tripwire magazine » Tools

5 Tools Every Entrepreneur Should Know About

Olga — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 06:13:35 +0000

In the era of information technologies running business has become less routine and more efficient. Modern market provides us with an extensive list of online tools that help manage almost all business processes starting from collaboration and ending with bookkeeping. Among this variety there are some unquestionable leaders like Basecamp in project management, Quickbooks in accounting, Google Analytics in web analytics and Salesforce in CRM*. While the quality of these well-known services is undoubted, some companies still may find their cost unaffordable or functionality limited. That’s why below we’ve gathered a collection of online solutions that can’t boast ubiquitous popularity like their mature analogs but offer a competitive number of features and decent pricing plans.

*Based on the survey and great infographics by Jennifer Van Grove published on Mashable.com http://mashable.com/2011/07/26/startup-tools

Project Management & Collaboration

TeamLab integrates a number of online tools that allows colleagues to organize business tasks, coordinate teamwork and track work results. Along with project management features, this platform also offers a rich collaboration toolset: forums, blogs, chat and multichat, events, bookmarks. The TeamLab significant distinction from other similar systems is a tangible emphasis on document management. The “Documents” module enables users not only to save and share files in the TeamLab corporate system but edit as well. There are two editing options available: either to run built-in Open Office application or launch web browser editor. Overall, TeamLab is a complete fully-featured system that stands out in the row of project management platforms due to an easy-to-use interface, wider collaboration and docs functionality.

Pricing plans:

Free – 93% of options available, no users/time/projects limits

$49 monthly – 100% of options available

Accounting

LessAccounting lets you keep track of corporate finances in a smart and simple way. You can organize expenses in several sections, e.g. by project, income type or any other category. The service also gives an opportunity to setup recurring invoices, mark them paid or add notes. Any sample from the fine collection of customizable templates may be turned into a corporate sales proposal or invoice. LessAccounting pays special attention to experienced online users who have already maintained databases in other web resources. Automatic importer from Gmail, Basecamp, Highrise and Quickbooks makes migration completely stressless and quick. All the potential clients are promised to get special attention and care: the service team guarantees every company to help import and setup all their data completely for free.

Pricing plans:

$30 monthly – unlimited transactions, members and support

Web Analytics

Piwik is a real time web analytics solution providing a similar toolset like Google Web Analytics. You get full information about your website visitors, their navigation track and top content pages. You are able to set goals and keywords, track conversion rate as well. Unlike its eminent competitor, Piwik is downloadable and open source software that is installed on your server and this way keeps your data extremely safe. Another difference from Google tool is the program customizable interface: you can put the widgets in the order you’d like with the “drag&drop” option, choose the most necessary features and delete the rarely used ones. On the whole, Piwik is a decent alternative to Google Web Analytics for those who prefer in-house solutions and respect open source policy.

Pricing plans: Completely free

Social Media Analytics

Although social media marketing is an evident necessity, there are still few systems that allow for maintaining professional monitoring and analysis of virtual community. Except for Google Alerts, Social Mention presents the most thorough and full toolset for social media analytics. It aggregates the content of social networks and blogs, video and image sharing platforms, forums, questions&answers services. It also defines your brand reputation counting the frequency of brand mentioning and estimates the audience attitude calculating the “sentiment” ratio – the number of positive, neutral and negative mentions. To keep track of “social buzz” you can choose either to use the automated alerts system to be personally notified by email or insert the Social Mention widget showing every new mention in real time right in a website.

Pricing plans:

Completely free

CRM

LandslideCRM is a fully-featured CRM system designed both for small and large businesses. It offers account&contact management, activity&tasks management and can be easily accessed from any device that supports Internet connection. There’s a number of additional options worth saying about. You are able to develop forecasts and reports, share documents and presentations, and organize live meetings powered by GoToMeeting web conferencing technology. The system also has a few add-ons that include Salesforce, Quickbooks, Gmail plug-ins and many more. The listed set of functionality is quite enough to satisfy requirements of average user.

Pricing plans:

Free 30-day trial

$29 monthly – the standard set available for one user

I hope you’ll find the information given here helpful. I’ll be also happy to know your opinion about the given tools or any other that you prefer to use. Your feedback is warmly welcome!

Author : Olga Sorokina

Olga is a marketing specialist with a primary emphasis on web based startups. She writes for TeamLab corporate blog, manages the project’s promotion in social media.

18 Online Project Management Apps To Get Your Business Under Control

Dustin Betonio — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 10:33:00 +0000

Project management software is a term covering many types of software, including estimation and planning, scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation or administration systems, which are used to deal with the complexity of large projects.

Project management apps are essentially meant to save you time and get on top of all activities going on in your business or projects. However it can be quite time consuming to implement and it requires some effort to use tools like these consistently. If you have a team who works with you remotely, then online PM Apps are ideal and may dramatically increase collaboration and efficiency. If you are a freelancer however, you will have to spend some time getting it all set up and as well for teaching your clients how to use and interact with the application you choose. First of all let’s start by explaining what my criteria for a project management application are. The application needs to have a sleek and smooth interface that is easy for the user to navigate and use especially for freelancers. The application must have a reasonable price tag, or be offered free. To make it in the list of the best the application needs to run fast and allow you to quickly do all your tasks. For this article I have prepared a roundup of some really great project management applications that I think is worth your time to try and investigate.

1. Podio Online Project management

Using Podio for online project management, everyone involved is always on the same page. Keep team and project discussions in one centralized place where all relevant files and information is created and securely stored. Use the unique Podio App Builder to fully customize your project management apps to fit your work flows – no technical skills needed! Get out of your inbox. Work the way you want with Podio as your web-based project management software.

With Podio managing projects is easy and intuitive. Simply set up your project alone or together in your team within minutes. Stay on top of deliverables and deadlines with the built-in task manager, and use Podio reporting and the intelligent calendar to easily keep track of milestones, meetings, budgets and work progress.

2. Attask

AtTask increases workplace harmony by enfranchising workers and informing executives. The company’s social Work Management software gives people at all levels of the organization tools to help them better understand and organize their work. Going social facilitates deeper worker buy-in, and delivers executives conversational insights into the work environment. Over 1,000 organizations of all sizes, including Apple, Cisco, GE, KeyBank, HBO, Johnson & Johnson, Newsweek, Nike, and Toyota have turned to AtTask to manage work of all levels of complexity. Its on-demand work management solution is available in 7 languages.

3. Planbox

Planbox is an Agile Project Management Tool that goes beyond software development. A tool for all business functions to get a total grasp on projects. Fuel commitment with an easy-to-use agile product management tool to keep track of tasks, items and overall project progress.

4. ManyMoon

Manymoon is a social productivity tool that makes it simple to get work done online:

Anything – you can use Manymoon for whatever you need to accomplish: launching a new product, planning an event or building a house.
Anyone – Manymoon is simple enough for anyone to use since there’s no training or setup required.
Anywhere – Manymoon can be used with people inside and outside of your organization. And since it’s online all you’ll need is an internet connection to get working!

