User blog posts @ webdigity

Nigeria's main militant group threatened Wednesday to destroy the nation's major oil pipelines within 30 days to counter allegations it had struck a $12 million deal with the government to protect them. [FNC Latest Headlines] [Read More]

The temperatures in OKC are threatening to hit triple digits this week, so the summer heat is on! If you're getting sick of these cheesy heat-related anecdotes at the beginning of all of my feature-release blog posts, then ... well ... you're not the only one! Anyway, this week we're rolling out blog importing and exporting capabilities within our WaterCMS, SkyCMS and LightCMS systems. You'll now be able to easily import posts and comments into our system from external blogs as well as easily export all posts and comments from blogs on our system. Easy migration and peace of mind This functionality makes it so easy to migrate a blog from another platform onto our system. Maybe you have an external blog but you'd like to merge it into your organization's website (running on our system) to get everything running on the same domain (our recommended practice). Or, maybe you've considered moving some sites to our system but hesitated because of the manual work required to move all of those blog entries over. Well, now it's no problem to migrate with our simple, automated import functionality. Plus, blog exporting provides you with extra peace of mind as you'll now be able to backup your entire blog to your local computer with ease. Plus, you'll know that you can always get your blog data out of our system quickly and easily if for any reason you desire to move to a different blog software. Blogs often represent a large amount of content on a website (our company blog contains far and away the majority of all content on our site), so we know that this functionality will give you some added security. The details For importing, we will support the WXR, BlogML, and RSS standards. Most major blog software solutions support exporting in either BlogML or WXR (the easiest two options for getting all blog data including comments). However, if your software doesn't support BlogML or WXR, it will likely generate an RSS feed, which can also be imported by our software. For exporting, we will use the BlogML standard. Scheduled launch and downtime The new features are tentatively scheduled to be released on Thursday, July 24th Friday, July 25th at 8am Central Daylight Time (GMT -5). Please note that there may be up to five minutes of system down time while the new changes are rolled out. Stay tuned to our blog and to our Twitter feed for further updates.

If you want to ultimately make money on the internet with a blog and are currently broke, you can still make money, and in a fairly short time. The following is a plan to get you started with zero cash. Once you start making money, the next best move is to get a [...]

