10 Programming Languages You Should Learn Right Now

Among thousands, 10 programming languages stand out for their job marketability and wide use. If you're looking to boost your career or learn something new, start here.
  
Knowing a handful of programming languages is seen by many as a harbor in a job market storm, solid skills that will be marketable as long as the languages are.
Yet, there is beauty in numbers. While there may be developers who have had riches heaped on them by knowing the right programming language at the right time in the right place, most longtime coders will tell you that periodically learning a new language is an essential part of being a good and successful Web developer.
"One of my mentors once told me that a programming language is just a programming language. It doesnt matter if youre a good programmer, its the syntax that matters," Tim Huckaby, CEO of San Diego-based software engineering company CEO Interknowlogy.com, told eWEEK.

However, Huckaby said that while his company is "swimming" in work, hes having a nearly impossible time finding recruits, even on the entry level, that know specific programming languages.

"Were hiring like crazy, but were not having an easy time. Were just looking for attitude and aptitude, kids right out of school that know .Net, or even Java, because with that we can train them on .Net," said Huckaby.

"Dont get fixated on one or two languages. When I started in 1969, FORTRAN, COBOL and S/360 Assembler were the big tickets. Today, Java, C and Visual Basic are. In 10 years time, some new set of languages will be the in thing. …At last count, I knew/have learned over 24 different languages in over 30 years," Wayne Duqaine, director of Software Development at Grandview Systems, of Sebastopol, Calif., told eWEEK.
By picking the brains of Web developers and IT recruiters, eWEEK selected 10 programming languages that are a bonus for developers to add to their resumes. Even better, theyre great jumping-off points, with loads of job opportunities for younger recruits.

1. PHP

What it is: An open-source, interpretive, server-side, cross-platform, HTML scripting language, especially well-suited for Web development as it can be embedded into HTML pages.

Why you should learn it: Its particularly widely used. "High-speed scripting with caching, augmented with compiled code plug-ins (such as can be done with Perl and PHP) is where the future is. Building Web apps from scratch using C or COBOL is going the way of the dinosaur," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 1,152*

2. C#

What it is: A general-purpose, compiled, object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft as part of its .NET initiative, it evolved from C and C++

Why you should learn it: Its an essential part of the .Net framework. "Learning C#, which is just Java with a different name plate, is critical if you heavily use Microsoft," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 5,111

3. AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)

What it is: Though technically not a programming language, AJAX uses XHTML or HTML, JavaScript and XML to create interactive Web applications.

Why you should learn it: Ever since Google Maps put AJAX, well, on the map, the requests for AJAX-knowledgeable pros went through the roof. "The demand for AJAX knowledge is huge because its so damned hard to learn," said Huckaby. Of note, Microsoft announced recently plans to release a tool named Atlas that will make AJAX easier to implement. "If Microsofts Atlas tool is successful, it would bring the extreme complexity and annoyance of AJAX to the average worker," said Huckaby.

Job availabilities : 1,106

4. JavaScript

What it is: Not to be confused with Java, JavaScript is a an object-oriented, scripting programming language that runs in the Web browser on the client side. Its smaller than Java, with a simplified set of commands, easier to code and doesnt have to be compiled.

Why you should learn it: Embedded into HTML, its used in millions of Web pages to validate forms, create cookies, detect browsers and improve the design. With its simplicity to learn as well as wide use, its considered a great bang for your educational buck.

Job availabilities: 4,406

5. Perl

What it is: Perl is an open-source, cross-platform, server-side interpretive programming language used extensively to process text through CGI programs.

Why you should learn it: Perls power in processing of piles of text has made it very popular and widely used to write Web server programs for a range of tasks. "Learning some form of scripting language, such as Perl or PHP is critical if you are doing Web apps," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 4,810

6. C

What it is: A standardized, general-purpose programming language, its one of the most pervasive languages and the basis for several others (such as C++).

