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Fukushima and Chernobyl Side-by-Side

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WPTavern: WordPress Powering Practically Half Of The Top 10,000 Websites

BuiltWith Trends is an analytics company that provides weekly updated free information about the most popular technologies used on the web such as advertising, frameworks, ecommerce and content management systems. Their CMS page lists the distribution of popular CMS solutions across the top million, top one-hundred thousand, and top ten-thousand websites. It should be no surprise that WordPress takes the majority of the pie in each section but amongst the three different categories, there is something that I find interesting. For instance, amongst the top 100,000 websites, Vbulletin has a 3.42% share while amongst the top 10,000 websites, it has a 9.35% share. Amongst the top one million sites, Drupal has a share of 2.82% but within the top 10,000 websites, has a share of 23.33%.

These numbers change on a weekly basis as their stats update but what this shows me is that there could be a lot of people using a particular CMS but that doesn’t necessarily translate into those sites having high traffic. I’m pretty impressed to see that WordPress powers practically half of the top 10,000 websites recorded by BuiltWith Trends. It’s also worthy of noting that Drupal commands just about a quarter of those sites showcasing that systems ability to handle massive websites.

Related posts:

1. Nominate WordPress In The OpenSource CMS Awards
2. WordPress Projects Still In Huge Demand
3. WordPress.org Should Scare You

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple, Tim Cook Named as Successor

Steve Jobs has announced his resignation as CEO of Apple. He will remain chairman of the board of directors. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook has been named as his replacement. The Apple co-founder has taken medical leave for health problems this year, fueling much speculation about Apple's life after Steve. The swift confirmation of Cook as CEO indicates a smooth transition as part of Apple's succession plan.

From inspiring Windows to pioneering creative uses of personal computers to popularizing quality industrial design and mobile media consumption, to finally delivering on the sci-fi promise of tablet computing, Jobs has been at the forefront of global cultural evolution for decades.

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The Steve Jobs Legacy
After co-founding Apple with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, Jobs was absent for a tumultuous period of Apple's history between 1985 and 1997, during which he founded NeXT Computer and Pixar.

Apple's acquisition of NeXT brought Jobs back into the fold, and the era that followed brought us the iMac, the iPod, and all the successive innovations in personal computing and digital media that followed. This year, Apple has launched a major release of Mac OS X, and the iOS 5 update for its mobile devices is set to launch this fall. Jobs' vision for Apple's range of products has made the company one of the most valuable in the world.

The Right Man For the Job
COO Tim Cook, who will succeed Jobs as CEO, has made much of this success possible by ensuring efficient supply chains and exclusive access to parts and materials for the manufacture of Apple's hardware. Thanks to Cook's operational vision, Apple's new family of devices has made it difficult for other companies to compete on both quality and price.

The iPad dominates the tablet market, which has so upended PC sales that HP left the PC business entirely, citing the punishing reality of the "tablet effect." Cook has been instrumental in shaping Apple's current strategy, and he already acted as CEO while Jobs was on medical leave.

Apple's board of directors issued this press release today:

CUPERTINO, Calif., Aug 24, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Apple's Board of Directors today announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as Chief Executive Officer, and the Board has named Tim Cook, previously Apple's Chief Operating Officer, as the company's new CEO. Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board and Cook will join the Board, effective immediately.

"Steve's extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world's most innovative and valuable technology company," said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple's Board. "Steve has made countless contributions to Apple's success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple's immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration."

"The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO," added Levinson. "Tim's 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does."

Jobs submitted his resignation to the Board today and strongly recommended that the Board implement its succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO.

Business Insider has Jobs' resignation letter to Apple and its board of directors.

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Photo credit: Apple

21 top tools for responsive web design

WordPress.tv: Mark Jaquith: Scaling, Servers, and Deploys — Oh My!

