Microsoft Set To Launch SQL Server 2012 on March 7 - DotTechnologies

Microsoft has announced a March 7 online event for the launch of SQL Server 2012, the next generation of its database product.

                                   

The event will feature keynote addresses from Microsoft corporate vice presidents Ted Kummert and Quentin Clark, who will respectively give attendees a look at Microsoft's "data evolution vision" and a general overview of SQL Server 2012's features.

It wasn't immediately clear whether March 7 is the actual general availability date for the release, but the event indicates that the release could be imminent.

"Let me throw out a dose of reality: if you are not on a [beta program] or otherwise going live with a private build or release candidate, you will not be installing and deploying SQL Server 2012 on March 7th. I promise," SQL Server expert Aaron Bertrand wrote in a blog post late Monday. "These launch events are marketing tools to get you excited about the product. Will you be able to download Express editions from the Microsoft web site, and other SKUs from MSDN or your volume licensing portal, shortly after that? Sure. The next day? Almost certainly not."

SQL Server 2012 is set to arrive in three main editions, including a new BI (business intelligence) version that adds features such as the Power View data-discovery tool and data quality services to the standard edition's features. Microsoft is also planning to offer an Enterprise Edition that includes advanced security, high-availability capabilities and a columnar data store on top of the BI edition's feature set.

Microsoft is enacting a new licensing plan for the 2012 release. Enterprise and Standard Edition will be available on a core-based model, with licenses sold in two-core packs. Standard Edition is also available on a server plus CAL (client access license) basis. BI edition is only available via server-plus-CAL licensing.

SQL Server "is an adequate product if you don't mind being locked into the Microsoft stack," said analyst Curt Monash of Monash Research. "For example, the ColumnStore feature is very partial, given that it can't be updated; but Oracle doesn't have columnar storage at all."

There's more lock-in with SQL Server than other platforms due to its reliance on Windows for an OS, Monash said.

IT shops using competing products such as Oracle could consider using SQL Server 2012 in a cohabitation scenario as a potential alternative to adding more Oracle licenses, but it would make sense only if they already have a strong investment in the Microsoft stack, Monash said.

"[IBM] DB2 works just as well to keep Oracle honest as SQL Server does, and without a major operating system commitment," he said.

In any event, no single database can serve all workloads equally well, so the best approach is to have a general-purpose product along with additional database platforms aimed at analytics and other areas, Monash added.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

Android, not iOS, will win over developers - DotTechnologies

Android will replace iOS as the most important platform to developers within the next 12 months, British analyst firm Ovum says. It also notes an increased interest in Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS, and sees a move towards web standards in development over proprietary technologies.

Timing is surprising. Tomorrow, Apple will announce fourth calendar quarter earnings, where analysts expect record iOS device sales. Despite these platform gains, developer attention shifts to Android.

"A smartphone platform's success is dictated not only by the pull of consumers and the push of handset vendors and mobile operators but also by a healthy economy of applications delivered by third-party developers", devices and platforms practice leader Adam Leach says of his findings. Leach's research should come as no surprise given Android's strength in the marketplace.

Save for the holidays, Android smartphones have been outselling the iPhone by as much as a two-to-one margin for much of the past year. It was only a matter of time before developers took notice of this fast growing market and develop for it.

"It is important for all players in the smartphone ecosystem to understand the choices developers are making today and the downstream impact of those choices," Leach says.

Indeed, the survey shows a marked move away from once important platforms such as Symbian and WebOS. Developers' confidence in BlackBerry OS is surprising, however, given the platform's struggle in the market, and the internal turmoil plaguing the company. Windows Phone is not as surprising, given Nokia's big gamble on the platform and the building interest in its partner's devices.

"The growing momentum behind Windows Phone indicates that Microsoft has managed to convince developers that its platform is worthy of investment, its challenge now is to persuade consumers", Leach argues.

Developers also are showing a desire to develop their applications using web-based standards. This allows for an even cross-platform experience without the need for recoding. HTML5 is favored, while older more platform-specific technologies like Java, Flash, and WAP fall by the wayside.

Even with this move towards standards in development, the developer still leans on vendor-specific distribution -- Google's Android Market or Apple's App Store -- in order to distribute their work. This is likely a function of the developer's desire to reach the largest possible audience, Ovum says.

Pages With Too Many Ads "Above The Fold" Now Penalized By Google's "Page Layout" Algorithm - DotTechnologies

Do you shove lots of ads at the top of your web pages? Think again. Tired of doing a Google search and landing on these types of pages? Rejoice. Google has announced that it will penalize sites with pages that are top-heavy with ads.

