Creative Freelancer

Complete Guide to Live Blogging

2012-01-18T21:59:00.001+05:30

If you’re attending a conference or other event related to your blog’s niche, you might want to consider live blogging from the event. Live blogging is basically just posting regular updates to your blog as the event is taking place, rather than blogging about it after the fact.

Live blogging can be a very valuable resource to your readers if done right. If you take the time and keep focused throughout an event to provide useful information to your readers, they’ll often consider your blog the go-to place for event coverage in your industry. If it’s done poorly, though, all those blog posts will likely just be looked at as filler or fluff by your readers, and may even annoy some to the point they unsubscribe from your RSS feed.

Use the information below to guide you through the live blogging process.

Before the Event

Live blogging requires a bit of preparation that isn’t necessary for regular blogging. The most important thing, of course, is internet access from the event. If you’re a tech blogger, this almost certainly won’t be an issue. But for non-tech events, internet access may not be available, or you may be required to pay. Depending on where the event takes place, broadband wireless through your cell provider might not even be a reliable way to get online.

Check the event’s website or call the organizers to verify internet access. Also be sure to ask whether it’s free or paid, and whether you need to sign up ahead of time. If there’s no internet available, see if they can verify that broadband cell coverage is available. If they can’t, check the website of your provider to see if they have coverage maps available, or call their local sales office to find out.

Beyond internet access, you’ll need to decide whether you’re going to cart along your laptop for the event, or if you’re going to try live blogging from a netbook, tablet or cell phone. This is largely going to be dependent on what format your blog posts will be. If you plan to post tons of images, then a phone with a camera might be the best way to go. If your posts are going to be more text-heavy, though, you’ll probably want to opt for something with a keyboard. You can always try blogging from your phone and then switch to a tablet/netbook/laptop if you decide it’s necessary. And nothing says you can’t mix things up and use one gadget for certain parts, and another for other parts of the event.

Another thing to consider before the event is whether you want to live blog everything, or just certain parts. You may want to live blog during a keynote, for example, but otherwise you might just do more traditional blog posts. Look at the schedule for the event and decide which parts are likely to be of interest to your readers, and plan on live blogging those, but consider forgoing the rest.

Choose Your Format

If you’re considering live blogging an event, you probably already have a blog. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use that blog for the event. There are tons of options available to potential live bloggers and choosing the right one can mean the difference between success and failure.

Your Existing Blog

Using your existing blog seems like the most obvious choice. If you plan on using a laptop, netbook, or tablet, it’s no different than blogging from your home or office. You’ll likely want to set up a specific category or tag for the event, to make it easy for people to follow. It’s also a good idea to set up an introductory post.

Alternatively, you can set up a single page or post on your blog for the event, and update that one post throughout a specific workshop, event, day, or other timeframe. For larger conferences, you may want to have posts for each day, or each event within the conference. You might also consider having multiple authors who can blog about simultaneous events.

Microblogging

Using a service like Twitter to live-blog an event can work very well if all you want is a running commentary of the event. While these generally preclude longer posts, it is a good way to give short updates.

If you’re going to use a microblogging service, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind. First, check to see if there are any hashtags already associated with the event and make use of them to get a wider audience. If not, create one and publicize it. Another idea is to integrate the microblogging feed with your existing blog. Devote a page to the event and have your feed display there. That way, if you have readers who don’t use the microblogging service you’ve chosen, they can still easily access your live-blogging feed.

Free Blogging Services

Using a free blogging service like Tumblr or Posterous can also work well, especially if you want to blog from your phone. Posting to Posterous is done via email, and Tumblr posting can be done via apps for both the iPhone and Android, so if you use either type of phone you’ll be able to post easily. The Tumblr web interface also seems to work well on smartphones, so that’s also an option.

Choose Your Technology

Again, you’ll need to decide whether to use a phone, laptop, or something in between. The best choice is to use whatever is most comfortable for you. Consider the environment the conference or event is taking place in. Is seating going to be tight? If so, you’ll want to opt for the smallest option that works for your purposes. Consider battery life, too. If you won’t be able to charge during the day, battery life is going to be more important. For this reason, you might also want a backup plan in case your device of choice’s battery dies.

You may want to consider carrying extra batteries, too. If you’ll be staying in a hotel or away from home, make sure you remember all of your chargers, too. Rather than carrying a ton of adapters, consider using a powered USB hub for any of your devices that can charge via USB. This saves space in your luggage and is useful if you need the extra USB ports.

Decide whether you want to carry a camera or video camera ahead of time. If you’re buying new equipment, make sure you have a trial run before the event. There’s nothing worse than thinking you’ve been recording something for an hour and then when you go to upload to your computer you find either no recording or one that’s blurry or has no sound.

At the Event

There are a number of things you want to keep in mind while actually at the event. First of all, be ready to make mistakes. Live blogging is bound to have some typos, grammatical errors, and sometimes bigger mistakes. It’s unavoidable if you’re trying to blog in as close to real-time as possible.

Be respectful of others around you. Keep whatever technology you’re using to live blog from bothering those near you. This means not taking up multiple chairs or commandeering dining tables with your equipment. If space is going to be tight, use your phone or a netbook/tablet instead of a full-size laptop.

Make sure if you’re using a camera that you’re not using a flash for photos of presenters or speakers. It’s rude and distracting, especially if they have a few dozen flashes going off constantly in the crowd. If the lighting is low, turn up the ISO setting on your camera to compensate, rather than using your flash.

If you’re using your phone, make sure your ringer is set to vibrate or silent before the start of any workshops or events. Having your phone ring in the middle of someone’s presentation is annoying to those around you and should be embarrassing to you. Also, if the lights are set low, make sure you turn the brightness on your phone/laptop/netbook/tablet’s screen down so that it’s not disturbing to others.

Is Live Blogging the Best Idea?

Depending on the event, you might want to reconsider live blogging all together. Some events just aren’t well-suited to it. If something is very in-depth or complicated, blogging it live might be difficult. And if accuracy is paramount to what you’re covering, then taking time to write proper blog posts after the fact is probably a better idea.

You could always take a hybrid approach. Live blog interesting tidbits from the events, or if something interesting or unexpected happens. But then write full blog post(s) covering the event afterward. These could be done immediately following the event, or a day or two later. Just realize that if you wait for a few days you may not have much new to say, and you may not remember everything accurately.

One time when live blogging is almost certainly not a good idea is during a film screening. Whether this is a documentary, a presentation, or an opening, any kind of device that lights up is going to be distracting to those around you. Blog away before and after the event, but refrain from posting updates during the film itself.

Beyond Live Blogging

Don’t just limit your live coverage of an event to your blog. Consider all the other ways you can reach out through social media to provide coverage. Set up a Flickr pool of images just from the event, and allow others to post to it. Use sites like Ustream.tv for live video feeds. We’ve already touched on using sites like Twitter, Tumblr, or Posterous for alternatives to just posting on your primary blog.

Live Blogging Tools

There are a few tools out there available to help you with liveblogging an event. Some are stand-alone services, while others are plugins for existing blog platforms.

Live Blogging for WordPress

Live Blogging is a great plugin that lets you create a single post that can then be updated live (without requiring users to refresh the page in their browser). Updates are automatically marked with the time, and display in reverse-chronological order (with the most recent posts on top).

