On Tuesday, Google released a major new version of the Chrome browser to its stable channel, available for Windows, the Mac and Linux. A new tab synchronization feature in the new version 19 of the browser is drawing some buzz, and you can watch how this feature works here. However, it’s also notable that version 19 fixes 20 significant bugs, improving the browser’s security. Google remains focused on security with Chrome, because that’s the key to winning over IT departments at businesses, many of which favor market-leading Internet Explorer from Microsoft.
According to the Google Chrome Blog:
“[Now] when you’re signed in to Chrome, your open tabs are synced across all your devices, so you can quickly access them from the ‘Other devices’ menu on the New Tab page. If you’ve got Chrome for Android Beta, you can open the same recipe tab right on your phone when you run out to the store for more ingredients. The back and forward buttons will even work, so you can pick up browsing right where you left off…Open tabs aren’t the only things that sync when you sign in to Chrome. Signing in to Chrome also syncs your bookmarks, apps, extensions, history, themes, and other settings. That way, when you sign in to Chrome, you can have your personal Chrome experience on all your devices.”
It was all the way back in August when Google announced plans for its biggest acquisition ever, agreeing to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Since then, shareholders and regulators around the world have signed off on the arrangement, but China has remained the sticking point for Google to move ahead with the final deal. One thing that every analyst agrees on once the deal goes through is that it will kick Google’s true, long-term strategy surrounding the Android mobile OS into high gear. Now, there are reports coming in that imply that Google’s long-term Android strategy may include some surprises.
For a long time, many observers have speculated that Google might play favorites with hardware manufacturers as it moves aggressively into the smartphone business and pushes its Android strategy forward. In the past, the company has drawn criticism for allowing this or that hardware maker early access to the latest version of Android. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Google’s long-term strategy may be to favor a cadre of hardware makers with the latest versions, and to sell direct to consumers:
“Google plans to give multiple mobile-device makers early access to new releases of Android and to sell those devices directly to consumers, said people familiar with the matter. That is a shift from Google’s previous practice, when it joined with with only one hardware maker at a time to produce ‘lead devices,’ before releasing the software to other device makers. Those lead devices were then sold to consumers through wireless carriers or retailers.”
Ask five designers how they handle client design presentations and you’ll get five different answers. Some like to do their presentations in person, accompanying their designs with printouts detailing specific highlights. Others prefer utilizing an online screen sharing experience and talking their clients through their design in real time. And then there are those who simply ship off the jpgs in an email outlining the design’s main points. No matter what your method is for revealing your design, it is important to use tools and resources that can make your presentation successful. Without further ado, here’s a list of some of the best apps and tools for delivering the perfect client presentation.
Join.me
It’s simple, easy, and free. Either join someone’s screen share or share your own. You can invite up to 250 viewers into your screen share and can even let them take control of your computer. Join.me has a great list of features, such as internet calling, chat, and file sharing, which makes it a great all-in-one solution for screen sharing presentations.
Skype
Skype has over 600 million users, so chances are high that even your client will have an account that he/she can hop on to at any time. Skype is a great way to have face-to-face conversations with clients when the option of meeting them in person is unavailable. In addition, if you need to chat with more than one person in a single call, Skype comes with conference call support so you can include as many people as you want in your presentation. Most importantly, Skype has a built-in screen sharing ability that allows you to switch from video to design comp with ease.
ROSALabs, Mandriva’s partner on their last desktop, has been working on their own Linux distribution and have recently announced their latest release. If you liked Mandriva 2011, then you’ll probably like ROSA Marathon 2012. In fact, to the casual observer, it looks like ROSA 2012 is Mandriva 2011.
While trying to find differences in Mandriva 2011, ROSA 2011, and ROSA 2012, one finds very little. Firefox, kdelibs, and qt are among the few updated software versions. The release announcement states, “ROSA Marathon 2012 operating system is the first product of ROSA company created using our own software development and build environment – ROSA ABF – that gives us complete control of package base and development tools, guarantying technological independence and high quality of the distribution.” So, it sounds as though ROSA’s experience mirrors Magiea’s. After a fork, one needs to concentrate on their infrastructure, so users should see more divergence in the future.
Finding the right color scheme for a website design can often be a real challenge. Bright colors are sometimes not favored by designers, but in the right situation they can be very effective.
In this post we’ll showcase examples of 21 different bright and colorful websites. Hopfully, seeing these examples will give you some inspiration when you’re considering color schemes in your own work. By seeing what other designers are doing and how they are able to make colorful web designs work, you may get some ideas of your own.
Brooks Shoe Advisor
In recent years, content management systems (CMS) have become very powerful tools for building, deploying and managing web sites, blogs and more. And, along with that trend, open course CMS platforms have absolutely flourished. You’re probably familiar with some of the big names in this arena, including Drupal (which Ostatic is based on) and Joomla. As we noted in this post, selecting a CMS to build around can be a complicated process, since the publishing tools provided are hardly the only issue. What many people don’t realize, though, is that you can try out the major CMS platforms at OpenSource CMS, a great site for gaining experience for free.
