Ben Shoemate's Notebook

Sarah Perez via ReadWriteWeb shared by 15 people

The iPhone has been making headway in its battle to become a business-ready tool. Obviously, the addition of Microsoft Exchange support was a big step towards being considered a viable alternative to the traditional smartphones used at work, like Blackberry and Windows Mobile. However, beyond simply supporting enterprise email, the iPhone platform has a lot of potential to cater to the needs of its business users, too.

Today, we're introduced to what hopefully will continue the trend of more "serious" apps for iPhone: LinkedIn.

The new LinkedIn app for iPhone launched today in the iPhone store. The app itself is simple, but VentureBeat thinks simple is perfect. We have to agree. Business apps don't need to overly complex or feature-rich necessarily - they just need to provide you with quick and easy access to information and data.

The LinkedIn App

The app features four different sections: the main page, connections, search, and status:

• The main page of the iPhone app displays a news feed that shows updates from your LinkedIn contacts - things like whether they've updated their profile, changed positions, asked a question, added a new contact, etc.

• The "Connections" section displays your LinkedIn contacts in a way that's very much like the iPhone's built-in contact list.

• From the "Search" section, you can search for contacts by name, keyword, title, or company.

• The "Status" section allows you to update your LinkedIn status, which many people use to announce what they're working on. Others have this hooked up via Ping.fm or a similar app so it's updated with their latest tweet.

However, one of the app's best features is its ability to copy LinkedIn contacts over to the contact list on your phone itself. You can download the app from the iPhone store here.

Business Apps Rock, Too

Although a lot of the focus in the blogosphere has been on "fun" apps, like Twitter clients, games, and social networking apps from Facebook and MySpace, the iPhone is offers a lot of apps for business users, too. In the business section of the app store, there are three pages of apps that include everything from virtual rolodexes to time trackers to expense recorders and various calculators. There are even IT-focused apps like VNC clients and command prompt tools. Yet, there could be so many more apps available here.

When you think of the types of businesses there are today, you realize that there's potential for that business category to explode with apps. It could be subdivided into numerous sections focusing on the different types of business users: sales, marketing, retail, accounting, executives, HR, IT, real estate....the list could go on and on. The LinkedIn app holds universal appeal for anyone anyone who works for a living, but more importantly, we hope that, through its adoption, developers will see the potential for building iPhone apps for business as well.

Ionut Alex Chitu via Google Operating System shared by 8 people

Two years after the first technology preview, Microsoft officially launched Photosynth, an interesting way to combine overlapping photos from a place and explore the place in detail from different angles. "Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines images for similarities to each other and uses that information to estimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point the photos were taken from. With this information, we recreate the space and use it as a canvas to display and navigate through the photos."


PhotoSynth requires a Windows-only plug-in that also lets you create synths, but the results depend on the number and quality of your photos. Microsoft suggests to "start by taking a panorama of your scene, then move around and take more photos from different angles and positions. When moving around objects, try to get one photo every 25 degrees or so. That will make the synth work better."

There are some interesting places that can be explored, but this technology will become really useful in conjunction with geocoded photos from sites like Flickr or Panoramio. Google Maps already overlays photos from Panoramio, so the next step could be to combine these photos using "Panoramio Look Around", but the results won't be anywhere close to Photosynth.

Seth Godin via Seth's Blog shared by 4 people

Yes, it's true. People judge you.

They judge you especially harshly online.

They judge you by your teeny picture on Facebook (named, after all, after the original quick judgment document) and they judge you by your email sig file and your domain (Hotmail?!) and by the look of your bio on Squidoo or Linkedin or the number of typos in your instant messages. They even judge you by the typeface and ads on your blog.

So, are you getting good feedback on your brand presentation?

Would it hurt your feelings if I told you that your picture made you look dumpy? Or that it was boring? Or way too outre?

It seems like it's better to hear this from a few trusted people than to continue to stumble without knowing why.

I'm not proposing that you let the crowd dictate, or that you work hard to fit in. Far from it. I'm proposing that you know the impact your choices are having and act accordingly.

Pictures are the easiest. Post three or four and let trusted people vote (and tell you why). Don't pick the winner, but read their reasons. And yes, if connecting online is important to you, go ahead and spend a few dollars and get a good photo.

