Resources on Web, Mobile, SEO, Outsourcing and more.

Following the best four series, this time I have chosen 4 sites to find wonderful and useful Photoshop plugins and filters. Though there are thousands of sites offering free Photoshop plugins and filters, searching through the sites and choosing the ones required could be a tedious affair. Am sure this list would prove to be a quick reckoner for all your Photoshop plugins and filters needs, because I have chosen them after trying them out myself. All these sites offer free downloads of filters and plugins, with a huge variety of options to choose from. 

Filter Factory 

This site has a huge accumulation of filters and plugins as well, that impart varying levels of effects in photographs and images. With more than 350 filters and plugins available, this site definitely contains a vast and excellent collection to its credit. With detailed explanation of what plugins and filters are and how to download them are clearly explained in the site as well.

http://www.photoshop-filters.com/html/filter_factory.htm 

VanDerLee plugins and filters 

A site with both free and paid versions, VanDerLee has an impressive collection of Photoshop filters and plugins. Along with latest news in the field of website designing and releases of various new versions of plugins and filters, the site also has a dedicated Support section that assists with useful FAQs and a list of Compatible applications that work with the site’s plugins.  

http://www.vanderlee.com/plugins.html  

Richard Rosenman filters and plugins 

This site has separate windows for both freeware and commercial collection that can be downloaded at a specified cost. Wonderful, amazing and varied collections of plugins and filters are available in the freeware section as well. A must checkout site for all Photoshop plugins and filters seeking fans!  

http://www.richardrosenman.com/software/downloads 

Mehdi Plugins 

A great site for Photoshop plugins, this site has a colorful and eye pleasing layout in itself! Not only does the site has a large collection of plugins, but it also has clear explanations as to how to use the particular plugin and also how to customize them in order to make it the way you need it. I have used this site for many of my plugin needs as well. Excellent site indeed! 

http://www.mehdiplugins.com

Apart from these four, I also happened to see a site called Virtual Photographer. A very useful site for creating special effects on photos, downloads are available in zip format as well. A site worth checking out for the photographer in you http://www.optikvervelabs.com/default.asp

WordPress is a simple and handy platform that is highly used in creating blogs and is also one of my favorite blog platforms, WordPress plugins that are used along with it can create excellence to sites. Out of many WordPress plugins that are available, I have chosen 4 that are my darlings, from the Multimedia point of view. These plugins are highly useful with regards to creating Multimedia-rich websites and blogs, and I also am of the impression that they are simple to use, without any complications or hassles.

(1) Kaltura Video recording and management – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/kaltura-interactive-video 

This plugin is quite apt to make the videos in your blog more interactive. With facilities like uploading, importing and recording of videos into your blog posts,  modify videos with the help of an online video editor; this plugin is definitely a hit! What I like the best in this is that it this plugin also supports a huge variety of codecs and audio/video file formats along with video sharing options. In short, complete management and administration of videos is possible with this wizard! 

(2) MTR Audio and Podcast Recorder - http://www.podcastingnews.com/2008/09/15/free-podcast-recorder-plugin-for-wordpress
 

I would say a “must-download plugin” for the Podcast freaks; this plugin is called the MTR Podcast recorder that allows all the recordings to be saved in MP3 format. It is saved in the same server as that of WordPress. The best part that I like in this plugin is that it allows handling the records and musical selection lists from the WordPress administration itself. This helps in easy playlists management and overall blog site administration. 

(3) NextGEN Photo Gallery – http://alexrabe.boelinger.com/wordpress-plugins/nextgen-gallery

One of my most favorites, this photo gallery plugin is very useful, especially for those interested in creating and sorting their own image collections. This plugin has a tinge of Web 2.0 and jQuery JavaScript library, all packed in one. The users can also upload images that have watermarked text or images. The best thing is that various JavaScript effects like Thickbox, Lightbox and the likes can be used. 

