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WordPress is a CMS used on many websites. It was originally thought of as blogging software but over the years the capabilities have increased to such an extent that WordPress can be used for many other types of website too. It continues to evolve too and it was recently announced WordPress plans to streamline its software in response to competition from other formats such as Tumblr. It is favoured by publishers and many developers because its easy to use and relative straightforward to customise. Compared to other options like Dreamweaver and Drupal, design and coding is fairly easy in WP. Advanced design options are possible without advanced technical know-how.

Themes are used as the 'skin' for the CMS. That's the bit the user sees and uses. There are many 1,000s of themes, many free and also lots of paid themes. A framework and child theme can be used instead of a theme on its own also. A framework goes on top of the WordPress software and the 'child' theme works directly with the framework and is lightweight with most of the coding in the actual framework.

The number of themes and frameworks is huge and I find a good shortcut is to look at what the experts are doing. A quick look reveals many use frameworks, the Genesis Framework and Thesis in particular and few use themes on their own.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using a WordPress framework. Here are some worth thinking about:

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Easy design options: Non developers can get by more easily with just knowing a few bits of CSS and HTML, which may not be possible with a theme on its own.

Extended customisation: If you require easier customisation of individual pages and posts a framework can offer more compared with a theme on its own. That is the whole point of a framework really.

Disads:

Lock in: Frameworks only work with specific 'child' themes. Once you have invested in a framework it can make financial sense to purchase further themes with the same framework rather than from elsewhere. Once you are used to using a particular framework it may be a pain switching too as you would have to learn a whole bunch of new stuff. The developers of frameworks know this and its a big advantage for them as they can make multiple sales to each customer potentially.

Limiting Technical Knowledge: If you are a developer and focus on framework you might be limiting yourself. You might be more likely to take shortcuts in terms of coding which reduces your understanding.

Compatibility: Using a framework adds another element into your WordPress site. You are dependent on the framework being kept up to standard the whole time you have the website.

Conclusion

As a non developer I have been able to customise a number of WordPress websites using a framework. I had not previously been able to do that to my satisfaction using a theme on its own.

The big bloggers I follow mainly seem to use Genesis though there are notable exceptions. For me frameworks have been the way to go so far, though if I learn how to make websites from scratch I may go a different way.

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Microsoft Office 2010 added a host of new Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint features, targeting both businesses and consumers. This article focuses on the features and benefits of Office 2010 that help enterprises run faster and smoother than ever before.

Another useful feature of Office 2012 is the customized theme. You can use one of the forty built-in themes in Office 2010, mix-and-match theme elements, or create your own custom theme. You can keep track of your themes for future documents, and better coordinate your documents, saving valuable time. This is especially useful when you need to implement company branding to all of your Office documents.

SharePoint Workspace 2010 is a great feature that allows your workers to access and edit documents stored on a server without being connected to the internet, and then automatically synchronize these changes when they are back online. This allows you to stay productive even in business trips or when facing internet connection challenges.

Co-authoring is a useful feature that allows multiple people to work on the same document at the same time, and multiple employees can work on Word 2010 and PowerPoint 2010 documents, while being able to see who is working on specific parts. Also, Office Web Apps makes it easy to work on documents with others, regardless of what version of Microsoft Office they use.

With Outlook 2010 you can save time with social media activities, while managing multiple accounts. More exactly, you can synchronize your contacts with popular social networking platforms, so when a follower or a fan makes an update to their profile, your Outlook address book reflects the change. You can also follow status updates and other online activities of your contact, as well as send messages and post updates to your networking accounts directly from Outlook.

The Microsoft Office Backstage view gives your team quick access to important operations such as viewing document information, saving, printing and sharing. At the same time, with Office 2010 you can easily customize the ribbon to make the commands you use most accessible, or create custom tabs or even customize built-in tabs.

Before Office 2010, a lot of time was wasted finding the commands you needed throughout all applications. Office 2010 offered a solution to this problem with the extended toolbar.

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Embrace Cloud is the first step in the five step social construct or blueprint called enterprise cloud development (ECD) being introduced in the software development industry. Embracing the cloud is simply about data aggregation - from source code control to requirements tracking to document storage - for software development or IT divisions that support larger business organizations. While this may seem easy on the surface and can be for small or midsized businesses (SMBs) - data aggregation presents significant challenges for larger organizations. Below are three challenges explained in depth.

(a) Intellectual property (IP) control. The lack of IP control can prevent auditors, attorneys and other development team members from doing their work months or years after a product or project has moved from active to retired. Here's an example of a nightmare scenario for a CIO. Two years after a project gets retired a lawsuit comes from an end user. In order to defend that lawsuit the code and conversations around that code needs to be found and analyzed. The IP can't be found and the development team members have since moved on to other organizations. In addition the conversations around that code are in six different repositories including email and chat, neither of which have historical logs. Now what is the CIO supposed to do? How is the organization supposed to defend itself?

