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  • Myth: 72dpi for Web Images

    Every time I read articles or tutorials about saving images for Web pages or sending through e-mail they always mention saving the images with a resolution of 72dpi or Dots Per Inch. The interesting fact about this suggestion is that a computer monitor doesn’t deal with dots or inches, but rather with pixels.

    The resolution of a monitor is indicated as two numbers: [number of pixels for width]x[number of pixels for height]. For example, resolutions are indicated as 800×600 or 1024×768. You notice no mention of dots or inches because a monitor only cares about the number of pixels. This means that when creating images for viewing on a monitor it is important to pay close attention to the size of the file in pixels.

    Let’s see an example of how this works. Below you will see two images from the same image. The top image has a print resolution of 300dpi, while the bottom one has a resolution of 10dpi. You will notice that when displayed on the monitor, they are identical. With regards to monitors, both are the same size: 225×300.

    A 225×300 pixel image will always be displayed as 225 by 300 pixels regardless of the screen size in inches.

    Summary

    Unlike printing, DPI as no affect on how an image is displayed on a computer monitor. When resizing an image for Web sites or e-mails it is important to resize the image based on the number of pixels, and not DPI.

  • Beginner’s Guide to Amazon Web Services [Infographic]

    Beginner’s Guide to Amazon Web Services [Infographic]

    Imagine a cloud-computing service so powerful, that it makes the work dozens of servers in a large room completely obsolete. From the U.S. to China and most countries in between, tens of thousands of businesses trust it with their online security and information. It powers websites that most internet users visit every day, including Reddit, Netflix and Pinterest. Yet, according to our friends at Udemy, almost 2/3rds of Americans don’t know what it is.

    The answer is Amazon Web Services, and it has changed how the World Wide Web is run in a profound way. It began in 2006 and has since expanded to a $40 billion product, with projections expecting that number to climb to $241 billion in the next 10 years.

    Udemy is an online learning marketplace where users can take educational courses in a plethora of subject matters, and they’ve created an infographic to tell us more about the prevalence of AWS, and why it is so important to our daily browsing.

    Beginner's Guide to Amazon Web Services

    The original infographic can be found at Udemy – AWS Training.

  • 5 Web Design Tips to Improve Conversion Rates

    5 Web Design Tips to Improve Conversion Rates

    A website is a foundation for any online business. How good your website is directly affecting your business and thus, your conversion rates and profits. But what decides if a website is good or how can you make your website good enough to get a lot of conversion rates? Well, there are certain principles and tips, which if followed correctly, can answer these questions.

    Basically, you need a good website design that can attract a lot of traffic. Once your website gets a lot of visitors consistently, the next thing you have to focus on is on engaging them and converting them to customers. So, how can you implement this strategy in real life? Keep reading the article to figure out the 5 design principles that can help improve the conversion rate of your website.

    1. Make it look appealing and attractive

    This is a very obvious tip. Everyone is captured by something that is visually appealing. The same thing goes for websites too. You need to make your website attractive, modern and classy. It should display your brand information and everything else necessary in an easily accessible yet appealing manner.

    Your website should have all the information associated with your products, their features, have informative articles and maybe even a blog, to provide your customers with all the information but none of this should feel overwhelming to the users. It shouldn’t be cluttered. An unattractive website will easily drive away visitors and potential customers. You should keep the language simple and understandable for the content and avoid all the complicated jargon.

    2. Create trust

    You may already have a very modish and attractive website, but it is useless if it can’t inculcate a sense of trust in the customers. Here are a few tips and methods on how to build trust in your customers.

    1. Provide authentic contact details so that the customers can reach out to you in case they need your assistance.
    2. Refrain from including any kind of fake information on your website.
    3. Keep everything looking professional and well suited for your brand as well as the domain your business operates in.
    4. Speak about your expertise through the services you provide as well as the contents on your website.
    6. Regularly and consistently upload new and good quality content.
    7. Invest in a good web design company to make everything run smoothly.

    3. Easy navigation

    If your website is too complicated, then we have a problem. The ease and smoothness of navigation is key to your website’s conversion rates. While tackling the navigation problem, think of your target audience. If they find it more difficult to navigate through your website as compared to your competitor’s website, chances are that they will ditch you for them.

    Hence, if you are thinking about areas to focus on while trying to improve conversion rates, navigation is one of them. Use suitable titles and subtitles for contents. Make everything clutter-free. Keep features frequently used by visitors in places where they can be accessed easily. Use drop-down menus and subcategories for sorting and filtering. These are just a few examples. A good website design company can help you take care of everything.

    4. Design a sensitive CTA button

    The Call To Action or CTA button is used to request users to respond to various actions that are suggested by these buttons. For instance, a button asking you to sign up for a newsletter is a CTA button. These buttons should say exactly what the consumer should do. Nothing more, nothing less. Falsely navigating traffic will put off the visitors of your website.

    ‘Subscribe’, ‘Sign up’, ‘Add to cart’ and ‘Share’ are some good examples of CTA buttons. Refrain from including more than a few CTAs on the same page as they may end up conflicting with each other. Keep them relevant to the page and give clear instructions so that your customers won’t get confused.

    5. Ensure smooth and easy conversion

    Your focus must be on getting customers from all walks of life without any restrictions on their demographics or location. Accomplishing this is tough. But the basic point is, you need to keep the steps that lead to conversion simple.

