v 2011 ~ WebsiteSupport

October 13, 2011

Five Profitable Website Design Tips Website Design Tips


Designing a website is never easy, especially with technology changing on a regular basis. Every person who uses the internet on a regular basis understands this instinctively. You are constantly evaluating sites as you navigate, for content and style.

For whatever reason you are launching an affordable website design, the goals are going to be the same. You want to keep visitors interested and allow them to move freely from the home page without getting jammed. If at any point a visitor feels confusion, chances are they are moments away from leaving.

Early exits from your site defeat the purpose. In fact, it may force you to decide on the viability of certain key features of your site. This trap can be avoided if you design your site well from the start. Remember, it is much easier to upgrade a well-constructed site than to start over from scratch. Follow these five tips to get web design right the first time.

 1. Make navigation easy. This rule tops the list because it can never be overstated. Websites which feature tedious paths to follow are not popular. A website doesn’t have to wow a visitor from the get-go, but it should allow visitors to see all it has to offer with minimal fuss. One tip is to keep links to a minimum on the home page. Drop-down menus offer the developer many options, as do duplicated links of site highlights. There is no point in hiding the jewels.

 2. The layout is clear and clean. Getting the spacing right is no small feat, but it is one of the ingredients of any good affordable e-commerce website. Whether your pages are content-heavy or picture-heavy, let the material breathe, with plenty of white (or whatever background color) space for it to stand out. Remember also that different fonts can be problematic on certain computers, so plan accordingly.

3. Consider different screen resolutions. With websites with extended content (i.e., long articles which require lengthy pages), you will need to try and accommodate the different screen resolutions of visitors. To limit scrolling, find a layout which has the ability to stretch and present itself without issue.

4. Cut down on loading times. One common error in web design involves extended page load times. The goal is not to blow the mind of the visitor while taking 45 seconds to do so. Visitors think of what else they could be doing with their time, rather than why they should stay. Keeping graphics to the barest minimum will circumvent this problem. Unused scripts can also cause delays and send visitors packing.

5. Work on scale. Seeing into the future is impossible, but we can all be sure that computers and the internet itself will change. Think of the best possible way to scale your site and its design to accommodate changes that are sure to come in the future. A useful exercise is going back over the last few years and examining the progress of that time period.

Happy Designing

August 14, 2011

Microsoft Silverlight for Business Applications



Your users want an application that’s easy to use. Your developers want to do something cool. You want to complete the project on time and in budget. Can Silverlight help you? Below are the top ten reasons you should consider Silverlight for your line of business applications.
10. It’s platform-neutral – Silverlight doesn’t rely on the Windows OS or a specific browser so you don’t have to force your end users to use certain technologies and frameworks. They can use what works best for them.
9.    Simple deployment – Since Silverlight is Web-based, it doesn’t require the .NET Framework to be installed on client machines, greatly simplifying application deployment
8.    Your developers already know .NET – Because Silverlight is a .NET-based platform, you can leverage the skills your developers already have.
7.    Readily available suites of third party controls (e.g., TelerikInfragistics, etc.) - In addition to the more than 60 controls available within the Silverlight SDK, there is a growing library of third-party controls, making your developers that much more productive.
6.    Can be used to enhance existing web and SharePoint sites incrementally – It’s not all or nothing with Silverlight. You can easily add to existing web or SharePoint applications by integrating new Silverlight components into these existing sites when needed.
5.    Users are more productive because of the rich, interactive interface – If your end users are used to working with Windows Forms desktop applications, they’ve come to expect a certain level of interactivity and usability that is harder to accomplish with Web applications. In addition to its advanced graphics capabilities, Silverlight offers a comprehensive set of controls to make data input and manipulation easy and intuitive.
4.    Applications can be developed to run “out of browser” – Out of browser applications run on the user’s desktop and offer the ability to work without a connection to the Internet. With Silverlight’s ability to detect network connections, the application can be brought online and synced to the database with the click of a button.
3.    It offers amazing data visualization tools out-of-the-box – Deep Zoom and Pivot Viewer are two examples of controls that make high performance business intelligence applications possible in a fraction of the time.
2.    It allows secure interaction with databases, the desktop file system, devices, and Microsoft Office – Running on the client’s computer, Silverlight can utilize computer resources directly, allowing you to include features in your applications that would be difficult or impossible to implement in a standard web app.
1.    Applications can be developed faster and your end users made more productive, meaning a higher ROI for your business –  It all boils down to dollars and cents. Silverlight leverages the skills and development infrastructure you already have and allows you to provide your end users with the tools they need to do their jobs more efficiently. More efficiency + more productivity = more profit.
source:http://blog.farreachinc.com

