By Robert Bowen

For years now, whenever designers have been asked about their go-to program for image editing and creation, one of the top answers that comes back, is Adobe Photoshop. Its generations of evolution has centered around the growth of any number of digital imaging professionals and has made this software giant a staple in the graphic design community. Since so many of us find this tool in our design arsenals, we thought we would put together a post that would have you get the most out of this dynamic imaging program.

Below is a collection of invaluable Photoshop resources from the online community that runs the proverbial gamut of available PS content. From toolkits full of templates, shapes, gradients, brushes, and so much more, to individual resource downloads of informative PDFs, usable PSDs, and other content galore, this post has everything you will need to amp up your Photoshop toolbox. So if you are a Photoshop devotee, or even just a newb getting started with the program, take a moment to browse down through these useful downloads that we have amassed.

Websites

The websites that have been gathered below are the first place that you should go when you are setting out on a path of beefing up your proverbial toolbox of Photoshop resources. From the new updates that are still coming, to all of their past archives these sites provide a constant stream of tools.

Web Designer’s Toolkit is a valuable resource for Photoshoppers indeed. From buttons, to form elements and even a collection of free Photoshop templates for professional layouts (including browser screens) this toolkit’s depths are packed with design goodies for many occasions and needs.

Free4Photoshop is another great place to head for all those resource hunters out there looking to score a wide variety of Photoshop freebies. This virtual vault of tools includes shapes, textures, brushes, gradients, patterns, and so much more. If you are serious about Photoshop then you need to check this site out to get your toolbox started.

Photoshop Essentials is another website that you should definitely be checking out if you are looking for in-depth, fully explained Photoshop tutorials which are written by Adobe Certified Experts. From beginners to seasoned vets, their tutorials are put together with any and everyone in mind. Photoshop made easy.

Psdtuts+, speaking of approachable tutorials for taking your Photoshop game to the next level, this site is another go-to resource for many in the design world. So if you are looking for more ways to tackle your design projects by employing techniques that you need explained a bit better before you proceed, then you might want to just head over to the pasture of tuts.

Photoshop Ninja is another popular site to check into for Photoshop downloads, tutorials and more that is geared towards the more experienced users. As you build your arsenal and level up your experience points towards a more PS ninja-like status, or if you are already on ninja par expertise-wise, then you should stop on by and check out all they have to offer.

Photoshop Lady might be another site that you want to keep bookmarked and handy for all your Photoshop wants and needs. They scour the archives of the web and gather the finest Photoshop tutorials for you and bring them all to one easy to find location. With most of the guesswork taken out of the equation, the site is definitely worth a look.

Photoshop Tutorials is a site whose name slightly undersells the place. When you are constructing your virtual Photoshop toolkit keep this helpful site in mind because they not only cover tutorials, but they also focus on inspiration and a variety of useful downloads for a range of users and expertise levels.

Photoshop Roadmap is one more bookmarkable Photoshop super center for users of all levels and needs. They have a selection of downloads from brushes to text and photo effects, and they even have a section dedicated to Photoshop related books and more. And to complete the Roadmap’s journey they even have PS tutorials as well.

Photoshop Toolbox Reference is a Photoshop users best friend! This site is a comprehensive cheat-sheet on all things Photoshop. The perfect addition to your PS toolbox, PTR has you covered from keyboard shortcuts to specific tool tutorials at the click of a tool name. Add a touch of convenience to your Photoshop workings, just follow the link.

Photoshop Gurus Community Forum is another invaluable resource for you to keep close as you strive for a more Photoshop savvy status. This is a very large and active forum of Photoshop users which is always a wonderful tool to have at your disposal. Take time to become a part of the forums and when you need help, you can always get a little help from your friends.

My Photoshop Brushes is another website whose name is deceptively underselling of the range and bevvy of Photoshop resources users can expect to find there. Beyond just a variety of Photoshop brushes, they also have a large collection of patterns, shapes, styles, and gradients to boot. Not to mention they even have some tutorials on hand.

PS Galaxy is the final multi-purpose site that we are going to feature, and if ever the saying last but not least applied, it applies here. The Galaxy is a dynamic resource hub that packs a titanic collection of tools for Photoshop users from PSD files to actions, and from shapes to gradients. With web buttons and templates also in their ranks, the galaxy certainly is vast.

Brushes

Now we start to refine our focus a bit, and move into a more narrow area of tool gathering. Brushes. They are one of the more popular Photoshop resource downloads that are made and shared around the online design community, and they are also the next stop in our toolbox building journey. Below are some brush specific sites and some individual brush packs.

Brusheezy is a site that any Photoshop brush enthusiast should keep readily on hand. Not only is it a hub for thousands of available PS brushes from around the world wide web, but the site is also a great place to go to share your thoughts and opinions on the design communities collected brushes.

PSBrushes is another site whose focus falls specifically in the Photoshop brush arena, and should certainly be added to the designers list of go-to places on their resource hunts. With hundreds of free downloadable brush packs to offer, the site will definitely keep you busy for a while as you build up your toolbox.

Brush King is also a fantastic site to turn to when you are looking for sources for high quality Photoshop brushes. Brush King is near a necessity as far as bookmark additions go, as all of their downloads are free for use in all of your website and graphic design related projects. So the next time you need a brush, browse through their fine selection.

QBrushes is one more for the bookmarks indeed. This is a Photoshop brush focused hub that pulls in all of the free quality PS brushes that are released into the cyberspace aether. They pull in brushes from all around so that you do not have to do the proverbial footwork yourself. This site is regularly updated so be sure that you check back often.

BlendFu is another Photoshop brush carrier that has a bit of a twist from the others that we have featured thus far. BlendFu is actually a membership based resource site, wherein the members can log and track all of their favorite brush packs that they have found within the websites deep database.

iDesign Brushes is a daily updated Photoshop brush specific site, that is a submission based brush resource hub. They take in brushes that the community has sent in and pour over them, combing through with a fine tooth comb to find the best and the brightest brushes among the bunch to present to their readers each day.

1000+ Free High Resolution Photoshop Brush Sets is a useful collection from Smashing’s sister site with hundreds to thousands of incredible Adobe Photoshop brush sets from all around the web. If you are on a quick path for brushes without having the time to browse through the masses that the online design community has to offer, then let Noupe do the hard sorting for you. Just stop in on this post and load up your arsenal.

Over 550 Photoshop Brush Packs Free for Commercial Use is just what the title says it is. A post that has ammassed a huge collection of Photoshop brushes that are all free for both commercial and personal design projects. Another bonus is that the post is also kept up to date and current, updated about once a month.

25 Original And FREE Abstract Smoke Brushes from 1st Web Designer is a great collection of free high quality Photoshop brushes. The is a pack of fairly unique resources, all smokey in nature, including sharp edges and smooth gradients to complete the vapor-esque appearance of the set.

8 Free Fantastic Fractal Photoshop Brushes is another unique set of from the far reaches of the web over at Design Shard, that we wanted to feature for you here rather than making you go in search of them yourself. These high quality fractal based brushes are useful for achieving very abstract and astral like effects for the design projects that you include them in.

