The importance of mobile design really cannot be exaggerated these days. In 2014, 60 percent of web traffic came from a mobile device. That’s well over half, and more than enough reason to convince any sane person of the importance of mobile first design.But building a top smartphone app is tough. Contrary to what most […]

The post 6 main elements of beautifully designed smartphone apps first appeared on TECH Intelligence and is written by Drew Hendricks.

This is real life.  Just yesterday, someone I follow on Facebook discovered that someone had created two fake accounts and used her pictures to assume a false identity which the “someone” used to flirt with me and generally behave in an unladylike manner.  The fake accounts were reported, but initially, Facebook refused to remove them, […]

The post How does catfishing work? first appeared on TECH Intelligence and is written by Brian Wallace.

Videography used to be a highly specialized field that required special equipment and training.  It took multiple members of a team, each with highly specialized skills, to produce a video that people would actually want to watch.  Nowadays everyone with a smartphone is walking around with highly specialized camera equipment in their pockets, and they […]

The post Video is evolving first appeared on TECH Intelligence and is written by Brian Wallace.

Android recently unveiled their newest operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It doesn’t entirely overhaul the system, but it does bring some exciting new improvements for Android users to enjoy. Like every new operating system, it takes some getting used to, but knowing some of the tricks help to facilitate the process. Expect Changes with New […]

The post 4 Android 6.0 Marshmallow tricks to show to your friends first appeared on TECH Intelligence and is written by Drew Hendricks.

If you are in the business world, chances are you’re looking to grow your business in some capacity.  You would probably never say that where you see your company in 5 years is lying stagnant in exactly the same place you’re in now.  Especially in today’s fast paced world, it is almost unheard of for […]

The post Why are you still using that dinosaur phone system? first appeared on TECH Intelligence and is written by Brian Wallace.

Before the turn of the new millennium, development teams could get away with supporting two platforms: Windows and the web. Today, there are dozens, with more created monthly. As a result, teams struggle to manage vendor, device, and platform fragmentation. To fully realize the potential of virtual reality, the Internet of Things, and other platforms […]

The post The future of software development Is automation first appeared on TECH Intelligence and is written by Aidan Cunniffe.

As businesses adopt digital to be more efficient, stay ahead of the curve and meet changing demands, their IT teams are faced with the growing challenge of supporting the software infrastructure. Due to the high costs of employing software developers and the scarcity of capable programmers, the pressure on IT teams has become enormous. As...

The post What is the Future of Citizen Development in Modern Businesses? appeared first on noupe.

In the last few years, the design of the UIs has shifted from flat 2D surfaces into the actual 3D environment and possibly progressing towards the creation of space interfaces. Such change is not only attributable to the evolution of motion design software but also to the changing ways of perceiving digital realities. Therefore, it...

The post From Screens to Space: The Future of 3D and Spatial UI Design appeared first on noupe.

With over 5 billion internet users worldwide, businesses are now tapping into E-commerce to expand market reach, which was inaccessible through traditional brick-and-mortar stores. However, success doesn’t end with merely establishing an E-commerce website.  Tools are needed to do well in this competitive market. One tool is the Content Management System (CMS), which provides the...

The post Mastering WordPress for E-commerce: Proven Strategies to Boost Your Online Store appeared first on noupe.

The Internet of Things (IoT) transforms industries, businesses, and daily life by connecting physical devices to the Internet, enabling real-time data exchange and automated operations. From smart homes to industrial automation, the applications of Internet of Things are vast, providing numerous advantages in terms of efficiency, convenience, and cost savings. This article explores the top...

The post Top 9 Applications of Internet of Things and Its Examples appeared first on noupe.

As eCommerce is evolving at an increased pace, staying ahead of the latest trends in the market is very important for Shopify store owners to keep their stores stand out from the competition. Staying updated with the latest eCommerce trends helps merchants sell their products uniquely and convert more customers. As with every industry, the...

The post Top 5 Upcoming Shopify eCommerce Trends for Merchants appeared first on noupe.

As a creator, you know that you’ve got to be consistent to make it in the content game. But consistency isn’t enough on its own. In order to stand out from the crowd, your consistently produced content has to be quality. You’ve got to make stuff that your target audience will genuinely enjoy, find helpful,...

The post How to Make Your Content Marketing Pieces Work Harder appeared first on noupe.

Typography is a core element of web design that impacts how easily people can read and engage with your content.  Your message and brand identity stand out when you have a font that draws the eye in.  When you know how to use web typography principles to grab attention, you can transform a good-looking website...

