Eight Useful E-Books for IT Professionals

The Internet and computers are now an integral part of modern life. IT professionals should stay up to date with the latest innovations.

An IT professional not only manages a staff but also must know a great deal about technology in order to satisfy clients.  These e-books provide tips from experienced IT managers.

1. Quick and Nimble: Lessons From the Leading CEOs on How To Create a Culture of Innovation

Developed with the experiences of CEOs of companies like SumAll and Zappos, Quick and Nimble is one of the best beginning books for IT leaders. This book doesn’t have any breathtaking stories but it does contain some useful tips on how to hire a new employee or how to remain calm and react responsibly when there’s a major problem.

2. Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

Simon Sinek, writes this engaging yet helpful book which is packed with expert advice on how to deal IT employees. With the help of examples, the writer teaches useful lessons on how to be a great IT leader.

3. The Un-Bossy Boss: 12 Powerful Questions to Make You A Great Manager

Crisp, simple and to the point, The Un-Bossy Boss is filled with personal experiences by writer Gary Magenta, who speaks to readers about his own failures. It is a proven fact that practical lessons produce better results and this book provides practical tidbits on how to manage employees.

4. F.I.R.E.: How Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained and Elegant Methods Ignite Innovation

Just as the name suggests, F.I.R.E deals with easy, quick and low cost answers to tough and challenging problems. Written by an Air Force officer Dan Ward, this book has the feel of a military manual. Not only does Ward provide examples of how to use inexpensive processes to solve major problems, but also conveys how to implement his leadership tactics when faced with challenges as an IT leader.

5. Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen teach how giving and receiving assessments is one of the biggest part of being a successful IT leader. From surveying your employees in a successful manner to handling criticisms, this book teaches a great deal about successful management style.

6. Opportunity Knocking: Lessons From Business Leaders

Lori Ann LaRocco is a talent producer on CNBC who wrote this book about the experiences of great CEOs and how they faced problems. The writer also explains how sometimes a leader needs to work for the greater good which doesn’t involve any benefits for his/her own company or organization.

7. Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World

When dealing with issues of management, this book by a Harvard Business School professor, John P. Kotter had to make the list. As a leading business manager, Kotter writes a professional book for solving leadership problems.

8. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

Ben Horowitz wrote this book while keeping high level executives in mind. It’s written as if the reader is experiencing the problems and solving them. This is a perfect book for managing high level technical staff.

We’ve tried to gather up some of the best e-books that help professionals become successful IT leaders. We hope these books will help to bring out the leader within readers.

Eight Useful E-Books for IT Professionals

The Best Tools and Resources Available for Web Professionals

Are you on the lookout for the best tools and resources to help you with your work as a web professional? Then you’re in luck because it just so happens that we’ve created a list of the best ones available online right now. And here it is.

Stamplia

Nowadays, almost all small firms and big corporations need templates for newsletter emails or transactional emails in order to format their messages. This means there are hundreds of potential clients out there who are looking for high quality, responsive designs. For independent designers, it can be difficult to sell their work. This is where Stamplia comes in. This is the ideal marketplace where buyers can browse the work of thousands of freelancers from all around the world. Stamplia offers templates for newsletters and emails from over 6000 contributors. Each design is reviewed by a dedicated team before being put on sale. This means that a template must meet the demands of the market, pass the Spam Test, it must display properly in several browsers and the price must be justified. You too can become a Stamplia contributor if you’re passionate about design and are an HTML expert. If you want to stop wasting time looking for clients and start focusing on your work, head over to Stamplia to see how easy that can be.

Notism

There’s great news for everyone involved with creative work, be they creators or clients. Now they can collaborate easier, quicker and more efficiently thanks to the awesome Notism platform. It enables sharing, presenting and reviewing projects in an easy, quick and efficient manner. Features such as notes that can be filtered by categories and sketches added right on uploaded content, a solid task management system and set-up of activity status for each screen in a project (from “in progress” and “for review” to “approved”) ensure good communication and collaboration between team members, professionals and clients. Notism is also an efficient tracking method of the project’s developments. Different versions of a screen can be created and users can easily alternate them for a better understanding of the developments taking place within the project. On top of this, users can create working prototypes of their static design templates by setting up hotspots and linking screens, which will result in a perfect environment for testing click-through-s or happy paths. Whatever the case, Notism will always keep your ideas safe by daily backing up your data in multiple locations.

