Wordpress gets yet another impressive array of themes to add to the already massive list of available themes and options for the popular blogging software as SMThemes and Arvixe team up to provide a host of new hosting options and site themes.

In advance of Labor Day, UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller writes in his latest Baltimore Sun column that despite increased productivity, U.S. workers have less access to vacation time and lower pay than their international peers.

Schaller references a study released earlier this year by the International Labor Organization, which found American workers are the most productive in the world, producing $63,885 of wealth annually on average. However, he notes, citing a recent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “the United States is the only nation that doesn’t guarantee every worker a certain number of days of paid vacation. Although we have 10 official federal holidays, none are guaranteed paid vacation days — a commonplace legal right in most other industrialized nations…[and] almost a quarter of all Americans…get no paid vacation time whatsoever.”

Read the full column at The Baltimore Sun.

Inventive Labs launched today their software-based media server, Voice Elements Platform 5, with support for WebRTC. Built right into the media server, and accessible through a proven .NET API, Voice Elements Platform apps can now integrate voice right into HTML5 web pages.

Student Business Services (SBS) would like to take this opportunity to express our excitement about partnering with you and your student this academic year!

SBS prepares tuition bills, processes tuition payments, issues student refunds and manages the Monthly Payment Plan. We can answer all of your billing questions! Feel free to contact us Monday through Friday between 8:30am and 4:30pm. 

Here are a few friendly reminders

•  Bills are electronic and can be viewed online on myUMBC( Billing & Personal Finances topic, Payments & Billing). The First Fall ‘13 e-bill (for students registered through 7/31) was available for viewing as of August 1st, and was due on August 20th.  Note that late fees will be assessed on August 25^th. “Pending aid for Fall ’13” should be deducted from “Total Due” for Fall ’13 (on e-bill) Any portion not covered by pending aid, should be paid prior to 8/25 to avoid late fees.

•  Financial aid for Fall ’13 posted for the first time on 8/20. Please ask your student to review his Account Inquiry on myUMBC to view aid that paid against charges.

• There is still time to sign-up for the Monthly Payment Plan for Fall ’13 and divide tuition and fees in two installments, one in September and one in October. Learn more about the plan by going to www.umbc.edu/sbs and selecting Monthly Payment Plan.

•  By this time, your student should have received the e-refund card in a bright green envelope. Please be sure that he/she has gone online as per the instructions enclosed with the card, and selected a refund preference. If the student does not select a preference, it will delay the student’s refund. If your student did not receive the e-refund card, or lost or misplaced the card, please contact our office immediately.

• So that you can have full access to your student’s financial information, the student must complete a Disclosure of Information form (available on www.umbc.edu/sbs) and grant you a Parent Pin.  The Disclosure form authorizes the parent to receive information on the phone and by e-mail and it should be forwarded to the SBS office. Students request a Parent PIN on myUMBC to allow the parent online access toe-bills, payment plans, and to make payments online on their behalf. Additional information can be found by visiting us online at www.umbc.edu/sbs. 

You can now use Transporter, Apple's command-line delivery tool, to deliver localized App Store metadata in bulk, including screenshots, rights and pricing, and more. Transporter can also find metadata for your existing apps so you can see how to correctly format the XML. To learn more about using Transporter and providing metadata, download the Transporter User Guide and the App Metadata Specification from the Manage Your Apps module in iTunes Connect.

If your apps use the MAC address to identify an iOS device, the system will return the same static value for all devices running iOS 7. Please update your apps to use the identifierForVendor property of UIDevice. If you need an identifier for advertising purposes, use the advertisingIdentifier property of ASIdentifierManager.