Premium Spotlight

Photofont WebReady: A Revolutionary Font Converter

Posted by AN Jay
at February 26, 2010
|  
2 Comments →

Photofont WebReady is a revolutionary technology for website typography. Fontlab’s Photofont WebReady can be called a font converter meant for Windows and Mac OS X systems, which can help you customize the fonts on a web page. Since the main technology lies in the conversion of texts into Flash objects, this technology can be best applied to comparatively shorter texts. Like headlines, just as has been done with the title heading above. Be it your blog or a web site, you can enhance the web pages with your own custom fonts of your choice.

WebReady is basically a software solution based on Flash and JavaScript. With this sIFR 2 compatible solution, you can customize the headings or main headlines of your website using any photofont, any TrueType or OpenType font by converting it into an embedded type web font. (See our headline? That’s not your usual Times or Georgia. Can you guess the font?) This embedded type web font is further rendered on the web page by using Flash technology. And the best part of it is that the standards compliance and search engine friendly feature of the page is still retained. With Photofont WebReady, you can simply change the typographic appearance of your blog or website and give it a new direction.

Main Benefits of Photofont WebReady

Following are some of the major benefits of using Photofont WebReady over the traditional fonts available. There’s a free video demo tutorial offered by the company to help you know its features in depth. Click here to view the Free Demo Video Tutorial.

Photofont WebReady Solutions

Using the Photofont WebReady font converter, a TrueType font (.ttf), a photofont (.phf) or an OpenType font (.ttf, .otf) has the following possibilities;

Photofont WebReady Formats

The Import font formats of Photofont WebReady include;

The Export font formats of Photofont WebReady include;

However, please note that before going ahead with the conversion of any type of fonts into embedded web outline type, you must read the terms of the font End-User License Agreement (EULA) provided by the font vendor. This is only because EULA is actually responsible for governing font usage. To know more about it, please check out with Details About Font Licensing.

Software Requirements

For Windows version of Photofont WebReady, your system must have the following minimum software requirement;

For Mac version of Photofont WebReady, your system must have the following minimum software requirements;

To help the users with the entire process and details, a free copy of user manual is provided online for both Mac and Windows versions of Photofont WebReady. To get the user manual downloaded into your system, all you need to do is right click on the following link and choose any of the options between – “Download Linked File” and “Save Target As”. And you get a free copy of user manual in PDF format saved in your system. To get a copy, click Download Photofont WebReady User Manual for Mac and Windows Version.

Purchase Photofont WebReady 1.0

The Mac OS X version of Photofont WebReady 1.0 is available at $79.95 USD, but there is always a demo version available, which can be downloaded for free. It is indeed a great offer where you can actually get a chance to evaluate the software before purchasing it.

Download Demo Version of Photofont WebReady 1.0 for Mac OS X

The Windows version of Photofont WebReady 1.0 is also $79.95 USD, and there is also a free demo version available where you can evaluate the software before purchasing it.

Download Demo Version of Photofont WebReady 1.0 for Windows

Limitations

If you want to create dynamic web headlines using the demo mode, the font selected by you will not be used. Rather, a default font will be used in this case, which can be considered as the only noticeable limitation of it. To get full functionality access, you have to buy the product and enter the serial number that will be provided to you.

Service And Support

Fonts, Premium Spotlight

Why designers ought to flag 123RF.com

Posted by AN Jay
at February 18, 2010
|  
3 Comments →

Multitasking is the way of the web. Why do you think a spider needs eight legs? Savvy designers these days look for sites with great content for their projects, and which allows them to interact with fellow peers from around the world, gain recognition plus earn rewards – all these at one go. Oh, and the catch is… it has to be hassle-free. Crazy? You betcha!

Most would already have a list of sites up their sleeves which they would regularly fall back on. But, if you’re feeling short of a couple of aces in your card deck… then, it’s worth a flick in the wrist to check this site out. You’ll find that this is a site that should be right up your alley as it represents excellent value as a Royalty Free image library – for not only does it save you money, it also offers money-making opportunities for the creative among us.

123-royality-free-header

When the going gets tough…
The after-effects of the 2009 worldwide economic downturn is projected to take a longer time to recover. But budget crunch shouldn’t be reason enough for designers to cramp their style. In fact, the opposite ought to happen and that’s why go-getters dig 123RF.com. There, members play multiple roles i.e. buyer, seller, student, mentor.

