Orangeinks

A Monster 4TH of July Lottery from Template Monster

Template Monster is an ecommerce site which produces high quality custom made templates for different web platforms. Their goal is to produce quality and affordable web design products and services. The company currently shoulders over 5000 different website template designs and produces an average figure of 150 to 200 affordable web designs per month. They design web templates for different platform and purposes, from CMS and blog templates to Ecommerce and Flash websites.

This year, they are hosting a “themed” lottery for everyone. The holiday (4th of July) Template Monster lottery will be somewhat related to the upcoming Presidential Elections in the United States. They are going to hold their own elections. The only difference is that you will not be voting for the next president of the U.S. You will be voting for the best template design that you consider to be better for America-The-Beautiful. (See image below).

The votes will be counted after the elections and the ones who voted for the winning template will have a chance to win the lottery. So you’ll have to vote wisely on this one. Choose the better template. To participate, just hand them over your name and a valid email and you can start voting. That’s all you have to do to enter the contest. The contest period started last June 26 and will end on July 9 of this year (2008).

The Prizes:

One Gift Certificate that will give you any template from the Template Monster database for free.
Two Discount Coupons for 80%.
Three 50% Discount Coupons.

There will be an overall winner of 6 in this lottery.

I addition to this, anyone who votes will receive a free Patriotic iconset (image above) from Template Monster worth 55$. So cast your votes now.

Tags: Blog, cms, iconset, lottery, template monster, templates, websites

Create your Own Mobile Page using Jag.ag

Jag.ag is a free web application where you can easily create a simple online page optimized for mobile browsing. The service is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that lets you design and upload a mobile page with ease.

The editor is very easy to use and the layout is very simple. Personalization of the created pages will be reflected only once the personal images are uploaded. Jag.ag allows you upload up to three images. You will be allowed to create your own subdomain under the jag.ag domain. Once you have registered, you will be given up to thirty (30) free SMS credits that you can use to invite friends to your mobile page.

This is a simple solution for people who want to create a personal mobile page without going to the trouble of registering domains and coding a mobile based website. It can also be useful for promoting other online sites through the use of the mobile page or just having simple fun with it by creating your own personal mobile page. There is just one little thing I’ve noticed when I tested the service. I can’t seem to place link tags using the editor. I have emailed the team and asked them about the placement of links in the mobile page. Maybe I’ll get a reply in the next day or two. It would have been great if they allowed links to be placed on the personal mobile page.

Anyway, it’s quite a cool and simple service that you might want to check out and have some mobile fun with.

Tags: editor, Free, jag.ag, mobile sites, web service, webapp

Cool FaceBook Games from Playfish

Playfish is a social gaming provider which focuses on making games for social networks. The service aims to create a new genre of games by combining the best elements of casual games, social networks, MMOGs and virtual worlds. This will provide an entirely new, more social ways of enjoying great games together.

Social gaming is now becoming more and more of a trend with the popularity of social networking sites. While the types of games that can be played on social networks are not for hardware hungry hard core gamers, this will surely appeal to casual gamers who spends a lot of time in their favorite social networking sites.

The games that Playfish provides are quite addictive and fun to play. They only support Facebook as of the moment. With all the great feedback and reviews that they are getting from users and news sites, I’m pretty sure that it’s only a matter of time when support for other popular networking sites is made available.

The Games:

Who Has The Biggest Brain: A brain game where you are taken through a series of four mini games (Calculation, Memory, Logic, and Visual) which will test your brain’s ability on each category.

Word Challenge: A vocabulary hunting game where you are given 6 letters. The objective of the game is to create a 3-6 letter word from the letters provided as fast as you can. It’s like a text twist with a twist.

Bowling Buddies: You can enjoy a game of Bowling with your online buddies by creating your own customizable 3D character. You can play this in single player mode or go head to head with friends in challenge mode.

You might want to try out these games in your social network (currently Facebook) to play with your friends. You will have to check back from time to time though to see if they will be supporting your favorite social networking site.

Tags: Games, playfish, social networking games, social networking site

Photoshop: Change Eye Color Step by Step Tutorial

Anyone up for Photoshop colored contact lenses? This video will teach you how to change the eye color using Photoshop.

Tags: eye color, Photoshop, tutorial, video

Quikmaps Lets You Draw on Google Maps

QuikMaps is a map service editor with a few simple additional features that Google Maps can’t provide. It allows you to draw lines on the map, make scribbles and insert different markers. This is service not only helps users in providing geo locations (which Google Maps can do on its own), it also allows users to add more information in the map.

The editor is very simple and very easy to use.

• To add markers, simply drag the markers to your desired location on the map and just drag them around to move them. Left click the marker to add information on that particular marker and Right Clicking the marker will immediately delete it. There is also quite a fair amount of markers and icon sets that you can choose from.

• Drawing straight lines on the map is done in a connect-the-dots manner. Simply choose draw line on top to the map and place a dot on the point of origin and place another on a different location.

• The Scribble tool is a freehand drawing tool. You can doodle and scribble to your heart’s content using this tool.

• You can also add text labels on the map by dragging the Text Label icon to the location you want your text to appear on. To delete a text, just right click on the text and it will disappear.

• They also released their API code to the public so developers can integrate QuikMaps to their web applications.

When you are finished with your map doodling and marking, just insert a title for the map, place some information if you like and save it. You can easily access the map again for editing. The map can be easily exported to KML(Google Earth) and GPX(GPS) format or you can get the embed code to place it on your blogs and websites. Check below for the sample I took from QuikMaps.

Tags: geo location, google earth, google maps, map, quikmaps, web service

Quick Button Maker from the Buttonator

The Buttonator is a simple online button maker (I think that’s just about it). What else can I say? Just select a button design and place the text that you want to appear in it. You can select fonts for your text and choose a color that suites your taste. Oh, and you can also choose from a small list of button designs. You don’t have to register in order to create a button and download it. However, if you want your buttons to be hosted at buttonator, you have to sign up and create a profile.

Great for users who do not want to use image editors just to create a small and simple button.

Tags: button, buttonator, web service, webapp