Garmahis

How to disable automatic thumbnails and image linking in WordPress

2010-03-14T21:38:59Z

WordPress automatically creates thumbnails every time your upload a new image to your WordPress blog. It creates up to 3 different thumbnails files from one image even if you don’t need them. All these thumbnails created by WordPress automatically take up a huge amount of space on your server. If you don’t use thumbnails if can be a good idea to disable this annoying feature.

Another WordPress image related annoyance is that all uploaded images are linked to themselves by default, i.e. WordPress automatically adds a link to the source for every image. Fortunately, these two problems have one easy solution.

To disable WordPress thumbnails and image linking to the image source (link url):
Go to Settings->Media and uncheck all the boxes and clear all the values. Don’t forget to click Save change button.

Top 10 Twitter WordPress plugins

2010-03-11T16:05:49Z

Twitter WordPress plugins will help you get the most out of Twitter in your WordPress blog. These most useful Twitter WordPress plugins will help you to automatically publish your blog posts to Twitter and Twitter updates to your blog, show stylish Follow Me Twitter badge to increase the number of your followers, easily integrate retweet button with your WordPress blog, send notification to your commenters via Twitter about updates on the blog post, use Twitter avatars in the blog comments and track your Twitter campaigns with Google Analytics. Do you have a favorite Twitter plugin For WordPress?

The TweetMeme button WordPress plugin
This WordPress plugin allows you to easily integrate the TweetMeme button into your WordPress blog both your content and your feed. The TweetMeme Retweet button allows your blog post to be retweeted and provide a live count of how many times it has been retweeted. WordPress plugin has hashtag support, ability to control the length of the tweets, use custom titles.

Twitter Tools WordPress plugin
Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. With Twitter Tools WordPress plugin you can archive your Twitter tweets, create a blog post from each of your tweets or daily/weekly digest post, create a tweet on Twitter whenever you post in your blog, with a link to the blog post.

WP-to-Twitter
The WP-to-Twitter plugin posts a Twitter status update from your WordPress blog using either the Cli.gs or Bit.ly URL shortener. For both services you can provide your account details to get statistics. The plugin can send a custom Tweet for your post which says whatever you want. Any status update you write which is longer than the available space will automatically be truncated by the plugin.

Twitter for WordPress
Twitter for WordPress displays yours latest tweets in your WordPress blog. Twitter for WordPress includes multiple widgets, can detect URLs, e-mail address and @username replies. To simplify user experience Twitter for WordPress has no options page and uses WordPress resources so no extra files are needed.

Twitter Avatar WordPress plugin
This WordPress plugin for Twitter allows an user to enter their Twitter username when posting a comment on your blog and a link to their Twitter page will appear next to their comment. This plugin will also replace the avatar on the comment with their picture on Twitter, both on the front-end and the Admin of the Blog.

Tweet This WordPress plugin
This WordPress plugin adds a “Tweet This Post” link to every post and page. You can choose to shorten URLs with bit.ly, tinyurl.com or custom service. Tweet This can automatically tweet new blog posts. Each shortened URL is cached to keep load times fast. The cached records are updated or deleted as needed when you edit a post’s permalink, delete a post, change your site’s permalink structure, or change URL services. Auto-tweeting works for scheduled posts and the tweet will be delayed till the post is published.

WP FollowMe
WP FollowMe is a WordPress plugin that allow you to add a twitter “Follow me” badge on your WordPress blog. You can change the color of the badge, change the follow me label, change the position of the badge (left side or right side and the distance from top). As you scroll down your blog page, the Twitter Follow Me badge will be continued to be displayed.

Tweet Blender
This WordPress plugin can show tweets from just one user or a list of users, it can also show tweets for a topic which you can define via Twitter hashtag or keyword. It can also show tweets for multiple authors, multiple lists, multiple keywords, multiple hashtags all blended together into a single stream.

Comment Tweets
Comment Tweets WordPress plugin will send a twitter notification from your Twitter account to the original comment author to notify him/her of the reply (@twittername) when a reply is made to a comment. This plugin allows the users to follow up on the comment.

WordTwit
WordTwit is a WordPress plugin for integrating your WordPress website with your Twitter account. Whenever you publish new content from WordPress Twitter will automatically be updated with a brief description of your new content along with a link back to it. WordTwit supports the popular UTM, which allows separate WordTwit traffic via Google analytics to see how Twitter affected a campaign.

Topaz ReMask Photoshop plugin review

2010-03-09T22:03:30Z

Topaz ReMask is an extraction tool on steroids which works easily and fast. Topaz ReMask can save you tons of time and efforts. With Topaz ReMask you can painlessly extract objects, change backgrounds, refine selections including complicated objects such as hair, fog, fur. You can use Topaz ReMask to create masks or just to separate object from background and seamlessly integrate with other images. While images with complex edges are traditionally hard for masking, ReMask helps a great deal in details extraction of the subject without requiring a lot of manual work.

All you need to do to start with Topaz ReMask is to define 3 areas in different colors (its called tri-map). A tri-map is made up of 3 colors: Red (cut), Green (keep) and blue. Wherever you paint red, ReMask looks at it and determines that those colors are meant to be removed. Wherever you paint blue, ReMask will take the color samples gathered in the red and green areas to figure out what the blue areas should be. The resulting mask can then be easily adjusted or refined using native Photoshop tools or inside ReMask itself.

So how Topaz ReMask works its magic? ReMask works by analyzing the information in the user-created tri-map and comparing it to the original image to accurately determine what to keep and what to remove in the image. Topaz ReMask saves result to a layer mask in Photoshop if you have one enabled on the layer, or just cuts image out of its background if you don’t. You have four views that show all aspects of your mask at all times to better control your final result.

Topaz Remask before and after

Topaz Remask before

Topaz Remask after

Topaz Remask before and after

Here’s typical workflow for Topaz ReMask (you can try it by downloading fully functional trial of Topaz ReMask):

1. Open your image in Photoshop
2. Duplicate the background layer
3. Add a layer mask to the duplicate layer
4. Click on the duplicate layer to make it active (instead of the layer mask)

5. Click Filter –> Topaz –> ReMask 2
6. Make your selection and refine it. Paint the KEEP (green), CUT (red), and PROCESS (blue) areas with a combination of fill tools and brush tools.
7. Click Compute button. The mask immediately updates right there in the user interface.
8. Refine the mask if you wish by specifying more parts of the image to keep or remove. You have Tri-map view as well as Mask, Cut and Keep view to help you with refinement.
7. Click OK to return to Photoshop
8. Drop your new background image below the duplicate layer
9. You can refine the layer mask using any Photoshop tools and filters such as Feather and Gaussian blur.

Some technical specification of Topaz ReMask: It supports smart filters and both 8-bit and 16-bit RGB color modes, MAC and Windows versions are available. Topaz ReMask also supports Windows 64 bit and is optimized for multiple CPUs.

Verdict: Topaz ReMask is highly efficient product which makes time consuming masking operations a breeze. It’s one of the best of Photoshop masking plugins (and in some aspects it IS the best). For its price (69,99$) Topaz ReMask is highly recommended for anyone who is dealing with masks for creative compositing, background replacement and stock photo preparation.

Coupon code
Use the coupon code “newadjust” for a 20% discount on either Topaz ReMask or the entire Topaz Photoshop Bundle. (Expires 3/15/10.)

Photoshop Free Alternatives

2010-03-04T20:23:11Z

Most of the Photoshop features used by 90% of people can be found in free Photoshop alternatives. Believe me or not most users do not need to pay the huge price of Photoshop for basic editing needs like editing web images to be posted on Facebook or Flickr. Photoshop as a product is intended to use by professionals who make living out of creating and editing images in graphic/web design as well as photography. That’s why it costs so much. Some of free Photoshop alternatives even have unique features which Photoshop doesn’t have. Besides software this review also include online tools which are getting more and more powerful these days and gives you unlimited mobility.

Sumo Paint
Sumo Paint is a powerful web-based graphics editor with a variety of different editing tools. Sumo Paint can be used as a paint program and photo editing program. Sumo supports advanced layers, brushes and quite impressive own effects. PSD file format is not supported.

