Free WonderFox Video Watermark Holidays Giveaway (time-limited offer)

WonderFox Video Watermark professional utility allows bloggers to add watermark to the videos before posting on YouTube and other video sharing sites in order to protect video copyright and limit the unauthorized distribution.

This Video Watermark tool allows you to embed text, image, logo, sign (include animated) to your video in batch mode. Video Watermark has simple operation, friendly interface and high speed process, so the processing of watermarking becomes very easy and fast. You can finish it with a few clicks, and you do not need to wait for a long time, it is an excellent solution to protect and annotate your video.

Main Features:

* Fast watermarkings speed and zero quality loss

* Fully protect video copyright

* 150+ free watermark materials

* Accurately control watermark via timeline

* Text and image watermark supported

* Support to convert and edit video files

Regular cost: $69.95

Giveaway Page: http://www.videoconverterfactory.com/video-watermark/

Direct Download: http://www.videoconverterfactory.com/download/giveaway/video-watermark.zip

Offer is valid before end of the year – by December 31, 2013.

IM9 - Free Images Hosting for Bloggers

Im9.eu – new reliable service, offering images hosting for free with very few restrictions, which is quite rare. You can also look for the loaded images to find illustrations for your blog posts.

Main Features:

* Images size up to 9MB is allowed.

* Hotlinking is allowed.

* You may create albums for images storage.

* Tagging loaded images.

* Ability to remove unneeded images.

* No limits on transfer.

* Lifelong image hosting.

* No limits on upload.

* Open API access.

* Anonymity & Safety. Registration is not needed. By creating new album you actually create a new account, for which a new password is assigned. So, the service combines anonymous uploading and ability to manage your pictures effectively at the same time with no expiration time on storage.

* Pornography is allowed, but it cannot involve animals or children.

* Spam, harassment, and hate propaganda are forbidden.

* Ability to search images by colors.

* Fast and reliable operations on GNU/Linux servers.

Website: http://im9.eu/

Aoao Watermark for Photo Holidays Giveaway (time-limited offer)

If you want to protect your images from shameless and unlimited use and borrowing by fellows’ bloggers, you may impose the irremovable watermark, which will brand your images, but still would not spoil the readers’ impression.  

It's the best effective way to protect your photo's copyright and avoid from unauthorized using. Without Watermark: If you share or sell you pictures via internet, you never know what will happen. Someone may copy or republish your photo and you can do nothing about this. With Watermark: Watermark will protect your photo copyright. Your photos will hardly bad used by others. If someone republish your photos via internet, visitors will know that photos are belongs to you through the watermark.

Professional Utility - Aoao Watermark for Photo - provides secure image protection solution for you to share photos without usual loss of image quality and with extremely high productivity.  

Aoao Watermark for Photo is an easy-to-use photo watermark software program which provides professional photo protection solutions for your digital photos. Batch Watermarking Mode - 1 Minute to Watermark 300 Photos Aoao Watermark for Photo supports batch watermarking mode. This watermarking process will save you lots of time. If you want to watermark 300 photos, you can use batch watermarking mode which will need only 1 minute instead of 3 hours by separately.

Main Features:

* Customizable visible or transparent watermarks (text, image and frame).

* Batch watermarking - watermarking 300 photos less than 1 minute.

* Full control over placement and size of your photo watermark.

* Awesome watermark library – 150 + free watermark materials.

* Convert images to popular image formats like JPG, BMP, GIF, TGA, etc.

Regular Cost: $29.90

Product overview: http://www.aoaophoto.com/watermark/Details.htm

Downloading link is on top of the page – click Get it now.

License code: E44DF4FBFA1027FDE9EC

Giveaway Limits:

* Giveaway valid before December 18, 2013

*No Free Upgrade Service

*No Free Tech Support

You may also remove Giveaway limits by sharing the information to get free upgrade and support

* Go to URL: http://www.aoaophoto.com/watermark/Details.htm

* Click the "Share" button on top of the page.

