Resources

 

Images & Image Editing

Canva is an ace new DIY graphic design site : here’s your invite!
PicMonkey is a simple, fun way to make photo collages and fancy up your images

Flickr
Back up/upload images to Flickr – Every time you upload an image it’ll resize it to various dimensions and you can download the appropriate size whenever you like. To download you simply click the THREE DOTS next to your Flickr uploaded image, choose the size you want, then hit download. Flickr will make any image you upload into the following sizes where possible.

75×75 pixels square
150×150 pixels square
100 pixels (on the longest side)
240 pixels
320 pixels
500 pixels
800 pixels
Large (which will be 1024 pixels if it exceeds that length)
1600 pixels
2048 pixels
The original size

Photo Apps That Are Really Helpful
(Usually with these kinds of apps you can save the finished image to your phone’s camera roll and then email it to yourself or add it to Flickr or Dropbox for later blog use!)

A Beautiful Mess (iOS)
Whitagram (iOS)
Instastitch (iOS)
PhotoGrid (Android)
Rhonna (iOS)
VSCO Cam (Android and iOS)

Scanning
There are heaps of Apps that will scan your documents for you. You don’t always need to have a PROPER scanner. I like GeniusScan because you can quickly scan multiple pages with your phone and then turn them into a PDF and share via email or other. So snazzy and useful.

Colour Ideas
Design Seeds for colour inspiration
Colour Lovers
MyPantone
Adobe Kuler

PDF Hosting
If you’ve made something cool into a PDF file for sharing, you can host it on Scribd and people can download or share it from there.
If you’ve made a PDF file that you want to SELL you can do that on Etsy and put a link through to the item from your blog. (Remember Etsy has FEES so be sure to account for that!)Screen Shot 2013-11-03 at 10.24.14 AM

OTHER great courses for bloggers
I’ve done/am doing both of these and I think they are ACE and SUPER GREAT VALUE

A Year Of Digital Thinking by Sarah Bryden-Brown of Blogstar
Blogging Your Way by Holly from Decor8

Screen Shot 2013-11-03 at 10.25.20 AM

Blog Enhancers
PromoSimple for giveaways
MailChimp for managing newsletters and signups for things
Feedburner for creating your RSS feed and keeping track of subscribers
SurveyMonkey for reader surveys

Add audio posts (podcasts!) to your blog

Record you chatter on your phone using something like Auphonic. Email them to yourself and then upload to your blog using the ‘Add Media’ button (WordPress) You can also upload the Auphonic file to Soundcloud for even wider distribution and sharing. I like Auphonic, but I find it tends to record at a lowish volume. If that happens to you, make your recording into an Auphonic production and edit it on their website! Fancy!

The podcast below was made with Auphonic, then emailed to myself so that I could grab the MP4 audio file easily, then uploaded to Soundcloud. Soundcloud lets you add an image to your recording and generates an embed code for easy sharing too! Soundcloud are also working on their podcasting/talking to iTunes capabilities.

All the podcasts included in Blog With Pip (apart from the one below!) were made by recording directly into Soundcloud.

Buzzsprout for Podcasting and iTunes Listing

You can also create your recording and upload it to Buzzsprout. The benefit of this is that it streamlines the process of adding your podcast to iTunes. o check that out if you’re going to be podcasting a lot and want subscribers!

Higher Quality Audio Content
The audio versions of the posts on this blog were recorded with a Snowball Microphone by BLUE*. You just plug it in, let your computer know it’s your preferred microphone and then record away. I recorded straight into Soundcloud by hitting UPLOAD > RECORD. I like Soundcloud because you can allow people to download the audio and listen to it whenever they like (on whichever device they prefer!)

Screencasts
The screencasts I made for Blog With Pip were made using Quicktime’s Screen Recording option (this is a Mac option). So easy. Again I used the Snowball Microphone (which was recommended to me by Dave Jenyns) If you have a PC you could try Screencast-O-Matic or Screencast or Tiny Take.

Video Hosting
YouTube is the most widely used, but Vimeo is the prettiest. Use both or choose one. It’s up to you!

Online Sales
I like MadeFreshly because it’s free for up to ten products. There’s also Big Cartel and Etsy, of course!

Paypal + Mailchimp
If you have a Paypal premium account, you can set it up to send payment notifications to Mailchimp – thus creating a simple customer mailing list automatically. Fancy!

* My kids were so impressed that I bought this microphone! They think it’s totes the biz!

