Flickr co-founder Presses Beta Button

Flickr co-founder Presses Beta Button

Once you're lucky, twice you're good? So went the title of a recent book about Web 2.0 entrepreneurs. Pretty soon, we may have an idea whether it applies to Caterina Fake.

Fake, the co-founder of Flickr, announced on her blog Friday afternoon that her new start-up, Hunch, is sending out invitations to try the service, now in beta test.

What is it? I'll hand the reins over to Fake and let her explain:

Look. Decision-making is difficult, and decisions have to be made constantly. What should I be for Halloween? Do I need a Porsche? Does my hipster facial hair make me look stupid? Is Phoenix a good place to retire? Whom should I vote for? What toe ring should I buy?

It's dark and lonely work. Coin-flipping, I Ching consultation, closing your eyes and jumping, postponing the inevitable, Rock-Paper-Scissors, and asking your sister are all time-honored means of coming to a decision--and yet we think there's room for one more: Hunch.

Hunch is a decision-making site, customized for you. Which means Hunch gets to know you, then asks you 10 questions about a topic (usually fewer!), and provides a result--a hunch, if you will. It gives you results it wouldn't give other people.

Will it fly? Who knows, but in the midst of this miserable economic depression, there probably are lots of people out there who feel as if they don't have a clue anymore.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10206217-2.html

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Best Do Follow Article Directory - http://ping.fm/hiKJ5

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Successful Internet Marketing

Successful Internet Marketing

Successful Internet Marketing Little Mistake You Are Making That Is Costing You A Lot Of Potential Money

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More Attacks Expected on Facebook, Twitter in 2010

More Attacks Expected on Facebook, Twitter in 2010

Social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can expect more attention from cybercriminals in 2010, according to a new report (PDF) released Tuesday by McAfee Labs. Also at risk are users of Adobe Systems products including Acrobat Reader and Flash. And move over Microsoft; the security firm predicts that Google’s Chrome OS will “create another opportunity for malware writers to prey on users.”

The company also anticipates smarter and more dangerous Trojans that “follow the money,” as well as a “significant trend toward a more distributed and resilient botnet infrastructure that relies much more on peer-to-peer technologies.”

In a recorded interview (scroll down for audio) David Marcus, McAfee Labs‘ director of security research and communications, said that he expects “an explosion of Facebook and other services targeted by cybercriminals.” In addition to malware like Koobface that spreads among Facebook users’ friends list, Marcus expects an increase in rogue Facebook applications.

“When you click yes to ‘do you want to allow this application to access your Facebook account,’ you’re giving that application access to all the data in your Facebook account,” he said. Facebook vets the third-party applications that it distributes, but rouge developers are finding other ways to get people to install unauthorized apps.

“A lot of the spammers and scammers will send fake Facebook application requests to users’ inboxes,” he said. Marcus recommends that you only install apps from within Facebook by clicking “browse more applications” in the Facebook application installer.“

Twitter vulnerabilities
According to McAfee, Twitter is vulnerable mostly because of URL-shortening services like bit.ly and tinyurl.com. There’s nothing wrong with Twitter or these services, but when you click on a shortened URL you have no idea where you’re going until after you get there. I would like to see a URL-shortening service that vets each URL for security and rejects those that are potentially dangerous. Twitter, according to the McAfee report is “also serving as a control vehicle for botnets.”

Criminals are now being more surgical in their attacks, singling out individuals and corporations as targets. The report points to the 10-month investigation of “GhostNet,” which McAfee Labs describes as a “network of at least 1,295 compromised computers in 103 countries” that “primarily belonged to government, aid groups, and activists.” The malicious code was delivered by e-mail with subject headings related to the Dali Lama and Tibet, according to the report.

The report also sites “a very targeted wave of attacks against the management of major companies,” as well as attacks carried out against “journalists from various media organizations, including Agence France Press, Dow Jose and Reuters based in China.”

Adobe products and Google Chrome vulnerable
Adobe products, especially its Acrobat Reader and Flash, are likely to replace Microsoft Office as the No. 1 software target, according to McAfee. It’s nothing they’ve (Adobe) done wrong,” Marcus said. “The bad guys go where the masses go” and because of the increasingly widespread use of Adobe products, “that tends to be what the bad buys will start looking to exploit. It really is nothing more sophisticated than that.”

Criminals are infecting PDF files and leveraging exploits in the opening of PDF documents, according to Marcus.

“Instead of viewing a PDF you’re actually taken to a website that downloads some type of malware to your machine.” Adobe plans to patch a critical hole in Reader and Acrobat on January 12.

There is also concern about Google’s Chrome operating system, which is expected to be officially released in 2010. Chrome, which will run Web-based applications, is likely to be vulnerable to attacks in HTML 5–the newest version of the hyper-text markup language that, says the report, “holds all the promises that today’s Web community seeks–primarily blurring and removing the lines between a Web application and a desktop application.”

McAfee also warned of banking Trojans with “new tactics that went well beyond the rather simple keylogging-with-screenshots” that were used earlier. Trojans now use rootkit techniques to hide on a victim’s system to disable antivirus software.

“Often the victim’s computer becomes part of a botnet and receives malware configuration updates,” the report said.

Cause for optimism
The report did end with some optimism, calling 2009 a good year for law enforcement. In November 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted nine individuals “from Russia, Moldova, and Estonia who were allegedly responsible for $9 million in customer payroll data compromises at RBS WorldPay.”

The year also “saw the conviction of the infamous “Godfather of Spam,” Alan Ralsky of Michigan, and his criminal syndicate, which was responsible for generating a significant portion of the world’s unsolicited e-mail,” McAfee said.

“You started to see that not a lot of resiliency was built into some of those botnets, they were taken down, and poof they disappeared for very long periods of time,” Marcus said. He said he thinks “the bad guys will learn from that and build in some redundancy,” but he remains optimistic. “The good guys and regular users are getting tired of getting exploited and we’re finally starting to see more offensive and aggressive take downs of botnets…we’re starting to see people wanting to take back the Internet.”

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10422760-238.html

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With Search War Stalemate, Google Branches Out

With Search War Stalemate, Google Branches Out

Google continued to lap the competition in 2009, but found itself jousting with a formidable foe: the U.S. government.

Scrutiny from federal regulators played a role in almost every major story that involved Google this year, from its continued domination of the search and search advertising markets, to its battle with authors and publishers over the effects of the Google Book Search settlement, to CEO Eric Schmidt's role overseeing both Google and Apple as a director. At year's end, no major federal action had been taken against the company, and Google showed no signs of slowing down its innovative engineers with plans to move into operating systems and possibly consumer electronics.