5. Freedcamp

Freedcamp offers one of the cleanest interfaces and smoothest interactions (only competitors in that area goes to ApolloHQ who also have a very visually pleasing interface and very good interactions smoothness). The application offers the regular tools like To-Do’s, Discussions, Milestones, Files, Time Tracking, and Invoices. Where it really stands out is its Basecamp Import and the Meebo Chat bar which enables you to chat with all your existing messengers with your colleagues who may use Gtalk, ICQ, Facebook Chat, and many more.

6. ApolloHQ

Apollo is project and contact management done right. Using Apollo, you will realize that it’s built to help you get things done, quickly and efficiently. With Apollo, you will always know where your projects, your contacts and your life are at and you will feel on top of everything — regardless of how hectic your schedule is.

7. BasecampHQ

Basecamp is the oldest and most trustworthy in this list. They have been around for a long time and have proven to maintain their application as simple as possible. Some find this quite annoying as they want a lot more functionality out of the system, others find it pleasing as it never gets too complicated. I will remain impartial to this, but will say that I think there are ways to add more features without burdening the users. The application has a very primitive design, same argument stays. So if you are ready to spend a whopping $20-$150 a month for a project management application this should be your first choice.

8. GoPlanApp

Goplan lets you keep track of your projects and collaborate with your colleagues securely through an intuitive user interface.

9. Huddle

With Huddle, you can manage people, projects and information inside and outside of your company, securely. It is available online, on mobile devices, on the desktop, via Microsoft Office applications, major business social networks and in multiple languages.

10. Teamly

Teamly is a new kind of productivity tool that helps you and your staff move beyond your mile-long to-do lists and focus on the truly important stuff, your top 5 priorities for the day, week and month.

11. TeamWorkPM

Teamwork Project Manager is an easy-to-use online teamwork & project management software application that helps managers, staff and clients work together more productively online.

12. 5pmweb

This reminds me of phyton. The interface is so bold and in your face that i am a little worried to break something. The demo page took 4 minutes to load, and after a few refreshes it actually started working… so that wasn’t a great third experience with app. But where this app really meets the rest is its pricing sheet which is no smaller than that of Basecamp or other competitors. Overall this may be the choice for you (if you like Python).

13. Central Desktop

Central Desktop delivers a cloud-based social collaboration platform that revolutionizes how people connect and share information to drive profitable business results. Businesses of all sizes use Central Desktop’s complete online collaboration solution to manage projects and documents in the cloud with colleagues, customers and partners. The main benefit of this application is the vast amount of features it has, so if you are looking to get a bunch of features into one application without a choice of having them or not this may be a great choice.

14. Wrike

Wrike’s patent-pending Intelligent Email Engine, thousands of teams have been able to merge their email communications into their planning process. With Wrike’s unique Flexible Structures at their hands, managers can easily coordinate every tiny detail of their projects. Thanks to Wrike’s handy Dynamic Timeline, managers have a real-time, clear picture of multiple projects.

15. Projectpier

ProjectPier is a Free, Open-Source, PHP application for managing tasks, projects and teams through an intuitive web interface. It must be downloaded and installed on your own web server. ProjectPier will help your organization communicate, collaborate and get things done Its function is similar to commercial groupware/project management products, but allows the freedom and scalability of self-hosting.

16. Assembla

Assembla offers the whole package: repositories, ticketing, collaboration and management tools. Assembla’s repositories, stored in Amazon EBS, keep your code safe, while allowing specified users to view and edit it in a secure fashion. Tickets, which can be posted and assigned to team members within seconds, help users accomplish tasks more quickly and efficiently.

17. Doodle

A scheduling tool that has been created to help reclaim time and put an end to the endless back and forth communication that has become normal when scheduling a meeting. It is so simple and yet very powerful.

Registration isn’t required to use the basic free service (Branded and Premium versions also exist and offer more flexibility), so getting started is quick and easy. To schedule an event, you just select some dates and times and let the participants specify what works best for them. With a quick look, you’ll see everyone’s availability and be able to make a final decision that satisfies the entire group.

“Doodle is used worldwide by more than three million people per month, and features like Outlook and Facebook integration help all of these users in their quest to gain victory over meetings.”

18. Basecamp

Basecamp is the world’s leading project collaboration tool, with thousands of very satisfied web developer customers. Write communal and personal “to do” lists, store and share files (up to 75GB) effectively between team members, write on your group’s message boards, add milestones to keep track of what’s due and who’s responsible, and track your own and others’ time.

19. Desk away

DeskAway, is a web-based project collaboration software that provides teams a central location to easily organize, manage and track their projects & work. DeskAway is carefully hand-crafted by a small team of developers and designers. Each feature is custom-made to give you the ease of use and power to help you grow your business.

Author : Dustin Betonio

Dustin Betonio is a Translation Management graduate at University of Mindanao. His earlier career was devoted on customer service outside the information highway. Currently studying Law in the same University.

35 Powerful and Useful Time-Savers for web Designers

Dustin Betonio — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 10:26:00 +0000

If you are a web designer who considers time as a essential factor of your productivity, then you will tend to find Free, or Paid online tools that will improve your workflow and increase your productivity without wasting so much time on it. And this is where small time-savers become handy. Be it a handy checklist, batch installer, dummy image generator or converter from Excel spreadsheet to HTML — all these things can save us a couple of minutes every day, making our work easier and more efficient. Whether you like lists or not: this one will probably help you find those little nuggets out there that will help you avoid headaches and stress.

In this post, you’ll find a collection of cool websites and handy tools that will help you boost your work. I do hope that this collection will give you an inspiration and we do hope that you will try some tools listed here. Enjoy!

1. Ninite Batch Installer

Ninite lets you pick your favorite software from among an extensive list (Web browsers, messaging, media, images, documents, security, runtimes, file sharing, utilities, compression, developer tools and more), creates a batch installer for them and then installs them for you automatically.

2. Refynr

Refynr is a web-based Social Network client that filters your Twitter & Facebook feeds by keywords that you choose, and saves the “Refyned” feeds for you to read later.

3. LaunchList

This tool helps you review important items before the big launch. By default, the tool provides 28 items to be checked, but it also allows you to add custom items to the list. Each item can be commented on or crossed out

4. Pencil Project: Sketching and Prototyping with Firefox

Pencil is an open source GUI prototyping tool. It contains built-in stencils for diagrams and prototyping, on-screen text editing with rich text support as well as standard drawing operations.

5. Doomi

Simple to do list application, designed to stay out of your way, easy to use and looks pretty.

6. Zootool

Zootool is a bookmarking website and tool for collecting images, documents, links and videos from anywhere on the Web. A bookmarklet allows you to collect items quickly and easily. You can then tag and organize your saved items in Zootool’s back end. You can also integrate Zootool with Tumblr, Twitter, Delicious and FriendFeed to share what you find.