 Top Heavy With Ads? Look Out!

The change — called the “page layout algorithm” — takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buried under tons of ads.

From Google’s post on its Inside Search blog todaWe’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.

 So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.

 Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

Google also posted the same information to its Google Webmaster Central blog.

Sites using pop-ups, pop-unders or overlay ads are not impacted by this. It only applies to static ads in fixed positions on pages themselves, Google told me.

How Much Is Too Much?

How can you tell if you’ve got too many ads above-the-fold? When I talked with the head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, he said that Google wasn’t going to provide any type of official tools similar to how it provides tools to tell if your site is too slow (site speed is another ranking signal).

Instead, Cutts told me that Google is encouraging people to make use of its Google Browser Size tool or similar tools to understand how much of a page’s content (as opposed to ads) is visible at first glance to visitors under various screen resolutions.

But how far down the page is too far? That’s left to the publisher to decide for themselves. However, the blog post stresses the change should only hit pages with an abnormally large number of ads above-the-fold, compared to the web as a whole:

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content.

This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page.

 This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

Impacts Less Than 1% Of Searches

Clearly, you’re in trouble if you have little-to-no content showing above the fold for commonly-used screen resolutions. You’ll know you’re in trouble shortly, because the change is now going into effect. If you suddenly see a drop in traffic today, and you’re heavy on the ads, chances are you’ve been hit by the new algorithm.

For those ready to panic, Cutts told me the change will impact less than 1% of Google’s searches globally, which today’s post also stresses.

Fixed Your Ads? Penalty Doesn’t Immediately Lift

What happens if you’re hit? Make changes, then wait a few weeks.

Similar to how last year’s Panda Update works, Google is examining sites it finds and effectively tagging them as being too ad-heavy or not. If you’re tagged that way, you get a ranking decrease attached to your entire site (not just particular pages) as part of today’s launch.

If you reduce ads above-the-fold, the penalty doesn’t instantly disappear. Instead, Google will make note of it when it next visits your site. But it can take several weeks until Google’s “push” or “update” until the new changes it has found are integrated into its overall ranking system, effectively removing penalties from sites that have changed and adding them to new ones that have been caught.

Google’s post explains this more:

    If you decide to update your page layout, the page layout algorithm will automatically reflect the changes as we re-crawl and process enough pages from your site to assess the changes.

    How long that takes will depend on several factors, including the number of pages on your site and how efficiently Googlebot can crawl the content.

    On a typical website, it can take several weeks for Googlebot to crawl and process enough pages to reflect layout changes on the site.

Our Why Google Panda Is More A Ranking Factor Than Algorithm Update article explains the situation with Panda, and how it took time between when publishers made changes to remove “thin” content to when they were restored to Google’s good graces. That process is just as applicable to today’s change, even though Panda itself now has much less flux.

Meanwhile, Google AdSense Pushes Ads

Ironically, on the same day that Google’s web search team announced this change, I received this message from Google’s AdSense team encouraging me to put more ads on my site:

                          

This was in relation to my personal blog, Daggle. The image in the email suggests that Google thinks content pretty much should be surrounded by ads.

Of course, if you watch the video that Google refers me (and others) to in the email, it promotes careful placement, that user experience be considered and, at one point, shows a page top-heavy with ads as something that shouldn’t be done.

                              

Still, it’s not hard to easily find sites using Google’s own AdSense ads that are definitely pushing content down as far down on their pages as they can or trying to hide it. Those pages, AdSense or not, are subject to the new rules, Cutts said.

Pages Ad-Heavy, But Not Top-Heavy With Ads, May Escape

As a searcher, I’m happy with the change. But it might not be perfect. For example, here’s something I tweeted about last year:

                             

Yes, that’s my finger being used as an arrow. I was annoyed that to find the actual download link I was after was surrounded by AdSense-powered ads telling me to download other stuff.

This particular site was heavily used by kids who might easily click on an ad by mistake. That’s potentially bad ROI for those advertisers. Heck, as net-savvy adult, I found it a challenge.

But the problem here wasn’t that the content was pushed “below the fold” by ads. It was that the ratio of ads was so high in relation to the content (a single link), plus the misleading nature of the ads around the content.

Are Google’s Own Search Results Top Heavy?

Another issue is that ads on Google’s own search results pages push the “content” — the unpaid editorial listings — down toward the bottom of the page. For example, here’s exactly what’s visible on my MacBook Pro’s 1680×1050 screen:

                             

(Side note, that yellow color around the ads in the screenshot? It’s much darker in the screenshot than what I see with my eyes. In reality, the color is so washed-out that it might as well be invisible. That’s something some have felt has been deliberately engineered by Google to make ads less noticeable as ads).

