webRulon » How-To

Use the Google Font API to Implement Awesome Fonts on your Website

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:26:14 +0000

Until recently, the font-world has evolved slower than a dinosaur stuck in superglue. This holds especially true for people on the web, who have been stuck with the same old fonts(Arial, Georgia, Verdana, Times New Roman) since, well, forever.

The Google Font API is here to change all of that. At it’s heart, the Font API is a databaes of “web fonts.” Web Fonts are, obviously, fonts for use on the web. The Google system is so much more than that, though.

Today we are going to go over the basics of Google Font API and how to make the best of the service in order to assure your websites are maxed out with the best fonts available.

Implementing Google API requires no programming skills, however a basic grasp of html and web skills couldn’t hurt. If you lack even the rudimentary skills needed to implement the suite, then make a web-savvy friend do it for you. Offer them dinner or beer in exchange. It will take them only five minutes, promise.

How it works

Google Font API uses a CSS property called @font-face. Don’t worry if this is Greek to you. You don’t need to be well-versed in the nuances of CSS in order to navigate your way around Google API.

The property @font-face allows you to use font files. Font files typically come with the extensions .otf and .ttf. These may be familiar to you from programs as Photoshop and Microsoft Word. Font file extensions haven’t changed in a long, long time so chances are you are at least somewhat familiar.

The problem in the past has been that each particular browser were built to handle different font faces. For instance, Firefox only accepts .otf while Explorer only accepts .eot. Websites have been forced to scramble and invent workarounds on the fly that mock different extensions. It has been problematic at best. Google Font API has finally solved this problem.

The benefits

The obvious benefit is the implementation of web fonts is greatly simplified with using Google Fonts API. Obviously, there will be no more need to worry about the quirks of various browsers. API also works around tricky licensing issues regarding the legality of using certain fonts. This is because the fonts are open source and supplied by Google themselves. No more worries about using illegal fonts.

Also, did we mention it’s free? You don’t even have to enter an email address in order to use the service. There are reasons it is becoming the gold standard of the web-based font world.

How to use it

The font previewer now does a lot of this automatically so if you want you can skip below to that. However, for those interested parties, here is the nuts and bolts of how to use Google Font API.

There are two steps to get started.

What you want to do at first is reference the CSS stylesheet you need within your HTML document. Put this in the tags found around the top. Make sure this is in all the pages you want to use the API with. If you use a template such as Wordpress, you just have to do this once and the software will automatically import it across all of your pages. If not, you may have to go in there manually. Don’t worry. It won’t take too long.

Look at the example below. The tag is where you are referencing Google API. Note: Fontname is whatever font you wish to use in your page. Please replace with an actual font found in the Google Font Directory.

Home Page

/>

Step two is to use CSS to specify the use of the font we have just requested. If we want to use the mythical Fontname font on all of our pages, it would go something like this:

p {
font-family: 'FontName';
font-size: 12px;
}

See. Easy. You don’t really need to know anything about CSS in order to get it working. Just remember that Fontname is the name of the whatever font you choose and 12px is the size.

Multiple fonts

Let’s say you want to use more than one font on your page. You aren’t boring, after all! Here is what you do. Just append your request with an | symbol followed by another font name. Look at this example:

Do you see where you place words to italicize or make text bold? It’s really as simple as that. You aren’t missing anything.

Tools

There are a few handy tools for use with Google Font API.

Google Font Previewer

This lets you experiment with each font before you “commit” to adding them to your site. It truly is useful. It lets you adjust the size, the weight, the look, just about anything. Then, voila, it generates the necessary code you need to slap on your site. So, basically, the previewer allows you to ignore the tutorial we just laid out. Hey, it’s good to know how stuff works though, right?

Google Font Directory

The directory lists all of the fonts that Google has vetted that are available for use. It’s a good way to get a bead on what is out there so you can start planning your site accordingly. It also features the ability to snag the code for implementation. It’s a user-friendly experience that is designed to, of course, simplify things for web designers. Those crafty cads at Google, always making things easier!

Web Font Loader

This is for the experienced programmers out there. This is a JavaScript library that allows great flexibility and experimentation with fonts. If you need control over the fonts used in your webpage, then this is for you. Newbies, stay away.