123RF.com constantly upgrades itself to facilitate its community, but I’d grouped them into three main areas where members can generally benefit from:

1: Image Search & Purchasing Options

(a) Industrial wide analysis have shown that 123RF.com is indeed the cheapest stock image library in the market now in terms of the credits or subscription packages it offers.

(b) Its library is a reservoir of visual/vector designs for the picking – Be it choices for creative advertisements, marketing collaterals, website designs, blogging, editorial articles, etc.  Plus, choices come with extended licensing options to suit the usage.

(c) Contents are contributed by professional photographers, and undergo a stage of strict Quality Control by 123RF’s content team. So the benchmark for quality is pretty high.

(d) FREE images are offered by fellow contributors and will appear for as long as 30 days for registered members to download from when they log-in.

(e) Members can view their own profile to see their downloads, credit balance, and reward points when they sign in. It also has a nifty credits calculator which helps members decide which plan suit their budget best i.e. either credits or subscription packages, depending on their needs.

(f) What sets 123RF.com apart from the rest is that they reward loyal customers for repeated purchases with shopping vouchers and gadgets – even extra credits or subscription packages.

(g) Members are able to safely purchase images online with ease via credit card, Paypal or Moneybookers.

123-royality-free

2: Easy access to a large, and interactive network of creative resource

(a) Fellow members are instantly launched into a worldwide network of peers who speak the same lingo. Each equipped or provided with a wide array interactive tools such as personalized avatars, blog/comment posting areas. It also has a site mail feature which allows other members to contact each other directly in private.
(b) Members are able to publish and share their lightboxes to the public. This makes it easier for peers to review an image or illustration voted most popular within the community. Viewers can also rate images by adding the image as their favorite item.

(c) Photographers from all backgrounds are featured through it’s monthly Hear-It! segment on the website. Members are exposed (no pun intended) to respective individual’s comments and experiences about their views on the industry, photography, working traits and style.

(d) Visitors can also enjoy free access to the latest Adobe Photoshop tricks and know-hows from 123RF’s team of Photo Retouching experts in their Tutorial Blog section.

(e) Blogs are published on site each month comprising musings, recommendations, interesting topics for discussion to whet its community’s appetite for information relevant to their trade and industry.

(f) If you’re feeling particularly creative, you may also join the 123RF community as a contributor and submit your own creative designs or photographs to be sold under a Royalty Free or Editorial License. Nothing like earning cash whilst doing something you’re passionate about. Just nip down to the “Make Money” section to find out how you can start referring friends and family to 123RF.com.

3: Additional sales support available

(a) 123RF.com reaches out to its customers via Twitter, Live Chats and phone calls 24 hours daily from Monday through Fridays.

(b) The site also provides FREE image research services when your creative team is running on noose-tight deadlines.

If the above are not reasons enough, the 123RF.com community is more than glad to hear out new members that can bring fresh constructive ideas to the table. Register at 123RF.com here.

*A special deal for Image Buyers: Use promotion code “123RFSmashApps” to receive 10% extra credits or an additional 10% discount on any Subscription Package purchased! Valid till end 2010.

Summarized Facts & Background
123RF.com is an RF stock photo library & community-based website that provides an avenue for the creative community. Its platform provides photographers, illustrators and designers a chance to showcase their photographs, vector illustrations and design talent, allowing the community to promote and sell their creations to a worldwide audience. Since its debut in June 2005, 123RF.com today hosts over 6 million royalty-free stock photographs and vector illustrations with over 10,000 photographers and illustrators.

