How To Get & Activate UBA MasterCard Secure Pass Code For Online Transaction

What is UBA MasterCard SecureCode (MCSC)?

The UBA secure code is an added security measure provided to you when you make an online transaction. With this code, it will be difficult for someone to make use of your MasterCard online without your consent. This means you won’t have to be afraid when you lost your MasterCard. It’s still recommendable that you block your ATM Card anything you lost or misplaced it.

Now the MasterCard code will ensure that only you can use the debit card when shopping online. You can use the MasterCard to purchase anything online. However, it’s not all international websites or online retailers that support or accept the use of MasterCard secure code. Below we will be guiding you through on how to activate UBA MasterCard secure passcode.

How To Activate UBA Mastercard For Online Transaction

UBA has provided their customers with an easy way to activate their MasterCard when shopping online.
To activate your MasterCard, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Visit any website that supports MasterCard SecureCode (MCSC

Step 2: choose what you want to buy and submit your order



Step 3: On the payment section, fill in the page currently and click on the activation option



Step 4: Now fill in the secret question and answer and click on the continue button.



Step 5: Create your password, username, personal message and click on the continue button.





Finally, you have successfully activated your UBA MasterCard for online transaction. Now whenever you want to make a purchase on any site, all you have to do is to enter the MasterCard secure code password and the security question you have selected. You will also be prompted to fill in your MasterCard SecureCode password. So make sure you choose an easy to remember but not easy to guess password.

In case you forget your password, you can still recover it back by clicking on the forget your password?.
That’s just it. It’s very simple and stresses free to activate your UBA MasterCard on your own for online payment without going to the bank. If you want to make TV payment like Dstv, Startimes, TStv or recharge your phone, it’s advisable to download their mobile App which is available for BlackBerry, Android, and iOS.

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Upcoming Infinix Phones 2019, Specs And Prices

As the year is gradually coming to an end, Infinix Mobility is working on something new and amazing.
They will be coming up with new and exciting affordable devices as usual. Below, we will be looking at the upcoming Infinix phones of 2019 with the expected prices and release date.




The Infinix Hot 7 is already on its way. The phone will come with similar features and design with the Infinix Hot 6X. This is to say, it will feature a notch in a large display screen size. The inbuilt memory will start from 2GB RAM with 16GB of inbuilt storage and it will have a bigger model with 3GB RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage. Don’t expect a huge difference on the phone, because it will still fall under the budget device that anyone can buy without breaking their wallet. The Infinix Hot 7 will also have an X edition which will be called Infinix Hot 7X with similar design and features.


Infinix Smart 3



It’s not quite long when Infinix introduced the Smart series. The main purpose of Infinix Smart series is to offer a pocket-friendly smartphone to fans. So, the new Infinix smartphone will be the Infinix Smart 3. Have you seen the Infinix Smart 2 HD? The phone still lacks a notch but offer a large screen display in a small body. So, the upcoming Infinix Smart 3 will likely feature a notch up front and will definitely run on Android 8.1 Oreo operating system. The phone will be available in 1GB with 16GB and another model with 2GB and 16GB of inbuilt storage. It will have support for 4G LTE network and will also support micro SD card as well.
Infinix Note 6



The Infinix Note 6 will be the successor of the Infinix Note 5 smartphone which is mainly built for photography. The phone will feature the best camera setup and will also be the first in the Note series to carry a notch up front. The Infinix Note 7 will boast a generous inbuilt memory which will likely range from 64GB to 128GB. The phone will definitely take over from the Infinix Zero 5. It will runs on Android 9.0 Pie operating system out of the box and will carry a dual rear cameras set-up with a capable processor. Although there’s no much news or rumors concerning the phone release date, however, Note 6 will be coming at the middle of the year.
Infinix Zero 6





From the looks of things and speculations, it seems the Infinix Zero 5 didn’t sell as expected. The Infinix Zero 6 is on its way and with the latest rumors, the phone will be launched in 2019. Infinix wants to introduce something new to the Infinix Zero 6 in order to attract more buyers. So the Infinix Zero 6 will not only features a notch up front but might likely feature an onscreen fingerprint scanner with a smart Face ID. It will pack a Snapdragon processor and will have a huge RAM of 8GB. The onboard storage will be generous as well. Most importantly, the Zero 6 will runs on the latest Android 9.0 Pie operating system.
Infinix Hot S4 & Infinix Hot S4X



The Infinix Hot S4 and Hot S4X will be the successor of the Infinix Hot S3 and Hot S3X respectively.
Both phones will feature a notch which will likely be in a teardrop shape. The phones will be made available in 2019 and they will be preloaded with the latest Android 9.0 Pie operating. The Infinix Hot S4 may feature four cameras set-up. Two at the back and another two for selfies. The phone will likely have a big model with a 6GB RAM and 64GB of inbuilt storage. Other features will include 4G LTE network, USB Type C cable, and others regulars.

