All you need is a USB flashdrive. I use a 1gig LG flash drive, but something as small as 128mb will do. First of all, go to Portable Apps and download the Portable App installer. Install the program onto your flashdrive (it’ll take a while to do this, so go do something else for a while). Once that’s done, you’ll want to start up the portable version of Firefox. This is where a majority of your survival kit will be going.

If you don’t already have one, head over to google and sign up for an account. With this account you’ll have access to Google mail (gmail), Calendar, docs, and many others. With this account, you get 6GB of online storage.

The best way to use that storage is a little Firefox plugin called GSpace. With GSpace, you can upload/download any file you want via Firefox. That means that if you’re finishing up a class and you’ve got some homework you need to finish up, you can upload the word doc, the images, the audio files, or whatever you need to Google and head home, download/complete the assignment and reupload for download at school.

Now you might be saying that you can easily do this with a flash drive. This is true. But if you’re a graphic or web design major (I’m web major), you’ll have MASSIVE files that will very quickly fill up your flashdrive. But with Google + GSpace, you can fill up your 6GB with endless amounts of stuff.

This next one is setting your homepage to http://igoogle.com. Here you can find little widgets and dock them on the page.

Personally, I’ve got Calendar, Gmail, and a few others docked so I can easily view my schedule, email, etc. Also remember to trick out your Firefox.

Even though its portable, this version of Firefox can use plugins and themes just like the full version. The only difference is that Firefox auto-clears the browsing history when you remove the flashdrive (this reduces the amount of space needed to store Firefox).

Lastly, make use of the programs on Portable Apps. There are a ton of smaller versions of popular programs that you can use. There’s graphics editors, text editors, IM clients, and more.

Also, you can easily add your own programs that will show up on the Portable Apps menu on the computer. I’ve got some GBA/SNES emulators on mine, alone with a few smaller games (Conquest, Crayon Physics, etc.).

Unlike Windows, your get two panels on your desktop: top and bottom. The majority of the bottom panel is given over to the window selector for your running applications. For most users, this leaves the top relatively empty, apart from the Ubuntu system menus on the left and the date and time on the right. So let’s make use of that space.

Applets

If you right-click on the top panel and select ‘Add to panel’, you’ll be presented with a list of cool panel applets. There’s quite a few to play with, but here’s my pick of applets to add.

System Monitor
This displays helpful information such as CPU, dick or network usage. When it appears it’s just a single black rectangle and a tad short for what it displays, so do the following:

1. Right-click on it and select Preferences
2. Tick the Network and ‘Hard disk’ boxes
3. Set ‘System Monitor Width’ to 60.

Now you should find three nicely spaced graphs for CPU, network and disk usage.

Weather Report
To set this up for Australia (wherever your location may be), right-click on it, select Preferences and under Location, drill down to your state and city. Under General, make sure the temperate unit is set to Celsius. Then click Close, right-click it again and select Update. Left-clicking on the applet will give you a detailed report.

Deskbar
This is one of those cleve utilities you can’t do without. Based on the same principles as Apple’s Spotlight, when clicked on, it will provide an input box — whatever you type will be matched against a command, email contacts, local documentation, dictionary search, internet search and more. You can use it to both find information and open or launch the references it finds. Right-click and select Preferences to expand the list of sources used for searching.

Eyes
This is just a bit of fun and actually a very old application from way back when Unix was something you would only find in server rooms. What does it do? Watch the eyes as they follow your mouse around!

Launchers
You’ll note Ubuntu already provides launchers for Firefox, Evolution and the help system; but you can add your own. To add something from the Ubuntu menus, simply scroll through the menus to your application, then left-click and drag it to the panel. If you want to add a program not in the menu system, first right-click on the desktop, select ‘Create Launcher’, fill our the details and then drag it from the desktop to the panel. You can move and arrange them by either left-clicking or middle button-clicking and dragging them. You can prevent certain launchers from being moved by toggling ‘Lock to panel’ when right-clicking.

