Category: ProductReview

Changes at Flickr

For all the people who don’t trust Yahoo to take on Tumblr without screwing it up, may I suggest you take a look at what happened to Flickr yesterday? I find that a huge improvement in appearance, however there may be ads now, although the announcement of the changes doesn’t mention this.

Your Flickr Account

Going beyond the announcement to search through the FAQ, you find that the $25 Pro account (which I have had for years) is no longer available. People with the Pro account still get ad-free browsing and sharing and unlimited uploading, but the account type and $25 price point are fading away. Flickr promises, “Recurring Pro members currently have the ability to continue renewing at the same price.”

Notice that word currently.

Going forward, there will be 3 account types.

  • Free, with 1 Terabyte of photo and video storage, but sporting ads
  • Ad-free, for $49.99 per year which is similar to the free account, but with no ads
  • Doublr, with 2 Terabytes of photo and video space for $499.99 per year

To Make Sure Your Pro Membership Continues

The FAQ page also explains how to make sure your Pro membership is renewed. You can go to your account information to see if you are set up with a renewing subscription already. If not, you may want to sign up for automatic renewals.

Here are Flickr’s instructions, which are less helpful than going straight to your account settings.

  • Anyone who was Pro at 12:00 am (midnight) GMT on May 20, 2013, may be eligible to sign up for recurring Pro in order to extend their Pro membership beyond its expiration date.
  • This applies to:
    • those whose one-time or gift Pro memberships expired after 12:00 am GMT.
    • those who are on a gifted Pro account.
    • those who have purchased one-off Pro and are set to expire in the future.
  • To keep your Pro status by signing up for a recurring Pro subscription, visit the account order page.

Is it Yahoo VS. Google now?

Yahoo is making big moves with the purchase of Tumblr and the changes at Flickr. Does this mean Yahoo is back in the running as competition for Google? Since Google seems to be taking over the world, I think a little competition may be a good thing.

Adobe’s Creative Cloud: Drawbacks, Incentives, and Education Implications

Users of Adobe CS6 have already had access to cloud based versions of the popular Adobe product line, but now these products will be cloud only. No more software downloads, no more boxes with CDs inside. The Adobe business model for the new Creative Cloud line means a monthly subscription fee to use the products.

The products involved include Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Dreamweaver, Flash, Muse, InDesign, Lightroom, Bridge, and more Adobe tools and services. These products are now identified as CC for Creative Cloud. The CS (Creative Suite) name is going away. There won’t be a Photoshop CS7 or any other numerical ID, there will only be Photoshop CC. The release date for Adobe CC is June 17.

Those of you who use Photoshop Elements don’t need to worry. This change does not apply to your product. You’ll still be able to buy software in a box like before.

What Does This Mean?

In terms of products, Creative Cloud means you’ll always have the most up-to-date tools, and you’ll be able to share your designs with a team if you work that way. Here’s how Adobe describes it:

All-new desktop versions of your favorite creative tools and services, check. Immediate access to new features and updates, check. And that’s just the beginning. With Creative Cloud™, everything you need to create intuitively and collaboratively is included. All-new tools and services will be available in June.

It also means you aren’t paying for products, you’re paying for access to products in the form of monthly subscription fees. New users get access to the whole list of Adobe CC products for $50 a month. You can save if you sign up before the end of July. There are student and teacher pricing plans, and a pricing plan if you want to use only one product. (For example, you can use only Dreamweaver for a price of $20 per month.) The pricing plan for existing Adobe customers who own from CS3 up is also less than the $50 a month. If you own any version of from CS3 up, act quickly to get in on the price savings. You have to commit to a year’s subscription when you join. Here is the complete pricing plan list.

That monthly payment may feel like a big drawback to some. And, there is the reliability of your internet service. As Laura Scott tweeted,

 

Adobe Fireworks is going away. That may make a lot of people unhappy. According to Julie Bort, writing in Business Insider, “Adobe’s screen-grabbing, no-coding graphics tool Adobe Fireworks was originally included with the Creative Cloud, but Adobe just announced that it was killing that product.”

In spite of the drawbacks, I see some incentives for users.

If you normally buy each new version of everything each time it comes out, this monthly fee is a substantial savings. Even if you are paying the whole $50 a month, something most people won’t have to do, you’ll still be able to get two years worth of subscription services for the previous cost of a full creative suite.

If you’re like me – I’m still using Photoshop CS3, but have upgraded to Dreamweaver CS 5.5 (not the latest version either), it may not be such an attractive deal money-wise. But – you get the latest version of everything – all the time. That is a huge incentive.

Adobe has already been talking about some of the changes to Photoshop CC that users will like, always an incentive if you need to stay on the cutting edge.

