Where do you find inspiration for your designs?

There are many places to look, both online and off. The important thing is to not limit yourself to just one source of inspiration.

Online Design Galleries

Many new designers begin looking for design inspiration from online galleries.

While there’s nothing particularly wrong with online design galleries, they do seem to showcase similar sites. One gallery finds a design they like and before long there are dozens of other galleries showcasing the same design.

Another problem I find with online galleries is that they often showcase designs that follow a certain trend. Trends are fine, but when everyone is following a trend, where’s the innovation? Where’s the variety?

The online galleries that are the best places to look are ones like Creattica that showcase more than just website and logo designs. Creattica, for example, features designs in categories like business cards, skateboard and snowboard art, posters, motion graphics, book covers, icons, tshirt design, and more.

However diverse they may seem, you should not limit yourself to just online design galleries.

Photo Galleries

Many designers find inspiration in photographs. It’s no wonder that many turn to Flickr to jump start their creative juices.

Flickr is very handy for finding new and interesting color schemes.

There is also the very useful Compfight, which allows you to search Flickr. What makes this stand out is that is displays just the images in the search results. Plus it loads a tons of photos on each page, which means you don’t have to spend all day browsing through your results and clicking ‘Next’.

Of course, you can also find inspiration offline.

Books and Magazines

I’m a big fan of finding new ideas in magazines. In a recent guest post for Inspired Magazine, I discussed the benefits and advantages of seeking design inspiration from magazines.

Just a few of the advantages include becoming a better designer, improving your typography chops, and finding interesting a new layout ideas.

As I mentioned in my Inspired Magazine article, if you want better results, get out of your comfort zone. This can be done by looking in magazines that deal with other subjects (other than graphics, web design, or technology).

Books and book covers are also great places to look for new design ideas.

The Book Cover Archive is a great place to start online for your search of great book covers. But you might want to just get out and go to the library. There you will find even more unique designs to infuse your brain.

Product Design

You can also get out of your element and find inspiration in product designs from around the world.

In order for their products to stand out of the shelves, companies spend a lot of time on finding unique way of displaying their products.

Sites like The Dieline showcase these unique product designs.

Want an offline solution? Go to the grocery store. Go to a mall. Walk down the isles and see which products grab your attention first. Then try to determine why? It’s a good exercise and it can help you come up with new ideas to use in your next design.

The Real Test

The real test of any form of inspiration is the results you get.

Everyone thinks differently, learns differently, and are affected by what they see, hear and experience differently. So if you’re stuck in a rut or you just want a change of pace, try different means of getting inspired.

Some of the best results come from getting out of your comfort zone, so get crazy and have some fun!

Image Credits: Bewildered Man by Primusoid. Light Bulb Isolated on White by Nikolay Okhitin. Royalty-free photography from Shutterstock.

Because of their small size, icons used in UI’s (user interfaces) should be kept fairly simple.

This is especially true for user interfaces for mobile apps and devices like the iPhone, iPad and mobile devices using the Google Android OS. Since the resolution and screen sizes on these devices are small, monochromatic icons and symbols work very well.

I’ve gathered together 15 simple, single-color icon sets that could be used for UI design.

These icon sets are free for commercial use unless otherwise stated. However, be sure to check the licenses for each set before using on any projects.

Wireframe Icons

The folks at Gentleface have released the free Wireframe icon set–a collection of 244 icons that are free for non-commercial use.

Icons are available in 16×16, 32×32 and 48×48 pixel sizes. The icons come in PNG format.

Munich (PC.DE)

The Munich icon set is a selection of 60 simple single-color icons that would be great for a user interface.

The set includes icons in 2 sizes 16×16 and 32×32.

Gesturecons

Gesturecons is a unique icon set featuring hands performing 35 various multi-touch actions.

This set would be useful for those creating iPhone and Google Android apps. The icons are in vector format, so they could be resized easily and used in tutorials and help guides for multi-touch devices.

Available in vector formats (PDF, EPS, AI).

Iconic

Iconic is a simple icon set of 114 icons that’s very easy to see even at small sizes.

Icons are available in 14 colors, 5 sizes (8×8, 12×12, 16×16, 24×24 & 32×32 pixels) and in PNG, SVG, SWC and OmiGraffle formats.

Brightmix Icon Set

Brightmix has released their icon set for free for use on your projects.

The set includes 104 icons in vector (EPS) format.

Token

Token is a very nice set of 128 icons created by brsev.

Icons are available in light and dark versions, as well as 16×16, 32×32, 128×128, 256×256 pixel sizes. Icon formats PNG, ICO (Win).

Token is free for non-commercial use, though an option is available to purchase a royalty-free license for commercial projects.

Axialis

Axialis has several single-color icon sets in various sizes and colors that would be great for use in mobile app user interfaces.

Android Icon Set

Great for Android developers, the 30 letter pressed icons that make up the Android Icons set come in PNG format.

They also include the source file (EPS) for customizing.

Creative Nerds Letter Pressed Icons

100+ letter pressed icons available in PSD format.

108 Mono Icons

Tutorial9 has released an nice set of 108 monochromatic icons.

Icons are 32×32 pixel PNG.

Glyphish (iPhone and iPad UI Icons)

Glyphish is a simple set of 130 UI icons that is designed to work for work great for iPhone and iPad apps in toolbars and tab bars.

Set comes in PNG, PSD and AI formats.

iPhone Toolbar Icon Set (PixelPressIcons)

Free icon set for iPhone toolbars. Contains 50+ 30×30 pixel PNGs.

Guifx v2 Transports Font (Dingbat)

Technically, this isn’t an icon set, but rather a font with dingbat symbols. However, this contains many useful audio/video control symbols and icons.

Deziner Folio UI Icon Set

Deziner Folio has released a free 30-icon vector icon set.

The set in available in PSD.

iPhone UI Icon Set ($69 USD)

The iPhone UI Icon Set contains 160 PNG icons for use in any iPhone app. Optimized in 2 sizes for the toolbar and tab bar.

This is a high-quality icon set and $69 is not a hefty price if you’re using it for a commercial project.

Licenses

As always, check the licenses and terms of service for each icon set before using it.

Photo credit: Business Woman Pressing a Touchscreen Button by Olly via Shutterstock.

Smashing Magazine is a great web design blog featuring fun and useful articles and tutorials for web designers.

When they announced they were releasing a book–The Smashing Book–I was eager to read it.

Disclaimer: This review is not a paid review. However, I did receive a copy of this book free from Smashing Magazine.

Who Is the Book Written For?

The Smashing Book ($29.90 / €23.90) was written specifically for web designers—both beginners and those that have been at it for a while.

What Topics Are Covered in the Book?

The 313 page book focuses on basic, but fundamental areas of web design, such as:

• User Interface Design
• CSS-Layouts
• Typography
• Usability Principles
• Color Usage
• Website Optimization
• Increasing Conversion Rates
• Site Branding

I was initially worried that the book would center on a specific topic or technology. Or that it would just be a rehash of previous posts from the Smashing Magazine site. I was relieved that the book focuses on these core basics.

I think that many web designers that are self-taught have not been educated on many of these main principles of web design, so I think the book does a good job of covering these basics.

What is Not Covered in the Book?