Google's settlement with groups representing authors and publishers technically took place in 2008, but the battle over its propriety raged throughout 2009. And the year will end without a clear decision regarding how Google will be allowed to display portions of out-of-print yet copyright-protected books that it has scanned. However, a second final settlement drafted in consultation with the Department of Justice was approved in November.

Opponents accused Google of trying to corner the market on digital books, while the company insisted it was doing the world a favor by improving access to books. A final hearing on whether to approve the revised settlement is scheduled for February 2010, meaning this story isn't done just yet.

Google will end the year about where it began when it comes to search market share: around 65 percent of the U.S. market, according to ComScore. Microsoft's launch of Bing, a revamped version of Live Search, was definitely noticed in Mountain View, but Bing seemed to take more share from Yahoo than it did from Google as the year progressed.

Not all was rosy for the Google economic engine: the company was forced to lay off employees for the first time due to the prolonged economic slump in the advertising market. Still, Google appeared to weather the storm far better than its competitors, and once the dust had cleared opened up its checkbook for strategic purchases such as On2 Technologies and AdMob.

It was a banner year for one of Google's most important side projects. Android, its mobile operating system, started to gain traction among the phone makers of the world, and led to a landmark deal between Google and Verizon to develop "a family of devices" based on Android.

However, late in the year, Google was reported to be planning to sell consumers a phone of its own: the $199 Nexus One, given out to Google employees at a holiday party. The company has not yet commented on whether the Nexus One will be its first consumer electronics product, or just another developer phone sold to a limited audience.

Android began setting itself up as a main contender to Apple's iPhone, which is probably why the government raised an eyebrow at Schmidt's role as a director at both Apple and Google. For a while, Schmidt shrugged off the controversy, but eventually stepped down from Apple's board after acknowledging that the overlap between the two companies had become too great.

That decision came after Google decided to shake up the computer market with plans for its own operating system--Chrome OS--based on its Chrome browser. Chrome OS is not expected to arrive on Netbooks until late next year, but the company showed off its novel approach to operating system development late in the year during an event for the media. Chrome OS is designed as a lightweight, fast operating system that runs nothing but Web applications; that might appeal to some, but it's still not clear if the masses are ready for such a product.

And while cloud computing through products like Chrome OS may be the future, the current cloud situation can be stormy from time to time. Google suffered a prolonged outage in May that knocked out traffic to just about all of its services, and sporadic Gmail outages frustrated users on several occasions.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/2702-1023_3-426.html

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Consumer Groups Urge Block of Google-AdMob Deal

Consumer Groups Urge Block of Google-AdMob Deal

Two consumer groups have added their objections to Google's proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob, saying the deal would be anticompetitive and cause privacy concerns.

The Federal Trade Commission has already signaled that it wants to take a closer look at the $750 million deal, which was announced in November. AdMob runs an ad network across mobile sites and applications, and critics such as Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy are concerned that the company will give Google a big advantage in extending its dominant share of the search advertising market into the fast-growing mobile space.

"The mobile sector is the next frontier of the digital revolution. Without vigorous competition and strong privacy guarantees this vital and growing segment of the online economy will be stifled," said John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog and Jeffery Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, in a letter sent to the FTC Monday (click for PDF).

It's not clear exactly what the FTC is examining during its current review of the deal, but Google said last week that the receipt of a "second notice" would push back the expected completion of the deal by a few months. This is getting to be the new normal for Google, which is coming off a year during which it faced more government scrutiny of its growing online power than ever before.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10422400-265.html?

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Free Article Directory» Why You Need for SEO? | SEO, Search Engine Optimization

Free Article Directory» Why You Need for SEO? | SEO, Search Engine Optimization

Free Article Directory» Why You Need for SEO? | SEO, Search Engine Optimization

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Social Media Marketing With Twitter – An Introduction

Social Media Marketing With Twitter – An Introduction

As a business owner, you have likely heard of social media marketing. You may even have been curious enough to investigate it. And you may have been overwhelmed by the many options available to you. Between Digg, Delicious, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and all of the many others, it is difficult to know where to start.

Twitter is one of the newer entries in the social media marketing field. Launched in 2006, it has become an enormously popular way for people to connect and keep in touch. Like any form of social media, it has also attracted businesses keen to get on the bandwagon of social media marketing.

Using Twitter as a Marketing

Twitter is often referred to as a micro-blog. Instead of posts, you write “tweets” of 140 characters or less. You can follow other users with similar interests, and they can follow you. Each time you add an update, all of your followers receive a message. They can choose to respond or not.

As with any social media marketing site, using Twitter requires you to be involved. You need to follow and be followed. You also need to provide information of value to the people who follow you. One example is links to your blog or other relevant information on your site.

Using Twitter for marketing does take time (as does any attempt at social media marketing). You need to build a community of followers and engage with other users to create credibility. To make links, you have to have something interesting to share with people, which means you need to spend time creating enough current, relevant, interesting and (occasionally) thought-provoking content for your followers to read.

Tips for Using Twitter as Part of Your Online Marketing

There are some basic rules to follow when using Twitter for marketing. In fact, many of these rules apply to other social media sites too, like Facebook.

Do not spam or engage in hard selling. Remember to be sociable and offer information of value. Blog posts on the benefits of your product or services, interesting conferences or professional development opportunities that are coming up – these are good examples.

• Always link back to your site or blog. That is why you are doing this in the first place.
• To get followers, put a link on your site or blog inviting people to follow you on Twitter. Twitter provides the code for a “badge” that you can drop into your Website or blog.
• Search Twitter for likeminded users/businesses and see who they are following. You may be interested in following the same users.
• Follow the lead of those who came before you. There are users with hundreds of followers. Check out what they are tweeting about so you can get ideas.

Use Twitter as Part of a Detailed Social Media Marketing Strategy

Of course, if you are using social media for marketing, you need to have a comprehensive plan. To create a plan like that, you may need help from a search engine marketing consultant. In addition to tweeting on Twitter (which can eat up a lot of your time) you need to have a schedule for blogging and writing articles to link to.

As part of this strategy, develop a plan for your content. Don’t throw any old thing up there just to have something to link to. A consultant can show you how to create compelling copy that makes your blog, articles and Website work with your social media marketing, so that you are drawing traffic through as many channels as possible.

Source From: homebasedblogging.com

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Open Source CMS market share report 2009

Open Source CMS market share report 2009

The 2009 Open Source CMS market share report was released a couple of weeks ago. The report concludes that WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal maintain a large lead on the rest of the pack, and that they are the dominant players in the market.

