“Scanwood is Denmark’s largets manufacturer of wooden appliances for the kitchen, selling their products in Denmark as well as the rest of Europa and the Middle East.

Sanwood’s CEO wanted to change the packaging to communicate the fact that their products are made through an environmentally friendly process and are of course also made from all natural materials.

The story is now visible and understandable across all different markets and languages in a very appealing and friendly way. Giving the consumer an added experience when seeing the package and emphasizing nature by implying that the product almost grows straight out of the ground.

This is combined with a new identity matching the product and the payoff Designed in Denmark, made by Nature.”

Designed by Mads Jakob Poulsen of Denmark based Goodmorning Technology.

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After declining 8.2 percent in 2009, U.S. IT spending will grow 6.6 percent in 2010 to $568 billion. Global IT spending, which fell 8.9 percent last year, will increase 8.1 percent in 2010 to more than $1.6 trillion. Software and computer hardware will see the most growth.

"The technology downturn of 2008 and 2009 is unofficially over," said Andrew Bartels, Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst.

"All the pieces are in place for a 2010 tech spending rebound. In the US, the tech recovery will be much stronger than the overall economic recovery, with technology spending growing at more than twice the rate of gross domestic product (GDP) this year."

Global purchases of computer equipment will be up 8.2 percent, communications equipment buying will increase 7.6 percent, software spending will rise 9.7 percent, purchases of IT consulting and systems integration services will grow by 6.8 percent, and IT outsourcing services will be 7.1 percent higher.

On a regional basis, the strongest growth in 2010 will be in Western and Central Europe, where tech purchases will increase by 11.2 percent. IT purchases in Canada will grow by 9.9 percent, Asia Pacific by 7.8 percent, and Latin America by 7.7 percent. The weakest market will be Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, increasing just 2.4 percent.

"We are entering a new six- to seven-year cycle of IT growth and innovation that Forrester calls Smart Computing," said Bartels. "New technologies of awareness married to advanced business intelligence analytics make computing smart."

"Smart Computing rests on new foundation technologies such as service-oriented architecture, server and storage virtualization, cloud computing, and unified communications. 2010 marks the beginning of this next phase of technology advancement."
Related Articles:

> U.S. IT Spending Set For Rebound

> Forrester Records Big Rise In Social Networking

>Forrester: Interactive Marketing Spend To Double By 2014

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Nielsen polled more than 27,000 consumers in 54 countries to determine attitudes about paying for online content and to gauge what types of content consumers were most likely to support financially.

More than half (57%) of global consumers are willing to pay for professionally produced content such as music and movies, while 50 percent are willing to pay for current Tv shows.

Only 20 percent of consumers are willing to pay for blogs and less than a quarter (24%) would pay for user-generated video content. Nielsen found consumers are more likely to spend money on what they currently pay for, instead of what they already receive for free.

Nearly half of global respondents indicated they would be open to more ads to support free content, but that varies by market. For example, 57 percent of respondents in the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan are more open to advertising, while just 40 percent in North America and 39 percent in Europe feel the same way.

Related Articles:

> Nielsen Also Puts Bing Up In November

> November Online Video Trends A Mixed Bag

> Online Video Viewing Continues To Boom

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Why are employees, entrepreneurs and business owners outsourcing today?

Outsourcing is the act of delegating a job or task to a third party. Depending on the work being outsourced, the provider could be located anywhere in the world.

You don’t need to be a business to be outsourcing tasks, either. In Timothy Ferriss’ book “The 4 Hour Work Week” he highlights how employees are already outsourcing tasks to save money and time – massively increasing their productivity and work flow.
Having said that, the matter of the fact is:

The majority of businesses still don’t recognize what outsourcing is and why it can benefit them.

In this article, you’ll find out what outsourcing is and why YOU should be doing it if you want to gain momentum and pace in your work life.

The reasons for outsourcing are simple:

1. To tap into experise that you or your business does not have
2. To free up resources for more important tasks
3. To lower overheads through cheaper labor

What kind of jobs do people outsource?