Web addresswww.123rf.com
Approximate size of   photo collection6.2 million and growing (8,000+ new content added daily)
Cost of a standard blog    size image1 Credit
Cost of 1 Credit (basic)From $0.68 to $1.00 per credit depending on number of   credits purchased
Loyalty ProgramYes – Get shopping vouchers, gadgets, extra credits
or afree subscription as you accumulate Rewards Points with
every  purchase
LicensesRoyalty Free (including Editorial) Extended Licenses:

- Multi seats;

- Items for resale

- printed items (books, mugs, t-shirts, canvas)

- electronic items (mobile apps, software)

Payment Methods   SupportedCredit Card, Paypal, Moneybookers, Checks & Electronic
Transfers
Inspiration, Premium Spotlight, Stock Photos

KENTICO CMS For ASP.NET: An All-In-One Solution For Your Web Site And Now With Free Editon Too

Posted by AN Jay
at February 10, 2010
|  
2 Comments →

Kentico CMS for ASP.NET is a powerful and fully featured Content Management System. This robust and stable CMS can be used for building and maintaining websites including Intranets, Online Stores and Social Community Networks using the Web 2.0 features on the ASP.NET platform. In addition it comes with a Free Edition that might be used even for commercial purposes!

Let’s find out what Kentico CMS has to offer each of us:

image001

Key Features For Developers

For Web Developers Kentico represents an all-in-one solution that helps you achieve the best of your results with least of effort and in shortest time.

Fast Development Process: Kentico CMS offers ready-to-use framework on ASP.NET platform, which otherwise would have been a tedious and expensive job with hours of coding. Hours of manual coding to write SQL queries and ADO.NET codes has been cut down by Kentico CMS into a few mouse click processes and loads of other ready-made modules.

Open Extensibility and Flexibility: Kentico CMS is featured with unrestricted and extensible architecture and web development framework, which is a real problem with many of the content management systems of the date.

Highly Flexible HTML Code & Design: Kentico offers you high flexibility and full control over the (X)HTML code and customization in design in addition to flexibility in site navigation and structure.

Responsive Support: Kentico CMS provides all clients with a highly responsive and readily reacting Phone and E-mail support.

7 days bug fixing policy: Every reported bug will be fixed within 7 working days. That’s a unique commitment on the market.

image002

Key Features For Web-Masters

Used widely for variety of websites ranging from Intranets, Extranets to Corporate, Community, E-Commerce and many other sites, Kentico CMS indeed has been the preferable choice of most of the site owners.

User Friendly Interface: Kentico CMS is featured with user-friendly interface and WYSIWYG editor that is easy to use and edit, even if you are not a technical guru. With just only the minimum knowledge of Word, you can easily learn the features of it.

Easy Solution To Creating Your Website: There’s hardly to worry about even if you do not have a web developer to create and incorporate your requirements based on Kentico CMS. It helps you with hundreds of Kentico CMS Solution Partners, who are at your service with the complete design and template based on your requirements.

Helps To Build Interactive Websites: Websites does not only mean a good template design and collection of information. With Kentico CMS you can make your website much more interactive by creating online forms, communities using forums, newsletters, blogs and can perform surveys too. It also allows you to add a shopping cart to your website for online selling, which is again an important feature.

Know How Your Site Is Doing: With the built-in feature of Web Analytics, Kentico CMS helps you in tracking your website results such as the visits and campaigns. Furthermore, it helps you in optimizing the content of your website for better results.

image003

System Requirements

Kentico CMS for ASP.NET does not require any high-end technical configuration to work. The minimum technical requirements your system should have to run this CMS software are;

Security Benefits

Security is one of the vital features for any software and same with Kentico CMS too. It has its own security standards and system based on the standard security features of ASP.NET.

Kentico CMS for ASP.NET supports both Windows Authentication and Forms Authentication service as well. You can even create your own that will work by importing user information from external database. Module based user permissions can also be granted for specific documents or sections of website. In a word, the Permissions Authorization is not just only limited to predefined ones. Moreover, Kentico CMS provides other security features too such as UI Personalization. To know details about the security benefits, visit Security Benefits of Kentico CMS for ASP.NET.

Free Edition, Trial Version and Virtual Lab

It comes with a Free License Edition for use in personal or even commercial projects. There’s no expiration period for this version, however it offers limited features set (like number of items in E-shop etc.). Get a Free License Edition of Kentico CMS for ASP.NET

Good way to evaluate Kentico CMS is to download a 30 days trial version with all its features enabled and 10 support tickets by e-mail at free of cost. Download Kentico CMS for ASP.NET Trial Package and know its incomparable features more closely.

