Pressing a photo with PicStamp

Error in deserializing body of reply message for operation 'Translate'. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 1, position 9082.
Error in deserializing body of reply message for operation 'Translate'. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 1, position 9103.

There are many types of photo editing tools in the App Store. Some photo editing tools let you cartoonize your photo while others allow you to apply effects. Then, there are tools which allow you to add texts to your photos as a watermark or a way to caption their photos.

Other than applying effects and texts, now you can also add stamp templates on your photos with picstamp.

picstamp is a photo-editing app for iOS devices which allows you to choose stamp templates and put additional info on your photos – imagine putting a tweet on your pictures. And get this, picstamp is Instagram-ready so it just takes a tap to share it on your account.

Recommended Reading: 10 New & Fresh iPhone Photography Apps

To start, download and install picstamp on your iPhone. Then, run the app.

You’ll be presented with a straight user interface where the only functional icon is the camera icon. Tap on the camera icon to take an image and it will ask for permission to access your photos.

You can choose to take a new photo or you can choose one photo from your photo gallery. Then it will bring you to a page to choose your template. Swipe left or right on the template bar to see more templates.

After settling with a template, tap on ‘Next’ and there will be pop-up asking if you want to connect picstamp with your Facebook account.

Now, you can edit the template that you have chosen.

To make the template bigger tap on the ‘arrow’ icon and pull it up to make it bigger or down to make it smaller. You can place the template some place else by pressing on the ‘arrow’ icon and dragging it to your desired spot.

You can also edit the template by tapping on ‘Edit’ on the bottom bar. There are two tabs for editing, one is ‘Style’ and another is ‘Text’.

On ‘Style’ tab, you can choose to show the avatar not. Without the avatar, all you got is text.

With the avatar on, you can change your avatar image. Tap on the image icon and it will let you choose an image from your photo gallery to replace the current avatar.

You can also change the color of the text on the template by tapping on ‘Color’. If the color you want to choose is not available, press on any color for a few seconds and a color palette will pop. Use the color palette to create your custom color.

And lastly, you can adjust the opacity of the stamp.

To change the text on the stamp, go to the ‘Text’ tab and edit the text on the template. Tap on the text space to start editing the text.

Under the ‘Settings’ icon is where you can edit your personal info. Your personal info is used to prefill the stamps, so you don’t have to do it for every single stamp you use.

Tap on ‘Your Info’ and fill in your name, age, location, phone number and others.

You can also connect to the app via Facebook account by tapping on "Use Facebook Info".

When you’re done editing tap on ‘Settings’ and then tap on ‘Done and it will bring you back to the photo page.

As stated earlier, picstamp is designed to specifically work well with Instagram.

To share your photo on Instagram, tap on Export and tap on Send to Instagram. picstamp will automatically save a copy of your photo in your ‘Camera Roll’.

Tap on ‘Open in Instagram’ to open the photo on Instagram where you can apply your filters.

Fill in the caption and other info like how you usually share a photo on Instagram and tap on ‘Share’. With that you’re done and the photo you edited on picstamp is shared on your Instagram account!

picstamp is a fun app to use but there are a few limitations. One, you can’t share photos to Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest or other social platforms. You can only share photos directly to Instagram.

Another partial-limitation is on every photo you edit using picstamp there is a ‘#picstamp’ watermark on it. The only way to not have the watermark on your photo is to buy their Premium Template Pack for $0.99. To buy it, tap on ‘Settings’ and then tap on ‘Watermark’.

A pop-up will ask if you want to purchase the stamp templates. The purchase will give you more templates to choose from and a watermark-free stamped picture.

Not sure if you want to give picstamp a try yet? Check out the photos from the picstamp Instagram account.

This post is published by a Hongkiat.com staff (editors, interns, sometimes Hongkiat Lim himself) or a guest contributor.

View the original article here

Submit Your Art To This Month’s Movie Poster Challenge

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

You still have plenty of time to submit your movie poster for this month’s Psdtuts+ Design Challenge. Join the community on Google+ and upload your art for the chance to get featured in our monthly reviews.

This month we asked for your help in choosing the theme and you picked, Recreate A Famous Movie Poster. For this challenge, use Photoshop combined with any additional application or technique of your choice to produce your artwork. Remember, the deadline for this challenge is Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 12:00 PM EST.

