As web workers, sometimes we have to walk a fine line between keeping clients happy, and providing the best possible services. For web developers like me, the issue of whether to continue supporting Internet Explorer 6 is becoming a major headache.
It would seem to be a no-brainer to ditch support for a browser that is slow, prone to malware attacks, and incompatible with modern standards. Those of us who design and maintain web sites have to resort to all sorts of time-consuming (thus expensive!) tricks to make the sites we create work with IE6 — a browser that is now almost nine years old.
Unfortunately, up to a quarter of web users still use IE6, and in big companies, the percentage is even higher. According to Forrester Research, “60 percent of companies use Internet Explorer 6 as their default browser.” Read the rest of this entry »
YouTube’s not just for posting silly videos of sleepwalking dogs and other embarrassing moments — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. You can use it to show off your expertise, share knowledge, market your products and connect with customers, colleagues and prospects.
Here are 34 ways to use YouTube (and other video hosting services) for business. Read the rest of this entry »
If you constantly find yourself flicking between clients and browser windows for the different social networking apps that you use, you might like to try skimmer, a new lifestreaming app that launched into public beta today that aims to streamline your consumption of social media.
skimmer is a cross-platform desktop client, built using Adobe AIR, that gives you a single interface to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube and Blogger. Even in beta it works pretty well, and has some nice touches, such as displaying Twitpic images inline so you don’t have to open another browser tab. Think of it as a Tweetdeck-like app that also allows you to keep an eye on what’s happening with your friends on Flickr, Youtube and Blogger. You can also use it to upload photos and video. It is a very elegantly designed application that looks great. Read the rest of this entry »
Around a month ago, we wrote about the integration of Slideshare within Microsoft’s Office, notably Powerpoint.
Rashmi Sinha, the CEO of Slideshare, cheekily announced the company’s ‘acquisition of YouTube’ – more specifically, the ability to integrate ‘Video Inside Slides.’
Available starting today, this feature will enable users to play YouTube clips inside Slideshare. This potentially brings rich media to regular slide decks; and is particularly useful for demos and screencasts of applications and web sites.
In true Slideshare fashion, the company has heralded the arrival of video…in slideware!
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In Part 1 of this little series of posts, I talked about my move from Anchorage to Tok, Alaska. I went from acceptable Internet speeds at a fairly reasonable price ($60-ish/month) to barely 512K up and down, a 10 Gig monthly limit and $180/month plus $30 per Gig over the limit. As a web worker (read: Bandwidth Hog). I’m still reeling from the adjustment and keeping a careful eye on my bandwidth usage daily.
So how have these connectivity challenges and unexpected expenses affected my web work? And how am I compensating for these…developments?
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I was poking around the comments on my Preparing to Live Blog an Event post and came across a conversation about live blogging events at ProBlogger that made me think more about how I’m going to handle single-handedly “live blogging” a 3-day conference. The discussion also made me think more about what exactly “live blogging” means.
The social media maven for nonprofits Beth Kanter defined Live Blogging as: “basically taking notes, photos, or recordings at lectures, conferences, and presentations of what was said and posting it to your blog.” (quote found here) I agree with Kanter’s basic definition, but for anyone who hasn’t tried live blogging before, I think this definition isn’t detailed enough.
If I had to define live blogging, I’d define it this way:
“Live (multimedia) blogging is capturing the words, sounds, and images at an event and posting them online to a variety of Web 2.0 enabled sites with the goal of sharing the experience for those who cannot attend while preserving key moments in an archive.”
Here are some more of my thoughts about live blogging.
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In an effort to educate non-profits about available services, Google has launched a special site for these organizations. According to Google’s Blog they’re calling the new site, “a one-stop shop for tools to help advance your organization’s mission in a smart, cost-efficient way.”
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Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
