After highly publicized breakdowns in negotiations with CBS and
Viacom, it looks like Google and YouTube have finally managed to
court a suitor into the video-sharing fold, avoiding any potential
copyright snares that might ensue with current BBC content on the
site.

The BBC’s Tim Weber has more on the particulars of the agreement:

“One of the BBC’s two entertainment channels will be a “public
service” proposition, featuring no advertising.”

“It will show clips like trailers and short features that add
value - for example, video diaries of David Tennant showing
viewers around the set of Dr Who or BBC correspondent Clive Myrie
explaining how difficult it is to report from the streets of
Baghdad.”

The software to produce these kinds of files can cost hundreds of dollars. OpenOffice.org is a completely free Open Source office software suite that not only can read and write to the various commercial office software file formats, but also writes to the now-standard OpenDocument format.

OpenOffice.org consists of six programs: Writer, for word processing; Calc, for spreadsheets; Impress, for presentations; Draw, for editing or creating graphics; Base, for using data-bases; and Math, for complex calculations and formulas.

International support is strong, with 93 different languages supported to some degree. OpenOffice.org will run on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD operating systems.

OpenOffice.org was originally a German commercial software package called StarOffice, developed in the mid-1990s. Purchased by Sun Microsystems in 1999 to reduce their own in-house office software costs, the source code was made public a year later.

StarOffice still exists as a low-price commercial product from Sun, but it’s now based on the OpenOffice.org source code rather than the other way round, much like the way the Netscape web browser is now based on offshoot Mozilla’s Firefox web browser source code.

Using OpenOffice.org is similar to using any other office software package. The controls and options will be familiar to anyone with experience using other office software suites and there are online support forums and documentation.

Files created by other office software programs can be opened in OpenOffice.org and will look almost identical to the way they looked in the original program. Since the original commercial file formats are proprietary, meaning the details of the format are not public, there can be some minor differences in appearance and some files may need to be modified slightly to look the way they did in the original program.

It can take up to a minute for OpenOffice.org Calc to open complex spreadsheets created by other software. Ma-cros, or scripts designed to automate repetitive tasks, are currently not well supported though work on improving this situation is ongoing.

OpenOffice.org prefers to save files using the OpenDocument format or ODF, an open international standard that is designed to make it easier to access structured information such as document files and spreadsheets.

Governments and corporations around the world are switching over to the ODF standard since it means that information is not locked away in proprietary data formats only some programs can understand.

In particular, the archiving of information so that future software might easily access it is a driving force behind the growing movement toward ODF.

Even Microsoft is joining the bandwagon by paying for the development of an ODF plug-in for Microsoft Word. OpenOffice.org is a free download about 100 MB in size.

(PRLEAP.COM) Sg Web Designer (www.sgwebdesigner.com), Singapore’s premier web hosting provider, have incorporated PayPal Payments for its web hosting subscribers to facilitate subscriptions.

Sg Web Designer said the addition of PayPal as another payment option for its customers was prompted by its ever growing customer base who would like to experience a hassle-free payment mode.

“Sg Web Designer strives on customer feedbacks to improve our service level,” said Mr Hidayat, Project Manager for Sg Web Designer. “We have decided to offer PayPal as an option to improve customer’s experience and by doing so, instantly improving our service efficiency.”

With the addition of PayPal Payments, SgWebDesigner.com hosting customers will now no longer have to worry about missing payments for their hosting subscriptions.

“In today’s corporate world where websites run most businesses, we aim to make hosting subscriptions as convenient as possible for our valued clients,” said Mr Hidayat. “I am sure that with the flexibility & credibility of PayPal, our customers would have a peace of mind.”

About Sg Web Designer
SgWebDesigner.com is a full service provider of website design, development, web hosting, search engine optimization, logo & stationery design. Since its establishment in January 2005, the company have been providing services for multi national companies and medium & small enterprises.