Hi-Res Splatter Photoshop Brush Set is another set that we have set aside to feature specifically so that you have them ready and loaded into your arsenal without having to look very far. This pack of 17 high resolution paint splatter based Photoshop brushes is a clean and crisp set that are ideal for both web and print centered projects.

High Res Mixed Brushes Pack for Photoshop is a set of grunge styled brush resources that include a variety of strokes, ranging in thickness and weight to cover all of your bases and needs. If you are looking for a quick way to add a bit of a distressed appearance to your designs, no matter their scale, then these awesomely detailed brushes should certainly get the job done.

Spray Paint Pack (Hi-Res Textures & Brushes) is the final brush pack that we are singling out in this toolbox building trek. Crafted using actual spray paint and textured paper, these Photoshop brushes are a wonderful way of adding bits of texture to your work. Which is actually said to have been the designer’s main intention when putting them together.

PDFs

As we continue with our focus refined, we come to the next section in our search for Photoshop tools to add to your arsenal of skills, the PDFs. Not to be confused with the upcoming PSDs. This section includes several useful downloads that will provide hours worth of study time.

Adobe Photoshop CS – Tips and Tricks from the Experts is an interesting instruction manual of sorts that you can download and check out from wePapers. This PDf is a helpful look for beginners, and those looking for a refresher, at a variety of techniques that you can employ thorugh Photoshop on any of your creations and designs.

25 ESSENTIAL Photoshop Moves is an extremely useful learning tool, in a full color downloadable PDF, for users at both a professional and at a beginner level. With a varied collection of information ranging from tools to tutorials, from trechniques to helpful tips for getting the most out of your PS works, this lesson book focuses on 25 tasks that are essential for growing your Photoshop skillsets.

Worth 1000 Photoshop Tricks is a downloadable PDF of massive proportions that consists of links to one thousand useful Photoshop tutorials. Taking most of the time consuming web search out of the equation for you, this comprehensive shortcut places a huge amount of tuts right at the click of a mouse for you.

Photoshop Quick Reference Card is another handy download to keep in your design arsenal. This comprehensive PDF is a virtual Photoshop two page cheat sheet that can prove a useful tool as you dive into this in-depth and fully loaded program. It never hurts to have a sheet that you can quickly reference at a glance, and with this little cheat, now you can.

Photoshop Tips, Tricks, and Basics is another very useful, must-have download especially if you are just beginning to work in Photoshop. This PDF is somewhat of an introduction into the very basics of this creative tool to assist you in laying down a solid foundation of knowledge on which to build and grow. The tips and tricks may also offer somewhat of a shortcut or new approach for some of the more experienced Photoshoppers.

PSDs

Now we come to the PSD section of this tool gathering post, and below are a handful of places on the web where you should definitely steer if you are wanting to get your hands on some .psd files that contain all of the original layers, masks, etc. then scroll down and get going.

Free PSD is a website that any serious psd explorer should have readily available. This site gathers together a massive collection of usable web based PSD templates that are ready for you to dive right into and get started.

Official PSDs is a bit of a different sort of a stop along our PSD collecting path. This site is actually a community focused endeavor that is kept alive and thriving by the users who make the site a invaluable place to come and share their favorite resources. PSDs of all varities await you, so it is definitely worth a look.

JackRebel PSD Files is a section of the JackRebel site that strictly covers Photoshop downloads. This is essentially a variety of PSDs all brought together to assist the design community with a lot of their shopped needs. Especially for those looking to design with a focus on electronics, this collection of files is the direction you should head.

50+ High Quality .PSD Files and Tutorials is another helpful Photoshop post from over at Smashing’s sister site. Want to get started on your next PS project, but do not really know where to start, or worse, don’t have the desire to start from scratch, then let this post of more than 50 high quality Photoshop .PSD files be your starting point from which to find design gold.

500+ Free Download High Quality Photoshop PSD Files For Designers is another fantastic post where most of the work has already been done for you. The hunting and gathering has mostly been done for you, now all you have to do is make your way over to this expansive PSD resource collection and you can get a quick overview of what is considered to be some of the best free PS downloads available.

Download Free PSD Design Template from Lava360 is a free downloadable design template that is simple and easy to use to get started. Don’t want to have to scour through the numerous entries from some of the other featured sites to find a PSD to get your design project underway, then check out this free offering to see if it will fit the bill.

DVD and Business Card PSD File is another place to turn if you are looking to get started on a business card design or a DVD label, but you do not feel like taking the time to sort through the massive collections, then metamags.com may just have the PSD file that you have been waiting for.

11+ Stunning Objects PSD Templates is a fabulous little collection of PSD files that will assist you with your web design layouts and so forth. Since so many of us design strictly for the web, we wanted to offer another more web geared set of PSD resources, and this post from The Design Work is it. If the web is where your design eye tends to fall, then you might just want to give these elements your attention.

Music Player UI is a bit of a different PSD file as to most of the others that we have featured, where as it is specifically focused on the user interface of a music player. The UI file is another that was separated out from the rest given its unique flavor, and should help you add a bit of bite your interface.

Everything Else

In this final section of the post, we come to somewhat of a grab bag of downloads that range from gradients to patterns and shapes, and from actions to plugins and filters. As you are finishing off your toolbox, be sure you do not overlook these final additions that could really make a difference in your Photoshop designs.

600+ Photoshop Gradients to Download is a wonderful place to turn whenever you are looking for that perfect gradient to complete your design. Not only does the post have a huge bevvy of downloadable gradient goodies for you, but it also includes a useful tutorial which gives you an in-depth look at the gradient tool in Photoshop and how to get the most out of it with an easy to follow by step breakdown.

Designerpie Freebies has a collection of thousands Photoshop design downloads for the whole community that anyone looking to expand their proverbial PS toolkit should certainly make note of. With an array of patterns, gradients, swatches and styles this freebie collection is sure to put a smile on the face of any resource hunting Shopper.

Free Photoshop Patterns is a website which focuses completely on one aspect of PS. The patterns. So you can bet that they are going to have an enormous selection to choose from, and that they certainly do. With thousands of patterns to choose from, you are nearly quaranteed that they can satisfy any of your PS pattern needs.

124+ Free Photoshop Actions to Boost Your Designs is a post of amassed actions that we felt you should most definitely have on your radar. What better way to take so many of the steps out of some of the repetitive processes that come with the design territory than by having an arsenal of actions ready and waiting to take the edge off and even shave some time off of the tasks for you as well.

400+ Time Saving Photoshop Actions is another time saving collection that we could not exclude from this ultimate resource post. When it comes to Photoshop actions, the more that you have at your disposal, the more repetitive tasks you can avoid in your work which makes for a happier designer. So for more downloadable time turners, stop by and see what all this post has to offer.

Richard Rosenman Filters and Plugins is a page that continues to grow and expand, featuring personally coded PS plugins and filters that range in their use for 3D productions, 2D design, and even reseach purposes. Unfortunately, due to a compiler limitation, the filters are not Mac compatible. They only work in Windows.