Final Words:

These are the upcoming Infinix phones that we are expecting in 2019 from Infinix Mobility. The features and specs are just rumors while the images are just the concepts of what the phones will look like.
We have no official specs nor the release date from Infinix. Infinix is one of the most top-selling smartphones in Nigeria, India and other neighboring countries. They offer amazing smartphones with good looking and enough inbuilt memory at an affordable price segment.

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How To Get First Bank Quick Loan without Collateral [Students Loan]

First Bank is one of the leading banks in Nigeria and recently they have introduced lot’s of features into their banking sector. They have Domiciliary account which is mainly for Foreign Currency and they have also introduced WhatsApp banking in other to improve their customers’ service experience.
Apart from that, you can now make a payment like Startimes, DSTV, Gotv, and other TV using First Bank services right from the comfort of your couch. Customers can also recharge their line without any hassle using a simple code, or online making use of the first mobile App.



Right now, they have also introduced an easy loan without any form of collateral which they described as a tight spot Loan. They send me a notification with the below statement.




Need to get out of a tight spot? Get a quick loan using FirstMobile App today! You First.

That’s was their exact message and I know some of you also received the same notification as well.
So I decided to check out the loan to see how it works and I discovered that it’s the quick loan we have been looking for all this while. Although there is some company that offers quick loan services that you can grab without any form of collateral or third party involvement, however, the First Bank quick loan comes with great features and it’s easy to get.

To get First Bank quick loan, you must have an account with them and the account must be up to four months or more. Now Install the FirstMobile App which you can get from Google PlayStore or iTune. After that, open a new account with your PIN and your card number (Make sure it’s a secret number and don’t share it with anyone). The password you will use, should also be a secret and easy to remember.

After you have created the account, tap on the left side of the home screen option. Looks for loan options and click to open it. Before you proceed to fill in the loan form, make sure you read the terms and conditions very well. If you are okay with it, accept and proceed with the process.

That’s all, you will have to wait for them to grant the loan request. Good Luck!

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How Your Smartphone Can Help You Stay Fit

With a smartphone on your hands, it means that you have the power to perform many operations. These technological gadgets are so smart that they can now help people improve their fitness in many ways. According to research, most athletes and fitness enthusiasts have turned to their smartphones to get information and make better strategies for their fitness lives. When used well, it is easy to achieve your goals and also help others, especially if you are a fitness coach or trainer.

Monitor and Track Your Activities

One of the greatest mistakes athletes make is failing to track their fitness activities. This means that they do not know how many workouts they have been doing in a week, and therefore they cannot know whether they are progressing or not. A smartphone can access numerous fitness apps with the capability to store data for all of these activities. In fact, one can start by preparing a workout schedule and checking it when each section is completed.

Stream Tutorials

YouTube now has thousands of videos and tutorials on fitness. All you need is to do a search or subscribe to a reputable fitness channel. The best thing with streaming videos through your smartphone is that you can even access it outdoors or remotely with ease. Better still, you can download fitness videos and save them for future use. Apart from YouTube, there are also other fitness channels that offer live tutorials.



Browse Fitness Information Online

For you to be fit, there is a lot of information that you need to know. The web is a rich source of information and the fact that anyone with a smartphone can access it easily makes it even better. All you need is internet access, and Google or any other search engine will be waiting for your search input. You can read more about fitness gear, https://steroideurope.org, and much more. The web holds almost all of the answers about fitness that you want, including tips on how to improve your fitness efforts.


Social Media Sharing

These include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest among many others. These social media platforms offer an opportunity for people to share fitness information in an interesting way. If you are on any of these platforms, you can follow successful people in fitness and get to know what they do to succeed. Some even post videos and photos of their daily workout routines, their diet, and the supplements they use. You can also seek the recommendation of the best fitness options from various groups and platforms that you are following.



Monitoring Diet

Fitness is not complete without an appropriate diet. Smartphones allow people to promote their eating habits in many ways. As a fitness lover, you can use apps that recommend the best food for certain goals. Additionally, you can browse information on the best food to eat or follow a health channel of your choice.

From the above, you can tell that smartphones are game-changers in fitness. If you do not have one, it is time to buy one and start using it to your advantage.

