Using the 3D Sphere effect available in Photoshop, including Photoshop CS5, even a beginner can create a realistic planet. Here are five easy steps to make a planet in Photoshop like the one pictured here.

1. Create the Ocean

Launch Photoshop and create a new file by pressing “Ctrl-N” (“Command-N” on a Mac). Set the width and height at 800 pixels, with RGB Color and a transparent background.

Click the Foreground Color swatch in the Toolbox. Set the color at #2E4790 for the oceans.

Click the Background Color swatch and set the color at #386F40 for the land masses.

Select the Paint Bucket from the Toolbox and click the canvas to cover it with a blue ocean.

2. Create Continents

Select the Lasso from the Toolbox and drag it over the ocean to draw the outline of a continent as illustrated in the first picture.

Click the double arrow between the Foreground and Background Color swatches. Then click the Paint Bucket and click inside the continent. Draw one or two more continents. You can also add polar ice caps if you want by filling them with white.

Press “Ctrl-A” (“Command-A” on a Mac) to select all. Click Edit -> Free Transform. Drag the corners of the map so it fits in the left side of the canvas, then press “Enter.” Anything on the right, very top and very bottom of the canvas will not appear on the planet.

To preview what the map will look like, click the 3D menu, select New Shape from Layer, then click Sphere. The map is wrapped around itself to form a planet. Note that the colors are darker after this process, which we will adjust later.

Press “Ctrl-Z” to undo the sphere effect. Use the Selection Tool to move or resize the map as needed.

3. Create Clouds

With your map still flat, add a new layer by clicking the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Panel, or by clicking New under the the Layers menu at the top of the window.

Make sure the Foreground and Background Color swatches are white and blue. Click the Filter menu -> Render -> Clouds.

Click the Opacity menu on the Layers Panel and reduce the opacity of the clouds to about 70%. Click Layer -> Merge Visible.

Click the 3D menu ->New Shape from Layer -> Sphere.

Click Layer -> Rastersize -> 3D.

Click Image -> Adjustments ->Brightness/Contrast. Check the Preview box and drag the sliders to the right until they are at their optimum levels for your taste.

4. Add Space and Stars

Click the New Layer button on the Layers Panel. Click the Foreground Color swatch in the Toolbox change it to black space (#000000) in the Color Picker.

Grab the Paint Bucket and click the canvas to change the new layer to black. Click Layer -> Arrange -> Move Backward to move the black space behind the planet.

Add stars by clicking the Pencil in the Toolbox. Change the Foreground Color to white and change the Pencil’s brush size to 1 pixel in the Options Bar at the top of the screen. Dab the tool across the black space. Add some larger stars by changing the brush size to 2 pixels.

5. Add a Sun

Click Filter -> Render -> Lens Flare. Type “122″ in the Brightness field and select the 105mm Prime lens. There is a + sign in the preview window to indicate where the flare will be centered. Move it towards the right corner, then click the OK button.

Select the Paintbrush in the Toolbox. Change the Foreground Color to black and paint over the secondary lens flare that appears in the bottom left of the image.

Select the layer containing the planet in the Layers Panel, then use the Selection Tool to move it so it creates a partial eclipse over the lens flare.

Sources:

Adobe Photoshop CS5: Render Filters

Adobe Photoshop CS5: Create 3D Objects

WordPress has a habit of automatically filtering and transforming any code that you type in a blog post or WordPress page. In almost all situations, this is simply convenient. However, it can be frustrating when you’re trying to embed HTML code so you can show your readers what the code is supposed to look like.

Overcoming this automatic filter is quite easy, if not a little time consuming. First, you need to surround the code with tags that tell WordPress to ignore what is between them. Second, you need to substitute special characters with numeric HTML code.

Three Easy Steps to Embedding Code

1. Type your blog post or WordPress page as you normally would, then click the HTML tab above the text field. Place the cursor where you would like the HTML code to appear. Type <code> then your code, followed by </code>.

Alternatively, use <tt> and </tt> if you don’t want the code to appear with a grey background.

