Introduction to HTML 10 Gorgeous Container Gardens Made from Trash (Slideshow) Photo: Gardener_24/Creative Commons If you've been hesitant to start a garden because you think your yard's not big enough, then container gardening is the way to go: You can grow herbs, flowers, apples, cherries, cucumbers, and even citrus fruits -- plus tons of other plants -- without using any land. And the containers don't have to break the bank, either. These gardeners used a little ingenuity and treasures that other people would consider trash -- like this eggshell -- to make beautiful, functional gardens that you'd never know have their roots in the recycling bin. More about Container GardeningContainer Gardening Options for Small Spaces (Slideshow)15 Creative Container Garden Ideas66 Things You Can Grow at Home: In Containers, Without a Garden
31 Ways to Find Inspiration for Your Writing How to find inspiration By Leo Babauta You can’t wait for inspiration. No matter how much you love writing, there will always be days when you need inspiration from one muse or another. In fact, I would argue that inspiration is not just a desirable thing, it’s an integral part of the writing process. Every writer needs to find inspiration in order to produce inspired writing. I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite ways of finding inspiration — some of them obvious, some of them less so. Blogs. “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” - Vincent van Gogh If you liked this article, please share it by clicking on the share bar below. Photo courtesy of Seedling-Chaos The (nearly) Ultimate Guide to Better Writing Become a better writer overnight with this FREE eBookFind daily inspirationImprove your writing overnightGet started, even when you don’t feel motivatedComplete what you startGet WTD updates
The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page Placement and Content 7. Keep It Above the Fold The space a visitor sees without having to scroll is where the most important parts of the webpage should be. 8. Optimize a landing page for conversion over time. 9. Implementing motivational speeches, videos of user testimonials, and product images into a home page can have a positive impact on viewers, as well as give shoppers an extra push to look further into a product. Bellroy uses great imagery and videos on many of their pages. 10. Links connecting the user to a bunch of other sites or pages will distract them and have a negative impact on conversions. This landing page is designed well, but look at all those header links getting in the way of the message!
15 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Star Trek Did you know that the famous Vulcan salute was invented by Leonard Nimoy and based on a priestly blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim? Also, if you’re looking for an amazing Gift for a Star Trek fan, be sure to check out Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years, a hardcover book documenting the first 150 years of the intergalactic democracy up until the year 2311. [Via Reddit]
Eight Simple Tips for Editing Your Own Work Editing her own work One key factor that separates mediocre writers from good ones (and even good from great) is the quality of their editing. If you’re working for a big magazine or publishing house, you’ll have an editor who goes through your work, checks for any clumsy or ambiguous phrasing, and fixes any typos – but if you’re working on your first novel, or publishing posts to a blog, you’re almost certainly going to be on your own. It’s hard to edit your own work. #1: Don’t Edit While You’re Writing You’ve probably heard this one time and time again: don’t stop to edit while you’re writing. It’s fine to pause and correct a typo, or restart a sentence, while you’re creating the first draft – but don’t keep going back to delete whole sentences or paragraphs. If you really struggle to write without editing, try Write or Die, which forces you to make forwards progress by deleting your words if you stop typing for too long. #2: Put Your Work Aside for a Few Days #5: Cut Out 10% of Your Words
50 Awesome Posts on Email Marketing Learn the ins and outs of email marketing, including building your email list, crafting the best email content, email newsletter design, and more in this list of 50 awesome posts on email marketing from 2011. Yup, there’s 50 of them, and they’re all awesome. Bloggers, small or large businesses, and Internet marketers can all learn something from this entire collection… Getting Started with Email Marketing Hit the Internet Running: 9 Email Marketing Tips to Get You Going – It’s time to understand email marketing better and this post brings you a few basic email marketing tips that are the culmination of hours of research. Email Marketing Tools & Services Email Marketing Services Reviewed – Selecting an email marketing service can be daunting. Building an Email List Email Content Strategies Ethical Email Marketing Good Guys Go for Ethical Email Marketing – There are both ethical and non-ethical practices of email marketing. Email Templates & Design General Tips for Email Marketing
Origami X-Wing instructions Here are step-by-step instructions for how to make an origami x-wing, as seen at Picocon 22, and demonstrated by Alex Crosse. He is a proper Origami club person; the terribly un-technical descriptions are entirely my (Dormouse's) fault. This was done using a 15cm-square of thin paper, coloured on one side and white on the other - the x-wing ends up coloured all over. When making folds, try to be as precise as possible, particularly when folding a corner in half! Some of the folds get very thin at the end. Start with the coloured side (here blue) face up. Fold along one diagonal, open it up, then fold along the other. Turn the paper over, and fold horizontally, open up again, then vertically. Squash the paper together, inwards along the folds, so that this square shape is formed. Fold one of the closed flaps towards the centre Then unfold the flap, and fold it back on itself, the other way. Unfold the flap again, and open up the inside and squash it flat. Fold one white side down to the centre.
