Archive for April, 2007:
How to get a blinkie
Blinkies are everywhere. They represent a myriad of things: advertising a designer’s store, showing membership on a creative team, expressing a fan club, etc They can also spread news. They’re a phenomena all in themselves & when they’re blinking in everyone’s signature, they are also very decorative. Clickable links provide a doorway to wherever you’d like the viewer to go. Blinkies are a lot of fun! Shouldn’t you be wearing one or two yourself?!
There are 3 ways to get a blinkie
1) by copying someone’s blinkie
2) by copying & pasting in a link
3) by making your own & animating it
Here are the steps in each case:
1) Saving a blinkie and hosting it
When people share blinkies, they will usually tell you what they prefer. To save them or just link directly. It depends on what it is for. In case #1 - we are ‘hosting’ our blinkie. This means that the image is located at our site. And if people wear it (use it in their signature), then it uses our bandwidth.
If you see a blinkie you’d like to wear here is how you can put it in your signature:
a) Right click on the blinie & choose ‘Save to’ somewhere on your computer. I have a blinkie folder
b) Now the blinkie is located on your hard drive, but you need to upload it to be hosted on the internet. Most people use photobucket.com It’s easy to set up an account there & upload your blinkie image in ‘gif’ format.
c) After uploading it to photobucket (or another hosting site), you’ll be given an address that starts with ‘img’.
It will look like this:
[img]http://link_to_your_blinkie[/ img] (remove space between / img)
Use ctrl C to copy it. Then use Ctrl V to paste it into your signature editing box (I usually have two windows open). d) to create a clickable blinkie - surround the above text with [url=http://link_you_want_to_go_to]BLINKIE LINK[/ url]
2) Sometimes a link is given to you. There are spaces put in the link though, so it doesn’t blink (or become a graphic). The spaces need to be taken out to make it work properly.
An example of a link would be:
[url=http://www.digiscrapinfo.com][IMG]http://www.digiscrapinfo.com/digiscrapinfoblink.gif[/ IMG][/ url]
Go to the site that you would like it in your signature & click on your profile or User CP. Choose to edit your signature.
Copy that link using Ctrl C and paste (Ctrl V) that into your signature and remove the space in front of the last I & the last u.
Then when you save it will blink. If it doesn’t, check to make sure you’ve removed the spaces.
Feel free to wear our DigiScrapInfo blinkie and we don’t mind you directly linking to it. (That link is a clickable blinkie - so when people click on it, it takes you to their site). If you don’t want a clickable blinkie - then you would use the following link:
[IMG]http://www.digiscrapinfo.com/digiscrapinfoblink.gif[/ IMG]
and remove the space in front of the last I
3) how to make your own blinkie — I made my first blinkie a week ago! A friend had to animate it though because I don’t have PS.
a) create a new document that is 150 x 50 at 300 dpi
b) create each layer with what you’d like to flash, resize to 72 dpi, but don’t ‘resize objects’
c) stack the layers with the first on the bottom, on up into a layered tiff or psd file
d) I sent this file to a friend who animated it in PS. If you have PS - you may want to check around for tutorials on how to do it.
Subscribe to the comments for this postACDSee Photo Manager can change the sample text of your font.
All of the articles related to fonts can be found here
ACDSee can change the sample text of your font.
Want to know how?
- Go to Tools | Plug-in Settings…
- Select ID_Font.apl & click Properties
- Type in your text into the Sample Text Box
- You can also change the background of your font, the color of font, the size of your font and spacing of your font.
- Click OK
- Click OK
After you are done, you may need to select your Font thumbnails and choose Database | Rebuild Thumbnails to get your settings to take effect.
The next tip will be another Font tip using ACDSee Photo Manager even better than this one. I am testing it out though to make sure it works!
ACDSee is having a Scrapbooking Tour to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day all Month!
Start the ACDSee Scrapping Tour here
We want to thank the designers who are participating with us! Visit their stores & have fun shopping! And don’t forget to stop by the forum at DigiScrapInfo.com to register for the prizes.
- Vicki Stegall
- Lie Fhung
- Karah Fredricks
- Sweet Genevieve
- Maggie Lamarre
- Tracy Ann Robinson
- Melgen Designs
- Ronee Parsons
- NinaScraps
- Sue Cummings
- SaraAmarie
- Jeni Cantrill
- Carla Gibson
How can I setup my own forum?