(4) Kimili Embedded Flash – http://kimili.com/plugins/kml_flashembed
 

So you want to embed flash based movies into your blog, then Kimili is the best choice! A very flexible plugin with many features attached to it, the Kimili  also complies with the standards. It is very useful for search engine optimization of blogs, as the plugin itself is search engine friendly. What’s more, this plugin also gels on well with other plugins in its 1.2 version, and hence is definitely the best pick for WordPress.

I have found these plugins to be remarkable and of great use to me. There are many more great plugins from WordPress, and if you feel anyone or more of them have stirred your web designing senses, then do not forget to suggest about them in my comments section.

Online competition tracking is not as easy as we all think and we don’t know when competitors make different alterations to their websites and fine-tune their keywords to gain top results. The most crucial phase and factor of SEO is competitor analysis, as staying ahead of the competitors is not an easy task. For that, we have various free competitor tools, which can help you track your competitor levels and also help you understand the competitiveness of your industry for success.

(i) TouchGraph.com You can try it right away! Enter a URL or a set of keywords and then click on the button ‘Graph it!’ However, the following have to be kept in mind: · It is always advisable to have the latest version of java, minimum Java 1.5. Also popup blockers should be disabled to allow launching websites. · After typing out the URL or the search keywords, hit “Graph It!” Press the “Run” button when the question prompts as, “Do you want to trust the signed applet?” http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

(ii) Myriadsearch.com This is an excellent tool to view competition rankings across numerous search engines that are available nowadays. http://www.myriadsearch.com/

(iii) Seotoolset.com – competition research tool To show the present ranking of the top competitors across the prominent search engines, use this competition research tool. It gives the topmost 25 rankings across the board and sorts the results as well. The site that has the highest ranking is listed in the beginning. http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free_tools.html

(iv) Spyfu.com SpyFu allows you to look at the keywords that are purchased by your competitors. It also shows the keywords that they optimize their site for. Once the competition is understood, you can become masters in their own game and at the same time can also tap on their weaknesses as well! http://www.spyfu.com Hope the above quoted sites have helped you with your search for top competitor tools

Search Engine Results Page, which is abbreviated as SERP, is a tool in which, once a keyword is typed in, it shows the results of various web pages where those keywords appear. This is taken from the results of various search engines, thus giving an idea of that particular keyword’s position in the web. This may refer to either a collection of all the links, or to even a page of links that the search engine offered.

There are many such tools available nowadays and with its demand increasing every day, it only makes it more important to have more SERP trackers. While most of them are free services offered by these sites, few of them are also paid services. Below is a detailed description of top four SERP tracker tools.

SEOCase.net

This is a simple and easy to use SERP tracker tool. As usual, the keyword and the URL of the site are given, and this tool fetches results from 6 popular search engines! The results obtained are also accurate. One drawback, however, with this tool is that the search results obtained are only from the first 10 pages of each search engine. So only the top positioned rankings would be obtained from this site. But whatever data is obtained is reliable and accurate as well.

Mike’s Marketing Tools

Another cool site with SERP tools! It provides the rankings of various websites obtained from top search engines and web directories as well. Immediate reports of these rankings are provided in an effective manner. As I have mentioned before, this site is a free one and requires no registration as well. The URL of the main site along with a single keyword or collection of keywords is to be given in the slot provided, and Lo! The details of the search run are in front of you!

SERP Rank

This site is an exciting and reliable site. It asks for the URL and the keyword to be checked for. Checks are done across 5 popular search engines. What more, this site also has facilities to check local sites of Google like Google.de, Google.ca, Google.gr etc! Once the listings come, they can also be checked in with the help of the links provided. Now isn’t that simply superb?! A simple and reliable site!

Digitalpoint.com

This is a cool site and quite a famous one as well. One thing to be noted here is that it the user has to register in this site, before using it. This registration is free of cost. Once you have logged in, you can go ahead with using the SERP tool. Good tool to be used.

With the importance of SEO and its related tools increasing to a greater extent each day, it is only important to have such SERP tools that offer trustworthy and accurate results to find the position of various keywords in a particular URL.