That is it! Google Font API. It sounds useful doesn’t it? Head on over and give it a try. Your dusty old webpage will thank you.

How to Make Great Presentations

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:39:20 +0000

Presentations. They are a terrifying and important part of adult life. How else to emphatically get information across to a large group of people at the same time. And no, the Internet doesn’t count. Still, it takes a certain kind of person to really knock presentations out of the ballpark. Or does it? Read along and practice these tips and you are sure to have them rolling in the aisles. Don’t worry, you won’t have to imagine anyone in the audience naked.

Plan. Plan. Plan.

This might seem obvious but a presentation is really only as good as the amount of practice that went into it. Write it out. Tinker with the words until they are perfect. Then, practice. Practice for your loved ones. Practice for your hated ones. Practice for anyone that will listen. While you are planning it all out, always consider the audience. What are you trying to convey to them? What is your main point? Never lose site of that.

Metaphors are your friend

Often you will find yourself giving a presentation on a complicated subject to a group of people who are not in the know. How do you make sure they get your main point? Well one good way is by use of metaphors, comparisons and analogies. Re-brand the idea to a simpler set of terms that the audience is sure to follow. For example, “PPC is like your direct marketing, but with the advantage of instant feedback”

Demonstrate

If at all possible, show your idea in action. This could be via Powerpoint, a short film, or even via a chalkboard. Take the famous adage “A picture is worth 1,000 words” to heart. Many people simply can’t process information by the spoken word alone. If all else fails, go for a case study. A minor caveat: Do not rely solely on Powerpoint, however. This is a common mistake made by presentation newbies.

Get the audience involved

This may seem like a no-brainer but it’s amazing how many presentations I’ve seen where the emcee doesn’t use their most valuable asset: us. Do whatever it takes to get the audience actively engaged and involved. Ask for questions and comments. Conduct a Q&A session. Hand out relavent paraphernalia. Remember, there are those that learn via the spoken or written word and there are also those who learn via visual cues. Finally, there is a third set of people who learn via active engagement. Be sure to target all three groups.

The big question

The big question your audience members are running through their heads is “Why should I care?” This must be answered almost immediately upon beginning your presentation. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and try to figure out what problem is solved via whatever idea you are discussing. Tackle that quickly and succinctly and you’ll have their attention and, hopefully, their admiration.

Short sentences rule

There is a reason the 140-character Twitter has taken over the web. People love to have ideas delivered to them clearly and concisely. The more you can reduce your idea, the easier it will be to impart to the audience. Edit. Edit. Edit. This isn’t to say you should speak like a caveman. Just go at your notes with Occam’s Razor. Anything that isn’t absolutely vital can go. Which leads us to.

The rule of three

The rule of three can be used to maximize your audience’s understanding. Keep your presentation, and your idea, distilled to three main points? Why just three? Think about how effective this rule has been in drama(Plays have three acts) and humor(Most jokes follow this rule to a tee.) There is something about the human brain and groups of three that just seem to gel. Besides, you want your audience to remember just about everything you said. Why makes things more complicated than they have to be? You aren’t reading from a textbook. You are giving a presentation.

Heroes and villains

Throughout the “narrative” of your presentation, you should develop some clear-cut heroes and villains. The villain should be whatever is the problem you are looking to solve, or some kind of representation thereof. The hero, then, should be the idea you are proposing to solve said problem. If dirty floors are the villain then the wonder-mop you are discussing is the hero. Get it? More PPC-speak, the villain could be antiquated media channels. Both hero and villain will become obvious once you’ve worked out your idea well enough. Also, begin this narrative early on. The villain should be pronounced as soon as you can. You want to get people thinking about it.

Talk about what you love

Now this isn’t always possible in the real world, but love is infectious. You are going to have a certain amount of trouble faking excitement. You are in the business, and not acting, world after all. Try to stick to presentations on subject matters you are actually interested in. Trust me. The audience will pick up on this and your excitement will soon become their excitement.

That is about it. Remember, don’t stress out about it. At the end of the day it’s just a presentation. Follow these simple steps and you’ll do fine.