You can find nice Tumblr themes in these articles: 15+ Custom Tumblr Themes , 40 Excellent and Cool Tumblr Themes and 21+ Very Useful Tumblr Skins

7. Bounce

A fun and easy way to share ideas on a website. The tool allows you to make notes, write feedback in an overlay of every site and then share your notes with friends.

8. Magazinify

Magazinify seamlessly organizes all the articles you wish to read into beautiful text, order, removing all the annoying ads and popups, converts it to pdf format and mails you the magazine at the end of the day.

9. Support Details

Their data will automatically read out of the browser (including Flash version, operating system, cookies, JavaScript status, screen resolution, browser size and more) and can be copied, sent directly to you via email or saved.

10. Grad Color

Easy online tool for generating CSS3 Gradient colors.

11. MugTug’s Darkroom

When you need to modify a picture but don’t have your favorite software on hand, you can use the all-in-one image processor MugTug’s Darkroom which was created for photographers. You are able to adjust levels, white balance, exposure, contrast and saturation and apply a few photographic effects.

12. Brickify

Brickify is a web application that turns images into LEGO building plans. It uses HTML5 Canvas to load the users image and process the pixels in the image into bricks.

13. Alertful

Here is a free reminder service and simple tool to let you remind everything from your kid’s birthday to your holiday reminder.

14. Visual Website Optimizer

Visual Website Optimizer is undoubtedly the best A/B, split and multivariate testing software ever created by mankind.

15. Snippshot

Create and save code snippets in the cloud with this neat and minimal snippet tool. Write as many snippets you want, search your saved snippets, rename them or you can also delete forever your snippets.

16. Keyonary

Currently, more than 250 Photoshop shortcuts have been added. Simply type the name of application in the search box, and it spits out a long shortcut list.

17. Font Comparer

Easily decide which fonts you want for your website with this tool. You can simply type your desired text and FontComparer will do the rest. It displays web fonts from Google and Typekit.

18. gridr buildrrr

This generators allows you to choose the grid for your layout and preview it online.

19. WhatFontis

Find mystery fonts as easy as 1,2,3.

20. Theme Finder

Find WordPress themes visually.

21. Pricing Table Generator

Generates pricing table with this online free service tool.

22. Open Heat Map

A service designed to make it easy to create maps communicating information. It transforms data from a traditional data source such as a spreadsheet into an interactive animated view of a particular area. You can then share that map online, a bit like YouTube for geographic visualizations.

23. Hummingbird

Hummingbird lets you see how visitors are interacting with your website in real time. Hummingbird is built on top of Node.js, a new javascript web toolkit that can handle large amounts of traffic and many concurrent users.

24. Pixelnovel Timeline: Version Control for Adobe Photoshop

This tool basically integrates a Subversion client in Adobe Photoshop with an Adobe Photoshop plug-in. You can preview versions right in Photoshop and manage version control directly from Photoshop.Although not free.

25. Load Impact: Website load/stress test

The tool lets you find out the performance limits of your website before you learn the hard way. It is an online service that simulates users accessing your site and creates test report graphs to find out how many users your site could handle.

26. Icotrip

Icotrip is the best way to go. Every day, you will discover a new (ico)trip experience! No conventional icon though.

27. BigImg

With BigImg, it helps you properly and easily resize and compress your images.

28. Wylio

This online tool will let you quickly search through millions of free images, and it also lets you generate the code so you can insert those images into your website or blog posts.

29. foxGuide

foxGuide is a firefox extension that displays horizontal and vertical photoshop-liked guides. Guides will appear as thin lines that float over the webpage.

30. Kaleido

This tool allows you to create meaningful visuals for code and can be used to plan, organize and navigate code in a more intuitive way.

31. Divine: Conversion tool from PSD to HTML

Divine is a plug-in that sits on top of Photoshop. Once you’ve finished designing in Photoshop, launch Divine plug-in in Photoshop, assign WordPress roles to the main elements (e.g. #footer, #header, etc.), and then the plug-in will prepare all the files you need

32. HiFi RegExp Tool

Regular expressions can be a pain. The HiFi RegExp tool is 100% JavaScript using jQuery. This tool was created to help developers learn, practice, and compose regular expressions.

33. Ideone: Online IDE & Debugging Tool

This tool is an online compiler and debugging tool which allows to compile and run code online in more than 40 programming languages, among them C++, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby. Nice alternatives online: PHP Anywhere(online PHP editor) and CodeRun (allows you to develop, test and debug ASP.NET, PHP and Ajax applications online)

34. jsFiddle

Online Editor for the Web, with support of JavaScript, MooTools, jQuery, Prototype, YUI, Glow and Dojo, HTML and CSS. The tool lets you save and run your applications within the web browse.

35. Instant Blueprint

Instant Blueprint allows you to quickly create a web project framework with valid HTML/XHTML and CSS in only a matter of seconds, allowing you to get your project up and running faster!

Want to keep surfing? Well do you have a Facebook page? With one of the good looking Facebook Skins your social profile and presence will improve. Have a look! And don’t miss these best wordpress themes if you’re looking for a great theme for your website.

Author : Dustin Betonio

Effective Automation and Brand Management on twitter using MarketMeTweet and Tweet Adder (updated)

Dustin Betonio — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:45:56 +0000

It’s super important these days to have a presence on social media sites. Did you know that Facebook in 2009 had more than 300v million users, and roughly half of these logged in every day? I can also tell you that twitter attracted more than 22 million unique visitors every month and YouTube had more than 100 million users in the US alone. Do you think these numbers will grow in 2010? Sure they will! Social media is getting serious for anyone making business and especially if your business is online. In this article you will learn how tripwire magazine use MarketMeTweet – one of the hottest marketing apps for twitter on the market today. It also covers how tweet adder is used to build twitter followers. If you are serious about using twitter as a marketing channel for yourself or your company you should read on now!

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This post gives you some great examples of of keeping Web Design Simple and Minimalistic.

Update:

I think you need to take a look at version 2 of MarketMeTweet coming next week. There are some very interesting news here. Play the movie below and find out more here:

If you already use or consider using twitter for promoting your business and building your online brand, then I’m quite sure MarketMeTweet is one of the apps you need in your toolbox to become more effective and eventually more successful. There are plenty of tools on the market for automating automate twitter tasks, like building twitter followers and sending scheduled tweets. Some time ago tripwire magazine reviewed tweet adder and I seriously recommend you check this out. tweet adder is used by tripwire magazine because it has the most powerful twitter search capabilities I have found integrated with its automated functionality to follow twitter users. Users found by matching keywords relevant to your niche are more likely to follow you back, start talking and assist in marketing your profile. I believe tweet adder is the most effective tool on the market to build your twitter follower base and this is basically what you need to market yourself or your company on twitter and to drive traffic to your web sites using twitter – read the review of tweet adder here.

MarketMeTweet is a perfect addition to tweet adder an also a tool used for social marketing at tripwire magazine. The main reasons for using this tool is its very powerful Reply Campaign feature and its unique Branding Capabilities that I will cover in more detail in a minute. It offers a lot more but this is what really makes it stand out!

