6 Blog Design Tips That Will Get You Better Results

With most blogging platforms being geared for beginners, blog design can be as simple as

choosing from a selection of pre-made templates and uploading a logo for some users. This might work for you, but if you want to take your efforts to the next level, then be prepared to take it up a notch.

Following are six high-level blog design tips that will help you see noticeably better results.

1. Design with Purpose

If your blog is to make a lasting impact, then you must think beyond looking good with your design. You need to work with a specific purpose in mind.

- What is the focus of your blog? Whatever it is, make sure your design is aligned with the topic as much as possible.

- What makes your blog special? The unique value proposition of your blog should stand out on first glance. A combination of powerful copy and a solid design will make sure it does.

- Who is your audience? Finally, always remember that the look and feel of your blog should accommodate the people who read it. If they don’t find it effective, then something is definitely wrong.

2. Small Details Matter

When it comes to blogging, those small, seemingly insignificant nuances can turn out to be huge deals that put a damper on your efforts. Details you want to pay attention include:

- Tags. Please don’t underestimate the power of tags. They offer tremendous SEO value and could be the difference between a blog post that enjoys a high visibility in the search engines, and one that is buried deep within its own domain.

- Search function. Most blogging platforms support internal search functionality, yet very few bloggers take advantage of this luxury. Some visitors could come in looking for something in particular, and by providing this feature, you can make sure they have an easy time finding it.

- Author attribution. Who wrote your blog post? It wasn’t really a nameless team member known around the office as “Admin”, was it? Simply giving proper attribution to posts can go a long way in creating bonds between your authors and your readers.

3. Optimize Your Images

By now, most bloggers know all about how images can dramatically enhance the visual appeal and value of your blog posts. However, few are actually using images to their full potential. When you upload photos, you can take the time to optimize them by entering keywords in the description and available text fields, or just insert them into your posts. I vote for optimization because it makes your images search-friendly. You can make them more powerful altogether by adding compelling captions that draw attention to your content.

4. Adopt the Grid Approach

The grid system has been used in print media for years. It is currently one of the hottest trends in web design. The system uses a combination of rows and columns to create unique layouts that accommodate content-rich sites. A grid can provide a solid foundation that makes your blog much more flexible and easier to build on in the future. And due to the organizational component, a grid system can also greatly improve the navigation experience for visitors.

5. Be Careful with Fonts

Fonts are normally an afterthought, but they can be very helpful if you know how to use them. While there are tons of options out there, it is generally best to keep it simple with fonts. What you think is creative could be turning people off or causing an unwanted distraction. Think basic fonts like Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman, and Verdana. Stay simple in terms of font style, keep the number you use to a minimum, and you’ll be in good shape.

6. Learn to Love White Space

One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is attempting to cover almost every inch of their template with content. They have widgets on one side, a huge blog roll on the other, and an extensive tag cloud at the bottom of their post. There is nothing wrong with utilizing your available space, but white space can be an attribute. Use it right, and it will highlight your calls to action and other aspects you want people to notice.

Content is indeed king, but since your blog design supports it, it is equally important to your success. Design is so vital, that it pays to revisit it every once and a while to determine if tweaks need to be made. No matter the situation, with everything in place, these tips are sure to help you see significant improvements. 

Folders Actions for Windows Lets you Automate Tasks like Mac OS X

Mac OS have plenty of unique features which other operating systems don’t have. In the latest version Mavericks, Apple introduced iOS style notifications for Mac, iCloud Keychain for protection and much more. So every time they update their OS, plenty of new features and functions will be introduced. One of the important and useful features in Mac is Automating a process. Instead of an user doing some repeated actions like copying files, converting video and audio files to specific format, OS X has the feature to automate those actions.

Today I came with an application called “Folder Action for Windows”, which brings that same feature to your Windows OS. By using this application you can easily rename, copy and convert different file types automatically.

Once you download and install the application, you have to choose folders where you need to pick the files and automate the actions. Folder Actions will have two panels, left and the right one. Left panel will have all the folders you have chosen and in the right panels you have options to automate. To select folders, click the “+” symbol on the top of the window and choose the folder from your drive. You can add any number of folders you  need and automate the actions.

