I've bee trying to find the perfect online storage platform for some time now. At the moment, I'm trying Copy.com, a relatively new service from Barracuda Networks. Barracuda is well known for anti-spam security systems. I've been using Copy for around six months now and I like it. The UI is a clean three column browser, similar to the Mac's Finder or MS Explorer and is more logically designed than Dropbox. You always know which folder or files you are accessing.

The first thing you notice when you try Copy is their referral system. Because they are still relatively unknown in this segment, they want to make sure that everybody tries Copy. To do so they had the brilliant idea of giving away a 15 GB free account, and if you register through a referral link (like this one) you can get 20 GB of free space. But the good part doesn’t stop here, for each referred person that registers an account through your own referral link, Copy credits you 5 GB of additional space, once that person validates their email address and installs the client software. For the moment, this offer is unlimited - there is no limit to the amount of space you can get for free, so take advantage now if you need online storage.

Copy has a couple of specifications that set it apart from other solutions:

• Any folder can be backed up to the cloud. You can create an alias of any folder on your computer in the Copy folder and all the content of the destination shortcut will be copied and synced online! 
• Permissions can be set on the folders you share: A user's rights can be set to “Can Edit & Sync” or to “View Only” when sharing from the online interface. Sharing can be set to 'simple' or  'secure'. When set to secure the options for user-rights appear
• Fair Sharing: If you share a folder, the amount of used space is split between the members joining the account; i.e. if you share a 50 MB folder not that everybody´s account will have 50 MB deducted (as Dropbox does), but instead all the users will relenquish a fair portion of their storage for that share
• Faster sharing: you can share a link to a file from the app rather than being redirected to the website
• Caching: Copy allows caching of whole folders on mobile devices
• Copy allows easy access to old versions of a file straight from a file’s contextual menu

What about paid accounts? Fair prices! The first 20 GB via a referral link (like this one) are free. If more space is needed, you can upgrade to Pro account with 250 GB of space for USD 10 a month or USD 99 a year or a 500 GB account for USD 14,99 a month or USD 149 a year.

Downsides? I found that uploading files to Copy is sometimes a little slower than to Dropbox, but that may be due to the poor internet connections where I live.

Try Copy now — you can never have enough online storage.

What if you could offer your site's visitors a final piece of information before they leave your site?

With Final Word, the latest Doobox stack, you can do exactly that.
You won't see the stack pop-up when you're navigating from page to page within the website, but the stack will be displayed if your visitor goes to close the current browser tab or attempts to enter someone else's url in there address bar, at this point they were about to be gone for good.
The stack has the ability to know if your visitor has been shown the pop-up in the past, and can be set to not show up again for a set number of days that you define.

• This stack helps you increase landing page conversion rates.
• Get your message across without annoying visitors.
• Display only once per visitor per set number of days.
• Fully customisable colours and content.
• Fully Responsive (Though won't ever be triggered on touch screen devices)

February 1996 - For too long, Web pages have been created by professionals well-versed in UNIX with tools resembling simple text editors, but no longer!
Adobe Systems now offers two programs for both the beginning HTML author and the experienced Web site manager. PageMill and SiteMill feature a WYSIWYG interface, which makes operating them easy to figure out, as well as incorporating typical Macintosh ease of use. PageMill is an excellent choice for creating Web pages; it allows even a novice to create a Web page complete with forms, graphics, and formatting. SiteMill is the perfect choice for both managing and editing Web pages on the server; it catalogs a Web site, checks each link, and displays all errors. Currently, both programs support HTML version 2.0, as well as certain Netscape plug-ins. Minimum system requirements for both PageMill and SiteMill are as follows: Macintosh OS 7.1 or greater, Drag Manager (if Macintosh OS version is less than 7.5), 8 M RAM, and 10 M of hard disk space.

I just discovered this fascinating book online at 50Megs. Change the chapter numbers in the page address, to see just how far we have come in the last 15 years ...
... some of the design examples (e.g. CH16) will shock you!

With at least a dozen different slideshow stacks and various other sliders on the market, does RapidWeaver need yet another Slideshow? Of course it does!

Enter Superflex 2 from Nick Cates Design, a responsive slideshow stack with preload animation, colour adjustability, streamlined design, fast setup, and banner importing, and much much more! Create slideshows that beautifully scale within any RapidWeaver theme - on any screen size.

