Xara takes an interesting approach to website design: "you shouldn't need to know, or even see, the HTML that goes into creating your site, any more than a car driver needs to know how an engine works." I can't decide whether this is an extraordinarily good approach or an extraordinarily bad approach. Chances are, it's neither.
Let's take that automotive analogy a bit further: Some people delight in understanding how cars work. I am not one of them. Some people can drive a car with a manual transmission and even prefer it to automatic transmissions. Were it not for the arthritis in my left knee, I would still drive a car with a manual transmission, but I no longer do.
So Xara's approach will be right for some people and wrong for others. Those who operate more in designer mode will appreciate what Xara can do. Those who insist on looking at and controlling every bit of code on their website will probably not be fans of the approach.
The Web is not a magazine. Once a magazine rolls off the press, readers can't modify the design unless they spill a bowl of chicken-noodle soup on the magazine. Website readers, on the other hand, have a considerable amount of control over the sites they view, no matter how carefully a designer has specified what the page should look like.
Xara Web Designer "treats web page design just like print page layout." Pages can be created "from scratch" or users can start with a template. Impressive design features can be added easily without any understanding of HTML, CSS, or Javascript. Say for example that you want to wrap text around a graphical object -- like this.
Click any of the smaller images for a full-size view.
Press Esc to dismiss the larger image.
There really isn't a way to do this, even with sophisticated features of HTML5 and CSS3, so how does Xara do it? The application "cheats". What's happening here is that the text is broken into chunks that will allow the black circle to be inset. The text is placed inside a DIV tag and each line of text has a class applied to it.
The image follows the text and is placed using additional CSS.
Another trick, one that can be done with HTML5 and CSS3 involves placing a graphic under some text or placing a transparent graphic on top of some text. The visual result is nearly the same in both cases, but placing one object below another can cause problems if you want the user to be able to click the lower object.
The approach is similar in that the text is broken into individual lines and positioned. Then the graphical object is placed on or under the text (your choice).
In most cases, users will never see the underlying code. I saved the page from Xara Web Designer Premium and then opened the page in Ultra Edit Studio, a text editor.
Xara has adopted a new approach to updates. In some ways, it's similar to Adobe's continuously updated Creative Cloud program and in some ways, it's better. Xara says it understands users' frustrations with having to wait a year for each update, "knowing that we are working on (and likely finished) new cutting edge features and on-trend content."
The solution is the 365 Guarantee. It's a subscription service like Adobe's Creative Cloud, so "you'll have access to new features and content as we develop them, at any time during the 365 days after you purchase."
Unlike the Adobe Creative Cloud program, though, Xara applications don't stop working if you decide not to renew your subscription. The applications continue to work, but are just not updated.
Xara explains it this way: Users will have access to "upgrades and patches to Web Designer released in the 365 days after you purchase and register. Note: these updates continue to work after 365 days in any installations at the date of expiry, but if you reinstall the software after the 365 Guarantee expires (and you don't renew) then these updates will not be included (the software will revert to the version at your date of purchase or registration)."
Another big change involves Xara Themes. The company has developed 166 business themes and previously charged $15 for each of them. Now they're all included in Web Designer Premium.
Xara Web Designer Pro's themes make the process of creating a site easy and the variety of themes you can choose from ensures that your site won't look exactly like other sites.
Start the process by selecting a theme and then loading either the full site or individual pages.
If the theme you've selected uses typefaces that aren't installed on your computer, you'll be offered an opportunity to download them.
Many of the templates include responsive design so that the site you create will work on both large and small screens.
I selected the Black Noir theme and wanted to make it relevant for TechByter Worldwide, so I replaced "Black" with "TechByter" and "Noir" with Worldwide.
Well, that was pretty easy, but what's happening on the mobile (small screen) version?
Clearly the text is too wide, so it needs to be adjusted for mobile devices.
So I adjusted the size of the type.
Other changes that I made on the main site were replicated automatically on the mobile version of the site.
Take a look at my site.
Websites Without Tedium Although I like to understand what's going on in the background, I can understand why some people might prefer to concentrate on the appearance and allow an application to handle all the coding. If that describes you, Xara Web Designer is exactly what you're looking for. The price is right and licensing follows the model that I hope will be the future.
Additional details are available on the Xara website.
Everybody knows it was Ray Tomlinson, who died in March. But everybody might not be quite right. Tomlinson, a computer programmer, implemented the first e-mail program on the ARPANET system, which later led to the Internet. This was in 1971. The use of the @ sign to separate a user name from ID of a computer allowed mail to be sent to a user on a different machine. End of story, or so we thought.
Now Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai has filed suit in US District Court in Boston against Gawker Media, writer Sam Biddle, editor John Cook, and CEO Nick Denton claiming that Gawker made several false and defamatory statements about him, including calling him a "fraud," a "liar", and a "fake."
Who's right here? It could be one, the other, or both.
Tomlinson is credited with writing a program in 1971 that allowed people sitting at different computer terminals to send each other text messages.
Seven years later, Ayyadurai (who was 14 years old) wrote a program that replicated the features of the paper mail system. He added the inbox and outbox, along with the concept of drafts, subject, CC, and BCC.
