At the time of writing, the plugin, which is called SignatureProfiler has been updated for Snow Leopard but for the last couple of months, I’ve reverted to using good old reliable text as my email signature — until today.

I recently found out how to spruce up emailing by using my Facebook profile badge as a signature. It’s pretty neat and like all Facebook badges, you can easily customize it to your liking. We’ll go through the steps required to make it in a little while. Right now, I’d like to point out a few things.

Firstly, this trick is meant to be used in Mail, Mac’s default desktop mailing application. It works without the need for any addition plugins but you are required to set up your email accounts in Mail. Secondly, you also need to pair the account with a signature — just text will be fine at this point, it doesn’t really matter since it’s about to be replaced. Lastly, you’ll need TextWrangler, a free HTML-capable text editor or any other HTML editor.

Let’s get started, log in to your Facebook profile then scroll down until you see this link:

If you have never created a badge before, then go ahead and create one. It’s very simple and you only need to follow the on-screen instructions. A horizontal badge works best in this situation. Add whatever you like into the badge: your name, your profile picture, your status, your websites, anything! When you’re done, preview your badge. If you’re happy with your creation, click on Save. On the next screen, you’ll be presented with the sharing options. Click on “Other” and the badge’s code will appear. Click on it once and press Command+C to copy it to the clipboard.

Open up TextWranger or any HTML editor of your choice and paste the code in a new document. It should look something like this:

Notice that I’ve selected a part of the code which is actually not necessary for your signature. It adds a link to your profile and another link for others to create their own badge. It won’t look very pretty so we’re going to delete it. Here’s how it should look like after removing the useless bits.

Alright, now we’re going to add a space above the signature just for the sake of convenience. It’s much easier to add a space at this point, which will go between your email message and the signature; rather than having to press the Enter key several times after composing your email. Add <p>&nbsp;</p> to the beginning of the code, like this:

We’re almost done. All we need to do now is to remove the width and height attributes from the code. By leaving the attributes there, we are telling Mail that no matter what, the signature has to be that width and height. In actuality, the Facebook badge changes in dimension depending on your status, links, etc. So remove this part of the code:

Finally, we’re ready to save the HTML file. Click on File, then Save As. Type in any name followed by “.html” as shown in the screenshot. Select the Desktop as the destination and click Save.

Double-click the resulting file and it should open up in Safari. Check if everything is in order then save it as a Web Archive — click on File, Save As and select Web Archive as the format. Again, make sure that the Desktop is selected as the destination and click Save.

Just a little bit more and we’re done. Remember when I mentioned earlier that you should already have a signature attached to your email account in Mail? Well, if you haven’t created one, I suggest you do it right this instant because we’re going to look for it. Open up a new Finder window and delve down to ~/Library/Mail/Signatures. There should be a minimum of 2 files there if you only have 1 email account set up. One file should be formatted as .webarchive.

To check if it is indeed your email signature, double-click it and it should be displayed in Safari (Snow Leopard users can use Quick Look). Once we’ve determined that this is the signature we want to replace with the Facebook badge, copy the file name. Mine looks like “FED17D3A-AC4C-490D-93CB-80634BD2A114″. Use this to rename the webarchive file which you’ve just saved on the Desktop. After you’ve renamed it, click and drag it into the Signature folder. Finder will ask you if you’re sure you want to replace the existing file, click Yes.

And we’re done. Relaunch Mail and give it a whirl. Compose a new mail and your signature should show up.

How easy was that? No plugins, additional software or expert skills required! For our non-Mac friends who also want to use their Facebook profiles as email signatures, I’m sure Saikat’s post will teach you a thing or two about integrating HTML into Gmail.

What do you use as your email signature?

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It is convenient to hop over to web services like MyLiveSignature or Retaggr and get yourself an embeddable signature. It’s easy but it ain’t that much fun for the really creative souls among us. I use the online services myself as business cards and signatures, but sometimes I feel like standing away from the crowd. After all shouldn’t a signature be – one of a kind?

Gmail’s covered. Now let’s do a bit of rummaging around in MS Outlook and see if we can setup a nice, neat and nifty personal signature simply with the tools we have.

We have one – the right side of our brain, and Outlook has the other – Clipart. Clipart is a neutral choice if you don’t like to include your own photo. Also, you have cliparts covering a wide range of moods and environments.

Before deciding on the style of your signature, you might want to consider the information to include and the mail account to use the signature in. Deciding on the graphic you want to use is a particularly important detail to chew over.

