texturing programs on the market.

3D Sculpting: The Sculpt Workspace has a robust set of Primitives and Curves in order to create base objects, with Boolean and FFD (Freeform Deformation) Lattice functionality built-in. It also has Models and Curves pallets that can be used to quickly bring in stored mesh objects (Kitbashing). It also has dedicated tools for 3D Printing such as a 3D Print Supports tool and Splits & Joints tool, for separating 3D printed parts with various options for the creation of joints.

Sculpt Objects also have an extensive PBR Shading library for very accurate look development during the modeling or sculpting phase of a project. PBR Smart Materials or Texture Paint can be applied on top of the PBR Shaders for even greater shading options. For example, a cloth PBR Smart Material can be applied to a character’s clothing, while a PBR Skin Shader (with Subsurface Scattering) can be applied to the skin. An Artist can use painting tools to paint additional freckles or skin spots, dirt or grime, on top of the SSS skin shader, and all of this can be rendered in 3DCoat’s Render room, as a still image (ie., for a Modeling sheet) or Turntable, ready to send to a client or Art Director for approval, before baking things down to a Low Poly Retopo Mesh.

3DCoat now has Sculpt Layer functionality built-in, with layer level or local (brush) level depth modulation, as well as the ability to erase depth information with a brush. The most unique aspect of 3DCoat’s implementation of Sculpt Layers is that a user can apply dynamic tessellation to a sculpt layer without breaking it. Additionally, Booleans can be applied to a Sculpt Layer without destroying the layer’s depth information. It only erases depth information in the specific area of the mesh, where the boolean is applied. Everything outside the area of the boolean operation is preserved.

As an example, a character could have considerable sculpting edits applied to the skin, such as wrinkles, pores, etc., and should the artist want to merge an object like a horn or fingernail, onto the skin using the same sculpt layer, all the edits to the skin will remain intact (able to modulate depth at any later point), outside the newly merged object. This remarkable technology is simply unheard of outside of 3DCoat and makes it a cool digital sculpting software.

Sculpt & PBR Texture Paint at the same time!

One of the most noteworthy and distinguishing features of 3DCoat is the ability to both Sculpt and paint PBR textures on a High-Resolution model….Simultaneously, with the same stroke. Everywhere else in the industry, one has to separate these two tasks, and that can be a large time drain. Not in 3DCoat. If an artist has a Smart Material with both Color and Depth (Gloss and Metalness can also be applied at the same time), they can apply both to a High Poly Sculpt or a Low Poly Paint object. It doesn’t matter.

Do you have some rock, cobblestone, ground, brick, or even rusted metal you would like to sculpt and paint at the same time? Sure you do. Then, 3DCoat is the only game in town, if you want to do this with a High poly sculpt.

Retopology: The Retopo Workspace is where an artist can build a lower poly-mesh version on top of a High-Resolution Sculpt Object (Voxel or Surface mode), create and edit UV maps, then bake all the sculpt detail (along with color, gloss, and metalness information) onto it. It also has an extensive set of Polymodeling tools, including Primitives, so the artist has the means to model with Polygons, without having to leave the application, to do so.

3DCoat also includes incredible Auto-Retopology tools, with 2 engines to choose from. The Default or integrated Instant Meshes toolset. There simply isn’t a more comprehensive set of Retopology tools on the market.

Who is 3DCoat designed for?

Tools integrated into 3D-Coat allow users to perform:
High-End, Production-level Sculpting
Voxel Modeling (for extremely fast, flexible and topology free) construction, and Poly-Modeling (Retopo tools have integrated Polymodeling features including Primitives and Kitbash models).
This is a favorite for Concept Artists, who generally are unconcerned with low polygon topology, and want to create detailed models rapidly, without having to piddle all day with the polys, edges, and vertices of a traditional Polygon model, nor mess with UV maps.
Create/Edit UV maps,
Create beautiful hand-painted textures or utilize the PBR Smart Materials library to quickly create photorealistic materials for you models
Retopologize like a boss, with class-leading Auto-Retopo or Manual Retopology tools.
Render still images or movies or turntable sequence with 3DCoat’s default GPU render engine. There is also a basic integration with Pixar’s Renderman (requires a Renderman Commercial or free Non-Commercial license)

About the developer:

3DCoat was first is developed in 2007 by Pilgway studio, which is directed by Andrew Shpagin. Andrew specializes in game development and has profound big experience in this area. Thatis fact allowed him to create this unique, simple but yet very powerful software for 3D artists.

