At it’s most basic, Network attached storage, or NAS, is a great way to share files on your local network. But it’s also a perfect solution for backing up your computers, streaming media across your home network, or even torrenting files to a central server. If you have an aging computer lying around, you can turn it into a NAS for for free with the open-source FreeNAS operating system. Here’s how. More
You are watching aviation history. This is the first U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II ever, the first step towards a new fleet full of stealth strike fighters. It’s fully operative and combat ready. The image gallery is bee-ooh-tee-ful. More
Docusign, the cloud-based electronic signature platform, today announced that is has processed more than a half billion pages of “contracts, agreements and other legally binding documents”, all as part of its effort to enable businesses to go paperless in the document sharing and signing process. According to the company, this effort has saved more than 60,000 trees, and what would equate to $10 million in shipping costs. To commemorate the milestone, DocuSign has made a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation to preserve one million square feet of rain forest.
DocuSign also announced today the release of the latest edition of its eSignature solution, including the first appearance of a free version. This update to platform will bring DocuSign users the ability to “tag documents, auto-save, and make use of HTML5 enhancements”, the team said, like the ability to drag and drop files into DocuSign’s envelope to send, as well as pull documents from Box.net, Dropbox, Google Docs and Salesforce.
DocuSign’s new solution will also include interactive dashboards and reporting to let users know where documents stand in the review and signing process, and browser-aware localization, which will put documents in the user’s native language based on the user’s browser.
Most notably, DocuSign now includes integration with social networks, allowing users to sign in with Facebook, LinkedIn, Paypal, and Salesforce.
Lastly, DocuSign will be offering its users a free edition of its platform, in which they can sign up for a free account and receive 5-free “sends” (documents sent and signed) per month, with no credit card required.
Because the electronic signatures company now has over 8 million DocuSigners, when Adobe entered the eSignature space last year, DocuSign welcomed the addition “as market validation”. But, yesterday, Adobe announced the acquisition of EchoSign, an eSignature solution with over 3 million users, which it plans to integrate into its document software. This could symbolize some serious future competition for DocuSign, and it’s interesting to see DocuSign’s announcements today follow so closely on the heels of Adobe’s announcement.
However, Tim Gonser, DocuSign’s CEO, told TechFlash that the company still leads as a solution for enterprise customers, with “80 percent SaaS market share”. It also benefits from significant adoption resulting from a partnership and investment from the National Association of Realtors, according to TechFlash.
It also helps that DocuSign raised $27 million from Scale Venture Partners, Salesforce.com, Sigma Partners, Ignition Partners and Frazier Technology in December of last year, bringing total capital raised to just over $56 million.
Check out the additions here.
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With A Half Billion Pages Signed, DocuSign Launches Free Edition
TruePosition is a ghost. Few know anything substantive about the surveillance company, yet according to Wired’s Spencer Ackerman, governments are salivating over the company’s LOCINT product, which has the ability to drudge up plenty personal info through our cellphones. More
Audiosocket, an indie music licensing and technology company, is launching a new platform today called Music as a Service (MaaS), which gives developers a way to offer users the ability to license music for applications.
So content producers will be able to search, discover and license music from Audiosocket’s catalog of over 33,000 songs from more than 1,900 artists and composers around the world. MaaS can be integrated into third party photo and video sharing services, ad agencies and more. Partners pay nothing up-front to integrate MaaS, and content creators take on the licensing charges.
The virtue of using the platform is that content creators don’t have to worry about the hassle of licensing the music they want to use, because Audiosocket takes care of this. MaaS provides worldwide music licensing with automated licensing generation and payment processing, simplifying what has been a notoriously challenging process for content creators, and creating new revenue streams for artists and partners.
For example, slideshow creation tool Animoto is an Audiosocket client, and Audiosocket says this integration helped shape the vision for the MaaS platform.
Audiosocket faces competition from Pump Audio and Jingle Punks.
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Audiosocket’s Music As A Service Allows Startups To Offer Licensed Music To Users
Illustrator Claire Hummel has taken a look at the Disney princesses with a historical eye, from Snow White’s 16th-century Germany setting to Belle’s late 18th century French environment. She found that the clothes they wore didn’t match up to the historical settings very well and decided to set things straight. Here’s what Claire had to say about her interpretation of Jasmine from Aladdin (above):
“Let’s be frank — Aladdin is hardly an exercise in historical accuracy… It took some effort to track down some midriff-baring outfits but BY GEORGE I DID, thank you Persian fashion plates. I now know what sirwal are called (besides Hammer pants), and that Persian women wore some pretty sweet little jackets that I wish I owned.”
