Free image stock websites

  1. Stock.XCHNG
  2. Every Stock
  3. Imagebase
  4. Morguefile
  5. Openphoto
  6. Stockvault
  7. Unprofound
  8. Photo Rogue
  9. Freerange
  10. Geek Philosopher
  11. Cepolina
  12. ????
  13. Woophy
  14. Photo Rack
  15. Freepixels
  16. Design Packs
  17. Freefoto
  18. Imageafter
  19. Pixel Perfect Digital
  20. Free Stock Photos
  21. Free Digital Photos
  22. Public Domain Photos.
  23. Nations Illustrated
  24. Free Historical Stock Photos
  25. Kave Wall

3D Projection on buildings

3D projection on the side of the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam

http://nuformer.nl/en/

Light is an important factor in order to achieve a beautiful projection. Too much light will have a negative effect on the contrast and colors of a projection. It is therefore important to take into consideration which other light sources are near the buildings while choosing the area for projection. If there are some adjacent buildings that have lots of lights it is sometimes possible to cooperate and arrange for the lights to be switched off during a projection. In some areas it is necessary to switch off the community lights, cooperation from the local governments can be of great help. The surrounding lights determine how many projectors are needed for the actual projection as well as the light intensity.

A minimum distance of 35 to 40 meters is required between the building and the projector in order to get optimal results. Naturally this distance needs to be free from any obstacles such as trees, lamp poles, tram lines etc.

Optimizing Affiliate Marketing Banner Placement

Banner Ads can serve as fairly effective tools for promoting your affiliate programs online. In fact these often serve as eye candies for the online surfers. However, the trick lies not just in the placement of the banner ad but in the correct placement of these ads and their maximum optimization.

When we talk of banner ad placement optimization, there is a lot of research that follows.

  1. The very first step includes making a proper selection of the merchants, whom you wish to promote.
  2. Once you have made this selection, you may then start developing content in support of your choice. In other words, you need to convince the users as to why you chose to promote the particular merchant.
  3. This is finally followed by the actual banner placement. Banner placement depends largely on the site layout. Depending upon the size of the margins, you can place ads of variable width size. However, one thing to remember here is that, the header for the banner ad should be appropriate enough to send a clear message to the users.
  4. While the side marginal ads are usually smaller in size, for horizontally designed layouts, it is advisable to have the squarer or longer banner ads.
  5. Whichever way you may decide to place your banner ad, the main concern is that, your ad should blend well with the feel and look of your main site. This is so because, visitors always prefer to have consistent layouts.

The prime aim of any banner ad is to send out a message to the users and instigate a call of action. Unless a banner ad is capable of this, it cannot be considered to be the best and all the above mentioned steps ensure that you receive the best banner ad placement results.

Case study: my clients – from web designer

My clients all have one thing in common. They have a concrete, business-based reason for hiring me to design them a killer site. Thus far, there have been no exceptions to this rule. All of my clients are doing one of the following:

  • Using their site to sell a product
  • Building a subscription list for marketing purposes
  • Building links and increasing exposure to help with ad/referral conversion

Based on this information, I think it’s fair to conclude that professional designs are really only open to the following people:

  • Those with a plan
  • Those with a lot of money

I never really thought of it this way until this morning, but it’s definitely true. Professional blog designs are a luxury item. Look at it like this: plenty of businesses buy 60? HD TV’s for their stores and displays, but only individual consumers who have money and really want a big, bad TV would ever actually kick down and buy one.

Tips for web designers

Creating a good website isn’t an easy task, but there’s a few tools that can definitely make your developer or designer life easier. In this article, I have compiled 15 extremely useful website that any web developer or web designer should have bookmarked.

ColorCombosGRAB WEBSITE COLORS

When designing a website, one of the firsts (and most important) steps of the process is to choose a color scheme.
Color Combos allow you to browse thousand of different colors combinations for getting inspired for your upcomming design. Color schemes can be browsed by colors.
Visit colorcombos.com

LIpsum

Who doesn’t know the extremely popular Lorem Ipsum text? This text is used by webdesigners worldwide to simulate the render of real text on a design.
Lipsum.com allow you to create th desired number of paragraphs of Lorem Ipsum, quickly and simply.
Visit LIpsum.com

What the font?

