WordPress is the best and most popular blogging platform around. It’s free, easy to use, endlessly customizable and supported by hundreds of excellent plugins. With WordPress setting such high standards, however, many people have started to question why other types of sites are so much more difficult to set up and manage.
Fortunately, WordPress has become more than simply a blogging tool; it’s now possible to run almost any type of site imaginable using the right mix of plugins and themes. In fact, so many people are now using WordPress to power sites other than blogs that over 50% of today’s WordPress downloaders will use it as a CMS (content management system), according to Matt Mullenweg, the WordPress wizard himself.
Below we explore 10 alternative uses for WordPress, taking a close look at everything from the more common, like shops, forums and photoblogs, to the more unusual, like news aggregators, contact managers and even social networking sites. It will soon become clear that with a bit of ingenuity and creativity, anything’s possible with WordPress!
Read the full article at: http://nikhilmisal.com/2010/02/06/10-alternative-uses-for-wordpress/
Once you’ve built or designed a website, it’s absolutely vital that you perform some degree of usability testing to ensure that it’s functioning as it should. Analyzing conversion rates (the percentage of visitors to your site who perform a desired action) is also a must.
Usability and conversion rates are inextricably linked. If customers are confused, bored or unmotivated by any aspect of your site, you’re going to find it much more difficult to get them to do what you want, whether that’s buy a product, fill out a form or join a mailing list.
Usability and conversion analysis tools, such as the examples listed below, will help you design or redesign your site to make it easy and enjoyable for visitors to navigate around. Such tools can be expensive, but they needn’t be. Amongst the pricier ones below you’ll find many that are cheap or completely free to use.
Don’t feel as though you need to test on hundreds of people, running tests on just five participants can be enough to provide statistically sound results. It’s all about choosing the tools that are best suited to your specific needs and, of course, your budget.
Read the full article at: http://spyrestudios.com/usability-conversion-analysis-tools/
We’re all creative, there’s no doubt about that. Nobody is born without creative tendencies and abilities; it’s just that some people are better at putting their ideas on paper and relaying them to other people. A lot of it is to do with confidence. If you’re confident that your ideas are great, other people will think so too!
Freelancers in the creative industries frequently find that staying in a creative mindset, day in day out, can be a real challenge, especially if they’re tired or working on multiple projects simultaneously. For all these people, we’ve compiled 15 tips for improving creativity and staying creative for longer.
Read the full article at: http://acrisdesign.com/2010/01/15-ways-to-improve-freelance-creativity/
Apple is gearing up for a huge press conference at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, on the 27th January. They’re keeping their cards very close to their chest, revealing nothing about any announcements to be made at the event, but bloggers, tech junkies and industry insiders alike are absolutely convinced that Apple’s latest portable device will be unveiled there – and that it will be some kind of tablet computer.
As is the case with every Apple product launch, the internet rumor mill is working overtime trying to predict what the tablet will be called, what software it will use, and most importantly, what it will actually look like. A paper trail has been uncovered which seems to suggest that the device will be called the iSlate and that it will run on a version of iPhone OS, but nobody really knows for sure.
What seems likely, however, is that Apple’s new tablet will feature revolutionary touchscreen technology. Apple have made a slew of applications to the US Patent and Trademark Office in recent years, one of the most interesting of which was for a touchscreen keypad with a rigid frame, which rises to create temporary ridges while typing.
As an outlet for their uncontrollable excitement, hundreds of gadget-hungry Apple fans have created mockups of what they think the new tablet will look like. Most have gone for a design resembling an enlarged iPhone with a 7” or 10” screen – a design we agree will most probably come to fruition. One thing we can be sure of, however, is that the guys as Apple will probably come up with something so genius that it trumps all mockups preceding it. We’ll just have to wait and see!
Read the full article at: http://scarletbits.com/2010/11-realistic-mock-ups-of-the-upcoming-apple-tablet/
Web development is not an easy career path to follow- there’s so much competition around for jobs and the industry is advancing all the time. If you want to stay ahead of the pack, it’s important to familiarise yourself with the latest and greatest tools- tools which will save you time and improve the appearance and usability of the sites you build.
Of course, with so many web development tools out there, getting to grips with all of them would leave little or no time at all for actually working to make money, which I assume is the object of the exercise for most people reading this article.
With this in mind, I’ve drawn up a list of the essential Windows based tools that everyone should try. They perform a range of functions, from writing and editing code to checking for errors, running local servers to testing speeds, but all will make you and your web sites more efficient.