Top Tip

Size it up
You don’t have to stick with the default panel sizes Ubuntu provides. On larger monitors the text and icons can be smaller, so enlarging them can help. Simply right-click on a panel and select Properties and then adjust size in pixels. It will happily expand to 120 pixels in height, but you’ll probably find a setting of 30-40 to be more amiable. The top and bottom panel can be sized independently, so you can keep the bottom task window smaller while making your program launchers and applets on the top bar larger.

It doesn’t matter if a download link (or any other link) is blue, green or orange. It does however matter that the link, whether it’s text or an image, stands clearly out from other page elements.

It’s incredible how often you see sites offering downloads in one form or another, yet the download links seem to be invisible to the naked eye. It’s not that the the download link you’re looking for isn’t there, it’s just that someone didn’t realize how important it is to put it on top of the visual hierarchy.

Even though users have gotten used to scrolling, putting important items such as a download link beneath the fold, can’t be categorized as anything else than stupid. It’s like putting the eject button on your DVD-player on it’s backside. Sure enough, most people will find out where it is eventually, but why make it harder than absolutely necessary?

Read make that download link visible!

Warning: Shortcodes are affected by Trac ticket 6444, which should be applied to WordPress 2.5.1.

First I touched on the topic in my first impressions of WordPress 2.5. Then I whined a little about the tickets relating to them, and eventually I released my Google Maps Plugin that uses them. In the end, WordPress’s new shortcodes are really nice.

What are they?

First of all, a shortcode called “mycode” can look like any of these:
[mycode]
[mycode foo="bar" id="123" color="red" something="data"]
[mycode]Some Content[/mycode]
[mycode]<p><a href="http://example.com/">HTML Content</a></p>[/mycode]
[mycode]Content [another-shotcode] more content[/mycode]
[mycode foo="bar" id="123"]Some Content[/mycode]

As you can see, shortcodes allow a user to put a code into a post or page, and a plugin can then easily handle those codes. They can be nested, contain content (including HTML), attributes, etc.

How can I use them?

First of all, you need to add your shortcode:
add_shortcode('mycode', 'yourFunction');
Your function should take two arguments and return the content that you want to replace the shortcode with. The first argument will be an associative array of attributes (keys will be the attribute names, and the value will be the corresponding attribute value), and the second will be the content between the tags.

To handle default attributes, you can use shortcode_atts($defaultsArray, $attributesArray):

function yourFunction ($attr, $content) {
    $attr = shortcode_atts(array('foo' => 'bar', 'id' => '','color' => 'blue'), $attr);
    return '<h2>Attributes</h2><pre>' . print_r($attr, true) . '</pre><h2>content</h2>' . $content;
}

That’s it! That’s why they are so great, it takes next to nothing to handle! However, maybe you’re thinking about a relatively complex way to use these, and you want to take it to the next level.

The Next Level

Maybe you’re worried that you’re users won’t grasp the intricacies of your shortcodes, or will be plagued by typos. It’s a valid concern. For example, I don’t want to assume that my users will be able to create a Google map by flawlessly entering:
[googleMap width="100%" height="400" name="Aero Rental - Phoenix" directions_to="true" directions_from="true"]3432 W. Clarendon, 85017[/googleMap]

The solution is to create a way for your users to generate the shortcodes and have them sent to the editor, but where to start? First, you need to add a meta box to the writing/editing pages (these are the dropdown boxes below the editor, such as Tags, Categories, etc). To do this, create a function that you will use to display the form used to generate your shortcode. Then you need to hook into the admin_menu action, and use it to create the metaboxes.

View the complete solution to complex shortcodes in WordPress 2.5.

There are many services on the net offering shorter links, etc., but to me they don’t seem as professional as this script I found recently called simply Free Link Cloaker. Not only will this script mask your affiliate links, but it uses a friendly keyword format such as http://yourdomain.com/recommends/keyword
Nice!