It really depends on what you do AND how much faith you have in the provider.

1. Employees outsource administrative and research-based tasks
2. Marketers outsource article marketing and backlinking
3. Designers outsource website creation and logo development
4. Company directors outsource elements of human resources

Is outsourcing straightforward?

Outsourcing something is not as easy as you’d think. First, you have to find someone that ticks all the boxes, after which you must test their skills before you agree to any terms.

If you need to outsource a one-off project you’ll have much more luck finding a candidate than if you’re looking to hire someone full or part-time (by hiring I mean keeping them on a retainer as a services provider, not as an employee).

Getting the right person for the job takes perseverance and determination. It can take weeks – even months – to find the perfect balance between quality of service and price.

Something that holds a lot of people back from ever finding a suitable provider is their expectations.
If you’re a perfectionist (I have been guilty of this!) you’ll already have unreasonably high expectations for yourself which will no doubt be reflected onto the provider you hire. This can spell disaster for both productivity and the working relationship.

The work the provider does for you should be a reflection of the marketplace – that is to say, if you pay more you will get more. For example, spending $3-$5 in the Philippines will get you a decently written article, whereas in the United States the same service will cost around $10-$20.

Don’t expect more than what you pay for right off the bat. If the provider over-delivers then it’s a bonus but remember that they are not stakeholders in your business until you make them so.

If you’re looking for more conviction and more of a personal investment from providers think of ways that you can further incentivise them (maybe offer a commission on profits generated as a direct result of their work).

What do I look for in a provider?

The kind of tasks you need fulfilling will determine what you should be looking for. Typically, providers that specialize rather than offer a broad range of services, will return a higher quality of work.

Providers that offer a variety of services often have little expertise in comparison. However, if you’re on a shoestring budget and you need to offload a variety of jobs, hiring an “all-rounder” may be the only way.

Key guidelines when outsourcing:

Only work with providers that will confirm the receipt and specifications of their assigned jobs and complete them on time or with time to spare. If they are running late, they should notify you before the deadline.

Agree to a payment plan before you start working together!

These tips will save you a lot of unnecessary pain.

How much are providers charging and where can I find them?

Again, this depends on the nature of the work being outsourced. It also depends on the economic situation of both parties.

If the work does not require the provider to be based locally then countries who’s currencies offer a better exchange rate should be the first point of call. It also works in your favor when the providers speak your native language fluently.

For example, if you are based in the UK you’re in a brilliant position to outsource to overseas providers.

Many countries speak English fluently and the British currency is relatively very strong when compared with the Middle East and Asia.

Western businesses find that India and the Philippines are best suited to deliver the biggest bang for buck.

Conversely, if you have a business in Asia you may find it very difficult to outsource jobs unless your turnover is large enough to work with smaller profit-margins.

What will happen if I continue to do everything in-house?

Cutting costs and shifting time from quadrant 1 and 3 tasks, to quadrant 2 tasks should be the number one goal of any business when trying to manage resources effectively.

Therefore, outsourcing is a way of bypassing the need to employ and train workers on a wage reflective of the local economy, which creates a higher investment cost, and potentially a lower quality of work.

In the long run, failing to integrate outsourcing into your business model may end up costing huge amounts of money, frustration & stress and could help pave the way to an early business death.

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WebProNews: We’re told the LimeWire software has been translated into Arabic and will soon be translated into Persian, while the software and website are translated into a total of 23 languages. How are languages chosen and what does this means for the global peer to peer community?
 
Zeeshan Zaidi: LimeWire has over 50 million users and they are located in virtually every country on the planet.  Ideally, we would love to have LimeWire’s software and website available in every language so all our users could enjoy LimeWire in their native tongues.  To that end, we "crowdsourced" the translation of our software, through the LimeWire Open Source Project, giving users the ability to translate the client into their own languages. This has been a great success and we hope to continue to add languages this way.  In addition, we have supplemented these efforts with professional translation, especially of the LimeWire.com website.
 
