Cadence Design Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CDNS) Receives $24.50 Consensus PT from Analysts

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Cadence Design Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CDNS) has received a consensus rating of "Buy" from the eleven brokerages that are presently covering the company, Market Beat reports. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $24.50.

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on CDNS. Piper Jaffray reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $26.00 price objective (up previously from $22.00) on shares of Cadence Design Systems in a research note on Tuesday, October 27th. Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Cadence Design Systems from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $21.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Northland Securities raised their target price on shares of Cadence Design Systems from $25.00 to $27.50 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, November 19th. RBC Capital raised their target price on shares of Cadence Design Systems from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 27th. Finally, Topeka Capital Markets raised their target price on shares of Cadence Design Systems from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 27th.

In related news, Director Vincentelli Albert Sangiovanni sold 25,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $22.30, for a total value of $557,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 55,399 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,235,397.70. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Roger S. Siboni sold 13,571 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Monday, January 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $20.42, for a total transaction of $277,119.82. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 29,906 shares of the company's stock, valued at $610,680.52. The disclosure for this sale can be found here.

Other hedge funds and institutional investors have bought and sold shares of the company. Eagle Asset Management raised its position in Cadence Design Systems by 104.6% in the third quarter. Eagle Asset Management now owns 3,145,602 shares of the company's stock worth $65,050,000 after buying an additional 1,608,315 shares during the period. Assetmark acquired a new position in Cadence Design Systems during the third quarter worth $0. Beacon Capital Management acquired a new position in Cadence Design Systems during the fourth quarter worth $0. Simplex Trading raised its position in Cadence Design Systems by 50.0% in the fourth quarter. Simplex Trading now owns 3 shares of the company's stock worth $0 after buying an additional 1 shares during the period. Finally, Boston Advisors raised its position in Cadence Design Systems by 354.5% in the fourth quarter. Boston Advisors now owns 563,350 shares of the company's stock worth $11,723,000 after buying an additional 439,400 shares during the period.

Shares of Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ:CDNS) opened at 19.56 on Monday. Cadence Design Systems has a 52 week low of $16.52 and a 52 week high of $23.30. The stock has a market cap of $5.82 billion and a PE ratio of 25.77. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $20.15 and a 200-day moving average of $20.90.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDNS) develops system design enablement (SDE) solutions that are used to design whole electronics systems and integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic devices. The Company's SDE product offerings include electronic design automation (EDA), software, emulation and prototyping hardware, and two categories of intellectual property (IP) verification IP (VIP) and design IP. The Company provides maintenance for its software, emulation hardware and IP product offerings. It also provides engineering services related to methodology, education, hosted design solutions and design services for ICs and development of custom IP. The company's customers include electronics systems and semiconductor companies, Internet service providers and other technology companies that deliver a range of electronics products in market segments, such as mobile and consumer devices, communications, cloud and data center infrastructure, medical systems and other devices.

This story was originally published by Corvus Business Newswire (http://corvuswire.com) and is the sole property of Corvus Business Newswire. If you are reading this article on another website, that means this article was illegally copied and re-published to this website in violation of U.S. and International copyright law. You can view the original version of this story at http://corvuswire.com/2016/01/30/cadence-design-systems-inc-nasdaqcdns-receives-24-50-consensus-pt-from-analysts/788707/

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Source: Cadence Design Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CDNS) Receives $24.50 Consensus PT from Analysts

Five Reasons Why Adobe Creative Cloud Is Great For Web Design

 

Adobe Creative Cloud is among the top-notch applications that have made the world of technology a better place for tech enthusiasts. It is widely applauded by world's best web designers for its tremendous contribution to development fully functional web page with detailed info graphic and print ready displays. The Adobe Company's goal is to give web designers and developers the best tools and services in the world to make a better technological place. In this article we are going to take you through the five reasons why Adobe Creative Cloud is the best for web designing.

 

First of all, Adobe Creative Cloud is among the many software produced by the Adobe incorporation. The software gives the users access to a wide collection of feature for web development, graphic design and also video editing.

 

Resolution Independence

 

The issue of raster vs. vector didn't apply to web design until the advent of the Adobe creative cloud. The issue of raster and vector was only known to the print world, but not for web design. However, the introduction of Adobe Creative Cloud inspired many web developers to adopt the use of vectors and rasters in aligning and position element in a web page. Use of creative cloud enables the designers to apply many features such as icon fonts, scalable vectors graphics and many more features that gives the websites the desired functionality.

 

With the creative cloud, you can create artwork that is both scalable and infinitely looks great at the same time. On the web, content sizes have to be properly managed to achieve the best results. The elements have to look at their best sizes to give them the best outlook on any displaying device (phones, tablets, and computer desktops).

 

Pixel Perfection

 

Adobe Creative Cloud is very helpful when it comes to designing to a grid these days. Most web developers want a perfect grid presentation of their websites. In Adobe creative cloud, it is easy to match the design to the grid and while at the same time developing the site from the design contents in the Illustrator.

 

The adobe creative cloud offers you a series of web and design profiles to start working on the aligning to the built-in pixel grid to achieve the perfect result. For example, it enables you to set the colorspace to RGB, which gives you a variety of document sizes and turns.

 

Blends Well with the Raster

 

Using the creative cloud enhances the vector aspect of the website. For example, the Adobe cloud can enable to conveniently place PSD files natively. It can also enable layers and layer comps from editing software like Photoshop. The cloud does have an easier way of to display multiple versions of images. It is the best option for raster images.

 

You can also optimize your web content to the desired levels by using the creative cloud application on the web. The recent addition of photoshop's ability to generate assets is just another important feature that will enable the developers to manipulate images easily without many problems arising.

 

Accessibility

 

Adobe has just made the life of its lovers easier regarding accessing the software. In the past, the Adobe customers had just to purchase individual software for the web designing purposes e,g the Dreamweaver and Photoshop. However, with the onset of Creative Cloud, one can do a one-time subscription fee to access all the available Adobe features.

 

Hosted and Icon Fonts

 

Adobe creative cloud encompasses many features such a Typekit library, which means that one has access to tremendous amounts of fonts and icons to use in web designing. There are numerous icons that you can use for both social and official purposes. The library also consists of various applications that can enable the user to translate website in an easy way.

 

In conclusion, Adobe creative cloud offers its subscribers amazing features that are a milestone for web designers globally. It is there to stay.

 

Lee Flynn is from the Wasatch Mountains near Salt Lake City, UT. After Lee spent years preparing himself, his home and his family, he decided he had to do more. In his free time, Lee helps educate those who want to do the same. Through small local workshops and articles, Lee trains and teaches others on home preparation, food storage techniques, wilderness survival and self reliance. After obtaining a bachelors degree from the University of Utah, Lee moved to the Salt Lake Valley where he now lives with his wife and daughter.

 

 

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Source: Five Reasons Why Adobe Creative Cloud Is Great For Web Design

Startup Spotlight: BeFunky makes online photo editing and graphic design simple

The BeFunky team.

Today, almost everyone has a smartphone — which means almost everyone is an amateur photographer. But that wasn't the case in 2007, when Portland natives Tekin Tatar and Kemal Ozisikcilar founded photo editing tool BeFunky.

Still, they anticipated the increasing need for a user-friendly photo editor in the digital photography age. They started by launching web-based tools in 2009 and the initial service attracted one million users per month.

Two years later, BeFunky launched its mobile app, which Tartar says has over 30 million downloads.

"BeFunky was founded … with the idea that photo editing and graphic design should be made easy — that you shouldn't have to buy expensive, complicated software to be able to create stunning images," said Tartar, the company's CEO.

We caught up with Tatar for this Startup Spotlight, a regular GeekWire feature.

Explain what you do so our parents can understand it: "BeFunky is a powerful photo editing and graphic design platform that can deliver results similar to those of Photoshop, but without the complexity."