Therein lies the difference. Perhaps crediting Tomlinson with inventing e-mail would be like crediting the prehistoric guy who created the wheel with inventing the automobile.
In the 1980s, Ayyadurai was awarded a copyright on a program called "EMAIL". In those days, software couldn't be patented. Ayyandurai says that there is no single inventor of e-mail. "It was built upon improvement after improvement ever since ARPANET came into being."
Tomlinson's primary contribution (and it was huge) was the idea of adding the @ sign so that messages could be routed across a network instead of being restricted to a single computer. Ayyadurai's primary contribution was envisioning an interface that everyone could understand because it modeled physical mail on computer systems.
So if somebody asks you who invented e-mail, now you have a long story to tell.
When Windows 10 was released, Microsoft said that it would be a free upgrade for the first year for users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. The one-year period ends on July 30th and, if you haven't upgraded by then, your upgrade will not be free. So consider this your fair warning.
Microsoft this week announced that 300 million devices are now running Windows 10, which makes it one of the fastest adoptions in Microsoft's history. The company's goal is to reach 1 billion active devices by 2018. Windows 10 runs computers, tablets, smart phones, Xbox One consoles, and the HoloLens.
In part the rapid adoption rate is misleading because some people upgraded without particularly wanting to. In many cases, the upgrades were successful; in some cases, they weren't.
After the end of July, those who want to upgrade from an earlier version of Windows to Windows 10 will pay for the upgrade. A Windows 10 Home upgrade will cost $119 and Windows Pro upgrades will sell for $199. Some had thought that Microsoft would continue the free upgrade policy to continue the rapid adoption, but that won't be the case.
Microsoft is pushing users to upgrade now -- before the end of July -- while they can still do it for free.
Sherlock Holmes must be out, so it's up to Watson to solve the problem of cybercrime. IBM says that 8 universities will help train Watson for cyber security. IBM's Watson seems to have considerably more on the ball than Arthur Conan Doyle's Watson, Holmes's sidekick who saw everything and noticed nothing.
Watson will learn the nuances of security research findings and will them be expected to discover patterns and point to cyber attacks well before human observers would see them. Starting this fall, IBM will work with several universities to further train Watson on the language of cyber security.
Among the colleges involved: California State Polytechnic University, Pennsylvania State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, the University of Maryland, the University of New Brunswick, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Waterloo.
IBM says that its efforts are designed to improve security analysts' capabilities using cognitive systems that automate the connections between data, emerging threats, and remediation strategies. Beta testing will begin later this year.
The threat is huge. The average organization sees over 200,000 pieces of security event data per day with enterprises spending $1.3 million a year dealing with false positives alone, wasting nearly 21,000 hours. Couple this with 75,000-plus known software vulnerabilities reported in the National Vulnerability Database, 10,000 security research papers published each year, and more than 60,000 security blogs published each month -- it's clear that security analysts are challenged to respond.
And the threat is getting worse. I have seen examples of malware that is sent to large companies. Some of the threats are so clearly transparent that it would take a fool to fall for them. Others are sophisticated and difficult even for a cautious, suspicious person to spot. Ideally, automated systems will be able to identify more real threats while not falsely identifying safe messages.
IBM Security operates security research, development, and delivery organizations that monitor 20 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries.
Most people don't like to be shouted at and it seems that younger consumers like it less that older folks. A Harris Poll conducted on behalf of Lithium Technologies questioned nearly 2400 consumers from Gen Z (ages 16 to 19) to Baby Boomers (60 and older). Maybe because Boomers grew up with radio and television telling them what to ask their parents to buy, they're more accepting of pushy on-line services.
The survey was sponsored by Lithium Technologies, a company that works with companies to explain how to connect with potential consumers. I know nothing about Lithium Technologies, but I like their approach.
Younger social media users don't like to have blatant ads pushed at them in social media feeds. More than half say that they have reduced their use of certain services or stopped using them altogether because of ads.
It seems like intelligent marketers should know that people like to be talked with, not talked at. Companies that are trying to build trust and loyalty through social media may actually be doing their brands more harm than good.
Lithium CEO Rob Tarkoff says that pushing ads on social media alienates consumers, especially the younger generations who make up more than 50% of the population. "That's a lot of purchasing power and it's only going to grow as these generations reach their prime spending years." Social technologies are about connecting people, he says, "not shouting at them."
People who use social media understand the Internet and know how to find a product or service they're interested in. "I don't want to see ads clutter my news feed," is what a recent college graduate told researchers.
Younger consumers are more likely to trust information they seek out themselves on blogs, websites, or on-line communities than in what's pushed at them in ads.
Trust in on-line sources is fairly strong across generations, but younger users tend to place more trust in them.
Millennials and Gen Z are now more than 50% of the population, so meeting their expectations should be important to brand managers. Everyone is running on Internet time now. Decades ago, someone who had an interest in a product or service might send a letter or post card to the company and expect to receive a brochure a month later. When millennials reach out on-line, four fifths of them expect a response the same day! But even 70% Baby Boomers expect that kind of response.
Lithium has customers in more than 30 countries. For more information on the results of the survey, visit the company's website.