What is MarketMeTweet?

MarketMeTweet is a new revolutionary twitter app for anyone who is serious about twitter. It is an Adobe Air app and the interface is great and easy to use. It helps you manage multiple twitter accounts by scheduling tweets, create reply campaigns, track your conversations, and with branding! This is the main interface:

Reply Campaigns

This feature is for marketers and it helps you find twitter users tweeting on specific keywords. They way it works is that you define keywords that are important to you and your niche and then you create reply text that can be sent during a campaign. This is a very powerful way to get targeted followers and potentially new customers. You can also specify negative keywords to make the campaign more precise. You would create as many Reply Templates as possible to make your campaign look diverse and human. Once you run the campaign it is very simple for you to send the preconfigured tweets to the new leads identified.

Conversations

Reply campaigns is great but with Conversations it is even better. Basically conversations allow you to list all conversations with a specific user. If you sent a tweet as part of your campaign it is important to keep an eye on replies and keep the conversation going. This is very helpful and instantly gives you an overview of all you have been tweeting with a specific user about.

Brand Management

MarketMeTweet has taken a unique approach to Marketing on twitter. It is meant to be the first 100% twitter compliant Marketing Tool on the market, and is unlikely to give any problems with banned accounts as some have experienced using automation clients. MarketMeTweet has set out to develop a tool that helps businesses market their brand on twitter. They discovered a way to “brand” tweets, giving a back link underneath every tweet. The setup guide provided by the app is good and makes it easy to set up the connection to the twitter app api.

As soon as it is configured you will start seeing your branding below the tweets. It looks like this for tripwire magazine. This is pretty cool I think and makes you surface from the millions of profiles on twitter.

This branding feature is not only working on twitter.com and will be visible in most clients and on your followers feeds.

Scheduled Tweets

This feature is available in a lot of other apps. You can schedule your tweets for up to a year in advance and there’s no limits. You would use this feature to ensure you have the branding but I miss the list import feature I have used in tweet adder. It is basically so simple and allows you to set up loads of automatic tweets in no time. In MarketMeTweet you have more control but it also will take more time to configure each tweet individually. If you need to load in a lot of tweets for automatic delivery over time I still recommend tweet adder.

Other features and details

Unlimited Accounts - What has been noticed is the confusion in the choices of accounts and limits. The developers decided to do away with that, by giving an unlimited account.

Multiple Computers - you can take your marketing data anywhere you go, and from whatever computer you wish to access it from.
Smart Following & Unfollowing Algorithm – Find highly targeted followers, and unfollow only those who are not enriching your account.

Group Management – an easy way for you to filter your friends tweets and keep up to date!

Twitter Management - Compared to other twitter marketing software offerings MarketMeTweet has a comprehensive management side. You’re able to see your friends timelines, replies/mentions, easily manage and delete direct messages, groups, search and more!

OAuth Secure – never stores your Twitter username or password.

Location Targeted Following - your matches for new followers can be in the same place as you, making the quality so much higher!
Four plans available. If you use this tool working for clients as a social media manager you will need the professional account. If you are just using it for yourself you have 3 attractive options. As branding is key I decided to go for a lifetime license at $99 but if you want to try it out first you can start up at $9/month.

Want to take charge of your brand on twitter? Do it now and don’t be left behind. Because it is super important these days to have a presence in social media.

Author : Dustin Betonio

10+ Seriously useful online CSS Code Generators

Lars — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:14:47 +0000

CSS is one of the most important elements of web development but it is not easy for most people to write CSS code that implement a desired design. In fact a lot of people have difficulties mastering CSS. This article provides a list of free online CSS generator services that can be very useful to create CSS faster and to learn about how CSS is structured. Jump in a give some of the generators a try!

CleanCSS

CSS clean is very useful CSS formatter. It helps to make your CSS code in clean and understandable. It is providing a test box for CSS code and check box for change the functionality of CSS code.

CSS Creator

Creates a fluid or fixed width floated column layout, with up to 3 columns and with header and footer. Values can be specified in either pixels, ems or percentages.

Grid Designer

Grid designer works according to the name, creating the different types of grid layout with the help of provided functionality. It has well interface for designers to creating attractive grid layouts.

Typetester

The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated. Typetester’s code structure is XHTML, styled with the finest CSS and driven by the JavaScript for manipulating DOM structures. Typetester will not work without JavaScript enabled.

Telerik Visual Style Builder

An online CSS customization tool that allows you to easily, point-and-click customization of skins for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. This visual style builder eliminates any need to have working knowledge of the front-end HTML and CSS structure of the RadControls to create custom skins.You’ll have complete control over the elements of the RadControls’ skin and allows you to develop a custom built skin in very short time.

This tool is ideal for ASP.NET developers. Probably one of the easiest ways to create a RadControls skin. This tool also satisfies your need for ready made menus and images for calendars and such.

css-generator

This tools lets you input your XHTML code in a box displayed on the front page, the code will be sent back to them and they will return your code with a corresponding CSS frame. This service is completely free This is great for the developer that’s big on multi-tasking.

CSSportal

Online CSS Editor allows you to edit an entire CSS file at once with a dynamic preview shown below. The preview will show the exact line you’re editing, and it will update as you type. If you want to show the entire file then move focus to the start or the end of the CSS text. When you have finished editing your CSS, be sure to validate the code with CSS Validator.

iconico

This CSS Editor allows you to edit an entire CSS file at once with a dynamic preview shown below. The preview will show the exact line you’re editing, and it will update as you type. If you want to show the entire file then move focus to the start or the end of the CSS text.
Works on modern versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox (Mac and PC), Safari, Mozilla.

Drawter

Written in JavaScript and based on the jQuery library enables you with the possibility to draw your website’s code. Every tag is presented as a layer you have drawn.It can run on every single web-browser which makes it really useful and versatile.

Working knowledge of HTML and CSS is required in order to utilize Drawter, however developing code is easier then writting by hand. Drawter anticipates a version where you will not need much knowledge of CSS and HTML, this is foreseen in the near future.

CSSMate

CSS mate a very famous online CSS code editor. It allows to change multiple in fonts, color, text color, border and list.

YAML

Yet Another Multicolumn Layout is a highly versatile (X)HTML/CSS framework, produced under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Creating neat layouts is easier then you think with YAML Builder. This builder is designed for quick and effective development of CSS layouts, that are based on YAML.

CSS Type Set

Ahands-on typography tool which allows the every day designer and developer fully test and learn how to style Web content. You’ll be able to test different font-styles throughout a piece of text and also allows you to select a font-style and easily copy/paste into your stylesheet.

125+ Fresh Categorized Articles for Designers, Developers and Freelancers

Lars — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:00:08 +0000

This is yet another large categorized round-up of all the great articles readers and other blog owners have been submitting on tripwire magazine over the last couple of days. You will find great inspiration for your designs, tools, giveaways, awesome photos etc. Hope you will find useful resources below and help submitting good articles if you find some.