BeFunky CEO Tekin Tatar.

Inspiration hit us when: "It was late 2006, before iPhones or smartphones, when we became aware of the explosive use of point-and-shoot cameras to take photos. There were no practical means for improving the quality of the billions of these images. The standard Photoshop option was too time-consuming, expensive, and skill-dependent to interest the vast number of picture takers. So, since we were convinced that demand was strong enough in this one emerging segment alone, we set out to design a simple, quick, and creative application that would satisfy this unmet need in the photo editing market."

VC, Angel or Bootstrap: "We've accomplished all these instruments in BeFunky's life cycle, which leads me today to believe in bootstrapping first when you are starting, and raising money later when you reach a milestone. We bootstrapped BeFunky for the first 16 months. We brought our savings and sweat equity to the table, and also got money from our family.

While bootstrapping, you have to be creative with scarce resources, which keeps you extremely sharp to build up your product and vision. However, there are certain high-risk times during this period that you have to be really careful, otherwise, your startup can die in a day. It becomes deadly when you don't have a safety net on your cash-flow and your business is hitting a wall.

Challenges will differ for every startup, but in our case, we hit a wall when we grew more than we expected and started to have huge expenses with little revenue on the side. Three weeks after our public launch, BeFunky was featured on the main page of Digg and that night we saw 30,000 visitors in three hours. Our servers crashed in a period when cloud computing and services like AWS were just babies. So we had to lease more servers and buy more bandwidth to continue our services. We had to get a personal bank loan the next day to prevent the company from dying. That was the point we decided to seek outside capital and contacted VCs."

Our 'secret sauce' is: "Our main ingredient for the secret sauce is our powerful image-processing technology, which simplifies the process for everyday users that a professional photographer or digital artist goes through.

The foundation of the secret sauce lies in our obsession with details. Details all add up to a perfectly crafted product, which turns ordinary things into something beautiful and meaningful. We believe that by ignoring small details we can't address the big issues."

The smartest move we've made so far: "We started monetizing early and became cash-flow positive even when we raised venture capital. That is why BeFunky was able to survive during the aftermath of the 2009 national financial crisis where capital-intensive startups that did not have a mon etization strategy died due to lack of capital.

For consumer startups, there is the widespread philosophy of 'grow first, monetize later.' There is no argument that having a large number of users is very critical. However, this does not mean that you should not be taking the necessary actions to move into some revenue generation early. As you create an MVP you could also build up a Minimum Viable Revenue model."

The biggest mistake we've made so far: "Having two different offices (in the U.S. and Turkey) and a team that was working in a 10-hour time zone difference. That is why I am not a believer in distributed teams that are spread across geographical boundaries and time zones. Maybe there are teams that can effectively work like this but it did not work for us. We lost more than a year of efficiency until we united everyone in the U.S."

Would you rather have Gates, Zuckerberg or Bezos in your corner: "Gates! A big time fearless risk-taker in an era when it was very hard to start a tech company. He started Microsoft as the first personal computer software company. Most people thought it would fail. We could be extremely disruptive in the market with his passion and experience."

 We had to get a personal bank loan the next day to prevent the company from dying. That was the point we decided to seek outside capital and contacted VCs.

Our favorite team-building activity is: "Doing lunch as a team every Thursday."

The biggest thing we look for when hiring is: "The ultimate combination of smart and passionate. Startups demand a good foundation of people. Skills can be learned but character can't be changed."

What's the one piece of advice you'd give to other entrepreneurs just starting out: "I think one of the most interesting things I've learned while growing BeFunky is that bigger teams don't mean better teams when it comes to productivity. This does not mean that teams should not grow, but companies have to keep this mindset when setting their footprint. Growing our team to 10 helped us to create a larger footprint in the market with applications on web, iOS and Android. But all of the core product value propositions were structured when we were a much smaller team. We built and are still building on the top of this structure. So the advice would be 'stay small as long as you can.'"

Source: Startup Spotlight: BeFunky makes online photo editing and graphic design simple

Cadence Design Systems Inc (CDNS) Upgraded by Zacks Investment Research to “Buy”

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Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Cadence Design Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CDNS) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Wednesday, AnalystRatings.Net reports. Zacks Investment Research currently has $21.00 price target on the stock.

According to Zacks, "Cadence Design Systems, Inc. provides comprehensive software and other technology and offers design and methodology services for the product development requirements of the world's leading electronics companies. Cadence licenses its leading-edge electronic design automation software and hardware technology and provides a range of services to companies throughout the world to help optimize their product development processes. "

A number of other equities analysts have also recently commented on the company. Northland Securities reissued an outperform rating and set a $27.50 price target on shares of Cadence Design Systems in a report on Tuesday, January 19th. Piper Jaffray reissued a buy rating and set a $26.00 price target (up previously from $22.00) on shares of Cadence Design Systems in a report on Tuesday, October 27th. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on Cadence Design Systems from $22.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, October 27th. Topeka Capital Markets boosted their price target on Cadence Design Systems from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, October 27th. Finally, RBC Capital boosted their price target on Cadence Design Systems from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, October 27th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven h ave assigned a buy rating to the company. The stock presently has a consensus rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $24.15.

In related news, Director Roger S. Siboni sold 13,571 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.42, for a total transaction of $277,119.82. Following the sale, the director now owns 29,906 shares in the company, valued at approximately $610,680.52. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Vincentelli Albert Sangiovanni sold 25,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $22.30, for a total value of $557,500.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 55,399 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,235,397.70. The disclosure for this sale can be found here.

Several large investors have made changes to their positions in CDNS. Eagle Asset Management raised its stake in shares of Cadence Design Systems by 104.6% in the third quarter. Eagle Asset Management now owns 3,145,602 shares of the company's stock valued at $65,050,000 after buying an additional 1,608,315 shares during the last quarter. Frontier Capital Management Co. LLC raised its stake in shares of Cadence Design Systems by 94.6% in the fourth quarter. Frontier Capital Management Co. LLC now owns 3,711,109 shares of the company's stock valued at $77,228,000 after buying an additional 1,804,110 shares during the last quarter. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. raised its stake in shares of Cadence Design Systems by 3,626.6% in the fourth quarter. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. now owns 503,840 shares of the company's stock valued at $10,485,000 after buying an additional 490,320 shares during the last quarter. Russell Frank Co raised its stake in shares of Cadence Desig n Systems by 388.6% in the fourth quarter. Russell Frank Co now owns 431,077 shares of the company's stock valued at $9,147,000 after buying an additional 342,849 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wright Investors Service Inc. raised its stake in shares of Cadence Design Systems by 20.6% in the fourth quarter. Wright Investors Service Inc. now owns 57,966 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,206,000 after buying an additional 9,882 shares during the last quarter.

Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ:CDNS) traded down 2.38% during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $18.84. The stock had a trading volume of 3,167,398 shares. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.60 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.82. The company's 50 day moving average price is $20.34 and its 200-day moving average price is $20.93. Cadence Design Systems has a 52 week low of $16.52 and a 52 week high of $23.30.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDNS) develops system design enablement (SDE) solutions that are used to design whole electronics systems and integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic devices. The Company's SDE product offerings include electronic design automation (EDA), software, emulation and prototyping hardware, and two categories of intellectual property (IP) verification IP (VIP) and design IP. The Company provides maintenance for its software, emulation hardware and IP product offerings. It also provides engineering services related to methodology, education, hosted design solutions and design services for ICs and development of custom IP. The company's customers include electronics systems and semiconductor companies, Internet service providers and other technology companies that deliver a range of electronics products in market segments, such as mobile and consumer devices, communications, cloud and data center infrastructure, medical systems and other devices.