Despite the rather lengthy nature of the survey, more than 600 persons completed the question set. The demographic data gathered shows the survey group to be primarily composed of senior IT professionals working in smaller organizations of 1 to 5 people. More than 80% of the participants had heard about Joomla!, Wordpress and Drupal, though most of them were more familiar with Wordpress and Joomla!. Continue Reading

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7 Creative and Interesting Infographics about Twitter

7 Creative and Interesting Infographics about Twitter

By Xavier Lur

With over 54 million users worldwide and close to 7 billion tweets being posted, Twitter is the world’s most popular micro-blogging platform, fueled by smartphones and online bursts of 140 characters. 2009 is the year of Twitter. It soared to lofty heights over the past year, all thanks to the active presence of celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey. The San Francisco-based Internet company isn’t a social networking website like Facebook or MySpace. Instead, the main focus of Twitter is about real-time information of the things you care about — work, industry, company, news.

2010 will be the revenue year of Twitter. The micro-blogging juggernaut will focus on generating revenue in the year ahead, and may explore options including an initial public offering. “2010 is really going to be the revenue year. I don’t know if we’re going to be profitable, but we have plenty of time,” said co-founder and creative director Biz Stone during an Oxford University event in November.

Today, I’d like to share with you guys ‘7 Creative and Interesting Infographics about Twitter‘. Enjoy and don’t forget to tweet about this post!

1. The Journey of a Tweet

Timon Singh from NGONews has created an infographic which shows the journey of a Tweet and how it evolves from a simple 140-character long message to a Google news story.

2. The Many Users of Twitter

Ordinary people use Twitter to share with their friends and co-workers what they are doing; bloggers, Internet marketers, and businesses use Twitter to promote their articles/products; politicians use Twitter to garner support; celebrities use Twitter to stay in touch with their beloved fans, and spammers use Twitter to send unsolicited messages.

Inspired by Guy Kawasaki, “The Many Users of Twitter” is an infographic designed by the folks at NGONews. According to Guy Kawasaki, there are six types of Twitter users – Newbie, Brand, Smore, Bitch, Maven, and Mensch. So which one are you?

3. Information creation and circulation before and after Twitter

Designed by Burson Marsteller, the “before Twitter” infographic shows that time is necessary for the information to spread before its arrival on Twitter. On the other hand, the “after Twitter” infographic reveals the changes of the information circulation with the development of the use of Twitter.

Before Twitter

After Twitter

4. Facebook VS Twitter

Although one is a social networking websites whereas the other is a micro-blogging platform, but both have been ruled as “arch-rivals”. The “Facebook VS Twitter” infographic depicts the exponential growth of the two websites.

*The statistics are outdated, but at least it’s worth taking a look.

5. More Truth About Twitter – Twitter Stats

Based on surveys and statistics, InformationIsBeautiful has designed an infographic that shows the percentage of active and non-active Twitter users; the number of people out of 100 whose tweets are pointless babble, and when are the peak days and hours.

6. The History of Twitter, So Far

In July, we gathered information from various sources and compiled the list of “The History of Twitter in pictures“.

However, Manolith has done a better job in telling the story of Twitter by squeezing a long-form blog post into an attractive infographic that puts some key moments of the service’s history in visual form.

7. Le Twitter Hack

Apparently, Twitter needs better security. The “Le Twitter Hack” infographic shows a timeline of events regarding the July’s Twitter attack.

Credit: techxav.com

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Web 2.0’s Social Suicide Machine

Web 2.0’s Social Suicide Machine

I haven’t logged into Facebook in a few months now. However, I’m still being bombarded with emails from the service, and apparently, my Facebook friends are being commanded to write something on my wall in an attempt to get me sucked into the service. Sorry, friends, it’s not going to work. For people burned out on social networking, like me, there’s always the option of suicide: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine to the rescue!

What the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine does is it logs into your social media home, like your Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace, and it removes you. It changes the password, unfriends all your contacts, and removes every trace of your content on the service as best it can. Best of all, you can watch your former web life disappear right before your eyes as the service works its magic!

I had a friend recently pull the plug on her Facebook, and she’s not regretted it for an instant. I’m sure I could do the same to my Facebook and MySpace and whatnot, but first I’d have to remember what the passwords to those things were before I could set the Suicide Machine to work on them. It’s easier just to not use them in my case. Don’t think I didn’t think about trying the service out for myself, though; there’s still a chance I might!

source: http://www.popfi.com/2009/12/21/web-20s-social-suicide-machine/

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Facebook affecting Indian firms' productivity: Study

Facebook affecting Indian firms' productivity: Study

London, December 22 (ANI): Facebook is becoming a problem for employers at offices in India, as employees have started spending so much time on the social networking site that it is beginning to affect productivity, a new survey has revealed.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) have found in their survey that office staff on average spend an hour a day on sites like Facebook, resulting in a loss of productivity measuring 12.5percent.

The study noted: "Close to 12.5 percent of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during the office hours."

Seemingly, the workers use Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedin for "romancing".

"As a matter of fact, [the] growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity and IT companies have already installed software to restrict its use," the BBC News quoted Assocham secretary general DS Rawat as saying.

As part of the study, a total of 4,000 employees between the ages of 21 and 60 from different cities in India including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai (Bombay), Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Kanpur, were questioned.

It was observed that nearly half of office employees accessed Facebook during work time.

Moreover, four in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at office.

Also, 83 percent of the employees think there is no harm surfing at work during office hours. (ANI)
ANI

Source: Yahoo NEWS

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Facebook's Favorite Gadgets

Facebook's Favorite Gadgets

Oliver J. Chiang, Forbes.com

Know a friend or a loved one who is obsessed with her Facebook page? Of course you do. So why not get her a gift this holiday season that works with the social network?

At a recent Silicon Valley event focused on gadgets, Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer rattled off a list of gadgets that can enhance the Facebook experience. From cameras to cuff links, a surprisingly wide range of trinkets have become integrated with the social network, making them must-have gifts for those who spend far too many hours updating their status or playing FarmVille.

In Pictures: Facebook's Favorite Gadgets

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In Pictures: No, Apple Isn't Going To Build A Car ...

One of Sandberg and Schroepfer's top picks was the Canon PowerShot S90 ($400). Hailed by reviewers as the photography enthusiast's compact camera, the PowerShot S90 can also be set up to automatically upload photos to an online album on your Facebook account.

In Pictures: Facebook's Favorite Gadgets

In mobile, a recent trend is phones that provide easy Web access to social networks. So it's no surprise that Sandberg and Schroepfer highlighted the Palm Pixi, which like the Palm Pre, runs the webOS operating system that makes it easy for users to import contacts from online accounts like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn right onto the phone. In addition, the Pixi comes preloaded with a Facebook application that lets you view your friends' status updates and post your own.