Another added feature is that the script keeps track of the number of clicks your cloaked link gets, so you will know which affiliate products are converting for you.

It does require a MySQL database and it uses PHP rather than Javascript, making it a much more stable link cloaker than others you may find in your searches. It is easy to set up, taking only minutes, but you can get support if needed and upgrades for life. I find this little script to be an invaluable resource for every affiliate marketer, or for anyone who just wants shorter URLs.

Writing Posts

The first thing that stuck out to me (and that I had been waiting for) was the tag suggest feature. Simply start typing a tag, and an auto-suggest feature will give you a dropdown of existing tags to choose from. Before, it was too easy to end up with tags like “web development” and “webdevelopment” since you had to remember them (no one actually looks them up).

This brings me to the new way media is managed/added. I haven’t had the need to add videos or sounds to my site, so I’ll stick to the images. In the end, I like the new way it works. The Flash uploader is nice, and the addition of a medium option for each image (thumbnail, medium, full size) is a welcome change.

However, nice as it is, there is one thing about it that is REALLY annoying. Full size isn’t actually full size. It’s 500px wide! What’s the point of calling it “full size” and then not making it “full size!” If they want small, medium, and large, they should call it that (although I still think there should be a full size option). There is however a simple solution. You can set $content_width inside your theme’s functions.php file, and it will use that instead of 500 for the max width. I set mine to 1024:

$content_width = 1024;
Unfortunately, this isn’t a standard that was in place, so themes do not have this. It’s a hack, and it’s shouldn’t be needed.

The last thing I wanted to mention, which is very minor, but annoyed me, is that you can’t resize the editor window when in HTML mode. I almost always use HTML mode, and I thought they had removed the ability to resize the text area. as it turns out, you need to switch to the visual editor, resize it, and switch back.

Admin Layout

I don’t like static width layouts. Have dual screens that both run at 1680×1050, and I run my browser full-screen because that’s the way I like it. My laptop runs at 1920×1200, and I even run full-screen on that. Instead of having more room to work, I am rewarded with more than 40% of my screen wasted as blank white space. Having said this, I’ve seen far worse layouts, and it’s fairly intuitive. You can expect plenty of plugins to fix this. Right now (as I’m typing this), what I have done is use firebug to inspect the HTML, found div#wrap, and altered the style by removing max-width:980px;. This seems to work fine for me.

Plugin API

For me, this is the most exciting change. I love the new shortCodes. They are a little rough around the edges, but they are extremely handy. As a matter of fact, I just finished a Google Maps Plugin that uses the shortCodes. It generates a shortCode based on the settings a user chooses, and inserts it into the editor. It later handles those shortCodes by changing them out for a Google Map. Unfortunately it relies on the ticket referenced above, so I’ll release it once that gets figured out.

Summary

WordPress 2.5 is definitely a big step forward. It has some small inconsistencies, which I expect to be easily fixed in upcoming minor releases, but nothing that should keep you from upgrading. Go try it and tell me what you think.

Simply Place a DVD in your drive, Start Handbrake, Click the “source” icon and select the VIDEO_TS folder and click OK. It Scans the files and then allows you to select a destination folder. You can further configure your preferred options. Click the “Start” button and walk away.

After an hour of so come back to your computer and the file has been converted to an .mp4 file. Add this file to the Movies Playlist of your iTunes Library. Select the movie and right click. Choose “Convert for iPod/iPhone” from the menu.

This process takes the longest. I let it go over night. When you wake up in the morning, sync up your movies and there it is. I have done this with several movies and they are extremely high quality. There you go. Great quality movies just like from the iTunes store.

Disclaimer: I only recommend doing this for personal use. Only convert movies that you have purchased. Do not distribute converted files. This is illegal.

