Controltheweb

How to Change Hair, Skin, Sky and Water Colors in Photoshop

2009-12-15T17:04:00.012-06:00

Here's a recent photoshop project where I needed some references for hair and skin colors: the image on the right is the original, at left is the (heavily) photoshopped version. The first step is being clear on why you want to change colors. Sometimes just getting white balance correct is all you are looking for. This tutorial is for those times you are trying to create a color that is

Twitter Retweets: Why do some people use "via" instead of "RT?" #HowTwitterWorks

2009-11-03T07:24:00.037-06:00

Many folks on Twitter have explained this very well, so I have quoted their guidance here read more...

How important are you to your Twitter followers?

2009-10-30T16:28:00.003-05:00

Ever wonder how many people on Twitter would recommend you if given the chance? Now that Twitter lists are here I decided to find out. I calculated "popularity" by dividing the number of lists an account was on by the number of followers it has. Those shown first have been placed on the most lists as a percentage of their total followers. (The two highlighted accounts are two of my Twitter

Twitter is just stupid, pointless hype?

2009-09-28T10:05:00.011-05:00

So many clueless people, so little time... Recently, Patrick Kershaw wrote an article about the valuelessness of Twitter. An excerpt: "Consider Twitter…I am unable to see the benefit on even a personal level. I am not a celebrity-watcher, nor do I care what others are doing every minute of their lives. So is any value added at all? I don't think so.…If you cannot see a benefit, don't follow the

What are the most essential Twitter apps ever created?

2009-09-24T19:03:00.002-05:00

OneForty looks like the best site yet to provide a categorized list of Twitter Apps. While OneForty requires an invitation to join and so is not available to everyone yet, I wanted to provide what I think is one of it's most valuable features to the general user: a "best of" list of apps organized by category they call "essentials." What do you think? Are these the most essential Twitter apps

How Twitter messages work when you use @

2009-09-10T20:09:00.027-05:00

First, imagine a fictional family where everyone follows each other on Twitter: @Mom, @Dad, @Brother and @Sister. 1. The basics Rule #1: A person must follow you before you can DM them. If @Mom and @Dad (fictional example names) want to write completely privately so no one will see what they write but each other, they have to DM each other.Rule #2: Anytime you put an @someone anywhere in a tweet,

Make a Photoshop Web Design Template That is Designer and Developer Friendly

2009-08-17T17:12:00.001-05:00

There is a great article explaining how to create the layers for a photoshop web design template but they didn't include a sample PSD file to start from. Here is a Web Design Wireframe Template created in Photoshop CS2 to help you get around the procrastination of creating one for yourself :). Its is based on the layers covered in the article.

Big list of free photoshop alternatives

2009-08-08T13:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a big list of free photoshop alternatives. Many are online and you can start instantly—no download, no installation. Why should you check out more than one of these if you find one you like? Many have cool and useful features that others don't have, so it's worth doing a little research. Photoshop Express Online flauntR Dumpr Sumopaint Pic Resize Lunapic Picnik

Redneck rules for Twitter

2009-07-18T14:16:00.000-05:00

Google's reranking of Twitter: Best explanation ever

2009-07-15T11:52:00.001-05:00

Wallace Shawn as Vizzini in the movie "The Princess Bride" gives the best explanation ever given of how Google re-ranks sites when it decides a new algorithm is needed after deciding a new way of looking at things is needed: So Google re-ranks sites when it is using a new algorithm to try and figure out what matters and what doesn't by going back and forth between it's changing views of

Consumers no longer loyal to brands: Everyone is a researcher now.

2009-07-13T22:23:00.000-05:00

Summary: The way in which consumers are researching and buying products have changed dramatically. Research right up to the point of purchase is now much more common than brand loyalty. New McKinsey research shows that extensive researching when considering purchase is now a much more common consumer behavior (full article). It even extends to the moment of making a purchase decision: They

Mass suspension of Twitter accounts underway: what to do if you are affected

2009-07-05T21:00:00.018-05:00

Update 8: Official statement from Twitter’s status tumblelog: Earlier today, we accidentally suspended a number of accounts. We regret the human error that led to these mistaken suspensions and we are working to restore the affected accounts—we expect this to be completed in the next several hours. One additional note: some the accounts suspended were using the third-party site Tweetlater.

Fixing the screenplay for the movie Knowing, with Nicolas Cage

2009-05-17T08:55:00.004-05:00

Writing movie scripts has been a hobby of mine for decades. I'm going to share an improvement to the movie "Knowing" with Nicolas Cage. See if you agree or disagree with me after you've seen it, because I'm going to give everything away here. In other words...spoiler alert! The change I'll describe would have made those who liked the movie appreciate it even more, and make it palatable and

What's the best way to give retweet attribution on Twitter?

