Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Blippy Users Sharing More Than $500K In Purchases Per Day

Users on Blippy, the controversial service which lets you share purchases and purchase prices with your friends, are sharing $500,000 in purchases per day, according a Tweet posted by co-founder Philip Kaplan.

Report: Twitter Crushing Facebook's Click-Through Rate

What is the most effective way for marketers to spread their message online? Facebook? Twitter? Company blogs? Email?

How Windows 7 Phones Use Apple and RIM's Powers Against Them

At a launch event today, Microsoft showed how it's using two secret weapons to challenge Apple and RIM's smartphone dominance--ideas it co-opted from them. Business app integration inspired by the BlackBerry, and AT&T's U-Verse to take on Apple TV.

Windows Phone 7: Solid Platform, Sorry Future

Oh Microsoft. I feel for you. Windows Phone 7 might have been a huge hit. It might have been the true iPhone killer. It might have even become the dominant mobile platform. But it won’t. It’s an iOS, Android and BlackBerry world now and there isn’t room for anyone else.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

How to Write Great Content for the Web?

How to write for the web? Whether you’re a web designer tasked with creating a website, a business owner trying to flesh out what content to put on your site, a blogger writing for your many followers, or a geek with something important to share, there’s something important you should know – the average person’s retention level on the internet is much lower than when reading something printed.

HipLogic Launches *Spark, A Social Home Screen For Smartphones

Mobile application platform HipLogic is launching a new platform today at DEMO, called Spark. While many of HipLogic’s applications are designed to jazz up non-smartphone devices, *Spark aims to give smartphones the ultimate home screen experience. The free app is launching to Android and Nokia phones today.

Monday, October 4, 2010

25 Basic Styles of Blogging: When To Use Each One?

There are a more than a million blogs one can visit today and find relevant interesting articles to read almost every minute. But there aren't enough minutes in a day to spend search the most relevant articles to suit your reading tastes.

Similarly, its extremely difficult for the bloggers to find their niche and understand their readers' expectations at first and then build a relationship that could last for a long time.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Today?

Remember three years ago, when Microsoft paid a quarter-billion dollars for 1.6% of Facebook and the exclusive right to run banner ads across Facebook.com? Tell the truth, how many of you thought that was a killer business decision? I can’t say I did at the time. But as that deal is about to expire in 2011, Facebook’s status as a revenue juggernaut is rarely questioned any more.

Assessing the PlayBook's threat to the iPad

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet ostensibly has one sizable advantage over the iPad. That is, of course, if RIM delivers and Apple doesn't respond.

25 Cool Windows 7 Keyboard Tricks That Will Impress Your Friends

Anyone working professionally with a computer has their hands on the keyboard most of the time. Reaching for the mouse can be an annoying disturbance and personally I often turn over my mouse in such situations. An easy solution is to simply keep the hands on the keyboard and complete as many tasks as possible with keyboard shortcuts only.

Top 6 Google Search Secrets

If you’re a typical Internet user, you access Google several times a week, if not several times a day. As a typical user, you also don’t use a tenth of Google’s search power—which means you’re not searching as effectively or as efficiently as you could.

100 Best Photoshop Tutorials of All Time that Yield Professional Results

Photoshop tutorials are one of the most popular subjects on the web, as the digital art community continues to grow and new designers bring their unique skills. However, quality Photoshop tutorials that teach you a useful effect, have a quality finished result and are well explained are harder to find, and with the large number of tutorial sites available, it can be hard to sort the quality from the mundane.

Top 10 iOS Jailbreak Hacks

If you've purchased an iOS device, you've also signed up for its many limitations. Jailbreaking can put you back in control. Here are ten great jailbreak hacks to help you customize and better utilize your iOS device.

Social Shopping Heats Up On Facebook

For a while now, social shopping has been heating up as the Next Big Thing on Facebook. I’ve written recently about Amazon’s implementation of Facebook Connect, the launch of two new products from FatWallet, and even the fact that social shopping apps both won and placed in the recent Facebook Hackathon in Palo Alto.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Complete Guide to Maximizing Your Android Phone’s Battery Life

You’re no doubt reading this article because you’ve got a shiny new Android phone, but there’s just one problem: you’re so addicted that the battery runs out on a daily basis. Instead of putting the phone down, let’s maximize the battery life.

