Archive | July, 2008

Get Instant Feedback with Crowd Sound

Jul/30 in Online Apps

Get Feedback! Always looking for a better way to get the thoughts of the crowd, I ran across crowd sound.  What is this web site all about?  It is less of a web site and more of a tool to help you uniquely gather ideas and suggestions from your followers.

We all like feedback right?  Here is how crowd sound works.  All you do is sign up for your free account, and then login.  Once you do, you can embed the widget into your web site.  Just copy and paste some simple JavaScript into your own design.

Now with the web site widget, you can add some entries. and then have other visitors vote up the idea or vote down the idea.  So this separates things into the people who want to give you good suggestions and the people who just like to vote for things.  You can also via the widget browse through the most recent or the most popular.

I think crowd sound is delivering a very unique way of looking at feedback gathering from your base.  Those could be customers, they could be readers.  The thing that is important is that you get their views to make your content better.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Hardwood Lights Wallpaper

Jul/29 in Desktop, Free Wallpaper

Usually the more creative wallpaper is what gets me going, but for some reason this vanilla version of a hardwood flood with lights is very appealing to me.  Well, the fact that I didn’t need Home Depot to get it laid down across my desktop is a green checkmark in the win column.

Hardwood Floor with Lights Wallpaper

If your looking for a simple work space, this wallpaper selection should do the trick for you. Check it out over at DeviantArt, where you can also pick up the 1680×1050 and 2560×1600 versions.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Social News Site in a Box

Jul/28 in Web Development Tutorials

Always said you would like to have a social news site like digg, but didn’t have the time to develop or work on it?  Thanks to slinkset.com, you don’t have to.  They promise to deliver you your own social news site that you can customize, user your own domain on and auto-post links via RSS for free.  Here are a few examples:

thymesuck.com_277_280 elections08.slinkset.com_277_280

One more cool feature is it looks like you can create a private site too, that would only be accessible to the people you invite.  Give slinkset.com a shot, and if you create one yourself feel free to share it here with us.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Appreciating the Wiki Process

Jul/28 in Web Development Tutorials, Web Hosting

One of my most recent project I have been put in charge of for Lunarpages is building up a support site wiki for all of their customers to use.  Now as somebody who uses WordPress for just about everything – I was skeptical about moving over to the wiki format. 

I do have to say I think I am getting a grasp on how to move around, edit and customize a wiki.  Thankfully, there is a lot of good help and resource information on MediaWiki’s web site.  If you ever find yourself building a wiki this is one nice resource your going to be using over and over again for sure. 

One of the most helpful have been the post about categories, think I have that about mastered by now.  I haven’t even started looking at all the extensions though.  Have any other wiki advice for me as I tackle this new project of mine?

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Lunarpages Now Providing 229 WordPress Themes

Jul/27 in Web Development Tutorials, Web Hosting

I’m proud to say that Lunarpages (via several design contests) has done a lot to perk up the WordPress theme design area of the Web.  Between two contests they are now highlighting 229 different themes that are all available for download.

wordpress-series-1

Lunarpages WordPress Theme Design Contest – Series 1 Entries

wordpress-series-2

Lunarpages WordPress Theme Design Contest – Series 2 Entries

So if your looking for a little insperation on your next WordPress theme design or your stressing over finding a great one to use, check ‘em out.  Lunarpages is also currently holding it’s third WordPress design contest right now – so if your a designer you got to check that out too.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Hosting Podcast Tease for Episode 158

Jul/25 in Personal, Web Hosting

Loads of hosting fun from this week’s past show. Did you check it out?
If not here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

  • HostingCon Sold Off to iNet Interactive? – iNET Interactive, those darlings of the web hosting world who brought us such things as webhostingtalk.com, hostvoice.com, and hostingtech.com have acquired the HostingCon conference.
  • Interesting Tool to See if Your Site is Up or Down! – Previously I told you about an awesome web site status tool that could help you tell if your web site was up or not.  Down for everyone or just me looks to have become a real success.  I have one better though, thanks to a suggestion from a Web Hosting Show listener named John.
  • The Mess That Was .ME Domain Name Registrations? – You may have caught wind of some of the .me buzz last week, as GoDaddy started taking registrations for them for $20 a year (and you have to sign up for two years, so that should really be $40)… If eight people say they registered it, that will leave seven people really unhappy about the whole ordeal.
  • The Simplest FTP Program Ever!?! – I often hear complaints from people that FTP programs are too hard to use.  There are too many options, too many buttons and too many configurations you have to learn about.  For those people out there looking for a  simpler FTP program I offer to you DropUpLoad.