Email is Dead! Or Not?

Just 20 years ago, very few people used email as communication method, and now there are strong voices of the i-savvy young people, grown up on the social networks background, claiming that email is dead.

But do not believe them. Based on the 2012 Harvard Business School study, email is far from being dead, it is evolving. People still spend half their workday dealing with it, they trust it, and overall they’re satisfied with it, according to the 2012 survey of 2,600 workers in the U.S., UK, and South Africa who use email every day. In spite of all the limitations, email is becoming more than simple communication tool, it was developed for - a searchable archive, a manager’s accountability source, a document courier, and more. And for all the love social media get, email is still considered as most effective work collaboration tool. It is far from being perfect, but it has a strong potential for growth and development.

Still, you want to know, what youngsters think about email? 

Using Infographics in your Blogs

Information graphics or infographics is a graphic visual representation of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly in one page. Infographics take complex information and data sets and make them easy to digest in a visually stimulating design. This allows the viewer to quickly grasp the main points from the data or information, which is important in our 30-second society. In a way, it is like making entire PowerPoint presentation in one long page, with nice design and consideration for overall visual attractiveness and easy comprehension.

And if you got the idea, and want to make your own project with idea to boost your Internet presence and promote your resources, you can use several free resources, which will help you to prepare the visually appealing project:

1. Infogram

Infogr.am is considered as one of the best, if not the best, free infographic project designer. It has nice and user-friendly interface, however there are multiple features for the author to make outstanding posters.  For example, you can design more than 30 different types of graphic charts (while Excel offers just 11).

As your presentation is ready, you may download it in PNG or PDF format and publish online with supplied code. If your data is sensitive, you make restrict its distribution, securing it with password, and getting a private link.

Website: http://infogr.am/

If you do not like infogram for some reason, you may choose among the following services:

2. Visual.ly: http://visual.ly/

3. InfoActive: https://infoactive.co/

4. Easelly: http://www.easel.ly/

AnyTech PageRank for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera

AnyTech PageRank Checker is an efficient and simple browser extension that would display Google PageRank while you surf the web.  The extension is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

Main Features

* PageRank extension fetches information directly from Google servers, allowing for maximum possible speed. Every fetched result is also cached for one hour. The caching mechanism minimizes traffic and makes extension even faster.

* Unlike other similar applications, PageRank extension provides surprisingly accurate results. Rank reported by PageRank is the same as rank reported by the official Google Toolbar.

* Yes, PageRank does only one thing and does it very well. It is lightweight and not overwhelmed by various unneeded features.

* Rank is displayed in the top right-hand corner of the browser as a number and a green bar. The number is displayed immediately, so there is no need to hover the mouse over the extension icon or click on it. When a user clicks on the extension icon, a popup is opened, and a table with ranks for all tabs is displayed in the popup

Functionality may vary depending on the browser.

Direct download page (chose your browser, while selecting appropriate link): http://any-tech.ws/page-rank/

Publish and sell your eBooks with XinXii

Just ten years ago, many people could not imagine that they ever give away paper books. While eReaders are not complete replacement, the advantage is overwhelming from many perspectives. Can you increase fonts in a paper book? Or take with you on a plane more than 300 books?

With growing amount of people using such gadgets, it also becomes one of the major distribution channels for authors. Today, we are going to present the platform for those who plan to publish new books on different sites and sell them for profit.

The biggest advantage of the XinXii-platform is its extremely convenience and simplicity. You can publish and sell your masterpiece just in 3 steps, tapping into the US and international markets:

1. Select your preferred distribution channels.

Considering just free options, you have actually two: At XinXii, you have the choice: selling your publication on your XinXii author page only (XinXii Basic), or distribute your eBook to major international eBook retailers - the ones you have chosen (XinXii Plus). Again, both options are free for you.

2. Create an account and set up your author page

Fill in the provided fields: category, title, summary, pages, keywords, your profile etc., enter the sales price and upload your eBook (in one or multiple formats).

