Mon, 15 Feb 2010
Though the collapse of the bubble has led to a difficult period for the bits-and-bytes industry, it has now returned to stable and sustainable growth coupled with vibrant innovation in many departments. The coming years promise to be exciting as the software industry, once again, reinvents itself to reach a whole new level.
According to Software [...]
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Fri, 12 Feb 2010
How many times have you visited one of the many “professional” blog advice sites, and left with little more advice than the ubiquitous (and unhelpful) “build great content?”
If building a great blog was as simple as writing quality posts, we’d all be tied for number one on the Technorati Top 100 blog list. I’m not [...]
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Tue, 12 Jan 2010
Did you know that your Twitter tweets are ripe with search engine juice that you can put to use to get more marketing exposure? Of course, links you post on Twitter, including links in your bio, are automatically no-follow, meaning the search engines will follow them, but “link juice” (like Google PageRank) isn’t carried over.
That [...]
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Fri, 08 Jan 2010
In the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop with the inclusion of Adobe Bridge the thumbnail view of PSD files within the windows explorer is no more present, This can be really difficult if you intent to see preview of the file you need to open the Adobe Bridge inorder to view the preview, which consumes [...]
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Mon, 04 Jan 2010
Facebook Pages are increasingly becoming a “second home page” for businesses online. And while more and more Page owners are learning how to become expert Facebook marketers, Facebook has recently created many new opportunities for Pages to get more traffic through the tried and true methods of – you guessed it – search engine optimization [...]
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Sat, 02 Jan 2010
The Remote Desktop feature in Windows 7 can be used to connect remotely to other computers, so that you can control one computer from another pretty easily. Remote Desktops in Windows 7 have Aero and multi monitor support, and other enhancements you’ll love.
How to turn on and use Remote Desktop in Windows 7?
This is how [...]
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Wed, 23 Dec 2009
I recently received the “Cannot copy files required for installation” error (with error code 0×80070017) when trying to install Windows 7 on my PC. After some investigation I found that the top 3 reasons this happens are:
1. The DVD you are using is corrupt. If you are burning the ISO image to a [...]
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Wed, 23 Dec 2009
Google has signed a deal with Twitter and will begin displaying tweets in Google search results. The announcement is generating mixes reactions among SEO professionals and site owners.
Google made the very brief announcement in their official blog about the Twitter Deal as part of their goal to “create the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search [...]
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Mon, 21 Dec 2009
Many people are surprised to learn that YouTube is the second-largest search engine. It’s bigger than Yahoo and bigger than Bing, according to comScore. Therefore it is a shock to many search marketing professionals that clients, including large brands, neglect to formulate or act on strategies for YouTube optimisation.
Of course, YouTube isn’t a perfect fit [...]
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Fri, 18 Dec 2009
MSN’’s Bing search engine team published a list of issues related to obtaining inbound links that could either help or hurt your web site’s rankings. As most serious web site owners know, building good, industry-related inbound links is important to help a web site rank well in organic search results.
There aren’t any new revelations in [...]
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Thu, 17 Dec 2009
The Cocktails Mix campaign (pronounced Cocktalesmix) was the brain child of the NHS in Derbyshire, dreamt up to warn young people of using excessive amounts of alcohol this Christmas.
A VIDEO created by the Cocktails Mix campaign team has been banned from a website for being too controversial.
Video website YouTube has removed the Cocktails Mix NHS [...]
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Wed, 16 Dec 2009
How does Santa know what everyone wants for the holidays? Simple, the children tell Santa very specifically. Whether they are sitting on his lap, or writing letters in crayon, Santa’s “customers” make it very clear to him what they are looking for this holiday season.
You have the same advantage. Grownups use search engines to tell [...]
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Fri, 04 Dec 2009
It used to be that any link to a web site was a good link and each played a strong role in a site’s ability to rank well. That is no longer the case and not all links are treated equally. This SEO tutorial covers the concept of a quality link and how it can [...]
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Fri, 04 Dec 2009
Building inbound links, also called backlinks, is a critically important part of any web site search optimization campaign. A hyperlink pointing to a web page is a popularity vote for that page, and all of the major search engine keep track of every link they find leading to every web page in their indexes.
At one [...]
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Fri, 04 Dec 2009
Twitter is one of several social media networks that is currently growing in popularity by leaps and bounds. While most social media sites are not designed with businesses in mind, Twitter is one system that can be very beneficial if you have an online business.
