Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- How To Create a Simple Blog Logo In Photoshop
- Cool Websites and Tools [November 8]
- How To Add A Successful Amazon Store To Your Blog
- How To Convert Delimited Text Files To Excel Spreadsheets
- Browse Nikon Images On Your iPhone With Nikon’s Learn & Explore
- Top 8 Websites With Cool Free Tests That Measure Your Personality Traits
- 6 Ways To Set Up Dual Monitors To Be More Productive
- How To Easily Download YouTube High Definition Videos
| How To Create a Simple Blog Logo In Photoshop Posted: 09 Nov 2009 04:01 AM PST
If you paid attention to their logos, you can see what they have in common: glossy, reflected (often) and light-colored text. Actually it doesn't take a real gifted artist to create such a logo, so in this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to create a nice-looking, simple, eye-candy logo for your blog in Photoshop. Thus, before dropping me an email ordering a logo for your blog, try it yourself (hell, am I losing my money here?) just to find out that you can't make it better than me.
(Drop Shadow: Structure: Blend Mode - Multiply, Opacity- 61%, Angle – 120, Distance – 5, Spread – 0, Size – 5;
Almost done. In the next step, we will add a glossy effect to the text.
Done! One tip on saving your logo with a transparent background:
Choose PNG-24, check the Transparency checkbox and click Save. Now you can use it on any background in your web design. As you can see, with a little knowledge, you can create a simple logo for your blog in Photoshop, while waiting for the designer to finish his job on your unique logotype. I hope you find this a simple and easy tutorial. Any suggestions, ideas and questions are welcome – please feel free to leave them here in the comments. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| Cool Websites and Tools [November 8] Posted: 08 Nov 2009 05:33 PM PST
(1) Shape Collage – Simple online shape collage maker using which you could easily create photo collages in your browser. Read more: Shape Collage – Online Shape Collage Maker
(2) SimpleDesktops – Recently launched website where you can download and share original and simple desktop wallpapers. All wallpapers are flare, shadow and gradient free, and provide just enough eye candy to not be bored. Great for people who want to spice up their desktops and at the same time stay focused. Read more: SimpleDesktops – Original & Simple Desktop Wallpapers (3) Octopart – Electronic parts search engine that helps engineers and enthusiasts of electronics find the best deals on gadget components. It receives product data feeds from major electronic part retailers (Newark, Avnet, Arrow, Future, and Premier Farnell), organizes it, and presents on easy to browse interface. Read more: Octopart – Electronic Parts Search Engine (4) GeoDomainMap - Geo domain name search tool recently launched by GoDaddy. It lets users conduct a location based search for domain names and then book them if they are available. Users may search through domains by city, state, zip code or you could just zoom into a specific location of the map. Read more: GeoDomainMap – Geo Domain Name Search Tool (5) BudgetPulse – Newly launched web based personal finance management tool which boasts of a variety of cool features. Contrary to other similar tools, this service is completely free to use at the moment. You can sign up and get access to a comprehensive online dashboard which helps you centralize your finances and manage them at one place. See your budget, cash flow, income and expenses and create personal finance goals accordingly. Read more: BudgetPulse – Online Personal Budget Management Tool
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| How To Add A Successful Amazon Store To Your Blog Posted: 08 Nov 2009 02:01 PM PST
I haven’t quite settled on what service I’ll use as my main advertising platform but I am going to partake in the Amazon Affiliates program to build a store for my blog, filled with products my readers may be interested in. So I’m going to show you how to add a good Amazon eStore to your blog or site. Firstly, let me set one thing straight. Your readers aren’t going to read a laptop review you did and suddenly make the decision to buy it in your store. It just doesn’t happen. Sorry. So the answer to the question on the tip of your tongue is no, you won’t earn 15% on a $2,000 laptop from your store. I want you to to sit down with a pen and paper with your blog open in your browser and really ask yourself – what would I buy having read this blog? If it’s a how-to blog with cool homemade gadgets, maybe you could have a store that sells cheap tools, LEDs, wiring etc. That people will actually buy because they want to build a project on your blog. If you run a gardening blog, rare seeds or weird tools would be good picks. All of this boils down to three rules.
