Archive for June, 2007
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“Drop the Presets!” Create Your Own Unique Drop Shadow |
A Drop Shadow is a visual effect that gives an object an illusion of depth by placing a shadow beneath an object. It is often used functionally to draw attention to an object, say a button or a text box. Text is also sometimes rendered with a subtle drop shadow that further emphasizes it and pops it off of the background.
In Photoshop you have the ability to create a Layer Style of a Drop Shadow and go back and change it at anytime- that’s helpful! You can even make all the layer styles the same and create a Global Light that they will all retain.
Sometimes it is better though to just make your own-why? Well it is surely unique. By using this simple technique the Drop Shadow will be on its own layer and also just as easy, or easier, to edit later on in the process.
Comments - Posted in Design, Tutorial by Patrick Winfield
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mdog.com – A Reliable Mobile Version of the Entire Web?Jun 25 2007 | Mobile |
mdog is a new mobile portal site that allows one to browse the Internet’s latest versions of mobile web sites from major companies and publications. It displays sites without images and in text only format using a proprietary technology. It also includes a search feature which does not perform all that well, yet. The search feature is most prominently placed at the top of the browser, so that is great, and it also has a radio button selection to narrow your search to “local” results.mdog looks to align all of the latest web site versions in mobile display for the mobile browser on your SmartPhone, blackberry or PDA. From the mdog.com homepage you can access 1. Web 2. Blogs and 3. Sign In (to customize your experience). From the “Web” section, one has access to the following categories of sites:
News, Business, Sports, Weather, Webmail, Travel, Food and Dining, Entertainment, Information, Technology, Ebay, TV Networks, Classifieds, Social, Lottery
Comments - Posted in Mobile by Jake Matthews
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Chris Winfield in Investor’s Business Daily re: ‘Google Placement Performance Reports’ |
Last week, I spoke with Investor’s Business Daily regarding Google’s latest AdWords enhancement Placement Performance Reports and the article was published yesterday.
This enhancement is something that advertiser’s have been requesting for quite a long time. If you’re advertising on the AdWord’s Content Network it allows you to see the exact sites where your ads appear. From Google: “Placement Performance reports also provide site-by-site performance metrics – including domain, URL, impression, click, conversion and cost data – as well as aggregated metrics for traffic generated from AdSense for domain sites.”
My thoughts from the article:
A maker of steak knives, for example, might prefer to have its ads on Marthastewart.com and food-related sites than on the risque Hotornot.com’s photo-rating service, said Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, a search marketing firm that helps advertisers place ads online.
Comments - Posted in Google, Press by Chris Winfield
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How to create: Line Effect Patterns in Photoshop |
Creating line effect patterns in Photoshop is easy and can come in handy for that little bit of texture applied to a background of a page or another way to spice up a photograph.
Line patterns can also make a ‘heavy’ image, one with lots of gradients and tones, a bit smaller in file size thus better for web use.
Line effect looks great on the screen because it mimics, to some degree, the way a screen displays light. This can work with printed images and give your images a more graphical feel, like a screen printing process, digital screen shot or transfer.
Step 1. Create a new document with dimensions of 2 pixels by 2 pixels and a transparent background. Zoom in till the document is larger and easier to work with.
Comments - Posted in Design, Tutorial by Patrick Winfield
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IRS + Linkbait: What Are Two Words I Never Thought Would be TogetherJun 20 2007 | Uncategorized |
When I say “IRS” what’s the first word that comes to mind? Maybe: Taxes. Audit. Scary. Perhaps: I’d rather not say….
Did anyone think of: Sarcastic. Fun. Linkbaiters? Probably not. Well it looks like that all is about to change with this article they put out: 10 Reasons to Put Off Saving for Retirement. The article is a top 10 list (we know they work) and is completely sarcastic. Here’s the list (without their witty explanations for each):
1. There are so many important things I need that money for NOW.
2. There’ll always be time to save later.
3. Maybe I won’t live long enough to retire.
4. I love a challenge.
5. Social Security payments alone will take care of my needs.
6. I don’t know how to begin.
7. I don’t know how much I need for retirement.
Comments - Posted in Uncategorized by Chris Winfield
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2008 Presidential Candidate Search Marketing Face-off |
The 2008 election promises to be an exciting and hotly contested one. Jake Matthews takes a look at how some of the leading candidates are doing in their search marketing efforts on Google in Part 1 of a four part series – and gives each one of them a grade in the 2008 Presidential Candidate Search Marketing Face-off .
