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20 Worst Web Design and Development Trends
Web design trends come and go, some stay around too long and there are a few that probably should have never existed. Many of the trends below could and can still be found on a variety of sites including personal sites, business sites and yes even web designer portfolio sites. Some of the worst trends are graphical ones such as the use of horrible GIF animations, intro pages and under construction graphics. Read more here 20 Worst Web Design and Development Trends.
The Gradual Disappearance Of Flash Websites – Smashing Magazine
Image via Wikipedia
Flash is a proprietary product that sits on top of the browser to extend functionality. While Flash may have provided missing functionality for some time, it brings little value to modern browsers. As more and more designers and developers realize the benefits of Web standards and start using some of the features of HTML5 and CSS3, we’ll see fewer Flash-driven websites.
Read the full article here: The Gradual Disappearance Of Flash Websites – Smashing Magazine.
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2010 The Year of the Scanner
Image via Wikipedia
Well, perhaps I’m a bit behind the times, but I have finally decided to go totally paperless. No more filing cabinets! I’m not sure if the impetus for this decision was that I needed the space or the fact that almost all of my vendors have been pushing hard for me to go paperless. But it makes absolute sense. Bills, Bank Statements, Tax filings (most of these are already filed on line anyway these days), business cards—basically everything that used to go into a file folder will now be filed on my computer and backed up to DVDs. My electronic filing cabinet of choice is going to be Microsoft OneNote, a program I have used for several years and really like. I think the reason I like OneNote as much as I do is that it works a lot like the manual filing system I’ve used for my entire business life, so the transition was easy.
Posted in General
Tagged Add new tag, Filing, LinkedIN, Office Procedures, Organizing
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George Carlin on aging!
Enjoy the ride. There is no return ticket. 
George Carlin on aging!
George Carlin’s Views on Aging
Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.
‘How old are you?’ ‘ I’m four and a half!’ You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.
You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.
5 Ways To Drive More Traffic To Your Website
“If you build it, they will come.”
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
If I’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that this old axiom doesn’t always apply, especially in this day and age. Simply putting together a website with the latest technology platforms on top of a semi-clever URL won’t do the trick. There are, however, five simple things that you can implement to move the traffic needle up and improve your metrics.
Search Engine Optimization: Search engine optimization, otherwise known as SEO for short, is one of the hottest topics in website development today. Not in the know? Here’s a quick rundown. According to Wikipedia, it’s “the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid search results as opposed to Search Engine Marketing (SEM).” It’s like tidying up your website and filling out all of the appropriate forms so that search engine crawlers will get the most context from your site and reward you with a higher page rank.
Why Do Online Shoppers Abandon Purchases?
A new survey released this past week revealed that nearly half of online shoppers have abandoned their carts multiple times in the past three weeks due to high shipping costs, security concerns and lack of convenience. The average cost of abandoned goods in U.S. shopping carts is $109. This data was supplied by PayPal.
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Job Seekers Find New Rules Of Recruitment: NPR
It seems like the line between social networking and business is becoming even more blurred, especially in these tough times and high unemployment. But the trend is clear: Social Networking is becoming more important in the hiring process if not a requirement to even being considered.
Blogs and Facebook pages have gone from mere kids’ play to essential
for communicating with employers online. Someone applying for a job in
marketing, for example, will do much better in an interview if he or
she already commands an audience through a blog. People in sales look
better if they can prove they have a broad network of contacts in their
field.
The Optimistic Marketer’s Guide to Recession Success
I ran across an interesting list of five suggestions of what you can do to actually grow and prosper during the current recession. It’s always nice to run across some positive thinkers among all the talk of doom and gloom. Someone tweeted this to me and I thought I’d share it with you.
- Re-evaluate the value you bring to your customer.
Simple ask yourself “What business am I in? List all of the potential answers then match it up with what your consumers need. Boil that down till you have a view of your business that is positioned for growth. Dunking Donut’s is in the “fuel that gets me though my day” business. The New York Times is in the “Information I need to know” business (there will always be a demand for “news” – it’s the “paper” part that is killing them). United Airlines is in the “get me there” business. New perspectives will open new possibilities.
SharePoint Server 2010 Preliminary System Requirements
Here is some advance info on what to expect with Microsoft’s release of SharePoint Server 2010. For our hosting clients, you have nothing to worry about, Inland Pacific Consulting is already running Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 64 bit editions, so the upgrade will be seamless when Microsoft releases SharePoint 2010. Below is the preliminary information from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog regarding the release of SharePoint Server 2010:
We’ve heard loud and clear that you want system requirements information as early as possible to assist in your budgeting and planning, so today we’re happy to announce (and confirm) some preliminary system requirements for SharePoint Server 2010:
- SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
- SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
- SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.
In addition to the requirements listed above we also wanted to share with you some preliminary detail about SharePoint Server 2010 browser compatibility.
To ensure the best possible experience across multiple browsers we’re focusing our SharePoint 2010 engineering efforts on targeting standards based browsers (XHTML 1.0 compliant) including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems. Due to this focus Internet Explorer 6 will not be a supported browser for SharePoint Server 2010.
So, what can you do today to get into the best shape for SharePoint Server 2010?
- Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit. Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
- Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update. The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
- Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
- Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
- Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
- Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.
Below are a few common Q&A’s (which we’ll add to as required)
Bigger Is Not Always Better
Huge Web Hosting Company Begs Users To Adopt Gmail
This was a recent headline that caught my eye recently and started me thinking about web hosting and size and value and the appropriate web hosting service based on your business needs.
To my mind, this article emphasizes that one-size-fits all and cheap and bigger is really not better and again reminds me of that old saying “You get what you pay for”.
Does anyone that is in business for themselves that takes their business seriously really want the cheapest of anything they can buy?