Schroepfer also gave high marks to the Logitech Squeezebox Radio ($200), a wi-fi-enabled music box that can play tracks from Internet radio stations or from streaming music services like Pandora or Last.fm. The Squeezebox also lets you send a message to your friends on Facebook recommending songs you heard and liked on the device.

Schroepfer also touted a companion piece to go along with the radio, the iPeng app for the iPhone ($10), which turns your Apple smart phone into a remote control for the Squeezebox.

But who says that the social networking addiction has to end at gadgets? Facebook meets fashion with the F Me Cufflinks ($50) from CuffLinks.com, designed with the same white-on-blue aesthetic of the Web site.

Facebook-related gadgets weren't the only holiday gift picks from the Facebook executives. Sandberg also is a fan of the Clarisonic Skin Care Brush ($195), a device that cleanses and moisturizes facial skin.

Meanwhile, the strangest gift of the event was the Woozee, an animatronic doll resembling a blue bear with horns, from Social Gaming Network spinoff ToyBot. Woozee is also souped up with 3G, wi-fi and GPS connectivity. This allows for cool features: Woozee can recite text messages sent to it remotely through mobile or Internet-connected devices. Though the doll won't be on the market till mid-2010, the techie tykes in your family may want to get a head a start by putting this on their future wish lists.

Follow Oliver J. Chiang on Twitter or e-mail him at ochiang@forbes.com.

See Also:

Grab-'Em-While-You-Can Gadgets

Oliver J. Chiang, Forbes.com

Source: Yahoo NEWS

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Opera 10.5 pre-alpha goes Chrome hunting

Opera 10.5 pre-alpha goes Chrome hunting

The latest Opera browser preview version may not be entirely stable, but it's definitely got its jetpack strapped on. Opera 10.5 pre-alpha, for Windows and Mac, is the first browser that's not powered by Webkit to approach JavaScript rendering speeds previously reached only by Chrome and Safari.

In empirical testing done on an HP desktop running an Intel Core 2 Q6600 at 2.66GHz with 4GB of RAM and Windows 7 32-bit, the pre-alpha scored 435.6 milliseconds in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. By contrast, Google Chrome 4.0.266.0, the most recent development build, notched 510.4 ms. The current stable build of Opera was more than 7.5 times slower, at 3284.4 ms.

Opera attributes this dramatic improvement to the new Carakan JavaScript engine, which they have designed from scratch to replace the Futhark engine in the stable build. Opera 10.5 also includes improvements to the Presto layout engine, and a new graphics library called Vega.

Other improvements noticeable in the pre-alpha include changing the URL address bar to include the same style of predictive smart search that Firefox and Chrome have, and the search and address bars now both remember searches, support deleting specific items, and have redesigned layouts.

The main browser interface has been redone, too. The tabs are now on top, the menu bar has been minimized behind a drop-down on the left nav, and the browser has better integration with Windows 7 and Snow Leopard. On Windows 7 there's Aero Peek and Jump List support to access Speed Dial and tabs from the Taskbar. For Macs, there's a unified toolbar, native buttons and scrollbars, multitouch gestures, and Growl support. Dialog boxes are now non-modal, which you means you can now switch tabs without a pop-up commanding your browser's focus, for example. This will affect verification and authentication pop-ups, and JavaScript alerts.

There are some known problems, including a lack of printer support in the Mac version and noticeably high memory usage. Users can expect these to get addressed before the stable build of Opera 10.50 is released. The Opera 10.50 official announcement and changes can be read here, while the current stable version of Opera 10.10 is for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10420544-12.html

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Apple Thrives Despite Jobs Being away

Apple Thrives Despite Jobs Being away

2009 was a year for the record books for Apple.

Besides recording three of the most profitable quarters in company history and ending the year with $36 billion in the bank, Apple had its biggest iPhone opening weekend ever this summer.

And most of this happened without Chief Executive Steve Jobs. Last year's questions over his physical appearance were answered when he announced in late January he'd be taking a leave of absence to deal with a medical problem that he found out was "more complex" than a hormone imbalance. Jobs declined to be more specific about his condition, which led to discussion of how much of executives' private lives we should be privy to. By late spring it was revealed he underwent liver transplant surgery. Chief Operations Officer Tim Cook handled the reins for six months. By July, Jobs was seen back on the Cupertino campus. His first public appearance came a short time later at Apple's September iPod event.

Like most years, 2009 was punctuated by a series of signature Apple product launch events, though this time the majority were simple refreshes of hardware. In software, Apple saw the release of the latest iteration of its operating system, Mac OS X 10.6, a refreshed iTunes 9, and an updated iPhone OS--now with copy/paste and multimedia messaging. And as has been true for each of the past two years, the release of the iPhone 3GS was a spectacle in itself.

Meanwhile, developers have flocked to Apple's mobile platform, with more than 100,000 apps currently available in the App Store. But Apple's gatekeeping policies have tempered excitement for some developers. Early in the year those creating applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch began complaining about a lack of transparency in the App Store review policy. Grievances regarding Apple's inconsistent practices, lack of communication, and playing favorites grew more vociferous as the year wore on. The last straw seemed to be when Apple rejected Google Voice, the popular service from its one-time close partner, prompting the FCC to get involved. As a result, Apple was forced to open up a bit and we got a glimpse of how the App Store review process works.

That wasn't the only word the federal government wanted to have with Apple. Along with several other Silicon Valley giants, Apple was accused of agreeing not to hire each other's employees and a Department of Justice investigation is still ongoing.

In other legal news, Apple wrapped up its suit against Psystar. The Florida-based company was found to have violated Apple's copyright in selling Mac OS X preinstalled on non-Mac hardware, and the two came to a preliminary settlement. But a new drama unfolded with smartphone competitor Nokia, which sued Apple for not paying royalties on a copyrighted smartphone technology.

Unfortunately for the most passionate of Apple fans, two of the year's most anticipated products from Apple never came to fruition. Looks like we'll have to wait until 2010 to see if the mythical Apple tablet or the Verizon iPhone finally appear.

source: http://news.cnet.com/2702-13579_3-419.html

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Yahoo Shutting Down for The Holidays

Yahoo Shutting Down for The Holidays

Most Yahoo employees will be off next week due to mandatory office closings--though they've had since April to figure out what to do.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Yahoo is shutting down everything except for certain "essential functions" during the week between Friday, December 25, and Friday, January 1.

A Yahoo representative confirmed the Journal report Tuesday--however, according to the representative, Yahoo employees were informed of this plan in April, a detail lacking from several reports about the shutdown, although Reuters had pointed it out at the time.

Yahoo has certainly looked to cut costs this year, its first with CEO Carol Bartz and CFO Tim Morse. Layoffs, a search-outsourcing deal with Microsoft, and a reassessment of business priorities were high on the company's to-do list in 2009.