For web designers (and really most anyone in our economy of knowledge work) creativity is our capital. Customers choose us to provide creative answers to their business challenges. With a steady stream of work coming in, staying at our creative peak is essential. Here at Element Fusion, we?re each constantly looking for ways to keep ourselves in that creative frame of mind. Organizationally, we want to provide an environment in which our designers and developers can thrive. I have written before about ways to break a creative block on an individual level, but sometimes it is helpful to take a step back and think about what we know about creativity and how we can use that knowledge. Several years ago, Fast Company published a great article entitled The 6 Myths Of Creativity which detailed the results of an exhaustive study of creativity in the workplace. The article was written by Teresa Amabile, head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School. Creativity has been on my mind recently, and I found this article in some old bookmarks. It is full of great ideas that may change the way you think about creativity both in your personal workflow and in your organization. I?d recommend that you read the entire article when you have time, but I've summarized what I consider to be the highlights below. 1. Myth: creativity comes from creative types The first myth is one of the most disappointing. It is unfortunate how many organizations compartmentalize creativity to the marketing and design departments. Creativity should be fostered by all workers at every level. Creativity isn?t just about aesthetics and design. Creativity is ideas. Novel ideas, inventive solutions, and out-of-the-box thinking can be useful in every part of your work, by every employee. Pixar, one of the most successful movie studios ever, regularly encourages creativity in every part of their business. Their Pixar University concept lets employees spend a few hours each week in on-campus classes, and this includes all employees. Receptionists might take a drawing class. Food services staff can learn about color theory. The idea is that the more everyone knows about what Pixar does, the better they will be. Creativity is everywhere. 2. Myth: money is a creativity motivator The study concluded that money was rarely a motivation for most workers. Instead, feeling appreciated or valued and being challenged were more conducive to high creativity. Creative workers want to be deeply engaged, challenged at a level appropriate to their skills, and they want to work on projects that they care about and are interested in. Even if you?re a freelancer working from home, you should be working for more than just money. Seek out projects that are personally interesting to you ? projects that are challenging that you can invest something of yourself in. 3. Myth: time pressure fuels creativity The old adage that ?I work best under pressure? was found to be unlikely by the study. While working at the last minute or under pressure of a deadline may remove some distractions and make you feel productive, you might not be doing your most creative work. I found this passage particularly enlightening: People were the least creative when they were fighting the clock. In fact, we found a kind of time-pressure hangover ? when people were working under great pressure, their creativity went down not only on that day but the next two days as well. Time pressure stifles creativity because people can?t deeply engage with the problem. I often try to separate my work from ?the clock." It isn?t uncommon to get stuck on a creative problem, and I have learned that trying to brow-beat a solution by simply forcing yourself to work on it or throwing more time into it never works. It is only after I take a break, work on something else, or take a walk that my mind is able to restore the calm and come up with something new. Countless times I have worked on a tough problem all afternoon only to have the obvious solution hit me in the car on the drive home. 4. Myth: fear forces breakthroughs Here, the study challenges the "tortured artist" whose miserable existence is the fuel for creative expression (sorry, Dashboard Confessional). The study, which monitored the journals of a set of workers found overwhelmingly that creativity was more positively associated with happiness than sadness or anger. In fact, they were able to observe that workers were happiest when they had come up with a creative idea and that being happy one day often led to creativity on the next. This suggests a cycle where creativity fuels more creativity. 5. Myth: competition beats collaboration Competition may be a motivator, but it might not promote the most creative solutions. When workers compete, their natural tendencies are to close up and keep ideas to themselves. Workers who collaborate share openly and this sharing can lead to discussion and ideas that the individuals might never arrive at alone. Agile development promotes the power of small, focused, and creative teams that shuck the restrictions of old business to work quickly, efficiently, and to focus on the customer in ways that individuals cannot. 6. Myth: a streamlined organization is a creative organization The final result applies more to monolithic corporations than your typical web design shop, but the base conclusion remains the same: a negative, unstable, and fearful environment is a detriment to creativity. Workers only motivated to keep their jobs are not going to produce creative results. We live in an interesting time where we are finding that many of the things we learned growing up about what constitutes hard work and productivity can be impediments to the very environments these ?rules? proclaim to foster. We should all be looking at ways to encourage our own creativity and how we can encourage more creative thinking in every part of our businesses. At Element Fusion, we are always looking for ways to foster creativity in our work. We?d love to hear about how you?re making your work and company more creative. Tell us about it in the comments.

Free Downloads - the good and the bad We have all stumbled across sites that are offering free downloads. But are they always that good? What inevitably happens is you end up with a hard drive of useless stuff that you have to wade through and often cannot make head or tail of anyway. Then there are the items you purchase. [...]

Google was yesterday named as the UK's top consumer brand for the first time in a study by Superbrands. Google has this year beaten Microsoft who have held the title for the previous 2 years and moved up 2 places from 3rd. The biggest worldwide search engine has beaten some old and established prominent brands and now leads the way as the UK's Superbrand. The list in general illustrates the importance of the technology and media sector to the UK market - as along with Google and Microsoft, the BBC, Sony and Apple rate highly. Other strong performers here are the some members of the automotive world, the drinks giant Coca-Cola, the sports behemoth Nike and an assortment of household goods suppliers. Being the most popular brand in the UK just illustrates how important searching on the internet has become as this is now a mainstream media distribution channel that is only going to grow further. Pete HandleyCampaign Delivery Manager

