Excellent stuff from HubSpot "Visual content is in high demand. Just about every type of content we marketers create can be enhanced by some kind of visual element. And in social media? Visuals pretty much make or break your presence. In fact, photos on Facebook generate 53% more Likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more clickthroughs than the average post. And if you need more evidence to convince you visual content is essential to your marketing, just consider all these stats! But honestly ... who's got time for all that? And I don't know about you, but I don't exactly have a degree in graphic design. Or the budget to hire someone who does. So, what's a design-impaired marketer to do? Luckily, over the past several months, we've been on a mission to make visual content creation much less of an obstacle for the average marketer. How, you ask? Templates, my friends ... templates. And what's great about these templates is they're all for software you probably have loaded onto your computer already: PowerPoint. And PowerPoint is such an accessible piece of software for non-designer folks like you and me. In fact, we use it all the time at HubSpot when we don't have a designer handy.  I'm going to walk you through the visual content templates we have available for free download, and show you how we've used them ourselves to create awesome visuals right in PowerPoint."

"What is Cloudpaging? Cloudpaging is our successor technology to application streaming and virtualization. It can deliver huge applications from the Cloud between 20x to 100x faster than downloads and execute them natively without installation."

"Startup Numecent has come out of stealth mode today with some of the most impressive enterprise technology we've seen in a decade. Plus the company is interesting for other reasons, like its business model and its founder. Numecent offers something it calls "cloud paging" and, if successful, it could be a game-changer for enterprise software, video gaming, and smartphone apps. Red Hat thinks so. It has already partnered with the company to help it offer Windows software to Linux users. "Cloud paging" instantly "cloudifies" any software, even an operating system like Windows itself, says founder and CEO Osman Kent. It lets any software, with no modification, be delivered from the cloud and run as fast or faster than if the app was on your desktop. Lots of so-called "desktop virtualization" services work fast. But cloud-paging can even operate the cloud software if the PC gets disconnected from the network or Internet. It can also turn a smartphone into a server. That means a bunch of devices like tablets can run the software -- like a game -- off of the smartphone. Imagine showing up to a party and letting all your friends play the latest version of Halo from your phone. That's crazy cool. Cloudpaging can do all this because it doesn't use "pixel-streaming" technology like other virtualization tech. Instead it temporarily downloads bits of the application itself (instructions) and runs them on the device. It can almost magically predict which parts of the app the user will need, and downloads only those parts. For business owners, that's not even the best part. It also helps enterprises sidestep extra licensing fees associated with the cloud. For instance, Microsoft licenses its software by the device, not by the user, and, in many cases, charges a "Virtual Desktop Access" fee for each device using a virtual version of Windows. (For a bit of light reading, check out the Microsoft virtual desktop licensing white paper: PDF) Cloudpaging has what Kent calls "f

Prepare to be blown away. I viewed a demo of Numecent today and then did some research. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the end of the shrink wrapped- Microsoft business model. It's also perhaps the end of software application design and construction as we know it. Mobile apps in particular will get blasted by the Numecent "Cloud - Paging" concept. Extraordinary stuff. I'll leave a few useful links on Diigo "Open Web". "Numecent, a company that has a new kind of cloud computing technology that could potentially completely reorganize the way software is delivered and handled - upending the business as we know it - has another big feather in its cap. The company is showing how enterprises can use this technology to instantly put all of their enterprise software in the cloud, without renegotiating contracts and licenses with their software vendors. It signed $3 billion engineering construction company Parsons as a customer. Parsons is using Numecent's tech to deliver 4 million huge computer-aided design (CAD) files to its nearly 12,000 employees around the world. CAD drawings are bigger than video files and they can only be opened and edited by specific CAD apps like AutoCAD. Numecent offers a tech called "cloud paging" which instantly "cloudifies" any Windows app. Instead of being installed on a PC, the enterprise setup can deliver the app over the cloud. Unlike similar cloud technologies (called virtualization), this makes the app run faster and continue working even when the Internet connection goes down. "It's offers a 95% reduction in download times and 95% in download network usage," CEO Osman Kent told Business Insider. "It makes 8G of memory work like 800G." It also lets enterprises check in and check out software, like a library book, so more PCs can legally share software without violating licensing terms, saving money on software license fees, Kent says. Parson is using it to let employees share over 700 huge applications such as Au