Here is a comparison of both tags:
Using the code tag: http://theworldwideyou.com/index.php?p=135
Using the tt tag: http://theworldwideyou.com/index.php?p=135

2. Replace all special characters in your code with the HTML numeric code using the key at the bottom of this article. For example, here is what you would have to type to make the sentence above:

3. Click the Save Draft button, then the Preview button. Examine the preview to ensure it looks exactly as you want it, then go back and post the article.

Sources:
WordPress Codex: Posting Source Code

Use iTunes to copy contacts between Microsoft Outlook and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Just like your music and movies, iTunes will let you specify whether or not to sync all of your contacts, or only some groups of contacts.

Once you have specified how you want your contacts synced, if you later make changes in Outlook, or on the iPhone, such as deleting a name or changing a phone number, iTunes will automatically check to see which is the most recent version, then update the older version for you. If iTunes detects substantial changes to your contact database in your computer or on the iPhone, it will ask you before syncing them. This can be a lifesaver if you’ve accidentally deleted half of your contacts.

7 Easy Steps:

1. Connect the iPhone to your computer using the USB cable. Wait for iTunes to open and sync with the iPhone. If you’ve disabled the automatic sync option, then open iTunes manually.

2. Look for your iPhone listed in the Devices section of the left side iTunes. Click it.

3. Click the Info tab at the top of iTunes.

4. Click the check box beside “Synchronize contacts from.” A list of possible programs is displayed. Click Outlook. Select which groups of contacts you want copied to the iPhone, or select “all.”

5. Click the Apply button at the bottom of iTunes.

6. A dialog box will open warning you that a program is trying to access Outlook and will ask if you want to allow it. This is, of course, iTunes. Specify that the program can have access for ten minutes, then click the Yes button.

7. Click the Sync button in iTunes. Wait for iTunes to complete its sync, then click the Eject button beside the iPhone.

Sources:
Apple Support: Syncing Contacts and Calendars

Much has been written in the past year about publishers responses to the Ebook revolution. Little has been written, in comparison, of the software developers behind the books. A case in point is Adobe. Anyone with a web or publishing background looking for a good software program to make digital books, would quite naturally take a look at Adobe.

Adobe, after all, makes Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and a few other useful programs for producing digital content. With both a web and publishing background myself, and normally quite a fan of Adobe products, they were my first choice when I decided to try making my first ebook using the epub file format. (Note: epub is the format used by Apple, Kobo, and most other ebook readers with the exception of Amazon’s Kindle.)

For epub’s, Adobe’s go-to product is InDesign CS5. “Create compelling eBooks in the EPUB format for the Apple iPad, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble nook, mobile phones, and other devices,” their website reads.  For $699, it would seem like solid choice. InDesign has always been a great program for making multi-page documents, like magazines and books. I downloaded the free 30-day trial, with the intention of purchasing the product. Already familiar with InDesign, I figured the leap from pdf to epub should be a short hop, right?

Not exactly.

InDesign treats the ePub format like it was an after-thought. An “.indd” file (InDesign’s native format) must be completely reformatted before making an readable ePub book. Even then, it seems to be a crap shoot if the file is going to work or not. After three weeks working part-time for more than 40 hours on a small 120-page book, browsing forums, reading help files and support articles, I was never able to get my ebook into a format that was acceptable for upload to Apple, or was formatted properly on my Kobo eReader.

So I downloaded two shareware programs: Calibre and Sigil, both of which were referenced in just about every non-Adobe forum I browsed. I dumped a text document into Calibre, and converted it to an epub file. I then opened that file with Sigil, edited it, uploaded a graphic for the cover, created a table of contents and… completed the project in all of two hours.

Converting the epub into a Kindle-accessible format took an extra mouse click.

I received an email recently with a good question about Google Analytics stats on the amount of time people spent on her website. She has been getting some good traffic, however, according to Google, everyone who visited from a search engine was not spending a single second there before leaving.

This has to do with how Google gets its data. Here is a screen shot to illustrate.