In the right panel, the first option is “No Actions”. It is to temporarily revert the automation you have made to a specific folder. Next you can set an alert or move files to a particular location, when a new file is added to a specific folder. Third option is to automate the process to renaming multiple files. Just type the file name and extension of both the existing file and the new one you need. So whenever you add a file in that name will be renamed automatically.

Next three options are to convert image, audio and video files to different formats. If you want to convert a bunch of video and audio files, just copy to a folder or select the existing ones and automate the conversion process in this application easily. For instance, if you want to convert multiple video files for your mobile supported format, Folder Action will be very helpful for you.

Another interesting and useful option in this application is decompressing the ZIP andRAR files. Just add the compressed file to that folder, it will automatically unzip those files. Folder Actions is completely free for personal use and educational purpose but you have to buy license for the commercial use. So download and try this app on your Windows and share your experience with us in the comments.

Download Folder Action for Windows

Downcast for Mac Brings Out Favorite Podcatcher to OS X

OS X: We love Downcast-it's my favorite iPhone app 

You won't have trouble finding great podcatches for mobile, but as soon as you want to listen on your computer you'll have to pay a high price or suffer through iTunes. Fortunately, Downcast decided to release a Mac app so you can listen on your Mac just the same as you would on your iPhone (or other iDevice). Because it syncs through iCloud, you can listen on your phone during your commute and pick up where you left off on your Mac when you arrive home.

Downcast includes all the great features of the mobile app in a format for the desktop. You can add protected feeds, search for popular podcasts (including ours), set your preferences globally and for individual feeds, and much more. While all of this will cost you $10, you'll pay twice as much if you go with previously mentioned Instacast (the primary competition). While not for everyone, if you're a fan of the mobile app and want a desktop counterpart you can get it right now on the Mac App Store.

Downcast ($10) | Mac App Store

A Slick New Featured Posts Image Slider For Blogger

In the past I have provided Blogger users with a number of different Image sliders or featured posts sliders.Recently while working on a blog design job I had a client looking for a very specific slider to display some of their best images.The slider needed to have some specific specifications which were not covered by my previous efforts.I also needed to make the slider lightweight and easy to edit so the client could quickly change the images and links. So we were looking for the slider to be :1. Full Width - so it spans the entire width of the blog but also for this tutorial I wanted the width to be easily changed.2. Auto and manual scroll - We wanted the slider to scroll through images automatically, the slide would stop on hover and also visitors would have the option to scroll at their own pace.3. Two ways to scroll - We wanted to have the classic Next/Previous buttons but also bullets below the slider to skip to any image.4. Easy to edit - The HTML code for the slider can be accessed via the layout page rather than buried within the template. So in this post I have to tutorial to add this new slider to your blog.You can see a live demo of the slider by following the like below :     And here is the tutorial to add the slider to your blog.Add Featured Slider To Your BlogRemember Always Back Up Your Template Before You Make Changes - How To Back Up A Blogger Template Step 1. - In Your (New Design) Blogger Dashboard Click The Drop Down Menu For Your Blog > Choose Customize > Advanced > Add Css, as shown in the video below.

How to Copy Gmail Messages to your New Gmail Account

If you are moving from one Gmail account to another, you can easily copy all your Gmail messages from the old account to the new one using the built-in Mail Fetcher program of Gmail.

The Mail Fetcher program, available for both Gmail and Google Apps for Gmail accounts, will download messages from one account and copy them to your other account using POP access. It works for old Gmail messages and also any new messages that arrive after you have set up the Mail Fetcher.

How To Transfer your Gmail Messages to Another Email Address

Say you have an old Gmail account and you would like to transfer all the existing email messages from the old account to your new email address. The new address could be on @gmail.com, @outlook.com, Google Apps (@yourcompany.com) or anywhere else.

Gmail does include the useful Mail Fetcher utility to help you automatically transfer mails between Gmail accounts or between Gmail and Outlook accounts.

If you are however planning to transfer your existing Gmail messages to another email service that doesn’t support POP3 based importing, you can make use of a simple Google Script that will auto-forward all your old messages, one by one, to your new email address.

