MALITECH

Writing an article (same as a blog post but sounds more professional) is easy. All you have to do is come up with content and type it up. But how you blog could be the difference between a visitor staying on your site and reading what you wrote or just bouncing (leaving) your site right away. If you’re going to write a blog, you want to make sure you write it in a way that keeps your visitors attention. So how do we do that? Today, I’m going to give you my tips to blogging. But before I do, let me tell you why you should listen to me  I love blogging (but it takes a lot of work, really. Good content is not easy, bad content is)I read a lot of popular blogs and actually analyze what makes them workI have over 12k (or 15k, I don’t check anymore) visitors a month coming to one site that is ONLY written content with a low bounce rateMy sites and pages rank on google. And not on page 2 or 3, but page 1.I don’t do any of that crazy nonsense that people try to sell you on. I just do what I know works. So if you want to learn some SEO strategies…keep reading. Okay enough about that, let’s get to the tips that you NEED to incorporate into your blog posts (or at least consider). Tip #1: Break Things Up Blogging is not writing an essay. No long paragraphs please!Just look at how I’ve structured this blog post. Short paragraphs. Bullet points. Number lists. The words don’t get lost when you do this.No, you won’t get any award for writing properly, but you will get visitors reading your articles. So which do you want? Tip #2: Write for the normal person As smart as you want to look, realize that the internet is full of stupid people (I say that in the nicest way).People do not want to get a headache trying to figure out what you said with big medical words or long winded nonsense.Write so people understand you. If this means dummying down your content, then do it. Tip #3: Formatting Matters I know I talked about breaking things up in tip #1, but there’s more to it.Unlike writing a book or an essay,blogging has no rules, really. And what I’ve found to work best for my posts and for other popular content creators is to bold key words or phrases here and there. Maybe even add in different colors in your text (depends who your audience is).I have never found a problem with creating quotes or bolding phrases that you think would catch your readers attention. Plus it just helps to break up the monotony of all the words on the page. Tip #4: Content is ALWAYS King I’ve said it time and time again, it’s not number of posts you have but the quality of the content.You can have 30 crappy blog posts or 10 really good ones that get shared and talked about. Which do you prefer?Don’t write just to write. Your visitors will see that your posts are crap and they won’t come back.You want to make sure you’re adding value with your blog posts – whether that is through entertainment, story telling, or giving advice/answers. Make sure you do an awesome job with that. Tip #5: Let Your Personality Shine! Everyone has their own style with writing. You might not have yours yet. It takes time.Normally, if you’re just starting out with blogging, you’re really worried about things sounding right and not making any mistakes. This usually makes your writing boring (my personal opinion).Allow yourself to really express how you feel. Show who you are to your visitors. They’ll appreciate that.No matter who you are, I can tell you that a successful blog (or business) is really based on relationships. And if you can make someone really feel comfortable with you through your writing, you’re going to succeed. Tip #6: Images Can Only Help I don’t always follow this rule, but sometimes I do. It depends.Images are a great way to break up text and also keep your visitors attention. Plus you can add a caption to an image with something that could get your point across too.The biggest tip I have is, don’t use cheesy stock photos. If you’re going to steal someone’s photos, use good photos. And it’s always better to have your own. Okay, that’s it for now. Things I didn’t go over: linking, keywords, and words you should be using in your blog post. Until next time  Happy blogging.

