Here is a simple step by step process that will help you make an animated logo using minimum artistic skills and lesser steps.

Pre Requisites - A demo version of Macromedia Fireworks
Familiarity or basic knowledge of any image editing software like Photoshop.

Step - 1.

Open fireworks > Click File > New.

Give in the dimensions of the final image you want(i.e Height and Width) Rest values can be the same as shown in the screenshot.

Step - 2.

Type in the Logo text using the Text tool(just as in Photoshop). Select an appropriate font for it from the properties window(IF you don’t see the window,goto Window>Properties and check it or Hit CTRL+F3).(I’ve used the dailydose4me text and the font - Fabulous)

Step - 4.

In the properties tab, you’ll see a small coloured box(similar to photoshop), clikcing on which will give you an array of colours, just click on your favourite colourand it will apply to the text you’ve selected.

Step -5.

Goto Effects window(If it’s not open please goto Window>Properties and check it or Hit CTRL+F3). It is right next to the colour box in the properties tab.
Click on the PLUS sign,Select Shadow and Glow> Glow.
Now you will get a coloured glow around the text. (You may select another colour by clicking on the “i” button(under Effects) and selecting the colour from the array box)

Step - 6.

Now open the Frames window by hitting Shift+F2.
By default a Frmae 1 would already be present in the box. Click on the Frame 1 tab and drag it to the second icon() you see on the bottom right.Now, you’ll get Frame 2 also in the window.

Step - 7.

Click on Frame 2. Select the text(with glow of course) and goto the Effects tab and click on the Minus(delete effects) icon as seen in the screenshot. This will take off the glow from the text.

Step - 8.

Watch the Frames window carefully and you can find a small number against Frame 1 and Frame 2 #. It would probably be 7 by default.(See screeshot) This is the speed of the animation. You simply need to change the Frame 2’s speed by clicking on the number ans changing it to a larger number like 20 or 30(try around with different numbers).

Step - 9.

You can test the animation by clicking the Play button you see near the windows(You can skip this step if you want,because we will do this step in the final step also.)

Step - 10.

Select File> Export Wizard - Select The Web from the radio button and hit Exit button. Now you will get the Export Preview window(Just like the Save for Web option in Photoshop.) Select the export option as GIF and use the PLAY button to see the animation.

Save the file.You’ll have something similar to the below image.
You’ve just created a christmas light effect animation for your logo. Make sure you open the image in IE/Firefox(any browser) and not Fax Viewer or Paint.

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Here are some secrets about Google - Secrets that Google doesn’t publish, but actually exists.

Google is the most preferred search engine for a big chunk of the internet community.But many of us are unaware of the actual potential of the Google Search engine. Apart from the normal searches we do on Google, if the below secret codes are used,Google can turn into a powerful tool - efective,sharp,easy and loaded.

Here are a list of codes that if used, will sharpen and add more precisiveness to your search.

1. intitle:
   intitle: restricts your search to the titles of web pages.
   Example: If you want to search for webpages with titles “tips tricks and windows tweaks” then intitle:tips tricks windows tweaks linux - will take you to the correct page.

2. allintitle:
   The variation, allintitle:finds pages wherein all the words specified make up the title of the web page.
3. inurl: restricts your
   search to the URLs of web pages. This syntax tends to work well for finding
   search and help pages, because they tend to be rather regular in composition.
4. An
   allinurl: variation finds all the words listed in a URL but doesn’t mix
   well with some other special syntaxes.

5. intext: searches only body text (i.e., ignores link text, URLs, and titles).

6. There’s an allintext: variation, but again, this doesn’t play well with
   others. While its uses are limited, it’s perfect for finding query words that
   might be too common in URLs or link titles.

7. inanchor: searches for text
   in a page’s link anchors. A link anchor is the descriptive text of a link. For
   example, the link anchor in the HTML code
   href=”http://www.manikuttan.com>Manikuttan.com is “Manikuttan.com”
   Example: This comes in handy if you are looking for webpages that are linking to your webpage with the wrong anchortext
8. link: returns a list of
   pages linking to the specified URL. Enter link:www.google.com and
   you’ll be returned a list of pages that link to Google.
   Example: You can use this to find out how many websites actually link to your blog.