Kentico offers you an amazing feature of ‘Virtual Lab’ where you get the chance to evaluate it more closely online without installing anything on your PC. In this Virtual Lab option, a temporary website is being created on their server. This is a 7 days trial website where you can test almost all the features of Kentico CMS and is available in four options including Corporate, E-commerce, Social Community Network and Personal Web site. Go ahead to subscribe for a 7 days trial of Virtual Lab of Kentico CMS for ASP.NET

image004

Main Benefits At A Glance

To sum up, here are the major beneficial points in part of Kentico CMS for ASP.NET;

You can see the Complete List Of Features Of Kentico CMS for ASP.NET for more details.

Words are just not enough to describe the immense number of features offered by this content management system software. One of the best showcases of its popularity is the Windows Web Application Gallery. Inspite of its signing up in the later half of last year, the number of downloads of Kentico CMS is already making its way to the top.

Finally, the price for this outstanding content management system ranges from $0 for free edition to $ 4499 for 1 Web Site Ultimate License.

Be it for your corporate website, a community website or an online store, Kentico CMS for ASP.NET has all the features that makes it an all-in-one solution that stands far ahead of other CMS softwares of the present date.

Business, Premium Spotlight, Web Applications, content management system

Fabulously cool: Icons for any designer creation

Posted by AN Jay
at January 26, 2010
|  
11 Comments →

This is fabulously cool: ready-made icons from Icons Land. A friend of mine advised me to visit this site. He was really excited telling that he tried the Weather Icons Set while designing his new weather broadcast site. After visiting the site I thought that maybe someone might find services of icons land useful for himself. The icons enable anyone to build a teardown application for any site, whether this is a website, or a presentation, or some kind of UI software and even printed production.

So I’m here. And here is what I think. A pretty easy to navigate website, with nice examples. The icons allow to spice the design while saving costs and speeding up design process. Icons look good even in small sizes, which is not so easy to draw, so respect for that!

Icons-Land seems to be a design studio which offers Vector Icons, PNG Icons, Emoticons and Custom Icon Design Service. Vector Icons are provided in Adobe Illustrator format, thus can be scaled to any size needed in design. Raster Icons are provided in PNG format in seven sizes 16×16, 24×24, 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 128×128, 256×256. All of them are unique for being worked out in details and effects, including the smallest sizes.

There are many different icons sets that cover many industries and design purposes:

  1. Base Software Icons – widely used icons in any type of software or web application
  2. Hardware Icons – icons that represent different modern hardware devices
  3. Transport Icons – different types of vehicles in 6 colors each, for transportation, GPS tracking, tourist industries
  4. GIS/GPS/Map Icons – various icons to be used in mapping, GPS tracking, construction, tourism industries
  5. POI (Points of Interest) Icons – icons that represent different points on the maps
  6. Sport Icons – various sports and sport inventory
  7. Weather Icons – weather icons to be used in weather related sites and software

All icons are designed in modern Vista Style and also they are three-dimensional (3D), what makes them very realistic, glossy and eye-catching.

Icons can be bought by pack or individually. I liked that their Royalty-free license allows to distribute icons incorporated into design to unlimited number of customers in unlimited number of projects.

And what is also important is that in case you don’t find icon you need in existing packages, you may order Custom Design Service.

I would recommend everyone to visit Icons Land website if you have need for icons or even for inspiration. If you only have a look at the icons, you will understand that they are worth buying.

Icons, Inspiration, Premium Spotlight

LayerOnline: Need For Speed – Google loves it fast

Posted by AN Jay
at December 23, 2009
|  
8 Comments →

Professional bloggers and webmasters know that nowadays having good content on a website is not good enough to rank high in Google and other search engines. The ranking is also determined by the loading speed of your website. The faster the better. The loading speed also directly determines the cost of CPC for your AdWords campaigns. No matter how good your content is, if your landing page loads slowly, it would directly be taxed on your CPC. Therefore, SEO experts, bloggers and webmasters are constantly looking for faster web hostings. Unfortunately, many hosting companies are unable to meet the need for their users. Their web services are often overloaded or down, left alone fast web hosting. That’s where LayerOnline comes in. Now, bloggers and webmasters are able to gain an unfair advantage in website speed with LayerOnline.

LayerOnline web hosting was designed from the ground up to be digg, slashdot and stumbleupon effect ready. We understand the needs for speed and uptime of website users. Our web hosting is able to outperform our competitors by 60 times or more, and able to maintain 100% uptime even under digg effect. How do we do it? In this article we will explain some of the technologies we use.

