Hello everyone Here we are again with a few more funny things to share.

First of all, I want to say that we’ll be improving this section and our funny content a lot, and the good part is that we won’t be limited to comic strips anymore (tip: how often are you pinning stuff?). Needless to say that after a whole week of working hard you deserve those funny moments.

Today our strips will talk about crazy clients ideas and a misunderstanding over wireframes.

I’m pretty sure you have been requested to do a crazy .gif or a malicious script. So how to deal with it?

And you remember that client who thought that those wireframes were the whole website, even after you explained that a wireframe is a concept validation tool?

Well, let’s laugh at this then!

Ok, in that case of the strip, it’s totally forbidden. But actually I can see good uses for scripts that at first look like a desperate attempt to get back to the web  of the 90′s.

First you have to tell the client where you are allowed to use intrusive scripts, and truth be told, by default you aren’t.

And the big question is: when are they allowed?

It’s easy, dear Padawan. Only use them when intrusive scripts give user valuable information, or help them to use your stuff.

Let’s try a few examples:

Can you think of other annoying scripts that could be useful in some cases? Share with us

Sorry to say, but they are. And it’s not your fault, their purpose is just to quickly provide a proof of concept and save you time and resources by changing things before everything is done.

But clients don’t really get that, huh?

Well, my tip is, don’t ever try to make them look pretty. Actually, it’s better if you can do it with just paper, then the client won’t get confused thinking that it’s “the website”.

With your sketch in hand that actually looks like a sketch , it’ll be way easier to get clients attention to what is important at this point, look at where things should be, what is missing, if the work flow is good.

Do you have your own way to deal with this? How about sharing your secrets with us?

As I said before, we’ll be reformulating our funny department, so stay tuned because we’ll make improvements soon

Oh, and if you have any comic ideas to share, or any other cool stuff you have in mind, just use the pretty field below!

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As bloggers, we all are aware of the importance of comments. While it is true that some blogs/websites tend to disable comments entirely, those are special instances where the websites do not essentially require comments. However, in general, comments form an integral part of any blog, be it a personal one or a magazine site. After all, what good is any info unless it provokes a healthy discussion?

All blogging platforms (including WordPress) come with native support for some sort of comment mechanism which seems to suffice for most bloggers. But sometimes, users may require some dedicated or specialized comment mechanism. This is where third-party commenting systems come in handy.

In this article, we will take a look at some of the major third-party commenting mechanisms. But before going any further, let us assess the pros and cons of using or not using such third-party commenting systems.

The advantages of using a third-party commenting system are many, and now we shall take a look at some of the major ones.

The foremost advantage of using a third-party comment system is the support for social networking sites. Almost all third-party comment systems offer excellent integration with social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, and some even go to the limits of carving their own user base along the lines of a social network. This enables users to seamlessly share their comments and the articles they read on their social networking profiles, thereby spreading the word and driving more visitors to your website.

Third party comment mechanisms also offer real-time updates and email alerts, good RSS support allowing users to keep track of their comments and take part in discussions in a more organized manner.

Furthermore, most such platforms support a single sign-in with many IDs, such as Facebook, LinkedIn or OpenID. Naturally, this helps in getting comments from different types of users, as well as wards off spam quite effectively.

And lastly, most such systems allow readers to rate the comments too – you can give a ‘Thumbs Up’ or ‘Thumbs Down’ to comments you like or dislike respectively, and you can flag comments and mark them as spam. Obviously, such ‘community recognition’ of comments goes a long way in helping users take the discussions more seriously.

At times, we simply don’t need (or don’t want) the third-party commenting facilities. For starters, the default commenting facility blends well with the design (irrespective of whether we use a free theme for our blog or a premium one, the default system for comments doesn’t really look out-of-place).

Often times, third-party commenting systems are notorious for increasing the load time. While they do not really take AGES to load, they do slow down the load time, in comparison to the native commenting mechanism. The reason for this is that third-party systems are not integrated within the blog’s design base.

Next, in order to get the maximum out of third-party systems, your users should essentially have an account. Yes, such systems do allow the users to comment anonymously, but if they are to get the optimum out of the mechanism, an account is necessary (this applies most emphatically to Livefyre). While such accounts do help in killing spam, they are often a deterrent. A native commenting system, on the other, requires at the most an email address – you can let Akismet take care of the spam comments!