This isn't about ignorance as much as it involves effort. Once you pay attention to this, it'll get better.

Bob Walsh via Webware.com shared by 4 people

WebMynd is a Firefox extension its developers hope solves a common Web problem: finding again that which what you've already found. WebMynd adds two very useful functions to your browsing: site-by-site recording of where you've been, and integrating your history (plus Delicious bookmarks) into specific Google searches.

The site-by-site recording creates a timeline view of your browsing and a photo browser-like display. Want the site you found Friday after lunch? Rewind using the Reel view. Looking for the site with the purple logo thing? The Grid view is good for your visual memory. Since you might not want a record of every site you visit, WebMynd lets you add sites to a permanent "do not record" list and zap specific site records.

There's a small performance hit using WebMynd--on the order of 100-200 milliseconds for complex site. WebMynd keeps your last 30 days worth of history.

While WebMynd's visual recorder is nice, I like every more the way it merges a relevant list of sites you've visited into each search you do in Google. You can also use WebMynd's to view Delicious bookmarks.

In September, WebMynd will add Yahoo BOSS search results, a cleaner merge into your Google search results and other improvements, say its developers.

WebMynd is free. It will make money from premium services, not ads. Co-founder James Brady said that while there are plans to offer a subscription plan for users who want WebMynd to remember their Web history for longer than one month but privacy demands mean no ads: "There are no line items, and we have no plans, to mine the data in any way not directly related to improving the user experience."

(author unknown) via RSSmeme shared by 4 people

Shared by Alex
Great list.

Shared eight times

As a full time blogger and freelance writer, writing web content is part of my daily routine. Since it earns me a living too, it's mandatory for me to consistently polish my skills as a writer and write better content.

I am sure a lot of bloggers and web content creators realize the importance of good content and like me, they too try to write better articles everyday. To help them further, I decided that I'll scour some of the most well known blogs and sites which include content on blogging and writing in general and list 21 excellent articles which could greatly improve your writing skills.

Although most of these articles are primarily aimed at helping those who create web content, they could be useful to anyone who writes for a living and would love to write better.

1. Five Grammatical Errors That Make You Look Dumb from Copyblogger
   "While we all hope what we have to say is more important than some silly grammatical error, the truth is some people will not subscribe or link to your blog if you make dumb mistakes when you write, and buying from you will be out of the question."
   


2. What is Good Content? A Working Definition and Some General Principles from Dosh Dosh
   "Good content is a necessary foundation for most successful blogs. High quality content makes it easier for someone to recommend it to friends or other potential readers. Content makes blog marketing a whole lot easier because it naturally supports the push or pull process involved in promoting a website."
   


3. A Guide to Becoming a Better Writer: 15 Practical Tips from Lifehack
   "Becoming the best writer you can be isn’t easy, I won’t lie to you. It takes hard work. But it’s worth the effort. And if it seems like an insurmountable task, there are some concrete things you can do today that will get you on the road to improvement."
   


4. HOW TO SAY NOTHING IN FIVE HUNDRED WORDS from Jessi Airaudi Page
   "Be concrete, says Roberts; get to the point; express your opinions colorfully. Refreshingly, he even practices what he preaches. His essay is humorous, direct, and almost salty in summarizing the working habits that all good prose writers must cultivate."
   


5. 9 Ways To Jumpstart Your Writing Goal from Dumb Little Man
   "Keep writing. Keep doing it and doing it. Even in the moments when it's so hurtful to think about writing."
   


6. 20 Must-Read Blogs For Freelance Writers from Freelance folder
   "It goes without saying that in order to become a freelance writer, you gotta love writing. But you should also consistently work on sharpening your skills. And how do you do that? Reading well-written articles and blogs is a very good start! This can help you write innovative and appealing content."
   


7. Writing Website Content Headlines from Men With Pens
   "Headlines rule the virtual world, from email subject line to blog post title to website page intro. A great headline is the bait and hook that keeps people reading."
   


8. 6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know from Daily Writing Tips
   "Whether you like it or not, foreign expressions represent an integral part of the English language (and of many other languages, too). Knowing the meaning and usage of the most used ones is very important. "
   


9. 50 Tools that can Increase your Writing Skills from Dumb Little Man
   "The values supporting these guidelines are rooted in Poynter's dedication to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders. Poynter is a school that promotes excellence and integrity in the practices of craft and the practical leadership of successful businesses."
   