Since the book focuses on underlying principles of web design, there are some tech-specific things not covered.

First, you won’t find much mention of CSS3 (except @font-face) or HTML5 in The Smashing Book.

Secondly, CMS’s like WordPress, ExpressionEngine, Joomla, etc are only mentioned in the interviews. Even then, nothing very specific there.

Still, taking into account the focus of the book, this is not surprising.

Also, the book is not a long list of how to do this or that on your client’s website. Again, it stays focused on the fundamentals of design rather than get into every little thing you can do. You won’t find any 50 ways to super-charge your WordPress site sections in the book.

What Did I Like the Most About the Book?

So what did I like the most about the book?

Web Designer Interviews

The interviews, oddly enough.

I usually don’t read many interviews, and I usually find them a bit dull. However I really liked the format the book used for answering the questions.

A panel of 24 web pros took turns providing their answers and opinions. These included Dan Rubin, Jason Santa Maria, Paul Boag, Andy Budd, Elliot Jay Stocks, Veerle Peters and others.

I found it pretty insightful to learn their opinions on questions like:

• What are your first steps when beginning a project for a client?
• What universal principles of setting type do you follow in every project?
• How do you know when a design is complete?

Typography

A close (very close) second would be the typography section.

The book deals not only with use of type and fonts on the web, but also explains typographic terms such as baselines, bowls, cap height, ligatures, majuscles, x-height, etc.

I think that every designer should be familiar with the principles of typography—both on and off the web—and this book is a good starting point.

Other Things I Liked About The Smashing Book

1. Didn’t focus on technology-specific subjects: While it focused on some technology, it didn’t focus too much on specifics that will change quickly.
2. Nice written style and easy to understand.
3. Nice reference: Even if you know everything there is to know about 1 or more of the topics covered in the book, it’s still a nice reference.

What I Didn’t Like as Much About the Book

1. Book size: While it is fine for reading, the small size–specifically the width of the book (5 ½ inches)—makes it impossible to leave the book open and follow along with the code.
2. May be too general for experts: Since this book focuses on the basics of web design, if you’re already well-versed in all the areas discussed in the book, you may not learn that much. I found myself skipping a couple of the sections.
3. Shipping and packaging: Many have complained about the shipping delivery speed. I think the packaging materials should have been more rugged. Mine came in the mail in a thin box with no padding. The bottom corner was smashed (ironically) and the book’s corner was damaged, though not ripped.
4. Editing errors: There were a few spelling errors that my inner editor found distracting, but nothing unforgivable. (And yes, I know it’s lame to harp about spelling, but a couple of them could have been caught by a spell-checker.)

Consensus

What The Smashing Book covers are the fundamentals of web design–the underlying principles that every designer should know. In this, the book does a nice job without focusing too much on specific technologies that will change before long.

What it covers, it covers well.

I definitely recommend the book to any web designer as a good reference and the expert interviews are great for getting into the minds of the top designers.

For those with strong backgrounds in the topics covered in the book, you may not learn much more than you already know. As alternative, you could borrow a copy from a friend first.

Even as a designer, there are times when you have to speak before a group. This is especially true if you’re an individual freelancer.

Sometimes you need to pitch ideas for a project. You may be showing a design to a client for approval. Maybe you’re giving a speech to a group at a conference or other event.

What do you find to be the most difficult part of public speaking? [Take our poll]

I’ll Take Death, Please

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

—Jerry Seinfeld

Most people are not born with the ability to comfortably speak in a public setting.

Even those who are good at communicating with others in casual social settings are not necessarily at ease speaking to a group in a formal setting.

So what can help you overcome stress when speaking in public?

How To Overcome Stress

The source of most of the anxiety that comes with public speaking comes from the fact that we sometimes focus too much on ourselves.

Here are 3 tips that can help you be more at ease speaking in front of a group.

1. Know Where You’re Headed

Photo credit: straymuse

You already know a lot about the subject you’re going to be talking about—otherwise, why would you be speaking to the group in the first place.

Yet a brief outline is a good idea when speaking in front of a group, just as a map is a good idea when taking a trip. An outline will keep you headed in the right direction.

Write down ahead of time your main points and a few supporting thoughts. Don’t write things word-for-word—just a few brief words to remind you.

When you know what you’re going to say, you’ll focus more on your audience and less on what you’ll say next. This will help you relax.

2. Help Your Listeners

Photo credit: Jeff Kubina

To conquer your stage fright, you need to focus on those to whom you’re talking—your audience.

If you’re speaking at a conference, for example, you’re wanting to be informative or motivate those in attendance to take some sort of action.

Instead of being overly concerned about what you’ll say, try to focus your mind on your objective—helping others.

Really, the majority of the time, at least one of your objectives is to help those listening in some way.

Even if you’re pitching an idea to a potential client that would result in income for you, you’re really offering to provide a service or product that will benefit them, their business, or their clients.

Instead of merely focusing on the financial benefits to you, concentrate on how what you’re saying will help them.

Stop selling to them—talk to them.

Showing concern for your listeners and having their interests in mind will help you to focus on them more, and on you less. You won’t be as self-conscious and your interest in them will show in your face and tone of voice.

3. Your Audience Is Nicer Than You Think

Photo credit: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

Your audience is probably not plotting your demise as you stand up to talk to them.

Most of them have had to speak in front of a group in the past, so they no doubt remember how stressful it is. They want you to succeed.

Also, remember that the reason you’re speaking to them in the first place is likely because you have something useful to convey; something valuable to share. Again, focus on that fact.

Keep these things in mind and you’ll be less self-conscious and more relaxed.

Just the Tip of the Iceburg

While overcoming stress and your nerves is an important part of being a good public speaker, it’s really just one aspect.

I’d like your feedback. What is the most difficult part of public speaking for you?

Take our poll

As someone viewing websites on the web, ad-blockers filter out adverts for “enhancements”, and a bunch of flashing, ugly advertisements. Not only this, but ad-blockers can help protect you from potentially sneaky and malicious code.

This is why one of the most popular downloads for Firefox is an ad-blocking extension.

However, have you thought about the reverse? What about the effect ad blockers have on your website or the sites you design for clients?

Is my coding style or design choices limiting what’s viewable to visitors because it’s being incorrectly identified as advertising content by ad-blockers?

Choose Your Class and ID Names Carefully

You may reason, “I don’t have to worry about ad-blockers because I don’t have any advertisements on my website”.

But do you really have to reason for concern?

While you may not have a single ad on your site, the names you give your classes and ID’s matter.

Classes and ID’s containing keywords like banner, ban, ad, advertisement, etc may get flagged incorrectly by a visitor’s ad-blocking plugin.

Important sections of information could never appear on the screen because of this.

Avoid:

<p class="panel banner" id="bannercontent1">Real content. Not an advertisement. But still blocked.</p>

Better:

<p class="panel section" id="section1">Real content. Not an advertisement.</p>

Remember, elements with classes and ID’s that contain any filtered keywords run a high risk of being blocked. In theory, an ID or class named ‘bandaid‘ may get filtered as an ad.

Safe Choices For Classes and ID’s

What are safe choices for classes and ID’s?

