Working in web design, i'm constantly visiting other web sites getting ideas. I've found a web site that enables to cut and paste things and keep them available online. pretty interesting. So if i leave my office in Los Angeles to go on vacation i can check my notes remotely. You can find it on ZDnet. It's called Evernote and allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. This extension provides a button and context menus to easily add a selection or an entire page to Evernote. Capture what you like, find it when you want Stop forgetting things. Capture everything now so you will be able to find it all later.

Things to capture:

• Tasks and to-dos
• Notes and research
• Web pages
• Whiteboards
• Business cards
• Scribbles
• Snapshots
• Wine labels

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See what my younger brother wrote today to the Miami Herald which published it as a letter to the editor:

Cut property taxes

Want to immediately stimulate the economy and help desperate, out-of-work contractors, mortgage brokers, bankers, architects, real-estate brokers and countless others?

The government should pass an emergency tax cut on all residential real estate, effective immediately.

Cut the millage rate by half and watch how many people start buying homes. Even at prices down by more than 30 percent, a large percentage of mortgages' monthly payment is property taxes.

It's just that simple.

AVI CIMENT, Miami Beach

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I got this from a great and knowledgeable web security expert Oli Thordarson at Alvaka networks tonight:

 

*** ENSURE MS08-078 IS APPLIED TO ALL WORKSTATIONS AND SERVERS ASAP ***

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-078.mspx

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Take a look at this new wiki from PbWiki.com that gives a nice introduction to the new book (The Unincorporated Man) coming this March from Eytan and Dani Kollin

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Just a quick posting today about this new freeware utility that enables you to zip things up. ZipItFree is designed to be better than WinZip and WinRar combined. While WinZip charges $29.95, ZipItFree is absolutely free. Compress even more with their new Black Hole super compression. Save disk space and e-mail transmission time.Version 1.9 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

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Easily backup, synchronize, or restore your files to another drive, FTP server, ZIP file, networked drive, or removable media. Highly configurable, SyncBack includes: detailed, easy to read log files; email results; simulated backups and restore; file filters; sub-directory selection; copy verification; background backups; auto-close of programs; easy and expert modes; profile groups; compare files, and an extensive context sensitive help file. Version 3.2.10 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

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Just because Windows is not as good as Apple in so many ways doesn't mean Windows can't catch up. here's StartEase2, a windows software utility from www.pcmag.com that totally jacks up the power of your Start menu in both Windows XP and Vista. Very cool especially if you have a lot of programs on your PC.

 The Start menu in Windows XP is a pretty good program launcher, but it easily gets cluttered, making it difficult to navigate. On more than one occasion I've found myself going from menu to menu looking for a specific program without success. Vista's Start menu is an improvement but still isn't very easy to pilot.

In 2006, StartEase was released as an application launcher that solves Windows navigation problem by putting just your programs into an A-to-Z button list. In addition, you can easily search for programs. As soon as you start typing in the search box you'll see a list of matching programs that gets progressively smaller the more you type, narrowing the results.

This update, StartEase 2, offers many enhancements to the original program. These enhancements include:

This is on top of all the great features found in the original StartEase:

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10 web design reasons to attend the Internet Retailers Conference (IRWD) at the all-new Fontainebleau in Miami Beach on June 19-22, 2009. Here are just 10 common design mistakes you’ll learn to avoid at IRWD ’09:  

1. The Home Page Syndrome: You put most of your design resources on the home page and treat product pages as mere information pages—not marketing opportunities. In the session Designing Landing Pages that Sell, you’ll learn that the sale is really made on the product page.




2. A Design Pet That Bites: You fall in love with one design function, using all the cool graphics you can, at the expense of meeting other key objectives, such as simplifying site navigation. In the session called One Site, Many Masters: Accommodating Conflicting Design Objectives, you’ll learn how to please your pet while not overlooking basic rules.




3. Beware the Overbearing Geek: You let your IT professional run wild and dictate design parameters that ignore marketing or merchandising needs. In Programmers Are from Mars, Customers Are from Venus, you’ll learn how to let the customer rule the design roost.




4. Conventional Wisdom Can Be Stupid: You adopt generally accepted design standards but fail to adapt them to how your own customers use your web site. In the session How Your Market Defines Your Design, you’ll learn how to gauge what design elements your customers are looking for.