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Ways Technology Can Improve Communication Between You And Your Clients

Thanks to technology, it’s now easier than ever for businesses to meet their needs and challenges face on. In the past, it was much harder for a company to keep up with their clients or customers and to communicate with them in a timely and effective manner. But now, you can get in touch with people the world over with just a click of a mouse or the push of a button. So to help your business take full advantage of this, whether you’re an accountant or a property management company, here are three ways you can use technology to improve communication between your organization and your clients.
Use The Internet to your advantage

If you and your client both have reliable access to the Internet, communication suddenly becomes a lot simpler. In fact, BusinessBlogsHub.com shares that people with vastly different socio-economic backgrounds almost all have at least some way that they can access the Internet today. Because of this, you as a company can use all sorts of software to keep in contact with your clients. For example, you can create social media profiles that interact with clients in a less formal way, create a chatbot to engage them when you’re not online, email back and forth to share information and updates, and you ca even video chat so you can still get face time with your clients when you’re miles and miles apart.
Messaging Services

For quicker communication that generally requires less explanation or time investment, Bonnie Conrad, a contributor to Chron Small Business, recommends that you have your company take advantage of instant messaging services whenever possible. These types of services can often allow you to get back to your clients faster than you might be able to with phone calls or even emails. And not only can you use this technology with your current clients or customers, but you can also use instant messaging features on your website so that you can speak with anyone visiting your online pages, current or potential clients alike. Business now use platforms lik
Workflow And Tracking Features

In a business where you have clients rather than just customers, you’ll often find yourself working on projects or tasks rather than just fulfilling a request or providing a single product or service. With situations such as these, many clients like to stay informed on how their project is progressing. To help with this, Julia Samoilenko, a contributor to Technology Advice, recommends that you begin using a workflow or project tracking software that will let those within your organization manage their client projects and will also allow the clients to see what work’s being done for them, eliminating the need for much formal communication regarding their project.




If you’re struggling with communicating with your clients, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how you can implement technology to improve this area of your business.

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Ways Blog Can Help Your Business

It is well proven that blogging is an essential part of business promotion these days. The process may appear critical, but once you start working in this direction, it is possible to achieve desired results in lesser time.

No matter what kind of business you are running online, blogs can always lead the best impression of your niche online. Some experienced professionals even prefer to connect their blogs to social media polls and contests while making efforts to buy contest votes online.

It helps them to attract audience attention in the market and can lead considerable benefits for the long run.

Most successful B2B and B2C companies prefer to use this idea to ensure more traffic on their website. In order to choose the best content for your blog, it is better to ask audience opinion through polls online. You can also buy facebook votes to get desired results.
Attract more Traffic Online:

Some of you may be thinking that blogging is a tricky process and it demands lots of time as well. But the great news is that in order to divert more traffic to your business platform, it is important to achieve higher ranking on search engine results.

An informative and engaging blog can help you better in this regard. Know interests of your audience though votes kaufen services and start posting content relevant to their preferences.
Make your Website a leading Destination:

Experts reveal that blogging has the potential to make your website worth to read by the audience. Blog posts help customers to get enough information on relevant topics; when they find answers to the potential questions on your website, it helps them to stimulate more traffic on the website. Indeed, blogs can help to make your business a leading destination for all buyers.
Let people understand the potential of your business:

Blogs ensure dynamic and interactive appearance in the market. With high-quality content, you can let your customers know more about the real potential of your business. It is even good to connect your blog to the contests and polls on social media.

When you buy votes online, the traffic will be naturally directed to your website online. It is the simplest way to beat the competitive forces and ensure leading edge in the market.
Establish a Healthy Relationship with the Audience:

When people read your blogs and find the content interesting, they also prefer to comment, share and follow your ideas. It brings the best opportunity to establish healthy relationships with the audience.

Never forget to reply to their comments; let them feel connected to your business. This strategy will develop an emotional connection between brand and buyers and can lead more ROI. However, if you are worried about how to get votes online for business promotion, internet marketing strategies can help you better in this regard.

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Finally You can now unsend WhatsApp messages

After months of development, WhatsApp has started rolling out the Delete for Everyone feature, which allows you to recall messages after you’ve sent them. This applies to text messages, gifs, video, pictures… pretty much anything you can send on WhatsApp, however, it must be done within seven minutes of sending the message.

How to recall messages on WhatsApp The much-anticipated feature is easy to use. Simply highlight the message you wish you didn’t send, select Delete from the menu and then hit Delete for Everyone. It’s only available to certain users at the moment and only on the latest version of WhatsApp, so head over to the App Store and download all those updates you’ve been continually putting off.

WhatsApp says the feature will be useful if your message ‘contains a mistake’, but we all know the new feature will really have three functions:

1. Damage control when you accidentally post a message to the group chat slagging someone off.
2. Letting you backtrack from a risky message to someone you’re flirting with.
3. The last line of defence when you accidentally send a message about last weekend’s illicit behaviour to your mother.

However, the people you are messaging can still see the message before you delete it (WhatsApp can’t delete things from people’s brains, after all), and even if you manage to recall a message before the other person returns to their phone, they will still be able to see ‘This message was deleted’.