Another incentive is the cloud-based collaboration and sharing that creative teams can take advantage of with Adobe CC.

Implications for Education

What does this mean for educators and classrooms full of students who want to learn Dreamweaver or Photoshop or Illustrator? Although the pricing page shows a listing for teams, it doesn’t specifically mention educational licenses for computer lab settings. I’m sure that Adobe has this figured out, but as far as I know, there’s no word out to educational institutions about it yet.

Implications for extension makers

Another question I have is what happens to those businesses like Project Seven or Community MX that have done very nicely supplying extensions for Adobe products? Will their extensions be available in Creative Cloud? Can a subscriber individualize a version of a product like Dreamweaver with custom extensions and widgets if everything is cloud based?

Thoughts?

Are you happy about this announcement and are you signing up early to get in on the savings?

Note: A shortened version of this post was also published on BlogHer.

UPDATE: See Adobe Creative Cloud for a more informed explanation of how CC works.

Review: The Modern Web: Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript

[Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for this review. Opinions are my own. Links to Amazon are affiliate links. Here is my review policy.]

The Modern Web cover

The Modern Web: Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript by Peter Gasston is from no starch press (2013).

Recently I’ve been reevaluating that pyramid (or three-legged stool) image we have of what skills are used to create a web site. The traditional pyramid metaphor has been a broad foundational layer of semantic HTML, followed by a second presentational layer of CSS, with the complete pyramid being topped by a small peak of interaction created with JavaScript.

Now we have a modern web. We deal more and more often with responsive (or adaptive) thinking, with apps, with APIs, with new CSS layout techniques using programming concepts, and with images built from SVG or canvas. All these changes lead me to think that the foundational layer in the pyramid of web design skills should be recognized as JavaScript. Books like this one reinforce that idea. (I first began thinking about this when I reviewed Introducing HTML5, but I didn’t mention it at the time.)

There is concern over the idea of HTML5 as “pure” HTML vs. the idea of HTML5 and related technologies that often get labeled as HTML5. It’s a dilemma facing many authors today who tackle the topic of modern web technologies, because you can no longer talk “just” about HTML.

The web is moving toward scripting as a way of dealing with every part of a website. In this book by Peter Gasston, it’s very clear that what he calls “the demands and requirements of working on the multi-device Web” are interlaced inextricably with JavaScript. He’s writing about that broader range of technologies I mentioned.

This is a well-written book. In a clear and accessible manner, Gasston leads you through several chapters detailing the latest technologies and thinking in modern web design. The book isn’t for newbies, it’s for people who already have skills and want to keep informed on the latest thinking, trends, techniques, and possible future directions. Here’s a summary of the chapters. Every chapter has an extensive section called Further Reading with excellent resources for the reader.

  1. The Web Platform talks about HTML5 and new best practices, CSS3 and beyond, and CSS preprocessors.
  2. Structure and Semantics deals with new elements in HTML5, WAI-ARIA, semantic markup, microformats, RDFa, microdata, data attributes and web components.
  3. Device-Responsive CSS provides information about media queries, adaptive and responsive design, viewport relative length units, and responsive images.
  4. New Approaches to CSS Layouts talks about multi-columns, flexbox, and grid layout.
  5. Modern JavaScript looks at new features in JavaScript, JavaScript libraries, and polyfills and shims.
  6. Device APIs covers a whole bunch of APIs from geolocation to drag and drop as well as information about PhoneGap and Native Wrappers.
  7. Images and Graphics includes SVG and canvas.
  8. New Forms takes you through new input types, new attributes, datalists, on-screen controls, form validation, constraint validation and css for forms.
  9. Multimedia deals with media elements, media API, and media events.
  10. Web Apps talks about various kinds of apps and tools for creating them as well as application cache.
  11. The Future goes through some really interesting ideas that may become reality in the future such as decorators, the shadow DOM, regions and exclusions in CSS and more.

There’s an appendix for browser support and one with further reading suggestions.

The style of presenting each concept is consistent throughout the book. He introduces a single idea, provides a spare code example, and shows the results. (He talks as if there are code samples available for download somewhere, but although I searched for a mention of the location of those code samples, I couldn’t find it.) Then he builds on the previous example with an new idea, a new code example, and a new result. It’s a very effective way of walking the reader through the new information and building an understanding of it step by step.

Summary: Trying to keep up? This book is an informative and up-to-the-minute look at modern web technologies.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of The Modern Web: Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript (rating: 5 stars)

Interesting new apps and tools (and a wish list)

Yahoo! Weather is the weather on Flickr. It’s beautiful as well as useful. Here’s my weather from yesterday. Lovely, right? The photo used is matched to the current weather and location.