The shutdown, which requires employees to take unpaid leave or vacation days, would be the first ever in Yahoo's history, though other tech companies, notably Hewlett-Packard and Adobe Systems, also shut down for the holidays.

Yahoo will have customer support people working over the break, and it obviously plans to keep its Web site up and running, the representative said. Outside the United States, employees will either have paid time off or unpaid time, depending on local laws.

source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10420320-265.html

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Google open-sources XML-alternative Protocol Buffers

Google open-sources XML-alternative Protocol Buffers

XML, it seems, has run out of steam for Google.

Google said Monday that it has created an open-source project for a data interchange format called Protocol Buffers.

The software is meant to solve the problem of sharing information in a wide range of formats between servers at high speed. It’s also designed to let companies like Google upgrade software on a network of connected servers without causing hiccups.

Google thought of using XML as a lingua franca to send messages between its different servers. But XML can be complicated to work with and, more significantly, creates large files that can slow application performance.

Protocol Buffers is an alternative way of describing the format of data that is being sent over the network or stored to a hard drive. Unlike XML, it’s a compact format and is designed to be simple to use, according to Kenton Varda of Google’s Software Engineering Team.

Varda wrote in the company’s open-source blog:

Protocol Buffers allow you to define simple data structures in a special definition language, then compile them to produce classes to represent those structures in the language of your choice. These classes come complete with heavily-optimized code to parse and serialize your message in an extremely compact format. Best of all, the classes are easy to use: each field has simple “get” and “set” methods, and once you’re ready, serializing the whole thing to–or parsing it from–a byte array or an I/O stream just takes a single method call.

Matt Cutts, a software engineer who heads Google’s Webspam team, said in a blog late Monday that Protocol Buffers automatically generates Java, Python, or C++ code:

Think of Protocol Buffers as a very compact way of encoding data in a binary format. A programmer can write a simple description of a protocol or structured data and Google’s code will autogenerate a class in C++, Java, or Python to read, write, and parse the protocol. Given a protocol buffer, you can write it to disk, send it over the network wire, and do any number of interesting tricks. Any medium-sized company (and quite a few startups!) should find Protocol Buffers very handy.

The software is available the Apache Software License 2.0.

Like a lot of what Google’s engineering team does, this seems to make sense. XML has long been criticized as being too slow, which has led to controversial efforts to standardize XML compression.

But given the huge investment in XML, it doesn’t look like Protocol Buffers will replace it. Instead, it will be used–certainly by Google and likely others–for Web applications that need a very efficient way to move around data in multiple formats.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9985254-7.html?

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Microsoft preps pay-as-you-go Web apps for Business

Microsoft preps pay-as-you-go Web apps for Business

Microsoft detailed on Tuesday its road map and pricing for Web-based software suites built for big companies and growing businesses.

Enabling telecommuting, which many employers and workers increasingly favor, is likely to be a selling point for the productivity and “deskless worker” tools within the Microsoft Online Services lineup.

The move is part of Redmond’s push to integrate online and desktop software, shifting much of the heavy lifting to the “cloud.”

“Microsoft Online Services is a key component of the software plus services initiative, and we’re seeing customers, partners and even competitors embrace this flexible approach to the cloud,” Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division, said in a statement.

Details were unveiled Tuesday in Houston at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.

For $15 per month per person, the business productivity suite offers an Outlook-integrated Exchange Online for e-mail and calendars, Office SharePoint Online collaboration, messaging via Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting video-enabled Web conferencing.

The software giant will charge another $3 per month per user for the Deskless Worker Suite, which combines flavors of SharePoint Online and Exchange Online. The SharePoint portal offers access to internal company sites and search. E-mail, calendars, security filters, and Outlook Web Access Light are included with Exchange Online Deskless Worker.

Microsoft aims to simplify otherwise complex corporate tasks managed by engineers or IT technicians. For instance, a WYSIWYG interface would enable an IT worker to give a new employee access to the company tools in a series of steps that could be shorter than setting up, say, a free Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail account.

One can sign up online to try the beta services.

Exchange Online and Office SharePoint Online remain in beta, with final availability set for sometime in the second half of 2008, when Office Communications Online beta is also due. Microsoft plans for international availability in 2009.

The company offers to pay resellers of its Online Services 12 percent of the price of each contract secured during the first year, and 6 percent per subscription year thereafter. Interested companies can learn more at Microsoft’s QuickStart Web site.

Microsoft partners and resellers of Online Services include Accenture, CDW, and Unisys. Nokia is among the companies using the online tools for messaging and collaboration.

Source:http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9985201-2.html

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Yelp, Google Breakup Bad News for Small Business

Yelp, Google Breakup Bad News for Small Business

It is unhappy news that Google won’t be purchasing Yelp. It was a natural in terms of things Google should be doing, especially in helping small local businesses promote themselves.

The $550 million deal, which lived and died over the weekend, would have also made Google more of a one-stop for local businesses, who often don’t know where to invest their small promotion budgets. It also might have moved the reviews social network away from advertising sales that have challenged its credibility.

If Yelp has gotten a better offer and bailed on Google because of it, it’s bad news. Only Google brings the breadth of offerings necessary to be a good single purchase for small business. Nothing else is even close.

I hope Microsoft realizes this before trying to make Yelp part of Bing, although the names do sound like they belong together, if not the services.

As much as we don’t like near monopolies, they have their good sides. Local businesses realize they need the Internet, but don’t have the time or dollars to invest. Google offers many free and low-cost ways for local businesses to promote themselves online. Yelp does the same thing, though not as well.

Teaming the two would have allowed local businesses to do excellent local marketing, presumably at low cost, by dealing with only one trusted vendor, Google

Having said that, it is not clear Google would have known what to do with Yelp.

Ideally, there would be technical and back office integration, which fits with Google’s engineering-driven culture. More concerning, however, is whether Google could just sit and watch Yelp’s content and community management.

So far, in two attempts, Orkut and Knol, Google has failed to develop communities. YouTube has a community, of sorts, but is hardly a comparison to the level of community (or average IQ) necessary to make Yelp function.

Maybe it’s just as well for Yelp and Google go their separate ways, but as someone who cares about local businesses, I feel like an opportunity has been lost.

David Coursey has been writing about technology products and companies for more than 25 years. He tweets as @techinciter and may be contacted via his Web site.

Source: http://www.itnews.com/internet-based-applications-and-services/12259/yelp-google-breakup-bad-news-small-business

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The New Look of StumbleUpon

The New Look of StumbleUpon

I don’t know about you but I love to “stumble” upon new things all the time. I noticed when I went to log in to my account the other day that the interface has changed. I have to say that I love the new look and feel of the new site design. Comparing it to the last version I notice a big difference in how much cleaner it is to look at and also how user friendly the new version is.

