“What Font Should I Use?”: Five Principles for Choosing and Using Typefaces

  

For many beginners, the task of picking fonts is a mystifying process. There seem to be endless choices — from normal, conventional-looking fonts to novelty candy cane fonts and bunny fonts — with no way of understanding the options, only never-ending lists of categories and recommendations. Selecting the right typeface is a mixture of firm rules and loose intuition, and takes years of experience to develop a feeling for. Here are five guidelines for picking and using fonts that I’ve developed in the course of using and teaching typography.

1. Dress For The Occasion

Many of my beginning students go about picking a font as though they were searching for new music to listen to: they assess the personality of each face and look for something unique and distinctive that expresses their particular aesthetic taste, perspective and personal history. This approach is problematic, because it places too much importance on individuality.

The most appropriate analogy for picking type. (Photo credit: Samuuraijohnny. Used under Creative Commons license.)

For better or for worse, picking a typeface is more like getting dressed in the morning. Just as with clothing, there’s a distinction between typefaces that are expressive and stylish versus those that are useful and appropriate to many situations, and our job is to try to find the right balance for the occasion. While appropriateness isn’t a sexy concept, it’s the acid test that should guide our choice of font.

My “favorite” piece of clothing is probably an outlandish pair of 70s flare bellbottoms that I bought at a thrift store, but the reality is that these don’t make it out of my closet very often outside of Halloween. Every designer has a few favorite fonts like this — expressive personal favorites that we hold onto and wait for the perfect festive occasion to use. More often, I find myself putting on the same old pair of Levis morning after morning. It’s not that I like these better than my cherished flares, exactly… I just seem to wind up wearing them most of the time.

Every designer has a few workhorse typefaces that are like comfortable jeans: they go with everything, they seem to adapt to their surroundings and become more relaxed or more formal as the occasion calls for, and they just seem to come out of the closet day after day. Usually, these are faces that have a number of weights (Light, Regular, Bold, etc) and/or cuts (Italic, Condensed, etc). My particular safety blankets are: Myriad, Gotham, DIN,Akzidenz Grotesk and Interstate among the sans; Mercury, Electra and Perpetua among the serif faces.

A large type family like Helvetica Neue can be used to express a range of voices and emotions. Versatile and comfortable to work with, these faces are like a favorite pair of jeans for designers.

2. Know Your Families: Grouping Fonts

The clothing analogy gives us a good idea of what kind of closet we need to put together. The next challenge is to develop some kind of structure by which we can mentally categorize the different typefaces we run across.

Typefaces can be divided and subdivided into dozens of categories (Scotch Modern, anybody?), but we only really need to keep track of five groups to establish a working understanding of the majority of type being used in the present-day landscape.

The following list is not meant as a comprehensive classification of each and every category of type (there are plenty of great sites on the web that already tackle this, such as Typedia’s type classifications) but rather as a manageable shorthand overview of key groups. Let’s look at two major groups without serifs (serifs being the little feet at the ends of the letterforms), two with serifs, and one outlier (with big, boxey feet).

1. Geometric Sans

I’m actually combining three different groups here (Geometric, Realist and Grotesk), but there is enough in common between these groups that we can think of them as one entity for now. Geometric Sans-Serifs are those faces that are based on strict geometric forms. The individual letter forms of a Geometric Sans often have strokes that are all the same width and frequently evidence a kind of “less is more” minimalism in their design.

At their best, Geometric Sans are clear, objective, modern, universal; at their worst, cold, impersonal, boring. A classic Geometric Sans is like a beautifully designed airport: it’s impressive, modern and useful, but we have to think twice about whether or not we’d like to live there.

Examples of Geometric/Realist/Grotesk Sans: Helvetica, Univers, Futura, Avant Garde, Akzidenz Grotesk, Franklin Gothic, Gotham.

2. Humanist Sans

These are Sans faces that are derived from handwriting — as clean and modern as some of them may look, they still retain something inescapably human at their root. Compare the ‘t’ in the image above to the ‘t’ in ‘Geometric’ and note how much more detail and idiosyncrasy the Humanist ‘t’ has.

This is the essence of the Humanist Sans: whereas Geometric Sans are typically designed to be as simple as possible, the letter forms of a Humanist font generally have more detail, less consistency, and frequently involve thinner and thicker stoke weights — after all they come from our handwriting, which is something individuated. At their best, Humanist Sans manage to have it both ways: modern yet human, clear yet empathetic. At their worst, they seem wishy-washy and fake, the hand servants of corporate insincerity.

Examples of Humanist Sans: Gill Sans, Frutiger, Myriad, Optima, Verdana.

3. Old Style

Reference: http://ping.fm/TWSUw

What To Do When Your Website Goes Down

  

Have you ever heard a colleague answer the phone like this: “Good afterno… Yes… What? Completely?… When did it go down?… Really, that long?… We’ll look into it right away… Yes, I understand… Of course… Okay, speak to you soon… Bye.”

The call may have been followed by some cheesy ’80s rock ballad coming from the speaker phone, interrupted by “Thank you for holding. You are now caller number 126 in the queue.” That’s your boss calling the hosting company’s 24 hour “technical support” line.

An important website has gone down, and sooner or later, heads will turn to the Web development corner of the office, where you are sitting quietly, minding your own business, regretting that you ever mentioned “Linux” on your CV. You need to take action. Your company needs you. Your client needs you. Here’s what to do.

1. Check That It Has Actually Gone Down

Don’t take your client’s word for it. Visit the website yourself, and press Shift + Refresh to make sure you’re not seeing a cached version (hold down Shift while reloading or refreshing the page). If the website displays fine, then the problem is probably related to your client’s computer or broadband connection.

If it fails, then visit a robust website, such as google.com or bbc.co.uk. If they fail too, then there is at least an issue with your own broadband connection (or your broadband company’s DNS servers). Chances are that you and your client are located in the same building and the whole building has lost connectivity, or perhaps you have the same broadband company and its engineers have taken the day off. You will need to check the website on your mobile phone or phone a friend. To be doubly sure, ask your friend to check Where’s It Up? or Down for Everyone or Just Me?, which will confirm whether your website is down just for you or for everyone.

If the website is definitely down, then frown confusedly and keep reading. A soft yet audible sigh would also be appropriate. You might want to locate the documents or emails that your Internet hosting service sent you when you first signed up with it. It should have useful details such as your IP address, control panel location, log-in details and admin and root passwords; these will come in handy.

2. Figure Out What Has Gone Down

A website can appear to have gone down mainly for one of the following reasons:

• A programming error on the website,
• A DNS problem, or an expired domain,
• A networking problem,
• Something on the server has crashed,
• The whole server has crashed.

To see whether it’s a programming error, visit the website and check the status bar at the bottom of your browser. If it says “Done” or “Loaded,” rather than “Waiting…” or “Connecting…,” then the server and its software are performing correctly, but there is a programming error or misconfiguration. Check the Apache error log for clues.

Otherwise, you’ll need to run some commands to determine the cause. On a Mac with OS X or above, go to Applications → Utilities and run Terminal. On a PC with Windows, go to Start → All Programs → Accessories and choose “Command Prompt.” If you use Linux, you probably already know about the terminal; but just in case, on Ubuntu, it’s under Applications → Accessories.

