Microsoft demos “Windows 7” it’s new Operating System with Multi touch features

People will increasingly interact with computers using speech or touch screens rather than keyboards, Microsoft Corp. Bill Gates said. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates talking at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego said “Windows 7” the new operating system from Microsoft scheduled for release in 2009 would incorporate new forms of communication and interaction. Today almost all the interaction is keyboard-mouse. Over years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink – all of those things – will be huge.”

Microsoft’s next operating system (OS) will come with multi-touch features as an alternative to the mouse. Windows 7 will enable user to enlarge and shrink photos, trace routes on maps, paint pictures or play the piano.Microsoft Chief executive officer Steve Ballmer presented “a small snippet” of the next version of Windows and asked he wants to perform better than compare with success of Vista.

Industry watchers say Microsoft is hoping that Windows 7 can change the way people interact with PCs in the future.” Touch is quickly becoming a common way of interacting with software and devices,” writes Windows product manager Chris Flores in a blog post.”Touch-enabled surfaces are popping up everywhere including laptop touch pads, cell phones, remote controls, GPS devices and more.”

Website Beta News reports that “beta testing of the product should begin later this year although a lack of touch-screen devices could slow widespread trials of the new interface”.

Source:BBC

10 cost effective tips for upgrading small and medium sized businesses Web sites.

With economic slowdowns, it is critical for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) to employ the most powerful, unique and effective Web sites to maximize sales.

10 cost effective tips for upgrading their Web sites.

1. Simple Navigation: If you are going to design a website for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) means Medium Website Design, the navigation must be very simple and is essential element. . It is also very important to properly group the navigation and content on a SMB Web site. Too many navigation items can be challenging for users to understand. It is often better to group common pages together into a sub-navigation model.

2. Contents: Good quality contents, must relate with your site theme is very crucial for any websites. Now the size matter, Page word count is crucial for SMB Web sites. It is important to limit the number of words on a Web page. Pages that are 10,000 words long are not very user friendly when it comes to finding content.

3. Keywords: keywords are supposed to be the vital factors when your site will be there at web among lots of another websites providing same services. Keyword usage is critical to SMB Web site design success. SMBs should identify key one- to three-word phrases relevant to their business and incorporate them into the content of the Web site. This helps search engines to identify the Web site when consumers are searching for relevant businesses. SMBs must ensure the key words are focused to their type of business, target audience and include a local niche.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO seeks to increase a site’s visibility in search engines and enhance its value to visitors through topical page design, consistent HTML tagging, and focusing content on core keywords. SEO is a great way to increase exposure for an SMB Web site. Reviewing the keywords and descriptions used on each page is essential for keeping the Web site listed in the major search engines.

5. Images: pictures tell, but words sell. This is largely true, although a web site without any images at all will be very tiring on the eye and dull for the user. Images really are worth a thousand words — when used correctly. SMB Web sites,E-Commerce Packages must optimize the images used on the site. Optimizing the images will help drastically with page load times. Shaving off a few 100kbs will save users’ bandwidth while allowing the Web site to open faster. By adding text descriptions to the images, search engines will have more data to index on an SMB Web site.

6. Google Analytics and Google AdWords: Take advantage of Google Analytics and Google AdWords. There is no better package for analyzing the traffic that comes to your site. Google Analytics offers a very robust package of reports on all Website traffic. The paid option of Google AdWords will list a Web site on additional Web sites that advertise with Google Ad Sense (a market standard). Implementing this capability on an SMB Web site takes some effort.

7. Web Compliance: Ensure an SMB Web site is xhtml/css 2.0 compliant. Redesigning an SMB Web site to be Web 2.0 compliant will ensure it is viewable across all Web browser platforms. The Web design industry has come along way since the days of designing Web sites in FrontPage and your business needs to be on the leading edge of design. Web 2.0 standards separate the content from the layout, making it easier for search engines to index the site’s content.

8. Blogging: A Blog is one of the best ways to open up communication with business prospects and customers. A blog is a Web journal that is an important tool for SMBs to communicate with consumers about the latest news, products and services relevant to their business. It can also identify the business as an industry leader and expert. Blogs are indexed more quickly than other pages by search engines, especially blog search engines, and can point search engines to other content on the SMB’s site via links. To maximize the power of a blog, SMB owners should provide interesting and thought-generating information; ask for reader comments, questions and opinions; and comment on readers’ feedback.

