The world of online business communication has introduced two industry-changing elements for small business: more customers and more competitors. Circa 1999, you were ahead of the competition by simply having a Web site to preview your service or products. By 2004, Web transactions were the norm, and convenience was the king. Both those previous core competencies have become expected norms, with social interaction, immediate consumer feedback, and a live and evolving social network and Web presence the new differentiators for cutting-edge online small business best practices.
Giving Your Site a Social Life
Is Web 2.0 Security’s Achilles Heel?
We’re facing a Web security gap. The Web has become the primary source of infections in enterprises, surpassing e-mail. Although most enterprises do some form of URL filtering on their Web traffic, it’s proven to not be an adequate security solution alone. Only 15 percent of organizations are performing the deeper inspection and blocking on Web traffic necessary to protect their employees, according to Gartner. And the problem is growing, with over 9,000 Web sites hosting malicious code being added each day.
Yet Another Open Data Foundation?
Chris Saad, a co-founder of the Data Portability project has posted that tomorrow at OSCON a new Open Data Web Foundation will be announced by David Recordon and others.
The goal of the new foundation is to set out the actual data specifications, legal structures around data portability and in helping to evangelize set formats. Saad says that the initiative is different to the Data Portability project in that it is details oriented around specific technology and legal implementations rather than the broader evangelizing effort that has come out of Data Portability:
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Update: David Recordon has responded by saying that he isn’t at OSCON tomorrow.
Update 2: David Recordon has confirmed that an Open Web Foundation will be announced on Thursday morning.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Technology’s Next Wave: Transforming Teamwork and Travel?
Video teleconferencing is growing more popular, thanks in part to high fuel prices. But is this the beginning of a deeper shift in how corporations and their employees work?
Rising fuel and travel costs are one motivation, of course. But the real issue is whether we are seeing the beginning of a deeper shift in how corporations and their employees work. Is this more a cyclical reaction to short-term economic pain or a structural phenomenon that will play out for years?
The truth is that it’s too early for a definitive answer. And yes, technologies like traditional videoconferencing have been disappointing in the past. But there are several signs that something significant is underway this time.
Semantic Web – The Next Generation Web
What is a Semantic Web?
A Semantic web, an extension of the existing World Wide Web, is a more advanced form electronic data management system envisioned by several web pioneers of the world. The concept of a Semantic Web revolves around the basic parameter of electronic data transfer on the web interface of human readability. This phenomenon, which is yet to be implemented, finds its root under W3 technology. Tim Berners-Lee, the man behind worldwide web, is also the man behind the idea of Semantic Web. It’s his vision which has actually made the possibility of “A machine talking to another machine”. He, with the collaborative efforts of a number of other internet scientists, brought this initiative into operation in the year 1999. Since then the there has been a plethora of research and hard work to make its functionality a success.
Semantic Web – Concept
The current web technology is purely based on simple HTML documentation, the most commonly followed markup language. But, the Semantic web envisions a technology in which a computer can understand all the information like a human. We are dependent very much on computers for processing our day to day tasks. However, our computers depend on us for the instructions to accomplish those tasks. This is where a web technology comes into picture in which computer will not have to wait for our instructions to carry the tasks; it will perform all the actions on the data interface by understanding the information itself.
The concept, in the words of Tim Berners-Lee, envisages a point where web, information and machine intersect. He states “I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize. People keep asking what Web 3.0 is. I think maybe when you’ve got an overlay of scalable vector graphics – everything rippling and folding and looking misty – on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data, you’ll have access to an unbelievable data resource.”
Welcome Semantic Web
We, human beings (not machines), have always been under constant scrutiny of some development or the other. In the course of that development we always try to set a trend based on innovation and various scientific results. Semantic web is one such virtual reality which makes data sharing & publishing executable on the internet solely by machine and, web world is confident of implementing it.
ADOBE DREAMWEAVER CS3
Macromedia’s release of Dreamweaver 1.0 in the year 1997 brought in a significant change in the Web World of Designing. It soon became a household name for rapid web content development. Being a Web designer, I enjoyed Macromedia’s release for about 10 versions of Dreamweaver from Dreamweaver 1.0 to Dreamweaver 8 within a period of just 8 years. This was followed by Adobe’s acquisition of Dreamweaver in the year 2005. Though Adobe claimed it’s inception to be remarkable yet, I was in two minds. Adobe’s first release was DreamwaeverCS3 in the year 2007 and it also became my first reason to be at a fix. I did not know if I should upgrade my version to Dreamweaver CS3 or not.
But guess what friends I surprised myself by upgrading it to Dreamweaver CS3. I got an integrated version of Dreamweaver and adobe graphics tool like Photoshop. In addition it has an outstanding CSS support with excellently commented codes which helped me to understand how the CSS layout works with ease. It also comes with 32 in built layouts to choose from in fixed and liquid designs. And to top it all it also gives you an option to define a place for CSS according to your choice. So be it an external file or in the head CSS is there where you wanted it to be.
CS3 gives me the spry support and with it I can easily add Ajax widgets and create effects on my Web pages. With Spry support all that one needs to know is how to DRAG, DROP and Incorporate dataset.
Now for a Web designer like the one I am, it has always been a problem for me with the data sources but my stance to upgrade it did a lot in this respect as well. Dreamweaver CS3 provides a wide-ranging support to XSLT by making use of XML files as data sources. Connecting my HTML document with XSLT after viewing the XML in a tree form is of no issue for me now and my nightmares with bulks of XML files in the same format are also gone as I can make template for them in Dreamweaver with XSLT.
This piece of information is for the Intel-based Macintosh users. You people are going to be the happiest lot with the performance enhancements of Dreamweaver CS3. One of the main reasons behind its performance enhancements is that it running on its own platform now and not on Rosetta anymore. This in turn helps in loading at a quicker pace and plain actions like typing responds faster.
Apart from the above mentioned features Adobe’s Device Central and Dreamweaver is also acting as a support to mobile phones by making it simple to foretaste the web pages in a range of mobile phone emulations.
If my friends out there are not completely satisfied with all that I have written about Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 then here’s something for you people to look forward to. Adobe in just 2 and half years has come up with its next Dreamweaver version and it is Dreamweaver CS4 (beta) and I am certainly waiting for an opportunity to come my way so that I can set my hands on its applications.
Venture Financing Drops for Youngest Companies As Older Ones Suck Up More Cash
In an ominous sign for Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial machine, venture capital firms are cutting back on their investments in companies at their earliest stage of development and being forced to provide extra financing for later-stage companies that can’t leave the nest and go public.
Overall, venture capital investment remained flat at about $7.4 billion in the [...]