Aviary Phoenix
Aviary Phoenix is free online graphic editor with an advanced interface and plenty of options like layers, blending, and magic wand selection. The Aviary Phoenix Firefox extension Talon adds in functionality of screen capture, quick editing of online images and support for pressure sensitive input devices. PSD files are supported as well as opening of Aviary Raven vector layers.

Pixlr
Pixlr Editor looks like a traditional photo-editing application, complete with a toolbar, menu bar, and even navigator, layers, and history panels. It also has presets for Curves and Levels. Pixlr features tools like the clone stamp, selection wand, and gradient map. The Pixlr Firefox extension allows you to grab images and screenshots from your browser and send them to Pixlr.

Artweaver
Artweaver lets you paint creatively with the help of a huge range of painting tools. You can create sketches from photos or just experiment with colors. Artweaver offers layers, group layers and support for the PSD file format. You can record the whole painting process, save it and replay it later with Artweaver.

Paint.NET
Paint.NET is the fastest (works smoothly on netbooks) free image and photo editing software for Windows computers. It features an intuitive tabbed interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. PSD files are supported by plugin.

Gimp
Gimp is the most powerful Photoshop alternative in this review (despite worst interface). Gimp includes all needed tools and features for professional image editing such as layers, filters, color correction, artistic effects. It also has a huge supportive community and numerous plugins for extended functionality.

PhotoFiltre
PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program with tools for advanced image adjustments and a vast range of filters. It features vector selections, masking, blending, automatization and plugins.

Pixia
Pixia is a Japanese Windows image editing software (available in English). It was originally designed for the anime/manga community but has also been used in other branches of art. Pixia supports multiple layers, transparency effects, file formats including .PSD. It also has a native support for Wacom tablets.

ChocoFlop
ChocoFlop is an application designed exclusively for Mac, the power of graphics card is used to edit pictures in a snap. It can show real-time previews of filters and keep modifications live. It also features optimization of images for Web, HDR support, layers, masks, filters chains, rich text layers, import of AI files.

Pixen
Pixen is an innovative graphics editor for the Mac designed from top to bottom for pixel artists. Pixen also uses a unique left/right tool system. This system enables the user to assign a different tool to the left and right mouse buttons. This can be used effectively when drawing and erasing. Pixen focuses on indexed colors and palette use. This makes it ideal for editing indexed formats, like .gif or png8.

CinePaint
CinePaint is an open source computer program available for Linux, Mac and BSD for painting and retouching bitmap frames of films. CinePaint was used for films such as Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Last Samurai and Stuart Little. CinePaint unique features include the frame manager, onion skinning, and the ability to work with 16-bit and floating point pixels for high dynamic range imaging (HDR).

PhotoScape
PhotoScape is an all-in-one style photo editor featuring viewer, editor, batch editor, animated GIF, screen capture, color picker, RAW converter, resizing, brightness/color/white-balance adjustment, backlight correction. It comes with prebuilt templates for users to create photo collages and Web comics.

Photo Pos Pro
Photo Pos Pro (commercial app in the past, now free) features multiple-image printing; tabbed workspace; special effects; layers, vectorial objects, masks, script and batch tools. Photo Pos Pro contains step-by-step tutorials and Hundreds of pre-made templates, vectorial objects, photo frames, patterns, textures, styles and shapes.

Photobie
Photobie is a free advanced image editing software that support layers and masks. Photobie includes many embedded filters and supports most Photoshop filter (.8bf) plug-ins. Photobie is featured with advanced screen capture tools; It can create/edit high quality gif animation.

Krita
Krita (Swedish for crayon) is the bitmap graphics editor software modeled on existing real-world painting materials and workflows. It’s included with the KDE based KOffice suite. Krita’s design emphasizes creating new digital paintings from scratch as opposed to manipulating existing photographs. It has been influenced to an extent by Corel Painter. It also supposed to be used for concept art, creation of comics and textures for rendering.

25 useful Google Analytics tips and tricks

2010-03-02T21:45:23Z

Google Analytics is very powerful free tool to track your site visitors and get enormous amount of useful data. To get the most out of Google Analytics use these how to, hacks and tricks. It will help you to improve Google Analytics tracking features and get custom reports and track everything that you want. You’ll find here how to improve Adsense and Adwords data tracking, how to track Twitter and Facebook campaigns, how to get SEO rankings and many other invaluable things to improve your Google Analytics experience.

How to Get Detailed PPC Keyword Data
How to track Twitter/Facebook campaigns with Google Analytics
How to use Google Analytics on intranet sites without domain name
How to create Conversion Goals
How to use Funnels
How to track goals with no associated URL
How to track Goals value for E-Commerce sites
How to track Google Adsense Clicks
How to make Google Analytics Show Real Time Data
How to track iPhones’ visitors
How to track custom visitor segments
How to use Google Analytics without JavaScript
How to track Google Image search with Google Analytics
How to track SEO rankings with Google Analytics
How to track initial referral on redirected pages
How to track outbound clicks with jQuery and Google Analytics
How to track Flash in Google Analytics
How to track site search without keyword in URL
How to use Asynchronous Tracking to improve site performance
How to stop Google Analytics from tracking your own visits
How to export Google Analytics reports with more than 500 records
How to track social networks traffic in Google Analytics
How to make visible Google Analytics Counter
How to track Universal Search traffic with Google Analytics
How to speed up Google Analytics

How to Get Detailed PPC Keyword Data

If a visitor searches for “macbook pro 17” and you have an ad configured for the keywords “macbook pro” as a Broad Match in Google AdWords, then this search will show your ad. But in your GA reports, the keywords for this search will be reported as “macbook pro“.

Using this hack you’ll get detailed report about actual term visitor used to get to your site not just what you have configured for the keywords as a Broad Match in Google AdWords. It will help you refine your keyword triggers.

You need to set up two filters with the following settings:

1. Name: Detailed PPC1
Type: Custom filter – Advanced
Field A -> Extract A: Referral > (\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)
Field B -> Extract B: Campaign Medium > cpc|ppc
Output To -> Constructor: Custom Field 1 > $A3

2. Name: Detailed PPC2
Type: Custom filter – Advanced
Field A -> Extract A: Custom Field 1 > (.*)
Field B -> Extract B: Campaign Term > (.*)
Output To -> Constructor: Campaign Term > $B1, ($A1)

Create a new profile to keep the detailed keyword data in a separate profile or apply these filters (Detailed PPC1, then Detailed PPC2) to your main profile. Detailed Search Term data will show up in Keywords section.

How to track Twitter/Facebook campaigns with Google Analytics

To track tweets with Google Analytics you’ll need to add campaign information to your URL before you shorten it with Bit.ly or other URL shortener.

This trick will track anyone visiting the site as a result of your tweet, regardless of where they clicked on the URL, i.e. you will still know that visitor come from your Twitter campaign even the link is forwarded and clicked in email client.

For example, I paste this link into Bit.ly
http://garmahis.com/tips/how-to-use-dropbox-as-free-web-hosting/?utm_campaign=blog&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=micro-blog
and now it looks like http://bit.ly/bE5EqD

Using this trick you’ll get detailed stat right in the Google Analytics reports. To make it easier, you can use Google Analytics URL Builder and read more about How do I tag my links?

How to use Google Analytics on intranet sites without domain name

It is possible to track Intranet sites with Google Analytics. Once Google Analytics detects the tracking code on a public site, it will record all visits/page views it receives. The trick is, the profile must be detected outside (perhaps on your public website) first, for at least one day. To use GA on your intranet without a domain name, the only trick is to use setDomainName(“none”) in tracking script.

For example:

<script type="text/javascript">
try {
  var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXX-1");
  pageTracker._setDomainName("none");
  pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}
</script>

How to create Conversion Goals

Goals are visitor actions on your website. For example, Sign up for newsletter or Made a purchase or Free trial download. So how Google Analytics tracks Goals? You need to define page URLs which mean certain Goals. For example, signup.html for Sign up for newsletter goal or freetrial.html for Free trial download. When visitor load GA script on these pages it show up in your Goals stat.

So to set up a Goal in Google Analytics you’ll need.
1. Click the “Edit” link on the Google Analytics Website Profiles page.
2. Click the “Edit” link in the “Settings” column for the first goal (i.e. G1).
3. Check Active Goal On., fill in Goal URL (which should be just page URL without domain name), Match Type: choose Exact match if you website don’t use any parameters in URL, choose Head Match if it uses dynamically generated content. Goal Name: Can be anything meaningful for you. You can read more about What is the difference between head, Exact, and Regular Expression Match? on Google Analytics help page.

