2007
January, 2007
Make your designs sing in four-part color harmony with these automated color harmonization tools. We review a joint effort by Microsoft and Tel Aviv University to automatically enhance the color harmony of an image.
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Despite President Bush's promise of universal access to broadband by 2007 there are still areas within the US that have little or no coverage. In the UK, broadband has become cheaper than dial-up access. Meanwhile in the US broadband grew to 78.5% in December among active Internet users.
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February, 2007
We interview today's digital Darwin Peter Pirolli, summarizing his revolutionary new book Information Foraging Theory. Hungry minds are foraging for valuable information on the Web. Learn how to boost your website's information scent or risk becoming a missing link.
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Unique iTunes users will exceed RealPlayer users by the first half of 2007, according to projections by Website Optimization. European broadband penetration growth is slowing as the US approaches 80% penetration among active Internet users.
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March, 2007
US broadband penetration broke 80% among active Internet users in February 2007. Canada spends more time online than any other country, according to a recent survey by comScore Networks.
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PNGs are designed to be a more efficient, flexible, and patent-free replacement for GIFs. By replacing your GIFs with PNGs you can speed up your web pages and save bandwidth.
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April, 2007
The US fell from 23rd to 25th place in worldwide broadband penetration in the last half of 2006, according to a recent survey by Point Topic. An OECD study confirms the slowdown, with US broadband growth falling below the OECD average. Meanwhile, US broadband penetration grew 0.65 percentage points to 80.81% among active Internet users in March 2007.
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A solid ball head dampens sharpness-robbing vibration for sharper and smaller images and videos for the Web. Updated with the newest models, we compare some pro-level ball heads and offer some tips for sharper photographs.
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May, 2007
Questions over a recent OECD broadband report have caused a broadband brouhaha among the cognoscenti. Broadband penetration in US homes grew to 81.8% among active Internet users in April 2007.
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A usability survey revealed that high growth companies are not evaluating and improving their home page designs in a systematic way. By comparing the home pages of the Fortune 30 against Inc Magazine's fastest growing companies, researchers from Minnesota State University found the Fortune 30 had a usability score over 36% higher than the fast growing companies.
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June, 2007
53% of all US households now subscribe to broadband, according to Leichtman Research Group. Internet use is strongly tied to income. For US households with annual incomes above $75,000, 92% subscribe to an Internet service. Among active Internet users, 82.2% subscribe to broadband, up over 10 percentage points from last year.
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Optimizing web videos has become more important as the use and size of videos has increased on the Web. Learn some best practices to help optimize your videos.
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July, 2007
WIth its acquisition of YouTube, Google now dominates the top ten video sites on the Internet in unique users, stickiness, and growth. Despite accounting for a small fraction of files on the Internet, web videos account for a disproportionate amount of traffic. Meanwhile broadband penetration among active Internet users grew to 83.23% in US homes in June.
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Noise is the enemy of efficient multimedia optimization. Learn how to minimize the noise in your images and videos to maximize compression.
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August, 2007
Reversing a previous trend, the US jumped to 24th place in worldwide broadband penetration in the first quarter of 2007. While South Korea remains the leading broadband nation, Hong Kong should pass South Korea in household broadband penetration this summer at current growth rates.
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Learn how to create menu rollovers with different graphic backgrounds with one image. Save HTTP requests by combining on and off images into one mini-sprite and position with CSS.
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September, 2007
The EU has passed the US in broadband penetration, according to a broadband survey from ECTA. ECTA attributes the 16% growth in broadband lines over the last six months to increased competition from new telecom entrants employing local loop unbundling and cable.
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Learn how AOL and Yahoo! use CSS sprites to improve performance for their busy home pages. CSS sprites save HTTP requests by using CSS positioning to selectively display composite background images. To maximize accessibility and usability, CSS sprites are best used for icons or decorative effects.
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October, 2007
Western European countries are adding broadband subscribers at a faster pace than the US and Canada, according to a recent report by Point Topic.
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Learn how to "suture" CSS or JavaScript files together before delivery from the server to save HTTP requests. You'll have your organization and eat it too with this server-side approach to merging files.
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November, 2007
Japan leads the world with the fastest and lowest unit cost for broadband, according to recent data from the OECD. Japan enjoys costs per megabit per second over four times lower than that of the US. Iceland cooled off in global broadband penetration rankings falling from third to sixth from Q4 200 to Q2 2007, while the US remained in 15th place overall.
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Learn how to use delta encoding to compress your RSS XML newsfeeds. Save bandwidth by using delta compression for your RSS files.
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December, 2007
Faster than any other consumer technology, broadband achieved more than 50% adoption according to a survey by Pew Internet. Iceland leads the EU27 in household broadband penetration.
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With the average web page growing past 50 external objects, object overhead now dominates most web page delays. Increasing parallel downloads by using multiple hostnames can realize up to a 40% improvement in web page latency.
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