Web Hosting

Under the Hood

LayerOnline uses many optimization technologies, the most noticeable ones are FastCGI, PHP Opcode Cache, and HTTP Compression. We also offer many features such as free DDOS-Protection, unlimited inodes and we are one of the greenest hosting companies.

FastCGI

There are three ways of serving PHP webpages under Apache Web Server:

With CGI/suPHP method, a PHP process is called each time a php page is hit, and quit after the page is served. This means for each php page hit, it requires one PHP process. Each PHP process takes quite a bit of memory and is slow to initialize. The constant running and quitting of PHP processes also stress the server, making it slower. The CGI method doesn’t scale well since if there are 100 page requests at the same time, there would be 100 PHP processes running, and 1000 PHP processes if there are 1000 page requests, which will soon cause memory errors and eventually bring down the server. With PHP running as an Apache module, there is only one PHP engine per Apache process, so no need to run another PHP process, hence saving some memory. However, there are also issues with this approach. Some PHP extensions are not made to be thread-safe and can cause problem in this setup, also if the PHP engine crashes, it would bring down the entire Apache web server because it is part of the Apache process. Running PHP as a module also means that if Apache is serving a long PHP request, it cannot serve other HTTP requests. Also if you don’t have any PHP-based websites, you still need to load the PHP module in each Apache process, wasting memory.

FastCGI solves both problems of CGI/suPHP and Apache PHP module. FastCGI serves PHP pages from a PHP application server seperated from Apache. Apache serves all regular HTTP requests and passes all PHP requests to the application server. This setup is the most efficient since FastCGI process is always alive and ready to serve, offload the heavylifting work from Apache. Therefore in this setup, Apache server is more stable, uses less memory and can serve more HTTP requests faster. This is the method which LayerOnline uses.

Unfortunately, most hosting companies are still in the CGI/suPHP era, because FastCGI is expensive and complicate to setup. Since the CGI/suPHP solution doesn’t scale well, to prevent the servers from overloading and crashing, these hosting companies need to quickly suspend users with the most PHP processes during peak load, cause loss of money and troubles for the website users.

If you like to see some benchmark numbers for FastCGI, you can check out Brandon’s blog.

PHP Opcode Cache

Each PHP page must be compiled into machine code before it can be executed. This compiled binary is also known as the opcode. Without a PHP opcode cache, the compiled binary is simply discarded after execution, and must be recompiled for each page hit, resulting in wasted CPU cycles. There are three main opcode caches in PHP world: Eaccelerator, APC and XCache. LayerOnline supports all three. In LayerOnline’s setup, Eaccelerator is loaded by default, APC and XCache are loaded on-demand by the applications. These opcode caches are compatible and can accelerate all PHP applications. For popular PHP applications such as WordPress and Drupal, they go even further by detecting and integrating opcode cache’s APIs to accelerate many of their internal functions.

HTTP Compression

All major web browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Opera support HTTP compression which can download web pages at up to 90% faster. However, the web server must support this technology. There are two types of HTTP compression methods: gzip and deflate. LayerOnline support both of them. Many popular PHP applications are able to make use of this technology and therefore able to send the web pages at a much faster rate. LayerOnline servers also cache all the cacheable compressed pages in memory so no CPU cycles are wasted.

The Result

So, do all these speed optimizations really improve ranking? Do they really pay off? If they are as good as LayerOnline claims to be, how well do they do for LayerOnline’s own search engine rankings? Does LayerOnline really offer the fastest blog hosting? Well, check out our ranking with the following keywords in Google, Bing and Yahoo:

fastest blog hosting

fastest forum hosting

fastest php hosting

fastest web hosting

fastest wordpress hosting

fastest joomla hosting

fastest drupal hosting

fastest phpbb hosting

fastest vbulletin hosting

fastest ffmpeg hosting

fastest green hosting

fastest <keyword> hosting…

Try your favorite search keywords relate to hosting above, chances are LayerOnline is either 1st position or within the first page. Wait, there is more, try some search phrases related to hosting speed, reliability and features, such as:

highest performance <keyword> hosting

fastest <keyword> webhost

100% uptime <keyword> hosting

green hosting <keyword>

reliable <keyword> hosting 100% uptime

ffmpeg hosting <keyword>

free ddos protection <keyword> hosting

…

You can probably come up with hundreds of them, too many to list here. That’s one page against millions of keyword optimized homepages and subpages, and those hosting companies with higher page rankings. Not bad is it? So what Google has to say about LayerOnline? Try these searches:

fastest reliable <keyword> hosting

cheapest fastest <keyword> hosting

cheapest fastest reliable <keyword> hosting

world’s cheapest fastest reliable <keyword> hosting

So there you go, according to Google, LayerOnline is world’s cheapest, fastest and most reliable blog/web hosting. Well, with less than $2/month and $6.99 domain names, FastCGI, 100% uptime guarantee and all the fantastic features, you be the judge.

Advertising, Premium Spotlight, Web Hosting

5pm – project management made easy

Posted by AN Jay
at December 16, 2009
|  
8 Comments →

5pm is an intuitive web-based project management tool. Though it packs a lot of powerful features, its interface is very straight forward and easy to use – everything is within a click or two. You will not need to spent time training your team or clients to use it.

5pm interface - everything within a click or two

5pm features include:

This list goes on and on: RSS and iCalendar support, security roles, hidden projects/tasks, European/US date/time formats, Time Zones, advanced search, project/task cloning, auto-archive, task dependencies, Google Docs connection, 256-bit SSL encryption, etc. 5pm looks like a pretty mature application and has been evolving for years. And if all of that is not enough – developers will be glad to know that 5pm also offers an open API.

5pm interface - everything within a click or two

5pm interface is highly customizable – each user can adjust the information they need to see. The dual-panel layout is easy to navigate and makes a good use of monitor space (widescreens in particular). It also auto-refreshes with new data, so you can just keep 5pm open in another window for an up-to-date view.

The Timeline is very handy if you need a bird’s-eye view of your projects and tasks, and you can easily re-schedule them by simply dragging them around.


5pm Timeline

5pm Mobile version is fast and offers many of the web features. Works on iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry Bold, Palm Pre, etc.

5pm Mobile Edition

5pm also has a Time Tracker desktop widget available – you can track your time and then log it directly to 5pm – works on PC, Mac and Linux!

5pm Time Tracker desktop widget

PC World describes 5pm as “easy for a project management neophyte to understand” and Autodesk characterizes it as “Straight forward and easy to use”. The only way to see if it fits you is to give it a try.

The subscription plans start at just $18/month. Each of them supports unlimited clients, so you can use it as your portal for interaction with them no matter where they are, 5pm is available in a dozen languages!

If you want to find more about 5pm, a quick 2-minute Video Introduction is a good place to start.

But the best way is just to open a free trial account and start using it – the registration takes about 10 seconds and doesn’t require a credit card.

Give it a try today and see if it helps you get more done by 5pm – make sure you post us back your comments!

5pm - project management on time
Business, Premium Spotlight, Project Management, Tools, Web Applications

CS-Cart, PHP Shopping Cart Software & Ecommerce Solutions For Your Site

Posted by AN Jay
at September 3, 2009
|  
12 Comments →

CS-Cart is an affordable PHP shopping cart software (based on MySQL database technology) which comes with an open source code. Its optimized programming code allows to achieve the best performance and build high-capacity online stores that can easily handle over 100,000 products.

CS-Cart

As a software manufacturer, the company responsible for it also provides a whole set of accompanying services such as technical support, installation, web design and custom programming. Extensive information resources are provided via software manual, comprehensive knowledge base and active community forums.

Code and expandability

CS-Cart is based on modular architecture and template-driven design. The architecture lets users customize the online store without interference with the existing source code. The company enhances the set of free built-in skins and add-ons with each new release and does it regularly.

Feature highlights

CS-Cart takes into account the latest ecommerce developments, including one-page checkout, AJAX-based web interface, block manager, advanced order management tool, and also drop-shipping, product filters, gift certificates, electronic products and cross-selling. The software provides flexible SEO, shipping and tax configuration tools along with well-developed CMS features.