CoverItLive

CoverItLive is a live blogging service that can be integrated via an iFrame into another website or blog. In addition to text updates, CoverItLive also lets you post images, video and audio content. CoverItLive also has a number of other features, including commenting, polls, panelists, and RSS feeds.

ScribbleLive

ScribbleLive is a platform specifically for collaborative liveblogging. It lets users embed images, video, and other multimedia content, as well as integrate your ScribbleLive feed with your existing website or blog.

More Resources

The Art of Live Blogging – From BlogHer
How to Live Blog a Conference – From Mashable
Preparing to Live Blog an Event – From WebWorkerDaily
I’m LiveBlogging This RIGHT NOW – From WebdesignerDepot

Journalism for Blogging: 6 Things to Consider

2012-01-18T21:56:00.003+05:30

There has been an ongoing debate about whether bloggers could be considered as journalists in this digital and information age. Modern technology has enabled anyone with easy access to internet and the most basic blogging knowledge to share with the world whatever information they wish to. The result is that there is a large inconsistency in the standards of blog posts, especially those written by bloggers with no journalistic background.

(Image source: Fotolia)

Indeed, having the flexibility to present our arguments and opinions in whichever way we prefer is a good thing. Nevertheless, having some form of structure by consulting the fundamentals of journalism is also beneficial to both us and our readers. For one, it makes our blog seem more professional and reliable, such that readers can take our words more seriously. Another is that we can appreciate how our words will be broadcasted to a mass audience and take greater responsibility in how and what we post.
Here are a few things we can take home from journalism, after jump.

1. The Inverted Pyramid: Headlines & Leads

The idea of an inverted pyramid is that the most interesting and important information should always be placed in the beginning of your article. This is to facilitate your readers in the manner that they are able to understand the gist of your post as soon as possible, and decide if they want to continue reading or move on. The next most interesting and important information will be presented in the next paragraph, followed by the next until the last paragraph.

(Image source: Fotolia)

What this means is that the headline and the ‘lead’ (first sentence of the article) are the most critical lines that will draw in your readers. Write an engaging and compelling headline and lead and you’ll rouse enough curiosity for the reader to check out the rest. One way to do that is to put something provocative and stimulating to the reader, perhaps by asking a question that starts along the line of ‘Have you ever wondered….". It lets the story relates to them and makes them ponder about it.

2. Brevity & Clarity

This tip can be summed up as such: Get to the point and keep it simple. This means that you should keep your sentences short, and your paragraphs brief. Reduce the number of words by eliminating unnecessary ones. Check if your words are redundant (using too many words to express the idea) or repetitive (reproducing the same words more than required for readers to comprehend). Use simple language; minimize jargons that your target audience may not understand.
Always remember that your role as a journalistic blogger is to communicate ideas to your audience. If you put in more details than it is necessary for them to appreciate your content, attention will be diverted to your writing. This distracts them from absorbing your arguments and points effectively, and this calls for misinterpretations. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that because the purpose of you blogging is to share with them exactly what you have in mind.

3. Distinguishing Opinions from Facts

It may be too easy to blur the line between your opinions and facts when your assumptions are so deeply ingrained in your subconscious. However, presenting opinions and assumptions as facts not only damage the trust that your more knowledgeable readers have over your content, it is also morally questionable to mislead the more naive ones.
Perhaps the worst-case scenario is when you post an entire article based upon an opinion which you assumed as a fact. In other words, you are drawing conclusions on something that is inaccurate and giving your take on the topic. Unsurprisingly, your blog will lose its readership once readers question the reliability of your content.
A black spot on a white paper gets noticed ever-so-easily, so your entries should always be as truthful as possible. The best practice is to maintain a good reputation by ensuring that all your entries have their facts verified before they are even published.

4. Fact Verification

Rumors can be masqueraded as facts in the sea of information on the net, and it’s your role as a journalistic blogger to verify and confirm them. One problem with bloggers is that there’s diminished accountability for what we write when we compare with true blue journalists. Nevertheless, if we make it a habit to always verify what we post as facts, our blog will soon establishes a level of credibility. Such quality will draw in the crowd and make them stay.

(Image source: Fotolia)

One straightforward way to verify is to find the original source of information. Don’t take what you’ve read from another blog as the truth until you’ve seen it for yourself. To better convince your readers that you’ve got your facts right, you may also identify and share the sources in your article. For one, it improves the confidence of your readers over your entries. Another is that you avoid being accused of plagiarism.

5. Editing & Re-writing

Rereading, editing and re-writing your drafts are important recipes for good written pieces. This is where you cut down the amount of words and ensure that your story flows from the beginning to the end. Check for spelling, punctuation and grammar; making such mistakes are pretty much unforgivable for journalists. Get another person to proofread and ask them for an evaluation so that you can improve on your writing.

(Image source: Fotolia)

As with other great things in life, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to writing. Editing and rewriting makes for the road to perfecting your writing skills. Attaining that discipline of habitually checking your work again and again and making amendments will polish up all your final products.

6. Ethics

Journalists realize that their articles can have a substantial impact on the people who read them. They understand that their role is to be objective and be as accurate as possible in providing the information to them. Therefore, they hold honesty and accuracy to the highest esteem and take great responsibility and pride when they write their pieces.
Similarly, our blogs can significantly impact anyone who stumbles upon them. Do you take things out of context to skew readers to a certain personal view? Do you conceal your opinions and present them as facts? If you get sponsorship from companies to write good reviews about their products and services, will you still be truthful and objective in what you will post? These are some of the questions we have to consciously ask ourselves to ensure that we always write with the right intention.
Sure, blogs may not be treated as seriously as official news sources, but remember that whatever you publish can be accessed by anyone with internet connection. This is especially so when more and more people are using social networking sites to share their links and such. You’ll never know the implication your post could potentially have.

Flipside of Having Popular Website: 6 Things to Watch Out For

2012-01-17T22:00:00.000+05:30

here are millions of blogs and websites out there, and starting one is a piece of cake. However, growing one into something valuable with vast readership and promising advertising revenue, is whole lot harder. But what if you get the dream successfully? Can you sustain the success? That’s really a hard question.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

For one, as traffic grows and you get more readers, you’ll have to spend more time on your site – what was previously a hobby now becomes a serious responsibility, and if your site grows even more, that hobby can quickly turn into a full time job. When that happens, you become dependent on your site, not just your income, but also your reputation. Here are a few things you should be aware of if/when your site makes it.

1. Prepare to be spending more time updating

You’ve hit jackpot, you now got a great site with tons of readers. Guess what? The “1 post per week” now usually is no longer enough to satisfy your readers. You must be prepared to not only produce more content, but to keep the quality up to the standards that got your site popular in the first place.

(Image Source: Shutterstock)

A lot of new owners get blindsided when they suddenly see a spike of traffic from readers, and not knowing how to sustain the traffic, they resort to cheap methods of writing short articles and link roundups, when they should be focusing on creating the kind of content that got them the success in the first place – only more of it.

Tip(s):

Not only do you have to make sure you have enough ideas for original articles and posts, you have to set the time aside to write them and update the site more frequently. Don’t resort to cheap posts like roundups of news from other sites or a quick post linking to another article. That’s a sure way of losing new readers.

