An old Bird with a NEW Look – Dont-cha dare Twit and Drive!

// October 4th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Cool Links, Design, Design Resources, For Geeks, Graphic Design, Graphics, Icons, Social Network, Social Network Icons, Twitter, Useful, free, icon sets

Check out these two new Twitter icons sets with a unique concept. Twit and Drive and also a Twitter bird with a little bit of an evil look compared to the sweet “button eyed” version we’re used too. Make sure to visit FlipZ website Adobemagic.com. Click the birds below to download the icon sets and PSD files and don’t forget to Leave a comment on the artists website if you like his work and especially if you plan on using it on your website that’s the least you can do for an artist who’s offering their work free to the public. Thank you FlipZ!

Evil Twitter

Twit and Drive

Click the pics above to visit the artists FlipZ website and too download these Twitter Birds.

Freelance Website’s You Must See

// July 25th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Blogging, Code, Cool Links, Cool Websites, Design, Design Resources, For Geeks, Geeks, I recommend, The Best of.., Useful, free, web tools, webdesign, webmaster

When you delve into the world of freelancing, there are many things that you won’t be prepared for. You can be the most talented web designer or web developer in the world but there’s more to freelancing than just the design and code. The following resources are invaluable when dealing with life as a freelancer.

1. Freelance Advisor

2. Freelance Magazine

3. Freelance Folder

4. Freelance Switch

5. Wake Up Later

Don’t Miss Out on Local SEO Opportunities

// July 21st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Affiliate Networking, Blogging, Code, Design, Featured, For Geeks, Geeks, SEO, Tutorial, free

Don’t Miss Out on Local SEO Opportunities

Local search engine optimization is a great way to charge up your search rankings. It’s a faster method for making sure you’re on the right track, and if optimized properly you can really take advantage of some targeted traffic that will only help your business in the future.

It doesn’t matter if you’re developing websites for a mom and pop local plumber or a multi-million dollar agency that will have thousands of dynamic pages, the same 13 steps to on-site SEO will need to be applied to each.

13 Easy Steps to On-Site SEO and How to Implement Them

How to Write Blog Posts to Increase Search Engine Traffic – Here’s an easy formula to follow:

In your blog, write a post with keyword A in your title something catchy, more info on that over here at seomoz or copyblogger
Write in-depth and informative content related to keyword A
Target keyword A in a link from your post to page2.html
When appropriate, link out to other authorities that can offer more information about your keyword topic (Use this tip with caution. While you are trying to give the user more info and get the attention of the other site â€“ thus possibly getting a link back to your site â€“ you should try to strike a balance so that the effectiveness of your post is maximized without excessive links out from your site)
Remember to vary the way you link keyword A to page2.html (did you target long-tail keywords? Those are very easy to alter)
Repeat this process on each post for all pertinent keywords throughout your site

The nice thing about this formula is that you actually tackle quite a few of the common marketing questions that challenge many business owners.

Read this full article at alibiproductions.com

Also check out this blog – Why No One Links to Your Best Posts (And What to Do About It) – Visit http://www.copyblogger.com/ for some really useful tips on Blogging and getting the attention you need to be successful blogger.

FREE Alternatives for the Software we can’t Afford..

// July 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Admin Tools, Applications, Code, Cool Links, Design, Design Resources, For Geeks, Freeware, Geeks, Graphic Design, Graphics, I recommend, Photoshop, Software, Useful, Videos, Windows, web tools, webdesign, webmaster

Here’s a list of Open Source/GNU alternatives to all those programs that us poor people just can’t afford to buy but that we desperatly need… If you know of better open source alternatives please let me know. Leave a comment below.

Subscribe to the DivaGeekDesigns.com RSS Feed Today.

Open Office – Microsoft Office Replacement

OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute. It is currently version: 2.3.1. The version 2.4 will be released in March 2008.
Download Here.

KompoZer – Dreamweaver alternative

kompozer.net

KompoZer - Finally, a top-notch WYSIWYG web page program for the rest of us! Now there’s no need to pay a little fortune for a program to create and edit great-looking web pages, including powerful and easy to use CSS capabilities.

KompoZer is a complete Web Authoring System that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing capabilities found in Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe DreamWeaver and other high end programs.

KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding. Download Here.

NVU – Opensource Web Authoring Alternative

NVU is a complete Web Authoring System for people who are new to web design. FrontPage and Dreamweaver Alternative.
Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a “new view”) makes managing a web site a snap. Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML. Linux, Windows and Mac OSX users. Download Here.

Inkscape -Illustrator alternative

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development. Download Here.

Related Posts: 11 Free Photo shop alternatives

Synfig – 2D Animation Alternative

Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. While there are many other programs currently on the market to aid with the efficient production of 2D animation, we are currently unaware of any other software that can do what our software can. Download Here.