Interested?  Then go download and listen to the Web Hosting Show, episode 158! Also be sure to grab the RSS feed, and pick it up on iTunes too.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Fumpr – Your New Simple Image Hoster

Jul/24 in Free Hosting

There is no doubt that image hosts these days are coming a dime a dozen.  Fumpr is yet another service you can add to that ever growing list of free image hosting providers, and they cut out all the details, fuss and more.  You have an upload button, and a “browse to my file” box.  That is it.. well, OK they have a huge logo too.

Image Hosting with Fumpr

As you can see, after you have uploaded your image you can share the URL with friends, download, embed it into a web page of your own or grab the forum ready code.  Might also want to check out their sister service too, Fix Up My Pic.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

High Speeds Wallpaper

Jul/23 in Desktop, Free Wallpaper

Estrada 21 WallpaperI like to think I am one to find some pretty nifty wallpaper, so I figured why not share my finds with the world?  Since I usually change around once a week figured this would make as good of a  feature as any for this blog – so the first one I have to share with you is Estrada 21.

This wallpaper provides a cool blurred motion effect you would think would be distracting, but really it isn’t.  Also the bold colors help to not take away from anything else on the desktop so you don’t have to worry about not being able to see an icon or two because they get blurred into the background.

Available in every size imaginable, the Estrada 21 wallpaper is definitely a keeper.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Don’t Be Afraid to Pimp Yourself on the Social Web

Jul/22 in Hot Web Topics, Personal

socialize As I remove MySpace and add Plurk to my own Mitchelaneous side bar, I thought this would be as good of a time as any to bring up the fact that you should not be afraid to socialize and meet new people.  Sure, some places build a fan following because of great content but great content alone can not win any popularity races. 

You have to get out there and proverbially pimp your goods.

Let people know at least a few places where they can follow you or be your friend, and they are given a few more “gateways” to get back to your blog and content.  Think of it this way, which am I more likely to be friends with:

  • The guy who’s web site I never knew about because he doesn’t push it out in the real world
  • The guy who is trying his best to make friends, and inform the public he’s out there and ready for his close up

I’m not afraid to mention anybody who wishes to can add me as a friend on:

Twitter | Facebook | Plurk | MySpace | Pownce | LinkedIn | Flickr

Don’t be afraid to promote your favorite social web site profiles.  By not doing so, you are missing a good chance not only to make a few friends but get some free press for your own web site.  Don’t be a wall flower, be that comfy chair everybody likes to sit on. 

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Offer Multiple Subscription Methods

Jul/21 in Web Development Tutorials, Writing Advice

When getting started building a brand Online, a lot of people ask what should they do first?  Well after you get your content flowing, you need a way for people to follow that content.  That is where RSS and all the various feed readers out there come into play.

Everybody has their own way of doing things though, so you need to make sure you meet everybody’s needs.  Thanks to services like FeedBurner, this is pretty easy.  From inside their web site you can generate tons of those subscription links, as well as your standard big orange button and even e-mail newsletter management.  It is by far the best option out there.

As a rule of thumb, you want to give people the ability to follow you via:

  • Your Domain (visiting your web site)
  • Via RSS (using the feed reader of their choosing)
  • and a newsletter (which you can easily setup with an RSS feed with FeedBurner)

Also it never hurts to let people know your RSS feed over and over again.  Such as how I am right now begging you informing you to subscribe to this feed if you want more informative posts just like the one you just read:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/mitchelaneous

Read full story · Comments { 0 }
← Older posts