Is Social Media Killing Christmas Cards?

What would Sir Henry Cole think if he could see us sending our social greetings to one another via social media? Sir Henry is the chap who sent the first Christmas card in 1843 and kicked off the tradition, selling his creations for one shilling a piece (that's 5p or 8 cents to you and me!). When the cost of sending these fabulous creations became affordable for the masses in 1870, the tradition spread and it is only in the last few years of this century that we are starting to see a decline in Christmas card sending. Why? Because of the internet - and more specifically, social media. How easy has it become to wish a happy Christmas to everyone we know - all at the same time? Even sending personalised messages has become much more simple with the advent of social media. Just a few taps of the keyboard, a click of the mouse and your greetings are with their recipient, awaiting an instant response.

Perhaps this simply means that we are lazier than we were 5 years ago, or maybe there is simply an expectation that this is how things are done these days. Either way, there is no disputing the evidence. In the study depicted in this infographic, LoveMyVouchers have found that their newsletter subscribers are definitely sending less Christmas cards, and friends are the most likely group of people to receive social media messages as opposed to traditional cards. 

This infographic shows the results of a survey conducted by www.LoveMyVouchers.co.uk in which participants were asked about their Christmas card sending habits.

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The 5 Kinds Of Online Forms You Might Want To Look Into

If you want your online business to succeed, then you will need to learn a bit more about website development overall. The best way to do this, though, would be to turn to apps to help you out. This way, you can save as much time as possible while building up your website at the same time. One of the key elements that you should focus on when it comes to this would be online forms.
 
Every day, online forms get filled up all over the World Wide Web. As a matter of fact, these forms play vital roles in a lot of online interactions, including checkout processes, community sharing, feedback collection, business leads gathering and research. Here are the 5 kinds of online forms you might want to look into.

The Contact Form
A contact form is the most basic online form available out there. It usually contains three fields or less: name, email address and message. Naturally, this can be changed as needed, though. Generally speaking, a contact form can make a website look professional while providing two particular benefits. First of all, you can keep yourself safe from spammers; and second of all, visitors will have an easier time getting in touch with you when they have to.

The Event Registration Form
If you plan on organizing a conference, but aren’t sure how many people will actually attend or which capacity hall you should book, the easiest way to get your answers would be to simply ask your readers directly. One easy way to do this would be through an online event registration form. This type of online form will basically collect the contact information of the attendants, but you can also make your form more flexible by adding the ‘Attending’, ‘Not Sure’ and ‘Not Attending” options for a clearer picture overall if you want.

The Lead Generation Form
People who own and maintain blogs know how important it is to have a mailing list. After all, while tweets and Facebook updates are easy to miss nowadays, emails will almost always get noticed at some point. In fact, this is why a lot of big online businesses work so hard to grow their mailing lists nowadays. Naturally, in order to do the same thing, you will need an online form maker to gather people’s emails first. This can be done through an online lead generation form, which you can use on your website’s landing page to get more contacts for sales. If you want, you can even offer incentives in exchange for their contact details, such as free downloads or trials. This way, you won’t just nurture your mailing list, but you can potentially make yourself stand out in people’s minds, as well.

The Order Form
If you want to sell products or services online, you will need to come up with a framework that your customers can use to make their orders. This is where an online order form would come in. This type of online form will basically let you sell your products and services online sans the ‘shopping cart’ in case you don’t have a lot of merchandise to sell to begin with. The best part is that you can easily integrate this kind of form with your choice of online payment gateways as needed.

The Survey Form
It is common knowledge that businesses need market research in order to succeed. Otherwise, they could end up losing a lot of energy, time and money. Well, thanks to the survey form, you can now survey potential customers before actually wasting any time or money on product manufacturing – easy peasy!

David Miller is an educational researcher who has vast experience in the field of teaching, LMS Systems and online training. He is associated with prestigious universities and many leading educational research organizations. He’s also an ed-tech veteran, currently pursuing research in new eLearning developments, and is a contributing author with ProProfs.

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Dropbox Chat 1.1

Hey guys, 

Here is another software release. I've been working on this for 2 days, this is version 1.1 of the application and should work well without any bugs but if you do happen to find anything wrong be sure to let me know. 

About/Using:

Dropbox Chat is an application that you, and your friends use while sharing a dropbox folder. You add a text file to a shared folder, and each person has that file linked to the chat application. Using this we can chat to everyone in that shared folder. 