1 Million Teacher & Student Blogs Now Published on Edublogs.org

Australian educational blogging platform EduBlogs announced this week that it now hosts more than 1 million blogs published by teachers and students. The six year old, 15 person company offers free blogs, paid blogs and campus-based blog networks. It's all built on top of WordPress and parent company IncSub says Edublogs is the second most-popular WordPress site online. (Presumably after WordPress.com.)

Edublogs celebrated hosting 100,000 blogs in the Fall of 2007. The growth of blogging in education is an important development.

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Two weeks ago, wikis and mapping integration were launched on the platform.

Edublogs used to offer a video hosting alternative to YouTube called Edublogs.tv as well, but took that site offline a year ago this month. The company said it would return but so far it hasn't.

That blog reading and writing has proliferated throughout the world of education is no doubt a boon to the efforts of educators. By helping teachers supplement classroom instruction, compare notes with peers and communicate online with students learning to express themselves in newly accessible public fora - education blogging is one of the best examples of meaningful application of a technology so often derided as shallow and of little importance just a few short years ago when organizations like Edublogs.org launched.

Must-read: Switching the display of content and navigation based on browser size

JEREMY KEITH: “Right after I wrote about combining flexbox with responsive design—to switch the display of content and navigation based on browser size—I received an email from Raphaël Goetter. He pointed out a really elegant solution to the same use-case that makes use of display:table.”

Elegant indeed! Follow the delightfully simple code and explanation at Adactio: Journal—Re-tabulate.

Top 10 Mobile Web Development JavaScript Frameworks

Weblog Tools Collection: WordPress Theme Releases for 8/13

Minimal is a warm gold, basically simple, professional theme that would be ideal for blogs or websites of any kind.

Radio is a clean, shiny, and perfect for blogs or websites related to radio, broadcasting, news, public speaking, etc.

San Kloud is a blogging theme focused on typography and content.

Twenty Eleven AJAX is an AJAX-powered Twenty Eleven child theme.

Xkcd Password Generator Creates Long, Easy-to-Remember Passwords [Passwords]

Password Strength

Weblog Tools Collection: WordPress Plugin Releases for 8/7

New plugins

Header Image Slider allows you to easily build a slider of your header images.

Most Shared allows you to display, as a widget, which of your blog posts have the most social shares.

Updated plugins

Jetpack supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.

Theme-Check allows you to run checks on the current theme before uploading to WordPress. This plugin uses the same API and is kept more or less in sync with the WordPress.org uploader tool.

UI Labs offers experimental WordPress admin UI features with the aim of building upon and enhancing the default WordPress User Interface. These are unofficial core UI experiments – who knows what could happen?

Review Of Cross-Browser Testing Tools

At some point in the future, the way that all major browsers render Web code will likely be standardized, which will make testing across multiple browsers no longer necessary as long as the website is coded according to Web standards. But because that day is still a way off (if it will really come at all), testing your design the advanced browsers as well as legacy browsers is a necessary part of any project.

The old-school way to test code was to load your website on as many computers as you could find, using as many different combinations of browsers and operating systems as possible. That was fine if you had access to a bunch of different computers (and had some time to kill). But there are much more efficient ways to test across browsers, using either free or commercial Web services and software. In this article we review some of the most useful ones.

Free Cross-Browser Testing

Good news: very powerful free testing tools are available for Web designers today. Some are more user-friendly than others, and some have significantly better user interfaces. Don’t expect much (if any) support with these tools. But if you’d rather not spend extra money on testing, some great options are here as well.

Adobe BrowserLab

Adobe BrowserLab is a free cross-browser compatibility tool that lets you test a number of modern and legacy browsers, including various versions of Chrome, Safari, IE and Firefox. It gives you a number of ways to view pages, including a full-page view in a single browser, as well as side-by-side comparisons of browsers and an onion skin view. The service can access dynamic pages across the web, or viewed locally via Firebug or Adobe Dreamweaver CS5. The ability to create pre-defined browser sets is also useful, in case you don’t need to test on older browsers.