While there’s no way to know exactly what custom keywords people will add to their blocking list, a good rule of thumb would be to look at the keywords that are contained in the default filter list. This list can usually be found in the ad-blocking extension’s settings.

Avoid using classes or ID’s that contain any of the keywords on the filter list.

Choose Your Images Carefully

You should also pay attention to your choice of images.

Since ad-blockers cannot actually view the contents of an image, they identify advertisements by relying on both the image filename and image dimensions.

Image Filenames and Directories

Images that contain banners, ban, ads, advertisement, and so on in their filenames may very well get flagged as an advertisement and get removed.

You should also be aware of the directory names you choose. For example, using directories that contain words commonly used in banner advertisements are fair game for ad-blockers.

Image Dimensions

Your images’ dimensions matter. Images that have the same dimensions as common banner sizes run a high risk of getting wrongly blocked.

Common ad sizes (in pixels):

• 728 × 90
• 468 × 60
• 234 × 60
• 180 × 150
• 125 × 125
• 88 × 31
• 120 × 600
• 160 × 600
• 336 × 280
• 300 × 250

Source: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/1421/1443/1452

If Unsure, Test

If you’re not sure, download an ad-blocking plugin for your browser and test your design before going live.

This week, we’re looking at 10 outstanding and uniquely styled TV series title sequences.

Many people refer to the title sequence as the opening credits even though they are not really the same. However, I’ll be using the two terms interchangeably in this post.

The title sequence / opening credits is usually accompanied by visuals and sound that set the mood for the series. This usually includes the theme music for the series (if any).

Previously, I showcased a couple of title sequences from other shows that use specific effects, such as Poirot and Dollhouse. Since I’ve already featured them here on the Blog, I’m not going to include them in this list.

The title sequences chosen for this post are ones I feel are particularly memorable or out of the ordinary.

Human Target (Season 1, FOX)

The opening credits for Human Target immediately made me take notice.

The title sequence makes great use of a grunge/watercolor effect. It borrows a bit from the Bond movies, but everything works well together and fits the theme of the series.

I also like the tilting and suddenly jerk effects (for lack of better terms). This gives the sequence a more ‘real’ and less digital feel, which goes well with the watercolor and grunge effects.

Murphy’s Law (Series 3, 4 and 5, BBC)

Murphy’s Law as a series changed quite a bit from the beginning of season 1.

Season 5’s title sequence was a big departure from the opening credits of the previous seasons but fits with the shift in the subject matter of that season.

My favorite part is the way the Murphy’s Law text/logo appears to be painted onto shards of glass which move toward the viewer at the end.

I couldn’t find the opening credits for just season 5 by itself, so the video below contains the intros for seasons 3, 4 and 5.

Caprica (Season 1, SyFy)

Whether you like the opening credits for Caprica or not, you have to admit that it’s a very unique intro.

I haven’t seen anything quite like it. Beyond the slick CGI and effects, it sets up the plot of the series and is almost like a mini episode.

Hustle (BBC)

Hustle, a series about a small group of grifters (con-men), doesn’t often take itself overly seriously and the title sequence plays to this well.

While the title sequence changes after season 3, both the earlier and later versions use vector-style animation which fits in really well with the show’s fun theme.

If you watch the title sequences, you’ll see some great visual metaphors within the animation (the fat businessman falling for the trap).

Plus, I dare you not to start humming or whistling the theme song.

Hustle Seasons 1–3

Hustle Season 5

Mad Men (Season 1, FOX)

Mad Men’s opening credits are a mix of vector illustration/animation and retro photographs which is very fitting for the theme of the series.

Eureka (Syfy)

Eureka’s opening credits are a bit unusual in that they use an “animated images”/Ken Burns style.

It also mixes a small town look with retro-futurism elements and a muted palette.

Chuck (Season 1, NBC)

Chuck’s title sequence combines vector-style animation, ninjas, and a theme song from Cake that won’t get out of your head. Win, win, win.

Conclusion

The above television series’ title sequences are some of my personal favorites.

As such, I’m sure there are many others that I have either forgotten about or never seen. What’s your favorite television title sequence? Tell us in the comments.

It’s only been a couple weeks since the newest version of Mozilla Thunderbird–Thunderbird 3–was officially released.

This new version of Thunderbird includes several new features.

Let’s look at 4 features in Thunderbird 3 that can help you stay more organized and work more efficiently:

1. Sync all your email accounts
2. Better Gmail integration
3. Better Email Search
4. Manage tasks, calendars, Google Wave, webmail and more within Thunderbird 3 with content tabs

1. Sync All Your Email Accounts

The ability to keep all your mail in all your accounts synced is not a new feature in Thunderbird 3. However, it is awful handy and makes keeping up on all your correspondence a breeze.

The easiest way to do this is to make sure all your email accounts use IMAP instead of POP.

Incoming email, sent emails, drafts, spam, and folders within your account all get synced (assuming your mail server supports this) when you use IMAP.

If you haven’t moved your email accounts from POP to IMAP, do yourself a favor and take a day and just do it. You’ll be glad you did.

Thunderbird 3 also has a new migration feature that will make moving your emails easier.

2. Better Gmail Integration

While you could setup your Gmail accounts in previous versions of Thunderbird, Gmail setup was more complicated than it should’ve been.

Now, Thunderbird 3 detects and sets up Gmail accounts with a super-fast wizard.

Just choose the Gmail option, enter your name, email address and password. Thunderbird 3 finds all the right settings and creates your account. The whole process took me about 15 seconds.

If you’re a Google Apps user, you’ll still need to use Google’s IMAP instructions and settings to set up your email.

3. Better Email Search

Thunderbird 3 has a new mail search which includes filtering and timeline tools. This makes it easy to search emails from all your accounts–including webmail accounts.

Search results open in a new tab so you can work back and forth between your results and regular emails.

Thunderbird 3’s search also seems to have been sped up as well–delivering results much faster than TB2.

Search also searches Gmail emails just fine.

4. Embed Webpages In Their Own Tabs Within Thunderbird

Content Tabs (or Content Browsing) is by far the simplest and yet most exciting feature in Thunderbird 3.

Content Tabs enable Thunderbird to display remote content in a tab, which users can browse in (mostly) the same way as with a browser.

Content Tabs – Mozilla Developer Center

This makes it easy to access Twitter, tasks apps, online calendars, or whatever web-based services you want right through Thunderbird.

How Do Content Tabs Work?

Using the Error Console found in the Tools menu, you can add just about any site to Thunderbird and have it in its own tab.

Want Google Wave within a tab in Thunderbird? How about Google Voice, or your favorite online calendar or tasks web app? You can add them to their own tabs in Thunderbird.

For example:

Components.classes['@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1'].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator).getMostRecentWindow("mail:3pane").document.getElementById("tabmail").openTab("contentTab", {contentPage: "http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/nightly/whatsnew/"});

Pasting this line of code into the Error Console and clicking Evaluate would create a new tab in Thunderbird containing the webpage:

http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/nightly/whatsnew/

Lifehacker has a great article showing how to add Google Wave to its own tab in Thunderbird 3.

You can also add Google Voice in its own tab like this:

Components.classes['@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1'].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator).getMostRecentWindow("mail:3pane").document.getElementById("tabmail").openTab("contentTab", {contentPage: "https://voice.google.com/voice/?"});

You can add any page to Thunderbird easily this way.