Fire Checkout

Fire Checkout won’t just improve your store’s conversion rates, it will also provide your users with a memorable checkout experience that will keep them coming back. Fire Checkout is completely responsive and fully AJAX based. This means that it will look great on all devices and run smoothly, without the need for frequent reloads. Fire Checkout will provide you with an improved, elegant checkout layout that you can customize as you see fit.

You can add up to 5 custom fields, add details blocks from the backend and vary the sort order of address fields. You will also get an improved checkout success page that will further improve user experience. Fire Checkout also comes with full support for all payment and shipping methods including Google Checkout, PayPal, ePay, FedEx, UPS and more. Get Fire Checkout for your business right now and reap the benefits straight away.

Pintastic – Pinboard Social network script

If you’ve been looking for a Pinterest clone script that is 100% responsive and SEO friendly, we have exactly what you need. Pintastic is not only a virtual pinboard script, but also a open marketplace script that will make things run smoother than ever and make your website easy to monetize. Your visitors won’t have to wait too long for their search results. The new faster smart search tool will display more accurate results in the blink of an eye. Worrying about search engines? Pintastic has got you covered here as well! The team of professionals have implemented meta tags optimization options for the content on your site. This means your content will enjoy optimal indexing and maximum organic traffic search.

What else does Pintastic excel at? The cool banner display manager will help you publish ads in no time, so you can monetize your board starting from day one. And if you’ve been toying with the idea of an auction platform or marketplace, you only have to try out the auction website builder or the marketplace script, which will take care of everything for you.

IconBeast

IconBeast will change the way you think about icons and symbols. Their wide collection of pixel perfect items will improve any project in no time. They offer more than 3000 iOS Tab Bar and Toolbar Icons and 500 free iOS Tab Bar Icons. Since they are designed and engineered in grid, you can rest assured each and every one of them is pixel perfect. They are available in PNG (3 sizes), Vector AI, Vector EPS, SVG, and PSD. IconBeast Pro costs 75$ and is an icon and symbol collection that is continuously expanding.

With over 3000 items, all the files are in vector (AI, EPS10, and individual SVG) and are saved separately in individual PNG transparency files. The icons and symbols are available in blue, gray and black and they are also Retina Display ready. The free version is IconBeast Lite. This is a strip-down version of IconBeast Pro and it includes 500 items that are free to download and ready to use in any project.

Getsy – Multi Vendor Marketplace Script

Ready to meet the revolutionary marketplace solution that will set you free? Getsy 2.0 allows you to start your own marketplace website within a day. This social eCommerce solution enables you to create a social website where all users can follow each other, create their very own stores, buy and sell their products, comment and rate sellers and buyers. Getsy is very different from most scripts currently on the market. It’s reliable, fast and won’t fail to cater to all your needs. Tests have shown that Getsy-powered websites can handle over 1,000,000 users “likes” and purchases per hour.

Ready to make all your dreams come true? This platform boasts many cool new features that will attract customers and help you keep them satisfied. The responsive design makes sure everything looks neat and tidy both on the small screen of a phone and on the laptop. What is more, thanks to the improved security and scalability on Getsy 2.0, your website is now safer to use both for users and admins.

Argento Template

The Argento theme for Magento-based websites is the perfect choice for making your website truly memorable. Based on CSS sprite techniques, it has been optimized for speed and will run just as well on PCs and mobile devices. You also get full creative control over the look and feel of your website. Argento allows you to add widgets that help you change the look of the navigation menu or add product blocks, set the label or design your own banners.

