Ask about our Social Media Presence Management plans! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (info@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Turning Away Customers at Closing Time. Good or Bad? - From <a href="http://www.returncustomer.com/2010/10/13/dont-turn-away-customers/"<Return Customer
Here’s an interesting bit on whether it’s cool to turn away customers if you have already closed up shop or are about to close up shop.
The blog Return Customer says turning away customers is a giant no-no, and even if a last-minute shopper knocks on your door, you have to open it
Naturally, most businesses have to close at the end of the day. If you don’t draw the line somewhere, you’ll turn into a 24-hour business.
Nevertheless, when it looks like you can serve customers, you need to do so. If your store looks “open” to a potential customer, you haven’t set proper expectations.
Now anyone who has worked in any service industry with posted hours knows the loathing that can take over when a shopper is perfectly content to stroll into your business just as you are counting out the register. In this day of crazy access to knowing a shop’s posted hours, it’s pretty easy to avoid the faux pas of walking in at closing time. But, especially in the case of independent shop owners, is it simply bad business to ever turn away someone who might never come back?
via zendesk.com
10 Practices to Speed Up Your Website | Template Monster Blog
10 Practices to Speed Up Your Website
Do you like fast websites? We’re sure you do just like search engines and metrics companies that use website load time as a parameter in their rankings. For website visitors waiting is one of the most annoying things on the web. And if in real life speeding is dangerous for you, in virtual world speed is essential for successful website – lack of speed means death for your website.
Nowadays such factors as user experience and user-friendliness are really important and may determine whether your website will succeed in future or not. We should never forget about our big brother Google which considers website load time as a part of their ranking algorithm.
Below you’ll find some tips and tricks that will give wings to your website. Maybe you’ll be confused about some specific terms but we believe that after spending some time on Wikipedia things will become clear for you. Of course we are always glad to discuss this topic in our comments section.
Parallelize downloads across hostnames
Actually smart usage of this method can give you amazing results. You should remember that most static resources can be parallelized and the main task is to create a balance between all hostnames for all static objects. Anyways the main rule here is that any of your hosts must not serve more than 50%. Remember that the optimal number of hosts is between 2-5 hosts, so don’t misapply it.
Use URL paths instead of hostnames
The main trick behind this problem is that you need to control the number of multiple properties that are hosted on the same domain. The best solution that will help you to unload these properties is assigning them to different URLs but not hostnames. For example if you need to host your blog than make it website.com/blog instead of blog.website.com. This will help you to minimize DNS lookups and allows more efficient use of TCP reconnections that will reduce the number of round trip times.
Optimize images
Everything is simple here – you should choose appropriate type for your images (choose wisely between PNG, GIF and JPG) and don’t forget to use image compressor. Also correct specifying image dimensions (width and height) allows browser to perform faster rendering
Browser and proxy caching
These are best friends for your website – by setting up expiry date you’ll force your browser for downloading the previously downloaded resources from local disk and proxy caching will leave your original remote server in peace by using proxy servers.
Put CSS in the Head
By placing CSS properties blocks in the header of your website you’ll improve rendering performance. Another important thing about CSS is that you should keep in the mind that good old IE is still alive and kicking. This means you may want to avoid using CSS expressions which are good only for IE 5-7 and that other browsers don’t support.
Enable compression
Using gzip or deflate will help you to reduce the number of bytes sent over the network. Data compression for HTML, CSS and JS files are widely supported by modern browsers and sending this content in more compact form helps to reduce download time.
Diminish content of CSS, HTML and JavaScript file
Again, it will help you save some bytes. Also you’ll reduce network latency and improve compression.
Serve scaled images
Scaling the images in a proper way is very useful tool for your website because it reduces the number of unnecessary bytes sent by you.
Take care about requests
Minimize HTTP request size by using server-side storage for most of the cookie payload and removing unused and duplicate cookies. Avoid bad requests such as broken links or 404 pages. Minimize HTTP redirects from one URL to another – this is another way to minimize round trip times.
Correct order of styles and scripts
The correct order will optimize the parallelization of downloads and will improve browser rendering time.
Well, this is about it. Those are only the basic ways for improving your website load time but it is a good set of tools for you to have something to start with. In case you’re interested in digging more deeply please feel free to browse the set of recommendations from Google on page load time issue.