More Control Over Content Tabs

Some have reported that when you close Thunderbird, any content tabs that are open will close and you have to paste the code back into the Error Console.

Personally, I haven’t run into this with TB3 on Ubuntu 9.10.

But if this is an issue, you might try installing the Custom Buttons² extension. The extension also lets you add custom buttons to Thunderbird’s toolbar that will let you open tabs for individual sites as needed.

Staying More Organized

There are several new features added to Thunderbird 3 that will speed up the way you work with your email and access information.

Look for more ‘Stay More Organized’ articles coming soon.

You should also follow us on Twitter.

• Handles AI, EPS, PDF, SVG and a slew of other vector and raster formats
• It’s open source and free
• Runs on all major operating systems–Windows, Mac OS X and Linux

Last week, Inkscape’s newest version, 0.47, was released.

What’s new in Inkscapes latest version? Lots.

What’s New in Inkscape 0.47?

Improved UI and Desktop Integration

So you want to know what the new version of Inkscape looks like?

It’s not a radical departure from the previous version, but it has some streamlining and small tweaks that’s been given it. Mainly, it seems to integrate better with whatever OS it’s installed.

You can view some screenshots of the new Inkscape interface and examples of what’s possible on the Screenshots gallery page.

Above: Obligatory Megan Fox vector illustration

Additions and Improvements

Here’s just a brief list of additions and improvements. You can read the full list of changes on Inkscape.org.

• Autosave with adjustable preferences
• Spiro splines for the Pen, Pencil, and Node tools
• Auto smooth nodes
• New modes in Tweak tool
• Reworked snapping and grid system, plus a Snapping toolbar
• New path effects, including sketch, hatching, envelope deformation; effects can be stacked and assigned to groups
• Tons of filters found in new Filters menu
• Typography–Base support for creating SVG fonts
• New and improved extensions
• New cairo-based PS and EPS export: improved quality, more features supported, fallback rasterization for filters and transparency
• Spell checker for text objects
• Many new extensions: restacking, calendar, printing marks, cartesian and polar grids, interpolating attributes
• Optimized SVG code options
• Better desktop integration. Better Gnome integration (Linux) with improved icons. Also includes themable icons.

New Path Effects

New Sketch path effect in Inkscape 0.47

There are several new path effects in the new version of Inkscape.

• Sketch makes an object or path look like it was rough sketched
• Hatches draws hatch and “scribbles” within a shape
• von Koch creates fractal images
• Knot makes a knot from a flat self-intersecting curve; giving the illusion of a knot
• Spiro Splines is a useful alternative to Bezier curves. This could be handy for those creating type or fonts
• Construct Grid
• Envelope Deformation lets you deform an object or group of objects by deforming any of its principle sides (top, bottom, sides). Can be edited with the Node tool.
• Create ruler marks along a path with Ruler
• Interpolate Subpaths “tweens” (think Flash) shapes along an editable path

If you haven’t tried Inkscape or haven’t tried out the newest version, download Inkscape today.

Here’s the claim code: DFGXTHDG96RW

Now, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

In a previous post, I wrote about 10 creative ways to use Drop.io. Drop.io is a free online file sharing/collaboration service.

One of the ideas was using Drop.io’s voicemail as a way to let visitors leave audio comments.

Audio Blog Comments—A New Idea?

Short answer, no.

The idea of audio comments isn’t new.

Paul Boag, of the excellent Boagworld, allows (or allowed–can’t seem to find it now) visitors to post audio comments. Paul also has posted audio responses to text comments on some of his posts (via AudioBoo).

This is logical because of the podcasts they publish. Audio comments could be used in future podcasts.

People could record a message to MP3 and then save it to their computer. Boagworld gave visitors an option to upload the saved MP3 file to their site right from the comments section.

This is a nice idea, but unless you’re really motivated, you’re probably not going to go through the hassle of doing all this just to leave a comment.

Easier Audio Comments By Phone With Drop.io

So far, I haven’t really found any sites implementing audio comments on their site besides Boagworld (though I’m almost certain to be proved wrong ;) ).

How could you make it easier for visitors to leave audio comments on your blog?

Every drop you create with Drop.io has its own phone number and extension.

The simplest idea would be to create a drop, then place the phone number and extension at the end of the post or right in the Leave a Comment section.

Visitors will find this to be fairly easy:

1. Simply dial the drop’s phone number from any phone
2. Type in the extension at the prompt
3. Start talking and hang up when finished

Since all comments are automatically converted to MP3 by Drop.io, a lot of comments could be left on a 100MB drop.

Site Admins

For site/blog admins, email alerts can be setup in Drop.io. When new audio comments are left, the admin knows within seconds.

1. The site admin can listen to the message
2. Copy the embed code for the MP3 from Drop.io
3. Create a new comment on the blog post
4. Paste the embed code into the comment

Using the embed code allows a player to be added right in the comment itself so others can listen to the comment right on your blog without the need to download the file or go to Drop.io to listen to it.

Another option could be to set Drop.io to tweet links to the audio comments to your Twitter account. Though this is automatic, so you wouldn’t have any control over the comments and couldn’t really moderate them.

See It in Action

How does it work? You can see hear it in action, by going down to the end of this post to the comments section and listening to my sample audio comment.

You can also try it out for yourself—Leave us an audio comment—call this blog post: (646) 495-9246 ex: 62621

Pros

• Setting up a new Drop.io account is a piece of cake and takes practically no time
• Simple to implement on your existing blog
• Dead-simple for visitors, which means they’re more likely to leave audio comments
• Most people have mobile phones with free long distance, so the call would cost nothing

Cons

• Only useful if most of your visitors are from the United States. The drop’s phone number is a New York number
• If the phone number or extension is mis-dialed, the comment will either be lost
• No option for the commenter to redo or delete an audio comment once they start
• More work for site admins since they will have to listen to each message and manually add the link to a comment
• No easy way for people to add a link to their site or email address in their audio comments

Actually, Drop.io has an API that could be used to automate a lot of these things. Maybe set up a button similar to a Google Voice call widget?

It would require more work for the site/blog owner to initially set this up. But it would also make it easier for people and easier for themselves in the long run.

Other Ways To Add Audio Comments to Your Blog

The Drop.io option is an easy way for people to record their audio comments even if they don’t have a mic handy.

Here are some other options for adding audio comments to your blog.

• Riffly–Free online service for adding audio comments to your blog. There’s also a Riffly WordPress plugin to make adding it to your blog even easier. There’s a Drupal plugin too.
• Wagwire–Paid voicemail service that can be used for audio comments and feedback. There’s a dialing widget available as well.

Pros

• Specifically designed for audio comments
• More automated that the Drop.io option
• Both of the above services offer either plugins or widgets, so adding them to your site is pretty hassle-free

Cons

• Visitors must have a microphone
• What if the service goes belly-up? Do you have the option to download the MP3s to your computer like you do with Drop.io.

Suggestions?

Have you implemented audio comments on your site, or do you know of sites that do?

Have a better solution for audio comments?

Tell us about it in the comments.

