Archive for the 'technology' Category

Nov

23

Windows 8 Release Expected in 2012

Posted by kevin under internet, news, technology - No Comments

Windows 8 will be with us in 2012, according to Microsoft roadmaps apparently revealed at last week’s Professional Developers’ Conference (PDC).

Although Microsoft has yet to officially discuss plans for Windows 8, a 2012 release would be consistent with previous Microsoft pledges to release a new desktop operating system every three years. Windows 7 was released a month ago.

The latest speculation suggesting a 2012 release has been credited to Microsoft Kitchen, a blog with the tagline “Serving up some seriously tasty Microsoft.”

Despite showing roadmaps apparently picked up at PDC, the blog has little else to reveal about Windows 8.

However, a Microsoft employee may have inadvertently spilled the beans on one key Windows 8 feature last month.

Microsoft employee Robert Morgan appeared to detail the software giant’s plans to make a 128-bit version of Windows 8, and even Windows 9, on LinkedIn, where he listed his job as ‘senior research and development’. His profile, which has now been removed from the business networking site, said Morgan was “working in high security department for research and development involving strategic planning for medium and longterm projects”.

It went on to reveal that his R&D projects included: “128-bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 kernel and Windows 9 project plan”. He’s also responsible for “forming relationships with major partners: Intel, AMD, HP and IBM”.

Microsoft is also looking for employees to help shape Windows 8, according to reports online. Neowin.net spotted the vacancy for a Windows 7 software engineer on Microsoft’s site.

“We just finished up work on Windows 7, and are pushing forth on Windows 8 planning and preparation,” said the blurb in the job ad, which was replicated on the CodenameWindows website.

“As part of this team, you will help shape Windows 8. Components of our code include a core agent that runs as an NT service, an API layer and a UI application,” added the advert. (Via PC Advisor)

Aug

27

Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009

Posted by kevin under internet, market, technology - No Comments

Every two years, SEOmoz surveys top SEO experts in the field worldwide on their opinions of the algorithmic elements that comprise search engine rankings. This year features contributors from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Ukraine, the Dominican Republic and many more.

Each participant was asked to rate more than 100 search ranking factors along with specific questions about hot issues in the SEO field. This document, representing the collective wisdom of expert practitioners, is, in opinion, one of the most useful resources for SEO practitioners of all varieties, helping to provide transparency into what matters (and doesn’t) for best practices in search engine optimization.

Read more http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Jul

9

Yet Another Image Replacement Method

Posted by kevin under internet, technology - 1 Comment

Semantic CSS Image Replacement

Yes, “YAIRM” (“Yet Another Image Replacement Method”) is a crappy acronym. Anyhow….

There have been several image replacement suggestions made over the past 5 years. Semantically, some just don’t make sense. Of course, the accessibility of your image replacement method and the semantic “correctness” has to do with how you code your HTML.

Pros

  • This method works for both in-line and block style elements.
  • Accessible to screen readers and non-image/non-screen media.
  • Does not add extra elements only for styling (no extra span).
  • Works cross browser

Cons

  • Using images for text does not allow for text resizing (like all IR methods).
  • Does not handle “images off/CSS on” scenario; but neither do most layouts with background images, such as the sidebar on this blog.

When I need to replace a header or some other text with an image, I simply give the element my image replacement class (<h1 class="imgreplacement">), and declare the background image, height and width I want to use either by providing an ID and defining the background image in the #id selector, or by targeting the element through specific/unique cascade. I place all of my image replacement css in a media=”screen”. Even though the media attribute is not heeded by all browsers, it is heeded by devices that are not screens. If your user than prints your webpage, the text that was replaced by an image in the browser will print as it semantically should.
button.imgreplacement { display:-moz-inline-box; display:inline-block; background:transparent none 0 0 no-repeat; text-indent:-3000px; font:0/0 Arial; overflow:hidden; color:rgba(255,255,255,0); vertical-align:bottom; background-image:url(http://www.evotech.net/articles/images/redx.gif); width: 18px; height: 18px; border:none; cursor: pointer, hand; }
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May

5

About the drag and drop

Posted by kevin under internet, technology, web2.0 - No Comments

Visual development environments typically let you manipulate objects in an application byĀ selecting them with a mouse and moving them around the screen. Drag and drop lets youĀ select an object, such as an item in a List control, or a Flex control such as an Image control,Ā and then drag it over another component to add it to that component.Ā You can add support for drag and drop to all Flex components. Flex also includes built-inĀ support for the drag-and-drop operation for certain controls such as List, Tr e e, and DataGrid,Ā that automate much of the processing required to support drag and drop.