The first command is ping, which sends a quick message to a server to check that it’s okay. Type the following, replacing the Web address with something meaningful to you, and press “Enter.” For all of the commands in this article, just type the stuff in the grey monospaced font. The preceding characters are the command prompt and are just there to let you know who and where you are.

C:> ping www.stockashop.co.uk

If the server is alive and reachable, then the result will be something like this:

Reply from 92.52.106.33:
bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=53

Ping command from a Windows computer.

On Windows, it will repeat four times, as above. On Linux and Mac, each line will start with 64 bytes from and it will repeat indefinitely, and you’ll need to press Control + C to stop it.

The four-part number in the example above is your server’s IP address. Every computer on the Internet has one. At this stage, you can double-check that it is the correct one. You’ll need to have a very good memory, or refer to the documentation that your hosting company sent you when you first signed up with it. (This article does not deal with the newish eight-part IPv6 addresses.)

For instance, my broadband company is sneaky and tries to intercept all bad requests so that it can advertise to me when I misspell a domain name in the Web browser. In this case, the ping looks successful but the IP address is wrong:

64 bytes from advancedsearch.virginmedia.com
(81.200.64.50): icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=26.4 ms

Note that ping might also show the server name in front of the IP address (advancedsearch.virginmedia.com in this case). Don’t worry too much if it doesn’t match the website you are pinging—a server can have many names. The IP address is more important.

Assuming you’ve typed the domain name correctly, a bad IP address indicates that the domain name could have expired or that somebody has made a mistake with its DNS settings. If you receive something like unknown host, then it’s definitely a domain name issue:

ping: unknown host www.nosuchwebsite.fr

In this case, use a website such as Who.is to verify the domain registration details, or run the whois command from Linux or Mac. It will at least tell you when it expired, who owns it and where it is registered. The Linux and Mac commands host and nslookup are also useful for finding information about a domain. The nslookup command in particular has many different options for querying different aspects of a domain name:

paul@MyUbuntu:~$ whois stockashop.co.uk
paul@MyUbuntu:~$ host stockashop.co.uk
paul@MyUbuntu:~$ nslookup stockashop.co.uk
paul@MyUbuntu:~$ nslookup -type=soa stockashop.co.uk

If nothing happens when you ping, or you get something like request timed out, then you can deepen your frown and move on to step three.

What a non-responding server looks like in a Linux terminal.

Alternatively, if your server replied with the correct IP address, then you can exhale in relief and move on to step five.

Note that there are plenty of websites such as Network-Tools.com that allow you to ping websites. However, using the command line will impress your colleagues more, and it is good practice for the methods in the rest of this article.

3. How Bad Is It?

If your ping command has timed out, then chances are your whole server has crashed, or the network has broken down between you and the server.

If you enjoy grabbing at straws, then there is a small chance that the server is still alive and has blocked the ping request for security reasons—namely, to prevent hackers from finding out it exists. So, you can still proceed to the next step after running the commands below, but don’t hold your breath.

To find out if it is a networking issue, use traceroute on Mac or Linux and tracert on a PC, or use the trace option on a website such as Network-Tools.com. On Mac and Linux type:

paul@MyUbuntu:~$ traceroute www.stockashop.co.uk

On Windows:

C:> tracert www.stockashop.co.uk

Traceroute traces a route across the Internet from your computer t

Reference: http://ping.fm/Kkbsl

Why We Should Start Using CSS3 and HTML5 Today

  

For a while now, here on Smashing Magazine, we have taken notice of how many designers are reluctant to embrace the new technologies such as CSS3 or HTML5 because of the lack of full cross-browser support for these technologies. Many designers are complaining about the numerous ways how the lack of cross-browser compatibility is effectively holding us back and tying our hands — keeping us from completely being able to shine and show off the full scope of our abilities in our work. Many are holding on to the notion that once this push is made, we will wake to a whole new Web — full of exciting opportunities just waiting on the other side. So they wait for this day. When in reality, they are effectively waiting for Godot.

Just like the elusive character from Beckett’s classic play, this day of complete cross-browser standardization is not ever truly going to find its dawn and deliver us this wonderful new Web where our work looks the same within the window of any and every Web browser. Which means that many of us in the online reaches, from clients to designers to developers and on, are going to need to adjust our thinking so that we can realistically approach the Web as it is now, and more than likely how it will be in the future.

Sometimes it feels that we are hiding behind the lack of cross-browser compatibility to avoid learning new techniques that would actually dramatically improve our workflow. And that’s just wrong. Without an adjustment, we will continue to undersell the Web we have, and the landscape will remain unexcitingly stale and bound by this underestimation and mindset.

Adjustment in Progress

Sorry if any bubbles are bursting here, but we have to wake up to the fact that full cross-browser support of new technologies is just not going to happen. Some users will still use older browsers and some users will still have browsers with deactivated JavaScript or images; some users will be having weird view port sizes and some will not have certain plugins installed.

But that’s OK, really.

The Web is a damn flexible medium, and rightly so. We should embrace its flexibility rather than trying to set boundaries for the available technologies in our mindset and in our designs. The earlier we start designing with the new technologies, the quicker their wide adoption will progress and the quicker we will get by the incompatibility caused by legacy browsers. More and more users are using more advanced browsers every single day, and by using new technologies, we actually encourage them to switch (if they can). Some users will not be able to upgrade, which is why our designs should have a basic fallback for older browsers, but it can’t be the reason to design only the fallback version and call it a night.

Select[ivizr] is one of the many tools that make it possible to use CSS3 today.

There are so many remarkable things that we, designers and developers, can do today: be it responsive designs with CSS3 media queries, rich Web typography (with full support today!) or HTML5 video and audio. And there are so many useful tools and resources that we can use right away to incorporate new technologies in our designs while still supporting older browsers. There is just no reason not to use them.

We are the ones who can push the cross-browser support of these new technologies, encouraging and demanding the new features in future browsers. We have this power, and passing on it just because we don’t feel like there is no full support of them yet, should not be an option. We need to realize that we are the ones putting the wheels in motion and it’s up to us to decide what will be supported in the future browsers and what will not.

More exciting things will be coming in the future. We should design for the future and we should design for today — making sure that our progressive designs work well in modern browsers and work fine in older browsers. The crucial mistake would be clinging to the past, trying to work with the old nasty hacks and workarounds that will become obsolete very soon.

We can continue to cling to this notion and wait for older browsers to become outdated, thereby selling ourselves and our potential short, or we can adjust our way of thinking about this and come at the Web from a whole new perspective. One where we understand the truth of the situation we are faced with. That our designs are not going to look the same in every browser and our code will not render the same in every browser. And that’s the bottom line.

Yaili’s beautiful piece My CSS Wishlist on 24ways. Articles like these are the ones that push the boundaries of web design and encourage more innovation in the industry.

Andy Clarke spoke about this at the DIBI Conference earlier this year (you can check his presentation Hardboiled Web Design on Vimeo). He really struck a nerve with his presentation, yet still we find so many stalling in this dream of complete Web standardization. So we wanted to address this issue here and keep this important idea being discussed and circulated. Because this waiting is not only hurting those of us working with the Web, but all of those who use the Web as well. Mainly through this plethora of untapped potential which could improve the overall experience across the spectrum for businesses, users and those with the skills to bring this sophisticated, rich, powerful new Web into existence.

