Whats the book about? Why it is free?

Make Money Blogging offers a nice overview for the beginning blogger. The information is concise and to the point and it’s a quick read. It’s also a good review book for pro bloggers. In its 54 pages, divided in 5 main chapters, Daniel covers the following topics,

• The three mistakes that bloggers make when choosing a niche.
• The three characteristics of good content.
• Why your content strategy should have one cornerstone.
• The two factors that create magnetic headlines (and how to apply them).
• A deadly mistake that bloggers make when designing their blogs.
• Practical tips that you can use to network efficiently.
• A promotional strategy that most people forget to use.
• The two requirements for making money with Google AdSense.
• The best trick available to make money with CPM deals.

Yes, it is FREE and Daniel is also offering 2 laptops FREE for reading and tweeting about it. Hurry up and Grab Your Copy Now.

Related posts:

1. 10 Must To Follow Blogs For Effective Blogging
2. Free Report: Roadmap to become a blogger
3. UPrinting Blog Sponsorship Program

Envato birthday offer

HURRY NOW! THE OFFER LASTS ONLY FOR 3 DAYS!!

Here is a preview of items in the BIG pack,

Related posts:

1. A big $3500 Contest From Envato

Success

Freelancing can be a never ending and happy journey, if you follow some simple steps. Here are a few I like to share with,

#1 Major Goal, Mini Goals

Set a major goal, but always follow a path having mini goals that go in many(focused) directions.

When you learn to succeed at mini goals, you will be motivated to challenge grand goals.

#2 Finish What You Start

Always finish what you start. A half finished project is of no use to anyone. Quitting is a habit. Develop the habit of finishing self-motivated projects.

#3 Socialize

Socialize with others of similar interest. Mutual support is always motivating. We will develop the attitudes of our five best friends. If they are losers, we will be a loser. If they are winners, we will be a winner. To be a cowboy we must associate with cowboys.

#4 Learn How To Learn

Learn how to learn. Dependency on others for knowledge, supports the habit of procrastination. Man has the ability to learn without instructors. In fact, when we learn the art of self-education we will find, if not create, the opportunity to find success beyond our wildest dreams.

#5 Harmonize

Harmonize natural talent with interest that motivates. Natural talent creates motivation, motivation creates persistence and persistence gets the job done.

#6 Gain Knowledge

Increase knowledge of subjects that inspires. The more we know about a subject, the more we want to learn about it. A self-propelled upward spiral develops automatically when you started learning things that inspires.

#7 Take Risk

Take risk. Failure and bouncing back are also the elements of motivation. Failure is a learning tool. No one has ever succeeded at anything worthwhile without a string of failures.

No related posts.

Subscribe to our RSS feed to get the articles and updates.

To start with we have some great posts related to Mac,

30 Must-Have Tweaks For Your Mac

50 Custom Mac Desktop Screenshots

18 Wonderful IDEs for Windows, Mac, and Linux

Case studies and Tutorials

Case Study "Wrigley's - 5 gum" of my favorite designer Peter Jaworowski

Meat Text Effect in Photoshop

60+ Amazing Poster and Advertisment Tutorials

Scientific Designs and Tutorials That Will Inspire You

Sexy Drop Down Menu w/ JQuery & CSS

Freebies & Others

6 Free PSD/(X)HTML-Templates

Essential Apps for Professional Designers and Developers

Fixed vs. Fluid vs. Elastic Layout: What’s The Right One For You?

Don’t forget to Subscribe to our RSS feed to get all the latest articles and updates directly to your email.

Related posts:

1. Graphic Design Week on Psdtuts+ And Vectortuts+
2. Sharpen Your Design Skills with Tuts+

Google Wave is a new model for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year.
Here’s a preview of just some of the aspects of this new tool.

Google Wave

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Sign-up for Google Wave

You can sign-up for Google Wave and you can test it, take a survey, or you can just use it. All you need to do is, fill the sign-up form.

Related posts:

1. Google Chrome - New Open Source Browser From Google

Microsoft Bing

What’s more? It offers search preferences, pay-per-click advertising, and a Bing community blog. Let’s see how it will take the future.

No related posts.

Envato $3500 Contest

What to do?

It’s very easy. All you need to do is to complete the following two simple steps,

1. Create a collection

When you find files on any of the 5 Envato Marketplaces including GraphicRiver you can bookmark them and add them to a collection of bookmarks. Those collections can be made public for sharing and showing off. All you need to do to go into the running to win our huge prize is create a public collection of your favourite files. That’s it!

