Adii Pienaar, the inventor of an internationally-successful Wordpress theme-creation business, gave a recent presentation where he raised the idea of "User Experience (UX) and Design versus Tech". He asked the question: "Is one more important than the other?"Themes are essentially "plug and play" skins for Wordpress sites, allowing a user to change the style and design of their site on the fly, at the click of a button. It has generally cut down, or cut out, the need for ...

Apple has removed an unofficial WikiLeaks application for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad from its App Store because it violated its guidelines for software developers."Apps must comply with all local laws," Apple spokesperson, Trudy Muller. "It may not put an individual or targeted group in harm's way."We removed the WikiLeaks app from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines," Muller said, declining further comment.The WikiLeaks application cost 1.99 dollars and provided a mobile version of the WikiLeaks ...

Paypal has led the way by opening up its platform but there will be lots of startups focused on digital money in its many forms in 2011. Making payments easier and secure is a very big deal. History reveals many times when innovation around money resulted in massive economic growth, and conversely, when a lack of payment options resulted in economic depression.For example, look at these innovations around money: International banking and insurance originated with the Medici families in Florence ...

Photo editing software developed by Pakistani technology firm Five Rivers became the best selling paid-for application for the Blackberry, the firm said Wednesday.Lahore-based Five Rivers said its Photo Editor Suite had hit the top spot across all sectors on Blackberry's AppWorld store."This is extremely good news for us and especially for the Pakistani IT industry," said Mahe Zehra Husain, the head of operations and product management at Five Rivers Technology."We feel we are on top of the world. This is ...

It’s at this time of year where you can really make your professionalism shine through. Social media keeps no office hours. People talk about your brand regardless of the time, location or date. Christmas time just opens up another opportunity for your fans and followers to discuss how empty your stores are, or how slow the accounts department is, or how distant the managers are because they’re not on leave.Have you thought about how you’ll handle complaints on your social ...

The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's ruling Communist Party, this week officially launched its own search engine as the country's state media seek even greater influence on the Internet.The newspaper celebrated the launch of Goso.cn -- the first Chinese search engine backed by a state media organisation -- with the formal release of its news search feature, seen as its key draw, the company said in a statement.Goso.cn wants to boost "China's say on the Internet" and aims to ...

Microsoft has released its first sales figures for new Windows Phone 7 smartphones, saying more than 1.5 million of the handsets were sold by manufacturers in the first six weeks.Achim Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones, said sales were "in line with our expectations -- especially when compared to other new platform introductions.""We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence," ...

Skype suffered an outage lasting several hours on Wednesday affecting millions of users of the internet communications service."Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal -- thanks for your continued patience," Luxembourg-based Skype said in a message on its Twitter feed @Skype.In a blog post, Skype explained that computers known as "supernodes" had been taken offline by an unspecified problem affecting some versions of Skype."Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of ...

Are you, or someone you love, filling your "Dear Santa" letters with 3Gs, MB’s, and USB’s? Hoping that Santa's little helpers know their way around the information super-highway? Well, rest easy with our shopping guide for the geeks who made the "Nice list" this year that’s sure to make all the "Naughties" think twice!Beyond the obvious holiday purchases like a new computer, an external hard-drive, or an iPod, buying for techies can be really tough. I myself struggle with holiday ...

Technology has made our lives easier in myriad ways. During this annual jamboree of consumerism, better known as the festive season, technology should come to our rescue. We've already done our shopping online, deftly avoiding the chaos of the malls, but how else can the web get us into the Yuletide spirit?Memeburn explores some fun ways to enjoy Christmas 2.0 from the comfort of your own PC.1. Elf YourselfNow in its fifth successful year, Elf Yourself (from JibJab and ...