For Our Clients

Now this will mean different things for different players in the game. For example, for our clients this means a much more developed and uniquely crafted design that is not bound by the boxes we have allowed our thinking to be contained in. However, this does come with a bit of a compromise that is expected on the parts of our clients as well. At least it does for this to work in the balanced and idealized way these things should play out. But this should be expected. Most change does not come without its compromises.

In this case, our clients have to accept the same truism that we do and concede that their projects will not look the same across various browsers. This is getting easier to convince them of in these times of the expanding mobile market, but they may still not be ready to concede this inch on the desktop side of the coin. Prices might be adjusted in some cases too, and that may be another area that the clients are not willing to accept. But with new doors being opened and more innovation, comes more time and dedicated efforts. These are a few of the implications for our clients, though the expanded innovation is where we should help them focus.

In short:

• Conceding to the idea that the project will not be able to look the same across various browsers,
• This means more developed and unfettered imaginative designs for our clients,
• This could lead to increased costs for clients as well, but with higher levels of innovation and
• Client’s visions for what they want will be less hindered by these limitations.

For the Users

The users are the ones who have the least amount invested in most of what is going on behind the scenes. They only see the end result, and they often do not think too much about the process that is involved which brings it to the screens before them. Again, with the mobile market, they have already come across the concept of var

Reference: http://ping.fm/O9Hv5

Most Common Mistakes in Screencasting

  

When people think about how to start screencasting, they often forget that screencasting is not only a very interesting way of showing something quickly, comprehensibly and easily; it’s also a way of advertising their products. It’s a shame to see how many websites out there lack a beautiful looking screencast, as this can make products look a lot more attractive to potential customers.

What most hobby screencasters don’t know, is that screencasting is not simply the act of sitting down and recording the screen; simple screen recording was something we did four to five years ago. Screencasts have a long history, starting from “I just record my screen” to the fancy product demos you see today. Nowadays, a screencast is almost necessary for start-ups and new products, especially in the tech business.

My career as a screencaster started a couple of years ago. By that time, I was already blogging; sitting in front of Ableton Live (which I found to be a very original new workflow), I asked myself: what would be the best way to show others what I’m doing? The answer was clear: to record my screen.

That same night, I started using Snapz Pro X. My English was terrible and it felt awkward to record this thing — then to re-record it about ten times. Since then I have recorded hundreds of screencasts, including for Mac OS X Screencasts. Having gained a lot of experience, it’s now time to share this experience with others.

How Not To Do a Screencast

In the early days of screencasting, there were a lot of YouTube videos which now look like screencasting “dinosaurs.” This was to be expected then, but there are still people making the same terrible mistakes we all made in the early days.

Handheld Cameras

We probably all know that scenario; we’ve found a new function that apparently nobody uses in a program, and are so excited that we instantly want to share that idea on YouTube. It’s easy to grab a video camera or mobile phone and just point it at the computer screen, right? No. Never ever do that, as the videos will look terrible!

On the other hand, if the video shows something really, really extraordinary, people will watch it anyway. Content is king! If that video ends up on another website that showcases a product or service, it’s obvious that someone should invest precious money in screencasting software.

Facial Cameras

We have seen this a lot of times around the Web: screencasts with a smaller rectangular screen showing the person recording the screencast. Most of the time this screen is put somewhere in the video, and is always on. Even famous people like Merlin Mann are doing it. Merlin is great, by the way, although he’s no professional screencaster; all he intended to do was show his cool new workflow in TextExpander, which is great. Recording with built-in cameras is great too, but as I will describe later, use these functions wisely.

Consider the following:

• Is it necessary for a face to be there all the time?
• Does the audience really need to see a face to follow the screencast?
• Will the face distract people from watching the screencast?

I agree that for introduction purposes, it’s a good idea to show someone on a built-in or external webcam; but as soon as we move to the main content, it’s a good idea to fade that video out. In my latest screencasts, I do exactly that: at the intro my facial camera is on while I tell my audience what they are about to see — and then when I get to the first section, I fade this video out.

Here’s a recommendation: do a big close-up as your introduction, centered on the screen. Then say something like, “Hi, my name is Andreas and today I’m showing you Whatever™ product by Some, Inc. Whatever™ is great, and I love it; you will love it too, and here’s why.” Right after “…and here’s why,” either fade the video out or decrease the size of the video while moving it to the lower right/left corner. Then, leave that video a couple more seconds on screen before fading it out completely.

Distractions During Screencasting

When I started recording screencasts, this was one of the hardest things to learn: leave the mouse pointer wherever it is on the screen and don’t use it as an extension of your hand. If you own good recording or production software, callouts or zooms and pans are better tools to emphasize a particular thing on screen. It’s not necessary to move the mouse while describing something. Also, when you are editing the screencast later on, it’s much easier to make your edits when the mouse stays still so there is no distracting mouse movement between shots, or mouse jump at a jump cut.

On the other hand, the mouse pointer has to be used at times as it’s the only thing people can focus on to follow detailed instructions. Just using keyboard shortcuts is a bad idea. I would recommend on first showing, that you display the menu entry and point out that there’s a keyboard shortcut. On the second showing, use the shortcut (please do tell the listeners prior to execution, otherwise they won’t be able to recognize what you just did).

Don’t Annoy People

A crucial part of a good screencast is entertainment, a fact that many people — especially beginners — don’t realize. Someone watches a screencast to get information, but why not make it a pleasurable experience? Try to create interest by using animations and other techniques.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that there are some things a screencaster can assume: for example, that people can read and have used computers before, so they know how to click on parts of the screen and they know how to write.

In an online review of Snowtape, a Web radio recording application for Mac, the screencaster reads (starting at 0:38) every menu item in the Preferences. You don’t need to do that. Aside from being boring, the screencaster loses precious time for the screencast. On YouTube, a video is usually limited to ten minutes in length. (Pro tip: I have successfully uploaded videos which were 10:50 without getting rejected.) Just going through every single menu entry cost the presenter two minutes of precious time! That means only eight more minutes to show the rest of the application.

Some of my clients refuse to upload their videos to YouTube: Why should one want to upload a video to YouTube, rather that hosting on their own website? Creating a chic, customized Flash video player and all that stuff is fun, isn’t it? There’s one main reason why that’s not a good idea: YouTube is one of the biggest video websites we currently have on the Web. It attracts millions of users daily and has an embedding feature. Think of all the thousands of blogs out there. Creating a player just for one website is attractive, because the owner remains in control over the design and the video itself, but on the other hand, disallows and discourages their product from getting mentioned in — for instance — Smashing Magazine.

I would recommend staying within YouTube’s length boundaries not only for the sake of uploading a screencast, but also for the sake of audience attention span. Audience attention span seems to be gradually decreasing, which is another reason to keep a long story short. Common lengths for screencasts:

• Instructional (tutorial) screencasts: 8 – 10 minutes.
• Advertising videos: 1 – 4 min.

Preparing Yourself

My recommendation is to write your script before an actual recording. I have found mind maps handy for this job (I’m a big mindmap fan anyway and use it for all kinds of things, like planning; sorting; thinking).

A screencast should have

Reference: http://ping.fm/JAolC

JournalCrunch WordPress 3.0+ Theme: Free Theme for Portfolios and Magazines

  

In this post we release a yet another freebie: JournalCrunch WordPress 3.0+ theme, a theme for magazines or portfolios with an integrated journal. The theme was designed by Site5 and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is absolutely free to use in private and commerical projects.

Download the theme for free!

The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.

