Viewing Archive for: February 2009

Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity

Six Revisions, a blog for Web designers and developers, has a good piece called “15 Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity.” Web metrics give you insight into how many people visit your site each day, where they came from, what they were looking for, whether you succeeded in achieving your goal — a purchase, download, registration or other objective. There’s a lot more to it than that, which is why I’m pointing you to the post. Jacob Gube, who writes Six Revisions,... learn more

How to Animate a PowerPoint Presentation

We all want to create more dynamic PowerPoint presentations. You know the kind, presentations that draw the audience in and hold their attention. One way to bring more life to your presentations is through the use of movement or animation. Yes, it is definitely possible to make a PowerPoint presentation look impressively animated. All you have to do is spend MANY hours skillfully applying custom animation to every element on every slide, timing every animation exactly, then weaving the slides together... learn more

5 Ways to Promote Yourself as a Freelancer

Success as a freelancer, whether writing, graphic design, etc., depends on self-promotion. Many of us were taught as children that it is considered impolite to brag about ourselves. However, that is exactly what we need to do as freelancers. Here are five ways to promote yourself as a freelancer: learn more  Read More →

Three Surprising Ways to Use PowerPoint

Back in the cradle days of personal computing, the only program most people had was Lotus 1-2-3. So they used it for everything—from writing letters to drawing pictures. (Yes, you can draw things using just cell borders!) Now there are specialized apps for just about every task, but most of us have a favorite “Swiss Army Knife” tool. And once you start expanding the use of PowerPoint beyond making presentations, there are a surprising number of handy ways to use it every day. learn more  Read More →

Better Design, a Better Conference

Princeton University’s Student Design Agency is hosting its second annual graphic design conference, Better: Design for Social Causes, taking place on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 from 10AM to 6PM. The conference brings together student designers from all over the nation to learn about how graphic design can serve as a vehicle for social change. Design luminaries Abbott Miller, Jessica Helfand, William Drenttel, Brian Collins, and Jeffrey Zeldman are currently among the confirmed speakers.... learn more

How to Customize a PowerPoint Template

It’s 4 PM, and out of the blue, you need to build a presentation. Fast. On the upside, PowerPoint’s standard themes will make it easy. On the downside—standard themes will make it look PowerPointy. And you may need to harmonize the presentation with other materials (say, for a particular campaign), but there’s no time to create something from scratch. Fortunately, it’s easy to make quick changes that will freshen up a theme. And with the right approach, you can even give do a complete... learn more

How to: Create a Facebook Fan Page

If you’ve recently graduated from college, it’s hard to imagine your college life apart from Facebook.  Catching the latest gossip, becoming friends with that college superstar who has never heard of you and staying up-to-date on the latest happenings.  And of course, everyone knows it’s not official until it’s on Facebook!  However, Facebook is no longer just for college students.  Many people reading this may have parents and even grandparents with an account now. ... learn more

Editing Movies with iMovie

One of the great things about Macs is that they come with iMovie, an application that makes editing video easy. In this tutorial you learn how to use iMovie to cut and paste video clips together.  By the time you’ve finished reading this tutorial you should feel comfortable creating your own movies in iMovie. Hardware & Software Required Macintosh Computer iMovie 7.1.4 or later learn more  Read More →

If You Use WordPress, Put a Premium on Your Themes

When I launched my first blog about 3 years ago, I used a free WordPress theme called “Cutline,” designed by Chris Pearson. At the time, it was among the most-downloaded free themes available for WordPress. It’s a terrific-looking theme and it was designed with the reader in mind. Cutline uses plenty of white space, which makes pages more accessible; it’s easily customizable; the typography is just right for reading online; and it puts usability and clarity ahead of frou-frous.... learn more

10 Tips for Meeting Deadlines

If you do any freelance work, chances are you work from home. Everyone who works from home knows what distractions and challenges come with that particular work environment. When that happens, how do you meet deadlines? Here are ten tips for meeting internal deadlines set by you and external deadlines set by an editor: learn more  Read More →

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