9. cache: finds a copy of the page that Google indexed even if that page is
   no longer available at its original URL or has since changed its content
   completely. This is particularly useful for pages that change often.
   Example: cache:labnol.blogspot.com will help you find  the older versions of Amit’s blog - he’s been re inventing it lately.

10. filetype: searches the
    suffixes or filename extensions in a website/index.
    Example: So if you wanted to search for sites that stores mp3 files, go for filetype:mp3
11. phonebook: as you might guess, looks up phone numbers.
    Example: If you want to just check if somebody has published your phone number on the net, just do a phonebook:yournumber search.

So keeping all these secret codes, you can search for the most minute details on the internet.Some interesting things probably. But keep in mind that Google is not a replica of the actual world nor is it a library. It’s just a collection of manually entered information stored in a particular order.

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All of us will unanimously agree that Google Talk, despite being lite and flexible, is boring in it’s colours. Google has made it apoint to stick to it’s normal themes, as seen in Gmail and Google’s Official blogs.
Sapiensbrian, has developed some themes for Google Talk messenger that will help you put some colour in to your talk. It’s a novel idea - a perfect idea to kill some boredom.

He has also provided a tutorial on how to edit the colours of Google Talk yourself with the help of some basic tools.

Read more about How to make Google Talk themes here.

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The Learned Man - is yet another top ranked influential blogs from India.

Not surprisingly, being a technology blog, the learned man has implemented all the monetisation techniques in a decent manner on the blog.

Totally, there are 3ad + 1link units.

There are 2 Skyscrapers used on either right and left panels of the blog.
One of them(right panel) is very well optimised and tuned with the overall look of the blog, while the other skyscraper juts out, not at all relating with the blog theme. I guess this is a deliberate attempt by the author to see which one of them bring in more clicks probably. One of them is above fold while the second below fold.

Above fold skyscraper
——————————-
Background colour - Yes, Matches with body colour.
Font size - Yes, Matches with body colour.
Title colour - No, Does not match with blog title colour.
Link colour - Yes, Matches with blog links colour.
Text colour - Yes, Matches with blog text colour.
Background/boxed - No border.
Placement - Above fold, good visibility
Number of ads - 3 + 1 link unit

Below fold skyscraper
——————————-
Background colour - No, Does not match with body colour.
Font size - Yes, Matches with blog colour.
Title colour - No, Does not match with blog title colour.
Link colour - No, Does not match with blog links colour.
Text colour - Yes, Matches with blog text colour.
Background/boxed - Boxed out.
Placement - Below fold, good visibility

AdLink unit
———————
Placement - Above fold, left hand panel
Background image - No
Category Match - Yes

Corrections Recommended
—————————————

In my perspective, the left hand panel skyscraper is a waste, apart from the guess that it’s an experiment.

Instead of this unit, the author should’ve used a rectangle in between posts. That would make it two rectangles and a skyscraper. As rectangles are the most prefered units to leader boards and skyscrapers.

The adlink unit placement deserves an applause as it’s tweaked the best way to match the look of the blog.Also it’s placed above fold mimicing the category menu making it more accessible.

A special mention to the font used in the menu links on this blog. All the text links used in the right and left hand panels are tiny in size and does not match quite well with the rest of the links on the blog. The font size in the ads are the standard 12point ones and it matches with the links on the blog(except the ones on the panels.) If my guess is right, this has been done to incorporate more text portion into the links, making it more sensible. But it also harms the overall recognition factor for the ads.

Overall, this blog scores a 8/10.

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Just a few tips that will help you decide whether you’re a professional blogger or not?

1 - Dark Circles are present around your eyes - giving you that typical sleepy eyes look.(Some have managed to hide it with soda glasses!)

2 - Needs somebody to remind and re ensure you often that your kid’s name is not - Spam.

3 - Keeps asking a CAPTCHA code to your peers during conversations/debate.