• live demo
• large preview (.jpg, 0.7 Mb)
• full installation guide and documentation
• download the .zip-package (zip, 0.3 Mb)
• download the .zip-package from a mirror site (zip, 0.3 Mb)
• release on the developer’s site

Features

• Widget ready (footer and sidebar)
• Easy to setup, Theme Options Page
• Custom Homepage with 2 different views (featured posts or slider)
• WordPress Post Thumbnail Enabled
• WordPress 3.0+ Menu Management Support
• Latest Tweets Built-in Widget
• Built-in Pagination
• 9 shortcodes
• Grid and standard posts listing
• Ninvo Slider, easy to setup from Admin panel
• JQuery Drop-down menu
• JQuery PrettyPhoto Lightbox
• JQuery Forms
• Ajax based contact form
• Live form email validation

Comments (large preview)

Grid listing (large preview)

‘Featured posts’ view (large preview)

‘Slider view’ (large preview)

‘Latest tweets’ widget (large preview)

Live form validation (large preview)

‘Normal’ listing (large preview)

‘Options’ page (large preview)

Shortcodes (large preview)

Sidebar (large preview)

Reference: http://ping.fm/Rwija

New Smashing eBook: How to Create Selling E-Commerce Websites

  

Designing and developing an e-commerce website takes a lot of brain power, knowledge and research before starting. Not only do you have to please your client with a beautiful layout and thoughtful structure, but you have to make your client’s customers easily understand what it’s all about; that is, you have to deliver a great user experience and high conversion rates. What that in mind, our brand new Smashing eBook is all about “How to Create Selling E-Commerce Websites.”

This eBook walks you through the process of preparing your e-commerce project, showing you what it takes to present merchandise beautifully and convincingly, and how to run valid and effective A/B and multivariate testing of various designs.

The eBook is a selection of the best articles on Smashing Magazine from 2009 and 2010 that deal with creating e-commerce websites. They have been carefully edited and prepared in PDF format and in ePUB and Mobipocket versions for compatible eBook readers, such as the Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle. Some screenshots and links were removed in order to make the book easier to read and print.

We have put this book together to give you all the information you need to create a successful e-commerce website in one fell swoop. Enjoy, and good luck with your work!

• Download a free PDF sample (3.0 MB),
• Download a free ePUB sample (ZIP, 1.6 MB),
• Download a free Mobipocket sample (ZIP, 2.2 MB),
• Buy the eBook (PDF, ePUB, Mobipocket) for only $9.90!

Table of Contents

At over 260 pages, this eBook consists of articles about the following:

• Getting Started With E-Commerce,
• 5 Universal Principles for Successful E-Commerce Websites,
• 12 Tips for Designing an Excellent Check-Out Process,
• How to Engage Customers on Your E-Commerce Website,
• Principles of Effective Search in E-Commerce Design,
• 15 Common Mistakes in E-Commerce Design,
• E-Commerce: Fundamentals of a Successful Redesign,
• Improve Your E-Commerce Design With Brilliant Product Photos,
• How to Use Photos to Sell More Online,
• Design to Sell: 8 Useful Tips to Help Your Website Convert,
• 7 More Useful Tips to Help Your Website Convert,
• Optimizing Conversion Rates: Less Effort, More Customers,
• Optimizing Conversion Rates: It’s All About Usability,
• Use Conversions to Generate More Conversions,
• The Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing,
• Multivariate Testing: 5 Simple Steps to Increase Conversion Rates.

The authors are Rachel Andrew, Cameron Chapman, James Chudley, Paras Chopra, Peter Crawfurd, Dmitry Fadeyev, Jeffrey Olson, András Rung and Frank Puscher.

The Smashing eBook Bundle

You can buy the complete Smashing eBook Series as one bundle for just $39.90! All Smashing eBooks are available in PDF, ePUB and Mobipocket formats:

• Smashing eBook #1: Professional Web Design,
• Smashing eBook #2: Successful Freelancing for Web Designers,
• Smashing eBook #3: Mastering Photoshop for Web Design,
• Smashing eBook #4: Mobile Design for iPhone and iPad,
• Smashing eBook #5: How to Create Selling E-Commerce Websites.

Advantages Of Smashing eBooks

Now, why should readers buy a Smashing eBook? Good question. Although much of the content is available online for free, an eBook feels a bit more permanent, secure and reliable and is often much better optimized for reading than Web pages. In fact, eBooks present many more advantages over the Web, including these:

• Portability
  You can carry all your books with you in a notebook, smartphone or eBook reader without worrying about weight. Also, being compact, they are much more convenient for reading offline or on smartphones. All Smashing eBooks are available in PDF, ePUB or Mobipocket.
• Search functionality
  With built-in search functionality, you can easily search for keywords and even passages of text in a book.
• Bookmarks, highlights and notes
  Advanced eBook readers automatically remember where you’ve stopped reading each time you close a book. They also allow you to bookmark pages, highlight favorite passages and write notes.
• Built-in dictionaries
  Advanced eBook readers provide built-in dictionaries. For example, if you are reading an English-language book but are not a native speaker, the built-in dictionary can help you understand the content.
• Text-to-speech
  The latest eBook readers provide built-in text-to-speech functionality, which is especially useful on mobile devices with small screens. Text-to-speech also allows you to rest your eyes after a long day in front of the computer.
• No advertising
  Unlike the articles published on Smashing Magazine, Smashing eBooks do not contain any advertising.
• No DRM
  Smashing eBooks are not protected by DRM. That makes it easy for you to read the content on any eBook reader. Please respect our work and the hard efforts of our writers. If you have received a Smashing eBook from a source other than the Smashing Shop, please support us by purchasing your copy in our online shop. Thank you.

(al)

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Reference: http://ping.fm/KiThE

Preparing Artwork for Screen Printing in Adobe Illustrator

  

Getting t-shirts printed is an ideal way to promote your business, organization or event. They are a promotional item that people can actually use, and they have the added bonus of being an advertisement for you. In this post, Adobe Illustrator will be used to create a three-color screen print using a fictional company logo, and have it set up to allow a screen printer to easily print the color separations that create the separate screens for each color print.

Although some printers prefer to create their own separations, it’s always good to understand the process. Be sure to communicate with your printer as they will specify their requirements, and will often give you tips for avoiding potential issues in the process.

Printing Techniques

As the t-shirt is going to be printed in three colors, we have to create separate artwork for each layer of color. Each of these layers interact with each other to form a complete image.

Examples of Trap, Knockout and Overprint

There are three artwork techniques commonly used for this type of printing: Trap, Knockout and Overprint. The Trap technique is when the bottom color “bleeds” under the top color, ensuring no gaps are left from inaccurate printing of the second color (when the so-called “registration” between the colors is “off”).

Screen printing is not always an exact printing technique, especially when printing onto fabric surfaces; for this reason the Knockout technique is rarely used, as it relies on printing a color precisely in a gap left on the bottom color. The third technique, Overprint, is the easiest to achieve as the top color prints directly on top of the bottom color; often this produces a new color, as the top ink color is not always opaque.

Preparing Your Artwork File

1. Create Layers for Each Color

The most reliable way to produce artwork for screen printing is to manually prepare it in Adobe Illustrator. Each of the three colors is going to form a separate artwork in a separate layer, using elements from the main image for each color. Using Layers does not affect how your artwork is output by your screen printer; it just makes it easier for you to work on.