Ensure each and every one of your products answers yes to these questions. Now join the Amazon Associates program. It will take them a few days to verify your blog is worthy of bearing their brand. If you post more than once a week and the content isn't questionable then you should get through no problem. On the affiliates homepage, click ‘Create aStore‘. This will display the page below.
Click ‘Add Category‘ to add a new section to your store. For example, I entered 'Electronics'. Then, click on the ‘Add products' button seen on the right. This will take you to the page below.
Here, simply browse through the products clicking ‘Add‘ next to the products you want in your store. I encourage you to consult the three rules mentioned above while doing this. When you have all the categories and products added, click ‘Continue‘ to bring you onto the design and customization phase.
In the screenshot above you can see the page where you can customize how your store will look. To the left there is a sidebar where you can change the colours of the different aspects of your store using the dropdown menus or, for the more tech savvy, the colour codes (ex. #FFFFFF for white etc…) You can also name your store and add a logo. When adding a logo, you’ll be required to enter in an image URL. A good idea is to make this the logo of your blog if you have one. Simply right click on the your blog’s logo and select ‘Copy Image URL‘. Then paste it into the appropriate box on the ‘Customize Store’ page. Then click ‘Continue‘. The next page is further customization of your store. This is merely placement of the sidebar and selecting which widgets (advertisements) you want to appear in your store alongside your ads. You earn revenue from these as well. When you’re finished click ‘Finish & Get Link‘. You’re then presented with three options.
The first is the most basic. You can simply copy the link to your store and place a button on your blog/site. Preferably in the main menu section. When a reader clicks this button they'll be redirected to your store on Amazon. The second is to embed your store using an inline frame. An inline frame is kind of like a mini browser within your website. To do this, select that option along the top of the page. Then, copy all of the HTML code that is presented to you and create a new page on your blog. Then copy the HTML into your blogging platform’s HTML editor and your store should appear when you save the HTML. The third, and perhaps the most desirable, is to fully place your store on your site. However, this is for more experienced users only. The inline frame will work just fine for most blogs and is a lot easier to do. This is similar to embedding the in-line frame, however it will be wider and take up all of the webpage below the header and menu bars. Here are the steps: Select the appropriate option at the top of the page. Then:
Your store should now be live on your website. Before I sign off – a few tips about integrating a new store on a blog:
What revenue streams do you have for your blog? We have previously covered a few other possibilities such as e-cards and 5 Adsense alternatives. Which other ones do you prefer? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| How To Convert Delimited Text Files To Excel Spreadsheets Posted: 08 Nov 2009 12:01 PM PST
So it was with me when I had to convert a delimited text data file to Excel and format it within the columns and rows. That's a rough challenge for a guy who has a chronic fear of anything that resembles figures. The raw file that I had in my hand consisted of higgledy-piggledy blocks of text and numbers. My simple task was to make sense out of this jumble by importing it into Excel and sorting the data into columns and rows. Thankfully, many web tutorials came to the rescue of my dead brain cells. Delimited files are a simple way to store data and import or export it between various applications. Delimited in essence means, data that's separated by specific delimiter characters. Common delimiters are tab, comma and semicolon.
A delimited file is of no actual use unless it is converted into some form suitable for analysis and study. Microsoft makes it easy to convert a delimited file to a spreadsheet in three easy steps. Let's start with a text file with some data separated by commas. To bring the data into Excel –
In the Wizard, choose Delimited and click on Next.
It's just three easy steps courtesy of a wizard. This simple utility gives us the ability to import delimited text files into Excel and apply its number crunching tools on it. Liked this? We have other Excel tutorials to make an analyst out of you. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| Browse Nikon Images On Your iPhone With Nikon’s Learn & Explore Posted: 08 Nov 2009 11:01 AM PST
The app is a multimedia magazine, featuring professional images and how-to articles by and about professional photographers. It doesn't replace a well designed magazine or photography book, but it's a handy resource on your mobile device. When you first open the open the app, the home screen dissolves to a browser of high quality Nikon images, including portraits, travel, wildlife, and numerous scenic photos. Each photo includes “Info” and an article interview with the photographer of the selected image. The one sentence “Info” for each images is very skimpy. It might include the name of the Nikon camera and a brief public relations type comment, nothing more. Here's an example:
The extended interviews include a little background about the photographers, their work, the Nikon camera(s) they use, and a link to their website. Since this is a “learn and explore” app, it would better if the “Info” includes things such as the camera settings used and how the photographer went about making the photograph, both using the camera and in post-processing.