The drag-and-drop operation has three main stages: initiation, dragging, and dropping:

Initiation A user initiates a drag-and-drop operation by using the mouse to select a FlexĀ component, or an item in a Flex component, and then moving the component or item whileĀ holding down the mouse button. For example, a user selects an item in a List control with theĀ mouse and, while holding down the mouse button, moves the mouse several pixels. TheĀ selected component, the List control in this example, is the drag initiator.

Dragging While still holding down the mouse button, the user moves the mouse aroundĀ the Flex application. Flex displays an image during the drag, called the drag proxy. A dragĀ source object (an object of type DragSource) contains the data being dragged.

Dropping When the user moves the drag proxy over another Flex component, thatĀ component becomes a possible drop target. The drop target inspects the drag source object toĀ determine whether the data is in a format that the target accepts and, if so, allows the userĀ drop the data onto it. If the drop target determines that the data is not in an acceptableĀ format, the drop target disallows the drop.

A drag-and-drop operation either copies or moves data from the drag initiator to the dropĀ target. Upon a successful drop, Flex adds the data to the drop target and, optionally, deletes itĀ from the drag initiator in the case of a move.

The following figure shows one List control functioning as the drag initiator and a second ListĀ control functioning as the drop target. In this example, you use drag and drop to move the ’Television’ list item from the drag initiator to the drop target:

A single Flex component can function as both the drag initiator and the drop target. This letsĀ you move the data within the component. The following example shows a List controlĀ functioning as both the drag initiator and the drop target:

Apr

8

Make Funny Picture With FunPhotoBox

Posted by kevin under internet, technology, web2.0 - 2 Comments

Fun Photo Box which is similar to Photofunia, allows you to make funny photos with so many ready made pictures from billboard to Hollywood movies.

Mar

21

Safari, IE8 and Firefox zero-day vulnerability

Posted by kevin under internet, technology, web2.0 - No Comments

Time the United States March 18, from Tipping Point launched the Third Competition Pwn2Own began hacking technology. During the first day of competition, the contestants need to try to break through there is a complete patch hit the mainstream browsers (IE8, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) as well as severe restrictions on the smart mobile phone (Blackberry, Android, iPhone, Nokia / Symbian, Windows Mobile) . As a three-day awards competition, Zero Day Initiative will provide a browser vulnerability discoverer 5000 U.S. dollars and donated the use of computers, and intelligence found that the vulnerability of the mobile phone will be 10,000 U.S. dollars plus incentives smart break by one year the right to use the mobile phone .

Pwn2Own at the first day of competition, the smart cell phone security has stood the test, while mainstream browsers are not so lucky, the two winners were Charlie Miller and Nils break the Safari (twice), IE8 and Firefox .

Last year’s winners, one of Charlie Miller at the first day of competition in the browser attack, just two minutes when once again break through Mac OS X’s Safari browser.

Another participant Nils, while at the platform Windows7 goods IE8 successfully broke through the security protection, including protection of the use of Microsoft’s latest technology-DEP (Data Execution Prevention, Data Execution Prevention) and ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization, Address space layout randomization), this act so that the safety of IE8 again aroused widespread public concern, Nils finally won the latest Sony Vaio notebooks and 5000 U.S. dollars in prize money.

However the first two surprises are good only just begun. Not long after, Nils again allow participants Pwn2Own boiling, he used Safari a vulnerability mapping tool, Express win Apple Safari browser and access to 5000 U.S. dollars at the incentives and white apple. At the success of a breakthrough after two mainstream browsers, Nils moves FireFox browser will fall under the cut. It is the second day of competition at Pwn2Own Medium, Nils will challenge Google Chrome, and is likely to become four of the latest mainstream browsers 0day founders.

Mar

11

Optimize Image with Smush.it

Posted by kevin under internet, technology, web2.0 - No Comments

Good quality image with optimized size will do not only save your bandwidth but also speed up your site loading time. Smush.it is very useful when you want optimize your images without reducing the quality, for your web site. The service allows you to upload image files directly from your machine or given urls. You can also install Smush.it Firefox extension as well.