Built-in support for a majority of popular payment systems and shipping providers such as Google Checkout, PayPal, 2Checkout, Authorize.Net, UPS, USPS and many others is available by default. Over 30 free design templates are also included with the software.

payment systems

Partnership opportunities

For web studios, Internet companies, freelance designers and web developers CS-Cart offers an attractive reseller program where software licenses are available with significant discounts. The company also encourages all third parties who provide ecommerce-related solutions to develop mutual partnership in any forms.

Try it for free!

CS-Cart has a two-month trial period during which it can be used with no restrictions or limitations, so that if you want to see how it fares you can do it personally by following the provided link and getting it at no cost.

Premium Spotlight, Web Applications, eCommerce

Upload And Share Multiple Images With Pict

Posted by AN Jay
at March 17, 2009
|  
11 Comments →

With some of the other free image hosting services on the Internet, you can get bombarded with all sorts of ad banners and other clutter. Further still, most of these require you to create some sort of user account. That is not the case with Pict. The homepage is your album, giving you the ability to quickly and easily upload pictures on the fly. It’s also free of ad banners.

How It Works
By clicking on any of the boxes within the Pict homepage grid, an upload dialog will pop up. While it may seem like you can only upload one image at a time, this picture hosting service actually lets you enjoy multiple simultaneous uploads.

Pict

Because there is no need to register for an account with Pict, you may be wondering how you would go about accessing your own uploads after you leave the site. Near the bottom of the main page is the URL to your current album. That URL will direct you to the gallery and if the session cookies are still there, you can click on the upload link to add more pictures.

What if you’re on a public computer or you cleared out your cache? After you complete each uploading session, I suggest you use the “save to email” feature near the top of the page. This will send you an email message with a specialized link, directing you back to your current album and giving you the ability to add more pictures.

A very handy feature that you’ll find with Pict is that every picture uploaded will automatically be resized and saved. In addition to the original size, you will also have access to two options under “mini size” and two more under “medium size.” With the former, the typical image widths are 320px and 640px. For the latter, the typical image widths are 800px and 1024px.

In order to access the different sizes for your images, you first click on the “share” link that pops up when you hover over a picture. From there, switch to advanced mode. There will be code provided for the URL, discussion boards, basic HTML, and a direct link.

When sharing a picture with a friend, they will see the available sizes directly below the image itself. For example, check out the page with the BTR screenshot. I should note that Pict supports JPG, PNG, and GIF formats with files as large as 3.5MB each.

Pict Tools

Whether you’re troubleshooting with a friend or you just want to share something on Twitter, it can be a little bit of an effort to take a screenshot, save the image, and then upload it to an image sharing service. Pict takes care of this scenario as well with its Pict tools:

Pict Screenshot

Pict FireFox Add‐on: This adds a widget to your FireFox toolbar from which you can save a screenshot with a single step. This add‐on also lets you upload images from your computer.

Pict Uploader: This simple windows application allows to upload, manage and share your images and screenshots with one click.

More Features Coming Soon

Pict Team is about to launch new version of their image hosting. The new Pict will have free registration, albums, updated FireFox plugin and some other cool features.

Contacts and Networking, File and Data Sharing, Image Tools, Premium Spotlight, Tools, Web Applications

Get Discovered and Make Money Online With BloggersBase

Posted by AN Jay
at March 5, 2009
|  
15 Comments →

What is it?

BloggersBase is a content discovery platform for both bloggers and readers, in the form of an online citizen-journalism magazine.

How does it work?

Each topic on BloggersBase is a multi-authored blog based on constant competition. Registering is FREE and allows you to compete, giving you a chance to get discovered and win money prizes.

Bloggerbase

What’s in it for me?

As a blogger, writer and journalist:

As a reader and consumer of UGC:

Tell me more – why BloggersBase, what’s the pain?

There’s an overflow of user generated content on the Web – It is becoming harder and harder to sift through the vast amount of user-generated online content to find quality material. Moreover, if you’re an emerging blogger, this clutter also prevents you from getting discovered and reaching your audience.

Ok, so what’s your solution?

A competition-based discovery platform that rewards talented bloggers and brings readers professional, relevant and quality content on the Web, personalized according to their social connections and preferences.

Walk me through it.