2. Leave your comment here, with a link to your collection.

The grand prize is $3500 hard cash paid to your PayPal account and 9 runners up will get potential gifts worth $750.

FAQs, Terms and Conditions and more information are supplied here.

And don’t forget the deadline, June 15 2009.

Related posts:

1. Envato celebrating 3rd birthday with a BIG offer
2. Graphic Design Week on Psdtuts+ And Vectortuts+

Graphic Design Week

Beginning today, It’s Graphic Design Week at Psdtuts+ and Vectortuts+.

So What?

They are going to feature great tutorials ranging from from business card design to typography, prepress to identity design.

Here’s the schedule,

• Monday
  Create a Five-color Magazine Cover using a Spot Metallic
  16 Great Graphic Design Blogs & Sites

  Printing & PrePress Basics
  30 Vector Elements to Add to Your Next Design

• Tuesday
  A 20 Minute Intro to Typography
  Logos for Print Versus Online – Identify Your Audience and Design Accordingly
  How to Create an Identity Package in Illustrator
  Make Your Design Work Look Awesome with a Product Mockup
• Wednesday
  26 Great Graphic Design Agencies
  Design and Print Bold Promo Cards in 60 Minutes
  Preparing and Talking About Your Graphic Design Portfolio
  Icons, Icons, Icons!
• Thursday
  Creating a Rockstar Brand 1: Logo, Look & Feel
  Creating a Rockstar Brand 2: Stationery & Brand Application
  Creating a Rockstar Brand 3: Online Design
  Creating a Rockstar Brand 4: InDesign, Book Design & Lulu.com
• Friday
  Spot UVs, Matt Lamination and Other Printing Terminology
  Create a Brochure in Photoshop & Indesign Part 1
  Create a Brochure in Photoshop & Indesign Part 2
  33 Brilliant Business Card Templates
• Saturday
  Communicating with Typography
  The Best Backgrounds on GraphicRiver
  60 Gorgeous Vector Business Cards
  How to Create a Retro Boxing Poster in Photoshop
• Sunday
  Graphic Design Self-Taught: Stuff You Should Know
  Brochure Design Tutorial
  Win Our Killer Graphic Design Setup - iMac, Adobe Products + Pantone Books!
• Monday
  Graphic Design Week Wrap-up

Join today, to grab all the excellent articles with source files.

Related posts:

1. New Best Of The Week Series - Week 1
2. A big $3500 Contest From Envato
3. Best of August - Creative RoundUp

UPrinting.com

Great offer for bloggers! UPrinting has recently launched a special program for bloggers, called Blog Sponsorship Program.

It helps bloggers promote their blog and also make some good money during the process.

By joining in this FREE program, bloggers can,

• Host sponsored giveaways and increase traffic to your blog!
• Get Business Cards, Posters and more to help promote your blog or online business!
• Receive information on the latest promotions and discounts that we are offering!

And here is the big one,

All sponsored blogs will have the opportunity to host ads and links for their online marketing.

So head on to UPrinting and join immediately.

Related posts:

1. Comment And Win 1000 Business Cards From UPrinting.com
2. Logo Designer Blog - Another Feather In The Cap of Jacob Cass
3. 10 Must To Follow Blogs For Effective Blogging

1000 Free Business Cards

I am very excited to bring this offer from UPrinting.com, the leader in business card printing, to my readers. Here is a chance for you to win 1000 business cards (500 x 2 winners).

All you need to do is,

1. Leave a comment saying how you would like to use the cards (Be little bit creative).
2. Write a post on your blog linking to this giveaway post and linking to UPrinting.com

You can use both the ways to increase your chances of winning.

About UPrinting.com (as said by Fabio Sasso at Abduzeedo)

For over 25 years, UPrinting has been a trusted leader in Online Printing , featuring its signature easy-to-use website and the famous free file review, a complimentary proofing service which requires no upfront payment. UPrinting offers convenient marketing support services such as design, lists, and direct mailing to help grow small and medium-size businesses nationwide.

UPrinting.com’s high quality printing services include Canvas Printing, business cards, brochures, postcards and more, all at the most affordable prices.

If you are a blogger interested in free printing for yourself and for your readers be sure to join the UPrinting.com Blog Sponsorship Program. Its a great way to promote your blog and increase traffic.

Note

The shipping of prizes is free only in the US and Canada. All other locations get free product, but must pay shipping.

The contest ends by 22-May-2009. And the winners will be announced immediately after. Make sure you leave a valid e-mail, to contact you if you win.

All the best!

Related posts:

1. UPrinting Blog Sponsorship Program
2. Free Report: Roadmap to become a blogger

Free WordPress Themes

WordPress is a great CMS platform. And there are a ocean of themes available, where only a litte are unique in style. Searching for one is always be a tedious task, but worthy.