75 Awesome Free and Premium Portfolio Themes for WordPress

Showcasing creative work online is very important for designers, photographers etc. to build reputation and attract new customers. It turns out that WordPress even though it initially was designed for bloggers have become the number one and most popular platform for building portfolio sites. The ease of use of WordPress, the high number of excellent portfolio style themes and plugins available for building a professional portfolio web site makes the decision easy.

Design for Mobile: The One Billion Dollar iPhone App

In her talk on Designing a billion dollar user experience at Design for Mobile in Chicago IL, Karlyn Neel talked about eBay's success in mobile e-commerce and provided a number of tips for creating great transactional mobile applications.

Read more at LukeW.com

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Designing the iPhone User Experience

Any company that claims their product will change my life is greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism. Sure, several purchases have had a significant impact on my life over the years, but only a few were life-changing. My first car gave me the freedom to explore my suburban community without my parents knowing my every move.

The Importance Of Wireframes In Web Design And 9 Tools To Create Wireframes

Designing wireframes the right way the first time costs no more than doing it the wrong way. Creating a paper prototype adds no cost either; simply print out the wireframe diagrams for the pages a visitor will use to complete the tasks most closely related to achieving his goals and meeting the site's business objectives.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Survey: Android's Future Bright, iOS Interest Still Strong

Makers of mobile apps think that Google's Android operating system has a better long-term outlook than Apple's iOS, according to a survey conducted by Appcelerator of the developers that use its app-building tools. But the news isn't exactly grim for Apple, as developers polled by Appcelerator continue to be heavily interested in creating apps that run on the iPhone and iPad.

Sony Ericsson Preps Micro Display for Android

Sony Ericsson has unveiled a remote control with a 1.3-inch screen that will allow Android smartphone users to view Facebook and Twitter updates and control their phone's music player.

With Kindle App, Amazon Buys the Blackberry PlayBook Hype

Amazon is picking winners and losers in smartphones and tablets, and it's already deemed the Blackberry PlayBook a winner by promising a Kindle app.

Google Labs: 5 New Tools to Try Now

Google Labs--the area Google reserves for applications and tools not yet ready for primetime--is constantly dishing up new features for all of us to try.

The BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet: 10 Things You Need to Know

The BlackBerry tablet is here, and it looks astoundingly nice. Nicer than anybody expected it to be. Here's what you need to know about the PlayBook, in 10 easy steps.

BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Targets Business Users

RIM confirmed rumors of a tablet by introducing the BlackBerry PlayBook, a powerful 7-inch device that will offer a dual-core 1GHz processor, full HTML 5 browser, Flash 10.1 with video acceleration, 1 GB of RAM, 1080p playback with HDMI output and two HD cameras, all built atop the QNX operating system.

Infographic: History of classroom technology, from the writing slate to the electronic tablet

Check out an interesting infographic at NYTimes that lets you explore how classroom technology has evolved over a period of time in history.

RIM Unveils PlayBook Tablet as BlackBerry Maker Chases IPad

Research In Motion Ltd., whose BlackBerry smartphone rose to prominence on Wall Street, is now targeting business customers with a tablet computer to compete with Apple Inc.’s iPad and add a fresh source of revenue.

How To: Solve A Rubik’s Cube In Under A Minutes

Rubik’s Cubes are a huge deal in my house. My son and I each have several and we work on them on and off all the time. I’ve never before been able to completely solve a Rubik’s cube and since I don’t give up when I can’t figure something out… well… let’s just say I’ve been working on my original Rubik’s Cube for years and years.

App Inventor for Android

You can build many different types of apps with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like MoleMash or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone.

Ready to ditch paper? Here are the 10 best e-readers

According to Amazon, ebook sales have already surpassed hardback book sales and will surpass paperbacks sometime in 2011, and then both hardback and paperback combined sometime shortly thereafter. That’s a much faster timeline than most of us expected and it speaks to how fast the e-reader market is accelerating.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Facebook, Twitter ask consumers to protect themeselves

Want to socialize and bank safely online? Be prepared to be your own best bodyguard.