Apparently right now you have the ability to go back and forth between the new “beta” version and the old version but soon that will all change and the new interface will be here to stay.

In the old version after you stumbled on a certain website you liked or disliked it would be added to your profile as a thumbnail image - with so many thumbnail images this created a very cluttered view. The new Stumbleupon limits the amount of thumbnails to about 10 and then instead of thumbnail views you have a little larger image of the website along with what your comment was. Compared to the old version where you had to click on reviews to see the review you gave it.

I wanted to give props to the new Stumble interface - if you have not seen it yet - check it out.

Source: http://www.semplistic.com/articles/the-new-look-of-stumbleupon/

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The "App Phone" Predicted

The "App Phone" Predicted

There’s no question that we’re seeing an explosion in the role that smartphones are taking in mobility. BlackBerry devices have grown far beyond the corporate e-mail tethers they once were, to the point that the company says more than half of all BlackBerries are being used by consumers. The Apple iPhone has redefined what many people see as the new paradigm for smartphones. And Google’s Android phones are taking up where the iPhone left off to prove that a company besides Apple can produce a sleek, usable phone that does a lot more than make phone calls.

With all of these changes happening at once, there’s also no question that all of this is probably driving the IT staff at many companies nuts. After seeing what’s already happened over the past year, even in the teeth of a recession, just imagine what’s going to happen next year with the economy recovering, smartphones taking on a bigger role, and with new types of smart phones hitting the market on a daily basis.

Well, I talked with one person who does imagine such things, mainly because it’s his job. Dan Dearing is vice president of marketing and product management for Trust Digital, a company that makes software for managing enterprise data systems, including the wireless devices that employees use with those data systems. It’s Trust Digital’s job to find out what the trends are so that the company and its customers can be ready.

Dearing said that he’s been talking with his customers to learn about their concerns, and from that he’s developed both a set of criteria to determine what trends are important to enterprise customers and he’s learned what’s taking shape in the world of smartphones. Dearing did note, however, that the transformative forces of the iPhone, the Android phones, and the spreading availability of applications for the smartphones that can support them are changing the way enterprises need to think of them.

Dearing’s findings shouldn’t surprise anyone that works with smartphones in the enterprise. But that doesn’t mean they’re not important. Here are his five predictions:

1. New platforms and devices will change what’s required from the IT industry – Dearing said that this centers on the fact that these devices will become less "smartphones" and more what he calls “app phones,” meaning that you can download and run applications on them as you can on computers. He said that you’ll see more IT vendors extend the services that they’ve developed for laptops to smartphones or app phones.
2. The Android mobile operating system will take off – Dearing said that Google’s hot new operating system will start with consumers, and that will bring it into the enterprise. He said that the IT organization will have its doubts about Android because of the lack of security, but he added that’s a “point in time” issue. He said that he thinks the open source community will produce the encryption required by enterprise users, and that handset vendors may provide hardware encryption as Apple does now.
3. Mobile application stores will continue to balloon – The availability of applications seems to be the real driver for the adoption of these devices within the enterprise, according to Dearing. He said that enterprises are looking for similar capabilities for their users with a mix of enterprise and consumer applications.
4. Mobile devices are on a path to eclipse the PC – Dearing quoted an IDC report that said the number of smart mobile devices accessing the Internet is very close to being more than more than the number of laptops and PCs. He notes that the mobile devices accessing the Internet are almost always smartphones.
5. Increased smartphone use within the enterprise – Dearing said that more and more mobile users want to use their own smartphones where they work, instead of using one that’s provided by the company. “More and more companies are starting to cater to a younger more mobile workforce” Dearing said. “Now they’re moving to a mixed environment so they can use their personal device for e-mail.” He said that IT departments are starting to let users choose their own smart phones and carriers which improves morale and saves the company money.

Dearing noted that the greater use of smartphones instead of laptop computers also means that some of the woes of laptop computers will move to smartphones. Those woes include dealing with lost or stolen devices containing critical company information. In addition, he said that the rapid growth of some devices such as the iPhone is certain to attract the attention of malware distributors.

So the answer to next year’s smart phone challenge is to be ready to significantly expand your company’s support capabilities. This is a trend you’re not going to be able to stop.

Source From: ctoedge.com | Re-Posted By: Software Company India

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New breadcrumb feature in search results part of Google Caffeine rollout?

New breadcrumb feature in search results part of Google Caffeine rollout?

Google is coming with some changes in Search Engine Listing Page. This chabges are qith URL shorten with Breadcrumb Navigation. Lilengine.com has present this very nicely with some images. Read rest of story with images in their own word.

Google's new SERP URL update

Over the next few days we should see some changes in the way Google displays the URLs in organic SERP. Currently the URL listed in the search result is a citation based version of a page’s URL. It looks like this update is could be part of the Caffeine rollout, where Matt Cutt’s mentioned will only be rolled out on 1 server currently until 2010 – I am seeing the new breadcrumb result about 10% of the time when search for the phrase ’spidersapien reviews’.

The new version will take on a more breadcrumb feel based on the hierarchy of the webpage on the website. Which is determined by Googlebot if;

The information in these new hierarchies come from analyzing destination web pages. For example, if you visit the ProductWiki Spidersapien page, you’ll see a series of similar links at the top, “Home> Toys & Games> Robots.” These are standard navigational tools used throughout the web called “breadcrumbs,” which webmasters frequently show on their sites to help users navigate. By analyzing site breadcrumbs, we’ve been able to improve the search snippet for a small percentage of search results, and we hope to expand in the future.

This is a pretty significant update to how the SERP is displayed, for a long time SEOs have depended on including keywords in their URL or battled with web developers to dynamically generate SEO friendly URLs. Now with this new breadcrumb update, URLs will no longer be shown in the SERP. Which means less significance to SEO friendly URLs or the ability to create even more SEO friendly URLS by eliminating hierarchy information, judging from the quote – all one would need is a HTML navigational breadcrumb for this to work, much easier than doing URL rewrites. Surely there are other factors that Google look for as well ( sitemap / RDF info ? ).

How will this effect CTR? The new format certainly looks nicer, but as a power searcher I like to see the URL before clicking on a link, also one major loss from this update will be the keyword you searched for will no longer be in bold ( see before example ) which does have a positive impact on CTR, since the URLS that have the keyword hi-lighted tend to get more clicks.

