The 3 Web Designing Issues That Can Make or Break A Site

Compared to using the traditional media of advertising like newspapers, radio stations and the television, online marketing and advertising is now considered as a cheaper means of giving a service, a product, or an individual the exposure it needs to be sellable. In the era or internet connection, many small-scale and large-scale businesses “set up” shop online. 

Putting up a website does not only cost lesser, it allows the business proprietor to reach as many people as he can anytime. There are many factors, however, that affect a certain site’s ranking in the search engines and visibility in the worldwide web. Among the most crucial aspect that determine the website’s fate and charm is its design. 

Some important Facebook tips that we should know

Facebook is one of the popular social networking sites all over the world. This site has millions of subscribers to date. But, all the users of this site may not know how to navigate and use all the apps that this site offers. There are some tips which will help the newbie users of the Facebook:

Exist online only to selected friends:

Going to the chat option at the right lower side of the page we should click on the friends list. A small widow will appear there and we can type a new list there that we want to do. By this lists we can select the friends we may chat and keep them in blacklists that we don’t want to chat. We may completely invisible to the person whom we don’t want to chat any time.

A Quick Guide to Choosing an Internet Browser

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Choosing your Internet browser is an important decision, because it will directly affect your web-surfing experience. Browsers make an impact on how fast websites are downloaded and how you view them on the screen. Your browser keeps your bookmarks for you, and it can store personal data like passwords. Each type of browser has thousands of extensions you can download that offer helpful tools to make your life easier. With broadband internet providing so many options online you want to choose a browser that’s high quality, and everyone will have a different preference depending on their needs. Here are some considerations to help you decide.

Internet Explorer

Windows computers come standard with the Internet Explorer browser, and it is the browser the most people use (often because they do not bother to try or download another). Internet Explorer isn’t the best browser to use, however, because it is prone to catching viruses, and it often runs slowly. There are a lot of customization options to play with, but they are not very intuitive. On the plus side, Internet Explorer does usually work well with Windows. There aren’t as many extensions available as with other browsers, but that is changing as more are developed every day.

Safari

Mac computers come standard with the Safari browser. Most Mac users enjoy the Safari browser, because it works well enough on their computers. Safari is not extremely popular for Windows users, however, because it isn’t as fast or as customizable as others. If you use the Internet for very simple browsing and simple tasks, Safari is a fine choice. If you do a lot on the Internet at once, Safari is often slower than other browsers. There are fewer extensions available for Safari, so it may not be the best choice if you’re looking for a lot of add-ons or extra security features.

Firefox

The Mozilla Firefox browser is increasing in popularity, especially within the web design community. Firefox is also open-source, so there are plenty of extensions, and many add-ons offer extremely helpful tools for web designers and developers. You can customize a lot, and it has the most memory of any browser, meaning it’s very quick and ideal for performing complicated web tasks. Firefox is also very secure, with many security extensions available.

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Chrome

Google’s browser Chrome is very fast and user-friendly. It’s a popular choice, especially for people who use Gmail, Google Docs, and other Google products, because it is easy to integrate everything. It has a very streamlined appearance, and there are many extensions available. Because Google Chrome is open-source, there is a high number of user-generated add-ons to choose from. Google Chrome also gets high marks in security. You generally cannot go wrong with this browser.

All of these broadband internet browsers have fantastic options and many people use multiple browsers for different tasks. Each one has different uses depending on your needs so pick one that's perfect for your most common internet uses. 

Sam Jones, the author, finds broadband incredibly useful but thinks that it could be easier to use many websites and browser features.

How To Make the World Wide Web Safe for Children

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While the World Wide Web may help kids broaden their horizons, it may also snatch away their innocence all along.  As we all know, kids may stumble upon some offensive materials online such as harassment, pornography, violence, and the like. That explains why parents should be responsible in giving their children unlimited internet access.

Good tidings for parents! By all means, you can keep your kids safe from offensive web contents. Learn how you can protect your kids from harmful internet materials without compromising online learning possibilities. And, here are some handy tips on how you can readily do so.

Schedule Internet Use

Since kids aren’t supposed to stay late browsing the internet, scheduled internet browsing shall surely come handy. This shall help them manage their time effectively as much as yours. Of course, you’ll have to keep them under your watch while they are surfing the net.

There are computer applications that allow you to come up with website browsing schedule. As a matter of fact, you can either make a daily or a weekly timetable on which your kids may browse the internet. You may further customize internet browsing calendar by specifying game time and study time.

Simplify Web Operation

Children might be considered as fast learners, but they might not handle the complexity of the World Wide Web. Popular browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, are commonly bombarded with confusing pop-up windows. Unfortunately, this might be too much to handle for kids.