2. Gear up hosting and bandwidth

Most webhosts offer a cheap, shared hosting service that’s more than adequate for most sites, but once your site or blog starts attracting lots of visitors and traffic, you site will grind to a halt, and in some cases, the host will disable it in order to protect the other customers whom you are sharing the server with.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

In this case, the quickest thing to do is to fork up and upgrade your hosting to a VPS or something similar, which usually costs a lot more than shared hosting. Worse, the new increase in your hosting bill might not be matched by the advertising income from your site.

Tip(s):

Try to optimize your site as much as possible. If you’re running WordPress or other CMS software, you should always use a method of caching your pages. Look to optimize your images and code, and if all else fails, you can try and look into a content delivery network (CDN).
Particularly if your site is image heavy (a gallery perhaps), you can often keep your shared hosting plan while you host the images on a CDN like Amazon S3. This type of setup usually comes out cheaper than upgrading to a new hosting plan.

3. More traffic ≠ More revenue

While your costs increase with more traffic, e.g. bigger, better hosting plans, your advertising revenue usually will not match the traffic – if your traffic doubles, you advertising revenue will at best to see a 50% increment, depending on what ad provider you use.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

However, you can manage to grow your site to a position where you are considered influential; it does open the doors for special and lucrative advertising deals. Don’t be disappointed when your traffic increases (which is great), but your advertising revenue doesn’t follow suit. Now is the time to experiment with ad placements, rotations, and ad providers.

Tip(s):

Experiment with your ad layout and banner placement. What worked before may not necessarily work as well with the increased traffic. Also, if you previously used AdSense or other click-based advertising solutions, you might try out CPM-based ads, since you should be seeing increased amount of page views now.
However, advertising is always a tricky thing since it varies from site to site. What you shouldn’t do is to overload your site with banners, in-text link ads – and whatever you do, don’t use pop-ups or pop-unders. Bloating your site with ads will make it harder to turn new visitors into regular readers.

4. More server and site maintenance

As your traffic increases, the possibility of going wrong increases as well. From simple database errors, to hosting issues, to CMS (e.g. WordPress) errors – you’ll have plenty of maintenance to look out for. All the little things add up can ultimately hurt your site. It might be a table crash in your database or a WordPress plugin that failed – expect these kinds of errors, and know what to do when they occur.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Tip(s):

In case you get an error or find a bug, (no matter how small it will be) it’s important to fix it as soon as possible but not leave it hanging. Two reasons for this: the small error might be a symptom of bigger things to come, and it’s a turn-off for readers when they see any forms of error messages on the site. A PHP error for a WordPress plug-in may not affect the usability of the site, but readers will notice it, and it will undermine your site as a whole.

5. Popularity comes with reputation control

As the old saying goes, “with great power comes great responsibility”. Running a popular site means that you have to maintain not only the great content that made it popular, but also to remain respectable – you now have a reputation to uphold, and that’s not just keep posting great articles, it’s also to remain professional and civil.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Tip(s):

Never use your new “fame” and influence to launch attacks on fellow blogs and generally behave unprofessionally. It all reflects back to you. Even if another blog launches an attack, do your best to respond in a professional manner – better yet, ignore the attacks, as those who launch unprovoked attacks are usually only looking for attention.
Another important thing to pay attention to is credibility. If you’re wrong about something, and are called out on it, it’s important to own up to it. Update your article with a statement that you were wrong however tiny the error may have been. These kinds of actions add a lot more credibility to your site than if you had just deleted the error.
Don’t cop out, be a professional. You always see the big news organizations post a correction or an update, confessing their errors. They do it because that’s the professional way of doing things.

6. more prone to hackers

This goes without saying: the more popular your site is, the bigger the chance of someone attempting to hack it. Hackers rarely waste their time on small sites, but tend to target the larger and more established ones – Google and other online giants see thousands of daily hacking attempts.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Luckily, today’s software like WordPress is pretty secure, with security updates released on a regular basis. But it still doesn’t protect you against Denial of Service attacks (DoS) and similar methods, which can bring your server to its knees (and probably anger your webhost as well).

Tip(s):

Always keep your website up to date. If you are using CMS, pay notice to the plugins you use, as not-so-trusted WordPress plugins have lately been used to insert malicious code into sites. And never forget the tried and tested basics: use strong passwords, keep all files up to date, remove unnecessary files, and use .htaccess to secure sensitive areas.

SOPA: Scaring Or Securing The Internet Users?

2012-01-17T20:59:00.002+05:30

Since October 2011, the Internet all over the world is buzzing with the recent issue of Stop Online Piracy Act(SOPA) bill. Millions of Internet users and Internet entrepreneurs are protesting against the newly proposed law. On the other hand there is a strong opposition of politically influential people towards these protestors who favor this law by continuously highlighting its usefulness. The situation of the SOPA bill issue is getting closer to its destination with every passing second.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

However, for those valued readers who don’t know the story of SOPA, here is a piece of writing showing both sides of the coin so that you make a decision yourself that either SOPA is "securing" the Internet users or "scaring" them away…

Knowing SOPA

SOPA is a term used for Stop Online Piracy Act (officially known as H.R. 3261) for a bill that was floated in October 2011 at the US House of Representatives. The SOPA bill was presented by Representative Lamar Smith in association with a group of 12 co-sponsors.

SOPA traces its roots down to Protect IP Act of proposed in 2008 for preventing real online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property.

According to the official statement, the objective of SOPA is “to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.” In simple English, the SOPA bill empowers the US jurisdiction as well as the copyright owners of a particular website to take legal actions against any other website that they find guilty of ‘enabling or facilitating copyright infringement’ in any way.

The Way It Works

As mentioned earlier, SOPA bill has been proposed to discourage any act of piracy that harms the intellectual property of a US based website or online business. The SOPA bill, if passed, will empower the authority of the US court allowing the Attorney General to seek a court order against the accused website from any part of the world.

In case the court finds the accused website guilty of online Piracy, it will have to face the following consequences:

Removal of such website from all major search engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing etc.
Barring of online payment facilitators like PayPal etc from doing business with such website
Internet service providers will deny their customers from accessing the accused website.
The infringing website will not be allowed to do any further business with Internet advertising networks like Google AdSense and BuySellAds etc.

In other words the accused site will be sentenced to "online death" for the infringing website depriving it of both traffic and revenue.

SOPA – Securing The Internet Users

After reading the aforementioned consequences, one might think that what would be the arguments that favor the SOPA and prompted its proponents to present this bill with such harsh penalties in front of the US administration.

Here are a couple of favoring statements from the proponents of SOPA.

According to the co-sponsor representative Bob Goodlatte:
“Intellectual property is one of America’s chief job creators and competitive advantages in the global marketplace, yet American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current U.S. laws. This legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives our Framers enshrined in the Constitution over 220 years ago – to encourage new writings, research, products and services – remain effective in the 21st Century’s global marketplace, which will create more American jobs.”
(Ref. Wikipedia)

Sponsor representative, John Conyers favors the SOPA bill by saying:
“Millions of American jobs hang in the balance, and our efforts to protect America’s intellectual property are critical to our economy’s long-term success.”[14] Smith added, “The Stop Online Piracy Act helps stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.”
(Ref. Wikipedia)

Other arguments advocating the SOPA and calling the infringing websites at "Rouge Website” stress upon its usefulness by highlighting that this act will empower and secure the motion picture and film industry; the industry that creates 2 million jobs and thousands of micro businesses throughout the US.