Why you should learn it: "Learning C is crucial. Once you learn C, making the jump to Java or C# is fairly easy, because a lot of the syntax is common. Also, a lot of C syntax is used in scripting languages," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 6,164, including all derivatives

7. Ruby and Ruby on Rails

What they are: Ruby is a dynamic, object-oriented, open-source programming language; Ruby on Rails is an open-source Web application framework written in Ruby that closely follows the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture.

Why you should learn it: With a focus on simplicity, productivity and letting the computers do the work, in a few years, its usage has spread quickly. As a bonus, many find it easy to learn.

Job availabilities : 210 and 54, respectively

8. Java

What it is: An object-oriented programming language developed by James Gosling and colleagues at Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s.

Why you should learn it: Hailed by many developers as a "beautiful" language, it is central to the non-.Net programming experience. "Learning Java is critical if you are non-Microsoft," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 14,408

9. Python

What it is: An interpreted, dynamically object-oriented, open-source programming language that utilizes automatic memory management.

Why you should learn it: Designed to be a highly readable, minimalist language, many say it has a sense of humor (spam and eggs, rather than foo and bar), Python is used extensively by Google as well as in academia because of its syntactic simplicity.

Job availabilities: 811

10. VB.Net (Visual Basic .Net)

What it is: An object-oriented language implemented on Microsofts .Net framework.

Why you should learn it: Most argue that VB.Net is currently more popular than ever and one of the only "must-learns." "It is currently dominating in adoption and that is where all the work is," said Huckaby.

Job availabilities: 2,090

* All numbers on job availability were pulled from nationwide queries on Dice.com, a job site for technology professionals.

Price leaks Microsoft Office 2010

Office 2010 has not been formally introduced to the market. But the price range of the latest Microsoft Office suite has been circulated earlier.

In general, there are four editions of Office 2010 that will be offered to the market. First, Office Home &; dibanderol standard Student U.S. $ 149 for a package (box wear) and U.S. $ 119 for a version of the weekly and is activated by key cards.

Then there's edition of the Home Office for the workers and small businesses for U.S. $ 279 version of the box, U.S. $ 199 with a key card.

Upper-class version of Office Professional Edition 2010 is equipped with a number of tools for the corporate and pegged U.S. $ 499 box and U.S. $ 349 key card.

While for the most efficient version is Office Professional Academic for students and teachers, which could cost up to U.S. $ 99. So detikINET quotes from Information Week, Monday (1/2/2010).

Want to buy direct? Patient first, because Office 2010 will be formally introduced Microsoft's new fastest mid-year or no later than the end of the year.

In addition, Microsoft is also usually the price difference based on the status of their application. This means that prices set in developed countries are not the same as the dibanderol in developing countries.

Making Your Website Into a Business Opportunity

How is internet marketing business helping people earn great income and take it as their primary business? Today people are interested in making fast and easy money which is not impossible. If you can put in some effort in the start then your internet marketing business can help you earn money easily and quickly.

Online business is a new form of conducting business, in this business a person cannot actually see or talk to his customers but has to convince him through written words only. Therefore having a website to promote your business online is indispensible. With so many website development companies available online it is very difficult to predict which one of them will satisfy your needs. Every company has its own way of creating a website design and uses its own special technique to promote your website against masses.

With a proper website design you can approach your customers professionally. Many people today create blogs to spread awareness about their brand amongst people but it is not enough. You audience must know where they can read more detail about your product and where it can be purchased. Sometimes an interested customer may not be able to purchase things without proper knowledge of the sales page. A web designing company offers you a base which is similar to an offline office and lets your customer reach you easily.

So when creating your website, it is important that you know your needs beforehand. There are some companies that provide great shopping offers to customers. They sell products of various brands due to which they require website with 70-80 pages. This is not required by every company. If you have just started your online business then you must choose a simple website, a website with essential links and pages. When you approach a web development company, they make sure that your products are described in a convincing way to excite the customer to purchase them. Having a sales page in your website is must. With the help of a sales page your customers can purchase the products anytime of the day or night.

A novice internet marketer may not have much knowledge as what to include in his website and what not. You do not have to fill your website with web pages but must use minimal amount of pictures to accentuate your product. A good website is one that details all positives and benefits of a product, a website that describes the product decently without exaggerating it. It is very important that you promise your customer only as much you can deliver. Fake promises can bring you more customers for some time but will not be profitable in the long run.