Table of contents for Marketing Forums
- How can I setup my own forum?
- Marketing your Digiscrapping Business: Forums
- Turn your site into a party! all the time
Well there are few options and it really depends on your skills and what you currently have.Three options:
- Use a hosted forum (free or paid)
- Add a forum to your existing site.
- Find a web hosting company that you can set up your forum and later other features you may want
1. Use a Hosted Forum
This is by far the easiest way. The forum hosting company installs, sets up and upgrades your forum as needed. Administrating the forum is probably easy also. The downside of this type of forum may be advertising or limitations. Limitations may be in the forum that you can’t have ads/banner on your website or limited number of styles/themes (the look) to your forum. You can always upgrade to the paid version and limitations are reduced.
I have provided some links of some popular free forum hosting but I have never tried them.
Incorporating a forum into existing website:
If you already have website, see what your host provides for forums.
- Many hosts offer setup of specific forum packages so see what your host offers.
- Another option is to create a hosted forum as suggested above and just link to that forum from your website. That isn’t as nicely contained but it would be easy.
- Or you can setup your own forum and that information is same as the next option so see below.
Find a Web Host and start your own website with forum:
How to choose a Host:
This is by far one of the hardest things to do. I spent quite a bit of time searching and found a lot of information. As with most products, the unhappy people are the most vocal about the product so it feels like this host is bad or that host is bad. In the end I chose GoDaddy (reasons: cheap, large, reliable, and easy to register my domain.)
First thing you need to decide in choosing a host is what is most important to you.
- Price
- Bandwidth which is the amount of data that can be transferred. If you exceed the bandwidth, the host charges extra or your site goes down.
- Disk space, this is the amount of room that you have on the host for everything.
And other things that can’t really be determined until you use it:
- Upload/Download time which is how fast the server is.
- Customer Service
- Uptime/Downtime Downtime is how often the servers are inaccessible. You want Uptime to be close to 100%.
- Security
This is a simple updated list of top hosting companies: Best Web Hosting 2007
I liked this person’s method of finding a host: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=530676
An important thing to look for when you are choosing Hosts is see what packages/tools they install for you. (By packages/tools I mean software that runs forums, blogs, shopping carts, galleries, etc.) This will make life a lot more easy for you if they install it. So what packages/tools do you need? Well today we are discussing forums, so I will give you some popular choices.
The free to use forums: by far the most popular are these 2 choices:
Best Purchased Forum is www.vbulletin.com
I will give you hint about choosing forums, as you move around websites reading forums, go to the very bottom. The forum package name being used is at the very bottom. DigiShopTalk uses vBulletin. We use phpbb. The reason they all look different is the style/theme of the forum. Packaged or customized styles/themes can be added to the free or purchased forums. Many times a specific style can be found that matches closely. If you want to start customizing, be prepared to learn html and other coding.
Once you have web host chosen, you go through their process of creating an account. If you have chosen well, the web host should provided a good documentation and help to guide you through the process. GoDaddy gave me a 55 page getting started guide. Along with this process is choosing a domain name. A domain name is simply what appears after www. I think this took Connie and I hours to decide. (Connie’s note - yep! until our husbands got sick of helping & when they started giving inappropriate ones, we knew it was time to decide!)
In setting up your own website with a forum you will learn as you go. It is also time consuming.
Connie asked me to write this blog entry and I feel like I have only touched upon it. I could type for hours of all the things you need to do, look for, etc. They are many resources are the web that are useful in doing this. You just need to search for them. So if you are interested in starting your forum, hopefully I gave you enough information to ponder the idea and point you in the right direction.
Spice up your address bar with a Favicon made in ACDSee Photo Editor
I don’t feel good today - so I’m here to entertain you! 
My sister had requested that I make a favicon for our site… (Can’t sisters just be demanding?!) So my first question was WHAT! is a favicon? I didn’t ask her because as a librarian, I Google all the time (or let’s say - pretend to know things but rely on the net heavily? maybe!).