The first time you run the application a First Time Wizard will be displayed taking you through the steps of setting everything up. You need to enter a display name for when you're chatting, and the text file which must be located in the shared dropbox folder. 

After you've used the First Time Wizard you can use the program to chat by entering a message and pressing enter or clicking the send button. If you need to change the settings again in the future you can right click and select Settings, you can also choose to delete the chat log, but this deletes everyone else's chat too. 

Image: (cause we all love images!)

Requirements:

You will need .Net Framework 4.5 to run the application
You will need an internet connection to run the updater, and to update the chat. 

Download:

This is a direct archive download from my dropbox. 

Click here to download Dropbox Chat 1.1

Since 1.0 I added the automatic updater, designed a new setup wizard and a few bug fixes. Please be sure to let me know what you think of my program, and tell me all of your suggestions

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The Importance Of Web Design For Small Businesses

In the modern world, firms and individuals are increasingly using the internet to enhance their businesses. Website design/development is one of the most essential services required on the internet by both individuals and firms. Web design and development requires special skills because potential customers can be disappointed by the layout and design of the website. There are several firms offering website design in Toronto and in other parts of the country. However, not all the firms provide quality and professional website development.

A good working website should not only have an incredible layout and design but also provide the relevant information about the services and products your business offers so that it can attract more traffic and potential customers. Business owners and individuals should hire website designers who will create user-friendly websites that are easy to navigate. While hiring website designers, it is important that you see their portfolio and you should determine whether they have experience in website design.

Website design is a process that involves strategic planning, meeting customer needs and demands, actual site designing and development, testing, publishing and re-evaluation. Designers should involve customers at each phase of the process so that they can provide their input or suggestions. Website design is a vast field made up of services such as search engine optimization, graphic and logo design, website development and maintenance, web applications, internet marketing and custom software development.

Website Development
Website design requires dedication, a sense of purpose, creativity and professionalism. Experience is also very essential in web development. The process of web development entails designing a website, creating web content, liaising with the client and scripting. Web development may also include a non-design element known as coding. The input for website designing should come from a team of experts like an interface designer, an online marketing strategist, an information architect and a creative strategist. The team is responsible for developing a great website that will improve your business.

Website design may fail for several reasons such as lack of trust-building elements, message mismatching and website design shortcomings. If website visitors do not trust your capability, then they will not transact with you. Some examples of trust-building elements include use of original images, professional-looking design and third party validation. Online marketers and interface designers are responsible for determining what works or fails when it comes to trust-building components. Web designers can create a site that does not provide the relevant information to customers. If the information does not meet the expectations of customers, then the website will not achieve the business objectives.

Website development has its shortcomings especially if the designers take shortcuts. Some of the shortcomings may make the website to be incompatible with some browsers or mobile phones or web pages may take a lot of time to load and some links may be broken. Such websites may require redesigning which is expensive. Website designers should create fast, amazing and interactive websites. The designers should also create perfect websites on budget and time.

Graphic and Logo Design
First impressions mean a lot to business owners. A website may require illustration, animation, freehand drawing and photography. These forms of graphic designs will determine whether your business flourishes or sinks. Logos and graphics speak directly to potential clients about the brand you are selling. They also inspire trust, familiarity and reliability. Logo design is the foundation of branding because logos capture the essence of the firm and its core values. In today’s competitive business environment, firms must have logos and graphics on their websites and other products.

Internet Marketing
Having a running business website is just half the battle. A website should have ample traffic. To achieve this, a business may consider hiring internet marketing services. Internet marketing can take the form of search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click or link building. SEO improves the ranking of your website on search engine results thereby increasing traffic to your website. Pay per click (PPC) is highly efficient in increasing traffic to a website although it comes at a cost. Internet marketing requires creativity and dedication. The marketing team should be able to mix aspects of web design/development with advertisement, for better results.

Each and every strategy used should not only increase traffic to a particular website but also increase business sales. By hiring a full set of web solutions and services, a firm or individual will have a web presence and better platform for marketing their brands.

This post is written by Larry Smith, the Director of Marketing at Cloud SEO, who is an expert in Online Advertising and SEO and a specialist in the management of Google AdWords Advertising Campaigns.