Web development companies offer you a great start by creating a website which is unique and easy to use and lets you achieve the kind of profit you dream of attaining from it. There are many website design Sydney companies that are known for its wonderful design and development services.

The Elements of a Good Advertisement

Advertisements are all around us. Whether we're watching television, driving down the freeway, flipping through a magazine, or listening to the radio, we are bombarded on every side by messages trying to get us to buy a product or service. And although there have been countless debates over whether or not advertising is effective and whether it really does influence people to purchase products, the fact is many companies will spend billions of dollars on a single advertisement in the hopes that it will increase their profits.

Good advertisements have the power to make people stop and take notice. You have to have been living under a rock not to notice the success of Geico's caveman series or the iPod's silhouette series of commercials and advertisements. And as a result of those advertisements, sales went up significantly for those two companies.

Advertising creates awareness of the product and can convey messages, attitudes, and emotions to entice and intrigue audiences. At least those are the desired effects of an advertisement. Needless to say, some advertisements fail miserably in their purpose.

So, what makes the difference between a successful advertisement and an unsuccessful one? It's all in the design. Typically, larger organizations produce more effective advertisements, while newer and smaller companies are the ones that produce the duds. This is largely because bigger organizations have the money to hire professionals while smaller companies do not.

The advantage of hiring an in-house advertising developer or hiring an advertising agency is that you get the skills of people who have been trained in creating effective advertisements. Many have spent years and years going to school, studying past effective advertisements, looking at elements of design, and learning how to create their own effective advertising campaigns.

Learning how to create effective advertisements does not happen overnight, but there are a few simple rules that many workers for professional advertising agencies follow to create effective advertisements that will appeal to audiences and hopefully increase the company's revenue. The following paragraphs list a few advertising principles that companies and advertisers follow when creating their own advertising campaigns.

Perhaps the most important quality of an advertisement is its uniqueness. In a world where people often see hundreds of advertisements a day, an advertisement must be unique and different in order to capture audiences' attention. Going back to the iPod example, the single block of color with an image of a black silhouette was extremely effective at the time because it was unlike anything else around it. The simplicity of the advertisement stood out against posters and billboards that had busier images and much more text. Also, the use of bright, bold colors made people stop and look at the image. Even though the advertisement had little text on it, people got the message that this product was new, fun, and bold.

Of course, there are a variety of ways to make your advertisement stand out. Look around your area and write down descriptions of advertisements you see. What are the trends? Are they text heavy? Do they use similar colors? What kinds of images are on the advertisements? Once you start noticing trends, try to think of ways your advertisement can go against those trends and be something different--something that will make people stop and look.

One word of caution: Once you've made people stop and look at your advertisement, they need to be able to understand what you're selling. You may have the most eye-catching image on your advertisement, but if it is completely unrelated to your product or service, then viewers won't understand what you want them to buy. So, be sure that when you are selecting your images and text for your advertisement, people will understand what you're trying to sell.

A well-designed advertisement will also communicate well to audiences. In order to figure out how to make your advertisement effective, you need to identify your audience. Who are you trying to target? Teenagers? The Elderly? Business people? Parents? There are a variety of different audiences, and the more specifically you can identify the audience for your product, the better chance you have of designing an ad that will effectively influence your audience.

For instance, if your audience consists of young teenage girls, you might choose to use bright and bold colors, but for business people you may want to create an advertisement that uses more professional blues and blacks (but don't be afraid to be a little bolder if you're trying to stand out).

The key is to think of the general traits of your specific audience and try to reflect those traits in your advertisement. What do they value? What do they fear? What motivates them? Once you've answered those questions, it should be easier to come up with a few solid ideas for an advertising campaign.

Once you've developed some ideas for an eye-catching advertisement and identified how you want to communicate with your specific audience, some good, solid design principles need to come into play. The advertisement needs to be legible. Viewers shouldn't have to work to get what you're trying to say. The advertisement needs balance. One side shouldn't feel heavier than the other. The advertisement should also make good use of contrast, repetition, color, and pattern. When these design elements are implemented well into an advertisement, the result is a fabulous ad that will appeal aesthetically to viewers.

