Poddcorp

Being a service provider company in a highly competitive business industry entails every resource of that company to keep up with trends, fads, and be constantly retooled to be at par with the ultimate best. Web design, among the many facets in web development, is one highly ranked to be most susceptible to change in terms of style and tools to use.
This year 2008 is about to end with only a few days left on the calendar; however, many web design artists are still left to design trends and tools that have been around since time immemorial. Many of them have stayed on to glossy pages when this year placed card stocks, watercolor effects, vintage/retro style, and handwritten notes on web design style limelight (Source: www.webdesignerwall.com). Perhaps they are not aware of the wonders a repackage can unveil, or they simply had been inflicted with a perennial disease called “complacency.”  
A complete repackage of a web designer’s reservoir for artistry and technical ingenuity does not demand a university degree; it simply demands time to religiously read up and hone one’s talents through information accessible on his greatest reference: the Net, a vast, expansive source of information where one can glean information tantamount to finishing a degree. To help web designers in gathering up-to-date information and news updates on their craft, we present this list of sites, books, and other references.
Surprisingly, on top of the list are tutorial sites. These sites will not only expose you to latest design techniques but may even send shivers of inspiration. We have PSDTUTS where new updates are posted every week. Pixel2Life is a tutorial site that will give you the trends in many different programs. Good-Tutorials is a site that will link you to many other tutorial sites. Another must-see is N. Design Studio, which is a tutorial site and blog packed as one.
Second reference category is web design blogs. A List Apart is a site for web designers with the most useful content on web design. Bittbox is a blog that showcases information on web design resources and news. Noupe, on the other hand, is a valuable, neatly written site that has a news section, featuring articles from other sites.
Third category is social media sites. First on the list is Del.icio.us, one of the most popular social media sites, showcasing the best web design articles. Popurls.com is next; it connects you to great articles from other social media sites. Design Float, on the other hand, is a web design Digg with a large reservoir of very informative web design articles.
Fourth reference category: books and magazines. Topping the list is The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. This book is fully illustrated and will expose you to great web design principles. Layers Magazine on the other hand is all about Adobe. Lastly, we have Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition, which brings humor to otherwise-drab web design topics.
There may still be dozens if not hundreds of them out there; all you need to do is read yet be more critical of what you read sometimes.  

Currently listening to: Dixie Chicks
Currently reading: 2008 Design Trends
Currently watching: Oh, YouTube is blocked.

Poddcorp

Journalists by profession are guardians of the “truth,” one of the reasons for reluctance in accepting blogging as a new medium; with many still questioning its credibility. If there’s one thing that makes a journalist a journalist, it’s research, even more than a Journalism degree from Colombia University.
Ironically, for journalists who have trodden the path of technology, with all the noise and clutter brought about by availability, accessibility, and the vast expanse that bandwidth can go, it has proven a challenge pointing out credible sources and ignoring garbage. Wikipedia, being the first online encyclopedia, has fought its way to where it is now. It’s the day when “Wikitruth” was born. According to Simson L. Garfinkel, a contributing editor to Technology Review and a professor of computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, truth in Wikipedia has restructured the definition of truth: Truth is received truth, one that is accepted as truth through consensus, i.e., measured by the number of people who click, refer as source, quote, or link to the Wikipedia entry on a certain information. Another thing is, when it’s published in a newspaper article, magazine journal, or book published by a university press. 
Unknown to many, Wikipedia is often guarded by volunteer editors, who check on changes or updates done to Wiki. It’s their role to remove information that are not verifiable. Claims should be supported by published data, even when you write your biography and claim you’re a writer. When many people, particularly academics, raise their concerns about the reliability of Wikipedia as an online source, many of them link and quote Wikipedia facts, stating them as background information.
Journalism hasn’t embraced online sources and Internet technology entirely, but changes have come around for many; technology bloggers are usually honed from their experience in online news agencies and editorial experience from an online publication. They are even at liberty to pursue other areas of writing online, besides the cut-throat antigovernment, antihierarchy write-ups that they usually indulge in.
But going back to Wikipedia, it’s still a question whether a journalist would find Wikipedia a reliable online source for at least “truths” that are not experiential by nature.

Poddcorp

I'm sure you have it; you may not know its name--Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, OpenSocial; it goes by many names; it's called a social networking site.

The number of companies offering services for developing social networking sites mushroomed. The number of people linking up thru this means has multiplied multiple times. So when asked what are the requirements to come up with a powerful social networking site, it would take a barrage of readings to really understand the perceived trends and studies that will serve as knowledge foundation for its development.

There are basic things that should be considered in this process: One thing is coding. It should allow revisions with no technical delays. However, the juiciest part of it all is applications; Facebook gained its edge and rose in popularity when it opened its web site platform to third party applications, allowing its users to be developers on their own. In this way, the online community will be directly setting trends which will define the future of our dearly held networking sites. In fact, the user demographics have changed; from users in their teens and twenties, the fever rubbed off on the elders(no offence meant), meaning 30s, 40s, and 50s and the incomprehensible beyond. And from the more personal use of catching up, bridging the geographical distance, social networking sites have become a trusted venue for intellectual discourse among professionals of different fields: doctors, lawyers, nurses, engineers, etc, anyone in a field not directly related to information technology. So to speak, another trend has been set; it's important to consider social networking sites as serious business, meaning make it tailored to professional needs of the thinking public, and not to make a noise barrage out of it. So what applications are we trying to drive at here? It can be Ether,which allows professionals to directly call their contacts on the site itself or it could be eBay for professionals to display their goods to their colleagues; it's to be assumed that sometimes it only takes a good perspective.

Another thing that might come around for social networking sites is its income-generating capacity, and nope, not just thru adsense but something else; it may be that when the competition turns sour and innovations are hard to come by, then maybe it takes a good business initiative to earn in simply creating a spider web of contacts in a newly developed networking site.

Poddcorp

About 102,208 people downloaded the TypePad application on their iPhones. This data, covering from July to end of August, is supplied by Apple itself.
This appears as a breakthrough from the issues of space and comfort in using the touch screen yet minute computer-type keyboard. Most people can entertain the thought of email and text messaging on iPhone; but it was an unexpected outcome to have people believe that it can be used for longer content like blogs.

Implications abound over this information. One is that Apple can celebrate and be merry since iPhone has achieved the image of being a computing platform and not merely a phone. Apple is also believed to sign on to White's Open Clip framework, which means heaven for the iPhone's developers.

As for the consumers, the best implication is that people have gone out of their comfort zone and are up for mobility, not just luxury, when they use iPhone.

Poddcorp

Einstein is no longer just Albert, the genius who brought us advancement in science; we now have Einstein 3.0, the latest in US government's computer counterattack system for hackers and their league.
I'm sure you've heard of Einstein, who's in charge of limiting the number of portals to government computer systems and searching signs of online tampering. There's also Einstein 2.0. This Einstein can sense early on cyber tampering as it happens.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says that Einstein 3.0 is like an anti-aircraft weapon that shoots down an attack before it hits the target.
He, however, states that they are careful in their moves in setting the right parameters for counterattack systems. This might cause a big stir since the government is viewed as supposed to be having great impact from any technological advancement. The government also expressed its intention to work hand in hand with the private sector to protect some businesses from these threats.
Moreover, one implication here is that how can the US government draw the thin line between being transparent of its governance and at the same time securing itself from the prying eyes of a hacking bandit?