For all of you that already use Firefox 3 i want to

announce a beta release of an enhanced version of our Firefox Add-on for del.icio.us that now has full Firefox 3 support while retaining Firefox 2 compatibility.

Now with this plugin you can:

* Jump to Tag feature (press F2) allows you to quickly access tags and
bookmarks using the keyboard
* New layout for saving bookmarks
* Preferences now in a separate dialog under Tools (which also can be
invoked via the prefs button on the FF Add-ons pane)
* Status bar indicators for network activity, new links for you, and the del.icio.us website
* Classic mode for users who just want simple buttons without the overhead of sync

Read more from the source

The Shadow Notebook is a five-subject notebook that gets cobranded with participating colleges and universities across the US and distributed by the school at the start of each semester. The university’s logo appears on the cover, and pages of school-related maps and information get included within. Thirteen four-colour, full-page advertisements, meanwhile, act as subject dividers in each notebook, giving advertisers the means to engage students while they are a captive audience in the learning environment. Students, naturally, carry the notebooks with them throughout the day over the course of the semester, which from the advertiser’s perspective amounts to 96 impressions over a four-month period, ABS says. So far, about 700,000 notebooks have been distributed to college students at campuses nationwide.

College students spend some USD 198 billion per year, according to Harris Interactive, so it’s no wonder advertisers are going to new lengths to reach them. We’ve now seen free photocopies, free printing, free notepaper, free phone calls and now free notebooks—it all goes to show, there’s no such thing as too much free love!

Read more from the source

The heavily laden donkeys don’t help. Nor do the boys playing pickup soccer games, or the shopkeepers who spread their wares in the cobbled alleys of the medieval walled city.

But what slows you down the most is that Kellar and Smith seem to know everyone. Just a few minutes into our walk, they’ve already greeted half-a-dozen merchants, their banker, and one of their property managers. Each encounter requires hearty exchanges in Arabic and in some cases kisses planted on the other man’s cheek, in true Moroccan style. It may not look like it, but the pair are hard at work.

“Fes Properties,” says Kellar, “wouldn’t work without our having the local language - and local relationships.”

It’s a clichй to say that business hinges on relationships, but they’re priceless in the Arab world, particularly in close-knit communities such as the Fez medina. So it’s all the more remarkable that Smith, 32, a burly, blue-eyed business graduate from Nebraska, and Kellar, 35, a former actuary from North Carolina, have penetrated the medina’s byzantine property market.

Fes Properties (”Fes” is an alternate spelling of “Fez”), the medina’s first foreign-owned real estate firm, specializes in selling and renting traditional Fez townhouses, or riads, to American and European clients. Before the duo started the business three years ago, the local property market was dominated by local brokers. Their designation, simsar, means “agents of poison” in Fez dialect. As the name suggests, real estate brokers are viewed with disdain in Fez: Professional training is nonexistent, and trade ethics vary widely. Barriers to entry are low: Simsars range from well-established agents to the local vegetable seller with a tip that a widower on his street wants to sell.

Tea and technology in Paris
Foreigners shopping for property frequently meet nasty surprises: Morocco must be one of the few markets on the planet where sellers tend to bargain up, starting with low sell prices that they increase as negotiations proceed.

“I kept hearing stories of Americans getting ripped off,” said Kellar. “I met a guy last night who assumed he was buying a whole house. Turns out he only got the top story.”

Enter Fes Properties, dedicated to providing “a cultural bridge between Eastern sellers and Western buyers,” according to its brochure. The partners spend a great deal of time explaining Moroccan culture to Western clients. Kellar’s PDA, for example, is programmed to translate dates between the Muslim and Christian calendars.

Nevertheless, much can be lost in translation. One British client walked out of a closing after mistaking a characteristically animated Arabic chat between sellers for a fight. That deal fell through, but the business is growing quickly from a small base, say the partners. Their combined net income has yet to break six figures, but they enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, thanks to Morocco’s low cost of living and the absence of corporate pressures.

Several other Western property firms have followed Fes Properties into the local market. Century 21 set up shop last year, complete with glossy brochures, computerized window displays, and plans for two more Fez branches. Some riads have doubled in value over the past few years, but prices are still reasonable compared with Europe and even go-go Marrakesh. Today unrestored riads start at around $40,000, but restored ones can easily fetch $650,000.

Read more from the source here

I’m assuming that you’re either not a programmer yourself, or you don’t feel that programming the service yourself is the best use of your time.

You want to find a programmer who is going to be reliable, skilled, who won’t charge you an arm and a leg, and who (ideally) would become a long-term partner in your projects. Getting all of that in a single person is quite the task!

One option is to go to a web site designed to help you find freelance programmers. Elance is one of them, RentACoder is another.

My personal experience with sites like that haven’t been great. I’ve had a project accepted, and then later told that they wouldn’t be able to complete it after all. I’ve had bids given, and then later found them trying to increase the amount they get by nitpicking the project requirements.

But, other people have had better results, and some have even found their long-term partners on such sites, so your mileage may vary.

If you live in a college town, you might check with the computer science department of the college to see if there are any students interested in taking on your project. In any CS department there is always at least one student who is a whiz with web programming, and could probably knock out your project in a short time. Being a student, they often won’t charge you what you’d pay a professional to do the same job.

Read more from the source here