Tools & Resources

The most powerful and recommended blogging applications used on desktop. Create content for your blog offline.

CSS Mini Reset

CSS Reset usually aims to reduce browser inconsistencies by evening up the CSS default settings in all browsers. CSS Mini Reset is meant to reset only the basic most used HTML(CSS) elements.

An Indepth Review of 9 Best Flash Content Management Systems

In this article, I will review various flash templates and flash systems so if you consider creating your website from the flash template and want it to be real easy and affordable this post is for u

Gpanion – Your Google Apps Companion

The easiest way to work with your Google Apps from your home, office, everywhere. Use Gpanion on your Computer, iPad, iPhone, mobile, and television.

Using a minimal wordpress theme is also a good idea.

40 Free Vector Barcode Graphics

Not too long ago I posted a really clever font called barcode. Now I am offering 40 free vector barcode graphics that go great with any sales design project.

free vector flourishes

Download this amazing set of flourishes! Combine them with more of our vectors and obtain brilliant nature themes!

60 free high resolution skies textures

Today we are improving one of the least filled sections on our high resolution texture library Startextures.com. 60 new free high resolution skies textures are up for grabs.

20 Useful Tools to Track Your Website’s Performance

Tracking the visitor trends, stats and monitoring buzz around could be otherwise cumbersome and time consuming but with the presence of some smart tools most of these tasks are managed efficiently.

50 Beautiful Free iPad Wallpapers for your New Desktop

iPad is yet another stunning gadget which are powerful product of Apple, iPad allows users to browse internet, watch video, listening music..

Joomla! 1.6 Beta 1 Now Available

The Joomla! project is proud to announce the availability of Joomla 1.6 beta. This arrived almost 7 months after Joomla! 1.6 Aplha 2 was released..

Fifteen Useful Flash Components

Today, I would like to present a list of my 15 favorite flash components. This components can help You in further development of your flash application. Please Enjoy!

Design

100 Terrifying CG Creatures

This time I’ve gathered together a list of 100 horrific creatures so meticulously crafted that the beauty of their workmanship even manages to overshadow their gruesome appearances.

Top 34 celebrity websites for inspiration

Despite the fact they are not reachable they are in touch with their loved once through their website.

40 Beautiful Examples of Minimal Design for Inspiration

Simply I liked! Why? Because it’s simple…this is the idea of minimalism design. This concept of creating a web page tends to emphasize the idea that “less is sometimes more”.

27 Minimalist Poster Design Examples

By paring down works to their most fundamental features, the minimalist art movement excels in creating instant graphic appeal.

This is maybe the best WordPress Real Estate Theme I have ever seen!

Basic Tips for Direct Mail Typography

This article is prepared as a sort of primer on the very basic things you can potentially do to improve typography and avoid some basic blunders that could have a detrimental effect on your mailers.

Silverio, a Clean and Professional Portfolio Template

Following the article you’ll discover how helpful Silverio can be for your portfolio, how its internal actions will simplify the way to update your work.

Free colorful tileable patterns

This time we are publishing a set of 13 colorful patterns that are mostly in blue, yellow and pink color. Patterns are made of elements such as flowers, squares, circles and croses.

Consider using a WordPress News Theme for your website if you have a lot of information in many categories and WordPress e-commerce themes for simple online shops!

30+ Refreshing Examples of Single Page Website Designs

highly-creative, unique and inspirational designs which is following the trend of single page designs.

Create an Awesome Number-Based Illustration

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to combine the power of the pen tool with some patterns and shapes to create an awesome illustration.

20 Creative & Inspirational Wallpapers #2

This is week two of our wallpaper feature and each week we will be showcasing 20 creative and inspirational desktops to spice up your working enviroment.

From Architecture To Science Fiction – 93 Buildings

New trends emerge in architecture. Old styles are left behind and architects now go for the ultra-modern look, the futuristic style of buildings.

Here is a quick recap of news and opinion from last week that illustrate just how much progress Android is making in the bid to become the number one mobile OS, particularly in North America.

35 Free And Creative Fonts For Designers

Every designer needs a good collection of free fonts , the font that accompanies a graphic or web design helps define the feel and compliment the design.

30 Really Beautiful Four Seasons Wallpapers

Seasons always the gift of God, from the deep of a heart of human it changes very often, if you are happy your heart feels like spring or enjoying..

404 Error: 60+ Creative And Well Designed Pages

When doing my research for 404 error pages, I was surprised to see that three quarters of the websites I visited did not have custom 404 error pages.

Useful CSS Grid Systems for Web Designers

Using Grid Systems in web design can be useful and excellent while creating your web projects.

Logo Process – Orb Web Solutions Identity Development

This post is a detailed run through for the Orb Web Solutions logo design.

Creative Examples of 404 Error Pages Designs

stunning and creative 404 error pages designs for inspiration.

Red Website Showcase #2

A showcase of sites using a red colour scheme effectively

30+ Music Inspired Logos in Logo Design

30+ Music Inspired Logos in Logo Design is here to inspire logo designers everywhere to create more unique themed logo.

12 Spa Postcard Design Samples

Here’s a roundup of 12 spa postcard design for inspiration.

61 High Quality And Free xHTML Templates Part 2: Year 2010

This is part 2 of really fresh and high quality XHTML templates free for you to download, study and get inspired – all in the same time!

Mobile

6 Reasons the Official Twitter iPhone App Just Doesn’t Cut It

Over the past year, Twitter has managed to transform itself from a very basic service that allows you to send updates of 140 characters.

Using a iPhone 4 Silicone Case will keep your iPhone safe!

35 Really Useful Free iPhone Apps

We have some really useful Free iPhone Applications, we collect variety of free apps for regular usage, iPhone is not a d

A iPhone 4 Leather Case is great for protection!

Drag Drop Library for Ipad & Iphone

A javascript library that allows developers to add draggables and droppables that work on the touch based iPad and iPhone to their websites. API and demos are all on the site. Thanks!

Get a Otterbox iPhone 4 case to protect your iPhone

Which Is the Best Mobile Platform?

In a recent post from our own Hillel Fuld, he put forward some thoughts on why Android is seeing the OS number 2 in U.S. sales for the first quarter of 2010.

Best iPad Case collection

Development

10+ JQUERY FORM VALIDATION TECHNIQUES AND TUTORIALS

I used many type of form validation but the form validation with the jQuery is very exitement for me and i want to share my experience

10 Best Techniques Only with CSS No JavaScript Needed

When JavaScript by various frameworks have been result in an appeal to web development, another alternative emerged using CSS.

39 jQuery Feature Content Slider plugins and tutorials

Today we make collection of jQuery feature content slider plugins and tutorials to help you.

+20 jQuery plugins to working with table and datagrid

Today we make collection of jQuery for working with table and Datagrid to help you.

15 java script tutorials for making your websites a fresh and attractive

Java scripts are the widely used coding scripts, mainly used for additional features of blogs/websites.