Browsershots

Browsershots is probably the most comprehensive free testing tool available. It includes Linux, Windows and BSD browsers. It also includes a number of browsers you’ve probably never heard of (like Galeon, Iceape, Kazehakase and Epiphany). For the most part, Browsershots tests on the most recent version of each browser, as well as on legacy versions.

While Browsershots does support a huge variety of browsers, the more you test, the more slowly it prepares the results. So, you may want to stick to the major browsers.

SuperPreview

SuperPreview is Microsoft’s offering in this space (and it’s compatible only with Windows). It lets you define your own “baseline” (or default) browser, and it works with any browser installed on your system (and comes with the IE6 rendering engine built in). The fact that it only works with your built-in browsers does make it faster (because you’re not uploading anything or waiting for a remote server), but it also limits the number of browsers you can compare.

SuperPreview is free, and will eventually become a part of Expression Web. In an online version, you have support for Chrome, Safari (Mac) 4+5, Firefox 3+4. You can also use an interactive mode to log into sites that require a login before displaying the page you want to test. There are also debugging tools for the DOM and onion skinning available in Adobe Browserlabs. Unfortunately, there is no support for Opera whether installed locally or in the cloud and you do have to have the version included with Expression Web to get the cloud services option but the base version with support for IE 6, IE 7, IE 8 (and IE 8 rendering as IE 7) are included with the free version as well as IE 9 if it is installed locally. (Thanks, Cheryl D Wise)

Lunascape 6

Lunascape is a triple-engine browser for Windows. It runs Trident (IE), Gecko (Firefox) and Webkit (Chrome and Safari), so that you can see how your website looks in all three, side by side. While it’s not a traditional browser compatibility tester, it is nonetheless a useful tool for designers and developers. One major benefit is that you get to view your website instantly in all three major rendering engines. There’s also support for Firefox extensions and plug-ins, so you can use developer tools like Firebug to diagnose compatibility problems.

IETester

IETester is a free (both for personal and professional usage) browser for Windows that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE10 preview, IE9, IE8, IE7, IE6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE. Only an alpha version of the tool is available. Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP with IE7 minimum are required for the tool to run.

IE NetRenderer

IE NetRenderer lets you check compatibility in Internet Explorer versions 5.5 through 9. You’ll have to check each version individually, but the service is free.

Spoon

Spoon is an application emulation service. It provides free versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari for Windows users. A number of versions of each browser are included: Firefox 2–5, Chrome 4–8, Safari 3–5 and Opera 9–10. Bad news: Internet Explorer is supported by Spoon virtualization but is not available by request of Microsoft.

Browsera (free and commercial)

Browsera provides automated compatibility testing. It automatically highlights differences in the way browsers render your design, thus simplifying the testing process. It also detects JavaScript errors, and the commercial version can test pages behind subscription or log-in walls. It can also test dynamic pages.

The free plan includes a limited number of browsers and low-resolution screenshots. Premium plans start at $39 for a single project and $49 to $99 for monthly subscriptions, and they support more browsers, provide high-resolution screenshots and let you test private pages.

Browserling (free and commercial)

Browserling is a relatively new cross-browser testing app. It supports a limited number of browsers (and not necessarily the newest versions), which makes it of limited use to some developers. It’s still in beta, though, so hopefully more browsers will be supported in the near future.

The free version comes with a five-minute session limit, and the developer version is $20 per month with no time limit.

Commercial Cross-Browser Testing

Commercial tools often have features not found in the free ones, including live interactive browser virtualization and mobile device testing.

Mogotest

Mogotest does complete browser-compatibility testing, including for private pages. There’s an API, so it can be integrated in your current tools and workflow. Mogotest also offers a website health report that tells you about broken links and pages, redirect loops and other issues common to new websites. The service also offer screenshot comparison tools for testing screenshots against each other as well as site-level testing including page consistency testing and individual page tests. HTTP basic and cookie-based login systems are supported as well.

