You! Joomla

You! Joomla is a place that offers free Joomla templates to enable easy website designing. At this site, those looking to create a business website would find a range of attractive free Joomla templates. Templates here are available with loads of features and PSD source files.

Screenshot of You! Joomla Website

YOOTHEME

YOOTHEME is probably one of the best places to get free and premium Joomla templates for websites. Templates at this site are premium to the core and boasts of a lot of features. Modules, plugins and graphic source files are all easily available in features for Joomla templates here.

Screenshot of YOOTHEME Website

Ice Theme

Ice Theme attracts for its niche based Joomla templates on offer. Besides the range, it caters your specific needs through special focus on the market you’re hoping to the templates for. Nice templates are available here.

Screenshot of Ice Theme Website

SHAPE 5

Shape 5 offers a wide range of Joomla templates to ensure the best of website designs to users. The templates offered here come with loads of features and PSD sources. SHAPE 5 is among the oldest available places to get the desired range of templates to get the website designed.

Screenshot of SHAPE 5 Website

Rocket Theme

Rocket Theme is another convenient destination for a wonderful range of free and premium Joomla templates. Besides the range, this site enables add-ons, support and a community forum to add to the value of users from all walks of life.

Screenshot of Rocket Theme Website

Theme Forest

Theme Forest is another popular place to get a range of free and premium Joomla templates. If you’re looking for an attractive range of templates, Theme forest is the place to be. This place is known for its staggering collection of templates.

Screenshot of Theme Forest Website

Joomla Junkie

Joomla Junkie is a fabulous place to get a wide range of pulsating free and premium Joomla templates. This place for Joomla templates edges out others for its wonderful customer service & support. Using Morph framework, here the range of templates is a curious mix of creativity and attraction.

Screenshot of Joomla Junkie Website

Template Plaza

Template Plaza is a popular place to get a wide range of attractive Joomla templates. The templates offered here are creative and ensure some of the best themes. The available templates here show an uncanny dissimilarity with that of widespread Joomla templates available everywhere else.

Screenshot of Template Plaza Website

Joomla Shack

Joomla shack is offering a wide range of free and premium Joomla templates for all walks of life. Besides the templates, Joomla video tutorials are also available to add value to users. So, get the dual mix of templates and informative videos on offer to enjoy the experience here.

Screenshot of Joomla Shack Website

Joomla Bamboo

If you’re looking for free and premium business templates, Joomla Bamboo is definitely a wonderful place for that. A range of stylish and sophisticated templates are on offer for users to get a good website design. The templates offered will have scores of extensions as well to add to the overall value of the visit.

Screenshot of Joomla Bamboo Website

Joomla 24

If you need the range, Joomla 24 is one of the best places to get the range for free and premium Joomla templates. With 3100 available templates, this place catches a lot of attention only for the vast range.

Screenshot of Joomla 24 Website

JoomlaPlates

JoomlaPlates is one of the most popular places for high-end and highly attractive Joomla templates. With a seemingly wide coverage area, the templates offered suit varied types of businesses and domains. Irrespective of the domain of your business, give this place a visit to be mesmerized by the offered range of stylish and relevant free and premium templates.

Screenshot of Joomla Plates website

Gavick Pro

Gavick Pro is one of the most popular places to get high quality free and premium Joomla templates for your website. This place ensures a wide range of clean quality designs to effortlessly meet the diverse needs. With the constant update facility on offer, you would get the quality and trust at this place.

Screenshot of Gavick Pro Website

Conclusion

Free and premium Joomla templates are starting point to make attractive Joomla-based websites. Even without the money and sound technical knowledge, anyone can design a website with the help of available free and premium Joomla templates in exciting range. We have listed some popular places to get such Joomla templates. Users are invited to list more places to find more range for Joomla templates.

Social Slider

Compatible up to 3.2.1

Social Slider is a plug-in that adds a sort of different by being cute and unique. It floats either on the right or left side of a web page and attracts the visitor to give a notice. This trendy plugin helps users to add innumerable sites with custom icons.

Screenshot of Social Slider Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

Shareaholic SexyBookmarks

Compatible up to 3.2.1

With a tacky name to entice, SexyBookmarks makes sharing a lot of fun.  Visitors can easily share content of a website or blog with the help of some good-looking, lively icons placed either at the top or bottom of the site or blog. You can animate the sharing icons and also add the other famous social buttons such as Facebook Like, Facebook Send and Google +1.

Screenshot of Sexy Bookmarks plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

AddtoAny

Compatible up to 3.2.1

AddtoAny is a popular plugin that enables visitors to share the content of a website to majority of networks just by clicking the mouse. With the help of this plugin, users of a website can easily share, bookmark, and email the content through social networking sites.

Screenshot of Add To Any (Courtesy:  WordPress Plugin Directory)

Digg Digg

Compatible up to 3.1.4

Digg Digg is a popular social plugin that gives users an opportunity to add sharing buttons of popular social networking sites. This plugin will enable users to add connect to the most popular 20 social networks through a set of buttons.

Screenshot of Digg Digg plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

LifeStream

Compatible up to 3.1.4

LifeStream is a popular plugin that helps to stream content from social platforms to specified websites. It displays the real-time updates from 50 different Websites having your profile. For example, you can show updates from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace.

List of Feed Options in LifeStream Plugin

ShareThis

Compatible up to 3.0.5

ShareThis gives visitors a chance to share the content of a website or blog on more than 50 social networks. This popular plugin has gone through thousands of implementations to evolve into a likeable plugin.