10+ Toturials for CSS Techniques for Creating JavaScript-like Interactions

We all know that JavaScript have a great strength in making effect for layout But with a little work on CSS we will get more great result from CSS for layout.webaxes

WordPress

33 New and Fresh Free WordPress Themes

we have collected the latest released free wordpress theme check it out.

WordPress Themes 2010

WordPress is considered to be the best blogging platform among all others and best WordPress themes 2010 are still relevant. Reason being, it is very simple to use and its range of extremely useful plugins and extensions

How to Easily Change Thesis Skins in WordPress

If you’ve ever tried to switching Thesis skins you know what a pain it can be. Luckily the Thesis Skin Switcher has been released, which makes switching skins as easy as switching WordPress themes.

Create a WordPress theme from scratch

A few weeks ago we showcased 20 Fabulous Photoshop Web Interface Tutorials

Now lets turn these designs into WordPress themes by checking out these fantastic articles. You could also use a WordPress theme generator.

Design a professional wordpress layout

In this step by step tutorial you will learn how to design a professional WordPress theme

Top 7 WordPress 404 Plugins

Error 404 pages show up usually because of a misspelled, or deleted url. When this happens the ugly 404 page shows up, and scares the visitors away.

The Jewelry Shop – WordPress eCommerce

Designed especially for online ecommerce, The Jewelry Shop features a plugin free localized ecommerce system, a membership area, creating and saving a wishlist etc. There are many other WordPress e-commerce themes available.

How To & Tutorials

Draw a steaming ceramic tea cup in Photoshop

Everyone is just dying to learn how to draw a ceramic tea cup complete with semi reflective surface, liquid texture and steam coming out of it, now you get to see how it can be done!

The Shameless Art of Self Promotion

The timeless and everlasting art of self promotion is something that’s pushed onto each and every one of us day in and day out.

How to deal with unexpected workflow interruptions.

The unexpected is something quite common during our daytime as web designers. Especially when you are part of a small team or working alone, the phone ring can be turned up to a pretty annoying noise.

Creating a Portofolio CMS with Codeigniter

We are starting a new series of Codeigniter application tutorial. We are going to create a Portfolio CMS by using this free website template from Nettus.

Creating a Portofolio CMS with Codeigniter Part 2

We continue working on the administration backend in this article.
The first thing is to add a our menu as you can see in the left image.

Creating a Portofolio CMS with Codeigniter Part 3

View container. We create a folder under application/views/portfolio. Files, container.php, header.php and footer.php will go under this folder.

How to Update Twitter using PHP and Twitter API

Today, we’ll be making a PHP Application that helps you update your Twitter status. So let’s get started without wasting anymore time!

100+ Must Check Tutorials for Creating a Logo in Photoshop

A great collection of most professional and creative logo designs in Photoshop and how to make them. Learn how to make famous brands logos in Photoshop.

A Roundup of 15 Mobile Web Design Tutorials

This post brings together 15 tutorials for getting started in mobile site design.

How To Design A Detailed Printer Icon in Photoshop

In this tutorial we’re going to be creating a printer icon, suitable for both the web and print. We’re going to be basing the icon on a Canon printer/scanner I use on a daily basis, the MP610.

Fresh Web Design Tutorials using Photoshop

A little while back we showed you the latest web design tutorials for 2010. Today we are sharing with you a collection of 16 more tutorials on creating a website design using Adobe Photoshop.

Create a professional corporate template in Photoshop

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a professional business template using Photoshop

20 Fantastic Abstract Tutorials

Each week I showcase some fantastic inspirational abstract artwork from some very talented artists and designers.

Expert Advice on Starting a Design Blog: What Would You Do Differently?

Freelance Review asked the web’s best and brightest design blog authors this question: If you could start your first design blog again, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

Photoshop & Photography

Inspirational Photography of Shane Turnbull

Today I’m gonna let you in on the beautiful, spellbinding photographic work of Shane Turnbull; a 36 year-old photographer from the United Kingdom based in East Sussex

Distinctive Photographic Work of Shane Gorski

Shane Gorski, a brilliant photographer with a great talent. His work is this unique artistic imagery that reveals distinctive angles, with ways to take you, the observer, into a new reality

50 Awesome Examples of Flower Photography

Today , we have collected some of the best photographs of flowers that I could find on flickr , deviantart and 1x.

Amazing Photoshop Fire Brush Packs

44 Sets of Photoshop Lines and Vector brushes

The demand of photoshop brushes has hugely increased these days. Be it a web designer or a graphic designer, everyone needs brushes. There are different kinds of Photoshop Brushes

21 Awesome Riverscape Photos

21 awesome riverscape photos from flickr.com.

Distinctive Photographic Work of Shane Gorski

Shane Gorski, a brilliant photographer with a great talent. His work is this unique artistic imagery that reveals distinctive angles, with ways to take you, the observer, into a new reality

Showcase of Brilliant Macro Photography

In this roundup, we will showcase some brilliant macro photos from animals to clocks, to plants.

20 Great Close-up Photos of Eyes

When we look at a photo of a face, the first thing we notice are usually the eyes. Eyes themselves make a powerful subject and can say a lot about the person and emotion.

Stunning Photos Filled With Creative Ideas And Humor

Photography can become more interesting and inspiring when it has creativity and humor at the same time. Here are few examples to make you say WOW.

Business

Advertising on Your Website – Considerations & Advice

This article shares some valuable advice and considerations before selling advertising space on your website.

A Marketing Approach to Gain More Clients

Some good marketing tip to gain more clients in the design industry: showcasing your talents, starting a blog, business networking …

An Interview with Leland Fiegel of Theme Lab

Leland Fiegel is a 21 years old professional web developer from United States of America who specializes in development of WordPress themes. He is the guy behind Theme Lab.

An Inspirational Talk With Fabio Sasso of Abduzeedo.com

Inspiration is a somewhat random but wholly natural association of ideas and sudden unison of thought. Today, we had a chance to meet Fabio Sasso of Abduzeedo.com

Social Networking

Tweetcloud – Know Tweets, Talks from Twitter

If you are a twitter user and want to know what is being discussed across Twittersphere or from a specific Twitter user then tweetcloud puts you out of this.

Leave Facebook For These 11 Alternatives

You might have heard recently that Facebook has gone wild with the privacy issues. Facebook is plain evil, they now allow third parties to get your information with no strings attached.

Chirpstats – Keep Track of Your Twitter Followers

Any twitter user who wants to track and know about their follower-base, then this web application gives you the better approach.

Twinfluence – Calculate the Indirect Influence of You and Your Followers on Twitter

twInfluence that uses the Twitter API to measure the combined influence of twitterers and their followers along with a few social network statistics where 252,248 twitterers have profiles

Using Social Media to Get What You Want

Recent news on the uses of social media and how it can help your business. Learn more. . .

Giveaways

Anniversary Giveaway Day 14: Acosmin WordPress Themes

Today, we will have a new and exciting giveaway from our friend in Acosmin. In this giveaway, One winner will get a FREE Premium WordPress Theme From Acosmin. See more great WordPress Themes here.