Blender – 3D Modeler Alternative

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU (General Public License). Download Here.

gMax – 3D Modeler Alternative

Ofcourse Blender is seen as world’s best free 3d modeler but it doesn’t even comes near to how 3ds max looks like. So if you want it to look like 3ds max you should try gmax, howhever it’s more for creating game models.

Virtual Dub – Video Editor Alternative

Open Source Video Editing Software

Virtual Dub A powerful freeware video editor with lots of features, including a choice of compression codecs, splitting, addition of audio tracks. Excellent. Video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP). VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 files. Download Here.

FREE Video Editing Software List

Zwei-Stein
Zwei-Stein 3.01 is a freeware non-linear, non-destructive video compositing and editing system which offers many advanced features unavailable elsewhere. With Zwei-Stein you can edit up to 256 video, audio and still image clips, each with up to 64 effects chained serially. Cropping, panning and custom effects are easy with automatic key frames. Download Here.

Avedit
It is a great tool to work with .AVI files. Regardless of small executable size, this avi editor offers you unlimited power of digital video processing. AVIedit allows you to join and split avi files, extract frames and do whatever you want… You can capture video by number of ways, including one-frame-per-minute (web camera) option, workaround annoying 2 Gb file size limit, send your videos to printer, heavy compress it and post to your webpage. You can change framerate, duration, frame size, color depth of your videos and other properties, even without recompression and without loss of video quality. AVIedit allows you to convert avi clips to bmp and bmp to avi, animated GIFs etc…. Download here.

SolveigMM AVI Trimmer
SolveigMM AVI Trimmer is a free video editor to allow you to AVI movie cut extremely fast and lossless. This freeware AVI editor software is small, smart, easy to use and involves no encoding/decoding processes. Video enthusiasts use AVI Trimmer to cut commercials, cut video files or edit video for YouTube. AVI Trimmer solves annoying out of sync problem. It operates with all known types of AVI including DV AVI type 1 and 2.
Download Here.

Mobipress Wordpress Theme

Gamezine Wordpress Theme

I’m currently using this theme on my Layne and Demri site. I LOVE it.

Bizzine Wordpress Theme

Rocksolid Wordpress Theme

I love this theme and I’m currently using it on my WeLoveDoodles.com website.

FX Mag Wordpress Theme

11 Free Wordpress Themes

// July 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blogging, Design, Design Resources, Magazine Theme, Wordpress, Wordpress Themes, Wp Themes, webdesign, webmaster

Check out these sweet and FREE Wordpress themes. If you want something simple the Blue Chronicles theme would be perfect if your looking for a magazine style theme make sure to check out Light CSS, Indomagz Magazine and the FourWPTP Theme. If you want be creative go for the Deli theme. Very cute and I can think of a thousand ways to use that theme.

Free Wordpress Themes

Just click on the screenshots below to visit the designers website and download the themes.

Light CSS Wordpress Theme

Blue Chronicles Wordpress Theme

BlunGrey Wordpress Theme

Blue-R Theme Wordpress Theme

Flambeau Wordpress Theme

fourWPTP – 4 Column Widget Ready Wordpress Theme

Deli Store Wordpress Theme

SpaceGloss Wordpress Theme

Roundbox Wordpress Theme

Indomagz Magazine Wordpress Theme

Wpsora Wordpress Theme

11 Open Source (FREE) Photoshop Alternatives

// June 21st, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Apple, Applications, Design, Design Resources, Featured, For Geeks, Freeware, Geeks, Graphic Design, Graphics, I recommend, Photoshop, Software, Useful, Windows, art, free, web tools, webdesign, webmaster

I’ve been doing some research online tonight for a FREE alternative for Photoshop – my Photoshop installation recently became corrupt (no clue how but it might have something to do with the fact it was cracked..um yeh) Call me evil, I just call me poor.

Anyway, I can’t seem to completly uninstall Photoshop and so it won’t allow me to re-install it… and since Photoshop cost about USD $649 per copy... I’ll most likely be using an alternative until I can format my hard drive.

Anyway, I can not work with out some type of imaging software. Period. I’ll let you know which one I decide on.

11 Open Source (FREE) Photoshop Alternatives

Artweaver

Artweaver isn’t just a Photoshop alternative like GIMP, but a fair clone of Photoshop itself. While Artweaver lacks the polish and advanced feature sets of Photoshop, the menus are laid out like they are in Photoshop and the tools function close enough that use is intuitive. The programs are so similar, in fact, that seasoned Photoshop users will find themselves wondering why a feature is suddenly missing from the menu. While it isn’t a true replacement for Photoshop, Artweaver’s feature set is robust; it includes layer management, image cloning, a history function, transparency, pen tablet support, and a host of the common filters in Photoshop. Artweaver is available as a full install or in a portable version. Artweaver is a free download for Windows only.