There are two plans for individuals: a personal plan starting at $15 per month that lets you test up to 50 pages on three websites, and a freelancer plan for $45 per month that includes up to 10 websites and 350 pages. The team plans start at $125 per month and go up to $4499+ for unlimited access. The two highest-cost plans include custom reports.

Cloud Testing

Cloud Testing offers functional cross-browser testing. You record the user journey with your browser and Selenium IDE, upload it, and then Cloud Testing will run that script in multiple operating systems and browsers. It then provides screenshots and HTML and component diagnostics. No prices are listed on its website.

BrowserCam

BrowserCam includes testing tools for both desktop and mobile browser compatibility (the latter is still absent in many other tools). It also offers remote access for live testing on Windows, Linux and OS X configurations, and email capture for checking your HTML, RTF and TXT emails.

Pricing for BrowserCam starts at only $19.95 per day for a single service (and $24.95 for the browser, remote access and email capture package), up to an annual subscription price of $399.95 for a single service (and $499.95 for browser capture, remote access, email capture and multi-user access, or $999.95 for all of those features plus device capture).

Multi-Browser Viewer

Multi-Browser Viewer covers both desktop and mobile browsers. It includes 26 virtualized Web browsers, 5 mobile browsers (including the iPhone and iPad) and 61 screenshot browsers (meaning you can see how the website renders but not interact with it). It’s also available in five languages: English, Spanish, German, Russian and French.

Multi-Browser Viewer is $139.95 for a single-user license and includes a year of product usage and updates. Updates after the first year are currently $99.95. A free trial is available through the website.

CrossBrowserTesting

CrossBrowserTesting provides live interactive browser testing with remote VNC sessions. It also generates automated screenshots across multiple browsers for more basic testing. There are more than 100 browser and operating system combinations, including many mobile platforms.

Monthly subscriptions range from $29.95 to $199.95, depending on the number of users and the minutes of testing (minutes can roll over to the next month, but they’re not unlimited). A one-week free trial is available for all plans.

Testing Services Compared

The chart below shows the basic features offered by these cross-browser testing services and applications, making it quick and easy to compare.

Conclusion

Regardless of the tool you choose, testing early and often during the Web development process can save you from a lot of headaches later. Find a tool that fits your workflow (so that you’ll actually want to use it and it won’t be a hassle), and test whenever you make major changes to a design.

What tools do you use for cross-browser testing?

How has your experience been with cross-browser testing tools and services? Which ones do you use? How do you integrate cross-browser testing in your professional workflow? Let us know in the comments!

Related Posts

You might be interested in the following related articles:

• Review of Popular Web Font Embedding Services
• Review of Text Batch Processing Tools
• Useful Resources, Tools and Services for Web Designers
• Time-Saving and Educational Resources for Web Designers

(al)

© Cameron Chapman for Smashing Magazine, 2011.

Computer Vision Syndrome: Do Your Eyes Have It? Here’s Help [INFOGRAPHIC]

Feeling bleary-eyed after a long day in front of your various screens? Here’s an infographic full of tips and techniques to ease your eyes into the digital world, showing you ways to cope with staring into screens all day.

If that’s not enough, the infographic gives you a peek at present and future tech that will make your eyes positively bionic, as well as new devices doctors are now using to diagnose eye problems much more efficiently than ever.

This must be getting bad — Those Acronym-Making People (TAMP — okay, I made that one up) have created one for the eye health problems that ensue after staring at screens for an average of six hours per day: CVS, or Computer Vision Syndrome:

Infographic created by Mezzmer Eyeglasses

More About: computer vision syndrome, CVS, eyestrain, health, infographic, trending, vision

For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:

• Follow Mashable Tech & Gadgets on Twitter
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Con Android si può: controllare Canon EOS DSLR da smartphone!

