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The History of Information Technology

Most, if not all the buzz surrounding information technology has to do with what’s coming and future possibilities. It also involves seo for clients, marketing, AI analyzations etc. It almost seems like a waste of time to focus on the past when trying to upgrade and enhance the one thing our country can’t seem to live without. But when looking at the information technology industry and how it’s grown, it’s practically mesmerizing. The one thing that’s certain is that advancements have regularly been made for decades, and each new creation has paved the way for bigger and better ones in the future. So why not take a look back at how exactly information technology became what it is today? And how much technical support is actually needed for fresh users of IT?

What Is Information Technology?

First, what in the world is information technology? In its most basic form, information technology is the utilization of computers to study, store, and control data or information. Information technology, or IT, is often used as a synonym for computer networks but it includes other information distribution technologies like phones, radios, and TVs.

Giving Information Technology a Name

The term “information technology” in its modern sense, first appeared in a 1958 article written by Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler. The article was published in The Harvard Business Reviewer. In the article, the authors commented “the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT).”

For Leavitt and Whisler, their definition included three categories: the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making, techniques for processing, and the simulation of high-order thinking through computer programs.

The History of Information Technology

Information technology has been around for centuries, practically as long as humans have been around. That’s right; information technology hasn’t always been about computers. Centuries ago, there were ways of using technology to communicate, unlike the ways it’s used now. The history of information technology is divided into four ages. Those four ages are pre-mechanical, mechanical, electromechanical, and electronic.

Pre-Mechanical Age

The earliest age of information technology is the pre-mechanical age. This age occurred between 3000 B.C. and 1450 A.D. During this age, humans obviously didn’t have computers, televisions, or telephones, but they used their own forms of information technology that you’re likely somewhat familiar with. Humans would attempt to communicate using language or picture drawings called petroglyphs, usually carved into rocks. It was then that some of the first alphabets were created, like the Phoenician alphabet.

Alphabets became more popular, and people started writing information down, so pens and paper were developed. Paper was eventually created out of papyrus plant, but the most popular form of paper was created by the Chinese who used rags.

As more information was written down, a way to store information was created. It was then that books and libraries were developed. There’s a good chance you’ve at least heard of Egyptian scrolls. Yes, even those were considered a form of information technology!

It was also during the pre-mechanical age that a numbering system was developed. In India in 100 A.D., people created the first 1-9 system. Once numbers were created, so were calculators. The calculator became the first sign of an information processor, and at the time, the popular model was the abacus.

Mechanical Age

Between 1450 and 1840 a lot of new technologies were developed thanks to a sudden peak in interest in the area. The slide rule, the analog computer used to multiply and divide, was invented. The Pascaline, a popular mechanical computer, was created by Blaise Pascal. Charles Babbage created the difference engine which calculated polynomial equations using the method of finite differences.

Sure, these machines were nothing like the ones we’re used to today, given that they can’t do more than one type of calculation each, but these inventions paved the way to the modern processors and calculators we now use. Plus, to the people living during the mechanical age, these gadgets and processes were remarkable.

Electromechanical Age

The electromechanical age occurred between 1840 and 1940 and included the start of telecommunication. The telegraph was invented. Morse code was invented by Samuel Morse in 1835, the telephone was created by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, and the first radio was created by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894. As you can imagine, these technological inventions were greatly important, given how they led the way to even bigger advances in the field of information technology.

The first automatic digital computer in the United States was the Mark 1, created in 1940 by Harvard University. The large-scale computer was 8 feet tall and two feet wide and weighed 5 tons. Punch cards were used to program it.

Electronic Age

Finally, there’s the electronic age that we all know and love. The electronic age is the time between 1940 and now. The ENIAC was designed to be used by the U.S. Army for artillery firing tables and was even bigger than the Mark 1. It was the first high-speed digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. The ENIAC used mostly vacuum tubes for its calculations.

Also during the electronic age, high-level programming languages like FORTRAN and COBOL were created. The latest generation created and utilized central processing units which include memory, logic, and control circuits on one single chip. Also, the personal computer, known as the App II, was developed, as well as the graphical user interface (GUI). As information technology grew, so did the need for IT professionals. Large companies like Samsung in South Korea or Apple and Microsoft in the United States, seem to be leading the way, but it’s the smaller, lesser known shops like Mustard IT, or the mom and pop shop down the road, that truly keep information technology the thriving area our country now depends on.

Computers and information technology processors have only gotten faster and smarter. It’s a marvel all its own that we’ve simply been able to keep up. There’s no telling what’s next in the future of information technology.


Writing down your feelings: could blogging be the best form of therapy?

Writing down your feelings is commonly referred to as expressive writing. Many writers and psychologists know the benefits of expressive writing, which is why it is very often recommended as a form of therapy. Psychiatrists recommend it to their patients, especially if they are suffering from depression or addiction to substances and activities. People who are recovering substance abusers or problem gamblers can gain a lot from expressive writing because expressive writing helps people not only in controlling emotions gone haywire, but it can also help them feel in control over their lives and problems. Recovering addicts have a very difficult path ahead of them, in terms of getting their lives back in order, all the while being psychologically and emotionally stable not to fall into relapse.

What are the benefits of expressive writing?

Expressive writing means writing down your thoughts and emotions as they come in the moment of writing – you just sit down and write, whether in a diary, or on the computer (although, longhand writing is recommended more often than typing on a computer), without planning what you’re going to write. No matter how long you write, by the end, your thoughts will be clearer, and your emotions will be easier to control.