Artist James White will also be joining the Google Hangout Review for this month’s challenge. Welcome him with us and stay tuned after the challenge for the official Google Hangout link to enjoy the design review live!

Join The Psdtuts+ Google Community and upload your challenge submissions to the wall. Include the #psdtutsdc tag in your posts and feel free to explore past challenges, collaborate, and share feedback with fellow artists.

We’ve already got some incredible entries pouring in for this month. Join the Psdtuts+ Community on Google Plus to submit yours and to see more amazing work!

Reservoir Dogs by Faseeh Rehman
James Dean by Thomas Bailey
The Birds by Rob Dorn

View the original article here

5 Simple Steps To Keeping Your Smartphone (And Data) Safe

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Smartphones have evolved from being able to just check email and has now allowed us to do so many other things when paired with other devices. Nowadays, we can pay with our smartphones with digital wallet apps are able to store multiple credit cards. Most of our private information (together with other contact information) can be found in the apps on our smartphone through chatlogs, pictures, calendars, and notes.

This is why we rely so much on our smartphones and store so much sensitive data on it to make our lives easier. With all these sensitive data onboard a tiny device, we should pay more attention to keeping it safe and away from anyone unwanted. Here are some precautions to help you.

Recommended Reading: 6 Safety Steps To Making Secure Mobile Transactions

Leaving your phone unattended on a desk for a few minutes could lead to someone accessing it to extract lots of vulnerable information. Which is why enabling lockscreen security is essential to keeping your smartphone away from unwanted users.

This is the easiet way to defend you and your data, and pretty much every smartphone has this feature. Manufacturers know privacy is important to users.

Some thieves would try breaking the lockscreen by trying out passwords but to really keep your data safe from brute force hacking, you could enable a feature that erases all data from your smartphone after a preset number of failed attempts.

On the iPhone, it can be enabled under Settings > General > Passcode Lock > Erase Data.

By default, this kind of feature is not available on the Android, but you can enable a similar effect with a free app like Autowipe .

Hackers are able to do all sorts of things that will surprise you. Turning off phone settings like Bluetooth, Location Services, Near Field Communication (NFC), Wi-Fi and even Cellular Data when not in use not only conserves smartphone battery but also gives hackers less access to your device.

Location Services and Bluetooth should not be turned on when not in use as apps can use lots of location data without you knowing it. As Bluetooth is constantly transmitting your devices’ location and presence, it is possible for hackers to use it to gain access and extract any kind of information found on your device.

Apps are probably the only thing that can harm you by stealing your personal data. When downloading an app, make sure that all the details of the app comes from the original ‘company’ or correct developer. Some sneaky apps might even trick people to download a "New and improved HD version" of a legitimate app, so make sure you check a few app details before downloading.

For instance a mobile banking app (or any app that handles financial accounts) should come from the bank itself as seen here on the iOS App Store, and not some other seller or developer.

App ratings and comments can also tell a story. If it’s a popular bank or financial service (PayPal) app that has no rating or comments, chances are it might be fake and you should be careful about downloading it and logging in. So be sure to download apps only if it has been rated many times and has multiple comments.

Viruses on mobile platforms can be present in many ways. It can be in the form of a ‘dirty’ app that runs in the background transmitting user data. As the Android system allows third-party apps or programs to be installed (very easily), Android users may open their mobile system up to attacks if they are not wary of the apps they download to their phone.

There are however anti-virus scanning apps and other tools on Android that can detect and remove anything that can harm your privacy.

iOS users do not have anti-virus scanning apps, basically because there isn’t a pressing need for it. Apple is very strict with what gets on the App Store and will take down apps that harm its users in any way. Skip clicking on links in SMS, MMS, or even email attachments from unknown or unauthorised senders. Avoiding anything fishy altogether is very simple and should be practiced.

Not losing your smartphone is sometimes easier said than done. Of course no one wants to lose their smartphone, but unfortunate circustances might happen. You might have left it in a bar, in public transport, someone pickpocketed you during your vacation or you might have grabbed someone else’s phone by mistake. In all accounts, chances are your phone is good as gone.

If these things have a tendency to plague your life (some of us are serial phone-losers), installing apps that can locate your smartphone on your iOS or Android device is essential. These apps can help you locate your phone and some have the option to wipeout the data on the phone so you don’t become a victim of identity theft.