The blue box surrounds the content, the search listings that lead you to actual merchants selling trash cans, in this example. Some may argue that the Google shopping results box is further pushing down the “real content” of listings that lead out of Google. But the shopping results themselves do lead you to external merchants, so I consider them to be content.

The example above is pretty extreme, showing the maximum of three ads that Google will ever show above its search results (with a key exception, below). Even then, there’s content visible, with it making up around half the page or more, if you include the Related Searches area as content.

My laptop’s screen resolution is pretty high, of course. Others would see less (Google’s Browser Size tool doesn’t work to measure its own search results pages). But you can expect Google will take “do as I say, not as I do” criticism on this issue.

Indeed, I shared this story initially with the main details, then started working on this section. After that was done, I could see this type of criticism already happening, both in the comments or over on my Google+ post and Facebook post about the change.

Here’s a screenshot that Daniel Weadley shared in my Google+ post about what he sees on his netbook:

                                    

In this example, Google’s doing a rare display of four ads. That’s because it’s showing the maximum of three regular ads it will show with a special Comparison Ads unit on top of those. And that will just add fuel to criticisms that if Google is taking aim at pages top-heavy with ads, it might need to also look closer to home.

NOTE: About three hours after I wrote this, Google clearly saw the criticisms about ads on its own search results pages and sent this statement:

    This is a site-based algorithm that looks at all the pages across an entire site in aggregate. Although it’s possible to find a few searches on Google that trigger many ads, it’s vastly more common to have no ads or few ads on a page.

    Again, this algorithm change is designed to demote sites that make it difficult for a user to get to the content and offer a bad user experience.

    Having an ad above-the-fold doesn’t imply that you’re affected by this change. It’s that excessive behavior that we’re working to avoid for our users.

Algorithms? Signals?

Does all this talk about ranking signals and algorithms have you confused? Our video below explains briefly how a search engine’s algorithm works to rank web pages:

                                          

Also see our Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors, which explains some of the other ranking signals that Google uses in its algorithm:

                                

Name The Update & More Info

Today’s change is a new, significant ranking factor for our table, one we’ll add in a future update, probably as Va, for “Violation, Ad-Heavy site.”

Often when Google rolls out new algorithms, it gives them names. Last year’s Panda Update was a classic example of this. But Google’s not given one to this update (I did ask). It’s just being called the “page layout algorithm.”

Boring. Unhelpful for easy reference. If you’d like to brainstorm a name, visit our posts on Google+ and on Facebook, where we’re asking for ideas.

Now for the self-interested closing. You can bet this will be a big topic of discussion at our upcoming SMX West search marketing conference at the end of next month, especially on the Ask The Search Engines panel. So check out our full agenda and consider attending.

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

Grid Style In Modern Web Design: Showcase and Resources

A Grid is an invisible structure used to guide the placement of elements on your page. Now days using a grid are one of those basic design principles. Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of talk about grid systems and using column grids for website layouts. It’s easier these days to embed a audio/video on the web than it is to set type consistently or align elements to a universal grid.

Most news and editorial designers are working with grid systems someone else designed. No matter what you think about it, how you know about it, you need to understand how to use it. Here, in this Presentation, you’ll find everything you need to know about Grid Based Designs with some excellent resources provided by fallow designers and developers.

For those, who don’t know what is Grid-Style-Based system and what it can do? Then please follow the link below for detailed introduction.

• Introduction to Layout Grids | adobe.net
• Grid Page Layout | From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The next generation, representing two decades of excellence. This grid-based system contains everything you need to create high-end design, artistic showcase, portfolios or otherwise very clean and minimal design.

How to Create “Touchable” Web Designs

What are touchable web designs? When most people check out a new website, they sometimes think “yikes, this website looks like crap” or “wow, this is one of the best websites I’ve ever seen!” What is it that makes the great websites look so great? In my experience, when I think of “web 2.0″ and “great web designs” I think of modern web designs that look touchable. In other words, the elements on the page almost look real, as if they have depth and take up space.

The purpose of this post is to explore how this effect can be achieved, outline the major strategies for creating your own touchable web designs, and give examples of some great web designs out there that have mastered these techniques. Let’s get started!

90+ Clean and Minimal Web Designs for Design Inspiration

The web industry nowadays is very productive. During these years there have been many trends followed and every day the designers experiment new techniques creating new tendencies in the art of making website.