5 Ways to Maintain Client Relationships Long After the Work is Complete

Lawrence Bonk — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:14:38 +0000

So you’ve wowed a client with your professional and brilliant work. Now what? Ideally, you want to keep a relationship going. This isn’t to sell any kind of post-product add-on or anything(Although, that’s possible if that’s your bag.) Rather, it’s just to keep a a healthy business-to-client relationship going. This awards many benefits as far as referrals and, well, just plain ole human decency. Not to mention repeat service.

So how do you do it? There is really no reason to contact them once the work is done, after all. You don’t want to seem like a desperate person you met once who is always asking you to hang out even though it’s obvious it’s not gonna happen.

Here are five natural and effective ways you can do it.

Send Newsletters

Does your company send out a monthly newsletter? If not, get on that. It’s a good way to stay in touch with customers and let them know you are still around, doing your thing. Even if you don’t have a formal mailing list, you can still send out emails to key clients every now and again that take the form of a mailing list email . This way you can keep those key relationships alive.

Clip Items of Interest

As you go through your day, reading newspapers, blogs, books or any other business reading material, keep an eye out for subjects your key clients would be interested in. If you find something that reflects their industry’s needs, send it along with a note.

Over time, this will become second nature and will begin to take no time at all. Your eyes will be trained to notice things regarding their interests and you’ll have it packed up and sent before you know it. It can do a lot of good in the long run.

Chat ‘Em Up on Social Networks

If your clients participate in the same social networks as you, make an effort to befriend them to stay in touch. If you are not on the same social networks as them, join the ones they are on. Social media is great for quick check-ins, and it can also give you a way to stay in tune with what’s going on in their businesses. This way you can be ready to offer your services when the need eventually arises. Instant business.

Make a Call

This is simple and obvious. Give a quick call to say hello. Of course, do this in extreme moderation. You don’t want to overstay your welcome. You may want to also email first as a sort of “warning” that a call will be forthcoming.

Send Referrals

Conventional wisdom dictates referrals as client-to-vendor benefits, but why not refer others to the businesses of your clients? It sure would make them happy, and get them to return the favor at a later date. Make a habit of keeping an eye out for potential customers for your clients when you do your networking rounds.

Throughout all of your interactions, don’t forget to ask the clients what they have going on. This is a great way to potentially get in the door with return work via happy clients. Remember, a happy client is a client who will work with you again.

So that’s about it. What do you do to maintain that all-important client relationship once the work has gone the way of the Dodo?

Fighting Back Against Email Overload

Lawrence Bonk — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:30:08 +0000

Who doesn’t love email? It’s easy, convenient and trackable. We all have our various systems for managing it. Mine is far from perfect but I’m usually able to make quick decisions about each message I receive. Some emails I file away. Others I transfer to a different folder or project. Some I tag for the future and some I answer on the spot. It’s all about quick decisions. My eternal aim is to have just a few messages(Under twenty) at any given time in my mailbox. That’s the goal anyways.

It works. The field of email management is one where I feel pretty confident. However, the interruptions that come with email are another story.

The Problem

Like most people who work for a living, I keep my email client open all day. I don’t use a visual notification to alert me when new emails show up, but I do have an audio alert set up. I chose the quietest, shortest and least obtrusive alert. It’s a nice, gentle ping. Kind of relaxing actually.

But on some days, I can shoot from 20 to 120 messages in no time at all. There’s also that attention-craving Blackberry buzzing about my desk, also letting me know there are treasures to be read. How do you say no?

I try not to stray off task, but I am guilty of peeking once in a while when something comes in. Again, it’s hard to say no. The pause I take to take a peek at these emails has certainly begun to take chunks out of productivity. For instance, once the pause happens it takes me a few minutes to get back into the groove of writing. A lot of backtracking needs to be done.

This week I decided to face this problem head on.

The Solution

For me, the solution could not be removal of email. I need it. I also can’t even decide to look at it just once a day. Certain emails are time sensitive and that could be a disaster. But I no longer can afford to be run by the ping-pinging of new emails. I needed to turn the tables.

I shut down my email client.

Wait, didn’t I just say I wasn’t’ going to do that? Hear me out. I have more than 12 email accounts coming into my email client. Most of these are not accounts I need to check multiple times a day or even every day.

