Tag Archives: design

Adobe launches first public preview of Edge Reflow Web design tool

Adobe has launched the first public preview of Edge Reflow, its new visual Web-design software tool that focuses on site creation for a variety of viewing platforms. It features responsive design capabilities for an assortment of screen sizes, along with CSS3 styling and advanced sharing and previewing of content. Edge Reflow is a component of Adobe’s Edge Tools & Services Web design suite, launched last September, but now the public actually has a chance to take a crack at the program. And, as usual with its previews, Adobe is seeking feedback on the product from the Web design community.

“It became clear to us that designers needed a way to create content that would reflow and work across different devices," said Paul Gubbay, Adobe’s vice president of product development. "While we were able to do that working in code, we realized that the ability to do that visually would really be important.”

Responsive Web design, a term coined in the last couple of years, is a design-once-deploy-anywhere strategy that lets designers and developers adapt Web content to different screen sizes. Adobe’s Edge Reflow allows for the design of sites whose format and layout change depending on where the viewer sees a site. Thus, if you look at a site on a desktop monitor, it will look different than viewing the same site on an iPad or a mobile phone.

Edge Reflow interface
The Edge Reflow preview program lets you dynamically resize the design surface for adaptable layouts, create multiple comps simultaneously, and choose between a desktop or mobile-first design approach. Reflow’s goal is not to generate a final website, but rather to construct a visual comp that speaks the same language as the code developer to streamline and simplify the entire process.

Edge Reflow lets designers create true-to-life designs on a Webkit-based interface and customize those designs with elements like multiple background layers, inset and outset drop shadows, border styles, and more. Because the tool is written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it facilitates accurate, one-to-one rendering of content. You can then preview in the browser or use Edge Inspect—another tool in the suite—for real-time preview, and extract the generated CSS code for further development.

In related news, Adobe also announced updates to Edge Animate, Dreamweaver, and the preview of Edge Code.

New features in Edge Animate, Adobe’s motion and interaction design tool, allow for gradient and typographic capabilities. Gradient features allow you to style and animate radial or linear gradients, while CSS filters let you add effects like blur, grayscale, sepia, brightness, hue, rotate, invert, and saturate. A visual Web font selector, powered by Adobe’s Edge Web Fonts service, facilitates live preview of Web fonts.

Edge Animate
Adobe also announced updates to Dreamweaver, the company’s Web design and application development tool, including the integration of Adobe’s Edge Web fonts service, and an update of the program’s fluid grid layout.

Dreamweaver fluid grid
Finally, changes to the Adobe’s Edge Code Preview, a code editor for HTML5 developers working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, now include live previews so users can see changes in the browser as they edit. A Quick Edit feature lets you edit content inline without switching between files. It also features code hinting for CSS properties and HTML tags and attributes.

Edge Code Preview code hinting
All the updates are available only to Creative Cloud subscribers. More information about Adobe’s Edge Tools and Services is available on the company’s website.

Source: http://www.techhive.com/article/2027801/adobe-launches-first-public-preview-of-edge-reflow-web-design-tool.html

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Software Design Outsourcing

Software outsourcing has gained momentum in recent years. Thanks to the explosive growth of software technologies that facilitated smooth business process. This resulted in tough competition among companies to showcase the best technology and produce the best results. Since software development requires highly specialized knowledge, most of the companies found it hard to run the software development process in house. This led to the idea of outsourcing.

By outsourcing software services, a company can better focus on its core areas of business. They can avoid running multiple servers to carry data and employ a team of software professionals to look after different IT processes of the company. Companies can simply get these services done from specialized and dedicated software professionals from countries like India. There are several services being outsourced in this manner. Web designing and maintenance is one among them. This is because of the complexities involved in running a Web site.

There are several benefits of outsourcing services like Web site design and maintenance. The main reason is the cost factor. To develop a team of Web design professionals, a company will have to invest in additional infrastructure, hardware, software and human resources. They also should have a research team that will carry out research analyzing the new trends and policy changes in the market. Also, there should be a disaster management team looking after the Web site’s hardware and software aspects, such as downtime and security. All these will translate into huge investment and additional burden on the resources available to the company.

Software outsourcing resolves this issue. By accepting these services, companies can save up to 60 percent of the IT cost. This amount can be diverted to other areas of business activity, resulting in more growth and brand reputation.

Outsourcing companies have gained significant popularity because of their quality services and high level of professionalism. With a large pool of highly educated software professionals. Be it managed hosting, search engine optimization (SEO), Web site design, which offer valuable services to their clients. By leveraging this potential of the IT services outsourcing companies, a business can earn the best return on their investments.

Source: http://www.designplusvision.com/software-design-outsourcing/

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iPhone 5 & The 5 Ways It Can Be Better Than The 4S

Whether it is this summer or late fall, we can bet that the Apple iPhone 5 will hit stores before Christmas. However just like how the iPhone 4S manage to shatter sales records despite its predecessors (iPhone 4 and 3GS) already selling like hotcakes, Apple will need to come up with a new iPhone to top the just-released iPhone 4S.

So where exactly can Apple improve on the already well-designed iPhone 4S? Here are 5 areas.

iPhone 5 and 5 ways it can trump the iPhone 4S

New Design: Despite selling well, one of the biggest disappointments when the iPhone 4S debuted was that it shared the same design as the iPhone 4. So it’s about time Apple gives the next-gen iPhone a major refresh.

Larger Display: With the current trend of smartphones being big displays, a 4-inch display for the iPhone 5 will no doubt attract fans from other platforms. However the argument here is that the iPhone 4S is rightly sized now for easy one-handed usage. For that reason, reducing the bezel around the corners of the iPhone 5 like in the concept render below should allow for a larger display but same overall proportions.

