Archive for April, 2010
Smashing Release : Free Web Design Icon Set By Iconshock
Today, we are releasing new set of Web Design Icons, a free icon set designed by Iconshock for exclusive readers of Smashing Apps. Iconshock – stock icons is a professional stock icons for web and software application. If you like, you can contact them for developing of a custom icon design project too. There are 8 icons included in this free icon set having a size of 512x512px in PNG format. Have you seen our previously released Free Computer Part Icon Set.
You are welcome to share if you know more beautiful icon sets which our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well.
Release Note And Usage Policy
This icon set is released under GPL lincense. You are allowed to use it for all (personal or commercial) your projects for free and without any restrictions. We will really appreciate you if you would like to spread the word and link to this article.
Download Icons
Please do not forget to share your thoughts with us about this icon set that will help us for the next release. Because Iconshock and we are also working on another free icon set that will be released in coming week. So keep visiting us and do not forget to subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well.
And yes! Thank you Iconshock for working with us to deliver something really useful to Smashing Apps community.
Now Use Repper To Easily Create Free Custom Patterns For Your Web Designs
The backgrounds of websites usually are textured with a pattern that is essentially a repetition of a simple image. This simple repetition can attribute lesser page loading times. Many site designers try to work out ways in which these patterns can be created to look visually appealing yet use only simple images. Their job has now been made much easier with an online tool which I have recently discovered.
Anybody who wants patterns created out of specific image [or images (plural)] can do so in a few simple steps using Repper.
Repper is a web application that comes in free and paid packages. “Lite” is what the free package has been named. You can start using it by clicking on the “Start Tool” button next to Lite’s link.
Once you click on that link you will be taken to a brilliantly textured webpage which will outline how we can create patterns using Repper Lite.
The first step is to select an image from our computer or use one of the samples provided at Lite.
The second step lets us easily modify the pattern which we can see in the background of the webpage.
To change the pattern we move the box in the middle of the image and choose from one of the three options at the bottom.
Before making any changes to these settings I was seeing this pattern:
Just by moving that box I was able to create a different pattern, like this:
Our final step is to save our pattern on by downloading it on our computer or share it by obtaining a URL for it or sharing it on our social media accounts.
Repper Lite is a wonderful free tool for easy pattern creation that will help all site designers and designing enthusiasts. People who are looking for more advanced features will find Repper’s paid service more suitable.
Give Repper a try and let us know what you think.
How To Effectively Manage Your Projects And Teams Online
If you are into finishing a project successfully and also on time you need to figure out a good way to communicate with your team members. Such as, “notifying every one of their tasks”, “keeping track of the progress of projects” or sometimes just a “sincere message to boost up the teams morale, to help push a project over the line” maintaining a project in an organized manner is a huge task on its own. TeamworkPM is an online tool that can help you manage those tasks in an easy manner. No matter how big or small your team, the online service will help you setup a good communicating ground for your team.
Here is a brief overview of the feature the tool provides for you:
Manage Projects: Well this part is self-explanatory as the application is a project management tool. The dashboard provides an overview of the ongoing projects. You can also create new projects from here. The dashboard makes it easier to navigate between different projects and gives you a quick overview of all your projects.
View and Create Tasks: If you are working with a team then this is very helpful as you and your team members get to see what tasks they have to do on the project. This way they remain well informed about their responsibilities. The due date shown along with the task makes sure that members never miss a deadline. If a task is related to a milestone, the milestone is also listed in the task list. You can also create new tasks from here. You can reorder the list as per your choice. You can also view all completed tasks from the task tab.
Milestones: The milestones let you create deadlines for some task lists and add responsibilities to any member within the team. You are also allowed to set reminder emails to the person responsible for the milestone event.
Send Messages to the Team: TeamworkPM allows you to send quick messages to your team members which are also emailed out to selected project members as well, team members can then easily reply directly via email, which will post the reply directly into the online system. Any message posted in the project can be commented on by other team members.
Keeping Track of Time: The tool generates accurate reports on time spent by any individual on any specified project. The time spent can be marked as billable too. This way you can keep track of your team members’ work as well as produce a report of the time spent on tasks to your client when invoicing billed time.
File Attachment: The tool allows you to upload files to any of your project. Files can be attached to tasks or messages or just uploaded into the project file section. The total file size allowed varies depending on the plan you are using. It can vary from 1Gb to 50Gb.