What’s more, you can even create custom themes and subthemes without a single modification to the core theme files. Argento will help you get a high SEO ranking for your website and the advanced Magento search will give your users suggestions right out of the box. Don’t hesitate and choose Argento to improve your eCommerce website.

actiTIME

actiTIME is a web-based timesheet software which can be put to a great variety of uses that will result in a more effective workflow. With actiTIME you can track time you spent working on different tasks, set task deadlines and estimates, monitor your employees’ activities and gather the necessary information to assess their performance, as well as analyze costs and review time and billing data in a number of custom reports. What’s more, actiTIME will lift some stress off your shoulders as it will deliver automated notifications about unfilled timesheets, deadlines and worked out task estimates.

Rest assured, there is no learning curve to this awesome application – you can download actiTIME or sign up for its online version and start using it right away. In fact, you can also use it when you’re on the go thanks to the mobile time tracking app which will automatically sync entered data with your corporate sheet. The good news doesn’t end here, though: there is an absolutely free version for small teams up to 5 users. 9000 companies in 74 countries are already using it and reaping the benefits.

actiPLANS

actiPLANS is an awesome leave time management tool for both managers and employees that will help you say goodbye to the hassle of sending emails back and forth to request and approve leave time. The ingenious actiPLANS charts allow employees to choose their own leave time by simply clicking and dragging along the desired time period on the chart. The users can see how much paid time off is available before and after the requested time, and in order to prevent the possibility of time off overlapping, users can check their colleagues’ schedule.

Team managers can approve, reject or delete requests in bulk in one click or leave a personal comment for the request, which will undoubtedly improve communication within the company. Another great feature offered by actiPLANS is the personal leave time history interface; it shows data in the convenient form of a calendar where the users can check when they last took time off and, even more importantly, when to take the next period so as to adhere to the company policy. All information about employees’ requests and approved leaves is shown in the chart. It provides managers with a clear view of available resources.

There’s even more good news – actiPLANS offers a free version so you can start using it right now.

PowerMockup

Gone are the days when prototyping a new design for websites or applications had to be a complicated and time-consuming process. We now have PowerMockup, an innovative add-on that turns Microsoft PowerPoint into a wireframe tool for prototyping web, mobile and desktop apps. It works by adding a library pane at the right side of the PowerPoint window, which contains hundreds of awesome shapes for UI controls and icons. The next step is easy and fun – users have to click the shape they want to use and then drag and place it on the PowerPoint slide. Additionally, you can add your own custom item to the shape library by simply selecting a PowerPoint shape, clicking “add shape” and you’re good to go.

Collaborations with other users are also possible with PowerMockup, as you can import and export shape categories (from common bitmap images over vector graphics such as EMF, WMF, EPS to video files and PDF documents) and share your creations with others. As PowerPoint is part of Microsoft’s office pack, PowerMockup will also give you the possibility of embedding PowerPoint slides into a Word specification document while keeping them fully editable. PowerMockup has already convinced companies such as Microsoft, Samsung and Intel so we’re sure you too will find that it is definitely worth giving a shot.

The Best Tools and Resources Available for Web Professionals

Biggest Changes In Design Trends As Shared By 5 Design Professionals

Tons of people have predicted where the design industry is headed. That’s fine and wonderful, but what about reflecting on the big industry changes we’ve already made? Not only is it entertaining to poke fun at how old and obsolete things used to be, it is also educational to note where we’ve been.

IMAGE: Google Chrome

In addition to sharing mistakes they’ve made when launching their career and how they handled career transitions, several experts were willing to describe the biggest industry changes they’ve witnessed.

I asked them about the ways the web design landscape, trends, and industry have evolved over the years, what are notable changes they’ve encountered since the beginning and how these changes have affected them.

Here’s what they had to say.

Paul Boag – boagworld

There has definitely been a significant maturing of the web design industry since I started in 1994. Back then, there were no rules, no best practice, and no standard operating procedures. Most of all, there was no precedent. We were starting from a blank canvas with only other mediums such as print or television to refer to.

