101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes from Deke
Deke just recited 101 Photoshop tips in under five minutes. This is actually shortcut keys for Photoshop. Goodluck in following and remembering them all.
Tags: Photoshop, shortcut keys, tips, video
Get Tips on How To Clean Anything
The title and the URL speaks for itself. The website called HowtoCleanAnything.com gives out tips on how to clean stuff. Most of the tips are quite simple and really doesn’t need a lot of explanation, but they do give out detailed instructions on those particularly hard to clean mess that requires more attention. They also give out product reviews on what particular product works best for a cleaning job. Although it would be great if you can view a product review with the tip that you are looking for, you can browse their product reviews in a different page. Video demonstrations would also be nice since it is one of the most used media today in giving out tips that requires visual presentation.
If you happen to use their services and didn’t find what you are looking for, you can email them your question and HowToCleanAnything will find the suitable tip for your cleaning problem or if you know a particular cleaning tip that can help other, you can also submit your own tip in their submission page. There are many kinds of dirt and stains that cannot be remedied by getting simple tips, but if you still want to give it a shot before leaving it like that, this is a good site to visit first before going to a professional to do the cleaning for you. It might save you some bucks if you can learn to do it yourself. The site is easy to use, just click on to the categories and go deeper until you have found what you’re looking for. It could use a more modern look though (perhaps a web 2.0 look), but as long as it serves its purpose, who am I to argue.
Tags: anything, clean, tips
The Evolution of Tech Company Logos and Some Guidelines
A logo is defined as a graphical element, a symbol or icon combined with its logotype (a uniquely arranged characters) that forms a trademark or commercial brand. For a company, a logo is an aspect of commercial brand or economic entity. Its shapes, images, fonts and colors are usually different from others in a similar market.
It has been said that logo design is a most important area of graphic design, thus the most difficult to perfect. The logo is the image embodying an organization. Because logos are meant to represent companies’ brands or corporate identities and foster their immediate customer recognition, it is counterproductive to frequently redesign logos.
I have here some images of today’s biggest brand tech logos and their evolution throughout the years. All credits goes to Neatorama for the images, and you can check out their post on how these logos evolved.
Here are some guidelines that you might want to follow when designing a logo for your company.
- Do avoid being excess in attempting uniqueness for you might end up with a logo that is hard to recognize or associate with your company.
- Do not abuse the use of colors, use only few or limited colors.
- Avoid gradients (smooth color transitions) as a distinguishing feature. If you are going to use gradients make sure that your primary logo will still stand out or you can use gradients as a background without altering the brand.
- You may want to produce alternatives for different contexts. This will prevent your logo from losing integrity even if it is redesigned.
- As much as possible, design using vector graphics, so the logo can be resized without losing fidelity.
- Be aware of design or trademark infringements. Better check out the competition’s brand first. This will also give you an edge on creating a better brand for yourself/company.
- Include guidelines on the position on a page and white space around the logo for consistent application across a variety of media. This is also known as brand standard manual. This manual or guide provides clear, easy-to-use information to employees and corporate partners on how to use your brand in print, video and even email and voice mail signatures.
- Do not use a specific choice clip-art as a distinguishing feature.
- Do not use the face of a (living) person, unless you are marketing yourself.
- Do not use photography or complex imagery as it reduces the instant recognition a logo demands.
- You may want to avoid culturally sensitive imagery, such as religious icons or national flags, unless the brand is committed to being associated with any and all connotations such imagery may evoke.
- If you can, avoid using bevel, emboss, shadows and other effects on your logo. But it seems to work on Google so it’s up to you if you want to follow this part of the guideline.
There you have it. If there are some tips that you might want to add, feel free to comment on this post.
Tags: Design, evolution, guidelies, logo, tips
Website Grader For Better SEO
Website Grader is an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool that you can use to evaluate your website for free. It will generate an automated report and tips on how to optimize your website better for search engines. All you have to do is type in your URL and Website Grader will grade your site depending on your SEO juice.
A website grade of 93/100 for www.orangeinks.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 93% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.
Website Grader reported that Orange Inks have some SEO flaws that should be taken care of. Among them are: Having too many Meta Keywords tag (should only be limited to 10 or less Meta Keywords and I have 20); Too many images found (the tip is to have fewer or smaller images. Sometimes simply resizing your images will make them smaller in size, and your web page will load faster ); Two of my images don’t have alt Text; And last but not least is that my domain will expire in less than a year. Website Grader suggested renewing the domain. The reason for this is that Google and other search engines may penalize websites with domains that are set to expire soon. Many spam sites are often registered for short periods of time.
If you are looking for some SEO tips to help you make your website more search engine friendly, Website Grader might just be the tool that you are looking for.
Tags: grader, SEO, tips, tool, website
Gmail Tips
Most of you may have heard about how David Airey’s Domain got hacked through Gmail’s security flaw. Here are some tips on how to master your Gmail account with a little touch of Star Wars theme. The video demonstrates usage of labels, filters, a few keyboard shortcuts, and vacation autoresponders. Even though the demo is actually more of a “for beginners” video, it provides quite useful tips that you can share to your friends and family who uses Gmail.
Tags: filters, Gmail, tips, tricks, video
Google’s Privacy Tips Videos
Google just released a series of video instructions like how to use Google Chat’s “Off the Record” feature, how to limit the number of people who can view your Picasa photos, how to unlist your phone number from Google search results, and how to make the details of your Google Calendar entries private. They also have tips for blogger, street view, web history and cookies. The instructions were made by Google’s very own engineers and product managers. Who else can give you better tips than those who actually made the product.
Just as we’re dedicated to innovation when it comes to making better, more useful products, we’re also committed to finding new ways to educate you about how to control what information you share when using our products, and with whom. This series, along with the other videos on our YouTube Privacy Channel, are part of this awareness-raising effort. So watch the videos (including our very own blooper reel) and tell us what you think. And we’ll be adding new videos to the Privacy Channel now and again, so be sure to check back.
Note: I didn’t disable the You Tube related videos so that you guys can watch the other Google privacy tips videos from this site.
Tags: blogger tips, Google, google calendar, phone number, picasa tips, privacy, privacy tips, tips