Lastly, the in-built comments system is hosted, well, as part of your own website. It is not dependent on a third-party server, and you don’t have to worry about their server being slow to respond, and so on.

With the advantages and disadvantages out-of-the-way, we shall now take a look at the major third-party commenting systems.

Disqus is a comments platform built along a community model. It is one of the most popularly used comment mechanisms and is backed by numerous addons.

Disqus is used by the likes of CNN, Time Magazine, Fox News and Engadget.

IntenseDebate is a commenting platform from the stable of Automattic, the good folks behind WordPress. It is a wonderful commenting system, that has several good features.

It is used by websites such as Infectious Creed and ScreenCrave. Obviously, the user base is not as impressive as that of Disqus, but IntenseDebate is rising at a good (though still not ‘great’) pace.

However, ECHO is more of an enterprise solution and you can’t simply ‘download’ it for free and start using it. Their website doesn’t actually talk about any pricing, but it does have a Contact Formwhere you can get in touch to learn more.

On the downside, FB Comments Box plugin is rendered as an iframe, and many search engines do not crawl content within an iframe. So this plugin might not give you the SEO boost that you’re expecting from the user comments.

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This is the era of social networking. Websites such as Facebook and Google+ dominate the time we spend on the internet. Needless to say, most (if not all) of us find them addictive or, to say the least, interesting.

In this article, we will take a look at some of the CMSs that can be used to create  social networking websites.

Dolphin is a CMS that lets you create social networks, dating sites and web communities. It comes loaded with video chat, recorder, video player, forums, groups, events, video messaging, emails, file sharing as well as desktop and mobile apps.

Pros: Wonderful mobile apps, good support for multimedia file types

Cons: Update frequency can be better

Demo | Download

Jcow is a flexible social networking CMS coded in PHP. It features news feeds and ad blocking scripts. The community isn’t very large, so don’t expect instant replies, and the documentation isn’t the best out there.

Pros: No-nonsense interface, easy to get a hang of

Cons: Documentation isn’t up to the mark

Demo | Download

Oxwall is a swift and easy to use CMS that caters mainly to social networks and communities, but can also be tweaked for usage in enterprises and other collaborative environments. Oxwall can power many types of websites, including educational networks and other specialized genres of sites.

Pros: Easily extendable/scalable

Cons: Slightly less extensions/templates

Demo | Download

Beatz is another CMS that focuses on social networks and community websites, though it is more apt for social communities related to music and artists.

Pros: Ideal for creating a music social network

Cons: Difficult to extend

Demo | Download

Etano lets you create a social network, dating website and other collaborative sites. It doesn’t really offer many unique features, but it can surely suffice for a small social networking project.

Pros: Good for smaller networks, customizable

Cons: Slow updates, less readymade extensions

Demo | Download

PeoplePods claims to be “a developer friendly social software toolkit”. The CMS is flexible and is well-backed by active development.

Pros: Flexible, easily customizable, good documentation, active community

Cons: Free extensions can be better

Demo | Download

Elgg is a powerful open source CMS that has a strong community and loyal user base. It can cater to different types of sites and is not strictly meant for social networks. Some of the major sites powered by Elgg include UNESCO and The World Bank.

Pros: Active community, great documentation, good update frequency, decent set of extensions

Cons: Can be confusing for a newbie, slightly steep learning curve

Download

MonoX is a social networking CMS based on ASP.NET Its documentation, though decent, isn’t really backed by a super-active community.

Pros: Ideal for ASP.NET users

Cons: Community support can be better

Demo | Download

LiveStreet CMS lets you create social networks and team blogs. It offers many extensions and multilingual translations.

Pros: Awesome extensions, language packs, etc.

Cons: Not the most nimble or swift CMS

Demo | Download

Pligg CMS is one of the easiest to use CMSs that can power social networks and other interactive websites. Just like Elgg, Pligg too caters to different types of websites.We once did a review of Pligg.

Pros: Easy availability of plugins/templates, good documentation, active community

Cons: Most modules are paid/premium

Demo | Download

Hotaru CMS can be used to create social networks and other such websites. It is a robust CMS and offers numerous plugins and themes.

Pros: Good community support, good documentation, nice repository of themes/plugins

Cons: Even though CMS updates are regular, patches/fixes for extensions take their share of time

Demo | Download

With that said, you can also use mainstream CMSs such as Drupal, WordPress or even BuddyPress for powering social networks and collaborative sites. Here are two working examples: DesignBump (Drupal) and Wordtaps (WordPress).