That About Does It!

That wraps up the toolkit building on this end of things. Now the rest is up to you. With so many resources and hubs to check out, you should have your hands full for the time being. Feel free to hit us up in the comments and let us know what you think of the collection. Whether we left something crucial out, or whether we turned you on to a new source for PS elements, we want to hear what you have to say below.

Consider Some of Our Previous Articles

• The Ultimate Collection of Photoshop Custom Shapes is a post from Smashing’s past that contains a plethora of shapes for your Photoshop arsenal.
• Splatter and Watercolour Brushes for Photoshop is another Smashing post from before where you can load up on some brushes to add to your Photoshop collection.

Cute Balloon

Cute Balloon is a jQuery script that allow you to easy make a beauty tool tip balloon, also with ajax content.

Captify

Captify is a plugin that displays simple, pretty image captions that appear on rollover. The goal of Captify is to be easy to use, small/simple, and completely ready for use in production environments (unlike ImageCaptions at the moment). Also, it’s only 2.3kb!

gvChart

gvChart is a plugin for jQuery, that uses Google Charts to create interactive visualization by using data from the HTML table tag. It is easy in use and additionally it allows you to create five types of the charts.

jmapping

This plugin is designed for quick development of a page that implements a Google Map with a list of the locations that are specified within the HTML.

jQuery.validity

jQuery.validity is an elegant and powerful jQuery plug-in you can use to setup client-side form validation. Instead of writing validation manually or balancing some unwieldy server-side framework, validity allows you to design client-side validation in a manner that feels natural and straightforward.

Animated table sort

This plugin allows you to animatedly sort a table based on a column’s s, or on the content/value of a child/descendant element within those s. The various s fly to their new homes, giving a nice effect.

Flare Video

This plugin gives you the ability to easily add an HTML5 video player with Flash fallback.

Coin Slider

Coin Slider is a jQuery image slider plugin with a unique square transition effect.

Blockster

Blockster is a Javascript transition effect designed for ‘featured content’ rotators or slideshows. Its underlying concept is to transition between one element to the next block by block. It is highly customisable in terms of how many blocks are involved, whether they fade in or simply appear, whether they appear in order or randomly, and more.

Colortip

Colortip converts the title attributes of elements withing your page, into a series of colorful tooltips. Six color themes are available, so you can easily match it with the rest of your design.

1. Snippets

The first of these is having snippets at your finger tips. Programmers of high-end applications commonly make use of something called a module library; basically a library of pre-written, pre-tested code that can be inserted into their software. The benefits of this isn’t only faster coding, but faster error checking as well, as you know it is already tested to work. Why shouldn’t we, as web developers, also be making use of our own version of a module library?

There are pretty much 3 ways snippets can be organised, and used. The first is online, commonly via a website that will store your snippets as a database for everyone to share and use. Here are a few you might want to check out, while I’m sure there are plenty more quality options out there.

• http://snipt.net/
• http://www.smipple.net/
• http://snipplr.com/
• http://www.bytemycode.com/
• http://snippetsmania.com/

The second way is to have your own local database of useful snippets at your fingertips, instead of them being out there online, and everyone else’s being there too. There are plenty applications and so on to cover this, with this short round-up covering just a few.

• Snippely
• Snippet
• mySnippets
• jCodeCollector
• Snippetsapp

2. Text expanders

The third and possibly best way to make use of your snippets is via a text expander. Think of them as a snippets library application on steroids. Basically, you set up your snippets so that you type a few characters, and then without leaving the keyboard, expand it into your full snippet. It will seriously revolutionise, and drastically increase the way, and speed that you code.

This article, and screen cast by Jeffrey Way gives you a visual view of the power a text expander puts at your finger tips, and is well worth a read. Having seen what you can achieve, here are several text expander applications that you may want to try out.

• Texter
• Fastfox
• TextExpander
• Snippetmonkey
• Typinator

Editor’s Note: I highly suggest you to use Phrase Express instead of Texter. A far better option than its competitor.

3. Integrated Development Enviroment (IDE)

An Integrated Development Environment, or IDE as they are commonly refered to as, is basically like a well-developed environment to code your websites in. They often comes with great perks, which help you improve your coding, such as auto closing tags, code hints, and much more.  Lets take Aptana Studios – my favourite IDE – as an example by looking at what features it has to offer.

• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Code Assist – Code Assist helps you author HTML, CSS and JavaScript code more quickly. It supports all HTML elements and properties and generates suggestions and hints for CSS.
• JavaScript Debugging – Aptana Studio integrates with Firebug for Firefox and Internet Explorer, offering multiple debugging options including breakpoints, stepping through code, DOM inspection, and more.
• JavaScript Libraries – Support for popular JavaScript libraries and frameworks such as jQuery, prototype, scriptaculous, Ext JS and more. For each you get code assist, importable sample projects, and doc links at your fingertips.

• DOM Outline View – View and navigate the DOM in this hierarchical outline of your HTML page. Select nodes to jump to that location in the editor. Filter nodes to see collections that match patterns.
• File Transfer & Synchronization – Support for one-shot as well as keep-synchronized setups. Multiple protocols including FTP, SFTP and FTPS. Ability to automatically publish your websites to selected ISPs and hosting services.
• Live Preview – Quickly switch between a view of your source code and the rendered HTML page in popular web browsers.

Compared to your code editors such as Notepad++ and so on, a web IDE such as this makes coding so much easier, as well as testing and so on. You rarely have to leave your coding environment for anything else! Check out these options below, or ask around to find out about many more, there are plenty out there.

• Komodo IDE
• Aptana
• Coda
• Textmate
• Netbeans

4. Zen Coding

Zen Coding is a text editor plugin for many IDE’s and text editors out there that will seriously change the way you code. Think of it like a text expander, but for any code you want to write. Basically, you write out your blocks of code as css selectors, and then expand them. Zen coding will then swiftly turn this into proper html code! Take this for example.

div#page>div.logo+ul#navigation>li*5>a

This code would be turned into a fully fledged logo and navigation html structure for you to work from. Think of the typing, and tabbing time that can be saved across multiple html documents with this!

<div id="page">
<div class="logo"></div>
<ul id="navigation">
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
</ul>
</div>

Check out Zen Coding v0.5 from Sergey Chikuyonok on Vimeo to see live action of Zen Coding.

Zen Coding, as I’ve already mentioned is available for plenty different applications, including Aptana, Textmate, Coda, Expresso, Komodo Edit, Notepad++ and PSPad, with unofficial support in plenty others. Go get it here!

5. Frameworks

The final way you may want to improve your coding efficiency is via the use of a framework. There are plenty frameworks out there, for a variety of different things, but some of the main usages are for css layouts and a basic set up for you to start coding with. Think of all those things you type up, and repeat every time yo start a new project, or even a new html or css document. What about grid’s and class’s you set up in almost every project you code. Well what if they were already there every-time you started a project, saving you having to type them out again. That’s what so-called frameworks hope to solve. Some aim at css grids, some aim at having a html base, and so on. Check out some of these below to get an idea.

