In this technology-driven age, our reliance on computers is constantly increasing. Today, computers are practically a necessity of everyday life. For a lot of people, not having access to it gives them a feeling of being powerless.

And since more and more people are having a second or even a third computer in the home, whether the combination is a desktop and a laptop, how do they deal with the software situation where the license explicitly says “only one copy must be running at a time”? They can either buy 3 licenses of the same software, or they could shift to open source.

Open source is a worldwide initiative to develop, test, and distribute software programs and applications with the intention of pushing information technology as a shared resource. Open source is also a lifestyle concept where people share knowledge for the good of the world instead of simply treating it as a business transaction.

With the sudden popularity of digital photography, more and more people are turning towards editing software to create effects that look out of the ordinary. The tools of choice are Photoshop and the numerous third party plug-ins that everyone seems to use nowadays. Plug-ins provide effects that may supplement the filters and effects found in Photoshop.

Although there exists lots and lots of plugin designers, most are simply offering bells and whistles which you might not even get to really need at all. Here are some basic plug-ins for you to consider:

Andromeda offers several series of plug-ins foremost of which is called Scatterlight. It is a series of light diffusers and enhancers rolled into a convenient package.

Fred Miranda has a set of downloadable plug-ins and actions which may offer even better opportunities than the standard available on our options menu.

NIK is another tremendously popular plug-in, specially in the U.S.

This post will feature some of the most commonly employed scripting technologies used on the server side.

CGI scripts are executables that come from the server and make your web pages dynamic and more interactive. Though most web hosts offer this capability to some degree, it is still better to make sure of that at the outset. Some examples of web page features made using CGI scripts are guestbooks, counters, and chat-forums. CGI scripts are best used on Unix and Linux servesr.

ASP (Active Server Pages) was developed by Microsoft and as such, is standard with Windows and only runs on Windows. One feature of ASP is the ability to include script code inside your HTML pages. This makes for dynamic web pages. Many web hosts offer ASP. If you want to use ASP on a Unix system, you would have to employ Chili!Soft ASP. This is Microsoft’s version of ASP that can run on other platforms.

JSP, on the other hand, is really much like ASP, except that it was developed by Sun. It works the same way – you include Java codes in your HTML pages to create dynamic web pages. The big difference is that since it uses Java, JSP is not restricted to any platform.

Setting up a successful web presence requires a variety of skills and in many cases people looking to dive into the online world and cash in on some of the opportunities it offers find themselves lacking in one or more fields of expertise. While large businesses can afford to hire a complete staff with each member responsible for a certain aspect of the site (such as web design, content, advertising, search engine optimization etc.), smaller organizations and single individuals have to find other ways of getting around the obstacles and usually must manage all aspects of the site themselves.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to learn every single programming language and master every art of website management, you simply have to use the right services and assist in the right companies. One such company is World Market Systems which dedicate themselves to help individuals get their site up in a professional manner in as little time as possible. They do this through a range of proprietary systems they have developed which allow users to build a site and have it up and running in less than 24 hours. WorldMarketSystems amazing service has already been the stepping stone for over 50,000 websites to get off the ground and achieve the success their operators aspire.

Who said great design services have to cost a ton? Check out Dev3 - Web Design Services, they offer extremely low prices on almost all aspects of website development. But don’t confuse low prices with sub par service. On the contrary, the company has an impressive portfolio of previous projects including a few for Fortune 500 clients.

Another terrific aspect about using Dev3 is that they don’t just perform design services, rather provide an overall solution including database design, web applications and even SEO service. That is not to say that you would necessarily outsource all these aspects of your site but it helps when your design company understands in these issues so you can be sure your design has SEO considerations in mind.

Most people, except programmers, are more familiar with what is called client side technologies like HTML and JavaScript. This makes sense since most people do not even dabble much with these client side technologies much less need not learn about server side technologies.

However, do you know that all websites that makes use of a database, payment processors or any thing else that gets input from visitors and processes or saves the data also make use of server side technologies? The difference between the two is simple, client side technologies run and execute on the web browser while server side technologies do this on the server. Examples of server side technologies are Perl, ASP, PHP and JSP.

I’ve started using RoR recently for some new projects and I’ve been getting sick of trying to remember ruby coding standards, much less RoR. If you’re from a background different then Ruby (who isn’t?) Ruby standards can be a little tricky (I’m not saying they don’t make sense, they make great sense, its breaking the bad habits that’s hard).

Here are the best cheatsheets I’ve found:

Ruby:

• Ruby Cheatsheet v.1 (2 pages)

Ruby on Rails:

• RoR Cheatsheet by Blaine Kendall (14 pages long, Rails + Ruby)
• RoR Cheatsheet by ILJD (1 page, includes directory structure reference)

Textmate + Rails:

• Textmate Rails Bundle Cheat sheet