Introducing FormX, a revolutionary addition to XMod Pro. I don't usually get to technical in these articles, but for all my DotNetNuke developer friends using XMod Pro, you need to get a copy of FormX from Reflect Media Group. FormX allows you to build XMod templates that permit adding and editing in the list view, or In-line editing, without a page reload. It's amazingly fast and you won't be able to go back to regular forms again, it would be like giving up broad band for dial up.
Get your copy from the DNN Store. And, make sure to checkout the samples under recipes in the documentation. Easy to use and install. Excellent tutorials are available.
I have been talking about flying cars being the wave of the future. What will follow is highrises with parking for personal drones. Looks like Miami will be the first US city with a highrise built for parking personal aircraft at the Paramount World Center. As our population increases along with technology, so will new emerging opportunities for all aspects of this new mode of transportation. The future certainly involves every aspect of flying vehicles, from battery technology, to new condos, supermarket parking and heavy on the construction industry to retool it all. This shift in transportation could be the global industry that boosts the the whole world's economy as every country accommodates it's growing population and employment issues. Theses are exciting times we are living in. Take a look at the video and article Bob Wiley wrote on the MiamiHerald.com.
It's getting harder to tell your kids to put away the video games and get a real job when stories like this are popping up in the news. How video games turn teenagers into millionaires. The point of interest in the article that caught my eye is the statement that these careers weren't available 5 to 10 years ago and that even in this flux that we are now seeing where AI (artificial intelligence) is taking jobs away from people, other career paths are emerging. Let's hope new careers can keep up with the ones being lost to AI. Realistically, it's a lopsided equation in favor of automation. But, learning to be an entrepreneur and riding the trends of a market in flux, you just may be able to make enough to last a lifetime. Take a look through the BBC's Bright Sparks section and see what what the smart kids are doing.
Drones - The Evolution of Transportation If you read my blog you know I'm into flying cars and with traffic being what it is, they can't come about soon enough. Doesn't matter what city you live in, it's not any better anywhere else. Either too many vehicles on the road or a failing infrastructure. In this article on DailyMail.co.uk mega drones are being tested with multiple passengers, pilot-less control and with the ability to take the helm in an emergency. The aircraft technology is producing a much needed benefit for air traffic control a well as other industries. This is an epic shift in society, like going from horse and carriage to automobiles and entrepreneurs need to plan on this trend. In less than 5 years it will be at consumer price levels and in 10 years, common place. High rises and condos need to start being built with landing pads as the new garage. With growing populations, pollution, the need for the use of alternative energies, infrastructure issues, drones and personal aircraft are a great solution to easy all of these problems. And, aside from natural disasters and terrorism, one of the biggest problems our children will face in their life time that you can be certain of is population growth. Handling and managing all the demands on resources that population growth will bring are where the opportunities lie. If you think traffic sucks now, don't do anything about it. Everyone knows it's gotten worse in the last few years, and that's everywhere. So, forget the race to Mars, let's race to be the first country ready for the 22nd century. Embrace it. This is what will make America great!
Brand Building is Web Development When setting out to develop a new website for a client the first thing to consider is their brand. Defining a brand is a lot like writing a business plan for an organization. Who's their customer, what is their demographic, current corporate culture and visibility across all media along with consistency regarding these representations. Sometimes a client expects development of a website to be just stamping out code, but it's much more artistry and expertise than that going on to get it right. I wouldn't just start nailing boards together if I were a builder, the site, direction, watershed, parking, permits and a 100 other items need to be considered before breaking ground. The same holds true for web development and I would recommend reading up on these sites listed below about building your brand before developing the wrong site for your business. First, have or get the right domain name. Brandgy.com can clue you in as to why that's so important. Learn about branding your business with these no nonsense guides available through HowToBuildABrand.org These folks out of the UK know what they are doing and it's explained in a way that you can see how it effects other facets of your business. SearchEngineJournal.com puts the technical edge on your brand strategy. Their site maybe a good read for the more technically inclined, but getting found is what it's all about going forward into 2018 and beyond.
While searching for tech trends and investments opportunities I discovered an article from Deloitte Insights about the technology growth in unstructured data. Unstructured data is essentially chaos, but if you're able to show relations between data elements, it's no longer unstructured and helps build a better picture of what's occurring. Commodities make a good example. Analyzing wheat yields without rain fall or soil erosion factored in, leaves a lot of questions when interpreting results. By adding more variables to the equation, the results are calculated with greater accuracy. Tapping into this vast amount of information that is becoming available from everywhere on the web, dark and deep web included, (data that is not currently included or information sitting idly), analytics experts can gain much greater insight into customer behavior and market movement.
The explosive growth of IoT (Internet of Things) is expected to surpass 44 Zettabytes in 2020. That's 44 trillion gb of information, which is 10 times more than today, and hopefully will be used to make better decisions (before the AI bots make them for us). Read the full article at Deloitte Insights for more information.