Also, having those twenty or so emails I have to act on staring me in the face all day tends to get, um, distracting. After all, I am not able to act on a great many of them yet.

As part of my solution, I open my email client just a few times a day to let messages download and to make sure I’m not missing anything important.

I changed my BlackBerry notification settings.

Gone are the vibrations that alert me to new messages. The Blackberry is a silent movie now.

I started using webmail.

My primary webmail account only contains my top-priority email, the messages I need to see quickly. None of these messages are tagged, labeled, colored or anything like that. There is no filtering of any kind whatsoever. This makes it perfect for a quick sneak and peek. Plus, I can delete the junk before it downloads into my email client, making it more manageable later on.

I (am trying to) reset my brain.

This is the hardest part of all. Training your brain into realizing that email WILL be there whenever you are done with what you are doing. You really and truly are not missing anything by waiting an hour to check it. The super important stuff can stream into your webmail and all will be right with the world.

That’s pretty much it. Call it a “zen state.” Call it “email meditation.” Call it what you will. It’s working. I finally feel like email is working at my command and not the other way around. It may seem simple, but I think I’m winning this battle.

What’s Your Problem?

What are your most pressing email concerns and what do you do to fix them?

How To Manipulate Images With The Photoshop Clone Stamp Tool

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:13:28 +0000

Those new to the wonders of Photoshop absolutely fall in love with the handy, dandy Clonestamp tool. And why shouldn’t they? It’s simply a blast to remove people from photographs, fixing up damaged photographs or just having a grand old time adding bits and filling things in. In short, the Clone tool is an amazing tool to have for Photoshop newbies and veterans alike. It’s also fantastic for retouchers. So, how does this thing work?

The Clone Stamp tool samples pixels from one area of an image and copies them to another part of the image. You use your brush to actually “paint” areas using another area you have set to be “cloned.” The tool allows usage of any brush tip or shape, which allows for very precise control over both manipulated areas. You can also sample from one image and apply the clone in another image, so long as both reside in the same color mode.

Look at the sample image below. We are going to remove the butterfly from the background. The results will be the same with any image and object you choose.

1. Open up your image in Photoshop.

2. Select the Clone Stamp tool ().

3. On the tool options bar, open the Brush pop-up palette and select a medium-sized brush with a medium-soft edge. For this example, we’ll set the brush diameter to 200 pixels and the hardness to 50%. It’s a good idea to use a soft-edge brush, otherwise you will see a very hard line where the cloning takes place. You want it to seem as natural as possible, after all.

4. Make sure that the Aligned option is selected.

Now set a sample point in the area you want to duplicate and clone to the next area. When you select Aligned in the options bar, it means you will reuse the most current sampling point no matter how often you stop and resume painting. This is important because if it is not checked, then you’ll end up reusing the same pixels every time you paint.

5. Move the Clone Stamp tool pointer to the dark area on the left side of the butterfly. Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and the pointer becomes a set of cross-hairs. Click once to set that point as your sampling point. Release the Alt or Option key. Easy peasy.

6. Click and drag the Clone Stamp tool over a small area of the butterfly’s wing. As you drag the cursor, the wing will start to disappear as it is replaced with the pixels you’re sampling from. The cross-hairs that appear to the right of the Clone Stamp tool indicate the source area of the image that you are replicating as you drag. It may sound complicated but once you get to this step it will make perfect sense.

7. Release the mouse button and move the pointer to another part of the butterfly wing. The cross-hairs will maintain the same spatial relationship to the Clone Stamp tool pointer that it had when you made the first stroke. This is the beauty of clicking on the aligned option at the beginning of the process. You did do that, right?

8. You can reset the sample area anytime by performing this procedure. Simply hold down the Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) key and click once. You will need to do this several times to completely remove the butterfly. Don’t forget to re-size your brush as you go. Keep cloning until you have removed the side of the butterfly on the dark side of the moon tar macadam.

9. Reset the sample point and do the same thing as before on the white side until you have cloned “out” the rest of the butterfly. To finish the area where the butterfly sat, take samples above and below.

That’s it! Not so hard right? Don’t be afraid to keep re-sampling as you go on. And don’t worry. As you clone more and more, the shortcuts will begin to become second nature. Eventually it will be like riding a bike. Below, feast your eyes on the finished product.