The Learn section of the app includes so far about 22 different lessons, ranging from shooting techniques about close-up photography, the value of zoom lenses, and getting candid urban photos. Unfortunately, these “learn” articles are very underdeveloped. Some “how-tos” include videos of the photographer explaining his work. The two videos I watched were much more informative than the accompanying articles. I realize that videos are much more time consuming and expensive to produce, but they would be tremendously useful on a mobile app, even if users had to pay a small subscription fee. The next section of the app includes articles taken from Nikon World, the company's quarterly print magazine. These articles include much more detail about the process photographers took to make their photos or complete certain projects. As you may guess, much of the articles begin with or center on the use of a particular Nikon camera. The application also includes a glossary of photography and Nikon related terms. For example, this is how “Aperture” is defined: “The circular opening inside the lens that can change in diameter to control the amount of light reaching the camera's sensor or film”. Unfortunately, this definition doesn’t include an illustration or an example to further explain the definition. Finally, you can star any article, image, or definition to add to your “favorites” list. This is a handy feature because the company says that the app will be updated with new information and articles, so a favorites list will make it easy to locate bookmarked resources. Overall, Nikon: Learn and Explore is a great idea for an iPhone/iPod touch application. The company might consider offering an a simpler online option instead requiring future updates of the application itself. I could also foresee it making iPhone/iPod touch-formatted manuals for each of its major cameras. I'm not a Nikon shooter, but I'm looking forward to similar applications for us Canon photographers. So what features would you like to see in an application like Nikon: Learn and Explore? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| Top 8 Websites With Cool Free Tests That Measure Your Personality Traits Posted: 08 Nov 2009 10:01 AM PST
Needless to say, all free personality tests should be taken with a grain of salt, which is to say, not very seriously, and certainly not as a replacement for professional psychologists. With that disclaimer out of the way, we can now present our hand-picked selection of the Top 8 Websites with cool tests that measure your Personality Traits! #1: Signal Patterns Big Five TestThe Big Five is the leading industry personality model, shown to work across different cultures, geographies, and languages. It is the model most used in psychology and by human resource professionals. In this model, the personality attributes of a person are "measured" in five traits: Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Openness/Intellect. The Signal Patterns test extends the model to 45 facets, each mixing two of the Big 5 traits.
#2: Human Metrics MBTI TestThe MBTI is the precursor to the Big Five and remains the most widely administered personality test, with about 2 million tests taken every year. This is the granddaddy of all personality tests! According to the MBTI, all people are classified using four criteria: Extroversion – Introversion, Sensing – iNtuition, Thinking – Feeling, and Judging – Perceiving. Your “type” is then made up of four alphabets depending upon your score in these four criteria, for example ESFP or INTP.
There is a lot of typology information as well as several other tests available on the web, including websites devoted exclusively to each of the sixteen MBTI personality types. The Myers-Briggs Foundation site is the authentic source for further information. #3: The Big Five TestThis site has a free personality test based on 45 questions from the Big Five Inventory, with more background information provided here.
Rate yourself on a 5 point scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree to discover your inclination on five personality dimensions. #4: Keirsey Temperament SorterThe Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) is closely related to the MBTI, and uses four temperaments extended to eight roles to model your personality. KTS is also a popular assessment test, taken by 40 million people across universities and companies worldwide. The site requires a free registration to take the KTS-II test.
Find out if you are an Artisan, Guardian, Idealist or Rationalist with this test. Wikipedia provides further information about KTS, including a comparison with MBTI. #5: The Color QuizWhether you agree with the results of this color quiz or not, this is surely a fun quiz to take! Simply go on choosing the color you like the most, in a two step process.
In the results, you get an assessment of your existing situation, stress sources, restrained characteristics, desired objective, and actual problem. #6: TESTdex Personality & Intelligence TestsThis site offers a large variety of personality tests. You can choose from the Big Five, Jungian, Enneagram, Brain Hemisphere, and others.
The nice thing about this site is you can choose your test based on how much time you wish to spend, as you know the number of questions in each test beforehand. Apart from personality tests, you will also find a handful of Intelligence, Amusing, and Compatibility tests here. #7: Queendom: Land of TestsQueendom is a website maintained by a company providing psychometric services and psychological assessments. There are tests for everything under the sun on this website – Personality, Love, Health, IQ, Career, etc. Whether you are looking for serious tests for career or relationships, or fun tests for trivia, you will find them here.