With self-replicating spamming worms proliferating on popular social sites, officials at Facebook and Twitter say they've come to rely heavily on users to help them police postings. This follows a trend set by the banking industry, which now relies heavily on customers to keep themselves safe while banking online.

Five Best Presentation Creation Tools

Gone are the days when presentations are limited to poster boards you can haul into the conference room, and you've also got more options than the de facto office suite provides. Here's a look five of the most popular presentation creation tools.

8 Things You Didn't Know About Mark Zuckerburg

We all know the story of the nerdy billionaire who allegedly screwed over his real friends on the way to making about 500 million new “friends.” But The New Yorker has recently published an incredibly in depth article on Mark Zuckerberg just before movie producer Kevin Spacey can tell his side of the story.

Here are 8 Things You Didn’t Know About Mark Zuckerburg…"

Read more at Under30CEO.com

15 Reasons To Love Twitter!

When I started to use Twitter in 2008, it was not as popular as it is today. Just imagine in my country it is now no. 5 in terms of popularity. Back in 2008, no one really knew that it would grow so big. People thought that it was just a fad that would soon die down. Now, in 2010, it is still growing and at a much faster rate.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Facebook Now Worth More Than Dell, eBay, Yahoo or Starbucks... on Paper

Did you know that Facebook is worth more than Research in Motion, Starbucks, Dell, Yahoo, Adobe, Intuit or eBay? That’s according to a wide variety of investments and valuations that have shot Facebook’s stock into the stratosphere.

Facebook Gives A Post-Mortem On Worst Downtime In Four Years

Facebook’s had a rough day. In fact, it’s had its worst day performance-wise in over four years, with 2.5 hours of downtime that resulted in countless complaints from users. Perhaps more important, it also had a bevy API problems, and its Like buttons — which are embedded on over 350,000 sites across the web — were apparently busted too. When Facebook goes down, it’s a big deal.

Apple readying production of smaller, lighter 11.6-inch MacBook Airs?

Apple is destined to revamp its super-slim, but soft-selling MacBook Air as early as this fall, wrapping the new model around an LED-backlit display that's nearly two inches smaller than the model available today, according to sources in Taiwan.

5 Ways to Use Google Voice for Your Business

Google Voice, which the search giant introduced in 2009, recently became freely available to everyone in the United States. Even though the service hasn't dramatically changed since then, it's still very useful to those that run small businesses, because it can give them an extra edge and make professional life much easier -- at least, it can if you know how to use it.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

10 Best Features of iPhone

iPhone has several best features present in it that can make the users happy. iPhone is certainly not the first touch screen phone or the first smart phone in the market. But it is one of the best executed ones up to date. It has been a revolutionary phone having attracted users from all parts of the world. A lot of new features have been added in the latest version of the iPhone, which is the iPhone 4. Out of the ‘many’ features present in the iPhone, let us see about a few of them in this post.

Read more at Tech4World.net

AIType: Fixes Your English As You Type, Helps You Write Gooder

Writing is hard. Just ask anyone. Stringing words together, spelling them right, and ensuring you follow rules of grammar and propriety are the blue-collar labor of the intelligentsia. So say you want to send an email to someone who speaks a language other than the one you speak? Do you go out and spend years to learn that language and then report back, ready to splatter out idiom and tricks of usage like an old pro? Absolutely not. You use something like AIType.

Surprising Facts About Online Education

Online education is quickly becoming a prominent and important piece of the education pie in the United States. The explosive growth of this segment of education, even during a recession, is nothing short of spectacular. It is becoming clear that there is a fundamental shift in how Americans are being educated after high school. The flexibility, lower cost, and variety of choice are just some of the reasons that online education is growing at its current pace. The following infographic will give you a better idea of the scope, impact, and future of online education. Enjoy! Read more at DegreeScout.com

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Side-by-side: Flip UltraHD vs. iPhone 4: Video

Is the iPhone 4 a Flip killer? That’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves ever since Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the latest iPhone generation with HD recoding capability in June. Well, it looks like Cisco’s line of consumer camcorders isn’t going down without a fight. The company has just released an update to its device lineup, and its top-of-the-line camcorders now feature 720p HD recording at 60 frames per second, as well as image stabilization. The iPhone 4 on the other hand allows recording of 720p at 30 fps.