Today I like to present 17 Complete FREE Premium Like WordPress Themes which you can use for your next project or for your portifolio or as you like.

The following are the courtesy of Web2Feel

1. ANDROIDA

ANDROIDA

Androida is a business template based on wordpress. It is based on Android phone niche. The theme also comes with an optional blog layout. Users are given the option to choose between business template layout and regular blog template layout. Theme is powered with featured content glider, featured posts, featured video, banner ads, widgetized sidebars, feedburner subscription form etc.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/androida-theme/

2.ZINMAG TRIBUNE

ZINMAG TRIBUNE

Zinmag tribune is the latest magazine theme from the zinmag series. This theme is designed with a newspaper layout. It is bundled with all the premium theme features and a custom admin panel to enable its different modules. Free support is available via the support forums.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/zinmag-tribune/ 

3.ZINMAG REMEDY

ZINMAG REMEDY

Zinmag remedy is a 3 column, dark layout free premium magazine wordpress theme. The theme is bundled with lot of cool features you would like to have on your site. It has a sliding carousal of featured post images. Featured post section. Highlight reel section, Featured video section, Mini posts with thumbnails. Flash tag clouds Custom 125 x 125 banner ads. Google adsense Theme option page in the admin panel. The theme also comes with a setup guide to help you customize it to suite your site. The required plugins have been included with the theme files.

EPSILON

• Premium theme layout.
• Multi-level drop-down javascript navigation menu.
• Featured post section with javascript gallery
• Site wide customizable 125 x 125 banner ads.
• Site wide customizable 468 x 60 adsense banner.
• Customizable 468 x 60 adsense banner on inner pages.
• Featured video section
• Customizable About me section
• Thumbnail images with auto crop.
• Widgetized sidebar.
• Tabbed contents
• Custom theme option page in the admin panel.

MONEZINE

• Premium theme layout.
• Featured post section with javascript gallery
• Site wide customizable 125 x 125 banner ads.
• Site wide customizable 300 x 250 banner ad.
• Site wide customizable 600 x 90 banner ad.
• Adsense enabled
• Custom Login field and mini admin panel.
• About me section, which is customizable, including image and text.
• Post thumbnails.
• Tabbed content area.
• Widgetized, dual sidebar.

ZINMAG REDUX

ZINMAG PRIMUS

• Premium theme layout.
• Multi-level drop-down javascript navigation menu.
• Featured post section with javascript gallery
• Site wide customizable 125 x 125 banner ads.
• Site wide customizable 468 x 60 adsense banner.
• Customizable 468 x 60 adsense banner on inner pages.
• Featured video section
• Customizable twitter update section
• Thumbnail images with auto crop.
• Widgetized, dual sidebar.
• Sponsor Link encrypted
• Custom theme option page in the admin panel.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/zinmag-primus/

8.GAMEZINE

GAMEZINE

Gamezine is the latest free magazine wordpress theme for gamers, from jinsona designs. The theme has a dark grunge design with a fixed with 3 column layout. The theme is perfectly suitable for gamers and with some modification it will fit into any niche.

The list of features include

• Magazine theme layout, with dark and grunge style.
• Multi-level drop-down javascript navigation menu.
• Featured post section with javascript gallery
• Featured video section
• Site wide customizable 125×125 banner ads.
• Adsense enabled
• Javascript thumbnail slider which links to posts of specified category.
• About me section, which is customizable, including image and text.
• Random news display with mini thumbnails.
• Mini posts with thumbnails.
• customizable top games section on the sidebar.
• Widgetized, dual sidebar.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/gamezine-theme/

9.ZINMAG FUTURA

ZINMAG FUTURA

Zinmag-futura is a magazine theme from jinsona designs. This is a 3 column magazine wordpress theme designed to power up your site as a powerfull CMS. Theme is bundled with lot of cool features you would like to have on your site. It has a featured post carousal, featured post section, A headlines corousal,Twitter badge, flash tag clouds, featured video section, miniposts with thumbnails, mini admin panel, etc. The theme comes with a setup guide to help you customise it to suite your site best.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/zinmag-futura/

10.SCARLETT

SCARLETT

This is an elegant theme designed for bloggers who like light colored or bright colored themes. This theme is suitable for any niche.The theme layout is stylish and dynamic contents elements are built into it.

