Organize thoughts, jot down points

Don’t just go with the flow. Organize your thoughts first and jot down the points you wish to include. Write each point below one another and leave space for elaboration. Now concentrate on each point and elaborate. Depending upon the word limit perform elaboration part. Don’t elaborate too much that you exceed word limit. Rather than focusing too much on elaborating one point, move on to the next point so that you don’t skip any of them yet stay within the word limit. You always have the scope of getting back to each point once the write up is completed and add more lines if word limit has not been met yet.

Avoid repetitions

One effective way of meeting word limit is by not repeating any thought or meaning twice. Often we keep stretching an intended message over several lines. It keeps fattening our write up. Such technique helps only when we lack substance and wish to write long. Make sure, you convey your points in a sentence or two. Repetitions not only unnecessarily lengthen articles but also bore readers.

Keep a constant watch on word count

Don’t wait for counting words at the end; keep a close watch on words written right from the start. Latest version of Microsoft words automatically displays number of words written in the bottom of the screen. Else after every few lines you can manually check the word count. It will help you to keep your write up within the word limit.

Edit at the end

Of course easiest and most practiced option is editing write up and making it short. When you just couldn’t help yourself from writing a long article and exceeding word limit you are left with the option of revising it carefully, editing all unnecessary points out. You may have to edit then read, again edit and read.

The study found that ads shown in online TV shows has 65% general recall, whereas ads shown on TV during the same show has 46% general recall. In terms of brand recall also, online video performs much better than TV ads.

Brand recall for online video ads was 50% compared to recall for TV ads. Message recall among those who saw the ad while watching the show on the Internet was 50% compared to 28% for TV ads. Likability was also more among people watching ads on the net versus on the TV (26% compared to 14%). (See image below for details).

The research showed that people are more engaged and attentive while watching on the Internet, which assists in brand recall.

According to Nielsen, 62 million visitors accessed the Internet on mobile in the month of December 2009; of which, Google had the largest share (36.7 million), Yahoo! received 33.7 million visitors, and Microsoft/Windows Live/Bing got 20.2 million visitors. Facebook (18.9 million visitors) and AOL (17.3 million visitors) were the other two websites that made the top 5 list.

Microsoft’s hope to revive its MSN search is falling apart, and so is the Yahoo’s struggle to make the web user-centric. Perhaps they are too late or perhaps Google is playing every card right. To revive MSN search and make it look like Bing, Microsoft has acquired a small California-based start-up to roll out  Bing, but it does not seem to be working out well.

71.6% of the total US searchers still usage Google to search the World Wide Web, whereas, around 15% people use Yahoo, and around 9% people use Bing.

Keep track of all your personal associates.  Keep a good record of when and where you first made contact, how often you usually keep in contact with them, and the last time you had a meeting.  Usually programs like Microsoft Excel are good for forming a quick chart that you can change and read on the fly.  All of this can be useful later.

You have to keep using your business contacts so that they do not forget about you, but don’t call them everyday.  Keeping an accurate record of how often you communicate allows you to keep on that system, so that you maintain the relationship by keeping up with them as often as you should.  You can also keep track of their opinion of you this way.  If they usually call you right back after an attempt to contact them, you are high up on the importance list.  If you find they do not usually make an effort to contact you, you’re not that high priority.

Make your contact time count.  Remember, you are not friends; the whole purpose of this relationship is to keep advancing each other professionally in some way.  So keep your messages short, and to the point.  Provide valuable information quickly, and they will return the favor, and turn to you more often.

But make sure that the business relationship is a two way street.  It’s called a relationship for a reason, both of you are looking to benefit from what the other offers.  So if your contact is there for you, make sure to return the favor.  That’s one of the most important ways to keep a business relationship over a long period.

MVC or Model-View-Controller is a design pattern that separates a program into three components, the View, the Model and the Controller. The View refers to the component that appears to the user. It is the code that generates what is shown to the user and it also receives input from the user as needed. The Controller on the other hand, refers on the code that determines what action should be taken when a request from the user is received. Finally, the Model refers to the section of code that does the processing of the request and also saves or retrieves data for the user before handing it back to the View.

Now, let’s focus on this design pattern in the web application programming point of view. MVC is currently being implemented by two of the popular web programming languages. It is used in J2EE through the Struts, Spring, and JSF frameworks while it is also implemented by Ruby through the Rails framework. Other languages also have similar frameworks available though not as popular as those mentioned. Lately, Microsoft has also released an update for their .NET framework to support the MVC pattern.

What really makes this pattern so powerful is that it allows an application to be built independently from each other. This means, changes made to the implementation of one component should not drastically affect the other sections. This is especially beneficial for teams working on a program. Some of them can be working on the View component; creating the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS code that allows for a more pleasing web interface for the user. Others on the team could be working on the business logic of the program, focusing on how the data is processed and saved or retrieved from the database. Most importantly, the controller can be used to direct where requests are sent and to what page will the information be displayed.

Let’s trace how a request is processed in an MVC pattern. Let’s start with the request coming from the user. The user usually makes their first request by invoking the initial page of a website by entering the website’s URL in the browser. The controller catches the request for the initial page and invokes the proper action which makes the proper calls to the model components that accomplish the necessary processing. Once all the required information are gathered, the page is rendered by the view and the page is shown to the user.

Volumes can be written about the MVC pattern and its intricacies so for more information, you may visit WikiPedia for more information and links to MVC frameworks for your programming language of choice.

In contrast, Windows Vista became the poor recipient of much ridicule from a vast majority of users upon its release. Those who have used it complained of slowness and poor driver support. Though the latter problem of poor driver support was soon addressed when hardware vendors eventually offered Vista compatible drivers, the problem with slowness was not easily dispelled. Experts complained that the operating system used up too much system resources unnecessarily. They further added that aside from the aesthetic changes to the graphical user interface (GUI), there was really nothing useful that was added to Windows Vista that wasn’t already available in Windows XP.

With the arrival of Windows 7 to the scene, testers are saying that this is the version of Windows that Windows Vista should have been. Similar comments have also been said for Windows Server 2008 however, the clamour is becoming louder as Windows 7 comes nearer to its final release.

Some of the features to look out for in Windows 7 include:

• an updated taskbar
• jumplists and libraries
• screen hotspots for maximizing or resizing windows
• new bootscreen
• wallpaper slideshow
• desktop preview
• updated themes
• faster and more responsive interface
• more efficient memory management
• easier networking and device management

Tons of new features are also included for those who will be lucky enough to buy a multi-touch screen PC like the HP TouchSmart since Windows 7 will include customized features for these kinds of PCs that include enhanced jumplists and gestures.

However, some concerns have been raised with one of the main features of Windows 7 which is the updated taskbar. Consistency is not followed on how the icons on the taskbar appear. The same is true with the jumplists and the taskbar notification icons. If you wish to know more about this, try reading Paul Thurrott’s article entitled: Windows 7 Beta: Notes and Observations

Some speculations have stipulated that Windows 7 might be released as early as mid-2009. However, Microsoft insists it is set for a 2010 release date. Microsoft is also being vague as to whether Windows 7 is going to be a major Windows version or if it will just be an enhancement for Windows Vista.

No matter how you choose to see it, Windows 7 is going to be the next big thing for Windows users. Hopefully, the almost obligatory upgrade to more powerful hardware won’t be necessary since that was one of the major reasons why users hated Windows Vista so much. But looking into the early showing of Windows 7, it appears to be doing a lot of things right that makes it stand out as a winner to the eyes of a lot of users.