Wikipedia says - A favicon (short for “favorites icon”), also known as a page icon or an urlicon, is an icon associated with a particular website or webpage. A web designer can create such an icon, and many recent web browsers can then make use of them. Browsers that support favicons may display them in the browser’s URL bar, next to the site’s name in lists of bookmarks, and next to the page’s title in a tabbed document interface.
And for those of us that use Firefox & LOVE our colored tabbed browsing, we see favicons all the time - we just didn’t know what they were called! I use that icon all the time when I bookmark by dragging it into the toolbar just below the address bar. Here’s a screenshot of my browser for those of you that like visuals:
Making a flavicon is VERY easy!! Now everyone has to realize that I do NOT have PS. I scrap in ACDSee Photo Editor and am quite happy with being able to get things done. And on a side note, on the weekend I made my first blinkie, but I had to have a friend animate it because I am PS challenged. I digress, sorry… (we’ll save the blinkie making instr’s for another time).
So the first thing you need to do is decide what flavor of icon you want? (I love plays on words - and doesn’t favicon just look like flavor?) It’s not very big - so it has to be simple and specific. We decided on a question mark. Then there was the color … because it needed to match with our website. So once I knew that I wanted a red question mark with a blue circle & red border it was easy. In ACDSee Photo Editor I made a 2″ square and filled that space with the circle & question mark and saved it as a png.
Now for the fun part! There’s a site that makes favicons from your image. (I saw a site where you could pay to have them made, but… we’re on low ‘no’ budget). So once you have your image, go here to FavIcon from Pics
- browse to your image
- click on ‘Generate Favicon’ It will show you a preview & you can test it in the browser.
- Then if you like it, you can download it as a zip. When you unzip it there will be a Read Me file giving instructions on how to place the code in your webpages. (My sister did this. As I’ve said before, she’s the brains of this operation.)
So, if you make one, add a comment & link us to it! I want to see what flavor you choose for your favicon & how it personalizes your site!
I just found this:
Adding Custom Favicon to Your Blogger Blog
http://how2make.blogspot.com/2007/02/adding-custom-favicon-to-your-blog
My sister, the techie, adds this suggestion –
As you starting installing favicons, they might not show up right way.
In firefox, Tools | Options | Advanced Tab | Network Tab | Cache Clear Now Button.
More Pre-made Categories for ACDSee Photo Manager 9
If you’re just getting started with ACDSee Photo Manager, here is a very comprehensive category list. Our thanks go to Pam for sharing it! You can also import it even you’ve been using ACDSee for awhile & add the categories to your existing ones.
Pam’s Organizational Categories
- Albums
- Quick Pages
- Templates
- People
- Places
- Various
- Previews & Samples
- Paint Chips
- Swatches
- Instructions
- Colors
- White
- Red
- Blue
- Green
- Yellow
- Grey
- Orange
- Pink
- Purple
- Black
- Brown
- Gold
- Silver
- Neutrals
- Lavender
- Multi-Colors
- Aqua
- Tan
- Peach
- Element Types
- Fasteners
- Buttons
- Brads & Rivets
- Eyelets
- Hardware
- Staples
- Clips
- Prongs
- -Pins
- Buckles
- Borders
- Strips
- Decorative
- Lace
- Torn Edge
- Misc. Borders
- Stationery
- Envelopes
- Paper
- Postage Stamps
- Postmarks
- Folders & Pockets
- Cards & Postcards
- Pencils, Pens, etc.
