Perhaps you are planning your e-business and heard or read an article that mentioned the mashups. But, what is a mashup?
According to the Wikipedia, a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into an integrated experience. The etymology of this term possibly derives from its similar use in pop music.
Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API. Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom) –the ones used in many blogs, web services and many more.
Many people are experimenting with mashups using Microsoft, Google, eBay, Amazon, Flickr, and Yahoo APIs, which has led to the creation of Mashup Editors
I constantly see many useful mashups as many other that are really scrap. As mentioned before, anyone can create a mashup in their site. The most important thing before doing this is evaluate the “What for”, the idea.
There’s also a lot of already done mashups so can use them in your site; So, if you are planning to develop a special application in order to gatheer information from other sources, just check before if it exists in the mashups directories. Good Luck!
Below is an interesting video of how to quickly create a mashup using Microsoft Popfly Mashups editor.
There are many applications that can help your business creating tutorials or how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). One of them is Wink, a freeware available for all flavours of Windows and various versions of Linux.
Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.
You can also add audio to your tutorials and export your tutorials or presentation in many available formats (SWF, PDF, PostScript, HTML and EXE). Using smart capture tools, you can easily grab screenshots from your pc based on mouse and keyboard input.
Wink is a nice tool for your business, and it’s free.
Even if many people say that it’s better not to program the whole site in Adobe Flash, I still see lot of new heavy-flash sites. In a previous post, we suggested to limit the use of flash in a website because this is not good for many browsers.
Last month, in the Google official Webmaster Blog, Mark Berghausen wrote an article “Best use of Flash”. He recongnized that “Googlebot (the Google robot) can typically read Flash files and extract the text and links in them, but the structure and context are missing”,. He also says that “textual contents are sometimes stored in Flash as graphics, and since googlebot doesn’t currently have the algorithmic eyes needed to read these graphics, these important keywords can be missed entirely”
So, he suggest the webmasters to use Flash only where is needed. He recommends that the site structure and the important keys should remain outside the flash so googlebot can take a look into them.
He also says that the use of non-flash version is another good option when you need to place a heavy-flash site.
Finally, even google is one of the most important search engines, you must remember that there are many other ones that people uses. Most of these search engines do not have the same technology to seek inside the flash files, so heavy-flash sites are loosing an opportunity to get register in them. So, pay special attention when planning to build your next business online.
There are many good software applications that can help you with your daily duties, much f them very expensive. Software for image processing, design, and office suites are my favorites. But, why pay too much for tools that perhaps have similar totally free. Even more, sometimes, the free versions are better that the paid ones.
If your business or your job depends too mucho on your computer, you’ll probable want to keep it update with the latest versions f your favorite software.
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One of the programs I mostly use to program web pages is Dreamweaver. This is a terrific tool fordoing this job and is part of Macromedia (now Adobe) suite. The program itself it’s perhaps a expensive if your budget is low. In this case, I recommend you NVU, another great.
NVU is a complete Web Authoring System for Linux desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. Nvu (which stands for “new view”) makes managing a web site a snap. Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.
NVU includes an FTP administrator in order to publish online your works; It also comes with a WYSIWYG editor and helps you validating the code while you write it down.
The other good reason for choosing NVU is because is Open Source. Go ahead, test it!.
I started my professional life as a business consultant. I worked in lot of projects and get involved in many consulting firms. During that period, I co-worked with people from the big six (now big four) and many other small consultant firms. I have to admit that the big lesson I learnt from the big firms -that generally did not find in the smaller ones- is methodology.
Methodology is a ‘way of doing things’. Is something that was already test by many people and, when they figure that it really work, they write it down in papers and start teaching it. It’s a kind of ’steps’ that everyone has to follow in order to get thing done better.
Even if each of the big consulting firms has their own methodology, the common thing is that they already have it, and their business consultants have to follow it. This is amazing, because it also teach discipline on your daily job.
When planning a business, even an online one, you have to take care of the methodology. You can read many articles, get many advises, but at the end, you should have a methodology of doing things.
Whit the methodology I learnt how to prepare a business plan, even a draft. I learnt about managing difficult customers and how to change not productive meeting. It also helps me when creating a presentation or a university class.
An excellent book I do recommend you for learn about methodology is The McKinsey Way. McKinsey is a big business consultant firm worldwide. It’s also one of the teachers in my professional life. I learnt a lot working with McKinsey people. The McKinsey Way was first print in 1999 and its content has many lessons that can be applied anytime. From preparing a 3 minutes presentation for the CEO in the elevator to be successful in you job meeting, this book is all about methodology.
Even if many people say that it’s better not to program the whole site in Adobe Flash, I still see lot of new heavy-flash sites. 
There are many good software applications that can help you with your daily duties, much f them very expensive. Software for image processing, design, and office suites are my favorites. But, why pay too much for tools that perhaps have similar totally free. Even more, sometimes, the free versions are better that the paid ones.
. McKinsey is a big business consultant firm worldwide. It’s also one of the teachers in my professional life. I learnt a lot working with McKinsey people.
