Alongside its new Android app, Foursquare recently launched an all new website design. Overdue updates to the year-old site bring a more user friendly atmosphere to the page. Both established and new users will enjoy what Foursquare has been doing in the attempt to compete with other social media sites such as Facebook and Google Buzz.

Ease of use enhancements include new toolbars to aid in navigation around Foursquare.com and find its functionality features. Making such upgrades can convince visitors to look over more of the page, and as they do, more people may sign up for its services. Using enhanced toolbars to find those services and discover what Foursquare can do for them, for example linking them into FourWhere and other maps to find things to do makes the users more likely to recommend the app to friends. Thus, an entire social circle may find one another on Foursquare and set up their meeting places and times.

New settings and a new name only logo have made the page easier to see and to navigate. The new settings include a redesigned history area where a user can categorize venues, helping him or her to decide which group of friends would enjoy a particular place and meet that group in that location. The same area of the site even allows the user to see which friends he or she checked in with in various places to enhance the possibility of meeting there again or picking someplace new to have a fun night out. On the flip side, an option in the setting page of Foursquare can be checked to allow local businesses to know that a user has checked into their venue. Once the venue receives verification it can see stats from Foursquare showing recent and frequent visitors and popular checking times to help adjust business hours. Users of the service can opt out of this feature and keep their visit private.

The signup page shows the greatest amount of upgrades. Many of these are important for getting new Foursquare users to join and to teach them how to get the best experience. Foursquare’s new signup page provides step by step instructions for ease of use, a boon in getting less experienced social networking users onto the service. Now, users can sign up and find friends on the Foursquare network by way of Twitter and Facebook Connect. They can link to conversations involving contacts on all three networks, making Foursquare a vary powerful communication tool among friends. After signing up and creating a list of friends with whom to chat, the user can then see a one page display of the other features it offers, such as downloading the mobile apps or exploring new places.

In this way, Foursquare offers many new things to users of its website. They may learn more about the service, sign up to use it, and connect with friends. The new site will help Foursquare in adding desktop computer users as well as mobile users.

In the race to make truly useful apps, every company makes a geo-spatial locator to assist users in finding places to go and things to do. Foursquare did so by combining Google Maps into its communications software in giving people reviews of places.

Sysomos, FourWhere’s developer, states right on its website that because it’s a public service, nobody needs to sign up, and it is free. They built it on public data found between Foursquare and Google Maps, only requiring the visitor to the site to use a Web browser enabled with Java Runtime to display the maps.

The app begins by using Foursquare’s comment posting system. People who have tried various restaurants, bars, store, and offices check in and post their thoughts about the venues. Then, FourWhere integrates the comments into maps so a user can search any neighborhood in any city for a new place to meet with others. Because Foursquare itself tends to cater to a more mobile crowd, this app is particularly strong on platforms such as Android and iPhone, although one can access it through a desktop computer as well before heading out.

The main downside to using FourWhere on a mobile platform, however, would be the size of the text making comments very difficult to read. Only a small portion of a map with the comments corresponding to the desired location could be viewed at a time. Thus, finding information in this way would become a slow process for popular venues or those with many comments. The other factor slowing down the information gathering process with this app is the fact that it forces a user to right-click a venue in order to integrate comments into the display rather than having a menu on the side of the screen, but users will adjust to that as well as the amount of time needed to sort through information.

To use the FourWhere app, search for the city you’ll be visiting in the upper right part of the screen and confirm the location. Then, to get the information others have checked into and posted, right-click somewhere on the map. The resulting menu provides the opportunity to let the app know whether you’d like to see all of the nearby places Foursquare users checked into, only those venues that have comments provided by the users, or to clear the map and begin again with a new city. To see what another person thinks of a particular location, mouse over its red pointer on the map, and the user who posted that comment will be highlighted along with his or her comment in the right-hand column of the screen.

In this way, users with patience and perseverance can make those traits pay off in finding places to meet friends. FourWhere, the result of combining Google Maps’ public information with Foursquare’s communication technology, gives people this opportunity to become efficient in finding places to go and things to do by checking in with new venues they might have missed.

TweekDeck, the popular Twitter desktop application announced yesterday that it will be adding a new feature to bring in your LinkedIn Network.

With this new feature users will be able to view LinkedIn updates by Status, Q&A, Applications, Groups, Connections, Profile and Recommendations.

In addition users will be able to send updates, make comments and view others’ profiles.

