There’s quite some debate over wether the newly released tablet iPad from Apple is going to be competitive enough to pose a threat to your PC Browser or the News-stand Print . The switch from Print Magazines & Publications to Internet / Digital versions of their content was a natural, smooth transition – and it grew with the Web itself.

Let’s see what are some of the features iPad developers utilize to expose Magazines and Publications on the tablet. The advantages to the end user are mostly focused around the more dynamic visual rendering, and it allows for better interactivity due to the tablet’s native multi-touch browsing. There are good news for Publication & Magazine Advertisers as well, for the iPad device can showcase some pretty Ads. These lists leave room for growth, as it happened with the iPhones.

Native iPad App for Publication Features:

Enhanced Native App Advertising for the iPad:

If you need Media development for the iPad click here and visit our iPad Section

The iPhone 4G

I was watching Steve Jobs introducing the new iPhone 4G today and I have to admit, I was amused at his “stop me if you’ve seen this” joke. Of course we have. But we like the iPhone 4G, so we’ll forgive Apple. Steve just gave us another revolutionary iPhone so that we can make calls and enjoy the Apps.

Another new release from Apple is their new OS4, which introduces quite a few neat and useful features. This comes at only a couple of months after the release of the new tablet iPad. We shall discuss Apple OS4 and its impact on the iPhone and iPad as well in a different post. We offer both – App development for the iPhone and App development for the iPad, so this was good news to come along.

Let’s see what the iPhone 4G brings to the table:

iPhone 4G Facetime

It’s true, people have been dreaming about video calls for a long time. iPhone 4 makes it a reality. With just a tap, users can wave hello to their friends, or share a smile from across the globe. This now works from an iPhone 4G to an iPhone 4G over Wi-Fi. The Facetime feature works right out of the iPhone 4G box.

There is no need to set up a special account or screen name to use the iPhone 4G Facetime. It is also very user friendly. Let’s say you want to start a video call with your best friend. Just find the contact entry in the Contacts list and tap the FaceTime button. Or maybe you’re already on a voice call with them and you want to switch to video. You just have tou tap the FaceTime button on the Phone screen. Either way, an invitation pops up on her iPhone 4 screen asking if your party wants to join you. When they accept, the video call begins. It’s all perfectly seamless. And it works in both portrait and landscape modes.

Two Video Cameras for video calling.

The iPhone 4G has two built-in cameras, one on the front above the display, which focuses on you, and one on the back next to the LED flash. The front camera has been tuned for FaceTime. It has just the right field of view and focal length to focus on your face at arm’s length. So it always presents the subject in the best possible light. FaceTime lets you switch back and forth between cameras at any time during a video call. All you have to do is tap a button.

The new iPhone 4G Retina Display

The Retina display on iPhone 4G is the sharpest, most vibrant, highest-resolution phone screen ever, with four times the pixel count of previous iPhone models. In fact, the pixel density is so high that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels, which makes text amazingly crisp and images stunningly sharp.

By developing pixels only 78 micrometers wide, Apple engineers were able to pack four times the number of pixels into the same 3.5-inch (diagonal) screen found on earlier iPhone models. The resulting pixel density of iPhone 4G — 326 pixels per inch — makes text and graphics look smooth and continuous at any size.

The iPhone 4G Retina display uses technology called IPS (in-plane switching) — the same technology used in the Apple LED Cinema Display and iPad — to achieve a wider viewing angle than on typical LCDs. Which means you can hold an iPhone 4G almost any way you want and still get a brilliant picture. That’s perfect for sharing photos with a friend or moving your iPhone around while playing a driving or flying game. In addition, the Retina display offers four times the contrast ratio of previous models, so whites are brighter, blacks are darker, and everything is more beautiful.

Made from the same materials used in helicopters and high-speed trains, the Retina display glass is chemically strengthened to be harder, more scratch resistant, and more durable than ever. The glass also features an oil-resistant coating (oleophobic) that helps keep the screen clean.

The Retina display includes LED backlighting and an ambient light sensor that intelligently adjusts the brightness of the screen for optimal viewing and battery life. When you lift an iPhone 4G to your ear for a phone call, a proximity sensor immediately turns off the display to save power and prevent accidental dialing.

iPhone 4G Multitasking

iPhone 4G introduces a new way of multitasking. Now iPhone 4G users can run their favorite third-party Apps — and switch between them instantly — without slowing down the performance of the foreground App or draining the battery unnecessarily.