Recently is evident the necessity of a direct communication with customers and a website is the first place where a company can make know their cool stuff and services. A well-designed website is important for the growth of a business and often to create a “fresh” and clear image for a company (or a product, or a freelancer) we need the help of the art of simplicity. For these reasons a minimal and super-clean layout can be the perfect solution for an attractive website.

In this post, after a little overview, you’ll see some of the best examples of minimalism in modern web design.

A Web designer always need to improve his design and assembling skills, one can always think that how other designers and developers achieve both beautiful and creative designs. And to improve your design skills all the time you need good sources of inspiration to have a proper vision and to learn from masters who have a profound understanding of design field.

A good web designer always looking for ways to get inspired by new trends as Professionalism is built upon knowledge and experience. The basic point behind this post is to show you that you don’t need to just follow the routine methods for creating minimal design, there are lots of creative work out there to get inspire and break those routine bounds of choosing default design.

Factors Influencing Your Overall Website Design

When most people check out a new website, they sometimes think “yikes, this website looks like total crap” or “wow, this is one of the best website designs I’ve ever seen!” What is it that makes the great websites look so great?

In my experience, Website designing is not a piece of cake. It is something which needs both time and efforts from your part. Plus, there are certain factors that can directly influence your overall website design as well. Although there are many factors, but in this piece of writing, just for your concern, I have decided to disclose the most important and significant ones, and included examples of some great web designs out there that have mastered these factors.

The process has already started, and as a publisher you need to make sure you are adapting your marketing strategy to line up, or get left behind.

Google made the link building algorithm popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was a revolution in its time because it provided search engines with a method for identifying the most important web pages for a given topic. However, as has been well documented, spammers have assaulted the algorithm with a wide variety of methods for buying links or creating them in other ways that don't work for the algorithms.

Even if you generate all your links in a pure white hat way, through reaching out to site owners and requesting them without compensation, or are doing high quality guest posts, you aren't necessarily generating the best possible signal for search engines. Certainly this type of link building done properly would not be a violation of the Webmaster Guidelines, but from the perspective of the search engines it also doesn't represent a groundswell of opinion raving about your product. It still means something, but it is brute force driven through your efforts, rather than resulting from the enthusiasm of your audience.

I don't believe that search engines will penalize people who link build this way, but I think they will value the link profile that is manually built less than one that obtains unsolicited endorsements from the web.

Prior to the emergence of Google, links weren't a ranking factor in a significant search engine. At that time, any unpaid links were implemented solely based on merit, because the publisher had no other reason to link to someone else's page. Even paid ads were based on the advertiser valuing the traffic from the target site enough to be willing to pay for it, since there was no other benefit - so these too went to highly relevant pages as a rule.

Short and simple: links were a better quality signal when the world didn't know that they were a signal. But, those days are gone.

What the Search Engines are Doing

The search engines are constantly in search of additional signals to help provide better data on the best results to return for a given query, and to make it harder for spammers to succeed in ranking lower quality sites (lower quality than others that are available on the web). The increase in the use of social signals by the engines has been a part of that effort.

However, social signals are relatively noisy. As I documented in "Social Signals and SEO: Focus on Authority," the number of people on the major social sites that are actively recommending sites/content is still a relatively small percentage of the population.

That same article also documented how using social media's "wisdom of the crowd" (showing the most liked articles) was something that Bing tried, but then later removed. I believe that this happened because using social media mentions as votes in the same way that links were used did not really work, even in the limited fashion that Bing tried it.

I expect that for many categories of searches search engines will weight sites that show multiple types of signals more than those that show only one. Back in July I wrote about "The Dangers of a One Dimensional Link Building Plan." However, in addition to not doing one type of link building, you should also be careful to not use old-fashioned link building as your only method for promoting the site. Find a way to get the web to generate other signals about what you are doing!

Some Ideas

The first key is to focus on where your audience is (what sites they visit, what videos they watch, whose columns they read, ...). Think like a pre-Internet marketer would when trying to decide how to spend their ad dollars. Ranking signals can be generated by both your potential customers and the publishers of the content on the web that they visit.

Potential customers can create signals by:

1. Talking about you in social media.
2. Visiting your site.
3. Searching on your brand name.
4. Doing a search for products or services like yours and clicking on your search result.
5. Discussing you in comments on blogs or forums.

There are a lot more methods than these few!

Publishers of the content that your audience consumes can generate signals as well, in the form of good old-fashioned links. So what are the ways to encourage the generation these types of signals?