Introducing first ever experiences for the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition I am super excited about today’sannouncement that the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition is available for pre-order. We set out on a mission to deliver the world’s first untethered holographic computer and it is amazing to finally be at this point in time where developers will be receiving the very first versions so they can start building their own holographic experiences.  While we have been dreaming and delivering holographic experiences since we announced last year, nothing is more exciting to me than seeing what developers dream up when the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition starts shipping next month. With HoloLens, we are committed to providing the development community with the best experience possible. In order to help get developers started creating experiences for HoloLens, we’ve provided a number of great resources. First of all, there is a complete set of documentation provided to developers both by the people who have created the platform and by the people who have been building holographic experiences. We want to share all of our holographic knowledge with developers so they can start bringing their holographic dreams to reality as easily as possible. We have also provided a host of tutorial videos to help people along. All of the documentation and videos can be found at dev.windows.com/holographic. We also have provided information on how to create holographic apps as Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. We want to make sure that each of the holographic apps you build are able to capitalize on the enormous success and fast adoption of Windows 10. As a developer, I believe the documentation and tutorial videos will be instrumental in making holographic development as delightful as the holograms themselves. But nothing illustrates key development strategies and best practices like being able to see and experience a comprehensive portfolio of actual holographic apps. It is with this in mind that we have provided for developers a free portfolio of holographic experiences for people to enjoy. These experiences are available to all developers at no cost in the Windows Store and represent the development knowledge and expertise our teams have acquired over years of working on this holographic platform. Each of these experiences have been delivered to highlight unique capabilities of HoloLens and to illustrate for developers how they can be used in every day applications. It is our hope that these example applications can be used as a jumping off point for how any developer can create amazing 3D content for HoloLens. The first is HoloStudio. It’s the first program of its kind, allowing people to easily create 3D in 3D – at real-world scale. We are hopeful that this application will easily allow any developer to envision and create the holograms they need for their own applications. But HoloStudio also shows how to use the HoloLens interaction model of gaze, gesture, and voice. The interactions needed to create detailed holographic models push the platform’s ability to make interacting in 3D natural and we believe this application will show high quality examples of how to make this simple for customers. HoloStudio also allows for integration with OneDrive, and easily exports to 3D print or Sketchfab. Our Development Edition also runs Skypeenhanced to allow people to communicate using holograms! We believe Skype is an important experience to highlight for developers for two reasons. First, it shows a best in class example of how you can build a holographic application that can be enjoyed by people who don’t have a HoloLens. Skype on HoloLens allows people running Skype on any Windows device to interact in the holographic world. This application will show how holograms can be used for remote collaboration and training in a way previously impossible. This type of communication has enormous potential in both the consumer and business world. Secondly, it will allow developers to communicate with each other using the holographic medium to share development methods and seek the advice of others. With Skype, you can see the holograms the other person is seeing and you can use holograms to illustrate helpful techniques or development approaches. It is our hope that the holographic development community will be just that – a community. We are all defining the future of holograms together. Skype on the Development Edition will allow us all to stay connected and help each other build our holographic applications. I look forward to seeing you on a holographic Skype call soon. As developers, we have experimented extensively to determine the best mix of the real world and the digital world in the space of mixed reality. An experience like Skype heavily indexes in the real world – allowing the holograms to be instrumental highlights in your space. But we also wanted to provide developers with a more immersive experience that shows the unique capabilities Microsoft HoloLens has as a platform in a digitally immersive application. It is with this in mind that we bring you HoloTour. On the Development Edition, HoloTour allows people to transport to a different location and experience it like they are really there. You see high-resolution 360-degree panoramic displays of places like Rome and Machu Picchu. HoloTour highlights two unique capabilities of HoloLens. Being untethered, HoloLens allows you to enjoy a virtual trip by actually walking around the location. While immersive, the experience still embraces mixed reality, as it allows you to physically walk around spaces and get up close to objects while remaining untethered from a PC, phone or other device. HoloTour is also a showcase for the spatial sound capabilities of this platform. When you are walking around Rome, the sounds of the city surround you – just like you were actually there. It is incredibly realistic and has to be heard to be believed. Gaming is clearly an exciting and lucrative genre of content on any development platform. Having been a gamer my whole life, and a game developer all of my adult life, it is an area of passion for me as a developer. For the HoloLens Development Edition, we have delivered 3 unique examples of mixed reality games that demonstrate the elements of holographic gameplay that no other platform can deliver. The first is called Fragments. This is a gaming experience I am particularly proud of. Fragments is a mixed reality crime drama that