We’re well into 2012, and many designers and developers around the world are planning their travels for the year, which may include attending one of the many Web design and development conferences that will be held in the upcoming months. To help you out with your plans, we’ve once again put together a list of conferences and events that you might want to consider. As always, this post covers events taking place in about a seven month timeframe that ends in early September. In August, we’ll  show all text

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Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. Today, we’re looking at three particularly interesting stories. Wolfram Alpha Goes Pro Online computational engine Wolfram Alpha has launched a Pro version of its service, adding numerous input/output options for a price of $4.99/month or $2.99/month for students. A free trial of Wolfram Alpha Pro is also available. Google Working on a Home Entertainment Syst...  show all text

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Tesla Motors has introduced the Model X, its third electric car, and like its brandmates, this one is an all-electric vehicle. Built on the same chassis as the four-door Model S, the Model X is a hybrid — a cross between an SUV and minivan — and it has what Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk calls “falcon wing” doors. They’re similar to the gullwing doors often seen on concept cars but rarely on actual shipping vehicles. Musk says the advantage of those lifting doors is the ease of getting in and out of  show all text

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Twitter has announced a new partnership with major satellite providers to give their subscribers access to Twitter SMS, the original text-based Twitter service. According to a statement released Thursday, the company has partnered with Iridium and Thuraya, the world’s two largest satellite providers, to increase the number of people that can use Twitter SMS worldwide. The company said the new partnership will help guarantee greater global access to the microblogging network. “Now, even if phone...  show all text

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The majority of adults, 85 percent, in a new study believe that visiting social networks like Facebook are a pleasant way to spend time. The report was published today by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project. Among the study’s highlights are these numbers: Only a small sampling of adults said their experience on social networks was unpleasant. Five percent of adults said that people are mostly unkind on Facebook and other social media channels, while five percent said their an...  show all text

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We’ve all been there … You sit down to write a post. You get the opening line down, but half-way through the second sentence, you go back to tweak the first. A bit further on, you decide to chop up the paragraphs you’ve done so far and rearrange them … but on second thought, is that really the better option? In two minds, you “finish” the post, then spend a half-hour writing and rewriting the “ideal” headline. Finally, happy(ish!) your cursor hovers over the Publish button … but you just can’t ...  show all text

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The new stable release of Google’s web browser Chrome brings several improvements, most importantly faster browsing and more protection from malicious downloads. From now on, when you start typing in Chrome’s address box (or omnibox, as Google calls it), as soon as Chrome autocompletes the URL you’re likely to visit, it will prerender the page, making your overall browsing experience faster. As far as security goes, Chrome now does checks on executable files you’ve downloaded from the net. It m...  show all text

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Fans of The Bachelor are all too familiar with this season’s over-the-top contestant Courtney, who makes snide comments at the camera and likes to take off her bikini top. Now, a video has popped up on YouTube that has turned some of her signature phrases — from “Winning!” to “I do modeling” — into a catchy Auto-Tune clip. The contestants are vying for a rose from winemaker Ben, and Courtney has rubbed many of them the wrong way, and this video shows why. This is not the first time YouTube users  show all text

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Comedy is king on Twitter. Professional humorists and armchair standups alike have amassed legions of followers that hang on every 140-character quip. Twitter humor is a brand-builder, a great writing exercise, and if you’re really good, it might even land you a job (but probably not, so settle down). So, what does it take to get laughs at this 24/7 digital cocktail party? We asked some of the funniest tweeters around for their tips on cracking wise in the one-liner Renaissance. 1. Start by Be...  show all text

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Rush Limbaugh will soon have a new radio rival: Mike Huckabee, who will be running a radio show from noon to 3 p.m. for Cumulus Media Networks.

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Guest blogging is one of the most efficient, yet misunderstood, social media marketing tactics. It’s not new. In fact, it’s almost as old as blogging itself.  It started becoming a standout tactic just a few years ago. This post answers one of the most frequently asked questions: Is guest blogging good for “big guys?” By the way, “guest blogging, the time waster” is one of the myths I busted in my previous post for Social Media Examiner. Today’s article is one more argument in favor of guest bl...  show all text

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The British Cabinet Office has warned businesses in England that the country may not be able to fully accommodate a surge in Internet use during the 2012 Olympics in London this summer. Businesses have been told that Internet providers may be forced to ration access to the web during certain times of day and service may fall out altogether at other times. “A lot of businesses have still not prepared for the enormous risks presented by the London Games,” Kathryn Hurt, an executive at a workspace...  show all text