However, expressive writing in diary format lacks one thing: audience. No one will get to read what you have written but your own self, and while this does not diminish the therapeutic power of expressive writing, it will not bring you together with other people who go through the same things as you. And sometimes, that sense of companionship is needed more than the alones of expressive writing.

Can blogging be therapeutic?

Many researchers, scientists and psychiatrists have begun to recommend blogging, as a form of public expressive writing as a therapeutic tool. One of the greatest benefits of blogging is the opportunity to share your thoughts while remaining anonymous, so if you do not want your immediate friends and family to be aware of your writing, you can easily hide behind a pseudonym, while still be able to connect with other people. This makes it easier for recovering addicts to understand that they are not alone.

When you have an audience that listens, or in this case, reads, every word you’ve written, and whose members show genuine care about the content of your writing, the benefits of expressive writing reach the stratosphere. People who have emotional problems, health problems or are recovering from an overwhelming addiction need the companionship that blogging offers them, because it is difficult to be alone on such a daunting path.

It is not only people who suffer from emotional problems that can gain from blogging and expressive writing. Doctors have noted that cancer patients who used expressive writing as a therapeutic tool had better results from chemotherapy, were able to remain positive throughout their treatment period, and had significant amount of influence over the positive results of their treatment.

Expressive writing by itself has additional benefits. When you write without planning, you become better at gathering your thoughts, which in turn, will make you a better speaker. This can make your daily interactions much more enjoyable, as well as give you an increase in self-confidence. When your expressive writing becomes public – once you’ve started a blog, because you will get feedback which will tell you that not only you’re not alone, but that you have also affected other people who are messaging you and commenting their support. Which leads us to another impressive, and often overlooked benefit: blogging is fun, and it can also be a source of income.

Blogging as a source of entertainment

You do not need much to start a blog. WordPress, the most popular content management system, offers instructions on how to use it, no matter which hosting website you use. Additionally, there are plenty of WordPress themes that are ready and available to you. With them, you can create a blog that is not only the place where you express your thoughts and feelings to an audience, but it is also your own special place.

One of the themes to allow you complete creative freedom is the Spine Theme Demo. As a WordPress theme, you can use it for your blog, and get the full blogging experience with its features. It allows plenty of experimentation, and it has numerous benefits. One of its best features is that it is translate ready – which means your content will be read and understood by readers all over the world.

It also offers plenty of ways to make your personal space entertaining – from a kaleidoscope of colors and images, to layouts and sidebars, and it is very easy to use, even if you are a beginner. You can make your blog look any way you want, and express yourself not only in writing, but in other artistic ways, which increases the value of blogging as a form of therapy.

You can create an online personality for yourself that you wouldn’t be able to show in a different place, and you can adjust it until it fits you perfectly, as well make what you are writing about not only interesting, but also pleasing to eye as well. These features are bound to bring more traffic to your blog, which will increase the feeling of companionship and community, the two things that lay at the heart of blogging. You can be fun and entertaining, or you can present a more serious persona, all depending on what you wish to achieve and what you wish to present. This freedom is the reason why blogging can be a better form of therapy than simply writing for yourself in a diary, for not only will you gain companionship and compassion from the audience you will attract, you will get to have fun expressing yourself in various different ways as well. Also, you will have the opportunity to interact with many other people who share your problems and who have had similar experiences as yourself, which you will not get if you’re only writing for yourself.


Top WordPress themes for review sites

Global is the word. Everyone is part of one global community. The global mindset paved the way for online businesses and, of course, online shopping. The online “bazaar” offers pretty much anything nowadays and, with everything within reach, filtering amongst millions of different options became a necessity.

Reviews

One of the most popular ways to filter through all the content available is to read reviews. Review sites have been appearing by the thousands due to this consumer behavior and finding a good review site can prove to be a difficult challenge. Whether you are looking for a new camera to record your funniest moments, or looking for a present for your kid’s birthday, what makes you like and/or trust a specific review website?

What do you look for when visiting review sites?

What makes a good review site? How can you captivate people to visit a certain review website? Does anyone trust online reviews?

If you are not sure what to purchase, or if you have product performance concerns, review sites can be very helpful. Nevertheless, they can be very extenuating to navigate, and very painful to look at.

Let’s face it, you want the platform to quickly give you the answers you need, with as few complications as possible. You already have a problem you need to fix (what restaurant to go, what product to buy, what book to read, etc.). You want a clean-looking, reliable website that can run on your phone, with options to filter by any type of review you are looking for (i.e. “I’m just interested in reading about this restaurant’s dessert”), up-to-date reviews, and with value-for-money, best price, and cheapest options.

If you are interested in knowing what a review site looks like, what kind of issues are addressed, and what options can be provided, take a look at this site, made by a group of three friends that work together in the woodworking business, and are happy to share their experiences and know-how in order to give the best possible choices for the people who are interested in this field, but lack the knowledge or experience to make decisions: best router tables.

As you may have heard, WordPress-based websites can help you accomplish these goals. Whether you are a customer looking for a review, or a review website owner, WordPress can work wonders for you.

“Going Spine”

WordPress can be a very powerful tool to turn a website into a user-friendly, clean-looking and optimized platform. In a time when people increasingly value the time they spend browsing a website, and its presentation, optimization, and reliability, WordPress can be invaluable for a business to be successful. However, one of the most incredible things about WordPress is the easiness with which someone can set up a website. Let us consider, for a moment, the three gentlemen that write reviews about woodworking. They are highly skilled individuals, with years of experience, in the woodworking field. For them to build a review website, they would need to hire a programmer or a web designer, or maybe even learn how to build a website by themselves. WordPress makes this process much, much simpler, allowing money-saving while maintaining high-quality standards.