Written by Edward Korcheg
Edward has been with TemplateMonster blog since 2009 and is a great fan of social media and web development trends (especially jQuery and HTML5). In fact, HTML5 along with retro trucks are his two biggest hobbies.
Share this post
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 2:46 am and is filed under DesignFloat, Usability tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
October 27th, 2010 in DesignFloat, Usability tipshttp://blog.templatemonster.com/?p=5908">View Comments
Need help making sense of these terms? Business Remedy is here to help. We provide website enhancement, design, and development. Give us a call 832-261-4113 or email us info@Businessremedy.net
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Drag N’ Drop Those Facebook Photos
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Stealth Android Enterprise Startup 3LM’s $1.5 Million Seed Round And 3 Laws Of Mobility
Most of the apps being developed for Android phones are consumer apps. Yet enterprise apps could be much more lucrative. One startup focusing on enterprise apps for Android is 3LM, a company so stealth that it’s Website is nothing more than a Google Sites landing page with nothing on it but the words “Coming Soon.” The top search result for 3LM links to this question on Quora, which remained unanswered until now.
I’ve been digging around, and found out a little bit about 3LM. It raised a $1.5 million seed round in July from Accel Partners and other investors. The company was founded by Tom Moss and Gaurav Mathur, both ex-Googlers who used to work on the Android team. Moss was in charge of business development for Android, striking many of the deals with handset manufacturers and carriers. Guarav was on the Android engineering team.
It not clear exactly what kind of enterprise apps 3LM is working on, but there is a lot of opportunity there to make existing enterprise apps Android-compatible and then build out new apps as well. When it comes to the mobile enterprise apps, Blackberry is feeling the heat from both Android and the iPhone. Mobile workers increasingly are choosing those smartphones, and putting pressure on their corporate IT departments to support them. The low-hanging fruit seems to be some combination of contact-management, location, and CRM. Startups like NitroDesk are already pursuing that market.
Oh, and I was able to find out one more little detail about the company. 3LM stands for the Three Laws Of Mobility, which is a play on Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, except they are applied to mobile phones instead of robots. The Three Laws of Mobility are
- Protect your user. A mobile device may not harm its user or, through inaction, allow its user to come to harm though malicious code or content.
- Protect yourself. A mobile device must protect itself and the integrity of its data and secured communications.
- Obey. A mobile device must let the user use the device freely, as long as such usage does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Those are laws all mobile apps could live by.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Infographic: How Android Is Taking Over: Tech News «
via gigaom.com
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Quick Tip: How I Personally Create Screencasts with Camtasia
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Paragon Alignment Tool Special Edition is the tool that aligns partitions in a single operation!
Free Deal of the Day. Get it quick. Ask about our $60 per year, no gimmick, 100% USA-Based PC Support! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Facebook Confirms They’re Testing Big Commenting Upgrades; Says More Info Soon
Late last night, the blog All Facebook noticed that Facebook had significantly updated their Comments social plugin. Facebook hadn’t announced the changes, but there they were. And sure enough, today they’ve confirmed that they are testing out some significant updates on their own blogs, and promises that they’ll have more to share shortly.
Here’s Facebook’s full statement:
We’re currently testing a new comments plugin on the Facebook Blog and Facebook Developer Blog that incorporates feedback from users and developers and features around authenticity, social relevance, ranking, and distribution. We’ll have more to share in the coming weeks.
It sounds as if this upgrade is a part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg promises will be a busy few months worth of new things from Facebook. Last week’s new Facebook Groups were the first of those updates, but there will be more.
So what’s new? Comment counts, feedback, threading, voting, and a few other things. It looks as if Facebook is gearing up to enter the commenting space in a serious way.
That won’t be good news to the dozen or so startups working in this space (we use Disqus, for example). Many of those guys rely on Facebook for authentication, and if the new plugin is good enough, some content partners may choose to cut out the middle man, as it were. Apparently, we’ll be hearing more soon.
