Ryan Gavin and Dean Hachamovitch, Marketing Guy and Engineer, respectively, for Internet Explorer, have announced that the final build and release of Internet Explorer 9 will indeed be at the party they’re throwing at South by Southwest in Texas on March 14th, 2011. They’ve decided to first announce this to their very favorite community at Channel9, a bunch of developers who are in love with the internet platform, and they’ve spoken here in a video at length what the browser will be able to do.
This browser has been in production for approximately a year, and now they’re going to release it, thanking profusely the community of developers who have stepped up to help them in making this a platform that has a chance at competing with the rest of the powerhouse browsers out in the market today. As you know, Internet Explorer
Hachamovitch will be doing a keynote at MIX 10 as well, showing off how the platform is rolling out, as a sort of “look what we did in a year” sort of thing. These two fellas sitting on the couch are super excited about this rollout and after saying what they came to say, they made sure to prompt Channel9 for what they call an “uncomfortable question.” What Channel9 decided to ask about was HTML5, to which they reply “WE’RE FOR IT!”
Of course the developer community knows this already, so the question is pressed, beyond what HTML5 can do for the everyday user, what does IE9 offer the fringe users who want features that not everyone will use? Hachamovitch replies with a sort of well, we DO do that, we’ve implemented things like Navigation Timing which “got 0% usage on the web,” he then going on to say that they’ve added items that don’t just come from developers who request things, they’ve essentially come up with elements that they and people at Yahoo, Google, and etc have spoken about behind the scenes, bringing these “fringe” features into IE9 at launch.
Essentially what they’re speaking about in this video and what will be coming with Internet Explorer 9 is depth as well as quality implementation of features. We’re hoping for the best!
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Josh Pastner of Memphis Tigers gets new 5-year deal
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FOCUS: Courageous workers at troubled nuclear plant endure tough <b>...</b>
Each of the employees of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and other workers engaged in containing damage at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is given 30 survival food crackers and a 180 milliliter pack of vegetable juice for ...
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EA developing mystery MMO MMO <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our MMO news of EA developing mystery MMO.
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Titles from major book publisher Random House will now appear in Apple’s iBooks store. The news was one of many talking points covered earlier today at Apple’s media event. Random House had previously been the only major publisher not represented in Apple’s popular iOS book store, as it was not willing to grant Apple the 30% cut taken on titles sold through iBooks. The addition of Random House is a major coup for Apple as it looks to compete with the likes of Amazon’s Kindle bookstore and other popular offerings. Hit the break for Apple’s full press release.
Random House, Inc. Makes Entire US Catalog of 17,000 ebooks Available on Apple’s iBookstore
iBookstore Now Features More than 2,500 Publishers, Including All Six Major Trade Publishers
SAN FRANCISCO—March 2, 2011—Apple® today announced that Random House, Inc., the largest trade book publisher in the US, has made its full catalog of 17,000 ebooks available on Apple’s iBookstore℠, including bestsellers by Stieg Larsson, John Grisham, Dan Brown, Danielle Steel, Laura Hillenbrand, Cormac McCarthy, Lee Child and many more of the world’s preeminent authors. Starting today, customers can pre-order upcoming releases from Random House including Lisa Gardner’s “Love You More,” Suze Orman’s “The Money Class” and Jean Auel’s “The Land of Painted Caves.” With the addition of Random House, the iBookstore now offers ebooks from all six major trade publishers and thousands of independent publishers.
“We are delighted that Apple’s iBookstore now will be carrying Random House’s US ebooks for the first time,” said Markus Dohle, Random House’s Chairman and CEO. “And we look forward to bringing our 17,000 ebooks to Apple customers.”
“We’re thrilled to offer Random House on the iBookstore,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “iBookstore customers have already downloaded more than 100 million books in less than one year, and we think they’ll love being able to choose from Random House’s incredible selection of titles to enjoy on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.”
iBookstore customers can choose from a wide selection of illustrated and video-enhanced books that look incredible on iPad™, including Jay-Z’s memoir “Decoded” and Bing West’s “The Wrong War”; bestselling children’s series such as Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones; and cookbooks by Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. Random House, Inc. comprises more than 80 adult and children’s US publishing imprints including Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday, Crown, Pantheon Books, Vintage, Ballantine and Bantam.
The iBookstore, included in Apple’s free iBooks® app, is the best way to browse, buy and read books on your iPad, iPhone® and iPod touch®. iBookstore offers ebooks from more than 2,500 publishers in more than 20 categories, including Mysteries & Thrillers, Biographies & Memoirs, Cookbooks, Children’s & Teen, Humor, Romance, Business and Travel.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
With the company’s future already clouded by Steve Jobs’ latest medical leave, the possibility of the iPad’s chief designer, Jonathan Ive, cashing out ups the uncertainty, Dan Lyons writes.