2009-05-15T14:51:00.005-05:00

A good Twitter blogger that we've sent (deserved) traffic to had me baffled for a bit this morning. We put out a tweet that sent them 550+ clicks but they felt the tweet was improper. I'm interested to know what people think, and how I could avoid this in the future. You know how just by the fact of tweeting back and forth things can rapidly get confusing? That's how this conversation started to

The Secret of Self-control, willpower and discipline?

2009-05-11T21:22:00.002-05:00

The New Yorker Magazine had a great article on what research has uncovered about delayed gratification and what an essential life skill it is. It seems learning simple and easy self-control skills can have a huge effect on how one's life develops, but few people learn those skills. So I've highlighted some some excerpts, but I suggest reading the whole article. "...after just a few sessions,

Principles of Ethical Influence, by Dr. Robert Cialdini

2009-04-30T16:56:00.001-05:00

I'm always trying to promote the principles of ethical influence (by Dr. Robert Cialdini) to people, and I've recently discovered he makes them available in pocket guide form on his website, along with all his terrific books and other materials.Click the image for more information:The principles are:Reciprocation — You, then me, then you, then me…Scarcity — The rule of the rare.Authority —

Ways to make money on the web

2009-03-16T14:03:00.004-05:00

So you want to make money on the internet, huh? Below are some of the most common ways. Why do I bother sharing a list like this? Because a key reason most people fail is they fail to consider their options before starting. My highlights are not strictly accurate, because there are good approaches to each of these things. I'm going to elaborate on this over time and link to information as I go

Apologies for not having more time for family, friends and clients lately!

2009-03-13T12:10:00.008-05:00

I've gotten very busy these last few months. Apologies to those of you I haven't been spent as much time with as you would like! I feel a little silly putting down so much detail, but I'm getting a lot of disbelief that I don't have more time, so... You would have to be away from home working 20 hours a day if you only worked weekdays from an office to get the same amount of work done as I do,

Share your blog posts everywhere

2009-02-24T15:12:00.007-06:00

By combining some simple and handy services, you can post short notifications of your blog posts on 1, 2 or over a dozen sites like FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.Wouldn't it be great every time you wrote a blog post to have it a link posted to it with a summary on all the sites you've joined? It's easy! It works like this:Blog post > Connecting services > Post + link appears on your

Top dofollow social bookmarking sites by Page Rank and Alexa rank

2009-02-10T09:17:00.013-06:00

All of this information is available in many places online. As always, abuse and spam will get you nowhere in SEO! If you're doing nothing more than just posting things all over the place all you're doing is spamming. But if you are doing a lot of other things right and you want to experiment by increasing the number of search-engine recognized appropriate inbound links to your content without

Won the technology (Shorty) award on Twitter, heading to NY for award ceremony

2009-01-26T09:24:00.004-06:00

Recently won an award for creating short tech content on Twitter.com via our "channel" @Twitter_Tips—The Shorty Awards competition was covered by The New York Times, The BBC, AdAge, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, MediaBistro and many others. Read more (This post is in the process of being moved toblog.TweetSmarter.com ... check back for an updated link—thanks!)

Why your blog won't post in blogger: The elusive “form error” problem

2008-11-18T14:33:00.002-06:00

You've just finished a new post for your blogger blog. Whew! Another great post ready to go. But when you click “Publish Post” it says it cannot post due to “form errors.” Wha?? Before you go tearing your hair out, try this: Getting a post to publish even though the error message says “form errors” First, click the Edit HTML tab, and select all text and copy it (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C or however you

Community: it's not just for politicians anymore.

2008-11-10T07:53:00.007-06:00

So much of the “noise” about connecting with people online focuses on having too many online friends (FaceBook and Twitter in particular). The point being missed: we are all moving into an era were each of us have a “community” to manage. In person, natural filtering takes place: at a high school reunion, for example, we make connections only to a small number of people at a time, few

Em dash, en dash, copyright, trademark and other useful ascii character shortcuts, tips and Alt key codes

2008-10-17T09:03:00.018-05:00

First of all, did you realize you can type in characters such as those on the next line? ▐▀█▄▌— · – ♫ ♪ … ♥ ‼ » ►◄ ☺ ♦ ♣ ♠ ₪ ≡ ░░░ ▓▓▓ ™, ©, ½, ± etc Dashes and quotation marks are among the handiest to know. But for IM and micro-blogging services like Twitter, wouldn't it be nice to know how to type ♥? You could just bookmark an ascii example quick-reference page like

Greenspan now agrees there is a need for regulation, admits accountability?

2008-10-09T09:22:00.004-05:00

Alan Greenspan is famous for not making clear what he's thinking. But he was clear about one thing: he said markets should be deregulated. Those favoring market regulation said people can't be trusted not to act in their own self-interest, and so markets need regulation. Regulators felt that humans were vulnerable to motives of greed and power, and that creating opportunities for people to