Working from home: The future of business is remote.
Leadership styles have had to change radically this year. Instead of managing colleagues face-to-face, business leaders have had to lead from afar, supervising disparate teams over Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
It's not a leadership style that many managers would have picked; socially-distanced working has been a necessity rather than a choice. And many leaders are still uncomfortable both managing at a distance and trusting their staff to get on with their work without direction.
Harvard Business Review (HBR) reports that 40% of managers have low self-confidence in their ability to manage workers remotely. More than a third (38%), meanwhile, still believe remote workers usually perform worse than those in an office.
Sketch Alternatives: Tools That Can Replace Sketch For Your Design Needs
Sketch once dominated the world of UI design tools. But these days, we have an array of Sketch alternatives that are on par with Sketch and even outmatch it in certain areas. This detailed guide will cover the best Sketch alternatives in 2020.
A few years ago, a UXTools survey revealed that Sketch was the most used tool for designing UI, wireframing, brainstorming, and creating user flow.
But over the last few years, the landscape of design tools changed dramatically.
As competitors grew in size and quality, the field of /UIUX tools became much more diverse, and the latest survey reflects just that: product designers are using various tools — each with their strengths.
We have Sketch alternatives that are lightning-fast, cross-platform, highly collaborative, and asset-rich.
So how do you choose which UI/UX designing app to use?
Let’s go through the best alternatives to Sketch.
Figma:
Figma currently holds the top spot as the most popular tool for design and prototyping: 66% of designers use Figma for UI design, double what was just a year ago.
One of the reasons for such vast success is the tool’s accessibility: you can use Figma on almost any platform (Mac, Win, Linus) as long as you have an active Internet connection. Figma works within your browser, so you don’t need to install desktop apps and bother updating them (although Figma has apps for both Mac and Windows).
Big Sur Icons: The Most Controversial Icon Pack Released So Far?
On November 12, 2020, Apple released its newest operating system, Big Sur. The new system sparked many discussions and debates concerning the major user interface overhaul it delivered. But one of the most controversial and heated debates rose around Big Sur icons. Let’s find out why.
Apple's update that enables RAW camera capture and makes your photos more editable is now available.
Apple's latest version of iOS adds a new camera feature to the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max called ProRAW. Shutterbug or not, it's a perk you'll want to check out.
What Is ProRAW?
You're probably familiar with JPEG, the file format most phones and even professional cameras use for photos. It's the most common format due to its ability to compress image data and reduce a picture's file size without dramatically affecting quality. There are similar advantages to HEIC, a newer format Apple uses that creates even tinier file sizes while still maintaining good image quality.
But when it comes to editing JPEG photos, on Instagram or your default photo-editing app, the amount of tweaking you can do is limited. You might not be able to fix that over-exposed sky, for example. That's because JPEGs/HEICs don't have as much image data to work with, since a great amount of that data gets discarded when the file is compressed. That's why most professional photographers shoot in RAW. The RAW format is lossless, meaning it contains unprocessed image data straight from the camera's sensor. That richer data set can make all the difference in fixing a blown-out sky, correcting white balance, or tuning the colors of plants and humans to look more natural. The tradeoff is the file size; a RAW image is several times the size of a JPEG or a HEIC.
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By utilizing templates, you can impress your visitors with your design expertise without needing to be an expert in web design. These templates offer a wide range of features and customization options, allowing you to create a website that stands out from the competition.
Using templates can save you both time and effort when building web pages online. They come pre-built with various design elements, including typography, color schemes, and layouts. This means you don’t have to spend hours creating each page from scratch, freeing up time for other important tasks.
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Chromebooks will now let you sign in to websites with your fingerprint
Google brings Web Authentication aka 'WebAuthn' to Chrome OS version 88.
Google has finally brought Web Authentication (WebAuthn) passwordless authentication to Chrome OS to allow users to sign in to websites with a PIN or fingerprint used to unlock a Chromebook.
WebAuthn allows people to register and authenticate on websites or apps using an "authenticator" – such as a fingerprint or PIN – instead of a password. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) made WebAuthn an official web standard in 2019.
Of course, to take advantage of the Chrome OS version 88 update, people need to have a Chromebook with a fingerprint reader. But the feature also supports a device PIN, which is still easier to remember than passwords for every website.
Websites that support WebAuthn will let you use your Chromebook PIN or fingerprint ID – if your Chromebook has a fingerprint reader – instead of the password you've set for the website," says Alexander Kuscher, director of Chrome OS.
Additionally, people who use Google's two-step verification to sign in to a Google account don't need to use a security key or phone to authenticate since the Chromebook PIN or fingerprint ID can be used as the second factor.
Firefox was created in 2002 under the code name "Phoenix" by members of the Mozilla community who desired a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. During its beta phase, it proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security, and add-ons compared to Microsoft's then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. It was released on November 9, 2004, and challenged Internet Explorer's dominance with 60 million downloads within nine months. It is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998, before its acquisition by AOL.
Windows 11’s latest preview release appears to be causing a whole host of serious problems for several users, including unresponsive Start Menu, Taskbar, Explorer.exe, Windows Settings, and other critical bits of the operating system seemingly disappearing or broken.
This is happening to those who have installed Windows 11 Build 22000.176 or Build 22449, which are the latest round of preview updates for the Beta and Dev channels respectively. There is a range of different issues reported by testers on the Feedback Hub and our forum, but it appears that the tech giant has rolled out a server-side fix.
At the moment, it’s not clear how widespread these Start Menu and taskbar gremlins in the operating system might be. In some cases, users are reporting that the Taskbar and Start menu are totally blank, and an hourglass is displayed when users move the cursor closer to the taskbar.