Yahoo weather

You can also see hourly forecasts and weekly forecasts. There’s a group on Flickr called Project Weather you can join if you’d like for your photos to be considered for appropriate locations.

Churnalism.com is a tool for detecting real journalism as distinguished from, well, churnalism. It’s the work of the Sunlight Foundation. Here’s their description of what they do:

Churnalism is a tool that matches fragments of text between two documents online by comparing it to our database of press releases and Wikipedia entries. You can either install an extension to your Internet browser to run Churnalism automatically, or you can manually paste in the URL or text of an article on the main site. In order to run the comparison, we built up a cache of documents that includes all of Wikipedia and press releases from PR Newswire, PR News Web, EurekaAlert!, congressional leadership offices, the White House, a sampling of Fortune 500 companies, prominent philanthropic foundations and many more. Churnalism searches for matching fragments across all of these sources and shows you a side-by-side result right on your computer screen.

Okay, app developers. Here’s a request for you. After a frustrating day trying to find a list of writers in my local library and going through the process of ordering books from interlibrary loan, I realized it would be very nice if an app like OverDrive (or some other app not yet developed) could be used to borrow electronic copies of books via interlibrary loan. Are you the one who could make that happen?

5 Giants of Web Hosting: What Makes Them Great Web Hosts

The Internet boasts a wide array of web hosts making web hosting one of the more dynamic industries of the Web.  As in any industry, a few stars always seem to rise to the top.  When clients search for their ideal web hosting service, these web hosting companies typically win business with their extraordinary array of qualities and services.  The following web hosts are generally considered among the best of the best and the following text explains why.

Bluehost

This web host is usually found on best of lists due to their great service, competitive rates and unlimited options.  The company has an intuitive grasp on what clients really want whether it’s full functionality for an affordable price (a winning combination for small businesses) or 24/7 customer support.  Their superb technology solutions are coupled with a personable staff that has resulted in a loyal customer base and their client list keeps growing.

iPage

In business since 1998, this web host is one of the most inexpensive web hosts available that still offers great services and features like free site-building tools, a free security package, and unlimited disk space and bandwidth just to name a few.  Moreover, their commitment to green energy is a model for other companies; they are completely wind powered.  As an industry leader, the company has been featured in magazines like ComputerWorld and Inc.  While they have a lot of stellar features clients need, they are often chosen choose simply because they make the whole website experience easy, which is a great perk for people who don’t have time to spend on the ins and outs of website design and hosting.

WebHosting Hub

Anyone who is in search of a do-it-all web hosting service would do well to check into WebHosting Hub.  Like the other industry giants, this company offers affordable rates, but it also combines its website building features with WordPress, so constructing a complete website and blog is a breeze.  Aside from unlimited bandwidth and 24/7 technical support, Webhosting Hub is also favored for its ecommerce suite of tools that includes OS Commerce as well as others.  Businesses also favor them for their website design solutions.

NearlyFreeSpeech

For people who simply want to pay for the precise services they use and not for the overblown packages of features they’ll never need, this up-and-coming site is one of the best affordable web hosts in the business.  They base their prices on what a client uses instead of a flat monthly free that bundles unneeded services.  Their web apps work with well known sites like WordPress, Coppermine, Wikimedia, and so many more!  Their costs are upfront and their services include a full range of features individuals and small businesses look for in a web host.

HostGator

This popular web hosting company is also affordable and particularly user-friendly.  Whether you know a lot about website building or just a little, this company offers some standout tools like a free site-building demo.  You can get a great sample of what HostGator offers without committing.  Their customer service has garnered great reviews and their full functionality is tailored to big and small websites alike.

All of these web hosts have stellar reputations in the industry and while they appear to offer similar services, each one is special in its own way and may be the perfect fit for your website.  Check out their websites for a fuller description of their services.  Better still, call for an informative conversation with a customer service representative who is trained to answer your questions and walk you through the web hosting process.

Guest Author Frank Ashton blogs regularly on issues relevant to website owners. Keeping on top of the latest trends and passing tips onto others is his personal passion. If you’re thinking of getting a website online, be sure to compare various host offers and reviews before you make a final decision.

A Review of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

[Disclosure: Links to Amazon are affiliate links. Here is my review policy. I did not receive a review copy of this book, but bought it myself.]

Lean in book cover

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead is by Sheryl Sandberg, published by Knopf in 2013. I thought this was a positive and inspiring book in many ways. I’ve read reviews by other women who criticize Sandberg for being too rich or too privileged, or too whatever for them to learn anything from her. I don’t want to do that here. What I am going to do is share some of the positive things about the book that I think do apply to all women.

My biggest takeaway from this book is that Sheryl Sandberg is everywoman. She has the same struggles, worries, and concerns that we all have. She isn’t some other species who somehow magically became a success through no effort of her own. What she does have is the fact that she’s smart, she works hard, and she takes the risks she needs to take in order to achieve.