WordPress allows:

  • Easy website set-up
  • Clean-looking, highly customizable pages
  • E-commerce integration
  • User-friendly mindset
  • Focus on the customer
  • Mobile optimization
  • And a lot more

The details, mentioned above, are very important because people are very selective when it comes to which websites they visit and how they spend their time, nowadays. Remember how there are millions of products and there is a need to filter through? Well, there are millions of websites too, creating a necessity to make your website as good-looking and optimized as the ones you like to visit the most.

Take a step further, check Spine, a responsive WordPress theme, which concentrates all its efforts to make the experience of building a website as simple as possible while maintaining excellent quality. Spine is highly customizable, mobile-ready, easy-to-use and translation-ready.

All things considered

Remember what is needed for people to like a review site. Be aware that a decision to keep browsing a website is made in a few seconds (if you don’t believe me, try it yourself: open a few websites and see how much time you take to decide whether to keep browsing through or to click your way out as soon as possible). When you think about these things you realize you need to be aware of your customers’ desires and that you have to keep the latest online trends in mind. People are increasingly responding to the “less is more mentality”. As stated, a few seconds is enough for people to want to leave a website, so what do you need to do to make them stay? If you think about it, a few seconds is only enough to have a general overview of the website’s presentation. Focusing on presentation and providing a clean-looking, uncluttered website is a must. Once this step is complete and people decide to stay on your website, the next level is to have an optimized, user-friendly platform, meaning that people should have absolutely no difficulty when it comes to finding, or getting to exactly where they want within your website, and this can prove to be incredibly challenging. The last, but maybe the most important step is mobile-readiness. Never forget the fact that probably the first, and maybe the last, time that people will access your website is through their phones, so you need to make sure there are absolutely no problems when you run your website through a mobile platform.

Remember to rely on WordPress to make things simpler for you when building a website, relying on the wisdom of a company that knows all about websites and their trends and decided to make an open source, highly customizable platform to make your life easier, is a good use of your time. Apply the time you gain by using Spine to concentrate on what you do best and give people what they really want, and build a top-rated review website.


WordPress Development 101

WordPress is among the most popular and efficient content management systems out there. It is a free and open source platform that is highly customizable, and doesn’t charge even a dime for using it. What this means is that you can build your own website with a completely unique look. To do this, however, you need to know how to create a WordPress Theme, and this article will show you just that.

Creating a WordPress Theme

To begin building your theme, you need to first create a subfolder in the folder in the wp-content/themes directory in your WordPress folder. Let’s call the folder “my_theme”, for the purpose of this tutorial.

You should note, however, that the name of the folder needs to correspond to the name of the theme you’re creating. To do this, you can either use the File Manager tool in your cPanel or your favourite FTP client.

Before you start developing your theme, you need to decide how your website’s layout will look like. For this tutorial, let’s create a WordPress theme that consists of a header, a footer, sidebar, and content area.

Therefore, we have to create the following file into the my_theme directory:

  • php – As the the main file for the theme, it will contain the code for the Main Area, and will specify where other files will be included;
  • php – The file will contain the code for the header part of the theme;
  • php – It will contain information about the sidebar;
  • php – This file will handle the footer;
  • css – This file handles the styling of your new theme.

There are two ways of creating these files:

  1. Use a simple text editor, like notepad, to create the files locally and then upload them via FTP
  2. Create the files directly on the hosting account using the File Manager tool in your cPanel

Now, let’s take a detailed look at each file:

The header.php

You need to add the following code in this file:
<html>

<head>

<title>Tutorial theme</title>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_url’); ?>”>

</head>

<body>

<div id=”wrapper”>

<div id=”header”>

<h1>HEADER</h1>


</div>
This is just a simple HTML code, with a single line comprising a php code and a standard WordPress function. Here, you can specify your meta tags, including your website’s title, meta description, and the keywords for your page.

Immediately after title, we add the line:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>">
This instructs WordPress to load the style.css file. It’ll handle your website’s styling.
The <?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?> segment of the line is a WordPress function that loads the stylesheet file.
Then, we’ve added the beginning of a “div” with a class wrapper. This will be the main container of your website. We’ve set class for it, in order to be able to modify it via the style.css file.

Afterwards, we’ve included a simple label HEADER, wrapped in a “div” with class “header”. This will be specified later in the style.css file.

The index.php file

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id=”main”>

<div id=”content”>

<h1>Main Area</h1>

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>

<h4>Posted on <?php the_time(‘F jS, Y’) ?></h4>

<p><?php the_content(__(‘(more…)’)); ?></p>

<hr> <?php endwhile; else: ?>

<p><?php _e(‘Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.’); ?></p><?php endif; ?>

</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

</div>

<div id=”delimiter”>

</div>


<?php get_footer(); ?>
The code in this file starts with <?php get_header(); ?>, which will  include the header as well as the code in it, in the main page. The code uses a WordPress function to do that. Next, we’ve placed a Main Area text to show which section of the theme is displayed in this area.

In the next few lines, we have PHP code and standard WordPress functions. The work of the code is to check whether you have posts in your website created through the WordPress administrative area, and then displays them.

Then, the sidebar.php file is included using the following line:
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
After the line, we insert an empty “div”, which will separate the Sidebar and the Main Area from the footer.

Lastly, we add the following line:
<?php get_footer(); ?>
This will include the footer.php file in your web page.