August 04, 2011

How To Get Selected For Microsoft Student Partner Programme?


Beginning today, I Rohit Ajmani ,the founder of TechHunk.com and a Microsoft Student Partner would elaborate by journey through all these years being a part of microsoft. but firstly, i would like to throw light on how to get selected for the msp proggrame!!
Guide to MSP SELECTION FOR 2011-2012 SESSION.:
MICROSOFT-STUDENT-PARTNER–MSP Program is a program run by Microsoft across the globe in order to enhance the availability of Microsoft technologies and softwares and ofcourse the Knowledge about all the technologies available. Under this program MS might select 1/2/3..any number of Campus Ambassador in your college to represent as a guy who is both linked by students of that institute and Microsoft and will help their peers to obtain various softwares and their knowledge for free. Also MSP has to conduct a lot of activities in order to distribute the knowledge to his/her peers. Being an MSP is itself a thing to be proud of. Your peers will admire you, you will have a special image of yours among your faculties and students, other then that you will be provided with a lot of technical support, material, opportunities by MS to gain various abilities either technical or manageerial. Overall being an MSP is one of the greatest achievements you can have at your student (college) life.
After all 10000 people applied in 2010 and 600 got selected! I being one of the lucky few.so its a tough process to be an msp!!!
I being an msp will guide U how to get selected to one of the most prestigious community prograame ever!!!! the benifits are endless:
* Companies view you as a trained experienced personell
*It adds a striking charm to your resume.
*Huge learning experience and benifit in internships/training in microsoft!!
Benefits from microsoft:
As an MSP, a host of benefits are available:
* Welcome kit (including invitation letter & ID card)
* Exclusive MSP Boot-camps conducted by Microsoft(all expense paid trips to goa etc):p)
* MSDN subscription
* Rewards & Recognition for top performers
* Networking opportunities
* Technical training & resources
* Microsoft events
* Interactions with MVPs & Microsoft Employees
* Internship & Recruitment announcements for top-performers
Its an amazing experience as MSP as the time passes by you learns and learns a lot. This poster is a visual presentation of my tech interest. Size of logo specifies my favs. Get the reflection of what you as MSP do n enjoy…
Also, this is the glimpse of what MSPs will revolve around, which all technology and activities this year. So guys, Let’s create the difference…
Elegibility criteria to apply:
To consider applying for the MSP Program, you must be:
  • Over 17 years of age.
  • Studying a full-time course at an officially recognized University/College in India.
  • Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree student who will complete the course after May 2010.
A good MSP is one who has the following basic qualities:
  • Technical competencies
  • Passionate about software
  • Quick learner
  • Respected by peers
  • Community-building competencies
  • Enthusiastic about technology
  • High level of social activity, both online & offline
  • Can organize college and city-level events
  • Fundamental competencies
  • Passionate about Microsoft
  • Confident & outgoing
  • Good rapport with faculty
  • Willing to share knowledge & eager to uplift self and peers
MSP Program
Rounds in selection process(these were , at my selection time):
Round1: Online form submission
Round2:Record videos ( communication & Leadership, details in the attachment) using your mobile phone/ webcam/ handy cam/ any recording means.
round 3: Gd on any general topic
round 4:Quiz on a microsoft worldwide competetion, imagine cup!!!
Ill guide you in my subsequent posts , how to pass through all of these.It is not necessary that these are the selection procedure every year, it depends on year to year.
In the end,some FAQ’S:
MICROSOFT STUDENT PARTNERS
Frequently Asked Questions
1. I have completed my graduation. Can I apply for the MSP Selection?
No. you can participate in the MSP Selection only if you are a current student pursuing your graduation or post-graduation.
2. I am not studying in an Engineering college. Can I apply for the MSP Selection?
MSPs
are not restricted to engineering colleges only. If you are a student
of a recognized Science, Technology, Engineering, Math or Design
college, you are eligible to participate in the MSP Selection process.
3. Will I get a confirmation email after I register?
No.
If you have registered on the correct link and have provided the
complete information required, we will get it. There is no need for you
to email us informing that you have completed all the steps.
4. Who do I contact in case I have any queries, etc.?
This
FAQ is designed to answer almost all questions that you might face. Go
through it carefully and if you still have any doubts, you can email
them to studpart@microsoft.com.
5. How long do I remain an MSP?
You are a MSP for one academic year, subject to your performance and decision made by the MSP India Team.
6. How many MSPs are selected from a particular college?
We generally take one or two MSPs per college.
7. If I already have an existing Imagine Cup username, can I enter the same on www.surveymonkey.com/s/mspround2?
If
you have an active login on http://imaginecup.com and you have logged
in successfully after 10th July 2010, you can specify the existing
username.
If not you can create a new username and you can provide us with the new username
What kind of technologies do u study at msps?
The technologies you can learn to become technically updated or for your coming future are -
cloud computing, windows phone 7, windows azure and many more…
…..! ALL THE BEST FOR BECOMING MSP.!……
source: http://techhunk.com