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Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to its servers 8 Feb 2012 – Singapore It all started innocently enough. I was thinking of implementing a Path Mac OS X app as part of our regularly scheduled hackathon. Using the awesome mitmproxy tool which was featured on the front page of the Hacker News yesterday, I started to observe the various API calls made to Path’s servers from the iPhone app. It all seemed harmless enough until I observed a POST request to https://api.path.com/3/contacts/a...  show all text

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It’s beautiful, it’s addictive, and now Pinterest is having its glorious hockey stick moment. TechCrunch has attained exclusive data from comScore showing Pinterest just hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors, crossing the 10 million mark faster than any other standalone site in history. In fact, users are spending so much time sharing their favorite images that now only Facebook and Tumblr have more social media time on site than Pinterest. Who’s propelling its rise? 18-34 year old upper  show all text

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I swore I wasn’t going to write about Pinterest again for a while after finishing a six part series of blog posts, but major developments keeping coming and no major news organizations see to be covering them. If you post a pin to Pinterest, and it links to an ecommerce site that happens to have an affiliate program, Pinterest modifies the link to add their own affiliate tracking code. If someone clicks through the picture from Pinterest and makes a purchase, Pinterest gets paid. They don’t ha...  show all text

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February 29 was mentioned again in a context that had to do with advertising and marketing on Facebook, and this time it involves the number of characters that can be included in the body of ads. Facebook account managers are apparently telling page managers that at the end of month, the character limit for the body ads on the social network will drop to 90, from the current ceiling of 135. The invitation-only Facebook Marketing Conference will take place in New York on that day, and we previou...  show all text

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It’s a Twitterized world, we’re just living in it. Blog posts, Tweets, quick videos, Google+, the Facebook Timeline, and tens of thousands of images pinned to digital boards are flying past us faster than we can read them. Faster than we can even scan them, depending on the time of day. What does this mean for writers trying to cut through it all? At least two things that I can think of: You’d better know how to write a compelling headline You’d better know how to write bullet points that grab ...  show all text

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Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 200th birthday of writer Charles Dickens. Born on Feb. 7 1812 in Landport, England, Charles John Huffam Dickens grew in tough, working-class conditions. At age 12, after his father was thrown into a debtors’ prison, he was forced to work at a blacking factory. This experience later influenced many of his famous novels, including Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Starting his career as a journalist, Dickens eventually started writing lit...  show all text

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Totem Quick Pitch: Totem — a press pages generator — displays company accomplishments and social facets in one place, cutting out rigorous searches for PR information. Genius Idea: Totem wants to bridge small businesses and media outlets by providing both parties with a better initial ...  show all text

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Susan Niebur passed away on February 6, 2012 after a lifetime of love, crusades, and strength.  Over the last five years she lived with inflammatory breast cancer, a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer that presents without a lump.  She chronicled her life with cancer here on her blog Toddler Planet with honesty and emotion that were even more rare and aggressive. She is survived by her family, friends, achievements, and the indelible marks she made on people around the world.  In lieu of...  show all text

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Need a new jawbone? Now you can print one. An 83-year-old British woman recently underwent the first-ever custom transplant of a lower jaw made by a 3D printer. According to 3Ders.org, the Biomedical Research Institute at Hasselt University in Belgium announced last week that it implanted a printed jawbone in June, which was created by metal part maker LayerWise. The patient — who can now chew and speak with ease — suffered from a chronic bone infection. Doctors were worried that at her age, re...  show all text

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Preview songs from Because We Believe (The Voice Performance) - Single by Chris Mann on the iTunes Store. Preview, buy, and download Because We Believe (The Voice Performance) - Single for $1.29. Songs start at just $1.29.

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Use Cars.com to search 2.6 million new & used car listings or get a dealer quote. Our easy-to-use online tools put you a step ahead in your next vehicle purchase.

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A New England Patriots wide receiver who was shockingly released from the team less than a day before Super Bowl XLVI will instead tweet updates and reactions as he watches the game on television. The bizarre turn of events will provide a wholly unique experience for fans who follow Tiquan Underwood on Twitter. “It won’t get in-depth as far as what happened in practice and stuff like that,” Underwood said. “But it will basically be comments on the game, only from someone who will obviously have...  show all text

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On Sunday night, millions of people will be watching Super Bowl 2012 on their televisions, while others might be watching it on their smartphones. This year marks the first time the Super Bowl will be streamed live online, and with the trend of sports becoming more social, you will be able to participate along with the game while you watch. Many companies have developed mobile apps, so when you tune in on Super Bowl Sunday, you’ll have the opportunity interact with both the game and advertiseme...  show all text

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. The most effective consultant/client relationships tend to morph into partnerships, in which the consultant is truly an extension of the internal team. However, elevating a relationship from “vendor” status to a meaningful collaboration isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Thankfully, there are some handy tools available th...  show all text

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