The multitasking user interface allows you to quickly switch between recently used Apps. Just double-clicking the Home button reveals your recently used apps. Scrolling right allows you to see more Apps, and you just have to tap one to reopen it.

There is no need to wait for the App to reload as it picks up where you left off when you return to the App. You can jump right back into playing your game, reading the news, finding a restaurant, or whatever you were doing.
You can listen to audio in the background from compatible third-party Apps while checking e-mail, surfing the web, playing games, and performing other tasks.

Multitasking in iPhone 4 makes it possible to receive Skype or Voice over IP calls while other Apps are running, even when your iPhone is locked. During a phone call, you can keep the conversation going while you switch to another task, such as checking a movie listing or reading an e-mail.

Apps that use GPS can continue to run in the background. Not only do they constantly update your position, they can also give you spoken turn-by-turn directions as you listen to music (the music volume lowers while the directions are spoken). It’s perfect for Social Networking Apps as well.

HD Video Recording and Editing comes to the iPhone 4G. With the iPhone 4G you can shoot your own movies in High Definition. You may capture impressive video even in low-light settings, thanks to the advanced backside illumination sensor and built-in LED light. You are able to edit and create your own mini-masterpiece right on the iPhone 4 using the new iMovie app — with Apple-designed themes, titles, and transitions.

The iPhone 4G 5MP Camera

The iPhone 4G is equipped with a 5-Megapixel Camera with LED Flash and 5x digital zoom. The 5MP camera built into iPhone 4 captures amazingly detailed images. A built-in LED flash illuminates low-light scenes so that you can capture great pictures in darker settings. And the 5x digital zoom gets you closer to the action. The new front-facing camera makes it easy to take self-portraits.

At a candlelit dinner, on the beach at night, or wherever the light’s not bright, you can still get great shots with the iPhone 4G. The advanced backside illumination sensor allows you to shoot low-light photos that are brighter and clearer than ever before. And the iPhone 4G includes a built-in LED flash that automatically fires when it’s needed.

Self-portraits are made simple. The new VGA-quality front camera on the iPhone 4G makes it easy. No need to flip your iPhone around to guess where you are in the frame. Instead, just activate the front camera with a tap, check your image on the display, and shoot.

Autofocus keeps things sharp and the macro lens takes great close-ups. But you can also tap the iPhone display to focus on anything in the picture (like a face in the background) before you take a photo. Focusing also adjusts exposure and white balance automatically, so you get the best-quality photo possible.

You can easily share your photos with the iPhone 4G via e-mail or MMS from the Camera App. Or post them directly to your MobileMe gallery, where friends and family can browse and download them. Every photo you take is geo-tagged with information about your location, which you can save to your computer and share with iPhoto, Aperture, Flickr, or other compatible Applications and Services.

The iPhone 4G: No doubt – competitive and forward-thinking

We are over-all pleased with these new features brought about with the introduction of the iPhone 4G, and we are confident Apple will continue to entertain us in the future with revolutionary devices. We will continue to develop Apps for iPhone, as well as its bigger brother – the iPad. So don’t forget to check out our development pages, and, if you are looking to develop iPhone or iPad Apps, we are here to consult

Click here to visit our iPhone App & Software Development section

Click here to visit our iPad App & Software Development section

What is pop-up advertising?

Pop-up ads are one of the many forms of online advertising that are used on the internet to attract people to a website. Pop-up ads in combination with other advertising methods can help capture as much traffic as possible. Pop-up advertising is usually located on some website and opens up, when the website is loaded or some period of time after it is loaded. Pop-up advertising mostly uses JavaScript, but the technology also allowed flash pop-up advertising, which offers a lot more features and gives a number of advantages.

Pop-up ads usually open up on top of a website, which is already opened. But there is a variation of pop-up ads, called pop-under advertising. Such ads open in a different window of your browser underneath the active window, so you might not notice them right away when they open up, but you will see them some time after. Pop-under ads are not interrupting, but will be seen after the active window is closed.

Pop-up advertising can be used to display information, which might be interesting for the user, without disrupting the page, which he currently has open. You can use such helpful pop-ups for software download functions on your website or in the form section of your website, for example, when help is necessary (then the help window can open in a pop-up window, without losing the information already entered in the form).

Pop-up blocking.

