Pinkle ; New XML Blogger Template

April 6, 2008

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Create a Cool Music Logo on a Grunge Background

April 5, 2008

I really like the artwork that is used in Pitchfork’s website; So, I decided to re-create something similar in Photoshop, and make a tutorial on how I did it. These techniques can be used to make a logo and background for a cool grunge style website.

Step 1

Make a new document that is 1500px wide and 1000 px height. I decided to make the document extra large for use to work with; So, we can see the effects really well. With the Text tool set your text in a font that looks similar to the image below. I used the font Blackoak STD. Kern and scale the font as you desire.
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E-commerce with WP!

April 5, 2008

Easily turn wordpress into an e-commerce solution. As someone who has used WP-ecommerce in the past, this was a lot easier!

What is the Biggest Mistake That You’ve Made as a Blogger?

April 5, 2008

It’s time for a reader discussion/open thread and today’s question is: What is the Biggest Mistake That You’ve Made as a Blogger? What in your time as a blogger do you look back on with regret, wish you’d not done or wish you’d done differently?
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Sweet Orange WP Theme

April 5, 2008

orange theme Two column theme with a clean and simple style, add your own header and it’s like brand new.

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The Age Of Conversation 2008

April 5, 2008

Did you miss the conversation in the blogosphere last year about The Age of Conversation - the collaborative book project that brought together some of the leading names in blogging and social media? One of the fantastic things about the book project is that all the monies raised from the sale of  ‘The Age Of Conversation‘ go to Variety, the Children’s charity. Well this year, ‘The Age Of Conversation: Why Don’t People Get It’ has almost 300 authors contributing who will be covering the following subjects:
  • Manifestos - Declarations, up front, on the Age of  Conversation and why don’t people ‘get it’
  • Keeping Secrets in the Age of Conversation - With  everyone talking so much, why do we need secrets and what is the role of privacy?
  • Moving from Conversation to Action - The practical steps that businesses and brands can take  to move from conversation to something more valuable to their business
  • The Accidental Marketer - What is the attraction of marketing and are there company’s or brands that happen into marketing success?
  • A New Brand of Creative - With the changes in the way  that people communicate and collaborate online, marketing and advertising  companies are needing to reach out and work with a new type of creative team.  What do these “creatives” look like and what are the challenges that they face?
  • My Marketing Tragedy - covering projects that have failed and what was learnt from the failure?
  • Business Model Evolution - Just as the markets and  people are changing, so too are the business models around both clients and  agencies - this chapter will explore the implications of the new business model
  • Life in the Conversation Lane - Bringing it all back to  the individual and  how is life in a digitally connected, social world impacting us all?
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How Many Topics Should a Blog Cover?

April 4, 2008

Suzie has a post up on her blog which asks a question that many bloggers ask - often when they’ve started a personal blog and want to take their blogging to a new level, particularly in their quest to make money blogging. The question revolves around how many topics their blog should cover and whether they should have a ‘niche focus’. Susie writes:
“I also hear focus your blog on one topic. That has been my stumbling block. I want this blog to focus on the Law of Attraction in Action, AND I want to write about lots of other things that I am passionate about, including cooking, blogging, making money online, my art, people and causes, to mention a few.”
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Making Composites with Octoberfest Glassware

April 4, 2008

Placing masked glassware on a new background can be a difficult task. Either the glass looks too transparent, with bits of the old background showing, or it lacks highlights, or shadows. The techniques covered in this tutorial are not limited to Octoberfest beer mugs. You can use these practical techniques for any type of glassware in composite Photoshop images.

Step 1

We start with a picture of myself holding a beer mug and a photograph of the Octoberfest scene. The picture was a snapshot I shot while I was visiting Munich during Octoberfest. Download the images to get started: Octoberfest image and Beer image. The crowd image has been blurred. This does two things: it fakes a depth of field and it protects the identity of the passerby’s.
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5 Common Beliefs About Blogging

April 4, 2008

Blogging has changed the way we look at the Internet, I’m sure of that. Not only do blogs provide extreme leverage for businesses, but they also allow us to earn money from them if we manage to break into this ground. blogging beliefs Despite the highs and lows of blogs, many people still harper beliefs that might stop them from getting started in the first place. To make sure you don’t fall prey to these misconceptions, read on.

Blogging is passe

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A Strategy for Building Niche Focused Blog Networks

April 4, 2008

Yesterday on the preview call for Six Figure Blogging I was asked about starting multiple blogs. I mentioned that if I were going to start a blog network afresh today as a single blogger that I’d probably do it focused around a single niche rather than starting focusing upon numerous topics with numerous blogs. This isn’t to say that starting a blog network with a wide focus on many topics can’t work - at b5media we’ve managed to grow to 315 blogs on everything from Tax to Bags to College Basketball to MTV Reality TV - however starting a network with such a wide focus is a challenging thing and to kick something off around a more focused niche has some distinct advantages.

Advantages of a Niche Focussed Blog Network

  1. For starters having related blogs means you can cross promote and leverage the traffic from one blog to promote another
  2. Secondly it has some advantages for selling advertising directly to advertisers. If you have two blogs on completely different topics it’s virtually impossible to sell ads on both of them to the same advertiser but if you have two blogs with similar reader demographics it doesn’t take much to upsell advertisers to run campaigns on both.
  3. Thirdly - it can help with your SEO to be interlinking related sites.
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