Information provided by CrunchBase
Ask about our $60 per year, no gimmick, 100% USA-Based PC Support! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Another Video Of Google’s Automated Toyota Prius (On Its Campus) Arrives
Ask about our $60 per year, no gimmick, 100% USA-Based PC Support! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Google Launches Two New Android Apps To Help The Blind Navigate Around Town
They rarely get much press attention, but some of the greatest features to come out of the new era of smartphones are related to accessibility. A few months back, blind iPhone user Austin Seraphin wrote about how the device had changed his life. And with Android, Google is also developing technology to help turn these smart phones into a complementary (albeit still rough) set of senses.
Last week, Google launched two new Android applications related to helping the blind better navigate through town. The applications, which are described in detail on the Eyes-Free Android blog, are meant to help make strolling around town a bit easier.
The first application is called WalkyTalky, and it’s pretty straightforward. Fire it up, and the app will prompt you to enter an address or choose from one of your favorite locations. WalkyTalky will begin reading you walking directions aloud, and, unlike the normal Android navigation app, it will also say the names of street addresses as you walk by to help keep your bearings.
The second applications is the appropriately-named Intersection Explorer. After launching the application, you’ll be presented with an interactive map with your current location at the center. By dragging your finger along the screen, you’ll virtually wander through the area as voice cues call out that your finger is heading “West along Market Street” or has “Moved 90 meters to Taylor and Jackson street”. This way you can learn the lay of the land before setting a foot outdoors.
For more on these two applications, be sure to check out the post on the official blog.
Information provided by CrunchBase
Ask about our $60 per year no gimmick PC Support! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Feel Good Story of the Year: Customers Pay $50,000 to Save Local Coffee House
Smooch coffee house had received the kiss of death.
Investors had just informed its owner Basquali (he goes by one name) that they couldn’t take the acrimony anymore between him and his partner/ex-girlfriend Kalalea (so does she), and had found a buyer for his three-year-old Ft. Greene, Brooklyn café, who were going to turn it into another business. A clause in the shareholders’ contract gave Basquali two weeks to match the $50,000 sales offer, but without the money, nor any prospects of getting it, Smooch was about to be smote.
Basquali, owner of Smooch Cafe in Brooklyn, asked his customers for help when his café's future looked dim.
This was somewhat ironic, since Basquali had opened the café to foster the kind of “community” he relished in his native Australia, where the staff didn’t ask you every day for three years, “What do you want,” (prompting Basquali to want to scream, “The same thing I have every day!”). One day, while riding his bike in the neighborhood, Basquali passed a storefront that looked like an ideal spot for a café, and despite having spent virtually his entire professional life as a photographer and having never worked once in a café, he decided to open his own, with Kalalea.
It seemed like a good partnership. Kalalea was a private chef and Basquali was very detail-oriented. He drew up a 45-page business plan and mapped out everything, down to the hours of operation, the look of the tables, menu items, and what kind of piped-in music to play. The couple raised $70,000 in a week to make the plan a reality, and then, less than three months before Smooch was scheduled to open, Basquali and Kalalea broke up romantically.
The café opened in March 2006, and while the split was amicable, and café business was great, it quickly became obvious that the duo couldn’t peaceably co-exist working together. This led to what Basquali, 46, calls “three years of absolute misery,” after which Kalalea decided she wanted to sell, and the investors agreed.
Um, excuse me, but can I have $50,000?
Aside from being out of a job, Basquali felt that losing the café would constitute a moral loss: after all, his idea of creating community had succeeded. Smooch became a gathering hub for artists, writers, graphic designers, and other creative and business folks in the neighborhood, who lounged in the 30-seat interior, or outside, on the various wicker chairs, couches, and benches that crammed the sidewalk. Customers loved the organic coffee and food, and camaraderie. Folks regularly told Basquali that Smooch meant a lot to them. Now, to save the café, Basquali decided to find out exactly how much it meant:
He decided to ask his most loyal customers to lend him $50,000.
The loan, he told them, would be interest-free for a year. In exchange, they would get free coffee until he paid them back. If they drank a lot of coffee, he explained, they’d be making a “good return” on their investment. Most importantly, it would keep Smooch alive.
Basquali raised the money in 10 days.
‘Smooch Saviors’ to the Rescue
He received the contributions from about a dozen or so “Smooch Saviors,” as they came to be called, and ranged from John Heilemann, author of “Game Change,” the best seller about the 2008 presidential election, who only claimed one cup of coffee during the year, to Ina Howard-Parker and her husband, who live nearby and continue to come to the café several times a week.
