publish

Apple's iWeb, combined with MobileMe, is an easy and effective method of publishing your personal Web site. Some users, however, encounter issues when attempting to publish their newly created or updated site using MobileMe.

When faced with publishing issues, there are a few places to look, most of which are fairly simple ways to solve the problem without having to be too technical.

The first thing to consider when facing publishing errors in iWeb is your Internet connection. Be sure you are connected to a network and that the network is connected to an ISP. Open System Preferences > … Read more

Apple has finally rolled out the 90-second samples on songs that are longer than 2.5 minutes, sold in the United States, and that iTunes has managed to equip with the longer preview.

Some bloggers and iTunes users have questioned why longer previews don't accompany every song. As first reported in August by CNET, Apple approached the top four recording companies last summer about the longer samples that iTunes users can hear to test-drive songs before buying. Researchers say that longer song samples stimulate sales.

According to several music industry sources, Apple has only acquired licenses to the longer … Read more

Amazon is looking to attract more readers and sellers of e-books with its improved Kindle for the Web.

Demonstrated yesterday at Google's Chrome event, Amazon's Kindle for the Web will let users buy and read full Kindle e-books directly from their browsers with no special download or installation required. The new version of the application will be available early next year.

Users will also have a lot of choice over where they can buy their Kindle books. Online retailers, publishers, authors, and bloggers will be able to offer Kindle books through their own sites, according to Amazon. Web … Read more

Strobe, a start-up focusing on publishing tools that employ a new generation of Web standards, has secured first-round funding.

Chief Executive and co-founder Charles Jolley announced the move today but declined to share exactly how much Hummer-Winblad and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures bestowed upon his company. The company's technology is based on a project called SproutCore that Jolley has been working on for years, including several while at Apple. Jolley left Apple in July.

SproutCore uses JavaScript and other Web tools to endow Web pages with user interfaces more like what one would expect of a native application. It … Read more

NEW YORK--There must be something squirreled away in the human brain that is hard-wired to go absolutely bonkers at the sight of anything that's shiny, slick, and begging to be touched. That, after all, is how Apple CEO Steve Jobs sells products.

But an iPad is only as good as the things you can do on it, and in this sense the device is implicitly a bit of a challenge, an Everest to climb or an English Channel to swim, for developers and entrepreneurs: What can you do on this? How can you take advantage of the features it … Read more

In another sign that e-books are going mainstream, The New York Times will create a best-seller list for electronic content early in 2011.

The New York Times Best Seller List--around since 1935--will now also focus on e-books.

According to a statement, the Times will rank sales aggregated from online service providers selling e-books. The Times said it is working to process and verify the data. In addition, the Times has partnered with RoyaltyShare to validate e-book sales from various parties.

The list will appear in The New York Times Book Review in print and online.

The story "New York Times to cook up e-book best seller list&… Read more

Amazon.com will give newspaper and magazine publishers a greater share of the revenue it collects for periodicals sold through its Kindle Store, the company said today.

Beginning December 1, Amazon said, publishers will be able to earn 70 percent of the retail price for each newspaper or magazine sold--a substantial increase over the 30 percent publishers reportedly previously received. To qualify for the greater piece of the pie, publishers must make their periodicals available for reading on all Kindle devices and applications in all geographies for which the publisher has rights.

The move is likely to persuade publishers to … Read more

Mobile-app developers still cite the iPhone as their platform of choice, but Android is increasingly winning their hearts and minds, according to the results of a survey released today by Millennial Media.

Among the several hundred developers and publishers polled for Millennial Media's "State of the Apps Industry Snapshot," 30 percent said they're currently creating apps for the iPhone, the highest percentage of all mobile platforms. Though Apple's smartphone grabbed the top spot, its popularity is down a bit from last December, when 48 percent of those polled were eyeing the iPhone as their platform … Read more

Longer song samples are finally on their way to iTunes.

An Apple spokesman confirmed for CNET this evening a report by Symphonic Distribution, a digital music distributor, that iTunes would soon be extending the length of song samples from 30 seconds to 90 seconds for songs that are at least two-and-a-half minutes in length. Shorter songs would continue to offer the 30-second sample.

Apple notified the top music labels and other business partners in the music industry about the change today.

The samples are, of course, the snippets of music that Apple offers to iTunes users so they can determine … Read more