In order your eBook to be released for distribution it should comply with the following basic requirements:

- belong to the genre fiction, biography or specialized/fact books (namely no patterns, samples, presentations).
- have a book cover that is uploaded to XinXii in at least 1400 pixels in width (only in jpg-format).
- have an imprint / copyright page.

3. Sell your book around the world

After you completed step 2, your eBook is available on your XinXii author page. If you have decided to distribute your eBook through XinXii, the book will be converted by developers to most usable ebook formats (like epub and mobi) and will arrange distribution. You can modify your entries on XinXii and check your sales reports at any time. XinXii will also take care of your billing duties and customer support.

Main advantages of using XinXii

* You can start your publishing and selling right now with minimum efforts for books conversion, distribution, selling, and orders processing. You don't need any technical skills, web hosting account to store your files, or online shop.

* XinXii is an international platform, offering 7 languages and payments in 3 currencies (USD, GBP or EUR).

* If you are from the USA, you are not asked to give a tax ID number, just name and address, so reporting your earning to IRS will be your own responsibility.

* There are almost no limitations for the books to publish: no minimum page length, no exclusivity, no contract duration, and no DRM restrictions.

* You just need one single XinXii account to publish under multiple pen names, eBooks from different authors, eBooks in different languages or at different eBook retailers.

Commission Rates

XinXii lets you keep a high percentage of your sales, while you set your own prices. Your earnings will not be reduced by fees such as payment processing fees (by PayPal e.g.). Publishing and selling on XinXii is completely free, so there is nothing to lose.

There are two options for the commission rates:

* Option A: You sell your eBook through your author page on XinXii.

As said, you can determine the price of your eBook yourself - and thus your commission rate as well. From each sale of your eBook through your XinXii Author page, you receive: 70% of net sales for works with a price greater than EUR 1.99 / US$ 2.49 / £ 1.59, or 40% of net sales for works with a price at or between EUR 0.99 and EUR 1.98 / US$ 0.99 and US$ 2.48 / £ 0.89 and £ 1.58.

* Option B: You sell your eBook through your author page on XinXii and additionally on leading eBook shops worldwide.

The standard commission, transferred to the author, is up to 85% of the amount, receive from multiple distribution channels, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and others.

You can request your royalties theorugh PayPal or Bank Transfer. Please note, transactions via Bank Transfer are available only in the European currency zone and in Euro, once the minimum amount of EUR 20.00 (~ US$ 27.00 / £ 17.00).

Statistics

XinXii allows you to gather real-time sales reports about how often your eBooks are bought at XinXii. Accordingly, you can react by changing the description or the price. An alert system notifies you via e-mail about any activity concerning your eBooks such as when someone has purchased one or comments on one of your eBooks. Additionally, XinXii weekly uploads your sales reports from the retail outlets to your account.

Website: http://www.xinxii.com/

Free Storage Limits in Picasa

I always knew that there are free storage limits in Picasa, but there are some details I was not clear about, which might be useful for you as well.

While Picasa Web Albums offers 1 GB of free storage for photos and videos, all files under certain size limits don't count towards this free storage limit. This rule applies to all uploads for other Google product that store photos and videos in Picasa Web Albums as well, including Blogger, Google+ and Google Maps.

Note that photos up to 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards your free storage.

Also, all photos uploaded in Google+ directly will be automatically resized to 2048 pixels (on their longest edge) and won't count towards your free storage quota.

All photos uploaded from the Picasa software or in Picasa Web Albums over the free size limit will not be automatically resized and will count towards your 1 GB of free storage. When you reach your storage limit, any new photos you upload larger than the free size limit will be automatically resized to 2048 pixels (on their longest edge).

The free storage sizes are good for sharing photos on the web, but if you prefer to upload your images at a larger size for better quality (archival or print), you can buy more storage at any time. 

Source: https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/1224181?hl=en

Online Broken Link Checker

In the previous post, we presented Xenu Links Sleuth – free utility, helping to detect dead and broken links in your websites for proper maintenance. While the software is portable, free, and easy to use, I got request to recommend similar online service, which may serve the same purpose, with no need for dedicated software.