Over the life time of the product, TweetDeck has slowly transformed from a free Twitter manager into a social media cornucopia of sorts. Allowing its users to now manage Facebook and MySpace accounts with only a few clicks.

Additional Twitter features allow the user to record and view video, manage multiple twitter accounts, shorten URLs, block spammers, create groups, follow twitter trends, search twitter, and much more.

So if you have had enough of trying to manage multiple accounts through traditional means, I would highly recommend trying this product – it’s free , platform independent and simple to use.

Source : TweetDeck

Learning a new computer language like JavaScript requires excellent and thorough resources. New users need to learn the basics and then build on those skills. In a search of available online places to learn JavaScript, there are many suggestions, and many feel that users should check out a few to find the one fits you best.

Here are some of the recommendations for the top internet based places to learn JavaScript for beginners and experts.

This site offers a series of thirty JavaScript primers and additional articles to help teach JavaScript in a relaxed and fun way, which is perfect for beginners. This allows students to work through the series as they build and develop their skills. It also has tutorials on JavaScript applets and script tips.

IBM Developer Works

This site is part of IBM and has training and tutorials covering JavaScript. Their technology library also includes articles that cover individual elements of JavaScript in detail. There is a lot of information and it is a good resource for all skill levels of JavaScript users.

W3 Schools

Although some noted that W3 Schools was a little older than other sites, they did agree that it was a good place for learning the basics of JavaScript. Also, these schools are run by W3C which ensure technology standards so it has up to date information and system upgrades.

Ajaxian offers JavaScript training in different forms. They have public training classes, and it is part of their three day basics course, and they also offer advanced hardcore JavaScript. They have podcasts on a variety of JavaScript topics and also an extensive technology library.

Builder AU

This site is created and maintained by developers so it is a good place to learn all the updated information as well as tricks and tips. They have a large selection of specific articles which tackle different JavaScript topics and elements.

JavaScript Kit

This site has an extensive list of tutorials that cover a wide range of JavaScript topics. They site is easy to navigate as they list specific problem areas and also have a detailed index of tutorials so users can easily find what they need.

YouTube is not just for funny videos, this site also has a lot of learning tutorials including many on JavaScript. Users commented that this was a good place to find a variety of tutorials for every skill level.

Lynda.com

This is an online training site, and it was mentioned by several people as a very helpful site. Users pay a monthly or annual fee to gain access to over 637 training programs. They also have several free online tutorials that users can go through before committing to a subscription. This looks like a good site for all kinds of computer training.

As with most computer skills, JavaScript is learned and mastered with regular practice and use, so interested people should make time to learn this versatile language.

Images are a vital component of most websites. They add depth and can illustrate and explain a concept. There are several jQuery Plugins that are designed to enhance images, making your sites great looking and very functional and easy to view.

Here are ten jQuery Plugins to enhance your images

1. Easy Image Rollover Script

This jQuery plugin allows you to create simple rollover images on your site. This is a great tool when you want to highlight different elements or add explanations or descriptions to an image. Viewers like this capability as it gives them instant information.

2. jQuery Thumbs

This plugin helps to easily created thumbnails. This tool can help you link and wrap images. Thumbnails add organization to your images and allow viewers to scan your pages quickly.

3. Gallerific

This plugin is for creating fast performing photo galleries. It includes features like Smart image preloading. This is an excellent tool for presenting collections of photos or images. Viewers generally do not like slow loading images and will move on if they take too long.

4. jQZoom

This jQuery plugin is a zooming tool, and uses a JavaScrip magnifier so viewers can get up close look at your images. This is good for e commerce sites where customers may want to get a closer look at the product.

5. FancyBox

This jQuery plugin is an advanced light box analog. It has several features including ability to scale large images to fit in a window and drop shadow to use with zoomed images.

6. JQuery Corner

This plugin allows you to create different kinds of corners on your images, including rounded, bevel, and curl. With this tool you can change the look of the different images on your site to enhance visual appeal.

7. Wilq32.Rotate Image

This jQuery plugin allows you to rotate images that were created in JavaScript and HTML5 canvas. This can create visually unique pages, especially if artistic photos or images are being used on the site.

8. Image Switch

This jQuery plugin lets you create an effect when you switch between images. It is reported to be easy to use, and a fast plugin. This is a nice touch for creating unique image segues.

9. jQuery Image Stip

With this plugin you can show several different views of an image, useful if customers need to see various sides of a product. For instance, some products must be seen at several angles to get the full effect. With this plugin you can create several image panels on a product.