“In the new version, after startup, the taskbar disappears. After restart, the machine runs slowly and the taskbar is stuck. Repeated restarts are still invalid, any software can not be operated, and some shortcut keys are invalid,” a user noted in the Feedback Hub and there are similar complaints on our forum.
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► PHP PHP is the most used programming language today. There is a multitude of CMS applications that are built primarily on PHP, including WordPress, Joomla, and so many more. Follow the links to learn more about this highly used programming language.
► HTML and CSS are the fundamental technologies for building Web pages: HTML (HTML and XHTML) for structure, CSS for style and layout, including WebFonts. Find resources for good Web page design as well as helpful tools.
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The open-source desktop operating system that powers millions of PCs and laptops around the world. Find out more about Ubuntu’s features and how we support developers and organizations below.
Kubuntu is an operating system built by a worldwide community of developers, testers, supporters, and translators.
Kubuntu is a free, complete, and open-source alternative to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X which contains everything you need to work, play, or share. Check out the Feature Tour if you would like to learn more!
Every part of GNOME has been designed to make it simple and easy to use. The Activities Overview is a simple way to access all your basic tasks. A press of a button is all it takes to view your open windows, launch applications, or check if you have new messages. Having everything in one convenient place means you don’t have to learn your way around a maze of different technologies.
Less setup, more innovation. Choose a flavor of Fedora streamlined for your needs, and get to work right away. If you prefer an alternative desktop environment such as KDE Plasma Desktop or Xfce, you can download a Fedora Spin for your preferred desktop environment and use that to install Fedora, pre-configured for the desktop environment of your choice.
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Chrome's Aurora initiative is a collaboration between Chrome and open-source Javascript frameworks and tooling to improve user experience on the web. If Aurora is new to you, take a look at our introduction post to learn more about our mission and methodology.
Nibbler is a free tool for testing websites. Enter the address of any website and Nibbler will give you a report scoring the website out of 10 for key areas, including accessibility, SEO, social media, and technology. Nibbler is completely free but limited to three reports.
Bitnami provides a free all-in-one tool to install Drupal, Joomla!, WordPress, and many other popular open-source apps on top of XAMPP. Visit Bitnami XAMPP or click to see the full list of add-ons for XAMPP.
WampServer is a Windows web development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache2, PHP, and a MySQL database. Alongside, PhpMyAdmin allows you to easily manage your databases.
WampServer installs automatically all you need to start developing web applications and is very intuitive to use. You will be able to tune your server without even touching the settings files.
AMPPS is a WAMP, MAMP, and LAMP stack of Apache, MySQL, MongoDB, PHP, Perl & Python. AMPPS enables you to focus more on using applications rather than maintaining them. With AMPPS you can create a website by installing any of the 421 Apps, customizing it, and then simply publishing it on the internet via a wide choice of hosting service providers.
MAMP is a free, local server environment that can be installed under macOS and Windows with just a few clicks. MAMP provides them with all the tools they need to run WordPress on their desktop PC for testing or development purposes, for example. You can even easily test your projects on mobile devices. It does not matter whether you prefer the web server Apache or Nginx in addition to MySQL as a database server, or whether you want to work with PHP, Python, Perl, or Ruby.
There is a lot that can be said about the quality of wallpaper sites and the way that they offer up their product. In my opinion Wallpapers Wide is the best among all of the sites out there with Unsplash being second.
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Web Fonts
► What is WebFonts? -WebFonts is a technology that enables people to use fonts on-demand over the Web without requiring installation in the operating system. W3C has experience in downloadable fonts through HTML, CSS2, and SVG. Until recently, downloadable fonts have not been common on the Web due to the lack of an interoperable font format. The WebFonts effort plans to address that through the creation of an industry-supported, open font format for the Web (called "WOFF").
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What is CSS? -CSS is the language for describing the presentation of Web pages, including colors, layout, and fonts. It allows one to adapt the presentation to different types of devices, such as large screens, small screens, or printers. CSS is independent of HTML and can be used with any XML-based markup language. The separation of HTML from CSS makes it easier to maintain sites, share style sheets across pages, and tailor pages to different environments.
What is XHTML? -XHTML is a variant of HTML that uses the syntax of XML, the Extensible Markup Language. XHTML has all the same elements (for paragraphs, etc.) as the HTML variant, but the syntax is slightly different. Because XHTML is an XML application, you can use other XML tools with it (such as XSLT, a language for transforming XML content).
• W3 Schools is a web developer's information website, with tutorials and references on web development languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, and JQuery, covering most aspects of web programming. W3Schools presents thousands of code examples. By using the online editor provided, readers can edit the examples and execute the code experimentally."
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mIRC is a full-featured Internet Relay Chat client for Windows that can be used to communicate, share, play or work with others on IRC networks around the world, either in multi-user group conferences or in one-to-one private discussions.
It has a clean, practical interface that is highly configurable and supports features such as buddy lists, file transfers, multi-server connections, IPv6, SSL encryption, proxy support, UTF-8 display, UPnP, customizable sounds, spoken messages, tray notifications, message logging, and more.
mIRC also has a powerful scripting language that can be used both to automate mIRC and to create applications that perform a wide range of functions from network communications to playing games.
mIRC has been in development for over two decades and is constantly being improved and updated with new technologies. The most recent changes can be found on the latest news page.
To get started, you can download mIRC now from the download page.
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You interact with JavaScript code all the time. It powers dynamic behavior on websites and plays an important role in many fields, like front- and back-end engineering, game and mobile development, virtual reality, and more.
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