You just saw a logo or website using a particular font and you enjoyed it. You’d like to use the same font in a design of yours…but you don’t know the font name. At this point, you have only two solutions: Searching for the font during hours, or using the What the font service.
What’s the font allow you to upload a logo or an image containing a font, and it will tell you which font is it. Results are incredibles.
Visit What the font

ConvertIcon

Favicons are a must have for any website, mostly because on modern browsers as such as Firefox, it is displayed along with the site name in tabs. It is also used in bookmarks. Favicon can be in various file format, including the popular .png. The only problem is that using png as a file format for your site favicon will not work on Internet Explorer. Happilly, there’s ConvertIcon a free online service that allow you to upload an image and get a .ico file, for maintaining compatibility with Microsoft’s browser.
Visit ConvertIcon

BgPatterns

background Patterns is definitely one of the current webdesign trends.
On BgPatterns.com, you’ll be able to browse a wide selection of patterns that you can freely use on your designs.
Visit BgPatterns

HTML Encoder

Do you display code on your website? If yes, you probably know how boring it can be. In fact you have to type < to display <. If you have to display a 50 lines code, this may take a while to manually convert HTML symbols. The HTML Converter simply takes a code and returns it to you after converting HTML entities. I use this service daily for displaying codes on my blogs. Note that a HTML Decoder is also available.
Visit HTML Encoder

Xenocode Browsers

In my opinion, Xenocode Browsers is the ultimat tool for checking your website in different browsers. Xenocode Browsers allow you to lauch IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Google Chrome and Opera directly from the web. The only weak point: The service isn’t available for Macs and GNU/Linux powered PCs.
Visit Xenocode browsers

Test Everything

Do you ever wished to be able to test your design in many browsers as well as checking a page PageRank, and even validate your code standards compliance all in one place? If yes, Test Everything is definitely a site that you should visit. It aggregate over 100 different tools to test almost everything on a webpage.
Visit Test Everything

Sprite Generator

CSS Sprites is definitely a great technique to use, mainly because it reduces the number of HTTP requests. Thought, CSS sprites require time and particular knowledges, which make the technique kinda hard to use, especially for begginners. The amazing Sprite generator allows you to send a zip file containing your images. It will returns you your images combined into a sprite, and even better, the CSS code that you’ll just have to paste in your main css file.
Visit Sprite Generator

Buttonator

Sure things, good looking buttons is a must have for any serious blog or website. If you don’t know, or haven’t the time to create some cool buttons, don’t worry: Buttonator is an advanced button generator that you can freely use. By the way, don’t forget to check out our Top 10 CSS buttons tutorials list if you have an interest in CSS buttons.
Visit Buttonator
Load Impact

How many time have you ever seen websites down after they were featured on the frontpage of popular sites as such as Digg or StumbleUpon?
The free Load Impact service will allow you to test how your website can handle various blasts of traffic. The results with sites hosted at WpWebHost are excellent.
Visit Load Impact

IconFinder

Good looking icons are a must have in any professional website. There’s plenty of free icons on the web, so the folks at IconFinder decided to create a collection of free icons for you to use them in your designs. It is definitely easy to find what you’re looking for in seconds.
Visit IconFinder

TypeTester

Testing how fonts will renders on your design is sometimes a fastidious operation. Happilly, TypeTester allow you to test how fonts and their attributes will look. A definitive gain of time.
Visit TypeTester

CSS Tidy

Even advanced developers often needs to optimize their CSS code. CSS Tidy is a free, online application that will fix errors and optimize your CSS code. For example, it can automatically detect redundant styles, a very common problem of CSS codes. Lots of settings are availables, to ensure you’ll be happy with the results.
Visit CSS Tidy

Contact Forms Generators

Forms are a very important part of any website, because they allow your readers or customers to interact with you. By using Contact Forms Generator, you’ll save a precious time by creating your forms, including the PHP, ASP or even Perl code needed for sending emails from your site to your mailbox.
Contact Forms Generator doesn’t even require programming skills.
Visit Contact Form Generator

Website Grader
Is Your Website Working? How well is your website doing? Is it getting traffic? Does it have SEO problems? How popular is it in social media? Find out the answers for free. Just enter your website URL and click Generate Report.

websitegrader.com

Using designer

How to (and not to) work with a designer

from Will Harris

Imagine that you’re Christopher Columbus. You arrive in the New World and are so disappointed there are none of the oriental silks and spices you came looking for that you turn around and go home, missing all the wonders of the New World.

That’s what happens when you have preconceived notions about design. You can end up with something that’s better, but NOT see or appreciate it because you’re only focusing on the fact that it’s not what had in mind.

Remember you are a vital part of the design process. If you aren’t a good client, then you can’t expect good results.

Preconceived notions are just one of the mistakes people make when they work with a designer. A good designer’s work will make something:

  • Work better
  • Sell better
  • Shed new light on old subjects
  • Look better

The trouble is, a lot of people hire designers because they want their site to “look good.” But that’s just scratching the surface of what a designer can and should do. So they don’t know what’s possible, so they don’t get the most bang for their buck.

Just as writers are not just people who can type, designers are not just people who can use graphics programs. Good Design is more than skin deep.

Design is communication.

The way to inspire a designer is to give them the message and feeling you want to convey, and the freedom to convey it in a fresh, new way.

