How to Make a Favicon
Have you ever noticed those little icons next to the address bar while visitng your favorite website? Well thats a favicon. This is mine.
Wikipedia definition:
A favicon (short for favorites icon), also known as a website icon, shortcut icon, url icon, or bookmark icon is a 16×16, 32×32 or 64×64 pixel square icon associated with a particular website or webpage. A web designer can create such an icon and install it into a website (or webpage) by several means, and most graphical web browsers will then make use of it. Browsers that provide favicon support typically display a page’s favicon in the browser’s address bar and next to the page’s name in a list of bookmarks. Browsers that support a tabbed document interface typically show a page’s favicon next to the page’s title on the tab. Some programs allow the user to select an icon of his own from the hard drive and associate it with a website.
I typically make my favicons using a Photoshop plugin, but I wanted to show you guys how to make a favicon if you have no graphic experience. It’s super easy, online and FREE at Favicon Generator.
Here are the steps make your first favicon.
Step 1. Locate the image that you would like to use as your Favicon and make sure that the dimensions are perfectly square (ie. 100 Pixels x 100 Pixels). This image should typically be your logo or another image directly associated with your website.
Step 2. Browse to the file’s location on your computer and select the image at Favicon Generator.
Easy right? Well jump on over to Favicon Generator and make your first favicon.
TIP: If by chance you are unable to find a suitable graphic to use as a favicon, go to Iconfinder.net. They have the best free icons online!
AddThis Labs presents the Sharebar
So I’m trying something new. The AddThis Sharebar (located at the bottom of the page). If you have visited my site in the past then you know I’m not really into this kind of trendy website gimics like these. I like to add content and functionality that I feel will add value to my readers.
I’m not interested in building a huge list of Facebook fans, a ton of Twitter followers or an unbelievable amount of RSS readers. I like new visitors from sent to me directly from Google, Yahoo or Bing (MSN). If this site somehow grows into a community, that’s great. But that’s not my ultimate goal.
My only goal for this site is to finally give people a honest answer about how to make a website, with little to no fluff. Just truth.
With that being said. I liked this AddThis Sharebar. Why? It’s unobtrusive and it took me only about 3 minutes to install. So why not try it?
Trust me if I see that it becomes annoying, I’ll delete it just as fast as I added it on.
Now about the bar.
The AddThis Sharebar is a different way of making your content shareable using the AddThis platform. As a persistent utility at the bottom of your pages, the Sharebar keeps your users’ favorite services front and center to help increase sharing.
It’s a handy little bar that has irect links to Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Tumblr and many more social networking sites to allow users to share your content with their audience. The Sharebar is a AddThis labs project so they is no support for it and they suggest you submit any technical question to their forum.
Add Sharebar to your Site in 3 Minutes
To install Sharebar, copy and paste the following Javascript and DHTML code into your page – it can go anywhere in your page template. An AddThis username is only needed if you want tracking/analytics. You can use your current AddThis username, create a new account, or ignore the username setting.
If you feel this will add value to your site grab one here, then feel free to send me a link to your site if you are using it and or give me a feedback if your like it.
Make Your First Post on Blog Action Day
You’ve started your first website, installed Wordpress or Joomla, uploaded and tweaked your theme, researched your keywords and now a few weeks have passed and you still haven’t posted your first article. Why?
Do you have writer’s block? Lost for words? Consider writing a post for Blog Action Day on October 15th, 2009.
From the Blog Action Day website:
Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.
Our Goal
First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue.
By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.
Out of this discussion naturally flow ideas, advice, plans, and action. In 2007 on the theme of the Environment, we saw bloggers running environmental experiments, detailing innovative ideas on creating sustainable practices, and focusing their audience’s attention on organizations and companies promoting green agendas. In 2008 we covered the theme of Poverty, and similarly focused the blogging community’s energies around discussing the wide breadth of the issue from many perspectives and identifying innovative and unexpected solutions. This year we aim to do the same for Climate Change, an issue that threatens us all.
This years topic for Blog Action Day is Climate Change:
Why Climate Change?
Climate change affects us all and it threatens more than the environment. It threatens to cause famine, flooding, war, and millions of refugees.
Given the urgency of the issue of climate change and the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, we think the blogosphere has the unique opportunity to mobilize millions of people around expressing support for finding a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.