10. How to Become a Freelance Blog Writer from Freelance Switch
    "Becoming a freelance blog writer isn't always easy in the beginning, but I've found that it's vastly more fun and rewarding. It's worth the effort."
    


11. 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer from Copyblogger
    "Write, write more, even more ..."


12. 8 Proofreading Tips And Techniques from Daily Writing Tips
    "Whether you are writing a magazine article, a college essay or an email to a client, getting your text free of mistakes is essential. The spell checker helps, but it is far from foolproof. That is where proofreading comes in."
    


13. The Most Important Tip For Better Writing from Problogger
    "Reading more high-caliber bloggers is one of the most effective ways to improve your writing. What you read shapes how you write. If you read better blogs, you'll start to see immediate results in your own writing."
    


14. 31 Ways to Find Inspiration for Your Writing from Write to Done
    "No matter how much you love writing, there will always be days when you need inspiration from one muse or another. In fact, I would argue that inspiration is not just a desirable thing, it's an integral part of the writing process."
    


15. 5 Killer Ways to Improve your Writing Right Now from Problogger
    "One of the hallmarks of producing great content for your blog is writing it so it sounds natural, the way it would if we were chatting with each other over a coffee."
    


16. Why Great Writing Doesn't Matter Online from Skelliewag
    "People don't read online. Nor do they scan. They extract ideas, resonating with some and disregarding others. They do so at breakneck speed, only slowing down when a particular idea truly warrants it."
    


17. 20 Places to Find Online Courses for Writers from Freelance Writing jobs
    "The good thing about the Internet is how you don't have to leave the house to learn. While it's nice to be able to take courses at one's local college, time and money are sometimes an issue. Don't let either keep you from excelling at what you do."
    


18. Research Sources for Writers: A Guide to Backing up Your Words from Write to Done
    "Good research stands to benefit any writer, and quality research often delineates the line between a quack claim and an insightful argument."
    


19. Do You Write From Your Heart ? from Problogger
    "As professional bloggers, freelancers or writers, sometimes we tend to be skeptical about our own content. We tend to think more about external aspects like marketing etc (which we can always do after we complete the article) even before we start writing and consequently the quality of the article dips down."
    


20. 7 Can't-Miss Ways To Kick-Start The Writing Habit from Freelance Folder
    "If you're finding your creative juices running a little dry, this list of quick and easy tips is sure to get them flowing again."
    


21. Are You Using the Right Content Development Strategy for Your Website? from Dosh Dosh
    "The type of content you produce influences the popularity and profitability of your website. People will often subscribe to and read blogs that are well-written and informative or entertaining."
    

Cheers,

Abhijeet

David via Signal vs. Noise shared by 9 people

I’m a big fan of swearing. Not in the derogatory, directed-at-you kind of way (“hey, fuck you!”), but as verbal marker to underline key concepts, create emphasis, and express passion. It certainly doesn’t work in every environment nor should it, but there are plenty were it does.

The first place where I’ve found it to be useful is between coworkers (“fuck, that’s awesome”). A team of British researchers found a while ago that profanity at work can help build solidarity and release stress. Couldn’t agree more. When people feel comfortable enough to let their emotions bare with the use of profanity, I’ve found the resulting atmosphere to be so much more relaxed and pleasurable. It’s not the profanity itself (although I adore “fuck” as one of the most versatile words in the English language), but what it says about the knitting of the culture.

The second place I’ve used profanity to great effect is at conferences where you feel you know the audience enough to loosen your tie and want to create a mental dog ear for an idea. Of all the presentations I’ve given, I’ve generally had the most positive feedback from the ones that carried enough passion to warrant profanity and it’s been very effective in making people remember key ideas (“they sell fucking shoes”).

It seems that profanity can work as a record button for the brain. It brings people to the edge of their attention as they’re trying to figure out whether they’re supposed to be offended or inspired. And then the content warrants the emphasis, the idea seems to stick better and longer and with more affection.

As with any tool, it can certainly be misused and applied to the wrong audience. But you can cut yourself with a great steak knife too. Use profanity with care and in the right context and it can be fucking amazing.

Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz via Smashing Magazine shared by 9 people

Over the last years we’ve featured a number of designers and developers who released their work for free — among other things we presented high-quality free fonts, free Wordpress themes, free wallpapers and, of course, free icons. You can find many of them in our section Freebies.

Every release helps to make the Web a nicer place which is why we support designers and challenge them to release something for free in order to be featured on Smashing Magazine. And the results are quite often pretty impressive.

Today we are glad to release Notepad Chaos — a free professional Wordpress-theme. The theme has 2 columns, a quite vibrant design including “personal” design elements such as handwritten headings, stick-it-notes, clips and pins. The theme was designed by Evan Eckard especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the theme for free!

You can use the theme for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. However, it’s forbidden to sell or redistribute the theme without both designer’s and Smashing Magazine’s permission — please link to this article if you would like to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish, but if you are planning to release your modification, please ask our permission first.

• Preview (0.4 Mb)
• Download the theme (.zip-package, 0.5 Mb)
• Download PSD-sources (.zip-package, 5 Mb)

Motivation behind the design

Here are some insights about the design process and development from the designer himself.

“I had recently stumbled upon many websites with gorgeous, gigantic, illustrated backgrounds and wanted to try my hand at creating a site that shared that similar element. This theme was an experiment into layering multiple images and having everything line up and flow with the site’s content.

Among other things, the Notepad Chaos theme has handwritten search box and navigation at the top of the layout.

It was quite a challenge to develop the design after creating it, but in the end it helped me gain more experience in CSS and what we designers can do to try and create sites with plenty of visual depth. On the technical side of things, the theme doesn’t use any plugins or extras, and focuses simply on the design.

Sidebar in the Notepad Chaos is designed as a post-it-note and clipped at the top.

The themes uses a custom field called “thumbnail” where the user can add an image to their post. The instructions are within the readme file along with how to set up the menu links.”

Thank you, Evan. We appreciate your work and your good intentions.

Last but not least…

We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we might feature you in one of our upcoming posts.

If you would like to release a high-quality free font, a Wordpress-theme, some wallpapers or an icon-set please contact us — we would like to support you (both financially and with the broad coverage on Smashing Magazine).

You may be interested in the following free Wordpress-themes as well:

• Infinity: A Free Wordpress Theme
• Wordpress.Fun: A Free Wordpress Theme
• Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme
• Dilectio: A Free Wordpress Theme
• Smashing: A Free Wordpress Theme

Richard MacManus via ReadWriteWeb shared by 5 people

Continuing our coverage of the mainstream web, in this post we look at some of the most popular websites for kids. We've gathered information from a recent report (pdf) from Nielsen Online, via Marketingvox, which studied the online habits of Britons under the age of 23. We also polled friends of RWW via Twitter.

The Nielsen report concluded that entertainment sites have the greatest affinity with under 12s, games sites for 12-17 year-olds, and student and video sites for 18-22 year-olds.

We're all familiar by now with the latter 'young adult' demographic, who are big users of social networks and video sites like YouTube. But let's look more closely at what the under 12 and 12-17 year old demographics are using on the Web.

< 12 yrs Like Entertainment; TV Networks Dominate

The above table is ranked according to percentage of <12 yrs in the audience, so the sites listed aren't necessarily the largest ones. Also as it's a British study, somewhat predictably the BBC has the 2 sites with the largest audience. Despite those caveats, one trend is crystal clear here: most of the most popular sites for under 12's come from television. These brands dominate the list of top websites for this age group: Nick, Cartoon Network, the BBC's CBBC and CBeebies and Disney International. So the Internet, for under 12s, is very much about entertainment and unsurprisingly TV networks use the Net to extend their brands.

It's interesting also to note that there is potentially big money for startups targeting kids, in terms of acquisitions by the big tv networks. Just last year Disney paid US$700M to acquire virtual world Club Penguin, one of the sites listed above. And needless to say, kids love it. RWW reader Richard Lusk says that "my daughter (12 yrs old) LIVES on Club Penguin." Many other friends of RWW listed Club Penguin too (see list below).

The site at the top of the list, with 32% of UK Unique Audience Under 12, is Swedish fashion community site Stardoll. At this site, users can dress up and play with dolls virtually. Membership is free and the company states that most of their users are girls between the ages of 7 and 17. Stardoll says that it has around 16M users. It's had about $10M in funding so far from the likes of Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital Partners, so it is another example of how big the Internet market for kids is.