Technology Review India: Why Google Went Instant

Last week, Google rolled out a major change to its search engine's interface. American users, and some users in other countries, began to see the results for their Google searches appear onscreen while they were still typing. For example, if you type 'b' into Google's search box, you might see the results of a Google search for 'bank of america' appear below the box, along with a sponsored link from Bank of America. Keep typing until you have 'bat' in the search box, and the results could suddenly change to match a search for 'batman.'

Facebook Has Quietly Implemented A De-Facto Follow Feature

A few days ago, Facebook made what seemed to be a small tweak to its Friend Requests area. As first noted by Inside Facebook, the social network changed the way friend rejections work. Previously, you could either Confirm or Ignore (deny) a request. Now, Ignore has been replaced by “Not Now”. This new option takes some of the pressure of you having to reject people as it instead moves them into a state of limbo, where they’re neither accepted nor rejected. But it actually does a lot more as well.

paper.li – read Twitter as a daily newspaper

paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag.

A great way to stay on top of all that is shared by the people you follow - even if you are not connected 24/7 !

Checkout my paper at http://paper.li/manojwadhwa

Google Fights Censorship with Transparency Report

Google has launched Transparency Report, a set of tools including an interactive map that shows which governments have asked for information about users or requested Google to censor or take down content in a certain time frame.

Facebook Launches ‘Check-In’ Service to Connect People in Real Space

Facebook announced a new Places product Wednesday evening that will let users check-in from a mobile device, see who is around them, let friends or the public know where they are, and find interesting, new places.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Nokia E5 Review | Mobile Phones | CNET UK

Like the cheaper C3, the Nokia E5 is an attempt by the Finnish veteran company to encroach on BlackBerry's territory.

Apple Talk: Why Steve Jobs made a Flash U-turn | Page 2 | CIO Insights | silicon.com

COMMENT ...have been deployed to the marketplace, there have been over 6.5 billion downloads and Apple has handed out over $1bn to developers in app revenues. Apple has also shifted a fair few iOS devices.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

Microsoft today released the first beta of Internet Explorer 9. Coming after four developer-oriented preview releases, the new browser brings a streamlined user interface and a core that is more standards-compliant—and orders of magnitude faster—than any previous version of Internet Explorer.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Flowella: Easily Create Design & Interaction Prototypes

Flowella is an easy to use tool that enables designers and developers to create design and interaction prototypes — without writing a line of code.

Get Company Intelligence from Workstreamer : Business Collaboration News

We’re all being inundated with information. Tools that help us filter that mass of data can be useful, and those that filter well can become indispensable. Workstreamer, an app currently in public beta, is a “social CRM” tool that can help you keep track of significant news and social media mentions of your customers, prospects, suppliers, and vendors, as well as your own company. Unlike Gist, a tool that we’ve blogged about in the past, Workstreamer focuses on providing information about companies, not individuals.

Useful Google Bookmarklets

I've always been a fan of bookmarklets, small pieces of JavaScript code saved as bookmarks in your browser. Often they provide features only available if you install a plug-in and they're pretty easy to backup.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Apple lifts restrictions on Flash development for iPhone

Months after rewriting its iPhone developer agreement to effectively ban cross-compiler translation tools like Adobe Systems' Flash Professional CS5, Apple said it (NASDAQ:AAPL) will ease restrictions on the creation of iOS-based applications. 'We are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code,'

The HTML5 test - How well does your browser support HTML5?

The HTML5 test score is only an indication of how well your browser supports the upcoming HTML5 standard and related specifications. It does not try to test all of the new features offered by HTML5, nor does it try to test the functionality of each feature it does detect.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Dell's Atom-powered Inspiron Duo: 10-inch netbook / tablet hybrid

Boy, did Dell show just off the craziest device on stage at Intel's IDF 2010 day two keynote. What started as a tablet device converted to a netbook just by opening to the keyboard and literally swiveling the screen from within the frame.

Reserve Your About.me Page

About.me is a new place where you can create splash-page style one-page websites for your online profile. Your about.me page can have your picture, your bio and links to your various social profiles and your websites /blogs.