Better yet, leave us an audio comment—call this blog post: (646) 495-9246 ex: 62621

Note: This is a New York number. Long distance fees may apply.

Have fun!

Photo credits: Silver Microphone Near Laptop by Yevgen Timashov. Sound Waves Oscillating by clearviewstock. Stock photos from Shutterstock.

There are only 26 letters in the English language, and yet so much that can be done with them.

There’s just something unique about vintage and retro typography. I could spend hours looking at all the different styles.

1908 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue

I was clearing out a garage a couple weeks ago for an older lady and found an old 1908 Sears, Roebuck catalog catalogue in among some junk.

I immediately brought it home and started thumbing through the pages.

Did you know you could buy tombstones from Sears? Blacksmith tools? Home dental equipment? A swastika hat pin? Lithium tablets?

Amazing Retro and Vintage Type

Anyhow, among the velocipedes and stereoscopes was some amazing vintage type.

The headings are very bold. There’s even a touch of art deco thrown in (see the armchair page below).

I wanted to share a few of the pages (out of over 1100 pages!) I pulled from the catalog, so I scanned a few of the highlights.

The images and fonts below were created pre-1923, so they are public domain.

PS: My favorite is the “automatic liquid pistol”. Read the suggested uses.

If they keep making music long enough, every music icon will eventually release a “Greatest Hits” or “Best of” album. These albums cover some of their best songs.

In a similar vein, this week’s post is a bite-sized recap of some of the best icon-related posts (get it?) that may have slipped by you since they were 1st released.

Let’s rock!

12+ Mega Icon Sets

This is actually one of the very 1st posts published on the site. It showcases over 12 huge (in number) icon sets.

Free Icon Search Tools

Need to find a few icons for your project? Take a look at my review of some of the best icon search engine sites.

10 More Free Icon Sets

10 icon sets from DryIcons. These sets are very useful, unique and free.

Grab Free Web Design Icon Sets

While this post was targeted primarily at web designers, all the font resources listed are great places for graphic designers to find icons for use in their projects as well.

Free OpenX Admin Icon Set V2

Are you using OpenX for serving adverts on your site or blog? It’s a great system, but the backend is pretty rough looking.

That’s why I created a new set of icons (from Fugue) to “reskin” OpenX’s admin section. Think, an OpenX theme pack.

That’s Not All Folks

Expect more icon-related posts to keep on rockin on in the future here at the Es Developed Blog.

In the meantime, you should follow me on Twitter or subscribe to the feed for updates every Monday and Friday.

Photo credits: Man Playing Electric Guitar by Regien Paassen | Time Exposure at a Concert by dwphotos | Crowd Raising Hands at a Pop Concert by G Light | Stock photos from Shutterstock.

Fugue is a free icon set created by Yusuke Kamiyamane–free for personal and commercial projects.

Let’s look at Fugue and how you can quickly add icons from the set to your site via the Fugue CSS Sprite Framework.

Fugue – A Huge Icon Set

This icon set currently has over 2000 16×16 pixel icons (in PNG format and PSD) and more are constantly being added. With this many icons, there’s usually at least 1 or 2 suitable icons for whatever you’re wanting to represent. Each icon is available with or without a shadow.

This set would be great for any web app–it contains many interface and UI icons among others. For example, I used Fugue for my OpenX Admin Icon Set v2.0.

Customize Fugue Icons With the Devkit

Yusuke has also graciously included Photoshop files (PSD’s) for every icon in the set; letting you tweak and combine icons if what’s there is not exactly what you want.

License

Fugue is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

If you prefer not to provide attribution (or can’t), you can also buy a royalty-free license for $49.

Fugue Sprite CSS Framework

If you’re planning on using several icons from Fugue on your website, you might consider using Fugue Sprite CSS from Alison at AlisoTheGeek.com.

The Fugue Sprite CSS framework works on the same principle as any other CSS sprite technique–only easier and faster. Way easier, because you don’t have to do anything by hand.

How To Use It

To use it, just place the single sprite image in the same directory as the Sprite CSS file. To display an icon, use the icon key that’s provided, find the name of the icon, and use that name as the class for your styled element.

Example: You want to display the leaf icon. Find the leaf icon in the list of icons in the key and copy the name of it (fugue-leaf). Include it in your CSS by adding a ‘.‘ in front of the icon name (.fugue-leaf). Fugue Sprite CSS takes care of the rest.

Considerations

Since the sprite framework contains all the icons from the Fugue set, the framework’s a bit large (684 KB total). But if you’re planning on using quite a few icons from the Fugue set, it’d be worth it.

Give Fugue a Try

Give Fugue a try if you haven’t.

If you’ve downloaded it in the past, chances are there are tons more icons added since.

And if you like the set, consider buying the royalty-free license.

Creative packaging can make the difference between whether a product gets noticed or is just passed by.

Just think of the variety of product materials used in the designs at TheDieLine.com.

If you’re looking for something really unique to print your designs on, consider natural wood veneer.

Real Green Packaging

Northern Sheer Veneer (based in Spooner, Wisconsin) manufactures natural wood veneer. Their wood veneers can be used to create unique, beautiful and green product packaging.

Everybody these days seems to be on a “green” kick, but these guys take it seriously.

You really can’t get much more green than wood–unless someone figures out a way to print on soil.

Natural wood veneer—made from actual wood (cherry, maple and white birch)—can be used in just about any type of packaging where you’d normally use paper, cardboard or plastic:

• CD/DVD packaging
• Boxes and product packaging
• Labels
• Business cards and branding materials
• Gift cards, brochures, mailers, and promotional materials

This wood veneer can be stained, printed on, etched, laser-cut, embossed, and combined with other materials for endless looks.

Wood veneer can be placed on a variety of backing materials and scored; allowing it to be rolled, wrapped, or folded and creased for use in boxes for product packaging.

This is really amazing stuff.

Tip: For more box design ideas, check out our vector templates article.

1st Impressions

The folks at Northern Sheer Veneer were kind enough to send me a sample pack.

It contained several different thicknesses of veneer in all 3 species of wood, veneers applied to a variety of backing materials, sample product boxes and a beautifully printed display box.

Oh yeah, and their business cards are made from wood veneer too.

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I opened the package, but the samples and boxes blew me away.

To say these made a powerful 1st impression would be an understatement.

Printing Quality On Wood Veneer

One of the things that really impressed me about the samples was the quality of the printing.

The grain of the wood had very little if any effect on the coverage of the ink. Lines and details were crisp and even small lettering and text was very easy to read and didn’t bleed.

Speaking with Tim Doyle, Owner of NSV, he explained the reason.

“We use types of wood that have a tighter grain, such as white birch, cherry and maple. These types of wood work best for printing because of their grain structure.”

While other woods like oak can be used for veneer, these must be cut from the log at a greater thickness and then sanded down to the finer grain. This means that much of the log is wasted during the sanding process.

NSV peels the pieces of veneer from the log at the proper thickness—it’s never sanded down. This means 4000+ board feet of usable veneer can be gained from one tree.

Some of the wood was also stamped and embossed, others had gold and silver inlaid in the wood. Very nice.

Types of Printing Used With Wood Veneer

• Flexo
• Offset
• Silk screening
• Digital (with fast or hard drying inks)

The wood veneer can also be die cut, laser cut or routed.