Ina Howard-Parker is one of Smooch's 'Saviors.'
“It was the best deal ever,” Howard-Parker laughs. “It felt like highway robbery, especially at four dollars a cup. I felt like a real mafioso. I definitely stayed well-caffeinated.”
Like the other saviors, she wanted to still have a place to come and see friends she’d met there.
True to his word, Basquali paid back his benefactors within the year (frequent coffee imbibers like Howard-Parker got paid back first), and took them all out to dinner “to celebrate the Savior-hood.”
Basquali says he had no qualms about asking customers for the dough because he knew he’d pay them back, they knew he’d pay them back, and quite simply, no one wanted to lose the café.
“’Smooching’ is an intimate act, where people come together,” Basquali says, explaining the inspiration for the café’s name. “That’s what this place is.”
While primarily a “day place,” Smooch is open evenings, serving food and wine, and sometimes has live music on the weekends. Basquali changes the menu roughly every four to five months, with whimsically-named items like the “No Animals Were Harmed During the Making of This Breakfast” breakfast and a sandwich dubbed “The Mysterious WTF.”
Oddly enough, you won’t find the name “Smooch” anywhere on the outside – or the inside – of the coffee house, except for on the menu. Basquali says he never got around to making a sign.
“Besides,” he adds, “People here know that anyone who wants to come here will find it.”
Which, clearly they do.
After all, it’s a “community.”
Smooch is located at 264 Carlton Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205. Phone: (718) 624-4075. Mon.-Wed. 8am-9pm, Thur.-Sun. 8am-late. www.smoochorganic.com
Ask about our $60 per year no gimmick PC Support! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Care.com Raises $20 Million To Connect You To Nannies, Babysitters And Caregivers
Caregiver search portal Care.com has raised $20 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates with participation from existing investors, Matrix Partners and Trinity Ventures. This latest investment brings Care.com’s total funding up to over $36 million.
Care.com allows you to search prescreened profiles of hundreds of thousands of babysitters, nannies, tutors, housekeepers and senior caregivers, both locally and nationally (the site provides local services in over 30 cities in the U.S.). You can also access user reviews of caregivers, background check reports of caregivers and recorded reference interviews. And families find advice from experts and toolsregarding care related issues and topics.
The company plans to use the funding towards growing its network. For example, Care.com will expand its network via corporate and government partnerships; customized senior care service offerings; and, new vertical expansion into pet care, tutoring and housekeeping.
Information provided by CrunchBase
Ask about our $60 per year no gimmick PC Support! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
How To Replace Styrofoam With Mushrooms
Lately at my house we’ve been getting a lot of packages. And with packages, comes styrofoam. My three-year-old loves styrofoam. Me, not so much. He breaks it up and it makes a huge mess. The little bits get everywhere and they are impossible to clean up. I can only imagine that multiplied by 100 million homes in the U.S. alone.
Styrofoam is everywhere, but nobody really thinks about it. It is a $20 billion dollar business in the U.S. and occupies an estimated 25% of the country’s landfill by volume. But Eben Bayer is thinking about it. He is a greentech entrepreneur who recently gave a TED talk
(embedded below) where he describes the problem and what he is trying to do about it. Instead of using styrofoam packaging, which is a petroleum-based plastic that pretty much never goes away, he and his team have come up with a way to use mushrooms and agricultural waste such as seed husks to grow bio-degradable packaging material.
If you think about it, styrofoam really should be replaced with something that is compostable. It generally only has to last during shipping to protect items. But once it arrives at your home, it is the first thing you throw away (if your kids don’t destroy it first). Bayer is the CEO of Ecovative Design
, which literally grows packaging materials from mycelium, a substance found in fungi, and various seed husks. It can be molded into any shape and takes about 5 days to grow.
The big question that remains is how much does this cost, and can it compete with styrofoam at scale?
(Hat tip to Green Thing
)
Website: ecovativedesign.com Location: Green Island, New York, United States Founded: 2007 Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre were fascinated by mushrooms growing on wood chips, and observing how the fungal mycelium strongly bonded the wood chips together. This inspired them to think of new ways of using mycelium as a resin. In a class at… Learn More
Information provided by CrunchBase
via techcrunch.com
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
JanRain Engage Offers Social Publishing For The iPhone
OpenID software creator JanRain is launching a new iPhone SDK today, called JanRain Engage, which allows an app developer’s visitors to sign-in to the app with their existing accounts on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn or other networks and then publish their comments, purchases, reviews or other activities from the app to multiple social networks.
