I was doing some work and needed some social media icons to help promote a websites Twitter and Facebook page so a quick Google search quickly had me at the Social Network Icon Pack by Komodo Media. An excellent social media icon set that is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Check out this screenshot of these great icons! I only used three but if you need any social media icons take a look at this collection.
Thanks for the great icon set!
I was chatting with Rhett the other day about Squidoo, and to my surprise he had not heard of it, or at least he had not really checked it out. Squidoo is an interesting service where you can create a single web page, called a lens, to talk about a topic. I currently maintain a lens about LGR Internet Solutions, mostly just to have a presence there.
The conversation with Rhett reminded me of how it can be next to impossible to keep up with all of the services and ways to create web pages like Squidoo so I thought I would create a handy list of places you can use to create a page to talk about a topic you feel passionately about or to help promote your main website.
None of the sites take very long to get the hang of and once you have created your page, lens, knol or how to you might not have to touch it again. If you have a minute and want to do a little writing, want to tell people about something you like doing then take a look at these sites.
Do you know of other sites like this? Let people know by leaving a comment. I always like to learn something new as well.
It has been a busy week trying to sort out the errors with a Mozy online backup install, doing updates to websites for clients and working on some new sites as well. I did put up one website/blog this past week and I will have a post about it next week most likely. In between doing all that I also went tobogganing with my son on Thursday night, and my tail bone and back has been hurting since. I also found time to do some reading and I thought I would share with you some of the posts that I have enjoyed reading lately around the web.
I have also moved my feeds from FeedBurner to Google, and there have been a few issues with that. Mostly problems with people getting errors while trying to access the feed. Hopefully it will all be sorted out soon.
What were some of your favourite posts around the web lately?
I have always enjoyed learning about history, so when I came across this video showing the history of the Internet I had to watch. I find it interesting how much of what we take for granted today appears to have been built because of fear. Fear of a missile gap, fear of a missile attack, fear of not being able to communicate. Now, it is fear of the Internet and how it can change business models and connect people with each other and with businesses. No longer are middle men needed to help promote and create a market, everyone can do it themselves. The invention of the printing press and the industrial revolution might have made books and knowledge mass produced, but the Internet has made everyone a publisher.
I have started several post for the blog here today, but I have not been able to finish a single one. I don’t know what it is about today that seems to be causing me to drift from topic to topic, but that is the kind of day it has been. Since I was not able to finish a complete post today I’ll just give you a run down of some of the post topics I was thinking of writing about today.
WordPress Themes – I have been doing a lot more WordPress development. I currently have five website/blog projects on the go all being done in WordPress. On top of that I have another two quotes out that are also websites/blogs that would use WordPress. I recently came across a post that had a list of five blank WordPress themes to help in development. Now I just need the time to sit and look at them.
Regina SEO – Since moving to Regina I have been wondering what companies down here do SEO so a little Google search and it appears that no one in Regina Saskatchewan does SEO. I did not find one company on the first page of results that was from Regina or even from Saskatchewan for that matter. Do the web companies in Regina not care about SEO? Do they just not do it? Maybe there is just no market in Regina for SEO, not that I want to take the Regina SEO market by storm, but I thought there might be at least one company doing it here.
Blog Consulting – I have been having an interesting email exchange with someone about helping him make some changes to his blog. The whole exchange has gotten me thinking that perhaps I can take my webmaster knowledge and starting doing some blog consulting. In many ways I have already started doing this, but I have never really formally come out and said “heh I do blog consulting”. Can Regina handle having a blog consultant?
Big News – Looks like I will be able to announce my big news on October 1, 2008. Make sure you check back on October 1st to find out what I have been trying to keep under my hat since the move.
That is the kind of day it has been here on the seventieth of September two thousand and eight.
I got back from vacation a few days ago and it is always a little hard to get right back to work after a holiday. I found my mind kept wandering during the day and I ended up playing with Firefox 3 a little more. I have been using it in beta since I upgraded my Ubuntu Linux system, but today I found a great reason why you should upgrade to Firefox 3 and it has absolutely nothing to do with work!
If you have Firefox 3 and Java installed then you need to check out FireNES. (Google English translation). You can play 2000 games right in your browser. Just install the extension, restart Firefox 3 and goto Tools->FireNes. A menu will open on your sidebar with the games that are available. You will have so many games to play you will end up no getting anything done all day long.
I did not try the extension on Windows but I suspect it would run better on a Windows machine, because I always had trouble finding out what keys did what in the games. Overall it was a lot of fun, but I think I will have to uninstall the addon so I can get more work done. Give the extension a try if you have the time and want to play a little. The games sure brought back some memories of hanging out in the arcade and wasting quarters.
This post over at Search-This is one that I can file under the category “Posts I wish I had written”. It offers 10 great points that every serious web developer should know. This is probably a good list of things a client could ask of their next web developer as well.
There are a couple of items I think should be added to the list that serious web developers should know. These items perhaps go beyond the role of just creating a website and move into promoting a website, but the initial work can be done by the web developer. The serious SEO consultants out there might disagree with me, but tough.
Coding and creating a site is one thing, but if the developer does not have at least a basic understanding of some search engine optimization techniques. Even some of the simple things like title tags, meta keyword tags and meta descriptions. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as SEO goes but helping clients get a leg up with the basics should be a part of every web developers job.
Web developers need to be aware that the web is no longer the static build a site and move on activity that it once was. Web developers need to be somewhat aware of the social aspect of the web. Give clients a basic head start on the social side of the web with buttons or links that let people share the site with social media websites can go a long way in getting a website off the ground.
Perhaps that is pushing the limits of web developer into the realm of SEO and social media consulting, but if a web developer wants to actually help their client succeed on the web they need to do more than just build the website.
I am sure many of you have probably already heard that Firefox 3 has now been released and is available for download. If for some reason you are still using Internet Explorer this is your chance to upgrade to a better, faster and more secure web browser. I won’t go into all the long details about the new release. You can read about all the new features and then download your copy to install.
What are you waiting for? Go get Firefox 3!
I admit I grew up when making mix tapes was a common thing. Compact did not exist until I was in grade eleven or twelve. To be cool you had a loud car stereo and you made your own mix tapes. I suppose things have not changed to much, except now kids make mp3 mixes to play on their iPods in the car.
To help me relive my youth here comes Mixwit. With Mixwit you can create your own mix tapes and share them on your website with the embeddable flash player. You can search for songs by artists, title or even add your own by entering a url to an mp3 file. You can choose where to search for songs as well, either using the skreemr mp3 search engine or SeeqPod. I know very little about either of those sites, but I was able to find most of the songs I typed in on one of those services. Aside from adding music you can choose one of several cassette skins for your mix and and then you are ready to publish it to your website or blog.
It is a fun service, and it could be useful if you create your own mp3 files for your band or a podcast and want to embed it on your website or blog easily. You could use it to create your own little radio station to embed on your website I suppose as well. I found it to be a fun service and created this little mix tape for you all of some of the songs I listen to while I am working on my clients websites.
Thought I would post something fun today, since life can’t be all about work all the time right? Came across a website yesterday called Face in Hole. They give you the chance to put your face, or the face of who ever you want I suppose, in a variety of pictures. I wanted to try it but once again it had problems uploading an image from my Ubuntu Linux computer and I did not want to start up my Windows XP machine, so I will have to wait until later. It looks like a lot of fun. If you have a few spare minutes or nothing to do on your lunch hour take a look and make yourself famous! I think I will try the Indiana Jones picture. Always wanted to be Indiana.