WhatsApp will also let you know if the recall wasn’t successful, just so you know if you need to send a grovelling apology message or not.

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Making $1 Million: Here's How Long It Took the World's Super-Rich (Infographic)

The millionaire's club is adding members fast. In 2018, there were upwards of 19.6 million people with six-zero-sums to their name; by 2023, that number is projected to rise to more than 23.4 million. The world's billionaires are a much more tight-knit group -- upwards of 2,200, according to an Oxfam International report -- and their fortunes increased by $2.5 billion a day in 2018.

But when did the world's wealthiest set off on this trajectory? They -- including household names such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk -- made their first million at the average age of 36, according to an analysis by online casino guide Slotsia. The company used the annual Forbes Billionaires list, along with a smattering of online sources, to determine the point at which their net worth reached $1 million or more. If Slotsia could not determine a specific age or date, the team estimated based on the individual in question's career and company milestones. For a deeper dive into how and when the wealthy made their millions, check out the below infographic.

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How Cryptocurrency Projects Are Tackling Transparency and Security Problems

Blockchain is here to stay, but what are some ways to make it more stable?

I invested in BTC in 2010 (and sold shortly after, but have bought and sold all along since then), and have experienced a wild crypto ride. I've also advised and been working on a project that has developed the first application to bridge cryptocurrency with augmented reality.

I've seen the crypto market on both sides and witnessed the persistent problems of cryptocurrency exchanges, from hacks to insolvency. Institutions and mainstream investors are rightfully hesitant to engage with many exchanges, drawing from mainstream headlines such as the recent Binance hack to the tune of $40 million, as reported by CNBC. The security woes of centralized exchanges are not the only prominent issue that makes investors and regulators uneasy. Bitfinex’s recent misleading of investors about $850 million locked up, as reported by Coin Desk, with a shady capital firm and the bizarre and ongoing debacle of QuadrigaCX are only a recent spate in a long history of cryptocurrency exchanges mired in dilemmas. 

Fortunately, the problems of exchanges are well-known, and many projects, even some exchanges themselves, are working toward providing better trust, transparency and security. 

Improving transparency

One of the core problems with cryptocurrency exchanges, aptly demonstrated by both QuadrigaCX and Bitfinex, is transparency. 

QuadrigaCX was not solvent, and the exchange's owner was actively siphoning his own funds into customer withdrawals to appear solvent to the customers before his untimely death. Bitfinex, who dipped into its closely-related firm Tether’s reserves to cover an inaccessible $850 million of its funds, failed to disclose this information to customers -- and subsequently led to the New York Attorney General filing an injunction against it.

Add in the notion that the vast majority of cryptocurrency exchange actively engage in wash trading and report fake volumes, and transparency clearly is a cardinal issue in the exchange ecosystem.

Transparency primarily involves two areas: proof of solvency and proof of legitimate trading volumes. Proof of solvency is critical because investors need to know the risk of engaging with a financial entity that holds their funds. However, the issue that exchanges take with this is that they do not want to publicly disclose the financial details of their internal operations.

While various degrees of "proof of solvency" has been speculated as a potential scaling advantage for Bitcoin as well, some intriguing technical advances have produced promising glimpses of provable exchange reserves that remain private.

For example, Blockstream -- a leading Bitcoin development company -- announced its standardized tool for ensuring exchange solvency called "proof of reserves" earlier this year. Essentially, an exchange can prove their reserves of BTC without publicly moving or spending the reserves through generating an extra valid input with a transaction of their total reserves. 

All of the UTXOs would consequently become verifiable under the exchange's ownership without them risking moving the funds since the network would reject the transaction.

However, Blockstream’s proof of reserves still does not preserve privacy entirely, and their team is working on solutions to mask the value of the exchange UTXOs, which would be publicly available. 

Other solutions, such as Arpa, take privacy as the foremost consideration. Arpa relies on a fascinating subfield of cryptography called secure multi-party computation, which applied to exchanges, would enable them to jointly compute the average solvency of their exchanges without actually exposing the full solvency data to competitors. 

“ARPA’s cutting-edge cryptographic multiparty computation (MPC) disrupts the traditional way of using data, enables privacy-preserving computation or joint analysis of secret data, and replaces trusted data aggregator that captures the most out of the current data value chain, ” as explained by Arpa founder Felix Xu on its site. “Dapps built on ARPA layer 2 solutions across industries like finance, insurance, healthcare and even personal data wallet for secure data exchange and monetization.”

Some exchanges, including Poloniex (owned by Circle), have even begun publishing quarterly reports to provide better assurances of solvency to investors. 