9. News Letter: An Internet newsletter can help maximize your overall communications efforts. SMBs can provide consumers with an expert e-mail newsletter that offers interesting, timely and entertaining information related to their businesses. Newsletters that feature tips and advice are especially helpful. SMBs should give consumers the ability to register for the newsletter on their Web site. This also provides an effective way to obtain valuable contact and marketing information that can lead to future sales.

10. User Friendliness: User-friendly sites ensure maximum use and profit. small and medium sized businesses Web sites should be designed to help visitors to find key information. It is important to clearly identify ways for customers to Choose the business packages for more product information, obtain customer support and buy products. If an SMB Web site offers direct sales, it must feature an easy to use commerce system that makes it simple for customers to purchase products and services.

For more information on website design and development and discuss various business packages please feel free to visit at : http://www.w3designs.co.uk

Google handed over the personal information; Police nabbed the accused in India

Google handed over the personal information; Police nabbed the accused in India.

An Indian man is facing five years in jail for making an “offensive” comment after Google handed his personal data to local police.

Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid, a 22 year-old IT consultant, was arrested after posting derogatory comments on Google’s Orkut social networking site.Vaid was posting in a forum called ‘I hate Soniya Gandhi’ and was identified after the police asked Google to hand over his email address.Vaid was arrested after a police raid on his house on Friday and has been charged with breaking section 292 of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act.

If found guilty he faces a possible five years in prison as well as a fine. The case highlights a curious facet of Indian law. The creator of the forum cannot be punished, since an individual’s dislike is covered under personal freedom of choice. However, the information Vaid posted is classed as “vulgar”, thus the arrest.

Vaid’s arrest also highlights Google’s increasingly tarnished reputation, despite its unofficial motto of ‘Do no evil’.The motto gained the company much kudos in the IT industry but, after Google’s activities in China, many are now questioning its stance on human rights.

Source:http://www.vnunet.com

Journey of Internet web world wide

* There are over 100 million websites, 74 per cent are in the commercial or .com domain.

* Core search engines Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask.com collectively increased 15 percent in December 2007 in searches performed, compared to a year earlier, serving 9.6 billion searches in December 2006.

* More books are sold on the internet than any other product and the number is increasing, research suggests. Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online, it said. The largest percentage of people buying books in any country was South Korea at 58%. Nielsen estimated that equated to 18m people. (BBC 21-01-2008). Twenty percent of US book sales and 17 percent of UK book sales are now made online.

* Youtube is the world’s third largest site, behind Google and Yahoo. One in five of the world’s internet users visit youtube each day. Nearly half of US internet users report visiting a video-sharing site like Youtube at least once.

* Twenty per cent of the world’s population, 1.17 to 1.33 billion people, now use the Internet. North America (72%) has the highest penetration, Africa (5%) the lowest.

* Only 30 per cent (380 million) of Internet users are english-speaking, 14 per cent (180 million) speak chinese, 9 per cent (113 million) speak spanish. 46 million Internet users speak arabic.

* Social networking is the fastest growing part of the Internet. There are 70 million active users on Facebook (the 8th most popular site in the world), more than 14 million photos are uploaded daily. The fourth most popular country for facebook id Turkey with 3.3% of users. Australia is 6th, 2.7%. Meanwhile, a Sophos poll of 600 workers found that 43 per cent were unable to access Facebook at work, while an additional seven per cent reported that use of the site was restricted.

* China’s internet population increased by a third in 2006. According to state news agency Xinhua, the total number of internet users in China has reached 132 million, of which 52 million have broadband connections. [Source: Guardian, December 2006]

* Google’s market capitalisation is around $US180 billion, nearly three times the size of News Corporation. Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon are all in the Fortune 150 list.

* Newspapers’ online audiences are rising at twice the rate of the general internet audience. Newspaper Web sites attracted more than 66.4 million unique visitors on average (40.7 percent of all Internet users) in the first quarter of 2008, a record number that represents a 12.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to a custom analysis provided by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America.

* According to Zenith Optimedia, between 2007 and 2010, internet adspend will increase by 69% and raise its market share from 8.1% to 11.5%. About $US36 billion will be spent on Internet advertising globally in 2008, an increase of 24%.