The major disadvantage of pop-up ads, which are generated with JavaScript, is pop-up blocking. Opera was the first big browser, which offered pop-up blocking tools, and by 2002 all major browsers, except for IE, had integrated some kind of pop-up blocking software. However, the modern pop-up advertising software allows skipping pop-up blocks. The advantage of flash pop-up ads is that it bypasses blockers of pop-up advertising.

Customizable flash pop-up ads.

Our customizable flash pop-up tool allows users to customize both design and content of flash pop-up advertising in just a few minutes and see the results just after a few simple clicks! You will be able to completely control the appearance and motion of your flash pop-up, as you will have the ability to choose font style and size, add images, icons, choose colors and dimensions, and a lot more. All these can be done in a simple user-friendly interface.

Properties of customizable flash pop-up.

Using customization tools for our flash pop-up window you will be able to:

1. set time for delayed appearance for your flash pop-up ad;
2. choose angle of movement during appearance;
3. choose speed of movement during appearance;
4. define the position of your flash pop-up advertising on the screen after appearance;
5. adjust the size of your flash pop-up window from very small and up to full-screen pop-up.

Inside the flash pop-up you will have even more customizable features. Among them:

1. Adding, creating and changing multiple different backgrounds;
2. Adding and changing images;
3. Allows working with images and html;
4. Creating clickable buttons and setting their time of appearance inside the pop-up ad;
5. Link buttons inside the pop-up window to a website or link on a website;
6. Text editing tools;
7. Adding different texts, backgrounds and images for each background of your Flash pop-up ad;
8. And a lot more …

Using Text tool you will be able to create a text field and select font and its size, choose color for the font and define its style.

With this advanced but at the same time very easy-to-use tool you will be able to create as many flash pop-ups as you need and manage them easily. Enjoy the advantages of pop-up advertising with our modern software for customizable flash pop-up windows!

Flex shopping cart – Latest Technology, in Style !
Being at the forefront of the Adobe Flex development technology it was but a natural step for us at EcomSolutions.net to build an enterprise level Flex Shopping Cart that brings page less navigation to your E-commerce interface. The Flex Shopping Cart is a full-blown RIA component that can be incorporated into any workflow and E-commerce requirement.

Read the rest of this entry »

Advantages of hosting your ColdFusion Website or Application with a ColdFusion Developer

So you have a ColdFusion Website or a ColdFusion Application and you are looking for hosting. The question here is should you host with any provider, or look out for those hosting Providers that have ColdFusion specialists on hand? Some businesses look at, and prefer hosting with ColdFusion Developers that actually offer CF Hosting as an additional Service.

There are several advantages to hosting your ColdFusion systems with a ColdFusion Hosting Provider that also has ColdFusion programmers or resources on hand:

1. You can rely on a competent CF Network Architecture, proper and dedicated ColdFusion Environment, updates / patching done without trial and error episodes, and advanced CF knowledge

2. ColdFusion Development Firms that offer hosting as a service typically know what resides on their coldfusion hosting servers even if they didnt develop the ColdFusion Website or ColdFusion Application.

3. If there is a problem with ColdFusion hosting, an intervention will be more competent (remember, ColdFusion Development Firms often work on live servers, unless they have set up a mirror ColdFusion development environment).

4. Major advantage – If you need any changes to the ColdFusion Website, a ColdFusion specialist is available right away, or much faster than a remote ColdFusion developer.

5. The ColdFusion Development Firm specializes in ColdFusion and doesn’t need to babysit other unrelated Websites or Applications

6. A ColdFusion Developer that offers ColdFusion hosting as a service typically has a dedicated ColdFusion Department within their Firm, complete with ColdFusion Programmers, ColdFusion Analysts, and project managers that can be at your service

7. Major advantage – ColdFusion Developers may offer discount rates for ColdFusion Development if you decide to also host with them, rather than just use them for ColdFusion development. The discount of sometimes even $5-$10 per hour off of the normal ColdFusion development rate can be often significant over a savings of only a few dollars in a a year of Hosting with a regular Hosting Provider

8. Requested changes, maintenance, components, functionality features, media or content updates, will be completed faster during regular hours, as well as in case of short notice / emergencies

Disadvantages of Hosting your ColdFusion Application with a ColdFusion developer:

• Hosting on a different continent, or a different country / time zone (Eg. India, Pakistan, South Asia, etc.) Those deals might seem cheap, but trust me … you will pay the price later

Click on the logo for ColdFusion Hosting with ColdFusion Developers

Adobe is currently working on ColdFusion 9 (Codename: Centaur). There is no release date set, but the list of potential new features include :

• Ability to code User Defined Functions (UDFs) and ColdFusion Components (CFC’s) entirely in CFScript.
• An explicit “local” scope that does not require local variables to be declared at the top of the function.
• Implicit getters/setters for CFC.
• Implicit constructors via method called “init” or method with same name as CFC.
• New CFFinally tag for Exception handling syntax and CFContinue tag for Control flow.
• Object-relational mapping (ORM) Database integration through Hibernate (Java).
• Server.cfc file with onServerStart and onServerEnd methods.
• Tighter integration with Adobe AIR.