25 Powerful and Useful jQuery Tutorials for Developers and Designers

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:04:25 +0000

25 Powerful and Useful jQuery Tutorials for Web Developers and Designers

jQuery is all over the place these days. It’s rapidly catching up to CSS as the web template of choice for up and coming designers. It’s easy to see why. It’s constantly changing. Evolving. The only problem with this is, however, you have to constantly change and evolve as well. One simple must keep track of all of the new plugins, tutorials and addons that come down the pike. It can be quite an undertaking. Don’t worry, though. Webrulon is here to help. Here is a list of 25 recent tutorials that will get you up to speed and have you jQuery-ing in no time.

Submit A Form Without Page Refresh using jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This teaches you exactly what it says it does. Get rid of annoying page refreshes and let your users submit a form with simplicity and ease. Not a bad feature to have on a website. This will prevent people from clicking away in annoyance.

Live Email Validation
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : In this tutorial you will learn how you can validate the format of an email address “live” using that crafty jQuery. It will also let you use regular expressions without any additional plugins.

Fading Menu – Replacing Content
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This teaches you to replace content on the fly, live. The possibilities are pretty endless here. For instance, you could use it for animation or to react live to events as they happen on your site. Not a bad thing to know.

Create a Scrolling Menu with CSS and jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This is exactly what it sounds like. Create a scrolling menu using CSS and jQuery. Your website isn’t classy unless it has a scrolling menu, right? Scrolling menus are the Segways of the 2010 web.

Create a live-update list effect with jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : A live-update list effect is, essentially, a list that is generated as new data is added. This tutorial will teach you how to do it. No more outside looking in on this one.

Advanced “Poll” jQuery Plugin

Description : This tutorial will teach you how to create a jQuery plugin from start to finish. What’s the plugin do? Allows you to easily add a simple poll widget to a web page or blog. Don’t worry. Future plugins will be much more dastardly.

How to Use jQuery to Preload an Image with a Fade-In Effect
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : There are all kinds of way to speed up, or give the illusion therein, the way images load on your website. This plugin teaches you aboutl the preloading capabilities of JavaScript while using the jQuery Framework.

Flickr Menu Design
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This tutorial will explain how to create a simple step-by-step way to implement a Flickr Horizontal Menu in CSS and jQuery. Now get that camera snapping.

Awesome Popup jQuery Calculator
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : Numbers! Who needs em? Well, mostly everyone actually. This tutorial will help you keep a handle on them pesky numbers by having you build a popup jQuery calculator for your site.

Semantic Blockquotes with jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : Blockquotes are useful in making your text visually appealing. This tutorial shows you how to create said blockquotes using jQuery. This is a fairly easy tutorial so, beginners, have at it.

Selecting and Styling External Links, PDFs, PPTs …
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This handy tutorial teaches you how to use jQuery to select and style PDFs, PPT, images, and external links using jQuery and CSS.

Authenticating Twitter API calls with PHP & jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This tutorial teaches you how to create a simple call to the Twitter API to with your site’s Twitter credentials. This makes it easy to quickly and effortlessly post topics related to your blog from your Twitter. Great for multitaskers.

jQuery Slideshows With the Cycle Plugin
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : Wanna implement the jQuery Cycle? This tutorial shows you how. What is the jQuery Cycle? A plugin that allows developers to quickly and easily create a slideshow out of anything contained within a given div element. Cool!

jQuery and Google Maps Tutorial
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : Using with jQuery within Google Maps can be a hefty task indeed. This tutorial seeks to lessen the burden by giving you step by step instructions. You’ll be Lewis and/or Clark in no time.

jQuery Sequential List
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This tutorial will show you how to use jQuery to add a sequent of CSS classes to create a graphical list. Super useful.

Using jQuery Slider to Scroll a Div
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This tutorial shows you how to create a horizontally scrolling div using jQuery, html, and CSS. The trusty jQuery is the main focus of this tutorial, which is used to build the slider which controls the scrolling.

How to Mimic the iGoogle Interface
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This tutorial teaches you how to create a customizable interface with widgets. Sound familiar? You got it. iGoogle! The finished product will be simply and minimally coded, just like iGoogle. This of course opens the doors for tons of applications.