To create a new email signature in MS Outlook 2007, the usual route is to start with Tools – Options – Mail Format. And then click on Signature to open the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.

Instead, we will take a different approach by creating an email signature in a new message body and then do a copy-paste on to the Edit Signatures dialog box. This approach, gives us more formatting controls (as the editor is based on MS Word) and the use of the Clipart gallery. With creativity as your playground, here’s how…

1. Click on New – Mail Message to open a blank email.
2. For a better control over the layout you can use tables. From the ribbon click on Insert tab – Table to draw a table with the appropriate number of rows and columns. As in the illustration, I have used a 2×2 table with the bottom two rows merged.



3. In the first cell, you can insert your own picture or a clipart. Place the cursor on the first cell. On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click on Clip Art.



4. In the Clip Art task pane – Search for field, key in a word or phrase that describes the clip art that you want, or type in all or some of the file name of the clip art. Click on the one clipart to insert it in the cell.



5. The other cells can now be filled with your contact info or any custom content and hyperlinks too.
6. As a final design step you can decide to keep the borders of the table or set it to none for a more seamless look.



7. The signature is complete. All that’s left is to select the entire signature (i.e. the table) and copy it to the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.
8. Open the Signatures and Stationery dialog box as mentioned in the beginning. Click on New and type in a name for the signature in the New Signature field.



9. Paste the signature in the Edit Signature field area. Click on OK.



10. You can set it as the default for a particular mail account.
11. Alternatively, to use it, place the cursor in an appropriate location in the email body and click on Signature on the ribbon to select.

Just like the real deal, email signatures also carry a reflection of your personality. In a business setting, it is especially important to be clear, concise and exact. So create your signature with these tenets in mind.

Using a clipart is just one way. Sometimes the text information could be more important than snazzy graphics because a lot among us set emails for plain text format.

Have you given a thought to your email signature?

Image Credit: Gunnar Wrobel

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/

• The 2 Easy Ways to Promote Your Latest Blog Post with an Email Signature (15)
• How To Send Personalized Mass Emails in Outlook (26)
• How to Restart or Shut Down Your Computer Remotely using Microsoft Outlook (12)
• How to Email Smarter With Buit-In Time Zone Converters (8)
• 3 Best Free Alternatives To Microsoft Outlook (19)

It should be the easiest job in the world to enlist their help to promote your blog. In the ‘Digg’ and boost world of the WWW, grabbing a few eyeballs is what counts. Think of the humble email signature as a no cost viral way to publicize your blog.

Adding a link to your latest blog post not only spreads the good word but also spices up your signature.  If you write about something specific, then a blog post signature link adds to your ‘brand’. In today’s ever changing world, an active signature could be like those 30 second filler adverts which play in staccato sequence. They grab our attention because they keep changing.

All it takes for a little bit of PR are these two ways and of course the habit of writing regular and relevant blog posts.

BlogSigs

BlogSigs attaches the link to your latest blog post in your email signature. This utility with a simple function works with a number of email clients like Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Entourage.

Additionally, there’s also a Firefox add-on available which makes it the right fit when we send mails using the browser. The Firefox add-on, though free, comes with a BlogSigs promotion link in all emails. Purchasing a BlogSigs Registration Key removes the BlogSigs promotion link (note: the add-on is still not compatible with Firefox 3.5.2).

To get back to the Windows version, here’s how it runs from the system tray.

1. BlogSigs can be setup using the single configurable window.

   

2. On the first run, BlogSigs detects the signatures saved for your Outlook accounts. If not, create a signature from the Outlook Menu path – Tools – Options – Mail Format – Signatures.
3. In the BlogSigs options window, choose the accounts you want to use BlogSigs for.
4. Specify the RSS feed of the blog you want to use. BlogSigs pulls the latest post from the RSS link and sends the headline as a part of the signature.
5. Append an optional stylized text before the blog post. Set the update in days, hours or minutes for BlogSigs to update the link.

   

The little app worked well notwithstanding a few errors. BlogSigs is a 646KB download and compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X.

WiseStamp Email Signature

This Firefox add-on nearly came head of the class in the brief review I did last year in my post on 5 Ways To Create Custom Multiple Signatures In Gmail. Just to refresh, WiseStamp lets you setup rich personalized signatures using a simple WYSIWYG Editor. The app supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL and Hotmail.

If you have come over from my earlier post, WiseStamp has added a few new features since then. Automatically sharing of blog posts is what caught my eye.

