Wendy Willard » Resources

Adding Third-Party Content

Wendy — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:08:45 +0000

When you create web sites, you often need to integrate content from other sources. Suppose you wanted to load the current weather forecast into a page on your site. If your business isn’t weather, you’re probably not going to store a large database of weather-related information on your own web servers.

That’s OK, because plenty of other folks are willing to store that information for you. In fact, The Weather Channel allows you to add its forecasts to your site for free. After you register, weather.com provides you with a chunk of code to copy and paste into whichever page you want the forecast to display.

Here are tons of resources for adding this type of remote content to your site. Note, I haven’t used every product listed here, but have included this information to give you an idea just how much third-party content is available (tons!). I encourage you to do your own research as well so you can locate the most appropriate solution for your needs.

Applicant Tracking:
Bulletin Boards/Communities:
Calendars:
Daily Quotes/Jokes/Tips:
Directions/Maps:
Event Management:
- www.cvent.com
- www.acteva.com
Live Chat:
Reference and Search Tools:
- www.google.com/cse
Shopping Carts:
Stock Quotes:
Surveys:
Translation Tools:
- babelfish.yahoo.com
- translate.google.com
Weather:

Web Design Links

Wendy — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:19:06 +0000

This post includes a collection of links referenced in my web design books:

Stock Photography/Clip Art

Multimedia

Graphics Tools

Adobe (for Photoshop, Fireworks, etc.)
Microsoft’s Digital Image Tools
Corel (for Paint Shop Pro)
GIMP

General Inspiration

Color

Fonts

Audience Demographics

Content Management (CMS) Tools

HTML/CSS

Page Layout

Scripting

Project Management

Web Development Tools

Usability/Testing

Adobe BrowserLab
Usability.gov
User Interface Engineering
Human Factors International
uiAccess.com
Siteviewer (a free compatibility tool to check a page’s code against different HTML specifications
Browsercam (a tool to display your page is different browsers)
Litmus Testing Tool
Browsershots

Hosting

Google Sites (personal hosting)
Google’s Blogger (hosted blog)
WordPress (hosted blog)
Site5
DreamHost
BlueHost
Hostway

Professional Associations

Social Networking for Web Designer/Developers

FTP Tools

CoffeeCup Free FTP (Windows)
SmartFTP (Windows)
FTP Voyager (Windows)
WS_FTP (Windows)
YummyFTP (Mac)
Fetch (Mac)
VicomsoftFTP (Mac)
Transmit (Mac)

Search Engine Advertising

Photo Effects without Photoshop

Wendy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:10:27 +0000

I am frequently asked how to achieve certain stylized effects with photographs. When I respond with my typical “I use Photoshop,” most people aren’t impressed. It’s not that they dislike Photoshop, but that they don’t have access to it (i.e., it’s expensive) and/or don’t know how to use it.

So when I came across Rollip, I figured it was worth sharing. Rollip is a tool that offers cool photo effects online, so you don’t have to purchase or learn how to use Photoshop. Instead, you simply select the desired effect and upload your photo. You are then given the option to download a web-quality version, or purchase a high-quality version ($2.99 for 15 photos).

I tried a couple of effects – vintage, line drawing, and so on – to see how it worked. For the average mom playing around with pictures of her kids, I think it would work quite well. Check it out at www.rollip.com. Happy filtering!

FreshBooks Online Billing System

Wendy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:35:19 +0000

I’ve been freelancing for 10 years. Over the course of the past decade, I have tried many different types of time keeping and invoicing methods. QuickBooks (recommended by my first accountant) was more than I needed, so I ended up with a tried and true paper-based system. I keep a calendar on my desk and simply write down client tasks and the associated hours worked on each day.

As I returned to full-time this year, my paper-based system has become quite tedious. At the end of the month, I must pull out my calculator and add up all the hourly notations under each day. I just finished my invoices for May and was frustrated at how long this process took, so I decided to revisit my method. Enter FreshBooks.

I’ve reviewed both FreshBooks and BlinkSale in the past, when recommending similar tools to readers of my books. I was impressed with their features over a year ago, but FreshBooks in particular has grown quite a lot since my last review. I love that they offer the ability to send snailmail copies of invoices for you (at minimal cost). This is not offered by BlinkSale.

Another reason I selected FreshBooks is its integration with a Mac OSX Time Tracking Widget, making it super easy to track client time on the fly (without having to visit the FreshBooks web site).

So this morning I created a FreshBooks account (free for the first 30 days) and am going to test it out. I’ll be able to send my first invoices at the end of June and am looking forward to testing the time tracking tools in the meantime. I’ll let you know what I think next month. In the meantime, check out FreshBooks for yourself.