Screenshot of Share This Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

LinkedIn Share Button

Compatible up to 3.0.5

LinkedIn Share Button is a plugin for LinkedIn and easily gets integrated into WordPress blog. With the arrival of this plugin, getting quickly connected to LinkedIn has become fairly ease now. Users now have the ease and speed to share content with their LinkedIn network.

Screenshot of LinkedIn Share Button Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

TwitterCounter

Compatible up to 3.3

TwitterCounter is a popular plugin that displays the number of Twitter followers. This plugin is more like a badge and you is easily put it on your WordPress Website to show the number of followers of your Twitter account. This plugin scores in terms of choices as users can display the badge on various locations of the blog, as per the wish.

Screenshot of Twitter Counter Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

Sociable

Compatible up to 2.8.5

Sociable is an extremely trendy social sharing plugin, which supports most of the social networks. This immensely likeable plugin will ensure various icons to be listed categorically on the site. It supports almost all the existing social networking sites and thus, commands a great respect.

Screenshot of Socialable plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

WordPress Plugins for Facebook

WordPress users have a lot of plugins to connect, integrate or share content and information with Facebook, like:

JanRain RPX

Compatible up to 3.2.1

A site with JanRain RPX plugin gets to accept logins through more than one ways. The plugin enables a site to be accessed through Google, Yahoo, Twitter, MySpaceID, and Facebook Connect etc. This plugin ensures that a user can login with the help of any of the existing accounts like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. A site can be used now to expand/ share comments to different social sites.

Screenshot of JanRain RPX Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

Wordbook

Compatible up to 3.0.5

Wordbook offers its users an opportunity to publish blog updates to their profile mini-feed of Facebook. With the help of this plugin, a user can easily cross-post the blog posts to Facebook Wall. More so, there would be a desirable chronology of the posted blogs as the “Boxes” tab will show the newest post.

Screenshot of Wordbook Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

QuailPress

Compatible up to 2.1

QuailPress enables adding of a button for readers to share content on Facebook account. A user now has a chance to share any post on their Facebook account. In other word, the QuailPress plugin enables anyone to integrate with Facebook share.

Fotobook

Compatible up to 3.1.4

With the help of Fotobook, users get a chance to link to the Facebook accounts to import photos. The imported photos then can be used blog posts. This plugin allows showing the photo albums on a WordPress page. More so, it gives a choice of photo insertion into posts/pages.

Facebook Dashboard Widget

Compatible up to 3.0.5

This plugin enables displaying of Facebook friends status and notifications at WordPress admin dashboard. With the help of Facebook Dashboard Widget, anyone’s status updates RSS feed could easily be processed now. This plugin gives the ease of knowing everything about another user even without actually logging into Facebook.

Screenshot of FaceBook Dashboard Widget Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

WP-FacebookConnect

Compatible up to 2.9.2

WP-FacebookConnect brings a range of FB functionality to WordPress with the help of FB Connect APIs. This social plugin ensures a single- signon with a Facebook account. More so, comments can now be sent directly to newsfeed for further proliferation.

Add To Facebook

Compatible up to 2.7

Add To Facebook is a popular plugin that enables adding a link at the bottom of an article so that it can be shared on Facebook by visitors. As soon as the user clicks the link, he/she is instantly taken to the Facebook site. The post gets added to the Mini- Feed of the users’ account once he/she logs into the account.

WordPress Plugins for Twitter

Twitter is a major social connectivity site now and you can easily integrate it within your WordPress Website. Some of the beneficial plugins that connect twitter to WordPress are:

Wickett Twitter Widget

Compatible up to: 3.0.5

This plugin shows tweets in the sidebar of a WordPress blog. With the help of Wickett Twitter Widget plugin, the latest Tweets can now be displayed inside WordPress widgets. It also gives a chance to customize Tweet displays and also ensures the customization of number of tweets displayed.

Screenshot of Wickett Twitter Widget Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

TwitThis

Compatible up to 2.7.1

TwitThis allows sending of Twitter messages about a blog post or website to next users in the loop. With the availability of TwitThis plugin, blogs now can easily be retweeted. Users can easily install this plugin for retweeting the post quickly.

Twitter Tools

Compatible up to 3.0.5

If anyone is looking for a seamless integration between twitter account and WordPress blog, there is Twitter Tools plugin that helps to meet this purpose. After all, integration opens up the door of prospects by letting one share content or anything mutually for gains. Twitter Tools allows integration between WordPress blog and Twitter account.

TweetThis

Compatible up to 2.7.1

TweetThis enables a Twitter icon to every post that, in turn, gives users a chance to share the same on their Twitter accounts. This plugin combines many steps so that a user can take advantage of a good posting on twitter. Short URLs are created using this plugin so that the post on twitter retains the essence.

Screenshot of Tweet This Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

TweetMeme button

Compatible up to 3.0.5

This plugin allows blog posts to be retweeted with a certain degree of ease. With the TweetMeme button plugin, the user can have the precise number of their retweeted post/page throughout Twitter.

Screenshot of TweetMeme Button Plugin (Courtesy: WordPress Plugin Directory)

Conclusion

Social networks are an integral aspect of online marketing for its massive user base and their constant activity of sharing content from one platform to another.  The marketers must avail the advantage of this specific category offers by tweaking websites and addition features. WordPress has some of the best websites around and they must be added with plugins to give a new meaning to online marketing and promotion.

Default Markup Code

We have following markup code created in HTML. We will implement RDF, Microformat and Microdata in this code one by one to illustrate their differences.

<html>

<head>

<title>Dan Brown’s Latest Book</title>

</head>

<body>

<div>

<h1>The Lost Symbol</h1>

<span>Author: Dan Brown (born June 22, 1964) </span>

<span>Fiction & Thriller Novel</span>

<a href=”http://www.thelostsymbol.com”>The Lost Symbol Website</a>

<span>Reviewed by: Mark.