There are several sites, offering such functionality, but one of the best is Online Broken Link Checker, we will present today.

The main features:

* Scans webpages for bad hyperlinks.

* Checks both internal (local) and external (outbound) URLs and finds which are stale.

* Reports dead link's location in your HTML code.

* Validates websites online: the same way as how your users and Search Engines see those.

* Detects "linkrot" and other problems of web site integrity.

* Supports sub-domains.

* Works online so can be used on Mac OSX, iOS, Linux, Windows, Android and any other OS.

* Shows 404 errors and other unsuccessful HTTP response codes - for each dead or problematic hyperlink.

* No need for online registration, login, or authorization, except for captcha – code you enter to confirm you are a live person, and not a robot.

* Unlimited amount of website to examine.

* The free service limitation is 3000 links cap per site, which is still making the service extremely useful.

* Fast and smooth operation.

Website: http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/broken-links.php

Dead Links Detection with Xenu Link Sleuth

There is no doubt that dead links are bad for your web site and its reputation. And that is much more than just an annoyance for your visitors. Search engines are known to punish web sites with lots of dead links through the rating penalties. For example, Google is very clear in its demand to the web site owners, the demand, articulated in Webmaster Guidelines: Check for broken links and correct HTML.

Google consideration is simple and reasonable: if a site is old and it has numerous broken links, it would be logical to conclude that it has not been updated for a long time and that it should be downgraded as a result.

Search engines (Google) take your efforts to keep your site updated into consideration, but fixing your site has double effects, as it not only improves your search rankings, but your conversion ratio.

Xenu's Link Sleuth is a handy freeware, which checks Web sites for broken links. Link verification is done on "normal" links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets. It displays a continuously updated list of URLs which you can sort by different criteria. A report can be produced at any time.

Additional features:

·         Simple, no-frills user-interface

·         Can re-check broken links (useful for temporary network errors)

·         Simple report format, can also be e-mailed

·         Executable file smaller than 1MB

·         Supports SSL websites ("https:// ")

·         Partial testing of ftp, gopher and mail URLs

·         Detects and reports redirected URLs

·         Site Map

Developer website: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

Direct download: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/XENU.ZIP

Facebook page is not displaying properly in Chrome

That happens, everything works fine, and suddenly without preliminary warning, you get a problem. You did nothing wrong, you have not installed any new software, you performed mandatory “cold reboot” – first action step for all computer issues – but… the problem is not going away.

Today, we will talk about the issue with Facebook page is not loading properly in Chrome. First, let’s outline the problem. In my case, the page is somehow loaded, but without images and some simplified weird format. Not so good.

Trying to load Facebook in Internet Explorer – it works. Trying to load Facebook in Firefox – the problem reappears, similar to the one in Chrome. At least we know, that the issue is not related to the particular browser, but can be linked to the computer settings, most likely, something with Security or Privacy. But before making experiments, let’s check other users’ experience.

It is comforting to learn that I am not alone, and the similar issue is quite common. Here is the list of recommendation I was able to find online to deal with the issue:

1. Check you are updated to the latest version of Chrome. Go to the Chrome Menu (or Wrench icon on outdated versions) > About Google Chrome and allow Chrome to update. If not, you can update Chrome manually by downloading it from http://google.com/chrome.

Since my issue is not confined by a single browser, it is unreasonable to expect that the Chrome update will help. However, if you have not tried Facebook loading in other browsers, updating or reinstalling it might help.

2. Log out of Facebook completely and clear your browser cache:

·         Click the Chrome Settings (three lines) menu on the browser toolbar.

·         Select Tools.

·         Select Clear browsing data.

·         In the dialog that appears, select the checkboxes for the types of information that you want to remove.

·         Use the menu at the top to select the amount of data that you want to delete. Select beginning of time to delete everything.

·         Click Clear browsing data.