Get a free copy of the Zacks research report on Cadence Design Systems (CDNS)

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Source: Cadence Design Systems Inc (CDNS) Upgraded by Zacks Investment Research to "Buy"

Web Coordinator

Job Brief

We are looking for a Web Coordinator who will work to maintain a cohesive design for IWI website and increase its online presence. Someone with experience in marketing, design or communications, and proficiency in using design software a must. You would work under the direction of our Director of Communications.

Responsibilities

· Will be in charge of publishing content, maintaining continuity of themes, designing layout, streamlining navigation and increasing online presence to potential supporters

· Must have knowledge of search engine analytics to maximize traffic to websites

· Strong communication skills and an up-to-date awareness of marketing techniques

· Good attention to detail, creativity and knowledge of information technology

· Maintain production schedules and report on the progress

· Participate in brain storming sessions regarding publication content

Requirements

· Though not required, an associate's or bachelor's degree in a related field, such as journalism, web design or communications

· A Minimum of 2 years' experience

· The ability to work under stress and to keep deadlines

· Positive attitude, detail and customer oriented with good multitasking and organisational ability

· Fluency in English

Source: Web Coordinator

Stream Creative Receives HubSpot Impact Award For Best Client Website Design

Stream Creative, an inbound marketing and design agency based in Milwaukee, WI, received a 2016 Q1 HubSpot Agency Partner Client Award, which recognizes remarkable client work both domestically and internationally.

Milwaukee, Wis. (PRWEB) January 26, 2016

R&R Insurance Services' website designed by Stream Creative has been named Best Client Web Design as part of HubSpot's prestigious 2016 Impact Awards. HubSpot is the world's leading inbound marketing and sales platform used by over 16,000 customers in more than 90 countries. The HubSpot Partner Agency Client Impact Awards are a representation of the best international work in the areas of Client Growth, Graphic Design, Growth-Driven Design, Integration Innovations – Domestic, Integration Innovations – International, and Website Design. Stream Creative also received HubSpot Impact Award recognition with honorable mention in the category of graphic design.

"Our tenured relationship with Stream Creative has allowed them to truly understand the various facets of our business and it shows in the production of the new website," said Stephanie Schreiber, Creative Marketing Specialist for R&R Insurance Services, Inc. "Our sales team is appreciative the new design is easy to navigate and our marketing team enjoys the user-friendly software."

As early adopters of the inbound marketing methodology and HubSpot's marketing platform, Stream Creative became a HubSpot agency partner in 2010 and achieved Platinum Status in 2015. This strategic transition for the agency has resulted in customer growth of over 32% year over year.

"Stream Creative has set an example for how businesses everywhere should be transforming their marketing with inbound," said Patrick Shea, Marketing Director for HubSpot. "Their strategic approach to attracting, engaging, and delighting customers has not only built valuable relationships with their audience, but has driven growth for their agency and the inbound movement. Our team here at HubSpot is proud to call Stream Creative a Partner and recognize them with this Award."

For more information about Stream Creative, visit streamcreative.com. To learn more about the HubSpot Partner Agency Client Impact Awards, visit hubspot.com.

About Stream Creative

Stream Creative is a group of nationally recognized marketers who enjoy supporting business owners, marketing directors and internal design teams in Milwaukee and around the world. Founded in 2006 by Jeff Coon, Steve James and Brian Brinkman, Stream Creative is an inbound marketing and design agency, as well as a Platinum Level HubSpot Partner. The team takes great pride in creating multi-channeled marketing campaigns that grow brands and create loyalty among consumers for business-to-business and business-to-consumer organizations in industries such as manufacturing, insurance, healthcare and more. For more information, please visit http://www.streamcreative.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/01/prweb13181231.htm

Source: Stream Creative Receives HubSpot Impact Award For Best Client Website Design

WordPress web design acts as the driving power behind user friendly websites

WordPress is a great solution to create a blog or website. This is because the software is open-source (free), easy to install, customize, maintain and is search engine friendly. One of the biggest problems site owners have is how to set up their WordPress website. Website designing has become an inseparable part of every business. A business website provides information about the products and services of a company which helps in earning more profits. It helps to reach different corner of the world with ease, which has made it an important business activity.

Web business owners should understand the influential role of WordPress blog sites and how it is one of the modern, essential tools for marketing products or services. It doesn't matter which products or services - soliciting of volunteers, selling of widgets, new brand awareness of products, whichever the business will need website to market itself. To get a website that is more appealing and attractive to customers, you need to choose a web design company that has a good repute; one which is known to provide the best value of your money on website design.

How important is a Web site design? A design can direct a user to the information they are looking for and make your site easy to navigate and user friendly. If the site is visually unappealing or awkward to use, there is a stronger possibility that users will leave your site for a competing one. So why is your design so important?

Website designing is a complicated process which requires skilled professionals and proper tools and techniques which can create informative websites. WordPress website design is one of the simplest and popular tools which can create business or blog website design. In the World Wide Web, you can find different existing WordPress website and many other are adding up every day.

With WordPress website design, you can create search engine as well as user-friendly website. It contains different plug-ins which helps the website to get the top ranking. These are even easy to navigate so the user can hop from one page to another collecting knowledge about all the products and services. The features of WordPress website design doesn't end up here. There are many different kinds of benefits which one can avail from creating a website using WordPress tool.

WordPress is designed for the more innovative user, the creative users, and the new users to be able to use equally well and to offer them a website venue that can be used as a blog, a Content management system, or both. Plugins will extend the functionality of the website, and give you the many different kinds of functions that you might need.

Source: WordPress web design acts as the driving power behind user friendly websites

Quantum Solutions, a Leader in SEO and Website Design Continues to Expand Business

Company Introduces All-Inclusive Web Design Packages

Denver, CO, January 23, 2016 --(PR.com)-- Quantum Solutions Consulting continues to expand its business services to small and medium-sized businesses providing web design and online marketing. Quantum Solutions is offering Starter, Elite and Premier Packages all at a manageable one-time rate for the first year. All of these packages include everything a business will need to begin a website: a custom website design, free site domain registration, web hosting for one year, unique content creation with targeted keywords, free submission of the website to top search engines, free software updates and unlimited monthly data transfers. The Elite Package includes a more extensive website, creation of Facebook and Google Plus pages and four website updates per year. The Premier Package includes everything from the Elite Package, plus eight website updates per year, authority backlink building to help increase the website's authority, a press release and email marketing campaigns.

These all-inclusive packages are clearly very attractive to a lot of business owners because they custom web design strategies, permits the client to focus completely on their business, and lets Quantum Solutions focus on what it does best, help customers promote their businesses online.

Quantum Solutions services includes everything a business needs from designing, developing, optimizing and promoting websites. They concentrate on aesthetics, site usability and advanced functionality to make websites more functional, user-friendly, and beautiful. The company has built custom designed sites using a number of platforms including, WordPress, Shopify, e-commerce platform Magento and has created sites from scratch using customized HTML and CSS coding. After creating the sites, their team hosts new sites and helps businesses optimize their search engine results.

Quantum Solutions has worked with many small and medium-sized companies and is versatile enough to work with any i ndustry. Quantum Solutions is loved by customers because they offer customized web hosting, web design, and search engine optimization abilities all in one location. The organization's experience, business savvy, and skill set have set them apart from other website design firms and helped to place them on a fast growth track. Quantum Solutions' staff is well experienced and the firm has many satisfied customers. Their staff has over ten years of experience in the web design business and the business caters to both local and national clients. This young company will continue to grow and is a rising star in the industry.

For more information on these services or about Quantum Solutions Consulting, visit http://quantumwebsolution.com.

About Quantum Solutions Consulting:Quantum Solutions Consulting was founded by Sean Ryan and is located in Denver, Colorado. The company was created out of a love of helping companies enhance their brand awareness, grow online traffic and ultimately increase sales. Sean has worked for two Fortune 500 companies and has extensive experience in online marketing services, web design and CRM integration.