June 16, 2011

Now you can search on google by the image

Search by Image in Google Search
Discover all sorts of content that's related to a specific image. Just specify an image, and you'll find other similar or related images as well as relevant results from across the Web.
For example, search using a picture of your favorite band and see search results that might include similar images, webpages about the band, and even sites that include the same picture.





How to search

There are a few ways to search by image:
  • Visit images.google.com, or any Images results page, and click the camera icon camera icon in the search box. Enter an image URL for an image hosted on the web or upload an image from your computer.
  • How to enter an image URL
    1. On any webpage, right-click an image and select the option to copy it. In most browsers, this option's name starts with "Copy image," except Internet Explorer for which you'll select "Properties" and then copy the URL that's then displayed.
    2. Visit images.google.com, or any Images results page, and click the camera icon camera icon in the search box.
    3. Paste the copied URL into the search box
    4. Click Search
    How to upload an image
    1. Visit images.google.com, or any Images results page, and click the camera icon camera icon in the search box
    2. Click the Upload an image link
    3. Click Choose File
    4. Select the image from your computer
    5. Wait for the file to upload, then click Search
    Tip: You can also drag and drop an image to initiate a search. Simply click on an image, hold down the mouse, and begin dragging it toward the search box. You should see a blue box appear, and then you can drop the image into that box.
  • Download a browser extension for Google Chrome or Firefox to search by any image on the web, simply by right-clicking on the image.
Search by image is optimized to work well for content that is reasonably well described on the web. For this reason, you’ll likely get more relevant results for famous landmarks or paintings than you will for more personal images like your toddler’s latest finger painting.

How it works

Google uses computer vision techniques to match your image to other images in the Google Images index and additional image collections. From those matches, we try to generate an accurate "best guess" text description of your image, as well as find other images that have the same content as your search image. Your search results page can show results for that text description as well as related images.

The results page

When you search by image, your results will look different than your normal Images or Web results page. The biggest difference is that your results can include non-image results like webpages that seem relevant to the image that you searched for. The elements of your results page will change depending on your search and on the information that's most relevant to that search.