Apple on Monday released for download a significant update to its Leopard operating system for Mac computers.

OS X 10.5.6 includes at least three dozen fixes for issues ranging from print reliability to archiving problems. The update also offers “general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac,” according to Apple.

Adobe Flex Development and Examples
Want to give your visitors, clients and customers a killer experience on your website by providing them with a cutting-edge interface?  With integrated Flex Development your online Applications can work as fast as Desktop Applications.  Take a look at our Adobe Flex Examples. The speed of Adobe Flex, coupled with exceptional design, security, and usability is the main reason why more and more businesses and organizations are partnering with Flex Development Teams that can create extremely fast Online Applications leveraging the Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology provided by Adobe’s Flex

How does Flex Development revolutionize the way your clients do business with you?
It’s all about speed these days. Just follow the link at the bottom and take a look at some Adobe Flex Examples. Long gone is the time when to update even a tiny bit of information on a webpage the user either needed to be directed to another page or needed to refresh the current page.  With Flex Development the current page behaves like a Desktop Application – only the information that needs to change will change, while everything else remains static on the Webpage; no need to load another page or reload the existing page.

Whenever you go to another page or reload the existing page everything on that page is reloaded.  This may include images, shopping cart items and the various scripts you may be using.  This not only means excessive use of your bandwidth it also means your Website technology seems archaic and slow to your clients. The entire thing especially becomes cumbersome if you are using online word processor or software that requires lots of updates with great speed. Websites and Online Applications developed using Adobe Flex allow the users to keep working while the data is being updated on the page, that is, they don’t have to wait while the page is being reloaded or refreshed.

Another example would be showing results from a database or sorting various columns alphabetically – or according to a certain value.  If such an application is developed in Flex the user can simply click the appropriate link and the column gets sorted immediately on the same page – without having to refresh the page.

What exactly is Flex Development?
Flex is a collection of technologies developed and marketed by Adobe and it is primarily used for developing and deploying cross-platform Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with great speed and efficiency. Flex takes the abilities of Flash development to the next level.  Flash is all about animating various webpage objects based on a timeline.  An interactive Application developed with Flex on the other hand does not function based on a timeline, and lots of interaction takes place according to user response. This is achieved by saving the necessary logic and data on the client side instead of fetching them from the server again and again; this improves speed and efficiency tremendously. Flex development combines interactivity, usability, compatibility, adaptability and desktop-like richness to bring you an unmatched user experience. Our Adobe Flex examples are here to support the statement.

Since Applications and Website components developed with Adobe Flex can be easily embedded into existing pages, they can be used with almost every programming language and platform.  This means whether you have a Website developed in ColdFusion, ASP.NET, JAVA, or PHP you can easily incorporate and seamlessly integrate Flex Development. Adobe Flex can be customized to fit any industry and concepts.

So, to unleash the power of contemporary Web Development technologies think about using Flex Development for your next project or even your ongoing project, in order to redefine the way people use your Online Applications and browse your Website.

Examples of Flex Development and it’s advantages:

Flex Development – Overview & Description

Example of Flex Development – Shopping Cart – Fashion Industry

Example of Flex Development – Shopping Cart – Electronics Commerce

Publication systems
With more and more organizations and people using the Internet to generate, manage and distribute their Publications there is a great demand for highly competitive Enterprise Level Online Publication Systems. An Online Publication System helps you perform the following functions with your Website through an Internet connection:

•    Create content repository
•    Manage existing content and create new content
•    Maintain various versions of the same document
•    Allocate excess to different authors and editors
•    Cutting-edge word processing and document management facilities
•    Real-time updating
•    Inventory management
•    Subscriber management
•    Order tracking and notification
•    Record-keeping
•    Layout integration
•    Report generation – both manual and automatic
•    Routine backups
•    One-click publishing Read the rest of this entry »