30 free email templates complete with PSD & HTML, so that you can modify them to suit your needs.

See the templates here.

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Great tutorial for creating glossy text using photoshop. See the tutorial here.

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Networking company Akamai have produced a new internet speed report that shows the UK as slipping down the table.

Out of 201 countries, the UK came in 27th – 4 places down compared to a previous report.

A recent Ofcom report showed that average UK speeds rose from 4.1Mbps to 5.2 Mbps over a 12 month period. Whilst its a step in the right direction, theres still a way to go before the UK can be up there with the likes of Korea, which came in number 1 with an average speed of 12Mbps.

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‘Life In A Day’ is a historic experiment taking place on July 24th 2010.  The attempt is to document one day as seen through the eyes of people around the world. To take part, you have to capture a snapshot of your life on film tomorrow.  You can film anything at all – ordinary, extraordinary, strange, odd, anything at all.

Ridley Scott & Kevin Macdonald

The most compelling footage will then be edited by Oscar winning Director Kevin Macdonald, and executively produced by Ridley Scott.

The film will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and you could be credited as a co-director. Also, 20 contributors will be selected to attend the premiere.

How To Take Part

1. Visit the ‘Life In A Day Channel’ here. Find out more about how to participate and see the guidelines. There are also some videos to give you inspriration.

2. Get capturing on 24/07/2010

3. Upload your footage before 31/07/10 to the ‘Life In A Day’ channel.

Web metrics are extremely important. They give us all types of valuable data and statistics – but what use is this information if it is inaccurate?

Lets look at this from the point of view of a company that is selling advertising space on their website. The number of unique visitors has a massive influence on the prices of advertising spaces.

Google Analytics

One big name in the web world has recently voiced their concerns about the variation of  of analytical data from different providers. Google Analytics came good though, with their data matching the websites server logs of over 8,000,000 unique visitors in the past 30 days.

The problem that rears it head here, is that advertising companies often have their own ‘ways’ of researching traffic information, and are generally reluctant to trust Google’s numbers.

One of my own clients, who sells advertising space on his website, recently commented that ‘its easy to massage Google analytics though’ during a conversation about web metrics – I must remember to ask him what led him to believe this….I wonder if it was a company that was trying to sell him a paid analytics package….

Lets Do Some Comparisons

All of the below results are based on the same site

Google Analytics & Server Logs: 8,000,000 Unique visitors. 400,000,000 Page views.

Compete.com: 927,000 Unique Visitors. Page views not available public.

Quantcast: Around 10,000,000 Unique visitors. Additional stats also show a drop in visitors from around the beginning of Feb to the end of May this year, yet other analytics show that there has not been two consecutive months of declining visitors since 2007 for the site this research is based on.

Alexa: Well, they dont actually show the statistic that we are looking for, I guess we could have a tally up and do some sums….oh hang on, we can can see some graphs that compare sites….lets move on….

Neilsen: Online Market Size Estimate 652,000 (Whatever that may be)

I dont personally how they come to these figures and there isnt a vast amount of information out there explaining their methods. But next time an someone tries to tell you about your web metrics, it might be an idea to point them at this post.

In the meantime, give it a go yourself, if you own a website and have got time, compare some analytics – Let me know what you find.

Oh, and by the way – Ill be sticking with Google Analytics and my Server Logs.

Google has acquired Metaweb – the open database company. The search engine giant says that it wants to ‘improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone.’

They believe that working in conjunction with what Metaweb offers, they will be able to provide better answers for searches.

They also acquire Freebase, which is Metaweb’s open database that contains over  12 million things, including movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and more. Google say that they are ‘excited about the possibilities for Freebase’ and plan to maintain it as a free and worldwide resource.

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Ever heard of the HDR technique? It really produces a visual treat and just think how nice images of this quality would look as part of our designs

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and is a method of ‘digitally developing’ photo’s. HDR provides the ability to take a series of exposures, and then merge them into a beautifully detailed image with a high range of tonal detail. Here are few Ive taken a shine to:

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Heres a handy free tool that I came across for helping to plan, and give ideas for website colour schemes.

Colour Scheme Designer

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There are some fantastic free icons out there, all ready-made for us to use in our designs. Firstly, thanks to all the designers who put their skill and efforts into producing such nice work! And secondly, to get your hands on some snazzy icons and badges for facebook, twitter and much more, heres a list of some of the best Ive found. Enjoy….

Icon Finder

Icon Shock

Pink Moustache

Iconspedia

Free Social Icons

Dry Icons

Vecteezy

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A handy resource for anyone carrying out SEO, download the SEO Cheat Sheet by SEOmoz.

Its a guide packed with pointers, help and info.

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