Four great domain names currently for sale related to analytics: DarkEdge.com DatabaseTools.com KeyInsight.com XLMetrics.com To make an offer on all four premium domain names as a package - contact.
There's a lot of talk about traffic and SEO and I wanted to mention a few key points on building volume. First, your sites needs to built correctly so search engines can read it. That's a technical discussion for a later date, but needs to be in place for other methods to work. Setup Google Analytics and a few others so you can triangulate and see what's actually working. Without a measure your're driving blind. If you don't have a blog, add one. It will be the most read page on your site and you can feed it directly to social media. The Post Viewed tag in the lower right corner of each article here is misleading, it's not how many times it's been viewed, it represents how many times the Read More tag has been clicked. For the record, the main page of this Tech Notes blog gets viewed between 3k to 7k times on any given day.
Dynamic content isn't just tailoring your site to your unique visitors, it's generating relevant and fresh new content for your site. Having this dynamic content is what is going to improve your SEO score and the quality of traffic you receive. There's no way to short cut this process. Some of the most intelligent minds at Google are continually working the algorithm to weed out the junk and click bait. If you write compelling articles and add epic content regularly, your numbers will begin to perk up. If you work it, expect about a 25% increase in qualified traffic and that will be significant to any business that you're in. Google has some great webmaster tools here. Give the PageSpeed Insights test a try and see how your site scores. Your site may need more work than you think. Keep it fresh and keep it growing, make a bigger target.
Pictured left is the Kitty Hawk personal aircraft that looks like a ton of fun. Check the video out on KittyHawk.aero Wow, the video says it all. I have to admit I've dreamed of having one of these since I was 8 years old. They go on sale at the end of 2017 and you can get on the waiting list now. Looks like the race to personal aviation is on. 10 years from now these will be absolutely mind blowing.
There's a insightful article on The Wall Street Journal about the continued closings of retail stores. The Business Insider had an article earlier about the same topic. It's all the more reason to get your business online or tune it up and expand your marketplaces, no matter what type of products you sell. The article focuses on retail outlets declining and how more people are finding the convenience of online shopping. What the article doesn't say is that the shopping habits of retail are being carried over into all business classes. B2B (business to business) decisions are being made the same manor. If your business isn't found or engaging enough, customers are going elsewhere at light speed. To further that statement, the experience they find while using your site, is exactly how they perceive working with your organization to be. It's your corporate image. It's your credibility and it tells how well run your organization is, be it corporate, a government agency or a charitable organization. Not many people will ever see your place of work, but chances are they will visit your website at all hours of the day. Just ask your analytics guy. People follow up in the evening, weekends and at all hours of the day outside of normal business hours. It's how research is done. The more advanced will employ secondary research groups to dig deeper, but generally what they see in the search results or after trying a few URL's (domain names) is it. Two key points for making more money. Get a great domain name for your business and keeping acquiring them while they are inexpensive. Some businesses own hundreds of thousands of names. Disney has about 20k names, some pharmaceutical companies own even more. The internet isn't going anywhere and isn't going to be replaced anytime in the next 30 years. Names you could have bought 10 years ago for a few thousand will never be available for sale again for less. Buy words in English and .com extensions. These will always be the best most memorable search friendly names that bring affluent customers to your door. Build a scalable and dynamic website. Keep adding relevant content and you'll keep driving targeted traffic. If you sell widgets, you want to attract people buying widgets. Your website needs to the best you can present for your market and dynamic. Dynamic is fresh, evolving content and interactive. Interactivity is how you listen to your customer's needs. This is how to communicate, make it easy and make it fun, gamify it. Read more on web development and building your user engagement here.
If you've been following my blog, you know I want one of these flying machines. AeroMobil designed a flying car that delivers the best of both worlds, road and air travel. There's a lot potential in the personal aviation industry and starting to get competitive, which is good for everyone. Drawing from the history of the automobile, there will be fortunes made and some will become household brands in 20 years. I think looking back from 30 years in the future it will look ridiculous seeing people waiting in line at an airport or crowded lanes of traffic. With automated piloting and air-traffic controlled by AI, the road traffic may still be heavy due to population growth and transportation of goods, but the sky's will be buzzing with personal aircraft going in every direction. You can see more on AeroMobil.com and check out the interior, they've even got a cup holder. I'd like to see a custom paint option, and being an Air Force vet, add an afterburner. (I know it's prop driven, but even the fake one from the old Bat mobile would be cool.) An awesome sound system and a way to drop water balloons would make it perfect. I can picture queuing up my favorite dub mix and then rolling in for a bombing run over the neighbors bar-b-que. Bravo to whole team at AeroMobil, just a few years until they become available in 2020. Orders are being accepted now.