SOPA – Scaring The Internet Users

By reading up till now, SOPA sounds more like a pretty responsible act that is there to defend and secure the genuine intellectual property and sheer hardwork of US Internet users. However, things are seldom what they seem.

As soon as the bill was presented, the word got out and spread all over the world wide web like wildfire. Millions of Internet users and online service providers were hit by a bolt. Soon different blogs, discussion forums and social networking websites were inundated with anti-SOPA content protesting and highlighting the possible catastrophic affects of this act on the Internet and its users.

Let us have a sweeping glance at a few of these:

Electronic Frontier Foundation
EFF resisted SOPA saying that SOPA will not only hinder the process of free speech but has also warned that Etsy, Flickr and Vimeo all seem likely to shut down if the bill becomes law.

Mozilla
Mozilla protested by creating a page “Protect the Internet: Help us stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation.”

Yahoo
One of the most intense protests was carried out by Yahoo which has reportedly quit the US Chamber of Commerce over its keen support for SOPA.

Letter to the Senate
The Internet giants like Google, Mozilla, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, AOL and LinkedIn have written a letter of protest to US Senate and House of Representatives, calling SOPA ‘a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cyber-security.’

Other Oppositions
The antagonists of SOPA consider it as an infringement to the First Amendment and call it an "The Great Firewall of America" posing a serious threat to free speech.

Possible Affects Of SOPA On The Internet Users

There has hardly been any bill presented to the governmental body anywhere in the world that has not been opposed or rejected by some. However, in case of SOPA, the bill has been publicly discouraged and raged upon by a good number of people from around the world. This opposition is mainly due to the possible effects of SOPA which people can foresee and are worried about. Here are some of the potential threats of SOPA that the protestors have highlighted:

Ice Age of Internet
According to the mechanism of SOPA, it has the authority to blacklist any such website that will be involved in online piracy and infringement. Opponents of SOPA are of the view that the penalties of the bill are so disconnected to the actual criminal act that it will destroy web hosting and e-commerce industry and cause the Internet’s potential progress to halt in terms of investment as well as research and development.

Job Drought
SOPA will be a big cause of killing the source projects that will lead to domain blocking and ultimately depriving millions of people of their jobs. The drastic effects of SOPA on the Internet businesses will result into more lawsuits, decreased investment and ultimately fewer new jobs

Free Speech Shut-up
The basic issue with SOPA bill is that it is unable to distinguish between a commercial and non-commercial use of copyrighted content. Whoever will upload a copyrighted content on websites like YouTube for the mere purpose for sharing will be held liable and will have to face the consequences.

Moreover, as well all know that the series of democratic revolutions that occurred in the Arab countries, known as the Arab Spring, partially owe their success to worldwide Internet content. However, according to the SOPA law, the proxy servers used during the Arab Spring fall into the category of copyright infringement making it a criminal act and eventually hindering the process of whistle blowing and free speech.

I would like to conclude this piece of writing by quoting a saying that “one man’s fortune is the other’s misfortune”. However, in the case of SOPA, the bill will be a cause of misfortune for millions of Internet users and online business owners throughout the globe.

What’s So Great (And Not) About Freelancing

2011-10-21T01:41:00.000+05:30

What’s there to hate about freelancing? You get to follow where your passion lies, there’s unmatchable flexibility on how you get to manage your own time and work, and most importantly – no boss breathing down your neck all day long! You are your own boss! You wouldn’t want to have it any other way, would you?

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Well, the fact is, as with most things in this world, there are two sides of the coin, even for freelancing. Undoubtedly, the greatest attraction of a freelancing career is the freedom it offers. Ironically though, thatfreedom comes with a price, that is being your own boss, you have to be self-disciplined so well that you won’t be burning your adrenaline just to rush to beat the deadline in the midnight.

Looking forward to freelance life? There are more aspects than just freedom to think and consider carefully. Don’t jump in it too quick, have a read on this post, then you should be good to go.-

Ultimate Flexibility Of Time

When it comes to freelancing, people generally have the idea that freelancers get to do what they want, whenever they want it. With nobody to monitor them, it’s understandable why people think of freelancing that way. In fact, it is in all likelihood that this is the idea that leads most people to take up freelancing.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Other than deadlines to follow, there are usually no other time limitation as to how you wish to get your work done. Instead of following a rigid 8-to-5 working schedule, you can now work during any time of the day. What this means is that late sleepers who function best during the wee hours of the night can finally avoid the drag-yourself-out-of-bed syndrome. And what does this translate to? Greater job satisfaction and higher productivity.

Besides, what’s really benefit is no more calls and complicated sick leave application to do while you’re really sick. You no longer need to suffer from your bad cold under the office temperature which is strictly 18 degrees Celsius. You won’t get scolded or looked down by cold-blooded manager simply because you are ill. You’ll thank yourself for being freelancer while resting on the bed.

Your Own Working Environment

How’s the world without co-workers? You can customize your working environment to any style you like(heck, we even got showcase for you to refer)! You can do any entertainment you like, says, playing rock music with the volume turn way up or stop for a break any time to catch your favourite sitcom. You have the entire house for yourself instead of a cramped cubicle! No other office work can afford such control over your working condition.

(Image Source: garrettmurray)

The other goodness is you can avoid the damned office politics. When there are workers around you competing for promotions, it’s inevitable that we will get ourselves tangled with politics. But if you’re working alone, the only one you’re competing with is yourself and the market for freelancers. As the proximity of competition for the latter is too far to be felt directly, such stress would somehow affect you to a lesser extent.

Better Income Control

You can save a lot of income by working from home, can’t you? Commuting time and cost for work are no longer applicable to you, except those times when you might need to meet clients. You can also cut back on child care services since you are now able to stay home with your children.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Instead of depending on work appraisals by your superiors for promotions and increments of pay, your income is now only at the mercy of your own efforts. How hard you work will determine how much you can earn. Rather than having your advancement being encumbered in office politics, you can now determine your own income. You’re your own boss, don’t you remember it?

The Price Of Freedom: Self-Discipline

Nothing is absolutely good in this world, so it’s not surprising that such freedom comes with a price. Setting income expectations is an essential initial step, but getting it is another thing. You’ll need higher than average level of self-discipline and motivation to keep your business going, and more if you want it to flourish.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

A lack of supervision by a boss can result in such circumstances when you just take your freedom for granted. After you got used to the idea of being free and powerful over your work, you get complacent. This is when you start getting sloppy in your work and miss deadlines. As this is indeed a recurring issue with most freelancers, I talked about it the other time on how to make yourself more productive.

Solitude & Independence

When you’re running a one-man show, you need to be proactive and resourceful. Sometimes the client might require you to do beyond what you’re familiar with, which means you have to know where and how to acquire the necessary skills. The problem is that you don’t have co-workers or an experienced mentor to consult with, but the issue can be possibly solved by online forum.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Another issue with going solo as a freelancer is that you feel isolated if you’re working alone day in, day out. This is also why motivation is hard to sustain as a freelancer, unless you look forward to working quietly by yourself every day. It will be good to maintain good social support outside of your work.

A short-term alternative is you can do a self review and appreciate the advantages of freelancing when you are feeling very alone. You have to be serious in tackling the issue of loneliness as it is mostly the root of depression that drags down your life satisfaction like there’s no tomorrow.

