Google has a habit of creating social networks that don’t seem to match up to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and My Space, but don’t leave them out of the race yet.  When Orkut was limited in India and Brazil, the hype was quickly lost but they have done it again. The new social connection service offered by Google is Google Buzz. With Google Buzz you can share real time updates with your friends as well as photos, links and so on. You can easily connect to other social networks you currently use such as Twitter, Flicker, Picasas and Google reader by simply importing all of your data from these sites.

The new Google Buzz is a hybrid that is inclusive of micro blogging, social networking and chat, just like some of the services already offered in Gmail. Here are a few tricks of the trade to get you up and running in Google Buzz.

• You can add Google buzz on your blog
• The ability to disable e-mail notifications
• You can add more connect sites such as Google reader, flickr, Twitter, Picasas and blogger.
• You get great keyboard shortcuts such as Shift+l= like a message, m=mute or ignore conversation, r= add a comment.
• Google buzz searches feature can show you the latest messages that match your search
• You can hide the Google buzz counter

Some helpful searches include:

Author: gmail.com- this allows you to find messages that are written by a specified user, you can even employ the use of partial names.

Commenter:@gmail.com – this allows you to find all comments from a specified user.

Adding has: photo or has: link to your search will restrict results to only messages that contain photos or links. (Example: Canada has: photo)

You can also view Google Buzz photos in slideshow format.

Keep in mind that when you upload a photo to Google Buzz it will be added to Picasas web album. When you click a thumbnail Google Buzz opens a light box which helps to navigate with ease between your images. There is no option for slideshow but it is available in the Picasas website.

Webtreats has released a new treat for us, the wordpress users. inFocus is Powerful Premium WordPress theme, comes with an impressive fully customizable jQuery homepage slider with 3 different staging effects. Whether your a WordPress pro or just a beginner this theme has you covered. With a huge custom back end area you have complete control over the look and style of your theme. Add images to your homepage slider, add as many sidebar widgets as you like, pull in your latest tweet from Twitter and much much more all without having to touch a single line of code!

For your convince inFoucs comes with 10 skins to choose from.

Theme features:

• jQuery Slider
• Custom Sidebars
• Custom Widgets
• Portfolio Gallery
• Ajax Contact Form
• Social Bookmarking
• Page Templates
• Multiple CSS Styles
• 34 custom Style Shortcodes
• Breadcrumbs Navigation
• About Author Box on Posts
• jQuery Drop-down menu
• Font Replacement (cufon)
• Huge Tabbed Admin Area
• Layered PSDs are included for easy modification
• Extensive Documentation Included

Demo | Details | Download

I often stress about the importance of logo design when getting your business or online website started, however year after year I notice that some people still under estimate the significance of branding and identity, so this post is going to be dedicated for logo design, and how to chose one wisely.

First off, forget about free logos that you can download online, the last thing you want to see is some other company chasing you with Trademark violation complains. You need professionals to do this for you, in order to guarantee this will be your unique, one-of-a-kind design you can start branding, register trademark for and promote as your own brand. If this is what you are after, go with LogoBee. This Canadian company has been online for 10 years, and has won multiple awards for the logo designs they have created. If you need professional branding and business identity for your website, The guys behind LogoBee won’t only supply you with a remarkable logo design, but also be able to provide you with web design, stationery and other related products, for affordable prices, with money-back guarantee and lifetime logo design support (who else will offer THAT?).

How to get started?

• First of all, go and see their impressive portfolio, to get an idea of what they are capable of.
• See what other have to say about their work. Testimonials from happy clients really speak for themselves! I was really impressed to see Kendra Todd, winner of  “The Apprentice”, being among LogoBee’s clients; she sought logo design services for her real estate firm.
• Have a look at their special offers, various packages (each one has its own advantages), and — place your order and become yet another satisfied client!

LogoBee accepts payments from all major credit cards together with paypal, making it extremely easy and flexible for anyone to avail of their service. Contrary to most online competitors, LogoBee’s designers are working in-house, you can reach them by online chat, fax, phone and even use their toll-free line in order to get in touch.

Important Information for affiliates and site owners: you can earn money referring clients to LogoBee, as they also run an affiliate program, which will help both parties benefit from new clients. Register today to start earning on new referrals! You might be a bit hesitant about joining the referral program, but rest assured, referred clients will have a great motivation, because they also receive a $20 discount on their logo design purchase, and additionally, when ordering a stationary design, the client gets 500 business cards printed in CMYK for FREE. That’s a great way to start a brand-able business you can trademark, don’t you think?