Twitter was started in 2004 and is officially referred to as [...]
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Thu, 03 Dec 2009
1. Choose the Keyword Selection Tool
As far as keyword selection tools are concerned, there is one clear leader among the free keyword search tools – Google keyword suggestion tool. There are good paid keyword research tools but why pay when some of the free alternatives are so good? There are other free keyword research tools [...]
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Fri, 27 Nov 2009
It is the 21st Century equivalent of word of mouth.
From estate agencies to eco-friendly fashion designers , small business owners across the UK have been thrown an unexpected lifeline in the midst of the recession by social networking sites.
Companies that have jumped on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon are reporting a surge in customers while others struggle.
With [...]
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Thu, 05 Nov 2009
Advanced Web Ranking is a search engine ranking software application that helps check the position of a website in search engines rankings. The web ranking systems allows users to pick region specific search engines making managing international sites easier than ever before. To begin users need to enter a list of keywords or [...]
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Sat, 31 Oct 2009
It is necessary to support search engine marketing techniques across different aspects of a website.
This is the according to Kevin Gibbons who, in a post on the Econsultancy blog, observed that using methods such as pay per click marketing once is valuable as the chances of conversions are high, but “you don’t want to pay [...]
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Mon, 05 Oct 2009
by Kabir Bedi
The world wide web is constantly changing and to make sure your business keeps pace, it is important to be up to date with the latest trends and technologies. And this is why companies decide to redesign their website. Of course, there are other reasons too like re-branding the business, updating the website [...]
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Wed, 30 Sep 2009
There are many ways to fail when launching a new website. Just as anything else in life, the Internet is a massive place and you are just a tiny speck on one of billions of radars.
The trouble starts when you, being so close to your own project, see your website as much more than it [...]
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Fri, 25 Sep 2009
Are you concerned that competitors can steal your website?
What are the pitfalls for an offender, what are the legal comebacks and can you turn the situation to your favour?
Maybe, take the real world example below…
A case of website and web copyright theft
MintTwist and N.I.D-lab both create websites. N.I.D-lab stole MintTwist’s website with a cut-and-paste [...]
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009
… Maybe. Although this time it will be more complex.
IE and FireFox are the dominant incumbents and Google’s Chrome is the rising super-power. However, dig a little deeper and you’ll see there are more potential players in the battle for world domination.
“The issue that lies ahead is whether browsers will remain a relatively simple window [...]
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009
London is becoming the Twitter capital of the world, in terms of number of users and number of businesses developing add-on tools for the communications network.
While Twitter is the toast of its native Silicon Valley in California, London boasts more users than any other city in the world.
Even though Twitter itself is yet to generate [...]
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Mon, 07 Sep 2009
If you are going to have a bad website, you are probably better off having no website at all. It’s true. While a bad website at least gets your name in the search engines, it can also ruin your credibility. A hard to use website, for example, may push your potential customers over to [...]
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Mon, 07 Sep 2009
Internet users can take just one-twentieth of a second to decide whether they like the look of a website, researchers say.
Dr Gitte Lindgaard and colleagues from Carleton University in Ottawa flashed up websites for 50 milliseconds and asked participants to rate them for visual appeal.
When they repeated the exercise after a longer viewing period, the [...]
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Fri, 04 Sep 2009
Has the recession changed the way you approach business?
Many of the business people in my network have answered an emphatic YES to this question…
Jurga Zilinskiene who runs established language translation services company Today Translations said, “During the recession we realised the value of our local suppliers. Trust and pulling together has been the key [...]
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Fri, 04 Sep 2009
The world economy is improving, but that has not translated into increased demand for expensive, elaborate advertising campaigns, according to WPP Group chief Martin Sorrell. However, the industry has the potential to rebound, and when it does, it will focus on digital, Sorrell said.
Sorrell told reporters Wednesday that the ad industry will look very different [...]
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Thu, 03 Sep 2009
Remember all that time and effort you spent coming up with the right name for your business? You wanted the right name because your name is a large part of your brand. You want to create a brand that will conjur positive images about your business and stick in people’s minds; you wanted something that [...]
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Wed, 02 Sep 2009
Copywriting and SEO are getting closer and closer. Here are some key points to note when writing copy (that is SEO friendly) for a website …
1. Keywords are cool when it comes to writing copy for search
Many websites that guess their keywords and are spreading themselves too thinly (this included us at one stage). [...]