Languages are prioritized based on the size of the total internet population that speaks a given language, as well as the total LimeWire population of native speakers of a language that are currently using our software in English.  For example, we already had many users throughout the Middle East and North Africa using LimeWire in English, but with the addition of an Arabic translation, we can now make LimeWire accessible to entire online populations of the countries in the region — we’re very excited about this. With the next release in December, we are adding Korean, Greek, Norwegian and Persian to our list of translated languages. With each additional language, we connect more corners of the world to our network.
 
Sometimes our objectives when choosing languages go beyond reaching the most users — Persian is an example of this.  When the Iranian post-election protest movement was gathering steam last summer, and the Iranian government was blocking the flow of coverage and information about the protests, Lime Wire took action.  We didn’t take a stance on the elections themselves, but we are firmly committed to facilitating the free flow of information and strongly opposed to these forms of government censorship.  We featured video clips from the protests on our software’s home page, and encouraged users throughout the world to download and spread the videos.  However, at the time LimeWire did not have a Persian translation so we made that a priority. Coincidentally, Iranian activists have recently approached us letting us know that they want to be able to use LimeWire to share files amongst themselves and circumvent their government’s attempts to block their communications.  Again, while we are politically neutral, we will always take the side of internet and information freedom.
 
WPN: We’re told the latest version of the LimeWire software (5.3) improves BitTorrent performance, adds selective-downloading and file-prioritization within the torrent, and faster startup. Can you tell us a little bit about the release and what is on tap for future releases?
 
ZZ: With every new release of LimeWire we add new features that are exciting to our users.  We added BitTorrent functionality at the beginning of this year because there was a lot of demand for this, and we have been enhancing these capabilities with every release.  So LimeWire users can now share files through the BitTorrent protocol in addition to the Gnutella network.  The adoption rate of version 5.3 has been great and we are very pleased with the results.
 
In the next release — 5.4 — we’re going to be adding additional features such as a video player and even better BitTorrent features.  It is our goal to continue to innovate on the software front and continue to provide our users with the best features.
 
WPN: It sounds like the LimeWire Store plays a key role in the future of LimeWre. Can you tell us about some of the plans for that?

ZZ: Many people don’t realize that in addition to developing file sharing software Lime Wire also operates a music store. LimeWire Store has over 4 million tracks available for sale a la carte or through a subscription service.  All tracks are fully licensed from record labels and music publishers.  Currently, the store is only available in the US.
 
There is a tremendous opportunity in expanding the nature and breadth of the offering of LimeWire Store and rolling it out internationally. We’re working towards launching a new paid subscription music service. We plan to couple this with other ways to monetize the user experience. This plan has tremendous potential for the industry, and if successful, will put lots of money into the hands of copyright owners.  Lime Wire is serious about this mission: we are in talks with the entire music industry to make it happen.  We’ve also assembled a team of talented and experienced media and technology executives so we can deliver on this vision.
 
WPN: You arrived at Lime Wire after working with Sony BMG, Arista and RCA overseeing online marketing and running digital business initiatives, as well as being a musician and an attorney. Can you discuss how your background influences your decisions at Lime Wire?
 
ZZ: As we’re planning the expansion of our store and the rollout of the new music service, my perspective is definitely informed by my background as an attorney, musician, and former record label executive. I care that consumers are provided with the best music search, discovery, sharing, and listening experience that takes advantage of cutting edge technology to give our users what they want when they want it.
 
As Lime Wire prepares for the launch of our new subscription music service, these are the company’s objectives and we’re determined to work in conjunction with the music industry to achieve them.
 
WPN: A representative for Lime Wire tells us file sharing is not about a battle between file sharers and the music industry, and that technology companies such as Lime Wire can work with labels and publishers to build and deploy services that consumers will like. How do you see this developing?
 