For other businesses, giving away free coupons, free samples, free info (ebooks, articles, etc.) would be the recommended strategies for creating viral traffic back to your site. Using a free blog, anyone can implement the power of good fresh content along with downloadable freebies to give their visitors a reason to return.

Writing free articles and submitting them to article directories is another way of sharing free information and if you are a decent writer or you decide to spend the money on a ghost writer, your free info could end up being syndicated on several sites, all of which link back to yours. Viral!

Everyone loves a bargain and everyone loves to get free stuff so start thinking about what you can give to your Web site visitors. It doesn’t have to be much. Just give them a reason to come back.

What are you doing to attract your site’s visitors and what strategies work for you?

Purchasing PhotoImpact is really a good deal. You get so much value for your dollar with additional software included:

tools for managing and browsing your images, creating 360-degree panoramas and making animated GIFs. Plus, you get 1,398 royalty-free images, 2,221 Web elements, 3,270 customizable effects!

• Ulead Photo Explorer & PhotoImpact Album 12
• Ulead® COOL 360™ photo panorama software
• Ulead® GIF Animator™ 5

The other great thing about PhotoImpact is that you can use just about any Photoshop plugin there is, and you can work with PSD files if you need to.

Of course Corel has their high end products as well of which I would recommend CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3, a powerful vector illustrator, and Corel Painter X, a powerful Natural-Media® painting and illustration tool.

In short, Corel continues to provide quality products with features and technical capabilities that are comparable to products offered elsewhere, at significantly lower prices.

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Maybe you like to grab and customize free HTML templates, maybe it’s the fact that you need your content easily to be probably indexed by search engines or maybe you just don’t like flash because it has become tantamount to an inferno of noise and crappy animations.

As a fact there could be various reasons which could make you abstain from designing sites completely in flash. It’s not my intention to convert you to a group of flash lovers.

I’m here to tell you how to combine the best of both worlds. Stick to your HTML layout and then apply the finishing touch by replacing the header with a flash animation.

Well, it could be anything but I think the header as a natural choice so that’s what we are going to focus on for now.

What do we need to get started?

PREPARING OUR HTML TEMPLATE:

1. Grab a free template. For this tutorial lets use this one designed by Rambling Soul. Unpack the files.
2. Open index.html and style.css in your favorite text editor. Notepad is suitable for the basic operations we are going to perform.
3. You need a piece of JavaScript now. Get it from here and unpack it to the same folder the html files and the .css file are stored.
4. In index.html add this line in the header right before:[CODE1]
5. Delete everything inside [CODE2], that would be this: [CODE3]
6. Now let’s add the code that calls our flash animation. Copy the following code and paste it to the very same location from which we just deleted a couple of lines:
   [CODE4]
7. In style.css find this line: #wrap #header { background:url(images/header.jpg) no-repeat; height:229px; margin-top:10px;}
   Delete background:url(images/header.jpg) no-repeat;
8. Now we have removed the original image from the header. The script that we linked to in step 4 and made use of in step 6 will embed the flash movie as seamless as possible in all major browsers. You can just as well get used this way of embedding your flash files as it’s better than any other way.

THE FLASH HEADER, REUSING THE CONCEPT – PART 1

1. We have prepared our template for our flash header now. Let’s create the flash header. Open header.jpg located in the images folder. You can perform the following steps in almost any image editor, for this tutorial I’ll use Photoshop.
2. Because Ramblingsoul has created such a beautiful frame, let’s reuse it. Select “Rectangular Marquee Tool” (Hotkey is “M”) and select the whole blue area (the actual image inside the frame. Select it all including the cute strawberry-guy. Don’t select the bright frame).
3. When this area is selected go to “Select” >> “Inverse” (Hotkey is CTRL + SHIFT + i). Press CTRL + C to copy the selected area.
4. Go to “File” >> “New”. Say “OK” and press CTRL + V to paste our frame.
5. Go to “File” >> “Save as” (hotkey is CTRL + SHIFT + S). Name it “frame” Choose GIF as format and save it to the images folder. (The template you downloaded contained this folder)