Mar

5

Drupal SEO

Posted by kevin under internet, seo, technology - No Comments
The following is a list of steps for a Drupal site to optimize it for SEO.

1. Enable clean urls: Enabling clean urls gets rid of the ?q= in every URL. This only works on apache web servers. This can be done on the Site Administration > Site Configuration > Clean URLs page.
2. Fix .htaccess: Drupal has some canonicalization issues, where it creates two links per node, one that ends with a slash and one that doesn’t. This will gracefully redirect duplicate URLs. Add the following lines to the .htaccess file:
#get rid of trailing slashes
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?mywebsite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
3. Modify robots.txt: Modify this file to prevent the spiders from going after the non friendly URLs. Add the following to the robots.txt file:
Disallow: /node/
4. Install SEO Modules: These include pathauto, globalredirect, robotstxt, xmlssitemap, metatags, and pagetitle modules. These modules are described below.
5. Modify the Template: Use
appropriately: as a page title. Use only one
tag per page. Put site name in div tag, not a header tag. This formats the HTML in a way that facilitates how a spider might index the site.
6. Send RSS Feed Through Feedburner: Then have Feedburner ping Google blog search. This should help get more references to the site.

The following is a list of modules for Drupal that help with SEO.

* Global Redirect: Drupal creates duplicate URLs for content (www.mysite.com/node and www.mysite.com/node/). Duplicate URLs naturally dilute the rankings/indexing of pages. Also, search engines are hostile to this technique. This module creates a 301 redirect to eliminate duplicate URLs. This module is optional if changes the the .htaccess file are made manually.
* Metatags (aka Node Words): Creates meta tags for descriptions and keywords for the node.
* Page Title: By default, Drupal makes the page title identical to the node title. This module allows customization of the page title for the node.
* Path Auto: This modules creates a human friendly, semantic URL for the node.
* Robotstxt: This module manages the contents of the robot.txt file to filter out the content properly (remove the node/1 urls). This module is optional if changes the the robots.txt file are made manually.
* XML Site Map: This module generates and maintains a sitemap of the site for the search engines to use. The usefulness of XML site maps is in question. Some people argue that this is not helpful for SEO. All it does is help the search engines index pages, it does nothing to help page ranking. However, before a page can even begin to be page ranked it must be indexed. If this module facilitates page indexing then it is useful for getting the ball rolling on page ranking.

References for this article.

Mar

3

Add Watermark to your photos or images

Posted by kevin under internet, technology, web2.0 - No Comments

If you want to add watermark to your photos when you’re blogging from internet cafe or the machine that doesn’t have Photoshop or photo software, Picmarkr is best choice for you. Picmarkr is an online tool allow you to add watermark text and image with just few clicks. You can choose photos from your computer as well as your Flickr, Facebook and Picasa account.

After your photos uploaded, you can insert your custom watermark text or image and choose the position and text style that you want to display.

Finally, it will give you download images links that have watermark which you set in Picmarkr.

Feb

23

33 New Design Blogs with Great Content & Resources

Posted by kevin under internet, resource, technology - No Comments

Everyone loves finding new sites with great content, so I’ve made it a little easier. Here is a collection of new websites and blogs with quality content. I’ve chosen these blogs based on the quality of their posts & resources and not the design. At the bottom there is all of the RSS feeds, so you can keep yourself updated with all of the sites featured.

1. Design Shard

newblogs_1

From what I can see, this site only went live on July 25th, and it’s already had some popular content. I suggest you check out the 300+ Free Hi-Res Grunge Textures, as it’s my favourite at the moment.

2. My Ink Blog

My Ink Blog | New Design Blogs

A very well organized and well focused blog with some brilliant tutorials, links, resources and articles. So far there has been a lot of great posts, and I don’t see any signs of this changing. I was really impressed with the tutorial on Designing with Swirls & Flourishes, really top notch tutorial.

3. PSD Fan

PSD Fan | New Design Blogs

Quickly becoming one of my favourite tutorial sites. The site offers not only tutorials, but resources, which are both of very high quality. Looking at the amount of content it’s hard to remember that it’s only 2 months old. My top pick: Design a Unique Grungy Website Layout, a tutorial on a whole new level of great!