Fair enough, you’ll find some child-friendly browsers that are likely to keep everything simple for your little fellow. This sort of browser readily blocks pop-ups, as well as, right-click menus. That leaves kids with some few large buttons for quick and easy internet browsing activity.

Monitor Website Access

Imagine taking control of your child’s online activities through limited web access. There are many offensive materials lurking around the internet that might negatively influence your child’s behaviour. Kids may imbibe violent acts from online multimedia files. Besides, it’s noteworthy that kids are great imitators, too.

With child-safe browsers, parents may control their kids’ website access. Kids aren’t likely to visit any website without prior permission. Some browsers may also employ age-appropriate interface that automatically suggests child-friendly websites and blocks the rest. As soon as they reach the right age, you may nevertheless allow your child to visit arbitrary sites further subject to content-based filters.

Provide Safe Community

As much as possible, you should make sure that your kid is in good company online. There’s no doubt that kids are prone not only to corruption, but also to fraud in dealing with people they meet on the web. No wonder, they’d be better off joining child-friendly social networking sites with exclusive members.

Most, if not all kiddie browsers are likely to keep your personal files safe, too. That is made possible by preventing instant access to Windows. Without full Windows access, you can keep your kids away from sneaking on your private files thereby inhibiting their tendency to resort to file hacking. A Cell Phone Expert once said that "children need a safe place to play, learn, and grow. 

For your kids to enjoy efficient internet use, you better find the best internet deals from an internet expert.

Author's Bio:

Krystine Joy Sitjar is an author of many blogs that tackles internet safety. She is an advocate of children's rights.

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Software Design 101: What is Selenium?

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Selenium is freeware, open-source integrated development environment (IDE) that allows developers to do automated browser testing. Automated browser testing is used to debug web applications, but the software also has the capability to automate repetitive and tedious web administration duties as well. You can download Selenium IDE as a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox that also includes Selenium Web Driver, which allows for more robust testing.

A Brief History of Selenium

Jason Huggins and other programmers and testers at ThoughtWorks developed Selenium in 2004 because Huggins was dissatisfied with other testing products on the market. Huggins was mocked one such competitor, Mercury Interactive QuickTest Professional, in an email suggesting their product should be called Selenium because Selenium is a cure for mercury poisoning; the name stuck. Over the years the number of people who have contributed the software's development has grown considerably. ThoughtWorks employees all over the world helped with testing and deploying the application. In 2007, Huggins left ThoughtWorks and became part of Google's Selenium support team. The most recent change in the IDE is that the long-standing Selenium Remote Control tools have been depreciated and replaced by Selenium Web Driver.

Why Use Selenium?

Say you've built a web-age with a form on it. The form has about 20 fields and you need to test it with multiple variable inputs. Repeatedly filling out the form manually is tedious and a waste of precious development time. With Selenium, you can automate the testing and record the results to see if any errors pop up. Selenium is also handy for testing JavaScript applets to ensure that they work properly and the end users doesn't encounter any frustrating errors. Selenium helps free web developers from mundane tasks so that they can spend more time concentrating on developing and not debugging.

What is Selenium Compatible With?

Selenium is compatible with the C#, Java, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby programming languages. Additionally, Selenium is available for the Linux, OSX, Solaris and Windows operating systems. Selenium also supports a wide variety of testing frameworks such as: Bromine, Hermes, ISFW, JUnit, NUnit, Robot Framework Selenium Library, RSpec (Ruby), Test:Unit (Ruby), TestNG (Java) and Unittest (Python). Selenium has limited support for other web browsers, but it primarily intended to be used with Firefox. SeleniumHQ maintains an updated list of what features are compatible with different browsers.

For Web Developers, Selenium is a must have tool in their arsenal and many couldn't fathom working without it. Selenium is also extremely popular among web development students as well because it is a free download. If you're looking to automate some of your development and testing chores, Selenium is worth trying.

About the Author: Ela Osinski has worked for several software and app development companies and enjoys learning about different types of software. Selenium is an important programming tool and you need to have a working knowledge in your arsenal.

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Top 3 Web Browsers For Your Mac

The best web browsers from the Mac include the top three most popular on the market. You can choose the Safari browser, the Google Chrome browser, and the Firefox browser.

Safari

This is the default browser that is included on the Mac. Safari has added a new unified search field that allows users to search from the address bar. Previous websites are saved and appear in your address bar when typing a new address or search term. Another feature included with the browser is Tab View. This feature allows you to swipe between tabs and open a web page instantly. You can have iCloud tabs that save your last websites and makes them available on the iPhone or iPad. The browser also saves a web page to a reading list that you are able to view offline. 