Manage People For Ongoing Projects: If you have a lot of people in your team and multiple projects at a time, then this part will prove handy for you. You can give access to different people to certain projects. Their roles can also be monitored. You can add multiple companies to projects and limit the sections they can view within a project.
Damage Control: Well this is something that makes the tool stand out in the crowd. It’s always advised to prepare for the worst. That is exactly what you can do with the Risk Register. You can define certain situations as risks to the project. You can also define which things get affected if the risk happens by any chance. These things will help your team stay ready for the damage control.
Email Integration: Emails can be sent out to the team members to help them stay notified about anything that is happening on a project. Emails can be sent out for events like upcoming milestones alerts, daily overdue items report, file upload notifications, task notifications or simply messages and comments within a project.
Multiple languages Support: Other than these things the multi-lingual support makes the use of the tool more productive on the global perspective. This makes sure you do not lose an opportunity to work with your global partners and every member gets to work in his own preferred language interface.
Host On Your Own Server:
TeamworkPM can also be installed on your personal server if you think you may have files too confidential to be hosted on a shared server. More detail on pricing can be found on their Host it Yourself page.
Plans and Pricing :
The service offers wide range of reasonable pricing plans. There are options to suit every size of business. The plans are categorized into 4 basic types personal, business, corporate and enterprise. The price ranges from €12/month to €149/month. There are also options for yearly payments which can save you quite a few bucks. You can also signup for a Free Forever plan which doesn’t cost you anything anytime. But unfortunate the file upload limit is just 5Mb and you are limited to just 2 projects. If you are still not sure if your team will use it TeamworkPM offers a trial period of 30 days on any of their paid plans so you can try it free of change with no limits on projects or file space. For a detailed idea on their pricing check out the plan and pricing page.
Support :
The developer team is dedicated to their customer feedback and a feedback is replied to as fast as possible. They also have a useful FAQ page to troubleshoot common problems. If none of them works you can directly contact them from their support page, or using the feedback link at the bottom of the application.
Company Details:
* Launched: January 2007
* Headquarters: Cork, IRL
* Founders: Peter Coppinger and Daniel Mackey
* Web site: www.teamworkpm.net
Keep up to date with the product with their official blog and their new behind the scenes blog
The user interface is pretty neat and AJAX use has kept the load time pretty low. The secured RSS, iCal feeds, AJAX submission and uniqueness in design gives an idea of the effort the developers have put into it. With all basic collaboration features the developers have done a nice job at putting everything into place into this nice online service.
A New Way To Gather And Organize Your Online Content With Weblist.me
Today I have got a great tool for bloggers and social-media enthusiasts. This tool is Weblist and it can help share online content more conveniently. Normally when we share multiple links related to the same subject we create a list post and type in details about each link. But with Weblist, the entire process changes and becomes easier.
To illustrate how Weblist exactly works, let us suppose I have to make a list related to iTunes. I get the URL of Wikipedia’s iTunes entry and the URL of the download location of iTunes on FileHippo. I paste these URLs in Weblist. If we already have a list of URLs present in a text file, we can copy the addresses from there, click on the “Paste Multiple URLs” button which and paste the addresses in the window that appears. The window will look like this:
Then I click on the Image icon and add an icon depicting iTunes. This image will be hosted on Imgur and the URL will be added to our list).
Slide Show files and documents files are hosted by CrocoDoc and files of other formats are hosted by RapidShare.
Then I think of a name for my list. I choose “My list on iTunes.” I add a brief description of the list and add some tags.
The almost-final step is to classify my list as a Thumbnail list, a Voting list, or an Open Voting list. I decide to go with Thumbnail list.
Here is what my Weblist homepage looks like after filling out the fields:
Finally, I click on the “Create List” button and obtain my list’s address.
The short URL can be given out to other people for sharing. We also get a URL which we can visit to later edit our list. This can be very helpful in case of making additions to our list.
I visit the URL for my list and this is what the resultant webpage looks like:
Notice that starting from the left, the first thumbnail is of Wikipedia, the second that of FileHippo, and the last of Imgur. In other words, the thumbnails are in the order I typed them in.
Try out Weblist, play around with the Voting types of lists, and use the comments to let us know what you think.
50 Creatively Blended Vertorama Photos To Fascinates You
Vertorama can be described as a vertical panorama which is created by blending or stitching two or more photographs vertically to create a single image. This type of blending can be a great source of inspiration as it creates the most beautiful illusion that the created image is the part of the scene.