Lets also compare the HTML code generated by Google;

New Google breadcrumb HTML

www.productwiki.com › Toys & Games › Robots

www.productwiki.com › Toys & Games › Robots

Old Google URL HTML

www.productwiki.com/spidersapien/ –

www.productwiki.com/spidersapien/ –

There is definitely a lot more code been generated here in the new format, which would justify Matt Cutt’s explanation for the caffeine update as the ability to return more search results faster with more content.

Source From: lilengine.com

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How to exclude specific country or region from Google Analytics

How to exclude specific country or region from Google Analytics

Here are the quick and easy steps to implement, if you want a report of website traffic, excluding a specific country or territory.

However,it should be noted that, it is among the best practices to create new test profiles when you are testing our filters or otheradvanced analytics setups. The reason is that it is not unusual that some of your experiments might turn out to be wrong or do not meet your specific requirements, if you have multiple profiles, then you can safely delete the newly created one without loss of critical data. You should have one untouched raw analytics profile, always.

Having said that, lets move towards our setup, I have already created a new profile for the same website and name it “Filtered Traffic”

As soon as you create the new profile, click the edit button and scroll down to see the “Add New Filter” option.

Kindly note that Google Analytics have 2 types of Filter Setups,i.e. Predefined and Custom, we will select the Custom Filter.

Now select the Visitor Country option to mention the excluded region.

Now in the “Filter Pattern” box, enter your desired value or values.e.g. Filter Pattern: brazil|Argentina

Note:The pipe symbol | allows for multiples within the same pattern. Thus, you can mention one or many countries in the same pattern.

Another way is to put country names you want to exclude separated with | sign, and enclose it with ( ) in Filter Pattern field. For example if you want to exclude traffic stats from China, Australia and India the filter pattern will be(China|Australia|India) . And that’s all, now save this filter by clicking “Save Changes” button.

Kindly note that | and () are regular expressions, they have many uses, read about them at: Google’s Help Page

Original Source: blog.khmohsin.com

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Android-Based iPod Competitor Wanted

Android-Based iPod Competitor Wanted

I have noticed a trend in the market consisting of people telling me they are waiting for an Android-based iPod competitor which works with WiFi and has a microphone. While many contemplate the Google business model for their new Nexus One phone I can tell you that sales of this device without GSM connectivity are likely to be strong.

The obvious question I have asked people looking for such a device is - well, why not buy an iPod. In some cases the lack of multitasking is the issue. In others it's the lack of microphone or the dislike of a closed app store which is controlled by Apple.

To me this shows that the iPod Touch will likely have to have a camera and microphone going forward or Cupertino risks losing marketshare. And perhaps the company will even begin to allow multitasking if we continue to ask politely.

When I told some people that they can take a Barnes and Noble Nook and convert it into an open Android Tablet they seem very excited about the idea.

Ironically these same people don't seem to want an Android-powered laptop - preferring a Microsoft OS.

Google does not need help taking over the world but if they are smart, they will consider getting an iPod competitor on the market and do so quickly. Apple for its part is no slouch and they realize the challenge ahead.

Apple's superiority comes in part from their App Store which is powered by the largest mobile developer community in the world. Ironically, the company continues to really piss off these same developers who continue to complain to me about the arcane rules and regulations which keep programs from being approved.

The logical thing for Apple to do is to continue to loosen up App Store restrictions. I sense more and more people are seeing Google as a serious enough alternative to Apple's products for them to consider evolving.

One final note worth sharing is the PDA market was effectively slain by the smartphone. This is coming from the Chairman of a show called Planet PDA. Moreover the iPod Touch is the PDA of today and the Android-powered tablet effectively becomes the PDA of the new decade.

Palm execs once told me the PDA is not where the action is -- it is the smartphone market that they need to be in. Sortly thereafter they purchased Treo. It is so interesting to see that both markets seem to be doing very well but Palm is not a major player in either. While Palm was laser focused on competing with RIM, Apple introduced a pocket-sized media player which eventually allowed them to take away Palm's existing and future smartphone business.

The opinions and views expressed in comments, blogs, etc. are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of TMC, TMCnet, or its editors. TMCnet reserves the right to edit, delete, or otherwise make changes to the content that appears on these pages at its own discretion and as it deems necessary.

Source:Android-Based iPod Competitor Wanted

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How To Set Up Your Voice Mail on the iPhone

How To Set Up Your Voice Mail on the iPhone

Have you just bought a new iPhone and are having a hard time getting the voice mail set up? You may have spent hours on the phone with customer service and gotten nowhere. Here, you will find the help you need to get your voice mail set up easily.

The first thing is not to put the SIM card from your old phone into your iPhone. Everything else will work but you voice mail and visual mail will likely not work. If you go to an AT&T store, you can get a new SIM put in your phone and help with getting everything from your old SIM card transferred to it.

Now you are ready for the next step. Call customer service at AT&T (the exclusive iPhone service provider in the US) and tell the representative that you need to setup voice mail. Be sure to tell him or her to check to make sure the forwarding feature to forward calls to your voice mail is turned on. This is something that is often overlooked by customer service representatives. Once this is done, you are ready to actually setup voice mail.

Before you begin, it is a good idea to know what password you want to use. Might write down what you want to record as your outgoing message, too. Doing this will save time and make the process to setup voice mail go smoother.

Your password should be between 6 and 15 characters. Make sure it is something you can remember but others will find impossible to guess. Now you tap the voice mail icon on your iPhone. You will be asked to create a password at this point. Enter the password you have created and then you will be asked to record a greeting. You will have the option of using a default iPhone voice mail greeting that will include your phone number or you can record your own. You can change your greeting at any time by tapping voice mail, greeting, custom and then record. Do not forget to save your greeting once you are satisfied with it.

Students at Penn state who subscribe to Penn iPhone can log in to My iPhone and setup voice mail for their iPhones. PennKey authentication will be required. Once on the home page, look for Features and Voice Mail and go to that page. Here, you will put in the password you have created. You can change this password at any time by logging in on My iPhone or through the voice mail icon on your phone. After you have entered your password, re-enter it is the field, Confirm Password. After up press the submit button, your account will be updated to include it.

To record your greeting, press the 'messages' button, it will be to the right of the keypad. Press '0' to bring up the mailbox options. From there, you will be prompted to choose the type of greeting you want, such as busy, unavailable and name. Then you will get a prompt from the system to record your greeting. When you are finished, choose accept, listen and, if you desire, re-record. When you are satisfied with your greeting, press * or # to go back to the menu or exit.

Learn about other iPhone features by checking out our website. You can also download your free iPod report while you are there.