Gemini, who also produces the Gemini Dollars stablecoin, has continually emphasized their close relationship with the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) to assure investors of both their solvency and legitimacy. And the exchange provides the issuer, banking and security audit information for the Gemini Dollar stablecoin. 

Considering the lack of regulatory control over many exchanges located in obscure jurisdictions and their unwillingness to provide better transparency due to the "dark underbelly" money machine, tools such as BTI and Messari 10 can provide better information to investors. 

Unfortunately, they still will not solve the fake volumes predicament among exchanges. 

Removing centralized custody

Many initiatives in the cryptocurrency sector strive to remove centralized exchanges entirely, or at the very least, their custody. Exchange custody over user funds is an established security threat, and a new generation of trust-minimizing technology and P2P exchanges are working on circumventing centralized custody of funds.

Projects such as Atomic Wallet, a cryptocurrency wallet, focus on deploying a technology called Atomic Swaps. Atomic swaps enable users to exchange assets without third-party custodians ever taking control. The process is entirely P2P and supports cross-chain (i.e., Bitcoin to Ethereum) swaps. 

The type of interoperability afforded by atomic swaps is a prevailing trend in the broader cryptocurrency community as well. As more cryptocurrency networks launch looking to provide better scalability, interoperability is also becoming a significant consideration. 

Some projects even bypass custody altogether by both users or exchanges. For example, Morpheris a virtual trading platform where users speculate on the market of the underlying asset via Ethereum smart contracts. Smart contracts mint and burn the Morpher token based on the performance of the underlying asset represented by the contract. 

As a result, there are no fees and there is theoretically limitless liquidity for any type of market, considering the Morpher token can "morph" into any type of asset. According to Morpher: “If the underlying market gains in value, the smart contract issues new coins to the investor proportionally. If the underlying loses, staked coins are destroyed proportionally.”

The idea of P2P exchanges has also been gaining traction recently, although decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and P2P marketplaces have been around in the crypto sphere for several years. 

Traditionally, the problem of P2P marketplaces and DEXs is that their liquidity is insufficient compared to their centralized counterparts, largely excluding them from the partialities of traders.

Despite this, some P2P marketplaces such as Bisq are quickly gathering momentum -- in both users and volume. Particularly in economically destitute regions, such as Venezuela, P2P marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins, as reported by Coin Dance, are invaluable to pegging in and out of a store of value when the Bolivar has become effectively worthless. 

P2P marketplaces and DEXs still have a long way to go in reaching an optimal level of liquidity but, parallel to the rise of scalability and interoperability, should start becoming more popular among investors in the coming years. 

Even some centralized exchanges, such as Binance, are exploring DEXs. Binance’s DEX launched last month, and although it is yet to be seen just how decentralized it will be, it is indicative of Binance’s recognition of the larger trend at hand -- users want custody over their funds because they don’t trust exchanges. 

The implicit nature of trust makes trusting exchanges all the more difficult considering their history peppered with controversy, but at least projects and the overall industry are beginning to take a hard look at how to improve transparency and remove the need for custody of user funds.

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Score Career Advice From an Award-Winning Venture Capitalist

Skip the night classes and become a master financial analyst from the comfort of your own home.Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you'll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

Whether you're seeking a better understanding of risk management when it comes to investments or you're starting your own business, this Ultimate MBA in 1 Bundle is the next best thing to a degree in finance. Featuring Chris Haroun, a successful hedge fund founder, Colombia MBA graduate, and award-winning professor, this learning bundle boasts nearly 50 hours of in-depth financial training you'll find nowhere else.

Wondering what exactly The Ultimate MBA in 1 Bundle entails? First up, is The Complete Financial Analyst Training & Investing Course consisting of over 22 hours of invaluable content. In this initial course, you'll learn the basics of financial analyzation from how to build financial models and advanced Excel sheets to studying how to pitch long and short ideas to portfolio managers.

After understanding the basics, you can venture over to the bundle's Complete Job, Interview, Resume, LinkedIn & Networking Guide, where you'll not only learn to build the perfect resume, but you'll also have access to 12 hours of content and 250 lectures by man who knows this stuff best: award-winning professor and TEDx Talk speaker, Chris Haroun. Over the remaining three courses in the bundle, you'll explore how to build a comprehensive business plan (which provides you with over 50 templates), get the skinny on 101 things they don't typically teach you in business school, and a course Calhoun claims is an "entire MBA in one course"! Pretty impressive stuff for never having to step foot into a classroom, isn't it?

Individually, these courses can add up to somewhere around $1,000. But for a limited time, you can have access to The Ultimate MBA in 1 Bundle Ft. Chris Haroun with nearly 50 hours of content and hundreds of lessons for a mere $28.99 — you don't have to be a financial expert to know that's an incredible investment.