• Easy Framework
• Blueprint Css
• 960 Grid System
• Less Framework
• Html5 Boilerplate

Further Discussion

Know of further ways to improve coding efficiency and speed? Get them down in the comments as always. It’s always great to get some further insight and thought’s on subjects such as these.

If you want to make your website livelier, then adding a website chat widget is perhaps one of the more effective solutions for increasing user engagement and growing your community.

By putting a proper website chat widget on your site, you will get real-time feedback from site visitors regarding your product, services, or content. For sites that sell services or products, a chat widget will definitely help you communicate with your visitors in real-time and potentially make more sales.

This is a collection of 10 free website chat widgets that you can install on your websites.

1. Chatango

Chatango is a customizable chat room add-on that anybody can install in their website. The main advantage of using this website chat widget is that users can have their own avatar. It also offers different user roles that give participants privileges for becoming moderators and administrators.

2. Meboo.me

Meboo.me is a product of Meebo.com — a popular web-based IM platform service. Whether you are using Typepad, Blogger or WordPress, Meebo.me is just ideal for any of these platforms. The most advantageous part of adding a Meebo.me chat box in your webpages is that it is compatible with Gtalk, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, as well as with Facebook. Hence, the visitors of your website do not need to register to interact through it. They can use their existing Gtalk or Facebook username to stay in touch with your website.

3. JWChat

JWChat is an Ajax-powered chat script. It only uses JavaScript and HTML, making it an ideal solution for those who want to quickly get a chat widget up and running. It functions like a traditional IM client, with system sounds notifying you of events like if someone sent an IM, support for emoticons, and more.

4. CBox

CBox attempts to merge the features of traditional desktop IM clients with the benefits of the social web. The user interface is straightforward, the installation is a snap, and is plug-and-play because it only relies on client-side JavaScript and HTML. CBox is free, but there is a premium version available for $2.00 a month with additional features like bigger bandwidth, no ads displayed, and custom word filters.

5. Mibew Web Messenger

Mibew Web Messenger, which also calls itself Open Web Messenger, is a free and open source chat messenger that was built with PHP and MySQL. This chat application was developed with live customer support in mind, but works well in other contexts.

6. AjaxChat for WordPress

This free website chat script is a plug-in for adding live chat functionality to a WordPress installation. It enables WordPress users to chat with other visitors on your blog without refreshing the browser.

7. AJAX Chat

As you can probably conclude by its name, AJAX chat uses client-side JavaScript to enable you to run a robust chat client on your website. It can also be used as a shoutbox, a site feature that allows your visitors to quickly leave a message and "shout out" to other visitors and the site admins.

8. phpFreeChat

This free PHP-based chat system is highly customizable and is packed with features you’d only expect in desktop clients. It supports the ability to create multiple chat rooms, private messages, custom themes using CSS, and Ajax for a smooth and seamless user experience.

9. iJab

This web-based IM client, developed using the Google Web Toolkit is free and uses Ajax to simulate a client desktop IM client. iJab can be a great solution for implementing a similar Facebook chat feature that people can use within their web browser while perusing your website.

10. Ajax IM

Ajax IM is a slick and open source web-based IM client for your website. It’s lightweight, weighing only 78KB on a good day (i.e. when minified). By default, it affixes itself at the footer of your web pages, similar to Facebook’s web-based chat client.

Related Content

• 12 Social Media Monitoring Tools Reviewed
• 12 Portable Apps for Web Designers
• Search Analysis with Google Analytics
• Related categories: Tools and Website Management

About the Author

Phong Thai is the Web Developer with over 5 years of experience in PHP, JavaScript, and CSS. He is the creator and administrator of JavaScriptBank.com: a new generation of JavaScript resources that provides thousands of free JavaScript, DHTML, tutorials, videos, examples, reference and help. Follow him on Twitter or connect with him on Facebook.

  

By Callum Chapman

Whether you’re just starting out in the graphic or web design industry, or you’ve been in it for years, the chances are there will occasionally be a time where you want to get a feel for a particular type of application (maybe something similar to Cinema 4D or Adobe Illustrator) before spending big bucks on it. Maybe sometimes you just need it for a very small job, in which case spending the big bucks on it just simply isn’t worth it. Or maybe you’re a student with not much money (which is usually the case) and just want an application that will do the job but not cost you an arm and a leg!

If you’re one of these people, this list is for you – and there is probably an application or two in here that those of you who are not looking for freebies will love too. The post is full of open source applications for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, iPhone/Pad and Android phones, from development apps, painting and image editing apps and nifty little tools that come in handy from time to time.

Development Apps

Notepad++ | Windows
Notepad++ is a free source code editor that replaces Windows’ standard Notepad editor, and is available in several different languages across the globe.

TextWrangler | Mac OS X
TextWrangler is a powerful general purpose text editor, HTML editor and Unix and server administrator’s tool. It is a very basic text editor with powerful but very simple functions.

Titanium | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Titanium is a free and open source application development platform, and lets you create native mobile, tablet and desktop application experiences using existing web skills you may already have such as Javascript, HTML, CSS, Python, Ruby and PHP.

Smultron | Mac OS X
Smultron is a text editor which is both easy to use and powerful. It is designed to neither confuse newcomers nor disappoint advanced users. It works for a whole variety of needs such as web programming, script editing or making a simple to-do list.

SilverEdit | Android
SilverEdit is a text editor for your Android mobile with support for creating, opening and saving HTML, CSS, PHP, XML and TXT documents.

SimpleCSS | Windows, Mac OS X
SimpleCSS allows you to easily create CSS files from scratch and/or modify existing ones with ease using a familiar “point and click” interface. You can also manage multiple CSS projects at any one time.

Komodo Edit | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Komodo Edit is a cross-platform text editor that works on all three major operating systems. It supports PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl and Tcl, plus support for other web development languages such as CSS, HTML, Javascript and template languages such as RHTML and Django.

FTP Apps

FileZilla | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
FileZilla is a free, fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface.

Cyberduck | Mac OS X
Cyberduck is a libre, open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files, Google Docs and Amazon S3 browser for Mac OS X. It features an easy to use and attractive user interface.

AndFTP | Android
AndFTP is an Android application for mobile devices. It is a full FTP client with FTP, SFTP and FTPS support – now you can upload and download files on your Android!

net2ftp | Web Application
Net2ftp is a browser based FTP client with similar features to desktop solutions. You can navigate your FTP servers, upload/download files, zip/unzip files, install software, and edit text and html files.

Flickr Uploadr | Windows, Mac OS X
Flickr Uploadr is a super easy way to upload your images to Flickr directly from your desktop without the need to actually visit Flickr’s website. You can add edit your images titles, tags and descriptions as well as add your images to groups, too.

Image Editing Apps

GIMP | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
GIMP is a powerful open-source image editing app with similar features to Adobe Photoshop, such as a customizable interface, photo enhancement features and digital retouching.