To be fair, there is no one mobile platform that is safer than another. With so many devices but only a handful of platforms to choose from, attackers are able to target any platform they desire and the repercussions can be quite devastating to power users. We, as users have to be cautious with what we do to and with our smartphones.

If you work extensively on with your smartphone, you might want to look to BlackBerry phones as they have encryption features in their devices. Finally, because Android is an open source platform, it is more vulnerable to attacks as hackers can easily find vulnerabilities on each device; iOS or Windows Phone are less vulnerable because their system codes are not openly shared to  the public.

Brian is a Mass Communication graduate with a passion for everything related to technology, minimalistic designs, and every kind of gadgetry.

View the original article here

60 Shopping cart UI for your inspiration

Nancy is a passionate freelance writer and blogger. She writes tons of inspiring articles on photography and Web design, despite the fact that she is an economist by training. She loves to read, learning SEO and lose also their opinion to the French films.

View the original article here

5 Tips to improve the WeChat

WeChat was ranked 10th on our list of WhatsApp alternative. At that time, I was (and am still) something biased communicate compared with WhatsApp I like it with my friends and family to communicate on a daily basis. I recently but work had to take a closer look at WeChat, and I am happy to report that WeChat is a very complete app with lots of cool and useful functions.

Seriously, you know WeChat of the basic functions of the app and many others like it offer, but it's other features to discover in this list , which gives it give second chance might be interested if you haven't. Let's see, how WeChat can improve your messaging and social, shall we?

Recommended reading: A look in: Viber desktop for Windows and Mac

One thing that distinguishes WeChat from other messaging apps is the opportunity to chat with your contacts WeChat on a computer. You have not even download or install a program, because you need to access web.wechat.com on a desktop Browser.

Then scan the QR-code on the website with the app displayed. For this purpose, the tap magic wand icon in the upper right corner and select QR code scanning.

Once the QR code is scanned, your Web browser is temporarily connected to your device. Each message is synchronized between the device and the computer.

Chat history that is displayed on your device are not displayed on the Web browser, but displayed open chat for quick access. You can start also a new conversation with one of your contacts WeChat.

You can transfer files in less than 10 MB from your computer Web WeChat on your device. Large sections of text can be sent also to yourself with this feature.

File types you can be like MP3, MOV, PDF, MSOffice documents such as DOCX, PPT and image files opened and viewed at WeChat. If a file is not recognized by the WeChat, you can select and use another app on your device installed to open it.

The moments feed works similar to a Facebook feed can you like and comment photos shared by your contacts. Don't want to share photos? Share text as a status update appears instead by tap and hold the camera icon on the top right corner to a text box. Preferences and comments apply.

Since you have to approve contacts, is only the people who you will approve the location to see how and comment on your photos or status.

WeChat has many fun social functions , which are not found on most of the messaging apps out there. These social functions allow you to Search and random people chat , also the app use.

You can create look around with random people who are around physically around you. To use look around, select locations, so the ' matchmaking' can begin. " You see the user name, user-defined status, their avatar or profile picture and their distance from you (it is off a little bit, to be honest).

Strike up a conversation with anyone. Note that if you are in the look around mode, other users also look can.

To remove this option, tap the three points on the upper right corner, then choose data delete and stop.

Shake is another feature you people not meet by chance far from you can. It gives you a random person (used also shake) chat with. You can chat with the person or shake to get back to another random person.

Users can only see you when you are in this mode, so log out of it if you want to give your life a 'Shaker'.

This is another cool feature to have fun with. They can throw now digital messages in a 'sea' and random people get your message, keep it or add a response before she threw back to 'Sea'. Your messages can be in the form of text or short audio clips.

If you want to throw only and do not establish a connection with a gentlemen Tosser, go to settings > features and disable the function.

You must give not your personal contact number for people who wanna chat with you on WeChat. Here are 2 ways that can connect them with you.

With a WeChat ID such as a unique user name , not your real name must be. You can only set it once to think that. Once you have established this, can easily find friends. You can set it up, see settings > my profile > WeChat ID.

There are also QR codes for you to share in your social networks. These QR codes come in a variety of designs. Select on and set your name card info, then save it to your device-photo gallery. Your friends can then add this QR code with WeChat by scanning. You can find this under settings > my QR nameplate.

Brian is a mass communication graduate with a passion for everything related to technology, minimalist design and any kind of gadgetry.

View the original article here