So how do you work with a designer to get their best work? Here are some suggestions:

    1) Choose your designer carefully. Look at their previous work. The best designers don’t have a “signature look.” Their sites look as different as their clients do. Awards don’t necessarily mean the design worked for the client. If you’re not sure about a design, go to sites they designed and ask their clients.

    2) Leave your preconceived notions at the door. Don’t ask for a site like someone else’s but in a different color. Be open to new, unexpected ideas. Don’t be afraid of something different. Let new ideas sink in.

    3) Tell your designer what you want to say rather than how you want it to look. Don’t ask for a color, shape, or style–ask for meaning or emotion.

    4) Be clear about specific features you need. You want your designer to create a design specific to your needs. If you try to add features as you go along, the design won’t fit as well.

    5) Do your research and be specific about your needs. “I need to sell meeting planners on the idea of hiring me to plan entertainment for their events.” That’s clear and specific about both the product and the audience. The more detailed and specific you are at the start, the better the designer can tailor the site to your needs. If you add requirements later on, the designer will probably just have to shoe-horn them in, which won’t give you the best results.

    6) Make sure your message and content are clear. The more of your content you have complete, the better the designer can build your site around it. A good designer may make suggestions to refine your content to get your message across faster or more clearly, but the more content you have complete, the more the designer will have to work with.

    7) Design for your customer, not yourself, your friends or your colleagues. Be specific so your designer knows who your customers are and what they want. It’s more important that they like your site than that you like it. Always remember, “What’s in it for them.”

    If the design pleases your customers, they’ll please you. If you insist on a design that only pleases you, then your customers may not be inspired to buy your product or service and in the end you will lose.

    8) Have good reasons for your preferences. You can show the designer sites that appeal to you, but dig deeper and figure out why they speak to you. Think in terms of feelings.

    Design makes you feel, so tell your designer how it makes you feel. Instead of saying, “I like yellow,” get to the root of it and say “I want a site that feels warm,” or “I want something upbeat and friendly.” Focusing on your logical or emotional impressions give the designer more to work with. Why? Because your customers may not “like” the same things you do, but a good designer can convey the impression you want them to have.

    9) Don’t design by committee. No good design was ever created by a consensus. The more people who have a voice in the process, the more watered down the results will be. Your friends and coworkers will often give you conflicting advice and people often have ulterior motives when they give you comments (they may be jealous or threatened if you get something that’s too good, or they may just be ignorant). You can show it to a few trusted people and get their comments, but there can only be one person making decisions. Don’t be wishy washy and try to change direction late in the process.

    10) Don’t tell your designer how to design. That’s not your area of expertise. Give a designer your requirements and preferences, but also the freedom to create something that answers them as effectively as possible. If you micromanage a designer, they won’t be motivated to do anything but cash your check.

    11) You can’t please all the people all the time. Bill Cosby said “The only sure way to failure is to try to please everybody.” If everyone thinks your site is “OK” then it’s probably too dull to get much of a reaction from anyone. If you design a site with NO personality no one will hate it. Or love it.

    12) Trust your designer (you are paying for their expertise).

Then when they start to show you “comps” (design versions), give them specific comments.

Don’t just say, “I don’t like brown.” That says nothing of real value. If you say “I’m concerned that the color looks sickly and we need something that conveys growth,” then you are giving the designer useful information, because you’re talking about content rather than telling them how to design.

Your designer should know more than you do about design and its implications, both emotional and cultural. So if you ask for a color and the designer explains why it isn’t a good idea, believe them. Don’t ask for a color, shape, or style–ask for meaning or emotion.

Yes, designers can make mistakes and take wrong directions. And yes, you need to give them direction. But you must tell them what you need, not how to achieve that goal.

The reason that so many great discoveries have been accidents is because when you set out with a destination in mind then end up someplace else you feel you’ve missed the mark and gotten lost.

The reality is different—you may have ended up someplace different—but better. Yet if you’re only viewing things in terms of “this is where I wanted to go and I’m not there,” you will be disappointed, even with something better.

So when working with a designer you need to step back and ask yourself if you’re just being Columbus, missing the wonders of the new world.

lotta nieminen

One of the 20 nominated designers under 30 years old!

Lotta Nieminen is a graphic designer and illustrator living and working in Helsinki, Finland. She studied graphic design and illustration at the University of Art and Design Helsinki (2005-2009) and the Rhode Island School of Design (2007).
HuiputHer work has won honourable mentions at Vuoden Huiput (Best of Finnish advertising and graphic design) as well as in various logo competitions (Aalto Univeristy, divided 2nd prize ; Maritime center Vellamo, 2nd prize ; Nuorisomerkki, 1st and 3rd prize).
She has worked as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator since 2006. As an illustrator, she’s represented by illustration agency Agent Pekka.

lota

Featured in US based Print Magazine‘s
New Visual Artist 2010 review, as one of the 20 nominated designers under 30 years old!