Unity Of Work & Life

Confucius once said that “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” With all due respect to his wisdom, I still think it might be a bad idea to combine work with life. Even if you have the passion for what you’re doing, there will still be trying times when you feel dreadful about certain aspects of your work.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Well, the bad news is freelancer’s life is mostly a mix of work and personal life. With your home as your office, and your office as your home, any problem you face in either your personal life or work life might affect another significantly. Just imagine that the moment you wake up, you’re already at work! Either you get your work and personal life balanced, or you ensure that the satisfaction from work can boost your personal life or vice versa.

Ready For Freelancing?

As we have explored the two sides of the coin of freelancing, you have to decide if freelancing is right for you based on what you assess yourself to be. A freelancer‘s life is not as rosy as one would assume. Take the above pointers as a reference for you to weigh the pros and cons in relation to what you’re comfortable with. If you’re interested about what your future will be if you take up the freelance path, here’s a quite accurateprediction for you.

I would like to hear from you your views on freelancing, feel free to share some comments!-

Innovative (Concept) Tablets We Wish Were Real

2011-10-13T04:50:00.000+05:30

It’s been around 1.6 years since the initial release of Apple iPad, and regardless the criticism, the device has achieved tremendous success in the tablet market. It’s so successful until so many great companies have risen up to challenge its realm by designing and releasing their own version of tablet.

(Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

While great companies are competing each others by showing off new designs and devices, an interesting phenomenon happened: another group of very talented designers have also implemented their own vision on their tablet design, and these so-called concept tablets have received praises from consumers like, “I hope it’s true!”.

Be it dual screen tablet, fold-able tablet or smartphone powered tablet, in this post you will see concepts which designers combined innovation and art to become something that consumers really thirsts for. Enjoy them and let us know which tablet you hope it’s true!

MacBook Duo By Kane Yanagawa

“My proposal is for a hybrid device that is a unique combination of Apple’s existing portable media device technology with an e-reader / netbook. A device that offers enough usability in each arena to make it a standalone solution for frequent travelers. Now you can work + browse, read + write, and share + play all on one device.”

MacBook Duo. (Image Source: iLounge)

MacView By Patrycjusz Brzezinski

According to an article in blog.moridin.pl, MacView project arose from a need to have such a device. It was designed to substitute the laptop, which is mostly uncomfortable in many situations. When creating the project, the designer bought a MacBook in order to better understand the philosophy of Apple. For sure great studies gave birth a great concept.

Macview. With keyboard on the second touchscreen. (Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

Desktop View. With mini music player on second screen. (Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

Front View. With keyboard on the second touchscreen. (Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

PDF View. With page thumbnails on second screen. (Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

Video Playlist. (Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

Back View. (Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

Charging Station. (Image Source: Patrycjusz Brzezinski)

MacBook Page By Devindh Baburam

“The MacBook Page is based on the size of a standard sheet of A4 paper. It maximises screen ‘real estate’ by presenting the user with an edge to edge interactive desktop. It also incorporates a hidden solar panel to supplement the power supply.”

MacBook Page. (Image Source: iLounge)

Doodle Book By Pyeong Yeol Yoo, Hun Park

“Doodle book is a lifebook able to make creative work. Portable enough to be carried out, it can be easily used as memo pad in any place. Included the concept of layer in its input system, it can attach or overlap an existing document, image, sketch or video comment with pen.

Doodle book is able to make creative work between idea and realization.”

Doodle Book. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Handling. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Synchronization. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Ecopad By Yonggu Do, Jun-Se Kim, Eun-Ha Seo

“Electricity is made automatically by using your ecoPad. Currently commercialized tablet PCs and smartphones have a very limited battery life – often not more than a day before having to be recharged.

However, on average, people press their touchscreens over 10,000 times a day. The ecoPad does not require special charging from an adaptor. Instead, it generates electricity when a user presses the touchscreen, due to the nano piezoelectricity film that is located below the display.”

ecoPad. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Layer View. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Front View. (Image Source: Design Boom)

File-Top By Fan Zhang

“This tablet is for the people who want a more portable and lighter computer. The inspiration comes from traditional Chinese liber. The foldable File-top composes of several translucent touchscreens and can be used as a touchpad or widescreen PC.

In the future the environmental papery material might take place of current memory devices. You are able to put all the documents into this “file” and it will store the information for you.”

File-top. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Product View. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Usage Situation. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Fractal By Pedro Calle

“Fractal is everything you need, it can be split into pieces each of which can work individually as laptop, pad, music player and you can tweak them with apps and widgets.

It can also work together as a console with different touchscreens with programs, menus, tools, palettes, brushes and audio samplers, all separated physically. Find all the fun on customizing your Fractals, share them with your friends and enjoy making the digital realm a more analogous experience.”

Fractal. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Featured View. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Hermes By Yeongwom Jeon, Sangmin Park, Seokho Yu

“Previous tablet PC has two disadvantages. The typing work is not as good as the original keyboard and others can easily see what you are doing on the computer. Now, you do not need to worry about emerging of personal information with Hermes. You can send messages and call with Hermes as well.”

Hermes. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Product View. (Image Source: Design Boom)

HTC Evolve Tablet By Timur Pinar

A HTC branded high-end tablet with smart Android OS running on it. Doubtlessly the design is sleek and the user interface seems to be very promising. There’s also an extra tab on the left side of the tablet which gives more dedicated spaces for apps. I must say this is probably one of the best concepts which I wish it to be materialized.

HTC Evolve Tablet. (Image Source: Timur Pinar)

Features. (Image Source: Timur Pinar)

Extra Tab. (Image Source: Timur Pinar)

HTC TUBE By NAK Studio

Another sleek concept for HTC brand, but the idea revolves around the “Cartridge powered multimedia device”. The concept is not much explained, but this might be the tablet which will function as a big monitor when the phone is plugged in. An interesting idea, and I must say the device is well designed.

HTC TUBE. (Image Source: NAK Studio)

Product View. (Image Source: NAK Studio)

MPad By Volker Hübner

MPad is for professional designers. It combines the advantage of intuitive multi-touch operation with the precision of a pressure-sensitive pen, probably sounds like a very, very advanced Wacom tablet.

For its features part, essential keyboard commands are arranged next to the 15.6″ OLED display, 9 fixed buttons, 2 programmable buttons rockers with e-ink display, with up to 24 shortcuts for each software application. Monstrous tablet, but of course I hope there’s a model for left-handers like me.

MPad. (Image Source: Yanko Design)

Back View. (Image Source: Yanko Design)

Piggyback By Brooks Benefiel

Piggyback tablet is the similar concept with HTC Tube which suggests that, you have a smartphone, and what you really need now is just a bigger screen.

With the tablet, you will be able to plug in the smartphone to get a bigger screen for more complicated tasks like typing out long report or, if the processing power allows, doing graphic editing job. Yes, all you need is a bigger screen.

Piggyback. (Image Source: DVICE)

Desktop Dock. (Image Source: DVICE)

Sony Ericsson Vivaz™ XL By Frank Tobias

“Well, here I made a XL-version of Vivaz. It features an 8 megapixel camera at the back, of course with HD video recording and the interior capacity is about 75GB. I hope you like it ;)”

Sony Ericsson Vivaz™ XL. (Image Source: Frank Tobias)

Sony Ericsson X10™ Maxi By Frank Tobias

“So here I expanded the Sony Ericsson X10 to a tablet called X10 Maxi. ;) It features like the X10, an 8 megapixel camera, the system is OS Android 2.0 and the interior capacity features 100GB.”