ZZ: Although there’s currently a lot of heated public debate about file sharing I do not view it as battle between file sharers and the music industry.  I have no negative feelings towards the music establishment.  Quite the contrary: I respect the magnitude of challenges that they are facing, because I used to tackle them myself.  It’s not easy to protect a revenue base coming from content when digitization is changing the way your consumers interact with and consume it.   My belief, though, is that technology companies such as Lime Wire can work with record labels and publishers to build and deploy services that consumers will love. One way of accomplishing this is through rolling out the music service that I describe above.
 
WebProNews would like to thank Zeeshan for sharing his responses with our readers. What do you think of Lime Wire’s future plans? Comment here.

 
Related Articles:

> Lime Wire CEO Talks Music Industry & Company’s Future

> MySpace Buys imeem, Rolls it Into MySpace Music

> Interview with Muxtape CEO Justin Ouellette

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Right on the heels of Foursquare’s API release, the location-based mobile application and game is announcing another big rollout to cities across the world.

Just one month after releasing Foursquare to 15 new cities in the US and Canada, Foursquare is ready to bring their highly addictive game and business-friendly service to 50 more cities. That’s actually twice as many cities as the service was in before today, bringing the total to 100 different cities worldwide.

We’ve included the full list of cities below, but perhaps the most significant part of today’s push is that it brings the application to a multitude of cities across the world in the places like South America, Australia, Asia, Africa, all over Europe, and even the Middle East.

Founder Dennis Crowley tells us that the company is still preparing for a “Foursquare everywhere” launch, but that they really wanted to incorporate the most requested cities as soon as possible. So the cities included in this list are what the company saw people talking about and/or requesting the most on Twitter and through their other feedback channels.

Diehard Foursquare fans may be wondering when/if the company will release new updates to the game. The good news is that Crowley tells us that new features are right around the corner. In an email to Mashable, Crowley writes:

“We’ve been working on this code re-write forever – which is why we haven’t been pushing new features recently.  We’ve been hustling to get everything re-worked by Thanksgiving so we can come back from the break and start rolling out all the scoring fixes and cheater fixes, reworked UX, new website, etc.”

See Also: Next year’s Twitter? It’s Foursquare (Pete Cashmore for CNN)

New Foursquare Cities

NORTH AMERICA
Charlotte, NC
Columbus, OH
Honolulu, HI
Louisville, KY
Memphis, TN
Nashville, TN
New Haven, CT
Oklahoma City, OK
Orlando, FL
Park City, UT
Providence, RI
Sacramento, CA
Tampa, FL
Tucson, AZ

Calgary, Canada
Edmonton, Canada
Ottawa, Canada

Mexico City, Mexico

SOUTH AMERICA
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
São Paulo, Brazil

EUROPE
Birmingham, UK
Bristol, UK
Brighton, UK
Cologne, Germany
Edinburgh, UK
Frankfurt, Germany
Hamburg, Germany
Lisbon, Portugal
Milan, Italy
Oslo, Norway
Reykjavik, Iceland
Vienna, Austria
Zurich, Switzerland

AFRICA
Johannesburg, South Africa

MIDDLE EAST
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Mumbai, India
Tel Aviv, Israel

ASIA
Beijing, China
Bangkok, Thailand
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Seoul, Korea
Shanghai, China
Singapore, Singapore
Tokyo, Japan

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane, Australia
Melbourne, Australia
Sydney, Australia

NEW ZEALAND
Wellington, New Zealand

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, zoomstudio.

Tags: foursquare

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Having already announced the Samsung Galaxy Spica (Galaxy I5700) in Russia, Samsung have seen fit to officially announce their Galaxy Spica (also known as the I5700) once again what with it now having hit Europe, CIS and currently pending release in both the Middle East and Africa.
(more…)

See: Samsung Galaxy Spica (Galaxy I5700) Re-Announced [Samsung Galaxy Spica Android Touchscreen, Social Network Friendly Smartphone]

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One of the promises of Google’s Android operating system has always been that it need not stay confined to powering cell phones. That’s already starting to come to fruition, with an Android netbook on the way from Acer and both the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Spring Design Alex eReaders also launching soon with Android under the hood (thought apparently it’s no accident the latter two devices are so similar).