GIMPshop | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
GIMPshop is a modification to the above application, “GIMP”, sharing all of GIMP’s features. The biggest modification is that GIMP has been customized to look and feel just like Adobe Photoshop, so it’s a great application to use if you’re already familiar with or use Photoshop on a regular basis.

Paint.net | Windows
Paint.net is a Windows based image editor with an interface that Windows users will already be familiar with. The application supports layers and has a wide variety of tools.

Active Pixels 2 | Windows
Active Pixels 2 is another Windows based image editor. Version two includes support of over 100 graphic formats with web-safe options, as well as layers, effects, gradients and brushes.

Aviary Falcon | Web Application
Aviary Falcon is a superb little image editor that allows you to create images from scratch and edit existing images and photographs. The application is very simple, but is speedy and great for minor edits on the go, and ideal for painting.

Aviary Phoenix | Web Application
Aviary Phoenix is basically a much more complex version of Falcon (shown above). This web application is much more advanced with the ability to work with layers and a bunch of effects, and takes the same kind of approach to image editing that Photoshop does.

Adobe Photoshop Express (Mobile Photoshop) | iPhone, iPad, Android
Adobe Photoshop Express (previously Mobile Photoshop) is a simple and super easy to use application for your iPhone, iPad and Android based mobile. With the application you can crop, rotate and change the colors of your photos, as well showing off with art effects such as glows, sketches and vintage layer styles.

iPaint | Mac OS X
iPaint is a painting application for Mac OS X, based off a former painting application called Paintbrush that hadn’t been updated for a while. The application is a simple one, and is designed for painting and nothing more.

ChocoFlop | Mac OS X
Although ChocoFlop has now been discontinued and there is no (new) support, the application can still be downloaded. ChocoFlop allows your to edit your photos and design pretty things using Apple’s CoreImage technology, and takes advantage of your Mac’s graphics card.

Adobe Ideas 1.0 | iPad
Adobe Ideas is a digital sketchbook, somewhere you can capture your ideas anywhere you go (so long as you have your iPad!). It is a professional companion to Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

Krita | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Krita is a KDE program for sketching and painting, offering an end-to-end solution for creating digital painting files from scratch.

Pixia | Windows
Pixia is the English version of a popular Japanese painting and retouching software for full color graphics. It supports mask and layer functions in a similar way to Photoshop all packed into a user friendly interface.

Picnik | Web Application
Picnik is a simple web-based application that allows you to auto-correct your photographs, as well crop and resize them. Other features include being able to adjust your photos exposure levels, colors, sharpen your photo and remove red-eyes.

Splashup | Web Application
Splashup is yet another web application, offering multiple image editing, pixel-level control and layers. There is also a “light” version for those who are looking for a more fun and casual image editing experience.

CinePaint | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
CinePaint offers support for 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit color channels of deep paint, something that a lot of other free painting applications cannot open. The app is easy to use and similar to Photoshop, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Vector Editing Apps

Inkscape | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
InkScape is the most well known open source vector graphics editor and has very similar capabilities to professional pieces of software such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw and Xara X.

Aviary Raven | Web Application
Aviary Raven is a very powerful web application that works with vector files. If you are familiar with Illustrator, Raven is a great choice.

Alchemy | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Alchemy is a very interesting vector-based editing application that makes use of a handful of interesting features that other apps don’t. For example it has an intentionally reduced level of functionality; no undo, no selecting and no editing. You can also produce shapes with your voice, different noises create different widths and forms of lines.

Color Scheme & Management Apps

Color Stream | iPhone
Color Stream is a lovely color tool for the iPhone which lets you create and store color palettes either from scratch or generated from a photograph or piece of artwork.

Adobe Kuler | Web Application
Adobe Kuler is an official Adobe web-based application that allows you to browse existing and create/save your own color schemes.

Palettes | iPhone
Palettes is a powerful productivity tool for creating and maintaining color palettes. Great for creating color schemes when you’re on the go.

Aviary Toucan | Web Application
Aviary Toucan is very similar to Adobe Kuler, a web-based app where you can create your own color schemes and save or export them as files ready to use in your documents.

COLOURlovers | Web Application
COLOURlovers is more of a community website than it is an actual application, however certain elements of it (such as the color and pattern generator) perform in very similar ways in which Adobe Kuler and Aviary Toucan do, with the added extra of having a community to rate your schemes and patterns.

3D Rendering Apps

3D Canvas | Windows
3D Canvas is a real-time 3D modelling and animation tool that incorporates an intuitive drag-and-drop approach to 3D modelling.

Blender | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Blender is a free open source 3D content creation suite available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. The application is top quality and is up there with the best of the rendering applications that cost thousands of dollars.

Typography Related Apps

Adobe Type Manager Light | Windows, Mac OS X
Adobe Type Manager Light is a system software component that automatically generates high-quality screen font bitmaps.

FontExampler | Mac OS X
FontExampler is a simple but useful application that takes sample text entered by the user and generates a list of that text in all available fonts on your system.

FontList | Windows
FontList is very similar to FontExample (above) only for Windows. Instead of producing a list right in front of you, it will produce a HTML file which you can then open to see your dummy text in all the different fonts on your system.

WhatTheFont | iPhone
WhatTheFont is a great little iPhone application by MyFonts.com. It allows you to take photographs of a particular typeface using your iPhone’s camera and then determine similar typefaces which you can then download for your next project.

Handy Miscellaneous Apps

Paparazzi! | Mac OS X
Paparazzi! is a small utility application for Mac OS X that allows you to take full page screenshots of web pages, ideal for putting in your portfolio.

Aviary Talon | Web Application
Aviary Talon does the exact same thing as Paparazzi! (above) but is available as an online application as well as a Firefox plugin.

ResizeMe | Mac OS X
ResizeMe is a lovely little batch image editor for Mac. It allows you to rename, resize, scale, crop and flip images all in batch, as well as apply basic effects such as drop shadows and text watermarks. This nifty little application speeds up your workflow a great deal.

Ruler Plus | iPhone
As it says on the tin, Ruler Plus is a simple ruler application for your iPhone, measuring both inch and centimeters.

Thinking Space | Android
Thinking Space is a mind mapping application for Android phones which allows you to map your mind on the go, where ever you are.

FreeMind | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping application written in Java that allows you to create mind-maps easily without wasting all that paper!

Simplistic Analysis Clicks for Link Building Tools for Better Online Visibility

You deserve to have information about your business content given to you in an understandable and fast manner. There are many simple analysis tools that will give you the opportunity to view your data in just one click. For instance, you might want to find out how many links your site has gathered from the data-perspective of Yahoo. Also you may need to inquire about anchor text usage, the number of anchor text that are being used too many times, and analysis on different pieces of content. All this can be presented to you with simplistic analysis clicks, which are fabulous and quick ways to get the data that’s requiring in order to develop and manage your online visibility content.