For years, web design has been hobbled by design practices from print. We tried hard to make the web behave like print. We would design fixed widths and the fold just as we did with print, even though this did not apply to the web. The arrival of mobile has helped to change this mindset and encouraged us to break away from our print background.

But mobile is not the only thing that has changed the landscape of the web. Social media has made a significant difference too. Before the arrival of social media, websites dominated. Companies cared about only one thing, having a great website and ensuring that it was number one on Google.

Now companies recognize their website is only one small part of a multichannel digital strategy. Instead of expecting users to come to them and their website, they now reach out to users on various social media platforms.

This means the user experience encompasses much more than our websites. For those of us who wish to call ourselves user experience designers, we now need to consider these other channels too.

Casey Ark – Plato Web Design

Over the past 10 years, there were two big trends. Most businesses now feel that they need a website just for the sake of having a website. This has led to a growth in our market, but also an influx of low-paying clients (if you don’t plan to use your website as a marketing tool, why spend too much money on it?).

The definition of a “really beautiful site” has gotten simpler and simpler. In 2005, if you wanted to design the best site on the web, it was all about providing the user more. More 3D graphics, more motion effects, more Macromedia Flash. Now, the “best” sites on the web tend to have flat design, with a large background image and overlaid text header.

This has made it much easier to become a “great” designer – but frankly, I’m a little worn down from all of these flat sites. Give me some more 3D!

Cory Simmons – TutsPlus

The first big change I saw in the web was the move from table-based layouts to div-based layouts. I remember when I started working at my first job and had a big ego about web-design. I designed something and my mentor asked me if I could recreate it without tables. It blew my mind.

The next big change I saw in the web was the introduction of mobile devices and responsive web design. Photoshop stopped being used to design websites and a lot of creativity was destroyed and introduced at the same time.

The last big trend I saw was flat design, which I think was less of a backlash against skeuomorphism and more of a byproduct of responsive web design. It’s easier to design a button that shrinks if your button has a flat red background than if your button is supposed to look like a tree branch.

Jarrod Wright – Subtle Network

The biggest thing that’s changed since I started was the rise of CSS and easy-to-use CMS’s like WordPress. When I first started learning html, the standard was static table based designs. Now most everything in the under-5K range, which is where most businesses want to be, is built on WordPress or one of the other open source platforms.

What makes a good design is still the same as it ever was, but the starting point and the diversity of affordable options has exploded in the last 10 years.

Chris Bank – Lever

Crazy dynamic interfaces was a huge change. Beyond the explosion of triggers in design (gestures are far more expansive than mouse controls’ on-click, on-hover, on-scroll triggers), many UI design patterns now make for a more layered experience than ever before. You can have hidden menus and buttons, nested views and lists, and so on – it’s really amazing.

Animations not only make for really playful and engaging interfaces, but they also help provide visual feedback to users so they can keep track of what’s changing on the interface as they move through it.

Both the art and science of design are gaining importance. A decade ago, most marketing budgets were still largely un-attributable – that is to say, it was hard to tie marketing efforts to actual results. Today, they’re very well-tracked.

Now that numerous companies are capable of building relatively similar products in core functionality, what sets many of them apart is their design in all aspects, not just a glossy UI.

Now Read:
5 Designers’ Secrets To Launching Your Career Right

Related posts:

1. 5 Designers’ Secrets To Launching Your Career Right


2. 30 Quick Ideas to Make your Website Look Nicer


3. Web Design Industry Analysis – Professionals vs. Amateurs [Infographic]

Biggest Changes In Design Trends As Shared By 5 Design Professionals

Biggest Changes In Design Trends As Shared By 5 Design Professionals

Tons of people have predicted where the design industry is headed. That’s fine and wonderful, but what about reflecting on the big industry changes we’ve already made? Not only is it entertaining to poke fun at how old and obsolete things used to be, it is also educational to note where we’ve been.

IMAGE: Google Chrome

In addition to sharing mistakes they’ve made when launching their career and how they handled career transitions, several experts were willing to describe the biggest industry changes they’ve witnessed.