How to Transfer Gmail Messages – Step by Step

To configure the script, log on to your old Google account and then follow these steps:

1. Click here to copy the Mail Forwarding sheet to your Google Drive (associated with old Gmail Address).
2. You’ll see a new Gmail menu in the Google Sheet. Choose Gmail -> Authorize to allow the script to access your Gmail account.
3. Once the script has been authorized, choose Gmail -> Transfer and type your new email address where the old messages are to be auto-forwarded.

The Google Script will now run in the background and will auto-forward every single message from your old @gmail.com address to the new one. The script will add the label “cloned” to all the threads that have been successfully forwarded. This is required to keep track of messages that have been processed.

The transfer process, depending upon the size of your mailbox, may take a few days to complete because of Gmail’s daily sending limit. The messages in the Trash, Spam and your Sent Items folders are ignored.

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Also, the “Transfer My Gmail” script works on your entire Gmail mailbox. If you would like to auto-forward a select group of messages, see the previous tutorial on how to auto-forward Gmail messages in bulk.

Collection Of The Best ScreenCast Tools For Screen Recording

A screencast is a great way to create tutorials and unique blog content.The main factors I look for in a screencast tool is for it to be simple to use, have good editing options and quick options to save online or publish to YouTube.

So let's get to the list, I have listed 5 screencast tools I have personally tried.As with most online tools there are free and paid options so this will be part of your decision.

Drive Tunes Converts Google Drive into a Personal Music Service

If we want to listen to music from our browser, either we choose YouTube or some other web apps like Sound Cloud. What if you can listen to songs from your Google drive account ? Cool isn’t it. Let’s see how to do that. In our blog we’ve reviewed plenty of useful Chrome extensions to improve your productivity and efficiency of the browser. Today I came with a new Chrome extension called “Drive Tunes” which helps you to play songs from Google drive without moving from the page or downloading it. It  embeds a music player into your Google drive and listen to your favorite songs right from the browser.

Compare to other desktop media players I like VLC because of its simple interface. I’ve seen the same thing when I’ve installed Drive Tunes for first time in my Google drive. The interface of this application is very simple and has a clutter free design. I don’t had any music files when I first installed Drive tunes in my browser. So I uploaded an album to “My Drive” folder to test the application. Once you finish upload, all those files will be added to the playlist automatically. Also if you have any mp3 and m4a files on your Google drive, it will detect and add it to the playlist.

After you install the extension, if you go to your Google drive account, it will look normal and won’t have any options to access the music player. To start the music player, open a new tab in chrome and click the “Drive Tunes” icon in the page. This will actually open the music player. In some media players, finding the play button is a biggest challenge but this minimal interface design will be more convenient for the usage and to identify the controls.

Another important feature of the application is the search option. Instead of bringing the search results, it will eliminate the files based on your keyword. All the files matches your keyword will be on the menu and others will be eliminated. The  repeat and shuffle options will be available in the left bottom corner of the screen. Also you can create folders to organize the music and to see all the audio files in your Google drive, click “All Music” option on the left panel.

If you have a Chromebook, then this application will be very helpful. It helps you listen to your favorite songs on the go. Only thing missing in this extension is the desktop integration. The “Drive Tunes” development team has said that, they were working on more audio formats support. It will be more convenient, if they introduce the desktop integration in future. So, try this in your browser and share your experience with us in the comments. Thanks for reading, do share this post with your friends.

Download Drive Tunes

A New Dropbox Edition for your Business

Dropbox today introduced a new edition for small businesses and other organizations who are considering moving to a cloud based solution for file sharing and synchronization .

Aptly named as Dropbox for Teams, this edition offers all the features that are available in the standard Dropbox edition but here, you buy a single pool of storage space that is then shared by all the other members of your team.

As an admin, you can centrally manage the whole Dropbox account and add /remove users as per need, buy additional storage for the common pool and more. Unlike the standard edition where the maximum space that you can have is 100 GB per account, Dropbox for Teams edition lets you buy as much storage as you need for the whole team.

Now comes the pricing. The Dropbox for Teams plan starts at $795/year and this comes with 350 GB of storage to be shared among five users. It sounds steep but if you have enough users in your organization using the 100 GB Dropbox plan for official purposes, the team edition actually turns out be less expensive. However, here you don’t have the option to pay monthly.