- Note Pads & Books
- Misc. Items
- Photo Accessories
- Mats
- Slide Mounts
- Film Strips
- Corners
- Frames
- Journaling
- Tags
- Blocks
- Labels
- Bookplates
- Tabs
- Chip Board
- Journaling Strips
- Titles
- Embellishments
- Bottle Caps
- Flourishes
- Arrows
- Shapes
- Flowers
- Jewels
- Charms
- Ephemera
- Beads
- Rims & Rings
- Misc
- Anchors
- Boats
- Paw Prints
- Air Craft
- Mesh
- Gates & Fences
- Dolls & Paper Dolls
- Doll Clothing
- Tiles
- Metals & Wires
- Grouped Elements
- Stamps
- Notions
- Bows
- Ribbons
- Ties
- Adorned or Knotted
- Slidders
- Rickrack
- Fibers
- Stitching
- Lace
- Overlays
- Word Related
- Quotes
- Words
- Word Art
- Doodles
- Stickers
- Clothing
- Accessories
- Children’s
- Men’s
- Women’s
- Fasteners
- Papers
- Solid
- Paisley
- Circles & Dots
- Floral
- Ginghams & Plaids
- Diamonds & Squares
- Torn Edges
- Flora
- Deco
- Distressed & Grungy
- Fabric
- Scenic
- Embossed
- Misc. Patterns
- Vellum
- Stripes
- Stitched
- Misc. Prints
- Subjects
- Styles
- Business
- Masculine
- Feminine
- Childish
- Babyish
- Teen
- Celebrations & Holidays
- Christmas
- Fourth of July
- Easter
- Valentines
- Birthday
- Events & Occasions
- Birth
- Weddings
- Anniversaries
- Graduation
- Food & Drink
- School
- Seasons
- Summer
- Fall
- Spring
- Winter
- Sports
- Football
- Golf
- Nature & Outdoors
- Beach
- Camping
- Animals
- Bugs & Insects
- Plant Life
- Sea Life
- Emotions
- Romantic Love
- Styles
- Stores
- Scrapbook-Bytes Freebie
- ScrapArtist
- Scrapbook-Bytes
You can download Pam’s categories here.
The instructions for how to import them are here: (Instructions are here) Let us know if you need help.
Marketing your Digiscrapping Business: Forums
Table of contents for Marketing Forums
- How can I setup my own forum?
- Marketing your Digiscrapping Business: Forums
- Turn your site into a party! all the time
This series is dedicated to a couple of friends of mine. The first posted at DST wondering out loud about how to get a forum pumped up. I really respected her for asking the question publicly. And the other friend is someone who has been encouraging me to gather my thoughts for awhile on this topic for her.
To start with I need to explain my fascination with the social interaction on the net. And digiscrappers are incredibly intense online. One year ago I was introduced to Web 2.0 thru a couple of library speakers. And I’ll explain what Web 2.0 is later too. (You already know but just didn’t realize it - so if you’re intrigued - sign up on the right to know when our blog is updated so you don’t miss out!). I will be covering SEO too (search engine optimization) - what people know as the goal of being prominently seen by search engines like Google.
Forums are all about people. And my saying is that for every one person posting, there are 100 reading possibly. So you have active people & lurkers & the question is how does one get people to come out & play? engage them if you will? Here are some ideas that I’ve used & once you get the ball rolling… it’s a exciting to see the forum take on a personality of it’s own!
- Be present - as a site owner it’s important that you’re there, active & making people feel good - people will notice & respond. (It’s a great time to be charming!). Vicki Stegall does this so well. So check out Oscraps if you want to see a great example.
- Engage the people that are active at your forum because they probably think you walk on water. (You know who they are - the ones that stalk you! lol) They’re you’re biggest fans & can help you greatly.
- Create a motivational team from your inhouse fan club. Have them help with posting at DST & supporting your marketing efforts. (It took me a long time in life to realize it’s ok to ask for help… you don’t have to do it all yourself.). Those ladies will be so excited to help you. Have them help monitor the ISO threads at DST & paste up your great designs (with images).
- Empower them - give them a private area in the forum & let them brainstorm. You’ll be amazed at what a group will come up with! Encourage them to keep it simple so no one gets worn out. Let them scrap with your kits & advertise your work. Have them help moderate, blog, etc. Have them choose a scrapper of the week/month if you have a gallery.
- Establish a routine at your forum by trying the following -
- encourage members to post their picture - this personalizes things (if they resist - offer a prize to all that do so & you’ll find it becomes the standard)
- use your name rather than admin. for your username - admin is sterile
- encourage people to come out of lurking -run a game or contest to see who is frequenting your forum. You maybe will be surprised!
- if you have other designers selling, ask them all to post & get involved. Ask your CT to actively post at the forum.
- Make your customers feel special. Assuming that you have a store connected with your forum, offer a coupon thru your blog, on the forum, etc. All of us love coupons.
- Listen to your customers. This means ask them what they’d like to see in the forum, what typs of designs they’re looking for, what they’d like to learn, talk with them.