The social networking product, which is available through an SDK, allows developers to choose from a list of up to 12 login providers and specify the order in which they appear via the Janrain Engage dashboard. Janrain Engage will also remembers an app user’s preferred network on return visits and will provide a single-click return experience. And Janrain Engage allows a developer’s iPhone application to authenticate users through iPhone’s native UI.
For app developers, the benefits of integrating a comprehensive social network login product helps create between 6 to 25 new referral visits for each social action a user shares with friends. JanRain also offers an OpenID iPhone technology, which launched earlier this year. The company raised $3.25 million in Series A funding last year.
Information provided by CrunchBase
We can help your business add this to your website. Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support and Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
BerkeleyBionics Gives Paralyzed Woman Her Legs Back
eLEGS is a unique exoskeleton for general consumers designed to allow wheelchair-bound folks to walk. The product, based on some early work at the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering lab. In this video, a nearly paralyzed young woman walks again after 18 years.
The company, BerkeleyBionics, is holding a press conference today at 10:30am PST to reveal some new products. However, I think the video says it all, however. To quote Paul Simon, this is the age of miracles and wonder. It’s quite hard to be cynical about this technology when it can do so much for so many.
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support and Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Hands-on With Fujitsu’s “Social” Teddy Bear Robots
One thing that’s really missing at this year’s CEATEC 2010 exhibition is robots, at least from the bigger companies. One exception is Fujitsu whose so-called “Social Robots” may not look like much from the outside but are actually quite sophisticated. Even though the teddy bear robots sounded pretty creepy (they keep making weird noises, which you can hear in the video embedded below), I was brave enough for a hands-on test.
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Features - Google TV
via google.com
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support and Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Google TV: Will We Care?
Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support and Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Apple vs. the little guy. How sad
Apple (NSDQ:AAPL) is contesting a U.S. district court jury verdict ordering the Cuppertino, Calif.-based company to pay Mirror Worlds Technologies $625.5 million for patent infringements involving technology for displaying files on the iPod, the iPhone and Macintosh computers, according to The New York Times. The lawsuit, filed in 2008, focuses on Apple’s Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow applications. Cover Flow is a central feature of Apple’s computers and mobile devices that allows users to scroll through album covers, photos and other files. Spotlight searches computer hard drives, and Time Machine automatically saves copies of files. Apple lawyers requested the verdict be stayed Sunday in an emergency motion, saying Mirror Worlds Technologies is seeking three times the appropriate compensation, which should be $208.5 million per patent, The New York Times reported. In the past, they argued that the patent had not been infringed. Apple's lawyers said that Mirror Worlds Technologies had been sold for $210,000 and, later, $5 million and thus the patents were not worth more. U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis, of United States District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, asked both parties to submit arguments on the merits of the verdict award. The verdict is one of the largest patent awards on record. Apple's worth in cash and securities is an estimated $45.8 billion. Mirror Worlds Technologies was founded by David Gelernter, a Yale University computer science professor who suffered serious injuries in 1993 after opening a package mailed to him Theodore Kaczunski, the Unabomber terrorist. **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Ask about our free PC Check! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support and Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Togetherville Helps Parents, Kids, And Schools Connect With New ‘Communities’ Feature
via techcrunch.com
Ask about our free PC Check for every customer! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support and is here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Untitled
Document revision history, in-cell dropdown, and more new features in Google Apps
Over the last few weeks, we launched some exciting new updates that make it even easier for business users to create and collaborate on to Google Sites, Google documents, and Google spreadsheets.
- In Google documents, we launched a new revision history interface which lets you easily see what changes have been made to a document. Changes are color-coded based on each collaborator, so it’s clear who did what. You can click on a time stamp in the right column to see what changes were made at a given time, or use the arrow keys to quickly scan through many revisions. To learn more about revisions history, see the Google Docs blog.
- We’ve also made it easier to anticipate the changes other real-time co-editors are about to make in Google documents. Text that another editor is selecting is highlighted, so you’ll know if someone may be about to delete or drag that block of text.
