Jan
GeoBats Font – Free Maps Of All Countries and States
Good font to let you have maps of all countries. Stop searching for maps. Instead, install this font and get a key to every country and state on the world for free.
Download Map Font
Jan
Woopra – A Realtime Web Tracking & Analytics Tool
Woopra is the world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application. It is mainly targeted for small to medium websites ranging from few hundreds up to tens of thousands of daily page views. Essentially, it is targeted for blogs interested in the most minuscule details of every single action.
In addition, Woopra provides a precise real-time streaming of every single activity on the website. Woopra also features a clean interface, including many graphical visualization components, such as charts, maps, panels… Along with many other clean and advanced options that make Woopra an ideal solution for webmasters who desire to discern all the aspects of their website.
Features:
- Live Tracking and Web Statistics
- Rich User Interface
- Real-time Analytics
- Manage Multiple Blogs and Websites
- Deep Analytic and Search Capabilities
- Click-to-Chat
- Visitor and Member Tagging
- Real Time Notifications
- Easy Installation and Update Notification
- Developer Tools
Website: http://www.woopra.com
Download: http://www.woopra.com/download/
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Jan
DIY Map – Clickable Flash Maps
DIY Map is a zooming & clickable map, built with Flash, that can be colored with data from a text file. Using an external data helps using the same Flash file for representing different information.
When a point is clicked & zoomed, any information can be displayed like a link or an address. List of maps that can be downloaded are world map, USA map, Europe map & few other countries.
The application is free for personal & educational use and requires a licence for commercial use.
Website: http://www.backspace.com/mapapp/
Jan
SEO Tools – Track Efficiently and Save Your Time
SEO Quake
SEO Quake is another Firefox add-on that you’ll probably want to download. With SEO Quake you can optimize your site by gaining tons of information about other pages that are ranking well.
After downloading and installing the add-on, run a Google search for the primary search phrase that you are targeting. Under each of the listings you’ll see addition information provided by SEO Quake, such as the PR and Alexa ranking of the page, plus the number of pages indexed from that URL and the number of inbound links (you can customize a lot of this data to meet your needs).
If you are looking to gain new inbound links to your site, you can find one of your competitors that has a high number of inbound links (you’ll probably want to use the data coming from Yahoo for this) and click on that number, which will open up the page displaying all of those inbound links. This will give you a list of sites that may be interested in also linking to you.
SEO Quake also has plenty of options, including the ability to save data in a CSV file. One thing to be aware of is that SEO Quake will slow down your load time when you’re surfing, but you can easily de-activate it when it is not in use.
Download: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3036
SEO for Firefox
As Most of you are aware, SEO for Firefox is one of the hottest things in SEO at this moment. Using this time saving tool, you can get any amount of information gleamed from the data made from the SEO toolbar, it’s a highly recommended Firefox extension for anyone in search marketing (and according to the site, over 50,000 people are using it).
Jan
Vector Blast – Free Vector Icons and Badges Collection
A very nice, huge and FREE list containing Vector: Icons, Badges, Stickers, Flags, Maps and many more…
These files are completely editable in any vector editing software, such as Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, or CorelDRAW.
201 Vector Flags
Download AI (2.78 MB) or Download EPS (6 MB)
Color Stickers
Download AI (1.37 MB) or Download EPS (7.78 MB)
Free Vector Design Elements Pack 01
Download AI (175.92 KB) or Download EPS (406.89 KB)
Free Business Powerpoint Templates Pack 01
Download AI (953.55 KB) or Download EPS (7.16 MB) or Download SVG (389.01 KB)
Jan
Collect Adress with Maps using Mapeed.AddressChooser
Mapeed.AddressChooser is a Javascript script to create a nice address form for any websites that need to collect addresses. For example getting user’s address, place’s location or anything that can be localized on a map.
This script just add behavior on HTML form, it does’nt geerate HTML markup and can be plugged on any existing forms.
Features:
- Javascript Framework-Agnostic
- IndependentMapping System
- Interactive Map
- Fully customizable
- and above all Open source
Checkout this demo that uses Mapeed.AddressChooser with Prototype/Scriptaculous framework. Address is an autocomplete field filled by placemarks return by Google Map.
Website: http://addresschooser.mapeed.com/doc/
Demo: http://addresschooser.mapeed.com/example/with_prototype.html
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Jan
Usability Tips for Web Designers – Must Know
Simply put, usability is making your website easy for your visitors to find the information they need when they need it.