* Britney Spears was the most sought after celebrity on Google in 2007 and pilates was the most popular search in the fitness category. The most popular who, what and how queries were who is god, what is love and how to kiss

* Last year, global digital music sales rose 40 percent to $US2.9 billion, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Downloaded music now makes up 15 percent of the recording industry’s sales.

* Movie downloads could grow tenfold by 2012 and reach $6.3 billion worldwide during that period, according to a 2007 report by British market research firm Informa Telecoms & Media.

* In 2006, the average corporate email user received 126 messages a day, up 55% from 2003, according to the Radicati Group, a Palo Alto market research firm. By 2009, workers are expecting to spend 41% of their time just managing emails. (WSJ, 27-11-2007)

* Total e-commerce sales (Online shopping websites) in the US for 2007 were estimated at $136.4 billion, an increase of 19.0 percent from 2006. Total retail sales in 2007 increased 4.0 percent from 2006. E-commerce sales in 2007 accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales. E-commerce sales in 2006 accounted for 2.9 percent of total sales.

* The iTunes store was launched on 28 April 2003, since then it has sold more than four billion tracks and over 125 million TV episodes worldwide. It is now rivaling Wal-mart to be the biggest music retailer in the US. 150 million iPods have been sold world-wide since the iconic device first appeared in October 2001. Nearly forty percent of Americans now own and iPod or other mp3 player.

* Wikipedia is the 7th most popular website in the world. The english version of wikipedia has more than 2.3 million articles. Over a third of online US adults consult wikipedia.

* Since the beginning of 2007, Sen. Obama has raised more than $US100 million online from Americans contributing $200 or less at a time, according to data compiled by the Campaign Finance Institute (WSJ, 3 May)

* Nielsen says more than eight out of ten internet users purchased something in the last three months. That is a 40% increase on two years ago, to about 875 million shoppers.

5 Tips for an improved User perceptive on Your Site

Any good web publisher knows that it isn’t just content that keep readers reading and visitors returning. Interface design can be just as important as quality content. A bad website design can drive your audience away or seriously erode their confidence, just as they’re coming through the door.

Without some sound design tactics you end up putting a lot of work into publishing for maybe a couple of unique visitors a day. If you are attempting to get opt-ins and generate revenue from your site and you miss some key design tips you are going to suffer and your ROI will go down the drain.

5 Design Mistakes to Avoid

1. Too much advertising
this is something that seems inherent in so many designs, but should be obvious. If you clutter your site with advertising (in particular AdSense type ads) no one is going to stay long enough to find your relevant content. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t sites out there that litter their site with advertising and get away with it — like GoDaddy. If you can claim the amount of traffic and exposure that they get, then the best of luck. But most can’t say that.

2. Placing Your Opt-in Form on the Right
statistically, this results in lower numbers of opt-ins. Most cultures in the world read from left to right. So, naturally the first place the eye wants to rest on a site is the top, left corner. This is where your opt-in should sit. It will be the first thing most people see and they will be more apt to fill it out.

3. No SEO on Images, Flash Elements, and Other Media
If you view the source code of a site, many do not contain titles or descriptions for their various media. These are wonderful opportunities to place additional keywords without overloading your content on your site. Many sites don’t even have an “alt” on their media which when you mouse over it, shows a phrase or text.

Again, these are free opportunities for keyword placements. Spiders don’t pick up images, flash files and a lot of other media. They cannot read their content. But adding alts, titles and descriptions you are able to give spiders code side content to read in those locations, upping your search results.

4. Too Many Keywords
For some reason, when it comes to keywords, people think, “The more the better!” This is incorrect. Search Engines will actually “flag” your site as overloaded. It comes across almost like duplicate content when you have multiple phrases in your keywords containing the same word. Most marketing guru’s will recommend about 7-9 well researched keywords.

5. Too Much Javascript, Too Many iFrames
Once again, more is not necessarily better. Both javascript and iframes take considerable amounts of time to load in comparison to a 72 dpi jpeg. There are sites all over the net that are loaded with one or both of these and by the time they finish loading you have taken the dog out, made a coffee, and stopped by the bathroom.

It has been proven that the average internet user decides in a matter of seconds if they will stay on your site or not. If it takes 20-30 seconds to load, you are probably losing half of your visitors almost immediately. Check your stats for bounce rates, exit pages and other data and see.

Source:cmswire