List of features include,

• Premium theme layout.
• Multi-level dropdown javascript navigation menu.
• Custom sliding elements with images.
• Site wide customizable 125 x 125 custom banner ads.
• Adsense * 728×15 link unit on the index page
• 468×60 ad unit sitewide on header
• 300×250 ad unit on single posts
• Tabbed content area * Featured Video
• Three widgetized sidebars
• Customizable About me section
• Twitter updates
• Flickr gallery enabled
• Breadcrumb navigation enabled
• Animated random post module.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/scarlett-theme/

11.FOREX PRESS

FOREX PRESS

FOREXPRES is a new magazine theme designed with financial world and politics niche. The theme is powered with theme options page for easy setup.

The list of features include,

• Magazine theme layout
• Fancy javascript navigation menu.
• Featured post with javascript gallery
• Featured video section
• Sitewide customizable 125×125 banner ads.
• Tabbed content area
• Widgetized dual sidebar.
• Minipost area with thumbnails.
• Tabbed content area to display latest post titles.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/forexpress/

12.DAILY PLANET

Daily Planet

Dailyplanet is a News/Magazine wordpress theme. Theme is bundled with a lot of features you like to have on your premium theme. There are featured post section, customizable miniposts, featured video section, list of featured posts etc. All the features of the theme can be customized via the theme option page in the admin panel.

Demo/Download: http://web2feel.com/dailyplanet-theme/

The following are the courtesy of WooThemes.

13.IRRESTIBLE

IRRESTIBLE

Irresistible is a visually-rich personal blog, with a little bit of a multimedia focus. Incorporating some nifty video-options and widgets, Irresistible should meet all of your personal blogging needs. Just add your content to the mix.

Features:

Use as a standard blog or use the customized homepage layout, as shown in our demo, that you can activate via our options panel.
As always, Irresistible is built on our very popular backend, which includes some  non-standard, non-average customisation options.
Integrated banner ad management.
Seamlessly integrated video player.
Widgetized sidebar, with some Irrestible-specific custom widgets to allow you full control of what happens in your sidebar and 9 different colour schemes to choose from.

Demo/Download: Click Here

14.BLOG THEME

BLOG THEME

BlogTheme does the simple things well and therein lies to power of this personal blog theme: great structure, trendy style and some nifty jQuery effects in the sidebar. So what’s left for you to do? Well, you can start by adding content…

Features:

• A Twitter header banner showing your most recent tweet.
• A nifty accordion sidebar, which displays only the content that the user decides to display.
• Widgetized sidebar to allow you full control of what happens in your sidebar.
• 5 vibrant colour schemes to choose from.

Demo/Download: Click Here

15.TYPEBASED

TYPEBASED

Typebased is a free, personal blog design, with a very clean and elegant style. Along with the great design, we’ve also included all of the other Woo goodies in the backend i.e. custom widgets, integrated banner ad management etc. Gotta love Woo!

Features:

• Integrated banner ad management.
• Widgetized sidebar, with some Typebased-specific custom widgets to allow you full control of what happens in your sidebar
• 5 different colour schemes to choose from.

Demo/Download: Click Here

16.SNAPSHOT

SNAPSHOT

Snapshot is the framework-equivalent of our very own WooThemes Showcase so that already guarantees you an awesome experience! Snapshot is also flexible and can be used for either a photo showcase, portfolio or design gallery.

Features:

• Two different theme layouts / capabilities to allow you to switch between a photoblog / portfolio showcasing your own work or using Snapshot as a design gallery (ala BestWebGallery)
• Three uniquely, different colour schemes which can be tweaked from the backend.
• An integrated theme options page (to change your logo or add your Google Analytics & Feedburner account details) and custom write panel, which has become indicative of the WooThemes-way of developing themes.

Demo/Download: Click Here

17.PREMIUM NEWS

PREMIUM NEWS

The Original Premium News Theme, was the very first premium theme that we ever released. This theme may be a bit rough around the edges (in terms of its looks), but we’ve used the same solid base for all our subsequent themes. Enjoy this themes’ minimalistic beauty and make it your own today!

Features:

• Featured Posts panel on the homepage using jQuery technology to display / hide the posts.
• The layout supports all three of the most popular web ad sizes i.e. 468×60, 300×250 and 125×125.
• Animated horizontal drop-down menu’s for category navigation.
• Integrated Theme Options (for WordPress) to tweak the layout, colour scheme etc. for the theme.
• Built-in video panel, which you can use to publish any web-based Flash videos.
• Automatic Image Resizer, which is used to dynamically create the thumbnails and featured images.
• Custom Page Templates for Archives, Sitemap & Image Gallery.
• Built-in Gravatar Support for Authors & Comments.
• Integrated Banner Management script to display randomized banner ads of your choice site-wide.
• Pretty dropdown navigation everywhere.
• Widgetized Sidebars.