Also feel free to download our Practical SEO Techniques EBook 

Link popularity is one of the methods to increase the traffic in your site. This is an excellent way by which your online website can be recognized to a greater extent. It refers to the procedure in which many links or hyperlinks from various other sites are linked to your site, thus increasing the chances of others discovering your site’s existence! The more the links attached the better. This ultimately brings good traffic flow to your site.

It is not enough if your site has many links, it is important to find out what is the quality of these links and who is linking to your site. Links that are positioned in a better manner are definite to achieve continuous traffic. I have given about 4 link popularity tools below. They are free to be used and are also accurate.

Mike’s Marketing Tools

Famous for quite a long time in the SEO tools industry, this site has a tool for link popularity checking as well. It gives immediate reports on the link popularity of a site. The results offered are from 3 major search engines Yahoo, Google and MSN. Here, the URL has to be given in the slot and it results in the number of backlinks available to that site, as per the search engines.

MarketLeap

This is another cool site that is an accuratse checker. It asks for the URL for which the popularity is to be checked. The checker also gives options to compare with 3 other URLs as well. One of the useful features in this site is that it also provides the specific industry that the search has to be performed upon, depending upon the site’s home industry. If there is no necessity to confine the search to a particular industry, then the category “General” can be chosen as well. Once the details are given, it gives the search results under two headings – Google/AOL/HotBot and Yahoo/FAST/AltaVista. Definitely recommended!

SEO Centro

This site is a simple yet effective tool for checking the number of links to your site. It gives search results from 5 popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, Live, AllTheWeb and AltaVista. The total number of links obtained from all the search engines is also given here. This is split up into various bands starting from 0-250 references, 251-1000 references etc. Each band is given a specific color as well, for easy identification. The site also has the links of the searches for you to check out. A cool site indeed!

SEO Book Tools

This is a simple to use, at the same time an efficient site. The URL of the site to be checked is entered, along with URLs of up to three other sites that you want to compare your site with. The result page gives the numbers of the searches in various search engines along with that of the comparison sites as well.

These link popularity check tools are useful in terms of knowing the status of the backlinks linked to your site. Ultimately all this is done for a single fact – the more the site’s traffic and its popularity, the better its rankings in various search engines

Keywords! The very word has gained so much importance in the past few years, in the field of online marketing. To make the work a bit easier for the keyword writers, there are many tools available nowadays. If one gets an idea of the people’s needs and queries that they type into the search engines, it would become easier to create and optimize the content along with getting links to it.

There are various keyword tools whose services are both for free and paid as well. I have listed down the top 4 Keyword tools that are free to be used by anyone.

Google Keyword Tool

A wonderful keyword tool from the house of Google, this site offers many keyword ideas even for the driest of words! When we enter a keyword or phrase, it lists out various related keywords along with shaded bars of the number of advertisers who are tendering on a keyword throughout Google, the search volume of that word in the previous month and the average search volume of that keyword in the previous 12 months. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?! I mean, how many other free tools can boast of these many features?!

Spy Fu

From the house of Velocityscape, this is another useful tool for keywords ideas. This site gives you to spy out on the keywords that your competitor is investing on! Available both in free and paid versions, it lists out the Ads for a particular keyword, the search results which is helpful in terms of SEO, the organic competitors involved and the Ad competitors. A sure check-it-out site!

Nichebotclassic.com

This site provides various keyword ideas with details on the particular keyword used in the past 100 days, the predicted number of daily searches done on famous search engines and the competition numbers on Google Yahoo and MSN. Also if you log in then you have the facility to save the searches that you have made. Cool, isn’t it?!

SEO Book Keyword Tool

Another free keyword tool, this site bombards too much of information! Shows the word tracker count, the daily estimate of top search engines separately, the various Google trends and much much more! This site also provides facility to download the content to CSV.