unfolds in your own environment. Gamers are able to investigate clues and solve crimes that are seemingly taking place in their own living rooms. As a holographic platform highlight, Fragments demonstrates how creators can build characters and storylines that drive a higher level of emotional engagement and attachment than you can with any other medium. Trust me, the first time one of our Fragments characters comes in to your home, sits down on your sofa, and strikes up a conversation with you it is an unforgettable experience. But this game also taught us something unexpected about mixed reality. Fragments blurs the line between the digital world and the real world more than any other experience we built. When your living room has been used as the set for a story, it generates memories for you of what digitally happened in your space like it was real. It is an experience that bridges the uncanny valley of your mind and delivers a new form of storytelling like never before. We have also built an incredibly delightful platform game called Young Conker. Young Conker is unique because it takes traditional platform gaming mechanics and sets them loose in your real world environment as the gameplay level. This creates gameplay that can only be done in mixed reality. One of the most exciting things we discovered with Young Conker is how unique the gameplay is based on where you play. Unlike with traditional video games, where people play the same digitally created levels – Young Conker tailors each of the levels you play to your real world. This means every person gets a unique gameplay experience since each gamers real world environment is unique. It is amazing how different the play experience feels based on playing the game in your living room versus your kitchen or your bedroom. Even starting the game from a different position in a single room creates an entirely new gameplay dynamic. Young Conker brings to life a focus on fun gaming mechanics that, as a game developer, is delightful to me. Since the environments are real world ones instead of digitally created, it puts the development focus on making the gaming mechanics fun. Plus, as a developer, mixed reality games are much easier to make. You don’t need large teams creating assets. The assets already exist in the real world. You can create a world of endless and unique gameplay based on the core of what makes games fun – the gameplay! Both Fragments and Young Conker were created in partnership with Asobo Studio. Asobo Studio is well known in the gaming community for their creativity, their ability to deliver showcase experiences around new technologies, and their ability to deliver emotionally engaging gameplay. It was important to us to co-develop part or our initial holographic experiences with a partner so we could put the Microsoft HoloLens platform to the test. Working with Asobo Studio gave us key insights around how to fine tune our work with the platform for developers including improvements around our holographic emulator, our documentation, and the need to provide the development community with critical example applications that you will now get to enjoy. Asobo Studio has been at the forefront of holographic development from the beginning and the growing pains we shared together hopefully has made the overall development experience easier for everyone. For that Asobo, we thank you!! The third gaming experience available to all developers in the Windows Store is called RoboRaid. Previously codenamed Project X-Ray, RoboRaid started as a passion project inside our development team. The basics of RoboRaid were built during our team’s “wacky week” where we let our developers build anything with holograms they want. Within a week, a small group of developers had an enormously compelling 1st person holographic shooter up and running. RoboRaid has you defending your own home against an alien invasion. It is a highlight of how our key holographic platform features can be used in gaming. It uses your real world as the environment. Nothing adds urgency to 1st person shooter gameplay like seeing alien robots breaking through the walls of your own home. It uses spatial sound as a huge feature of the game. When you hear walls crumbling behind you it is impossible to not spin around and defend your turf. It   highlights how to use our gaze, gesture, and voice input model in a fast and frenetic gameplay experience. We learned a lot as holographic developers building and playing this game and we hope you do the same. RoboRaid was created by a team of 8 people over the course of 12 weeks. It shows how even a small development team can build a holographic showcase people will love. Finally, starting this summer, developers will be able to experience a completely new holographic storytelling medium for the Development Edition that we callActiongram. This experience was designed for creative coders and content creators, providing what we think is the most amazing way to tell digital stories that might otherwise be impractical or impossible. Actiongram uses mixed reality capture (MRC) to blend holographic content into real world settings, allowing anybody to create emotionally compelling and humorous videos. These are videos that previously could only be created using expensive effects packages by people with extensive 3D training. Now, anybody can create their own mixed reality videos!! We will be delivering new content for Actiongram regularly so that you can continually express yourself in this holographic medium. We are incredibly excited to see how people use this new storytelling tool to tell their own personal stories. We are thrilled to be able to offer such a variety of experiences with the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition. Building these experiences has been a labor of love for all of us. I speak for our entire development team when I say we could think of nobody we would want enjoying these experiences more than the developers who have bought the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition. I could not dream of a more exciting moment in time than the first time I boot up my personal HoloLens and see one of your holographic experiences available to me in the Windows Store. As thrilled as I have been to be at the forefront of holographic computing, it is clear that as a development platform we are just scratching the surface of what the world can do with holograms. Nothing we can create here at Microsoft is as powerful or creative as the imagination of the worldwide development community. We hope you are excited about the potential of holograms. We look forward to determining the future of holographic computing with you. I truly wish you have as much fun making your own holographic experiences as we did creating the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition for you. If you ever have any development questions you want answered, feel free to reach out to me on twitter @KudoTsunoda. Let’s build the future together!! Kudo Tsunoda Updated February 29, 2016 6:08 am