Quantum Solutions' experience and project focus includes: search engine optimization (SEO) on-page and off-page, pay per click (PPC) management including Google Adwords and Bing Ads platforms, web development, e-commerce platforms, online marketing services, integrating business intelligence into CRM platforms, creating and integrating affiliate programs.

Contact Information:Quantum Solutions ConsultingSean Ryan(303) 946-3000Contact via Emailquantumwebsolution.com

Click here to read the full story: http://www.pr.com/press-release/654973

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Source: Quantum Solutions, a Leader in SEO and Website Design Continues to Expand Business

Toplevel Unshackles Design and Configuration with the Open Design Studio Web Toolkit

London, United Kingdom, January 21, 2016 –(PR.com)– Toplevel has developed a web-based version of Open Design Studio, its low code configuration tool kit for the Outreach case management platform, enabling users to access and configure system processes and Outreach components via the web. The toolkit will enable digital teams tasked with business transformation to access and configure interactive services from any device or location and has been developed in response to market demand for a low threshold, high access solution. Outreach Open Design Studio can be taken via a secure web interface, as a managed SaaS Cloud service or housed locally. This reduces the costs associated with local installation, updates and management; provides flexible access requiring minimal technical skills; and, facilitates coordination with technical partners online, making it easier to work collaboratively.

Outreach Design Studio 2016 has been developed as a fully web-enabled platform to solve two key issues: enabling non-technical staff to construct and build services and the need to liaise and collaborate with partners irrespective of their location. Up to 52 percent of organisations are concerned that their personnel lack the design capabilities to deliver positive end user experiences according to a recent Deloitte survey(*). The same survey also found that 74 percent of organisations choose to blend inhouse and contracted resource to develop digital services. These two key statistics indicate that there is a real need to reduce technical design requirements and to unshackle the user to facilitate collaborative working. Open Design Studio 2016 solves both these issues by providing a low-code virtual environment which is now available for the first time as a complete web-based solution.

Open Design Studio is a visual drag-and-drop tool that empowers business transformation teams to create, design and update digital interactive services. Its low-code capability ensures that business objectives determine the nature of the build ensuring services are accessible, easy to use and fit for purpose. Open Design Studio 2016 sees the Process Modeller graphical BPM tool, the eForm Digitiser for the creation of digital services, the Case Workflow Designer and the Document Designer become web-enabled tools to create a complete web-based tool-kit. Users can now design and configure business rules, workflows, document layouts, screen layouts, and other Outreach components over the web via Open Design Studio 2016 freeing them to work collaboratively, either fully or partially co-located.

Key benefits include:· Zero installation costs – eliminates the need to install and maintain applications on the local user workstation by providing access via the web or a secure Cloud-based SaaS service. Delivery times can be cut by up to 50 percent compared to bespoke software deployments.· Ease of use – web-based graphical interface makes it simple to access and manipulate Outreach components. Non-programmers are empowered to make changes to the look and feel and can perform simple data configuration.· Flexible working – enables the coordination, configuration and deployment of services with colleagues or third parties. Is the ideal solution for Agile projects when taken as a managed SaaS Cloud service as it enables close collaboration even if team members are in split locations.· Collaborative working for multi-disciplinary teams – empowers staff without programming skills to make changes to wordings, layouts and business logic and workflows according to their lev el of technical ability. Uses three tiers of access: Developers (unrestricted access to design features and code), Analysts (access to configurable logic and business rules) and Contributors (ability to edit text, visual styles and field placement only).· Web-based learning – access to a library of self-help e-tutorials enabling the user to rapidly assimilate and apply designs without the need for any coding capability.

Open Design Studio 2016 Alpha release 1 is in trial with Toplevel customers who will help influence the design and form of the final solution. These customers also have access to e-tutorials and provide feedback via the Alpha sandbox. Changes will be incorporated into a Beta version in common with the digitally led delivery process pioneered by GDS. Open Design Studio 2016 will become commercially available in Q2 2016.

"Open Design Studio 2016 is evidence of our commitment to promoting open standards and reducing costs as it enables our customers to build and control services via the web, eliminating the need for local installation. Taking the Open Design Studio toolkit online means we are now able to offer Outreach as a complete web-based, purpose-built solution for UK government and public sector organisations. The web version still benefits from the same three tier role-based security access as the local and Cloud–based services and is proven for IL3/OFFICIAL Sensitive services. But where it really provides an advantage is in its promotion of collaborative working, making it even easier to efficiently design digital services, configure seamless staff facing case management and interact with systems integrators and third parties."

Jane Roberts,
Toplevel's Strategy Director

(*)"Deloitte: Biggest obstacles to GOV digital transformation", published July 2015, www.consultancy.uk/news/2294/deloitte-biggest-obstacles-to-gov-digital-transformation

Contact Information:ToplevelSarah Bark01453 852700Contact via Emailtoplev.com

Read the full story here: http://www.pr.com/press-release/654488

Press Release Distributed by PR.com

Source: Toplevel Unshackles Design and Configuration with the Open Design Studio Web Toolkit

Avatar New York Reveals 7 Web Hosting Terms You Should Understand

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Source: Avatar New York Reveals 7 Web Hosting Terms You Should Understand

Key Apple TV software designer Ben Keighran leaves the company

Posted by Akshay Masand on Jan 20, 2016 | No Comments

Ben Keighran, the designer who played a key role in the development of the fourth-generation Apple TV is reportedly leaving the Cupertino California company. For those of you who didn't know, Keighran ended up joining Apple after the Cupertino California company acquired the startup he co-founded, Chomp, which was a search engine for mobile apps. He mentioned that he is leaving Apple soon and plans to start something new eventually. More specifically he had the following to say regarding the matter:

I want to create not just a killer product, but my own iconic company.

Since the acquisition of Chomp back in 2012, Keighran has spent the last three years overseeing both the look and feel of the software on the new Apple TV, which is a $149 set-top box tha tlets users watch video from the Web on their TV. He noted that the software found on the fourth-gen Apple TV incorporates part of what Chomp offered Apple during the acquisition. Keighran's departure from Apple will put him in the ranks with his previous startup co-founder Cathy Edwards, who left Apple two years ago.

There hasn't been news of whether he worked on any other projects during his stay at Apple. It is possible that he had something to do with Apple's TV-related services and potential hardware as well. These rumors have been gaining increasing speculation over the past few years and seemingly mixed signals from Apple as well. The Cupertino California company at one point was planning on introducing a subscription video service that would offer live TV from some broadcast and cable TV programmers, an effort which has been reportedly shelfed, though no one is certain.

Keighran refused to make any comments on Apple's projects aside from acknowledging that the company had looked at several different ways of delivering an "awesome TV experience."

We'll also have to wait and see what Keighran does next.

[Via re/code]

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Related Topics: Apple News, Apple TV

Source: Key Apple TV software designer Ben Keighran leaves the company

ShmooCon: LastPass design elements create perfect Phishing opportunity

Washington, D.C. - At ShmooCon on Saturday, Sean Cassidy, the CTO of Praesidio, demonstrated a clever attack against LastPass, which is possible thanks to a security trade off and easily spoofed UX elements.

Cassidy's presentation at ShmooCon on Saturday morning outlined a clever Phishing attack against LastPass users, which is made possible due to design elements within the password manager's core functions.

The attack, which doesn't require any special skill or circumstance to accomplish, enables an attacker to steal a LastPass customer's entire existence, as everything stored by the LastPass service is exposed.

Cassidy discovered the flaw several months ago, after the LastPass software displayed an in-browser notification alerting him to an expired session and prompting him login again.

This notification was displayed after he had followed a link inside an email he'd recently received. The notification itself was displayed in the browser, leading Cassidy to suspect he'd just been Phished.

"Any malicious website could have drawn that notification. Because LastPass trained users to expect notifications in the browser viewport, they would be none the wiser. The LastPass login screen and two-factor prompt are drawn in the viewport as well. Since LastPass has an API that can be accessed remotely, an attack materialized in my mind," Cassidy said.