Reddit-style Voting With PHP, MySQL And jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : Ever been on Reddit? The site is interesting for a number of reasons, but one way is how voting is handling. A simple up or down vote is the order of the day there. This tutorial teaches you how to emulate that for your site, using jQuery, PHP and MySQL.

Simple jQuery Spy Effect
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : A great tutorial showing how to use the jQuery Spy Effect plugin and scroll through lists in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Create a slide tabbed box using jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : A simple and straight forward jQuery tutorial that creates a cool sliding tabbed box. For fans of simple and clean web design.

Horizontal Animated Menu
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : In this tutorial you will build a basic horizontal animated menu using jQuery. Nothing like the old favorites.

Load In and Animate Content with jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This tutorial teaches you amp up average and humdrum websites. How? By adding ajax functionality so content loads into the relevant container instead of the user having to navigate to another page. It also teaches you to use great animation effects. Double shot.

Add icons to your links automatically using jQuery & CSS
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : This tutorial is useful if you want to attach a particular icon to a particular type of link. For example: A PDF icon can attach to all of the PDF file links, a text document icon can attach to all text document links or a zip icon can attach to all links that are linked to zip files. There are many more permutations, of course.

Creating an OS Web Interface in jQuery
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : In this truly amazing tutorial, you will recreate a complete OS Web Interface with jQuery. Take a look at the demo. This just may blow your mind.

How To Build Quick and Simple AJAX Forms with JSON Responses
Demo URL : View Demo.
Description : In this tutorial, you will go through the steps of setting up an AJAX form, which will return a JSON response. These are used to display success and error messages. Pretty useful.

How To Get More Comments On Your Blog

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 23:58:02 +0000

Everyone knows that comment boxes are a sure fire to increase the traffic to your blog. People tend to develop a personal connection when they have a say on what goes on in a blog. Not to mention they get to communicate with other like-minded(and often not) individuals. But how do you turn readers into commentators? It’s easier than you think, sometimes. Below is Webrulon’s handy, dandy guide to increasing the amount of comments on your blog.

First of all, there has been much written about this topic in other places. Let’s take a moment to honor those zen masters by relinking some of them:

Now here’s our take. Here is what we think you do to get those comment boxes a-rumblin’.

Encourage lurkers to get involved – Even with comment boxes, most people who visit your blog can be categorized as lurkers. They look, they listen but they don’t speak. Stem that tide by suggesting people say a bit about themselves. If a lurker emails you personally suggest they get involved in the community of the site. You’d be surprised how well some gentle prodding works.

Ask questions – End posts with a question. This way readers have something to think about and, more importantly, something to form an opinion on. Never underestimate the power of a good, or a childish, debate.

Become part of the dialog – If people do begin leaving comments, get involved. Comment back and make your presence known. People like when the webmaster interacts with the readers. It lets them you know you are a real person and robot somewhere. This, in turn, allows them to open up.

Notify users of new comments – If you use Wordpress, install the Subscribe to Comments plugin

which allows commenters on your blog to check a box before commenting and get e-mail notification of further comments. This encourages them to come back and continue the thread, especially if there is some hefty blog drama going on.

Reward those who comment – Everyone loves a treat. There are several easy and fun ways to reward users who get involved. Wordpress offers a plugin(Below) that shows lists of the top users who comment. Also, link to pertinent comments once in a while and build future posts around them.

Make it easy – This might be a bit of a headache for you, but eliminate the need for captcha entering or registration in order to leave comments. The easier it is the more people will just throw their thoughts out there.

Wordpress help – Wordpress has a number of fantastic plugins designed with this task in mind. Check out the plugins that can help increase comments.

Now, to practice what I preach, what techniques have you guys used to get those feisty comment boxes to light up?

Cold Hard Flash – Your source for Flash news, tips and videos.

Lawrence Bonk — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:58:13 +0000

Cold Hard Flash is on the case to entertain all of you flashheads out there. This blog aggregates all of the best in news and tips. The kind folks over at the site also showcase hot videos, animations and programs to show you what is possible with everyone’s favorite web development tool. If you are in the market for Flash-related advice, you could do no better than this handy, dandy website. Check it out here. Tell em we sent ya.