For more information, Visit: http://www.sgwebdesigner.com

The new version of SubmitEaze contains a huge array of updates, one of which enables users to sort the directories on Google PageRank or the number of incoming backlinks to each directory, meaning users can prioritize which directories to submit to in order to maximize their efforts. Another new feature allows users to import their own list of directories directly from a spreadsheet, and also create an unlimited number of categories for their custom directories, making it incredibly easy to customize the software to any user’s specific requirements.

Martin Burrow, CEO of Pivotal Systems says “We are always looking for ways to improve our software, and the majority of the new features that have been added in this version have actually been suggested by our users. This latest version of the software enables our users to customize the software for their own specific needs, regardless of what type of website they operate. The new version of SubmitEaze far surpasses anything else that is on the market, and what’s more it is also available at a very reasonable price so that any webmaster can afford to promote their website.”

Users can now also setup multiple link title (anchor text) and description text entries for each website, this means they will get a variety of keywords in the anchor text of the links that point to their website, making their optimization seem more natural and also more effective for search engine optimization. The directory list that comes installed with SubmitEaze has also undergone a major overhaul, and the software now also lists over 1,600 hand-picked directories, listed in three different categories; Free, Paid Inclusion, and Reciprocal Link Inclusion.

Because Pivotal Systems operate a ‘one license for life’ policy, the good news is that anyone who has previously purchased SubmitEaze will receive this (and any future upgrades) free of charge. People wanting to give the new version a try can visit the SubmitEaze website at http://www.submiteaze.com/ where they can download a trial copy. For new users, this latest version retails at $74.95, and with this users can expect to receive the same offer of free regular software and directory updates.

Directions for deleting your cache in AOL
1. Open your AOL account.
2. Click the Settings on the toolbar (My AOL for older versions).
3. Select Preferences.
4. Select Internet Properties link on the left-hand side, (Older versions will show a ‘WWW’ box).
5. On the right hand side, click Empty Cache Now.
6. In the middle of the Internet Options box, click on Temporary Internet Files.
7. Click Delete Files. Check the box for Delete All Offline Content.
8. Click OK.

Directions for deleting your cache in INTERNET EXPLORER
1. Open your Internet Explorer browser.
2. Click on the Tools button located at the top of the web browser and select Internet Options.
3. Select the General tab.
4. In the Temporary Internet Files section, click the Settings Button and choose View Files.
5. Click Edit and choose Select All.
6. Press the Delete key on the keyboard.
7. If prompted to delete Cookies, click Yes.

Directions for deleting your cache in NETSCAPE / FIREFOX
1. From the Edit menu, click Preferences.
2. Open the Advanced category on the left hand side of the screen and click on Cache.
You should see an option to clear your disk and memory cache. It is recommended you clear
both caches.
3. Click Clear Memory Cache.

(PRLEAP.COM) Sg Web Designer (www.sgwebdesigner.com) website scored an impressive score of 82% for creativity, usability & compatibility.

Sg Web Designer said the Internationl Design Firms Award, awarded on July 21, 2006 was a huge plus as it was for its own website. The DesignFirms Web Design Award is dedicated to honour excellent websites on the cyberspace.

“Sg Web Designer strives on impressing potential clients with a positive image that speaks volume,” said Miss Deela, Marketing Manager for Sg Web Designer. “We strongly believe that all business who needs a Web site will always pre-determine what Sg Web Designer is able to design & develop for them by looking at our website.”

“At Sg Web Designer, we want to ensure our clients that we are professional and creative,” said Deela. “This award, is an award that honours the professionalism and creativity of our company as a whole.”

“With this award, the 2nd for Sg Web Designer in 8 months, we want clients to be secure on what Sg Web Designer can and will achieve for their web initiative,” said Deela. “There can be no better way then to achieve this goal then to take the step with an award winning company like Sg Web Designer.”

About Sg Web Designer
SgWebDesigner.com is a full service provider of website design, development, web hosting, search engine optimization, logo & stationery design. Since its establishment in January 2005, the company have been providing services for multi national companies and medium & small enterprises.

For more information, Visit: http://www.sgwebdesigner.com

Sg Web Designer would like to assure you that websites designed in Flash will not face any problem that you encounter. So no more “Click to activate control” problems on applets and flash applications. We are one of the first Web Design firm in Singapore to solve this problem.