What do you think of these social networking websites’ CMSs? Do share your thoughts with us in the comments!

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A week has passed since we started our Web Icon Set giveaway, and now we’re announcing the 5 lucky winners of Web Icon Set’s Business Subscription which is worth $99 each! What does that mean for the winners? It means they will spend less time searching and creating icons, because why do you need to reinvent the wheel when over 1000 premium icons are already at your grasp, right?

So, who are the lucky winners?

Congratulations! You will be contacted shortly about how to claim your prize, so keep on checking your inbox. Don’t forget to tell the world about Web Icon Set!

How did we choose the winners? We didn’t, it was Random.org that picked you. Totally random!

You can use the icons for your personal or commercial projects.

You can still get a taste of Web Icon Set by checking out their free icons.

Impressed by the cool icons? You can start investing now and save lots of time for only $99 for 3 years or $49 for a year.

Now you tell people about Web Icon Set and go on your merry way. And don’t forget to check back tomorrow for another giveaway!

View the original article here

Designing a creative and appealing footer is crucial if you want to make each element of your web design as successful and efficient as possible. Although the footer of a web design appears at the end of the page yet it cannot be neglected. With an effective footer design, you can create a long-lasting impression on your visitors. Through a well designed footer, you can certainly grab the visitors’ attention.

We have previously posted many collections about Website Footers Designs as well but at the moment, we are presenting the most innovative and amazing examples of websites showing impressive footers. These footer designs prove that you can effectively utilize a website footer to provide that extra bit of improvement in the user’s experience. We hope you will like this collection. Do let us know your opinion about this compilation.

This is one of the best footer designs you would ever see as it contains the required information as well as it provides a comprehensive list of links that help you keep your visitors on your site.

This footer design takes the creativity to the next level by simply combining different fundamental aspects of Web design:

A simple and uncluttered footer design that showcases a beautiful and visually appealing graphics.

This creatively designed artistic footer design not only fulfills the visual requirements of a web design but also makes navigating the website easier.

This one is simply outstanding, an original and creative footer design that will surely impress your target audience.

This footer design makes use of color scheme quite smartly and the subtle uses of white inserted into the black definitely look great.

This is another amazing example of impressive footer design that demonstrates how you can incorporate loads of information in an effective manner.

In this footer design, notice how the overall look of a website can be improved solely by its footer design without compromising on the usability of the site.

Here you will notice how far a designer’s creativity can take us. Simply awesome.

This sleek design of footer makes use of a beautiful image along with the desired information.

This is a beautifully designed and creative footer design that brings to lights the importance of simplicity and elegance. The design has been created with a straightforward approach.

This footer design shows the use of loads of colorful images eye-catching illustration to grab the visitors’ attention.

The website offer two different versions of its footer design that you can switch by simply clicking on the link presented at the end of the page.

This footer design shows that you can also utilize your footer design to completely portray your creative thinking as well as can make your web design look stunning.

This is another excellent example of a creative and artistically designed footer. Through this footer design, the designer has successfully communicated the name as well as the meaning behind this website.

Large images and bold typography are used here in order to draw the users’ attention and make them take the required action

Here you will notice a very creative footer design that is simple yet very attractive. This design carries a straight-to-the-point approach that grabs the attention.

This footer design also presents just the adequate information to assist the visitors in navigating the website properly as well as presents a beautiful image as a visual treat.

Such a beautiful and unique way to separate the footer of a website from rest of the web design.

With this visually alluring footer design, the website attracts loads of visitors while providing them with loads of valuable information.

Quite impressive and remarkable use of creativity in this footer design. Simply outstanding, innovative and wonderfully designed footer.

This is another brilliant work done by the designer that speaks volume about itself. The creativity and originality of this footer design is simply above the par.

This footer design strokes out mainly because of its appealing illustration and classy color palette that grabs the attention of the onlookers.

This footer design has attention-grabbing, large and appealing graphics and colorful elements that hold the visitors’ attention.

Here, designer successfully collaborate different design elements and color palette of the footer with the overall layout of the website. That makes it look visually appealing.

Notice how you can effectively incorporate important functionality such as twitter updates into your footer design and make it look visually alluring and enticing.

This design is somewhat simple as compared to others seeing that it only contains a family of appetizing pie on top of a search box.

This footer design shows that you can certainly incorporate loads of information and different elements into your footer design without making it look too clumsy.