Embedr: Create Video Playlists and Embed Them Anywhere

Embedr is a free service that lets anyone create a custom playlist of videos from the top video sites on the web. Now start building that playlist of gameplay videos from the IGN top 100 games that are spread throughout YouTube, MySpace, Vimeo, DailyMotion and more.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Top 5 OSes to Leverage Cloud Computing

Due to cloud computing, anyone can perform routine computer tasks anywhere, at any time, without installing applications. All users need a computer with operating system installed, connection to the internet and a compatible web browser; available at just about any coffee shop, library or other public places.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Resources: Excellent Visual Cheat Sheets for Web Developers

As Wikipedia describes it, "a cheat sheet or crib sheet is a concise set of notes used for quick reference.", a cheat sheet indeed is a great reference to web developers and designers alike.
Be it a reference to some syntax, markup, APIs or even keyboard shortcuts, visual cheat sheets are definitely productivity enhancers.

Whether you are a newbie or an advanced programmer, cheat sheets will help you simplify your tasks alike. Though there are tons of cheat sheets available online, I have listed below the most useful ones.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Interesting Video: Demonstration - Chinese Multiplication Technique

An interesting video, that has recently surfaced on YouTube and is doing rounds on Facebook too, shows a demonstration of multiplying small and big numbers easily using quite a unique technique. This Chinese technique appears to be quite effective even with the big numbers though it would need a bit of practice.

Checkout the video below to see a few examples.


Friday, August 6, 2010

10 Reasons Why You Should Jailbreak Your iOS Device Today

The cat and mouse game between Apple and the iOS hacker community took an interesting turn this week, with the return of a simple, one-click jailbreak that hasn’t been seen since the early days of the iPhone’s existence (iPhone OS 1.1.1, to be exact). Now that it’s so easy to do--and so easy to undo with a simple restore--we have a list of the top ten reasons you should go jailbreak your device, right now. Or, you know, right after you read this article first.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Google will soon stop Wave(ing)

Not a long time back, Google Wave was introduced to the developer community that was full of awe at the new technological wonder Google had just invented. Or had just reinvented something considering the fact that it had weaved together a couple of existing technologies like chat, email, collaboration, etc. and launched it as a futuristic communication tool. If you are new to Google Wave then you may read another article titled Google Wave for a quick jumpstart.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A wireframe can be used to sell a future app

Along with the growing market of mobile devices such as Apple´s iPhone or the iPad, web and mobile applications are booming. In such a competitive environment, a well-planned app is most definitely key to success ....

Read more at Wireframes.org

5 Google Labs Projects That Should Be On Your Radar

Have you checked out Google Labs lately? If not, it's worth a peek. The area, reserved for application and tool prototypes not yet ready for primetime, houses some cool (and crazy) ideas. Past alumni include Google Alerts, the Google Docs suite and Google Reader. Check out these five Google Labs experiments that we'd like to see go mainstream in 2010. Which ones are already on your radar?

Read more at CIO.com

First Web-based Jailbreak for iPhone 4 arrives; here's how to do it

A scant 17 days after Apple released the iOS 4.0.1 update, a Web-based jailbreak is available for the iPhone 4. The problem is that the server — at JailbreakMe.com is slammed as of this writing and it’s difficult to get through.

Monday, August 2, 2010

iPad, iPhone 4, Flip MinoHD & more at your finger tips now

Do you have a long wish list of gadgets you are waiting to buy but cannot as they are not released in the local market yet? Or you are waiting patiently for a friend, who may or may not oblige, to bring your favorite electronics on his return from US.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Easily test, build and share Regular Expressions with RegExr

Ever felt the need to use complex regular expressions but couldn’t give it a try either due to paucity of time or because sheer lack of patience. Not any more. gSkinner.com has a real time regular expression builder called RegExr that you can use to try, build & share expressions online.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Awesome Infographic: Facebook Facts & Figures (history & statistics)

Facebook history, milestones, user activity statistics, top 10 countries, top 10 Facebook pages at Facebook Facts & Figures (history & statistics) by Website Monitoring.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Apple did it again, introduced Magic TrackPad

Not a long time back, Apple had introduced Magic Mouse which not only looks awesome but is very efficient too. Recently, Apple announced another product called Magic TrackPad which works quite like your laptop's trackpad however it's primarily targeted at the desktop users.