Feel free to visit TouchTone (www.touchtone.com.sg) whose website is entirely built and running in flash. As mentioned, you do not have to “Click to activate control” anymore. Enjoy surfing their website too.

In order to qualify for the promotional offer, businesses must not currently have a Web site and be able to prove that they were established after August 09, 2005.

The offer is available for the first 500 qualified businesses that applies for Sg Web Designer’s Platinum Web design plan and is valued at S$800.

With every application of the Platinum Web Design plan, businesses will enjoy a 1 year free web hosting which encompasses 200 MB of disk space & 8 GB of monthly bandwidth limit, valued at S$116.

Sg Web designer said the promotion, which expires August 31, 2006, is designed to encourage entrepreneurship and complement the growth of new businesses.

“Sg Web Designer is giving Singaporean start-ups the hassle free step towards getting online,” said Miss Deela, Marketing Manager for Sg Web Designer. “We strongly believe that every business needs a Web site - especially new businesses - and we’re happy to make it easier than ever for local entrepreneurs to join the Internet revolution through our offer of free hosting services.”

“At Sg Web Designer, we want to make sure today’s new companies and their customers have access to the newest technology,” said Deela. “This promtion, is a platform towards achieving the larger goal of a Web site for every business in Singapore.”

“We want them to get online, be accessible to their targeted markets,” said Deela. “There can be no better way then to achieve this goal then to take the step with an award winning company like Sg Web Designer.”

About Sg Web Designer
SgWebDesigner.com is a full service provider of website design, development, web hosting, search engine optimization, logo & stationery design. Since its establishment in January 2005, the company have been providing services for multi national companies and medium & small enterprises.

For more information, Visit: http://www.sgwebdesigner.com

For 15 years, Adobe Photoshop has been the primary digital image editor in the graphics industry.

Originally developed for photographers as a Mac only package, Photoshop has since gone on to become an indispensable tool in all parts of the graphic arts industry – as a creative design package, in the prepress industry and as a web site design tool.

Photoshop’s position at the top is not just down to its feature set, which has been consistently ahead of the competition. It is also down to Adobe’s commitment to making an extremely complicated application as easy to use as is it reasonable to expect.

Which is not to say that Photoshop is an easy programme to learn to use - hence the plethora training videos and online training courses. It is also fair to say that it is possible to become an expert in a certain aspect of Photoshop, for example as a web designer, without even being a beginner in another of its functions, for example digital photo retouching.

Adobe Photoshop comes bundled with another application called ImageReady, which is targetted at web graphics users. Although, there is little that ImageReady can do that can’t be done in Photoshop itself (apart from the creation of animated gifs), ImageReady does provide a very targetted environment for the creation of web graphics.

Becoming an expert in Photoshop is an endless and occasionally frustrating task. But, for the dedicated designer, it is usually an enjoyable one. Photoshop is probably the design application that allows the most freedom for creative expression and its popularity and dominance in the professional design arena continues with few serious challengers.

But that is not to say that there are no alternatives. Photoshop is not cheap and it is also not the only digital image editor capable of producing professional quality graphics. Particularly with regards to web design graphics, there are a number of perfectly capable alternatives to Photoshop.

Below we review four of the main Photoshop wannabees. Digital editing graphics applications that designers may want to consider, if Photoshop is not an option. Some are purely positioned for editing web graphics, whilst others, like Corel Photo-Paint, are closer to rivalling Photoshop on a feature-for-feature basis.

A Ridiculous Patent
I’m not going to go into the specifics, but Eolas filed the patent in 1998 and basically claims to have invented the process of using interactive content on the internet. The W3C has even gotten involved, claiming that documents published over a decade ago qualify as prior art against this ridiculous patent.

Eolas wants 521 million dollars from Microsoft to license the priviledge of allowing IE 6 to work the way it has worked since 2001. Oh, and they don’t care about licensing to the browsers with smaller market share (Mozilla, Opera, et al).