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How To Create a Simple Blog Logo In Photoshop

Nov. 9th, 2009 By Bohed with 1 Comment »

1As 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.

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.

  • Open Adobe Photoshop and create a new document (Ctrl+N or File->New). Set width and height to 400 and 100 pixels respectively. Make resolution 72 pixels/inch, leave the background as white. Note: these size and resolution settings are only web-friendly. For printing, use a higher resolution (like 300 pixels/inch).
  • Using the Type tool, choose a clear, rounded font like Arial, set the size to 60 and type some text (i.e. your blog’s title). Set the color to sky-blue (hex code: #0099cc):

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Cool Websites and Tools [November 8]

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Aibek with 1 Comment »
cool websites Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

 

(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

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How To Add A Successful Amazon Store To Your Blog

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Dean Sherwin with 2 Comments »

add amazon to blogAs 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 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.

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How To Convert Delimited Text Files To Excel Spreadsheets

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Saikat Basu with 1 Comment »

excel_logoI 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!).

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.

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Browse Nikon Images On Your iPhone With Nikon’s Learn & Explore

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Bakari Chavanu with 0 Comment »

nikon imagesIf 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, Nikon: Learn and Explore (iTunes app store link.)

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:

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Top 8 Websites With Cool Free Tests That Measure Your Personality Traits

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Mahendra Palsule with 3 Comments »

Personality TestsOnline, 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.

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 Test

The 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.

free personality tests

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6 Ways To Set Up Dual Monitors To Be More Productive

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Tim Lenahan with 30 Comments »

use dual monitorsIf 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.

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:

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How To Easily Download YouTube High Definition Videos

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Simon Slangen with 2 Comments »

how to download youtube videosA 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.

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 HD

YouTube 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.

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How To Improve Your iCal Calendars With FlexCal [Mac Only]

Nov. 8th, 2009 By Jeffry Thurana with 3 Comments »

When it comes to managing life and work, I used to be the kind of person who relied on memory alone. The furthest path I took was writing tasks on a small piece of paper and threw it away after everything was done. Call me disorganized, but somehow I survived.

But recently, I could barely keep up with everything that happened around me just relying on my biological RAM alone. While I’ve tried several free to do applications to overcome my anxiety, I couldn’t find free apps that can match the power of Apple’s iCal calendar.

So I chose iCal Calendars to help me manage my life better. One problem though, adding multiple tasks and events to iCal requires a rather lengthy process, including keeping it open at all time. Luckily, there’s FlexCal. This small application which reside in the System Preferences is designed to overcome that very problem.

The installation and settings

The installation process is quick and easy. Double click the prefPane file and choose which users you want to install this app to. Unless you use your Mac with several other users and don’t want the other users to use FlexCal, choose “Install for all users of this computer“.

ical calendars

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Cool Websites and Tools [November 7]

Nov. 7th, 2009 By Aibek with 0 Comment »
cool websites Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

 

(1) Yast.com – Innovative online application that lets you keep a track of how much time you spend doing certain tasks. In its simplest form it works like a stopwatch, you create task  and press the ‘Play’ button to start tracking the time and then press ‘Stop’ when you’re finished. However it’s not that basic, and there are some cool additional features. Read more: Yast.com – Free Web Based Time Tracker & Logbook

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