Fotographix Beta 3

Fotografix is an amazing example of what creative developers can accomplish in less than one meg. The 680Kb portable application is a very capable image editor and provides nearly all the same functionality I utilize in Photoshop on a daily basis. It was a no-brainer to include in my list of 40 apps you can download in two seconds. Mirrored on Freeware Files.

GIMP

GIMP stands for “GNU image manipulation program”, and it is one of the oldest and most well known alternatives to Photoshop in existence. Although it doesn’t quite have all of them, you’ll find most of the features included in Photoshop somewhere in GIMP. GIMP is cross platform and supported by a large community.

If just having the feature set isn’t enough for you, there is an alternative based on GIMP known as GIMPShop. It’s the same as GIMP, except the layout has been structured as close to Photoshop as possible, so anyone making the transition should still feel right at home.

Handy Tweaks To Make GIMP Replace Photoshop

30+ Exceptional GIMP Tutorials and Resources

Inkscape

Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.

Krita

Krita has been lauded for ease of use and won the Akademy Award for Best Application in 2006. Part of the Koffice suite for [Linux only] , Krita is slightly less powerful than both Photoshop and GIMP, but does contain some unique features. It has become very popular recently due to its ease of use. While it is not as feature-rich as the Photoshop, or even GIMP, it does contains the necessary tools to create/edit a professional image from scratch. In fact, the latest version contains some features that are not found in both GIMP and Photoshop.

ChocoFlop

ChocoFlop is a design application designed exclusively for [Mac only] , optimized for Mac architecture. It’s quick and fairly well featured. This program won’t always be free, but until a stable version is released (it’s currently in beta) they are allowing free use. The program works pretty well as is, and if you’re the type who doesn’t mind an occasional bug it’s certainly worth a look.

Picnik

Picnik is a web based photo editor that has recently taken off due to a partnership with Flickr. It has all the basic features plus a few advanced ones like layers and special effects. It is cross platform since you only need a browser.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe actually has a free web based photo editor of their own. Adobe Photoshop Express has all the basic functionality you’d expect as well as a few advanced features (sadly though, no layers), and interfaces well with a number of photo sharing websites. Again, completely cross platform.

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

CinePaint 0.23

CinePaint is a deep paint image retouching tool that supports higher color fidelity than ordinary painting tools. One of the advantage that it has over GIMP is that it is able to support 32-bits image (GIMP only supports 8-bits image). Cinepaint is mainly used by developers in the flim industry for motion picture frame-by-frame retouching. The current version runs on Linux, BSD, Mac OSX. Stable version for Windows is not available at the moment.

PhotoPlus

PhotoPlus [Windows only] is the amazing photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance digital photos, create stunning bitmap graphics and even web animations.

Links

There’s also free web services that allows you to perform basic image editing online.
Here’s few examples:

Hatched! Twitter Eggs – Free Twitter icon set

// June 20th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Blogging, Cool Links, Design, Design Resources, For Geeks, Graphic Design, Graphics, Icons, Social Network, Social Network Icons, Twitter, Useful, icon sets, webdesign, webmaster

twitter_egg2 twitter_egg5 twitter_egg1 twitter_egg3

These are so damn cute! Which came first the Twitter bird or the egg? Enhance your blog or site with these fun Twitter eggs. Available in PNG format in two sizes: 256 x 256 px and 128 x 128 px.

Cool Link of the Day: Web 2.0 free buttons maker

Another Great Affiliate that actually pays! $$ WPWebHost

// June 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Affiliate Networking, Blogging, Cool Websites, Design Resources, Featured, For Geeks, Geeks, Hosting, I recommend, Wordpress, Wordpress Themes, webmaster

Another Great Affiliate that actually pays! WPWebHost.com I just signed up with them as an affiliate and added a banner to the bottom of my posts using the Shantz WordPress Prefix/Suffix Plugin which I also love by the way.

I earned 70.00 bucks with only 2 referrals and in no time at all. If your like me when you first found out about affiliate marketing you thought “great I can just add links to my website and I’ll make money”. Well it’s really not that easy.

I’m very picky about the affiliates I add to my website. If I don’t believe in their product I’m not gonna bug my visitors with their ads. If it’s something I think my visitors would be interested in then I’ll sign up and add the banner. Knowing full well that I’ll probably never see a dime… but I tend to have the “hey what the heck can’t hurt” kind of attitude when it comes to most affiliates.

However there have been only a few affiliates that I have made money off of and those few are The WP Remix Theme, Woo Themes and now WPWebHost! The cool thing about WPWebHost is you can create and track your own affiliate links! Which is not something most of the Wordpress theme affiliates allow you to do.