Read the full article at: http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/15-essential-tools-for-windows-based-web-developers/
Web developers are often guilty of devoting too much time to their core work, at the expense of effective project management and admin. It’s all very well building an amazing website, but if it’s not delivered on schedule and within budget, you’re going to end up losing money and repeat business. Project management apps are key to streamlining your operations and improving productivity.
The invaluable apps explored below detail below are all of great use to web developers specifically, although many were not designed with web developers in mind. Some are ideal for freelancers who tend to work alone, others are great for those who work in small groups, and others still are suitable for bigger web development companies with a large, decentralized, often project-specific workforce.
Keeping close tabs on your projects can be very difficult and time-consuming, especially if you’re working on several simultaneously. These 16 apps will save you hassle, heartache and numerous wasted hours by performing a range of useful functions, from planning to document sharing, time and expense tracking, communication and reporting.
Read the full article at: http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2009/12/15-project-management-apps-that-help-make-web-development-more-efficient.html
Need a new kidney, liver, or perhaps a new bladder? Then look no further than the fascinating and rapidly developing world of bio printing! It’s claimed that, with this technology, you can grow an organ of your choice in 6 weeks using just 10cc’s of your own blood. So what exactly is bio printing? Well, in very basic terms, it’s the use of 3D inkjet technology to print bio-ink (cells) onto bio-paper (a variable gel composed of modified gelatin and hyaluronan), which is then cultivated to form living tissue.
Though recent progress in this field has been astonishing, it’s still early days; hence, there is only one commercially available bio printer in the world. The publishing of animal testing results in the next few years will be critical in revealing the efficacy of bio printed tissue as well as its future potential.
In the meantime, there are a number of prototypes and modified inkjet printers being used by medical researchers to feast our gadget-hungry brains on. They display some of the most innovative and experimental uses of printing technology ever seen.
Read the full article at: http://techcityinc.com/2010/02/01/8-cutting-edge-bio-printers/
HDR stands for high dynamic range imaging. The HDR method basically involves making up an image from several different photographs of the same thing, all taken with different exposures. Photoshop or similar image editing software is then used to combine the photos to form one image, creating a greater dynamic range of luminances, which means starker contrasts between light and dark and much more vibrant colours.
HDR enhances natural colours and light levels, so it’s often hard for the viewer to tell that the HDR method has been employed. Some photographers, however, push things further to create completely distorted visual realities. It’s clear from the 24 photos below that HDR and wildlife photography is a winning combination, as the technique is capable of doing justice to the spectacular array of colours found in nature.
Read the full article at: http://www.fudgegraphics.com/2009/12/24-astoundingly-beautiful-hdr-images-of-wildlife/
VR (Virtual Reality) photograph, known as a VR panorama, is a panoramic image encompassing a 360-degree angle. VR photography makes it possible to represent a 360-degree view of the real world in a two-dimensional, flat photograph.
This technique is not particularly difficult to practise. At its simplest, it involves taking photos while rotating around a central point and then laying the resultant images side-by-side. At its more complex, expensive camera equipment is required, as is specialist software to carefully stitch images together.
VR photography is not only capable of restructuring ordinary scenes, making them extraordinary; it empowers the viewer by placing them right at the centre of a vast landscape. We’ve selected 25 incredible VR photographs for your viewing pleasure.
Read the full article at: http://10steps.sg/articles/featured-articles/25-examples-of-awesome-vr-photography/
Smartphones are absolutely ingenious- we all know that! With an iPhone or BlackBerry, you can pretty much perform any task that you could possibly carry out with a desktop or laptop computer. However, there is one vital capability which smartphones lack in relation to their larger, computer cousins: that’s the ability to print! Of course, you can (sort of) print from a smartphone, but it’s a very laborious process: first you have to transfer whatever it is you wish to print onto a computer, and then you’ve got to print it off from there.
If you want to cut out the ‘middlemachine’ and make printing from your iPhone, BlackBerry, Android or Windows Mobile-based device quick and easy, you’re going to need one of the amazing apps explored below. Each performs a slightly different function, so be careful to choose the one that’s best suited to your needs. Some are free, others can be bought inexpensively, but all will save you lots of time and hassle in the long run.
Read the full article at: http://www.techieblogger.com/2009/12/10-apps-for-printing-from-your-phone.html