1. SearchStatus

With Link Building Tools for Better Online Visibility, at times you may need to take simplistic analysis tools to the next step. For instance, you may need to gather some analysis from a single Firefox plug-in called Quirks SearchStatus. This downloadable tool uses practical information from domain and page links found within Yahoo or even Google TBPR, whois data, analysis from Google Cache About Pages which are visited within your website, and SiteExplore data. All of these informational tools are available for utilization with just one click. You may also find extracts within a search status for no-follow-link collected facts.

2. LinkDiagnosis

Another Firefox plug-in is called LinkDiagnosis, and as a web-based analysis tool it is faster than Yahoo SiteExplorer. This web-based tool will try to help you strain out links of little quality, and it will also offer you a list of the most frequently used anchor text. If you need a list of some of the most popular pages from your domain name, you can also get this done with LinkDiagnosis, as well. Furthermore, you can weigh the advantages of LinkDiagnosis as you may even download presented data, and then export it to your personal file folders and use it how you wish.

Depending on the size of your back link file that you are searching for and investigating, the speed of this analysis tool is directly related to its size. For instance, if you are investigating a small site, the LinkDiagnosis will only take a few minutes. Conversely, with large sites it may take several minutes to before LinkDiagnosis will present you with feedback. It is also a great tool for general-link profile overviews. Therefore, with tools like LinkDiagnosis, you can receive a broad-spectrum of estimations on incoming links and outgoing link, and you can even view comprehensive data.

Web-based tools for data analysis

As your web business becomes more and more visible over the Internet, you may need additional helpful collected data. For example, you may require a further probing of your own website, or you may need to analyze one of your competitors’ sites. With these kinds of tools, you will find out how quick and how often your competitors are building links for their websites. You can also find out past collected data your website and the basic arrangement of website-content building.

3. MajesticSEO

Another way to explore Link Building Tools for Better Online Visibility is to take a look at sites like MajesticSEO or SEOmoz Linkscape.

With these types of online-visibility tools, you can compare competitive sites to your own product and/or service site for the purpose of SEO scrutiny. Anyone of these SEO comparison sites will help you depending on what you are looking for. If you need a simple user-friendly site, you might want to consider using SEOmoz Linkscape. However, if what you need to compare requires a more full range of information, then you might consider using MajesticSEO. Yet, both of these sites provide downloadable formats.

Keep in mind that with MajesticSEO, you may have to pay for a competitor’s detailed reports, but for the most part it is a free and valuable tool. It is also free to use the collected data within their bad neighborhood checker. While using MajesticSEO’s Bad Neighborhood Checker you can compare over 20 domain names and IP address, and they will be classified by their related backlinks.

Upon using MajesticSEO, you will need to set aside quite a bit of time, because it contains a vast amount of data. What can MajesticSEO do for you? Here are the possibilities:

• Provide you with old link data collection.
• MajesticSEO can also divide links into redirect links, no-follow links, image links, and frame links.
• This site can also separate incoming links from referring links in a separate window or view.
• A provision of C-class or complete IP addresses that are incoming links of a domain.
• You can also separate domain links by TLD or country
• Provide colloquial information such as the most popular pages and anchor text that are in usage.

If you need to compare domain back link history, you can also do that with MajesticSEO. This can be done with the comparison of over four websites. This is beneficial when you need to know how your link building efforts are growing. It is also worth checking the Compare Domain Backlink History Tool to find out anomalies within the linkage growth of your website or that of your competitors, and you can even compare collected data between date ranges. The best way this information will serve you is to allow you to duplicate it in the future.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between when your content has obtained links, and its date of discovery by MajesticSEO. Although the dates may be slightly different, it can still help to do comparative analysis with Link Building Tools for Better Online Visibility.

Although MajesticSEO is great for off-site analysis, Xenu’s Link Sleuth is better for on-site data collection. As a type of search engine crawler, Xenu’s Link sleuth will display a list of current URLs, and also will check broken links on websites within each of these categories. Xenu’s Link Sleuth can categorize them with different tracking criteria. If you want a general overview of your online site, Xenu’s Link Seuth is the perfect for Link Building Tools for Better Online Visibility. Link Sleuth will help you to understand which links are being utilized and in which links are ending up in a dead-end path. Not only will Link Sleuth help you to correct such errors on your website, but it will also help you to determine and analyze the internal links that are coming through each page of your website. It will also help you to correct 404 errors found within internal and external links from each page of your online website.

Furthermore, because you are utilizing a strong link building campaign, Xenu’s Link Sleuth will help to find dead links on the websites of prospective-webmaster collaborators which already have Google top ranking advantage. Once you find any errors within their site, wouldn’t it be a great way to start a communication effort with these webmasters?

More Links as Target Tools for Greater Online Visibility

Now that you have thoroughly analyzed your site for internal and external links errors, and the links of your competitors, you can now seek out greater opportunities to obtain new links for your website.

4.Hubfinder Link Targets Anyone?

This is the time that you might want to open up a small amount of financial expenditure to help you find greater link opportunities for your company. For instance, if you become a member of SEObook Hubfinder, you will have an opportunity to analyze co-occurring links of top-notch websites that are related to the topic of your business. With this website tool you can use at least 10 to 20 website comparisons, which will tell you more than one of the top competing sites that are connected to a particular website that you are analyzing within the SEObook Hubfinder tool. You are also able to add your website, so that you may sift out links that you have already used. In conclusion, this will provide you with several hundred links that are currently connected to your competitors’ sites, thereby giving you fantastic link targets.

5. Link Harvester

As a sister tool to SEObook, Link Harvester will show you quality domain links to a site that you want to view. This will often include IP addresses and unique domains, like C block addresses. If you need to view information from links like .gov, .mil, .edu, and .ac.uk domains, you can with Link Harvester. Furthermore, you can take advantage of inclusive archive links like, whois, Google cache, archive.org, and many other such links. Yes, Link Harvester does have an export capability.

6.SEOmoz Link Finder Labs

What are your tips and tools for building backlinks? Share with us in comments

Over the last few years we have seen the rise of some fantastic tools to allow us to get creative with the typefaces we use on our websites. There are really two mainstream approaches here; @font-face, and of course, Flash. All of the solutions available have their drawbacks; not all are free for instance, but one thing is for sure; They are all advancing web typography for everyone. Let’s get stuck in and see what options are available to us to use different fonts on the web.

1.Google Font API

Google recently entered the font replacement game with their free Font API and font directory. It is still a beta lab product, but is incredible easy to use, and loads the fonts on Google’s back, just like has become common for loading Jquery these days. The problem with Google Font API, is its font directory though. There are only 19 fonts currently available, and compared to other options that are only limited by the amount of free fonts that you can find, this is fairly lacking in choice.

However, like most of Google products, it is a fantastic piece of engineering, and is incredible easy to use. All you have to do is include a dynamic  file in the head of your document, and from there, you are free to use the font anywhere in your css. The syntax allows you to load multiple fonts, different font variants and so on in the same single line which is fantastic. The following line, for instance, would load Cantarell italic and Droid Serif bold.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"  href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cantarell:italic|Droid+Serif:bold" />

To learn how to implement the Google font API, Jeffrey Way at Nettuts has made a fantastic quick video.