Source: How To Set Up Your Voice Mail on the iPhone

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Importance Of Logo Designs For Business by Lonard Math

Importance Of Logo Designs For Business by Lonard Math

Logo is an essential branding element that promotes the business of an organization. It represents the identity of the company in the marketplace. It is one of the important marketing materials that promote the organization. It is a graphical illustration of the company that represents the vision and values of an enterprise. This graphical symbol reflects the philosophy and mission of the company. They are used on different types of corporate literature. They are also used for advertisements and other such purposes. The purpose of creating a logo for the company is that the viewer gets attracted towards this graphical symbol. It should be able to leave an everlasting impact on the mind of the viewer.

A designer should consider various factors in mind while designing an attractive logo. An attractive company logo uses all those design elements that best reflects the company. A designer can make use of colors in the logo that makes it appear vibrant and brilliant in appearance. Colors play an essential role in communicating the intended message subtly to the viewer. Before selecting the colors you should conduct a research on the customers. Different colors have different implications for different types of viewers. These implications of the shades depend largely on the culture of the prospective customers. For instance, in some religions black color is associated with sorrow and red denotes happiness. Depending on the product as well as the culture of the potential customers, a marketer should select those colors that are acceptable. One should choose those shades that are liked and readily accepted by the prospective customers. A logo can be given a shape of various designs and patterns. However, a designer should not overuse the patterns or design elements. The overuse of the designs makes the trademark appear unattractive and difficult to comprehend. Create a simple and elegant design for the trademark. Simplicity makes the logo appear lucid and striking in appearance.

Importance of a good logo is that it makes your company appear professional. It conveys a sense of credibility, authenticity and reliability about the organization. The customer can associate the product with the company. One is also able to associate a brand image with the particular company. For designing perfect logos for your business there are many logo software available.

About the Author

Lonard Math is a business analyst as well as web designer who has more than 7 years experience in Logo designs for designing brochures, business stationary, websites, content writing etc. In this article he discusses about business logo. For more information about logo maker, logo creator, logo designer, logo software, please visit http://www.logosmartz.com

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Converting PDF to Document Rapidly and Economically by sanerrijet

Converting PDF to Document Rapidly and Economically by sanerrijet

Portable Document Format is a non-editable computer application. This file format is highly portable and accessible across multiple platforms. The PDF document is the most secure file format as compared to other computer applications. The PDF documents have fewer chances from being getting infected from virus. It also supports multimedia content making the presentation of the document more professional.

There are times when the users require editing the PDF documents. This is feasible when the PDF file is converted into Word file format. The Word file format makes the user to exercise more flexibility. The Word has got advanced editable features with which you can customize the entire document as per the requirement. It equips the user to deploy the fonts, colors, hyperlinks, bookmarks, tables, columns and much more. For converting the PDF file format to Word document there are many converter tools available. These tools aim at making the task of the user easy and smooth during conversion.

There are two types of PDF converter tools available and those are online and offline converter tools. The Online converters can convert the files when the user has access to the Internet. For this purpose, you may need to upload the PDF files online and provide an email address. These tools send the converted file to your mail address. However, people use these tools less when they have to convert the files containing confidential or personal information. Second type of tool is an offline converter tool that does not require an Internet for the conversion. A user has to install the tool on his system and then convert the files. This is more reliable for converting files with confidential information. Using Offline Converter Tools for Conversion:

These tools can convert the PDF to Word and back to PDF instantly and easily. Some advanced tools do not require any specific configurations for the purpose of installation. There are other tools that can convert number of files at the same time. You can also select the pages of the document that you want to convert. Other tools can also encrypt your PDF files with password while converting the edited Word file to PDF file. These tools can also remove the password restrictions of any PDF that you want to convert to Word. You should find out the trail version of the tool before purchasing any such tool.

About the Author

Saner Rijet is an IT professional with over 7 years experience working in academic and industry. For an easy solution to convert your Word to PDF documents; visit his site at PDF Converter.

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Affordable Nokia 5235 Arrives

Affordable Nokia 5235 Arrives

Soon after the announcement of the Nokia 5230, it's time now to welcome another Music oriented phone from Nokia. Say hello to the just introduced Nokia 5235. Note that the 5230 was not an XpressMusic branded phone, neither is this one. However, it does come with the "Comes With Music" service loaded.

The 5235 is being marketed as a "Comes With Music" phone - which means the device will come preloaded with quite a few free audio tracks and will come with a 12 or 18 month subscription for Nokia's Comes with Music service - all for free. This service allows users to access Nokia's Music library and download tracks for free. The phone is similar to the 5230 and boasts of a decent spec sheet that should keep most users happy.

The phone features a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen that displays the Symbian S6- V5 standard resolution of 360*640, 3G connectivity and full GPS support with Ovi Maps. Being a music oriented device, there is a very much needed 3.5mm jack provided as well. The camera is not a very impressive 2-megapixel unit. The phone supports memory expansion with microSD cards and can take upto 16GB of external memory. A 1320mAH battery should provide enough power to last 33 hours of continuous music playback.

The 5235 is expected to be out by the first quarter of 2010 and will retail at around 145 Euros (Rs. 10,000).

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India has Almost 500 mln Mobile Users

India has Almost 500 mln Mobile Users

The ever swelling number of wireless connections in India will cross the 500 million mark sometime this later this (or by early next year) month, as The Times of India reports. With the country inching towards crossing the 500 million mark once an unthinkable number, India has reaffirmed its place as the country with the second largest number of mobile phone users in the world, right behind China.

Note that the figure of 500 million is for the number of mobile subscribers only. The overall number of connections (including that of fixed line) has already crossed a staggering 550 million in the country. The teledensity in the country has reached a very respectable 45 percent. In urban centres, it is almost 97 percent. The rural teledensity is still low at just 18 percent. India was at 488.40 million (wireless) subscribers at the end of October 2009 and the current projections are calculated guesses taking into account the rate of growth observed for the past few months.

While it's a rosy picture on the wireless front, the wireline sector is facing a continuous drop in the number of users. It is down to 37.25 million now. India's broadband penetration too stands embarrassingly low with just 7.5 million people having access to broadband Internet! Bandwidth IS a major issue in India, it seems! It is remarkable that India continuous to grow at amazing rates even though the telephony sector has been in a mess for the past few years owing to licensing, spectrum allotment and all other controversies.
Source: Techtree.com

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PHP Programming Services

PHP Programming Services

PHP Application development company India provides PHP development, PHP programming, PHP Application development services. Hire PHP Programmers, PHP developers, Cost Effective PHP programming team for CAKE PHP Programming at Ashi Softwares.

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Offshore Software Development Company

Offshore Software Development Company

Ashi Softwares is Custom Software Development Company in India.

Custom Software Development Company in India Ashi Software offers software development solutions like, software development Services, custom software development and application software development services. Ashi Software is a software development firm, offering customized software development services.

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