4. Kreativeuse

Kreativeuse | New Design Blogs

This site is probably the most useful in terms of keeping up to date. It’s sort of beginning to replace my RSS feeds, I now always check this site first as it’s always got regularly updated web/graphic design news. Launched on the 5th of July it’s quickly become one of my favourite places to browse, and our Icon set was their first ever post. Highly recommended!

5. ShareBrain

Sharebrain | New Design Blogs

Another regularly updated blog, which is brilliant! Especially when you consider how good the content is, I particularly enjoy their interviews. The ones with Jon Phillips & Steven Snell were my favourites. Keep your eye on this blog for sure.

6. Design Blurb

Design Blurb | New Design Blogs

This site was recommended to me by Andrew Houle and after browsing through the content I was impressed. And they even have their own collection of ā€œNew Design Blogs,ā€ which was a bit of a bummer as I thought I was onto something which I hadn’t seen before. Anyway, great blog & content, check it out.

7. HongKiat

HongKiat | New Design Blogs

Now I know for a fact this one is not new, but it’s new to me, so I felt it deserved a feature. It is a brilliant site bringing you the best Tech Design & Blogging related content which I’m very new to. The thing I like most on this site is the wide range of content topics, there’s always something new and different. I really love their 50+ Nice Clean CSS Tab-Based Navigation Scripts – Be sure to have a look.

8. Graphic Design Blog

Graphic Design Blog | New Design Blogs

There’s a good number of posts on this blog, and I like each and every one of them. I’m looking forward to seeing more!

9. Observin

Observin | New Design Blogs

I couldn’t include this one for the design alone (as much as I wanted to), fortunately the blog posts & resources that I’ve seen so far made me want to include it for another reason, the content. To see what I mean just have a gander at the free Old News Theme. I predict great things for this blog, its one of my favourites at the moment.

10. Digital Artists Toolbox

Digital Artist Toolbox | New Design Blogs

I stumbled upon this website through the brilliant 41 Amazing Tilt-shift miniature faking photographs post and I’ve been checking back ever since. A wide range of content topics, from resources and freebies, to interviews and amazing collections. One to watch for sure.

11. DesignO’Blog

Design'o'Blog | New Design Blogs

Niki runs a blog which again has a wide variety of content, although being focused around design and the internet I love blogs like this, she clearly has a great eye for interesting stuff and a good sense of humour, also offers some very useful content. Great blog to follow.

12. Brush King

Brush King | New Design Blogs

I’ve always gone for Quality over anything else, which is why I’m really liking Brush King. The collection of Photoshop brushes they’ve got at the moment are truly impressive, it’s clearly being run by someone who can spot quality brushes. My top pick, Flowers First.

13. Script & Style

Script & Style | New Design Blogs

This new website put together by Chris Coyier which aims to bring you the best user submitted community news. So far so good, I’ve read a lot of interesting stuff which I found via the site. So be sure to give it a good old rummage though.

14. Dev Snippets

Dev Snippets | New Design Blogs

I love it when sites like this come along, I’m not really huge on web development, but I realise how useful these are and I like to browse demos of things like this to find things that would be useful for future projects. They’re also running a great contest too.

15. Pattern Tap

Pattern Tap | New Design Blogs

Pattern tap is a great idea, its a new site which allows you to find specific collections on certain web elements. I think it makes finding inspiration that little more effective, as usually it’s certain elements that I get stuck for inspiration on, rather than the overall concept.

16. We Are not Freelancers

We Are not Freelancers | New Design Blogs

These guys have got a really nice blog up and running, and its showing no signs of slowing down. The design (although this post is not about the design) is just absolutely amazing, I love every aspect of it. The posts that I’ve read have been very well written and informative, so all in all a welcomed addition to my RSS reader.

17. Design Feedr

Design Feedr | New Design Blogs

Design Feedr is a blog which aims to showcase collections of top quality inspiration and resources. They have a great eye for what looks good and similar tastes to my own. One of my favourite posts of theirs is the Masters of Digital Paintings collection which I really love!

18. Inspiration Up

Inspiration Up | New Design Blogs

There’s that word again; Quality. I really like this site because they seem to think a little more than certain CSS galleries about their entries, so overall I’d say there is a better quality of sites on display.