Opening the vector artwork in Illustrator presents the graphic in Layer 1. Select the drop-down menu in the Layers window and select Duplicate Layer twice, to produce three layers of the same graphic; name the three layers after their respective colors, as this will help prevent confusion later on. Ensure the order of the colors is correct: the bottom layer is White; the next color layer is Orange; and the top layer is the Dark Red, which will be printed last, on top of the other colors.

Layers being created and renamed

2. Create a Temporary Background Color Layer

At this stage — because the artwork is being prepared to be printed on a dark t-shirt — create a fourth layer for a temporary background color and name it Temporary Background. A rectangle is drawn the full size of the art board, and given a dark color; this layer will be removed later in the process. Drag the layer to the bottom of the layers, and Lock it. Each color of your artwork produces a separate screen, and the order in which the colors are printed is usually from the lightest to the darkest color.

A Temporary Background layer is created

3. Remove Excess Objects From the Layer

The first layer to be worked on, is the bottom White layer. Hide the Orange and Dark Red layers by clicking the Eye icon next to their layers, and make sure the White layer is selected in the Layers window by clicking on its name. As the artwork layer was duplicated in full, all the objects of the graphic are on this layer; some objects must be removed, leaving the shapes that form the white outline of the rocket, the text, and the orange fan shapes used in the background.

4. Outline All Strokes

The rocket outline is a solid shape so no further work is needed on the rocket, but the white outline of the text is a thick stroke applied to the text shapes; working with strokes can be unpredictable, so it’s best to create outlines from the stroke by selecting the text and choosing Object ? Path ? Outline Stroke. This ensures consistency if the artwork needs to be resized (Strokes can often be pushed out of proportion when resized with the Scale tool).

Outline Stroke on text objects

5. Create and Apply a Custom Spot Color

Select all the objects in this layer and apply a light color to each of them. Avoid using absolute white, as you won’t be able to see the objects when checking Separations later. Apply a color of 20% Yellow to the objects and then, in the Swatches window, select New Swatch from the drop-down menu. Name the swatch “White base” and choose Spot Color from the Color Type menu. Even though it’s set to 20% yellow, it will output as a solid color, titled “White base.”

Creating a new Spot Color Swatch

The swatch now will be in the Swatches window and there will be a dot in the corner to denote a Spot color. The Spot color should be applied to all the objects in the White layer.

Potential mis-registration of two colours, seen between orange and dark red

Select an Orange object and choose Object ? Path ? Offset Path. Offset the path by 1 mm to make the object larger in shape. Oftentimes printers specify how much Trap they require, similar to how they might specify Bleed. On this artwork, the white background outlines the color objects, but if you wanted the white to be printed directly behind the colors, without a white outline, you could offset the path of the White objects by a minus figure (for example -1mm).

Reference: http://c.notify.me/qxlLBw

Using the LESS CSS Preprocessor for Smarter Style Sheets

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As a Web designer you’re undoubtedly familiar with CSS, the style sheet language used to format markup on Web pages. CSS itself is extremely simple, consisting of rule sets and declaration blocks—what to style, how to style it—and it does pretty much everything you want, right? Well, not quite.

You see, while the simple design of CSS makes it very accessible to beginners, it also poses limitations on what you can do with it. These limitations, like the inability to set variables or to perform operations, mean that we inevitably end up repeating the same pieces of styling in different places. Not good for following best practices—in this case, sticking to DRY (don’t repeat yourself) for less code and easier maintenance.

Enter the CSS preprocessor. In simple terms, CSS preprocessing is a method of extending the feature set of CSS by first writing the style sheets in a new extended language, then compiling the code to vanilla CSS so that it can be read by Web browsers. Several CSS preprocessors are available today, most notably Sass and LESS.

What’s the difference? Sass was designed to both simplify and extend CSS, so things like curly braces were removed from the syntax. LESS was designed to be as close to CSS as possible, so the syntax is identical to your current CSS code. This means you can use it right away with your existing code. Recently, Sass also introduced a CSS-like syntax called SCSS (Sassy CSS) to make migrating easier.

If It Ain’t Broke…?

By now you might be thinking, “So what? Why should I care about these things, and how exactly will they make my life as a Web designer easier?” I’ll get to that in a moment, and I promise it will be worth your time. First, let me clarify the focus of this article.

In this tutorial, I’ll be using LESS to demonstrate how CSS preprocessing can help you code CSS faster. But that doesn’t mean you must use LESS. It’s my tool of choice, but you may find that Sass fits your workflow better, so I suggest giving them both a shot. I’ll talk a bit more about their differences at the end of the article.

I’ll start off by explaining how LESS works and how to install it. After, I’ll list a set of problems that large CSS files pose, one by one, and exactly how you can use LESS to solve them.

Let’s go!

Installing It

There are two parts to any CSS preprocessor: the language and the compiler. The language itself is what you’ll be writing. LESS looks just like CSS, except for a bunch of extra features. The compiler is what turns that LESS code into standard CSS that a Web browser can read and process.

Many different compilers are actually available for LESS, each programmed in a different language. There’s a Ruby Gem, a PHP version, a .NET version, an OS X app and one written in JavaScript. Some of these are platform-specific, like the OS X app. For this tutorial, I recommend the JavaScript version (less.js) because it’s the easiest to get started with.

Using the JavaScript compiler is extremely easy. Simply include the script in your HTML code, and then it will process LESS live as the page loads. We can then include our LESS file just as we would a standard style sheet. Here’s the code to put between the tags of your mark-up:

Note that I’m referencing the less.js script directly from the Google Code server. With this method, you don’t even have to download the script to use it. The style sheet link goes above the script to ensure it gets loaded and is ready for the preprocessor. Also, make sure that the href value points to the location of your .less file.

That’s it. We can now begin writing LESS code in our .less file. Let’s go ahead and see how LESS makes working with CSS easier.

1. Cleaner Structure With Nesting

In CSS, we write out every rule set separately, which often leads to long selectors that repeat the same stuff over and over. Here’s a typical example:

#header {}
#header nav {}
#header nav ul {}
#header nav ul li {}
#header nav ul li a {}

LESS allows us to nest rule sets inside other rule sets, as a way to show hierarchy. Let’s rewrite the above example with nesting:

# header {
  nav {
    ul {
      li {
        a {}
      }
    }
  }
}

I’ve omitted the content from the selectors for simplicity, but you can see how the structure of the code quickly changes. Now you don’t have to repeat selectors over and over again; simply nest the relevant rule set inside another to indicate the hierarchy. It’s also a great way to keep code organized because it groups related items together visually.

Also, if you want to give pseudo-classes this nesting structure, you can do so with the & symbol. Pseudo-classes are things such as :hover, :active and :visited. Your code would look as follows:

a {
  &:hover {}
  &:active {}
  &:visited {}
}

2. Variables For Faster Maintenance

We usually apply a palette of colors across an entire website. Any given color could be used for multiple items and so would be repeated throughout the CSS code. To change the color, you’d have to do a “Find and replace.”