Ratings: 4.5/5 (Excellent)

</span>

<span>It is a thriller set in Washington, D.C., after the events of The Da Vinci Code, and relies on Freemasonry for both its recurring theme and its major characters</span>

</div>

</body>

</html>

RDF/RDFa

RDF stands for Resource Description Framework. It is based on W3C Recommendation and adds extensions to XHTML in order to embed rich metadata in Web pages. RDF was firstly introduced in 2004 and is succeeded by RDFa in 2008. RDFa is strictly connected with XHTML and supported with the XHTML1.1 doctype.

Since the inception of RDF, the Webmasters are working to implement it and the big players are creating technologies based RDF like Open Graph Protocol from Facebook, OWL and SKOS. According to W3C, several tools and implementations are built based upon RDF till yet. Let us have a look how to implement the RDF in the above default HTML code. There are different vocabularies to implement the RDFa like FOAF from XMLNS.com, DC from Purl.org, and rdf.data-vocabulary.org from Google Data-Vocabulary.org. We will use Google’s Data-Vocabulary.org in this article. If you use any other

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd”>

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”

xmlns:v=http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#>

<head>

<title>Dan Brown’s Latest Book</title>

<meta name=”author” content=”Dan Brown” />

<link rel=”prev” href=”nextpage.html” />

<link rel=”next” href=”previouspage.html” />

</head>

<body>

<div>

<h1><span typeof=”v:book”>The Lost Symbol</span></h1>

<span><span property=”v:title”>Author</span>: <span typeof=”v:name”>Dan Brown</span> (born June 22, 1964) </span>

<span>Fiction & Thriller Novel</span>

<a href=”http://www.thelostsymbol.com” rel=”v:url”><span typeof=”v:book”>The Lost Symbol Website</span></a>

<span>Reviewed by: <span property=”v:reviewer”>Mark</span>.

Ratings: <span rel=”v:rating”>

<span property=”v:value”>4.5</span>/

<span property=”v:best”>5</span> (Excellent)

</span>

</span>

<span>It is a thriller set in Washington, D.C., after the events of The Da Vinci Code, and relies on Freemasonry for both its recurring theme and its major characters</span>

</div>

</body>

</html>

Problems with RDFa

RDF was started with the XHTML 1.1 and 2.2. Both of these standards are discontinued now. The world is stepping up to HTML5, CSS3, and other latest standards. All the new versions of Browsers, CMSs, and even Mobile software are adopting HTML5. You cannot use xmlns and meta property attributes with HTML5 as the document will not be validated as HTML5 with these things. Today or tomorrow you have to switch over with the latest Web technologies to stay up-to-date in the market.

Second problem is that there are multiple vocabularies available for RDFa. There is neither unique is no standard format nor common adaption of existing RDF technologies. In addition, there is no W3C-recommended way to embed RDFa in plain HTML. Webmasters often get confused which one to use or which one to left.

Third problem: both HTML and RDF are different technologies, so you must know both of them to use RDF.

Microformat

Microformat is a semantic markup, which re-uses the existing HTML/XHTML code to show metadata. The implementation of Microformat is easier than that of RDF or RDFa. If you know HTML then you can simply add Microformats to your Website. Microformats.org provides the complete description and other tools to implement the Microformats.

Let us have a look on the following implementation of Microformat.

<html>

<head>

<title>Dan Brown’s Latest Book</title>

</head>

<body>

<div class=”hreview”>

<span class=”item vcard”>

<h1 class=”item”>The Lost Symbol</h1>

<span>Author: <span class=”fn”>Dan Brown</span> (born June 22, 1964) </span>

<span class=”description”>Fiction & Thriller Novel</span>

<a class=”url fn” href=”http://www.thelostsymbol.com” rel=”tag”>The Lost Symbol Website</a>

</span>

<span><span class=”reviewer vcard”>Reviewed by: <span class=”fn”>Mark<span>.</span>

Ratings: <span class=”value”>4.5</span>/<span class=”best”>5 </span>(Excellent)

</span>

<span class=”summary”>It is a thriller set in Washington, D.C., after the events of The Da Vinci Code, and relies on Freemasonry for both its recurring theme and its major characters</span>

</div>

</body>

</html>

Following is sample vCard created with Microformats

<div>

<img class=”photo” src=”http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Dan_Brown_bookjacket_cropped.jpg” />

<strong class=”fn”>Dan Brown</strong>

<span class=”title”>Author</span> at <span class=”org”>Simons & Chuster</span>

<span>

<span class=”street-address”>200 Main St</span>

<span class=”locality”>Desertville</span>, <span class=”region”>AZ</span>

<span class=”postal-code”>12345</span>

<a class=”url fn” rel=”tag” href=”http://www.danbrown.com”>Official Website</a>

</span>

</div>

Currently, Microformats.org provides definition for following Microformats:

1. adr
2. geo
3. hAtom – syndicating RSS content
4. hAudio
5. hListing
6. hMedia
7. hNews
8. hProduct
9. hRecipe
10. hReview
11. rel-directory
12. rel-enclosure
13. rel-home
14. rel-payment
15. robots exclusion
16. xFolk

Problems with Microformats

Several issues were detected and reported with Microformats. BBC Radio was using the hCalendar Microformat to add the start & end times, broadcasting channels etc. However, BBC found issues with hCalendar and dropped its usage. Accessibility issues are listed with hCalendar, and audio information issues with hAudio at Microformats.org. In addition, issues with hAtom and hProduct are also mentioned there. In addition, Microformats does not have any specification to replace the existing Semantic or meta-data format RDF & RDFa. It is just reusing the existing XHTML document. After seeing the issues, everyone was just moving backward to RDF or not considering the Microformats appropriate for their work.