(b) Organizational transparency. This goes back to a core belief that there exist different types of organizations. Only a select few will have a culture that values openly share information and data. However transparency breeds trust and code reuse / sharing. This is a really big idea and one that I will build on in step two of the five step ECD paradigm.

(c) Acquisition. If an organization is highly acquisitive then folding different corporate data together can feel like pushing mud uphill. Different organizations use different tooling / technology platforms, different standards for their key performance indicators (KPIs) and/or management by objectives (MBOs). The concept of replication or reconciliation of KPIs or MBOs doesn't necessarily work. Tradeoffs and exchanges need to be negotiated early between the two executive teams so that both sets of executives (the new and the existing) can track the organization accurately.

An additional fear of acquisition is the loss or theft of data. What prevents a core group of newly disgruntled employees or contractors from walking away with bits of meaningful code? The acquiring group must plan for these types of worst case scenarios.

Data aggregation through embracing the cloud is a promise of an incremental improvement to organizational structures because of the ability to find and organize the data (source code, requirements, documents) that teams rely upon to do effective work. Unlike some of the other steps of this social construct or blueprint this step is a prerequisite to steps two through five.

About The Author:
Laszlo Szalvay currently serves as the VP Worldwide Scrum Business Line at CollabNet, Inc.

CollabNet leads the industry in Agile ALM in the Cloud. The company also offers training, including Certified ScrumMaster training, software development process improvement services, and an innovative community management approach to driving enterprise development success. As the founder of the open source Subversion project, CollabNet has collaborative development for distributed teams in our DNA.

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For those unfamiliar with what a StrongBox is, it is a protective encasing for important documents, files, money, and more. These boxes are often times put in a safe place and when an intruder tries to open them, they are completely locked out with no way to get in unless the owner is present and is gaining access. Did you know that there is a piece of software known as File StrongBox that does the same thing with crucial information that you might have on your computer? If not, then you should consider the following 3 reasons why you need to get this installed into your computer today.

Safety - If you surf the Internet on a regular basis and you have a static IP address, meaning you use broadband, you are opening up your whole world to anyone that can come in and look at what you're doing. Whether it's simply accessing your digital camera remotely, or looking at your credit card information, you open up the front door of your digital home and let anyone in. This is most likely not intentional, but it can be hidden, by simply looking into protection that is offered through encryption software.

Data Loss Prevention - Have you ever lost a document, video, or accidentally deleted something important? We all have at one point or another, or have met with the blue screen of death and the physical memory started to drop a great deal of files without our consent. This can be thwarted by utilizing the proper tools of the trade to make sure that all files are filtered and if deleted they can be recovered without event.

Temporary File Management - When you surf the web many temporary files get stuck in the process, bloating your computer and filling up your hard drive with files that you don't need or want. This can really affect performance, and can be a difficult thing to manage. With File StrongBox, you can delete all of these files, even the ones that are hidden within certain folders, and you can have a clean and free hard drive that will not be bloated or heavy with files that are not even in use. This type of option cannot be done without deep cleaning or a complete hard drive erasure, which is why this software is bar none a great investment.

The above 3 reasons are just a few things that you will be able to get access to if you pick up this crucial software. If you want to protect yourself from the malicious Internet world, you'll need to have a safety net, and it's found with StrongBox.

If you are looking for information on File StrongBox, click on the link. Or visit the website at http://www.greatxsoftware.com/content/view/31/.

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Today, diversified IT outsourcing companies are genuinely exemplifying the highest cadre of excellence in the services areas of innovation and technology. They are offering unlimited services to the global clients by taking the most creative, proven, sensible and effective approach. They are aimed to offer high-class web development, application maintenance, search engine marketing/Optimization and independent software testing services to optimize business processes. They have dedicated offshore software development teams that are poised to offer productivity and deliver quality solutions to their worldwide clients.

They offer absolute and unwavering commitment towards the success of their customers. They, in fact, never compromise on quality attributes and never promise any miraculous services that they cannot afford to offer. Some of the key differentiators of their integral suite of practice include reusable components, business intelligence, market insight and innovative ideas.

In order to outgrow competitors, these diversified IT outsourcing companies hire one of the best industry resources. They can effectively and productively offer high-end services that need thorough knowledge and experience in top technologies like.Net, SQL Server/ Oracle, VB6 / ASP, Android concepts and much more. Their triggering domain expertise backed by the best talents like business analysts, programmers and testers. This framework allows them to deliver bespoken solutions with exact insights for long term perspective.

Some of the best known services offered are:

Business Consulting

The Business Consulting is often offered by IT outsourcing companies in order to offer effective business & IT solutions. They simply transmute business performance, assimilating strategic perspectives on process improvement as well as IT enablement. They have a professional team that cobbles domain expertise to explore business concerns. Their unchallenged expertise spans industry wide approach, across key business functions, including product development, supply chain management, sales & marketing management, and much more.