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Thu, 27 Aug 2009
This article was first posted a few months ago. Since then, amongst others, we’ve had one or two politicians start to follow our tweets. Whilst they might not be allowed to talk about their tweeting motives in public, we thought they may find this an interesting (and educational) read …
What kind of Twit are you?
1. [...]
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Wed, 26 Aug 2009
Links to your site from other sites drive additional traffic. But since Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links to your website (“link popularity”) as an important indicator of relevance, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines. Google has a measure called PageRank that reflects the [...]
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Wed, 26 Aug 2009
Just because “old media” strategies aren’t on the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t effective. A mixed media approach can be very effective.
Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature. Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company’s URL and see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct! In print, [...]
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Sat, 15 Aug 2009
Don’t neglect e-mail as an important way to bring people to your website. Just don’t spam, that is, don’t send bulk unsolicited e-mails without permission to people with whom you have no relationship. Many countries have anti-spam laws.
Install a “Signature” in your E-Mail Program to help potential customers get in touch [...]
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Thu, 13 Aug 2009
Dynamic websites are becoming more and more common as companies and individuals are realising that the internet is the best way to do business these days, and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is becoming more of a widely used term by people who have joined the internet revolution are looking for ways to get the correct [...]
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Thu, 13 Aug 2009
At Reply, or “@reply”: A direct tweet sent to another Twitter user.
Hash Tag: The “#” sign. Allows Twitter users to group tweets by topic, making it easier to search particular conversations using Twitter Search.
ReTweet (RT @USERNAME): To repost something that’s already in the Twitter stream.
SnapTweet: A tweet that includes a photo taken with a phone.
Twittcrastination: [...]
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Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Perhaps the most important — and inexpensive — strategy is to rank high for your preferred keywords on the main search engines in “organic” or “natural” searches (as opposed to paid ads). Search engines send robot “spiders” to index the content of your webpage, so let’s begin with steps to prepare your web pages for [...]
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Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Times have changed. The information age is fully upon us. Customers now have the ability to instantly compare prices, services, and products, and shop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 365 days a year. Not to mention the ability carry around a high-speed wireless connection to the entire world in their pocket or purse!
Although [...]
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Fri, 31 Jul 2009
A new form of website promotion comes from the mushrooming field of social media, in which people are encouraged to interact and respond to each other’s blog postings and comments. You should be aware of four types of social media: (1) blogs, (2) social networking sites, (3) social bookmarking sites, and [...]
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Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Web designers always have to strike a balance between usability and visual appeal when designing a website. Without this balance, a website might be nice to look at or difficult to navigate. Or, it might be easy to navigate, but not easy on the eyes. With this in mind, balancing attractive navigation with usability does [...]
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Fri, 24 Jul 2009
By Tim Bradshaw, FT
KFC, the fast food chain, learnt a thing or two about the power of Twitter , the messaging site that allows members to post 140-character updates for all to see, when it launched grilled chicken earlier this year.
Something of a departure for the fried-chicken specialist, the company’s move into grilled chicken was [...]
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Thu, 16 Jul 2009
When it comes to SEO (search engine optimisation), we can all feel overwhelmed with the amount of information out there on how to go aout it correctly. Whichever way suits you when building your web pages, getting your research right should be at the forefront of your quest to stay, and remain, on top of [...]
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Tue, 30 Jun 2009
One thing web designers can never avoid is having to use FTP software to upload a website; there is practically no other way to get a website onto the hosting server short of going to the actual server and uploading it physically with a USB stick.
How to Upload
In this step by step guide we will [...]
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Fri, 19 Jun 2009
By Peter Whitehead , Extract from the Financial Times
I don’t read many books, but one I did get through last year was about how a manufacturer was transforming itself into a provider of expertise and services.
The book* used a fictional company that made power generators to illustrate how high-speed connectivity and collaboration enabled it to [...]
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Wed, 17 Jun 2009
If 10% of a businesses potential customers have difficulty finding it’s products or services, should that business address the problem or just carry on losing that money?
Nowadays, website accessibility is crucial for maximising revenue.
If you have not considered accessibility as part of your website design, you are excluding the 8% of the population with a [...]
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Tue, 16 Jun 2009
A bad website is one which fails to accomplish its intended goals. If a website is failing to do any of the following, it deserves to be called, bad:
1) To Make Money – That’s an easy one. Most marketing websites, whether they are pushing a product or service should be inspiring visitors to pick up [...]