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Computer Tricks Every Computer Geek Should Know

Smartphones have already taken over the gadgets world, but mobile technology is yet to reach the point where the computer would no longer be needed. The truth is this: there are tasks that can only be performed on a proper computer which is unattainable on a mobile device. The ability of computers to perform tasks easier and faster than smartphones has made the use of the computer a necessity in some aspects.
Computer Tricks Every Computer Geek Should Know


Most computer geeks already know that life without a computer is impossible. Once you own a personal computer (laptop/desktop), you will always be eager to work on it instead of a mobile device. While we have some individuals that usually keep their computers indoor, only for them to check it about once in a month to confirm if it is still in good health or not, there are still a group of people who only make use of their computers to watch movies. I must tell you this, there are still more you can do with your gadgets, specifically your computer, rather than just keeping it indoors or watching movies alone. And if you are the type that always makes use of your computer, there are some simple hacks or tricks I will be introducing to you.
1. Change Windows password without knowing the previous password

A. For Windows 7, Vista, and XP Users, locate and right-click on My Computer shortcut on your desktop. Then click on Manage to enter into Computer Management. For Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 users, move your mouse to the bottom left corner of your monitor, right click there and enter into Computer Management.








B. Now navigate to Local Users and Groups >> Users. You will be presented with the list of users on your computer. Right-click on any user you want to change its password and choose Set Password.


C. A Popup may come up, just click on proceed. Another page will appear asking for the new password. Just enter the password and click OK.


2. Check your computer full details



Press Windows + R buttons on your keyboard. A box will come up at the bottom left, just type MSINFO32 and click OK.


3. Shortcut to enter Task Manager

Open Task Manager straight away by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Another alternative is using CTRL+ALT+DEL and selecting Task Manager from the list.
4. Securing certain file/folder with password

a. Navigate to the file or folders you want to secure. Right-click on the file or folder, a menu list appear just click on properties.

b. A small popup will show up with the file/folder properties just click on Advanced.


c. Tick the box beside of Encrypt contents to secure data.


d. Click OK and then Click Apply. If “confirm attribute changes” show up, just choose to apply changes to this folder, sub-folders and files.
So the file or folder that pass through the above process will only be accessible to anyone that enters the correct encryption password.
Note: If you don’t have encryption set up on your system before a popup will display on the windows taskbar to complete the setup process.
5. Add checkboxes to icons

Just open File Explorer, switch to the view tab at the top and tick the box beside item check boxes.
With this little trick, there will be no need of holding shift button to select multiple files or folders.


6. Block browsers from opening websites

Did you know that you can block all your browsers from opening a particular website or list of websites? Yes you can by simply following the below steps:

A. Press Windows Button + R, input %windir%\system32\drivers\etc in the box and click OK. You can do this alternatively by navigating to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc


B. If you right-click on hosts and open with notepad, you won’t be allowed to save changes. So the best way is to open notepad as administrator from Windows Start Menu and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc then open the hosts file.


c. Now if you want to block a website, e.g. we want to block http://example.com. Just input
127.0.0.2 example.com
127.0.0.3 www.example.com

Note: The last number after 127.0.0. should be increased depending on the number of websites you want to block. You have to re-edit the hosts file and remove the code to unblock the websites.
7. Redirect a website to another domain on your PC

There are instances you wouldn’t like friends using your PC to visit a particular website. If you don’t want to block the website you can also redirect the website to another domain on your PC. e.g. You want to redirect someone trying to visit google.com to twitter.com.

A. Open Command Prompt (cmd), input tracert google.com and hit enter. The website IP Address will be displayed to you. Just note it somewhere.


B. Open notepad as administrator from Windows Start Menu and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc then open the hosts file.


c. Input the website IP address you noted earlier followed by a space and the website it should be directed to i.e google.com to twitter.com will be 172.217.23.14 twitter.com


d. Just save the input and the website will be redirected to the new address you specified.
8. Screenshot certain part of your display screen



There are instances you will just need to take a screenshot of a certain part of the screen. i.e. just small portion of the screen and not the full page. To get this done, go to start menu and search for Snipping Tool.



This lets you take a full or partial screenshot of your display.

There are several other computer tricks not covered in this article but these are definitely those every Windows user should know.

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How to Win in the Biggest Tech Investor Boom Ever

In this period of peak startup funding -- and competition for capital, don't make the pitch mistakes I did. Focus on the team factors investors are looking for.

Don’t chalk it up to recency bias: Tech startups today are experiencing an unprecedented boom in investor interest.

The Bloomberg U.S. Startups Barometer, which measures the market conditions for U.S. private tech companies, hit a record high in October, an increase of 44 percent from last year. Bloomberg attributes this boost to a recent surge in tech companies acquiring funding for the first time, indicating that investors are more willing than ever to take chances on startups.