How to use Funnels

A funnel is the series of pages that a visitor passes through to accomplish a goal. For example, adding to cart, checkout, shipping. The point of tracking funnels is to know how many people start the conversion process, but don’t finish it. You need to fill out Define Funnel page with Goal URLs in the exact order visitor follows them: addtocart.html, checkout.html, shipping.html After you defined Funnels you’ll get Abandoned Funnels report as well as Funnel Visualization in your Google Analytics dashboard.

How to track goals with no associated URL

As soon as goals are just pageviews set to be a goal inside GA, to track a goal without a specific pageviews you need to simulate pageviews using JavaScript. This hack can be useful to track software downloads or registration form submission without unique page.

After you set up your Goal, pick Exact Match, and any name as Goal URL, starting with the slash, (/) no spaces.
For example, /trialdownload

To finish with it you just need to add some JavaScript code to the link you want to track. It should contain the Goal URL name you previously used.

<a href="trial.zip" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/trialdownload')"> Download Trial</a>

How to track Goals value for E-Commerce sites

You can track income from Goals with Google Analytics. It’s mostly useful for those selling some products on their website. For example, you have a store selling 10$ eBooks. All you need to do is set 10$ as your Goal value. If the value of your Goals is unknown (you sell different number of products with variable pricing) then follow these steps.

1. Set up your website profile as E-Commerce website. Go to Profile Settings and check radio button ‘Yes, an E-Commerce site’.
2. Set Goal value as 0 (it will be dynamically created later).
3. You need to call some JavaScript to register the sale with GA. The parameters for these functions are outlined in the example below provided by Google. You need to populate in the values for each of those items when the page is rendered. In the event that you don’t have a value like, for shipping you can put 0, or leave it blank.

<script type="text/javascript">
 pageTracker._addTrans(
  "1234",                   // Order ID
  "Mountain View",              // Affiliation
  "11.99",                  // Total
  "1.29",                   // Tax
  "5",                    // Shipping
  "San Jose",                 // City
  "California",                // State
  "USA"                    // Country
 );

 pageTracker._addItem(
  "1234",                   // Order ID
  "DD44",                   // SKU
  "T-Shirt",                 // Product Name
  "Green Medium",               // Category
  "11.99",                  // Price
  "1"                     // Quantity
 );

 pageTracker._trackTrans();
</script

How to track Google Adsense Clicks

Google Analytics tracking your clicks can help you to optimize your site, not just for CTR, but for the type of visitors that click Adsense ads. This is the script to track your Adsense clicks.

The tracking is done through “Goals”. To set up Google AdSence tracking:
1. Create a goal, In the Goal URL field, enter “/asclick” and “AdClick” for the goal name.
2. Copy the script to your website server and add the following to the footer of your website after all Adsense code.
script

function as_click () {
	urchinTracker ('/asclick');
}

// incredibly funky onload add-event scripting, for all browsers

		 if(typeof window.addEventListener != 'undefined')
		 {
		 	//.. gecko, safari, konqueror and standard
		 	window.addEventListener('load', adsense_init, false);
		 }
		 else if(typeof document.addEventListener != 'undefined')
		 {
		 	//.. opera 7
		 	document.addEventListener('load', adsense_init, false);
		 }
		 else if(typeof window.attachEvent != 'undefined')
		 {
		 	//.. win/ie
		 	window.attachEvent('onload', adsense_init);
		 }

		 //** remove this condition to degrade older browsers
		 else
		 {
		 	//.. mac/ie5 and anything else that gets this far

		 	//if there's an existing onload function
		 	if(typeof window.onload == 'function')
		 	{
		 		//store it
		 		var existing = onload;

		 		//add new onload handler
		 		window.onload = function()
		 		{
		 			//call existing onload function
		 			existing();

		 			//call adsense_init onload function
		 			adsense_init();
		 		};
		 	}
		 	else
		 	{
		 		//setup onload function
		 		window.onload = adsense_init;
		 	}
		 }
function adsense_init () {

	if (document.all) {  //ie

		var el = document.getElementsByTagName("iframe");

		for(var i = 0; i < el.length; i++) {
			if(el[i].src.indexOf('googlesyndication.com') > -1) {

				el[i].onfocus =  as_click;
			}
		}

	} else {   // firefox

		window.addEventListener('beforeunload', doPageExit, false);
		window.addEventListener('mousemove', getMouse, true);

	}

}

//for firefox
var px;
var py;

function getMouse(e) {
	px=e.pageX;
	py=e.clientY;
}

function findY(obj) {
	var y = 0;
	while (obj) {
		y += obj.offsetTop;
		obj = obj.offsetParent;
	}
	return(y);
}

function findX(obj) {
	var x = 0;
	while (obj) {
		x += obj.offsetLeft;
		obj = obj.offsetParent;
	}
	return(x);
}

function doPageExit(e) {

	ad = document.getElementsByTagName("iframe");
	for (i=0; i<ad.length; i++) {
		var adLeft = findX(ad[i]);
		var adTop = findY(ad[i]);
		var inFrameX = (px > (adLeft - 10) && px < (parseInt(adLeft) + parseInt(ad[i].width) + 15));
		var inFrameY = (py > (adTop - 10) && py < (parseInt(adTop) + parseInt(ad[i].height) + 10));

		if (inFrameY && inFrameX) {

			urchinTracker('/asclick');

		}
	}

}

//end for firefox

code
<script src="/astrack.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

How to make Google Analytics Show Real Time Data

By default Google Analytics reports every 24 hours. To see real time reports (well, actually with 1-2 hours delay) find the date range feature on your GA page (below the right top “My analytics Accounts”) and set current date for reports.

How to track iPhones’ visitors

You can track iPhone visitors by adding a default Advanced Segment showing just visits from iPhones. To set up iPhone tracking, click on the drop down menu at the top right of any report next to the text “Advanced Segments”, and select “Visits from iPhones” in the list of default segments. Google Mobile blog has more on Iphone tracking.

How to track custom visitor segments

In addition to segmenting users along pre-defined segments such as geographic region and language preference, Google Analytics allows you to define custom segments and analyze the behavior of each segment. For example, you might want to segment visitors according to the members vs non-members on a site that has a member login, gender or income (based on the user providing you data). You could then analyze browsing and buying behavior based upon the selected job categories.

Most typically, custom segments are set by client-side or server-side logic that sets the variable depending on the page being visited, or as a result of a selection on the part of the visitor, such as logging in.
To create custom segments, insert the following code below the Google Analytics tracking code:

<script type=”text/javascript”>__utmSetVar(’NotLoggedIn’);</script>

on pages displayed for non logged in visitors and

<script type=”text/javascript”>__utmSetVar(’LoggedIn’);</script>

on pages for logged in visitors. Read more about Custom Visitor Segments.

How to use Google Analytics without JavaScript

It’s possible to use Google Analytics without JavaScript which makes possible to measure data like RSS, podcasts, image or pdf visits. You can also use it as a replacement for the regular Google Analytics scripts on your pages. There’s a few ways to do it.
Using no JavaScript tracker
This script uses php, and the server-side functions which might be different for html/asp/cfm sites.