Printing on Your Printer

I did a test print just using my Samsung laser printer.

I placed a piece of 11 point white birch with latex backing in my manual feed, set the paper thickness to card stock and voila! Beautifully printed goodness.

Any veneer 11 point or less should print fine through a laser printer. If you get any thicker than 11 point though, your home printer may not like it.

Note: I was told that using an inkjet printer is not recommended because the ink does not cover the wood as well as other printing processes.

You can learn more about natural wood veneer and various printing information on their FAQ page.

Professional Printing

While Northern Sheer Veneer doesn’t do any printing themselves, they have several partners that provide wood veneer printing services and products that use wood veneer from Northern Sheer Veneer.

So What Options Do You Have With Wood Veneer Packaging?

Northern Sheer Veneer uses cherry, maple and white birch veneers in a variety of thicknesses.

Some of the samples were so thin you could see through them (about the consistency of interfacing material).

The variety of thicknesses available means the wood veneer can either be used alone or with a variety of backing materials such as:

• Paper board (18, 15, and 12 point)
• Craft paper (7 point)
• Latex paper
• Spantex paper

They can also produce double-sided veneer with other materials sandwiched between for added durability, such as:

• Poly liner
• Latex (5 millimeter)
• Paper board

You can even get wood veneer with a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) and release liner—letting you stick the veneer to surfaces like:

• Metal
• Glass
• Plastic
• Other woods

The PSA option is NSV’s label stock; letting you create beautiful wood labels that can be adhered to nearly any smooth/semi-smooth surface.

You can also special order veneer attached to vinyl, magnetic strips, styrene, or just about anything else you can think of.

For a complete list of veneer thicknesses, wood types and mounting/backing materials, take a look at their Products page.

Other Wood Grain Patterns

As mentioned above, white birch, cherry and maple are the best types of wood because of the type of grain they have.

But what if you wanna print on oak or some other type of wood?

You can get birch (which has practically no visible grain) and print the grain of another type of wood onto it before printing your actual design.

Want oak? Want the look of old barn wood? No problem. The grain patterns available are not repetitive, so only a trained wood expert would notice the difference.

What’s Possible With Wood Veneers?

Here are just a few examples of what can be done with wood veneer. Many of these photos are from the actual sample pack Northern Sheer Veneer sent me.

Conclusion

Do you want to be remembered by clients with some unique branding?

Does your next client’s print project need a little something extra?

Give natural wood veneer a try!

You can also call Northern Sheer Veneer at (715) 635-8800 and ask for Tim Doyle or Pat Dowlen. Be sure to mention where you heard about them.

Whether you’re looking to learn PrestaShop, or you’re already working with it, this is for you. We’re sharing over 50 PrestaShop tutorials, modules, themes, and resources for learning and using this shopping cart system.

For those who are unfamiliar with PrestaShop, it’s an up-and-coming open source e-commerce system.

PrestaShop is still relatively new, but it’s a nice alternative to Magento or Zen Cart for small to medium sized online shops.

What Sets PrestaShop Apart?

One of the notable features of PrestaShop is that its code is much less bloated than Magento–meaning shops run much faster. Your server’s also less likely to melt down.

PrestaShop also seems to be getting updated a lot more often than Zen Cart. The latest update was just a few days before writing this.

Another thing that sets PrestaShop apart from other e-commerce systems is that the backend is pretty simple. It provides lots of control, but doesn’t seem as overwhelming the 1st time you login (view PrestaShop backend demo)

You can also disable certain sections and menus for other users who don’t need access to some of the more advanced features.

When trying out a new system, finding information and gathering resources seems to take the longest. We’ll look at PrestaShop tutorials, guides, modules and themes to help get your shop up and running as fast as possible.

Contents of Our Toolkit

• Getting Started With PrestaShop
  • Downloading
  • Installing
  • Setting up your online shop with PrestaShop
• Tutorials, guides and where to go to find answers to your PrestaShop-related questions
• PrestaShop Modules (shipping, payments, best practices, creating your own modules)
• Themes for PrestaShop (download themes or learn how to make your own)
• Hosted Option

Let’s dig in!

Getting Started With PrestaShop

There are a few obvious things that need did before diving into PrestaShop.

Downloading PrestaShop

This is the easy part. You can find the latest version in the PrestaShop Download section.

PrestaShop also comes in 32 languages that can be downloaded as language packs from the download section.

Installing PrestaShop

Installing PrestaShop is fairly straightforward and takes maybe 5 minutes once you upload the files to your server.

The PrestaShop Wiki is an invaluable place to start and contains an easy-to-follow install guide. The install guide also provides a list of server requirements.

Advanced users may want to take a look at the System Administrator Guide. This covers setting up PHP and MySQL configuration and setting up extra security for the PrestaShop backend.

Setup Your Online Shop With PrestaShop

The Wiki has a user guide section that gives a set of step-by-step tutorials to help you setup and configure PrestaShop’s shipping, payment modules, currencies, taxes, adding products and categories, and other general configurations.

I recommend following the tutorials in order since they’ll help you learn where everything is in PrestaShop. By the time you finish the first 6 steps, you’ll know your way around PrestaShop and you’ll have most of your store setup.

Additional Resources

• PrestaShop Tutorials (SiteGround)

Tutorials, Guides and Forums—Finding Answers

If you’re just starting out, you’re going to have questions, problems and issues that you won’t be able to figure out off the top of your head.

That’s okay because you can find answers and get help from others–here are a few official places to start:

• PrestaShop User’s Guide
• PrestaShop Official FAQ
• PrestaShop Community Forum

Unofficial Resources

Beyond the official PrestaShop guides and forum, you can also search for answers on sites like:

PrestaPortal
PrestaShop news, tutorials, general questions/answer discussions, tips, modules and related resources.

Hints and Tips (@ Free PrestaShop Modules)
The Hints and Tips section provides many useful PrestaShop tidbits.

PrestaShop Modules

Modules add additional features and functionality to your PrestaShop site–whether it’s on your store or in the backend. Installing modules in PrestaShop is very simple.

While PrestaShop comes with many modules by default, you can add modules created by others or create your own.

Finding New PrestaShop Modules

Here are a few places to find PrestaShop modules:

• List of PrestaShop Modules (@ PrestaPortal)
  A mega list of PrestaShop modules.
• Newly Released Modules (@ PrestaPortal)
  The place to look for announcements of new modules as they’re posted.
• PrestaStore
  Commercial modules for just about every need (shipping, payment, backend, SEO, shop enhancements, etc).
• eCartService.net
  Free PrestaShop modules as well as tips and tricks.
• Free PrestaShop Modules
  A large collection of free PrestaShop modules. The majority of the modules on this site are free, but there are some other commercial modules as well.
• PrestaShop Modules
  Nice collection of modules–some commercial, some free.
• Presta Modules
  Commercial modules, including a 1-page checkout mod.
• AGA Software
  Commercial modules: Price Adjustments, Blog Module, and Forum Module.

Shipping Modules

Here are some useful individual shipping modules for PrestaShop:

• USPS Postage Module
  Calculate postage for United States Postal Service based on zip code (US only).
• USPS Postage Quote Module
  Provide shipping quote by location right on the product page.
• UPS Shipping Module
  Should be compatible with the above USPS module.