With the stock market performing well, assertive investors are demanding higher, faster returns on their capital. This forces funds to use their investments or lose them to another fund that will. To meet those demands, these funds are turning to startups, which require less capital to produce a proof of concept than later-stage companies. Third-quarter 2017 reached the highest level of early-stage investments in more than a year, according to Crunchbase.

Related: Where to Meet Angel Investors and How to Pitch Them When You Do

Founders cannot afford to wait. Young companies must secure funding now or risk missing this huge tech investment boom.

Winning the investment war

Startups have many advantages over larger companies that appeal to investors, most notably their ability to attract and retain high-level talent. Recent graduates flock to startups to develop diverse skill sets, working on smaller teams where they have opportunities to take on roles they would not at a company with specialized departments.

At UE.co, most managers worked their way up from entry-level positions. This kind of internal growth boosts company loyalty and motivation in the workplace -- statistics investors love to see.

According to LinkedIn, eight of the top ten U.S. companies in recruiting and retaining top talent are still run by their original founders. In an interview with CNBC about Facebook’s purchase of Instagram and what the move says about successful startups, Sequoia Capital partner Aaref Hilaly said, “If a founder cannot recruit and develop top talent, you can say with certainty that the company will fail.” Investors see the value in homegrown teams, and they are willing to bet on leaders who prove they can put together a good one.

If I had known in our early growth stages what I know now, I would have focused more on the factors that investors look for during that early stage, rather than try to accomplish everything at once. For example, we tried to balance gross margins and revenue at the same time, instead of picking one and excelling at it. This created a flat company that was neither growing quickly nor extremely profitable, turning off potential investors in a market with thousands of investment options.

The founders of Dropbox got it right the first time. After they rejected a nine-figure offer from Steve Jobs, they leveraged their rapid user growth into $250 million in funding in 2014, reaching a $10 billion valuation. Jobs recognized the strength of the founding team and tried to buy them out, but the founding team knew they had something special -- and other investors saw it, too.

How to attract investors in a boom

Today’s tech boom means investors are more willing than ever to write big checks, but it also means more startups than ever are competing for those funds. To stand out from the crowd, founders should follow three steps:

1. Don’t try to be good at everything.

Pick one strength and focus your efforts there until the company hits a sustainable momentum. That might be service, sales or product -- but not all three. Leaders who try to be the best at everything invariably achieve mediocrity across the board, because they cannot allocate the time and resources to beat other talented founders in every category.

Be willing to sacrifice metrics such as margin, revenue or even product perfection in exchange for superiority in one area, if only temporarily. No company is perfect during the initial growth, and investors understand that.

In the early days, the founders of the stock-trading app Robinhood were rejected in 75 separate investor pitches. After finally securing funding and taking off, co-founder Vlad Tenev told Business Insider that the company's biggest mistake was focusing on anything but the product. Mixers and conferences are side dishes, not the main course, and investors are more interested in a company that excels in one metric than companies present at every startup function.

2. Define core values.

Many startups claim to be “cool,” but simply saying so doesn’t make it true, nor does that reputation make an appropriate fit all young companies. Don't try to fit the common mold. Instead, meet with the founding team and other key employees to define the values the company should strive to achieve every day. These values will determine everything from the tone of the internal workday to the way the public perceives the company.

Clear values make it easier to attract investors who share those values. When investors feel personally connected to the mission and the team, they are far more likely to make a financial commitment.

Serenflipity founder Cara Thomas didn’t hash out a mission statement in a conference room. Instead, she traveled the world, using her experiences to guide what she feels her business should represent. On the Reflektive blog, Thomas said, “Values are where the individual passion and vision, the market need and the consumer need overlap.” By staying true to their beliefs and blending passion with viable products, leaders can establish values that will attract more serious investors.

3. Delegate responsibility.

Just as companies shouldn’t try to be great at everything, founders must recognize that they cannot do it all alone. They need partners and employees to help carry out their visions for the future.

Speaking to OfferZen, 4Di Capital partner Justin Stanford stressed the importance of a balanced team. He advises startups to create teams in which people cover one another’s weaknesses and get along, assuring investors that personal clashes will not cause problems down the road.

Hire leaders and employees who will step up and finish the job because they want to contribute to the company’s goals, not because they want to cash a paycheck and leave. A team of salespeople who are not only great at their jobs, but also believe in the company mission will speak louder to investors than any pitch can.

Startups might never have a better opportunity to secure funding than right now, but the window won’t stay open forever. By following these strategies, founders can stand out from the crowd and take their slices of the biggest investment pie the market has ever seen.