The sidebar.php file

In this file, the following code should be added:
<div id="sidebar">

<h2 ><?php _e(‘Categories’); ?></h2>

<ul >

<?php wp_list_cats(‘sort_column=name&optioncount=1&hierarchical=0’); ?>

</ul>

<h2 ><?php _e(‘Archives’); ?></h2>

<ul >

<?php wp_get_archives(‘type=monthly’); ?>

</ul>


</div>
In the sidebar.php file, we apply WordPress functions to display the posts’ Archives and Categories, which are returned as list items by the function. Hence, we’ve wrapped the actual functions in unsorted lists.

Footer.php

In this file, add the following lines:
<div id="footer">

<h1>FOOTER</h1>

</div>

</div>

</body>


</html>
You can replace the FOOTER label with links, your theme’s copyright information, and additional text or objects.

The stylesheet

You should add these lines to the style.css file:
body { text-align: center; }

#wrapper { display: block; border: 1px #a2a2a2 solid; width:90%; margin:0px auto; }

#header { border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid; }

#content { width: 75%; border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid; float: left; }

#sidebar { width: 23%; border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid; float: right; }

#delimiter { clear: both; }

#footer { border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid; }


.title { font-size: 11pt; font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold; }
The css file sets the basic look of your theme. The lines set your page’s background and surround your site’s main parts with borders for convenience.

Afterwards, you can modify your CSS file; add images, animations, and other content to your theme to achieve the looks you desire for your website.

Conclusion

Creating a WordPress theme, such as Spine Theme, isn’t as difficult as you may fear. This is because there are plenty of resources that will help you learn how to make something that looks exactly the way you want.  You just have to be ready to experiment and to risk making mistakes, since it’s the best way to master the art of creating themes, as well as to develop a better sense of what sort of design will work best for your site. You can check out webcreationuk reviews for more insight on Content Management Systems and other useful information related to web design and development.


Will color make your life more interesting?

How often do you stop and notice the colors that surround you in your daily life?

Often, we go about our daily lives without paying too much attention to color. It is simply there: the sky is blue, the grass is green, the leaves change their color depending on the season, and it all passes us by. We rarely stop to marvel at them, to truly notice them, and often, we don’t realize the psychological and emotional effect color can have on us.

However, studies have shown that colors have a very big psychological and emotional effect on people. There are several reasons why this happens, and one reason why is evolution. For example, red can increase your heart rate, and this ingrained reaction stems because we unconsciously associate red with passion. Additionally, red is a stimulating color – it makes you think of fire trucks, danger, even fire.

On the other hand, looking at blue has been proven to be calming. In fact, many studies show that blue is the perfect color for an office, because it stimulates productivity while keeping you in a calm mood. It is widely believed that this occurs due to association – when you’re outside on a good day, the sky is blue. Additionally, the sea and the ocean are also blue. In turn, we associate blue with the motion of the waves, increasing the calming effect of the color blue.

Of course, color psychology also indicates that previous experience with color can also influence the effect on us. It is how we develop color preferences. For example, blue might have a calming effect, in general, but if you associate it with a bad memory, its effect on you will be completely the opposite. This means that there are no easy answers, however, there are a few generalities that we can properly utilize to make our lives a tad more interesting, with just a few additions of color in our lives.

Color psychology: Warm and Cool Colors

In order to understand the effect colors can have on your mood and emotions, you need to understand the difference between warm and cool colors.

Primary representatives of warm colors are red, orange and yellow. They have a stimulating effect on your mood, and are commonly referred to as sunny colors. Warm colors can increase your heart rate, thus making you feel warm, and they also have a stimulating effect on your mood, especially red and yellow.

Cool colors are represented by blue, green and purple. They have the opposite effect – they can calm you down, and green is also considered to be the most pleasant color for the eyes. Their effect doesn’t stop on the psychological level; in fact, these colors have been associated with physical relaxation as well.

How Can Color Make Your Life More Interesting?

One of the easiest ways to include color in your life is to add colors to your home. Also, adding colorful garments in your wardrobe can also make your days more interesting. And last, but not least, there is the colors presented to you on your computer or mobile screen. Choosing to add colors to your website or blog can make your time spent before the screen more interesting, it can have a relaxing effect, and the colors can attract more traffic and more readers to your website or blog.

Adding colors to your home and wardrobe

Colors in your home are very important. There are numerous ways in which you can experiment. You can use dry erase paint to turn your wall into a whiteboard where you can express your creativity with colors, and have the benefit of starting all over again the next day.

Colors have three different effects on people: active and stimulating, passive and calming, and neutral. When it comes to adding colors in your home, light colors can make any small room seem bigger, while richer, darker colors can make big rooms feel cozy and warm despite the big size.

Adding colors to your wardrobe, experimenting with different colors can make your life incredibly more fun. For example, using a yellow umbrella on a rainy day will definitely make your day feel sunnier, despite the rain. On the other side of the spectrum, people often don bright, light clothing in summer, especially blues and whites, due to their cooling effect. While black can be a little depressing to wear, it can also make a person feel slimmer and give them a confidence boost. On the other hand, red is often worn when a person wants to make a bold statement, while people that wear blue are often thought to inspire confidence in others.

Use colors to enhance your website or blog

These days, we spend more time in front of a computer screen instead of in the outdoors. This means that the colors of your website, your blog or desktop are very important to your productivity. For example, green is considered to have a great calming effect, and to allow the eyes to rest, which makes it a good color for your desktop. Orange attracts attention, without being as hard on the eyes as red or yellow, while blue inspires confidence and productivity. This is why it is important to choose a theme for your website that will allow you to use colors and interchange them as you need. One of the most adaptable themes out there is the Spine Theme Demo.