Demo/Download: Click Here

Enjoy the great themes. Which one do you like most? Let me know in the comments.

Related posts:

1. BrandPirate got new looks!
2. Free Report: Roadmap to become a blogger
3. 30 FLASHeff patterns for FREE download

Envato network, famous for their tutorial sites PSDTuts, NetTuts, VectorTuts and many more, now came with an excellent and useful site TutsPlus.

Tuts+

Tuts+ combines PSDTuts, NetTuts, VectorTuts where you can access the complete premium content of all the three sites only at $9/month.

For those who are new to Tuts,

PSDTuts and VectorTuts offer great photoshop and illustrator tutorials, and NetTuts offer excellent web design related tutorials (CSS, PHP, HTML, JQuery and many more).

They are also offering a 3-month subscription for $22 (Save $5). Subcribe now and take your design skills to next level.

Related posts:

1. Graphic Design Week on Psdtuts+ And Vectortuts+
2. Best of August - Creative RoundUp
3. New Best Of The Week Series - Week 1

logo-designer-blog-logo

Jacob Cass after great success of Logo of the day, now launched a new site (a new blog rather) ‘Logo Designer Blog‘ focusing on Logo design inspiration, tutorials.

In his words,

This blog is for logo design discussion, inspiration, tips and resources (and then some) which will be provided by myself and the many contributors to the site (we’ve already had 11 articles submitted).

Also there is another good news for readers, you can WIN promoting the new site, by writing a blog post, a review or just by leaving some comments. For more information jump here.

Related posts:

1. Logo Of The Day - New logo design inspiration site
2. Iconic Logo Designers - By David Airey
3. BrandPirate got new looks!

I selected the ‘typebased’ theme from wooThemes and customized it by adding a jQuery tabber in the sidebar and a widget-enable footer. (I will show you how I did it in my next post.)

Old site design

I think the new theme looks more clean and neat. Still there are some more features I want to include, which I will do in the future. 

And for now ‘I strive to provide better and useful articles for you’.

keep reading.

Your comments and suggestions are much appreciated.

Related posts:

1. Logo Designer Blog - Another Feather In The Cap of Jacob Cass
2. 17 Free Premium WordPress Themes You May Have Never Seen
3. A big $3500 Contest From Envato

Exciting new report, ‘The Roadmap To Become A Blogger‘, from Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick is now available for free download.

Gideon and Yaro, after a huge success of their free series of videos, which provide basic training for people new to blogging, decided to put the core part of the videos into one document and release it as ‘The Roadmap’.

And today they have nearly 60,000 viewers for their videos. Now they added more crucial and important videos that any one new to blogging can use to become an efficent blogger. From which the idea ‘Become a Blogger Premium‘ was born, that starts from December 4, 4 PM EST.

Download your free copy now, read it from end to end, if you are really serious about blogging, join ‘Become a Blogger Premium‘, where you can gain more than what you spend.

Here is the sweet part of the Good News

Subcribe to ‘Become A Blogger Premium‘ from brandpirate and you will get 50% off and a lucky chance to win one of the following,

How To participate

Once you subscribed to ’Become A Blogger Premium‘, just subscribe to BrandPirate.

Here is what you get

1. $50 worth business cards from UPrinting

2. $50 to spend at ThemeForest

3. Any premium wordpress theme under $50

4. Books of your choice under $50 (Free Shipping).

So Get Ready to ‘Become A Blogger Premium‘ and grab your gift.

Related posts:

1. Make Money Blogging Free eBook by Daniel Scocco
2. 30 FLASHeff patterns for FREE download
3. 17 Free Premium WordPress Themes You May Have Never Seen

Jacob Cass from JustCreativeDesign and Jeff Fisher together launched a new logo design site called Logo Of The Day.

‘Logo of the day’ features all high-quality logos and is moderated by Jacpb and Fisher. Another nice site to submit your logo designs or to get some inspiration. You can also rate the logos featured. Visit now and rate some logos.

Related posts:

1. Logo Designer Blog - Another Feather In The Cap of Jacob Cass
2. Iconic Logo Designers - By David Airey
3. Graphic Design Week on Psdtuts+ And Vectortuts+

You may think I was kidding. Having a word jargon kind of domain name called brandpirate, how can this guy talk about Killer Domains…! Whola, just read on. You will come to know more about it.

Beside this blog I also own some other blogs, which I am planing to start in the future, like ’PSD Mentor‘ a blog dedicated to Photoshop Tutorials, ‘People On Mission‘ a blog with inspirational real life stories of common people, and ‘Identity Love‘ a blog which shows how to brand yourself and create your own identity in this largely crowded world.