Notice how effectively the designer has taken advantage of simple and eye-catching illustrations to grab the attention of target audience, and then moving them to the right direction.

This footer design makes use of a different approach that stands this footer design apart from other ordinary footer designs.

This footer design together with its nice and catchy colors and attractive element makes this website a visual treat.

This is somewhat unusual design for website footer but this one truly stands out from the rest of the footer designs because of its natural and subtle look.

In this footer design, you will notice how you can design a beautiful and visually appealing footer design while keeping it simple and uncluttered.

Against a dark background, the footer successfully provides all the relevant and necessary information that help visitors navigate the site in a better way.

Noupe add a little bit of extra oomph in its footer design by using eye-catching texture that makes the footer design hard to forget.

Another example of simple but attractive footer design that does not provide loads of information rather just provide the necessary information that help visitors in navigating the site.

Although the footer design more or less is analogous to the general layout yet it looks quite appealing and artistic.

With the help of this understated design, Me & Oli keeps their footer design creative and simple and focuses only on the information.

This is a skillfully designed footer that is unique and creative in its own way and highlights the importance of simplicity and elegance.

Simple and minimal footer design with only required information in it. Simply beautiful!

With loads of eye catching and colorful elements, this footer design makes its place in our collection of worth watching footer designs.

Simple and soothing footer design that somewhat resembles with the overall design layout. On the whole, it is quite impressive and appealing.

Quite unusual color combination and an absolutely brilliant approach have been incorporated into this footer design.

The footer has been designed as a part of the overall web design but beautifully sets itself apart from the overall web design and provides the link to its contact form.

Quite a standard design for the website footer yet stands apart mainly because of its beautiful color selection and sufficient information.

Here is another beautiful example of a subtle footer design. Tvrdek uses dark brownish shade for its footer design that truly stands out from the overall design color.

This footer design brings warm and inviting colors into play in order to engage their visitors. The color scheme works well and makes it stand out.

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Are you looking for new ways to deliver in-depth content on a topic specific to your website? If so, ebooks are a great way to take your audience deeper into some aspect of your subject matter. Through the advancement of technology it’s easier than ever before in history for you to become an author by writing an ebook. With that said, there are things you should do to ensure your ebook is read by as many people as possible. In this article we are going to uncover the benefits of writing an ebook, provide tips for writing a successful ebook, and discuss how you can streamline the Ebook writing process.

Having a blog on your website is an absolute must. That said, blog articles serve a specific purpose. A best practice for blogging is to provide content in easily digestible chunks that readers can find, read, understand, and share all within a few minutes. An ebook allows you to expand on topics that you write about on your blog. Writing an ebook allows you to go more in depth on a given subject. Those of you who decide that writing an ebook makes sense as a content marketing tactic for your brand will uncover a number of benefits from your efforts. Here are a few benefits of writing an ebook:

The list above is simply the biggest benefits you’ll receive if you write an ebook that people actually read. There are a number of secondary benefits that you will also receive by taking the time to write an ebook. If this has convinced you that writing an ebook might be worth your time, then let’s dig into the components of a successful ebook.

As we alluded to earlier in the article, the advancement of technology has made it easier than ever before for all of us to become authors of ebooks. With that said, just because it’s easier to write and publish an ebook, doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at it. The main goal of writing an ebook is for people to actually read it. The next goal is for the ebook to be valuable enough that the people who do read it will then share it with friends. So, how do you write an ebook that people actually read? Let’s dive into some of the main components of a successful ebook:

If you are sure to include all of the components above you will have done more than most ebook authors. Following the steps above will position your ebook for success.

Now that we understand the benefits of writing an ebook and the components of a successful ebook, let’s review a few writing-specific tips. Writing an ebook can seem like a daunting task for first-time authors. It doesn’t have to be. Here are a few tips to keep you on track during the writing process.

Writing an ebook doesn’t have to be difficult. It really all comes down to staying on task. During the writing process you can get caught up in the details. Don’t let that happen to you. Get that first draft down and then go back and tweak. Once you have your ebook content ready, it’s time finalize your ebook format.

Before you can submit your ebook to some of ebook publishing sites like Amazon, Lulu, and others, you have to properly format it so it will be accepted by those sites. You need to convert your ebook into an ePub, so that it can be read on major eReaders like iPad, Nook, and Kindle. Here are a few tools to help you get started:

Now that your ebook is formatted properly, it’s time to publish it!