But that’s not quite it. You could also isolate those values into separate rule sets; but with this method, the rule sets would keep growing as you add more colors across the website, leading to bloated selectors. Here’s what I’m talking about:

#header, sidebar .heading, sidebar h2, footer h3, .aside h3 { color: red; }

To make a simple color change, we’re faced with long selectors, all dedicated to that one color. It’s not pretty. LESS allows us to specify variables in one place—such as for brand colors, border lengths, side margins and so on—and then reuse the variables elsewhere in the style sheet. The value of the variable remains stored in one place, though, so making a change is as simple as changing that one line. Variables start with an @ and are written like this:

@brand-color: 4455EE;

#header { background-color: @brand-color; }
footer { color: @brand-color; }
h3 { color: @brand-color; }

In LESS, variables also have scope, so you could use variables with the same name in various places; when they’re called, the compiler would check for the variable locally first (i.e. is there anything with that name where the declaration is currently nested?), and then move up the hierarchy until it finds it. For example, the following code:

@great-color: 4455EE;

#header {
  @great-color: EE3322;
  color: @great-color;
}

…compiles to:

#header { color: EE3322; }

3. Reusing Whole Classes

Variables are great, but we often reuse more than single values. A good example is code that’s different for every browser, like the CSS3 property border-radius. We have to write at least three declarations just to specify it:

-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;

If you use a lot of CSS3, then this sort of repeating code adds up quickly. LESS solves this by allowing us to reuse whole classes simply by referencing them in our rule sets. For example, let’s create a new class for the above border-radius and reuse it in another rule set:

.rounded-corners {
  -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
  -moz-border-radius: 5px;
  border-radius: 5px;
}
#login-box {
  .rounded-corners;
}

Now #login-box will inherit the properties of the rounded-corners class. But what if we want more control over the size of the co

Reference: http://ping.fm/yBkey

Post-Production Trends in 3D Visualizations

  

Post-production might well be the most underappreciated part of creating 3D visualizations. It gives you the power to easily make some changes; put in the sky you like, add some dirt, make the colors more vibrant and even correct some little mistakes in your 3D mesh.

Most of the traditional 3D artists tried to do as much as possible wihtin their 3D package since these packages were not focusing on post, but rather on the 3D products themselves. Rendering masks for the different color corrections one would like to do was a painstaking job of fixing the lighting and materializing — making artists choose to do most of the work in 3D (such as adding dirt and textures) and so leaving only color correction for post-work.

The techniques and styles of correcting images in post-production have changed a lot over the last couple of years. First, we shall take a look at some of the trends and techniques that are happening right now. Next to that, we will take a look at the most impressive architectural visualization shot that CGI has ever seen and at the post-production in that shot. Next to that, the trend it started in terms of post-production.

Different Styles of Post-Production

This is what a 3D image should look like according to the corporate industry. Basically, what you do is the following: take a render, do some minor color correction and add some glow. Despite the fact that this is mostly considered standard, it should belong to the past. There are a lot of techniques out now to create better looking, more beautiful images with the help of post-production software. Let’s look at some examples.

This image, created by a Dutch company called “Trazar” explains exactly what the “standard” is. The image looks great and a client would absolutely love it because the building is so clearly visible, but it looks too perfect. So to a 3D specialist, it still looks fake.

Some things that immediately come to mind:

• Everything is completely balanced; you can see the sky clearly (it is not too bright), but you can also see every little detail in the shadows.
• There is a blank spot at the horizon, which is odd, because it’s situated in the middle of a city.

Here is another example, made by a company called “Archiform”. This render too looks very realistic, but still doesn’t look quite as good as it could with some heavy post production.

Same thing here:

• The colors are too vibrant.
• The glow of the sky makes the trees blue

Degraded photorealism

A synopsis to explain what I’m talking about: “Degrading your images in post with scratches, vignetting, lens blur and many more things, making your image look more like a photo taken by a (bad or old) camera that uses film rather then a 3D render”.

What we make in our 3D packages can look perfect: our edges can be exactly 90 degrees (or 89 for that matter), our tabletops can be completely clean without dents in them, as well as that we can produce images in low light condition with an ISO of 6400 without a single drop of grain in the final images. This technique focuses on how to overcome the perfectness of 3D. It is unmistakably the most popular post-production trend at the moment used in non-corporate 3D visuals.

Let’s look at the only example needed to illustrate this technique. This video is made by Alex Roman, a 3D visualization expert.

Now, the thirst thing that’s noteworthy is that everything except the people and the birds is 3D. The art of 3D visuals has come a long way and if we would give a good 3D artist one year of free time on his hands to make whatever he wants, this is what he would come up with (at least, “Alex Roman” did).

Alex Roman’s “The Third & The Seventh” shook-up the 3D world by using a great cinematic style to make the architecture stand out. Most of the time, you don’t even realize it’s 3D.

So, what part of this is done in his 3D package, and what part is done in post? To let Alex answer the question himself, here is another video of the compositing breakdown. He shows a wireframe or smooth shaded view of the model inside 3D studio max, after that the bare render. Each next frame includes a new step of post-production.

As we can clearly see he replaced the sky, added people, corrected the color and added some other visual elements in post. Those things are purely decorative. What really sets the mood, is the use of vignetting, lens flares and lens blur. He makes it look like this was a movie shot in the early nineties. Don’t get confused, it is not only the post-production that made this mood happen (cameramen wearing somewhat classic clothing etcetera), but this is certainly something that helps a lot! This movie would have been completely different if it hadn’t been corrected in post.

Lets discuss how we can achieve this effect, and look at the stuff that will work, and how the same stuff, applied in a wrong way, won’t work. In the examples below, these effects have been exaggerated to better see the difference. I’ve had to limit myself to a couple effects since it is simply too much to discuss all of the techniques I use. The ones I’ll describe below should get the basics though.

Large view

When using old camera’s with film, there very often is some grain in the darker areas of the image because the film won’t pick up the details in the darker part of the image. This effect can be easily achieved in our post-production package. I used photoshop here.

Do:

• Make the effect barely visible, only noticeable if you look good.
• Use plugins like “NIK color effects” that can simulate actual grain from a certain film. This will boost the credibility of the grain.

Don’t:

• Add noise in brighter areas of the image, this will look unrealistic.
• Overdo it. Some noise is good, but don’t make it disturbing, the end product should still look good.

Large view

Vignetting can have different causes in photography. The main cause is using a cheap lens / camera. Most of the time this effect is unwanted, but sometimes it can create an image that centers your eye, or guides it to a specific part of the image.

In post, we can use two types of vignetting, one brightens the middle of the image, the other darkens the edges. Normally, the last one is used, since the 3D render still has to maintain it’s function of showing the subject properly, when it’s too bright, this isn’t always possible.

Do:

• Add vignetting to your renders! It looks cool.

Don’t:

• Tell your client about is, they won’t like that you are degrading otherwise perfect images just too make them look cool. If you use this effect moderately, they probably won’t even notice.
• Overdo the effect. This will make your image look very dark, and might not fit it’s purpose.
• Add them when you are rendering studio setups and such. The effect needs to be believable. Studio camera’s are often setup to not have vignetting, so when applied in this case, it won’t look re

Reference: http://ping.fm/tE228

Can Network Marketing Change YOUR Economy? #networkmarketing

Will the election change your economy or will you....

Amplify’d from tinyurl.com

Network Marketing - THE Opportunity And YOU

In network marketing instead of earning income you build an asset - your - and the asset generates income.