To read more, please read this article at Gizmodo.

How to restore keyboard shortcuts in MS Word 2007?

The biggest feature which each one of us loves is the option to undo the changes be it documents or drawing applications or even file management. And using CTRL+Z keyboard shortcut is what we enjoy more than typing, right? Sounds right, until it does what it is expected to do.


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

65 Beautiful Free Fonts for Web and Graphic Designers

Just came across an article, at Artatm, that lists some fabulous yet free downloadable fonts. Do take a look at each of the fonts before downloading though. Enjoy the fontastic treat :)

Thanks Artatm for putting up such a collection!!

Web browsers that support HTML5 video

ToThePC has shared a short and nice article about the web browsers that support HTML5 video. Though some of these are still in their beta version, you can still give it a try. Hit this link below to read more.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

How to display related posts in your Blogger blog?

Showing related posts is a must have feature in your blog today as readers are always interested in seeing more without having to manually search for content. I also wanted my readers to be able to find related content easily and hence started the search for a service or a widget that could automatically display related posts in a neat presentable format.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Wanna 'Rock Your Firefox'?


One reason I switched from IE to Firefox was its tabbed interface and later fell in love with it due to the loads of add-ons available free. These add-ons, though they make Firefox a bit sluggish, have proved to be the biggest boon not only for the users but also for Firefox.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Now access Facebook from MS Outlook

Recently, Microsoft announced an enhancement to its Outlook Social Connector (OSC) thereby giving Outlook users integrated access to Facebook and other social & professional networks right from your favorite mail client. The updates from your networks are presented in a neatly docked panel which regularly refreshes the subscribed feeds (connections).

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Enjoy the ride with ‘Lal Dabba’

This time around, I will be taking you through an altogether different ride called ‘Lal Dabba’ which is a very cute blog maintained by a few of my ex-colleagues and their friends. Lal Dabba, in my words, is a tribute to the Maharashtra’s state-wide bus service which we all know as ST (short for State Transport) run by MSRTC. The fellow bloggers have captured the ST buses of all shapes, sizes, colors & conditions in their naked glory very nicely.

Timeline of Web Browsers

Just came across an excellent inforgraphic at Wikipedia which showcases the evolution of various web browsers in a neat timeline illustration. The multiple timeline display each browser's journey (read version change) over a period of last two decades.

It's absolutely interesting to see some of the late entrants like Google Chrome, which has made a bigger impact on the browser share, along with some veterans like Opera which has a decent user base but is not in the top slot yet. Though Opera Mobile is a fantastic browser which has a wide presence and a huge fan following I would say. But it's sad that Lunascape isn't there in the list.

It would have been even more interesting to see other related information like browser-wise market share, platform support, HTML/CSS/JS version support, etc.

Lunascape: Combination of Safari, Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera

As the name itself suggests, Lunascape is definitely a futuristic browser that is not just unique but is absolutely feature rich too. The reason I am calling it futuristic is that it provides you with all the three popular browser engines (namely Gecko, Webkit, and Trident) in a single browser interface. Well, these engines are the cores that power our popular browsers like IE, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Dive Into HTML 5 with Mark Pilgrim

Mark Pilgrim takes you through a HTML 5 deep diving experience with his elaborately documented tutorial at Dive Into HTML 5. Here he has explained the new features & APIs in great detail along with a brief explanation for related concepts. I strongly recommend this tutorial to everyone who is interested in learning more about HTML5.

Mark, thanks for such a wonderful book and wish you a great success!!

Friday, July 16, 2010

HTML5 in a nutshell

Those who have not yet dived deep into HTML5 but have been hearing a lot of buzz about it can take a quick look at an amazing infographic released by Focus by hitting the link below.

This neatly designed graphic (see the link below) will introduce you to —
  • new features of HTML5
  • readiness of the top internet browsers
  • comparison vis-a-vis Adobe Flash
WTF is HTML5 (Infographic)

Thursday, July 15, 2010

10 Excellent Tools for Creating Web Design Wireframes

10 Excellent Tools for Creating Web Design Wireframes | Tools

Useful Tools for Testing Cross Browser Compatibility

Useful Tools for Testing Cross Browser Compatibility | Tools

Tips & Tricks: How to clean Word generated HTML?

