Archive for June, 2010
Icon Creator: Opera Widget To Easily Create Icons
If you are an Opera (the web browser) user, then there are not many places to go for tips and tricks. Apparently the web is filled with Firefox addons and Chrome extensions. This is so because most people are not aware of the massive potential of Opera. Not only is it a lightning fast browser but it has rich library of widgets. Opera widgets are not only for average browsing users but also for web developers.
Take Icon Creator for instance. Icon Creator is an Opera widget that lets users create a simple icon of different colors. After installing the widget, you might need to open up the widgets sidebar and access Icon Creator from there.
You will notice that Icon Creator will open in a new window with its own entry in the Windows taskbar.
Closing Opera will not close Icon Creator as it will operate independent of Opera. This is what Icon Creator’s window looks like:
The buttons in the top left let us choose the overall style of the icon.
The bar below these buttons let us change the background color and symbol color of the icon.
The shape of the icon can be changed by a small arrow button in the middle pane.
Clicking on this button presents us options of other shapes.
Using all these options we can create custom icons. Then we can port them to the sizes available in the right pane.
Available sizes include 128×128, 64×64, 32×32, and 16×16. The resultant file is in PNG format.
In conclusion, Icon Creator is a great a widget for Opera that helps create custom icons in a very user friendly way. Get Icon Creator from here.
Free Image Editing Application “Picsay” For Android SmartPhones
If you are an Android smartphone owner, you must spend a lot of time capturing moments through the lens of your phone’s camera. While the pictures you take are often good enough to remind you of good times, sometimes the moment is made more memorable if you add funny effects to the pictures.
To add such effects to the pictures you shoot from your camera, you first need to transfer them on your computer, then use a computer software to edit the transferred picture. With PicSay however, you can complete the entire process within your cellphone.
PicSay is a free picture editing application for Android smartphones; it lets you add wonderful funny effects to the picture stored on your phone. This application enables you to be a lot more creative with your pictures: you can improve the images by color correction, or make them more fun by word balloons, paint, stickers, special effects, and more.
Picture personalization is one of PicSay’s aims and users are able to do it with ease.
One of PicSay’s prominent features is selective desaturation through which you can select only a specific area of a picture to be shown in color, and the rest in black and white.
“Watch Your Head” is another fun tool of PicSay that facilitates changing the heads of two people (or even animals) in a picture.
The basic features can be found in PicSay’s free version whereas the best features are in PicSay Pro, the paid version. Both the applications can be found through in the Marketplace through your Android phone.
(* Note: PicSay Pro will not show in Marketplace unless paid Android apps are supported in your country.)
6rounds: A New Way To Experience Video Chat With Unique & Fun Concept
If you are looking for a better alternative to Chatroulette, a website with more than a “New Game” button and a decent audience, then head on over to 6rounds.
6rounds is a free to use website that lets you find new friends in a much better way than Chatourlette. The site lets you sign up and enter “rounds.” A round is a connection between two people; this connection is video and text chat based.
The rounds are a lot more than mere chat sessions. They are made interactive by co-browsing websites like Facebook and YouTube.
People in the same round can also play various games with each other.
Video effects can be added to our video chat to have more fun with our conversation.
The rounds can be initiated in two ways. After sining up you create your presentation in slideshow form. You fill out other details like favorite movies, TV shows, music, and books. Other people can then view your profile and choose to ‘play a round’ with you. Alternatively you can enter one of many chat rooms which are formed according to topic or activity. Once in a chat room you are randomly connected to another person in the chat room of similar tastes.
Overall 6rounds offers a very user friendly interface. Impressed with its service Google approved it as a video chat extension for Google Wave (the only such approved extension on Wave). Now 6rounds will be covering even more ground than before because they recently introduced an API for developers. 6rounds promises that by the simple use of this API, developers will be able to create their applications into 6rounds’ rounds in about 15 minutes. Multiuser chat sessions and Facebook video chat are also on 6rounds’ agenda.
With its rich library of features and amazing future plans, it would be a mistake to overlook this website. Jump on the 6rounds bandwagon by clicking here.
Brilliantly Creative Photos Captured With Great Timing
Today, we are showing you Brilliantly Creative Photos Captured With Great Timing. I appreciate to all those talented photographers who taken these excellent photos with their efforts, imaginations and creativity to give us a chance to see these photographic wonders from their creative eyes. This list is not long in numbers but I promise you that when you start browsing them in details it will surely refresh you. These are the wonder creations of photographers who use their creativity with a different angle and approach to get the result that makes a difference.