As per my recent columns, you should certainly focus on authority, and seek to become an authority. Even if you aren't yet an authority yourself, you can do things to get your name out there to start getting exposure to authorities and to build visibility with others. Here are a few specific ideas on how you can do that:

1. Start a blog: But only do this if you can produce unique, high quality content on a regular basis. It is a real time commitment. However, don't emphasize volume over quality. Two great articles a month will do far more for you than 4 decent ones a month, or 10 crappy ones
2. Start a social media campaign: Become an active community member. Read the Become an Authority article for more tips on how to do that effectively. Note that it is better to execute extremely well at one social media site than it is to do an OK job in several.
3. Participate in communities: If you can't start a blog or drive a highly active social media campaign, you can still participate in communities. Comment on blogs, forums, videos, or whatever medium your potential customers consume. In other words, as a fallback to Becoming an Authority, work at becoming known. Drive interactions that take place in front of your target audience. Go to conferences and engage in dialogues. Be the person that asks a great question of one of the speakers during the Q&A.
4. Generate press releases: Issue press releases from time to time, but only when there is something worth talking about on the web.
5. Generate news: Do something newsworthy that someone else would be interested in writing about.
6. Advertise on web sites where your target audience goes: Not for the purposes of buying links, but for exposure to your target audience, and to the people that publish content that your audience consumes.
7. Advertise in search engines: More great exposure!
8. Advertise on Facebook: For the same reasons, but only use this one if you can reach your potential customers here

Regardless of where you are in the process of building your own authority, do some things to attract positive attention to your website. Participating in discussions online is a great place to start. Participating in offline discussions that you can use to help drive online interactions is also a great thing to do.

The key is to create great signals in addition to the links that your site attracts.

Summary

The past couple of years have made us all aware of the growing importance of social media, and Google's Panda update made it common knowledge that other types of user behavior could be a factor in search engine rankings. Expect this trend to continue, and possibly even accelerate. What it means for you as a publisher is that you need to do more than old-fashioned link building.

While this type of link building can and should be a part of your marketing mix, doing it in isolation will send unbalanced signals to search engines. You can imagine a search engine thinking to itself: "Gee - if the link profile of this site is so hot, how come no one is talking about it online of searching for it"?

Search engines will continue to strive to understand how people evaluate the value of a particular website. Their goal is to get as close to that human evaluation as possible.

The process has already started. As a publisher you need to make sure you adapt your marketing strategy to line up. Otherwise, you'll get left behind.

Bing is finally the No. 2 search engine in the U.S., according to the latest figures from comScore. Bing which launched in June 2009 with an 8.4 percent search engine market share, now accounts for 15.1 percent of searches.

As Yahoo dropped to third, Google continued to lead all search engines in December with 65.9 percent market share.

The search engine rankings for December 2011, according to comScore, were:

• Google rose to 65.9 percent (up from 65.4 percent in November). 
• Bing rose to 15.1 percent (up from 15 percent in November). 
• Yahoo dropped to 14.5 percent (down from 15.1 percent). 
• Ask remained at 2.9 percent. 
• AOL remained at 1.6 percent

More than 18.2 billion explicit core searches were conducted in December. This is up 2 percent from November. Google lead the way with 12 billion of the total searches; Bing ended up with 2.7 billion, followed close by Yahoo with 2.6 billion. Ask Network with 531 million searches, followed by AOL with 287 million.

In December, 68.1 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while Bing powered around 26.5 percent of searches.

Oracle has planned a huge swathe of security updates for Tuesday this week, with 78 vulnerabilities among the hundreds of its products slated to be patched.

Oracle said in a security update that vulnerabilities will be addressed in the Oracle Database Server, Fusion Middleware, E-Business suite, Supply Chain, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Virtualization, Sun and MySQL products.

Enterprises will be keen to test and install the patches as soon as possible, as some of the vulnerabilities could allow cyber attackers to infiltrate corporate databases and steal valuable data.

The firm admitted that, until patched, the vulnerabilities in the Oracle Database Server may enable attackers to remotely access the database without the need for a username and password.

 It added that these fixes are only applicable to installations that involve the Oracle Database Server itself, rather than client-only installations.

There are also five vulnerabilities in Oracle Fusion Middleware that could allow unauthenticated database access, and one in Oracle's JD Edwards platform.

However, it is MySQL that has the largest number of security flaws to be addressed by the patch, with 27. Oracle said that one of these can be exploited over a network without the need for a username or password.

Oracle recommended that the updates be applied as quickly as possible.

"Some of the vulnerabilities addressed in this Critical Patch Update affect multiple products," it said.

"Due to the threat posed by a successful attack, Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply Critical Patch Update fixes as soon as possible."

Readmore: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2137695/oracle-plans-huge-securityupdate#ixzz1jcXFjlwx
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