Payment Modules

• Authorize.Net Payment Module
• 2Checkout Payment Module
• Western Union

Other PrestaShop Modules

• Better Together
  A great cross-promotion/combination discount module from That Software Guy. Lets you suggest other products that would go well with an item plus offer a discount. This is a port of his flexible Zen Cart module.
• Export Orders
  Exports orders to CSV.
• AddStuff
  Add custom bits and blocks to your PrestaShop site. Very handy for adding custom code to your side while allowing you the flexibility to move the blocks location (think WordPress widgets).
• AddHeader
  Works with AddStuff to let you add/remove stuff from your template without touching your actual theme files.
• YouTube Module
  Easily add YouTube and DailyMotion videos to your PrestaShop site.
• MailChimp E-Commerce 360 Integration Plugin
  Integrates MailChimp tracking and stats with PrestaShop and help you figure your ROI.

Writing Your Own PrestaShop Modules

eCartService.net has an excellent 5-part series of tutorials showing how to write your own PrestaShop modules:

• Writing a PrestaShop Module Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Module Editing Best Practices

One important thing to remember about editing modules and using custom themes: Edit the core PrestaShop files and modules only as a last resort.

eCartService.net once again comes to the rescue with some important tips for editing modules and module templates within the safety of your custom theme.

PrestaShop Themes and Templates

PrestaShop lets you change the look of your shop by applying visual themes.

You can also customize and create your own visual themes–transforming your e-commerce shop into whatever you can imagine.

Premade PrestaShop Themes

There several nice themes created by talented designers. Some are free, others paid, but at the most, you should be able to pick one of these up for $30-$40.

Here are a few places to go if you’re looking to download premade PrestaShop themes:

2 Link

Just about the 4 nicest, most modern free PrestaShop themes I’ve ever seen.

PrestaShopThemes.net

Some nice premium (commercial) PrestaShop themes starting at a reasonable $29. You won’t even recognize your shop with these themes.

I Love PrestaShop

Nice collection of free themes. These themes are very simple, clean and uncluttered.

Other places to find ready-made themes:

• PrestaThemes
  A collection of free PrestaShop themes.
• PrestaShop Themes
  A decent mixed collection of free and commercial themes.
• Themes at PrestaStore
  A large collection of quality commercial themes.
• Template PrestaShop (Updated 11/02/2009)
  A few commercial PrestaShop themes.

Create Your Own PrestaShop Theme

Wanna roll your own design? These resources will help you get started:

• Creating Your Own Theme (PrestaShop Wiki)
  Recommended reading before creating your own custom theme.
• Themes & Graphics Section (PrestaShop Forum)
  Get answers to your theme questions and learn about newly released themes.
• PrestaShop Themes and Guides
  Great tips, tricks and resources for trickin’ out your PrestaShop theme.
• PrestaShop Designer’s Guide
  Helps you work with a quick PrestaShop primer as well as jQuery and Smarty (PHP template engine used by PrestaShop) basics to help you design a great shop.
• ArdianYS
  Contains some useful tutorials and tips for customizing PrestaShop themes.
• PrestaShop Theme Cheat Sheet (JPG) (See full thread)
  Cheat Sheet showing main sections of a default PrestaShop page. Helpful when editing CSS.

Live PrestaShop Stores

PrestaShop has a section of their site dedicated to showcasing live online stores that use PrestaShop. If you’re wondering what can be done with PrestaShop, just take a look.

Hosted PrestaShop Stores

Do you just want to use PrestaShop and skip all the setup and maintenance?

PrestaBox might be just for you.

PrestaBox is a hosted version of PrestaShop that lets you start selling quickly.

Conclusion

PrestaShop is a nice, light-weight, fast open-source e-commerce shopping cart system.

While it’s still a bit young and may lack some of the more advanced features of Magento and others, it is a nice option for small to medium size online stores.

PrestaShop also has a great and supportive community that is continuing to grow.

Suggestions? Tips?

Do you use PrestaShop? Have you got a great tip or resource that we haven’t mentioned?

Share with us in the comments.

Follow On Twitter

Want to know when new blog posts are published? Want more random web and graphic design goodness?

You should follow me on Twitter @esdev.

Photo credits (in order of appearance): Red Toolbox by J. Helgason | Set of Vintage Tools by Timofeyev Alexander | Close Up of Old Books by Andrea Haase | Still-Life In a Studio of the Artist by S-BELOV | All stock photos from Shutterstock.

If you’ve changed the default WordPress admin user name from ‘admin’ to something else, great. However, if you write a post as the admin, your new admin username will be displayed on your blog. Not good.

In order to help you keep your admin username a secret from would-be hackers, I’m releasing a new WordPress security plugin: Admin Post Reminder.

How Does It Help?

The Admin Post Reminder plugin is useful if you’ve got a separate editor account just for posting.

Sometimes you’ll still need to log into WordPress as an admin to change settings, use certain plugins, etc. It can be easy to forget that you’re still logged in as an admin when you go to write a post.

What Does It Do?

What Admin Post Reminder does is simple–it checks to see if the user that’s logged in is an admin. If they are, an alert is displayed at the top of the page, reminding the user not to publish any posts while logged into this account.

Regular logged in users won’t see the message.

Download the Plugin

You can view the plugin page for more details or

Download Admin Post Reminder at the WordPress Plugin Repository

Buy Me a Coffee

If you enjoy this plugin, consider making a small donation–any amount is appreciated. Thanks!

Somehow, Sumo Paint missed the list.

Sumo Paint is a great online graphics editor. I’ve been using it since version 1 and it just keeps getting better.

Sumo Paint is now in version 2 with some great new features, tools and a desktop app.

If you’ve never used Sumo Paint, it’s about the closest thing to an online app version of Photoshop. The tools, menus and some of the shortcuts all work pretty much like Photoshop.

Sumo Paint Desktop App

Now, if you sign up for a Pro account, you can download a desktop version of Sumo Paint.

The desktop version of Sumo Paint is an Air app that lets work locally without an internet connection. You can also save your work to your computer in Sumo Paint format.

Not bad for $19/year.

New Sumo Paint Filters

Besides some of Sumo Paint’s UI improvements, it’s also getting some brand new effects and filters.

New Sumo Paint version 2 filters:

• Kaleidoscope (filter)
• Triangular Patterns (filter)
• Wavelab (filter)
• Liquid Waves (filter)
• Spherical Mapping (filter)
• Camouflage (filter)
• and tons more filters

Sumo Paint Tutorials

If you want to get up to speed with Sumo Paint, check out some of the great Sumo Paint video tutorials on the Sumo Paint site.

These video tutorials show you how to use some of the new filters as well.

User Gallery

If you want to get an idea of what you can do with Sumo Paint, here’s just some of the great artwork that’s possible:

Aaro

Andreabianco

Tulikki

Livingyourlife

These are just some of the images you can make with Sumo Paint.

Sumo Paint User’s Gallery

Give It a Try

Sumo Paint is a powerful Photoshop-like online graphics app. If you haven’t tried out Sumo Paint, give it a try today and sign up for a Pro account.