I’m going to let Sandberg speak for herself by quoting some of the things from the book I found particularly powerful. Instead of blockquoting them all, I’ll just make a list. These are all direct quotes.

  1. When a girl tries to lead, she is often labeled bossy. Boys are seldom called bossy because a boy taking the role of boss does not surprise or offend.
  2. For women, feeling like a fraud is a symptom of a greater problem. We consistently underestimate ourselves. Multiple studies in multiple industries show that women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually is, while men judge their own performance as better than it actually is. . . . I learned over time that while it was hard to shake feelings of self-doubt, I could understand that there was a distortion. . . . I learned to undistort the distortion.
  3. Research backs up this “fake it till you feel it” strategy. One study found that when people assumed a higher-power pose (for example, taking up space by spreading their limbs) for just two minutes, their dominance hormone levels (testosterone) went up and their stress hormone levels (cortisol) went down. As a result, they felt more powerful and in charge and showed a greater tolerance for risk. A simple change in posture led to a significant change in attitude.
  4. I believe this bias [Ed.: we evaluate people based on stereotypes] is at the very core of why women are held back. It is also at the very core of why women hold themselves back.
  5. Owning one’s success is key to achieving more success.
  6. People expect men to advocate on their own behalf, point out their contributions, and be recognized and rewarded for them. For men, there is truly no harm in asking. But since women are expected to be concerned with others, when they advocate for themselves or point to their own value, both men and women react unfavorably.
  7. Women need to shift from thinking, “I’m not ready to do that” to thinking “I want to do that – and I’ll learn by doing it.”
  8. I am now a true believer in bring our whole selves to work. I no longer think people have a professional self for Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time.
  9. What I am arguing is that the time to scale back is when a break is needed or when a child arrives – not before, and certainly not years in advance. The months and years leading up to having children are not the time to lean back, but the critical time to lean in.

There’s a lot in this book to inspire women to take the lead in their own lives and in their careers. I suggest that all people (not just women) should read it. I recently read books about Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, which were both enlightening and fascinating. Lean In however, is an example of how a woman can succeed in a very male industry. Both men and women need to be aware of what their female colleagues think and do (or don’t do) in order to advance in their careers.

Summary: An inspiring guide to how a woman can become a leader.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of Lean In: Work, Women and the Will to Lead (rating: 5 stars)

5 Must Have iPad Apps For Web Designer Needs

Though the iPad is more known for allowing easy consumption of online content, there are a wealth of apps that make it easier to create content on the Internet. Some apps help gather ideas, some keep those ideas organized while others help with the design of the site. Below is a list of apps that can help those designing websites using an iPad.

iMockup Screen shot
iMockups screen capture from iTunes

1. iMockups – This app comes into play after the ideas have been gathered and it is time to create a mockup of the potential website. It contains templates specifically for the iPad and allows designers to quickly drag page elements into the workspace from a sidebar. Those items can then be resized.

2. Dropbox – Saving files on an iPad can prove difficult, if not impossible. The app Dropbox serves as a file-saving system. Documents and photos can be uploaded and saved, as well as easily shared with anyone else who might be working on the project. An added bonus is that many other apps work seamlessly with Dropbox, making it extremely easy to save items from multiple sources. It also works with other platforms, meaning something saved in Dropbox on an iPad can later be accessed on another device, even a traditional desktop computer.

3. Evernote – While Dropbox is a place to save documents and photos for later use, Evernote’s goal is to act like a second brain to help people remember things. This app uses notebooks to store ideas a user may find while surfing the Internet but they are too busy to do anything with at the time. There is no limit to the number of notebooks that can be created and web pages can be clipped right into a notebook. Photos and audio recordings, as well as notations, can also be added. As with Dropbox, Evernote works with a wide range of other applications, and more are being designed for it every day.

4. HTML Cheat Sheet – Experienced web designers as well beginners can use this app to help them with HTML coding. It has a quick reference guide and has the bonus of being developed and written by experts who use HTML every day. Once code has been written, it can be tested in the app to make sure it works.

5. Paper  – This is one of the easiest drawing apps that can be used for designers. It has a friendly user interface, while also maintaining a wide array of powerful and realistic tools, such as a watercolor brush and ink pen, that will appeal to any illustator. Paper makes it easy to add realistic sketches to wireframes of potential websites.

While an iPad may not be the first choice of tool for those looking to design a website, a wide array of powerful, yet easy to use, apps make it possible. They give designers the ability to start the process or make refinements even when away from their personal computer.

Author Simon Phillips of TouchLogic.co.uk specializes in mobile website design and develops apps for small business owners.