10. jCarousel Lite

This jQuery plugin is flexible and can be customized. It allows you to use a carousel widget to navigate through the images on your site.

jQuery is free software that emphasizes interaction between JavaScript and HTML, and many designers use it on their sites. It is a JavaScript library that helps designers do more with less writing and develop websites faster. While some jQuery plugins organize through file loading, others organize by using elements to make your site cleaner and easier to read and view.

Here are ten jQuery Plugins that can help organize your site.

1. Uploadify

With this jQuery plugin you can change any element on your page into a file upload tool. As long as it has an ID it can be made to upload single or multiple files.

2. XLazyLoader

This jQuery plugin is an asynchronous loader that loads JavaScript files, CSS and images. Its features include the ability to load one or multiple files.

3. Boxy

This plugin lets you add overlay boxes to your site with only a few lines of code. It helps you create Facebook style dialog boxes that are flexible. This can make your pages clean and easy to follow.

4. BeautyTips

This jQuery plugin creates tooltips for any element on the page. The tooltips are rollover balloons and create a talk balloon popup. This is useful if you have elements that need additional information or an explanation, so the viewer can find out right away rather than search around the site.

5. jQuery Grid

If you use or want to use interactive tables on your site, this jQuery plugin helps you to do just that. You can organize any kind of information such as statistics, sales results, or price changes.

6. jQuery Disable on Submit

This plugin addresses the problem of computer users who continue to click a submit button after they’ve submitted a form, resulting in multiple submissions from the same person. This jQuery disables the form buttons after the user sends the first form, so even if they click again the form will not be resent.

7. jQuery Scrollable

This jQuery plugin allows you to provide scrolling capability to your pages, so that they are easier to view and more visually appealing. People viewing sites want to be able to scroll and see everything that’s available.

8. jQuery Google Maps Plugin

If your site will include Google maps, this plugin helps you create and manage multiple Google maps. This is a great tool for businesses that need to provide a selection of maps to customers.

9. NestedSortables

This jQuery plugin allows you to organize your site by building lists of elements that can be vertically sorted and nested using a drag and drop function. This allows for fast building and updating of your site.

10. SuperFish Menus

This jQuery plugin converts unordered HTML lists into ordered, drop down menus, making your pages more organized and easier to navigate.

An Excellent book on JQuery from Amazon:

WordPress is said to be the most powerful CMS when it comes to blogging. You can obtain many plugins and extensions through WordPress that will serve a wide range of functions. We will take a look at the top 10 plugins used to help increase productivity.

Google Analytics is a great way to track the condition of your site. It is a completely free management and web tracking plugin. It automatically adds the code that you need to track all pages that belong to your Word Press blog.

PageMash is another great plugin. It is a very easy to use plugins for page management. This program includes an Ajax interface that will allow drag and drop reordering of pages. You also have the ability to alternate colors, rename pages, hide pages, and much more.

Video Quicktags allows you to insert links with the click of a button. This beats the copy and pasting of embedded HTML. You have a wide range of options when it comes to how your videos can be displayed.

Fresh From FriendFeed and Twitter is a plugin that will Automatically add your latest content from Twitter of FriendFeed into your blog. This operation requires no external password. You choose to import certain content that you want from micro-blogging to your main blog.

WP Greet-Box allows you to create different greeting messages to visitors. This is based on their referral URL. You can personalize your greetings for people who link to you through Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, or any social media site.

Mail Press allows you to send mails with different forms of html. You can tailor your emails with certain templates to meet the needs of your readers.

Adman is a plug in that allows you to place an advertising ad in the middle of all posts. This is sure to increase your click numbers.

Optimize DB defragments your WordPress database tables. This is often used in situations where tables need to be updated frequently.

Broken Link Checker will monitor your blog for broken links. If any are found, you will be alerted. This is a great tool for blogs with a lot of information. This plugin will pick up links that have missing images and don’t work. It checks for all new posts. You only have to edit links without having to edit the posts.

MobilePress allows you to manage your blog on any mobile device. You can choose a specific theme for a specific device to help you keep track.

There are many WordPress plugins to help you with productivity. These are said to be the top 10. Any WordPress plugin is sure to make your life just a little easier. You have blogs to maintain, but you also have a busy life. You should not have to spend a lot of time keeping your blog productive and thriving. If you have not jumped into the world of WordPress plugins, give it a try!

Apple announced yesterday that the new operating system Snow leopard will ship on August 28th. This is – of course -being contrary to proponents of the rumor mill that expected the product to be released during September’s annual keynote presentation.