Average Time On Site is collected by timing how long visitors stay on a page before clicking on a link on your website. If someone goes to your site, then clicks on a link to visit another page on your website, that information is collected.  However, if someone goes to your site, then leaves without clicking on another page (which is called a bounce), there is no time recorded.

So if you get 100 people going to a page on your website, finding the information they were looking for, reading it, then leaving, there is no data collected. Instead of saying “no data”, Google gives you “0.00″. If they stayed one minute or an hour, you will still get “0.00″.

Hardly fair, right? Well it doesn’t actually seem to be too bad. There is no evidence that Google penalizes you for your rank in future searches based on this lack of information.

So if you see those zero’s in the “Avg. time on site”,  just check the bounce rate. If it says 100%, the number simply means no one has clicked on any other links. You will notice that if the bounce rate is not 100%, then you always have some amount of time recorded other than the big zero’s.

The Solution

If you want to find out if visitors are really reading your article, you can solve this problem simply by cutting the last couple paragraphs from your article and pasting them on a new page. Then add a “Continued….” with a link to the second page.  Anyone engrossed in your article will most likely click on that link. Then you’ll get the data you were looking for, telling you how long are people spending on your page.

Free email services like Hotmail and Gmail are useful, and easy to use. But having an email account associated with your own website can be important when trying to present yourself credibly and professionally. Most web hosting services offer the tools you need to set up your email free of charge.

Getting Started
If you do not have a domain name registered yet, take some time to research available names using a service like Whois.net. When you find one you like, register it with a domain and web hosting service. I have tried several and personally recommend Dreamhost for domain and website hosting. I find the fees reasonable, service excellent, and the tools I most often use are available in one-click installations (like Joomla, Squirrel Mail, and WordPress).

Setting Up Your Email
Select the name you want to use for your email address. Most people use their first name, or their first and last names separated with a period, underscore or dash.
You will want to set up two additional email accounts. These are “info” and “postmaster”. You will need these. Because there are so many people in the world setting up email accounts to use for spamming purposes, many email services will not accept any emails from a website that does not have a postmaster or info email address associated with the domain. Have both of these email addresses forwarded to your main email account so you don’t have to worry about checking three accounts all the time.

Setting up Email on Your Computer
After registering with your web service, they will provide you with the instructions you need to set up your email. You will be using their mail server (a large computer to store, send and receive email) and you will need to set up your computer in a way that makes sense to that server.
Open Outlook, Outlook Express, Mail, Entourage, or any other email program you plan to use on your computer.  Select “New Account” from the file menu. This will launch a wizard that will guide you through the process of adding your new email address. You will need to configure settings to receive email as well as to send it.
For incoming mail you will use IMAP, HTTP, or POP3, depending on which is used by your web host’s mail server. For sending email, you will most likely be using SMTP. You will need your password to connect to the mail server. You may also have to check the “Secure Password Authentication” option, depending on the instructions sent by your web host.
Your web host may also send you instructions on which port to use. (Basically a numbered door into the mail server.) If they do not specify a port, use the default settings recommended by the installation wizard.

WebMail
Many web hosting services, like Dreamhost, offer a free WebMail service that is accessible from your web browser, from any computer, much the same way Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail are. Take a few minutes to activate this from your web host control panel. Even if you use a laptop, you never know when you may be without your computer, or, God forbid, your laptop crashes when you need to get an important message out.

Becoming a writer is easy. Staying with that decision requires years of dedication and a lot of hard work. Becoming a successful writer… well that requires even more work, and depends upon your definition of success.

When I was sixteen, one of the first things I did when I got my driver’s license was to drive to the University of Windsor to meet W.O. Mitchell, who was then the writer in residence. I went to see him with only one purpose: to ask for any advice he might have about becoming a writer. His advice was memorable.  “Don’t,” he said.

Writing, W.O. Mitchell warned, has the longest apprenticeship of any career – about 30 years, if I recall our conversation correctly. Now he wasn’t talking about blogs, or writing technical manuals or newspaper articles. He was talking about writing.

There is a difference between people who write, and people who are writers, just as there is a difference between people who paint and artists.