Now there’s another Android device on deck that’s not a phone, dubbed Vega. Made by Seattle-based company Innovative Converged Devices, the Vega is a tablet-like device with a detachable stand to prop it up, running Android 2.0 (the same version used in the Motorola Droid).

The device, slated to launch in the first half of 2010, will actually come in three sizes: 7, 11 and 15-inches. It will support connectivity via Wi-Fi as well as 3G, and be available at reportedly “low cost” (read: subsidized) from major carriers throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Designed to be put to flexible use throughout the home, the Vega will feature high-definition entertainment and a touchscreen along with a webcam, Bluetooth support, accelerometer, 512MB RAM and storage via microSD. The brain of the machine will be NVIDIA’s Tegra processor, a high-powered combination CPU and graphics chip that was designed for low power consumption and long battery life.

There’s no word on what that “low cost” price may be, and it may end up varying by carrier as well (no word on whether you’ll be able to buy it outright without 3G yet, either). Nonetheless, the Vega is certainly an interesting entrant into the once again nascent tablet device playing field, with the Apple Tablet and the Microsoft Courier being the two hot tablets that no one will admit are real yet.

Check out a few more images of the Vega below. Do you see a place for these tablet devices in the home? What would the price need to be for you to pick one up? Would you rather it run Android, Mac OS X, Windows, or something else?

[via VentureBeat]

Tags: 3g, android, ICD, Tablet, vega

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We have been talking about Nokia’s latest smartphone / Internet tablet for a long time now but the device hasn’t been made available to customers yet. In fact Nokia did delay the N900 last month as it apparently needed a few fixes before being shipped to customers all over the world.
(more…)

See: Nokia N900 Starts Shipping [Nokia N900 to be Available in the USA, Europe and the Middle East]

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Analysts thought Yahoo would reel in $1.5 billion in revenue.  The company managed to find an extra $75 million.  It then did even better in terms of net income and earnings per share, reporting $0.13 against a forecast $0.07.  This represents a 225 percent year-over-year improvement, and would appear to show that the cost-cutting measures have paid off. 

Carol Bartz stated as a result, "[W]e had a solid third quarter that signals our major businesses have stabilized.  With new products like Yahoo! homepage, our brand revitalization campaign and expansion in the Middle East through Maktoob.com, our execution is improving and we’re focused on what we do best – being the center of people’s online lives."

As for the future, Yahoo thinks things will be better still in the fourth quarter, forecasting $1.6 to $1.7 billion in revenue.

Investors have responded well to all of this news, sending Yahoo’s stock up an impressive 5.42 percent so far in after-hours trading.

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Analysts thought Yahoo would reel in $1.5 billion in revenue.  The company managed to find an extra $75 million.  It then did even better in terms of net income and earnings per share, reporting $0.13 against a forecast $0.07.  This represents a 225 percent year-over-year improvement, and would appear to show that the cost-cutting measures have paid off. 

Carol Bartz stated as a result, "[W]e had a solid third quarter that signals our major businesses have stabilized.  With new products like Yahoo! homepage, our brand revitalization campaign and expansion in the Middle East through Maktoob.com, our execution is improving and we’re focused on what we do best – being the center of people’s online lives."

As for the future, Yahoo thinks things will be better still in the fourth quarter, forecasting $1.6 to $1.7 billion in revenue.

Investors have responded well to all of this news, sending Yahoo’s stock up an impressive 5.42 percent so far in after-hours trading.

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You are welcome to share if you know more best of the web in the month of September which our readers/viewers may like.  Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well.