The above is just a brief overview of what advertisers have to think about when designing an ad. You can see why many people find it helpful to hire an advertising agency to help them develop ideas and create effective advertisements. And whether you're looking for a Seattle or a Miami advertising agency, you shouldn't have a problem finding an organization in your area to help you create the perfect advertisement campaign for your company.

So, if you're thinking of creating a new ad or ad campaign for your company, by following the above guidelines and suggestions, you can create the most effect advertisements as possible, convey the message you want to convey, and be one your way to increasing revenue.

Advertising Strategies For Small Businesses - 3 Effective Ways to Advertise Your Business

A lot of big companies thrive on advertising because they have the budget to create one-of-a-kind and attention grabbing ads. But what about their smaller counterparts? Are there effective advertising strategies for small businesses?

Have no fear. You don't necessarily need a large budget to come up with a successful marketing campaign. All it takes is a bit of ingenuity on your part. To help you get your business moving, here's some proven advertising strategies for small businesses.

1) The Rise Of Social Networking

These days, it doesn't take a lot of money to get your message across. If you're into Web 2.0, advertising strategies for small businesses should be a cinch for you.

A lot of people advertise their products and promos by posting a message on their social networks. Facebook and Twitter are among the most popular social networking web sites available.

The best thing about this is that everything is free. If you don't have an account, better get one now!

2) The Power Of Print

One of the most common advertising strategies for small businesses is working out a deal with your local newspaper or magazine. Despite the emergence of digital technology, people still like reading the paper in the morning.

It would be best to advertise in print media that targets your specific audience. So if you're selling golf shoes, advertising in golf magazines would reap the best results. And if you're running a local business with local customers, advertising in your local newspaper will be good for you.

This is especially appropriate if you have a new product or a promo coming up.

3) Good Old Fashioned Networking

One of the simplest - yet most powerful - advertising strategies for small businesses is good old networking. If you're invited to an event, make sure you always have a good supply of calling cards tucked under your belt. You never know just who you might meet there.

If you're a good entrepreneur, every moment is an opportunity to mingle and entice prospective clients. Just don't turn them off by talking about your business all throughout the conversation. Business cards help you look more professional as well.

Even if your business is not as big as other companies out there, there's no need to despair. There are plenty of advertising strategies for small businesses available for you. As long as you're creative and resourceful enough, there's no end to what you can think of. So take these tips into consideration and I wish you well on your advertising endeavors!

5 Best Brochure Graphic Design Techniques

Do you need great ideas for the graphic design of your brochures? Well, in my experience in brochure printing, I have seen five great graphic design techniques that always work and have never failed to attract people.

For the benefit of other would be designers out there, I will share these great techniques to design and print brochures.

Let us start with my favorite and the most effective, the attention seeker design.

1. The attention seeker design -- This type of design is basically the technique that uses questions. For example, a brochure that has the words "Are you depressed?" on its cover is an attention seeker design. It asks people about its issues to attract attention. It is a simple and very powerful technique that does target the particular readers you want quickly. It is perfect for brochures that are part of awareness campaigns where you want to target specific people to give information to.

2. The poster brochure -- this is a more visual design technique. This type of graphic design belittles text in favor of a compelling and well-designed cover. For example, a brochure about child exploitation may have a very powerful picture of children being forced to work in the streets. The picture alone, compelling as it is should be enough for people to pick up the brochure. The only problem though with this technique is that you have to be good at taking or creating images and photographs.

3. The classic corporate -- The classic corporate design is the mainstay of post public relations and client relations color brochures. This design involves clean and crisp lines, simple colors and the judicious use of the company logo. While this may seem boring, it is actually the style that is most in use today. It is a safe mode of designing that should always be part of your retinue of design proposals.

