AdesBlog.com

WooRank - Free Website Analysis Tool

Posted in » Online Tools, Trackers - by Ades

33 Comments 

WooRank is a free website analysis tool similar to that of WebsiteGrader and BuiltWith, but it’s more on ranking and SEO.

Website: www.woorank.com

Generate CSS by Drawing

Posted in » Online Tools - by Ades

22 Comments 

Want to design a website purely in CSS, but don’t know how to code in CSS? Try Drawter then, with it you can just select the objects (H1, box, line etc) and draw, once you are done you can generate the CSS code. Can be a good jump-start for learning CSS.

Website: drawter.com

Editable HTML Invoice Tool

Posted in » Online Tools - by Ades

22 Comments 

Chris Coyier of css-tricks.com has created an editable/printable HTML invoice tool similar to FreshBooks concept. You can basically click on any part of the page and change the text and values. You can also upload your own logo and insert terms and conditions. Once you are done it’s ready to print.

Here is the Demo of the tool.

URL: css-tricks.com/html-invoice/
Download files: click here

BigCommerce - Making Selling Online Incredibly Easy

Posted in » Online Tools, Sponsors - by Ades

22 Comments 

BigCommerce offers easy to use e-commerce platform for selling things online. If you were thinking of having online store with your own domain name, you should really consider BigCommerce.

Since my last post, I have been playing around with my store which is under their free plan. The free plan offers fully functional store with 20 products. Their cheapest paid plan starts from $24.95/month, which provides up to 100 products for your store and 3 staff logins.

But for a beginner, I believe 20 products is more than enough. If your store becomes successful, you can always upgrade to one of the paid versions later on.

Ease of Use

BigCommerce’s main objective and competitive strategy in business is providing usable and easy to use products and services. And so far, according to them it’s really paying off a lot (read here).

They should be commended for it, their hard work has really paid off, it’s easy to setup and customize your store in BigCommerce. Even if you do not know how to edit HTML, they provide innovative drag and drop customization options (see below). Read more »

Change Detection in Websites

Posted in » Online Tools - by Ades

23 Comments 

ChangeDetection is a great tool that I have been using lately. As the name suggests it’s a free service for website (or page) change monitoring, whenever the change occurs it will notify you via email.

You can specify the type of changes in the preferences; whether it’s a sizable change or when the text is removed from the page or when the page is updated with new content etc.

When it’s useful? It’s useful for keeping track of newly launched sites, for example when the site is up but you see a sign saying “we are in private beta now, come back later” etc. type of websites. Or websites that do not have RSS or other types of communication tools that can notify you of the new updates. Or just to keep track of your own websites… for example when it gets defaced :) sure it will notify you when your site is hacked and the content is changed. But let’s hope that you won’t receive such a notification, ever.

Website: www.changedetection.com

SitePal’s Talking Widget

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, Online Tools - by Ades

17 Comments 

SitePal, a website that offers animated speaking avatars has came up with a new free widget now. The talking character widget can be integrated into your blog or used as a messaging tool to send voice mails to your friends.

See the demo below… now you can have your own welcoming Obama for your blog :) I like the way he follows your mouse cursor.

Share button at the bottom gives you many options to share your newly created widget with your friends. Options include Email, direct URL, Facebook, iGoogle etc.

Some Suggestions

I think the idea of providing free talking characters i.e widget is great. Whether people will use it or not on their blog that is a different thing. However, I think incorporating the following suggestions into their next versions will increase the chance of people using the widget on their blog.

1. Provide different sizes
   Especially compact widgets… web space is a scarce thing, more so on popular blogs and websites. If possible bloggers would rather monetize the space as much as possible than putting a widget that covers the half of the sidebar. Therefore providing smaller widgets will increase the chance of adoption by popular blogs. Read more »

          

   Related Posts MagikWidget - your blogging widgets BlogRush is no more BlogRush, will it survive? Facebooks comments replacing WordPress comments soon? CopyPasteCharacter.com - special characters inventory

   17 Comments

   
   
   

Free Online Store Service

Posted in » Online Tools - by Ades

9 Comments 

If you want to sell online but do not want to install oscommerce or similar ecommerce scripts yourself, here is a great service that provides everything you need for your ecommerce needs. Free option allows you to sell 20 products, which is quite good actually for a starter. If you are successful and want to add more products you can upgrade your account to paid plans, $24.95/month option allows you to add 100 products.

It’s compatible with most of the payment processing gateways like paypal, google checkout, amazonpayments etc. It’s also compatible with major shipping services like FedEx, UPS, RoyalMail etc.

I think they are onto something…

Website: www.mybigcommerce.com

NetworkSolutions

On another note, NetworkSolutions had a total brand and website revamp recently. Now they are offering similar ecommerce service called CommerceSpace. Unfortunately it’s not free and the cheapest plan starts from $26.95/month.

For Digital Product Sellers

If you are selling ebooks, wordpress themes or softwares etc. One of the best and preferred solutions on the net is e-Junkie. Their winning feature is the affiliate program management feature where you can offer certain percentage of the sales to your affiliates (i.e to the person who sold the product). So if you want others to sell your digital products and you don’t want to install your own affiliate management system then try ejunkie. Their cheapes plan is $5/month for 10 products.

Website: http://www.e-junkie.com

GCube: Free Online Leave Application System

Posted in » Online Tools - by Ades

28 Comments 

GCube is a newly developed free online leave application and management system for SMEs. If the company that you work for is still using paper and making you run here and there to get your leave approved, then ask your boss to check this application out. It’s free, so has nothing to lose!

It’s locally developed web application by Malaysian startup called Green Cube Solutions Sdn Bhd. I had the privilege to work with the CEO of this startup Ganee Baharudin back in 2004 at one of the local IT companies.

Currently the system has two fully completed modules running, more modules are expected to be added in the future. If you use the sytem, do let them know about your experience and where you would like to see improvements. I am sure they would appreciate that.

Website: www.gcube.com.my

All your twitter followers on one page

Posted in » Online Tools, Social Networking - by Ades

19 Comments 

Want to make a collage of all your twitter followers? Use this tool to create one, you just need to enter your twitter username only.

It creates a code that you can enter in your blog.

Tynt.com - see what texts and images are being copied from your blog

Posted in » Online Tools, Trackers - by Ades

21 Comments 

Following two screenshots are self-explanatory for what Tynt does:

Other than that, Tynt will also show which texts or images are being copied from your posts in the blog. All these will be reported in detail when you login to your account at Tynt.

I have already installed it to my blog, so beware if you want to cut and paste ;) Unfortunately it doesn’t show who (i.e which IP or URL) copies, rather it only shows which texts are being copied.

Nevertheless it’s a great service, because by seeing which posts are being copied the most, you can know what type of posts people like the most. Once you know that, you can increase the effectiveness of your posts by blogging in particular style or format.

Website: tynt.com/

(via 23rdworld.com)