You are welcome if you want to share more creative photographs and images 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. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
Energy – Man and Nature Connected by David Orias
will i get there? by asher-svi
Fun with Clouds by ~Wynterstoops
Our endless days in my room by ~WonderMilkyGirl
Recover Your Lost Android Phone With Where’s My Droid
If you are somebody who forgets things easily, then your phone might have been misplaced a number of times. You need to make sure that something like that does not happen again. Phone today are quite expensive and include a lot of your sensitive data. Losing your phone, either due to your forgetfulness or because of a thief, can be a very frustrating.
Once your phone is lost, there is very little you can do to recover it. In the case of a lost phone, Android smartphone owners, at least, do not face as tough a time as other phone owners do – this is all thanks to one application, “Where’s My Droid.”
Where’s My Droid is a free Android application that helps users recover their lost phones. This app innovatively uses text messaging to achieve its purpose. You can assign a text word which, when sent to your phone, will play the phone’s ringtone. The duration this tone will be played for can be setup while assigning the text word. The ringtone will be played even if your phone is on silent or vibrate mode. This method will be a great help if your phone is somewhere nearby and all you need to find it is to hear it.
In case your phone is not nearby and you fear it has been stolen, you can use the GPS function of Where’s My Droid. For this, Android’s GPS should be on by default (due to Android’s latest update, apps can no longer activate GPS on user’s phones). You can assign another text word for this new method. You can use a cellphone to text this word to your phone and obtain its location. Your phone obtains its coordinates (longitude and latitude) through GPS; it then texts back with the coordinates along with the link of the Google Maps image to better help you find the phone.
In these simple ways, Android phone owners are able to recover their lost / stolen cellphones. This app is a absolutely a must-have for all Android smartphone owners.
Take A Chance To Win Free License Of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum
WinX DVD is running a contest, where winners will get 50 user license (worth $29.95 each). Well, you guys know what WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is. Lets say it once again for n00bs.
WinX DVD Ripper Platinum can rip the content of DVDs to all popular video formats such as AVI, MOV, FLV, WMV, MPEG, MP4, 3GP, etc. What’s more, it also owns the ability of ripping different DVDs (including encrypted DVDs) to Sony PSP, Apple iPhone, iPod, iPad, iTouch, Apple TV, Zune, Mobile phone, etc
This DVD ripper software supports multi-core CPU and is fully compatible with Windows 7. They promise WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is the fastest DVD ripping solution in the market. Besides converting DVD to regular video formats, 1:1 DVD copy enables you to backup your DVD with original video, audio and subtitles within only 5 minutes (the processing time also depends on your CPU and DVD driver speed).
WinX DVD Ripper Platinum fully supports normal DVDs, CSS protected DVDs, Sony ArccOS DVDs and all region 1-6 DVDs. WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is a one-click solution for DVD ripping. It is suitable for all levels of experienced users or even novices. And we promise it owns the fastest ripping speed.
This contest will run from June 5, 2010 to June 11, 2010 and we will select the winners randomly by running MySQL query. Result can be announced any day before June 13, 2010 so keep visiting here or subscribe to our rss feed to get the latest updates. To participate in the contest and win free license of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum, All you have to do is just :
1. Just leave a comment.
2. Use valid email ID in the email box.
3. Not necessary, but you can subscribe to our rss feed and follow us on twitter as well. (To track this contest and for future updates)
4. And thats it!
So what are you waiting for now? Let’s participate in the contest and good luck!
Let Your Customers Rate Your Emails With Nice Reply
Leaving a good impression on your customers is the key element in the success of any business. The way you communicate with your customers reflects on how high you value them. Attention to little things is of utmost important because you want your business to have loyal customers who come back for your services every time.
To give your customers what they want, you first have to know their wants. One way to go about it would be to collect feedback from your customers about a particular issue that you feel needs improvement. “Nicereply” is a perfect example of this.
Nicereply is a free to use website that helps you improve your interaction with your customers. This is achieved by improving the email messages sent to customers.