Robert Kiyosaki, from his book The Business Of The 21st Century Read more at tinyurl.com

 

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/c3Dt2r

Vemma/Verve Energy Knockout Two Some! #healthly

My wife and I have been using and distributing Vemma and Verve for the last 3 years and love the effects of the product. Living a healthy, active lifestyle and along with the extra income is a big incentive during these times. But what I wanted to say was that we performed our normal routine 1 Vemma during the morning and 1 Verve in the afternoon. Completed the goals for the day and retired for the night to watch Monday Night football. Our team the Jets were playing. Well at the end of the game we both said that it would be hard to make the 5 am wake up since it was now 12 mid night. I know for some that is early but for us it is 2 hours after lights out. Well needless to say we both were up showered and I shaved. Our normal day started without pain of wanting to stay in bed for another 1 hour that we don't have. Raise you energy level with a Vemma/Verve combo.



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Nearly everyone fails to meet Dietary Guidelines, suggests study

URL:  http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Consumer-Trends/Nea...

One thing that most people understand is that the natural foods have less vitamins then we need for optimal health. Read more in the article that I link to and then study the facts of Vemma Nutrition Program here: http://www.trulyhealthynow.com/vemma

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Dr. Oz Simple Stress Relief Workout

Dr. Oz helps you to relieve tension and get ready for a good night’s sleep with a seven, minute workout. Simple stretching that helps to align the spine. Watch below, as he goes through the routine.







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Nutritional value of fruits, veggies is dwindling

Nutritional value of fruits, veggies is dwindling
While we've been dutifully eating our fruits and vegetables all these years, a strange thing has been happening to our produce. It's losing its nutrients.

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Vemma – The Great Benefit of Residual Income!

Vemma Elite Presidential Leader, Dennis Ligon, explains the power of residual income in a Vemma backed business.

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RSS Feeds And Network Marketing

The business of network market is just that, networking with others. Talking with them about your product or business opportunity. Giving them insight to a service that can help them financially or provide a solution to a problem in their life. As network marketers we may have a blog and write marketing articles about our product or business. And this provides us with a voice on the internet to millions of possible prospects. But as networkers are we aware of the value of Really Simple Syndication(RSS). You can use your RRS feed to drive free traffic to your blog or website

Using Your Blog's RSS Feed

Wordpress, Twitter even Facebook, and most free blogging services provides an RSS feed that can be used. Your RSS feed contains articles from your website that can then be submitted to other sites that collect these articles on their site. What you will be doing is building links to your website! The result is that your blog website, gets found by more people, either indirectly by the link on the RSS aggregator website, or directly in the search engines, because your website now ranks better because of the links from the these RSS websites. Here are a few websites that you can submit your RSS feed to.
 

FEEDAGG.com – http://www.feedagg.com

XFRUITS.com – http://www.xfruits.com

RSS2.com – http://www.rss2.com

BlogDigger - http://www.blogdigger.com

Feedgy - http://www.feedgy.com/Submit.aspx

FeedSee - http://www.feedsee.com/submit.html

Feedzie - http://www.feedzie.com/submit.php

Golden RSS - http://www.goldenfeed.com/AddFeed.aspx

IceRocket - http://www.icerocket.com/c?p=addblog

ReadABlog - http://www.readablog.com/AddFeed.aspx

RSSMotron - http://www.rssmotron.com/feed_submission.php

SourceForge - http://ngoid.sourceforge.net/sub_rss.php

Xmeta - http://www.xmeta.net/users/

There are a large number of other sites available. All the websites above are completely free to use and are capable of giving you page one positions in Google! Do not underestimate the power of RSS! Simple but extraordinarily powerful if used clearly.

You can also find submission sites using this on Google:

"rss feed" intitle:add intitle:url

Your comments are welcomed

Who else wants to create a weekly income?

Vemma Royal Ambassador Tom Alkazin explains how a Vemma Brand Partner gets paid.

Learn more here.

Build An MLM Empire and Get Amazing Live Training With MLM Lead System Pro

httIf you’re in the MLM or affiliate marketing industry, you may already know about MLM Lead System Pro, a self-branded customizable attraction marketing system brought to you by some of the finest network marketers: Norbert Orlewicz, Brian Fanale & Todd Schlomer. There’s actually a good chance you use this system already!

If not, well you’re missing out big time. We’ve been supporting MLM Lead System Pro for a little while now and have very good reasons to do so! We even have more reasons now since Norbert, Brian and Todd released a DVD called "Conquer The Internet". A must-see!

In this DVD, they show you how to succeed in this industry with the exact 7-step marketing blueprint they used to build their own MLM Empire (almost $3 million over their first 12 months). By signing up, you also get to test-drive the system for 30 days, at a discounted price!)

Check Out MLM Lead System Pro Now

If you think MLM is too complicated for you, you’re definitely wrong. Norbert, Brian and Todd not only provide you with the tools to build your MLM business but also with the training for you to succeed! Web 2.0 Training, Step-by-Step Video Setup, Live and Recorded Webinars, Marketing Mentoring…

There are now a lot more bonuses that come with the system. They are worth over $1,800 all together! They also add new content every week!

How could you miss out on this? You have nothing to lose! If you're an MLM Lead System Pro member already, you know what we're talking about!

Sign up now and grab a copy of the "Conquer The Internet" DVD to get started! MLM Lead System Pro truly provides you with everything you need to succeed in this industry and has a large community of members... No one is left alone! There’s no hype, only results!

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Today’s Online MLM Lead Generation Tactics

There are many online avenues open to today’s professional MLM leaders. Lead generation for MLM leaders through social networking has exploded their downlines and the downline of some of their top distributors. Their recuiting tactics are used on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social sites. You must have noticed all of the new posts telling of the power the next dream team tactics and strategies for using the social sites. Successful network marketers depend on the group of people they have assembled and the mlm lead generation tactics that the leader trains the marketing team with offline techniques as well as those for the teams online thrust. Having a list of friends, family and host some home parties is great way to start. Especially for those who are working with a small budget or just starting to promote their business opportunity. But eventually they must turn to some online lead generating techniques and expand the mlm lead pool they have to prospect.

Online Systems Teach MLM Lead Generation Tactics

Some leaders are actively searching for ways to leverage the power of online mlm leads generation. And others were unable to move their business forward without the use of one of these systems. These leaders have found that systems like MLM Lead System Pro, 7 Figure Networker, and Renegade Network Marketer teach online tactics and skills that they share with their marketing team. Most inspire their team members to join and use these systems for themselves. These systems are also used as an online recruiting tool by savvy leaders. They contain video trainings on Facebook marketing for targeted leads and how to produce an attention grabbing video for Youtube. Utilizing these new skills a marketing team can use a Youtube tactic where each team member can produce a video centered on one or two keyword phrases. And send all traffic to the same website for more information about their opportunity.

To pursue complete financial independence in today’s MLM companies some facet of online lead generation must be used and companies like MLM Lead Systems Pro are providing cutting edge tactics to their users.

I welcome your comments here.

Network Marketing - THE Opportunity - The Now

“In network marketing instead of earning income you build an asset—your business—and the asset generates income.”

Robert Kiyosaki, from his book
The Business of the 21st Century

Network Marketing is about the dreams and desires of everyone. I mean who doesn’t want to be their own boss, have more free time or get out of debt. In the economic crisis that we face now people feel that they are not getting paid what they are worth and worry about their family’s financial future. Network Marketing offers everyone a chance to develop a steady stream of income to help offset the rising cost of living. Owning a network marketing business gives you a chance at a level playing field where you can decide what you can earn and how successful you want to be.

