Orangeinks

iMap Weather: Weather Forecast Meets Google Map

iMap Weather is an easy way to get weather forecasts and current conditions locally and everywhere. It utilizes Google Map to view radar and satellite images. You can even see real-time lightning strikes and get nautical information.

Aside from getting weather local weather forecasts upon landing on the iMap Page and viewing weather conditions on other places by turning on clickcast, you can also share different media using the social networking features of iMap Weather. You can share videos and photos of thunderstorms or give short updates about your life or local weather, share vacations, add friends and share saved iMaps.

The application is pretty useful. You can also get weather updates from other users. This is made possible by their “Jet Stream” feature. iMap Weather provides sophisticated weather data while providing social media services. The next time you think of getting weather updates online, check out iMap Weather.

Tags: iMap Weather, Social Networking, Weather condition, weather report

Photoshop: Remove Unwanted Marks

Here’s another Photoshop tutorial that will teach you how to remove blemishes and other unwanted marks using the clone stamp tool and removing an extra large blemish using the patch tool and following it up with the clonestamp tool.  This is a great tutorial for cleaning up blemishes on images in a very short period of time.

Tags: Blemish, Photoshop, Remove Blemishes, Unwanted Marks

LOLApps: Create FaceBook Apps

LOLApps is a maker of Facebook tools that allows you to create a Facebook application without writing a single code for the app. It’s like a wizard for Facebook apps.

Currently, LOLApps has two products for you to choose from.

Quiz Creator lets you create simple personality quizzes. You know those quizzes that people hate and love on Facebook.

The tool lets you create quizzes to let people figure out which character they are in their favorite movie or TV show, what’s their best quality and basically anything you can think of.

Gift Creator lets you create sets of virtual gifts for your friends to display on their Facebook profiles. You create gifts for any occasion that you can think of.

LOLApps made Facebook app creation very accessible to everyone. Their two main products might not please everybody but if you enjoy quizzes and virtual gifts, this is the tool for you. I am particularly interested on what they’ll come up with next.

Tags: Apps, Create Facebook Apps, Facebook, LolApps

UnTweeps: Unfollow Twitter Users

UnTweeps is a simple Twitter tool that lets you find out the Tweeps or people on Twitter who have not posted any updates for quite some time. This is a great tool to weed out Twitter users that you are following whom no longer post updates for at least a month.

To use the tool, you have to login using your Twitter username and password. You can filter the stale Tweeps by choosing the number of days of inactivity. You can choose 30, 60 and 90 days depending on your preference. By clicking the List Stale Tweeps button, UnTweeps will display the Twitter users who have been inactive on the period that you’ve chosen. You don’t have to worry about un-following the wrong people. You will just be given a list of inactive users and still choose the people you want to keep following.

With the constant growth of Twitter and your connections, it’s getting harder and harder to monitor the inactive users. This certainly makes it easier for you to sever the connection with inactive users if you take it quite seriously. I personally don’t unfollow people who are inactive for just more than a month. If you feel that you are wasting a “follow” due to inactivity, then this tool is for you.

Tags: Tweeps, twitter, Unfollow, UnTweeps

DoodleWall: Create your Own Virtual Wall

Doodle Wall is a community based tool that allows you to create a virtual wall where everybody can draw. There’s a social networking feature that allows users to invite friends to draw on their wall and vice versa. A simple chat widget can also be loaded from your wall that will allow you to communicate with your doodlewall friends.

The Doodle Wall is very simple and straight forward. There’s no special tool that you can choose from. It’s designed only for doodling. The only drawing tools you get are three sized free-hand pens and a color picker. There’s a clear button, a back button and a save button. That’s just about it.

You can share your doodles by embedding a small Doodle Wall counter widget to your blog. This will also allow you display the number of doodles on your wall, to invite others to draw on your wall and get more doodle friends. If you’re a fan of doodles and social networking, DoodleWall is worth a checkout.

Tags: Doodle, Doodle Wall, Social Networking, Virtual Wall

Branding Your Product

If you own a business, whether online or offline, you might have probably read somewhere that creating a brand is an essential part of your business if you want it to grow. Small businesses tend to neglect the value of creating a brand and just focus on marketing and selling their product.

With proper branding, you are communicating with your customers. It creates level of loyalty among consumers for your product. It helps people distinguish your product from others. A good example of this is the Apple and Microsoft brand wars that asks the question, are you a Mac or a PC? Loyal Apple users/fanboys define themselves as a Mac. They can easily distinguish an Apple product whenever they see the brand.

Getting you brand out there makes people remember your product(s). Just don’t mistake branding as marketing. A brand is an essential part of marketing. If you work hard on your marketing strategies and salesmanship, work hard on creating your brand. It will define your company as it grows. Big corporations spend time and money in creating their brand and writes inch thick branding guidelines.

Since we’re talking about brands here, I’d like to thank Psprint for creating an extremely cool set of logo stickers for Orangeinks. It’s a High-grade white vinyl sticker paper with a matte finish and crack and peel backing. Check out the image below.

If you want to get your brand out there, check out their website and their list of services that will make your brand stand out from others. They provide a wide variety of top-quality products that are printed on premium paper stocks including gloss, recycled matte, and specialty, to help you create a better printed piece. They offer business card printing, catalog printing, brochure printing, club card flyer printing, postcard printing, poster printing, stickers and dozens more.

There are so many marketing strategies that you can choose from to get your brand name get remembered. It’s up to you on what method to use.

*If you are interested in reading logo design guidelines, you might want to check out a previous article about the “Evolution of Logos and Some Guidelines.

Tags: Brand, Branding, logo, Logos, Orangeinks, PsPrint, Stickers