The way it all works is quite simple. You create an account on Nicereply and obtain a link which you should add to the signature of the email. A small description could be included in the signature, asking customers to click on the link and indicate their satisfaction with the email message. When they click on the link, their response is observed by Nicereply and recorded in your Nicereply account. You can view the overall statistics of a certain email message and see how successful it is in satisfying customers. The nature of the email can be anything: from an automated response to something offering tickets and coupons.
The customer service representatives in your company can have individual accounts at Nicereply. This will form a healthy competitive environment in which each employee will be motivated to excel amongst his peers when it comes to customer satisfaction.
Nicereply works as a wonderful tool in determining whether or not your emails are up to the mark. Click here to visit Nicereply.
I’ve Got a Blog, Now What Do I Do? [Slideshow]
These days we all are noticing that thousands of new blogs are starting every day to get in the race of influential blog of the industry. But only few of them could survive and stay in the battlefield fighting with existing giants. Well, I know this is not possible to fight but yes they at least try to find their place in the market. Well, to be honest many of the blogs owners really dont know how to get the word out about them and inspire their first time visitors to come again to create a strong community.
A friend of mine Syed Balkhi at WPBeginner recently created and launched a really useful and directive slideshow to make the new blog owners lives easier than ever. As the title of slideshow says everything “I’ve Got a Blog, Now What Do I Do?”, it would be enough good if someone will really want to do something to establish their blog in decent period as after reading this you guys would not need to invent the wheel again. huh! I mean he put all of his experience and mature understanding in this slideshow to deliver the actual knowledge that anyone could wish.
This slideshow consist worth-checking 50 slides which covers decision to start a blog to setting up and launching then content selection to excellent copywriting. After this, using all the possible platforms to spread out the word about your blog like getting you active on social media e.g. twitter, digg, reddit, stumbleupon etc for getting massive feedback on your posts. In short, it has so many things that you can learn to enhance your blog’s future and increase your reader base.
I’ve Got a Blog, Now What Do I Do? – Presentation Transcript
- I’ve Got a Blog, Now What Do I Do?
The Holy Grail of Blogging - Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner.com
@wpbeginner - What is WPBeginner?
WordPress resource site launched on July 4th, 2009.
In less than a year, this site has been mentioned in Wired Magazine, Webmonkey, Mashable.com, Problogger.net, Smashing Magazine, and others.
Top twitter users like Robert Scoble, Darren Rowse, Jeremy Schoemaker, John Chow, Neil Patel, Mashable, and countless others have retweeted @WPBeginner. - Right Now:
This site has a Google Pagerank of 6.
Alexa Rank of 13,000.
Over 50,000 backlinks.
Total Social Media and RSS Following of over 34,000 users.
All in less than a YEAR with $0 spent on advertising. - To Rent Or To OWN??
Credit: Seier and Paddy - DID YOU GET IT RIGHT?
- GOALS, GOALS, GOALS
- “A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.”
Al Reis and Laura Reis - Don’t make it Confusing!
Del.icio.us
vs.
Delicious.com
Credit: Tinypoems - PEOPLE ARE SHALLOW!
Credit: Prakhar - CONTENT IS KING
- Must Have WordPressPlugins
- Akismet
- All in one SEO Pack
- Contact Form 7
- WP Super Cache
- WP-DB Backup
- Subscribe to Comments
- Google XML Sitemap
- Comment Redirect
All of these plugins are free and can be found in the WordPressPlugin Directory.
- Thank YOU
- Analytics
- (S)(E)(O)
- Write for the peopleNOT the bots…
Website’s don’t link to other websites. It is the people who point to other people‘s work. - User (SEO) Friendly URLs
/%category%/%postname%/ - Use AIOSEO Properly
- Link Baiting
- List Posts
- Contest / Giveaways
- Free Tools
- Controversy / Attacks
- Be the First (NEWS)
Credit: Toon Refugee
- BEAUTIFUL DESIGNS CAN GET YOU A BACKLINK
- SEO Checklist
- XML Sitemap
- Semantic Web Markups <h1><h2>
- Image Tags (Alt=“”)
- Rel=nofollow
- Limit External Links
- Increase Internal Linking (Related Posts)
- WHY SOCIAL MEDIA?
- “Word of Mouth Advertisement is the most effective form of advertisement”
- TO GET CONNECTED.
TO GET NEW USERS.
TO INTERACT WITH READERS. - TWITTER CHECKLIST
- Custom Background.
- Good Profile Photo.