Quick review of different sync-share-store services, starting with DropBox and ending with three Open Source services. Very interesting. Things have progressed since I last worked on the SurDocs project for Sursen. No mention in this review of file formats, conversion or viewing issues. I do know that CrocoDoc is used by near every sync-share-store service to convert documents to either pdf or html formats for viewing. No servie however has been able to hit the "native document" sweet spot. Not even SurDocs - which was the whole purpose behind the project!!! "Native Documents" means that the document is in it's native / original application format. That format is needed for the round tripping and reloading of the document. Although most sync-share-store services work with MSOffice OXML formatted documents, only Microsoft provides a true "native" format viewer (Office 365). Office 365 enables direct edit, view and collaboration on native documents. Which is an enormous advantage given that conversion of any sort is guaranteed to "break" a native document and disrupt any related business processes or round tripping need. It was here that SurDoc was to provide a break-through technology. Sadly, we're still waiting :( excerpt: The availability of cheap, easy-to-use and accessible cloud file-sharing services means users have more freedom and choice than ever before. Dropbox pioneered simplicity and ease of use, and so quickly picked up users inside the enterprise. Similar services have followed Dropbox's lead and now there are dozens, including well-known ones such as Google Drive, SkyDrive and Ubuntu One. cloud.jpg Valdis Filks , research director at analyst firm Gartner explained the appeal of cloud file-sharing services. Filks said: "Enterprise employees use Dropbox and Google because they are consumer products that are simple to use, can be purchased without officially requesting new infrastructure or budget expenditure, and can be installed qu

excerpt: "Developer-led or services-led? Microsoft should get an early advantage, but the services strategy by Cisco should create longer, more sustainable value, Last month I wrote a blog outlining how the line-of-business manager holds the key to winning the Cisco versus Microsoft war. A number of you commented that this was obvious and both companies are already doing it. I'll agree that this is something both companies are trying to do, but neither is doing a great job. Microsoft is a company with high appeal to IT pros and Cisco to network managers, with high brand familiarity to line of business managers but low appeal beyond this."

65 amazing examples of HTML5 in action, and talk to the designers behind them to find out how they were made. HTML5 is the latest version of HTML - the markup language used to display web pages. Although it's technically still in development, it's very much ready to use today, to build websites and web apps." Also includes a complete index of  HTML5 resources

A Cloud platform for advanced web applications.  Good discussion about the need to separate content from presentation, and then apply multiple device specific presentation layers.  These guys need to implement the Readability API's  !!!!!!

Want to know how Evernote Clearly and Amazon Kindle Web Reader work?  This is it.  Both are made by Readability and in this guideline for Web publishers, they explain how they rip and parse a Web page.  The secret is solid HTML5!!!  "The following is a proposed standard for bringing more semanticity to articles on the Web. In our efforts to provide quality content without the superfluous leavings, we've seen that the Web is a pretty messy place. We hope that by providing some simple guidelines we can help publishers make their content a little more presentable with Readability while also making the Web a bit more semantic. By and large, you'll find that our guidelines just follow other specifications. We lean heavily on the work of the hNews microformat as well as the new elements provided within HTML5. If anything is unclear, please refer to the hNews microformat specification as well as this handy guide to semantic elements in html5, from Mark Pilgrim's Dive into HTML5. "

"HTML5, the latest version of the language of the Web, was designed with Web applications in mind. It contains a slew of new application programming interfaces (APIs) designed to allow the Web developer to access device hardware and software using JavaScript. Some of the more exciting HTML5 specifications include the following: Geolocation API lets the browser know where you are Media Capture API lets the browser access your camera and microphone File API lets the browser access your file system Web Storage API lets Web applications store large amounts of data on your computer DeviceOrientation Event Specification lets Web apps know when your device changes from portrait to landscape Messaging API gives the browser access to a mobile device's messaging systems Contacts Manager API allows access to the contacts stored in a user's contacts database"

Another HTML5 Application Platform for Cloud Computing.  Provides secure data connections to existing business systems and workflows.  Not an Open Web Platform. summary: Mobile Helix is an enterprise application and data security platform provider focused on enabling unrestricted enterprise productivity. We are redefining endpoint computing by evolving and extending existing IT infrastructure and standards rather than reinventing them. At our core are three fundamental principles that are at the center of everything that we do: 1) we are application- and data-centric - we embrace the blurring lines between phones, tablets and laptops, permitting IT to relinquish control of the endpoint device entirely and embrace a bring-your-own-anything policy; 2) we provide unmatched yet unobtrusive security for sensitive corporate data by intelligently securing the data rather than the devices; and 3) simplicity is embedded into the DNA of our products, our designs and our communications. Our solution, Mobile Helix Link, is the industry's first pure HTML5 platform that combines unparalleled data security, a unique HTML5 application development and delivery platform, and breakthrough patent-pending performance enhancement technology. 

"Opt out of PRISM, the NSA's global data surveillance program. Stop reporting your online activities to the American government with these free alternatives to proprietary software." A designer named Peng Zhong is so strongly opposed to PRISM, the NSA's domestic spying program, that he created a site to educate people on how to "opt out" of it. According to the original report that brought PRISM to public attention, the nine companies that "participate knowingly" with the NSA are Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. Zhong's approach is to replace your workflow with open-source tools that aren't attached to these companies, since they easily stay off the government's radar. If you want to drop totally off the map, it'll take quite a commitment.   Are you ready to give up your operating system?  The NSA tracks everything on Windows, OSX and Google Chrome.  You will need to switch to Debian or some other brand of GNU Linux!  Like Mint!!!!! Personally I have switched from Google Chrome Browser to Mozilla Firefox using the TOR Browser Bundle - Private mode.