In this post, we have gathered a huge collection of different types of Vertorama photographs. Hope you will like this post and share it with your friends. You are welcome if you want to share more amazing examples of vertorama photos that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
Basilica di San Domenico – Perugia
Boreon Lake @ St Martin Vesubie
Sunset at Tatton Park, Manchester
5 Must-Have Firefox Extensions For Bloggers
Do you own a website or blog? Does your job involve search engine optimization of any sort? If you answered yes, then Firefox should be your default internet browser. I say this because of Firefox’s amazing array of add-ons to make life easier for bloggers and webmasters.
If you need some convincing, then read on my gathered list of 5 add-ons which will greatly help you do your job once you switch over to Firefox. If Firefox is already your default browser of choice, then just read each entry carefully and see how each add-on can enhance Firefox for your web tasks.
You are welcome if you want to share more must have firefox extensions that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well.
If you are not using FireFTP, then there is a good chance that you are using a full-fledged FTP client (because lightweight ones simply do not offer complete FTP features). FireFTP however, is one light FTP client in the form of a Firefox add-on. Along with transferring your files quickly and efficiently, FireFTP also includes more advanced features such as directory comparison, syncing directories while navigating, SFTP, SSL encryption, search/filtering, integrity checks, remote editing, drag & drop, and file hashing. The best part is that is does not slow down Firefox at all.
This extension is a must-have for anybody whose work involves search engine optimization. SeoQuake obtains and investigates many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study. We can save these parameters for future work and compare them with the results obtained for other competitive projects.
A website’s name is a very important factor to consider while creating a website. We cannot simply think of a name, we have to check for its availability as well. Doman Availability Search add-on lets us do so easily. Supported TLDs include COM, NET, ORG, BIZ, CO.UK, ORG.UK, MOBI, INFO, TV, WS, IN, ME, US, CC, BZ, CA, CN, EU, and DE.
Promoting our site or blog over social media networks could not get any easier with Shareaholic. It is an award-winning add-on that has been downloaded over 1 million times by people looking for a customizable, light-weight method of sharing virtually any web page. The supported range of networks is more than impressive and we can share on them with simple mouse clicks.
Finding out about the location of a site can be helpful in eliminating doubts regarding security. On the Firefox address bar, Flagfox places the country flag of the currently open website’s server. We can click on this Flag to pull up a geographical map of that location and other information regarding the site such as the city and IP address.
Awesomely Unique (And Creative) Package Designs To Get Your Attention
A beautifully designed packaging is the best thing to attract the attention of your potential customers, and this is the main reason why many designers opt to create such a remarkable packaging designs that would not only provide information to the customers but would also interact with them emotionally and provoke feelings.
This post deals with some effectively designed packaging that are simply very attractive, impressive and you simply can’t resist having them n your shelf! We hope that you will like it. Feel free to leave your comments and share this post with your friends and colleagues.
You are welcome if you want to share more beautiful packaging that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
Tetra pak New packaging Juice7
Honey Dew Bottle Cap and Recycled Cardboard Flower
Vintage typewriter ribbon tins
Azitas almost all american hotsauce
Share Flickr, Picasa, Gmail & Facebook Photos All In One Place With Showzey
As a professional blogger having accounts on multiple social media sites is very beneficial for me. But for average computer users the multiple social media accounts pose a significant management problem; more specifically, photo management.
Our photographs and images are scattered across all our social media accounts. Suppose we want to share one picture from a network A on network B. To do this we normally log in to account A, save the picture, then upload it on account B.
Thankfully with Showzey, that lengthy process no longer needs to be employed.
Showzey is a free website that lets us gather and catalog photos from Gmail, Picasa, Facebook, and Flickr. We can then organize these photos and proceed to share them on Facebook or email them.
The function of the site is best understood by trying it out. Click on the “Get Started” button on Showzey’s homepage:
You will be prompted to select the services you wish to use with Showzey.
Then you will proceed to connect your respective service accounts with Showzey.
With each account you connect, you will asked for a confirmation from that particular service. In case of Flickr, this is the message you will receive:
Simply allow Showzey to access all your accounts. No need to worry about Showzey’s security; the site respects its users’ privacy and the privacy terms can be read here.
Once your accounts have been connected, you will be able to view your Showzey dashboard.
This dashboard is where users will truly experience the convenience presented by Showzey. Just like Showzey obtains photos from all our social media accounts, we can upload a photo on Showzey to be uploaded on all our social media accounts – a remarkably time saving feature.