I thought these names are worthy and like to share few tips on how I got to them.

Got trust in me, that I can give some useful suggestions? Thank you.

1# Mind map your words

For this you need a pocket dictionary, a piece of paper, I recommend using your journal or other book you keep along with you always, and a pen or a pencil.

First Rule: Don’t hurry and don’t expect a great name in a day or two, unless your mind can produce some great words (which are not registered) in a couple of seconds. This need time and some research.

Focus on the purpose of your site and capture your keywords. Keywords are those which can describe your website, which can fit in your mission statement.

Draw several mind maps for each of your keyword, to identify the familiy of words related and relevant to each keyword.

For example you want to name your design company, your keywords can be Agency, Design, Studio, Labs, Interactive, Media etc.

The more keywords you come up with, the more chances for a better name.

2# Suffixes and Prefixes

Now you have a selection of refined keywords. But having almost all single word domain names already registered, we need take some appealing and easy to read keywords from your selection and try to combine any of them.

Also we can add prefixes and suffixes. But make sure to not make it too long.

Check online for a list of greek, latin words and also research more on your topic to find related words from different cultures and different languages.

For example if you want some name like addicted design, you can try alternatives for addicted in different lannguages, to form words like abducteddesign etc.

3# Add the power of these Free resources to your research

Tools like SEO Book Tools, Instant Domain Search, Bust a name, Nameboy, DomainsBot, Makewords and many more (just Google for word makers) can give some excellent results if you do well in the first two steps.

Give your keywords to these tools and they will help you add unlimited number of prefixes and suffixes.

Second Rule: More important, once you find a good name which is still available, don’t search it using different whois information sites. You may lose it. Immediately buy it.

For more information check Killer Domains by Daniel Scocco.

Once you learn and practive making good names, you can make some fabulous names and start buying and selling domains.

Related posts:

1. Writing Tips For Your Pillar Articles

If you already have blog, you probably know about the following bloggers. If not, it is the time you should know and follow them in order to build an effective and memorable blog.

The resources mentioned below are gathered during the course of my blogging, using which I learned (still learning) a lot about blogging. I would like to bring them all to one place for easy reference.

The list from 1 to 5 are about ‘writing tips‘ and more focused into content generation for your blog.

6 to 8 help you understand more about freelancing and working from home.

9 and 10 are wealthy resources for monetizing, more focused into marketing your blog and making money from it.

1# ProBlogger Blog Tips by Darren Rowse

Blog tips to help you make money blogging. Darren started blogging in 2002. He built his blogging into an income source and became a full time blogger.

In his own words,

This site is dedicated to helping other bloggers learn the skills of blogging, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium.

I started it in September 2004 mainly because I wanted to keep a record of what I was learning about blogging for money. Since then I’ve added over well over 3500 articles, tips, tutorials and case studies to my archives here.

2# Daily Blog Tips by Daniel Scocco

He started blogging in 2005, and the experience completely changed the way he interacted with the Internet.

Through out these years he launched several successful blogs, and Daily Blog Tips is the place where he shares what he learned along the way.

The blog was nominated under the “Best Web Development Blog” category on the 2007 Weblog Awards, and currently it is ranked number 29 among the most popular blogs in the world (according to Technorati). And a must follow blog for every blogger.

I love the ‘Blogging Idol’ contest run by DailyBlogTips. Right now ‘Blogging Idol 2′ is running and you can catch it here.

3# CopyBlogger by Brian Clark

Copywriting tips for online marketing success.

With nearly 45000 subscribers, CopyBlogger helps bloggers learn how important the content is and teaches how to write great content.

Content drives the Internet, and using the right words in the right way will determine not only how well your site converts visitors into sales, but also how well you rank in search engines and how many links you get.

Now that blogging has become the smartest strategy for growing an authoritative web site, it’s your copywriting skills that will set you apart and help you succeed. Copyblogger is all about helping you:

• get traffic
• gain subscribers
• attract links
• sell something!

All you need to do is write in a strategic, persuasive, compelling manner.

As a fan of branding and advertising, CopyBlogger is my favorite mentor for blogging.

4# Men With Pens

The three men with pens behind this blog are James, Harry and Charlie, the Pen Men.

Men with pens provides writing tips, blog design tips and many more including an excellent discussion forum and periodic contests.

