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)

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

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; }
Continue Reading »

Visual development environments typically let you manipulate objects in an application by selecting them with a mouse and moving them around the screen. Drag and drop lets you select an object, such as an item in a List control, or a Flex control such as an Image control, and then drag it over another component to add it to that component. You can add support for drag and drop to all Flex components. Flex also includes built-in support for the drag-and-drop operation for certain controls such as List, Tr e e, and DataGrid, 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 Flex component, or an item in a Flex component, and then moving the component or item while holding down the mouse button. For example, a user selects an item in a List control with the mouse and, while holding down the mouse button, moves the mouse several pixels. The 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 around the Flex application. Flex displays an image during the drag, called the drag proxy. A drag source object (an object of type DragSource) contains the data being dragged.

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

A drag-and-drop operation either copies or moves data from the drag initiator to the drop target. Upon a successful drop, Flex adds the data to the drop target and, optionally, deletes it 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 List 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 lets you move the data within the component. The following example shows a List control functioning as both the drag initiator and the drop target:

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.

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.

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.

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.