The Spine theme is a WordPress theme that offers plenty of ways to experiment and create a website that is pleasing to eye and attracts (and keeps) the attention of its visitors. You can use custom background, be it color or an image, and has plenty of other beautiful features. You can use a featured image for a post, and create custom menus, all of which can be in different colors or images to make the website an attractive whole. Another bonus is that it can be augmented to target specific audiences, and it is very adjustable to your needs and the needs of your business, no matter whether you need a layout without or with sidebars. It is also very easy to use, so beginners in this field will not have any problems getting used to working with it, and it is also mobile ready, which is a very big plus these days as most people prefer to use their phones to browse the internet. The Spine theme is also translate-ready, which means that you can attract international audiences without a problem.

Using the Spine theme gives you the opportunity to create any kind of website you want – from professional business website, to a fun and quirky blog, and it’s features will make your website interesting, and yet remain simple and uncluttered, which is a very big advantage, for viewers tend to stray from websites that are cluttered and take time to respond. The Spine, however, has a very fast response, and you will not lose the attention of your audience due to slowness, or boring layouts. While other themes might have a limited amount of colors, with Spine you can experiment with both images and colors and use bright, happy colors to let the people who have come to your blog that your website is well organized and fun.


Creating a WordPress blog to attract singles

WordPress has revolutionized the blog world since the beginning of its existence. It has evolved since the early days and now features constant development and improvements due to its popularity and reliability. It has been allowing customer focus and insight, proving to be a valuable asset to any business. How can we take advantage of its features to captivate specific groups of clients? The focus goes to single people, a group that has been rising in the last decade, with a very specific lifestyle and singular interests, such as online dating. What can you expect from an online dating service? The online dating stigma has been broken and the number of people that use these services has been rising. How can you attract this particular group of people to your blog and how can WordPress help you achieve that?

 

Online Dating

As stated above, online dating has lost its stigma and single adults now believe it is a great way to meet new people. The public opinion about online dating has changed dramatically over the last decade and people have a very positive opinion about this subject nowadays.

You probably hear more about online love stories today, than you would ever think you would in the past. Couples that met online and got married are not as rare.

But mostly, we watched as dating apps, such as tinder, moved into the lives of young singles. However, the number of people of older ages using the new trends in online dating has also risen. If you haven’t heard anything about tinder, it is one of the most popular dating applications, made famous by the “swipe” mechanism you use when “choosing” a possible date. This application, although mostly used on mobile devices, is also available on your PC, and represents one of the greatest success stories in the dating world. This was possible, not only due to the iconic “swipe” mechanics that add a game-like feeling to the experience but also by the simple set-up and free chat provided.

WordPress

WordPress represents one of the major revolutions in website development, putting the power in the business/blog owner. With all the advantages it offers, such as SEO optimization tools, plug-ins, customization, and mobile readiness, to name a few, combined with the effort made to make it “easy-to-use”, it can represent a major boost  for any business. It is quick, easy and simple, saving time for more important things, and money for different investments.

But how can WordPress help when it comes to attracting a specific group of people, such as single people?

WordPress is very intuitive when it comes to creating blogs, as it was originally designed for exactly that purpose. The real question is how can you attract specific groups. Well, when you think about this group in specific, you think of people that are usually connected online, on the move, with fast lifestyles. To make these people curious about your blog, you need zero complications. It has to be smooth, optimized, simple, catchy and interesting. This is why WordPress can be a valuable asset. Apart from having a really clean and customizable look to it, it is widely developed and optimized, with fresh additions appearing every day. It also offers search engine optimization tools, which can be very important to gain insight into your target audience and plan your decisions accordingly.

Responsive themes like Spine could be the answer to this specific audience. Spine goes the distance to offer things such as responsiveness, easiness of usage, mobile-readiness and translation readiness. Since most of these people are attracted to simplification, presentation, and optimization, Spine could be the tool you need to take your blog to the next level. Something to keep in mind is the fact that Spine offers mobile readiness, which is priceless nowadays. As people (this specific group in particular) are always on the move, it is very likely that the first contact they will have with your business is through a mobile device. This can be very good or very bad. Statistics show that people make decisions about staying or leaving a website based on presentation and simplification. This means that when people look at your blog, the first impression will be visual – quality of design, images, and general presentation – and the second impression will be mechanic (if they give the website a chance, based on their “feeling” about the presentation) – how does it respond to the user, optimization issues, if everything is within reach and easily spottable or not, etc. It is important to understand that people make this decision in a matter of seconds and this is why you need to focus really hard and take advantage of all the features WordPress and Spine offer to achieve these goals.

Long story short

Long story short, focusing on an “easy-to-use” mentality, avoiding time-consuming complications every it is possible and opting for the “clean”, simple look can go a long way in persuading any group of customers to visit, stay and return to your blog. However, when this particular group is concerned, respecting all of the above and focusing on mobile optimization can really make the difference and contribute to your success.

A theme like Spine, that distinguishes itself by an extreme focus on usability, adaptability, and optimization (with many happy customers) can be just the tool you need to address this segment of the population. As people increasingly value time, the features and reliability offered by this theme could be everything you need to achieve higher standards and better results, since both the client and the business owner benefit from this experience.

The fact that studies are beginning to be conducted, in a more serious manner, on how to attract customers online, how to improve digital marketing and how to increase your online visibility, combined with the development of new tools and features, foresee an interesting future in the world of digital marketing and web development.