So you just spent the last 3 months developing your new site and have your adwords campaign set up tuned and ready to start driving targeted traffic to your site. Keywords stand poised to attract the traffic and your clients land in the right place to sign up and buy your product or service....You can now sit back and watch the sign ups and money roll in right.... Wrong!! Pay Per Click (Adwords) campaigns once built tested and fine tuned can be the source of some very targeted traffic to your site but converting those clicks is the really tricky part, this is where your landing page steps up to the mark! So what is the landing page? After a visitor has clicked on your ad in the sponsored links through the search engine of choice the searcher will come into the site at a designated page. This is the Landing Page. Now this has been established what and how do you promote trust in your searchers and convert their search to a sign up........here are a few tips I have learnt along the way. • Exit links on a page can kill PPC. These are any browsing tabs, more info buttons or links that direct the searcher to another page. Get rid of them from the landing page. Use these on different pages just not the one with the call to action of a sign up. Exit links lower conversions • Continuity is key...you must match wherever possible the text on the landing page with that of your copy text in your ad. Users who arrive at the specific landing have already been screened by the sponsored link advert and expect to see a specific message or content. • Avoid having any conversion requirements or calls to action below the visible part of the screen, which calls for the customer to scroll down the page to view this. If you have to scroll duplicate the call to action tab at 1 in every scroll. • Make the sign up forms user friendly, quick to fill i.e. jump to the next box when the previous is filled. Do not over complicate the page with unnecessary questions. People generally hate filling in forms and reading lots of text on a sign up form. • To sum up does your landing page instantly gain the trust of the searcher. Is it easy to navigate? Is the functionality of the page at its most effective? and does the page encourage them to delve deeper and request further info or sign up to something with as little time or effort as possibly needed. With this information you are now armed with the weapons you need to maximise your site conversions. Remember conversions are the goal here and the site is unsuccessful until searchers sign up! So test, optimize and research until the most productive page has been developed, don't get me wrong this may not happen on the first attempt but keep going and you will get there!!!!!!   David ThomasPPC Campaign Delivery Manager

Lewis Hamilton won the German grand prix, in the Hockenheim circuit, after giving a very good race. Formula one is keeping a surprise for the funs, in every race this season. The surprise this Sunday was that young Brazilian Nelson Piquet finished in second place, and took his first podium in formula one. He was even leading the race until Hamilton overtook him a few laps before the end. Felipe Massa finished in third place. read more

Using the site Xellent Solutions as an example, I describe why you should keep your vocabulary a little less tech rich.

Well, my boss at #superdev - who can only be compared to a more energetic version of the squirrel from hoodwinked asked me to start putting together some thoughts here and there on some proper PHP coding. I thought I’d start out the series with this article, Programming without E_NOTICE. Ok. How does it happen? E_NOTICE [...]

Bom pessoal estava com vontade de escrever sobre isso a algum tempo.Já vinha com esse pensamento na cabeça a alguns dias. Todo mundo sabe que o mundo da tecnologia e uma corrida sem freios na ladeira. Bem e isso seria ruim? Ou bom? Ai depende. Acho que existem suas duas faces [...]

Surgiu hoje apresentado na e3 2008 o trailer do novo the sims. o video esta no youtube. link a qualidade esta um pouco abaixo da media mas permiti ver novas caracteristicas do jogo.Leia TambémComo usar dois mouses ao mesmo tempoE3 08-GTA Chinatown wars9800 gx2Guia de Compras: Comprando um mouse #1Correção do Feed