I not here to give you a sugar coated outlook of network marketing. You already know that there is a difference between what you get and what you deserve. If studied you might find that the difference is just how smart you work. With a Vemma backed business you work smarter by leveraging your talents and time along with a proven plan of action that delivers measurable results. Whether you are looking for a full or part-time income, a Vemma backed business makes it possible to realize your dreams.

The Here And Now Of Network Marketing

The country is in a crisis where homes, life savings and self respect is being lost and the news outlets are saying that Europe has a similar problem with their economy. Some of our children come out of college with the debt of student loans and no job offers in their field of study. In the world of the internet businesses can find good if not great help in another country at a fraction of the cost of finding someone on these shores. As we listen to the talking heads of the various electronic media and read the same in print, that there are jobs returning to the different parts of the country, we can see that there is still a ways to go.

Network Marketing can help those who want to learn more about running a business have an excellent start. Network Marketing companies pay you to advertise their product or service. These Direct Sales companies have training components that will help you develop as a person and overcome the fear of what others may say about our wanting to own a MLM business. The good thing is that they will work with you until that happens. What I enjoy about this business model is that I can help others realize their goals. And that is what professional network marketing is, it is not about selling, what you want to do is build a large network of people who want to help others just as you do. Remember that your sponsor can only be successful if you are successful.

So while a great job maybe something that could be considered obsolete in an internet world. So it is my belief that even in the face of the economic crisis of our country with network marketing you can still be a success. You can start a business with a small investment and take advantage of the tax laws that are written to help businesses pay less tax at the end of their fiscal year. So I would say that you should stop caring what people say, change you mind and become an entrepreneur in the 21st century. Go ahead and shift your mind from being an employee and let those who have become a success help you to become a success.

technorati tags: network marketing, mlm, direct sales
del.icio.us tags: network marketing, mlm,direct sales
icerocket tags: network marketing, mlm, direct sales

First Step To The Lifestyle You Deserve

Regardless of the size of your dreams, the business model here at Vemma can help you realize them. No matter your experience or education, you'll receive personalized support every step of the way as you build your business. If you have a dream for bigger things, Vemma is the company to help you achieve your goals. Vemma is a company that is doing the right things for the right reasons and attracts attention from the right kind of people.

Using Ping.fm With Blackberry

I have Ping.fm account that I have tied into my social networking accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Tumblr, Myspace to name a few. After taking the time to truly read the posting instructions I have now placed my updates into two groups.

One for status updates and one for blog updates. And both can be completed from my Blackberry. In fact this post is my first from this system that I am attempting to use. Ping.fm can help those bloggers who post content by spreading their across different online real estate in one post. And the best is that it is NO COST solution, my favorite.

Thank you for reading this post.

A Vemma Army On The Move

Vemma is a simple, complete and convenient way to place some of the most powerful antioxidants in you body today! Learn more about this great product and simple business system at http://ping.fm/ZYOAW

And while you are there download a chapter of Robert Kiyosaki's NEW book "The Business Of The 21st Century"


From: http://ping.fm/p/jw526

FACEBOOK, 2000 New Leads And You!

397 NEW Distributors in Just 24hrs and We Are Growing Daily!

Tons of great new marketing tools, strategies
etc. released & seems like on daily basis.

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tools you already have ………FACEBOOK!........

There is an old saying that if you do not follow
your own thoughts, then you will follow thoughts
of the fellow who followed his. It marks the
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With Facebook you will always have friends……
all you need to do is send a message to your
friends and enjoy the traffic to your website!

But how to get NEW friends?.....

Watch my video to see HOW Facebook will
start bringing distributors for you.

After all, isn’t that precisely what you want?

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Passion For The Vemma Business Opportunity

With any MLM, network marketing or work from home business opportunity, the thing that I have found consistent is that, those who run the company must be passionate about the products or services also. Those who operate the organization on a day to day and pay those of us on the front line for marketing the product or service that we are passionate about must have some of the same fire for the products/services. I say that because I have been involved with different network marketing business opportunities and the bottom line is to earn some income but you must also want to help others do the same. Your mission must be to help those who have your vision become stable. To develop as an entrepreneur and a person. In my business I ask people to use the product and then discuss the nature of work from home with them. I want to determine if we can work together to make their dreams real for them and not create another nightmare for them and myself. Nothing like befriending someone only to have to walk by them after six months and they believe that you wasted their money and time on your get rich scheme. Below is BKBoreyko, CEO of Vemma and he explains his passion for the Vemma Business Opportunity. BKBoreyko is probably the most active CEO on the internet today.

Technorati Tags: vemma, business opportunity, work from home

What Can Vitamin E Do For You

Even though its name makes it sound like a single substance, vitamin E is actually a family of fat-soluble vitamins that are active throughout the body. Some members of the vitamin E family are called tocopherols. These members include alpha tocopherol, beta tocopherol, gamma tocopherol, and delta tocopherol. Other members of the vitamin E family are called tocotrienols. These members include alpha, beta, gamma, and delta tocotrienol. Vitamin E can help to prevent the oxidative that results from molecules becoming reactive in the cells of your body. In other words Vitamin E helps to support healthy skin. This can be seen in the way that Vitamin E protects the skin from UV damage.

What Foods Provide Vitamin E?

Excellent sources of vitamin E include mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, and sunflower seeds.

Very good sources of vitamin E include almonds and spinach.

Good sources of vitamin E include collard greens, parsley, kale, papaya, olives, bell pepper, brussels sprouts, kiwifruit, tomato, blueberries, and broccoli.

The Vemma Liquid Supplement, in the two(2) oz shot provides your body with 200% of the Daily Value needed to help keep your body in optimal health. See all of what Vemma products have to offer you in the way of premium health products at www.trulyhealthynow.com

Technorati Tags: vemma, vitamins, vitamin supplement

The Vemma Formula - Vemma Science

The Vemma formula brings Vitamins, Essential Minerals, Mangosteen, Aloe Vera and Green Tea to each individual in a great tasting two(2) oz shot. This gives you, the user an abundance of energy. This is not the type of energy that you find in the energy drinks, caffeinated soda or coffee. After these bring you up and get you moving only to you cause you to crash, and start the cycle again. The science behind this formula provides those who use it with a level of energy that in combination with diet and exercise will last the complete day. For me this is what is needed to make a day that starts at 5:00am and may end on a short day at 10pm. With this type of constant energy, I’m able to accomplish what I will. There are reports that Mangosteen helps with mental clarity. I may not be able to put my finger on the cause, but I can say that I am more focused since I started using this formula. To learn more about this great formula and it’s properties click here and visit Vemma Science.

What Is Vemma

Vemma is an acronym that stands for Vitamins, Essential Minerals, Mangosteen and Aloe Vera. This amazing formula also has Green Tea as part of the antioxidants used in this liquid supplement. As a business Vemma started in 2004 and has been growing strong since. As a product Vemma is needed in the lives of people based on the US Government and Medical Institutions studies that say most Americans do not get the optimal amount of nutrients. This is where Vemma can deliver just what the body needs as a supplement and the delivery system is liquid for fast absorption. Vemma brings some the the best known antioxidants in nature, vitamins E and C. Along with the Queen of Fruits, Mangosteen, that helps fight against inflammation and increase energy. It is said that the ancient Egyptians referred to Aloe Vera as the “healing plant” and it was included among the gifts buried with the pharaohs.

Below the Vemma company CEO explains how this business opportunity can change your life as well as the lives of others. Please watch and then contact me with your questions.