Microdata

Microdata is the latest meta-data or semantic specification for HTML5 from WHATWG and W3C. It is considered as an integral part of HTML5 and use vocabularies from Schema.org. Recently, all three major search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo agreed to have a common specification Microdata for semantic markup show the rich snippets of Websites in their search engine result pages (SERPs). They’ve recommended using Microdata and shifting from previous meta-data format to this one.  Let us see how to implement the Microdata in the above mentioned default HTML code.

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Book”>

<h1><span itemprop=”name”>The Lost Symbol</span></h1>

<span>Author: <span itemprop=”author”>Dan Brown</span> (born <span itemprop=”birthDate”>June 22, 1964</span>) </span>

<span> Fiction & Thriller Novel</span>

<a itemprop=”book” href=”http://www.thelostsymbol.com”>The Lost Symbol Website</a>

<div itemprop=”reviews” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Review”>

<span>Reviewed by: <span itemprop=”author”>Mark</span>.

<div itemprop=”reviewRating” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Rating”>

Ratings: <span itemprop=”ratingValue”>4.5</span> / <span itemprop=”bestRating”>5</span> (Excellent)

</div><!—Closing reviewsRating–>

</span>

<span itemprop=”reviewBody”>It is a thriller set in Washington, D.C., after the events of The Da Vinci Code, and relies on Freemasonry for both its recurring theme and its major characters</span>

</div><!—Closing reviews–>

</div>

Why not to use others?

Most of the Content Management Systems are stepping towards HTML5 and CSS3. You cannot use the RDF or RDFa with HTML5 as you’ve to include xmlns protocol or vocabulary. In addition, Microformats are not sufficient to override all the classes of RDF/RDFa.

Benefits of Microdata

1. Microdata is a set of tags introduced with HTML5.
2. It overrides (defines) all the classes of RDF, RDFa and Microformats.
3. You know HTML then you can use both HTML5 & Microdata.
4. Bing, Google and Yahoo have recognized Metadata as the standard format of semantic markup. They recommend using it and migrating from previous semantic format to Microdata.
5. You just have to add a few more classes in the existing HTML code to implement Microdata.
6. With Microdata, your Website will gain preference in the SERPs.
7. Schema.org has all the definitions for Microdata classes and will work with major search engines to add more in its database.
8. You can further extend the Microdata as per requirement.

Conclusion

The semantic markup is considered as a need for human being since the inception of HTML & CSS. Yes, we agree that previously RDF, RDFa and Microformats tried to help us in integrating the semantic markup. Now, there is another new format in the market. The same observation goes for HTML2, HTML3, HTML4, XHTML1, XHTML, CSS1 and CSS2. Why do you want to leave these formats and step ahead to adopt HTML5 and CSS3?

However, before proceeding further to discuss the benefits of using Microformats, let us first have a quick understanding about them.

What are Microformats?

Microformats are a set of simple formats that helps create effective metadata and thus enhance the semantic value of a code.

The widely acclaimed definition of Microformats from microformats.org states:

“Designed for humans first and machines second, Microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.”

The best feature of Microformats is that they can be easily integrated into the existing XHTML mark up and prove beneficial in describing the web content accurately and in a consistent manner.

How do Microformats enhance semantic value?

Though HTML and XHTML do provide elements to lend semantic meaning to web page content but Microformats are able to do it more effectively by using the following attributes:

• Class
• Rel
• Rev

Why use Microformats?

Adherence to standards

As web standards compliance is necessary for a website, Microformats are built keeping this in mind and thus will ensure that code adheres to existing standards.

Ensure Inter-operability

Using Microformats will ensure that the site is viewable in different browsers, operating systems as well as mobile devices.

Flexibility

Microformats allow the desired flexibility to the users to control and share data over the Web.

Adaptability

Microformats are highly adaptable to the existing behaviors and web usage patterns that ease out the tasks for site owners

Search Engine Friendliness

As Microformats create machine readable and more meaningful metadata, it lends search engine friendliness to the site

Consistent Content

With the ability to share a Microformat with content providers, it becomes possible to create consistent content and in the manner as desired

Meant for Future Web

As the emphasis to have semantic mark up gains more prominence, the use of Microformats is going to increase making it ideal for the future Web

Though it offers these advantages, there are also some drawbacks associated with Microformats including:

• They add on the to the HTML markup
• Though they are easy to use but the user still has to devote time learning to make the proper use
• All browsers may not show full support for Microformats

Some Useful Microformats

Geo – For marking geographic location

hCalendar – used to mark events and calendar

hCard – useful for representing personal and business contacts

rel=”nofollow” – Elemental Microformat that adds no-follow attribute to links

VoteLinks – allows liking or disliking a link

Robot Exclusion Profile – provides page-specific direction to web crawlers

For more Microformats, you can visit http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page.

So, creating a well structured and semantic mark up is no longer a trouble as Microformats provide the right help. We hope that you liked the above information. Kindly provide some more suggestions.

You can share your images on social image hosting Websites like Flickr and Picasa to get attention of masses. Flickr has 26 million users, whereas Picasa also has good amount of audience counting to 500,000 users. We are sure that both of the figures are more than total number of visitors on your Website. Do you know you can take benefit of their large and continuously increasing user base to promote your Website? We will tell you how in this article, stay tuned and read below!