You really should not think twice, as LogoBee is a place where you get everything done under one roof, which means paying less to 3rd party companies who handle separate requests (like web design or printing your business cards out).

Probably one of the most popular services available today is offered by talented coders who are ready to chop psds and turn them into fully functional websites, however when you are searching for such a coder, you will have a hard time picking the right one as the competition is very touch and most services appear to be quite similar… But they aren’t. When choosing a person or a company who will code your design, it’s important to keep in mine a few aspects:

• Turnaround
• Code Quality
• Price
• Money Back guarantee policy

Even if you are not in a rush, it’s always better to choose a company that delivers the final product fast, and this is what I like about http://www.codemyconcept.com — they deliver quality code, fast, and offer full refund in case of dissatisfaction. When you work with professional, chances that you will end up being unsatisfied with the result is extremely slim, however I personally prefer to KNOW that in the unlikely event I will not lose my money.

So what makes them better than the rest of the sites?

First and foremost, it’s obviously the price, 1st page coding is only $75, which is extremely low and what I like about them is that it allows me to outsource their services if I am running behind the schedule and need a coder to do the job for me fairly quick. The code is guaranteed to work in all browsers, be valid in according to W3C standards and all the tweaks will be done BEFORE you pay, which means you are not actually at risk of losing money until they make sure you like the work.

Another big plus is the flexibility of payment, CodeMyConcept accepts all major credit cards as well as Paypal and Google checkout (on request), therefore clients from all over the world can avail of their services, which is a great advantage in my opinion. Also, when you will come to place an order, you will notice that the submission form is very easy and flexible, allowing you to add CMS implementation (converting your code to Wordpress is only $99 on top of the price!) choose turn around that suits your needs (expedited tasks can be taken for a small additional fee).

Overall, I’d say (after seeing dozens of similar services on the web), that it’s probably the cheapest and most flexible service around, so I highly recommend to have a look on their website, if you are looking for a reliable coder!

There is something magical in black and white photography. There is something truly inspirational and thought-provoking in the absence of color. Maybe because it makes you imagine the same picture in color, maybe because your eye is accustomed to seeing everything in color and thus the absence of it seems so amazing.

One thing is clear: if you want to get inspired, you need to dig into black and white art, and here’s the list of tools and resources to find most inspirational black and white images on the web:

1. Pic Search

Pic Search is a great image search engine that has black and white filter in its advanced search section. Besides that, you can also enjoy other handy options of the tool:

• Search by image type (portrait, landscape, squire, all);
• Search images by size (wallpaper, tiny, medium, large, huge);
• See relevant search suggestions:

Note: thanks a lot to Edward Khoo who shared the tool in his overview of best image search engines.

2. Google Image Search

It is funny that plenty of people search Google without having the slightest idea about all its search options. Black&White image search is just one of such lesser-known possibilities. The option hides behind “Show options” link:

3. Yahoo Image Search

Yahoo! image search deserves a mention here for two reasons: (1) it does support black-and-white search and (2) its main source of images is Flickr, so its like search Flickr but on steroids. The “black-and-white” filter can be found in advanced search along with other cool filters:

• Filter by size (small, medium, large, wallpaper or custom size);
• Restrict by type (search only from Flickr or exclude Flickr images all over);
• Filter by distribution license type:

4. Bing Image Search

Bing has a very lovely image search engine: besides usual filters (like color, size, type, layout, etc), it also offers a really handy interface that allows to see multiple images at a time (details will be displayed on mouseover):

5. Multicolr

Multicolr is a Flickr-based tool that allows to search by color; thus if you want to find only black-and-white photos, all you nee to do is to select colors from white to black:

6. Flickr groups:

• B&W: currently contains over 1, 400K images and more than 80K members. The group has very active discussion boards as well where you will be able to find cool collections like this High Contrast B&W thread for example.
• Black and White: currently includes 2, 120K of images. The group also has a very active forum that has plenty of cool discussions like this one: what’s your best black and white sunset scene
• Black and White Photo Award: currently contains over 76K high-quality black and white photos.
• Black & White with a Touch of Color: one of the best Flickr groups I ever came across: it contains B&W photos with only one color;
• Black and White Artwork: a group containing B&W non-photography illustrations.
• Life in Classic Black and White: the group that helps to see “the life around you from busy city street to a quiet calm landscape, nature, people, etc” in black and white.
• Macro In Black & White: the collection of black and white macro-photography

7. More sources:

• Photobucket Black & White (sorted by popularity)
• Black and White Club at Deviant Art: an awesome group of creative photography and imagery.

Any more? Share your sources of black and white inspiration!

