Archive for March, 2010

How To Have Websites Built For You The Cheap Way


Normally, if you want to have professional designers custom build your site, you must be prepared to dish out at least a few hundred dollars. All this can change if you know where to find the best deals, the best designs for the lowest price. Here’s a rough guide:

First, you must understand that it is a rip off to get companies to design websites for you. Have you ever seen those advertisements in newspaper classified ad sections that offer a 5-page website at $500? These companies are established companies with physical locations, therefore they have to increase the amount they charge to pay off some overheads: office rent, designer’s wages, advertising costs and so on.

Therefore, it would be wise to find freelance designers who work from home. These people are often working from home so they do not have a high operation cost like that of a company. On the other hand, they will be able to design images with quality similar to those of designers from big companies, so it’s a “no-brainer” choice.

However, choose freelancers with care. The best way to do this would be to go to elance.com. There, you can post the abstract of your project and get thousands of freelancers to bid on your project, so you will surely get the best deal. On top of that, you will be able to choose the designers based on their experience, past transactions and ratings, so your value for money is secured.

Another route you can take is to design your website yourself. Think about it, if you only need 5 simple pages to present some simple information, why waste hundreds of dollars for it? Just spend a little time to sit down and do it yourself. You’ll be able to design your own sites even if you do not know a single line of HTML code with the help of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) programs such as Microsoft Frontpage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and so on.



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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 31, 2010 at 8:54 pm

Categories: Internet   Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Fundamentals Of Android Applications

The Fundamentals of Android Applications

While written in Java programming language, Android applications represent a compiled Java code that is packaged into an Android package known as an .apk file.  Bundling application data in this way allows applications to be easily distributed for installation on mobile devices.  Indeed, the .apk file is the file that users are required to download and all the code in an .apk is essentially one application.  In some ways, it can be said that Android applications are isolated applications.  For example, Android applications run in their own Linux process which is started when the applications’ codes are executed and stops when the applications are no longer needed and system resources are utilized by different applications.  Similarly, each process has a dedicated Java virtual machine (VM) such that one application’s codes run independently from the codes of other applications.  And finally, each Android application is associated with a separate Linux user ID.  This means that application files are seen only by the user in that particular application while there are still methods by which these files can be exported to other applications.  This article will go on to discuss some of the components of Android applications and how different codes for various applications can work together.

Android Components

One of the main features of Android is that the basic elements of applications can be shared.  If permissions are granted for these elements, it is possible to use already developed features of other applications.  For example, on application might make use of a great scrolling list of images that you want to use for your application.  If that scroller is made available to others you can utilize that scroller rather than developing your own.  Interestingly, your application doesn’t use the code from the other application or even link to it.  Instead, that piece of code is started in the other application whenever the need should arise.

This means that Android has been designed to allow application processes to be started when any part of it is needed as well as allowing Java objects for that part to be instantiated.  In other words, while most systems and applications have a single entry point, or main function, Android applications rely on central components that are instantiated and run when they are needed.  There are 4 major types of Android components: Activities, Services, Broadcast receivers, and Content providers.  Let’s consider them more closely.

Activities

An activity is a representation of a visual user interface that allows users to choose a particular task to undertake.  This might be a list of menu items or a display of photographs and while activities may work together to create a consistent user interface, they each act independently of the others.  In other words, each activity is applied as a subclass of the Activity base class.  Within applications there is a great range of diversity when it comes to activities.  For example, an application may be made up of only one activity or it may be a collection of activities.  We can move from one activity to the next by having the current activity act as the starting point for the next.  Moreover, each activity in an application is assigned a default window in which to draw.  These windows may fill the screen, float atop other windows, or can interact with other windows.  

The visual content of activity windows is determined by hierarchical views which are derived from the base View.  There are different types of views that determine the rectangular space within the window.  For example, Parent windows organize the layout of subsequent windows and leaf views, which are at the bottom of the hierarchy, draw in their controlled rectangles and can respond to the user’s actions.  As such, views give us the point at which activities can interact.

Services

Because services don’t have a visual user interface, they run in the background indefinitely.  This might be background music that plays while users deal with other problems or it could be background calculations that are provided to the user/activity as needed.  A media player is the perfect example of a service.  As songs are played from a list, the application is designed around multiple activities that allow the user to choose songs and start playing them.  On the other hand, the playback itself is not an activity but a service.  Activities, as you may remember, start and stop as the application is being used, but we want the music to continue playing even when we move onto something different.  As such, services allow the music to continue playing even after the activity that launched it has left the screen.  Similar to activities and other components, the main thread of the application process is where services are run.  

Broadcast Receivers

This kind of component is fairly simple as broadcast receivers merely receive and react to broadcast announcements.  While broadcasts begin in the system code, announcements about a low battery or language change, many applications can also start broadcasts.  This allows applications to communicate to other applications that some information has been downloaded and is available for use.