As a blogger, not only can you take advantage of the unique opportunity to reach a targeted reader base instantly and receive ratings and critique from your readers, you can monetize on your talent as well in weekly competitions. At the end of each week the most acclaimed bloggers in each category earn the honor of co-authoring the main (surface) blog for their topic, resulting in respect and exposure, as well as cash and special prizes.

To do that, you must first register for free and submit a contender post to the blog of your choice. We call such contender posts “Nuggets” and in fact they are submitted under the surface, in the blog’s “Goldmine”. The Goldmine and Nuggets are still visible and accessible to all our users, which read, watch and rate your posts. At the end of each week, the most highly rated Nuggets promote their bloggers to the high visible surface. Now you have the chance to publish as many posts as you like and get a lot of exposure, as well as get a chance to win money prizes and continue co-authoring the surface blog. The top blogger on the surface blog wins $40, while the runner up gets $10 each week. However, if you are among the lower rated bloggers, you might have to return to the Goldmine and compete again for your place in the spotlight.

What else are you offering?

QT Payment

If you refer other quality bloggers to BloggersBase, you can increase your profit further when they are awarded prizes as well. Invite your friends to join by sending them a special invitation email, or by placing our banners on your site and we’ll remember you helped us grow: Each time one of “your” bloggers wins a prize, you’ll get the same prize too! Normally this will hold for up to 3 wins per blogger, but as a special promotion – sign up now and get up to 10 wins per blogger your refer!

Community Elements

There’s also much more – we have a lively community, which is easily accessible and allows better interaction among bloggers and readers. You can customize it, favoring some of the bloggers more than others as well as respecting the opinions of our raters. In the near future you’ll be able to use our personalization options to view BloggersBase in a unique manner for you, based on your preferences and community.

Hello? Is anybody still here? Well, go ahead – and tell them we sent you!

Blogging, Premium Spotlight, Social Media Websites, Web Applications

Free Web App “Zapproved” Makes Decisions Faster and Easier For Businesses

Posted by AN Jay
at January 21, 2009
|  
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SmashingApps first noticed Zapproved last September in its list of the “17 Online Free Web Based Applications That You Probably Love to Use!” when it was still in beta.  Last month the site officially launched with more features and people in a wide range of companies are already using the system.

Zapproved is the first web-based tool to manage business approvals and decision making.  It offers companies a way to instantly improve accountability and transparency in corporate decision-making.

Zapproved

How It Works

Zapproved’s simplicity is the key to its success because it is designed for instant adoption within businesses.  To get started, click on the “Create Proposal” button and screen opens that looks similar to an email.  Enter the recipients’ email addresses, set a due date and priority, type a message, add an attachment and hit “Send”.

The recipients will each receive an email that is formatted to indicate that their action is required.  Within the body of the email, there are embedded HTML buttons for “Approve” or “Deny.”  The person selects their option, confirms their decision in a browser and adds any comments and that’s it.

Everyone can see what others have decided and any comments that they may have added.  If there is a laggard in the group, it becomes apparent and that person will get reminders to submit a reply.

What Makes Zapproved Better

In today’s companies, almost every decision is being made through emails. This is tremendously inefficient and results in dozens of messages and the discussion is muddled through a chain of replies and cc’s.  In the end, it is difficult to determine if and when consensus is achieved and no record of the decision is made.

Zapproved keeps the decision-making “conversation” in a single place, making it easier to track each approval and eliminating the confusing web of inconclusive messages that often results from trying to make decisions solely via email.  Zapproved also works securely across firewalls, so it can be used with customers, vendors, or anyone within another company.

Zapproved has been adopted by many businesses as an easy-to-use tool for managing approvals and business processes.  Busy executives are finding it useful for handling dozens of in-bound requests as well as administrators and consultants who want to stay on top of numerous tasks when collaborating with colleagues. (See examples of how others are using Zapproved at www.zapproved.com/CaseStudies.)

Zapproved Premium Adds More Benefits

With the official launch, Zapproved added a new premium level service that offers subscribers the ability to add their own corporate logo to proposals as well as extended storage and larger attachment size.  The upgraded service will help power users more fully incorporate Zapproved into their daily workflow and help build branding through the system.

To sign up, visit www.zapproved.com.

Business, Contacts and Networking, File and Data Sharing, Premium Spotlight, Web Applications
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