Google Chrome

The Google Chrome browser is available for Max OS X 10.5 and later versions. The big selling points of the browser is that is starts up fast, loads web pages fast, and searches fast. Chrome included the use of their Omnicar which is a combination address bar and search bar. This browser was the first to have this feature. The Chrome web store is available for you to add various extensions and themes. When a page is displayed in a different language you will see a translation feature appear. This will give you the option to translate the page into any language. The browser also supports an incognito mode. 

Firefox

This is a full-featured web browser that you can install on your Mac. Many features are included on the browser including pop-up blocking, integrated Google search, tab browsing, and privacy options. Your open web pages are also displayed in tabs that you can easily switch between. You are able to use many add-ons to customize the browser. Websites that you use often can be added to the App Tabs section for easy access and to remove from your tab bar. A scrolling feature is also included to see all the tabs open in the browser. One big benefit of this browser is the ability to restore a crashed browser session. 

Additional Information

You can choose to use one or all of these browsers on your Mac. Download and install the Chrome and the Firefox browsers to see how they compare against each other and Safari. You can then decide if you prefer one browser over another. 

BIO – Dan is a Graphic Designer who Loves to Buy iPhone4 Cases for his Pride and Joy Iphone4S

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Webinar Software

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Setting up a videoconferencing session with a couple of people is really easy these days thanks to all of the software technologies that developers can take advantage of nowadays. Corporations and franchises can keep in touch with employees regardless of location as long as these employees have the necessary software and have decent Internet connection speeds. However, these programs are quite limited and normally cannot handle more than 10 to 20 people. If you look at those seminars, there could be at least 50 attendees and that can pose a problem if you want to host some kind of online seminar using these consumer programs.

Sharing Innovation - Web conferencing across Campuses (Photo credit: Steven Parker)

Webinar software are more focused on not only allowing more participants to see the live presentation but also to get involved with the discussion without distracting the presenter while he or she is presenting. This is the kind of software that top corporations are using so they can stream their biggest product launches to the people that matter. Now there are developers that are allowing other people to use the webinar software so representatives and presenters can make a much bigger impact to their audience. It is these programs that make presentations just as interactive as the traditional way of launching seminars. 

In fact, these tools can make the work a lot easier since you can use these tools as early marketing tools. Many webinar applications come in the form of large packages where you need to simply upload them to a reliable server and let the software handle the various tasks including the handling of registrations and the sending of invites to make sure that many attendees check out the presentation. It is easier for people to attend a webinar since they can do it from any place that has a quick Internet connection. 

Since one of the main goals for webinar software is to get just about everyone in the target market involved, many good programs retain compatibility across all of the major operating systems and web browsers. This is because these webinar applications have web-based interfaces where you only need a browser. Some plugins might be required but they should be very easy for new users to install. Those webinar software that have basic plugin requirements may allow smartphone and tablet users to attend the webinar. 

Robin Good at Webheads Convergence (Photo credit: mikecogh)

One of the biggest advantages of organizing a webinar over a conventional seminar is the reduced time it takes to fully prepare. If you choose the right package, you should be able to implement the webinar software even if you do not have a website set up and you have no time to create some webpages. Because of the time that you save, you can pour more resources into improving the overall presentation experience. You try to add some more spice on your PowerPoint presentations or get creative with Adobe Effects just to show how interesting webinars can be. With the right combination of audio, video, text and plenty of images, presentations can really shine and there are no more worries with seeing a presentation on the projector that looks faded just because you are sitting too far from the screen. 

Webinars can cut a lot of costs too. There are no travel expenses to speak of and there is no need for distributing print material to other people. Even the ones that are attending the webinar can save big because they no longer need to bring notepads and pens. All that is recommended is a headset so people can participate in the discussion better.


Finally, any webinar that is finished can immediately be turned into a webcast through the software’s recording feature. You can close off the seminar and immediately make the recording as a free download for those that couldn’t watch the presentation live. This is even useful for people that have already seen the presentation because they can look back at video and spend more time digesting the information. Recorded videos can be paused and people that need to see certain parts can jump to that frame immediately.


Because people that are tuning into the presentation can still interact with the presenter when questions and comments are encouraged, webinar software looks to be the future of hosting exciting seminars. In fact, you can use webinar software to enhance the reach of traditional seminars for the benefit of those that like to attend local events.

If you would like to learn more about webinars and read reviews of the most popular webinar providers such as Gotowebinar, then you need to visit www.bestforwebinars.com

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How to bypass SOPA Blocking and Reach Sites Directly

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is one that could threaten a lot of websites and a lot of online businesses. One thing is for sure though, industries where copyright is essential have probably donated heavily to the cause. If SOPA or even its “lighter” version PIPA gets passed, even if you have Comcast internet, the internet will change forever.

If the internet is a super highway, SOPA will be the tens of millions new police checkpoints added to it. What is worse is that these police checkpoints care about profit rather than serving us, the public. However, you do not need to worry a lot about SOPA. There are many things you can do to bypass the blocking that SOPA imposes and visit sites directly.