Both Flickr and Picasa offer free accounts to the end users. One can create an account on both of them. Upload your pictures there and create slideshows. You can tag the uploaded pictures with keywords. What’s more? You can also add the short description about the image and show its location as well. You must enter the appropriate keywords to tag any picture. Both Flickr and Picasa allow you creating the slideshow of uploaded images.

You will get the URL of the image after uploading it on any Image Sharing Site. In addition, you will also get the code to embed these images in your blogs. Important: If you’re using any image from Web Album Sites then give a backlink on the image pointing to the source URL of its Web Album. You just have to copy the embed code from a Web Album Profile and paste it to your Website’s source code.

Both Picasa and Flickr provide the backend software and apps to upload the images directly from computer, mobile handsets, and few digital cameras. This is much better than uploading the images through FTP or via CMS’ inbuilt media uploading feature.

Key Benefits of using Web Albums to upload your Images

• You will get high-end quality incoming and outgoing links without nofollow tags.

• Embedded images at your Website will make good presence in the Image Search Engines resulting into good ranking and more visitors’ traffic.

• Using the images uploaded at Web Albums results into

○    less storage consumption

○    less load on Web Server

○    fewer bandwidth costs

• You create the slideshow of images in both Picasa and Flickr. Embed the slideshow code to your Website to show it. This slideshow helps you to attract more visitors on the Website.

• Create fantasy and customized Picasa/Flickr image galleries at your blog. These galleries are much better in features and look than traditional image galleries of WordPress or Drupal. You can either manually copy and create the image galleries or make use of third-party plug-ins or modules for it.

• Add geo-location tags to the images in Web Albums and embed them on your Website. The search engines give more preference to the images with geo-tags.

• You can search, invite and get connected with other users of the Web Albums. Doing this will make you popular and have more audience for your profile first and then for your Website.

• Share the images at Twitter, Facebook, Blogger etc. from the Web Album profile itself.

Difference Between Picasa and Flickr

• Both of them offers free account but Yahoo! Flickr offers unlimited storage whereas Google Picasa provides 1GB free storage
• Flickr allows 100MB uploading per month only. On the contrary, Picasa has no limits.
• Flickr allows uploading of 2 videos only with free account, but you can upload as many as videos you want with Picasa until storage space permits.
  NOTE: You can also use YouTube or Metacafe to upload the videos.
• Flickr has larger user base than Picasa, but Picasa is backed up by Google. You can invite Gmail Friends to your Picasa profiles.
• Flickr allows uploading the images in JPEG, GIF, and PNG files and store them with the similar extension or format. On the contrary, Picasa converts all the images into JPEG format.
• Flickr shows only newly uploaded 200MB photographs. If you upload more pictures then it does not show the old photographs but links to hidden images will work. On the contrary, Picasa shows all the uploaded images.

Tips & Tricks

• Make use of a graphic editor to shorten the size of images to be uploaded on the Web. If you do not want to buy the paid software then favor open source image editors like GIMP and Inkscape.
• If you are creating account on both Picasa and Flickr then upload different images on both of them.
• Use the Website name as username on Picasa or Flickr.
• Leave the URL of your Website or blog in the Profile page of both Picasa and Flickr.
• Create images to describe the services, products, and content of your Website. Publish these images on the Web Albums.
• Write catchy title, tags, and description of the uploaded images.
• Join the relevant groups/communities in Flickr and Picasa. Follow the groups’ images and let them follow yours.
• Search on the Web Albums for nice pictures, leave comments, and follow their owners. And then invite them to follow your images.
• Follow the users who are following yours profile.
• Upload at least one to two photographs daily on Flickr or Picasa and embed them to your Website.
• Show the badge from Picasa and/or Flickr at your Website with a link to your profile page.

Precautions

• Do not add the watermark or any other notification indicating the URL or name of your Website. Both Picasa and Flickr do not allow such promotional images.
• Do not leave the linked keywords anywhere in Picasa or Flickr.
• Do not post advertising images in the group discussions.

It is a truth that an image worth more than 1000 written words. If you also believe in it, then share the images and broadcast your message and populate your blog. Both Picasa and Flickr are giving you a great opportunity for the same. Take real benefit of these Web albums.

Tools

1. HTML/CSS/JS Editor – like Adobe Dreamweaver, Aptana Studio, Notepad++, or Notepad
2. Browser – like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, or Opera

NOTE: We have used Adobe Dreamweaver to design the slider and tested in all above browsers.

Benefits of using this slider

1. This slider is cross compatible with all modern browsers like Internet Explorer 9, Mozilla Firefox 4, Google Chrome 11, Opera 11 and Apple Safari 5.
2. It loads up instantly.
3. It is quite easy to implement and extend its code.
4. Create a blank HTML file. It may have following code: -

Steps

1. Create a blank HTML file. It may have following code: -

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>

<head>

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″ />

<title>Untitled Document</title>

</head>

<body>

</body>

</html>

2. Link the following JavaScript files within the code.

●      jquery.min.js

●      jquery.cycle.all.js

You can also download these files from the zip file link given below. We suggest you neither to change the code of JS file nor to remove the comments specifying the original author and license.

<title>Image Slider</title>

<!– include jQuery library –>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”jquery.min.js”></script>

<!– include Cycle plugin –>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”jquery.cycle.all.js”></script>

</head>

<body>

</body>

</html>

3. Now, we will create a main container (div) to include the slideshow and its page numbering. We are including slideshow div in main and a blank nav div in slideshow.