The post Mastering the Art of Web Typography: Enhancing Readability and Brand Identity appeared first on noupe.

Any kind of marketing approach that gives you a deeper insight into your customers has the potential to help you make stronger connections with them. Psychographic segmentation is a perfect example. Unlike demographic or behavioral segmentation, it goes into depth about what makes your customers tick, which means you can better understand how to reach...

The post What Is Psychographic Segmentation and How Can It Boost Engagement? appeared first on noupe.

If you have a profitable side hustle, you’ve probably considered taking your business full-time. However, before you take the leap and transition to life as a full-time entrepreneur, there are a few things you should do. Some tasks are simple, like opening a business bank account and setting concrete goals. Others, like building a professional...

The post 8 Things to Do Before Transitioning Your Small Business From a Side Hustle to Full-Time appeared first on noupe.

As an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to self-promote and build your own personal brand (alongside that of your business brands, of course). And while there are hundreds of ways to do this, blogging is still one of the best. The Perks of Building Your Own Blog As an entrepreneur, you have lots of...

The post Why Every Entrepreneur Should Start a Blog appeared first on noupe.

The requirement of safeguarding original presentation designs has never been more crucial as presentations get increasingly interactive, visually appealing, and indispensable in both corporate and creative domains. Your work is valuable, whether you are a tech entrepreneur creating software that changes the way presentations are done or a designer creating fresh slide decks for customers. ...

The post Protecting Your Unique Presentation Designs: IP Strategies for Creators appeared first on noupe.

Creating an infinite horizontal logo scroll effect with pure CSS is a simple yet powerful way to add dynamic movement to a website. This tutorial will walk you through building an infinite scroll effect with added hover effects that allow the user to pause scrolling and scale each logo slightly when hovered.

This article is the culmination of months of work, trial and error, and research to craft the perfect painterly shader for your next WebGL project.

Let’s create a Breakout game using Vanilla JavaScript. In a Breakout game, the player uses a paddle to bounce a ball and hit bricks, removing the bricks one by one.

Creating effective designs for tech-savvy audiences, such as data scientists and software engineers, requires a careful balance between visual clarity, functionality, and creativity. While the complexity of the product must be communicated clearly, the interface also needs to feel intuitive and engaging. Success in such projects doesn’t just come from creativity; it’s rooted in strategic collaboration.

Focus outlines highlight the active interactive element on a web page. They’re crucial for accessibility, especially for keyboard users and those with motor impairments. If you ever tried navigating a website without a mouse, you can imagine how frustrating it is when you can’t see where you are. If not, imagine not seeing your cursor

This week’s designer news includes CSS Printing Guide, Retrofitting Fluid Typography, CSS :has() Interactive Guide, Bootstrap 5 Modern Backgrounds, and much more.

About 3 years back we as a Web Design and Development Company, decided to chose WordPress as the only platform we will develop blog/websites on. The progress since then proves that our decision was right. Some of the achievements of WordPress as underlined by Matt in the recent Wordcamp in San Francisco and what it […]

I had some transactions to do on Paypal and I have tried opening it but it simply wont load – nothing happens on the page actually. So I called up my friends in Europe and India and it was the same result for them. I went to Pingdom and according to it the site is […]

1. Low Cost to start with: Its open source and thus the platform itself is free to use and develop on – starting on WordPress is like less than half the cost of custom developing from scratch or using any other robust CMS. 2. Additional Functionality with Plugins: WordPress community is huge and developing everyday […]

There are a lot of Twitter widgets for WordPress but in my experience none of those utilize the powerful SimplePie PHP class that is in the WordPress core. SimplePie is a powerful RSS reader class that has very nice built-in caching system since as we all know the Twitter API is limited to only 150 […]

In the second part of this tutorial we will extend the widget with more options. Let’s start by defining what sort of options we want it to have. Show timestamps Discover Hyperlinks Discover @replies Discover avatar Followers count You can download the extended plug-in here. Step 1: Getting the form ready for the new options […]

In this tutorial we will create a simple Flicker widget using the Flicker API and the WordPress widget API. The widget can be used multiple times and it will require your Flicker ID and the number of images to display. If we search for something like this we can find a tons of premade widgets, […]

Border radius Border radius is one of the most used CSS properties, but to achieve the desired effect you have to type a bunch of code so can get it to work in all browsers. This tool will allow you to do this in seconds, just type the value you like and it will generate […]

You are searching for jQuery sliders? Search no more, here we have composed a list of the best slider that you can find on the internet. Some of them are free and very customizable and some of them are worth spending some money to achieve your goal. Rhinoslider This slider offers many different effects, you […]

With so many tasks, appointments, and people to keep track of, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. AnyTime Organizer Deluxe 16 might be just the tool you need to bring order to your routine.