Content providers

Content providers are how we share application data across applications.  Data is stored in an SQLite database, or other appropriate manner, and then the content provider enables other applications to store similar data.  A content resolver is utilized by applications in order to call these methods and content resolvers can communicate to any content provider.  


About the Author:
Moonrise Productions is a custom web design company specializing in custom web development and design. Whether you’re in San Francisco, New York or you need social network web design – we’re here to help and we have the team to do it right.
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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 31, 2010 at 3:23 pm

Categories: Programming   Tags: , , , , , , , ,

How To Choose A Web Developer

Selecting a web developer can be a difficult decision, especially if you are not familiar with the intricacies of the internet, browsers, search engines, search engine placement optimization, web accessibility, web standards and other nuances of creating a successful web site. What is a “web developer?”
Compared to a “web designer,” a “web developer” usually has a much broader range of skills. A web developer will handle every technical aspects of creating and maintaining a web site, including:

* designing the graphic layout,
* designing the web site architecture and navigation,
* coding the XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS),
* creating graphics and adding photos,
* creating links,
* testing for adherence to usability, accessibility, and web standards,
* programming web applications, and
* creating databases.

Providing tips for what to consider when choosing a web developer:

Look for Specialization

Many web developers claim that they can do it all. The truth is that most web developers are primarily either graphic designers or programmers. The fields of graphic design and programming are fairly specialized and it is uncommon to find people who are able to do both well. When looking for a web developer, we suggest asking the professionals to designate who will be designing your web site and who will be doing any custom programming. If it is the same person doing both pieces, we advise paying even closer attention to their portfolio.

Look for a Strong Portfolio

The sites that a web developer has worked on are typically strong indications of the type of work that you can expect from them for your own web site. When reviewing a developer’s portfolio, keep an eye out for aspects that you want incorporated into your own site. If you are looking for a bleeding edge design, then look for those types of designs in their portfolio. If on the other hand you are looking for complex programming, make sure you tell the developer that you would like examples of those types of sites.

Expect a Focus on Marketing

In the early days of the Internet, simply having a web site was enough because not every company had one. Today however, a web site is an important aspect of marketing for small businesses. Make sure that your web developer will perform search engine optimization on your web site and that they will help you increase your rankings in search engines.

Understand Who Will Host Your Web Site

How a web development company hosts the web sites that they create is an important but often overlooked aspect of choosing a web developer. Many web development firms simply act as a reseller for a company that performs the hosting. The danger with this is that if you experience problems with your web site or email it sometimes isn’t clear who is responsible for fixing the issue. This can result in finger pointing between the web developer and the company involved in hosting the site when a problem occurs. This can be especially problematic with complex web sites that perform e-commerce or other custom functionality. Make sure that you understand who is responsible for assisting you with any hosting or email issues that you have before signing on with a web developer.

Think Long Term

There are several long term considerations that should be considered in your decision of which web developer to use. Make sure that you understand how ongoing maintenance will be charged and at what point your initial project ends and the maintenance phase of your relationship begins. It is also important to make sure that if your web developer will register a domain on your behalf that they put it in your name or the name of your business. This ensures that you can gain complete control over your domain in the event that you need to make a change to your hosting without the assistance of your web developer. Additionally, make sure that you have a copy of your web site. We’re always surprised at the number of people who spend many thousands of dollars on a web site but don’t have a copy of it in their own hands.

Request References and Actually Call Them

Once you reach the point where you have a web developer that you want to use, we recommend that you request references and actually call them. This will be one of your best indications of how the developer maintains and manages client relationships and it provides one last measure of safety before you begin your project.

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Find <a rel=”nofollow” target=”_blank” href=”http://blueballgroup.com”>IT Servies Outsourcing</a> and more useful information about outsourcing, offshoring on<a rel=”nofollow” target=”_blank” href=”http://blueballgroup.com”> Offshore IT Outsourcing</a>.
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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 31, 2010 at 3:23 pm

Categories: Programming   Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Good Design Practices

Your website is where your business resides — it’s like the headquarter of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practise good design principles to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and sells to as many people as possible.

Make sure you have clear directions on the navigation of your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.

Reduce the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.

Keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

Make sure your website complies to web standards at www.w3.org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox and Opera, you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.

Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.

Use CSS to style your page content because they save alot of work by styling all elements on your website in one go.

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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 29, 2010 at 7:25 pm

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Reseller Hosting, Is It A Good Solution For You

Reseller Hosting is a form of hosting where you buy the rights of selling your bandwidth and storage space to other people.

These plans come with extra features that make them very attractive to some users. They are excellent for web designers and developers that design and create websites, as they can also include the hosting of the project in the package they offer.