- In addition we’ve recently added six new web fonts in Google documents: Droid Serif, Droid Sans, Calibri, Cambria, Corsiva, and Consolas. These web fonts are stored in the cloud rather than on your particular computer, so you aren’t limited to the set of common fonts that most people have installed on their computers.
- In Google Spreadsheets, we’ve improved the import function with more options for your imported data. For example, when importing a .csv file, you can create a whole new spreadsheet, append data to the current sheet, add a new sheet to your existing spreadsheet or even replace your entire spreadsheet with the data you’re uploading. We also added a preview pane so you can see how the imported data will look in your spreadsheet.
- Google spreadsheets also now has in-cell dropdown and data validation. This makes it easy to constrain the values of an individual cell to a specific range or list, reducing unnecessary typing and data entry errors. For example, if you are planning a business trip, you can limit the options in the travel destination column to only allow a certain set of city names.
- You can create dropdown options in individual cells through the data validation tool, which lets you pull data from a range of cells in your sheet or by creating a custom list. For more information on data validation and in-cell dropdowns in Google spreadsheets, head to the Google Docs blog.
- Lastly, Google spreadsheets now offers new printing options including selection printing, which lets you print a highlighted area in your spreadsheet, and the option to not print the cell gridlines if you want to save on ink.
- Organizing your site’s hierarchy of pages is an important part of using Google Sites. To make it faster and easier to change the structure of your site, now you can drag and drop pages to change the hierarchy.
As with all updates in Google Apps, users get access to new features each time they open their browsers, and improvements roll out to customers with no need for administrators to manage patches or install software. Stay tuned for more updates to Google Docs and Google Sites.Sunday, October 3, 2010
Microsoft’s Ballmer: Android Isn’t Really Free — You Have To Pay Us For Patents
Perhaps you’ve heard that Microsoft is about to re-enter the smartphone fray with their new Windows Phone 7 phones in a few weeks. While Microsoft’s unique mobile OS makes it an interesting entry into the space, there is no shortage of thought that they may already be too late to a market dominated recently by Google, Apple, and RIM. And since Microsoft’s strategy for the new phones seems to be go after Android head-on, you have to wonder how on Earth they’re going to get away with continuing to charge a licensing fee for their software when Android is free? But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sees things a bit differently.
“It’s not like Android’s free,” Ballmer told WSJ in an interview this weekend about Windows Phone 7. “Android has a patent fee,” he said. “You do have to license patents,” he continued.
So Ballmer’s stance is that while Google may not charge a licensing fee for Android, there is a hidden free — one compliments of none other than Microsoft.
Ballmer noted that HTC recently signed an agreement with his company to grant them rights to patents for things they wish to do with Android. A few days ago, Microsoft sued Motorola, clearly attempting to get them to sign a similar deal.
It’s interesting that Microsoft has yet to sue Google for Android, and instead they are focusing on the OEM partners. It’s also interesting that HTC is also making Windows Phone 7 phones right out of the gate, while Motorola has said they won’t be working with Microsoft on phones until next year at the earliest. Instead, they’re focusing on Android. So this lawsuit is purely coincidental, I’m sure.
In other words, this is all political nonsense and a pathetic play by Microsoft.
The software giant hasn’t been successful in mobile phones, so they’re attempting to ride on Google’s coattails with some software patents. Those patents may very well be legit — it’s not exactly clear what they are — but this is a great example of why software patents in general seem to be pretty much a load of crap.
Where has Microsoft been the past couple of years with these suits? I’ll tell you where: waiting to spring this on OEMs when they had their own device out there that they need to gain traction against Android. Microsoft is giving phone makers a choice: pay us to use our software, or pay us to use Google’s software. Or pay your lawyers to fight us in court. (Motorola is apparently choosing the latter — no doubt at Google’s urging.)
When WSJ suggested to Ballmer that the licensing fees aren’t even that big of a financial opportunity for Microsoft, he seemed to get defensive. “It’s one of the opportunities. One,” he said. Okay, then why not just make your software free as well and fight Google on the grounds of better execution, rather than with litigation?
[photo: flickr/aanjhan]
This is a bad way to do business. Ask about our free PC Check for every customer! Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support and is here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (Sales@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)