Search Engine keywords have become very important for a business to flourish online. Such tools give various combinations of keywords, along with search count, the costs involved and search results, thus making keyword writing easier and more effortless.

Social media optimization (SMO), a type of search engine marketing, is a collection of practices used for networking and promotional needs, via word of mouth. This is produced not through family or friends but by the usage of networking in online community sites, video sites, social bookmarking and photo sharing sites. There are various ways of imbibing SMO, for example, by adding RSS feeds, including buttons of various SMO sites, blogging etc.

If you are new to the world of SMO, then there are chances that you might be swept over by many SMO sites. Here are four sites that might be of great use to one who is on the lookout of good SMO sites.

Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is (part of the Yahoo family) one of the most quondam social networking sites and also one of the best among SMO sites. Also very popular in the US, this is a collection of favorites of its members. This site allows saving links of favorite articles, sharing them with others while also discovering new sites and articles of interest.

Digg.com

Being one of the most preferred and famous social bookmarking sites, this site has become one of the predominant names in the field of SMO. The articles in the site have been segregated into two portions called the “Popular” and “Upcoming”. As the names clearly suggest, Popular means the articles that are popular among the members and Upcoming contains articles that are gaining popularity and importance.

StumbleUpon

Another great way to know and share great websites is through this site. Contributing to SMO to a greater extent, StumbleUpon allows rating of various sites, articles etc, which proves useful for the fellow readers. This site allows discovering new sites and also networking between like-minded people.

Technorati.com

This livewire site is an all time-updating part of the web that includes tagging, blogs and anything that is found of use, by its members. The site also allows commenting on topics by other members, thus developing a community of similar minded people. This site also promotes Blog reactions, which are articles or blogs that are connected or linked to your blogs. Your rank or authority in the site is decided, depending on the number of blog reaction links that your blog has.

With the field of SMO enriching and gaining importance very rapidly, these sites go a long way in making one understand what an SMO site is and how useful it can be to promote your business online.

Online competition tracking is not as easy as we all think and we don’t know when competitors make different alterations to their websites and fine-tune their keywords to gain top results. The most crucial phase and factor of SEO is competitor analysis, as staying ahead of the competitors is not an easy task. For that, we have various free competitor tools, which can help you track your competitor levels and also help you understand the competitiveness of your industry for success.

(i) TouchGraph.com

You can try it right away! Enter a URL or a set of keywords and then click on the button ‘Graph it!’ However, the following have to be kept in mind:

* It is always advisable to have the latest version of java, minimum Java 1.5. Also popup blockers should be disabled to allow launching websites.
* After typing out the URL or the search keywords, hit “Graph It!” Press the “Run” button when the question prompts as, “Do you want to trust the signed applet?”

(ii) Myriadsearch.com

This is an excellent tool to view competition rankings across numerous search engines that are available nowadays.

(iii) Seotoolset.com – competition research tool

To show the present ranking of the top competitors across the prominent search engines, use this competition research tool. It gives the topmost 25 rankings across the board and sorts the results as well. The site that has the highest ranking is listed in the beginning.

(iv) Spyfu.com

SpyFu allows you to look at the keywords that are purchased by your competitors. It also shows the keywords that they optimize their site for. Once the competition is understood, you can become masters in their own game and at the same time can also tap on their weaknesses as well!.

If you are developing websites collaboratively, say your development teams are working jointly in a project (design or programming) and using CVS or Concurrent Versioning Systems is one good practice to save everyone’s life before they mess up others code.

Assume John uploads his code using FTP at the at 6PM, and Dave overwrites it by 7PM with his version from USA, Raj downloads the files uploaded by John using FTP from and Kumar downloads a Dave’s version, The next day is going to be the miserable day to everyone after all the hard work from the past day – Kumar has clearly overwritten everyone else’s code.