WiseStamp’s Feed tab allows us to easily include our favorite personalized feed and it automatically updates in our email signatures. Now we can share not only our latest blog posts but also bookmarks, videos, pictures, events and much more. This is a excellent way to promote your blog.

1. Download and install the WiseStamp add-on.



2. Access it from the browser’s Tools menu or right click on the little WiseStamp icon near the bottom right of the browser (Right Click – Edit signature).



3. Design your signature in the WYSIWYG editor.
4. Click on the RSS tab, enter a Feed title and the Feed URL. WiseStamp automatically validates the URL and OK’s it.
5. You can preview the signature before clicking on Apply and OK.
6. Open your email account to compose a new email. Right click on the little icon located on the formatting toolbar or the one at the bottom of the browser window to choose a signature (i.e. if you have more than one). The signature gets automatically inserted with the latest blog post.

Download the WiseStamp Firefox add-on for rich email signatures.

Familiarity may not breed contempt but it certainly lays the grounds for boredom. In a medium where it takes seconds to go from reading a mail to consigning it to the trash, an interesting link attached to the signature might just make someone pause. Who knows, following that link may make someone’s day a lot better.

There are of course many, many innovative ways to promote your blog post. Using your email signature to showcase your latest blog post is comparatively a modest one.

Do you think that this can be an attention grabber in the times of social bookmarking and Tweets? Let us know.

Image Credit: Hammer51012

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/

• How to Create An Email Signature in MS Outlook 2007 Using Office Clipart (6)
• How To Send Personalized Mass Emails in Outlook (26)
• How to Restart or Shut Down Your Computer Remotely using Microsoft Outlook (12)
• How to Email Smarter With Buit-In Time Zone Converters (8)
• 3 Easy Ways To Send a Complete Web Page via Email (12)

Before we start, let me lay out the things you will need:

• A text editor capable of editing HTML. I suggest TextWrangler.
• Signature Profiler
• Some basic knowledge of HTML.
• An online file-sharing service like DivShare or Box.net to store your avatar.
• To be running Mac OS X 10.4.x and higher.
• To be using Mail on Mac OS X.

This entire tutorial will transform your email signature from this:

to this:

If you’re still excited, then read on. But be warned, depending on your level of geekiness, this process may or may not be easy for you. [Disclaimer: this tutorial is actually an improved version of this one]

First step – Making a HTML signature

You have to understand that in order to insert HTML in your email signature and make it interactive, it’s actually two different procedures. The first is to change it into HTML, the second is by using Signature Profiler and adding the interactive stuff: iTunes status, random quote, Skype button.

Let’s focus on the HTML part first. You’ll need to open up TextWrangler and create your HTML signature. There are some limitations to adding HTML – for example, GMail does not recognize body or style tags and all CSS must be embedded. Head here to read more about CSS in email.

If you have no idea where to start, use this example HTML file as a base to mess around with. If you want, you could tweak it to fit your style. You should fill in your name and social sites where the fields indicate. Also, you’ll need to upload your avatar to Divshare or Box.net, get the direct image link and insert it in the image tags. The size of the image varies and depends a lot on the style of your signature and how many lines of text you will have. Like I said, you will need to play around and customize it yourself.

If you notice, there’s a specific line of text after the second break, {itunes.display.info} is used later to retrieve your iTunes status.

To see how your signature will look like, save it (to the desktop or anywhere else convenient) and drag it into Safari. Once you’re happy with the results, click on the File menu and Save as ‘webarchive’ onto your desktop. Name it “HTML sig”. We’ll return to it later.

Step two – Show your currently playing song

Now that you have your HTML signature all set, you’re ready to add the interactive stuff like iTunes status and Skype buttons.

Download and install the Signature Profiler plugin for Mail and restart Mail. It should now be added into your Mail preferences.

Here’s what SigPro can do:

• Add iTunes currently playing song, artist and album
• Add a Tail signature
• Add a random text qoute
• Add your Skype Status and buttons to call you
• Lots more advanced stuff like calling scripts

If you’re planning to show your iTunes status, then you’ll need to create signatures for them. Personally, I’ve only created two new ones: one to show the song iTunes in playing, and another when it is paused, stopped or not running. To do this, you’ll need to go to the Signature tab in Mail preferences. Create a new signature and call it “iTunes playing”. Right click in the signature field and you’ll notice that SigPro has added their Replacements into the menu.

Add the items {itunes.playing.song}, {itunes.playing.artist} and {itunes.playing.album} into the signature field from the right-click menu. Now all you need to do is to customize it. Here’s what I would write: I’m listening to {itunes.display.song} by {itunes.display.artist} from their album {itunes.display.album}.