Within Showzey our pictures are shown to all our Showzey friends; similarly we can see the pictures of our Showzey friends no matter what platform they have hosted their photos on.
Showzey is an interesting idea which curious internet users should definitely explore. Try it out and use the comments to let us know what you think.
UPrinting Website Sponsorship Programs
If you have a blog or work with non-profit websites, you need to read this post! UPrinting.com, an online printing company, is now offering two excellent sponsorship programs.
The first program sponsors bloggers with advertising revenue, sponsored giveaways and product reviews. The second program sponsors non-profits, charities and educational organizations with printing services, saving them thousands of dollars a year! Read on to learn how you can get your blog or non-profit website sponsored by UPrinting.com.
Blog Sponsorships
Finding a blog sponsor is easy with UPrinting.com! Bloggers of all types are welcome to join the program and have the opportunity to promote UPrinting’s services while expanding their own readership. The sponsorship offers bloggers free products to giveaway that are useful for designers, photographers and business people. Custom printed products such as business cards, single poster printing and canvas prints. For bloggers that qualify for BuySellAds banner advertising program, UPrinting works almost exclusively with their sponsored bloggers and provide a steady source of income. In addition, members are given a full support system within UPrinting’s private social network for bloggers and a dedicated sponsorship team to assist with blog promotions. Apply today or share this program with bloggers you admire.
Non-Profit Sponsorships
In a tough economy, non-profit organizations are vulnerable to financial hardship. Everyday operating expenses can be difficult to maintain. For those in need of non-profit printing sponsorship, UPrinting.com offers their UCommunity program. The program has worked with organizations like Heart Gallery of America, The Red Cross and Reef Check to support non-profit marketing and awareness campaigns with sponsored printing.
Applying for non-profit sponsorship is easy. Simply fill out the application form, select a sponsorship level and submit a copy of your 501(c)(3) certificate!
For more information on these programs, call 1-800-381-3441 to speak with marketing relations or visit www.uprinting.com
10 Excellent Applications To Organize Yourself
Do you face problems scheduling a get together or remembering your chores? If yes then you are one of the countless people who need a little extra help to better organize themselves.
Over the course of my blogging I have written about various programs and tools that help us improve our schedules and to-do lists. Here is a list of 10 of those programs which I feel all “people like us” can benefit from. Read each entry in the list, use whichever suits you best, and let me know what you think in the comments.
You are welcome if you want to share more free applications that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
Colorhat lets us create a free account, then add and record times which we take for particular tasks. We can later view our time graphically. This procedure is a great help in self monitoring and helps us better/lessen the time we spend on particular times.
Rootein is a great way to create and mantian new routines. We can add a new routine, feed in our progress for the upcoming days, and if we keep up our routine for 21 days in a row, then we are good to go with it and no longer need Rootein to help us out.
OpenProj does not need much of an introduction. Imagine being able to get your hands on Microsoft Project for free; that is precisely what OpenProj aims to be – a free and competent alternative to Microsoft Project which is the industry standard for Projeact Leaders when it comes to managing a project.
Notefly is a desktop application that can help us maintain notes. In those notes we can store whatever we want including our chores’ list and to-do lists. We can even use the application to email our notes to us or share them on our social media accounts.
WhenIsGood is an ideal web application to schedule meetings and get togethers whether it is with friends or your colleagues and coworkers. With this application all attendees to a meeting can upload their available date so that the host can choose the date most suited to everyone.
Tungle is another web application that serves the same function as WhenIsGood. Unlike WhenIsGood however, we need to register for a free account on Tungle.
Osmo is a desktop application with a basic interface that competently handles your tasks and schedules. It is rich in features (including multiple calendars) and lets us manage our dates, tasks, contacts, and notes.
Having our computer organized can lead to greater productivity as we can find our files and folders faster. Digital Janitor is file+folder sorting desktop application with a great interface. This entry is obviously different than the others in this list but it will surely help you better organize your computer and increase your efficiency on your machine.
Scribbly is similar to Notefly. It lets us easily store our notes with timestamps, and then email them to any address we want.
If you execute a specific task on your computer every day and it takes up quite some time of your schedule, then you can use DoItAgain, a great desktop application. This application records a particular task and provides users with a shortcut. When that shortcut icon is opened, the recorded task is automatically performed no matter how many additional mouse clicks or keyboard-key presses are required. This procedure can save us a considerable amount of time.