A couple of weeks ago, one of the products I maintain for a client needed a new installer. This application is the server part of a client-server suite, and runs as a Service on Microsoft Windows. The old installer was built using the simple installer-builder that is part of Microsoft Visual Studio, and could not easily be extended to handle the desired functionality. Enter the WiX toolset. As its name suggests, the Windows Installer XML Toolset is a set of tools for building Windows Installer (MSI) packages, using XML to describe the installer. At first glance, this doesn't look much easier than populating the MSI tables directly using Microsoft's Orca tool, but it's actually really straightforward, especially with the help of the WiX tutorial. It's all about the <XML> The perceived complexity comes from several factors. First up, every individual file, directory and registry entry that is to be installed must be specified as a <Component> and given a GUID which can be used to uniquely identify that item. The details of what to install where, combined with the inherent verbosity of XML makes the installer build file quite large. Thankfully, being XML, whitespace such as indenting and blank lines can be used to separate things into logical groups, and XML comments can be used if necessary. The installer GUI is also built using XML, which can make things very complicated. Thankfully WiX comes with a set of pre-designed GUIs which can be referenced from your installer build file — you can even provide your own images in order to brand the installer with your company logo, for example. Once you've got over the initial shock of the XML syntax, the toolkit is actually really easy to use. The file and directory structure to be used by the installed application is described using nested XML elements to mimic the directory structure, with special predefined directory identifiers for things like the Windows directory, the Program Files directory or the user's My Documents folder. You can also use nested <Feature> tags to create a tree of features which the user can choose to install (or not) if they opt for a custom install. Each "feature" is a group of one or more components which are identified with nested tags in the feature tags. Custom Actions What if you're not just installing a simple desktop application? Windows Installer provides support for custom actions which can be run as part of the installation, and WiX allows you to specify these. The old installer for the server application used custom actions to install the service, but these weren't actually necessary — the Windows Installer can automatically configure services, it was just that the Visual Studio Installer builder didn't support that. With WiX it's just a matter of adding a <ServiceInstall> tag to one of your components. The custom actions we did require were easy to add with the <CustomAction> tags — you can write custom actions as DLLs or EXEs, or even as simple VBScript included directly in the installer build file. These can then be added to the <InstallExecuteSequence> at the appropriate point, taking care to specify the right conditions (such as whether to run on install or uninstall, and whether or not to run depending on which features are being installed). Conclusion The WiX toolset is very powerful, and gives you full control over everything the Windows Installer can do. Though the XML syntax is a little cumbersome, it is actually quite simple to use. Once you get used to the syntax, it is easy to see what the installer is doing, and what you need to do to get the desired effect. Though designing installer GUIs is quite hard, the supplied options will be sufficient in many cases and it is easy to customize them to your needs. It's a free tool, so you can't beat it on price, and the tutorial really reduces the learning curve. Next time you need to build an installer, I recommend you give WiX a try. Posted by Anthony Williams[/ reviews /] permanent link Tags: windows, installer, msi, wix, review Digg This | Save to del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Submit to Reddit | Submit to DZone

Cabilao Island is 30 kms north-west of Tagbilaran in Cebu Straight between Bohol and Cebu. This small island is covered by palm trees and surrounded by well-preserved coral reefs abundant with marine life. A dream come true for snorkelers and scuba diving enthusiasts. It's white, sandy beaches are not crowded and perfect for relaxing.La Estrella Beach ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5054114Cellphone: +(63)(0918) 9044859Website: http://www.laestrella.phEmail: info@laestrella.phPolaris Beach and Dive ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5054118Cellphone: +(63)(0918) 9037187Website: http://www.polaris-dive.comEmail: info@polaris-dive.comCabilao Beach ClubTelephone: +(63)(038) 4160463Cellphone: +(63)(0917) 4545897Website: http://www.cabilao.com/seite.html?englishEmail: info@cabilao.com

The white sand Alona Beach is the most beautiful and the most popular beach on Panglao Island. This beach is ideal for snorkeling and scuba diving. Along the beach are small resorts, restaurants, beach bars and dive shops.A word of caution: Sea urchins thrive a couple of meters away from the beach so please be careful!Casa-Nova Beach ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029189Playa BlancaTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029015AlonalandTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029007Email: info@alonaland.chWebsite: http://www.alonalandresort.comPeter's HouseCellphone: +(63)(0918) 7708434Banana LandTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029068Beach Rock Cafe & LodgeTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029034Lost Horizon Beach ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029099Email: losthorizonresort@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.losthorizonresort.comTierra AzulTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029065Rene's PlaceTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029149Alona Tropical Beach ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029024Email: info@alona-tropical.comWebsite: http://alona-tropical.comAlona Kew White Beach ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029042Email: kewbeach@globelines.com.phWebsite: http://www.alona-kew.comFlower Garden ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029012Website: http://www.flowergarden-resort.com/Mainframe_english.htmBohol Divers ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029047Email: boholdiversresort@yahoo.comWebsite: http://www.boholdiversresortph.comCrystal Coast ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 4113179Oasis ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029083Sun ApartelleTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029063Email: info@sunapartelle.comWebsite: http://www.sunapartelle.comAlona Palm Beach ResortTelephone: +(63)(038) 5029141Email: info@alonapalmbeach.comWebsite: http://www.alonapalmbeach.com