Sony Ericsson X10™ Maxi. (Image Source: Frank Tobias)

Sony Ericsson Xperia™ XTab By Juris15

Seriously this guy needs to be hired by Sony Ericsson, and I’m sure you will know why by looking at 2 distinguishing designs below. Sleek and sexy.

Sony Ericsson Xperia™ XTab. (Image Source: juris15)

Sony Ericsson Xperia™ XTab10 By Juris15

Another great design from the XTab series, also one of the series that I sincerely hope it was true.

Sony Ericsson Xperia™ XTab10. (Image Source: juris15)

The Part By Jun Se Kim, Yong-Gu Do, Eun-Ha Seo

“Do we really have to buy a smartphone and a pad? Do we really need both? Actually, the only difference between the smartphone and smartpad that we are using separately is the screen size, and the advantage and disadvantage are identified by the size.

Carrying two kinds of devices, smartphone and smartpad, is not only inefficient for users, but it is an uncomfortable waste that the smart era created. In that aspect, the ‘part’ is not a separate device, but an efficient and convenient smart device with a new concept that a smartpad can be combined with a smartphone.”

The Part. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Component Breakdown. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Smart Extension. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Unknown Tablet By Frank Tobias

“Here I made another tablet. Unfortunately I don’t know which brand and user interface I should take for it… Well, the tablet itself sports a 3.5 mm audio jack on the left side, 2 USB ports on the right side, and a camera with 10 megapixels, HD video recording and a triple LED flash…”

Unknown Tablet. (Image Source: Frank Tobias)

Unnamed Tablet By Frank Tobias

“So here’s another tablet concept. It’s running Windows 7, supports a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash at the back, 4GB ram, 300GB interior memory, an Intel i5 processor and HD video recording :)”

Unnamed Tablet. (Image Source: Frank Tobias)

Volumni By Dulyawat Wongnawa

“Volumni is a new concept of PC which integrates various types of PCs into one single device with only a size of an envelope once it’s folded (23 x 10 cm). It consists of 4 units of ultra-slim touchscreens linked together by a 360 degrees pivot hinge. It serves as both a portable device and a workstation depending on user preference. Users can define their usage of the device by just folding and turning it.”

Volumni. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Product View. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Featured Modes. (Image Source: Design Boom)

Here are more concept and futuristic gadget posts we previously published:

Reflection

Looking back, it was an interesting time to see how criticism for the iPad eventually falls before its sales number. It’s just like what we’re complaining about, iPad lacks of USB port, VGA adapter, Flash… but it still champions the market 1.6 year after its launch, and apparently there are still no company created a true competitor that can bring down the iPad.

What is the reason behind the tremendous success of iPad, is it because of the design that covers the lack of functionality? Also, do you think any device above, if materialized, can bring down the iPad? Let us know what you think, and don’t forget to tell us which concept tablet above you fall in love with!

Tribute To Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)

2011-10-13T04:41:00.001+05:30

We all know that the time will come, but we didn’t expect it to happen so soon. Today is not an easy day for millions out there who own an Apple product or two, certainly also a gloomy day for all folks who work at Apple. Steven Paul Jobs, better known as Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, has officially left us on today, 5th of October, 2011.

He was one of the key person bringing the true innovation to the world. He showed us how making the difference can change the world; He changed the way we interact with gadgets and computers. And when he left, he left behind a great deal of legacy he created and improved. He just changed the world.

Today, with this post, we’d like to pay our tribute to the Steve Jobs, the hero who rocked the technology industry for years. Let us look into the life of this legendary visionary, and learn something from his never-regret journey.

1955: The Adopted Son Of Paul Jobs

A child was born, and the world didn’t know that this child will change the world. Steve Jobs’ biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate, and she decided to put him up for adoption.

Steve Jobs’ biological father – Abdulfattah John Jandali – a Syrian-born VP of a casino in Reno, Nevada. (Image source: iPhone5news)

His biological mother later found out that the adoptive mother had never graduated from college and that the father was not even graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when his adoptive parents promised that he would go to college someday.

1972: College Drop-Out

The young Jobs graduated from his high school and joined the course at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. During the time, Jobs had no idea on what he wanted to do with his life, and he was spending all of the money his parents had saved their entire life, so he decided to drop the course after only 1 semester, mainly because he could not afford the course.

Photo of Steve Jobs (middle), 14 years old. (Image source: Edibleapple)

The financial difficulties didn’t stop the young man’s passion, he rolled auditing classes at Reed College. Since then, he collected and returned Coke bottles just to get himself some food money, and got his weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.

Jobs’ high school senior portrait. (Image source: Edibleapple)

1972: Jobs’ First Job

Jobs’ first job was with Hewlett-Packard, as a summer employee. He then took a job as a technician at Atari, which was a famous video game manufacturer. He was given a job to create circuit board for the game, “Breakout”, and he collaborated with Steve Wozniak, who was later the co-founder of the Apple Company.

Jobs and Wozniak. (Image source: Wired)

1974: Jobs Became A Buddhist

Jobs was sparked with the interest of philosophy during his days at Reed College. At the same year he took on his first job at Atari, he traveled to Neem Karoli Baba, India with Dan Kottke.

They went in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back as a Buddhist, with his head shaved and he was wearing traditional Indian clothing.

1976: Apple Computer Was Born

Many believed Jobs was inspired by Atari’s founder Nolan Bushnell, and the inspiration got him started Apple Computer. In 1976, at the age of 21 years old, Steve Jobs founded Apple with his summer job’s co-worker at HP, Steve Wozniak, making them the first and second Apple employee.

The company was later funded by an angel investor, Armas Clifford Markkula, who brought in USD $250,000.

1983: "Sugar Water Can’t Change The World"

An uprising year for Apple. The company hired Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as CEO. Later, Jobs persuaded John Sculley, who was the CEO of Pepsi-Cola, to serve as Apple’s CEO, with a very famous question:

“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

Steve Jobs, John Sculley and Wozniak. (Image source: BusinessInsider)

During his days, he helped the Apple to increase its sales from $800 million to $8 billion. In 1987, Sculley was Silicon Valley’s highest paid executive, withdrawing USD $2.2 million annually.

1984: Jobs Introduced Macintosh

The legend of Jobs’ innovation had just started. Jobs introduced the Macintosh to the world, and it became the first commercially successful small computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). The Mac’s development was later taken over by Jobs.

The company went well, but the disaster was quietly planted within the heart of the founders.

The first Macintosh. (Image source: Worldculturepictorial)

1985: Jobs Is Fired From Apple

A turning year for Apple and Steve Jobs. Following the internal power struggle and announcement of significant layoffs due to the pessimistic sales, Sculley took off Jobs from being the head of the Macintosh division, and later Jobs was fired by his own founded company, Apple.

Nevertheless he described that the firing was the best thing happened to his life, noting that “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Jobs and John Sculley, CEO of Apple. (Image source: Ezinemark)

1985: Jobs Founded NeXT

The innovation journey of Jobs didn’t end here. He founded another computer company named NeXT Computer, which produced highly advanced computer, but was ignored by market with “cost-prohibitive” as the primary reason. Like any other Apple product, Jobs ran the NeXT with the obsession for aesthetic perfection, but only 50,000 units of the machines were sold.