How to Host your Website on Google Drive

If you are looking for a place to quickly host your websites but don’t have access to any web server, Google Drive is a great alternative. You can use Google Drive to host basic websites or even complex JavaScript based web apps. You may publish any kind of static content* on your website including HTML pages, images, CSS, icons, audio and video files.

Google Drives serves your website over HTTPS and thus can be be used for hosting custom Facebook Pages since Facebook requires that custom pages are only served over secure HTTP.

How to do this:-

You can directly upload your files into googledrive with few couple of steps from your own computer.

The html pages, javascripts etc can be done with the help of dreamweaver or with a notepad(Note that the file created in notepad should be saved in".html"  folder.)

First create the document and put all files in a compressed zip folder and call it "Website". The same thing is to be done with your drive. Just create a new folder named website.(You can also use  sample website)

Click  click here to upload that zip file to your Google Drive. Once the file has uploaded, the tool will generate the public URL of your website.

If you are using google script for the first time, then you wold have to authorize. Just click the "Autorize" button and it will authorize the app.

Or you can just upload the file into google drive, change the mode of sharing into public and copy the embed code. Open a new tab and now type "www.googledrive.com/host/and the embed code" 

For example:-"https://www.googledrive.com/host/0B7PEL09RvsjUbkdfWUZTb094c0E"   

For instance, if you are  to hosting  a website and wish to have a custom domain, that is not Possible but you shorten the url and make it a good one with the help of Google URL Shortener .

Watch this video to understand more

How to Translate PDF and Word Documents

Say dad bought you a digital camera from Japan but the problem is that the PDF manual that came with the camera is also written in Japanese. How do you quickly translate that PDF document into English?

Well there are several ways by which you can translate your Microsoft Office documents, presentations or PDF files from one language to another using Google Translate. The only condition is that your documents should not be password protected as Google Translate won’t be able to read such files.

The easiest option is that you upload the document to the Google Translation website –translate.google.com – then select the language translation pair and hit the Translate button.

The other good option is the Translator Toolkit, also from Google, where you may not only translate documents but also edit the translated material. Microsoft also offers a free utilitythat brings translation capabilities right into all your existing Office programs (including Outlook emails).

Translate PDFs Online but Preserve Formatting

There’s however a limitation you should be aware of. While the Google Translate website makes it a one-click affair to translate lengthy documents, it doesn’t preserve the formatting of your documents /presentations and turns them into almost plain-text after the translation.

If you want your translated documents to look just like the original as far as formatting is concerned, give

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DocTranslator a try. The user interface is horrible but the tool is pretty useful. You upload a document, select a target language and within a minute or so, it will translate all the text of that document in the required language while preserving the document formatting.

DocTranslater internally uses Google Translate itself and hence supports all language-pairs that are supported by Google Translate.

You may use the tool to translate PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, video sub-titles, OpenOffice documents and plain text files. Here’s a video demo of the translation tool in action.

Organize your Desktop with a Simple Wallpaper

This may not be the most beautiful desktop wallpaper out there but it surely is innovative and different. All it has is an empty bookshelf and a computer desk inside a room – you can creatively fill it up with icons of your frequently used programs, folder shortcuts, control panel icons, etc.

To get started, open this template, right-click and set it as your desktop background. Then drag some icons from the Start Menu on to your desktop and arrange them on the bookshelves and the table.

If the icons don’t line up properly on the shelf, just right-click on your desktop and turn off the “align icons to grid” setting. And if your are using a netbook with a small screen, use this template instead.

How to Run Multiple Operating Systems From a USB Drive

I used to keep a couple of live CDs of various Linux Distributions at hand for the purpose of carrying out data recovery tasks, should my computer refuse to boot because of corrupted Master Boot Record, or corrupted Windows files or hard disk failure. Later those disks were replaced by bootable USB drives. USB drives today come in large capacities with enough space to carry two or more live operating systems at the same time. Here are some tools that lets you turn a USB or Pen drive into a multiboot system with several operating systems.

YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer) can create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple operating systems, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more. YUMI uses syslinux to boot extracted distributions stored on the USB device, and reverts to using grub to Boot Multiple ISO files from USB, if necessary. Aside from a few distributions, all files are stored within the Multiboot folder, making for a nicely organized Multiboot Drive that can still be used for other storage purposes.

