As I was reading the internet this morning, I found this great article by David Silversmith that talks about screen captures and screen capture programs. For those unaware of what a screen capture is, it’s simply taking a “picture” of what’s on your monitor.
It’s always been pretty easy to take a screen capture as all keyboards have a “print screen” button which allows you to take a graphical picture of your monitor and print it, however, it’s always been a pain to actually edit the screen capture - until now.
Aviary Screen Capture is this amazing new program which allows you to take a screen shot of ANY website/blog URL by simply putting Aviary.com/ infront of the URL. So for example, if you wanted to take a picture of Blogger Institute, you would simply put Aviary.com/bloggerinstitute.com. Once you do that, a new window will open in your browser and you’ll see the screen shot you just took (you can also install the firefox add-on they have for instant changes). Once your screen shot appears, it appears in a photo editor and you’re free to write text, change colors, crop, delete, etc, just like any serious graphics program would allow.
In addition to the screen capture program, they also have a variety of other free editing programs you can try out. It’s really an awesome tool for bloggers as we’re always in need of screen captures.
To use Aviary Screen Capture, click the link below:
Click Here To Use Aviary Screen Capture
Many bloggers (and this includes myself) continually get into ruts when they run their blog or a collection of blogs. We do something once or twice and for some reason that now becomes the rule, not the exception.
Blogging can be a time consuming activity, especially if you own more than one blog and keeping fresh content on your blogs while keeping pace with your daily schedule tends to be a grind. One really great feature that most blogging platforms have (Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad all use it) would be the “future publish” option, which allows you to write a posting and publish it at a future time or date. I know sometimes I have time to write two or three blog postings and other days I don’t have the time - and this is where that feature comes in handy.
You want to try to keep fresh content on your blog as much as possible, ideally one new posting a day if possible. So, rather than posting two or three postings a day, use the “future publish” option and spread out your new postings over a span so there is new content every time your repeat (and new) visitors come back.
To set up a post for future publication, first write your posting.
In your Administration Panel (the area you’re in when you’re writing a blog posting), you’ll see some type of text near the text box (the area where you just wrote your post) which will give an option to publish your work immediately or at another date. All you do then is adjust the date or time to the time frame you want the post published and you’re done.
Below I’ve included a picture as an example:
It’s a great feature that doesn’t get used nearly enough.
When you sign up for a social networking website such as MySpace, Twitter, or Facebook, one of the first things you want to do is rush to your blog and put a “badge” on it so people can see your new profile (A “badge” is a clickable graphic that links you to another webpage). However, since many of these “badges” are different sizes, shapes, and colors, it can really make your blog look incredibly messy.
There are some nice graphical icons available on the internet but many people don’t prefer to clutter up their blog with those, so I present to you “Social Follow”. Social Follow is a new blog tool that will tie together all of your social networking profiles in clean and simple format which will allow you not only to keep your blog clean but also help you from adding your social profile links in each of your blog postings.
All you do is choose the graphic you want (it’s more of a mini toolbar), input your social profiles information, and when done install the code they give you. Personally, I’m a big fan of putting the information in your sidebar so it’s seen at all times.
When people scroll over the mini-toolbar that you’ve installed, it will expand and look like this:
To visit the Social Follow website, click below:
Social Follow Website