7 steps to creativity - how to have ideas A guest post by Simon Townley of WriteMindset As a writer, having ideas is one of the most important parts of your craft. But often it seems like one of the most difficult and challenging parts of the whole process. How do you keep ideas flowing? How do you create a wealth of ideas to choose from? How do you make sure you get to the one killer idea that will make your advert, novel, article or blog post really stand out from the rest? Some people like to wait for inspiration to strike. Luckily, there is a formula for producing ideas on a consistent basis. But if you need to produce strong and creative ideas regularly as part of your writing career, then it pays to know the formula, and how to use it. First of all, what is an idea? “An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.” So how do you combine old elements into new? “The capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on the ability to see relationships.” How do you cultivate it?
24 Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tools Are you looking for ways to enhance your social media marketing? Do you want new tools to simplify your job? We asked a group of social media pros for the hottest social media tools they use today. Check them out to see if these social media tools are a good fit for you! #1: Unlock to Share Plugin My favorite social marketing tool of all time is the unlock to share plugin. Make your site go viral by requiring the user to share your link to unlock content. Why is this so valuable? In my most recent experiment, I had 452 people land on a page where they had access to royalty-free music they could use in their videos. These unlock to share plugins are everywhere. James Wedmore, co-founder of Video Traffic Academy and founder of Video Sales Magic and Video Copy Pro. #2: SlideShare This isn’t a “new” tool, but I’m amazed by the number of marketers who still don’t use SlideShare as a main staple in their social media distribution. #3: Commun.it #4: YouTube’s Audience Retention Report #5: Cyfe #6: Cloze
7 Creepy Video Game Easter Eggs Youll Wish Were Never Found Video game Easter eggs can be a fun way to motivate players to continue exploring a game they've completed ... or they can be terrifying experiences that make sure the players never go near that game again. We've told you about those Easter eggs that took years to be found; here are some more that we wish had remained undiscovered. #7. Portal 2 brought us everything we loved about the first game (portals) and left out everything we hated (cake-related meme horseshit). Who knew a game about ripping holes in reality could get creepy? For instance, in one of the earlier test chambers of the game, you can find an abandoned room hidden off to the side of the level, much like the abandoned rooms found in the original game. Above: Either a screen grab from Portal, or literally any alley in Philadelphia. If video games could smell, we're pretty sure Portal would stink of this guy's poo. Rat Man's DenUm, spoilers? But the creepiest thing of all isn't even in the game. #6. Looking at you. #5. #4.
Write Mindset — Writing tips | writing tools | writing ideas 15 Must-Know Facts on How People View Websites Do you know what is the first thing that your eye is drawn to on a website? And in what pattern do people scan your website? There have been many eyetracking tests on this subject and I’ll give you 15 most useful facts you should know. The picture below shows 3 different websites and where people look on them. As you can see, the more people scroll down, the more they lose focus and start mainly scanning your website. Here are the 15 facts you should know on how people view websites. Text attracts more attention than pictures. There you go. Sources: BBC News | directcreative | GoogleBlog