Using WordPress for academic writing

Writing academic papers can be maddening. You can get lost among the specifications, the deadlines, the sharp rigor and the attention to detail. Have you ever had to write an academic paper? Do you remember the extensive research? The extensive revisions? The constant awareness of the deadline? Fortunately, the number of people with academic degrees peaked, paving the way for businesses to specialize in academic writing, and ease this toilsome process for people who just don’t have the time or the will. With the rising number and the advantages of online businesses, how can WordPress integrate this niche and what can it do for the owners and the clients?

Academic writing

As stated above, the demand for academic writing has increased. But what can an academic writing agency do for you? Meet Slickwriters, Custom Writing Service. They offer high-quality academic writing services, from undergraduate to Ph.D. levels.

Slickwriters counts on a team of expert native English level writers that work on your essays, research papers, homework, lab reports and so on, delivering top-notch work within your deadlines. They claim to be different because they employ experts from a wide variety of areas, and assign the papers accordingly. For example, if you want to write a health related essay, you will be paired (and be in contact with) a writer who specializes in health writing with, at least, a graduate level in the selected area.

Although they are aware that they are not the cheapest option online, apart from assigning a specialist to your particular area, they also assure you that your paper will be written with the utmost quality and that they will respect the deadline, however short. They also provide a free revision service for two weeks.

If you are tired,if you don’t have enough time or if you would rather spend your free time doing something else, go to Slickwriters for a high-quality, plagiarism-free, custom-made paper, written by native English specialists.  

WordPress and Spine

Everyone has probably heard about the advantages of using WordPress to enhance your online presence, without the downsides associated with creating/maintaining websites. WordPress (for those who haven’t heard) offers a multitude of advantages in website development, such as popularity, scalability, and creativity, making sites less likely to falter and widely customizable. WordPress allows you to make a variety of customizations and alterations on your website, without the need to hire a web developer, saving both time and money. It also offers SEO tools, which can prove to be a major asset for your company, and mobile optimization tools, which is a huge advantage since mobile is becoming the new trend. It also allows easy integration of E-commerce and a wide range of plug-ins, to better fit your needs or goals. The major advantage is, however, the easiness of usage experienced by the website creators. Simple tasks, such as adding blog posts or images, are indeed simple, saving a lot of time on formatting that can be used in other important areas of the business, such as SEO.

How can we improve it further? The answer is to focus on your needs and optimize, taking advantage of all that WordPress can offer.

Spine, a responsive WordPress theme can meet your goals. This theme offers custom header image (possible to use page/post featured image), custom menus (three locations), custom background, custom page template, sticky posts styles, and different layouts. Apart from the customization, Spine also offers mobile readiness, translation readiness and an essay writing service provided by Slickwriters.

Using WordPress for academic writing

With all this in mind, with themes like Spine and the availability of essay writing services included in WordPress platforms, we can assume that using WordPress can benefit everyone involved in the process. With the simplicity of usage being, in itself, a major customer allure, both the academic writing business owners, and their clients will benefit from the combination of the two areas.

As online businesses become more and more common, people are beginning to realize that there are very important details that should be considered to improve the quality, and the success of their businesses. Clients are being bombarded with enormous quantities of online content and are filtering through. Everyone has access and reacts differently to online information, but there are simple things that can make the difference. Believe it or not, WordPress and themes like Spine can be a major advantage when it comes to certain details. People are looking for simplicity and try to avoid any sort of complications. Who wants to look for anything on a website and face the same hardships you face when you need to get something done on your banking website? Online presentation is of the utmost importance. Unless you have a clean looking, responsive platform people are more likely to skip your website. Another thing that can be the reason for a client’s return to your website is optimization. In general, people are very sensible to optimization, especially the new generations, making it very important to have everything they might need from your website (plug-ins, access to services, etc) within easy reach. Lastly, the importance of mobile-readiness should not be underestimated. In fact, it should be considered as a top priority. Statistics are beginning to show that most people are accessing websites from their mobile phones before they do it on their computer. This means that you have the opportunity to captivate your clients while they are on their cellphones, making it very important to have a pristine and mobile-ready presentation.

So, for people who are looking for someone to write their academic papers, the ability to do so from their phones, in a simple, easy-to-use platform can be life-saving, since most of them look for this kind of services due to time constraints. And business owners can rest assured, knowing that they have a trendy, functional, and targeted operation going.

The introduction of new plug-ins, features, and the effort to make everything user-friendly in online-based platforms never ceases to amaze. The rate of development and the new online trends we are experiencing in our time are incredible, and we are probably just beginning to scratch the surface.


How can WordPress help Motorcycle GPS companies thrive?

It is incredible how this device, the GPS, carved its path into our daily lives and improved everything related to travel efficiency. It provided critical military, civil and commercial optimizations.

On a different note, but much like GPS, WordPress can be a guidance system to better results.

Motorcycle GPS

When you think about GPS you usually don’t link it to a motorcycle. There is something undoubtedly wild and reckless about those asphalt warriors that doesn’t quite make a connection to a safe, programmed and reliable route. However, there are plenty of options, of course. We live in a digital era. The fact that it was difficult to find honest comparisons between motorcycle GPS systems was tackled by, precisely, three of those asphalt warriors. Three bikers united to help you find the best motorcycle GPS system by thorough research and considerable experience. Is it the time for that cross-country trip you have been postponing? Or do you just want to take the old chopper for a spin? They can help you find the best system.