7 Tips for Creating Professional Email Signatures - #infographic Posted by zezu omar  Wednesday, February 28, 2016  EmailMarketing ,Featured , info-graphics   Your email signature is a key aspect of your digital identity, so it’s surprising that around 48% of professionals have no signature at all - and many more make do with poorly thought-out or designed sign-offs. In fact, an effective signature can be one of the simplest ways to give your email more impact and encourage a response from your clients, customers, or colleagues. You can consider it a business card with serious frills: it puts your contacts just a click away from responding through the channel that works best for them. Keeping it clear is of utmost importance. Your contacts probably sift through a ton of emails every day – which makes white space an appealing prospect for the eye! Keep it to one email address, one phone number, and only the relevant social networking links. Space them out with pipes (|) and line dividers so your eagle-eyed recipient can zoom straight into the information they need to connect with you. Keep it on-brand, too. Aligning the font, colour and tone with your organisation’s image will look professional and strengthen your company identity. You can add a headshot if you’d like to make it more personal – but again, make sure its appropriate to your brand. Another great idea to keep your signature up-to-the-minute is to add a line of text that communicates your current project or goal – be it a special offer, a seminar you plan to attend, or a new product. In the end, the way you choose to identify yourself through your email signature depends on the nature of your correspondence. Big business will have different needs to a family newsletter. Thankfully, we have this great cheat sheet infographic by Cloud Solutions that spells out in quick steps how best to tailor your signature to your needs – and to be taken seriously by your recipients.

Becoming a web developer – Part 1 FEB 14, 2016 Web developers – also known as web programmers – make websites do things. In other words, they develop a site’sfunctionality and interactivity. So if you use the web to do things like book a flight, comment on forums, view a bank balance, report a fault… and countless other tasks, then a web developer will have been involved in making sure it all works smoothly. So in this first part of “Becoming web developer” series we will talk about web development in general and its paths –frontend and backend. 1. Web Development – General Web development is working on technical aspects of a website. DON’T mix Web Design and Web Development, web designer will make static visual design and website layout, while web developer will take that design and put in to live and working website. But, sometimes web designers are also developers, but it is important you know difference between web design and web development. What do you need to know? HTML/CSS are core basics of all web development so it’s important to know the well. But, those two languages are not enough to become successful web developer, you’ll have to know JAVASCRIPT as well. Now when you know which technologies you need to start, let’s see how they work together: As you can see, we use HTML to structure elements our website, then we want to style them with CSS and with JAVASCRIPT we control their behaviour. You need to know that sometimes only HTML/CSS/JS will not be enough to get a decend job, you’ll need to expand your basicfrontend knownledge. 2. Front-End vs Back-End Development Frontend development When we discuss the “frontend” of the web, what we’re really talking about is the part of the web that you can see and interact with. The frontend usually consists of two parts: the web design and front end web development. In the past when someone discussed development it usually referred to the backend, but in recent years there has been a real need to differentiate between designers that worked strictly in Photoshop and those that could code HTML and CSS. It went even further when designers crossed the lines to working with JavaScript and jQuery. So now when we discuss the term “web design”, we’re really talking about those that work with Photoshop and Fireworks, andthose that code using HTML, CSS, JavaScript or jQuery (it might be important here to state that jQuery is a compiled library of Javascript). Everything that you see when using the web is a combination of HTML, CSS, andJavaScript all being controlled by your computer’s browser. These include things like fonts, drop-down menus, buttons, transitions, sliders, contact forms, etc. Now to make all of this become a reality and to store the information that you put in the frontend elements, we need technology to make it happen. Backend development The backend usually consists of three parts: a server, an application, and a database. If you book a flight or buy concert tickets, you usually open a website and interact with the frontend. Once you’ve entered that information, the application stores it in a database that was created on a server. For sake of ease, just think about a database as a giant Excel spreadsheet on your computer, but your computer (server) is stored somewhere else in the world. All of that information stays on the server so when you log back into the application to print your tickets, all of the information is still there in your account. We call a person that builds all of this technology to work together a backend developer. Backend technologies usually consist of languages like PHP, Ruby, Python, etc. To make them even easier to use they’re usually enhanced by frameworks like Ruby on Rails, Cake PHP, and Code Igniter that all make development faster and easier to collaborate on.   Conclusion So we learned that web design and web development is two different things, but web designer can also be a web developer.For basic web development knownledge we need to know HTML for structuring our website,CSS to style it, and JAVASCRIPT to make it interactive. Web development has 2 paths –frontend and backend .