- Ask yourself what makes your site unique? or how would you like it to be unique? If you wander around our site - my sister & I started this with a goal of reducing our typing when we were answering questions around the net. It’s not so much a social place, but it is very friendly. We respond to posts within 2 hrs during waking hours. And we do ‘housecalls’ - yes, when people are in need friends let us know where & we go to that site to answer questions. This evolved. This leads me to the next one… But first, consider what makes your site unique & focus on that. If you can’t think of something - then create a daily routine at your site. Your regulars will love it & more will join.
- Be flexible…. and realize that sometimes you’ll have a great idea & oopsie, things don’t go as planned. But try try again. Be creative… watch what others are doing & gather ideas. I’m a people watcher, can you tell? And I love trying to figure out why things are successful. Plan ahead - this will guarantee success - and make you happier when you’re more relaxed in the execution of your plans.
- Be transparent - say what you mean & mean what you say. You’ll gain far more respect with all those you work with. And this is obvious, but good business practices are absolutely necessary. Remedy customer service issues quickly & follow up. Meredith Fenwick gave me the BEST customer service back when I was getting started. People don’t forget that (obviously I haven’t!). The joy of the digiscrapping world is that people get such GREAT customer service. Designers are THE best at it!
- Some other things in no particular order: offer a freebie, find ways to creatively get people moving thru your forum like a scavenger hunt (they’ll have fun while doing so too!), send a newsletter out to your members, create a blinkie for your loyal customers to wear & add a clickable link in the address - so when they wear it at other sites, you have people clicking over. (These stat’s are interesting to watch). Post instructions on how to get it into their signature.
I think what holds site owners back is that they’re afraid to take risks, but consider it an experiement instead! It can be great fun trying new things & going in new directions. My sister obligated us to a year & I thought - what if this doesn’t work…. and now we’ve grown so much in 3 months, it was the obvious thing to do! (We’ll see if she reads this!). But we’re having a great time & love our dedicated followers. Both of us learned digiscrapping online & we’re enjoying giving back to the community.
Here are some links that have interesting reading:
10 mistakes that will kill a forum
Top 10 lessons I’ve learned about managing a forum
10 tips for promoting your forum
Do you have more ideas for motivating a forum? Please post them here for others. I think the next topic will be blogging & SEO. Stay tuned….
Are you ready to be published? Wondering where to send your layouts?
Julie Ann Shahin put together the ultimate list for anyone interested in submitting their work for publication. She covers everything from magazines, international publications to ezines.
So if you want to have your work published - pull up the keyboard & get busy submitting!
Here are all of her tips - for your browsing pleasure!
Enjoy and good luck!
ACDSee releases update of Photo Editor 4 & it’s also the Vista version
Everyone is familiar with ACDSee Photo Manager for organizing, but did you know that ACDSee has software for digital scrapbooking?
ACDSee recently released an up update for ACDSee Photo Editor and it’s also Vista compatible now.
The press release reads: VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA — (MARKET WIRE) — March 26, 2007 — ACD Systems International Inc. (TSX: ASA) announced today the release of the “Certified For” Windows Vista version of ACDSee® Photo Editor. ACDSee Photo Editor is the software that makes creativity easy because it teaches you as you work, with guided step-by-step “How-To’s” for creating digital crafts and enhancing photos built right into the application itself.
“We’re amazed by the albums, digital scrapbooks and layouts our customers are creating with Photo Editor,” stated Mark Franklin, executive vice president of ACD Systems. “Customers are taking full advantage of the shift to digital photography by personalizing and preserving their memories in new and inspired ways. With Photo Editor’s short learning curve, more people can create their own digital keepsakes.” …
The complete press release can be found here.
If you presently have ACDSee Photo Editor - The update link can be found here.
My sister & I are using it and we appreciate that it doesn’t have the frustrating learning curve that many programs have. It’s quite user friendly and has all of the functionality needed for digiscrapping. Many creative functions like text on a path and layers are easy. You can see examples of what you can create with ACDSee Photo Editor here. And we have some fun slideshows of pages created with ACDSee Photo Editor here.
We have tutorials for ACDSee Photo Editor here and you can download a 30 day trial there too.