Due to the production constraint, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.

Jobs at the launch of NeXT computer in San Francisco. (Image source: Cedmagic)

1986: Jobs Founded Pixar

Jobs purchased the The Graphics Group with the price of $10 million, which is widely known as Pixar today. The company was initially producing the high-end graphic hardware, but as the business didn’t go well, the company then contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated films, and the Toy Story 1 was one of its notable successes.

(Image source: Macstories)

Pixar was later purchased and taken over by Disney in early 2006. Jobs served as director of Disney, and he was the largest single stockholder with 7% of the company’s stock.

1996: Jobs Re-Joined Apple

Apple, being experienced a series of business and innovation failure, bought the NeXT to bring back the Jobs to the company. Jobs was then named as the interim chief executive. After the return of the Jobs, he terminated a number of projects which he thought was useless to the company’s business.

It’s quite interesting to note that Apple’s employees were having fear to encounter the Jobs while riding the elevator that time, fearing that they might be the next batch to be fired by Jobs.

2004 (Mid): Jobs Diagnosed With Pancreas Cancer

They said every genius does not have longer life, and it appears to be true. Jobs was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas, which doctor advised him to get his affairs in order, and told him that he should expect to live no longer than 3-6 months. For him, it means to say goodbye.

Jobs announced to his employees about the diagnosis result. However, he also stated that it is rare, far less aggressive type tumor. He resisted the conventional medical intervention (chemotherapy/radiation therapy) and embraced the diet method to cure the disease. It was a successful tactic, the tumor was reported to be "apparently removed".

2004 (End): Jobs’ First Medical Leave

After the surgery, Jobs announced in his email to Apple’s employees that he would take the entire August off to take care of his health, and expects to recover from the pancreatic cancer. He planned to return to work in September. Tim Cook (current Apple CEO), head of worldwide sales and operation at that time, took over Apple for the first time.

2005: Jobs Delivered Speech At Stanford

Steve Jobs delivered his commencement speech to the Stanford’s graduate. The speech was split into 3 main topics, with the first topic focused on his earlier life, second topic focused on his leaving from Apple and founding of NeXT, and the currently infamous third part – the death.

(Image source: stanford.edu)

The speech ended with the advice from Jobs – “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.“

2007: Jobs Introduced IPhone

6 months after telling the George Bodenheimer of ESPN that the company’s new phone sucks, Jobs unveiled the plan of entering the mobile market with his new and revolutionary iDevice, named iPhone, which later not only dominated the U.S. market, but also changed the way people using the mobile phone, thus forcing mobile giants like Nokia to innovate at its best.

Jobs introducing the first iPhone to the world in 2007. (Image source: FoxNews)

2009: Underwent Liver Transplant

On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had learned that his health-related issues are more complex than he originally thought, thus announced a six-month leave until the end of June 2009 to allow him to focus on his health. Tim Cook, who had previously acted as CEO during Jobs’ absence in 2004, became acting CEO of Apple, with Jobs still involved with "major strategic decisions."

In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee. Jobs’ prognosis was "excellent". He had a liver of a young man who was around 20 years old.

2010: Jobs Introduced IPad

Following the tremendous success of iPhone, Jobs took on the next risky step to introduce his last revolutionary product to the world – iPad. Once again Steve Jobs shocked the world by the device which can’t even be categorized into either computer or smartphone category, but its surprising success has once again proved the visionary power of the Jobs.

Despite the world’s hesitation on tablet computing, Steve Jobs went with what he believed. In 2010, Apple launched their first iPad. (Image source: dailymail.co.uk)

2011 (June): Jobs’ Last Keynote

This was probably the last presentation of Steve Jobs. He announced iOS 5, the latest generation of Apple’s mobile operating system, and the cloud storage which is named as iCloud. He delegated most of the speeches to different Apple’s key employees, which pretty much hinted his falling health.

Jobs introducing iCloud in WWDC 2011. (Image source: Apple Event)

2011 (August): Tim Cook, Jobs’ Successor

The cells are falling, the body is getting weak. Knowing that he could no longer serve as the CEO of the Apple, Steve Jobs announced his resignation, following the quote, “I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO“. He named Tim Cook as his successor, and thanked the Apple’s employees for working with him these years.

(Image source: digitaltrends)

5th October 2011: The World Goes Job-Less

We know the time has come, but we didn’t expect it to come so soon, so suddenly. Today, Apple, by placing the portrait of Steve Jobs on its website, announced that Steve Jobs, the former CEO of the company, has passed away. This marks the end of a legendary visionary’s journey. His family, in a statement, said Jobs “died peacefully today surrounded by his family.”

(Image source: digitaltrends )

Graphic Designer’s Journey: Freelance To Freedom (Infographic)

2011-10-13T01:46:00.000+05:30

Just when you thought decision making couldn’t get any harder (you didn’t sleep for 2 nights, trying to decide between Helvetica and Times font), real life appeared and forced you to make a resolution about your career.

In kindergarden there wasn’t really any competition. You were the one to paint the prettiest house with the white picket fence. But you can’t ride that success forever. So, for all of you ambitious designers out there who find yourselves pondering the future, we hand you this easy to use, yet enlightening Graphic Designer’s Journey:Freelance to Freedom infographic, to guide you in your time of need.

[Via: Free Website Builder]

Chemicals in Cigarette Smoke [infographic]

2011-10-07T01:21:00.001+05:30

For you cigarette smokers (and non-smokers) out there here is an infographic on what is in your typical cigarette. For me, smoking is gross, and I don’t feel that anyone should be a smoker, but I cannot tell you what you can, and cannot do. I’m not here to hate on smokers and feel that anyone should be able to make their own choice. However, I am in support of laws that restrict where people are allowed to smoke. Main reason being that when you smoke, you are not only affecting yourself, you are affecting those around you as well. People around you are forced to inhale your second-hand smoke and get then are left smelling like a smoker even though they never took a puff

http://dailyinfographic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/smoking_big.jpeg

Getting Around [infographic]

2011-10-07T01:19:00.003+05:30

Today’s infographic presents us with an array of different modes of transportation. Personally, I get around with my black Nissan Sentra. Although it may not be a flashy car, it gets me to work, school, home, and wherever else I need to go. The United States of America by no means has a good public transportation system, but other countries have proven public transportation can actually be good. Things like buses, subways, and trains are more fuel efficient and allow more people to ride them than individual vehicles.

As we see in today’s infographic France has the fastest train at 320 mph, and this was very surprising to me. I had assumed Japan would have the fastest trains considering they have the bullet train. Also provided in today’s infographic is an interesting fact about bicycles: as it turns out bicycles are the most common form of transportation, though not the most unusual among the list. If I could, I would trade my Huffy for any of the animals on the list. Riding a horse of elephant to work would be amazing, you would never have to worry about parking. With a horse you could tie him/her to any tree, while an elephant could simply crush any car in the way.

The Truth About Alcoholism [infographic]

2011-10-07T01:15:00.001+05:30

Here is an infographic that gives you something to think about.

The Future of Loyalty is Social

2011-10-07T01:13:00.001+05:30

SimpliFlying has done some great research on how frequent travelers use social media. The Future of Loyalty is Socialinfographic summarizes some of the key findings from the research.