<body>

<div id=”main”>

<div id=”slideshow” style=”position: relative;”>

<div id=”nav”></div>

</div>

</div>

</body>

4. You can add the images in slideshow div through <img> tag. We are adding eight different images here.

<div id=”main”>

<div id=”slideshow” style=”position: relative;”>

<div id=”nav”></div>

<img src=”images/facebook.jpg” alt=”Facebook” />

<img src=”images/twitter.jpg” alt=”Twitter” />

<img src=”images/youtube.jpg”    alt=”YouTube” />

<img src=”images/myspace.jpg” alt=”MySpace” />

<img src=”images/googlebuzz.jpg” alt=”Google Buzz” />

<img src=”images/stumble.jpg” alt=”StumbleUpon” />

<img src=”images/digg.jpg” alt=”Digg” />

<img src=”images/identica.jpg” alt=”Identi.ca” />

</div>

</div>

We suggest you to add above code at the location where you want to add the slider. Please do not include HTML, head, and body tags (used here) if you are adding the code in a Content Management System or previously created Web page.

5. Let us come to the core command to cycle the images in the slider. You have to add the following script in the head tag.

<script type=”text/javascript”>

$(function() {

$(‘#slideshow’).cycle({

fx:     ‘fade’,

speed:  ‘fast’,

timeout: 3000,

pager:  ‘#nav’,

slideExpr: ‘img’

});

});

</script>

●      fx – is the name of the transition effect to be used. Its options mentioned below. You can visit Jquery Slider Browser Effects Page to view their effects. We have used fade in our sample.

○    blindX

○    blindY

○    blindZ

○    cover

○    curtainX

○    curtain

○    fade

○    fadeZoom

○    growX

○    growY

○    none

○    scrollUp

○    scrollDown

○    scrollLeft

○    scrollRight

○    scrollHorz

○    scrollVert

○    shuffle

○    slideX

○    slideY

○    toss

○    turnUp

○    turnDown

○    turnLeft

○    turnRight

○    uncover

○    wipe

○    zoom

●      speed – specifies the speed of the transition.

●      timeout – is the time period between slide transitions. This time period is in milliseconds.

●      pager – specifies the element or selector string to work as pager container. We have specified #nav in it, which uses the nav div and displays buttons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. It will create the as many page numbers as many images you will specify in the div slideshow.

●      slideExpr – specifies the expression to select the slides. In our case, it is using the images (img tags) through its ‘img’ value.

6. Now, you have to specify the formatting of above tags through stylesheet code. We are using <style> tag here for this work. You can copy the following code:

<style type=”text/css”>

#main {margin: 50px;}

#slideshow {margin: 0px auto; width: 684px; height: 566px;  }

#nav { z-index: 50; position: absolute; margin-top: -5px; margin-bottom:5px; margin-left: 335px; }

#nav a { margin: 0 5px; padding: 3px 5px; border: 1px solid #ccc; background: #eee; text-decoration: none; color: blue; }

#nav a.activeSlide{ background: #eff; }

#nav a:focus { outline: none;}

img.slides { padding: 15px; border: 1px solid #ccc; background-color: #eee;

}

</style>

Here,

●      main – has the code to format div main.

●      slideshow – has the code to format div slideshow.

●      nav – specifies the code to display Page Numbers.

●      nav a – contains the code of clickable pagers.

●      nav a.activeSlide – has the code to modify the active page number.

●      img.slides – has the code to format the images uploaded through img tags.

You are free to change the code as per your requirement.

Complete Code

Now, the complete code will look like below. If not then you can copy the below code as well for your work.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>

<head>

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″ />

<title>Image Slider</title>

<style type=”text/css”>

#main {margin: 50px;}

#slideshow {margin: 0px auto; width: 684px; height: 566px;  }

#nav { z-index: 50; position: absolute; margin-top: -5px; margin-bottom:5px; margin-left: 335px; }

#nav a { margin: 0 5px; padding: 3px 5px; border: 1px solid #ccc; background: #eee; text-decoration: none; color: blue; }

#nav a.activeSlide{ background: #eff; }

#nav a:focus { outline: none;}

img.slides { padding: 15px; border: 1px solid #ccc; background-color: #eee;}

</style>

<!– include jQuery library –>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”jquery.min.js”></script>

<!– include Cycle plugin –>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”jquery.cycle.all.js”></script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

$(function() {

$(‘#slideshow’).cycle({

fx:     ‘fade’,

speed:  ‘fast’,

timeout: 3000,

pager:  ‘#nav’,

slideExpr: ‘img’

});

});

</script>

</head>

<body>

<div id=”main”>

<div id=”slideshow” style=”position: relative;”>

<div id=”nav”></div>

<img src=”images/facebook.jpg” alt=”Facebook” />

<img src=”images/twitter.jpg” alt=”Twitter” />

<img src=”images/youtube.jpg”    alt=”YouTube” />

<img src=”images/myspace.jpg”    alt=”MySpace” />

<img src=”images/googlebuzz.jpg” alt=”Google Buzz” />

<img class=”slides” src=”images/stumble.jpg” alt=”StumbleUpon” />

<img src=”images/digg.jpg” alt=”Digg” />

<img src=”images/identica.jpg” alt=”Identi.ca” />

</div>

</div>

</body>

</html>

Output

The slider, created with above code, will be:jQuery Image Slider

Note: It is an image.

Download

Click here to download the jquery_slider_pager.zip file. It has following contents: -

1. jquery.min.js – has the code of jQuery Library in Google Ajax APIs.
2. jquery.cycle.all.js – has the code of cycle Plugin to rotate the images.
3. jquery_slider_pager.html: has the code to implement the jquery slider created above.
4. images: folder of image files used in sample slider created above.

We hope that you will find this post and the implemented code helpful for your work. We request you to provide your valuable feedback and suggestions through comments.