Reseller Hosting is a plan where you have the ability of re-selling the bandwidth and space you have contracted. This is a great plan if a) you are good at selling hosting plans, or b) you have plenty of friends and family members that would like to share the cost.

What is often a surprise to most clients is how cheap these reseller plans are . This is because only a few become real hosting sellers, and hosting providers know this.

The best features of reseller hosting accounts are the huge bandwidth and storage space they come with. This allows you to cut it up into smaller chunks and sell it as needed to your clients. This is particularly good for web developers of self contained smaller websites that are not going to grow, and only require a small amount of space. You will probably be surprised about how cheap these programs are. This is because hosting companies don’t actually expect you to sell that many so they are not worried about the effect it will have on their resources.

There are however some points to keep in mind when buying these plans. The first is that not all hosting provides give you a dedicated server. In fact none of them will provide you with a dedicated server unless you specifically ask for it and pay for it. This means that if you are very successful you could easily overload the hosting servers. If you are seriously considering reselling as a business it would be a good idea to make sure your requirements are met by the server’s capabilities.

A final issue you should keep in mind when purchasing Reseller Hosting is the real definition of unlimited. Sometimes hosting companies do not mean “no limit” but “very large” in comparison to what a typical user needs. If you are planning to sell hosting plans it is a good idea to know how much you really have to sell.


About the Author:
One of the most popular web hosting processes in the market today the Reseller Hosting enables the account holder to split up bandwidth and disk spaces and resell them. All the important aspects of the reseller web hosting have been dealt in detail at this website with popular authors sharing their vast experiences and insight._
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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 29, 2010 at 7:39 am

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5 Important Rules in Website Design

When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. In fact, they are just that — pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it — volume or muting controls would work fine.

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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 28, 2010 at 11:46 pm

Categories: Internet   Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

5 Ways to Keep Visitors Coming Back

A lot of successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The credibility issue just melts away. Hence, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers — all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

Powerful Software automatically posts content to your website from feeds and text files (PLR Content – Hot). Click here to buy your copy now

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 28, 2010 at 6:51 pm

Categories: Internet   Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do I Need Dedicated Servers To Host My Website?

If you want to be seen and heard by millions of people virtually anywhere in the world, you have to launch your website. Whether you have a product to sell, a service to offer, a cause to promote, information you just want to share or even an idea you want to openly discuss – you need a website. Websites that expect significant traffic or needs heavy data management may need dedicated servers. This is also known as dedicated hosting where the website owners lease the entire server and not share it with anyone else.

Dedicated servers give the organization or the website owner the flexibility of having full controls over the hardware. If you have full control of these beauties, you are able to manage the operating system. Having your own in-house dedicated servers means high overhead costs: from employing experts on network administration to purchasing the hardware to installing and later upgrading software to providing power sources and HVAC systems. However, you can outsource this service from hosting providers in exchange for a reasonable monthly fee. Think about your savings.

Managing your own dedicated servers requires advanced server administration skills and knowledge. Or you can have the services of qualified server administrators. Every dedicated server is has an installed operating system of your choice. You can have root access to the server and can therefore install and configure any software you need. With dedicated hosting you can take advantage of the server’s full resources for online and offline content management operations.

Since this industry is not regulated by some government industry or some international standards, terms are interpreted differently. Example: “fully managed” can be defined as having a web based control panel, or it can be interpreted as having dedicated system engineers readily available to handle all server and network related functions. These providers may offer different server managed support: fully managed, managed, self managed or unmanaged. Regardless of support level, these providers shall maintain security on the network.

From the thousands of hosting providers available, ensure yourself the following minimum requirements: full root-level access, the highest uptime, your choice of operating system and control panels, 24/7 customer support at the least cost possible. To top it off, you must be assured that your data is safe. These providers ensure safety by constantly doing systems scans so that the network is free of viruses, worms and crashers. Remember that some providers have data restrictions as well, like no adult content or copyright infringement.


About the Author:
There are numerous providers of dedicated servers out there. Anyone can claim they are the best since no one regulates this industry just yet. Only you can decide which one is best for you. Dedicated hosting is not for everyone. At least, it is for those who are knowledgeable about server administration or can afford to employ one.
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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 28, 2010 at 4:13 pm

Categories: Web Hosting   Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Download Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate Edition

Paragon Software Group (PSG), the technology leader in innovative data security and data management solutions, today announced the release of Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate to provide high-end migration for corporate Windows environments.

Designed for use by system administrators and other IT professionals, Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate provides a complete set of tools to seamlessly migrate a Windows-based computer system to a different environment, whether it be physical to virtual (P2V) physical to physical (P2P), virtual to physical (V2P) or virtual to virtual (V2V).  A Smart Driver Injector simplifies the process of adding new drivers, and an online processing of locked (in-use) hard disks enables migration without rebooting Windows and interrupting the transfer.

Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate is composed of several unique technologies. Paragon Adaptive RestoreTM solves boot problems after an unsuccessful migration attempt by a third party by enabling users to make any Win2K system bootable on dissimilar hardware through automatic injection of all required drivers.  Paragon VIMTM (Virtual Image Management) enables the user to work with virtual disks as if they are actual physical hard disks.  Connect VDTM (Virtual Disk) is the latest functionality based on Paragon VIM that provides easy and efficient access to virtual disks directly from the program’s interface.

“Paragon’s Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate edition provides full virtual server support to companies who require smooth and cost-effective system migration,” said Tom Fedro, president of Paragon Software Group. “Our VIM and Connect VD technologies allow customers to achieve a number of tasks that would normally be difficult or expensive to achieve, such as partitioning operations with offline virtual disks and exchanging data between physical and virtual disks.”

Key features and benefits include:

  • Supports any Windows OS since Win 2K, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Supports major virtual machines, including MS Virtual Server & Hyper-V R1/R2, VM Ware ESX Server, Sun Virtual Box, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual PC 7, VMware Player and Workstation 4.0 and Fusion 1.0-3.0
  • Allows any type of migration, including P2V, P2V Restore, V2P, V2V, P2P and migration of Windows 7 installed on .vhd
  • VD Partitioning – performs drive partitioning of any complexity for offline virtual disks
  • Migrates a physical system to a virtual machine or converts backup image to a virtual disk
  • Recovers the OS startup ability after unsuccessful virtualization by a 3rd party tool or different hardware platform
  • VD Data Transfer – exchanges data between physical environments and virtual ones or between a virtual disk and its snapshots
  • Hot processing of locked (in-use) hard disks to migrate a computer without rebooting and interrupting Windows
  • Smart Driver Injector – makes the process of adding new drivers smooth and simple
  • Previews changes before they are applied on a handy disk partitioning map
  • Chooses any destination to create virtual disks, including a network share
  • Transparent processing of virtual machine snapshots of disks

Visit http://www.paragon-software.com/business/vm-corporate/ to learn more.

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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 27, 2010 at 7:17 am

Categories: Press Releases   Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cheap Hosting – Secrets You Will Want To Know

There are several critical steps for you to make the correct choice for cheap web hosting. Leaving out a step will cause untold difficulties down the road for you, so follow the strategies closely.

Choose Carefully

Cost is, by far, not the most important consideration. Reliability is. The dirty little tactic among hosting companies is that once they acquire you, they have you. It is a huge hassle for you to move to another provider. So you will want to get it right the first time. Avoid free sites. Do you really want competing ads on your small business pages? Would you like your business constrained by small allocated disk space and bandwidth? If you can not manage to pay for the incredibly low web hosting costs these days, then you have a hobby, not a business.

So how do you verify reliability? The same way you would for any other purchase. You do detective work and test. Do a Google search for website forums. You will uncover a lot of posters with clear solid opinions. Invest an hour and a half reading these posts and you will Uncover a solid base of recommended host companies.

When you have 5 or so potential candidates, it is time to test. Contact their customer service. Check their live support. Time it. Send them a message. If they do not answer quickly now, you can bet that when you have a problem, they will be impossible to reach. You will want to find out about both web server reliability and mail server reliability.

Know What You Are Going To Need

Do you have big plans for your online enterprise? It is better to pick a web host grow accordingly. Two important measures are disk space and bandwidth. If you will host video or expect monster traffic, then bandwidth is key. If you will have thousands of jpg files, disk space is key. Other considerations are what cutting edge applications are included. Ask your friendly web expert buddy if you are likely to ever need such things like Ruby on Rails or Fantastico.

Must Haves

You will want to have these additional features from your small business web host. You will want a useful interface. Cpanel is typical. Beware of highly specialized interfaces. It will mean a steep learning curve for someone. You will want guaranteed up-time in excess of 99%. A lot of companies, nowadays, are promising 100% up-time, but their risk is low. A 1 day payback for a $7.95 monthly fee pales in comparison to you losing $1000 in orders because your website was down. Read those forums to learn from others experience! Do insist on daily backups and 24/7 free customer service. Check the fine print for sneaky support charges.

Selecting the correct small business web host is not that difficult, but you do want to spend half a day to make the right choice. Do the investigation, anticipate what you will want in the future as well as right now, and insist on key features. You may even want to become a reseller. Do the math. If you could sell $7.95 a month small business web hosting for 100 people, that is about $10 grand a year. Now you know why there are so many cheap hosts around and why it is confusing trying to select the correct one.


About the Author:
Looking for guidance on how to pick the right website host? My video, “The Top 5 Things You Need To Know to Pick the Right Website Host” may help. Take a look… Cheap Host How-To Video.
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Posted by Anand Narayanaswamy - March 27, 2010 at 1:48 am

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