Is Apple losing its design guru?
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced in January that he would take a third medical leave, the biggest concern was the cloud of uncertainty that hovered over the company. Now that uncertainty has become an issue again, as rumors have started swirling that Apple might lose its chief designer, Jonathan Ive.
Apple's head designer Jonathan Ive poses for a portrait on January 27, 2010 in Cupertino, California. (Photo by Paul Harris / Newscom)
Reports in Ive’s native England suggest that the man who oversaw the design of the iPhone and iPad wants to spend more time in the U.K., putting him at odds with Apple’s board enough that he would consider leaving the company. Although Ive and Apple won’t comment, the scenario is plausible for two reasons: First, Ive is about to cash in options valued at $30 million that he was granted in 2008; and second, Ive has an especially close relationship with Jobs.
Whether Ive stays or goes, the brouhaha shows the challenges that Apple is increasingly likely to face given the questions about Jobs’ role in the coming months. One scenario being bandied about by Apple-watchers suggests Ive is making a power play to succeed Jobs; it seems just as likely, however, that he simply may not want to work at Apple if Jobs isn’t there.
Still others think the entire notion that Ive might leave is completely unfounded. But either way, the whole incident shows how the Jobs health situation is bringing more drama to a company that, until now, has been a model of tight-lipped discipline.
Apple’s products are famous for their sleek designs, and conventional wisdom holds that losing Ive would be a terrible blow to Apple—“Apple’s worst nightmare,” Britain’s Guardian called it. But the truth is, losing Ive may not be as big a deal as some Apple watchers think.
For one thing, Apple has loads of bench strength in every department, and because of its success it can attract just about anyone it wants.
“How much of this is Steve, how much is Jon, how much someone else? Steve always had an eye for design. The designer is only as good as the client,” says Jean-Louis Gassée.
For another, the real genius behind Apple’s designs might not be Ive—but rather Jobs.
That’s the educated guess of Jean-Louis Gassée, a former top executive at Apple and a longtime close watcher of the company who still has many connections there.
Gassée points out that Ive was already working at Apple when Jobs returned to the company in 1996. Ive joined the company in 1992, when Jobs was gone from the company, having been ousted by the board in 1985.
And before Jobs returned to Apple, Ive wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire. The first products that Ive designed under Jobs were the “Bondi Blue” iMac and the somewhat ugly iBook. Ive’s next products, the "desk lamp" Mac and the early metal laptops, were better looking, Gassée says.
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Ask yourself, what are my company’s core capabilities? If your answer is simply, restating the product you sell, you are most likely incoherent. The coherence premium is a high level strategy used by some of the largest (and most profitable) corporations in America. Companies that are “coherent” can define 3-6 capabilities internally that differentiate them within their industry, build a deep workable strategy focused on “winning,” and develop product portfolio based around their capabilities.
What makes the coherence premium such an interesting topic? The fact that companies who are “coherent” are healthier, more profitable and better set up for long-term growth. Coca-Cola, a poster child for coherence, (almost 100 on the Coherence Capabilities Score) sees on average 20% higher earnings before interest and taxes than profiled companies with a Coherence Capabilities Score of less than 20.
Take Wal-Mart for instance, they’ve aligned all of their capabilities:
- Aggressive vendor management
- Expert point-of-sale data analytics
- Superior logistics
- Rigorous working capital management
Simple, but to the point, Wal-Mart understands their internal capabilities, which stretch from logistics all the way to IT. Capabilities should be specific enough that they exact a point of where you stop competing and start excelling your industry. A more thorough example of a capability would be, “A company’s ability to use customer-data mining to develop new products.”
Benefits
- Strengthens a Companies Competitive Advantage
- Companies are Better Prepared For The Future
- Produces Efficiencies of Scale
- Aligns Strategic Intent and Day-To-Day Decision Making
Steps
1. Ways to Play- learn how your company provides value and the way you will face the market.
- Are we investing capabilities that matter to the way we play?
- Are we clear about the way we choose to create value in the marketplace?
2. Capabilities System -determine your 3-6 core capabilities.
- Have we defined how these capabilities work with our system?
- Do all of our businesses draw upon this superior system?
3. Build a Strategy For a Balanced Portfolio – Build your future growth and product initiates to maximize your core capabilities.
- Have we found our product and service “sweet spot”
- Are new products and acquisitions determined on the way the fit within our capabilities system?
Understanding your core capabilities and becoming coherent is not necessarily the easiest thing to do. Your capabilities should be assessed with a healthy mix of both internal and external information and careful thought. All of this is worth the hassle; coherent companies consistently reap more profits, are better prepped for the future and place themselves atop their industries by innovating.