As expected, cleaning the browser cash has not resolved the issue.

3. Try using Facebook through a HTTPS connection. To do this browse to https://facebook.com. If this works, you can set Facebook to go to a HTTPS connection all the time by going to Account > Account Settings > Account security. Tick the box next to Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible and save the changes.

If you already have secure browsing enabled, try disabling this option and see if your issue persists!

In my case, the connection was already secure through https.

4. Your Chrome profile may be corrupted, try creating a new profile.

Again, that might be a valid reason, but in my case, the Facebook loading improperly even before I log in. In any case, the same account works fine on other computer, so that is not the problem source.

5. Reset IP configuration:

- Close Chrome.
- Start > Run (or search for run if you're using Vista/7)
- Type 'cmd' (without quotes) and hit enter
- Once the black box appears, enter 'ipconfig /flushdns' (without quotes) and hit enter
- Once that completes, enter 'ipconfig /renew' (without quotes) and hit enter
- Once that completes, close the window, reopen Chrome and retry.

6. Disable any browser themes/extensions to see if they are causing the behavior you're seeing. You can do this by going to Chrome Menu (Wrench) > Tools > Extensions.

In my Chrome browser, there are no extensions, so that is not the case.

7. Update/reinstall Java and Flash.

·         Java:  http://www.java.com

·         Flash: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer

Several users admitted that re-installing Java or Flash has resolved the problem with Facebook page.

The point is that when these add-ons are corrupted, you will experience the issue with loading some other pages, not just Facebook.

8. Check for problems with protected system files. Go to Start > Run. Enter the following: "SFC.EXE /SCANNOW" (without the quotes and make sure there is a space between SFC.EXE and /SCANNOW). This initiates the Microsoft utility that will scan and repair problems with protected system files on your computer.

9. Your computer may have been infected by a virus or malware; consider running a full security scan with reputable, up-to-date antivirus software such as Microsoft Security Essentials, McAfee, AVG, Malwarebytes or Spybot Search & Destroy.

10. After performing all the offered tasks, I have found myself at the same point I started the troubleshooting journey. Now, it is time to go back and think what may cause the selective block of the page. As said earlier, the suspects are Internet setting.

·         Opening Internet Options in Control Panel.

·         Choosing Security tab and picking up Internet.

·         If your security level is High or Medium-High, you may lower to Medium or Custom levels with minimum security.

·         Than go to Privacy and decrease the protection level to Low if it is higher than that.

·         Close Internet Options and try to open Facebook page again.

In my case, it finally worked. Hopefully, after going through these 10 steps, it will work for you as well!

Anti-Spider Text-To-Image Generator

The Anti-Spider Text-To-Image Generator lets you convert text to a transparent background (works on any color webpage or blog) graphic image (PNG format, Portable Network Graphics). This way you can easily hide text from search engines, and hide text from spambots. You contact information will not be available for emails harvesters, and your home address will be secured from the unsolicited mail distribution lists.

Sometimes you also might have jokes or copyright phrases you do not want search engines to pick up. For all such cases, convert your text to image format so only humans can read your special words. The service is free and does not require registration or login. However, the phrase “Hide phrase from search engines @ www.ImageGenerator.org” will always be presented at the bottom of the newly created image.

Website: http://www.txt2png.com/

FlagFox – Firefox add-on for easier website investigation

Flagfox is an add-on for Firefox that will show the country the websites you visit are hosted in.

If while browsing the net you feel the curiosity of knowing where each website you visit is hosted, Flagfox is the Firefox extension you want. With a simple look, you will know if the web is hosted in USA, China or your own country. It doesn't matter where it is, this extension will quickly tell you.

Flagfox doesn't use a web service to work, it incorporates an IP database, that allows it instantly to identify the location of the web server. To indicate the country, Flagfox doesn't take into account the domain, because the web could be using a domain different to the web servers real global position.