While trying to create tabulated content for one of my articles, I realized that the blogger doesn't have an option to create tables. Then I thought of hand-coding the HTML markup for the table and style it using CSS styles but I knew that would be an expensive effort. So I opted for the obvious solution - our very own MS Word which does a fantastic job when it comes to creating & formatting content for any kind of documentation one can think of.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

LMS vs CMS vs LCMS

A lot many times you would have noticed learning professionals using terms like LMS, CMS & LCMS interchangeably; referring to LMS when they actually talk about CMS and vice-versa. Sure, there is a bit of a confusion still around and most of us will continue to be puzzled as these jargon not just rhyme well but also have a lot of similarities in terms of their offerings and domain they belong to.

Friday, July 9, 2010

HTML5: A Quick Introduction

HTML5? Why should one be interested in knowing the HTML's version anyways? You must be wondering as to why should you or anyone be concerned about HTML when we are usually focused on .Net, JAVA, Flash, Flex, etc. Continue reading to find the answer and you will realize what HTML5 has in store for us and why we should be looking forward to it. Don't worry if you are not a developer as this article primarily focuses on HTML5's offerings and not on the syntax or the markup, etc.

Is your content readable?

Ever wondered what we write is easy to understand or is too complex for our target audience. Lot of people have a flair for writing and some are professionally involved in creating content either for a blog, news article, training material, etc. Whatever the need maybe, we do keep the target audience in mind and create our content accordingly by following some guidelines & checklists. However there are certain readability standards which can really help you as well as your readers connect even better by helping you write content that they will easily comprehend.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

In Agile, development & testing is a collaborative effort

I am new to Agile but have been reading a lot about Agile lately and suddenly it has become a buzzword for me. Not that I had not heard about it before but it’s only recently that I am actively following it by way of group discussions, reading articles, etc. In fact, a lot of understanding has come purely from sharing real-life issues that we face in our projects and then by discussing the same issues in the Agile context. In other words, we do a ‘what if’ analysis of the issue thereby enlightening ourselves on how Agile could address the issues posed by traditional development methodologies like ‘Waterfall’.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Prototype vs Wireframe | Factors to consider

As we all know that wireframes are good for capturing unstructured requirements and they provide a window where such requirements can be best fitted in. Whereas, prototypes are like WYSIWYG tools i.e., brings you more closer to the end behavior of the system, since they can showcase layouts, look'n'feel and also interaction points.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Touch Magic

We have seen & have also probably used many touch-screen devices like phones, kiosks, etc since so long. And everyone surely owns a 'mouse' as well to click, double-click or to scroll through our daily PC experience. Now combine both, touch-screen & mouse, into a single product and you get what? Come on, a touch-screen mouse of course :) Doesn't it sound like an incredible product?

Friday, January 8, 2010

Sketchpad - A Google Chrome Experiment

Some artistic experiments with an excellent Google Chrome experiment called Sketchpad; a HTML5 & Javascript based web application which works well with Firefox also. I am proud of the results but more than that I am proud about the team behind Sketchpad.

Comparison | Internet Speed (Source: Digg)

Ever wondered how well does your broadband speed compare with others in the neighborhood. We often do such comparisons but checkout the graphic below which shows a high-level comparison of broadband penetration, cost, speed, etc. across the world.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Designing Wireframes | Using Axure RP Pro

A lot many times when we are gathering the requirements from the customer or when we are transitioning the knowledge to the team or even brainstorming, we feel the need to create wireframes, either static or working wireframes for more clarity & bringing common understanding. In situations like these, we look back at our HTML experts or the graphics team to create some UI mockups, etc.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Google Search: Interesting Bites (Part I)

Not sure if you have noticed the recent changes on Google’s home page. The change is simple, minimalistic and a very good change indeed. If you hop on to Google’s webpage, you usually starting typing in the keywords you want to see the results for and usually we tend to overlook other elements on the home page; except for the constantly changing Google logo. Partly, the reason is/was that the Google has stuck to a minimalistic UI while providing maximum to the user. They have taken this one step ahead towards being simply simple.