Here are some of the fast facts,

• Men with Pens is #2 in the Top Ten Best Blogs for Writers 2008/2009.
• Our old blog, Web Content Writer Tips, was #4 in the Top Ten Best Blogs for Writers 2007/2008.
• James is a regular featured Copyblogger writer. Copyblogger is the largest copywriting blog with over 40,000 daily readers.

5# Write To Done by Leo Babauta

Write to done is about the craft and art of writing. Leo Babauta of ZenHabits has put everything he learned about writing in one place called ‘Write To Done’.

Also follow ZenHabits for inspiration, motivation and life lessons.

6# Freelance Folder

The blog for freelancers and web-workers, providing writing tips, work from home tips, freelancing tips.

Freelance Folder is a multi-authored blog dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and freelancers. Whether you’re a blogger, writer, publisher, designer, artist, small business owner or entrepreneur, Freelance Folder is for you. At Freelance Folder you will find articles that provides you with the tools and information you need to succeed!

7# Freelance Switch

FreelanceSwitch is a site for freelancers. Whether you’ve been freelancing for years, have just started or are considering making the switch, this is the place to get all the information and support you need.

FreelanceSwitch covers all the topics freelancers need to know about in our daily posts. We run a freelance job board and have regular podcasts so you can learn a little something while you work or commute….

8# Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine is really smashing, founded in 2006, delivers useful and innovative content for designers and developers. Ok, then what for a blogger from other niche. Yes, there is much for you also. You can find writing tips and many wordpress plugins and themes, also many useful freebies.

9# Entrepreneurs Journey by Yaro Starak

Entrepreneurs Journey is an Internet business blog by Yaro Starak. He is the man behind the great blog mastermind mentoring program.

Entrepreneur-Journey.com is a blog (weblog) website aimed at those interested in Internet business and Blogging.

You will find:

• A repository of useful articles for web entrepreneurs. The articles are aimed to help you with all aspects of starting and running your own Internet business and making money online.
• A collection of audio podcast recordings about Internet business. You can listen to the recordings at any time on your MP3 player or through your computer speakers.

10# Strategic Profits by Rich Schefren

Strategic Profits helps you run your blog like a small business, giving you tips on Internet marketing and making money from it.

Have happy reading and happy blogging. You can add more blogging resources you know in the comments below.

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1. Make Money Blogging Free eBook by Daniel Scocco
2. Writing Tips For Your Pillar Articles
3. Best of August - Creative RoundUp

The most best among the creative agencies, brands, productions companies, directors are picked up by Creativity Magazine. And here is the winner’s list.

BBDO New york is the Best Agency while Microsoft is the best advertiser.

More information here.

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The art of choosing paper for your print projects.

Choosing the paper for several print projects is always difficult and confusing.

Dan Grabham of Computer Arts guides on choosing the right paper for your print projects.

A few insights from the article,

…creative director of Flavour magazine about the paper he uses. “I chose a 300gsm cover matt laminate cover with 180gsm text. The printer offered a few options, but that was the best quality and most cost-effective for our print run…..

….In contrast, we also spoke to Demelza Fryer-Saxby of the Yellow Pages. “Yellow Pages directories are printed on very low weight paper (34gsm) and currently contain an average of 52 per cent recycled fibre content….

Check out the very interesting and useful article at ComputerArts.

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Toshiba - What Next?

Toshiba launched a new website to promote its products, with more focus on innovation. This time the innovation teamed up with the jungle animals.

The concept of the site is to control various activities of the animals with the mouse gestures. Draw some symbols and see how the animals will react.

Credit goes to Creative agency Grey, from London and production studio Unit9.

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1. 3rd Annual Pixel Awards Announced

3rd Annual Pixel Awards were announced and Method is the 2008 Agency Winner.

I am happy to see my favorite agency Carbon Studio first in the nominees list.

This year it was just amazing to see all the great agencies like FirstBorn, McCannSF, RedInteractive.

Paper Critters from the Student category is my overall favorite.

Have your say. Which one you pick?

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1. Creativity’s 2008 Awards Winners

Discover your shortcut to brilliant

The new campaign from Adobe for Creative Suite 4. I think no introduction is necessary for the new Creative Suite from Adobe.

The fun packed CS4 that filled more excitement in every designer and artist is now released and much to add to the excitement Adobe unveiled the webcast and the brilliant showcasing of some excellent work

Here are some of the thoughts and insights from some designers around the web,

Adobe New Creative Suite 4 (Preview) - from Abduzeedo by aloa

Adobe unveils Creative Suite 4 - from dpreview.com

CS4 Sweating the Details - from John Nack on Adobe

Flash CS4 Review - from FlashMagazine

Adobe Illustrator CS4 - from Creative Curio

InDesign CS4 first look - from The Graphic Mac

Very eagerly waiting for the beta versions, specially for Photoshop CS4. From the moment I heard about the 3D Object Painting, Fluid Canvas Rotation and Content Aware Scaling are pulling my senses towards the Adobe website every moment.