Email On Acid

Pros

Email on Acid has an eye-catchy Web design, easy-to-use Navigation, and a separate Blog section. It also does not charge any Signup fee. You can easily signup and try its testing services for your Website in free before buying its full usage. We like that Email on Acid provides free Online Demo, nicely designed FAQ system, and an interactive Blog to keep its clients updated. In addition, the Website also has two helpful sections – Forums and Coming Soon. The pricing system of Email on Acid is also appreciable as it allows you to pay per go as low as $2 per testing.

Screenshot of Email on Acid Test Options with a free Trial

Cons

We suggest the Email on Acid to include an About Us page on its Website so that visitors/clients can know more about the company. The Email Analytics is not included in the features. Email on Acid must include this feature in order to capture the more market.

Litmus

Pros

Litmus is the one of the oldest company in Email Testing field. It includes the Email Analytics feature in its Plus and Premium Plans. We like that the company has provided the About Us section with the name of ‘Meet the Team’.

Buy Litmus Service First to Test it

Cons

Litmus does not provide try before you buy option. You have to pay first to create an account to test its services. The minimum Basic plan starts from $49. We suggest the company to at least allow the users creating an account and provide them a trial so that they can have the brief introduction about the features of Litmus Testing Services. Even the giants like Adobe and Microsoft provide Trial/Try Before You Buy feature allowing us to test their expensive products or services before we pay.

Preview My Email

Pros

It’s another good email testing provider available online. The pricing is comparable with the Litmus, but unlike Litmus Preview My Email allows you creating a free account to test the services without any cost.

Screenshot of PreviewMyEmail Testing Service

Cons

Unlike Litmus & Email on Acid, Preview My Email does not show the supported email clients and just declares it tests on 35+ Email Apps. It should provide the specific details about the email clients.

Like Email On Acid, Preview My Email does not have an About Us section and leaves the visitors into uncertainty whether the company is genuine or not. We suggest Preview My Email to include the About Us section.

Email Reach

Pros

Email Reach provides some unique features like Blacklist Check, Content Assessment, Return Path Certification, and Link Checker. It assesses the comment of your emails and helps you decreasing the spam score. In Blacklist List Check, it monitors the provided IPs of a client on all major blacklists in use while sending emails. It notifies about the blacklisted IPs and helps you to white list them through it Service Team.

Listing the features of Email Reach Testing

Cons

There is no About Us section on the Website to increase the credibility. In addition, Email Reach charges you for Signup and Application Fees if you want to buy a plan. We suggest Email Reach not to charge for such basic things. Like Preview My Email, Email Reach does not show which email clients are supported in its services.

Browser Cam

Pros

Browser Cam’s Email Capture service provides the testing of TXT, RTF and HTML emails. You can create an account and use its free trial to test the services before buying it. Currently, it is offering 100% money back guarantee.

Screenshot of Browser Cam Service

Cons

The list of supported email clients is limited. In addition, the Browser Cam provides free trial only to its Browser Testing service and not for Email Client Testing. Its Website does not have About Us, FAQ, and Blog section. Also, there is no declaration about API and Reseller Programs. We suggest the company to provide free trial for Email Capture Service, include above sections, focus on API/Reseller programs. In addition, the company can provide other services like Spam Filter, Code Analysis, Mobile-based email testing, and enlarge the list of supported email clients.

Let us compare the features, pricing and supported email clients on above Email Testing Providers.

Detailed Comparison

Pricing Options

Feature List

Supported Email Clients

Conclusion

Before sending newsletters to your subscribers, you must be aware how the email looks on different clients and platform. Email Testing services helps you doing that, but it is costlier as well. We suggest you to go for a company providing Trial or Try Before You Buy services so that you can decide whether buying its services will satisfy your needs or not. We have studied the top 5 Email Client Testing Providers and documented their comparison above.

Now, we are leaving the decision on your shoulders to select the suitable email testing provider. We invite our readers to suggest which email testing provider is good as per their experience and also add any other company dealing in email testing on this article through their valuable comments.

W3C mobileOK Checker

W3C tops every time when you come to the field of Website Testing. This time also W3C mobileOK Checker tops the Web-based Mobile Testing tools. You just have to visit its Website and enter the URL to test and this W3C will show whether your Website is mobile-ready or not along with what you can do to rectify the errors.

W3C mobileOK Checker

Ready.Mobi

Read.Mobi is a service of dotMobi and an extension of W3C MobileOk Checker Service. It analyses your Website and provide the results in graph format whether the Website is optimized well for mobile or not. You can check one Web page without doing any efforts, but you have to create an account to test the whole Website.

Ready.Mobi, an online Mobile Testing Service

Google Mobile Testing

Google, the search engine giant, also helps you testing your Website for Mobile. Visit the http://www.google.com/gwt/n, enter the URL of your Website, and press Enter. It will show the Website in mobile format and you can check whether it is showing up good or not.

Google Mobile Testing

iPad Peek

Currently, Apple iPad is the highest selling tablet. If you are optimizing your Website for Mobile then you must also check its compatibility for iPad as well. Visit the iPad Peek Website, enter the URL and press enter to show how your Website looks on iPad.

iPad Peek Website to test Website look & feel on iPads

Test iPhone

With all controversies, Apple iPhone is still one of the best selling smartphones around the globe. Do not miss iPhone testing while checking your Website on Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile platforms. You just have to visit the Test iPhone Website, enter the URL and press ENTER key to do iPhone testing of your Website.

Test iPhone – A Website to do free iPhone Testing in seconds

Gomez

Fed up of testing on emulators and Web-based Apps and thinking to buy a Premium Mobile Website Testing service, go for Gomez as it provides Try Before You Buy option. You just have to fill up a small form and it will send the images captured on iPhone 3Gs, iPad, BlackBerry Storm 2 and Google Nexus One. After that, you can decide whether you have to buy this service or not.