DSLR Controller non sarà certo un’applicazione che in molti scaricheranno, non diventerà la più usata nel mondo Android e certamente non risulterà utile a a tante persone. È comunque molto interessante vedere come, con sviluppo e fantasia, Android riesca ad adattarsi agli utilizzi più particolari riuscendo a soddisfare le esigenze di tutti. DSLR Controller in pratica è un software che permette di interfacciare la Canon EOS con uno smartphone o Tablet Android che supporto l’USB on The Go.

Indubbiamente rivolto agli amanti della fotografia, il programma offre completo accesso alla fotocamera dallo schermo touch del device che è stato configurato. Tantissime le opzioni disponibili, compresa la modalità live view che, con una frame rate di 15 fps offre la visualizzazione live dell’obbiettivo della camera.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnxvFYza6Y4

Si tratta al momento di un’applicazione Beta anche se ben realizzata.

Se oggi con questi nuovi device si riescono a fare app simili, con i prossimi smartphone e Ice Cream, le nuove API e i nuovi controlli possibili dove arriveremo?

Nome: DSLR Controller
Sviluppatore: Chainfire
Prezzo: €5.59
Installa App dal PC

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Weblog Tools Collection: How WordPress Beat Joomla!

This is a Guest Post by Dan Norris. Dan might be writing more for Weblog Tools Collection in the near future. So please stay tuned.

5 years ago when I started Web Circle I did a bunch of research on which CMS to choose and decided on Joomla!.

For a year or so it was the CMS we used for pretty much every website and it was very sophisticated for what it could do at the time – particularly with the growing extensions directory. However as time went on and WordPress got better and better we gradually moved to using WordPress for most of our small business websites.

Since these days we focus predominantly on small business website design, WordPress has become the platform we use for the majority of our new sites (note we also still use Joomla!).

In 2006

In 2006 WordPress was seen mainly as a blogging tool and Joomla! was in my view the CMS with the most potential. I haven’t come across specific market share figures from the time but have a look at this Google Trends screenshot.

ABOVE: Screenshot showing 2006 Google searches – Joomla (blue) and WordPress (red)

There were some niggly things about each platform which people used to mention. The things about WordPress tended to be around it’s lack of flexibility in display, it’s focus mainly on blogging, limited menu capabilities etc. The Joomla issues were security and usability (particularly the way it separated menus and content items / articles).

So rewind to 2006, what did each platform need to do to win this race? There are a lot of complicating factors. One big one is WordPress managed to gain a huge foll0wing with it’s free hosted version WordPress.com – this no doubt propelled it’s uptake and spread the word particularly among DIY web builders (not so much developers).

But let’s just say the job of each system back then was pretty straight forward. Think of it like a business, you need to listen to your customers and give them what they want. So in other words, improve on the things that people don’t like about the system and make it so people do like it.

Both systems were free, both had a good market share and relatively equal potential to win this race.

Perhaps this is a simple view but let’s look at what happened.

The situation now

This chart shows Joomla! and WordPress searches over all years available.

ABOVE: Screenshot showing 2006 Google searches – Joomla! (blue) and WordPress (red)

In terms of Market Share, in the 2008 Water and Stone Open Source CMS Report Joomla! downloads were about 25% of WordPress downloads. In the 2010 report they were 11%. I’m guessing the 2011 report will show a similar trend.

Some reports show WordPress market share to be as high as 63%.

So what happened?

Let’s assume that both systems were actively going after this DIY or small business type market (it’s worth noting that Joomla! has a big uptake among Governments and Universities etc and we still use it a lot for more complicated sites). What has WordPress done since 2006 and what has Joomla! done?

First off WordPress has managed to shrug it’s blogging history by bringing out new and improved features that have made it into a great platform for non-blog type sites (growing extensions, better menu management etc). But it’s managed to do it while also winning the battle with Movable Type on the blog front – during a time where the popularity of blogging has exploded – further spreading the word to people who want a blog as part of their site or even to those who want other sites that aren’t blogs and grew to love the platform.