A common misconception about usability amongst web companies is that usability is expensive. Yes, there are multi-national companies that spend thousands of dollars on usability tests and research, but for an everyday company usability is achievable without the knowledge of usability experts or without expensive equipment for testing.
Web designers have an even easier job to do, just by reading usability articles they can accumulate a fairly good knowledge about usability basics and how to implement them on a website.
1. Include a Tagline
A tagline is a statement or a motto that represents a company’s, or in our case a website’s, philosophy and mission. It should be the most obvious element on a website’s front page and it should clearly describe the website in one phrase.
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Dec
Why it’s good to work on your own side projects
Whether you’re freelance, employed or a business owner, we each have our own daily routine, which usually involves doing work to please someone else, whether that someone else be a client, end user, reader etc. But every once and a while I think it’s important to work on your own projects.
Why bother with side projects?
1. Take a break
Take a break from your normal routine and refresh your head. Exploring different ideas can get you out of a creative block and bring inspiration.
2. Expand your skill-set
Try out new frameworks, see what you can do with different APIs, test your design skills. The creative community never stops moving so you need to make sure you stay up-to-date.
3. Brand awareness – raise your profile
Whether you’re a freelance designer or a large corporation, side projects can help raise your profile simply by having your name associated with it.
4. Contribute to the community
It’s always good to contribute something to the community. It’ll be appreciated.
5. Have fun
You can have a lot of fun working on your own stuff because you’re in control of the brief and there’s no one to tell you what to do.
6. Passive income
It’s hard to beat an application that makes money while you sleep or get on with the rest of your life. You might not make a fortune, but a few extra bucks a week to fund your Saturday night on the rip is a welcome addition
7. Try stuff
If you want to be successful in life I believe you have to try stuff. If it works, happy days! If it doesn’t, learn from it and move on. “Luck favors the people who try stuff”, says entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki.
Where to start
a. Take notes
Take notes when you think of projects and put them on your to-do list. I carry around a small notebook in my laptop bag and constantly add ideas to my ‘Someday’ list in Things.
b. Talk to other creatives
Talking to others will spark new ideas.
c. Read
Read a book from an inspiring designer or look at a book of visuals to get ideas.
d. Mashups
APIs make it very easy to launch small apps. Look at all the Twitter mashups now available. Think of different uses for Google Maps, Flickr, YouTube.
e. What would you find useful?
Chances are that if there was a website or tool that you would find useful, then there are 100s or 1000s of people who would also find it useful.
Finally, remember.
Luck favors the people who try stuff.
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Dec
Free Vector World Maps Collection
Free vector world maps can not be found easily as there are only few around.
I needed a world map for a project of mine for showing visitor activities on a map and found very nice ones that I’m pleased to share with you.
World maps are very handy specially with the increasing use of mapping APIs etc. So, don’t forget to bookmark this post.
Here is a collection of free vector world maps that you can use in your projects:
Free Vector World Maps from Digital Vector Maps
Free vector world maps as well as dozens of other paid professional vector world maps.
Free Vector World Map With Nice Colors
Vector World Map In Blue & White
Read the rest of this entry »
Dec
25 Amazing JavaScript Games (Some Fun And Inspiration)
JavaScript, with the rise of Ajax, is definitely a must-know-well for every web designer/developer.
Besides form controls, alerts & similar simple JavaScript usage, you can almost do anything with the help of JavaScript (& Canvas). Some samples are:
- Drag’n drops
- Animations
- CSS manipulations, Ajax & more.
And there are JavaScript libraries which make them easier like jQuery, MooTools, Prototype, etc.
For any developer looking for advanced JS techniques, games are a real treasure.
You can easily see examples of animations, interactivity, smart solutions for browser related math functions & so.. And they are definitely a source of inspiration as you sometimes face with a feature that you never thought could be existed.
Also, this is the last month of a busy year & every web designer/developer deserves some fun : ).
So, here are 25 amazing (sometimes not the game itself but how beautifully it’s done) JavaScript games that you’ll love.
Bunny Hunt
A classic hunting game with an easy to play interface.
Make sure you check the source of the website to see how simply it is built with the power of XHTML, CSS & JavaScript.
JavaScript Library: none.
Travians
A character game (like Sims) where you’re a villager.
It is a multiplayer game & totally Ajaxed. You can move your character, communicate with other user & more.
JavaScript Library: xajax.
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