Beyond the many tests that make this an attractive site, you will also find that there is an active community, articles, and advice related to all aspects of our life. #8: YouniverseThis website is run by Imagini, a UK startup, to promote their VisualDNA concept. You can take a series of tests for Personality, Movies, Love, etc. in all of which you choose the best picture that matches a concept like my kind of bedroom, vacation, excitement, etc. It may not offer much psychological insight, but is a pleasant and interesting way to take quizzes.
You need to register with the site to see your results. More than 15 million people have taken the VisualDNA test, which Imagini uses to sell VisualDNA Shops widgets for blog and website affiliate sales. Want more? See How to Have Fun with Online Personality Quizzes and more fun personality quizzes we covered earlier. Did you enjoy taking tests on these sites? Any favorite site you like that we missed? Share it with us in the comments! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| 6 Ways To Set Up Dual Monitors To Be More Productive Posted: 08 Nov 2009 08:01 AM PST
I work on my computer a lot. I use many different programs depending on my task at hand. I am constantly monitoring different sources of information, from RSS feeds, several different email boxes, social networking streams, and different blog commenting threads. All of this means that I have a lot going, computer-wise. Sometimes all of this going on at once really puts a damper on my productivity because I have a severe lack of ability when it comes to multitasking. What I finally tried the other day has given me hope that this mass confusion and ill-fated attempts at getting things done can finally have an end! I finally broke down and tried to set up dual monitors in my home office setup. While I am still learning to use it properly, I have already noticed a massive difference in my level of concentration and productivity. As a blogger, there are several ways to use such a setup (which I am still learning) but I think there are many different ways a dual monitor setup can help someone be more productive. Here are 6 of them:
1. Working and previewing at the same time
While working on a project (or article), you can set up dual monitors to use one monitor to work and use the other for previewing your work. For instance, when blogging using Wordpress, if you hit preview, a separate window (make sure you open it in a separate window as opposed to a tab) will open containing a preview of your article so far. If you set up that window in the second monitor, every time you hit preview the page will just refresh. That way there is no switching between tabs or windows! A similar setup can be useful for a design professional. 2. Testing in multiple types of browsers
I am doing that because certain sites run better or smoother on Chrome while I still enjoy the extensions and usability of Firefox but a coder or designer may be interested in viewing their work in multiple browsers simultaneously in order to see how it looks in each. 3. Testing multiple screen resolutions (color settings, etc.)
Yes, you CAN have different settings on each monitor. For designers this could be an awesome help! It all depends on what you need to see. If you have a hard time reading, set the resolution a bit lower on the one you do reading from and keep the other one at a more reasonable resolution. 4. Making a lot of phone calls & recording data at the same time
If you are constantly running down a phone list, it may be helpful to have a list constantly open in one monitor while working or recording data in the other one. Not having to constantly hit Alt-Tab (to switch between windows) or Ctrl-Tab (to switch between tabs) saves a LOT of time, believe it or not. Also it’s harder to lose your place if the view is never lost. 5. Getting work done while keeping up with what’s going on
I’m currently doing this one! I like having the ability to work while glancing up to see who’s saying what on Twitter or Facebook. I also like keeping my email off to the side for glancability without losing my place on what I am working on. Plus I like to keep my RSS reader over there. I suppose someone could also keep the news on a separate monitor so you can keep up with it while working. 6. Being entertained while working
Today’s Internet allows you to watch many TV shows online. That doesn’t even count sites like YouTube! You can also have a movie in your DVD drive. I suppose you can be entertained on the side while working. Please note, this could be taken both ways. You can look at it like it’s stupid because you’ll be distracted and obviously lose any resemblance of productivity OR you can see it as a way to at least get SOMETHING done during down time. To be honest, I’ve tried having video on while trying to work and I can’t do it, however I am sure there are those of you out there who can pull off some sort of light work while being entertained. If you have the room, and you can afford it, go ahead and give dual monitors a try. I’m loving it so far! AND if you have any more productivity tips using dual monitors, let us know! Image Credit : unimatrixZxero Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| How To Easily Download YouTube High Definition Videos Posted: 08 Nov 2009 06:01 AM PST
All this changed when YouTube introduced their HQ video streams, and a little time back, HD videos. They even have a YouTube HD page, so you can more easily find that high(est) quality material. Most YouTube download services haven’t progressed that far. They’ve stayed behind with support for downloading low quality FLV’s and decent quality MP4’s. Today we’ll show you an alternative application to download HD YouTube videos to your computer. YouTube Downloader HDYouTube Downloader HD is as straightforward as it sounds.You can use it to download those trailers, movies and holiday YouTube video keepsakes to your computer in just a few clicks with the mouse. The application works more or less the same as most YouTube downloading web applications, allowing you to specify the video by providing the relevant YouTube link. The biggest difference with YouTube Downloader HD is that you can specify in what quality or file format you want to download the YouTube video. Most people don’t know this, but an FLV converter is usually unnecessary, because most videos can be downloaded in AVI and MP4 format as well. As such, all HD videos are stored as AVI’s and will provide no hassle if you want to watch it on your computer.