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How to Raise Money Without Lying

Entrepreneurs often overstate their early "success" in order to get investors to buy in. Here's how to avoid this fatal strategy.
“We have grown 2,600 percent in three schools over the past four months," a breathless and incredibly young founder boasted to me as he was pitching his new company: a mobile app for school scheduling.

Related: Should Entrepreneurs Lie? It's a Tricky Question.

Though this entrepreneur wannabee was so confident about his app that he was ready to drop out of the prestigious Wharton School of Business, what he didn't count on was what a quick search of his app’s history would reveal.

In fact, I conducted such a search -- on the App Store, no less. And what a few clicks on my part yielded was a simple fact: This young man was just combining many mobile apps, launched three years prior, into one brand. And, yikes, he was passing it off as something completely new.

“Love this concept and the business,” I told him. “And yet, I see on the App Store that you have a number of outstanding apps that are similar to this concept, and in fact contain the same UI/UX -- but only with different colors.”  

With only silence emanating from the other end of the phone, our conversation came to a quick end.

You would think that after the thriller-esque story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos or even after this young founder’s notable indiscretion, that every entrepreneur would learn one simple lesson: Don’t lie.

And, more than that: Don’t overstate what isn’t there. Don’t ever do this to investors. And especially don't do this when pitching your business.

Yet, time and time again, I've been confronted by investors who complain about being patently lied to about everything from founders’ full-time commitment and product traction to the make -up of their financing rounds.  

Shooting themselves in the foot

Aside from the obvious legal implications of this behavior, many founders don’t realize that in stretching the truth, they are often shooting themselves in the foot. They don’t realize that the fine line between being passionate about selling their business and outright fiction often results in their holding unrealistic expectations about whom they can recruit, or growth that they can't achieve.

If you yourself are a founder, here’s how to avoid this type of behavior when you deal with two topics that are both critical to and common in fund-raising: product traction and the presence of certain investors in your round.

Telling the truth about traction and user growth

One of the most prominent ways in which entrepreneurs creatively “position” the truth relates to user traction and growth. With an investor reviewing on average close to 3,000 opportunities a year, he or she is going to pay particular attention to traction and growth. No one sums up this maxim better than Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, who said: “Startups equal growth.”  

Yet in reality, startups often don't equal growth. For one reason or another, founders may not immediately capture consumer attention, may have issues with marketing and acquisition or may have to pivot before finding their groove.

But that doesn't stop the most enterprising and daringly ambitious founders from overstating their traction in order to raise money. From disguising “bookings” as realized revenue, to pooling users from a number of different apps into one, founders will try anything.

Yet if your particular startup doesn't have enough traction to capture investors’ attention, the best strategy, aside from telling the truth, should be to focus on the story you tell and how your concept will capture and own its respective market.

And the best way to do this is to focus on the scale of your Total Addressable Market, or TAM. In fact, by focusing on the potential TAM of their startups, founders can shift the conversation to more of what’s possible, which is often limitless, rather than actual early results.

Another strategy is to focus on future growth strategy and projections rather than actuals. Resources like the Entrepreneurs Organization or the Young Entrepreneurs’ Council provide founders with the easiest means to do this. The point of these suggestions? To provide a concrete framework of predictability around what is often the wild west of the startup universe.

Investors call one another for references.

When raising capital, eager founders may state that certain investors are “in” a particular round, when in fact the latter may just still be considering an investment.

In this respect, founders in many ways are responding to investor “herd dynamics” in that the presence of one investor or fund becomes an immediate incentive for another to invest. Founders think they can make up the difference and close as many investors as possible so that what may have started out as a slight misstatement is eventually obviated in a short period of time.

There's a warning here, however: Founders may not realize that the investor community, in Silicon Valley and beyond, is extremely small. Investors often call and reference check one other on deals both to assess value and claim bragging rights. After all, the best deals are often competitive.

So, rather than employing definitive language saying an investor is “in” a round, founders should communicate that a particular investor has a clear and principled commitment to funding a startup but has not made a firm commitment yet.

Terms like “soft circled” and “committed in principle” indicate that particular investors are very close to a commitment, yet have not formally written a check. Even better, some founders might offer to connect prospective investors together in order to fast-track due diligence.

Yet another strategy is to pivot the question right back to the investor: Ask why he or she cares who else is committed. Investors should be willing to capitalize a business because they believe in the team, the product and the market potential. Not what other “name brand” investors may be in the round.

When founders pivot the conversation in this direction, investors will usually focus once again on the business rather than name recognition.

Doing well by doing the right thing

If you're a founder: Pushing the limits when you're raising capital, especially when it comes to traction and investor participation, only establishes a foundation for failure. By setting unrealistic expectations, often in the most desperate hours of fund-raising, founders are only hurting themselves.

Conversely, by being more strategic and tactful in their pitch, founders can achieve the same effect and close the investors they want.

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