An Interview with Mojo-themes + Giveaway

Today we bring you a fantastic, insightful interview with the co-founder of Mojo-themes JR Farr

Awesome 500 Business Card Giveaway from U-Printing

It’s time for another awesome giveaway here on the Echo Enduring Blog. This time, I’m bringing you the chance to win 500 free business cards from U-Printing.

15 Great Online Form Building Tools

Lars — Sun, 16 May 2010 07:36:57 +0000

Forms are an essential part of any website to collect information from visitors. You may want to have a contact form, have a survey, an order form etc. However if your not a programmer with experience in creating the html forms, saving the inputs to a database, creating admin pages to manage inputs, creating mailers etc. you will be on a though journey! Good news is there are lots of great online tools and plugins you can use to create professional forms without knowing anything about programming and they can typically be integrated seamlessly into your site. Lets take a look at some of the best online form building tools currently available.

Formstack

Formstack is one of the most feature rich online form service providers. They have a great form builder with drag and drop functionality allows you to quickly build your form within any of the popular web browsers available today. Formstack excels in helping you collect, manage, route, and leverage your form’s data via a secure online form. With Formstack, you can store data in their online database, share that data with others via a simple link, export your data in Excel or Word, and use the API. They also provide conditional logic calculation on fields, payment integration, mobile apps and more. Recently they also released a plugin for WordPress that you really need to check out. Combined with the free account you have a great solution for adding forms to your blog or website and it will be free up to a certain level of usage.

jotform

polldaddy

surveygizmo

Wufoo

questionform

surveymonkey

Formlogix

Icebrrg

Formsite

Visitorcontact

Kontactr

Frevvo

PHPform

Thanks for reading this article. If you are looking for nice themes we also have list showcasing the best WordPress themes.

15 Best Sites to Find Useful Online Web 2.0 Applications

Lars — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:16:15 +0000

We’re all busy, it is part of the modern life style where private life and work melt together. The number of hours spent online goes up and up and some people sit in front of the computer all day long and solve most of their work and duties looking into the computer screen. As a response to this movement a lot of online tools are created and go online every day. No matter what kind of task you have to perform it is likely that you can find a free or very cheat online application to help you do it better, faster, more structured etc. The issue most people is facing I think is finding the really good and useful apps in the endless supply offered by the Internet. There are good news for you – there are blogs and sites dedicated to help you surface the very best apps. This article provides a list of the best sites to find news and reviews on useful online Web 2.0 apps.

Web Appstorm

Web Appstorm is a blog style site with daily reviews of online tools and apps. There’s also a section for Mac and iPhone Apps.

Greatwebapps

A collection of great web apps with large screenshots and short precise reviews.

Killerstartups

KillerStartups.com is a user driven internet startups community. Entrepreneurs, investors, and bloggers are staying informed on up-and-coming internet startups using our blog platform, where internet entrepreneurs submit their startup to see what others think about it.

Web-developers handbook

This is one of the largest collections of online tools for web professionals. It is a truly useful resource.

Zippa

Ziipa is a Web 2.0 directory where users rate and comment on the 8200 sites. It is growing fast and worth a visit!

Feedmyapp

This is a massive collection of Web 2.0 applications. You can search almost 9500 Web 2.0 sites and find reviews.

Lovelypages

Lovely pages is a web applications & services directory focused on a minimalist style. It provides a search interface and large screenshots of the sites matching.

Webresourcesdepot

Webresourcesdepot is a blog and it writes a lot of interesting reviews of applications.

Makeuseof

Makeuseof is a very popular blog with more than 200.000 RSS subscribers. It focus on applications of all sorts and you will also be able to find useful stuff about Web 2.0 here.

Programmable Web

This is a huge resource of APIs and Mashups and this is really what some people mean Web 2.0 is all about. Creating new useful applications from various APIs provided by others – typically organizations owning information of general interest. Google Maps is the most well known API here but there are loads of others.

Usefultools

Usefil Tools provides reviews with rating of a lot of useful online tools. It is a great resource for finding new apps. If you have developed a tool yourself you can also submit it here for review.

Listo

As the name indicated this is a list of Web 2.0 sites but it is more than that really. Users can vote and this makes it possible for them to create a Top Rated list. Also I have noticed that there are some really meaty reviews so it is not just a simple list of sites.

Go2web20

I think this is one of the first Web 2.0 directories we saw online. It is really large and have good categorization and search features. It is nice to have all the logos in one place and it also makes it a good inspirational resource for Web 2.0 startups to find ideas for a new logo.

Best of the Best Web 2.0 Web Sites

Large list of Web 2.0 sites. It is a bit old but lots to check out here.

Smashing Apps

This is one of my favorite blogs where I get ideas for online tools for nearly any purpose. Really worth checking out!

How to Submit Your Articles much Faster and Improve Your Traffic Building Capabilities

Lars — Sat, 08 May 2010 13:06:08 +0000

This is a guide showing you how to use Autofill Forms, a firefox plugin, to submit multiple forms faster again and again. The reason why Autofill Forms is a great time saver is because it allows you to set up your article information once and then push it into as many forms as you like by using keys [ALT]+j. Of cause you need to configure Autofill Forms to know the forms but this is a onetime exercise and it pays off!

Basically Autofill Forms is excellent for filling a lot of forms with the same information and really speeds up the process.

Autofill Forms use profiles to store information about forms that you want to submit and the information you want to put into the forms. You need to build up a template with rules for the forms you want to fill using Autofill Forms. Once you have your template in place you will of cause need to maintain it when forms change (believe me they do…) but you will be able to use it to fill forms fast over and over again.

Preparing Autofill Form to fill a new form

OK if you are starting from scratch you will need to set up the forms first and this way start building your template. This is how it is done.

When you submit articles there is a few fields you will almost need every time. This is fields like.

Your Name
Your Email
Website/Article Title
Website/Article URL
Website/Article Description
Tags (more rarely needed)
Category

You can set this up yourself or you can start with the file I have prepared for you. autofill_template_profile.txt

This file have a lot of rules already that makes it work on many community link pages on popular design and development blogs. The file also contains a few special rules. If a form has fields that are not covered by the above list I recommend that you simply add a new field and keep the rule for it there. As the data to be filled in will always be the same it will be saved as part of your template and you will not need to enter it again (unless site is changed).

In the “Profiles” View selected at the top you will be able to use the “Import” feature to load in the file. IF you want to start over you can create each field manually in the “Main” view.

Let’s assume you want to submit an article to the community link page on tripwire magazine: http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/submit-user-link

Before you create rules for a form you should generally try out if the existing rules will cover the form you are facing just now. Why? Because all websites based an same platforms (ex. WordPress) that use the same plugins for creating forms can share rules! Don’t do this just now but keep it in the back of your head…

You simply load up the page containing the form. Once Autofill Form as been installed as a plugin for firefox you will be able to right-click a form field and create a new rule for it autmatically. You can also use the “Display Form Details feature to see the names of the form fields. It is the names that are used for creating the rules.