4 - Mister fast fingers - Types at extra ordinary speeds giving your neighbors/peers shock/bewilderment and envy.

5 - When you’ve lost your car key - tends to Google it down.

6 -When your wife/mom found a new recipe, you ask her to Digg it.(damn!)

7 - Prefers a nuclear war - Bloggers will be the only category of people who would prefer a nuclear war - and an atom bomb would their most preferred weapon - no price for guessing why.

8 - Browse Internet while at Office and in between meetings - can’t stop it despite memos.

9 -Pet’s name is either Feed, Widget, Tag, Matt or Google.

10 -Keeps away your daily activities for remaining that “little more time” online - ends up with your laptop at the closet.

For serious issues involving a Professional Blogger’s life, ask Kottke , Amit or Darren

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According to this belgian blog, the world’s biggest Happy New Year card was discovered on Google Earth.

A greeting card, size XXXXXXXL, was found on Google Earth. On the 12th floor of a parking building in the center of Brussels, Pascal used a lot of paint to wish you a happy New Year 2007.

Screenshots Full story

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I just noted this ad today on a blog - A normal looking “contextual” ad on a Google AdSense leaderboard with a strange character/image near the ad text. - yep, yet another one!

This one’s interesting because it is not a special character, but an icon. An icon image of a shopping cart in the url text of an ad. I have no idea how this crept in, probably because -

1 -The advertiser used a special character or a combination of characters that goes undetected (looks normal) during the checking process.

2 - He used an image.(That’s bit too too weird)

3 - Google is trying some new features on ads like allowing adwords clients to use special characters/images.

Whatever it is, it seemed pretty cool to me, because it caught my attention all of a sudden. I bet it will grab your’s too.

UPDATE - 11.38 pm IST, 28 Dec
—————–

Apologies for those who came in late. I learned that this is the Google Checkout feature that’s seen as the shopping cart on the ad. This thread at digitalpoint had discussed the same topic earlier.

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This is a free download Vista Transformation pack for Windows Xp users.

It enables you to transform Windows XP to Vista like looks all around.
- Boot screens, Login screens, Screen savers, Visual styles - Transparent windows, Icons, Sounds, Wallpapers and much more.. Read the full features list here

I used it on my laptop(Toshiba Satellite, Windows XP, 512 RAM,60GB) and it ran smooth, but a little slower when opening programs. Especially when you have many windows opened. But the visuals are just stunning.

I liked the transparent windows(only title area) most, but unfortunately it doesn’t have the Windows 3D Flip option.

Also the security issues this pack may pose is a possibility but so far i haven’t had any raised eyebrows. You may want to read the 5 things you may like/dislike in Vista before downloading.

But if you are dumbstruck by the Vista looks, then this is a must download. Please read the Instructions here

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Warning: Not for the weak at heart!

Here are the videos of Firefox and IE Ads, you will enjoy - while IE’s ad being an official one, is a bit hilarious and pretty interesting too for the visual wizardry used in it.

There are other ad videos of firefox around, which are pretty interesting too, but this one steals the show!

But the firefox one is pretty much hilarious with it making fun of the IE,Netscape and other browsers. Wonder if this is an official one. Worth a watch !

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Blogdesk is a utility that allows you to create/mofiy/edit and compose your blogs posts offline(For Wordpress and other CMS systems).You may save your posts as drafts for later publication or publish it instantly.

It has a very simple and easy composing window where the post can be edited just like in MS Word. You can also add images by dragging them in to the window.Later, on publication, the images also will be uploaded to the site.

All the standard components in a blog post are included in the editor window.

This application is now not compatible with Blogger but works amazingly well with wordpress,Movable type,Expression Engine,Drupal,Serendipity,Blojsom and a few ther CMS’s as well.

However, One drawback is that, in order to publish posts directly from this tool, you go to give your username and password to it. This may not be seen as a good option by many since it may prove foolish.

On all other matters, this is a really flexible ad simple offline blogging unitility, especially if you want to organize your posts and do most of them offline.

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