Suggested Posts
We encourage you to write about climate change in the context of how it relates to the topic of your blog. To help you start thinking, here are a few ideas about how you might connect climate change to things that you might already write about:
- A Technology or Business blog might write about emerging clean tech and how innovative companies might be able to help address the problem of climate change.
- A Health or Lifestyle blog might write about how climate change will affect our children’s health and daily living.
- A Nonprofit or Political blog might write about how climate change is deeply connected to many other issues – such as poverty and conflict.
- A Design blog might write about new trends in eco-friendly or sustainable design.
- A Travel blog might write about the places you want to see now before climate change makes them difficult to access or, well, under the sea.
So what do you have to lose? Get started with your blog today. Besides, in exchange for your entry you receive a free anchored link to your site, from a PR7 blog. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then you need to take some time and read my Intro to Link Building page. However if you know exactly what I’m referring to, go ahead and sign up here.
Free High Quality Photos from PicApp
While visiting one of my favorite sites Lost Ball in High Weeds, I learned about a new site that has high quality photos to spruce up your website, called PicApp. I’m always interested in giving my readers access to valuable freebies for website building, so I immediately took a look and was pleasantly surprised. They have some of the best quality photos online, by far and they are all for FREE!
No more “borrowing” images from your favorite blogs. Now you have access to the same great photos they do without the risk of copyright infringement.
From the PicApp website:
Add the best news and stock photos to your blog.
Picapp is all about more opportunities and choices:
Where You– the publisher get access to millions of premium, legal images, updated by the minute and can use them in your posts- for free!
Where You– content owner enjoys this innovative yet monitored distribution channel to reach new users and increase revenue
Where You– advertiser reaches targeted, well segmented audience and access to premium ad inventory
A true Win-Win.
We have over 20 million premium images, editorial and creative, covering any imaginable category—from news, sports, to celebrity, travel fashion and more.
Our content partners include Getty Images, Corbis, Splash News, Pacific Coast News, Newscom, Image Source and more. We support the largest blog platforms: WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and more.
What’s also great about PicApp is that they already have a super cool Wordpress plugin, which allows website owners to easily add photos to their websites or blogs directly from the PicApp database.
Here are a few video videos to get you started with using their service.
How to Use the PicApp Wordpress Plugin
How to Search for Images on the PicApp Website
In addition to the Wordpress Plugin, they also have a PicApp Toolbar which enables you to search for free images from your Firefox browser.
Try them out and let me know what you think! This is a definite add to my recommendations page.
How To Make a Website That Makes Money
Just my opinion here folks.
People ask me all this the time. How do I make a website that earns money? How do I make a websites so I can leave my crappy 9-5?
Typically I would use this opportunity to tell about my web design services and offer to help them create a website. But after I tell them how much I charge they almost always change their mind. Why? Because most people are cheap and lazy. Most web newbies tend to think if you create a website, then people will magically show up to buy their goods.
I wish! It’s true that tons of people have been able to make a comfortable living online after creating a website, but it takes hours and hours of work, research and dedication to achieve this.
So lesson 1 of How to Make a Website is, have REAL expectations. Don’t think that you can just sign up for hosting, pick a cool sounding domain name, install WordPress and create some content and the people will come. Your blog or website will be one of a billion online, so how will people find you? You want to make your own website, but what is it going to be about? What’s your topic?
Start by reading posts located on the right. Start with Getting Started Online and don’t stop reading until you reach the last line of When To Call A Professional.
What? You don’t like reading? How to do you expect to make your own website without first figuring out if you even need one?
Lesson 2 is read more. lol. Easy right? The easiest way to create a website is just read! There are tons of details tutorials, tips and tricks all over the web that will show you how to do this, including this site. Just stop by the tutorials sections and look for wordpress help.
Lesson 3, the final lesson, is the hardest – start working today! You never be a success in life if you are scared of failing. You want to know how to make a website but are too scared to try anything new. What if I create a website, then break it!
No problem. Build another one. Believe me, it goes a lot faster the second time around. I can’t you how many times I have created a website and done something completely stupid to mess it up. One minute it’s working fine, the next minute my site is gone! Frustrating yes! Helped in the learned process? Most definitely!
I know this post isn’t probably not what you thought it was going to be. It’s really just a rant hoping to inspire a generation of slackers and pessimists to get off the couch and do something.
Tis’ All!