As an example, we tried downloading the latest Sherlock Holmes trailer, a movie that has called for a lot of critique, but is one that you should certainly grab when it comes out. The YouTube link is here. After opening YouTube Downloader HD, we paste the link in the first text field. Because I’m a fervent supporter of eye-candy, we choose AVI HD – High Definition as our download option. Note that AVI HD and MP4 downloads will only work if the video has an HQ or HD relative on the side. If the trailer would only have been uploaded in Standard Definition, we’d be forced to download a lower quality FLV or AVI file. Pick your destination directory and press download. Wait a few minutes or get a soda while the video is retrieved. Thanks to the fast YouTube servers, the download will nearly only be limited by your own internet connection.
Little more than a minute in and the download has finished. Click ‘open‘ to browse through the relevant directory and open your video file. As you can see, the file plays crystal clear, and nicely fills my screen. Enjoy the YouTube Downloader HD. Do you often download from YouTube or other video sites? Tell us about it in the comments! The biggest difference with YouTube Downloader HD, is that you can specify in what quality or file format you want to download the video. Most people don’t know this, but an FLV converter is usually unnecessary, because most video’s can be downloaded in AVI and MP4 format as well. As such, all HD videos are stored as AVI’s and will provide no hassle if you want to watch it on your computer. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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As a logo designer, I am frequently asked to make a logo for blog owners. Mostly, blogs have this Web 2.0 styling which is a simple design, eye-friendly, three-color scheme and WordPress powered websites.
, fill the selection with white color:
make a selection as below:
Hide the Background layer by clicking the eye icon on it's left. Go to File->Save for Web & Devices (it may be “Save for Web“, depending on your Photoshop version, I use CS4) or press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S. In the upper right corner of the pop-up window you will see presets as shown on the screenshot:
As some of you may know, if you regularly read MUO, I’m currently in the process of building a really big blog that’s due to launch in December. Last week I sat down and took out the plan I had made for the site to update it. One such section of the plan was monetizing the blog which I’ll be doing in mid-2010 if all goes to well.
I am not much of an Excel hand; spending most of my time either in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. My most regular use of Excel is as a tool to keep track of my schedule and to list what I am putting out on the web as a writer. So I can safely say that at least in my case, the enormous power that's in this spreadsheet program lies latent. But it happens to all of us that sometimes some tasks, if not taken, get thrust upon us (just like greatness!).
If you're a Nikon camera user and the owner of an iPhone or iPod touch, you'll want to download's the company's recently released free application, 
Online, free personality tests have been a favorite pastime in the past two decades, beginning with the mushrooming of personality test websites and followed by the current popularity of Facebook Quizzes. Are you a navel-gazing narcissist? Optimist or pessimist? Argumentative or agreeable? Everyone likes to know how their friends perceive them and these tests often provide a glimpse that can help you introspect.
If you are anything like me, at any point in time you have several browser windows open at once, many different tabs open in each browser, and several other programs lurking in your computer’s task bar which you are constantly switching between.
You can use a different browser in each monitor. For instance, I am currently using Firefox on one monitor and Chrome on the other (sorry Microsoft!).
A little time back, Veoh and Vimeo were famous for their high quality videos. YouTube was the most popular one, but not well-known for video quality.
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