If you try to click the “Add complete form as profile you will notice that Autofill Form will create a new profile for you with all the data you need. This profile is needed to copy out the rules. It cannot be used for multiple forms because the “Site rule” in the top will block the profile to be used on any other site. What you will be looking for doing is creating one profile with all rules for all the forms you need to fill (you should consider building on top of the one you downloaded a few minutes ago. This is basically done by taking the rules generated by Autofill Forms and pasting them into your own profile in the “Main” view and separating the rules with a | sign. Below you can see all rules for “Website Title”. Simply add a | at the end for each rule and copy in the rules generated by Autofill Forms. Then test the rules as described below. Once your rules are all fine you should do an export in the Main view to keep the rules for future reference. Next time you have an article to promote you will load the file you just exported as it contains all your rules and then add the article information…

Using the profile template for submitting forms

Once all rules is combined in one profile you can export it and reuse it for every article you want to submit. All you have to do is import and rename to the article name and then fill the new profile with the article data. This is done this way. Click “Import” and select the file with all your rules.

Once you have imported you have to change the profile name and hit “Apply” to the right.

Then go to the “simple” view by clicking at the top. In this view you can add all the article data quickly and then click “OK”. Now you are ready to load up each form and fill them out by pressing [ALT]+j. If a form is not filled correctly you need to evaluate your rules for that particular form. You may have to add the rules again.

Let me know if this is working for you! Also please share any tricks you use to promote your articles.

18 Twitter Tools for Scheduling Future Tweets and improving your Social Networking

Lars — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:32:59 +0000

Twitter is a pretty important social media service for anyone trying to have an online presence. Once you have build a follower base sending them regular tweets really can make a difference ex. for attracting traffic to your blog or your online business. Problem is – it takes time to keep taking all the time at the twitter party and since you have no idea when your followers are listening some tooling help can be needed. By taking time to prepare what you are going to tweet over the day and then schedule the tweets throughout the day you will be sure that as many as possible will see a tweet or two of yours. Is this OK or is it fundamentally wrong to “act as you are there?”. I think it is OK really if you still remember to tweet normally as well with your close twitter contacts and maintain your relationships. Scheduling is for marketing purpose and for reaching the masses… do you agree? This article lists most of the services available for scheduling tweets for future publish. Many of the services have other useful features and you may find that one or more in combination can significantly improve how you use twitter.

HootSuite

HootSuite is a fully featured and free web based twitter client. I personally use it because it has loads of features. First of all it works with the ow.ly (now ht.ly) link shortener which allows you to keep track of how effective your tweeted links are (essential if you’re a blogger). hootsuite also allow you to use a send later feature making it possible to record tweets that are sent through out the day (and if using ping.fm it will go to your entire network). hootsuite is a full twitter interface providing the tools you need. It also integrates with tools like wordpress allowing you to post from hootsuite to wordpress.

tweet adder

I have been using this tool for several months now. It is not free ($55 one time payment for a single twitter profile and $74 for five profiles and so on…) but you get a lot of useful features for that – probably the best money can buy (in terms of twitter marketing and automation). You can try it out as a trail first so don’t hesitate trying it! First of all You can manage more than one twitter profile which is important for some people. Then you can set up a multitude of tweets in the software, and allow the software to spread them out through out the day to keep you actively involved on twitter while you enjoy yourself with your free time. You can build a list of tweets (one per line) in a file and load it. You can also Automate Direct Messages, auto Follow Twitter Users, Auto Unfollow Twitter Users, keeps track of people you have un-followed so that you do not re-follow them, and much more. Take a look at the full feature list and try watching some of their videos. This tool can really help you build your twitter popularity!

I did a dedicated review of Tweet Adder here – I have found it to be EXCELLENT for getting more followers!: Tweet Adder – Put Twitter on Autopilot and Rapidly Grow Your Network of Followers

postlater

With PostLater you can schedule your tweets and much more. PostLater support a range of other publishing platforms and can be a good choice is you want to schedule stuff for multiple channels.

Socialoomph

SocialOomph.com is a web-service that provides a rather large set of both free and paid functions to manage your social network. You can automate sending message to new followers on twitter and a lot more including scheduling tweets.

FutureTweets

FutureTweets.com is a free service that lets you schedule your Twitter messages. Send it at a specific time in the future or send a reoccuring Tweet daily, weekly, monthly or yearly!

Twuffer

Twuffer allows the Twitter user to compose a list of future tweets, and schedule their release.

DynamicTweets

DynamicTweets allows individuals or businesses to enter future tweets and schedule them to be posted at a specified day and time.

Autotweeter

AutoTweeter is a light weight tweet scheduler desktop application. AutoTweeter can send automatic tweets to your twitter account. Autotweeter also have built in URL shortening service using bit.ly.

Twitresponse

Setup unlimited messages to be delivered to your twitter page when you want. Need a message sent 2 hours from now, no problem, setup a TwitResponse.

Twaitter

Ever had an idea for a tweet, but wanted to wait to send it at a specific time? With our enthusiasm (unhealthy addiction) for Twitter combined with our gallant attempt at adding enhancements to the Twitter platform, we know you’ll ‘love’ to Twitter on Twaitter.

FutureMessage

To send a message in the future, first type in your message and select a date. Then, use at least one method of communication: Text, Twitter, or Email. If you enter a date in the past, it will be sent at the next time messages are sent out. Messages are sent from the server twice an hour.

Laterbro

You can schedule recurring Facebook updates or schedule tweets from multiple Twitter accounts!

Tweetsqueue

TweetsQueue lets you build a queue of tweets for your Twitter account. The tweets in the queue will be twittered in a configurable time interval. This is great for collecting tweets while you are on an internet trip or you have a lot of things on your mind but you do not want to blow all the tweets out at once.

Tweet-u-later

You can create your Twitter messages and Twitter updates here at Tweet-U-Later.com and tell us to post them at any future date and time. Schedule your Tweet now or tweet later… as many messages as you want.

Twittontime

Do you tweet? Sure you are. But, do you tweet on time? Write your sharing’s and send them to the future!

Pluggio

Make Twitter Easy. Discover your ContentGrow your Following. Schedule your Tweets. Be the SIGNAL not the NOISE.

Su.pr

With Su.pr by StumbleUpon you can now promote your best content on Twitter and Facebook with one click. Su.pr is an URL shortening service for online publishers, bloggers and regular StumbleUpon users that allows you to simultaneously syndicate your content to multiple social media website. Ability to schedule your posts at optimal times.

Taweet

Taweet (beta) is a social calendar and event promotion application for Twitter. Taweet adds a whole new dimension to your Twitter experience: the future. The casual format of Taweet allows users to answer one simple question, “What’s happening in the future?” …and search the future to see what others are doing.

Want to keep on surfing? Have look at these Drupal 7 Themes maybe this is what you’re looking for. Also take your time to browse these interesting HTC evo cases that will protect and personalize your cell phone.

Looking for wordpressresources? Having the right themes and plugins is important.