The original Superflex has over 8'000 users. It has been re-worked to include the following 16 new features:

• Rearrange slide order, with drag and drop ease.
• Unlimited slides per slideshow - no more count limits.
• Loading animation, with adjustable preload message.
• SuperFlex loads much faster (after first image is loaded).
• Smooth fade-in once the slideshow has been loaded.
• Optionally use server hosted images (on a per slide basis).
• Mix and match image sizes, SuperFlex will automatically resize.
• Fully color adjustable slideshow controls and preloader.
• One click banner importing into Nick Cates Design themes.
• Multiple slideshows can be used on the same page.
• Smooth fade in animation for slide captions.
• Optional fixed slideshow dimensions for non-responsive use.
• Completely redesigned edit interface for better functionality.
• Easier and faster slide linking and caption editing.
• Optional “Pause slideshow on hover” behavior.
• Redesigned previous and next arrows, now color adjustable.

That's a lot of changes for one stack. Go and take a look at it ...

Guest-Post from Will Woodgate

I’m pleased to announce the availability of HotSpotsPro today. As you may be aware, the free HotSpots stack was developed and released about two months ago, at request of a client to achieve some image maps in an important project. There was a lot of interest in the free stack, and it became clear through the RapidWeaver forums that there’d be interest in a paid ‘pro’ version with many more features and functionality too.

Although image maps remain a popular technique in modern web design, the ability to create them in RapidWeaver has somewhat dried-up in recent years. Rage MapDesign used to be the go-to solution for creating image maps to go into RapidWeaver; but unfortunately it’s no longer developed and quite unstable in newer versions of Mac OS X. The Points Of Interest stack was another option; but this too appears to be unsupported now. My hope with HotSpotsPro is that it can become the most feature-rich solution for building basic image maps in RapidWeaver.

The idea of an image map, in the simplest form, is to display a static image. Over the top of this image, there are then ‘hotspots’ positioned in specific areas. These hotspots can be visible or invisible. It’s these hotspot regions which can perform various tasks, like displaying tooltips on hover or opening content or other pages when clicked. Built correctly, a basic image map can promote a lot more user interaction with a web page and offer a fantastic method of navigation.



Development of HotSpotsPro has by no means been a walk in the park! I received a number of ideas and feature requests from many different people worldwide. Some of these were unachievable via the Stacks API and a couple of others conflicted with what others wanted! So as a result, in a few areas, things have needed to be re-thought and some small compromises were required. But hopefully the completed stack today meets nearly all objectives that someone building a basic responsive image map in RapidWeaver needs. A fine balance has been cut between providing plenty of useful features; while at the same time avoiding a stack that gives the illusion of being too complicated to use. The HotSpotsStack went through several revisions and a number of Beta builds; which allowed us to get feedback from actual users and perfect the stack for release today.

Some noteworthy features of the HotSpotsPro stack are as follows:

• Support for up-to twenty hotspot regions, which should be more than adequate for most requirements
• Completely code-free setup, coupled with live previewing of the background image and hotspots in Stacks edit mode
• Search engine optimised, print friendly and valid HTML5 markup. No messy Javascript or Flash code
• Option to display informational rollover tooltips left, right, above or below hotspot regions, and customise their size and colour
• Hotspots can open a link when clicked or open content (like iFrames, images or video) in a responsive lightbox
• Robust compatibility with all major web browsers and various different handheld devices
• Lots of style options, including semi-transparent hotspot fills and various border styles. Support for both static and hovered states
• Proportionate scaling of internal content (like Font Awesome icons) in supported RapidWeaver themes

HotSpotsPro is available to purchase from the Stacks4Stacks website for £10.00. It’s been carefully priced in respect of the amount of time and effort that went into developing this stack, and the fact that the free HotSpots stack remains available for people working on a very tight budget. HotSpotsPro is very much a professional-grade stack (hence the name) you can purchase once and use an unlimited number of times in many projects. It's a single stack element which can save you from hours of complicated coding and tedious testing.

A free demo version of HotSpotsPro can be downloaded from the product page. A couple of different examples showing the HotSpotsPro stack in action are also presented, for you to test. All purchases include free technical support and updates. HotSpotsPro will be compatible with future versions of RapidWeaver and the next Stacks update. If you have pre-sales questions, you can contact me direct through the Stacks4Stacks website (a reply is normally provided within 6 - 12 hours).