How to Create a Gmail Account for Beginners: Step-by-step guide to set up, secure, and personalize your Gmail account with ease. Perfect for new users.

Discover why you should choose Power BI Service for seamless data visualization, sharing, and collaboration. Ideal for data professionals, analysts, and teams.

Top home design software for real estate pros: explore features, benefits, and tips to streamline project planning, design, and budgeting.

Ready to launch your online store but unsure where to start with the design? Finding […]

Is Your Phone Spying on You? Discover signs, privacy tips, and how to secure your data against unwanted tracking and surveillance on your device.

Learn how to find guest posting sites with effective strategies to boost SEO, build authority, and reach new audiences in your niche.

Ever found yourself stuck with an extra blank page in your Word document and wondering […]

Her, we’ll break down five practical choices you have, from simple workarounds to fresh upgrades, to keep your computer running safely and smoothly after the deadline.

Back in the late 80s, my mom bought me a 386sx 16MHz computer equipped with a 2400 baud modem. It was my first computer that enabled me to connect to an online world. Back then, there was large behemoths like AOL and CompuServe but there were also independent services called bulletin board systems, aka BBSs.

A BBS was somewhat of a one-to-one connection. Most independent BBSs had only one or two phone lines with which someone could dial into. They were little islands of community that one could play simple turn-based games or leave messages on, like a physical bulletin board. Once I logged off, somebody else could dial in and leave their messages or take their turn in a game or two.

Given the limited speed of modems of that era, these services were entirely ASCII text-based. ANSI was a superset that included character codes beyond plain text that could change the colour. As a result, rudimentary and blocky graphics (and even animation) were possible. I remember playing a Risk-style game that was ANSI-based called Global War. (Check out those stunning graphics!)

In order to create a distributed system of messages, allowing for communication across a multitude of BBSs, a BBS would have to connect to another BBS and synchronize messages between the two. FidoNet was probably the most popular of these systems.

I even ran my own board running on Telegard called The Jester’s Palace, where I went by the handle The Jester.

The Jester turned out to be a surprisingly popular name and thus, I decided to change my name (and give myself a promotion to boot): I became The Kind King. Looking back, it’s uncreative and embarrassing but I chalk it up to being a dumb teenager.

Warez

In my late teens, I discovered a world of pirated software being distributed via BBSs. Which, when you consider the logistics, is somewhat impressive. In order for software to go from one city to another, a long distance phone call would be made which would cost a lot of money back in those days. (I also used to wear an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.) To avoid paying such costs, people would use a PBX to (illegally) pass those charges onto large corporations and hope nobody would notice. It is within this world that I also learned about Phreaking and Wardialing.

There was a subculture of people involved in distributing pirated software (uh, warez) that coalesced into groups like Razor 1911, The Humble Guys, and FAiRLiGHT.

Within the software that were being distributed, files were included to let you know who was responsible for releasing the pirated software (and cracking the software, removing any copy protections that might’ve existed).

As a result, an entire art scene formed around these groups as artists worked to outdo each other and promote the hacking groups and the BBSs that distributed the software. Being a creative teenager in high school with too much time on my hands, I began creating ANSi art (the warez scene had a thing for lowercase i’s) and even found myself part of an art group called AiR: ARTiSTS iN REVOLT.

Alas, I lost all of my work from those days. Some googling has uncovered one piece from 1992:

I remember my best work as a recreation of the poster from the movie Universal Soldier. I wish I could find that piece again.

Connections

It’s interesting to me to see the connection that came from that creativity and curiosity and how it led me to my career doing design and development.

BBSs were where I met my first roommate, Brent, and with whom we’d end up with a bit of a revolving door of roommates, some of who were also from the warez scene. At one point, our house had probably close to a dozen phone lines running into it with each of us running our own board, and I wonder if the phone company technician wasn’t at least a bit curious why we needed so many lines running into a residential townhouse.

I still have that old 2400 baud modem, tucked away in a box, as a reminder of where it all started.

This trip down memory lane brought on by a post from GReG SToREY. Check out The Art of Warez.

After a couple years of not putting any revenue into the business, I realized that it was time to say goodbye. I have officially dissolved my corporation, Snook.ca Web Development, Inc.