<?php
$var_utmac = 'UA-xxxx-3';
$var_utmhn = 'YOUR-DOMAIN.com'; // domain
$var_utmn = rand(1000000000,9999999999); // random number
$var_cookie = rand(10000000,99999999); //random cookie number
$var_random = rand(1000000000,2147483647); //number under 2147483647
$var_today = time();
$var_referer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']; //referer url
if ($var_referer == '') { $var_referer = '-'; }
$var_uservar='-'; // no user-defined
$var_utmp='/nojs_tracker' . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']; // folder called no_jstracker to segment nojavascript visitors
$urchinUrl='http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmwv=3&utmn=' . $var_utmn . '&utme=&utmcs=-&utmsr=-&utmsc=-&utmul=-&utmje=0&utmfl=-&utmdt=-&utmhn=' . $var_utmhn . '&utmhid=' . $var_utmn . '&utmr=' . $var_referer . '&utmp=' . $var_utmp . '&utmac=' . $var_utmac . '&utmcc=__utma%3D' . $var_cookie . '.' . $var_random . '.' . $var_today . '.' . $var_today . '.' . $var_today . '.2%3B%2B__utmz%3D' . $var_cookie . '.' . $var_today . '.2.2.utmcsr%3D_SOURCE_%7Cutmccn%3D_CAMPAIGN_%7Cutmcmd%3D_MEDIUM_%7Cutmctr%3D_KEYWORD_%7Cutmcct%3D_CONTENT_%3B%2B__utmv%3D' . $var_cookie . '.' . $var_uservar . '%3B';
echo ' <img src="' . $urchinUrl . '" border="0" />';
?>

Using Galvanize PHP class

You need to use this code. The PHP class itself could be downloaded from Sourceforge Project Page

include('Galvanize.php');
$GA = new Galvanize('UA-XXXXX-XX');
$GA->trackPageView();

How to track Google Image search with Google Analytics

Google Image search gives you referral URL’s that aren’t really readable. Since Google Analytics can’t read that, it doesn’t get the keyword out of it. However, it’s possible to track Google Image search keywords with some JavaScript enhancements. Add this below your Google Analytics tracking code.

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("YOUR TRACKER ID");
var refferer = document.referrer;
if (refferer.search(/images.google/) != -1 && refferer.search(/prev/) != -1) {
var regex = new RegExp("images.google.([^\/]+).*&prev=([^&]+)");
var match = regex.exec(refferer);
pageTracker._setReferrerOverride("http://images.google." + match[1] + unescape(match[2]));
}
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

How to track SEO rankings with Google Analytics

Google Analytics shows by default which terms brought visitors to your site via the search engines. However, Google Analytics does not include where that keyword ranked as part of the display. However, it’s capable of tracking the exact clicked position.

To track Seo rankings, create a new profile and new filter:
Filter name: “Ranking”
Filter type: “Custom filter – Advanced”
Field A -> Extract A: Referral, ^https?://www\.google\.(com|ca)/(?!custom|m/).*[?#&]cd=([^&]+).*&q=([^&]+)
Field B -> Extract B: Medium:^organic$
Output To -> User Defined: $A4 (position: $A3)

How to track initial referral on redirected pages

The original referrer data is lost because of the JavaScript redirect used on landing pages or A/B testing in Website Optimizer. This means that the traffic source will be wrong. Google Analytics has a way to overwrite the referrer data.
Change original GA tracking code to this:

<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-11");
pageTracker._initData();
</script>

How to track outbound clicks with jQuery and Google Analytics

With Google Analytics it’s possible to manually track clicks by adding an onClick attribute in the anchor tag. jQuery will help to do it much easier.
Add this code below Google Analytics tracker insertion code:

$(document).ready(function(){
  var localserver = "www.yourdomainname.com";
  $("a").not(".kLink").not("a[href^='http://"+localserver+"']").click(function(){
    $(this).attr("target", "blank");
    var url = $(this).attr("href").replace(/^http\:\/\/(www\.)*/i, "");
    pageTracker._trackPageview('/external/'+url);
  });
});

How to track Flash in Google Analytics

The Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash component makes it easy to implement Google Analytics in Flash content. This component, developed by Adobe contains all of the functionality of the Google Analytics JavaScript code. The Flash Tracking component is a compiled tracking object native to ActionScript 3, making Analytics implementation intuitive in Flash, and Flex development environments.

How to track site search without keyword in URL

Google Site Search tracking requires that your site search keyword is contained in your URL. It’s possible to track site search with Google Analytics without keyword in URL.
1. Add the following line of code to your existing Google Analytics tracking code:

pageTracker._trackPageview('/search?q=[keyword]');

2. Now you need to replace [keyword] with the actual keyword being searched for. For PHP platform it will be something like this:

pageTracker._trackPageview('/search?q=<?php echo $keyword; ?>');

3. Put ‘q’ into the “Query Paramater” box in the Site Search section in your Google Analytics profile

How to use Asynchronous Tracking to improve site performance

Asynchronous Tracking is an alternative way to track website visitors with Google Analytics. Asynchronous tracking optimizes how browsers load ga.js so its impact on user experience is minimized. It also allows you to put your Analytics snippet higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering.

<script type="text/javascript">
  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(ga);
  })();
</script>

How to stop Google Analytics from tracking your own visits

It’s important to have Google Analytics exclude your own visits to your sites in order to get a true data of your sites visitors. To solve this issue you need to set a cookie on your browser and then use Analytics’ filter to ignore visits from all machines that has this cookie set.
1. Add this code to the site page which visitors to your site have not access and then just visit this page to set the cookie.

<body onLoad=”javascript:pageTracker._setVar('c1902489')”>

2. Create a new filter with the following settings:
Filter Type: Custom filter > Exclude
Filter Field: User Defined
Filter Pattern: c1902489 (your cookie name)
Case Sensitive: No

How to export Google Analytics reports with more than 500 records

The maximum number of records for export in Google Analytics is limited to 500. If you need to export more records, simple URL hack will help you.

Look for this string in the address bar of your browser & limit = 500 and change it to any number you need. Then choose Export data format from drop down menu.

How to track social networks traffic in Google Analytics

Social media marketing play such a role these days, that analyzing of its effectiveness is becoming very important. Google Analytics can analyze traffic mediums such as direct, organic. Using this hack you’ll be able to add social networks as a separate traffic medium.
1. Head to ‘Advanced Segments’ in your main Google Analytics profile
2. Create a new segment and drag the ’source’ box which under ‘Traffic sources’ to ‘dimension or metric’ window
3. Open the ‘Condition’ drop down and under ” paste the following sources:

digg|aim|friendfeed|econsultancy|blinklist|fark|furl|misterwongs|wikipedia|stumbleupon|netvibes|bloglines|linkedin|facebook|del\.icio\.us|feedburner|
twitter|technorati|faves\.com|newsgator|PRweb|msplinks|myspace|bit\.ly|tr\.im|cli\.gs|zi\.ma|poprl|tinyurl

How to make visible Google Analytics Counter

Google Analytics counter can be used in the same way as Feed Count to display the number of subscribers for a feed or TwitterCounter to display your Twitter followers. To create dynamic Google Analytics Counter that can display your website’s statistics like pageviews, visits, etc. you need PHP class named GAPI

You should fill in 3 variables to use GAPI:

Google Analytics user that has access to the website stats to be displayed. For security reasons you should add new user for this purpose and provide only read access to website’s data.
Google Analytics user password.
Profile ID of the website (it is ID that appears on browser’s address bar when a report of the website is clicked).

Insert these variables into this code:

<?php
define('ga_email','yourGoogleEmail');
define('ga_password','yourGooglePass');
define('ga_profile_id','yourProfileID');
require 'gapi.class.php';
$ga = new gapi(ga_email,ga_password);
$ga->requestReportData(ga_profile_id,array('browser','browserVersion'),array('pageviews'));
?>

Here’s also HTML and CSS to set up Google Analytics counter.

<div id="statsWrap">
	<div id="statsDetailsWrap">
		<div id="statsCount">
			<span id="statsPageviews"><?php echo $ga->getPageviews() ?></span>
			<span id="statsVisits"><?php echo $ga->getVisits() ?></span>
		</div>
		<div id="statsMetric">
			<span id="statsPageviewsText">pageviews</span>
			<span id="statsVisitsText">visits</span>
		</div>
	</div>
	<div id="byGoogle">By Google Analytics</div>
</div>

#statsWrap {
	font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
	font-size: 10px;
}
#statsDetailsWrap {
	background: #333333;
	float: left;
	padding: 1px 3px 1px 1px;
	border: #666666 1px inset;
}
#statsCount {
	float: left;
	padding: 1px 3px;
	background: #999999;
	color: #FFFFFF;
	border: #666666 1px inset;
	width: 40px;
	height: 12px;
}
#statsMetric {
	float: left;
	padding: 3px;
	color: #FFFFFF;
	width: 50px;
	height: 12px;
}
#byGoogle {
	clear: both;
	color: #666666;
	font-size: 10px;
}

How to track Universal Search traffic with Google Analytics

This hack will help you to know how many people were actually clicking the blended results you see in Universal Search. This can be useful to be know which link was clicked If the search results for a specific key phrase show both images and ‘regular’ text links.