Business Intelligence

Today, IT outsourcing companies have a very robust framework and years of relevant experience in offering technological consulting as well as solution accelerators for effective business management. This also includes delivery of marketing and advertising strategies based on the extensive survey results. These companies know how to exploit the product features and enable faster implementations of the software solutions that deliver tangible business benefit.

In essence, these IT outsourcing firms engineer deliver qualitative IT solutions that surely addresses client's concerns. They exhibit converged focus on the on-time product delivery and flexibility in strategic project that they embark on. They approach every project with their best-of-breed talent for a prudent approach and all round versatility that eventually aids to continued progress.

The author is associated with OM SOFTWARE. OM SOFTWARE has been providing an comprehensive set of IT services, such as website design, development & financial software development, custom software application, business application development, etc.

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Unbelievably, bug tracking online systems, also known as web-based issue tracking systems have been ever changing since the original bug tracking system, Bugzilla in 1998. The history of bug tracking systems, with slight advancements in various fields of each one is as follows: Bugzilla in 1998, Mantis Bug Tracker in 2000, Java introduced JIRA in 2003, in 2006 there were two comparable products known as Trac and Redmine, and Pivotal Tracker in 2008. They all have their differences but one of the biggest similarities includes the bug report. The bug report can be split into two categories and is generally the same for all bug tracking software: the information from the person that located the bug and the information from the manager or programmer who tested the bug. This article will describe what kind of report a business might receive if it uses bug tracking online.

Information from the Bug reporter is not a description about a news anchor that goes around finding information on insects, though the information that is covered in this section might use the same method as a news reporter. This information comes from the person that finds the issue and generally asks four big questions: What, When, Who, and How, the same questions a news reporter might ask.
What: This obviously includes the general description of the issue and its program behavior. Also included in this section would be the severity of the issue. It depends on the bug tracking online software how the severity is documented. Some systems might use numbers ranging from one to five, five being something very severe that impacts the whole network and one being something that was already recorded and therefore easy to look up and fix again. Or the systems could use words such as high importance or low importance or critical, and so on.When: This is obviously the time and date on which the bug was found. This is important because then companies can track how long it took to fix the problem.Who: The identity of the person who found the bug is crucial so that companies know whom to turn to if there are issues when fixing it or if something similar happens again.How: A detailed description of how the bug can be reproduced is important to prevent it from happening again.

The list of things in the report from the testing manager is much smaller and includes the severity of the issue (similar to above's What description), the status (which ultimately depends on the bug tracking online software - it could be a number of words including approved, unapproved, assigned and so forth or it could be something as simple as an open/closed workflow), and the programmers that are fixing the bug.

As mentioned above there are a number of different types of bug tracking online software and each of them have different alterations of this report but the general information should be the same. Now companies that are unsure about what kind of report they'll get when using bug tracking online software, will have a better understanding as to what they are getting into.

Businesses that are interested in using bug tracking online, but that have questions about what kind of bug tracking report they will receive will have a better understanding of what to expect after reading this article.

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The Internet world is like the Wild West in many ways. You can go online at any given time and if you're surfing sensitive websites like a bank account or your email, you are opening up the floodgates for a variety of issues. Even if you try to surf the web anonymously, say no to cookies, install many add ons to your browser and have a significant other in the information technology world, you still aren't protected. Unfortunately, in these modern times, hackers are continually exploiting small security loopholes and it doesn't seem like it's going to stop anytime soon. This is especially evident if you turn on the news, as you'll hear of many large websites getting taken down and in the mean time, the culprits are pulling out all the information from their backend, including your credit card information, passwords, and security on your computer. There is a way to stop them and it's as simple as getting folder encryption software installed on your computer.

When you install this type of security suite, you are not getting some run of the mill virus protection, as those are routinely hacked by even novice hacking students. You're getting a full blown Iron Gate put onto all your information, folders, and even Internet files. You won't even know that you have it on, but when a malicious person is seeking out to get you, they'll be met with ones and zeros that they will not be able to decipher, even if they try.

Think about it, would you go out into a minefield without a bomb blast suit? Would you try to do anything dangerous without a security net of some kind? If you answered no, then why would you surf the web without protecting your sensitive files? The world is full of disastrous websites and they seem friendly at first, but as soon as you enter, cookies, malware, spyware, and so much more attach to your operating system's inner workings, leaving you with a zombie computer over time.

Protecting your files is important, especially if you do any type of banking online. If you have ever visited a bank website, you have opened up your information for the whole Internet to see. If you're skeptical, simply search hackers in any search engine and you'll see in the "news" section that many malicious attacks are carried out on a daily basis, so to thwart them, look into folder encryption software that will leave them hopelessly confused.

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