Keep in mind that these are just text, so you can adjust the font attributes. You’ll need to select the curly brackets as well when changing the size and colour of the fonts, if not you’ll lose the formatting.

Now, make another signature for iTunes’ paused state. It doesn’t need to have any fields in it, just a short message will suffice.

After you’ve done that, go to SigPro’s tab in Mail preferences and hit the ‘iTunes & Quotes’ tab. For each iTunes state, select the appropriate signature. Now test it out! Play iTunes and see if the signature changes (it will change right there in Mail preferences).

Step three – Swapping your text signature for the interactive one

If you already have a plain text-only signature set in Mail, good. If not, set one up and associate it with an account (by dragging the signature from the middle column into the appropriate email account in the left column). Quit Mail.

After you’ve done that, go to ~/Library/Mail/Signatures/ and you will find all of your signatures in webarchive format. Assuming that you only have one email account set up in Mail, you will have three signatures: your regular signature, “iTunes Playing” and “iTunes Paused” signatures. To find out which is the one you want to change, double-click them to open in Safari until you find them.

Once you’ve located it, copy its file name. It should look something like this “F61C8250-DE9F-4B33-A17D-2F5FF6E3B5B9″ (without the webarchive extension). Rename the “HTML sig” file on your desktop with this file name. Drag the new signature file from the desktop into the ‘Signatures’ folder and replace the older signature file.

Open Mail and your signature is now HTML and interactive.

A few things to remember: The avatar doesn’t load in Mail’s preference but it will load when composing a new mail. Also, any changes made in the HTML signature will be hard to repair. For instance, if you accidentally delete the avatar logo from the signature, you will have to start from scratch again. Keep a copy of the ‘webarchive’ files so that you can restore your signature in case of a disaster.

You can also add other stuff (like the Skype button) into your signature by right-clicking and selecting fields from the SigPro Replacement menu. If you want more control over its formatting, then I suggest that you add the fields by editing the HTML signature in TextWrangler.

If you’re into this kind of thing but don’t use Mac, then I would recommend that you check out Saikat’s article on creating multiple singature in Gmail. Retaggr is also an easy way to add a funky signature to your emails, David mentioned it earlier in his post about how to create online business cards.

Please ask if you have any questions about this tutorial or if you somehow screwed up and need help. What are the other methods you use to interactify/interactize your email signature? Let us know 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/

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If you are like me, who has multifaceted web avatars and duly has his Gmail configured to handle different accounts, personal and professional, you would love to sign off with custom signatures for each. So this handicap of not having multiple signatures built in seems to have found a universal protesting echo around the web. Faced with the vexing problem, I fired up Google to search for ways to put my stamp within Gmail.

Here are some of them for those who like to send emails from within Gmail.

1. Blank Canvas Gmail Signature

The Firefox add-ons page is showing 1,500 downloads per week for this experimental add-on and a five star rating. This Firefox add-on supports four HTML signatures for each address you have set up. A drop down gives you access to the signature options. You can manage your signature within Gmail using the available editor which lets you also see a preview of the custom signature.

You need to download and install the plug-in. (you will have to create a Mozilla log-in account as this is an experimental add-on). Next, write your HTML signature. You can upload any image file to any photo-sharing website and use the source URL in your signature. For those not versed with HTML, a few templates are provided here. Also, the plug-in itself includes a tutorial.

Before creating it, you will see a ‘Create Signature’ button next to the ‘From’ field in the compose window. Copy-paste your HTML signature into the create signature box and save. You are now ready with your own sign.

2. WiseStamp – Email Signature

An add-on that is still in beta. This Firefox extension enables you to create personalized multiple signatures for any web based email service.

With its rich text editor you can set up personal and business signatures (text or HTML).  You can also include your IM identities and social profiles. The WiseStamp interface automatically adds the signature at the end of your email. Of course, it can also be added manually at a choice mouse cursor location and if you don’t want to sign off, just switch it off.

3. Clippings

If you can make do with plain text signatures, then this Firefox add-on should be in your download queue. Clippings saves and manages often used texts for later pasting into any text entry field. More commonly used for entering text into Web page forms in Firefox or email and newsgroup messages in Thunderbird, it comes in handy for email signatures too.

Pasting a clipping is accomplished with just two right mouse clicks within the body of the email, doing away with the hassle of retyping or repetitive copying and pasting. Also, shortcuts keys can be configured to make it a one step action. Clippings allows you to store as many signature texts as you want in designated folders.