    Provide customer support at all times. Make use of the latest technologies like chatbots and artificial intelligence to guide and assist your visitors while they navigate through your website. Show them that you value every single one of them.

    Final words

    If your customers feel comfortable and satisfied with your website, they will keep returning to it all the time, and might even refer a few others. Thus you will get more conversions as well as customers. Follow the five principles mentioned above, and you are all set on your web design strategies to improve the conversion rates on your website.

  • What is a Device Driver?

    You have probably connected several devices to your computer, a printer, scanner, or digital camera, and sometimes Windows would recognize the device without difficulty. Other times, however, the device was now recognized by Windows, and you couldn’t use the device.

    The reason Windows couldn’t recognize the device was because it didn’t have a device driver for it. This is required by all devices that are connected to your computer, both internal and external. In this post, I will describe what a device driver is, as well as what it does.

    Interacting with Hardware

    There are many types of hardware that you can connect to your computer. Hardware such as video or sound cards are connected directly to the motherboard inside of your case, while printers and scanners are connected externally into one of the ports. The problem is how does an operating system know how to talk to the hardware if it is all different. Answer: through the use of device drivers.

    A device driver, or just driver, is a computer program that allows software interact with hardware. Typically, the software that talks to the device driver is the operating system, such as Windows. Essentially, the driver is an instruction manual that provides information to the operating system on how to communicate and use the device.

    Installing Device Drivers

    If the operating system needs to use a driver to talk to a device, how is the driver installed? There are many ways a driver is installed.

    If the device you are connecting is older than the version of Windows, chances are that Windows already contains the necessary driver. Once you connect your device, then Windows will detect it and install the drivers automatically. You may be prompted to insert the Windows CD/DVD.

    Most devices also include a CD that includes such things as applications and manuals. Also on the CD are drivers for specific operating systems that you can install. These drivers should be installed if the operating system is older than the device. Since the device wasn’t around when the operating system was created, then it obviously wouldn’t have the drivers. Follow the instructions included with your device to install the drivers.

    You can also navigate to the vendor’s Web site of your device online and download any updated drivers. Once downloaded you just run the application and the drivers are installed.

    It is important to keep your device drivers updated as they may help fix any issues you may be having. Sometimes Windows Update will install an updated driver. You can also go to the vendor’s Web site and see if they have a new driver available for download.

    Summary

    Device drivers are used by the operating system to communicate with a piece of hardware. Anytime you install a new piece of hardware, you will also need to install the device driver associated with that hardware.

    There are many ways of installing the driver. The operating system can install the driver if it has one, install the driver from the CD that came with the device, or download the driver from the vendor’s Web site.

  • Running Old DOS Programs in Windows XP or Vista

    The first PC my family ever had had an 8088 4.77MHz processor, 640KB of RAM, 20MB hard drive and a CGA (4colors) graphics adapter. This was back in the early to mid-80s, but I remember how much fun I had playing many games on that system. Back then, of course, all games and applications ran in DOS, the operating system at the time.

    I still enjoy some of the old games, however, computers have change much since that time and many of those DOS games are either difficult to get working in Windows, or don’t run at all. In this post I will introduce you to a free application that you can download that allows you to still run those old DOS applications in Windows XP or Vista.

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  • Unlock Features of Your Canon Digital Camera

    My first digital camera that I bought was a Canon G2 in 2002. I liked the camera because it took great pictures, included a rechargeable Lithium Ion Battery, and was able to take RAW pictures. When my G2 broke, I was provided with a Canon S3 IS because of the warranty. The S3 in itself is a great camera, and includes some features that the G2 didn’t have, like the the TTL (Through-The-Lense) viewfinder.

    The one option that I do miss, however, is the ability to take RAW digital photos. I always liked editing my images before printing, and RAW photos allowed me to do that better than JPEGs. Recently I stumbled upon a utility that will allow my S3 to take RAW photos as well as change other previously unavailable settings.

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  • Is Cloud Data Easier to Recover: 5 Cloud Data Recovery Concerns

    Is Cloud Data Easier to Recover: 5 Cloud Data Recovery Concerns

    Long before the cloud came around, individuals and companies alike were turning to Web based storage and data recovery. With a mix of software and Web based management controls, off-site data backup and recovery was finicky, non-mobile and not too much more cost effective than the on-site tradition.

    Now that the cloud is above, the nomenclature of the past no longer applies – cloud storage and cloud data recovery solutions are growing in maturity, offering capabilities in integration, management and control that the old Web based data storage providers just couldn’t offer.

    Regardless of the sky-high appeal of cloud storage benefits, it is not wise to turn to cloud driven business continuity haphazardly. While the perceived ease and cost performance of cloud storage and recovery is tempting, cloud storage and backup present considerable challenges.

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  • How to Determine Your AdSense Coverage

    How to Determine Your AdSense Coverage

    If you use AdSense you may be wondering how to find out about how to determine your AdSense coverage of the ads that are displayed on your pages. By coverage I don’t mean what percentage of your pages includes AdSense, I mean what percentage of the ads displayed are not public service ads (PSA).

    When a PSA is displayed in one of your AdSense units you don’t receive any money when a visitor clicks on that PSA. With the new AdSense interface, it is very easy to find out what percentage of your ads display actual ads, and not public service ads.

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