Elements you might see


  • Preview image: see a small version of the image that you searched with. (Note that if you return to that results page after a certain time, you may not see this image anymore.)
  • Best guess: if our system can find a text description for your image, you'll see it appear as a link to further search results. You might also see a few top web results for that text query. To change your search, edit or add to the best guess by typing in the search bar.
  • Visually similar images: see a set of images that are close matches to the image that you searched with. Click the link to see additional images that are similar.
  • Pages that include matching images: see web pages that show your image on their site
  • Other searches related to this image: if our system finds more than one "best guess" description, you'll see them as links at the bottom of the page. Click one to see full search results for that query.

HOW TO: Get Started With the COMPASS CSS Framework



Anybody who’s built a website of any size knows how quickly CSS can get out of hand. Style sheets can grow bloated and lengthy, making it difficult to find things, introducing redundancy and producing an end product that makes code maintenance tedious. Let’s face it — CSS is not very well-designed.
Over the years, a number of solutions have cropped up that attempt to deal with these problems. One of the most popular is the CSS framework, COMPASS.
Below, we’ll give you a quick introduction to how COMPASS works, and some tips on how to make it work for you.

What is COMPASS?


COMPASS is an open source CSS authoring framework written in Ruby that attempts to fix a lot of the shortcomings of CSS. It also streamlines development by providing a number of utilities and tools to make writing your CSS files easier and faster.
Those features include:
  • Support for variables and mixins.
  • SASS-style nesting of CSS rules.
  • Helper functions for images, fonts, colors and more, including mathematical calculations.
  • Flexible tools for ensuring cross-browser compatibility and graceful fallback states.
  • Integration of a Blueprint module, including several default styles for rapid prototyping and styling commonly used elements.
With all that and dozens more tidbits to offer, COMPASS provides a robust authoring environment for CSS creation that automatically monitors your code as you write it, compiling it down to pure CSS for use on your site. So while the COMPASS gem is needed for authoring, your website needs no special software or libraries to display CSS written in COMPASS.

How Does COMPASS Work?


Now that we’ve gone over what COMPASS is and discussed a few of its features, let’s take a look at some of them in action. In this, we’ll use a few variables and a custom mixin, as well as an image helper and nesting to show how COMPASS makes it easy to reuse content throughout your CSS files.

$dark-accent:   #333;
$light-accent:  #eee;

@mixin default_fonts {
    font-family:    helvetica;
    font-size:      10pt;
    color:          $dark-accent;
}

#info_box {
    width:      400px;
    height:     300px;
    padding:    10pt;
    border:     1px solid $dark-accent;
    background: $light-accent;
    @include    default_fonts;

    input[type=button] {
        background:  image-url('button.png') top left repeat-x;
        color:       #fff;
        font-weight: bold;
        border:      none;
    }
}

Here you see that we’ve set up a couple of variables (dark and light accent) which we use in the mixin, in addition to the CSS rules for our info box.
Next, the mixin itself contains the rules for our default fonts. After that comes an example of how nesting works. The rules for our input button, in this example, only apply to those found within the info box.
Finally, the image URL helper here is used to generate the output for the background image, so we don’t have to type the full image path each time (path information is defined in a small config file that sits in the root directory of your project).
Now let’s take a look at the COMPASS-compiled output:

/* line 10, ../sass/demo.scss */
#info_box {
  width: 400px;
  height: 300px;
  padding: 10pt;
  border: 1px solid #333333;
  background: #eeeeee;
  font-family: helvetica;
  font-size: 10pt;
  color: #333333;
}
/* line 18, ../sass/demo.scss */
#info_box input[type=button] {
  background: url('/images/button.png') top left repeat-x;
  color: #fff;
  font-weight: bold;
  border: none;
}

As you can see, the mixins become included, variables substituted, image URLs generated, and inheritance is determined via the nesting. When generating the CSS, COMPASS also includes comments that clearly show us where each element is defined in its corresponding CSS file. If there’s an error at the time of generation, COMPASS will drop a helpful stack trace right into the CSS file where the error occurs.
At first glance, the original COMPASS code may look more verbose than the generated CSS output, but when you consider that those variables and mixins can be used throughout your entire project, you begin to see the advantages. COMPASS all but eliminates the need for adding presentational classes (e.g. “align-right” or “big-text”) without making you constantly repeat yourself. In addition, it’s feasible to completely change a color scheme for an entire project simply by updating a few variables and perhaps changing an image path or two.
This is only a small example of the power and flexibility COMPASS offers, but you can begin to see its amazing potential.