How do you get traffic to your newly launched web site?

“If you build it, they will come” is not necessarily true on the Web. Putting a website up is one thing, but getting visitors to come to your site is another. The process becomes even more difficult if you have limited resources to market your business.

Here are some shoestring marketing ideas that can help you get the visitors you need at the least cost possible:

1. Create the best content you can with the best products you can possibly offer. Your content is your best advertisement – if visitors love your content, then they will go back and spread the word to others.

2. Make it easy for users to recommend your site. Viral marketing is very important — and easy to tap on the Web. But give your users the tools. Get a Recommend this Site script from websites such as cgiscripts.com and similar directories of scripts. Some even go as far as giving incentives to those who recommend the site to their friends. If only 10 people go to your site, but these 10 people invite 10 more – that’s additional traffic that you get for FREE!

Recommend Site Scripts (various) http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Big Nose Bird Recommend this Site http://bignosebird.com/carchive/birdcast.shtml
CGI Resource Index http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Hostscripts http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Site_Recommendation/index.html

3. Rank well in the search engines (organic search results, not the pay per click). SEs can be a big source of traffic. The key is to create the best content in your niche. If you have good content, other websites will gladly link to you and offer your site as a resource to their audience. Check the on-page factors and be sure to get linked from authority sites in your topic area.

If you are going to read only one piece on search engine optimization, I suggest you read Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com’s “Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: 26 steps to 15k a day.” http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm

SEO for Google http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/google.htm
SEO for Yahoo! http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/yahoo.htm
SEO for MSN http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/msn.htm
Tying It Together: SEO For The Big Three http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/seo.htm

4. Send out press releases. While outfits charge as much as $650 per release, there are free press release submission places on the Web. Press releases allow you to (a) attract media attention; (b) get more back links to your website without sending each website an email request; and (c) get more visibility especially if your press release gets in Google News or Yahoo News. My website (see my profile) accepts free press release submission (no strings attached!)

5. Submit articles. Write articles and submit them to websites accepting author submissions. You get exposure for your business; establishes you as an authority in your field, and allows you to get backlinks for your website. If 50 websites publish your article and it contains a link back to your website, then you easily get 50 links from a single article. The more links you have, the greater your chances for increasing your search engine rankings.

Here is a comprehensive list of where to submit your articles http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=AhzreGmnCUicOoyedqypscUjzKIX?qid=1006022407481

6. Improve your conversion. Getting visitors is one thing; getting them to buy your products is a whole different story. Read the article “10 Ways to Convert Visitors to Buyers” http://www.powerhomebiz.com/072005/conversion.htm for tips on how to improve your conversion rates.

7. Post a link to your site for free where it is allowed (always read the Terms of Use). Examples are:

Craigslist http://www.craigslist.com
Google Base http://base.google.com
Classifieds for Free http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/...
Text Link Exchange http://www.txtswap.com/
Recycler.com http://www.recycler.com/
Yahoo Classifieds http://classifieds.yahoo.com/
US Free Ads http://www.usfreeads.com/

How to Redirect a Web Page

301 Redirect

301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection. It’s not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you have to change file names or move pages around, it’s the safest option. The code “301” is interpreted as “moved permanently”.

You can Test your redirection with Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker

Below are a Couple of methods to implement URL Redirection

IIS Redirect

  • In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
  • Select the radio titled “a redirection to a URL”.
  • Enter the redirection page
  • Check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”
  • Click on ‘Apply’

ColdFusion Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently”>
<.cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.new-url.com”>

PHP Redirect

<?
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.new-url.com” );
?>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”
Response.AddHeader “Location”,”http://www.new-url.com/”
%>

ASP .NET Redirect

<script runat=”server”>
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”,”http://www.new-url.com”);
}
</script>

JSP (Java) Redirect

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( “Location”, “http://www.new-url.com/” );
response.setHeader( “Connection”, “close” );
%>

CGI PERL Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(“http://www.new-url.com/”);

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers[“Status”] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://www.new-url.com/”
end

Redirect Old domain to New domain (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all your directories and pages of your old domain will get correctly redirected to your new domain.
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Please REPLACE www.newdomain.com in the above code with your actual domain name.

In addition to the redirect I would suggest that you contact every backlinking site to modify their backlink to point to your new website.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

Redirect to www (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all requests coming in to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Please REPLACE domain.com and www.newdomain.com with your actual domain name.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

How to Redirect HTML

Please refer to section titled ‘How to Redirect with htaccess’, if your site is hosted on a Linux Server and ‘IIS Redirect’, if your site is hosted on a Windows Server.