Alexa Webmaster's Corner

Alexa - The Web Information Company
http://www.alexa.com/site/devcorner

Alexa Internet is an Amazon Company. Tools and resources are featured on their Webmaster's Corner section specifically for website owners.

Alexa Toolbar

Build a custom toolbar to offer your visitors. Include your logo to keep your brand and establish customer loyalty.

Make money as an Amazon Associate with the toolbar search. If your visitors search and purchase Amazon products, your Associate ID is credited with the purchase.

Kaleidoscopes in CoverPop

Author: Laura Klemme

CoverPop - Kaleidoscope
http://www.coverpop.com/pop/mini_kaleids/

CoverPop is another Flickr tool by Jim Bumgardner, aka krazydad.com.

Programmer: Jim Bumgardner
Brief Bio: Jim is a Flickr guru. He coauthored the book, Flickr Hacks: Tips & Tools for Sharing Photos Online (Hacks) for O'Reilly. He founded the Flickr Hacks group and has authored other Flickr utilities.

Similar to Jim's Colr Pickr, CoverPop blends a collage of individual Flickr photos based on color and intensity.

CoverPop has a whole selection of views, but in this post, we are only looking at the Kaleidoscope view. The kaleidoscope collage as shown (above), uses another one of Jim's utilities that creates a kaleidoscope out of ordinary photos.

The CoverPop kaleidoscope collage, is a collection of mini kaleidoscopes that are saved in Flickr.

Each mini kaleidoscope is a different picture. Clicking on one of them will open up a window in Flickr with a full view of a kaleidoscope. One of these many breathtaking kaleidoscopes is shown (left).

Photo, with permission, by: AlphenaMi.

AlphenaMi created this kaleidoscope from an ordinary photo with another tool from Jim.

The original photo of a box of colored pens used in this kaleidoscope is shown (right). Photos with colorful patterns or repeated shapes are great choices for use in kaleidoscopes.

Photo, with permission, by: ciokkolata

Creating Word Clouds

Wordle Word Clouds

http://www.wordle.net/

Author: Laura Klemme

Wordle is a site for creating word clouds of text that you select. Word clouds give a view of the text that visually displays words in a larger size the more frequently they appear. Either cut and paste your text into a window or point to a url; Wordle does the rest.

Wordle of Barrack Obama's Victory Speech
November 4, 2008.
(Transcript source: npr.org; Word cloud: wordle.net)




A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words
Barrak Obama's victory speech is shown above. At a glance, you can see the dominate message of his speech by the size of the words. This is certainly a historic moment in US history as the first African-American President Elect speaks to the nation. The full transcript does not give you the visual message that a word cloud can provide, true to the saying, 'A picture is worth a thousand words.'

Artistic?
Wordle is not your ordinary word cloud generator. It offers a creative way of displaying your word clouds. Wordle lets you modify your clouds with different controls over the fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The gallery has a few colorful displays of Obama's victory speech submitted by various contributors. Here are a few: Obama1 and Obama2.

Wordle of John McCain's Consession Speech
November 4, 2008.
(Word cloud: wordle.net)



The gallery also posts, John McCain's gracious concession speech, shown above. Again, the message speaks through this visual representation.

Creative Commons License
The images you create with Wordle are part of the Creative Commons license. You can create a gallery and share them, view other Wordles, link to them on blogs or web pages or print them out.

Top Pick: Flickr Colr Pickr

TOP PICK:
SITE RESOURCE SERIES

Author: Laura Klemme

Flickr Colr Pickr
http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/

Post athomic bomb
Originally uploaded by boskizzi

A creative utility to find photos on Flickr.

This utility is not published by Flickr.

Programmer: Jim Bumgardner
Brief Bio: Jim is a Flickr guru. He coauthored the book, Flickr Hacks: Tips & Tools for Sharing Photos Online (Hacks) for O'Reilly. He founded the Flickr Hacks group and has authored other Flickr utilities.


Flickr Colr Pickr is a utility that you have to see to really appreciate. With the color palette, you can filter photos by moving the slider and clicking on on color flower.


Photos can be selected by color fields, flowers, crayon box, squared circle, graffiti, Flickr Central, doors and windows, macro, textures, urban decay, catchy colors, stock repository and JPG magazine.

Featured Photo: Post Athomic Bomb
This photo, shared by boskizzi, was found using the Catchy Colors filter (shown in the top center of the screenshot). Clicking on the thumbnail image opens its Flickr window and it can be posted like other photos by selecting "Blog This."

Blogging Photos with Flickr

into the blue, blue world
Originally uploaded by manyfires

Author: Laura Klemme

Photos from Flickr can be added to your blog very easily.

After a few simple setup steps, you can send photos from your cellphone directly to your blog. The entire Flickr gallery can be viewed and the photos that are shared can be added to your blog with a simple click and a dropdown menu selection to your blog.

What you need:

1. A blog account.
2. An account with Flickr. If you don't have one, you can set one up for free.
3. Login and click on your login name in the upper right corner.
4. On the next page, click on "Extending Flickr." In "Your Blogs" click "Configure your Flickr-to-blog settings" and "Setup your blog."
5. If you are using Blogger, the screens will guide you through authorizing your Flickr account to access your blog.

Email to Blog
To email photos directly to your Flickr photostream or to your blog, Flickr can assign a special email address for this. Add this address to your cellphone and email address books and you are ready to go.

Featured Photo: Into the Blue, Blue World
Breathtaking. The photo here, is one that is featured on Flickr at this moment. The photographer is "manyfires" and is sharing this photo from her Flickr account. Here is what she has to say about capturing such a beautiful picture,

"I was on my way back to the Signal Mountain Campground (having been at Oxbow Bend) in the Tetons when I decided to pull over and try for one last pinhole shot. The skies were clear - nothing interesting there - but the vista was still breathtaking, and so very blue. I scurried down a rocky hill to the edge of Jackson Lake and sat for 20 minutes while pinhole did its thing. I later had to cook and eat my supper in the complete dark as a result, but I think it was worth the shot."

Photo Search with Flickr

Golden Gate, by Moonlight [2]
Originally uploaded by MumbleyJoe

Author: Laura Klemme

Need a photo for your blog?

Flickr can be a great place to find great photos. Users have uploaded and shared photos of countless topics and subject matter.

Search v Tag Cloud
You can find photos by browsing under a specific topic heading or by word tags. Word tags can be found with using the search feature or the tag cloud. With search, you need to type in a word to match, just like you do when you google something. The tag cloud visually displays the word with small or large font depending on the popularity of the tag. Either way, you have access to thousands of photos to choose from.

A search of "Golden Gate Bridge" results in a variety of great photos. If the photographer's settings allow, you can mark it as a "Favorite" or "Blog This."

Featured Photo: Golden Gate, by Moonlight
This outstanding photo of the Golden Gate Bridge is shared by MumbleyJoe.

Blogging - A Visual Introduction

Author: Laura Klemme

Are You Visual?
Sometimes new technology is easier to understand if you can see it explained visually rather than reading about it. Concepts that seem complicated become crystal clear.

The concept of blogging is easy to understand once you see it. The folks at CommonCraft have produced instructional videos on YouTube that can do just that. Through a short visual explanation, they give you the concept of blogging in a nutshell.

Blogging in Plain English