Socializing

MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, del.icio.us, Digg, flickr, StumbleUpon etc. etc. etc.... all of them are asking you to socialize and are giving you a thousands of options how to meet, mingle and socialize with people from all over the world...

And then it cross my mind how old folks said that internet is for associal people... Yeah, right...

Before the WWW, people met other people in kindergarden, school, maybe college, work, bar, thru other friends etc... if they were social enough to introduce themselves...

At some point, they got married, had a few kids and thats it... Thru one life time period they had maybe 50-100 "friends"...

In this era of WWW we can all easily meet and chat with cca 10-20 new people every day!

We can stay in touch with them much longer then one summer, one school year etc. and have much more fun and quality talk then seating in a bar with a group of friends.

All that I do all day is involved with socializing online... I surf from page to page, thinking - "Hey, I could send this to my boyfriend", or, "Hey, this could be interesting to xy..." and so on... I surf on Digg, I write a few blogs (yes, a few :D), I bookmark on del.icio.us, sometimes stop by at myspace etc... socializing all day long...

So, can they still tell me that we are antisocial?! :D

IconFinder.net

I was planning to make a post with some of my favourite free icons, but then I found this page.

All the free icons that I use, are allready in there + some new, so, as far as I'm concerned, this is my new favourite place for free icons...

Only minus is that you can not browse icons by complete sets from one author, but only by name or tags...

I hope they will fix it in future... Enjoy!

IconFinder.net

Feed My App

Whatever the name means, FeedMyApp is actually a new web 2.0 directory.

And I simply love it... Why?

1. Design - it so refreshing and simple, isn't it?!

2. Easy to use and navigate - I don't have to scan it 10 minutes to find a gallery, it's right there in front of me the whole time...

3. Preview + short description - I can preview the design of the site and I don't have to visit it to see what they do, there is a short description above every thumb.

Therefore, I can use it to browse new sites and to find some which I don't know how I would ran into otherwise, but I can also use it to find an inspiration for new designs!

Oh yes, off course, you can also suggest your web 2.0 site and get some more traffic... ;-))

Color Pickers/Converters

I'm always having a hard time finding the right color picker or converter online. Sometimes I run into some that I find very usefull, but next time that I want to use it, it's lost in the sea of bookmarks.

Therefore, I google a little, tried various color pickers and converteres and here is the list of the ones I found most usefull.

1.) Zoltech Color Converter - you can select color name and see its RGB or HEX code, or you can write RGB code and convert it into HEX code (vice versa). Each time you select a color, background changes into that color. Handy and simple to use.

2.) PCMan Color Converter - this one has a HEX to RGB color converter, RGB to HEX code color converter, RGB to VRML color converter, as well as Web Browser Safe Color converter which chooses the closest web safe color to the one that you entered. Nice, but with one big minus. You can not visualize the color you're entering, nor the web safe color which he suggest until you put it into your css code or wherever you want to use it.

3.) Forret Color Conversion - Offers CMYK, RGB, HEX converter + shows websafe color next to the one you chosen and a matching greyscale tone + gradient from chosen color to white or black + complete RGB color chart with official names. Definitely my No. 1.

4.) Draac.Com's Converter - Color Chart, Color Cube, Rainbow text and Color Converter HEX/RGB. Since I am a visual type of person, I like this page cause when I choose the color I want, it shows as background color. Among these color tools, page offers lots of other usefull tools, so it's good to mingle around a bit and see if there0s something you'll need.

5.) ColorMatch - Ok, this is not ordinary color picker or color converter, but it's usefull when you can't decide which colors would match with the one that you like to put on your website.

6.) ZSP Super Color Chart - Great tool - pick a color of your text and color of your background and see how they match together.

7.) PageTutor ColorPicker - My first color picker, so it deserves a place on this list. Pick a color of your text, link, visited link, active link, hover link and color of your background. Bad thing is that you can't write your hex code, it only supports 216 websafe color chart.

8.) Color Schemer - very simple and nice design. You pick a color by hex code, rgb value or from color-chart directly on site and he shows chosen color as well as 16 matching colors. Special bonus is that you can choose to lighten or darken complete scheme.