Let’s see how much it helps to ease our work and produce more innovative results.

Big Thanks to Adobe…!

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Does your work reminding your past full-time job?

Here are 9 tips from FreelanceSwitch to give you a quick boost and help you rock in freelancing with more smiles.

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Get ready for the next Creative Suite version. The CS4 is on its way to bang the design industry…!

ZAP!… What might be the new features…! Anxious to know more. You can register for the web broadcast here.

The dates for the web-cast across the world are:

• Europe - 11:00 a.m. CET
• North America - 9:00 a.m. Eastern
• North America - 9:00 a.m. Pacific
• Australia - 4:00 p.m. AET (Sept 24)
• Singapore/Hong Kong - 2:00 p.m. (Sept 24)
• India - 11:30 a.m. IST (Sept 24)

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Blogging

Massive List Of Killer Freelancing Tips By and For Our Readers from Freelance Folder

How to Craft a Blog Post - 10 Crucial Points to Pause from ProBlogger

How To Get to the Front Page of Digg - 6 Ingredients of a Successful Digg Campaign From ProBlogger

27 Definitions for “Blog” From Daily Blog Tips

What blog posts bring in the most readers? by Jacob Cass

Graphic Design

30 inspiring Flickr groups on typography by David Airey

BBC logo design evolution from LogoDesignLove

10 Creative Designers of the Month August from dZineBlog

40 Dark and Futuristic Photoshop Effects from PSDTUTS

45 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Wallpaper from Vandelay Design

45 Beautiful Motion Blur Photos from Smashing Magazine

General

Back to School: 10 Great Web Apps for College Students from ReadWriteWeb

7 Little Habits That Can Change Your Life, and How to Form Them from ZenHabits

There are lot more mention worthy articles, a look at the links in the BlogRoll can lead to more beautiful things from August.

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A Fresh Take On The New Open Source Browser From Google.

Google is planning to launch very soon, a cross-platform open source high-performance browser with streamlined and improved interface, packed with more security features, called CHROME.

The Beta will be available soon for public download. The information is leaked via a comic book released at Google books. The Chrome comic book delivers more information on how the browser was developed.

Will it be a nightmare for people’s favorite browser FireFox? We shall wait and see.

More information:

Google Chrome on official Google Blog

Google Chrome on Wikipedia

Google Chrome on TechCrunch

Mozilla Evangelist on Google Chrome

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Here are a few snapshots of ThemeForest, during the Beta stage.

[Show as slideshow]

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2. Envato celebrating 3rd birthday with a BIG offer

[Show as slideshow]

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“Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.”

In 2007 - The Environment

In 2008 - Poverty

What you can do?

“The best thing a blog can do is to keep their post on topic. Audiences visit our blogs because they enjoy the style, personality and topic of the site. So it makes sense that the best way to get through to these audiences is to use that same style, personality and topic to talk about Poverty.”

For more post suggestions and to know what you can do, visit BlogActionDay.

Resources for bloggers?

A library of resources for bloggers participating in Blog Action Day, including banners for promoting the day, ideas for posts is available at BlogActionDay and worth a look.

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3. How To Grab That Killer Domain Name

Good news to all Logo Designers. David Airey after the great success of LogoDesignLove, now launched another useful site called IconicLogoDesigners, completely dedicated to great logo designers of the world.

I hope the list will be updated continuously, right now it had details of some 30+ great logo designers. A must bookmark site.

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1. Logo Of The Day - New logo design inspiration site
2. Logo Designer Blog - Another Feather In The Cap of Jacob Cass
3. Best of August - Creative RoundUp

FLASHeff free version is now available for download, loaded with 30 FLASHeff patterns. And good news is “It can be used for commercial purposes”.

The FLASHeff patterns include:

• 10 FE Text Patterns
• 10 FE Symbol Patterns
• 04 FE Button Patterns
• 04 FE Command Patterns
• 02 FE Filter Patterns

What you  can get in this download:

• FlashEff panel
• FlashEff Component
• FlashEff Forum Access
• FlashEff Newsletter
• FlashEff Tutorials

Also available are Unlimited FE Shared Patterns and Minor (beta) updates.

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Now you can look through the most anticipated title from Rob Ford, ‘Guidelines for Online Success’ at TASCHEN.

Have a look and don’t forgot to pre-order your copy now.

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