2. Typekit

Typekit is a premium web font replacement service, with a useful free plan on a limited selection of fonts. They work with foundries from all over the world to provide their users with the best selection of fonts possible, and this shows with the number of fonts they are able to provide compared to other services; nearly 500! Some of the most influential web designers on the internet use it, and that’s testament to its quality and delivery.

Typekit aims to make using custom fonts in your web design as easy as possible, and so offers two ways to implement your chosen fonts into your website. The first is via the kit editor. This Kit Editor is for those that are a little less web language savvy than some of us, and instead of having them hand code the fonts into their design, it asks you what selectors you want the font applied to (class’s, id’s, elements), and by clicking publish, Typekit will sort everything else out for you via the one line of code you insert into your html document.

The other option provided to you is not to use the Kit Editor, but hand code the fonts into your css yourself. Once you’ve included the one line of code in your document, the font name will be recognised and loaded!

If you are willing to pay premium for your web fonts then, this is the way to go. The range of premium and free fonts that you have access to, and the ease of implementation is incredible. A portfolio price plan weigh’s in at $49.99 a year, so it is all about weighing the pro’s and con’s of what you are getting with that, and whether the fonts you want to use are available under other font replacement techniques.

3. Google Font Loader

The Google Font Loader is a secondary part of the Google font API; a Javascript library that gives you more control over font loading than the Google Font API does. Co-developed by Google, and Typekit, it allows you to load fonts from multiple font providers, including Google, Typekit, and Ascender, as well as pretty much any custom site you want.

What the font loader does, that the Google Font API doesn’t is applies class’s to the page while the font’s are loaded, and after the font is loaded, allowing you specify a font to render in while the font loads. This is not supported in the Google Font API however, where for example, Chrome, IE and Safari will just not render the text until the font loads andFirefox will render the font in the browsers default font until the font loads causing a flash of unstyled text.  Although you may still get a flash with Google Font Loader, the change won’t be so drastic as you’ll be able to choose that default font.

To learn how to use the Google Font Loader, Google have written a great guide here.

4. FontSquirrel

FontSquirrel is more of a database of free font’s, but it comes with a fantastic integration for font-face, a css way of serving web fonts. Google and Typekit use font-face, although it is far more refined via server sided scripts, and javascript. FontSquirrel however, is pure CSS. Once you browse the incredible directory of free fonts (theres 610 of them at the time of writing this!), the site will tell you if the font license allows you to use it with font-face, and on most fonts, there is a pre-built tab where you can instantly download a font-face kit for that font, which will then take you only a few seconds to implement into your css.

For those font’s that aren’t provided with a font-face kit, but are still font-face compatible, or font’s that font-squirrel is yet to come across, there is also a free font-face kit generator available! Simply upload your font file, and the generator will pretty much do the rest, unless you are looking to customise your kit a bit. This is by far the easiest, and best free way to implement a fantastic set of fonts into your website in my opinion. The ease of use, and speed of implementation is incredible.

5. sIFR

sIFR stands for Scalable Inman Flash Replacement, but its basically a technology that replaces your text with a flash replacement, styled in your required font. It does require javascript and flash to be enabled; if not, then your css defined font will be used. sIFR does however seem fairly complex to set up; you have to create a flash file of your font, load javascript, and then choose what elements you want to font replace via javascript. The problem though, is that sIFR is heavy, so causes pages to load slower, and of course, doesn’t work on most mobile devices.

However, like font-squirrel, and it’s font-face kit generator, it doesn’t limit you to a select library of fonts like the Google Font API does, and so provides much more versatility. Unlike the font-face alternatives above though, sIFR should only be used for small pieces of text, like headings. Using it on your whole site will seriously damage your site’s download time, and usability.

To learn how to use sIFR, and see an example, this tutorial seems to cover it all!

6. Cufon

Before font-face came along and became mainstream, the main rival to sIFR was Cufon. Instead of using flash, cufon used javascript, and makes use of elements such as the canvas tag on most browser, and VML in Internet Explorer. This means its more lightweight than sIFR, but still, it’s only really suitable for headings. While the text is selectable, it’s fairly buggy in that aspect. Like sIFR, there is no preset font library so you’ll be making your own kits via the Cufon Generator.

You upload your font (with different variants if require), choose your characters, and then optimise your performance (quality), and file size for your site. Once this is done, you’ll need to include cufon javascript file, as well as your generated font file, and then choose what selectors you want to apply the font to. Definitely not as tidy as some of the font-face examples. It is however, compatible with most javascript libraries, so with their support, your selectors can become more dynamic.

If you want to use Cufon, Jeffrey Way from Nettuts has written an amazing article on how to, complete with video!

Further Thoughts

Cufon and sIFR are slowly dieing out due to the massive surge of interest, and popularity of the font-face solutions; Font Squirrel, Google Font API and Loader, and Typekit. However, with their rendering not top-notch in all current modern browsers, Cufon and sIFR are often the go to technology for beautifully rendered headings. I hope this article has given you an insight into the technologies available to you. They’re the best that I know of, but if you happen to have a further solution, or want to express your opinion, start the discussion rolling down in the comments!

CSS3 Button Maker

The CSS3 Button Maker gives you a number of sliders and color pickers to style your own CSS3 button. Then you can grab the code to use in your own project.

CSS3 Generator

Select from a list of CSS3 properties, fill in a few parameters to fit your needs, and it spits out the generated code along with a live preview.

CSS3 Please!

CSS3 Please! is a CSS3 rule generator that acts as a sort of playground. It allows you make various CSS3 tweaks and see a live preview. Then you can copy and paste into your own file.

CSS3 Gradient Generator

The CSS3 Gradient Generator was created as a showcase of the power of CSS based gradients as well as a tool for developers and designers to generate a gradient in CSS.

CSS3 Transforms

CSS3 Transforms gives you a set of sliders to experiment with various transforms such as position, rotation, skew and more. It also generates the corresponding code on the fly.

CSS3 Selectors Test

CSS3 Selectors Test automatically runs a large number of small tests which determines if your browser is compatible with a large number of CSS selectors. If it is not compatible with a particular selector it is marked as such. You can click on each CSS selector to see the results, including a small example and explanation for each of tests.

After several months of researching, testing, and using various tools for social media monitoring and response, I thought it might be helpful to share some of my findings. It was fun to dive into these tools, but I hope the information in this article will save you time and help you quickly find the tool that’s right for your needs.

Why Bother Monitoring Social Media?

Even if you or your clients have "decided" not to actively participate in social media, it’s really not a choice. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does social media. Either you can fill the vacuum with your perspective, or your customers and competitors will fill it for you. The choice is clear.

Monitoring helps with branding and marketing and can help identify quality control or customer care problems that may have gone unnoticed.

Monitoring is only one piece of the puzzle, however. It’s important to find out who is saying what, and where the conversation is happening so you can respond appropriately.