But CVS can solve this issue. A version control system is client/server software to keep track of the work done, allows several developers to makes changes on a set of files on different versions which is finally integrated – with a server having the current updated version of a project and the client can log in, work on the copy of the project, and sends the updation to the server. I would like to brief out the 4 most commonly used tools in CVS:

WinCVS (CVSGUI)
The general interface of a CVS is command line client but instead a GUI client can be used as a point and click interface to talk to the server. GUI interface allows easy automation, customization of common tasks and gives up a native lookup and feel on Windows, Mac and Unix/Linux due to its frameworks.WinCVS differs from CVS only in the terminology being used. The initial process of a version system is importing the files to CVS terminology where the import operation involves a “clean” directory structure means the files that doesn’t need versioning are removed. Every file is not versioned for certain reasons, in that case it can be removed during importing and moved after the versioning process is over.

I prefer WinCVS, as I was using it while I was programming in a collaborative projects.

SmartCVS
SmartCVS, a multi-platform client with powerful features is easy and productive to use. While working on a project, each person makes a change on the files; a SmartCVS organizes and groups the files of related changes referred through a change report file which helps to easily identify the newly added and modified files. SmartCVS also sets file permissions to specific users inorder to protect the files from unauthorized users.

CVSup
CVSup, a tool used to transfer files across the network has the ability to understand the CVS files & tags and updates the files on the server supporting all types of file. The CVS files are recognized easily and synchronized to balances the data transfer that occurs between the client and the server through algorithms, in turn compressing the number of data bits for easy data transfer.

jCVS
This is a Java based client (written in Swings), I never installed it before or tested, But its a poulataly know CVS, your team may want to try. Try any one or more of them; you need to read the installation manual carefully, as sometimes it may be tricky.

At Macronimous we encourage our clients to use CVS (it need little learning though) if they too are allowing their team to work on the code we produce from India. Start practicing a CVS will need little time, but you will certainly appreciate your decision of using a CVS with your client or team.

Did you ever wonder how to work efficiently with your offshore team. I am sure you wish to have some better mechanisms than simple emails back and forth. When you like your customers to interact with your team, without you spending much of your time, But at the same if you can monitor the projects without much of your efforts, I am sure you to need invest on some Web collaboration applications.

Web collaboration tools normally consist of a list web based applications which are capable making people work together via internet. Such suits of set of tools will simplify the communication and information exchange. For example A project team in different locations can work together with Web collaborative tools. Such tools normally consist of shared access to project files, share calendars, schedules and plans. They can have online discussions, share whiteboards and documents.

See my favorite tools below, But I recommend you to evaluate them before you start using them.

1. BaseCamp: Basecamp is a web based project management and collaboration tool, designed for small businesses, lawyers, publishers, manufacturers, and offshore web developers and outsourcing agencies. It has a very clean and interactive web based interface. It presents the clients and projects on one screen, you can make lists, add items, assign responsibility, upload files, categorize, sort and track versions. Message boards keep your communication centralized with no shooting emails back and forth. You can start practicing it with their 30-day free trial.

2. dotproject: This is a opensource application, written by several users, and it has the following features.

• User Management
• Email based trouble Ticket System, (Integrated voxel.net’s ticketsmith)
• Client/Company Management
• Project listings
• Hierarchical Task List
• File Repository
• Contact List
• Calendar
• Discussion Forum
• Resource Based Permissions

3. Twiki: TWiki, a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki, enterprise collaboration platform and knowledge management system. It is a Structured Wiki, typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet. Web content can be created collaboratively by using just a browser. Twiki also has several plugins such as, Actiontracker, Calender, Chart etc.

4. Goplan: GoPlan! has number of collaborative features like Track project progress through task management, calendaring, note sharing and issue tracking. Additionally, real-time in-browser chat lets you converse with team members. Goplan also has developer API which allows you to integrate our system to the rest of your infrastructure.

There are number of free, paid script, and paid hosted solutions are available, finding the one for your team and making your client to use it would be bit challenging initially. But once when you start using it, you will make everyone in your team proud of you.

When you plan to outsource to India, or planning to work with a remote development team like us, these tools make make our colloboration easier on information, project details and file sharing.