Joomla! on the other hand hasn’t really dealt with the issues that were common back in 2006. Note that Joomla! is an entirely community driven system which does make things challenging when competing in a space filled mostly with systems with commercial backing (like WordPress). However Joomla has improved a lot since 2006 with 2 major version releases and the uptake in some sectors like Government etc has been very good. But did they fix those niggly issues that existed back in 2006? Let’s break it down.

1. Security

The main problem with security in Joomla! is not that the system is less secure than other systems. The problem is that when new versions come out, it’s a pain in the backside to upgrade the system. First of all you don’t even really know that the system is out of date (how hard would it be to put a notification up the top like WordPress does) but secondly the process for patching Joomla! is one that a web developer has to do – and even a web developer will take a while to do it. WordPress on the other hand can all be done by the site owner with a couple of clicks.

So even with the latest version of Joomla! Small business owners who are using it find it hard to (a) know when it needs to be patched and (b) to do the patching.

And this is just with minor version releases – the major version releases are literally all over the place.

Easy solution – Here is a super easy solution that Joomla! could have implemented 5 years ago – Make sites check for the latest version and if they become out of date display a message up the top that says the site is at risk and the website owner needs to speak with their web developer to upgrade the site. This would have been a couple of lines of code. Magento does it (in fact they pop it up right in your face and force you to acknowledge it) – WordPress does it while at the same time offering a 1-click upgrade option.

Better solution – I don’t know how complicated doing the 1-click patching is, a lot of systems don’t work this way  but WordPress seem to have managed to make it work. In my experience putting this back in control of the site owner is going to reduce the amount of out of date sites by a huge margin – especially combined with the messaging above which is exactly how WordPress manages to do it (I note the new Joomla! 1.7 this functionality is available).

And with Major version releases I don’t know where to start. Do we need them? Can we not just improve something incrementally. If we do need them then I would suggest not bringing out a major version release until you have a simple upgrade path that is part of the core (not relying on 3rd party extensions) and something that steps through the process and automates it (for example files and replaces references in templates etc). No doubt this isn’t easy but major upgrades are a real thorn in Joomla!’s side.

2. Ease of use

Ease of use is a very important factor in the small business community. I’ve heard a lot of Joomla! site owners say they were looking forward to Joomla! 1.6 because the old version was hard to use. I heard the same things about 1.5 but the truth is neither release was really any easier to use than the original Joomla 1.

One of the main issues I see with the usability of Joomla! is the weird way it separates menus and pages. Small business owners see websites as comprised of pages – they always have. Joomla sees articles and sees menus as ways to link to articles. So the intuitive process for adding a page to a website you would think would be to log into the CMS, click on add a page, add the page and click Save. This would create the page and add a link to the main menu. On top of this you would need to have the ability to exclude pages from menus.

One CMS I have seen do this very well is a system called SilverStripe. How WordPress manages menus now goes close enough to re-producing this. But even after 5 years in Joomla! to create a new page you need to create an ‘Article’ (note changing the older terminology from content item to article didn’t help – as I say small business owners see them as pages). Then after creating the Article you need to go to a totally different section, find the menu that the site uses (hopefully there aren’t too many as there often are) and then create a link through to the article. And still even finding out how to link through to an article is not easy! it’s as hard as it was when I tried to do it as a web developer in 2006 for the first time and couldn’t work it out.

There are still people in the Joomla! forum asking how they can create a page.

Easy Solution – This is something I thought of 5 years ago when I first started using Joomla! that they could have easily done at any stage. Have Joomla! by default set to ‘automated menu’ mode – or at least force people to choose when they set it up. In automated menu mode there would be a top menu in the site which automatically listed very page (or article, or content item if they want to call it that). Surely this wouldn’t be that hard – even thrown in an option in the pages to not publish them in the menu. This would not impact on their ability to service larger sites because it would be a setting that could easily be turned off.

