Illustrating the History of Content (Infographic)

Sharing and presenting content has changed at a rapid pace over the last few decades. Even prior to the internet, we were revolutionized by the creation of the television, radio and printing press. This beautiful illustration by marketer Philip Seldrake and illustrator Nic Hinton chronicles the journey from cave paintings to modern day cellphone tech. What do you think the next evolution of content presentation will be?

Content: An Illustrated History by Philip Sheldrake and Nic Hinton

No Compromises Necessary when Using ContractEdge Template Software

Too many times, IT contractors who are working on a new project have to make the uncomfortable choice between an expensive, drafted from scratch contract; or a tweaked contract that might not provide enough coverage and leave them vulnerable. Well thanks to ContractEdge's revolutionary contract template software, IT professionals no longer have to make this difficult decision. The template software allows the contractor to quickly and inexpensively create custom contracts.

The difference between ContractEdge's software and that of other contract template programs is that each contract has been created by attorneys who specialize in Information Technology law to ensure that you as the subcontractor will have little to worry about*. The language of each contract can be customized per your job's specific needs.

Many IT Consultants shy away from spending large sums of money to have an attorney draft them up a contract from scratch, instead using contracts that are not specific to their needs and leave them vulnerable to lawsuits. By using a custom contract generation software program like ContractEdge, these contractors can save the money it would have cost to have an attorney draft their contract, and instead rely on their legal expertise only when reviewing the final agreement.

ContractEdge caters to small IT companies and independent contractors by providing them with an affordable alternative to seeking out a lawyer to draft them a comprehensive contract. With over 14,000 businesses and professionals serviced, ContractEdge is a leader in contract template software for IT services. ContractEdge has customized contracts for Web and Software Developers, Software Distributors, IT Consultants and many other IT Professionals.

*I recommend that each final contract be reviewed by a legal professional to ensure proper legal coverage.

Aaron Garcia is a project manager for MorePro Marketing, a search engine optimization company in Phoenix, Arizona. Aaron understands the risks associated with working as a contractor, and regularly uses ContractEdge’s software.

LetterMeLater: Write an e-mail now. Send it later, automatically!

Ever wish you could write an e-mail and send it into the future? With the LetterMeLater service you can. Outlook has this feature built in, but if you use Gmail or another service that doesn't here's an alternative.

LetterMeLater.com

After confirming that you own your e-mail address, compose a message on the site. Or you can send to a special lettermelater.com e-mail address. Either way, specify when you want the e-mail to be sent. It will go out into the world just as if you sent it yourself!

LetterMeLater's free service limits the size of attachments and how many messages you can send a month. For $19.95 you can get more messages and send bigger ones.

LetterMeLater.com

Podcast Primer & Recommendation Round-Up

What is a podcast? For those of you new to the idea, podcasts are a form of internet radio or even television that cover almost every mainstream subject and niche subject you can think of. They might be professionally produced like podcasts from The New York Times or they can be from enthusiasts like me (see my very own Sketcheebook Podcast).

How to listen? The most popular way to listen to podcasts is to use the iTunes software. The name "podcast" is misleading since you can access them without having any iPod related hardware or software.

For more information, read the [[podcast|Wikipedia article about podcasts]].

Recommended Podcasts

Here are podcasts that I really listen to. Instead of just telling you what they're about, I'll highlight the latest episode at the time of writing this and give you .

Audio Podcasts

Daily Giz Wiz is a hilarious daily gadgets podcast featuring fun, wacky and sometimes even useful gadgets. The gadgets are really often just a premise and setup for tons of jokes. Each episode features several funny jingles and themes; for example, Gadget Warehouse Fridays pulls out dead gadgets from the past. The hosts are Dick DeBartolo of [[Mad Magazine]] and Leo Laporte, formerly of [[TechTV]]. The latest episode was a Turn the Table Tuesday episode which breaks the formula of Dick (the Giz Wiz himself) presenting the gadgets. My favorite thing is when they have the Mad Minute, presenting Mad Magazine type humor. Recommended if your interested in: Technology, Computers, Gadgets, Jingles

This Week in Tech. Tech news with Leo Laporte and a panel of top industry folk.

The Quick and Dirty Tips Network provides just what you'd expect with that name. The original is Grammar Girl

Munchcast. Hilarious podcast about foods we all know and love.

NPR. Concerts, tech news, financial advice and various other podcasts delivered straight from NPR radio.

Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American. Science news and discussion from the venerable magazine.

Rookie Designer. Graphic design postcast. Pretty well rounded.

Tech Talk Radio. Australia's take on the technology world.

Tech Weekly. Tech news from The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom.

The InDesigner. Video tutorials about InDesign.

WebbAlert. A daily tech news roundup.

Battlestar Galactica Podcast

Buzz Out Loud. Tech news and opinions.

JobDig Career Advice. Tips for being a great part of the workforce.

GQ Radio

InDesign Secrets

HBO Comedy Stand Up Comedy

Closed Versus Open Source DVD Burning Software

Ever try to burn a DVD from avi or mpeg files on your computer to have it play back on any DVD player? There are many video formats and they have to be recoded into the DVD compatible format. There's also menus to deal with. Here's an overview of my personal experience with a few programs I ended trying when tackling this task. Searching out open source programs when looking for software solutions has proven to be very viable

photo credit: bobbigmac

My external DVD player came with Nero 7 Essentials. This installs the very annoying Nero Scout which scans your computer constantly using up CPU power and RAM. (There are some ways to stop or remove Nero Scout.) Having used the full Nero, this program feels simple and usable. In my case, it didn't do a lot of things I needed and had errors re-encoding with several formats I use.

DVD Flick is an often recommended and simple Open Source program. It supports many video formats. I found it to be a very simple and easy interface to use. It was easy to drag and drop several clips to burn and set up a quick and simple menu system. When trying to burn, it took about eight hours to re-encode the video and then stalled in the "combining" phase. I didn't find a solution to issue in my searches.

The open source DVD Styler was the ultimate solution to my problems. While it was quite a bit more complicated than DVD Flick, the trade off is more features and templates to work from.