We often get into conversations with clients about the Internet browsers they are using. Many don’t think of upgrading it to a newer version or installing an entirely new browser such as

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Apple Safari
• Maxthon
• Internet Explorer
• Opera

Why upgrade your browser?

Your current browser displays the web as you like it? You don’t trust all the requests to install this, install that. It’s true, we are all pestered with requests to do so, but there is a reason behind it . . . if you stop and think about the bigger picture of why you are being asked to upgrade.

Now before everyone harps on about security issues or bug fixes, look past that and think about the benefits of having the latest version of anything. The new features and accessories that they provide to keep you ahead in an every growing technical age. Some of the requests are to install a Java Script or a new version of Flash. (99% of people have no idea of what these are and reject the request)

As you may or not know there is a cloud over the horizon that has been looming for a while now. It is spoken in the Sunday papers, business networking, tech forums and is a great buzz word of tech talkers. It is “Cloud Computing” and the idea of putting data in a remote location in order to allow it to be accessed via any location. Bit like a website in basic terms if you think about it. It is this accessing remote data that has been talked about in disaster recover situations where we hear about big companies with hundreds of employees and the building burns down. They simply move to a new locaiton with and access their emails and documents from their server and continue working.

Great for large business but is it necessary for small businesses. It is important for us all but in order to even start going down that road you must have the right vehicle and in computing terms that means the device or software we use. The software we use is changing as we see more and more software being used on the net.

But if your Internet Browser is an old version you will not be able to get involved and engage in these changes in technology. Have you every listened to someone brag that their phone is just a phone and it is great. That may be true for them but for those who know the benefits of having a phone that also accesses emails and and the web, we know it can change the way we work. Change our lifestyle and even the way we accept payments.

Now apply that philosophy to your web browser. Imagine what you are missing out on and the features that are available these days. The browser is not just a click forward or backward, ckick Home. The browser is a piece of software that is able to doing online transactions, word processing, drawing and in fact most tasks that a computer can do, but only if that software is the latest version.

This maybe something called Java Script, as it sounds, a programming language that coffee drinking programmers came up with that runs scripts that perform an operation either on your computer or to a online file.

You need it.

Other languages such as HTML version 5 are also being updated to help the processing of data on the Internet. Older browsers are being phased out in order to help the new world order where browsers are the one piece of software that is crucial to the running of all programs as they are run within it. Some functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers.

So if you are still clicking on “ignore” or “reject” think again about what you are rejecting . . you are rejecting change to business and the new business models that are vital in business today.

Upgrade your browsers by clicking on any of the links above.

There are many different types of content management software including paid software off the shelf, licenced software you pay for on a monthly basis or annual basis. We use one called open source, where the application is free to use and we use these for many reasons, but mostly to reduce the costs for the customer.

We use WordPress, Joomla, Mambo, OS Commerce, ZenCart to name a few. These can be found easily online and our many years in business have meant that we can demonstrate how they work and how to get the most out of them.

We have created a demo site to demonstrate how a business can edit their content and publish online information easily, in-fact even from your iphone if you are on the move.

For more information about using a content management system based on open source applications call Dave Jordan of Cada Media to set up an online demo for you to login and use.

Tel: 053 9430748

I know I harp on about open source, but really are people listening ,

Denmark dumps Microsoft

Another government department is starting to use open source,

http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article890196.ece

Now County Council’s in Ireland, are you listening?

Anyone, anyone , Beauler, Beauler, Fry,  Fry . . .

We get asked all the time what is the best photo editing software and of course it easy to say PhotoShop by Adobe, but this is not practicle for your average Joe, as it is not easy to use, it is not cheap to buy and needs training to get the most of it. It also needs to be installed on a specific pc.

The best option I can recommend to people who want to do the basics to images such as reducing the size of the file, in terms of megabyte size and in width and height and maybe saving a large image to an image thay can use to insert into their website would be an online software as a service called pixlr.com. This is ideal for our clients who are on the move and want to edit images from their 12 mega pixel cameras that are too large to insert in the website via the content management system

This online tool has a number of options, you can use it in Pixlr Express mode to do the very basics or you can enter into the more complex tool to really do the same kind of things you would like to do in Photoshop.

Enjoy !

http://www.pixlr.com

This is a question we got in last week and we were able to point the client to an open source program to allow them to have an easy to use program that was not Microsoft based.

Eudora Mail

http://www.eudora.com/

Windows Mail

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/mail.aspx

Thunderbird

http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

We would recommend using Thunderbird as it has great plug-in features that the other are only catching onto now, and it easily allows you to configure separate in-boxes for different emails. A common question into our offices.