Set up two filters in a new Google Analytics profile:
1.
Create filter for organic traffic
New filter ->
Filter name `Organic`
Filter Type -> Custom Filter
Checked : include
Filter Field: Campaign Medium
Filter Pattern `organic`

2.
Create filter for All Universal Search traffic
New Filter: ‘Universal Search Items
Filter Type: Custom Filter
Checked: Advanced
Field A -> Extract A -> Referral -> (.*)oi=([a-zA-Z_]+)&(.*)
Field B -> Extract B -> Referral -> (\?|&)q=([^&]*)
Output To -> Constructor -> User Defined -> $B2 : $A2

How to speed up Google Analytics

Instead of calling the external http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js file in your site’s html, you can save the ga.js code and serve it from on your own server. This reduces DNS lookups, gives you control over caching, and if you combine the ga.js with a JavaScript file already on your site you reduce HTTP Requests.

5 Usability Question to Ask Yourself before Writing on the Web

2010-02-22T21:58:09Z

This is a guest post by Darko Johnson. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.

Did you know that you can improve your visitor’s satisfaction and time they spend on your website by changing the way you write your information? The text below will tell you just that, outlining some of the most important usability discoveries in the last decade in the field of web writing. Ask yourself these 5 questions:

1. Is my text easy to scan?

Users don’t read a lot on the web. There’s been some eye tracking studies to confirm this. As you can see, web users scan more than they read line by line. If you want your visitors to understand and get the point of what you’re saying then, please, make sure your text is easy to scan.

How do I make my text easy to scan?

H1 and H2 headings. Make them a bigger font size than the ordinary body text. Most people use H1 and H2 headings as subheadings and some use them as list items when compiling a list (like this one.)
Use bullet points when writing. As you can see, I’m using bullet points now!
Keep every paragraph short. Some people suggest you include only one idea in a paragraph. I suggest you focus also on quantity. No more than 4 rows per paragraph.

2. Where will I put the most important information?

Users view web pages in a F-Shaped pattern. So the logical conclusion is to put your most important text somewhere in that F-shaped area where users’ eyes fixate.

How do I do this?

Put the most important information at the beginning in case you write news. In case you write other types of articles, inform the readers what they’re going to get and why should they care. It goes with one old saying by copywriters: “The purpose of the title is to make the reader read the first paragraph. The purpose of the first paragraph is to make the reader read the second one.”

Well, they were right about the first one. With the usability research, however, the second one should be: The purpose of the first paragraph is to make the reader SCAN the rest of the page.

Put informational words first. One recent example I had: In writing this post on improving English, I could have put “English tools” at the beginning of the URL and also put “5 Language Web Tools” in order to get the visitor’s attention and make him realize the post has to do something on learning languages (which is what he’s probably looking for.)

3. Should I focus on quality or quantity?

Okay, you know what I’m going to say. But what is quality on the web, anyway?
According to many things I’ve read in the usability field, I can define quality as (yeah, this is ‘How do I do this’ part):

Cut the fluff, focus on facts. Cut the blah-blah text at the beginning (in case you’re worried about putting your target keyword in the introduction, you can do it without the blah, blah text)
Add multimedia. USEFUL multimedia (pictures, images, etc.) to help people better understand your point. Here’s an excerpt from a research I found:

“Research by Child Development Theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words.”

That means that by not adding images and useful visual elements, you’re not fully utilizing and engaging 75% of the population.

I repeat, do not use useless decorating images like most blog posts do. You may want to use it at the introduction as a thumbnail maybe, but that should be it.

4. Do I realize how users look for information online?

Well, you probably don’t, but don’t worry, in the next few paragraphs I’ll explain.

Most of your readers will come from the search engines. They hunt for information and then gather that information in order to complete a specific task (you can read more on this theory if you get the book Killer Web Content from Gerry McGovern).

Often web readers come to your page not really worrying on reading your entire article but a specific part of it that answers their question.

One idea to use this information and make your readers browse more deeply is to add related information as more as possible in your content (don’t overdo it, though.)

One blog does this very well, Techcrunch, especially in a post like this one where in their content they link to other very related resources. You can do this with any type of website. Just don’t like to the same article from a same page more than once and try to link to other pages from above the fold (above the fold = the visible location of the text where users don’t have to scroll).

5. Do I need to cut more text?

Users hate distraction. As we’ve seen, blah-blah text is a distraction your visitors have in order to get the information they need. Same thing with Welcome text. 99% of blogs make this mistake.

For example, let’s say that you, as a web writer, wrote a list on social networks. What would you write at the beginning? Most people will write text outlining how social networks are important and changed our lives and maybe then in the second paragraph touch a bit on giving a brief description on the list and why you should care on reading it. This gives the overall article a major disadvantage.

But you know better now. You’re now equipped with some of the most powerful and current usability principles. I hope you’ll use them to your own advantage.

Darko Johnson is currently writing on Mix The Net, a blog on various online tips for web users.

How to use Dropbox as basic free web hosting

2010-02-09T19:10:37Z

Dropbox can be used as basic free web hosting in addition to all other features it has. Considering Dropbox syncing option this free web hosting feature could be used for easy collaboration on wedesign mockups projects. You can also show webdesign work to your clients or put a temporary web page online quickly such as resume without any effort. So what you have to do to use Dropbox as web hosting? (If you need more serious commercial hosting check out this review of best cheap and reliable hosting.)

1. Create a new folder in Public folder of your Dropbox account (such as ‘website’)

2. Put content of your website into this folder. You can use CSS, HTML and Javascript as well as images (only static content, PHP and other scripts are not supported).

3. Click index.html and in address bar of your browser you’ll get your website url
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4585886/website/index.html)

4. You can use url shortener to make the url more attractive.
http://bit.ly/dropboxhosting

How to Remove Color Cast from Photos Photoshop tutorial

2010-02-05T23:13:38Z

Color cast on photos could be very hard to remove. After trying a lot of methods available to fix color cast I stopped at 3 mentioned below: using Match color command, Average blur filter and color cast fix using neutral gray with some tweaks. Instead of just one neutral gray sampler point why not to use all 4 available? This way we can add to the precise neutral gray method some educated guess plus aesthetic sense and choose the best looking result. All of these color cast removal methods work as efficient as possible and give you quick and great looking result. So let’s start with color cast fix Photoshop tutorial.

1. Remove Color Cast with Match color Photoshop command.
Apply Image->Adjustments->Match color
Select Neutralize checkbox.

You can play with Fade slider for better results. It’s amazing isn’t it? Sometimes it’s enough to remove color cast from your photos.

2. Remove Color Cast with Average Blur filter
Duplicate Background Layer and apply Average blur filter to it. (Filter->Blur->Average). It should isolate color cast as a single color.

2. Now add Layers adjustment layer and choose layer below for the middle sampler tool. It should turn gray now.
3. Delete middle gray layer and you’re done.

3. Fix color cast with Levels and finding neutral gray
1. After opening your photo in Photoshop, add Layers adjustment layer. Change layer mode to Color (this is to make sure you only remove color cast and not affect anything else).
2. Then add new Layer and fill it with Neutral Gray (Edit->Fill->50%Gray), choose Difference for blending mode.

3. Now add Threshold adjustment layer and drag the slider all the way left, then start slowly drag it backwards until some black areas appear. That’s exactly where we should look for neutral gray.
4. Using Color Sampler tool (nested in the Eye dropper menu) add 4 points as a reminders.
5. Now turn off visibility of Neutral Gray and Threshold Layer (click eye icons).

6. In the Layers adjustment layer select the middle eyedropper as the sampler and click on one of the spots marked in previous step. Try different spots and choose what best works for you. That’s it.

The only better way to fix the photo and remove color cast is to use a color check card as a reference point which is hardly ever used by non professionals.

Why Disqus sucks

2010-02-04T14:57:16Z

Disqus is one of the most wide spread comment system for WordPress as well as other blog platform used by many popular blog and yet is sucks. Why? The short answer is ignoring what user/customer wants is the best way to failure. I started to think about implementing Disqus for comments on this blog after reading positive reviews and seeing it implemented on Mashable and other blogs. Then I tried it myself. And I was very disappointed.