An attack against LastPass can leverage compromised websites, or websites vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), and because it uses the exact visual elements of the LastPass users are trained to recognize and understand, they're not going to be on alert or suspect an attack is taking place.

LastPass was vulnerable to a CSRF that will log the user out, and enable an attacker to display a fake banner that prompts them to enter their credentials. The banner itself is an exact clone of the real one, and users are used to this visual cue, which means they wouldn't hesitate to do as it asks.

Once the victim clicks on the banner, they're directed to a malicious page that looks identical to the normal LastPass login prompt, because it uses the actual design elements created by LastPass. Cassidy was able to obtain the proper visuals with cut and paste; he simply used view source on the webpages when the legitimate prompts were displayed.

Once the login credentials are entered, the information is passed to the LastPass API and verified. If the account requires two-factor authentication, the attacker can direct the user to a second page that will offer an exact copy of the two-factor prompt. If the credentials are invalid, the user will be directed to the malicious page and the display banner will report the error as expected.

"Once the attacker has the correct username and password (and two-factor token), download all of the victim's information from the LastPass API. We can install a backdoor in their account via the emergency contact feature, disable two-factor authentication, add the attacker's server as a "trusted device". Anything we want, really," Cassidy wrote in a post-talk overview.

LastPass had a measure that was supposed to stop attacks like this, as it would email the user with an alert any time a new IP address attempts to login. However, if the user has two-factor enabled, then the emailed warning isn't delivered, leaving the user unaware that anything has happened.

"I think that the security industry's view of Phishing is naive at best, negligent at worst. Phishing is the most dominant attack vector and is used by everyone from run-of-the-mill CryptoLocker types to APTs," Cassidy wrote.

"The real solution is designing software to be Phishing resistant. Just like we have anti-exploitation techniques, we need anti-Phishing techniques built into more software. Software security evaluations should also include how easy it is to Phish said software."

In a statement to Salted Hash, Joe Siegrist, VP and GM of LastPass, said that the company worked with Cassidy and confirmed the issue was a Phishing attack and not a vulnerability in LastPass itself.

He also said the company released an update that "will prevent a user from being logged out by the Phishing tool, thereby the mitigating the risk of the phishing attack. In addition, LastPass has a built-in security alert to let you know when you've entered your master password into a non-LastPass web form."

The good news is, the patch did fix many elements of the Phishing issue. But the bad news is, it didn't fix it completely. In fact, it made the issue worse on some levels.

"I was happy they acknowledged the issue, but I was disappointed that they said it wasn't a vulnerability in LastPass itself. I do think it's a vulnerability in LastPass. It leverages a vulnerability in Chrome, and it uses how Firefox does pop-up windows, but ultimately LastPass is responsible for the security of their users, and I feel they have to own it," Cassidy said in an interview after his talk.

The patch fixed the CSRF vulnerability on Chrome, but it also implemented a feature that highlights when a user enters their master password, by generating the warning alert in the same window that the attacker can control.

"So I actually can detect when [LastPass] puts that message in there, and now I know your master password. I don't even have to ask LastPass for it [via API], I know it now, because LastPass [via the alert] told me what it was."

If the attacker wishes to do so, the warning issued by LastPass can be suppressed, the master password recorded, and the user can be forwarded to a new domain, secondary form, or anywhere else. Since the warning was suppressed, they wouldn't know their master password was exposed.

At the end of his talk on Saturday morning, Cassidy released LostPass - a tool that will demonstrate the attack and enable others to replicate it – on Github.

Source: ShmooCon: LastPass design elements create perfect Phishing opportunity

Creative Circle launches new web CMS with dynamic site for ANC corporate site

            EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I.  – Creative Circle Media Solutions has launched its first web site using an innovative new web CMS technology that is designed to make business and media web sites  more flexible and dynamic.

            The site, at www.anc.com, debuted with technology service provider ANC's new brand identity, better positioning ANC as the nation's leading provider to power sports stadiums, entertainment facilities, transportation hubs and retail venues with animated video displays.

            Dynamic is the buzzword about mediasiteQ, the content management system from Creative Circle, based in East Providence, R.I. The platform was recently upgraded to provide even more flexibility, which allows ANC's site to change and dazzle much like its stadium displays. "What we really loved about it was the functionality that a (Creative Circle) newspaper website presents to a corporation," said Michael Hopkins, ANC's vice president for external communications.

            "ANC creates very dynamic displays for large digital signage, like the displays at Dodger Stadium or Penn State University's sports venues. So they wanted a web site that could be dynamic, too," said Bill Ostendorf, Creative Circle's founder and president. "With our new version of mediasiteQ, they can turn up the volume as much as they like. They can apply a different look to every page and combine elements to create thousands of looks – all in a few clicks and with no technical background."

            To have that flexibility, most businesses would have to pay tons of money to a computer programmer or technology provider each time they wanted to emphasize new features. "Now, ANC's communications and marketing staff can change the design of any page in infinite ways as the business expands and needs or priorities change," Ostendorf said.

            ANC tapped into Creative Circle's expertise in providing flexible platforms designed for fast-paced media use. Combining that with Creative Circle's deep knowledge about design, content and visuals "allows us to build very sophisticated solutions for a business that no other vendor can," Ostendorf said.

            Hopkins echoed that. ANC didn't set out to use a news media web site developer like Creative Circle, but after an exhaustive search of other web companies, Creative Circle was the right fit. "No other content management system we came across in our search could deliver the ease of use along with the capabilities to do what we wanted to do," he said. "They simply weren't out there."

            ANC is also using Creative Circle's paywallQ platform to create customized, private pages for clients. "They can easily put resources or presentations on the web site in a portal behind our pay wall, give a customer a private access login and monitor any traffic or activity in those private pages," Ostendorf said. "That kind of tool, along with our other unique software platforms designed for media companies, could prove useful to a lot of companies."

ANC's Hopkins applauded the interactivity that the paywallQ platform builds into the site, because now clients can see demos, view their projects and share feedback. "Now we have a robust platform that is not just a branding tool, we can use it as a discussion platform to exchange ideas with our clients," he said.

            ANC hired an ad agency to develop its new branding and design its home page while Creative Circle extended that design to create the modular elements for interior pages. The site was actually delivered empty with no pages built other than the home page. The marketing team members at ANC built out the rest of the site themselves.

            As a company that designs displays for other brands, ANC team members wanted a web site they could control and alter quickly and cost-effectively. In the past, when they wanted to make a significant change, they'd have to go back to their outsourced web design firm and pay for each change. And wait for that change to happen. Now they can create everything they need themselves – new navigation bars, new layouts, new pages – and they can do it in minutes.

            "With this new version of mediasiteQ, we can provide for any company a website that they can change at will. I think a lot of businesses, corporations and associations would really appreciate the flexibility our CMS platform provides," said Ostendorf. "We've long thought dynamic web sites could give companies a strategic advantage. There is no reason a web site has to be static or hard to manipulate. Not with this new technology."

About Creative Circle

For 30 years, Creative Circle Media Solutions has been the newspaper industry's most innovative consulting, training, design and software firm. Creative Circle has led training and consulting projects for more than 250 media companies in 23 countries. In the United States, Creative Circle consultants have led the redesign of more than 550 newspapers and magazines and more than 250 media websites. In 2004, the company launched a software arm to produce better web software for newspapers and has since developed a wide range of specialized software for classifieds, native news, advertising, more flexible web CMS software and pay walls. Their software launch was partially funded through Rhode Island's Slater Fund and a grand from the Economic Development Corporation.