As we mentioned above, there are a lot of ways to get people to read your ebook. One of the best things to do is to submit your ebook to ebook publishing websites. Here is a list of some of the best ebook publishing websites that you should consider publishing your ebook to:

These are just a few of the many ebook publish websites. Just do a simple Google search on “publish my ebook” and you’ll see all of the great ebook publishing websites out there for you to publish your ebook to.

YES! The answer is yes. That said, will you write an ebook that people actually read? Please share your comments below and tell us if you think writing an ebook is worth your time and if you plan to do so. For those of you who HAVE written an ebook in the past, please share with us any feedback that you think might benefit those of us who are taking it on for the first time. We appreciate you taking the time to leave your comments below.

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If you design and develop themes for WordPress, chances are you probably already know the importance of theme frameworks or skeleton themes. To put it simply, these are minimal versions of themes, stripped of all additional functionality, giving you just the bare minimum level of code that you can work with and base your projects on. Needless to say, such frameworks and skeleton themes can save a lot of time and effort by giving developers a ready-made starting ground (consider this: you’re building a house, but you need not lay the foundation, as it’s already there. You simple shoot off with the main building).

Such themes are known by various names – bare-bones, stripped themes, blank themes, etc. Whatever it be, at the end of the day, all of them serve one purpose – help developers create awesome themes!

We shall now take a look at some of the major WordPress theme frameworks and skeleton themes. Before we proceed, it should be worth noting that certain themes mentioned below, such as TwentyTen Five, are not skeletons as such, but they make an awesome starting point for your project anyway!

*Pricing for paid/premium themes is mentioned adjacent to their respective names. Themes/frameworks with no pricing are free.

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Demo | Download

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With that, we come to the end of this round-up. Do share your thoughts in the comments!

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PayPal is definitely the most well-known online user payment service in the world. With its start somewhere in 2000 thanks to X.com and Confinity merging, PayPal quickly became a leader of the market and expanded very fast among eBay users. That is probably why PayPal was bought by eBay in 2002 for just under $1.5 billion.

But PayPal means much more than that today. Tens of millions of users tend to pay with PayPal faster than with their credit card. The company functions as an acquirer and processes payments for online vendors, auction sites and many commercial users – all these for a small usage fee. With such a reputation to handle, we might surely ask ourselves how likely it is for PayPal to be the best payment processor for our online services. If you own a design agency, I am sure you have thought of this at least once.

Today we will put in balance the negative and positive sides of using PayPal for a business and we will try to come to a conclusion by the end. I look also forward to hearing your opinions about the great service PayPal is, but let’s wait for that until the end.

Well, although it seems like one, PayPal is definitely not a bank. It offers the basic services of a bank, but is has not been classified as one, although it is under rules and regulations which govern a financial institution in the USA. A bank usually uses people’s deposits for its own purposes, while PayPal does not. They only store the deposits in their accounts and do not redistribute any of it. Although PayPal is not considered a bank in the US, it has been regulated just like one by the CSSF in Europe.

In order to be able to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of PayPal, it would be a good idea for me to tell you some quick facts about it:

PayPal has some clear advantages over any competitor on the market. First, it is very easy to set up and is very elegant. It doesn’t take more than few minutes to set up an online shop with support for PayPal. The “add to cart” and “view cart” buttons can even be customized by the designers themselves. The service is also very easy to use and the payments very easy to execute. There is no doubt about the fact that paying with PayPal could not be easier. Moreover, there is no setup or monthly fee.

Let’s face it, one of the most important assets of PayPal is its brand and name recognition. Being a company with excess of $2.2 billion in annual sales revenues, PayPal is no doubt the star player of the market. Although people are still reluctant to pay on the internet, they definitely trust PayPal the most if needed to process money online. Moreover, because it functions as a third-party service, PayPal makes sure the customer’s credit card and bank account number do not get in the stores’ databases. Security is extremely important and PayPal seems to take care of it as well as possible.

While many other services sustain themselves by asking for monthly or yearly payments, PayPal asks for money only from the users who sell. This makes PayPal feel like your friend because when you don’t sell anything, you don’t pay anything. Can it be more convenient?

Image by 401K.

With so many users having a PayPal account, there is a huge potential customer base for everyone who uses PayPal for online selling. A good example is eBay. The majority of the sellers do not offer support for MasterCard or VISA, therefore buyers need to have a PayPal account in order to buy something – and this doesn’t affect eBay at all, because as said before, PayPal has a huge customer base.