WordPress – Digital Revolution

With tons of content available online and a multitude of platforms, it was just a matter of time until a digital revolution would occur. An effort to take websites to the next level. A time of eye-catching design, easiness of usage, and simplification. Creating a website requires a specific set of skills, which most people do not possess or are unable to learn due to many variables. WordPress changed that by making it easier for a regular person to create something valuable and unique with considerably less effort. WordPress offers different designs, support, domain creation, mobile phone compatibility, among other things.

Web design and online presentation can be crucial to a company’s success. Statistics show that people judge the websites they visit in a matter of seconds, and parameters like the easiness of usage, appearance, and information presentation can deeply affect the willingness of users to return to the website.

Here are some things WordPress can contribute for your company:

  • Intuitive – Adding new blog posts, pages or images is easy and can be done quickly, reducing time spent on formatting. This is also important because it reduces the time you spend adding content, making it easier to search engine optimize.
  • Browser-based – This means you can access from any computer, anywhere, as long as you have access to the browser.
  • Independent – The interface is simple and intuitive, which allows you to make your own changes and creations without the need to constantly hire, or wait for a web designer.
  • Plugins – You can add a multitude of those.
  • Scalable – A WordPress site can grow with your company without
  • Creative – Extensive development effort. This means there are a lot of developers working on new themes and plugins, and you can take advantage of it.
  • Popularity – Less likely to stop working.
  • Allows simple integration of E-commerce.
  • SEO – Offers search engine optimization tools.
  • Fast Learning Curve – The more you work on it, the easier it gets but learning the basics and beyond is quicker than in any other platform.
  • Media Friendly – It is easy to add video and audio.
  • Social Networking – You can automatically integrate into networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
  • Scheduling – You can automatically schedule posts.
  • Mobile – Can provide you with every tool to optimize your website on mobile phones. This is very important because mobile readiness is the next thing when it comes to website development and success.
  • Flexible – With the tons of content available, it is possible for you to make your own changes, be creative, and improve your website with the extensive amount of customization permitted and provided.
  • Saving – The fact that you don’t need a web designer so often and that the process is facilitated for you, will ultimately save you a lot of money.

 

Take your company to the next level

WordPress opened the way for improvement. The path for simple website creation and good presentation has been improving ever since. Companies, like Spine, have laboured to create highly customizable and responsive themes, while maintaining simplicity and aesthetics. Spine also offers translation and mobile readiness. It allows you to make quick and easy modifications to colors, layout, header images, and logo.

The future trends

When an effort is made to make things simpler for everyone, generally we see everything trending towards that direction. The integration of WordPress, or Spine, in a company’s operations, will only boost efficiency, and efficiency usually leads to results.

So, in the near future, I am confident we are going to see a rising number of companies with websites and themes powered by WordPress, and Spine. There are so many advantages provided, that it is possible to assume that if you want to focus on results and growth, this is the path.

So, the question was: How can WordPress help motorcycle GPS companies thrive? As stated above, it can help them create their niche and brand in unique ways, it can contribute immensely to search engine optimization, it can be very flexible and easy to customize, providing creative options and easiness when introducing content, images, audio or video. It can also be incredibly cheap and time-saving when you consider the available options. In addition, it allows the introduction of plugins, E-commerce, and social network integrations simply. Most importantly, it allows mobile optimization in an era of unprecedented mobile online usage and allows scheduling, which can, in turn, further reduce the time-consuming effort of running your own website. And all of this can be accomplished with access to a browser anywhere, any day.

When all that is considered, the question shifts to: How can it not help motorcycle GPS companies? What can be better than a website that can offer you this multitude of benefits, while you can focus on what you do best? What can be better than to base your business online, and be able to control almost every aspect of it, by yourself? What can be better than a platform that grows with you?


Virtual optimization and Casino themes

Over the last three decades, we have watched the rise of online gambling. The red carpets give room for the personal desks. The rooms with high ceilings, chandeliers, and bright lights give room to cyber-cafes and computers. It was inevitable. With the “online fever”, social media marketing, and the possibility to reach every corner of the world, it was only a matter of time before online gambling became a new trend.

It became possible to gamble at any time, any day. Gamblers don’t have to leave the comfort of their houses or their habits to play online, traveling to physical spaces became optional. There are no dress codes in online gambling. Waiting for a place at the blackjack table, or for a specific slot machine became a thing of the past. If you wish it so, there are no noises and no distractions. There is no need for dealers and shuffling, making the game pace faster. With the evolution of online banking, virtual wiring, and payment methods, some say that nowadays it could be safer to play online than in a physical space. Moving to an online setting can also have downsides, such as the little to none social interaction, the possible delays you can face when the time comes to withdraw your earnings, and the periodic maintenance and system downtime required for online platforms.

Having the possibility to gamble online in the comfort of your home, or on the move, raised many concerns. The spread to a wider population range might raise gambling addiction and access by younger population groups.

In the United States, the path was riddled with legal obstacles and battles, such as the “Federal Wire Act”, the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act”, and the Internet “Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act” but it didn’t take long before iconic institutions, such as the Golden Nugget Casino, to move into this new age of gambling.

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Golden Nugget Casino

The brand moved into the gambling business in 1946. It has been owned by Jevy Suarez, the MGM Mirage Group, The Poster Financial Group, and finally Landry’s Inc., in 2005. The history of the Golden nugget is full of curiosities:

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  • Can be seen throughout the police chase in James Bond’s “Diamonds are forever”.
  • Fox’s reality TV series “The Casino” was based on the Golde Nugget’s acquisition by Poster Financial
  • Presence in video games. The background of Street Fighter II, and the uncanny similarity of the “Silver Rush’s” logo with the Golden Nugget logo in Fallout: New Vegas.