19. The Dieline

The DieLine | New Design Blogs

Here is another site which I know is not new at all, but I’ve only recently been introduced to the amazing collection of packaging design inspirations that they offer. If you have not yet come across this site, prepare to be amazed.

20. Color Burned

Color Burned | New Design Blogs

A talented designer sharing various sources of inspiration and freebies. It’s always reassuring to receive resources off a guy who you know, knows what he is talking about. I really love the guy’s work just as much as the posts he shares, so a great experience all round.

21. Booooooom

Booooooom | New Design Blogs

Probably not the easiest domain name to remember in the world, but thankfully the posts and quality of the work is a lot more memorable, the post on Ian Francisā€˜ work for example is amazing! The site is based around art, design, photography & culture etc. This is a great site to spend some time exploring.

22. Apps Mania

Apps Mania | New Design Blogs

The basic concept of the site is a gallery of web applications, it has a small ammount of information, ratings and tags. Making it a great place to browse if you’re on the look out, or need some inspiration for, a cool new web app.

23. Doodlage

Doodleage | New Design Blogs

I can’t remember how I came across this site, but its been in my favourites for a few weeks and I’m really impressed with the postings. Its quite a fun little site, sharing lots of doodles/sketches/drawings and is a great source of inspiration.

24. Vi.sualize

Vi.sualize | New Design Blogs

Social Bookmarking for images. It’s that easy. A simple great idea.

25. Coded Preview

Coded Preview

For a better way of presenting your design mock-ups you can use Coded Preview, it allows you to modify the settings such as a background image, alignment margins etc. To give you an idea of how this can help, take a look at this example; Single Image compared to Image on Coded Preview. I think its a great idea, probably the best place you could upload your designs for presenting mock-ups.

26. High Resolution Textures

High Resolution Textures | New Design Blogs

Textures, a vital ingredient in so many forms of design. Textures are becoming more and more popular in web design, so that makes this an ideal website for you to add to your RSS reader. There really are some great textures on display here, and regular updates mean you’ll never be short of textures.

27. Lines and Colours

Lines and Colours | New Design Blogs

Another art and design blog. This one again has been around for a long time, since 2005 in fact. But its another of those which is fairly new to me, and I’m hoping will be new to a lot of you guys. A wide range of art is covered and as with all of these blogs I’m posting, the quality of the content is spot on.

28. Beeex

Beeex | Strictly Free Resources for Designers | New Design Blogs

I’ve not strictly been following this site, but it keeps popping up here and there and each time I visit I am impressed, so It’s long overdue but I’ve added it to my RSS reader now. I particularly love their Ultimate Collection of Free Textures on the Web.

29. Skout

Skout | New Design Blogs

A user submitted list of design/web related resources. A wide range of categories, resources and inspirations. One of those sites where you can lose a good couple of hours and not realise.

30. Usability Post

Usability | New Design Blogs

So far the posts on this site have impressed me, the blog talks about aspects of interface design, which means not only the way things look but how they work and how the function. I’m looking forward to reading more here.

31. Knowtebook

Knowtebook | New Design Blogs

Knowtebook brings you the best news about design, ideas, web trends, technology & more. The usefulness of each post cannot be questioned, each and every post I find very useful, so that’s why it had to make the list, this web-based business collaboration tools post is a great example of that.

32. Designm.ag

Designm.ag | New Design Blogs

This latest project by Steven Snell is already off to a great start. A very community focused design blog with community feeds, links, a gallery and of course some amazing posts, this blog really does look set to grow bigger and bigger, and with posts like this: Favorite Design-Related Sites of 21 Designers, its not hard to see why.

33. Fudge Graphics

Fudge Graphics | New Design Blogs

Since April 2008 Fudge graphics has been making some amazing posts, and I’ve been completely oblivious. It’s strange how sites like this go on with such great content without me realising. This is just another one of those sites that I love, there is a good mix of links, resources, inspirations featured artists, that sort of thing. Good times!

Get the RSS Feeds

If you are using a RSS reader you can easily subscribe to all of the above RSS feeds (where possible) by downloading the .xml file. All you need to do is then import it into your reader. I use netvibes as my reader.

Download RSS Feeds XML file