Deductive reasoning like that is fun but we’ll see what happens when HTML 5 is ready for the mainstream.

Smartphone app development is a complicated process, whether it’s for iPhones or the Android market. Modeling an app on paper is a good approach to visualizing its logic and utility. With this new tool, however, modeling app behavior jumps off the paper and into a real-world system to be test driven. A simple app using this framework can yield real-time feedback on how it performs, and apps that are too complicated for App Inventor can be scaled up using the newly developed core. It’s only for Android at the moment but modeling can represent behavior on an iPhone too; development for iPhones would still require its proprietary SDK kit.

So to all you consumers with visions of app greatness, drag and drop your way into a fortune! The power is yours!

Add-on = Extra Website

Yes, an extra website. In one respect we can thank Moore’s Law for the improvement of web hosting features and space; as storage becomes less expensive many web hosts will pass on these savings through increased storage allotments and hosting features. The number of add-on domains will depend upon the offerings of each individual web host, but most of the good ones will offer at least one.

Caveats

If you have more than one website in your business tool-kit then you will want to understand the proper use of add-on domains. For starters, if you have dreams of e-commerce you will want to avoid complications and not use an add-on domain for that purpose. A static IP address & SSL cert work in tandem, and often times the main domain attached to your cPanel or Plesk account is the one that is best suited for those. There are workarounds, such as using a shared SSL cert, but doing so you will have stripped away your company’s branding, and I think you would want your company’s good name attached to a secure website. Another such workaround is to procure a multi-domain SSL, but that is often a more expensive proposition.

Another issue is that of control. A cPanel or Plesk control panel will not be assigned to an add-on domain, so you would not be able to separate control from your main domain.

Conclusion

When choosing a web host be sure to ask how many add-on domains you’re getting. When your business grows you will be able to expand your websites with minimal cost. BTW, we offer add-on domains with our hosting plans. Check out our web host offerings at http://projectwebd.com/web-hosting.

9. NSA Email Accelerator

8.  “I Suppose” Button

7. Esperanto Scrabble

6. Mafia Spores

5. Psychopath Friend Finder

4. Poke

3. Info page De-Dull Razzmatazz-inator™

2. Pirate-Talk Enabled Status Box

1. Papercut Simulator

A Landing Page of Sorts

An important element of a search marketing campaign is to create a simple “on-message” landing page on your website. Your web developer’s brilliant page copy helps grease the wheels to facilitate a conversion (i.e., converting a visitor into a lead). But if you’re trying to cut back on web development money this post is for you. If your conversion is a simple lead harvesting form (name, email and phone) then your contact page could very well serve as a cost-effective way to achieve that goal.

The drawbacks to doing it this way are numerous, but we’ll focus on the most important.

1. Your landing page record will have no history, no rings in the tree: Your company’s contact page is typically one static document, but landing pages are cumulative and provide a “searchable” record of your digital marketing efforts.
2. Analytics will be limited: A lead from your contact page can give you a tingle! Here is a potential new customer that “sought you out”, but you cannot tell from the form, usually, how they got there. Was it from a blast? Which one? A recent postcard mailing?
   
3. Human nature: A contact page is devoid of copy related to your blast or campaign, so if you funnel visitors there hope they remember its purpose when they come back from whatever was distracting them. Well written copy on a landing page serves to funnel a visitor into a lead, and without one there is no bait on your hook.

Workarounds

1. Ok, no history. If that’s not important then you could do the following: Describe in your blast that they’ll be directed to the contact form, or simply add some copy at the top of your contact page related to the blast. It would change accordingly with each blast. You’ve essentially hijacked your company’s contact page but you’re trying to save money, right?
2. Alright, reduced analytics. You’ll piece together the breadcrumb trail: Sift through your hosting log files and look for the date range of the blast, correlate contact page hits with this date range. Do you see a spike in contact page hits compared with other date ranges of the same length?
3. Human nature. Hmmm… Well, if we had an answer to that one we’d be “millionaires of the world!”

But all this is temporary. When the economy is humming again you won’t need to worry about this cost saving measure, since it is only suggested as a way to save some digital marketing dollars in tough times. Landing pages have a purpose and circumventing them will quite often reduce the efficiencies of your time.

Putting aside the argument for skipping Microsoft products all together and going with Ubuntu (Linux), I offer up a few caveats for going with Windows 7.

1. With any new Operating System (OS) you should wait until the first service pack is released. A service pack is a collection of bug fixes, security patches and feature enhancements that ultimately improve the OS product. While this is the best advice we can give this approach may not always be practical for many reasons; perhaps your PC or laptop is dead or stolen, or your Windows 98 system takes forever to render Facebook. Hopefully you’re not running Windows 98. In that case, upgrade your computer please because your PC is probably a zombie on a bot-network, controlled by a Cobra Commander wannabe.
   
2. There may be compatibility issues with your current software. On the side of every off-the-shelf software box you will find system requirements. Since Windows 7 is so new odds are the box does not have the latest info. Your best bet is to go to the software manufacturer’s website and check for compatibility — if you’re lucky they will have an update for download.
3. Continued support for a business empire that crested in the 90′s. The status quo is not always the best route to take, but if you’re the type that “goes with what you know” then perhaps Microsoft is your life-long partner in computing. For business computing I just cannot see Mac gaining market share in this area, especially for computers that can start at $2,000. For personal computing outside of Microsoft, Mac has seen a resurgence in this decade which many wrote off as improbable when they were having problems — hooray Steve Jobs! So it would be foolish to write off Microsoft. They’ve stumbled, no doubt, but they’re not out. And of course there’s Ubuntu, the free OS that runs on nearly any computer platform that Windows can run. Did I mention it was free?

So there you have it. Windows 7? Sure, but you would need to keep in mind the above points before making the investment.