There are some wonderful books written by people who are, by their own admission, not really writers at all. But we’re not talking about them. We’re talking about writers.

What I mean by a writer…

You could say it is something in the blood, quite like a virus that strikes us, usually at an early age. It is a love for words, and a desire to master the subtle nuances of language, but it is more than this. It is a desire to communicate one’s ideas and ideals, our perspective on the world, ourselves, and the people around us, even before we fully understand our own thoughts of these things. It is a love of adventure, even if these adventures never take us physically beyond our keyboard. It is a lifelong endeavor, a type of alchemy, where we actively participate in our thoughts and perceptions, reorganize them, distill them, write them down, rewrite them, and through this process produce something from ourselves that enriches us through the process and through that process, create in ourselves something new, making us better than what we were.

On becoming a writer…

Becoming a writer can be a difficult life. We need to participate fully in our life experiences, participate in the world around us, and then withdraw, like a recluse to a solitary place where we can process these experiences and, from them, create something new, something richer than the experience itself.

Becoming a writer requires a lifelong commitment, something to be practiced daily, or nearly so.

It will influence all of your most important decisions. It will have an effect on your decision on where to live; whether or not you should stay in school to get that degree; on your decision to marry and to have children; whether or not to travel. All these decisions, and many more will be influenced by the importance of your writing. A new car, or even a new couch, will be weighed against how much you will need to earn to afford it, and how much time this will take you away from your writing.

No matter how good you are at your day job, becoming a writer will eventually mean having to choose between that job and your writing. When you speak of your “work”,  you will often have to explain that it is not your job you’re talking about.

Becoming a writer will be hard on your ego. A decade of minimal success, or no success at all, can quickly go by. Your friends and siblings will have established careers, and all the physical signs of success, while you may still be struggling to pay the bills. You will doubt yourself. I can tell you from personal experience that landing your first $2 million sales contract is a helluva lot easier than getting your first poem accepted in a literary magazine. But our society gives far more esteem to that first type of success than the second. And the financial rewards are magnified a couple hundred thousand times over.*

Becoming a writer will cause friction between you and your family. No matter how much they love you, or respect you, it is unlikely they will be able to understand the choices you need to make.

It will probably cost you relationships. Believe it or not, most people do not turn on the light and reach for a notebook after love making. Not everyone can accept that. If they can accept that in the early months, that does not guarantee they can accept it three or four years into the relationship.

For me, there could not have been any other choice, and I certainly would not want to change a thing. However, at the same time, becoming a writer is not a life I would wish upon anyone. I have not spent much time here talking about the benefits of becoming a writer. If you have read this far, you already know what those are, and my hope is that you are already writing about that.

*For my thoughts on defining success for your own life, you might want to look at my articles on how to be a success.

You might also be interested in my latest article on jobs for writers.

This is cool. If you’re a screenwriter, or hoping to become a screenwriter, there is a group on Twitter you need to check out – #scriptchat. It’s a place where writers from all over the world talk about screenwriting, and discuss screenplays.

New York City screenwriter Jeanne V Bowerman started #scriptchat in October 2009 and it’s become quite a hit amongst the writing crowd. Officially, #scriptchat is held every Sunday at 8pm GMT (for Europeans) and 8 pm EST for North Americans. But #scriptchat discussions seem to break out just about every night.

“Scriptchat is a community of new & seasoned screenwriters chatting together to learn and grow,” says Jeanne. “Leave your ego behind… but bring your tequila.”

Check out the official webpage for #scriptchat dedicated to the screenwriting community. It contains transcripts of their chats, as well as instructions on how to find them on Twitter. More than that, you’ll also find news and events dedicated to screenwriters. Have fun!

Here are ten free SEO tips to help prevent you from making some of the most common mistake when it comes to getting more web traffic from search engines to your website or blog.

10. Poor Content: All the optimization in the world is not going to help a web page that no one wants to read.

9. Outdated Content: The less often you update your site, the less often web crawlers are going to visit it, and the less importance it will be given when being ranked.