Creative Circle (www.creativecirclemedia.com) has built and hosts more than 200 media-related web sites around the country, including pbn.com and the web sites of several other Rhode Island media outlets. Increasingly, Creative Circle is applying its deep knowledge of design, content, readership and software development to help businesses, non-profits and associations deliver better printed materials and web experiences. Founder and president Bill Ostendorf heads up the team at Creative Circle, based in East Providence, R.I. To schedule a demo, contact him at bill@creativecirclemedia.com or 401-455-1555.

About ANC

ANC, a Learfield company, is the leading turnkey technology service provider offering integrated signage, design, and marketing solutions for sports, retail and transportation facilities. ANC's service platform offers the integration of Light Emitting Diode (LED) and LCD Displays, rotational and fixed visual signage; the award winning vSOFT™ display control system; signage operation and maintenance; advertising sales and marketing consultation; graphic design; and printing production. To learn more about the company's history, products and services please visit www.anc.com. To learn more about Learfield Sports, please visit www.learfieldsports.com.

Source: Creative Circle launches new web CMS with dynamic site for ANC corporate site

ShmooCon: LastPass design elements create perfect Phishing opportunity

Washington, D.C. - At ShmooCon on Saturday, Sean Cassidy, the CTO of Praesidio, demonstrated a clever attack against LastPass, which is possible thanks to a security trade off and easily spoofed UX elements.

Cassidy's presentation at ShmooCon on Saturday morning outlined a clever Phishing attack against LastPass users, which is made possible due to design elements within the password manager's core functions.

The attack, which doesn't require any special skill or circumstance to accomplish, enables an attacker to steal a LastPass customer's entire existence, as everything stored by the LastPass service is exposed.

Cassidy discovered the flaw several months ago, after the LastPass software displayed an in-browser notification alerting him to an expired session and prompting him login again.

This notification was displayed after he had followed a link inside an email he'd recently received. The notification itself was displayed in the browser, leading Cassidy to suspect he'd just been Phished.

"Any malicious website could have drawn that notification. Because LastPass trained users to expect notifications in the browser viewport, they would be none the wiser. The LastPass login screen and two-factor prompt are drawn in the viewport as well. Since LastPass has an API that can be accessed remotely, an attack materialized in my mind," Cassidy said.

An attack against LastPass can leverage compromised websites, or websites vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), and because it uses the exact visual elements of the LastPass users are trained to recognize and understand, they're not going to be on alert or suspect an attack is taking place.

LastPass was vulnerable to a CSRF that will log the user out, and enable an attacker to display a fake banner that prompts them to enter their credentials. The banner itself is an exact clone of the real one, and users are used to this visual cue, which means they wouldn't hesitate to do as it asks.

Once the victim clicks on the banner, they're directed to a malicious page that looks identical to the normal LastPass login prompt, because it uses the actual design elements created by LastPass. Cassidy was able to obtain the proper visuals with cut and paste; he simply used view source on the webpages when the legitimate prompts were displayed.

Once the login credentials are entered, the information is passed to the LastPass API and verified. If the account requires two-factor authentication, the attacker can direct the user to a second page that will offer an exact copy of the two-factor prompt. If the credentials are invalid, the user will be directed to the malicious page and the display banner will report the error as expected.

"Once the attacker has the correct username and password (and two-factor token), download all of the victim's information from the LastPass API. We can install a backdoor in their account via the emergency contact feature, disable two-factor authentication, add the attacker's server as a "trusted device". Anything we want, really," Cassidy wrote in a post-talk overview.

LastPass had a measure that was supposed to stop attacks like this, as it would email the user with an alert any time a new IP address attempts to login. However, if the user has two-factor enabled, then the emailed warning isn't delivered, leaving the user unaware that anything has happened.

"I think that the security industry's view of Phishing is naive at best, negligent at worst. Phishing is the most dominant attack vector and is used by everyone from run-of-the-mill CryptoLocker types to APTs," Cassidy wrote.

"The real solution is designing software to be Phishing resistant. Just like we have anti-exploitation techniques, we need anti-Phishing techniques built into more software. Software security evaluations should also include how easy it is to Phish said software."

In a statement to Salted Hash, Joe Siegrist, VP and GM of LastPass, said that the company worked with Cassidy and confirmed the issue was a Phishing attack and not a vulnerability in LastPass itself.

He also said the company released an update that "will prevent a user from being logged out by the Phishing tool, thereby the mitigating the risk of the phishing attack. In addition, LastPass has a built-in security alert to let you know when you've entered your master password into a non-LastPass web form."

The good news is, the patch did fix many elements of the Phishing issue. But the bad news is, it didn't fix it completely. In fact, it made the issue worse on some levels.

"I was happy they acknowledged the issue, but I was disappointed that they said it wasn't a vulnerability in LastPass itself. I do think it's a vulnerability in LastPass. It leverages a vulnerability in Chrome, and it uses how Firefox does pop-up windows, but ultimately LastPass is responsible for the security of their users, and I feel they have to own it," Cassidy said in an interview after his talk.

The patch fixed the CSRF vulnerability on Chrome, but it also implemented a feature that highlights when a user enters their master password, by generating the warning alert in the same window that the attacker can control.

"So I actually can detect when [LastPass] puts that message in there, and now I know your master password. I don't even have to ask LastPass for it [via API], I know it now, because LastPass [via the alert] told me what it was."

If the attacker wishes to do so, the warning issued by LastPass can be suppressed, the master password recorded, and the user can be forwarded to a new domain, secondary form, or anywhere else. Since the warning was suppressed, they wouldn't know their master password was exposed.

At the end of his talk on Saturday morning, Cassidy released LostPass - a tool that will demonstrate the attack and enable others to replicate it – on Github.

Source: ShmooCon: LastPass design elements create perfect Phishing opportunity

Web Developer / Designer - Rhizome

Background & Rationale

The goal of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is to complete the eradication and containment of all wild, vaccine-related and Sabin polioviruses, such that no child ever again suffers paralytic poliomyelitis.

Launched in 1988 after the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eradicate polio, the GPEI, along with its partners (UNICEF, World Health Organization (WHO), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Rotary, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation(BMGF)), have helped countries to make huge progress in protecting the global population from this debilitating disease. As a result, global incidence of polio has decreased by 99% since GPEI's foundation and an estimated 10 million people today are walking who would otherwise have been paralyzed by the disease. Now the task remains to tackle polio in its last few strongholds, essentially Afghanistan and Pakistan, and get rid of the final 1% of polio cases.

UNICEF provides technical Communication for Development (C4D) support to polio programmes in both endemic and new outbreak contexts. Polio will not be eradicated from New York or Geneva. Our teams on the ground are at the frontlines of the eradication efforts and must be equipped with the best information and tools to get the job done, particularly as the goal is within reach as never before.

The UNICEF polio team has been working on an online website to support teams in the field with best practice C4D resources and tools that is accessible, easy to digest and effective in low-connectivity environments. Rhizome TK works is an interactive and engaging toolkit to support UNICEF country teams to develop communication strategies of the highest caliber.

Its first iteration will be launched by February 2016, and will inevitably require adjustments, revisions to both design and to content. A significant development work remains to be done post-launch, in terms of debugging but more importantly in terms of tailoring the website to the needs expressed by the field offices, by developing new features, and making Rhizome TK fit for these very specific contexts.

It is further planned that there will be more linkages made with the Rhizome DB arm of Rhizome where the two pieces can reinforce each other and provide field staff with a complete package of tools.

Lastly, this is also a legacy piece for the polio C4D team, capturing best practices, approaches and tools for the benefit of the programme and specifically for transition and expansion to UNICEF C4D and immunization programmes.

Purpose

Under the direction of the technical lead, the software developer will support the development of Rhizome, UNICEF's web-based toolkit.

Lead the management of the newly-designed website through the open source Content Management System, including any adjustments needed to meet the needs of users;

Develop new features, identify and fix bugs, improve the user experience, and commit code as directed by the Rhizome project lead;

General maintenance of the website to ensure optimum speed and usability.