To dig deeper, we partnered with Cranfield University in the UK to conduct a study on how frequent travelers (who travel at least five times a year) use social media. And here are some highlights of what we found:
There are more airlines on Twitter than there are airlines with frequent flyer programs (191 vs 179)
Almost 90% of frequent flyers use Facebook regularly, and over 65% “Like” at least one airline on Facebook
To frequent fliers cheapest fare is the least significant loyalty factor among customer service, earning loyalty points and onboard experience
72% of frequent fliers would join a social loyalty program
Over 65% of frequent fliers would like to earn social loyalty points via check-ins or by contributing ideas to an airline’s Facebook page.
Over 80% of frequent fliers would like to earn social loyalty points by recommending the airline to a friend or providing positive feedback.
In the infographic below, we have summarized the findings of the study, and will soon release a detailed presentation of these findings too. Special thanks to Gavin Tan and Prof. Keith Mason from Cranfield University for their tremendous help with this study.

The simple, isotype-style illustrations are immediately recognizable since they are so similar to the figures used in airports and airline signage. I think the Frequent Flier Participation Ladder is some fantastic data, and should have been more prominent in the design.

A handful of things I would have changed about the design:

The initial visualization of social sites should have been in descending order. It’s almost there except for Twitter listed first.
The Twitter factoid ‘Frequent fliers “following” their favorite airlines on Twitter are steadily increasing’ is not supported by the visual showing how many airlines are followed by frequent fliers. The statement claims a change over time.
The benefit percentages are shown on an odd shape of 10 squares. Is that supposed to be an airline seat? Hard for the reader to visually grasp the percentage since it isn’t a simple square shape. A grid of 100 squares would have worked better.
The doughnut percentages are sorted in descending order, so the colors are in a different order in each doughnut. Very hard to interpret. The orders should have stayed consistent from Very Strong to Not at all in each doughnut. Doughnuts are also hard to compare with each other visually.

Some great research data, and an infographic was a great way to publicize it. They were very thankful to the professors at Cranfield University for their help with the research, but I wish they had credited a designer. Was this done by someone inside SimpliFlying?

How will you die? [infographic]

2011-10-07T01:09:00.001+05:30

To make sure your week starts off nice and cheery today’s infographic How will you die? presents the most likely way you will die depending on race, gender, and age. If you are a 21 year old Hispanic like me, we are most likely to die of unintentional injury which according to today’s infographic is most likely to be a car accident. If you are 65 or older, no matter your ethnicity, you are most likely to die from heart disease, congratulations.

Thanks to our partner infographic world for helping with the creation of today’s infographic. Enjoy and share!

Negotiation Station [infographic]

2011-10-07T01:06:00.001+05:30

The real world seems so scary to us undergrads. Once we leave this school time bubble real life sets in. And with real life comes real responsibilities, real bills and a really big need for money. And for once this money isn’t coming from our parents, grand parents or financial aid. We are stranded with our education and our ambition.

This insightful infographic peers into the very important reality of salary, and more importantly salary negotiation. Surviving in this tight economy is a necessity, and negotiating your salary before January, June and July is crucial since those are the months where most raises are given.

And while money is essential for survival, it is happiness that is really at the core of living. In a Princeton study comparing job satisfaction to income level, a positive correlation between job satisfaction and salary only exists up until the $75,000 mark. In my opinion, the moral behind this infographic is to find a job you love, negotiate for a salary of $75,000 during January, June or July and live happily ever after.

Spotify and its Competition [infographic]

2011-10-07T01:04:00.001+05:30

Napster had its up and downs, but now it’s safe to say you need to find a new music service. iTunes is well organized and has a large collection of songs, but it quickly becomes impossible to afford. If you have a diverse music taste like me, you want access to many different bands all the time. Buying hundreds of CDs is fun until you realize you have no money to buy concert tickets to see the live shows.

Today’s infographic is here to help you out. It stacks up the major music subscription services and rates them on various features. I have not explored the majority of these, but I have downloaded the free trial of Spotify, and it is awesome. It is great to be able to search an artist and listen to entire songs rather than short samples. If I’m not mistaken, the unlimited streaming trial lasts for 6 months! Although it is a little creepy, I enjoy the connection with Facebook and the ability to see your friend’s playlists and what they’re listening to.

Since I’m not an expert on this subject, please leave me some comments on your experiences with these various services. If you think one of these is way better than Spotify, I want to try it out! [Via]

How Students Pay for College [Infographics]

2011-10-07T01:03:00.001+05:30

Over the weekend I heard some of the best news I could possibly hear. Arrested Development will be coming back for a final season to be capped off by a movie. Although this is completely irrelevant to today’s infographic I felt this was news that needed to be shared. Supposedly there is going to be a nine or ten part series allowing us to see what the characters have been up to for the past five years. Fox, who was stupid enough to take Arrested Development off the air and replace it with Family Guy reportedly will not be airing the series. It will air either on showtime or be broadcast on Netflix’s instant streaming, unfortunately it looks as though we will have to wait until some time in 2012 before this becomes a reality.

Now for business, today’s infographic Filling the Gap: How Students Pay for College details the ridiculous costs of college and how we manage to pay for them. As someone who is still in College I understand the woes of college expenses. Although my parents are both teachers and don’t have the biggest income and I have a sister attending college as well, the government believes my parents can pay a majority of our tuition no problem. Offering my sister and I very small unsubsidized loans and even smaller subsidized loans. As a result I have worked my whole college career to pay for all the extras needed in College.

If you’re a student hopefully today’s infographic will provide you with some information on filling the gap in your expenses. Hey after all if you need a little extra money you could just donate some organs, I’m sure they pay top dollar for those.[Private Student Loans]

Data Breaches [infographic]

2011-10-07T01:00:00.000+05:30

Although I have very limited knowledge of business, big or small, this infographic about data breaches still feels like a very big deal. Data breeches can, and will, affect even us little people with no knowledge of business because we all have information stored and accessible through various businesses and corporations. *cough* Sony Playstation Network *cough* People always assume that just big companies are subject to data breaches, but that is definitely not the case. The ever expanding area of small business is just as susceptible.

Some ways to keep your data secure are to keep secure passwords and firewalls to protect your information and the information of your customers/clients, be sure that your employees are trustworthy and are keeping an eye out for potential leaks or intrusions, and to consult an expert. The expertise of the hacker is definitely growing and the safest way to be protected is to be protected by a professional. Keep your information protected by an insurance plan that will cover losses. [Via]

Why You Are an STD Risk [infographic]

2011-10-07T00:46:00.000+05:30

was listening to a local independent radio station recently, and right after the Black Keys song I’d heard a million times they played a commercial I had never heard. The commercial alleged that Sexually Transmitted Diseases are a growing concern in my city, hit me with some frightening statistics, and then allowed me to get back to the next overplayed indie hit. I can appreciate the need to spread the word that if you have sex or sit on compromised toilet seats, you should be aware of the risks. Today’s infographic aims to do just that, with more detailed information and statistics.

Scanning the infographic gives a good, and somewhat graphic (if you, like me, are squeamish) description of the most common STDs broken down by gender. I found the last section, Additional/Intriguing Facts About STDs, to be the most interesting as it illuminates the cultural response to STDs. Apparently, only 1/3rd of individuals with an STD shared that personal detail with their sexual partner before intercourse. Scary. [via]

Via: Health Testing Centers