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Tue, 16 Jun 2009
Simply put, a good website accomplishes a business’ goals by meeting the needs of its users. Let’s break this down into a simple list of factors every website owner needs to devote abundant attention to:
1) Technical Concerns – Clean code, correct HTAccess protocols, a sensible link architecture and adequate bandwidth are some of the technical [...]
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Tue, 16 Jun 2009
If you are going to have a bad website, you are probably better off having no website at all. It’s true. While a bad website at least gets your name in the search engines, it can also ruin your credibility. A hard to use website, for example, may push your potential customers over to the [...]
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Tue, 16 Jun 2009
Website visitors can take just one-twentieth of a second to decide whether they like the look of a website, researchers say.
Dr Gitte Lindgaard and colleagues from Carleton University in Ottawa flashed up websites for 50 milliseconds and asked participants to rate them for visual appeal.
When they repeated the exercise after a longer viewing period, the [...]
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Wed, 10 Jun 2009
Paul Rodgers has hired MintTwist to develop him WordPress blog to house his hundreds of articles.
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Mon, 04 May 2009
David Walmsley, head of web selling at John Lewis Direct, discusses how online strategy can deliver a uniquely personalised approach
Online and in-store experiences will always provide different experiences for consumers. Shopping on the web may well be quick and convenient – but it’s a world away from the sights and sounds of the store. However, [...]
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Sun, 12 Apr 2009
7-Types of Twitter-ers
1. The link pirate
Spend the majority of your tweets dropping links to other people’s stuff. Combine this with a retweet, and you are off to a good start. i.e. Retweet someone else’s link. Continually. This results in exposure to the original tweeter (who will thank you for exposing them) – and has [...]
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Tue, 07 Apr 2009
Introduction
This is a checklist. For an overview of how to design the perfect Website see Design the Perfect Website.
While designing the website, it is imperative to keep both the user and the client in mind while maintaining a consistent “look and feel” throughout the site.
Put the User First
When designing, it is important to understand [...]
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Tue, 24 Mar 2009
I’ve been hearing alot about businesses using an improved Web Marketing Startegy to increase Sales Leads and drive business through a recession. I came accross this article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph which contains some hard data collected directly from businesses out their battling away for new sales leads. Interesting stuff …
It had [...]
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Fri, 20 Mar 2009
Introduction
For an overview of how to plan the perfect Website see Plan the Perfect Website. Once you have done this, you can follow the checklist below to ensure that you are ready to start the Design process (see Design the Perfect Website).
What’s the point?
Ensure you understand the website’s objective by defining the following:
· The [...]
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Thu, 12 Mar 2009
Introduction
Once we have the Plannined, Designed (see Design the Perfect Website) and developed the Perfect Website, we are ready to begin developing the Perfect Web Marketing Strategy. The aim of the Web Marketing Stratgey is to increase the total number of sales leads for your business. To do this, the web stratgey will:
1. Maximise [...]
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Mon, 16 Feb 2009
It was almost a year ago that I started working for MintTwist, a web design company in London. My role when I started was to code up websites that were designed by the lead designer and lend a hand to any design odd-jobs that needed doing.
As the year has progressed I have been entrusted with [...]
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Thu, 12 Feb 2009
Having a fantastic looking website is just the beginning of running a successful website. Now you need to get found by the people searching for your product or service in search engines such as Google. This begs the question, how do search engines rank websites?
The answer is quite simple: Those who have superior [...]
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Mon, 09 Feb 2009
Established for over 15 years, National Doughnut Week was dreamt up by Christopher Freeman of Dunns Bakery, Crouch End and is running from 9th-16th May 2009. The campaign aims to raise money for The Children’s Trust, a national charity that supports children with multiple disabilities and complex health needs. MintTwist became involved over 5 years [...]
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Tue, 23 Dec 2008
Introduction
Once we have the Planning documents and the Design documents (see Design the Perfect Website), both of which have been understood, agreed and approved by the client, we are ready to begin developing the Perfect Website.
This stage can be considered to be the mechanical and technical phase of the whole process. It is where [...]
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Sun, 16 Nov 2008
Introduction
In order to design the perfect Website, you will need to have your Website Planning document (see Plan the Perfect Website).
With this, your Designer can start the process of Website Design.