My personal blog, Snook.ca, marches on.

When I first decided to get an espresso machine, I went for a top of the line machine. I wanted something that would last a lifetime. The same applied to the grinder. I bought an ECM V-Titan 64, with titanium-coated flat burrs that are quoted to last at least 50 years before needing to be replaced.

Here I am, 8 years later, and finding myself somewhat frustrated with my grinder.

I make one or two espresso-based drinks a day. As such, it’ll take me a couple weeks, at least, to get through a small bag of beans. If I’m travelling, it could be upwards of a month. If I’m not in the mood for coffee, even longer. Over that time, the beans continue to degass, requiring small adjustments to the grinder each day. That, in itself, isn’t a problem and the grinder does a fantastic job of enabling these minor adjustments. The problem is in the chute design. There is 3 to 4 grams of grind retained in the chute. Not a big deal if I’m doing a number of espressos in a day but trying to dial in necessary adjustments means grinding out a bunch to clear the old stuff before proceeding to grind out what I need. If a bean gets stuck in the grinder (which happens more frequently than I’d like) then I go through an awkward process of cleaning out the grinder, creating more waste.

The workflow was becoming frustrating enough that I decided I needed to switch to a grinder that was optimized for a single dose workflow.

I had been eyeing the Weber EG-1 but, as you can imagine, that price tag is eye watering. Which, looking at the price of the V-Titan these days, is also getting quite pricey. I’m pretty sure I only spent around a thousand dollars on mine.

The espresso subreddit has highly recommended the DF64, which is more reasonable, price-wise, and has plenty of favourable reviews. The DF64 is what I ultimately settled on.

I’ve only had the DF64 for a day, so I’m not at a point where I can enthusiastically endorse it but I am already enjoying it. It takes maybe a couple extra seconds to grind but it isn’t any noisier than the old grinder and I’m getting much less retention—less than half a gram—which is a big part of what I wanted.

Considering the espresso scene these days, it’s easy to fall into an involved process with paper filters and metal screens and OCD tools and WDT tools. While I’ve tried pretty much all of these, I’m finding myself sliding back into a more simplified workflow and the grinder is part of this. My goal is to have a high quality espresso drink within 60 seconds and a reliable workflow makes a huge difference in achieving that.

Tangentially, I’ve been considering getting into pourovers and it’ll be interesting to see how reliably I can change grinder settings and still get consistent results. The Weber definitely sells itself on the flexibility of being able to handle this scenario so if the DF64 doesn’t live up to expectations, the EG-1 might very well be considered.

Anyway, time to get back to the grind…

Deventer, December 2008

Photography taken at the Charles Dickens Festival in Deventer, The Netherlands.

Pictures taken with Olympus E-3 ~ Leica D Summilux 25mm 1:1.4

Postprocessed in Photoshop CS4.
--
© Copyright 2008 Rick Wezenaar Photography ~ photo@mitranet.nl. All rights reserved.

To all of you a (belated) Happy Christmas !

I had a fabulous Christmas in London with my boyfriend this year, and I even managed to make some photographs while I was there.

Please have a look at my photostream for some interesting shots.

For now I wish everyone a great 2009 !

~ Rick

More information about Rick's Photography:
Photography website
Official Portfolio
Rick's Flickr Photostream

INDONESIA
Landscapes & Culture


INDONESIA Landscapes & Culture is a book devoted to Indonesia and its breathtaking landscapes, the warm people, and its rich and diverse culture.
Rick Wezenaar was born in 1968 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. At the early age of 11 he started with photography and has never stopped since.
In 1989 he started making professional photography. One of the things Rick really likes is travelling. Especially Indonesia has caught his photographic eye. Therefore, during a 4 year 'quest', Rick has travelled the countryside, villages and cities of Indonesia, capturing its beauty and culture. A small part of all these photographs taken during those journeys have found their way into this book. We really hope the viewer will enjoy this publication of Rick's stunning and breathtaking photography!

Book information:

INDONESIA Landscapes & Culture
ISBN: 978-0-557-11430-6
Publisher: Lulu
Copyright: (c) 2009 Rick Wezenaar
Language: English
Paperback, 102 pages, 8.5" x 8.5", perfect binding,
white exterior paper, full color exterior ink,
white interior paper, full color interior ink.

This book will be carried by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bol, Ingram, Bowker,
Nielsen, and Lightning Source.

Order a copy of this stunning book here !

Rick