“OpenSourceCMS.com is a central resource for all things Open Source CMS and gives you the opportunity to ‘try out’ most of the best Open Source CMS tools in the world without marketing fluff and sales people,” notes the site. You can find a huge array of open source CMS demos and portals to sample here.
There are many other demos, news feeds, and discussion forums related to free, open-source CMS platforms at OpenSourceCMS. Especially if you’re paying or considering paying for a proprietary solution, take some of the demos for a spin.
Over time, OpenSource CMS has branched out from simply offering demos of the well-known content management systems to offering demos of ecommerce-focused platforms. For example, you can demo Magento, one of the most popular open source ecommerce environments. You can also discuss these ecommerce platforms with people who have already built online stores around them.
In recent years, content management systems (CMS) have become very powerful tools for building, deploying and managing web sites, blogs and more. And, along with that trend, open course CMS platforms have absolutely flourished. You’re probably familiar with some of the big names in this arena, including Drupal (which Ostatic is based on) and Joomla. As we noted in this post, selecting a CMS to build around can be a complicated process, since the publishing tools provided are hardly the only issue. What many people don’t realize, though, is that you can try out the major CMS platforms at OpenSource CMS, a great site for gaining experience for free.
“OpenSourceCMS.com is a central resource for all things Open Source CMS and gives you the opportunity to ‘try out’ most of the best Open Source CMS tools in the world without marketing fluff and sales people,” notes the site. You can find a huge array of open source CMS demos and portals to sample here.
There are many other demos, news feeds, and discussion forums related to free, open-source CMS platforms at OpenSourceCMS. Especially if you’re paying or considering paying for a proprietary solution, take some of the demos for a spin.
Over time, OpenSource CMS has branched out from simply offering demos of the well-known content management systems to offering demos of ecommerce-focused platforms. For example, you can demo Magento, one of the most popular open source ecommerce environments. You can also discuss these ecommerce platforms with people who have already built online stores around them.
Today marks the tenth anniversary of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and many people who have followed the rise of the RHEL platform may be surprised that it is so young. Released while the burning embers of the dot-com boom were still smoldering, it–along with Red Hat’s comprehensive support for an open source platform–appealed to many businesses who wanted a low-cost way to facilitate useful workplace applications without massive IT headaches. And, as Red Hat itself notes, RHEL has also found a home in government installations.
According to a tenth anniversary statement from Red Hat:
“In 2003, the U.S. Army commissioned a study on ‘The Business Case for Open Source Software’ and the then DOD CIO John Stenbit released the first DOD-wide guidance on open source software, which implicitly permitted its acquisition, development, and use. Nine months later, in July of 2004, the Office of Management and Budget issued a similar memo that covered the government as a whole.”
“At the same time, Red Hat released the first version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. The Army deployed Red Hat’s operating system in its Blue Force Tracker system, which lived in jeeps and tanks on the battlefield. Major General Nicholas Justice, the man responsible for Blue Force Tracker, said later: “When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source.”
Many designers prefer to outsource some of their coding work in order to free up more of their own time, or maybe to get a higher quality of coding than they can produce on their own. Outsourcing PSD to HTML conversion can be done on a regular basis with the majority of your web design clients, or it can be done only in special situations when you are really pressed for time.
Our friends at Markup-Service have offered to give PSD to HTML credits to 2 lucky readers of the Vandelay Design Blog! The first-prize winner will get $300 worth of services and the second-prize winner will get $100 worth of services. In addition, everyone who enters will get a special surprise gift from Markup-Service.
If you’ve never tried outsourcing PSD to HTML conversion, this could be a great opportunity for you. If you already use a PSD to HTML service provider, this could be a chance to test the quality of work from Markup-Service.
While waiting for the Mandriva management to decide the future direction of the distribution, the community is taking matters into their own hands and beginning the planning stages for the next release, assumed to be Mandriva Linux 2012.
In a posting on the Mandriva wiki, development community members stated that even though there is no official roadmap as of yet, “there is a Mandriva community effort around a new Mandriva release, in order to keep people stimulated to contribute.” The community draft is not hosted or sponsored by Mandriva, so any plans are tentative on Mandriva’s official position to come.
In the Development Community Draft, a few details are emerging. The first was the assumption that the next release will be dubbed Mandriva Linux 2012, “scheduled to be released in 2012.”
Per Øyvind Karlsen will be acting as project leader with Bernhard Rosenkränzer & Matthew Dawkins serving as release managers. They figure the desktop edition will be released in “i586, x32, & x86_64 DVDs live and installable images.” A technology preview is planned before the end of the month with an alpha to arrive in June. Beyond that is to come.
Search Engine Optimization