- Multiple Profiles??
- Interesting Tweets.
- Use Hashtag
- Retweet Button
- Don’t Whore Yourself.
- It’s not about the Quantity.
- Eat. Sleep. Tweet.
- SCHEDULE YOUR TWEETS
Twitter can be distracting.
Use Hootsuite.com or Tweetdeck to schedule tweets.
Twitter is the 2nd highest traffic source on WPBeginner. - Twit-baiting
Check out @wpbeginner if you have any questions related to #WordPress
Win a free copy of @templatic#WordPress Themes from @wpbeginner – http://bit.ly/aaNjVo (Simply RT to Enter) - “Twitter Search is the best place to find new clients.”
- “Facebook is the opiate of the masses.”
- Karl Marx (Modified) - FACEBOOK CHECKLIST
- Fan Page.
- Custom Fan Page URL.
- Custom Landing Page.
- Facebook Share Button.
- Facebook Like Button.
- Don’t SPAM other fan pages.
- DIGG. SU. REDDIT.
- THE DIGG/Reddit EFFECT
#1 Rule, don’t abuse digg or reddit.
Don’t submit your own content.
Neither Digg nor Reddit has any SEO advantages. - “Not every article deserves to be bookmarked”
- BLOG COMMENTS
- Advantages
Top Commentator Backlinks.
Brand Identity due to Gravatar.
Connection with the Blogger (That’s how I met Darren Rowse).
More Exposure and Traffic. - GUEST BLOGGING
Nice way of Stealing traffic and bringing it to your website. - Guaranteed Exposure
Get Paid to increase your reputation and get traffic to your website. - Forums
Digitalpoint Forums
Problogger Forums (Paid Access)
Namepros Forums
Sitepoint Forums
WPTavern Community - NETWORK!!
- Exchange Backlinks.
- Retweet each other.
- Guest Blogging.
- Social Media Votes.
- REVISIT YOUR GOALS
- TIME TO QUIT? (EXIT STRATEGY)
- PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL
Build TWO brands.
@syedbalkhi and @wpbeginner
Leverage them to help each other grow.
Great exit strategy and excellent for new startups. - Resources
http://www.wpbeginner.com/
http://www.balkhis.com/for-starters/how-to-launch-a-new-blog-successfully/
http://problogger.net/
http://mashable.com/
http://fuelyourblogging.com/
- Who am I? How to Reach me?
Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner.com
CEO of Uzzz Productions (uzzz.net)
Contact:
Email: admin@wpbeginner.com
Twitter: @wpbeginner / @syedbalkhi
Facebook: http://facebook.com/wpbeginner
50 Creatively Designed Websites On Single Page
Sometimes a single page website delivers much more information as compared to a multi-page website. The only thing these sites require in order to spread the message is one page that also demonstrates the effective use of space.
The perfect example of such types of single page website is the portfolio that lets the users to see the content very easily. Furthermore these single page website give designer more room to showcase their creativity as compare to traditional multi-page sites. We have collected some example of single page websites, hope you’ll find them useful.
BuyWidget: Monetize Your Website By Helping Sell Music Online
Are you running a website? One of the best ways to attract more traffic is to personalize your website. Most site owners do this by adding an “about me” section. While this is fine, sharing your musical preferences with the visiting community will help them relate to you. This in turn, will form loyal site followers.
Now imagine sharing music by adding great quality songs in a web player on your website. Visitors can listen to the songs and purchase tracks / albums in this player widget. To make things even better, you get a percentage of each track / album sale. If it were not for BuyWidget, that scenario would have sounded too good to be true.
BuyWidget is a simple tool for your website that performs all the functions mentioned above. You sign for an account on the site, create a playlist of songs, and get the widget which should be added to your site.
The playlist can contain as many songs as you want. You can add songs by searching for artist, genre, album, and song. Once a playlist has been formed you can always change it, make additions to it, and reorder the tracks easily. The code you obtain for the widget is HTML and can be placed wherever on your site, according to your preference.
Visitors can play the songs from the BuyWidget player and hear the best sounds because the songs are in MP3 format, at 296 kbps or higher. You get 7% of the sale of each track or album.
BuyWidget is an excellent concept that will satisfy a lot of site owners by adding a new source of revenue to their income. The best part about all of it is that you need not pay BuyWidget any signup or subscription fees. Click here to visit the site.