Let’s start form registering account at Disqus. Instead of providing you advantages Disqus makes your online comment experience worse. Now instead of linking your comments to your blog url or Twitter or Facebook it’s linked to your Disqus profile. And there’s no way to change that.

Moreover, there’re question about Disqus integrity. I tried to delete my Disqus profile 10 times and every times Disqus system confirmed that my profile will be deleted within 48 hours. But it never happened. Ridiculous.

So what’s going to happen with the comments in the Disqus discussion system if I sometime in the future want to switch to another comment system? Will they be locked at Disqus the same way as my account? Looks like too risky to try.

But the root problem which provide base for existence of such services as Disqus is the lack of free reliable and flexible OpenID solution for commenting on WordPress and other blog platforms. What is the most used feature of Disqus? Sign up to comment using popular social network profiles such as Twitter and Facebook. Is it too difficult to implement? I don’t think so.

Top 10 Wordpress Books

2010-01-31T23:06:13Z

WordPress books in this review cover WordPress as a flexible blogging platform and CMS from the basics through advanced application development. These books will help you to use custom WordPress plugins and themes, retrieve data, maintain security, use social media, and modify your blog without changing any core code. Top WordPress books would be helpful whether you’re a casual blogger or programming pro. You’ll even get to know the ecosystem of products that surrounds WordPress. What’s your favorite book on WordPress? Please speak up it in the comments.

WordPress Complete

This clear and rich with examples book is a perfect guide to WordPress for both beginners and those who are slightly more advanced. It will help you to create your own complete blog or web site from scratch with WordPress. It contains everything you need to set up your own feature-rich WordPress blog or web site, practical explanations of all aspects of WordPress, in-depth coverage of installation, themes, syndication, and podcasting. More advanced users will also pick up tips on creating your own themes and plug-ins, and such technical steps as backing up your WordPress web site and moving it from one server to another.

You will be introduced to the main aspects of a blog – users, communities, posts, comments, news feeds – and learn how to manage them using WordPress. You will learn to install WordPress and customize the look-and-feel of your web site. You will develop the skills and confidence to manage all types of content, be it text or images, on your blog, and also understand how users interact with the blog. By working through the book you’ll be inspired as well as informed, and have the capability and the ideas to make your blog cutting edge and exciting to maximize its impact.

Quick Snap Guide to Photoblogging with Word Press

Photoblogs have become a very important tool for advanced photographers and professionals who want to market their work, as well as a popular forum for casual photographers to share personal photos. “David Busch’s Quick Snap Guide to Photoblogging with WordPress: An Instant Start-Up Manual for Creating and Promoting Your Own Photoblog” is a complete start to-finish guide on how to create a photoblog using WordPress.

This book covers all the basics of a free photoblog website, explaining its options, purposes, how to use tools, and using photos in two- and four-page spreads with step-by-step explanations showing results after using each feature. The result is a ‘must’ for any new to WordPress who want to take quick and easy advantage of its many advanced features. Perfect for professional photographers, avid amateur shutterbugs, and even non-photography bloggers who want to include photos on their blog sites.

WordPress Theme Design

This book for WordPress users or designers will take you through the ins and outs of creating sophisticated professional themes for the WordPress. It will walk you through step-by-step instructions to build a custom WordPress theme. From development tools and setting up your WordPress sandbox, through design tips and suggestions, to setting up your theme’s template structure, coding markup, testing and debugging, to taking it live. The last three chapters are dedicated to additional tips, tricks and various cookbook recipes for adding popular site enhancements to your WordPress theme designs using third-party plugins.

This is a rock solid book with great, practical advice on how to create a WordPress theme. The style is very relaxed and conversational yet to the point. The pictures and examples are great, all the code can be downloaded from the book’s web site. You’ll learn a lot not just about designing a theme for WordPress, but also some great tips on working with XHTML, CSS and how to troubleshoot both as well as JavaScript. You’ll also learn how to enhance your sites by choosing the right color schemes and graphics, set up dynamic drop-down menus, AJAX/dynamic and interactive forms, improve post and page content using jQuery and ThickBox, add interactivity to your themes using Flash.

WordPress For Dummies

This book does a great job of really giving you the ins and outs of Wordpress. The author tries to cover the most important features of Wordpress without trying to overwhelm the readers and does a very good job of it. If you are already proficient with CSS/XHTML and want to take your blog/sites to the next level, this book is for you. This book will help you to explore theme development and learn where to find free WordPress themes, extend WordPress through plug-ins, CSS, custom fields.

You’ll find out about archiving, interacting with readers through comments, tracking back, and handling spam. You’ll get the scoop on blog theme and presentation by using template tags, set up a MySQL database, explores RSS feeds, and organize a blogroll. It covers Migrating to WP, 10 Great Free Themes, Ten Great Plugins, Using WP as a Content Management System, Understanding Templates and Plug-ins. If you don’t know anything about PHP you’ll painlessly learn the bits that you do need to know for modifying templates.

WordPress Cookbook

WordPress Cookbook contains100 simple but incredibly useful recipes to take control of your WordPress blog layout, themes, widgets, plug-ins, security, and SEO. WIth this book you can take your WordPress blog to the next level with solutions to common WordPress problems that make your blog better, smarter, faster, and more secure, enhance your SEO and make more money online by applying simple hacks.

You will learn from this book how to use filters to add more features to WordPress without editing any core files, easily transform a personal blog to a complete, multi-author online magazine, turn any free WordPress theme into a powerful and polished premium theme by changing colors and fonts, inserting your custom logo, transform a classic theme into a captivating Photoblog, learn how plug-ins and widgets work, and how you can create your own, integrate popular services into your blog including Twitter, FeedBurner, Digg, del.icio.us.

How to Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer

In How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer book you will learn step by step how to take a straight HTML site and power it with WordPress. During the course of the book you’ll build 3 WordPress themes, a blog, a portfolio site and a general site with menus and submenus. Each theme demonstrates different aspects of WordPress theming and all three are packaged in with the book so you’ll have Photoshop, HTML, CSS and WordPress PHP files to refer to.

The book is aimed at anyone with a solid understanding of HTML/CSS. You don’t need to know PHP, you don’t need to have ever even touched WordPress before. The examples begin from scratch and build on each other, while basic PHP principles that are used are explained in an easy to understand manner.If you’ve ever wanted to get started with WordPress theming, or you’re looking to take your skills to the next level with advanced theming concepts, this is the book for you!

WordPress for Business Bloggers

This book will give you a competitive advantage by helping you to create an engaging, effective, and well polished business blog.This book will take you beyond the basics of WordPress, helping you take full advantage of its rich and powerful features to transform your basic blog into a more advanced and professional blog as quickly and painlessly as possible. You will learn everything you need to know to extend and grow your business blog.

You will learn to develop a `blogging business plan’, build a custom theme, engage with the blogosphere, optimize your site for search: incorporate good SEO practices into your blog posting and planning, manage adverts and implement revenue-generating features, incorporate multimedia on your blog, including video and image galleries. It provides clear instructions and detailed screenshots, so you can see exactly what to do at each step of the build.

WordPress Plugin Development

This book will show you how to build powerful, interactive plug-ins for your blog including everything you need to create and distribute your own plug-ins following WordPress coding standards, walk through the development of six complete, feature-rich, real-world plug-ins that are being used by thousands of WP users including Digg This (social bookmarking plugin), Live Blogroll, The Wall, and Post Types.

Each chapter of the book describes in step by step details how to create the plugin and gives numerous code examples along the way. It also explains unfamiliar concepts in a way that makes them easy to quickly understand. There are also brief explanations of how JQuery and Ajax work. The book’s final chapter gives tips on documenting and promoting your plugin, as well as ways to improve your overall WordPress knowledge.The book is written by by Vladimir Prelovac, WordPress expert and developer of WordPress plug-ins such as Smart YouTube and Plugin Central.

Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read

Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read is the perfect jumping off point for people who want to start blogging (or site-building) with one of the world’s most popular platforms, especially if they have no idea where, or how, to start. To create a blog people want to read – takes thought, planning, and some effort. From picking a theme and using tags to choosing widgets and building a community, creating your blog really starts after you set it up.