8. Having no Link Strategy: Honest, quality links to your website is crucial for good page ranking for more web traffic. The best ranked webmasters and bloggers will tell you they spend as much time building links and developing relationships as they do working on their content – or more! If you’re only going to take away one of these free SEO pointers, this should be the one.

7. Too Many Synonyms: If you’re targeting a keyword, use it in your web page. If your keyword is “family dog”, don’t expect the search engines to give you credit for saying “family pet”, “your dog”, “Rex”, “the dog in your home”, or any other synonym, aphorism, or metaphor. Humans may understand these all mean the same thing, but the search engines don’t.

6.  Keywords that are Too General: Trying to optimize keywords that are too general will hurt your ranking and prevent you from getting more web traffic. If your page is about website tools, and you have optimized “tools” as your keyword, everyone looking for hammers and saws will hit the back button before your page has even loaded.

5. Keywords that are Too Specific: If only ten people a month are looking for your keyword “how to eat artichokes in public”, how many do you think will come to your web page today?

4. No Outbound Links: Nobody appreciates a dead-end street, search engines included. If you want to be part of the information super-highway, don’t build a cul-de-sac.

3. Click here. If you link to a website that is related to your keyword, include the keyword in your link. Using “click here” as the link says nothing.

Continued Here… Improve Web Site Traffic…

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. An SEO specialist is someone who optimizes web sites to increase their rankings in search engine listings.

While I have consulted for dozens of organizations in the past decade on generating web traffic, including search engine optimization, I have never classified myself as an SEO specialist. Yes, I’ve done the experimentation, the trial and error, analysis, site maps, analytics, testing and more analysis… So I do know more than the average web designer. I can get you 95 percent of the way there.

But a true SEO specialist is someone who keeps up on the trends, changes, and slight modifications week after week and month after month – something I have never had the time, nor the patience for. When it comes to such things, I much prefer being a generalist – and if you’re a writer, I suggest you take the same outlook.

There are basically two brands of SEO – white hat and black hat.

White Hat: Optimizing web sites within the rules and guidelines dictated by the search engines (specifically Google).

Black Hat: Optimizing web sites using loopholes in those same rules and guidelines, pushing the envelope between “legal” and “illegal” (where the fine for being caught can cause your website to be banished from the search listings!) Few specialists in these “dark arts” ever publicize their techniques, or sell their secrets en-masse, because once these techniques are made public, they are no longer of any value.

Some may make you think that getting web traffic from search engines is some kind of magical secret, as if it had been handed down from the Knights Templar. SEO is not a dark art, nor is it rocket science. Here are the five most important things to remember.

Again, 95 percent of what you need to know when it comes to getting traffic from search engines is not a dark art, nor is it rocket science by any means.

There are five points to remember:

1. Write GREAT Content: The better your content, the more people will read it, the more people will link to it, and the more likely it will appear in the search listings.  Optimizing and re-optimizing a bad web page for the search engines, is the same as polishing and detailing a car without a transmission.

2. Keywords: Understand human behaviour when they go to a search engine looking for information. Understand keywords and variations on keywords.

3. Keyword Supply & Demand: Weigh the popularity of keywords people are searching for against the number of websites that are already available for those keywords.

4. Make your web page discoverable by your readers using those keywords. Understand where to place keywords in your code, in your content, and in your links. Understand approximately how often a keyword should be in a web page – what is too little and what is too much.

5. Invite honest, meaningful links to your website.

Now there are just three quick things I’d like to share with you:

1. Now that we’ve discussed the question of What is SEO, here are several great SEP tips to get more web traffic.

2. Have you enrolled in my Free Course on Building Web Traffic?
3. All of this information, and much more is included in my SEO Manual, Traffic Essentials: Your Little Black Book to Search Engine Optimization.

It’s a 54 page manual that discusses these five areas in detail, and gives you an understanding of the mechanics behind the search engines, and many more tips, strategies and techniques. It took me ten years and a couple thousand dollars in courses to get to my level in SEO. This books contains everything I know.

(Top SEO Graphic Courtesy of  Svilen Milev)