Deploy and manage analytics for the website, providing weekly usage reports and support for introduction of new features;

Design Interfaces and features for both the CMS and front-end based on user feedback and testing

Support the interface and compatibility with corresponding Rhizome DB project to move toward a single site, approach etc.

No travel is foreseen in this consultancy.

Expected results: (measurable results)

Daily management of developer tasks (feature development, bug fix, UX improvement, software deployment)

Regular testing of the site to identify any technical and usability issues

To manage, prioritize and implement relevant fixes, new features and improvements to the site based on field testing and feedback, as directed by the Project Manager

Ensure all related hosting and CMS updates and management needs are met and managed;

Improved usability and an increase in the number of active users as measured by regular reporting of site metrics;

Contributes substantially to code development for 25 - 50 percent of known bugs, features, and UX improvements

Synergies identified with the Rhizome DB project and areas for collaboration are taken advantage of to ensure a coherent single site approach.

Timeline will be based on the story points of assigned tasks.

Duty Station

The developer is expected to work out of the NYHQ UNICEF office.

Timeframe

Start date: February 15th, 2016 End date: August 8th, 2016

Deliverables

Duration

(Estimated # of Days)

Deadline

Daily management of developer tasks (feature development, bug fix, UX improvement)

80

August 8th, 2016

Manage, prioritize and implement relevant fixes, social media interaction on site, new features and improvements to the site based on field testing and feedback, as directed by the Project Manager

36

August 8th, 2016

Overall management and maintenance of open source coding, hosting and CMS.

10

August 8, 2016

126

Key competences, technical background, and experience required Deadline

● Academic qualification and required level of education: Bachelor degree

● Proficiency with HTML(5), CSS(3), JavaScript, and jQuery libraries

● Experience integrating diverse applications using integration frameworks, web services and APIs.

● Experience working with Cloud providers and products (Amazon, Azure, Rackspace etc.).

● Knowledge of web technologies, protocols, and tools.

● Experience managing Content Management Systems.

● Experience integrating web services and API's and knowledge of web performance.

● Strong experience working on cross-browser and multi-browser platforms.

● Knowledge of SEO implementation and social media integration best practices.

● Experience with UX design for both web and web for mobile environments.

● Experience with Agile

● Experience with project management software, such as Trello

● Experience with Github or another version control software

● Experience with open source technology

● Minimum 5 years Junior to Mid-Level experience as a professional software developer

● Languages needed: English

● Ability to be a self-starter and to work with minimum supervision

● Experience in a multi-cultural and gender sensitive work environment

● Excellent communication skills, written and verbal, Strong interpersonal skills

● Ability to work with a team as well as independently. Ability to interface, collaborate with technical staff and designers.

Source: Web Developer / Designer - Rhizome

Are You a Talented Designer? Sourcehunt Needs You!

In October 2015, SitePoint's very own Bruno Skvorc launched Sourcehunt PHP, a valuable initiative aiming to help (mostly niche) open source projects grow by attracting more contributors. In true open source fashion, it greatly reflects our love for open source here at SitePoint.

With the PHP channel being the first channel to get the Sourcehunt treatment, the Design channel was eager to catch up too. While you may not often hear "Design" and "Open Source" in the same sentence, I have seen too many great open source projects fail due to a lack of good design. Often it's very simple fixes to UX, UI or even branding that make the difference.

However, contributing to an open source project, can be greatly rewarding. Sure, you might not get paid directly, to do get: -designer street cred ("oh yeah.. I worked on that..") -the experience of working with others talented people in a decentralized way -and, of course, it looks very impressive on your resume

And that's not to mention the simple joy of just making cool stuff – a concept I probably don't need to convince you of, since you are likely already a designer and are reading this post.

For Sourcehunt Design, the Open Source Design group has been a great help with promoting open design principles and open source projects in need of a sprinkling of good design. Thanks to them, I was able to compile this small collection of projects to contribute to, with more to come in the coming months.

So, to recap:

We will be going through some open source projects which are in need of a helping design hand. However contributing as a designer is sometimes not as straightforward as with code, so I will try to explain how you can contribute on a case by case basis.

In case GitHub scares you a little (it's ok, we've all been there), relax! We will be solely focusing on GitHub Issues, which is the ticketing system GitHub offers. Check out the GitHub guides in case you are stuck.

Let's get started!

PhotoFlow aims to provide a fully non-destructive photo retouching experience with a complete workflow including RAW image development. It has an ambitious feature list which it wishes to fulfill once version 1.0 is shipped. Concretely:

Fully non-destructive, layer-based photo editing workflow with real-time preview of the final image

Support for 8-bits and 16-bits integer as well as 32-bits and 64-bits floating point precision, selectable at runtime and on a per-image basis

Allows to load and edit images of arbitrary size, thanks to the underlying rendering engine based on the VIPS library

Fully color managed workflow: user-defined input, work, and output profiles, soft-proofing and similar

Support for layer grouping and layer masks

Support for common photo editing tools: levels, curves, brightness-contrast control, blurring, sharpening, cropping, resizing, colorspace conversions, etc. implemented in the form of image layers

The project is currently looking for a UX/UI Designer to improve upon its graphical interface and help with the general look and feel of the program. It's a pretty straightforward task, so check out the listing on Open Source Design and start an issue in the GitHub repo.

OpenFarm is a free and open database for farming and gardening knowledge. It aims to provide a platform for expert and beginner farmers and gardeners to share their knowledge in the form of Growing Guides that describe how to grow a crop based on specific environmental conditions and growing practices. Compatibility scoring between Users and Guides allows high quality and relevant information to be discovered quickly.

This is not one of the run-of-the-mill open source projects you stumble upon, which makes it all the more interesting. It's also worth noting that all data stored in OpenFarm's database is Public Domain, which is a great contribution to the commons.

Currently, the guys at OpenFarm are looking for an illustrator to create their personalized mascot. Head over to the issue on GitHub if you want to give it a try.

If icon design is more 'your thing', OpenFarm also need some help with the development of their drag and drop farm designer/manager tool – specifically a selection of plant icons. You can find the related issue on GitHub in case you can take it on.

These are only 2 specific jobs currently most prioritized, but feel free to browse around and contribute to the project with other changes and additions. The OpenFarmers will surely appreciate it!

Thunderbird Conversations is a Thunderbird extension which, as the name implies, enables a conversation view in the Thunderbird email client by Mozilla. Notable features include:

a regular conversation view that fetches messages from all folders, and behaves similarly to Gmail's

a quick reply feature, with autocomplete, that allows you to reply to a thread in a snap,

quoted parts are collapsed,

keyboard shortcuts,

and a few other bonus features.

Conversations is actually one of the most downloaded Thunderbird add-ons with more than 60,000 daily users. As the major open source client out there, Thunderbird enjoys great popularity also.

This is a project close to my own heart and I have personally created the logo for the add-on. I'm also currently working on the redesign for the UI. The project is currently looking for designers to help complete the redesign. Check out the GitHub issue if you are interested. We might end up working together on this!

MyPaint is a nimble, distraction-free, and easy tool for digital painters. It supports graphics tablets made by Wacom and many similar devices. MyPaint's brush engine is versatile and configurable, and it provides useful productive tools. It also offers a selection of brushes which can accurately emulate traditional media such as charcoal, pencils, ink, or paint.

The project is already pretty mature at this stage, which makes sense after being for many years in development. The MyPaint team encourages contributors to submit their artwork and/or brushes, but also solicits contributions to the software UI and UX.

One example of UX help you might be able to tackle is this (quite old) issue on GitHub. Feel free to open a new issue to get in touch with the developers and start contributing!

This is another project close to my own heart. GalliumOS is a Linux distribution which has been carefully optimized for performance and compatibility on Chromebooks and Chromeboxes. It aims to outperform ChromeOS on the same hardware while delivering a full Linux environment.