Golden Nugget opened the doors in Atlantic City, in 2011, after Landry’s Inc. purchased the casino. However, it wasn’t until December 23rd, 2014 that the Golden Nugget online casino opened its cyber doors to real money betting, following a short initial delay. The website offers a wide variety of playable games (more than 300). Seven blackjack options, 255 slot titles, table games such as Let it Ride, Roulette Master, European Roulette, No Commission Baccarat, Three Weel Roulette, Three Card Poker, and Double Bonus Spin Roulette, and more than 20 video poker options. It offers an online VIP club for high volume players that accumulate a total of 3,000 points, with exclusive bonuses and games. The multitude of games combined with the user-friendly banking options (it allows Visa, Mastercard, Check, Cash at the Golden Nugget Atlantic City cage, Bank wire, Netteler, electronic checks and Golden Nugget Prepaid Card with 1% cashback) and promotions are the main reason this online platform has been gaining its well-deserved popularity.

The virtual optimization and the importance of the website presentation

With the burst of online content and available platforms, it was only natural that an era of optimization would begin. A struggle to make things presentable, user-friendly, clean and eye-catching. The difficulties experienced in creating a website due to technical knowledge and several variables involved made room for WordPress to emerge to make every online presence easier. Offering a multitude of creative designs, advanced virtual statistics, mobile phone compatibility, support, domain creation and ease of usage, it is leading the revolution of website creation and presentation.

WordPress Gambling themes

With that in mind, it is not a surprise that a wide variety of WordPress themes came into existence. The online gambling niche being no exception. A simple search would show a fair amount of brightly-colored, eye-grasping, lively looking themes directed at this specific sector. But what is the future of online gambling platforms? How will they look? How easy will it be to navigate them and play the games? How difficult will it be to create them?

The future of online gambling

Statistics show that online gambling will continue its ascendance as more states and countries approve it, and more people become aware of it existence and convenient access.

Companies are becoming more familiarized with social media marketing and are recognizing that when investing in a non-physical space, web development is of the utmost importance. With this in mind, it may be essential to have a fast, intuitive, easy-to-work-with theme that is already prepared.

With the increasing number of mobile devices, the spread of Wi-Fi networks and the new habits of switching copiously from tablets to laptops, from PC’s to mobile phones, and from mobile phones to tablets in a matter of minutes, it is reasonable to assume that easy to use, responsive, and mobile device-compatible platforms will lead the way in the revolution.

With the development of Themes, like Spine, that goes above and beyond to provide quality, despite being easy to set up and offering customization, translation readiness, responsiveness, and mobile-readiness. Maybe it is safe to assume that the future of every Industry will go in this direction. Maybe in the future we will see the gambling industry using Themes like Spine, making it easier for the developers and for the users. As a user, I am curious to try it out. Only time will tell.


Image Alignment Tests: Un-Captioned Images

Image Alignment Tests: Un-Captioned Images

Center-align, no caption

Center-aligned image with no caption, and text before and after.
test-image-landscapeALorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed odio nibh, tincidunt adipiscing, pretium nec, tincidunt id, enim. Fusce scelerisque nunc vitae nisl. Quisque quis urna in velit dictum pellentesque. Vivamus a quam. Curabitur eu tortor id turpis tristique adipiscing. Morbi blandit. Maecenas vel est. Nunc aliquam, orci at accumsan commodo, libero nibh euismod augue, a ullamcorper velit dui et purus. Aenean volutpat, ipsum ac imperdiet fermentum, dui dui suscipit arcu, vitae dictum purus diam ac ligula.

Left-align, no caption

Left-aligned image with no caption, and text before and after.
test-image-landscapeLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed odio nibh, tincidunt adipiscing, pretium nec, tincidunt id, enim. Fusce scelerisque nunc vitae nisl. Quisque quis urna in velit dictum pellentesque. Vivamus a quam. Curabitur eu tortor id turpis tristique adipiscing. Morbi blandit. Maecenas vel est. Nunc aliquam, orci at accumsan commodo, libero nibh euismod augue, a ullamcorper velit dui et purus. Aenean volutpat, ipsum ac imperdiet fermentum, dui dui suscipit arcu, vitae dictum purus diam ac ligula.

Right-align, no caption

Right-aligned image with no caption, and text before and after.
test-image-landscapeLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed odio nibh, tincidunt adipiscing, pretium nec, tincidunt id, enim. Fusce scelerisque nunc vitae nisl. Quisque quis urna in velit dictum pellentesque. Vivamus a quam. Curabitur eu tortor id turpis tristique adipiscing. Morbi blandit. Maecenas vel est. Nunc aliquam, orci at accumsan commodo, libero nibh euismod augue, a ullamcorper velit dui et purus. Aenean volutpat, ipsum ac imperdiet fermentum, dui dui suscipit arcu, vitae dictum purus diam ac ligula.

No alignment, no caption

None-aligned image with no caption, and text before and after. test-image-landscape Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed odio nibh, tincidunt adipiscing, pretium nec, tincidunt id, enim. Fusce scelerisque nunc vitae nisl. Quisque quis urna in velit dictum pellentesque. Vivamus a quam. Curabitur eu tortor id turpis tristique adipiscing. Morbi blandit. Maecenas vel est. Nunc aliquam, orci at accumsan commodo, libero nibh euismod augue, a ullamcorper velit dui et purus. Aenean volutpat, ipsum ac imperdiet fermentum, dui dui suscipit arcu, vitae dictum purus diam ac ligula.