What are Content Management Systems?

A Content Management System is a program/software installed on your website that allows you to access and update your site through your Internet browser. You can add content from anywhere in the world. There is no need of any prior content management experience and you do not need to understand <HTML> code.

Content Management can be used to manage simple business brochure style website, portal or directory and also an ecommerce online shop website.

To Sumarise if you get a content management system, your site is ready for expansion in the future as it is built on a powerful base.

We have a number of requests to get a content managed system (C.M.S). This is a website whereby the client is able to log in and update and write content, new pages on their own website. Thus keeping it up to date and fresh. This is now becoming the standard style of website that businesses today.

CMS websites are great idea, but a few things must be taken into consideration when you are looking into getting a website of this style as opposed to a “static brochure website” whereby the pages are created in a format that can only be edited by either a web designer of a kid with good web knowledge.

Content management is about being able to edit content, but its a lot more that that it actually allows you to edit the whole site, the menu system, the layout, the colours, the design, everything!

Now here’s the But. . . this is all great but a few factors we would suggest would be required in getting involved in this.

• Time
• Creativity
• Experience in Desk Top Publishing or Graphic Design and Layout.
• E.C.D.L

Time: Being able to change a websites content is wonderful and really puts power in the owners hands. That’s of course if the user assigns time to the project and we have found that the more time the users give to their website management the more they will benefit from this tool. And that’s all this is, a tool to editing the site, so depending on how you use it will depend on the results.

Creativity: Say you edit the text and insert only a few words about a topic. The search engines will see that this is all you know about the topic. Don’t keep this knowledge in your head, put it on the site. Write about your chosen topic and remember you are not writing a book, Think of it as a magazine, you need to understand you reader and the time they have to scan down through you content.

Layout and Design: Ok so now you have the time, you’ve inserted the content. How does it look? Does it look like a long back and white page or have you used indents, bullet points, italic, bold, remember you online users scan down through the content so grab their attention and highlight words for them.

ECDL: These types of courses are great to give the user an understanding of the methods that can be involved. But do note that content management is not MS Word, Its a thousand time more. We think of it like comparing MS Word and MS Excel to Content Management and An Accounting System.

If you post an invoice on an accounting system you can not just click “back” and start again, you have to insert a credit note to minus the invoice. Its a little more structured but there is method and reason for this.

Content management systems are similar to this as you can’t just click back, they are online applications that need to be closed properly otherwise you lock a document. And once the document or page is locked it may not be accessible to edit by another editor. A Desktop application like Word etc can close and you can open it again it may have tried to so an auto-save.

So to sum up, think about your design skills, your time and your typesetting skills.

Google have had to turn around very quickly and revise their End User Licence Agreement used when installing their new Browser on your pc. Basically the EULA stated that anything you published via/using their browser ie with a blog or a content management system meant that “they” were allowed use the content for their own means.

Shocking really.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft have realised their lastest Beta version of Internet explorer for testing. Version 8 is available to download from the following link

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx

With Many new featurs such as the “In private” tool, This version allows you to browse the net and it will not record your pages viewed in the history folder, great for Internet Cafe’s , not so great for employers with out a firewall to keep out dodgy sites from surfer happy employees.

They also have a backward compatability feature to allow you to view websites that have been developed for previous versions of Inetnet Explorer. We would recommend that our clients update their browsers to allow them to gain the best experience of viewing the Internet and online content. Version 5 of Internet explorer is not supported by Microsoft anymore. They will not answer any questions regards its use or support for example!

We are testing this browser at the moment too and will let you know our results. If you have any comments or suggestions please let us know.

Google have entered into the Internet Browser market and launched their very own browser for Windows Vista, with Mac and Linux versions available soon.

This new free browser is available to download from the following link:

http://www.google.com/chrome/

Features to this browser according to Google are listed here

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html

We have just downloaded and installed it on some of our office pc’s here and will be testing it over the coming week. We will let you know what we think and how it compars to FF and IE.

If you have any comments on the new browser we would love to hear them….

FireFox Version 3 is ready to download is is packed wiht loads of features for those tired of Internet Explorer

http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/

The Irish Times reports that, the head of IBM has written a memo to over 20,000 staff members advising them to take a look the use of other office suite programs other than the main one, (not mentioning Microsoft Office directly).

Open Office would be a good solution for people looking to get away from the Microsoft Licenced packages and its available to download free on www.openoffice.org

OpenOffice.org