5. Do It Now—Ask Questions Later: You make a relatively minor change to your design without rigorously testing it. The next thing you know, your online sales are dropping. In the session called The Importance of Testing, you’ll learn how to thoroughly test the impact of design changes.




6. The Don’t Fix What Ain’t Broke Mentality: Your site is working so well you don’t think about redesigning it until it blows up on you. In the session called Is It Time Yet? You will learn how to spot telltale signs that your site is overdue for a do over.




7. Who Are You Anyway: You choose an outside designer to work on your site without checking his/her retail web qualifications or success record. In Choosing the Right Design Partner, you’ll learn how to spot a good retail web site designer before you move forward.




8. The Anything Goes Attitude: You assume that with broadband web access everywhere, you can load up your site with all kinds of images. In Every Byte Counts, you’ll learn otherwise.




9. It’s Just A Store: You think web sites are just like stores and need only products neatly arranged. You forget that non-product content is often what attracts people to a site. You will see what we mean at the session What Engages Shoppers Now—And What Will Engage Them Tomorrow.




10. What Are You—Anti-Social? If your site doesn’t use forums, blogs and reviews, it fails to connect to the community it serves. Retailers in particular miss this, but the session Leveraging Social Technologies Strategically in Your Site Design will set them straight.

Register today at the Internet Retailer Web Design Conference, where you will benefit from the only conference dedicated to retail web site design improvement.

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Courtesy of Jon Leger, here is an outline of an SEO Tactic he shared recently at one of his search engine optimization seminars. It's a really easy strategy that should be in the top 5 of your tactics. Any web design company should be sharing this with their clients. We for sure will be telling some of our local clients in Los Angeles about it because it is so simple to implement.

Leaving contextual comments on other people's blogs is a very solid SEO technique to boost your search engine rankings because of all the links from the comments pointing back to your web site. This process is one of the premier tactics in acquiring backlinks. If you do this the right way, you can really maximize the impact this has on your search engine rankings.

1. Make a priority list of your top 5-10 targeted keyword terms. Each keyword can be used to find related blogs to leave comments on. So the more keywords you have, the more blogs you will be able to find. This of course leads to the catch-22 which is the more you find, the more you have to do. So keep in mind that as John Candy said in Volunteers, Time is Money and Money is power. use your time wisely and you make the most money.

2. Start looking for blogs that come up in Google for each keyword. The point is that if a blog is already highly ranked in Google for your keyword, then you will want to leave a comment on that blog too because a link back to your site from a "ranked blog" is extremely valuable.

3. If you have a "concrete fence" website and are looking to rank high for the term "concrete fence", then find blogs that are already ranking for "concrete fence". the top 10 results are sufficient for each keyword because the further down the list of the results the less valuable a link will be.

4. Consider as well where you link from and where you link to. When you place the comment, make sure to put on the same page that came up in the Google listing. by showing up on that ranked page, you get some of their Google Juice passed along to your site too. It's called semantic linking and is at the heart of successful backlink strategies.

5. Use Google Blog Search directly to find the sites: http://blogsearch.google.com and then offer the sites:

- A link exchange arrangement.
- Purchase a text link (ie. advertising)
- Offer them an article or press release to publish on their sites.
- Leave a blog comment.

6. When you link to your site, you should link either to your home page or directly to an internal page on your site that is specifically related to the keyword you are targeting. this means that the TITLE TAG of the page should have the KEYWORD in the title.

7. To do this continuously, search daily and set the search parameters to show only the results published in the last 12 or 24 hours. To do it weekly, set the search parameters to show only results from the "Past Week". There are also a few "Stay up to date on these results:" options provided by Google at the bottom of the results list.

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I just received this incredibly useful idea via email today to ensure you get the most rapid response and suppport in case of an emergency where you need medical help.

--- Apparently this is a standard procedure all paramedics follow at the scene of an accident when they come across your cell phone.

ICE
- 'In Case of Emergency' We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends.

If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know who to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case
of an emergency? Hence this 'ICE' (In Case of Emergency) Campaign. 
  
The concept of 'ICE' is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As cell (mobile) phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or
persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name 'ICE' (In Case Of Emergency). 
  
The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile   phones with patients, but they didn't know which number to call. He, therefore, thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you have stored as 'ICE.'

For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference!  
Let's spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our Mobile phones today! 
    

  ICE will speak for you when you are not able to. 


http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/icephone.asp

 

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