Julian's Blogtech

Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why Smashing Magazine has decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months.

The great Rico Mariani, software performance guru and Chief Architect of Visual Studio (we dig into what this role is exactly...), sits down with us to discuss what's on tap for the next iteration(s) of Visual Studio (Visual Studio 2010) and beyond... If you spend alot of time in VS, then you definitely want to make some time to watch this (and listen carefully). It's a long one, but well worth it. 3/4 of the time is spent answering YOUR questions!

If you haven’t taken a look at the (X)HTML/CSS templates that are available for free from a variety of sources, you may be surprised by the quality you can find. WordPress themes tend to get a lot of exposure and attention in the design community right now, but there is also a wide variety of high-quality (X)HTML/CSS templates that are free of charge.

December features dozens of world-wide events of interest to Web hosters, developers, designers, marketers, and IT professionals. This list comes to us from HostSearch.com.

December features dozens of world-wide events of interest to Web hosters, developers, designers, marketers, and IT professionals. This list comes to us from HostSearch.com.

Learn how Expression Media can help you organize your visual assets and improve your workflow in this overview seminar with trainer Joshua Eklund.

Learn how Expression Media can help you organize your media assets in this detailed seminar by trainer Joshua Eklund. Topics in thsi seminar include importing and catalogs, organizing, and metadate templates.

In this session, learn the Expression Media tools that assist with image editing so you can complete your project all in one place. Topics in this seminar include editing tools from cropping to color correction and version control. 

In this final Expression Media Essentials session, trainer Joshua Eklund explains the various ways Media help you present and share your work.  Topics include slide shows, HTML galleries, Silverlight Galleries, contact sheets and more.

Facing criticism that the beta of its Web Platform Installer didn't support Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft addressed that complaint with the release candidate made available yesterday.

Web PI is a free tool designed to bring together the latest iteration of Internet Information Server, ASP.NET, Visual Web Developer Express, SQL Server and the .NET Framework that Microsoft announced two months ago.

My web design sucks!

If you’re like me you’ve probably said that to yourself at least once in your career. When you browse through sites like cssBeauty and FaveUp, you are wowed by the beautiful designs, and you can’t help but ask yourself “What am I missing?”

I know some freelancers who come from a development background assume that programmers just can’t design. Others have decided to go back to school to take a course in design. But to be honest, when you are already well invested in your career, it’s often not practical or even reasonable to head back to school.

Social networks like Facebook and MySpace have become enormously popular among consumers. But are businesses really prepared to embrace them?

Many businesses aren't ready to throw open their networks to Web 2.0 traffic unless it meets certain thresholds.

There must be a clear business value and assurances that services don't pose a security threat.

Keeping up with holiday errands, parties and travel plans doesn't need to be as difficult as it used to be, thanks to some handy free Web 2.0 apps that you can access from your browser on your family computer or mobile phone.

For these holiday-helper Web 2.0 tools, we had a few sensible criteria in mind. We wanted simple, if not elegant, interfaces that make it easy enough even for the non-techie in the house to log onto and use. Good mobile access was not a requirement but certainly a bonus.

Your website represents your brand. New visitors will form a first impression of your service or product within seconds of arriving at your website, and the visuals, layout and aesthetic will play a large role in shaping that impression. Sure, your website may be very usable and have great content, but it’s the aesthetic that will evoke feeling, and it’s the aesthetic that will be used to judge the quality of your website in those first few seconds before the visitor has had time to browse around.

Get an overview of Expression Encoder basics in this session with trainer Joshua Eklund.  Topics include All-in-one encoding, Rich Media Enhancements, and Publishing. 

Remind me to tell you some time why the IIS team is so evil clever. It' cool to see the first steps of a master plan to make things awesome start to come to fruition.

I've said over and over that IIS7 is rocking sweet and once you start using it, you'll never want to go back. It's all part of the whole /web platform and it's always been ridiculously tedious to install. It's getting WAY easier, all as part of a super-secret master plan I can't tell you about or I'd have to kill you. p>

I have wondered for most of the last couple of years just how long ‘free’, meaning paid for by advertising, services on the web could go on for, and with a recession looming this seems to be the time that this could get cut back. However when I look into this a little more carefully I find that my impression of ‘free’ as a business model supported by advertising is perhaps already out of date as the successful players have used ‘free’ to reach either ‘freemium’ or ‘complementary’ models. Even more interesting it would seem that the ‘complementary’ models are an integral part of Cloud Computing.

Twitter, the free social networking and micro-blogging service, is the newest hip online destination for spreading and receiving information about your products and services. But how do you maximize the impact Twitter can have on your SMB’s social media strategy?

The advent of social media has changed the nature of relationships forever, be they personal, professional or commercial. Twitter, the product of a research and development project at San Francisco-based Odeo, has become a valuable communication platform for enterprise-level firms and mom and pop shops alike. Twitter is currently the fastest growing social-networking site in the U.S.

Every now and again Smashing Magazine takes a look around, selects “fresh” high-quality free fonts and presents them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. They search for them and they find them, so you don’t have to.

In this selection they’re glad to present you Aller Sans, Mayberry Pro SemiBold, Quicksand, Agrafa Hairline, Sketch Rockwell, Megalopolis Extra and a couple of other high-quality free fonts. Please read the license agreements carefully before using the fonts — the license can change from time to time.

Social networking tools like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and others offer SMBs new ways to build communities and your brand. Here are the best ways to build both at the same time.

In today’s business climate, money is tight and competition is fierce. The Internet and 24-hour news cycle flood our brains with information and advertising. But how much of it sticks?