May 2014 Class blog list: check our Facebook group under FILES

AND even more resources collated from our Facebook group discussions via BWP February Student Sarah Doxey Cox (below)

Beginnings:

Blog name generator: http://ivegotwritersblog.com/the-great-blog-name-generator/
Setting up a profile picture to be used across multiple platforms (especially good for commenting): www.gravatar.com

Blog platforms:

www.blogger.com

www.wordpress.com

www.wordpress.org

www.wix.com

www.weebly.com

www.typepad.com

 

Hosting companies:

www.hostgator.com

www.godaddy.com

www.crazydomains.com

 

blog design:

Premade blog themes (for when a free one just will not do – there are loads – google them)

http://kreatedbykelsey.blogspot.com.au/p/pre-mades.html

http://angiemakes.com/product-category/wordpress-themes/

www.etsy.com

www.themeforest.net

http://www.bluchic.com/

http://shinymagic.com/

http://www.designerblogs.com/

http://www.studiopress.com/

www.elegantthemes.com

 

WordPress help:

Managing your page and posts

http://wordpress.org/plugins/page-links-to/

https://make.wordpress.org/support/user-manual/content/posts-vs-pages/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NqjrIzvh0c

How to embed a video into wordpress : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJVzHrzw9pg

Putting social icons on your blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA2rjDwmvms

http://www.carrieloves.com/2012/03/free-social-media-icons-for-bloggers/

 

WordPress privacy settings tutorial:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/

Setting wordpress permalinks:

http://themify.me/blog/setting-your-wordpress-permalinks

WordPress Customizr theme information:

http://www.themesandco.com/customizr/

WordPress Customizr theme tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKDZoIaVg60#t=2318

 

How to change user in wordpress:

Go to USERS and add a NEW USER.  Log in and post as this NEW USER.  (may require a separate email).

WordPress – Font adjustment:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/font/

http://www.google.com/fonts with accompanying youtube video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oIRT1mmx8k

 

WordPress – Categories vs Tags:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories-vs-tags/

 

WordPress Plugin for sidebars:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-sidebars/ (free)

https://www.elto.com/ (paid but probably a lot more customised)

WordPress Pingback information:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/comments/pingbacks/

WordPress general support:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/

WordPress SEO plugin:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

WordPress genesis child theme tutorial:

http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/wordpress-child-theme-tutorial

 

Blogger support:

Putting social icons on your blog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hI5WmqpBw – blogger

Edit HTML of Blogger site:

https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/46870?hl=en

 

Wix support:

Wix with wordpress info:

http://www.wix.com/support/forum/html5/editor/blog/can-i-use-wordpress-with-wix-2

Creating a blog with Wix:

http://www.wix.com/support/main/flash/wix-editor/creating-wix-blog

 

Graphic design

www.canva.com

www.picmonkey.com

http://www.photobucket.com/

 

Photo editing

www.vsco.co

www.photogrid.com

http://www.ribbet.com/add-filters-effects

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/instastitch-instantly-make/id531604896?mt=8 (instastitch)

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/whitagram/id523481129?mt=8 (whitagram to create white around photos)

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/a-beautiful-mess/id603092599?mt=8 (A Beautiful Mess)

Stock photos/images

http://sixrevisions.com/resources/15-best-places-for-designers-to-get-free-stock-photos-online/

http://join.deathtothestockphoto.com/

www.puglypixel.net

 

WordPress – Font adjustment:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/font/

http://www.google.com/fonts with accompanying youtube video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oIRT1mmx8k

 

Typefaces for your blog

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/11/04/best-practices-of-combining-typefaces/

 

Creating a header image for your blog

http://www.fabulousblogging.com/2013/02/creating-a-header-image-for-your-blog/

 

How to create a favicon (small square logo in the tab of your page):

http://www.bloggingbasics101.com/2010/03/what-is-a-favicon/

 

technical stuff:

social media buttons www.carrieloves.com

setting up a facebook page for your blog http://maryqin.com/how-to-create-a-facebook-page/

 

Follow blogs via RSS

www.bloglovin.com

www.feedly.com

 

Create email subscriptions for your blog

www.mailchimp.com

http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/what-is-an-rss-to-email-campaign-and-how-to-i-set-one-up/

How to run a give-away competition: http://www.crashtestmummy.com.au/how-to-run-a-giveaway-on-your-blog-in-australia/

 

Threaded comments on Blogger or WordPress: http://disqus.com/

Media kit resource: http://www.theblogmaven.com/make-a-media-kit-that-rocks/

Google Analytics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPPxZrZovKU&feature=youtu.be

 

Creating an audio post for your blog: www.soundcloud.com

More help for creating an audio podcast: http://help.soundcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/1209292-can-i-podcast-with-soundcloud

 

Books on writing

Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

Journaling/writing practice

www.750words.com

 

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