In this book you learn how to install and get your WordPress blog running, set up your site to ensure it can easily grow with you and your readers, be the master of user accounts, manage your site with the WordPress Dashboard and extend its capabilities with plug-ins, make the most of images, work with pages, templates, and links, maintain your site and fix common problems.

WordPress 24-Hour Trainer (Book & DVD)

WordPress 24-Hour Trainer is a unique lesson-based book that walks you through the essential parts of WordPress. Each lesson is streamlined to teach a specific aspect of WordPress, helping you to focus on just what you need in order to get the task accomplished. If you learn better visually, this book provides you with a video to accompany each lesson.

This book walks you through installing the software, provides an overview of the administration interface, and covers the basic settings you’ll need to get started, examines the ins and outs of uploading images, video, documents, etc., and using them on your site, demonstrates how to customize the look of your site using CSS, reviews helpful techniques for optimizing your site and making it search-engine friendly, explains how to track your site’s statistics, keep your plugins and themes up to date, and practice smart backup habits.

WordPress Bible

Whether you’re a casual blogger or programming pro, this comprehensive guide covers WordPress from the basics through advanced application development. Learn how to use custom plugins and themes, retrieve data, maintain security, use social media, and modify your blog without changing any core code. One of the authors of this book is Mark Jaquith, WordPress core developer.

With WordPress Bible you learn how to enhance your blog’s findability in the search engines and beyond, discover hooks and leverage the WordPress event-driven programming interface, create WordPress widgets in only a few minutes, ensure your plugins maintain future compatibility, create highly customizable and dynamic themes using template tags.

15 Free Stunning CGI Animations

2010-01-22T20:21:28Z

Amazing animated CGI movies are here for your inspiration. Most of these animations are made by amateurs as free projects though some managed to get commercial contracts just based on these films. Some of these animations got prestigious award and were featured on numerous festivals. All of them were made using CGI and 3D software such as Maya, 3DS Max, After Effects. Do you have a favorite short animation not included in this list? Please add it in the comments.

The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello
It’s a an award-winning stunning, short animated film made in a unique style of silhouette animation inspired by the work of authors Edgar Alan Poe and Jules Verne.

Pigeon: Impossible
A rookie secret agent is faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase.

Presto
Presto is a 2008 Pixar computer-animated short film shown in theaters before their feature length film WALL-E. The short is about a magician trying to perform a show with his uncooperative rabbit and is a gag-filled homage to classic cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes.

Fallen Art
Fallen Art presents the story of General A, a self-proclaimed artist. His art, however, consists of a deranged method of stop motion photography, where the individual frames of the movie are created by photographs.

The Third & The Seventh
This short animation is based on the discussion about the order in the seven primary art forms (architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, music, poetry, and cinema), whether architecture should be the third or the seventh.

Ataque de Pánico! (Panic Attack!)
Giant robots accompanied by a squadron of spacecraft appear out of the mist and attack Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay leading to mass panic. The film director was offered a $30 million Hollywood deal after success of this short film with $300 budget.

Eole Le Film
It’s a short 3D movie directed by 3 students featuring the story about the unexpected meeting between a yellow shirt sailor (responsible for aircraft movement) and a kite on an aircraft carrier.

The Passenger
Storm clouds gather as a timid bookworm braves his daily walk to the bus stop. When he discovers what awaits him on board, he realizes he’d have been better off outside in the storm. This award winning short animation was made by single person.

Replay
In a destroyed world, the only glimpse of hope is the memory of a forgotten past. But be careful not to let your dreams control your mind…This is Replay.

Les Dangereux
A vacationing ninja finds true love, but it’s much more than he expected. This nice animation short took about nine months for completion, and was done with Maya 2009, MentalRay, and AfterEffects.

Bave Circus
On a rainy afternoon, a child plays with his snails and falls along with them in a dreamy circus.

Alma
A cute little girl walks the streets of a quiet french town and finds a strange store full of beautiful dolls, and enters the open door. She struggles to reach the one doll she loves, and finds herself getting more than she bargained for.

A Record Of Life
A short animation loosely based on the scientific recording of life’s great species. And how this has given us clues that piece together, for us to discover the secrets of the evolution and diversity of life on Earth.

The ARK Film
An unknow virus has destroyed almost the entire human population. The only remaining survivors escape to the sea. In great ships, they set of in search of uninhabited land. So begin the exodus, let by one man..

Doll Face
A machine with a doll face mimics images on television screen in search of a satisfactory visage. Doll Face presents a visual account of desires misplaced and identities fractured by our technological extension into the future.

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugins

2010-01-19T17:54:25Z

WordPress shopping cart plugins included in this review will help you to easily sell products on your blog using different payment getways, get donations and send invoices to clients. It features both free and commercial shopping cart plugins to help you use WordPress as full featured E-Commerce solution. Since online ecommerce is growing each year , every seller requires some kind of online shopping cart to manage the transactions. Don’t forget to check out Top 10 mobile WordPress plugins and Top 60 incredibly useful WordPress plugins to power up your blog.

The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin
The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for WordPress is a free fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products or services online. The WP e-Commerce shopping cart offers a wide range of settings for your products, including extra custom fields, product variations, promotions, coupon codes and downloadable products. Among its features PayPal and Google Checkout getways, and SSL protected transactions. If you’d like some advanced features you need to purchase an upgrade module, starting from $25.

YAK (Yet Another Kart)
YAK (Yet Another Kart) is an open source shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It associates products with weblog entries, so the post ID also becomes the product code. It supports both pages and posts as products, handles different types of product through categories, and provides customizable purchase options (cheque or deposit, basic credit card form, basic Google Checkout integration, standard PayPal integration, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net).YAK also supports downloadable products, multiple product types, order administration, promotions, SSL and Sales Reports.

FatFreeCart Plugin
FatFreeCart Plugin allows you to add “Add to Cart” and “View Cart” buttons on your blog posts so that you can sell your products straight through your blog post. FatFreeCart plugin features include flawless integration with Paypal and Google Checkout, product variations, Shipping handling, and Sales Tax.

WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart
The WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart is a very easy to use plugin that allows you to sell products or services online in one click from your WordPress blog. WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart allows you to add an ‘Add to Cart’ button on any posts or pages. It also allows you to add/display the shopping cart on any post or page or sidebar easily. The shopping cart shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items. It can be easily integrated with the NextGen Photo Gallery plugin too.

ShopperPress professional online shopping cart
ShopperPress is a fully featured shopping cart plugin for WordPress, suitable for selling any types of products, services, and digital downloads online. ShopperPress utilizes WordPress pages, or posts, to create products. It supports custom Advertising Spaces (Google Adsense and normal banners), multiple options (weight / sizes / brands etc), and various ways for listing products. Free version can downloaded from WordPress plugin website, paid version starts from $69

eShop shopping cart plugin
eShop is a free accessible shopping cart plugin for WordPress, packed with various features. Including: various methods available for listing products, products can have multiple options, downloadable products, basic statistics, sales data, shipping options, automatic emails on successful purchase, user configurable email templates, merchant gateways:Authorize.net, Paypal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque.

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin
The WordPress Shopping Cart plugin ($49.99) gives you the ability to quickly and seamlessly integrate an online shop with a fully functional shopping cart interface into any Wordpress website. It features easy to use interface, digital downloads of products, multiple payment methods, including PayPal (Standard), 2CheckOut, MoneyBookers, First Data (Linkpoint & YourPay), Realex Payments (redirect), eMatters (HTTPS), credit card (POS), bank wire and manual/custom payments.

LockPress
Free WordPress plugin to charge your visitors for accessing blog posts and pages. With LockPress you can sell articles, eBooks, and software and even run a membership site. You will get the payments directly to your PayPal account and you can set the flat or recurring fee items.

ArtPal Shopping Cart Plugin
ArtPal is a free Wordpress plugin to seamlessly integrate PayPal with Wordpress blogs. ArtPal’s features easy PayPal integration, real-time sales updates. If you need commercial support, it’s also available. ArtPal is fast, easy to set up and use, and won’t bog down your server.

QuickShop Shopping Cart Plugin
QuickShop adds a Sidebar widget that shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items. It also has a TinyMCE button to easily allow you to add products to your posts/pages. You can style widgets look by changing CSS.