There has been a fair amount of community coverage of how the leading candidates of the 2008 Presidential elections are leveraging or missing the boat on SEO and in the Social Media networks. There are interesting posts that follow the quality and strength of the campaigns. Mima looking at backlinks to Presidential hopeful sites. Further on March 13, 2007 Michael (Solo) Jensen did a great candidate SEO review on WebPro News. Rand-Moz chimed in May with insight regarding keyword rankings, missed opportunities and John McCain’s nasty SEO blunders, while Jonah from Alchemist discussed the grassroots value of the web for campaigns.
Comments - Posted in Google, SEO by Jake Matthews
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Chris Winfield in USA Today: ‘Yahoo co-founder Yang becomes CEO’ |
Yesterday I spoke to Jeff Graham from USA Today regarding Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang taking over for former CEO Terry Semel. My thoughts from the article:
“Yahoo had to do something,” says Chris Winfield, who runs 10e20, a New York firm that helps businesses run search-marketing campaigns. “I’m hoping Jerry gets in there and really tries to fight to get Yahoo back on top, so Google isn’t the only option in town.”
There are lots of different ideas and rumors flying around about this move. CNBC has sources that say Yahoo! is going to buy MySpace in a $10 billion dollar deal (giving News Corp a 25% stake in YHOO) and then Yahoo! is going to go back to outsourcing their search to Google. Others think that it will be much of the same (Yang carrying on in much the same way Semel did) and then Yahoo becoming a possible acquisition target.
Comments - Posted in Press, Yahoo! by Chris Winfield
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Using Masks in Photoshop: Add New Skies to your Landscape Photography |
Sometimes you get an amazing landscape shot, but the sky is so drab and lacks emotion. Out in the field you can not control this aspect of the weather, but with some post production in Photoshop you can create some interesting new images.
Skies with a lot of small details in the clouds towards the horizon, and very little interference, are great to have.
Step 1. On the new document select the layer of the landscape and using the Magic Wand tool select the sky by using a tolerance of 20 or less and add to that selection by holding the shift key. Enter into the Quick Mask Mode to further correct the mask and use other tools such as the Polygon Lasso and Brush.
Step 2. With the selection still activated click on the new sky layer and then hit the Layer Mask icon on the Layer Palette.
Comments - Posted in Design, Tutorial by Patrick Winfield
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Social Media Test MarketingJun 12 2007 | Social Networks |
Many times before a company launches a product or service, they will roll it out to a test market. You do this to see how viable that product or service will be in the mass market prior to a the full roll-out. This can be a very expensive process but it can also be worth every penny. Would you be willing to spend $1 million to help prevent you from losing $10 million?
I came across another version of this today being run by National Lampoon, the makers of Animal House, the Vacation movies and much more. They have a potentially polarizing feature length film that they are contemplating releasing. It’s called 72 Virgins and it tells the tale of two idiot college students unwittingly join an Al Qaeda cell in order to get the 72 virgins promised to terrorists when they die. This started out a viral film on their website and they now are asking their fans – Should we make this into a feature length movie?
Comments - Posted in Social Networks by Chris Winfield
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Looking Up Sk*rt – Digg for WomenJun 08 2007 | Social Networks |
Sk*rt is a new social networking site that that has recently launched. To put it simply, it is like Digg for women. I found out about it through a blog I read regularly.
When the announcement was posted I went over to check it out right away. I understand the importance of Digg but I have to admit that the stories on there aren’t really my cup of tea.
The first thing I noticed is that there is no way to bury a story or push it down. Long-term (or more like short-term), I think this is going to have to be implemented especially once the site gets more popular and the people try to “game” it. I noticed today a few comments where people questioned the validity of something, but there was no way other than in the comments section to flag it.