WPWebHost also offers tier linking which basically means you can make money from other affiliates who sign up under you.. and no that is not why I’m promoting them. I’m promoting them because I made money and money is is always fun to share! SIGN UP TODAY!

Plus their client list is pretty impressive.. well if your familiar with some of the designers who blog that is..

WPWebHost Clients:

Design Shard is now Hosted with WPWebHost and its been a really great experience so far, support is fast at responding to questions about their hosting and about Wordpress, the features of there servers are better than what I was on at Godaddy! I would recommend them with confidence if your thinking of changing hosts.”
- Max Stanworth, Design Shard

Check out what they have to offer for only 5 bucks a month!!

10 New Social Networking Icon Sets

// June 15th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Blogging, Design, Design Resources, Facebook, Graphic Design, Graphics, Icons, Rss Feed Icons, Social Network, Social Network Icons, Twitter, Useful, icon sets, webdesign, webmaster

I’m constantly looking for new social networking icon sets to post but they are few and far between. Good ones at least.

Here are 10 social networking icon sets. A few of them are new to me and a few are not.But all of them are cool.

Make sure to do a search for social networking icons on my website. I’ve posted a ton of them. Also if you know of any new sets that have not been posted here.. pleeze let me know!

Curly Vector Social Icons

Web 2.0rigami – I Am Paddy

Social Icon stickers- icon pack by cheth

Nurture Social Icon Set – Smashing Magazine

Social Icons Made of Wood – webtoolkit4.me

13 free social bookmark icons for your blogs – Edward de Leau

Social Icon Set – Stylelion

Social Web Buttons – Set 2 – WebFruits Blog

Socialize Icon Set – DryIcons

17 Social Media Icons Pack

My Freelance Suitcase – Useful tools for Freelancers

// June 15th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Admin Tools, Blogging, Cool Links, Design, Design Resources, For Geeks, Geeks, I recommend, Ipod, free, web tools, webdesign, webmaster

I’ve recently started taking on some freelance jobs and really just learning more about what is involved in being a freelance designer. It’s been interesting to say the least. I’ve found some really useful tools online that I wanted to share with my readers. I know a lot of designers visit this site looking for themes and social networking icons so hopefully these tools will be useful to some of you.

(more…)

Web design build questions to ask (yourself) or new clients

// June 11th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blogging, Code, Design, Design Resources, For Geeks, Geeks, Tutorial, Useful, webdesign, webmaster

Working Girl

If your a webmaster or web designer I highly recommend you read the rest of this post at www.simonday.com

This is a great resource for anyone who does freelance design or builds websites.

Web design build questions to ask (yourself) or new clients

What do you want the web site to do for your company?
(is it to just promote brand awareness and for people who hear about them and then go to their site, will people be finding them through search engines, is it existing clients looking for support or news, are you selling online, are you offering downloads, company reports etc)

Who is your target audience (age / level of internet experience etc)?
(Do they require a modern, fast paced, highly graphical site to target the younger generation or a more user friendly site for the less experienced or older internet users. )

What image do you want to portray (Professional / Casual / cutting edge etc)?
(Some sites use white space and limited text to give a relaxed feel while others use lots of images and text to give the site a busy feel. Define the feel of the site)

If you have branding what colours, fonts, styles do you use?
(See business cards, letterheads etc). More often that not the sole trader will have no graphics, no logo and no identity so in these cases you need to ask the client for colour schemes they think fit with the ideas but also do market research on the competition because the client may not be right.

CORE QUESTIONS:

What do you absolutely definitely want on the site?
(This list could include blog, shopping cart, members log in, private areas, RSS feeds. Gallery newsletter, contact forms, advertising space, different languages, search facility, etc)

What would you like if possible/within budget?

What absolutely must be on the homepage and what is the order of priority?
(This is a core question and you should allow the client time to ponder and discuss this with you. Their answers here should define the position of the building blocks. The answers could be phone number, email, help icon, downloads, cart total, core product links etc.)

What must be visible at all times?
(Every page has a fold. A fold is below the visual part of the page and requires you to scroll down to see it. I have a height I use but you should decide for yourself where it should be. The client must understand this and agree what can go above and below).

How many links will be needed and how many levels of navigation will there be?
(You need to understand the journey paths and decide how far down the link structure will go (level one, level two, level three etc)

Read the rest of this post at www.simonday.com

Mini Social Networking Icon Set – komodomedia.com

// June 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blogging, Design, Design Resources, Facebook, For Geeks, Graphic Design, Graphics, Icons, Rss Feed Icons, Social Network, Social Network Icons, Twitter, Useful, free, google, icon sets

This icon set consists of 30 (16×16) finely crafted social media icons. They are free to use non-commercially. Put them on your blog or on your website to help users bookmark or share your site socially. I hear its all-the-rage these days.
www.komodomedia.com