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Insight, Information and Inspiration on women's careers, business, technology and the Industry.
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In recent years XML has gained a lot of popularity in the IT industry, mostly because of its ease of use. XML provides a standard method to access information, making it easier for applications and devices of all kinds to use, store, transmit, and display data.
XML has no dependencies on the programming language type, operating system platform, databases type, or even human languages and that makes it the perfect data format to allow programmers to build cross platform applications.
With the wide adoption of blogging, one of the most successful uses of XML has been RSS. RSS is a tool that uses the blogging data that is stored as XML and allows bloggers to push that data to ANY RSS reader on ANY device.
While XML is here to stay and is important to learn, it can be overwhelming to get started. Below are some great resources that will help you get on your way.
XML in 10 Points
Getting Started with XML: A Manual and Workshop
How Can XML be Used?
Using XML
With the growing popularity of handheld devices, you should constantly be checking to see what mobile users are seeing when they look up your site. One way is to type the URL into your wireless device, but how do you test on devices you don’t have? Or what if you’re not a mobile user? Now you can use mobile device simulators on your computer to see what mobile users with different handheld devices are seeing.
For a quick and easy look, you can try the pocket device simulator from G-site. This site lets you type in any URL and see what mobile users might see. It displays the page in a generic handheld device.
| For example, here’s a screen cap of yesterday’s Webgrrls Wisdom blog using G-site: |
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Sites like G-site meet many people’s needs. However, they don’t take host files and other local settings into account. To test your site on specific types of devices or to play with more advanced options, you might want to install applications from the different mobile device creators.
| Microsoft allows you to download emulators that can be used with or without Visual Studio. Here’s a glance at the same Webgrrls blog post using the Microsoft Mobile Emulator: |
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BlackBerry also provides its own mobile simulators for BlackBerry devices for you to download, and the Palm Developer Network provides free access to mobile simulators for Palm devices as well.
You can no longer afford to hope for the best when it comes to mobile devices. You should find out what your customers are seeing and then seek out ways to make the user experience on mobile devices simpler and easier to use.
Because I work for Barnes & Noble.com, I constantly have an eye on the world of books, especially as it pertains to the online experience. Recently I ran across an interesting site called Big Universe that allows you to create your own children’s picture books. You can design your own layout, write free-form text, and choose from a surprisingly large (and beautiful) selection of imagery to put it all together. Then you can self publish your finished product on the site. It also allows you to connect with other aspiring children’s authors and other people in the publishing world.
The pool of artwork you can use seems to be quite extensive. Here are some sample pages from a few books that I found on the site:
When Pigs Fly
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Is a Worry Worrying You?
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Migrating Animals of the Water
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Nana Star
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Continue Reading “Create, Self Publish, and Sell Children’s Picture Books”
I am on the move all the time and use a laptop. Lately, I started noticing my laptop battery was draining faster than when I purchased it. I did some research and found great tips and resources that helped me improve my notebook battery life:
If your laptop battery drains too fast, try the tips offered by the sites below:
Digital Inspiration’s 10 Tips to make your Laptop Battery last longer
TabletPCReview - How To Improve Notebook Battery Life
Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life
CNET’s guide to laptop batteries
In his blog post yesterday, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch talked about email communication crisis and our ability as human beings to be able to respond to all the email that we receive. He said “The volume of communication requests for most people today are far, far beyond what they can handle. Few people today respond to every communication they receive. And an increasing number don’t even claim to be able to read every communication they receive, let alone respond”.
I am happy to report that I have zero unread email messages in my Inbox. Here is my method for managing my Inbox to ensure that all of the messages that need to get answered do, in a timely manner:
Continue Reading “How to manage your Inbox, save time, and respond in a timely manner”
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