You can read about the rest of her findings over at Flavorwire. Prints are available on Claire’s site – wouldn’t they be a lovely addition to the room of a princess-obsessed little girl?
Link via Flavorwire
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If Disney Princesses Wore Historically Accurate Clothing
Autocorrect and autocomplete can be very helpful and very funny features in iOS, but you can take control over both by adding your own custom words and terms to the dictionary. Here’s how to do it. More
Google makes a heck of a lot of money from online advertising. In fact, 97 percent of Google’s revenue, which totaled $33.3 billion in the past twelve months, comes from advertising.
WordStream, a venture capital-backed provider of hosted software that automates most of the manual work involved with creating and optimizing both paid and natural search engine marketing campaigns, has done some research to discover which keyword categories fetch the highest costs per click (CPC) in Google’s AdWords solution.
And of course, they made an infographic based on the results of their research (embedded below).
WordStream compiled data from its own, vast keyword database and the Google Keyword Tool to determine the top 10,000 most expensive English-language keywords over a 90-day period.
Subsequently, the list was organized into categories by theme. The largest keyword categories were then determined by weighting the number of keywords within each category, as well as the estimated monthly search volume and average cost per click for each keyword.
For the record, Google AdWords is an auction-based marketplace where advertisers bid on keywords to compete for top ad placement, with a minimum bid of 5 cents per keyword (update: actually, there’s no longer a minimum bid for CPC campaigns).
The top twenty keyword categories that demanded the highest costs per click are:
1. Insurance (example keyword: “auto insurance price quotes”)
2. Loans (example keyword: “consolidate graduate student loans”)
3. Mortgage (example keyword: “refinanced second mortgages”)
4. Attorney (example keyword: “personal injury attorney”)
5. Credit (example keyword: “home equity line of credit”)
6. Lawyer
7. Donate
8. Degree
9. Hosting
10. Claim
11. Conference Call
12. Trading
13. Software
14. Recovery
15. Transfer
16. Gas/Electricity
17. Classes
18. Rehab
19. Treatment
20. Cord Blood
Unsurprisingly, the list of most expensive keyword categories is clearly a result from people who, en masse, turn to the Web in search for help, whether it’s for financial, educational, professional services or medical aid. WordStream concludes that the keyword categories with the highest volumes and costs represent industries with very high lifetime customer value: in other words, companies that can afford to pay a lot to acquire a new customer because of the nature of their business.
But I would have personally never imagined that ‘insurance’ would be netting Google up to almost $55 per click. Think about that for a minute.
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What Are The 20 Most Expensive Keyword Categories In Google AdWords?
Windows: Many types of malware disable booting into safe mode to prevent easy recovery. You can always get around this by reinstalling or restoring your operating system, but that may not be necessary thanks to the free program Safe Mode Fixer. More
Amazon is now allowing students to rent textbooks on their Kindle and Kindle apps. The e-commerce giant is launching Kindle Textbook Rental today, which allows students can save up to 80% off textbook list prices by renting textbooks from the Kindle Store.
Amazon says that students can customize rental periods between 30 and 360 days, so students only pay for the specific amount of time they need a book. And students can extend the rental time if they ened more time to use the textbook. The company says that “tens of thousands of textbooks” are available for the 2011 school year from publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis.
The company is also extending its Whispersync technology so that students can get to keep and access all of their notes and highlighted content in the Amazon Cloud, even after a rental expires.
Savings, says the company, amount to up to 80% off the print list price on a 30-day rental. For example, an accounting textbook costs $109.20 to buy the actual book, but starts at $38.29 to rent the textbook.
Kindle Textbooks can be read across both the Kindle devices and Amazon’s free Kindle Reading Apps for PC, Mac, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Android-based devices.
I’m curious how much of a threat this service will be to textbook rental giants Chegg and BookRenter, which both allow students to rent hardcover and paperback textbooks at low prices. For example, Chegg has an e-book option that could be competitive to Amazon’s new service. Other startups like Kno and Inkling are trying their hand at the digital textbook arena.
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Amazon Launches Kindle Textbook Rental Service, Allows Students To Store Notes In The Cloud