GalliumOS is based on Xubuntu (which is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian) and offers many more optimizations and features for Chrome devices than other Linux distros.

It is lightweight and works smoothly out of the box with all functions a Linux enthusiast might require. By integrating with ChromeOS mouse driver, Gallium offers the kind of buttery smooth touchpad experience that ChromeOS is famous for.

Furthermore, GalliumOS includes bug fixes for Chrome devices not available in any other Linux distros yet.

I am personally involved as a contributor in GalliumOS, having created its brand identity, the early website design, as well as some wallpapers used in the actual OS. The project is currently in need of design contributions for its website, wiki and UI & UX of the distro. You would likely be working with me on design aspects of GalliumOS, so if you are eager to join, feel free to file an issue on GitHub!

Website GitHub

I hope some of the projects above intrigued you! Before diving in, be sure to have a read through the contribution guidelines of each projects. However, most of the time simply opening an issue and offering your help will do the trick. They'll be glad for the helping hand and you should get a reply in no time.

Let us know of your contributions in the comments or use the #sourcehunt #design hashtags and we might feature you in the next edition of Sourcehunt!

Source: Are You a Talented Designer? Sourcehunt Needs You!

Having a proficiency in this popular software could prove surprisingly useful at work

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships so we may get a share of the revenue from your purchase. 

Microsoft

Photoshop is a great skill to have on your resume in 2016; this is especially true if you want to land a job in a creative field like graphic design, or in web design and development. You'll come across many listings that prefer candidates with a working knowledge of Adobe's popular software, if not a proficiency of it.

It is a great skill to have in general, too — you can seamlessly touch up images, make fun edits, and prepare pictures for a personal photo album. The sky's the limit once the master Photoshop's basics.

If you have been wanting to learn more about Photoshop for a while now — be it for personal or professional reasons — Udemy is currently offering an online course entitled Photoshop Beginners Mastery: Zero to Hero in Photoshop for $15.

Spanning more than 40 lectures and 2.5 hours of content, the course is aimed to bring those with little to no experience with Photoshop up to speed fast. By the time you're done, you should be comfortable cropping images, correcting an image's lighting and coloring, layering multiple images, masking layers, working with multiple images and files types at once, and much more. 

The idea is to follow along with instructor Dr. Chad Neuman and learn by doing. So, to fully appreciate the course, you'll need a copy of Adobe Photoshop, preferably Creative Cloud, installed on your computer. If you don't own the application, you can grab a free trial of it here.

Neuman normally offers the course for $29, but with our exclusive promo code, INSIDER2016, you can enroll for $15. With more than 57,000 students already enrolled and an impressive five-star rating, it's easily one of Udemy's most popular classes; it's also well worth a look if you're hoping to land a position that values this particular expertise.

Photoshop Beginners Mastery: Zero to Hero in Photoshop, $15 (originally $29), available at Udemy. [49% off with the promo code "INSIDER2016" through February 1, 2016]

Disclosure: This post is brought to you by Business Insider's Insider Picks team. We aim to highlight products and services you might find interesting, and if you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners, including Amazon. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions. We operate independently from our advertising sales team. We welcome your feedback. Have something you think we should know about? Email us at insiderpicks@businessinsider.com.

Read the original article on Insider Picks. Copyright 2016. Follow Insider Picks on Twitter.

MORE E-LEARNING: Get a taste of coding with this affordable and beginner-friendly web developer course SEE ALSO: We tried Moov's new fitness tracker, a robotic personal trainer for your wrist — here's what we thought DON'T MISS: These are the most popular products of 2015, according to Business Insider readers
Source: Having a proficiency in this popular software could prove surprisingly useful at work

The Quick SEO Guide You Need for Your Website

In The Marketing Plan Handbook, author Robert W. Bly explains how you can develop big-picture marketing plans for pennies on the dollar with his 12-step marketing plan. In this edited excerpt, Bly offers tips even the novice webmaster can put into practice.

An estimated 80 percent of online purchases begin with prospects using a search engine, such as Google, to find the products they're interested in. Therefore, it makes sense to optimize your website so it ranks higher in Google and other search engines. But how do you this?

"My advice is always to write for people, not search engines," says copywriter Dianna Huff. "Yes, it's good to place the correct keywords in the body copy, and yes, it's correct to place your most important keyword at the beginning of the title tag and in the headline of the page. However, you don't have to do this to achieve high rankings. And you certainly shouldn't do it if your copy ends up sounding spammy. If you want a site to rank well, you have to optimize it but not at the expense of the marketing objectives. Copy should be written for people, not search engines."

"Over the years, the tactic I found that works best is to have the most targeted keywords toward the top of the page and work your way down, like a reverse pyramid," says internet marketing consultant Wendy Montes de Oca. "The entire page should be keyword dense, and there can be some repetition, but from my understanding of search engine spiders, they like more organic content.

Let's say you have a website that hasn't been optimized, and you want to optimize it now. How do you go about it? First, determine which keywords are best for your industry or for the traffic you're looking to generate. Keywords are the terms your prospects and visitors will type into the search field when they're looking for your type of product or service. So consider the words and phrases they might use to describe your products or services.

Here are some additional tips for selecting keywords:

Use plurals for your keywords, but avoid excessive repetition.

Misspell keywords if misspellings are common. For example, DIRECTV, a digital satellite television service, is frequently referred to as "Direct TV." If your name is misspelled regu­larly, include that spelling in your keywords as well.

Don't always use obvious keywords. Include phrases that may get fewer searches but higher results.

Don't let your combined keywords exceed 1,000 characters. The fewer keywords, the greater impact they'll have.

Need help coming up with a list of likely keywords? There are tools that can help. Wordtracker helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service, and it offers a free 30-day money-back guarantee. Wordstream has a free keyword search tool.

Next, create "meta tags" on all pages of your website, based on the keywords you're targeting. These are descriptive text phrases written in HTML code on your site. They're not visible on your web pages, but search engines can find and read them. Before you create your own meta tags, it's a good idea to take a look at those of your competitors and colleagues. Fortunately, you can easily open a window and view the meta tags of any website you visit. From your browser's toolbar, simply choose the "View" menu. Then click on "Source," and a window will open with HTML text that you can study. The most important meta tags are found near the top of the page in between codes like this:

If you're creating your own website, depending on which software you use, all you have to do to add meta tags is type the words you've chosen in the appropriate places. The key meta tags for marketing purposes are title, description, and keywords. These tags control what web surfers see when your site is listed in the search engines, which means they'll help people decide whether to visit your site. The "title" tag is what your visitors see at the top of their browser windows when they're visiting your site, as well as what they'll see in their bookmark lists. So make sure each page has a title that makes sense to visitors, not just to you. Be descriptive; failure to put strategic keywords in the page title is often why web pages are poorly ranked. The title tag can be a maximum of 95 characters, including spaces but ideally should be no longer than six or seven words.

When your website comes up in search engine results, the meta tag identified as the "description" is often the opening statement people will use to decide whether to access the link. The description should concisely answer the question "What do you do?" For example: "XYZ Design provides client-focused, creative, and effective graphic design, art direction, and project management for marketing communications." The description tag should be a maximum of 220 characters with spaces.

Put your keywords in your meta tags. You also should include your keywords in the first 25 words of your homepage. You can use Good Keywords as a meta tag creation tool. Keep adding the keywords you need into the "Base Keyword" field available within the software. Once you're done, a simple click will get you the required keyword meta tag, ready to be pasted into your HTML file. Now your website is "primed" for optimum search engine placement. Write the best copy you can on every page of your website. Once you've written the strongest copy you can, go back and insert keywords from your keyword list into the copy, wherever and as frequently as you can, without disturbing the style, tone, meaning, and persuasiveness of the copy. If forcing a keyword disrupts the flow, don't do it.

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Source: The Quick SEO Guide You Need for Your Website