Recommendations from Friends of RWW

Many of RWW's readers are parents (including yours truly), so we asked on Twitter what other sites kids under 12 use. In my household, MyLittlePony and interactive pet games have been popular. Here is what others say, and we encourage you to add more in the comments to this post...

Mari Silbey noted that on HighlightsKids.com she can "do hidden pictures with my 2-almost-3-year-old. It's great."

Mikko Alasaarela said that his three under 12's "use game sites like miniclip, orisinal, kongregate, fantage." He also pointed out that "one of the most popular social networks for that age group is Habbo."

Shana Albert concurred with Mikko, saying that her son loves Habbo.

Nathan Hull said that "My nieces (4 and 7 yrs old) love pbskids.org"

Josh Morgan said that "yoursphere is a new one for kids. It's deal is that all participants are vetted."

Lidija Davis told us that her 9-year old boy loves gamespot.com and that he "visits all the time to get cheats for DS, Xbox". Lidija also said that he likes Club Penguin and Runescape and online games in general. Lidija noted too that YouTube is popular with under 12's - although, wary of the dangers, she said that "luckily my little people ask me to check first".

Jonathan Fields told us that his 7 year old daughter likes "club penguin, webkinz, stardoll, myscene, playhouse disney, pbsKids, and, of course, her blog".

Kevin Marks suggested runescape. He also listed toontown, webkinz, neopets, club penguin, and YouTube.

Andy Coffey tweeted that "my 6y/o loves lego.com".

Don Reisinger reminded us that Disney carries a lot of spyware!

Mike Brown said that Club Penguin is "hugely popular with our 6 and 10 yr old and lots of their friends".

Ben Tremblay suggested "http://pbskids.org/ and http://pbsparents.org/ There's also http://www.pbskidsplay.org/ but it's frabbed".

Dara Rochlin said that her "6 yo is a webkinz nut, can get on the laptop by herself and play, pbs kids, disney, build a bearville, starfall." As for her 11 year-old, he "likes addicting games, naruto arena, line rider, runescape, pivot, webkinz (to help his sister). Naruto Arena's a fav. He also likes miniclip, and castlewars (on kongregate)."

Online Gaming Big With 12-17 Year Olds

In this age group we start to see social networks make an appearance. In the UK, Bebo is very popular and so it's no surprise to see it ranked #1 in terms of users in the above table. In the US it would probably be MySpace, although we have no data for that.

But the biggest trend in this demographic is that online games sites - for example RuneScape, FreeOnlineGames, AddictingGames and MiniClip - are most popular with 12-17 year-olds.

The Mobile Web is also popular, with mobile phone social networking site Frengo (our earlier coverage) having the highest percentage (26%) of 12-17 year-olds amongst its audience in the UK.

The Nielsen report noted that "as children hit their teenage years, general entertainment sites tend to make way for games-focused sites".

Conclusion

For under 12's, entertainment rules. But there seems to be social networking aspects to that too, judging by the popularity of Club Penguin and StarDoll. After the age of 12, online gaming becomes more popular, and general social networks like Bebo and Facebook enter the scene. The Mobile Web is popular in the 12-17 age group too.

For more analysis about how kids use the Internet, check out Sarah Perez's great post Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web.

Please add more website suggestions for kids in the comments, and let us know what you think of these Web trends for the younger generation.

Image: pixelrobber

US $39.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Tuesday Aug-26-2008 21:45:21 PDT Buy It Now for only: US $59.99 Bid now | Buy it now | Add to watch list

Mark Wilson via Gizmodo shared by 4 people

We've known that Nike+ has long been in development for the iPhone. Now we're finally getting a peek at the first shots of the interface. From what we can skim, Nike+ users will get all of the nifty performance graphs right on the phone (before this stuff was available on the web only). But the biggest improvement over the old Nike system may be Google Maps support:

We don't know just how robust the Nike+ maps support will be, but mapping routes directly on the iPhone could make for more organized training sessions. If only we had the coordination to use the iPhone's touch interface while running. Hell, if only we had the coordination to run. Hit the link for a lot more shots. [iPhone.fr via Ubergizmo]