Where to Go From Here


If you’d like to learn more about COMPASS, you can check them out at compass-style.org. Thedocumentation is particularly well done.
Keep in mind that COMPASS uses SASS and Blueprint, so you may want to read up on those as well.
You’ll also need a working installation of Ruby and RubyGems to install and use COMPASS.
Finally, we recommend taking a look at the Setup & Install Guide on the COMPASS website.
source: http://mashable.com
source:



June 02, 2011

GIMP Keyboard ShortCuts


GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program is one of the powerful Open Source Image Editing Software. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.


GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.


Keyboard shortcuts can be a great time saver when working within GIMP.  Rather than navigating through the menu structure to find what you are looking for, if you learn some of  the common shortcuts it will increase your productivity greatly.

File Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Ctrl + NNew Image
Shift+Ctrl+VCreate a new Image from Clipboard
Ctrl + OOpen Image
Ctrl+Alt+OOpen as Layers
Ctrl+SSave Image
Shift+Ctrl+SSave As
Ctrl+PPrint
Ctrl+WClose
Shift+Ctrl+WClose All
Ctrl+QQuit
  
Edit Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Ctrl+ZUndo
Ctrl+YRedo
Ctrl+XCut
Ctrl+CCopy
Shift+Ctrl+CCopy Visible
Ctrl+VPaste
Shift+Ctrl+VPast as New Image
DeleteClear
Ctrl+,Fill with FG Color
Ctrl+.Fill with BG Color
Ctrl+;Fill with Pattern
  
Select Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Ctrl+ASelect All
Shift+Ctrl+ASelect None
Ctrl+IInvert Selection
Shift+Ctrl+LCreate a Floating Selection
Shift+OSelect by Color
Shift+VSelect from Path
Shift+QToggle Quick Mask
  
View Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Ctrl+EShrink Wrap - Reduce image window to size of image
F11Toggle Fullscreen View
Ctrl+TShow Selection
Shift+Ctrl+TShow Guides
Shift+Ctrl+RShow Rulers
  
Image Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Ctrl+DDuplicate Image
Ctrl+MMerge Visible Layers
Alt+ReturnDisplay Image Properties
  
Layer Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Shift+Ctrl+NNew Layer
Shift+Ctrl+DDuplicate Layer
Ctrl+HAnchor Layer
Page UpSelect Previous Layer
Page DownSelect Next Layer
HomeSelect Top Layer
EndSelect Bottom Layer
  
Tools Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Selection Tools 
RRectangle Select
EEllipse Select
FFree Select
UFuzzy Select
Shift+OSelect by Color
IIntelligent Scissors
  
Paint Tools 
Shift+BBucket Fill
LBlend
NPencil
PPaintbrush
Shift+EEraser
AAirbrush
KInk
CClone
HHeal
Shift+UBlur / Sharpen
SSmudge
Shift+DDodge / Burn
  
Transfrom Tools 
QAlign
MMove
Shift+CCrop
Shift+RRotate
Shift+TScale
Shift+SShear
Shift+PPerspective
Shift+FFlip
  
General 
BPaths
OColor Picker
ZZoom
Shift+MMeasure
TText
Ctrl+BToolbox
DDefault Colors (Sets foreground to black and background to white)
XSwap Colors
  
Filters Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Ctrl+FRepeat Last
Shift+Ctrl+FRe-Show Last
  
Windows Menu - ShortcutsFunction
Dockable Dialogs 
Ctrl+LLayers
Shift+Ctrl+BBrushes
Shift+Ctrl+PPatterns
Ctrl+GGradients
  
Ctrl+BToolbox
  
Help Menu - ShortcutsFunction
F1Help
Shift+F1Context Sensitive Help

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