Preview of Final Result
Resources
- PT Sans Bold – FontSquirrel
- Free App Icons for Developers – WebAppers
Step 1
Open Photoshop and create a new document that is 1200 x 1200 pixels, 72 dpi, and RGB Color. Fill the layer with white. (Ctrl+Backspace or Delete)
Step 2
Now create a rectangle for the header and fill it with a white-grey color, then use the colors on the image for the “Gradient Overlay”. Our search and logo will eventually be part of the header.
Step 3
Create a new rectangle above the previous one, with attributes as shown below. The following drop shadow effect creates a look of a 1 pixel stroke which does increase the look of that simple bar. Note: this step creates a horizontal line.
Step 4
Now add the “Gradient Overlay” layer style with the hex codes indicated.
Step 5
Add a white 1 pixel stroke. The following stroke of 1 pixel will divide the grey shadow effect. It’ll eventually work as a divider.
Step 6
Make one more rectangle in the middle-right zone, and fill it with white and add a 1 px stroke as indicated – it will be our search box.
Step 7
One more rectangle should be created and filled with blue. Set the inner shadow as indicated below, this will be our search button. This blue works great in combination with grey, white and light-grey. Blue will be the major contrasting color we use as we work through this template.
Step 8
Add the Gradient Overlay details to the button with the details from image.
Step 9
Add a 1 px stroke to the button with the color indicated. Take a look at the first and the final result of the button so you can see the difference all these details made.
Step 10
Now add this drop shadow effect for the text placed in the search box, using PT Sans Bold. This will be the final step in creating your search button. You may want to try other fonts, but the PT Sans Bold is really good for this small button.
Step 11
Make another fill under the header section, this will be the navigation area. Here we will place the navigation links of our template.
Step 12
Write your navigation links using a dark-grey color, then add a white “drop shadow” effect. The effect used for the navigation links is the same used for the search button.
Step 13
With 1px vertical line, make divisions between each links. The lines should be black and will really increase the beauty of the navigation area.
Step 14
Over the home section, make a fill with the blue and then add a Gradient Overlay style as indicated.
Step 15
Copy the Home link, this time color it white and add a drop shadow effect.
Step 16
Create a big, grey zone under the navigation, it should be about 30% of the layout. This will be the background for the featured area.
Step 17
Now create a big, white rectangle and add some shadow with the details shown. A big stock image, a big headline and some text with another great button will be added.
Step 18
Add a any dummy image you want to that featured area. Be sure it covers more than 80% of the area. The one I chose is from a stock website.
Step 19
Add some text to it, use the PT SANS Bold font and make the font big.
Step 20
The remaining area should be filled with grey, in it we’ll place some text. This is really a secondary area which describes the image, the services, the company itself, or whatever you’d like.
Step 21
Place some blue-colored text which will be the title of the information below. Use the details in the image for Drop Shadow style.
Step 22
Add some dummy text. This could be some important information or whatever you’d like.
Step 23
Create another grey area under the featured zone, where we will add some text and icons later. Add the details as stated on the image. Mostly, the icons will promote the services offered by the company behind the website.
Step 24
Continue by adding a Gradient Overlay style for the last rectangle we have created in the anterior steps.
Step 25
Now we are adding titles and icons, as well as some divisions. The icons can be found in the resource list at the beginning of the tutorial. Be sure to choose your icons and text thoughtfully.
Step 26
At the border of both zones, create a small circle and fill it with dark brown color. Add some inner shadow as stated on the image.
Step 27
Continue by adding a drop shadow layer style. It is another small detail, but it really makes that button zone minimalistic, nice-looking and well designed.
Step 28
To finish, add a Gradient Overlay effect.
Step 29
By using the Custom Shape Tool (U), create an arrow in both circles. Now add the details shown on the screenshot.
Step 30
Continue by adding some Color Overlay for the arrow. It should also be a blue color because otherwise, it will not fit the contrast and the colors used on the whole template.
Step 31
Add a video screenshot in the free space and place a title for it. For this template, I have used a simple screenshot of a YouTube widget.
Step 32
Add the text “Product Highlights” and “Case Studies.” Let the text under the “Product Highlights” be links so you could showcase some friends’ websites or resources you admire/promote.
Step 33
Finish it by creating another form for e-mails, place all kind of other information, and whatever you’d like.
Step 34
Don’t forget to make a relevant/small footer for our template. If you have paid attention, you should know how to create the same effect as below.
All done! If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to drop a comment. I hope you enjoyed this whole tutorial!
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Fox <b>News</b> Bureau Chief: I Thought It Was 'Far-Fetched' When I <b>...</b>
In 2009, current Fox News DC Bureau Chief Bill Sammon admitted that he didn't really believe charges that Obama was a "socialist" when he encouraged Fox News staff to use the term. But, he claims, he soon realized it was true.
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Heavy Fire Afghanistan coming to Kinect Xbox 360 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>
Read our Xbox 360 news of Heavy Fire Afghanistan coming to Kinect.
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