DeSOPA the Evil SOPA

One method is to use an extension named DeSOPA. This is a Firefox extension that enables you to easily bypass SOPA restrictions and access websites directly.

There may not be any SOPA restrictions currently in place, but that does not mean that we should not be prepared. Granted, DeSOPA will not work with every website (subdomains as an example) but at least it is a start.

Manually “De-SOPA-fy” your Surfing

You can actually do what SOPA does manually should you choose not to install the extension. This method is rather simple.

All you have to do is become a little nerdy.

1. Open up Command Prompt

2.Ping the website you wish to browse. For example ping insertwebsite.com

3. This will give you an IP address in return.

4. All you need to do is type that IP address into your browser’s search bar and you are ready to go.

However, this method is not permanent. If SOPA does blacklist various domains, you will not be able to use this method. Although it is not a perfect method, something is better than nothing and it sure is a start to bigger things.

Tor

Everyone knows that it was bound to happen at sometime. Better now than never right? Thanks to the bill, there are now even programs that you can use to bypass the restrictions placed by SOPA. Tor is an example of a free program that allows you to reroute your traffic through the computers of various volunteers.

Practically every one of you is probably thinking that their data and their surfing history are now vulnerable. However, thanks to the “onion” technique used by Tor, your browsing experience will still be very secure. Actually, considering the effects of SOPA, it will be more secure than ever.

You do not need to worry Of course, your identity is not 100% secure and you may experience slightly lower speeds but considering the benefits, is it not worth it? You can still use your existing Comcast internet connection with this method.

Use Virtual Private Networks

There is always a fail-safe for everything. As far as anti-SOPA solutions go, virtual private networks, or VPNs, are the ultimate fail-safe. VPNs have been used for many years where your data passes backwards and forwards through encrypted means.

If you get a VPN server that is located internationally (not in the United States), you can quite easily bypass SOPA without any major worries. Best of all, there is no leak in security. However, a clause in SOPA does allow the Department of Justice to shut down any service providers found providing services to customers who were using the company’s services for illegal or pirated activities.

Again, if you get a VPN server outside the United States, everything should work for the best. This is because that the United States cannot shut down VPN servers that operate and are based outside their soil. There are obviously things that the United States government could do to stop you but as I have said before, there are always ways to get around it.

If SOPA does get implemented and many restrictions are put in place, there will at least be many ways through which you can access websites directly. From simple command prompt commands to subscribing to a virtual private network, it seems that SOPA may not be able to stop users who value their anonymity.

About the Author:

The above article is composed and edited by Eva K. She is associated with many technology and web communities as their freelance writer and adviser. In her free time she writes articles related to broadband deals, technology, mobile applications, etc

Microsoft launched new website to check credibility of browsers

Bringing another innovation to the world of technologies and gadget, Microsoft launched a website on October 11^th, 2011 that cranks out security scores for the number of editions of Internet Explorer which is its own browser and also other browsers built by the rivals of Microsoft, Google and Mozilla. This new website is named yourbrowsermatters.org and it works by running a browser through a checklist of security features and then gives a score that is out of a maximum of 4 points.

It is not surprising that the highest version of Internet Explorer (IE9) has the highest score of 4 out of 4. The previous version of Internet Explorer, IE8, which was launched in 2009, had garnered a score of 3. Chrome 14 of Google, which is the current stable build, which was launched last month, has settled on a second position by getting a score of 2.5 out of 4. Another browser which is a month old, which is Mozilla's Firefox 7, had generated a score of just 2 out of 4. The other two browsers which come amongst the top five most used and popular browsers, Opera Software's Opera and Apple's Safari didn't even garner any score as they weren't considered to be competitive enough by Microsoft. The message displayed for both of these was "We can’t give you a score for your browser".

According to Microsoft, this new website and its scoring exam have the purpose of illustrating the insecurities of the older browsers. As a result it is quite anticipated that IE6, which is a decade old and which Microsoft has been keen to kill, had scored a 0 out of 4. It also exposed a prevalence of different web based threats that will try and trick users into making poor decisions. Microsoft’s chief IE marketing executive, Roger Capriotti, said that the ranking was based on browsers that provide better protection against the most common threats such as malware which are socially engineered.

Microsoft had publicized the ability of IE8 and IE9 for blocking malware for quite some time with studies done by NSS Labs as examples. According to these studies some of which was paid by Microsoft itself, IE9 had the sustained capacity of blocking 99.2% of all the malicious links and Web-hosted malware that it faced. These results displayed by Microsoft haven’t been commented on by Google and Mozilla yet, although Microsoft has welcomed comments from them.

Blogger Buzz: Update on Browser Support

Blogger Buzz: Update on Browser Support