Why Encryption Is The Most Overlooked Cybersecurity Practice

By

Vishak

-

January 2, 2020

Encryption Is The Most Overlooked Cybersecurity Practice

In the world of cybersecurity, encryption doesn’t seem to be getting the love/attention it deserves. When mentioning an antivirus or password manager, in comparison, everyone reacts to the term in an instance. Meanwhile, encryption tends to be either misunderstood or ignored; that’s how underrepresented it is.

Is it due to a lack of knowledge of the general public? Misplaced priorities? Soon enough, you’ll know about the underlying causes. But before that, let’s have a word about the basics.

Contents

1 What is encryption?
2 4 reasons why encryption is not used often enough

What is encryption?

Encryption is all about scrambling the data and transforming it into a seemingly unreadable sequence of characters. Thanks to what the technology can offer, securely storing one’s sensitive data become an option.

After applying encryption, opening the file in question, and reading its contents in the original form, requires a password. The longer that password is and the more special characters it uses, the harder it is for the hackers to brute force their way through.

It also applies to the data that is “in transit.” In other words, when you’re entering a password into a secure form, it uses encryption to make sure no one can intercept it on the way to its intended destination.

4 reasons why encryption is not used often enough

It’s time to explore the reasons why using encryption software for Windows and other operating systems isn’t as prevalent as it should be.

1. Lack of funding

An undeniable fact of the matter is that if you want to apply encryption everywhere, it won’t be free. When it’s time to go frugal, encryption tends to get the shorter end of the stick. But the corporate acquisition of firewalls, anti-malware, and other cybersecurity tools speaks volumes. It leads to the inevitable conclusion that the lack of funds is not the main culprit. The funding that should go toward encryption is not there because the executives lack the proper education. That is the root of all evil this article aims to address. Which brings us to the next point.

2. Lack of understanding

Cybersecurity is a complex topic. So expecting every corporate executive to know it well enough is a utopia. Most choose to take the easy way out. They believe that having an antivirus installed relieves them of any second thoughts and worries. Unfortunately, antivirus software does not protect the system against every threat that is out there. For example, it won’t shield the device from network-based attacks. Not to mention unauthorized access attempted by someone within close physical proximity to a device. There are now directives such as HIPAA that try to set the standard for optimal data protection. But some organizations remain ignorant of them, all up to one fateful day when they’re slapped with a fine that’s too hefty for them to pay.

3. Technological complexity

For whatever reason, antivirus software is simple and straightforward to grasp. Meanwhile, encryption remains a mystery. Immediately, it presents some questions:

What devices should you encrypt?
Should you encrypt all files or specific ones chosen in advance?
Perhaps the whole server?

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, so the answers to these can be tricky. As if that weren’t enough, there are different types of encryption tools on the market. It serves to complicate the issue a tad bit more. Add a little bit of corporate perfectionism in the mix, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. In other words, if the answers elude the corporate executive’s mind, the path of least resistance is the one worth taking – not using encryption at all. Very bad.

4. No support from the executives

Due to the reasons described above, even if the whole team wants to embrace encryption with all their hearts, a “no” from the executive’s side is still a “no.” It can be because of the lack of knowledge, lack of funding, or the wrong approach to cybersecurity in general. But an executive has the final say in every corporate environment. What’s worse is that some hold the belief that using encryption will slow the system down. Or that the costs will be too significant to bear.

In the early days, when it first hit the market, it was indeed clunky and impractical. It has left a bad taste in people’s mouths. But what many executives fail to realize is that times have changed and that technology has come a long way since then. And that’s not even mentioning the misunderstandings that surround using SSL on the server. And no, to make things clear, it’s not the same as applying server-wide encryption.

Conclusion

While there are many reasons for encryption to be pushed to the sidelines, the ones covered here are the most frequently seen in practice. Can education turn the tide of this battle and make people realize how important it is? If nothing else, it’s a step in the right direction.

How Does CRM System Help With Optimization of Your Business Processes

By

Rakesh Babu

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January 2, 2020

CRM System Help With Optimization of Your Business

It is highly advantageous if you have a structured database for all of the people that you offer your provisions to so that you can provide them with the best services possible. Especially for those who have new businesses that are still under development. These people are your clients. This is where CRM systems come in handy. Customer relationship management application software in full is similar to a phonebook containing important information on your perspective prospects. It affects how best you can handle your clients based on what they like and prefer.