While businesses use PayPal for commercial purposes, individuals can also use it for personal purposes. PayPal offers multiple account options and a single person can opt for one of them. Each account option offers different privileges and have different rules. There is no fee for transactions between two PayPal users with a personal account for example.

The fact that PayPal offers support in so many countries is another strong asset. Giving the option to use 24 currencies and handle international payments is something not many other services can do. Another impressive feature is the option to pay through credit and debit cards directly, which means the transaction fee is also minimal, set at 3.9 percent for any amount up to $100,000.

If you thought this is all, you are in for another surprise. Although it is not a bank, PayPal works as a great accountant. You can see every payment, withdrawal, every inbound transaction – all these with a single click. It is very easy to find every transactions in the history panel and you can even download a spreadsheet file with details for a period longer than one year. Printing is not a problem for PayPal either.

As mentioned before, PayPal is an eBay service, therefore buying from the American online store has never been easier.

As any other service, PayPal has its own disadvantages too. One of them might be the fees charged for non-PayPal payments. Although PayPal claims they help small sellers, the hidden fees show no signs of it. The fees might be from 1.9 to 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction – this can get very costly. Some of PayPal’s rules are also very strict due to different regulations. The slightest suspicion about your account might get it suspended and it takes a long time for PayPal to investigate and reopen your account. You might find yourself with your money locked for longer periods than expected.

Talking about customer service, maybe the worst thing about PayPal is the difficulty to solve issues and investigate cases. There have been many issues over time with trying to contact customer service. Even when you manage to get a hold of them, sometimes it just seems there is no one at the end of the line and some emails only get automated responses. There have also been reports of accounts being automatically charged without the knowledge of the user.

Image by protohiro.

There is not even the chance of a third-party jury. When being investigated by PayPal, your account and funds get frozen and the only thing you can do is wait. There is no documentation provided to the user and it doesn’t seem like PayPal puts much consideration into resolving peoples issues.

The verification process is also a hassle. Users have to provide several important pieces of private information such as bills, bank account numbers, social security numbers, address proof and so on. Some users might not even be comfortable with offering such information, but they have to in order for PayPal to lift the funds receiving limit.

Although most eBay sellers have to use PayPal, it seems the protection for them is not excellent. There have been reports of funds refunded to the customer even after the seller has shipped the item! This can become a deal breaker especially when the customer service is not as good as it should be.

If for some reason you just don’t want to go with PayPal, then there are some other alternatives out there, although none of them is really that impressive. Google Checkout is an alternative, although it is still an inferior product. The main difference is that Google’s service charges fees depending on the sales volume, while PayPal does not. Checkout also offers fewer features than eBay’s service.

A second one could be MoneyBookers, a very well-known British-based service. They have a customer base of around 10 million accounts, although we do not know yet how many of them are active. They offer services to everybody with an email address and they have a flat fee per transaction.

Besides Google Checkout and MoneyBookers, there is not much else worth mentioning. The other few alternatives, Amazon Payments, OboPay and Paymate are really small and, when people deal with their money, they are not willing to work with companies without a powerful brand.

PayPal is obviously not the perfect solution for buyers and sellers, however it is definitely the best one available right now. They lack support, true, but it’s the most secure online payment service and the one offering the most features. Although PayPal seems best suited for medium-sized businesses, there are not many alternatives out there.

If we look at it from the buyers’ perspective, then there is definitely no better alternative out there. Let’s face it, every service has its own problems; it is just a matter of finding the one with the least of them.

Until next time… what do you think about PayPal? Did you ever have problems with it as a seller/buyer? What is your experience with their customer support and how long did it take for your case to be investigated?

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Are you ready for yet another amazing giveaway? SliderWall is giving away 5 commercial licensees to our lucky readers! If you have been dreaming of placing a jQuery slider on your website but can’t find the perfect solution for it, then you’ve definitely come to the right place!

How do you win this awesome jQuery slider? Read on!

SliderWall is a jQuery image slider that is made purely using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. SliderWall is a very flexible tool in terms of user customization and responsiveness when it comes to mobile devices. Meaning, it will display just fine on your desktop, tablet, and smartphones, eliminating the worry of cross-platform compatibility.

As mentioned, it is very easy to customize if you know a little about CSS. It has a lot of cool transition effects and many uses.