4. The symbol brochure -- Another great design technique. This kind of design involves using one very memorable symbol at the cover of your color brochure. This can be an embossed logo of the company, or an intricate picture of the product that is being sold. Symbols usually stick in people's mind and they will have an easier time recalling your brochure because of it. This is a great type of design if you want to promote one particular product or concept.

5. The mystery brochure -- finally, this particular type of design technique involves creating a brochure cover that makes people wonder. Usually this design has some text that entices people to the information inside the brochure. For example, the brochure message can say, "discover the 10 rules of making money fast. Take a look inside!" Attracting people with mysterious and interesting information almost always guarantees a reader for your brochure. So use this as well in your own designs.

These are the five best techniques for graphic design in color brochures. It is not really about the skill you have in designing brochures. It is about how the message is delivered to people. Good Luck!

Advertising Through the Use of Billboards

If you are having your own business, advertising is one of the most effective ways for you to market your business effectively. It is one way of informing the public about the kind of business that you are having. However, before you are going to think that you need to advertise something, you must put fort first on thinking the best tool that you are going to use for your advertisement. Probably, there are many ways that you can choose from, among these things are through classifieds, television ads, and even through the use of billboards. We know the fact that among these mentioned techniques of promotions; billboard was among the commonly used advertising tools by most of the advertisers. This has been able to populate almost all the areas in the highways and even with the major streets all over the world.

Thus, we can directly say that many have tried how effective billboard is when it comes to advertising a certain product. If you are an advertiser, you would certainly ask on what is the exact difference of these things when it comes to billboard advertising. Certainly, billboard can give the pubic of the clear picture of a certain product, and as well as seeing its style and benefit to the customer. If you are going to advertise through the use of billboards the choice of the styles, colors and design of your billboard is the most important thing that you can consider. You can make modern styles of these billboards, even electronic billboards of high quality.

You must be familiar with the different types of advertising, most especially the billboard and try to figure out the positive and negative side of such toll in order to improve certain things when it is necessary. You also need to become knowledgeable with the different sets of billboard so that you will know what particular type you are going to use for your advertising. When you are able to choose the best billboard type then you can already select the best design that you can choose for your advertising. You can make advertisements that would surely suit to the kind of business that you have in order to make sure that you can catch the attention majority of the customers in a certain place.

Simple design, yet attention grabbing slogans are the best advertising technique if you are going to use billboard. Shorter message are the preferable once than those longer ones. If you are going to advertise, keep in mind that your target is your audience or your customers that is why you must keep with those strategies that will catch the attention of the public. You can also target the vehicle owners who constantly pass by along the highway.

Through your billboards, they can be able to know the product that you are advertising with them. You can also try to search for place with high traffic areas and you can decide to put up your billboard along the way so that during traffic hours they can have the chance to glance at it.

10 Tips For Trade Show Success

1. Set Your Goal

Why are you doing this show? Is it to sell product, get leads, create top of mind awareness, or to preempt your competition? Be sure to have a very specific goal in mind, write it out and track your results as the show progresses. Without a specific goal in mind it will be impossible to determine if the trade show was a success.

2. Promote Your Trade Show Booth Before The Show Begins

One of the most important aspects to a successful trade show is the number of times you can "touch" your prospects. The general rule is that you must touch them at least 3 times prior to the show to generate top of mind awareness. Less than 15% of exhibitors do a pre-show promotion. Be in that group! Attendees only spend time at 15% to 20% of the exhibits so if you want their time, you need to invite them to your trade show booth before they get there. If you want to generate "guaranteed" prospects - this is how to do it!

3. The 1 Minute Pitch

Fact: You have 6 seconds to capture a prospects attention when they are walking past your booth on the trade show floor. If your booth design and message are great (we will discuss later) and the prospect stops- you must be prepared! Have a condensed 1 minute pitch that covers everything you need to qualify the lead and most importantly, a pitch that meets the goal you set for this show. Practice this pitch as many times as possible prior to the show to ensure you have it down cold and fire away! Remember your pitch should be all about the prospect - NOT YOUR COMPANY that comes later.