Design Tips, Tricks and Tutorial
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
82 Earth-Shattering ZBrush Tutorials

56 Absolutely Brilliant and Intriguing Photoshop Video Tutorials 

45 Tutorials for Learning Pixelmator

27 Excellent Digital Photography Tutorials

40 Useful Photoshop Tutorials for Photo Manipulation

10 Wonderful Letterpress Type Tutorials

6 Different Ways to Make Your Text and Images Glow [Tutorials]

11 Fascinating and Educational Tutorials Teaching You How to Produce Better Photo Effects

How to Effectively Use Contrast, Auto Levels, and Batch Processing

50+ Most Amazing Adobe After Effects Tutorials You Need to Learn

20+ Car Pimping and Tuning Photoshop Tutorials 

15 Of The Best Character Illustration Tutorials Online

Photoshop Tutorials You Do Not Want to Miss

Urban Art Tutorial in Photoshop and Illustrator

Top Places to Find Quality Illustrator Tutorials Online

Artwork, Digital Photography and Inspiration

”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

Typographic Portraits That Are Absolutely Beautiful

100 Artworks from the Top 20 Designers in The Middle East and Africa

23 Colorful And Smart Examples Of Beautiful Web Designs

70 Fresh and Inspirational Blog Designs

Stunning illustrated typography on dark backgrounds

Best of Best WordPress 404 Error Page Designs

20 Amazing Examples of Vector Artwork

Website Design: Some of the most uniquely designed E-commerce websites

40 Gorgeous Fantasy Wallpapers to Spice Up your Laptop

40 Creative and Inspiring Website Backgrounds Techniques

13 Striking Digital illustrations of Horror Girls by Yoshitaka Kawakami

CSS: Design Out Of The Box

40 Excellent Examples of Interior Designs Rendered in 3D Max

25 Examples of Web 2.0 and Traditional Design Rules Coming Together

33 Creative and Beautiful Logos

50 Inspiring Web Application and Service Web Site Designs

50 Beautiful & Unique Twitter Profile Designs

30 Powerful and Inspiring Street Fighter Characters Artworks

50 Websites (and More) for Your Design Inspiration

20 Creative Illustration Advertisements from behance

40 Breathtaking & Creative Logo Designs Just to Inspire

TOP 35 Grunge Websites

Amazing Character Designs: 75 Brilliant Examples

25 Inspiring Examples of Abstract Vector Design

15 Mind Blowing Dragons Illustrations and Artworks

Javascript and Ajax

”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

40 Super-Neat JavaScript Plugins

25 Useful jQuery Tooltip Plugins and Tutorials

35+ Create Amazing Image Effects and Sliders with These Awesome jQuery Plugins

10 Easy jQuery Tricks for Designers

xHTML and CSS
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

Create a photorealistic web layout – CSS/XHTML available

CSS Wishlist: New Ideas, Debates and Solutions

51 Form Element Resources and Tutorials Using CSS And Javascript

30 CSS Best Practices for Beginners

Resources
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

60+ Totally Free Rusted Metal Textures for Designers

460 Free High Quality Icons For Web Designers 

60 High Quality Photoshop PSD Files For Designers

Massive Collection of Stunning Photoshop Actions

27 Best WebSites to Download Free Seamless Patterns

Fresh Free High-Quality Icon Sets

Style Switchers Showcase and Resources

76 Dirty, Extreme And Creative Free Grunge Fonts

99 High-Quality Free (X)HTML/CSS Templates

Five Free Tools for Multi-Monitor Computer Set-Ups

14 Best Online Typography Tools for Web Designers

16 Free “Premium Quality” WordPress Magazine Themes

13 Excellent Firefox Add-Ons That Are Absolutely Useful

49 Amazing Resources for Free Vector Graphics

Miscellaneous Articles

”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

20+ Powerful WordPress Security Plugins and Some Tips and Tricks

10 Revealing Infographics about the Web

30 Incredibly Useful WordPress Hacks

The Only SEO Tools You’ll Ever Need

The Difference Between Art and Design

Must See SEO Guide for All WordPress Bloggers

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Another Friday Fix, thanks to all your submissions – we are getting more and more submissions per week. Also with the new introduction to the designer/studio Twitter feature we are trying to get more interactive and make the Friday Fix about you. So let us know what you think, and if you have any suggestions to make the Friday Fix better – comment and let’s discuss.