9.) Color Scheme 2 - I love it. You can pick a color that you prefer and choose between Mono, Contrast, Triad, Tetrad and Analogic Color Scheme as well as lighten, darker, pastel pallette and so on.... According to that he gives you color pallette.

10.) Dr Pete Jones color calculator - you can choose to enter HEX code, RGB or HSV value and find the others. Background swithces to color you choose. Special tool is that you can choose sample colors from list, or click random button.

11.) DeGraeve color picker - just a simple tool to write in hex code and find 16 matching colors. Nothing special, but this site offers some other tools like color pallete generator, favicon maker, buisness card generator etc.

And for the end, this is not actually a color picker nor converter, but it's worth to see: KrazyDad

That's about it. I hope you'll find this post usefull since there's a tons of color pickers around the web and it's really hard to choose which one to use.

Please, feel free to comment or to add more links of your favourite color pickers/converters etc.

Joomla Open Source CMS

Sparkl-ing.com is using Joomla CMS as a base for our web projects.

Although there is really a lot of Open Source CMS to use for free, Joomla has the best support and thanx to a huge popularity there is a bunch of extra components and modules developing each day.

It takes some time to learn it and to fully understand all the features its providing, but once you are into it, nothing else can satisfy you :-))

So, if you need a free open source CMS solution, Joomla is the right thing for you.

My favourite sources for Joomla packs, components and modules are following:

extensionsJoomla
onestopJoomla
croJoomla

Take the money and run iliti Uzmilovu.net

Available only in croatian language!

Uzmilovu.net je još jedna meni draga stranica iz vrlo jednostavnog razloga. Radi se o popisu svih (ili gotovo svih) aktualnih nagradnih igri, a ja obožavam nagradne igre.

Stranica ima oku ugodan dizajn i što je još važnije, pregledna je...

Na naslovnici su prikazane najnovije nagradne igre, a možete ih pregledavati i po kategorijama - last minute, sms, instant, radom do nagrade, nagrade iznad 5000Kn i sl.

S obzirom da se nove nagradne igre gotovo svakodnevno organiziraju, stranica često ima novosti. Nagradnu igru za koju ste čuli, a niste našli na uzmilovu.net ili ste je sami organizirali, možete putem obrasca na naslovnoj stranici vrlo brzo poslati uredništvu na uvid.


Zaključak: Za sve ljubitelje nagradnih igara, ova stranica je MUST SEE!

Tag-a-feed.com

I just love this project.

It's simple, it's usefull, it's cool.

So, what is tag-a-feed.com?

It's a web site where you can register, add some of your feeds, which is extremely simple - you just have to add a link to the site you want to add, not thinking about which rss or atom feed does it use and is it compatible with this service.

So, when you add your feeds you can read the posts from them so there is no worries anymore will you miss some important news.

You also have widgets for your site. With a little java script code you can add to your page latest 20 posts from your feeds with headlines od posts or with names od the feeds.

I also have an inside information that there will be new features available soon, so you will be able to put on your site only those which you want to be shown, or make a list of latest posts from your blog etc.

And the last thing that I need to mention here is that you can receive feeds by mail or you can read them on your cell phone.

Nice, huh...

So, if you're not registered on tag-a-feed.com yet, what are you waiting for?


CONCLUSION: I like tag-a-feed.com

Monitor.hr

Available only in croatian language!


Monitor je, ili je bar jedan od, najstarijih portala na hr webu.

Prati ga (čitaj: imaju iste vlasnike) i forum.hr kao jedna od prvih i najjačih socijalnih mreža na hr webu pa ne čudi da su i dalje najposjećenija stranica u Hrvatskoj.

Ono što mene čudi je da je izgled monitora i dalje ostao isti, a mijenja se samo sve veći broj reklama i sponzoriranih članaka. Za razliku od nekad kada smo tamo mogli naći pokoju zanimljivu informaciju, sada možemo naći sponzorirane linkove, sponzorirane vijesti, par uvodnih rečenica koje te vode na članak na drugoj stranici, pa još sponzoriranih vijesti.