The question that pops up on people’s minds most of the time is, what is CRM? And what exactly are the merits of having it in your business? A CRM system is a program software that handles clients’ information by performing functions such as collecting, organizing, and managing the clients’ details. For a business looking forward to expanding further, it is relevant that it uses a CRM as it can increase the business’s chances of succeeding in its endeavors. For more information on CRM, businesses go to creatio.com.

What is CRM system?

A CRM system hastens the tasks of the business as all of the clients’ details can be accessed with ease without having to face the tedious spreadsheet system that prolongs the time taken to look up the customers data, the customers data can be retrieved by the users any place on their handsets, and they can create reports and decisions right there in the presence of the customer. Sales CRM software makes service, sales, and marketing automatic, creating more time for your employees to spend time with the customers personally, thereby enhancing the bond with existing customers making your business more advantaged.

The importance of CRM systems in a business can be validated by an outline of its benefits. CRM systems are beneficial in many ways to business. The following are some of them;

The first, as already highlighted, is having organized data of clients in just one place, making data collection very effective to offer quick delivery to the customers basing on their preferences. This aids the business in keeping its clients as their satisfaction is well guaranteed due to the more interactions between the employees and customers. Your business can give more attention to its customers as it has data on what they like and how they behave.

How does CRM affect your marketing?

CRM boosts your marketing as it traces how your target audience came to know about your business, whether they searched for it online, heard of it during campaigns on marketing or trading shows. Your team of marketers will have a greater comprehension of what your clientele’ desire, basing on the questions they ask or their concerns. Complex CRMs have marketing utilities to create strategized adverts and campaigns. This brings out the CRM strategy as it cuts down the cost of your marketing. CRM also keeps a record of telephone calls and email chats, which your support team can go through in the future to attend to pending service requests. With this, clients will be satisfied even further.

With your employees sharing clients’ data continuously in their various departments of your business using CRM, a better communication channel will be set up in your business resulting in the promotion of teamwork. This is a bigger benefit of using a CRM system. Each employee will be up to date with all the reliable details and be able to reply effectively to the inquiries of the customers about the good you produce and the services you offer. With all this in effect, your business will be able to give high-end facilities to your clients smoothly.

The significant drawback of CRM application systems is its towering execution cost, new or updated hardware and software is needed, the workers may have to be instructed on how to use the software, subscribing and buying the software will also be extravagant. Up to this point, it can be deduced that CRM has numerous perks to a business of any proportions and if you are looking forward to building up your line of work, then Customer Relationship Management application software is what you need to apply as a plan of action to ensure that you get a full-on fledge strategy in the business world.

[Infographic] What Is SQL Injection Attack And How Does It Works ?

By

Sabarinath

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December 31, 2019

After our previous post What is XSS attacks and how does it work?, today we are going to discuss about SQL Injection attack. SQL Injection attack is a technique where malicious users can inject SQL commands into an SQL statement, via web page input. SQL inject commands can alter the SQL statements and compromise the security of a web application. SQL injections are mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database.

The first public discussions of SQL injection started appearing around 1998. SQL injection (SQLI) is considered one of the top 10 web application vulnerabilities of 2007 and 2010 by the Open Web Application Security Project. In 2013, SQLI was rated the number one attack on the OWASP top ten. Recent infamous victims of SQL Injection Attacks: Barracuda Networks, Heartland Payment Systems, NASA, Bell (Canada) & Many More.

SQL Injection Attack Threat Modeling

SQL injection errors occur when data enters a program from an untrusted source and the data used to dynamically construct a SQL query

SQL Injection attack allows attackers to spoof identity, tamper with existing data, cause repudiation issues such as voiding transactions or changing balances, allow the complete disclosure of all data on the system, destroy the data or make it otherwise unavailable and become administrators of the database server.
SQL Injection is very common with PHP and ASP applications due to the prevalence of older functional interfaces. Due to the nature of programmatic interfaces available, J2EE and ASP.NET applications are less likely to have easily exploited SQL injections.
The severity of SQL Injection attack is limited by the attacker’s skill and imagination, and to a lesser extent, defense in depth countermeasures, such as low privilege connections to the database server and so on. In general, consider SQL Injection a high impact severity.

Below infographic from Barricade will explain to you what is SQL Injection attack, how does it work.

Also Read : [Infographic] What Is Programming And What Do Programmers Do?

There are four different types SQL Injection attack, Classic SQLI, Blind or Inference SQL injection, Database management system-specific SQLI and Compounded SQLI. We will explain it in detail later. And we will also write an article about how to avoid SQL Injection vulnerabilities.