Follow on Twitter

@geminijess

@jQTouch

@RockablePress

@BoxedInDesign

@cssIllustrated

@CreativityGeek

@StandUP4Design

Design Contest – Win $500

@ your library is seeking an original, creative design for its first ever Design a Tote Bag contest. The winning design will illustrate the fundamental spirit and importance of American libraries.

The Grand Prize Winner will receive $500 and a People’s Choice Award Winner will receive $100!
More details can be found here http://www.atyourlibrary.org/design-contest

Web Finds

The CSS Awards – The best of the best in CSS

MeeCSS – A really cool cheap solution to add your new design to CSS galleries.

The Little Friends of Print Making – A really quirky fun website, and illustrations too.

http://strongstuff.net/ – Tom Whalen amazing artists

100 Artworks From The Top 20 Designers in The Middle East and Africa

29 Exquisite New Photoshop Examples

Photography Inspiration Amazing Pictures by Li Wei

77 Inspiring Blog Comment Form Designs

14 Best Online Typography Tools for Web Designers

10 Cutting Edge Folded Paper Artists

Tutorials

20 More Useful Adobe Illustrator Menu Tips – Some really cool tips here for you Illustrator lovers

Super Easy Neon Text in Photoshop

Illustrator Quick Tips #1 – Complex Symbols with Pathfinder

Illustrator ring shape via overlapping crescents effect

Submission

Victoria Blount sent me this really fun music video about SEO.

Interview

Interviewed on BoxedInDesign – I was recently interviewed on BoxedInDesign, it was a great interview so thanks to BoxedIn. If anyone would like to interview me, please just email met at muellerchad[at]gmail.com.

My Grand Canyon Adventure

So as some of you know – I recently hiked the Grand Canyon – I have been working on getting some pictures ready for you guys. I will be posting some Grand Canyon Textures in the upcoming week. As well, I love panoramic images and with the new house – we are printing some of the panoramic shots we have taken from our travels. I just finished two from the Grand Canyon. Let me know what you think – you can also view my Grand Canyon album here too.

Twitter Reply Submission

@DavidKaneda | Blog | jQTouch App

David Kaneda is the creator of jQTouch app – A jQuery plugin for mobile web development on the iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, and other forward-thinking devices. He also runs a blog called 9-bits where he writes about design, technology and business.

Each week either @dertmobile or @chadmueller will be tweeting:
“First Designer / Studio to reply with this #Inspiredology Friday Fix gets a feature in the Friday Fix post on Inspiredology.com”
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A total of 422 million households will have a fixed broadband connection in 2009, up from 382 million households in 2008, and the market will continue to grow with nearly 580 million connections by 2013.

"Consumers may be watching their household expenditure, but dropping their broadband connections is not on the top of their agendas as a way to reduce outgoings," said Amanda Sabia, principal research analyst at Gartner.

"Multiple motivations are conspiring to keep broadband growth strong, such as PCs being more affordable, migration from dial-up, affordably priced broadband subscriptions, aging populations requiring broadband connectivity, and even as a result of an economic boost from country-specific economic and broadband-specific stimulus plans."

At the end of 2008, 21 countries had broadband connections in at least 50 percent of homes. In many countries the rates are much higher. The highest penetration is in South Korea at 86 percent and lowest is Indonesia at less than 1 percent.

Gartner predicts over the next five years, the emerging markets (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Latin American countries, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa) will combined provide twice as many new consumer broadband connections as mature markets: 135 million vs. 62 million connections respectively.

Currently the U.S. the broadband household penetration rate is 60 percent and Gartner forecasts that to climb to 78 percent in 2013.

 

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