To create a multiboot USB drive, run the portable YUMI executable file, and follow the onscreen instructions which basically consist of selecting the type of operating system or utility you want to install and choosing the actual ISO file using the file picker. Then click the Create button to create a bootable drive. To add more ISOs or distribution, run the tool again and repeat the steps.

XBoot is another utility that can be used to create multiboot USB and even a multiboot ISO file that can then be burnt to a CD/DVD. XBoot supports many Linux Distributions, Windows ISO images and utilities such as antivirus rescue disks. XBoot even allows you the choice of bootloader – either Grub or Syslinux, and after the multiboot USB has been created, you can launch the bootloader config file to make changes.

To create a multiboot USB drive, drag and drop ISO files into XBoot’s window or use the file picker to add them. Then click on the “Create USB” or “Create ISO” button depending on what you wish to create.

XBoot comes with QEMU, a virtual machine emulator, built-in enabling you to test the bootable drive you just created.

Instagram 4.1 Straightens Photos, Brings Video to Android

Android/iOS: Today, Instagram released an update to its app that automatically straightens photos taken on iOS, and finally brings video to Android.

In both apps, you can now import videos to share directly from your personal library, which means you can share more than just the clip you took a few seconds ago. Additionally, if you're on iOS, the app can automatically straighten your photos before uploading them. Both versions are available now on their respective stores, or you can read more about the changes here.

Instagram | iTunes App Store

Instagram | Google Play Store

How to Generate RSS Feeds of Google Plus Profiles

Google Plus does not offer RSS Feeds but you can easily generate feeds on your own using a new Chrome app developed by Eric Koleda, an engineer working with the Google Apps Script team. Here’s a  sample Google+ Feed create using this tool.

Follow Google+ Profiles and Pages via RSS Feeds

Create RSS Feeds for Google Plus

To get started, launch Feed+ for Chrome and it will request access to some of your Google services. Say yes and you are all set to create RSS feeds from Google Plus. You can generate RSS feeds for individual profiles, business pages and for search results on Google Plus.
The generated RSS feeds are public and thus you, or anyone else, can subscribe to these feeds in any news reader. FeedBurner, for some reason, does not recognize these feeds as valid though I could easily subscribe to them in Google Reader.
And now that you have an RSS Feed for your Google Plus profile, you can easily cross-post updates to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn and everywhere else using the IFTTT service. 
If you are to ever disable a particular Google Plus feed, simple delete it from the Feed+ app inside Chrome. Also, you only need the Chrome app for managing the feeds – the Google Plus to RSS conversion happens in the cloud.
Google Plus APIs do not include details about Circles else it would have been more convenient to have a single RSS feed per Google+ circle rather than having to generate separate feeds for every member of a circle.

How to Easily Improve Windows Performance with ‘Registry Cleaner’

If you have been a Windows user long enough, you already know that the temporary fileswhich are created on the system soon form a clutter and adversely affect the system’s performance. Most Windows users clean up this clutter of files using a variety of third party applications. But in addition to the temporary files, the registry needs to be cleaned up too in order to recover your PC’s performance.

Four Free Windows 8 Metro Themes For Download

Windows 8 Metro Themes

Purple Windows 8 Metro Theme

Download

Gold Windows 8 Metro Theme

Download

Dark Windows 8 Metro Theme

Download

Darker Blue Windows 8 Metro Theme

Download

Blue Windows 8 Metro Theme

Download

Please note : not all themes are supported on 32-bit operating system.

Top 20 Best Peer to Peer (P2P) File Sharing Programs and Applications

Traditional downloading of programs and application from a website has become outdated as well as there are not many website providing free softwares for download. The another medium for downloading and sharing of files is peer to peer file sharing Networks & Programs and it has grown to tremendous level with many networks having more then millions of users to share software’s, Music files, Videos and Programs etc.

With increase in popularity of Peer to Peer (P2P) networks it has also become one of the medium for spreading of viruses, spywares, ad ware, malware through file sharingapplications. Users are seeking for clean, safe, fastest and best p2p file sharingapplications.