Gomez provides premium Cross-Device Website Compatibility Testing Service.

Opera Mobile Emulator

Opera is one of the best mobile Web browsers available in the market. Almost each Java-compatible handset supports either Opera Mini or Opera Mobile. Nowadays, Opera is also available for iPhone, Android and Symbian platforms. You can test your Website in this famous Mobile browser by visiting its online demo.Opera Mini 6 Demo

BOLT Demo

BOLT is another leading Mobile Web browser. It mainly works on Java-compatible mobiles but the company also plans to launch an Android version. Test your Website on BOLT by using its online demo.

BOLT Browser Demo

Conclusion

You can use above tools to check the working of your mobile Website. According to the results, you can modify the Website to work better on each platform. We hope that you will find this post helpful. Now, we invite our readers to provide their valuable suggestions through comments.

Code –Optimize It First

It must be ensured that the source code is not bulky. The HTML and CSS documents must not contain unnecessary characters that may increase the file size and affect load speed. Optimizing the code is the basic thing to do.

Minimizing HTTP Requests

It is important to minimize the HTTP requests made to the server as they increase the downloading time, thereby decreasing the speed.  Two effective ways to reduce the number of such requests include:

Using CSS Sprites

This is a useful way to lessen the number of image requests and it does so by combining all background images into a single image.

Combining Files into Libraries

Combining various files, say scripts and stylesheets, and creating their libraries is another way to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

External CSS and JS Files

It is a good practice to keep the CSS and JavaScript files as external components as this reduces the number of HTTP requests and thus leads to fast loading pages. As these files are cached, keeping them inline delays the rendering of the web page.

Make Use of Caching Systems

Caching systems are the best option as the files don’t need to be downloaded several times if these are used. They help load the site faster by caching all files. You can enable the Browser Cache, Page Cache and Disk Cache for your Website.

Optimize the Images

Images are known to increase the loading time, thus it makes sense to optimize them so that they don’t affect the speed negatively. There are several image editing software that can be utilized for this purpose. They allow saving images in different suitable formats such as PNG & JPEG while reducing the file size which ultimately results in fast loading site.

Usage of Content Delivery Network (CDN)

It is a great thing to make available the content across multiple locations across the globe so that users see it. In this regard, using a CDN can come handy and will allow the users to access the site easily; no matter how far they are located. A CDN does so by caching the content and making it available across distant servers so that the site downloads fast and users face no problems in seeing it.

Go for Gzip

Gzip Compression is an efficient means used by sites to reduce the size of various files whether HTML, CSS or JS, etc. Using Gzip reduces the response time and makes a site faster.

Keeping CSS at Top and JS at Bottom

To enable progressive rendering and make pages load faster, it is a good practice to keep CSS at the top of the page. On the other hand, having JS files at the end of the page helps as it then doesn’t prevent the browser from downloading other components.

Redirects Should be Avoided

For the simple reason that they cause delay and hamper user experience by taking more time, Redirects must be avoided to maintain a good speed for the site.

Site’s speed is important as it directly affects the users’ experience and is one of the ranking factors, therefore it must be dealt with serious attention.  A site needs to load fast and allow users to quickly view the content.

We hope that the above mention practices provide some insights to our readers. We would be delighted to get suggestions and opinions from our readers.

Making Drupal Sites Faster

1. Reduce HTTP Requests to the Minimum

When a visitor clicks on a site, all the components, comprising of code, scripts, images, etc are downloaded first, sending HTTP requests to the server and causing delay in displaying the web page. Therefore, it is advised to reduce the number of such requests by keeping only the necessary components. It helps a page load faster.

2. CDN Helps – Use it

By making available the site’s data at geographically dispersed locations, a CDN- Content Delivery Network helps reduce the response time and makes a site loads fast. CDN and Simple CDN are two of the useful modules that can be used in this regard.

3. Select a Simple Theme/ Template

This can prove helpful as simple themes, unlike complex ones, contain fewer elements. If used, they reduce the page size which in turn loads faster. Select attractive and simple Drupal theme for your site.

4. Caching

Caching is an effective option to improve the performance of the site in terms of its speed. It prevents the need of downloading every time by storing the resource content and displaying the pre-cached pages to users.  A number of modules can help making use of caching:

Memcache – It is a simple and useful caching system that allows effective utilization of resources and reduces the database load and helps sites load faster.

Cache Router – Another caching system that allows both database and file caching to reduce the load time.

Boost – It is an effective caching system with a lot of attractive features. It caches various files to boost the performance of a site and is good to use for those sites which attract anonymous traffic.

5. Compress the Files

As various files including HTML, CSS, JS, image, etc need to be uploaded on the server, they can increase its load as well as the downloading time. Therefore, it is good practice to compress the files as it reduces their size, saves bandwidth and thus speeds up loading.

6. MySQL Query Cache Function

The function should be enabled as it prevents the data from being downloaded again for the common queries by using the same data.

7. Use Modules Judiciously

Drupal is known for its modules but the excessive use may hamper the site’s speed. The right practice is to use only those modules which are necessary and enhance the functionality. Check for the modules installed and if there are some which don’t serve any purpose, remove them.

8. Opt for a Fast Hosting Server

Sometimes it may happen that the site takes extra time to load because of a slow server. Thus, make sure the server speed is fast so that it doesn’t affect the speed of the site and helps it load faster. You can check out the tools to analyze and test the page loading speed of your website.

The above ways can help a lot in improving the load speed of a Drupal site. We hope you find the information useful. Kindly provide your suggestions and opinions.