I just had an unpleasant episode that really reminded me of the need to have some kind of encryption on your thumb drives.

I was leaving a friend’s house, got in my truck and drove home. I unloaded my pockets as usual and discovered–no thumb drive.

I did find the flash drive a few minutes later, by the curb outside my friend’s house. But the whole time I was looking, I was trying to do a mental inventory of what information was on that thumb drive.

Fortunately, I don’t store sensitive client information on my thumb drives. Yet, the idea of someone else finding the drive and being able to freely access the other info on the drive was not a pleasant one.

Lesson: Don’t put personal or client/work passwords or other sensitive data on a thumb drive. If for some reason you do have to have some of that information with you, make sure that information is encrypted.

To keep people from viewing your files if your thumb drive falls into the wrong hands, here are some tools, tutorials and products to help you encrypt your thumb drive.

TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt (Win XP+/Mac OS X/Linux) is a free, open-source software that can encrypt an entire partition or storage device (like a USB drive).

Once encryption is set for a volume and then the volume is mounted, file encryption/decryption is done on-the-fly–meaning it’s automatic and transparent (ie not a pain in the rear).

Note: TrueCrypt does not currently (as of Oct 11, 2009) support Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. View a full list of TrueCrypt’s limitations.

A Beginner’s Tutorial to TrueCrypt

Adding encryption to your entire USB thumb drive or just a portion (say a directory) is pretty simple.

TrueCrypt Security Precautions

Because of simplicity, the beginner’s tutorial skips some of the more in-depth security details, so it’s a good idea to take a look at the extra things you can do to keep your information even more safe.

What if the System You’re Using Your Thumb Drive With Doesn’t Have TrueCrypt Installed?

Since you’re going to most likely be using your USB with more than one computer, it doesn’t make since to install TrueCrypt on every system.

TrueCrypt fortunately lets you run in ‘portable mode‘–meaning you don’t have to have TrueCrypt installed on the system.

You can read more about portable mode and the various options you have on the TrueCrypt site.

Note: You will need to have admin privileges on the system (OS) you’re running under in order to run TrueCrypt in portable mode.

How to Create the Ultimate Encrypted Flash Drive

A New Morning has a great tutorial that walks you through how to use TrueCrypt specifically with a USB flash drive.

IronKey USB Drive

If you’re serious about security, IronKey is the USB thumb drive for you.

IronKey is a USB thumb drive with built-in 256-bit hardware encryption.

Since encryption is hardware-based, IronKey will also run on pretty much any operating system that will read a USB thumb drive–Windows 2000+, Mac OS 10.4 and Linux (2.6+ kernel).

Also, unlike software-based encryption solutions like TrueCrypt, you don’t have to have administrator rights on the system you’re using IronKey, and there’s no software to install.

It uses internet authentication as well to protect the information and site passwords you exchange when browsing the internet via a portable version of Firefox.

James Bond’s Thumb Drive

I could imagine James Bond using an IronKey–yes, it has self-destruct features built into it.

A stolen or lost drive can be remotely disabled, or a self-destruct can be initiated–erasing all information on the drive and/or physically destroying the drive.

IronKey Personal Demo Video

IronKey Enterprise Demo Video

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Thumb Drive Closer

Remember that if you put sensitive information on a thumb drive that it’s always possible that it’ll get lost or stolen. So make sure your thumb drive (or at least a directory within) is encrypted and secure.

Do you use anything else to secure your USB drives? Share in the comments.

Photo credits: USB Flash Drive by Stephen VanHorn, Abstract View of Data Storage and Abstract View of a Data Sequence by irabbiosi via Shutterstock.

Updated: 12/04/2009–Note: This information applies also to pages as well as posts.

Anytime you see suggestions for making your WordPress install more secure, you’re gonna see the regular suspects:

• Change your database table prefixes
• Update WordPress and WordPress plugins regularly
• Change the default WordPress admin username

These are all good suggestions that you should certainly be doing to make your WordPress install more secure.

But I want to address the last one–changing the default WordPress admin account–and a practice that will render this pointless.

The following may be common sense, but the reason I’m gonna mention it is that I have never seen this cautioned on any other WordPress security tips post.

Why Change Your Admin UserName In the First Place?

WordPress automatically generates an account named admin when you first install.

This means every single WordPress install on the planet has an account named admin. If you don’t change it, any would-be hacker/cracker only has to figure out your password–making it much easier to get into your site and muck about.

Don’t Use Your Admin Account to Post

Is there a flaw in your WordPress security?

So you’ve changed your default admin username to something totally unguessable. Then you write a post and publish it from your renamed admin account.

Oops!

The whole point in renaming your account is so pranksters have no idea what username you’re using for your admin account.

True, you can change the display name for your account so it doesn’t show your actual admin username on your site.

However, if your theme displays the post author’s name and a link to sort by author or author feed.

The actual username will be right there in the link address (usually something like: ‘http://blog.com/author/admin-username‘). Oops!

Posting from your admin account completely negates the whole point of changing your admin username in the first place.

Don’t Publish Pages From Your Admin Account Either (Updated 12/04/2009)

Beyond the author link in posts, there are other places the author’s username can show up.

Body Classes on Post and Pages

Even if you remove the link to the post author from showing in your theme, the username of the author also can be seen in classes on the body tag when you view source.

WordPress by default inserts various classes to the body tag. This is so you can target pages and posts via CSS.

One of the classes WordPress creates and inserts into the body tag is the author’s username (not the nickname).

Most of the time it will look like this: author-yourusername (for posts) or page-author-yourusername (for pages)

Most (all?) current WordPress themes do not remove the author class. This means, on both posts AND pages, the author’s username can be easily discovered by simply viewing the source code.

Depending on your theme, a class containing the author’s username may be displayed in other places as well.

Fix It Now

If you’ve changed your admin username and yet have been publishing posts (or creating pages – updated 12/04/2009) using that same account, fix it now.

Don’t worry, it’s easy enough.

Here’s the quickest way:

1. Add a new user who has an Editor or Contributor role
2. Add another user with Admin privileges
3. Log out and back into WordPress as the new Admin
4. Delete the old Admin user (the one you used to publish posts from)
5. WordPress 2.8+ will ask what to do with the posts you previously wrote…
6. Assign the posts to your newly created Editor/Contributor account
7. Only use that Editor account to write posts from now on

That’s it. It only should take 2-5 minutes, and your WordPress install will be more resistant to hacks and general tom-foolery.

More WordPress Security Tips

Here are some other WordPress security tips:

• How To Keep WordPress Secure (WordPress Blog)
• Hardening WordPress (WordPress Codex)
• WordPress Security Tips and Hacks (Noupe – Beware step #9 though)
• 12 Essential Security Tips and Hacks (Six Revisions)
• 11 Best Ways to Improve WordPress Security (Pro Blog Design)
• 20+ Powerful WordPress Security Plugins and Some Tips and Tricks

WP Plugin

(Updated: 10/19/2009) Based in part on the response to this article, I’ve created a new WordPress plugin called Admin Post Reminder.

Updates

(Updated 12/04/2009) Pages and posts also contain classes in the body tag that disclose the author’s real username.

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Here are 20 amazing examples of photos from DeviantART that make good use of depth of field.