"One of the strangest things about Stripe - or perhaps, one of the strangest things about Paypal - is the list of people who are funding Stripe. Three of its biggest individual backers are people who played a key role in making PayPal a success: cofounders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, along with Elon Musk, who joined PayPal through an acquisition. Why would Thiel, Levchin, and Musk fund a machine built destroy their baby? Probably because, in Silicon Valley, PayPal is viewed as a lost cause. We've heard a lot of complaints about how awful and hard it is to implement. " Stripe isn't the only well-funded startup going after what it views as a decrepit, disrupt-ble incumbent. Jack Dorsey's Square is too, and it's now worth billions of dollars. Another heavily funded startup, Braintree, owns the technology millions of people use to pay for things inside apps like Uber. Finally, some of eBay's bigger rivals such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are gunning for PayPal too.

Comments on the latest SVN article mulling the effects of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's anti trust ruling and proposed break up of Microsoft. comment: "Chinese Wall" Ummm, there was a Chinese Wall between Microsoft Os and the MS Applciations layer. At least that's what Chairman Bill promised developers at a 1990 OS/2-Windows Conference I attended. It was a developers luncheon, hosted by Microsoft, with Chairman Bill speaking to about 40 developers with applications designed to run on the then soon to be released Windows 3.0. In his remarks, the Chairman described his vision of commoditizing the personal computer market through an open hardware-reference platform on the one side of the Windows OS, and provisioning an open application developers layer on the other using open and totally transparent API's. Of course the question came up concerning the obvious advantage Microsoft applications would have. Chairman Bill answered the question by describing the Chinese Wall that existed between Microsoft's OS and Apps develop departments. He promised that OS API's would be developed privately and separate from the Apps department, and publicly disclosed to ALL developers at the same time. Oh yeah. There was lots of anti IBM - evil empire stuff too :) Of course we now know this was a line of crap. Microsoft Apps was discovered to have been using undocumented and secret Window API's. http://goo.gl/0UGe8. Microsoft Apps had a distinct advantage over the competition, and eventually the entire Windows Productivity Platform became dependent on the MSOffice core. The company I worked for back then, Pyramid Data, had the first Contact Management application for Windows; PowerLeads. Every Friday night we would release bug fixes and improvements using Wildcat BBS. By Monday morning we would be slammed with calls from users complaining that they had downloaded the Friday night patch, and now some other application would not load or function properly. Eventually we tracked th

"GroupDocs Viewer is an online document viewer that lets you read documents in your browser, regardless of whether you have the software that they were created in. You can view many types to word processing documents (DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, ODT), presentations (PPT, PPTX), spreadsheets (XLS, XLSX), portable files (PDF), and image files (JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF). For each file, you get a high-fidelity rendering, showing the document just as it would if you opened it in the software it was created in. Layout and formatting is retained and you see an exact copy of the original. GroupDocs Viewer lets you really read the document. You can search text documents, copy text and even embed the document - GroupDocs Viewer and all - in a web page. You can print or download the file from GroupDocs Viewer if you need to work with it offline."

A book detailing years and years of Microsoft's misdeeds.

Excellent and well worth the time to read! Founder of DropBox tells his story and it's full of insight, wisdom and naked truth. excerpt: "I was going to say work on what you love, but that's not really it. It's so easy to convince yourself that you love what you're doing - who wants to admit that they don't? When I think about it, the happiest and most successful people I know don't just love what they do, they're obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them. They remind me of a dog chasing a tennis ball: their eyes go a little crazy, the leash snaps and they go bounding off, plowing through whatever gets in the way. I have some other friends who also work hard and get paid well in their jobs, but they complain as if they were shackled to a desk. The problem is a lot of people don't find their tennis ball right away. Don't get me wrong - I love a good standardized test as much as the next guy, but being king of SAT prep wasn't going to be mine. What scares me is that both the poker bot and Dropbox started out as distractions. That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little voice knows best. It took me a while to get it, but the hardest-working people don't work hard because they're disciplined. They work hard because working on an exciting problem is fun. So after today, it's not about pushing yourself; it's about finding your tennis ball, the thing that pulls you. It might take a while, but until you find it, keep listening for that little voice. "

Quick review of a new crop of Web Development - JavaScript tools.  Includes ICE Coder! "The crop of new development tools this month is rich and varied. Taking in web-based IDEs, testing tools, programming paradigms and more, there's enough raw material here to entertain a keen mind for months. If you wanted to be selective you could just study and apply new approaches like lazy loading, or reactive programming. Or maybe you'd prefer to tighten cross-platform consistency with GhostLab. And, if you're feeling particularly clever, you could explore the possibilities of deploying a Bunny 'darknet' from your coffee shop armchair."