4. The invitation - Have a good Great reason to visit your booth

This is simple - come up with a reason for your prospects to visit your booth - then invite them. Whether it's your giveaway, raffle, new product, a demonstration, discount on services for all VIP visitors or an announcement of a merger or partnership, you must have a compelling reason to come to your trade show table. If your reason is compelling enough they will make plans to visit your booth.

5. Qualify Your Prospects

Many trade show exhibitors will use giveaways to attract prospects to their booth. While giveaways are good way to increase traffic to your booth they do not produce strong leads. A great way to qualify prospects and weed out people that are just there for free stuff is by doing a raffle.

To get the most out of the raffle you must ASK some qualifying questions. Qualify all entries - they must fill out ALL information on a form to enter the raffle. You should ask for E-MAIL so you can build your opt-in e-mail list, be sure to let them know that you will be e-mailing them from time to time with specials and promotions - get their interest level, purchase time frame and decision makers in the process and whatever else you need to create a REAL, QUALIFIED LEAD. When you do your review later on you will know exactly who is interested in your product or service, and who is not.

6. The Booth Message

The biggest and most common mistake I see on trade show displays is a company's names scrawled across the top of their booth. Remember you are there to capture the PROSPECTS attention simply posting XYZ Company at the top of your booth is unlikely to do that. Hopefully, you have developed whatever message you want to convey prior to the show, make sure your booth is conveying that message quickly and clearly! Remember you have just 6 seconds to capture a prospects attention and creating a powerful message is the best way to accomplish that.

7. The Booth Graphics

Great trade show graphics will convey your great message. Having your graphics produced by a qualified professional will make the difference between a "decent" show and a "blowout"!

So when your graphics are being designed and produced you want to keep some things in mind.

o Message, Message, Message

o Colors and images that convey your message

o If your designer doesn't know the emotions elicited by different colors - get a new designer. (remember the 6 seconds rule)

o Your booth and graphics are a big investment and should be designed and produced by a qualified professional who will consult with you on developing your message within your budget.

o A good trade show booth does not have to be expensive and an expensive trade show booth does not have to be good.

8. FOLLOW UP, FOLLOW UP, FOLLOW UP

After a trade show a prospect has a lot of information to digest. Most likely they visited a number of booths after visiting yours, but there is a sure fire way to get them to remember you- BE THE FIRST ONE TO FOLLOW UP!

Remember you need to touch your prospects up to 12 times. Three times before the show, once at the show and at least 4 follow ups after the show. Send useful information each time, ads, newspaper mentions etc. Don't give up - you will be surprised at the power of consistent "informational" follow ups.

9. FOCUS ON YOUR PROSPECTS

I've said it a number of times throughout this article and I am giving it its own section because it really is that important. The most essential thing you can remember about trade show success is that no one really cares what you sell, what you do, who you are, who you've done business with, why you are here or anything else about you. It's sad but its true and it is vital to your trade show success or failure. The only thing prospects care about is how a service our product can benefit them! Have a message that accomplishes this, be prepared to present that message and you are guaranteed success.

10. Bonus Tips

- Killer mini tip #1 - Don't EVER sit down in your booth - Studies show that people will pay 26% more for the exact same product if the vendor is standing!

- Killer mini tip #2 - Smile, always be smiling, don't frown, and smile (get it?) If you can smile at the prospect then say their name, you have successfully opened the door - now just apply your 1 minute pitch!

- Killer mini tip #3 - Look relaxed / be relaxed - Body language is extremely important - many prospects walking by are actually "nervous" about stopping because you might ask them a question they don't know the answer to. If you are relaxed then you are approachable and they are more likely to engage you.

- Killer mini tip #4 - Make them feel important - BECAUSE THEY ARE! Make every discussion about them, not you. Which approach will be more effective?

This was just a preview! To see the extended version of this article with more great tips and some Trade Show horror stories visit our blog @ http://www.kdf-comp.blogspot.com/!

Matt Valentine is the Marketing Manager at KDF Reprographics, Inc. providers of Large Format Printing, Vehicle Wraps, Fleet Graphics, Color Scanning, Posters, Banners and Trade Show Displays. To contact Matt or setup an interview please call 888-533-2667.

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