MiniCart
MiniCart will implement a mini-shopping-cart in your blog. You can add items from the admin side and embed the cart into posts. This can also be used as a donation plugin. MiniCart supports Paypal, has option to embed it directly into a post and one item/cart restriction.

Shopp Plugin
The Shopp Plugin ($55) is a commercial Ecommerce Plugin for Wordpress with a rich feature set. The key features include drag & drop for multiple product images, support for physical & digital products, order history, email notifications, fast product search, shipping rate calculations, discounts and promo codes.

Are PayPal
Are PayPal is a WordPress plugin to monetize your WordPress blog’s content using PayPal. With Are PayPal you can set post/page to contain hidden content, instead of the hidden text user is shown a message about the action he has to take to be able to see the content, content can be set as hidden for unregistered users and visible for registered.

Ecwid Shopping Cart
Ecwid is free full-fledged shopping cart that can be easily add to any blog. It’s not a hosted solution like all other plugins in this list but SaaS. Ecwid Shopping Cart takes minutes to add to your site, supports drag-and-drop and AJAX. It features customizable e-mail notifications, order history, tracking payment and shipping status, support for PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize.NET and 2CheckOut. It also features seamless updates and requires little to no technical support.

The FireStorm Ecommerce Shopping Cart Plugin
The FireStorm Ecommerce Shopping Cart Plugin is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to turn your WordPress website into a fully functional online store. The plugin is ideal for any corporate, small business or home based store. The administration is easy to use and loaded with features. It operates stand-alone which means it does not require blog posts for each product. This allows you to keep your blog separate from the store.

WP Auctions
WP Auctions ($39.99) is a plugin for WordPress which allows you to host auctions on your blog.Plugin features include option to show your auctions in an elegant jQuery powered popup, or place auctions in a post or page, auctions for registered users only, adding a Shipping Price, Shipping To and Shipping From location, create, manage and edit as many auctions as you like, uploading of multiple images for each auction, selling items on “Buy It Now” basis.

PayPal Shortcodes plugin
This plugin allows inserting Paypal buttons in your posts or pages, just using a shortcodes. You’ll need to edit paypal-shortcodes.php to customize it. PayPal Shortcodes plugin currently supports Add to cart and View cart options.

PayPal Donations
This WordPress plugin adds a PayPal donation shortcode and sidebar Widget to WordPress. The options menu lets you setup you PayPal ID and a few other optional settings. You can choose which donation button you want to use or if you want to use your own button. You can also set an optional default purpose and reference which can be overridden on each inserted instance with the shortcode options or in the Widget settings. There is also options available for currency, localization of the button, custom payment page style and the return page.

WP-Invoice
WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients. The plugin ties into WP’s user management database to keep track of your clients and their information. Once an invoice is created from the WP admin section, an email with a brief description and a unique link is sent to client. Clients follow the link to your blog’s special invoice page, view their invoice, and pay their bill using PayPal. Credit card payments may be accepted via Authorize.net, MerchantPlus’ NaviGate, or PayPal account.

Realistic HDR photography Photoshop tutorial

2010-01-09T18:22:15Z

In this HDR Photoshop tutorial you’ll learn how to make realistic looking HDR photo. Instead of Merge to HDR command used in many other Photoshop tutorials this one is about exposure blending through layers and masks. The aim was to avoid manual work and make the process of creating realistic HDR photography as painless as possible. Though you still have some settings to tweak and get desired look. To follow this tutorial you can download HDR samples with different exposures.

1. Open three properly exposed for HDR photos on different layers. First goes photo with normal exposure (0EV), than Underexposed (-2EV) and last Overexposed (+2EV).

2. Select Underexposed Layer and apply Select->Color range->Shadows, check Invert box.

3. Apply Select->Modify->Feather, Feather Radius 150-250px (vary for different photos and also depends on image size). Decrease the Layer Opacity to 60-70%

4. Now select Overexposed layer and repeat steps 2 and 3 with one important exception: uncheck Invert box.

5. Finally the photo needs a little boost in brightness and contrast (Levels) and Saturation.

Realistic HDR Photo

Photomatix version

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-01-09T14:14:05Z

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, precious subscribers, readers and visitors of Design Live!

Your comments and feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for being with us!

Christmas is… about church bells, Christmas trees, carols, twinkling lights and joy filled days, too.

Christmas is… about hoping and wishing for life’s very best for you. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Here’s a small gift for you. Have fun with my Christmas video mix ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ containing quotes from movies Jingle all the Way, Die Hard, Home Alone, Love Actually and nice Christmas song.

10 Annotation Tools to get Feedback for Web Design Projects

2009-12-15T22:46:48Z

Online annotation tools for collaboration and getting feedback for web design and development projects are reviewed in this post. They are very useful for commenting, review and debugging with client and as well as with the team members. There’s always a feedback stage in the web design process which requires intensive interaction. What in particular should be changed, improved or fixed? Using online annotation tools you can dramatically reduce time spent on reporting bugs, change requests and improvements. Have you tried any of these tools on real project? Do you have a favorite not mentioned here? Please add your opinion in the comments.

Diigo is online annotation and bookmarking tool. You can highlight and leave annotation as a sticky note for any element on the website. Comments can be collapsed to the icons to avoid the mess. Tags can be used to better organize the process. Privacy control options are private, public, or shared with a group. Diigo allows to annotate password protected websites, has extension and bookmarklets for all browsers as well as powerful notification system.

ShiftSpace is an open-source annotation tool made as Firefox plugin that allows altering web pages with different tools. ShiftSpace allows users to leave notes, highlight text, change images, and edit the page source. For web surfers with the plugin, modified pages are marked with a small ShiftSpace icon (§) in the bottom left side of the screen. Modified pages are called “shifts”, and if made public, are shared on the ShiftSpace website. Users can subscribe to the shifts of users they like via RSS.

Awesome Highlighter is the very simple and easy to use annotation and commenting tool. It lets you highlight text on web pages and then gives you a small link to the highlighted page for sharing. You can choose color for your notes.

Notable lets you quickly and easily annotate and give feedback on design, content, and code on any page. It allows you to capture visual, code and copy notes for future commenting in number of ways. You can capture logged in views and code via a Firefox tool button, upload a JPG image or design mock-up from your desktop, type in a URL to fetch a screen grab, capture on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Notable also includes features to capture web page flows, track design changes as well as flexible permission and notification system.

SharedCopy is an AJAX based web annotation tool that allows users to mark-up, highlight, draw, annotate, cache, sticky-note and share any website. SharedCopy annotations are public by default by could be kept secret. There are RSS notifications for new comments. No signup, download or installation is required. SharedCopy works with Twitter, Basecamp out of the box and it has APIs to integrate it with your own online services.

The Commentor enables flexible annotation and easier assessment of graphic material. It helps in gathering all the comments of the project team members in one place. The drafts made by designer can be assessed by the manager, the art-director and the client. Comments are automatically attached to the corresponding areas of the mock up. All the different versions of the mock ups under discussion are kept in record.

WebNotes allows you to annotate websites with a virtual highlighter and sticky note tool and share them via Twitter, email or special link. Annotations could be organized into nested folders .There’s no need to install plugins to view shared notes. Paid version of WebNotes includes PDF support, multi-colored highlights, and report generation.

Twidla allows you to create your private or public commenting whiteboard and upload for review any image or open online website. Twiidla provides drawing tools, tools for placing shapes, media, text, documents on a whiteboard, live chat. No registration or plugin installation is required to start online annotation. You can try many features in the free version but it’s quite limited for professional use. Paid plans start from $14/month.

Google Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that lets you annotate and read information alongside any web page. All you need is Google account to sign up. All annotations are placed in the sidebar. They can be related to the page as a whole or to the certain blocks of the page. There’s no build in notification about new comments, though Google SideWiki has its own API which lets you set up this feature by yourself. Site owner’s comments are emphasized with different color.

Reframeit is annotation service with many useful features. You can annotate the whole web page, selected text or an image. You can define comments as public or private. You can even assign group access to the comments. There’re a few of comments display modes and also filtering feature. Instead of registration at Reframeit, you can use your OpenID provider (Twittter, Facebook). it also has flexible notification system including RSS, option to reply to comments and comment Intranet pages.