Broadly, the Website Design process involves three main deliverables:
• Create a ‘sitemap’
• Create ‘wireframes’ for Homepage and Content page(s)
• Create ‘visuals’ Homepage and Content page(s)
What [...]
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Thu, 30 Oct 2008
Introduction
In order to create the perfect Website, firstly you need to have a Website Planning document. Before you can start the process of Website Planning you need to know two key things:
· What do you want your Website to say?
· Who do you want your Website to say it to?
Once you can answer these questions [...]
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Fri, 17 Oct 2008
I came accross this article in the FT. It is brilliant, and should be compulsory reading for anyone who is thinking of implementing an IT solution for their business.
It starts with the big danger that is faced by anyone trying to implement an IT solution for their business. It provides us with some frightening statistics.
It concludes by providing us with an amazingly [...]
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Fri, 22 Aug 2008
When creating a website for your business, your Web designer will first need to create a visual design and layout. It is important that this is done with the purpose and aims of your website firmly in mind.
The overall design and information architecture of your website is vital if you are going to effectively transmit your unique message to that [...]
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Fri, 15 Aug 2008
Advertising and marketing is the staple diet of any business. With the ever expanding reach of the internet, internet marketing has in turned into an extremely cost-effective activity for businesses. It helps your website target new clients and customers by increasing internet traffic to your business website.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can help you promote your [...]
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Sun, 20 Jul 2008
Possibly the most empassioned of the web design wars is that which places the logic of using a tabular layout versus that of using a fully-CSS layout.
We are at a point now where new, young web designers are starting out using CSS layouts but, for a number of years now there have been those who [...]
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Mon, 14 Jul 2008
With designing a web site comes great responsibility!
Okay, I stole that from Spider-Man but there is some truth behind it. Designing a web site is about much more than superficial Photoshop visuals and CSS coding. A web designer must make sure that everything is in its place and that the web site is clean, navigable [...]
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Fri, 04 Jul 2008
Paris and Beyond
Wow, it seems like this internship and study abroad experience has gone by really really fast. It seems like I have hardly been here! I’ve done a lot of exciting things in London, at MintTwist and around Europe and I have loved it. Here at MintTwist I have written a lot, which I [...]
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Thu, 03 Jul 2008
Oh my, this weekend was the craziest I have had yet, and arguably ever. All I have to say is thank God they speak English in Dublin. We got to Dublin at about midnight, and took a cab straight to the hostel which was hidden away not too close to down town. After we finally [...]
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Thu, 03 Jul 2008
It’s my second week in London. I love that the temperature here isn’t too hot, but the cloudy sky is getting really depressing. Pittsburgh is known to be cloudy and depressing but this feels much worse! They say it’s supposed to get sunny soon. Can’t wait! Anyway, right now I’m learning a lot about MintTwist, [...]
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Mon, 30 Jun 2008
Hello, my name is Tommy and I am an American student studying abroad in London and interning at MintTwist, a Web Design Agency in North London. I attend the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania where I am studying Communication and Economics. Many people have never heard of Pittsburgh, but you probably just didn’t know you [...]
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Mon, 16 Jun 2008
To Set Up Your E-mail Account in Mac OS X:
1: In Eudora, go to the Special menu and select Settings.
2: In the Options window, you will see several icons on the left. Select Getting Started
3: In the Username field, enter the login name given to you by your internet service provider. For example:
eudora-user.
4: In the [...]
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Sun, 15 Jun 2008
To Set Up Your E-mail Account in Mac OS X:
1: Upon opening Mail for the first time, you will be prompted to configure it to retrieve your email.
2: You will be prompted for some general information about your email.
* Enter your full name in the “Full Name” field.
* Enter your Sonic.net email address in the [...]
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Sun, 15 Jun 2008
To Set Up Your E-mail Account in Microsoft Outlook:
1: Launching Outlook Express 6
Double-click on the Outlook Express icon on your computer’s desktop (similar to the image displayed below) in order to launch the program.
2: Opening the Internet Accounts window
When Outlook Express 6 opens, you will be presented with the main Outlook Express window.
You need to [...]
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Sun, 15 Jun 2008
This tutorial shows you how to set up Microsoft Outlook to work with your e-mail account. This tutorial focuses on setting up Microsoft Outlook 2003, but these settings are similar in other versions of Microsoft Outlook. You can set up previous versions of Microsoft Outlook by using the settings in this tutorial.
To Set Up Your [...]
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