THE FLASH HEADER, NOW IT’S GETTING FLASHY – PART 2

1. Now open Flash CS3 (or any previous version you might have).
2. Create a new document. (“File” >> “New”) Select ActionScript 3.0 or 2.0, it doesn’t really matter.
3. Press CTRL + J to open “Document Properties”. Dimensions should be 882px * 229px. Framerate 35 FPS. Press “OK”.
4. On the very left of the timeline double click “Layer 1” and rename it to “pic1”. Create a new layer (see image) a double click it to rename it “pic2”. Create a third layer a rename it “pic3”. Create a fourth and last layer and rename it “frame”.
5. Download these three slightly modified royality free pictures from here. Put them in the images folder. Import them by clicking “File” >> “Import” >> “Import to library”. Select them all or import them one at a time. Also import our self-created frame namely “frame.gif”.
6. You screen should look something like this.
7. Select layer “frame”. Drag our “frame” image from Library to the scene. If not align-box is visible press CTRL + K. Press the icon below the text “To stage:” so that it’s active. Now select the image “frame” we just dragged to the stage and press “Align horizontal center” and “Align vertical center”. Now our “frame” is in place. Lock the layer by pressing the dot below the lock once. Also lock the layers “pic2” and “pic3”.
8. Select the layer “pic1” and drag it to the stage. Align it like we just did with our “frame” image. Because our frame image hasn’t got quite even sides you have to move the image to pixels to the left by pressing the left key twice.
9. Convert our “pic1” to a movie-clip symbol by selecting it once and pressing F8. Name it mc_pic1
10. Insert new key frames (still on the “pic1” layer) by clicking on the 15 frame (don’t confuse this frame with our image “frame”) and pressing F6. Click the 85 frame and press F6. Click the 100 frame and press F6.
11. While still on the 100th frame click the image once and properties select color >> tint >> 100%.
12. Right-click somewhere between the 85th and the 100th frame and select “Create Motion Tween”. Now go to the first frame and click the image once again. From properties select color >> color >> advanced >> settings >> Replace the first three “0” values with “255”. Don’t increase the value next to Alpha. Press “ok”.
13. Right-click somewhere between the first and the 15th frame and select “Create Motion Tween”. Now lock this layer, hide it by clicking the dot below the eye and unlock layer “pic2”.
14. Select the unlocked layer “pic2” and repeat step 8 to 13.
15. When you have repeated those steps lock the layer “pic2” and hide it.
16. For the third image and the layer “pic3” redo the steps. When you’re done lock layer “pic3” and hide it.
17. Unlock layer “pic2” and unhide it. Select all of its 100 frames. Drag all the frames so that it starts in frame 100 instead of frame 1.
18. Lock the layer “pic2” and hide it.
19. Unlock layer “pic3” and unhide it. Select all of its 100 frames. Drag all the frames so that it starts in frame 199 instead of frame 1.
20. Unlock our layer “frame” and go to the 283th frame and press F5 to insert frame.
21. Unlock and unhide all layers. We are done! Now press CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + S and navigate to our images folder we have been using so far. Name the file header and save it.
22. It’s nice to have the source file so also save that by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + S.

UPLOADING

1. 1. What do we need to upload? Everything in the original template folder besides the old header imager, namely header.jpg. Be sure that it’s the edited index.html and style.css you are uploading.
2. Also be sure to upload our JavaScript namely swfobject.js.
3. Be sure to upload our header.swf, it should be in the images folder.
4. You don’t have to upload pic1.jpg, pic2.jpg, pic3.jpg or frame.gif. They are all contained in our .swf file.

You can download and review the final result here. I have included the images used as well as the .fla

I’ll create a Video tutorial of this later, so if your lost don’t worry too much. Until then feel free to mail me your questions here. I can’t guarantee a reply but I’ll try hard

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