I asked them about the ways the web design landscape, trends, and industry have evolved over the years, what are notable changes they’ve encountered since the beginning and how these changes have affected them.

Here’s what they had to say.

Paul Boag – boagworld

There has definitely been a significant maturing of the web design industry since I started in 1994. Back then, there were no rules, no best practice, and no standard operating procedures. Most of all, there was no precedent. We were starting from a blank canvas with only other mediums such as print or television to refer to.

For years, web design has been hobbled by design practices from print. We tried hard to make the web behave like print. We would design fixed widths and the fold just as we did with print, even though this did not apply to the web. The arrival of mobile has helped to change this mindset and encouraged us to break away from our print background.

But mobile is not the only thing that has changed the landscape of the web. Social media has made a significant difference too. Before the arrival of social media, websites dominated. Companies cared about only one thing, having a great website and ensuring that it was number one on Google.

Now companies recognize their website is only one small part of a multichannel digital strategy. Instead of expecting users to come to them and their website, they now reach out to users on various social media platforms.

This means the user experience encompasses much more than our websites. For those of us who wish to call ourselves user experience designers, we now need to consider these other channels too.

Casey Ark – Plato Web Design

Over the past 10 years, there were two big trends. Most businesses now feel that they need a website just for the sake of having a website. This has led to a growth in our market, but also an influx of low-paying clients (if you don’t plan to use your website as a marketing tool, why spend too much money on it?).

The definition of a “really beautiful site” has gotten simpler and simpler. In 2005, if you wanted to design the best site on the web, it was all about providing the user more. More 3D graphics, more motion effects, more Macromedia Flash. Now, the “best” sites on the web tend to have flat design, with a large background image and overlaid text header.

This has made it much easier to become a “great” designer – but frankly, I’m a little worn down from all of these flat sites. Give me some more 3D!

Cory Simmons – TutsPlus

The first big change I saw in the web was the move from table-based layouts to div-based layouts. I remember when I started working at my first job and had a big ego about web-design. I designed something and my mentor asked me if I could recreate it without tables. It blew my mind.

The next big change I saw in the web was the introduction of mobile devices and responsive web design. Photoshop stopped being used to design websites and a lot of creativity was destroyed and introduced at the same time.

The last big trend I saw was flat design, which I think was less of a backlash against skeuomorphism and more of a byproduct of responsive web design. It’s easier to design a button that shrinks if your button has a flat red background than if your button is supposed to look like a tree branch.

Jarrod Wright – Subtle Network

The biggest thing that’s changed since I started was the rise of CSS and easy-to-use CMS’s like WordPress. When I first started learning html, the standard was static table based designs. Now most everything in the under-5K range, which is where most businesses want to be, is built on WordPress or one of the other open source platforms.

What makes a good design is still the same as it ever was, but the starting point and the diversity of affordable options has exploded in the last 10 years.

Chris Bank – Lever

Crazy dynamic interfaces was a huge change. Beyond the explosion of triggers in design (gestures are far more expansive than mouse controls’ on-click, on-hover, on-scroll triggers), many UI design patterns now make for a more layered experience than ever before. You can have hidden menus and buttons, nested views and lists, and so on – it’s really amazing.

Animations not only make for really playful and engaging interfaces, but they also help provide visual feedback to users so they can keep track of what’s changing on the interface as they move through it.

Both the art and science of design are gaining importance. A decade ago, most marketing budgets were still largely un-attributable – that is to say, it was hard to tie marketing efforts to actual results. Today, they’re very well-tracked.

Now that numerous companies are capable of building relatively similar products in core functionality, what sets many of them apart is their design in all aspects, not just a glossy UI.

Now Read:
5 Designers’ Secrets To Launching Your Career Right

Related posts:

1. 5 Designers’ Secrets To Launching Your Career Right


2. 30 Quick Ideas to Make your Website Look Nicer


3. Web Design Industry Analysis – Professionals vs. Amateurs [Infographic]

Biggest Changes In Design Trends As Shared By 5 Design Professionals