This extension can be very handy if we work in website optimization, or if we want to know the legal jurisdiction of a server, but more importantly the possibility to use it as a security element, because many webs try to supplant other ones indicating that they are in countries that they aren't really in. It is highly unlikely that a German bank will have is website hosted in China.

Besides displaying a country flag depicting the location of the current website's server, add-on allows a multitude of additional tools such as:

* Site safety and malware checks
* Finding similar sites and reviews
* Automatic translation to your language
* SEO and web development research
* Diagnostics like pings and traceroutes
* Whois and DNS information
* Page code validation
* Quick URL shortening
* Copying a server's IP address or other info
* or you can create your own custom actions!

Developers’ website: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flagfox/

imgBox - Free Fast and Simple Image Hosting for Bloggers

ImgBox is a really useful service, allowing webmasters, bloggers, or just Internet active socializers to host images of classifieds, blogs, websites and forums. The service lets you uploading your images and sharing through hot linking for free. Registration and login is not required to use the service.  The best thing about imgbox is unlimited storage capacity and no expiration time for the images storage, with no conditional inactivity limitation, often applied on other services.

Main Features

• Hot linking is allowed.
• Very fast upload.
• Simple and straightforward interface.
• Drag and Drop supported.
• Reliable services with minimum downtime.
• Single file size – up to 10MB.
• Supports unlimited number of image uploads.
• Unlimited storage space.
• Unlimited storage time.
• Supported Image file types - JPG, GIF and PNG.

Website: http://imgbox.com/

WAVE - Free Tester for your Web Page

WAVE–the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool–is a free and extremely user-friendly online service to allowing you check, validate, and optimize your web site design and structure.

Instead of providing a complicated-to-understand and hard-to-read textual report on what discovered issues are, this tool displays the page you are checking in and puts small icons with observed issues and notes near the questionable component of the design. With that you will see the problems in contest and formatting very clear, and you will be able some time to get everything fixed. You can instantly find and fix pointed issues in your code.

If you are still in process of building your page, you can also upload individual files, or even paste code into the form, posted on the website, and let it be checked on the fly.

WAVE is a very useful service, especially for newbies, it is free, and it does not require registration.

Website: http://wave.webaim.org/

How to Enrich Facebook Chat and Messages with Emoticons?

Most of you are already using smiley emoticons in your communication. But for many people, that’s about it. So, Facebook recently added a list of emoticons to help you express yourself a bit more than text characters permit. The full list can be used in chat or private messages, and some of the less complex ones can be used in comments on wall posts.

While using short messages to communicate with your friends, emoticons can be considered as the simple and the easiest way of telling other that what you are feeling at that instance. They are able to add emotional context to what you say, and how you say, enriching your capabilities to spice your communication with emotions and associations.

All emoticons can be divided to several groups:

1. Standard Emoticons

2. Advanced Emoticons

3. Coded Emoticons

Besides some of the shown popular shortcuts, there are two categories of emoticons, which require more time and efforts to add. The first category represents popular names, for example, by typing the names of the famous brands, you are calling the actual graphical emoticon associated with it. Note that you need to put the word in the double square brackets to reach desired effect.

Even bigger category of emoticons is compiled with the numeric codes, which are probably hard to remember, therefore their usefulness will be probably limited. For example, there are emoticons with different countries’ flags:

4. Your Own Emoticons

And, finally, if you cannot find what you want on Internet, you can generate your own emoticons from your own pictures with Online Generator. It is really easy to make them with no coding or programming experience. All you have to do is follow the 3 simple steps:

a.       Choose image file from your PC.

b.      Upload it.

c.       Get the code and paste it to Facebook.

Note that chat codes are the easiest way to send images in Facebook chat. You can even create your own chat codes gallery by just saving the codes on your computer and using them again later as all chat codes are reusable.

Sources and Additional Information:

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57532675-285/add-emoticons-to-your-facebook-chats-and-messages/

http://knowledgeoverflow.com/emoticons/

http://facebookemoticons.com/emoticons/

http://smileychatcodes.com/facebook-smiley-chat-codes/