The guest post was provided by Ann Smarty, a search blogger and social media enthusiast. If you love guest posting (like Ann does), join MyBlogGuest, the community of guest bloggers.

I remember when I was still a freelancer, a few years ago, I often faced these typical freelancer’s problems — tight deadline and the design for a client isn’t yet ready. Go find a designer who will do the job for you just 1 day before the deadline… Sometimes it ended up in losing a client, sometimes in staying up all night. These days are definitely history, not only because I am not a freelancer anymore, but also because today we have a website called DesignCrowd. This is probably the ultimate place for outsourcing any part of your job as a designer or developer, from whole and complete web design PSD to small graphics, logos, illustrations, business identity design and more. This business model allows you not only to outsource parts of unfinished jobs when you are unable to complete the task on time, but also visit DesignCrowd on a regular basis, looking for designers who will compete against each other, bringing you the best possible design, which you can proudly to show to the client. Not only you won’t need to work hard, question is — do you need to bother working at all?

I have already mentioned that Design Crown is the ultimate place, and allow me to explain why. First of all, there are currently over 12 thousands of designers and web design companies registered with the website, which means you will have a very big variety of top quality designs to choose from, and they all will try their best to impress you (of course you won’t have to work though 12k submissions, but just imagine how many ideas and possibilities it opens in front of you!) Average project gets between 50 to over 100 creative  submission –  naturally, depending on the price you offered.

The second advantage of designcrowd.com is that you have everything under one roof; you can outsource whole job, or small bits (for example, you need an original and unique vector, so instead of paying for a non-unique license in any of the stock sites, you can simply order one and have it custom made for YOUR needs). Everything here is designed to make your life easier, all you need to do is post your project, view the submissions, provide feedback and when you chose the right entry — complete the payment and download your source files. Yes, it’s that simple.

Creating a post costs only $30, you decide on the reward for the winning entry and the best part is — you can keep your post private, so your client will never know you have, actually, outsourced the design.

This business model also, now that i think of it, is very beneficial to designers who don’t have clients queuing up behind their door; there are dozens and dozens of new contests — enter and make hundreds of extra cash. This is really a website where everyone benefits, thumbs up to the creators for useful and creative way to make everyone’s life easy. Have a look!

Occasionally I get to see how successful, apparently professional websites, undervalue the importance of logo design and branding. Let’s face it, it’s almost the year 2010, and you absolutely can’t build your name and your business without a highly memorable, elegant and professionally pit-together logotype. However, I can understand the business owners, most web design companies charge a great deal of money for unique design, and not only you have no ideawhich company to turn to, you also cannot know what sort of design will they come up with and in case you are unsatisfied, you are likely to still be charged for wasting their time.

This is why logo contest campaigns are gaining more and more popularity. Today, if you need a logo, all you need to do is launch a contest, announce a prize and see dozens of world’s top designers working for you. During the contest you will have over a hundred of entries to chose from, and the best advantage is that you can preview all the designs, give feedback, request modifications, communicate with all the designs altogether or personally. the winner with the prize… get it tweaked, fixed and polish before you pay; or in other words — award. Minimum prize amount is set to $200, while the  max prize is $1000. Now, if you are a designer reading this, just imagine how many extra hundreds you can make per month, simply entering a few logo contests weekly — you might be luckier than you think! Let alone joining is free so you lose nothing by trying.

Logo My Way dot com is the ultimate place to get started. With new contests created every day and option to hide your contest from the www viewers, you can have your logo designed fast, discreetly and professionally by any of the leading designers in the industry. I highly recommend to have a look at their website and bookmark it, because this business model allows you to save money and hassle, as well as participate in plenty of daily opportunities to earn money with your skills, if you are a designer.

I am happy to introduce yet another eco-supportive theme, this time with an inbuilt gallery, admin options, and more great feature. Admin panel allows you to:

1. Configure the speed of the  jquery-powered animated slideshow (add only numbers from 0 to 65000).
2. Configure slides category.
3. Logo Url – that you can change by adding a link to the image you want to use instead of your logo.
4. Configure Twitter account.
5. Configure Feedburner Address.
6. Configure Facebook link.

Apart from the convenient admin panel, the theme is ready for a TweetMeme plugin and TimThumb — so you can easily upload files without having to resize them.

Demo | Download Biolery

The theme is widget ready with 3 sidebars (one on the right, one under the content and one in the footer) where you can place any widget you like with ease. (right sidebar and content sidebar are flexible in width. Footer sidebar has a fixed width). Based on a GPL TwittPlus theme by Turcu Ciprian.