Apple boasts that Snow Leopardhas several amazing new features and the price for the OS is amazingly low considering.

Some of the more prominent claims include:

1. 64- bit Support – Apple feels that the computing industry in steadily moving from 32-bit processors to 64. With this premise they have prepped Snow Leopard to handle 64-bit support and 16 terabytes of RAM. Don’t worry 32-bitsters, Snow Leopard still has support for us.

2. Free QuickTime Pro – QuickTime X is the next generation QuicktTime pro player that has all the features of the old pro version but will not cost you extra. QuickTime X leverages several new technologies such as Core Video, Core Audio and Core Animation with the promise of giving users faster load times, enhanced playback and better quality. QuickTime X will also allow users to stream audio and video from most webservers, where prior versions only allowed this to work on special servers. Watch out Flash users this may take a big chunk of the market.

3. Expose – Apple has re-factored Expose into the dock to allow quicker access to documents with easier recognition for the user. You will now be able to view your documents in an unshuffled organized view by holding down a click on the application folder.

4. Faster time machine backups – users have complained in the past about how long it takes to complete a backup to the time capsule. Now Apple is claiming that you will be able to backup your Mac up to 80 percent faster.

5. Faster Shutdown and Wake up times – Travelers will certainly enjoy this new feature, Apple boasts that wake up times will increase by 2x the norm. In other words when you open your macbook up the system should load twice as fast as it does now. If your laptop is set to go into sleep mode when you close it, Apple states that this will now happen 80 percent faster. Allowing you to quickly stuff your Macbook in your bag without worry of damaging the hard drive.

6. OS Size Reduction - Snow Leopard has been cut down in size to free up an additional 7GB on your hard drive. This of course leaving you with more space to add more of the photos and files you need.

7. Redeveloped Finder – Finder has been redeveloped using the Coca programming language to be more responsive to your file searching demands. Apple claims that PDF and JPEG icon refresh rates will greatly increase when compared to Leopard OS X 10.5.

8. Better PDF Support – No longer will you have to spend time fussing with copying and pasted multiple columns from PDF files. Apple’s new Preview will be able to auto detect columns using what they refer to as “sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms”. In addition Preview will be able to open multiple PDF documents and output the contents in rows much like a contact sheet.

9. Faster, Higher Resolution iChat – If you have every used iChat in the past for video conferencing you probably ran into a few speed bumps trying to get it to connect to certain routers. Apple has listened and claims that Snow Leopard’s iChat is now more compatible and uses less bandwidth to upstream your video. This opens the door for many of us to use higher resolution video conferencing.

10. ActiveSync & Microsoft Exchange Support – Similar to the iPhone you will now be able to sync your contacts, email and calendar on MS Exchange Server 2007 foregoing to the need to purchase additional software, like MS Entorage that comes bundled with MS Office for Mac (currently $189.49 at Amazon).

All of this comes with a nice price tag of only 29 dollars for Mac users currently equipped with the Leopard OS X. You can pre-order Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard here to support our blog or go to Apple’s site. It should be noted that users with older Macs (Pre- Leopard) will have to pay $169.00 for the new Snow Leopard OS.

These are a lot of big claims for any operating system, but having worked with a Mac for the past year I am confident that Snow Leopard will undoubtedly live up to the hype.

Update: The Price has been lowered to $25.00

Here is a simple question that I see pop up on forums from time to time and the solution is brief and fairly easy to expand upon.

How do I set a default value for a bound control?

As you can see, the question looks like it is very important when adorned in italics. Onto the quick win…

First, build your input control without an explicit bind:

<asp:FormView runat="server" ID="fvData" DataSource="odsData" DataKeyNames="ID">
  <EditTemplate>
    <%-- This would normally contain your  Bind("Field")  --%>
    <asp:TextBox runat="server" id="txtData" Text="0.0" />
  </EditTemplate>
</asp:FormView>

It feels good to break convention. Next, hook into the Updating event of your data source; in this case an ObjectDataSource is used. For an ODS, you can grab the first InputParameter, which is your data item from the form.

protected void odsData_Updating(object sender, ObjectDataSourceMethodEventArgs e)
{
  ObjectType obj = e.InputParameters[0];
  if ( obj != null )
    obj.Field = String.IsNullOrEmpty(txtData.Text) ? Double.Parse(txtData.Text) : 0D;
}

Use whatever validation methods you wish, either client or server side, and you are all set.

I think I need a nap. Until next time!