Better solution – To me the architecture of Joomla! has always been a bit strange. To me a better approach would be for the site owner to create a ‘page’ and on this page they could have the option to have a few different ‘layouts’ (it would default to the default specified by the template). Then once the page is created they could click on the various regions provided (regions would be specified in the template like they currently are) and they could choose what goes in each region. For example click the main region and enter text / HTML with an editor or choose to have it as a list of articles (and provide the ability to create these articles on the fly). And then click on the right column and add some text / HTML or choose from some inbuilt display modules.

This would effectively make Joomla! a different system but to me this is an entirely more logical way to go and it would very much support simple small business sites but could also be scaled to bigger sites like the current system can.

What is the message

To me the message in this is really clear and it’s about listening to your customers. The issues that were holding Joomla! back in 2006 are holding them back now and meanwhile WordPress have stamped out their issues and excelled at exactly those things that were problems for Joomla!

Joomla! continued improving but they didn’t improve in the areas that their customers wanted. At least not their small business customers.

WordPress listened, they didn’t want to be known as a blogging platform only – they made it easy – and they won.

What does the future hold

I really believe both systems have the potential to be prominent in the small business space moving forward. WordPress is here to stay and whether it has beaten Joomla! in this market yet it is certainly well on the way. Is it possible for Joomla! to claw back into this space and reverse the trend. For one thing the challenge now is huge.

Not only do they have to improve the things that customers want improved but that along will not be enough. That alone won’t reverse the trend against WordPress they are going to have to also innovate and come up with ways of doing things that WordPress can’t. And that is not going to be easy.

About the author: Dan Norris

Dan Norris is the owner of A Website Designer, one of Australia’s leading small business web design blogs and founder of Web Circle, a progressive Gold Coast web design agency with a relentless drive to help small business owners connect with real customer online.

Weblog Tools Collection: WordPress Theme Releases for 8/5

PressWork is a free, open source theme framework built using HTML5 and CSS3.

Secondary is BuddyPress-enabled theme featuring a three column fluid layout and a theme options panel.

Solitude is BuddyPress-enabled theme featuring a two column fixed layout with a jQuery powered slider for the frontpage.

Eee PC 1215P con Ubuntu ora disponibile (260€)

La nuova edizione Linux di Eee PC 1215P è ora disponibile nei negozi italiani. Con un tutto il parlare di MeeGo in queste ultime settimane, che ne dite di un 12 pollici per 260€? Non è affatto male, considerando che abbiamo un processore Atom N570 Dual Core, 2Gb di RAM, un disco da 320GB, una batteria da 6 celle e lo schermo 1366×768 pixel, più tutte le caratteristiche tipiche della serie 1215 che abbiamo conosciuto in questi mesi di commercializzazione (touchpad grande, tendina copri webcam, tastiera chiclet). Questo modello fa parte di una nuova linea di netbook ASUS venduta con Ubuntu Linux ed il nostro è uno dei pochi paesi ad averla disponibile.

La versione di Ubuntu pre-installata è la 10.10, e sembra sia stata la stessa Canonical a sceglierla; l’azienda è intervenuta sulla gestione energetica e sull’ottimizzazione hardware, ma non sono ancora arrivati test e devo ancora leggere le prime considerazioni lato utente. Il processore Atom N570 dovrebbe comunque mantenere le prestazioni possibili con i sistemi Windows, quindi non fare miracoli, ma garantire una buona navigazione web e la riproduzione di filmati HD 720p (anche in streaming). La linea di EeePC con Ubuntu comprende, anche se ancora in prevendita, un modello 10 pollici, ovvero Eee PC 1011PX, proposto a circa 185 euro.

Articoli simili:

1. Eee PC 1215P con Ubuntu in prevendita!
2. Eee PC 1101PX con Ubuntu disponibile in Italia (185€)
3. Eee PC 1215P (12 pollici) disponibile in Italia

Lifehacker Pack for Android: Our List of the Best Android Apps [Downloads]

Lifehacker Pack for iPhone: Our List of the Best iPhone Apps [Downloads]