Pa neka anketica sastrane, pa sponzorirane reklame, pa flash vijesti koje opet vode na druge web siteove, pa popis tema na forumu (dakle, samoreklama), pa opet malo internet marketinga i onda, pazi čuda - još reklama...

Pa se sad ja pitam, tko još dolazi na monitor.hr? I po što točno? Jer sve što mi oni mogu ponuditi je nekoliko sponzoriranih članaka (dakle, koji su sponzori napisali) i hrpu linkova - bilo direktnih, bilo sa uvodom.

I to ih naravno ne sprečava da naplaćuju slijedeće cijene svojih usluga:

Primjer: za 60.000 prikazivanja mjesečno u periodu od 3 mjeseca cijena je
75 kn za 1000 prikazivanja ili 60 x 75 = 4.500 kn/mj. Za plaćanje unaprijed
odobravamo 5% popusta. Reklamnim agencijama odobravamo popust od 15%.U navedene
cijene nije uračunat PDV.Oglašivač ima stalni uvid u statistiku prikazivanja
(broj prikazivanja, broj klikova na banner).

Sponzorirana vijest - vijest na naslovnici Internet Monitora vidjet će
radnim danom više od 70.000 internet korisnika, a vijest je na naslovnici
vidljiva još 3-4 dana zbog dužine stranice (koja se zbog svoje strukture
svejedno učitava vrlo brzo). Cijena jedne vijesti iznosi 2.500 kn plus PDV.

itd. - za sve cijene pogledajte ovdje.

I recite vi sad meni, tko je tu lud? Oni koji posjećuju stranice na kojima zapravo nema konkretnog sadržaja, oni koji takvu stranicu vode ili oni koji im reklame plaćaju?


Zaključak: ljubomorna sam - hoću i ja tolike pare, a da niš ne radim.

Zaključak 2: Monitor.hr se šlepa na temeljima stare slave, ali pitanje je do kada.

Hoola web stranice

Available only in croatian language!


Već davno sam čula za HOOLA izradu web stranica, ali nekako me put nikako nije nanio da ih isprobam. Sve do danas... Pa ih eto na recenziji.

Dakle, ideja je zgodna. Odeš na njihovu stranicu i možeš probati demo verziju ili se registrirati pa dva tjedna isprobavati besplatnu verziju, a onda odlučiti da li je to ono što vam odgovara ili ne.

Fora je u tome da sam izabireš template, sliku, boje, fontove i slične pizdarije bez ikakvog predznanja html-a ili css-a ili drugih matrix kodova kako ih moj prijatelj zove.

Zaista pregledno i lako za upotrebu. Ali to je ujedno i jedini plus ovog servisa.

Već kod prvog pogleda na demo uočila sam nedostatke...

I to, ni manje ni više, nego u samom dizajnu template-a. Ako pogledate neke kvalitetno i profesionalno napravljenje stranice, uočit će te da je prostor maksimalno iskorišten. Kod Hoola template-a prostor je rascjepkan i poluprazan - dakle, loše iskorišten. Ili se sastoji od jednog stupca, teksta i velikog bannera što je karakteristika običnog blog dizajna.

Newsletter koji mi se također činio kao prednost ovog servisa je ništa drugo nego html mail kojeg vrlo lako možete napraviti u bilo kojem mail pregledniku.

Ukoliko ste zaista totalni tutlek i želite web stranice samo zato da bi mogli reći da ste online, u očekivanju da ljudi nađu vaš broj telefona na toj stranici pa vas kontaktiraju, onda je ovo odličan servis za vas, mada jednaku kvalitetu možete dobiti i otvaranjem potpuno besplatnog bloga na bilo kojem blog servisu.

Ukoliko pak želite da vaša stranica približi proizvod kupcima, da ga predstavi na profesionalan način, te da je redovito punite novim informacijama, onda vam Hoola web jednostavno nije dovoljan.


Zaključak: sve ima svoju publiku