Terminology

There are few terms you’ll need to be familiar with before we talk about the tools, so let’s take a moment to cover them before we jump into the details.

Influence

If you find there are customers who have a strong opinion of your brand, it’s important to understand the influence of those customers.

• How many followers do they have?
• Do they get retweets?
• How many external links point to their blog?
• How many comments do their blog posts attract?

Several of the free tools listed below include this measurement to assist in your monitoring and response efforts. All of the paid options include it.

Sentiment

Are the comments positive or negative? Most current tools attempt to assign sentiment to a post automatically. While this is helpful for brands with tons of mentions, it’s only about 70% accurate in most cases^[1], so manual verification and spot-checking is encouraged across the board before making any decisions based on influence data.

Volume

This is simply the amount of "buzz" that exists. Many monitoring tools give the ability to chart volume for specific keywords over time. This gives you a great way to measure the impact of your marketing efforts and social media campaigns, especially when combined with sentiment. A lot can be learned about your brand and your customers by investigating spikes in social media volumes.

Workflow

Workflow is the process of assigning, tracking and responding to social media, typically in a team environment. An effective workflow can prevent double responses and missed opportunities.

Now that we have an understanding of the purpose and the terminology surrounding social media monitoring, let’s take a look at some tools that can help you monitor your presence.

1. Google Alerts

An oldie but a goodie! Google Alerts allows you to set up keyword searches for the name of your company or competitors, for example, and receive updates in your email inbox or through an RSS feed.

When combined with iGoogle, you can create a pretty nice consolidated page that contains the latest findings for your selected keywords. When it comes to monitoring social media, this is the least you should be doing; it’s free and an absolute snap to set up.

2. Twitter Advanced Search

By using the advanced features in Twitter’s search tool, you can use simple Boolean logic (true or false conditions) to perform some pretty powerful searches.

Once you set up your search, you can save the query as an RSS feed so you can keep up to date on the latest news.

3. Icerocket

Used by many, Icerocket helps you keep watch over Twitter, blogs, web, news, images and more. Features include a topic cloud and basic listing of mentions. This social media monitoring tool also offers the ability to bookmark your search results for later reference.

Although helpful, some users might find the interface and the style of the search results pages a little archaic compared to the other options.

4. Addict-o-matic

This tool is a consolidated page with search matches across blogs, Twitter, Digg, Flickr and more. Featuring an appealing interface and one-page dashboard, Addict-o-matic is one of the best free tools available for summarizing all your "buzz" in one place.

5. Boardtracker

Boardtracker focuses on grabbing "buzz" from message boards and forums. Features include a topic cloud and influencer list. There are ads mixed in with your search results which may turn off some users. A premium version is offered. If your target customers are more active on message boards than other channels, this could be the right tool for you.

6. Twazzup

Of the Twitter-focused monitoring tools I’ve come across, Twazzup does a great job of getting everything on one page. Sentiment, top links, and influencers are available.

The ranking of influencers, however, seems a little mysterious. A quick check of Klout scores on profiles for a few key topics didn’t reflect a high level of influence, so Twazzup must be using a different calculation.

7. Social Mention

This social media monitoring tool features an interesting combination of easy-to-read metrics including reach, sentiment, passion, and strength (volume/day). Social Mention tracks blogs, blog comments, Twitter, mainstream news, images, video, and audio. Searches can be saved as an RSS feed so you can easily stay up-to-date.

8. HootSuite

HootSuite is a popular tool that can be used to manage multiple accounts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, WordPress, Foursquare and LinkedIn. Although HootSuite could be categorized as an account management tool rather than a monitoring tool, I believe it deserves mention here because of its large user base and powerful functionality.

You can push updates to one or more profiles, track click-through, deploy timed updates, monitor your social media buzz across multiple web services, and assign tasks among team members based on roles. If you use HootSuite, you’ll want to use an additional tool to supplement monitoring of forums and blogs. HootSuite apps for both iPhone and Android are available.

9. Seesmic

If you try HootSuite, you’ll find the interface of Seesmic fairly familiar. The similarity doesn’t end there. They also share the capability to manage multiple accounts across all the popular social media outlets. Seesmic gives up some ground to HootSuite, however, on the team collaboration and workflow front.

10. TweetDeck

Another account management tool, TweetDeck is available as an application for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and iPad. You can use TweetDeck to manage profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Foursquare and Google Buzz. If you’ve used the other tools on this list, the multi-column format will feel familiar.

TweetDeck is lacking a good workflow, so it is not for those who will be collaborating with a team. In addition, because it needs to be installed on your system instead of being able to run in a Web browser, many people won’t be able to use it in a secure corporate environment.

11. Scoutlabs ($249/mo)

Scoutlabs has a great clean interface and overall excellent features for volume trending, sentiment-tracking, learning about key quotes (based on sentiment), and managing workflow for response management. Unlimited results helps protect you from increased monthly cost due to unexpected spikes in volume.

It’s a great option for agencies and freelancers because you can give clients access to a dashboard with your logo on it, branding the service as your own. Note that it can be a challenge to output some graphs and reports which may be an issue if you want to produce reports for your clients.

12. Radian6 ($500/mo)

Radian6 is a powerhouse that gives you the ability to slice-and-dice your data until your head spins. Integrated workflow, alerts, sentiment, monitoring across blogs, forums, news, Twitter, and more is what this social media monitoring tool has to offer.

The amount of monthly volume can influence pricing which is a little scary for companies that may experience wild swings in monthly volume. This is not the type of solution you should set up and hand over to your clients; it provides you with a wealth of information so you can become the go-to expert for them. If you invest the time to learn this tool, you can discover insights that will make you a hero to your clients.

References

1. Is Automated Sentiment Analysis Reliable?

Related Content

• How Social Media Works and the Role of the Intelligent User
• Make the Most Out of Social Media
• 12 Excellent Social News Sites for Web Designers
• Related categories: Tools and Website Management

About the Author

Jason Schubring has built more than 100 Websites and delivered e-mail campaigns for companies of all sizes. His strategic, design, and Web development background creates a unique perspective on effectively combining digital and traditional marketing. To connect with him, follow him on Twitter @jasonschubring or find him on LinkedIn.

License: The framework has been released as a complete web designer kit for free, even for commercial use.

You can download the UI Design Interface here: User Interface Design Framework
You can view the details of the framework below:

GUI Library

The GUI elements are based on common interface patterns (accordion, expandable panel, progress bar, tags, slide show…), that integrate usability good practices and are perfect for wireframes and interface design.

Vector Icons Library – 260 Minimal Icons for Free

This pixel precise icon collection have been created specifically for interface and web designers. They are based on a precise 16 pixels grid, which means that they stay clear and have a crisp look even at small sizes.

Graphic Styles Library

The Graphic Styles Library consists of 200 graphic styles for buttons, navigation menus or panels and 330 swatches harmonized with graphic styles for backgrounds, typography and other GUI interface elements.

You can download the UI Design Interface here: User Interface Design Framework

By Paul Andrew (Speckyboyand speckyboy@twitter).