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The Evolution of Music and Video Content Consumption

Question: How many ways are there to consume music today?
Answer: More than you can guess. The way we consume content, including music, has undergone a few changes in the past decade or so. As recently as the years between 2000 and 2005, we connected to the Internet at a speed of about 56 kbps. Today, Internet connection speeds average about 2.6 mbps. What seemed like the greatest thing since sliced bread in 2000 would seem so frustratingly slow that today’s users would be utterly appalled by the length of time it took to load a single web page. Thanks to the speed at which we can connect to the world at large, we’re consuming a great deal of content in new ways.

Desktop PCs, while still used in business and office settings, as well as many homes, are often a last resort to mobile users. We prefer to connect on the go, without being chained to a desk, using devices such as smartphones and tablets. We’re consuming the majority of our content today digitally. Whether it’s music, video, news or even books—we turn to the World Wide Web first. Take a look at the infographic below for more details on how content consumption has evolved over the past 10 to 15 years.

TorchBrowser is a free and unique software that offers you powerful browsing together with built-in media downloading and sharing features.

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Four Of The Best Productivity Tools

Most of us carry our smartphones with us every day, so it makes sense to use them for more than just making calls. Here's a quick look at six of the best productivity aids for busy office workers.

EverNote
EverNote is a free to use productivity suite which includes mobile apps, a browser plugin and a web app. Use EverNote to store notes about almost everything in the cloud, and access those notes from any device with an Internet connection.

HootSuite
Manage multiple social media accounts in one handy interface with HootSuite. Share access to your accounts with the premium package, which starts at £7.19 per month.

Remember The Milk
Remember The milk is a free mobile app that makes managing to do lists easy. Upgrade to the Pro version for $25/year to enjoy the ability to get push notifications about urgent tasks, sync your apps anywhere, and use widgets and badges to be reminded about upcoming To Do items.

Basecamp
Basecamp is the ultimate project management tool for large and small companies. You can try Basecamp for free for up to 60 days, and full accounts start at just $20/month. For that fee, you can run up to ten projects at a time, and take advantage of 3GB of cloud storage for those projects.

A Name Badges International Infographic

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How to Make Website Blocker In VB.NET

Add 1 Button And 1 Text Box

Button 1 = Block

Full Code :

Imports System.IO

Public Class Form1

    Dim path As String

    Dim sw As StreamWriter

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

        path = "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts"

        sw = New StreamWriter(path, True)

        Dim sitetoblock As String = (Environment.NewLine & "127.0.0.1 " & TextBox1.Text)

        sw.Write(sitetoblock)

        sw.Close()

        MessageBox.Show("Website Blocked")

    End Sub

End Class

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How To Make Auto Clicker In VB.NET

 Add 3 Buttons And 1 Text Box And 1 Timer

Button 1 = Start

Button 2 = Stop

Button 3 = Test

Full Codes :

Public Class Form1

    Declare Sub mouse_event Lib "user32.dll" Alias "mouse_event" (ByVal dwFlags As Int32, ByVal dx As Int32, ByVal dy As Int32, ByVal cButtons As Int32, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Int32)

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

        Timer1.Start()

    End Sub

    Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click

        Timer1.Stop()

    End Sub

       Private Sub Button3_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles   Button3.Click

        TextBox1.Text = TextBox1.Text + 1

    End Sub

    Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick

        Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position = New System.Drawing.Point(Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position)

        mouse_event(&H2, 0, 0, 0, 1)

        mouse_event(&H4, 0, 0, 0, 1)

    End Sub

End Class

________

: )

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From Freedom to Walled Gardens - The Evolution of The Internet

The Internet has given people from all over the world unprecedented ability to communicate with each other. Anyone can create content and share their thoughts and opinions with the world. The Internet is not controlled by any one central body, and this is something that many governments are uncomfortable with. Ideas posted online may be stored on a server thousands of miles from the place where the content creator lives, and can be copied, shared and archived by an unlimited number of users.

As this infographic shows, some governments, including those in mainland China, North Korea and the UAE have taken measures to restrict the kind of content that users can access online. Those countries restrict content that is political or religious in nature. Other countries, including several in Europe, have started to filter content too, blocking websites that contain illegal content such as child pornography or copyright file sharing sites.

The original creators of the Internet wanted information to be free, and love the widespread sharing of ideas, no matter whether they agree with those ideas or not. Freedom of communication is under threat, and the threat may be closer to home than you think.

Infographic provided by CWCS

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