Quad-core processor: The biggest rival to the iPhone 5 would no doubt be the Android platform, with the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S3 expected to be the most prominent of the army. The latest Android rumors hint that the next flagship Android smartphones from all the various manufacturers may all come with quad-core chips e.g. Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC Edge, Motorola Bullet, LG X3. iPhone games have been known to push the boundaries in terms of graphics so sticking in a quad-core processor will certainly help in future innovation.

4G LTE: With Verizon, AT&T and Sprint all working on their own 4G LTE networks, the current 3 networks that offer the iPhone 4S are already getting prepped for LTE devices. So it only makes sense that Apple should too.

Slimmer Design: Just like in the case of the evolution of the original iPad to the iPad 2, the iPhone 5 could be slimmed down over its predecessor. Starting with the Motorola DROID RAZR which launched with a 7mm thick body, future high-end smartphones like the HTC Ville and Samsung Galaxy S3 are all expected to be around the 7mm-8mm range. The key here is to deliver a slim iPhone 5 yet still allow space for the additional LTE radio and an appropriate sized battery. One such solution would be a cheese-wedge design like the MacBook Air (see below).

Source: http://www.motoringcrunch.com/news/mobile-tech/9903-iphone-5-vs-iphone-4s

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What SaaS can teach us about good software design

It may not be a man-bites-dog situation, but it’s still surprising to hear about a software-as-a-service vendor moving toward an on-premises deployment model. And yet that is just what Birst is doing, first with its business intelligence service in September and now with its homegrown in-memory database.

Conventional wisdom has it that pure-play SaaS suppliers are in the cat-bird seat now, watching their valuations skyrocket while the value of legacy enterprise software vendors merely rises and those legacy players try to freshen up by buying SaaS expertise or entire SaaS companies. Birst CEO Brad Peters’ conventional wisdom is that vendors should sell their software they way people want to buy it.

To be clear, Birst isn’t giving up on SaaS, it’s just being flexible, he says. And the on-premises software comes in the form of a software appliance that is easily updated over the web.

“Some people want their data near their BI and some want their BI near their data. We just want to be flexible,” he said in an interview Wednesday. Updates and upgrades happen essentially the same way for both models, which is to say easily and behind the scenes.

Source: http://gigaom.com/cloud/what-saas-can-teach-us-about-good-software-design/

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How to Get Qualifications in SQL Database Programming

Are you looking for a list of NFL Network shows? The NFL Network is a specialty channel available with some cable and satellite companies that is owned by the National Football League. The network first launched on November 4, 2003. The NFL invested 100 million dollars to fund this fledgling network. Who makes up the programming of the NFL Network?

What kind of shows does the NFL Network broadcast? Annual events that are highlighted on the network include the Hall of Fame Game, Inside Minicamp and Inside Training Camp, NFL Draft, NFL Preseason, NFL Scouting Combine, Live from the Owners Meeting, Live from the Pro Bowl, Live from the Rookie Symposium and Live from the Super Bowl. Some of the network’s current shows include America’s Game: The Super Bowl Champions, College Football Now, NFL Classics, NFL Follies, NFL Game of the Week and Put Up Your Dukes.

The NFL Network has plenty of great shows on all year round. If you love the NFL then ask your local provider about the NFL Network!

Source: http://www.pageonedesign.net/how-to-get-qualifications-in-sql-database-programming.asp

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How to outsource everything to the cloud

Remember the blurry old days when software was sold in boxes? If you were born in early 80’s, you might even have had the joy of installing software from floppy disks. Gladly, those times are past us.

Setting up a website, building a customer database, sending out newsletters and many other impractical tasks have become affordable for everyone, at a fraction of the costs 20 years ago, thanks to a plethora of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses.

Here you’ll find a brief overview of web-based services that you can start using today to help bootstrap your company.

  1. Designing your logo and corporate identity
  2. Email and Office Software
  3. Setting up your website
  4. Web Analytics
  5. Customer Support
  6. Relationship Management
  7. Sending promotional emails and newsletters
  8. Forms and Surveys
  9. Social Media Management, Monitoring and Analysis
  10. Accounting and Invoicing
  11. Conclusion

Source: http://sgentrepreneurs.com/innovation-technology/2011/11/30/how-to-outsource-everything-to-the-cloud-except-yourself/

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Nook Tablet hands-on: Can it fight the Fire?

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That’s the question that’s already bedeviling consumers and gadget aficionados alike.

In a matter of weeks, it seems, the tablet market has been compressed to just a handful of choices. The iPad 2 still rules the high end ($500 and above), but the "e-reader as tablet" option now looms large in the sub-$250 range, with the $199 Kindle Fire going mano-a-mano with the $249 Nook Tablet.

The Kindle Fire has just started shipping, and the Nook Tablet will follow as soon as tomorrow (a few days earlier than originally expected).

Last year, Barnes & Noble released the Nook Color at the same $249 price. Back then, a 7-inch color e-reader that could run apps as well as read color books and magazines, and even play movies and music, was a revelation. The Android tablet could even be rooted–to many, it became known as the not-so-secret most-affordable Android tablet around with the best design (other similarly priced and more-generic Android tablets are, by comparison, terrible).

With the Fire on the horizon, Barnes & Noble knew it had to up the ante. Thus, 2011′s Nook Tablet takes the basic Nook Color formula and delivers more storage, a faster dual-core processor, an improved screen–and, notably, a larger selection of apps.

Source: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33198_7-57325438-286/nook-tablet-hands-on-can-it-fight-the-fire/

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