If you have a product to sell or a service to pitch in, you can definitely use SliderWall to tell your website’s visitors everything they need to know about your business, with style!

Are you a photographer, illustrator, painter, or someone along those lines? Then why not show your work to the whole world using this amazing image slider!

Of course this should be a functionality every image slider should have. SliderWall nailed it! Video slider on your website? Now isn’t that ultra cool?

Now be honest, you want to get your hands on it, right?!

Don’t forget to check out the SliderWall demo so that you can really feel and experience its awesomeness!

SliderWall is giving away 5 Commercial Licenses worth $99 each which our loyal readers can use on a single domain. With a commercial license, the winners can use it on any type of commercial project. All features included!

Can’t wait? You can give it a try right now by downloading the free version of SliderWall.

It’s simple, all you have to do is:

Then the waiting begins. Winners will be announced next week, so check back!

Winners will be selected using Random.org.

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You would probably ask, ” I already use so many services – Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Flickr, YouTube etc on a regular basis, what’s the need for another one?”

Well, about.me is not really just ‘another one’ , it’s a service meant to put together all your other services. It’s a neat way to merge your multiple online profiles scattered across different service providers in one single identity – either for your personal use or for professional purposes.

For me the professional angle sounds more interesting. Imagine if you could have clickable links on your business card to your LinkedIn, your resume, your portfolio, client testimonials etc, about.me is exactly like that. It’s basically your business card online with links to the services which promotes you and gives the visitor an idea as who you are. So next time rather than providing someone with multiple links to your online accounts just direct them to your about.me page.

In this post I will walk you through the story of about.me in brief, then visit some nice about.me pages to gather inspiration and then proceed step by step to create one.

Launched in December 2010, by Ryan Freitas, Tony Conrad and Timothy Young, the San Francisco-based startup was acquired by AOL within four days of launch. Brad Garlinghouse, President of Consumer Applications, AOL, quoted “about.me is more than just the aggregation of social profiles, it allows people to easily express themselves in an increasingly noisy environment full of disparate social experiences”. The acquisition according to Young will enable the service to “piggyback” on the AOL’s large userbase.

The success of about.me, I believe comes from the fact that a true personal brand identity is associated with the .me domain. The site uses a very simple user interface, allowing users to set  up their page in a few minutes, backed by strong back-end analytics which make it easy for a user to see how many people viewed their profile pages and which social networks they went on to view from there, thus providing users with deeper insight into how to build and market themselves online.

For inspiration you can checkout the pages in the featured section found on the bottom of the first page and the pages of the founders of the site.

Featured pages

Page of Tony Conrad, one of the founders of about.me (http://about.me/tonyconrad)

Page of Ryan Freitas, another founder of about.me (http://about.me/ryanchris)

Start by signing up and creating a unique url for you as about.me/your-name

Register your name, write a short biography about yourself or leave it for later. Choose the tags which you think are appropriate to you or your work.

Your page is now online! Customize your page by changing the background, there are some in-house templates that you can use. However since about.me is all about branding yourself try using a high-resolution image of your own to fill up the entire screen, works pretty well for most of the pages

The next step is writing a short Biography, here you can write something about who you are and what you do, if you have skipped it in step 2.

Edit the colors to suit your background and your taste. Change the font likewise.

Now this is the most important part of setting up the page, adding the services. There are a few popular services. Choose the ones you are subscribed to and would like to add to your profile. Once you click and choose any of them you will be redirected to the website of the service, where you need to login once and approve permission. You are automatically redirected back to your about.me page once you have authorized the use of the service.

Set up your contact preferences using the contact tab. I have selected email contact and AOL chat option, which remains visible on my profile.

Click on the Dashboard and select ‘Profile Statistics’ to view how many people have visited your website.

Click on the ‘clicks’ tab and you can view the statistics of your added services that were visited in the selected timeframe. I believe this is a very good feature in analyzing which of your online profiles are most viewed, and as I have said earlier it can serve as a useful insight to brand yourself.

Click on the Account and select ‘Find Your Friends’ option to see who are already on about.me. Once you find your friends from your other networks you can ‘fave’ their profile, and it will be added to your favorites.

The last step is sharing your newly made page with your friends on other networks who are not yet on about.me or are not aware of this service. Inspire them to join or have a look at your page by selecting ‘Share Your Profile’ from the Account tab. You can alternatively send emails with link to this page using the e-mail option.

So there,my friend is my business card online. Its simple, sleek and easy to share.

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