4. Bookmarklets

You guessed it…bookmarklet is a portmanteau of ‘bookmark’ and ‘applet’! Bookmarklets are small Javascript applets which are stored as a URL bookmark in a browser. You can simply create a signature in a bookmarklet creator and organize it on the Firefox bookmarks toolbar. I found an easy to use bookmarklet (Gmail signature generator) here.

Create a HTML or text signature and then drag and drop in onto the browser toolbar. Once you are in the Gmail compose window, click on the bookmarklet and it gets inserted at the cursor location. Create as many signatures you want and organize them in your Firefox Bookmarks.

5. Texter – A Text Substitution application

With Texter (an open source text substitution app) we are moving away from the browser environment. Texter lets you define small text strings which work like shortcut keys for larger pieces of text. So you save many a keystroke by not having to type in the same block of text again and again. Using Texter, you can define a series of shortcut text strings that would be replaced by different text-only signatures in the email body.

You can add a new signature on the fly by hitting Ctrl-Shift-H, typing in your shortcut string and the replacement text, selecting the trigger you want to execute the replacement with (Enter, Tab, and/or Space, Instant), After that it’s a simple matter of composing your mail, writing the shortcut string and clicking the trigger key. If you had enabled ‘Instant’ as the trigger then you can save on the last click too.

I hope these five ways will help you to sign off your mail in style. Do you have your own workarounds for using multiple signatures in Gmail?

Gmail Photo from Basajaun

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Thankfully, there are a growing number of ways to use the internet to create, share and use your business card. Using these services, you can send your card to others, get contact information in your email (where all your contacts are anyway), and have the business card work with your existing address books, which are increasingly online.

Although there are many, here are five ways to bring your business card into the 2.0 World.

Retaggr

Retaggr is a business card, an “about me” page, and a signature to add to emails, blog posts, and anything else you can think of. When you create a card, you can embed it into emails, paste it onto your blog, or send it to someone. It’s a great tool for connecting with other people, and is very social-network heavy.

Retaggr lets you link to your profiles (on hundreds of sites), so you can find friends all over the Web. For more information, check out Kyle’s great article about Retaggr.

Dropcard

The thing I love about Dropcard is that it’s dead easy to use. While it doesn’t have any unique features to speak of, its delivery system is what makes it so great. When you meet someone, you send Dropcard a text saying “drop theperson’semail@theirdomain” and Dropcard sends all your contact information to their email. Most of us use contacts and email in the same location anyway, and Dropcard knows that.

There’s an iPhone version, lots of keyboard shortcuts, and a number of other great features. Another nice touch – you can have two different cards, a business card and a personal card. Customize them however you want, and give people only the information you want to.

Nuebbo

Nuebbo is a fully-featured contact manager, but also works great for giving people your personal information. You can import contacts from Google, Outlook or Windows Live Mail, and then send your contact information to others. Create one card or many, and send them to other people. Cards can be organized into categories, updated automatically by Nuebbo, and even downloaded as Points of Interest on your GPS (an unnecessary, but cool touch).

If you want a full address book, and not just a business card, Nuebbo’s a great one to try out. If you’re just looking for a simple business card to send to people, Nuebbo’s good, but not the best of the group.

Handshake

This one’s iPhone-specific, but deserves a mention. On your iPhone, boot Handshake. The application lets you send a business card or a picture to anyone else using the Handshake application, with the touch of a button. It’s a great way to exchange contact information with someone, right when you meet them.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see an application like this for the Blackberry or Windows Mobile in the near future.  For now though, if you meet a fellow iPhone user, a simple Handshake is all it takes to exchange your contact information.

Plaxo

Plaxo remains the gold standard online contact-manager. Plaxo syncs with Outlook, Google, Yahoo and others, automatically updates contacts’ information, has an integrated task list, and keeps everyone in contact.

Sending your card is easy, and it works really well. Plaxo even has a FriendFeed-like feature called “Pulse”, where you can see what your contacts are doing around the Web. Actually, ‘Friendfeed-like’ is a misnomer, because Plaxo did it first. Plaxo’s a great utility, and becomes unbeatable when all your contacts use it.

No longer is the business card a tiny, index card-like thing you put in your wallet, sit on for a while, try to find, and painstakingly enter onto your computer. With any of the services above, bring your business card to the Web, and make the sharing of contact information even easier.

You do everything else online, right? Why not your business card?

How do you manage your contacts and business cards? Online or on paper?

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/

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