Flitter-Flitter Productions

New Twitter Retweets Feature

2009-11-12T16:24:00.003+01:00

Here is the pop-up I have seen last time I logged in to my Twitter account :

It says I'm part of beta group to test new Retweets feature! I'm sure that's because of my 6k+ followers :) On ♦Twitter web app sidebar I have found new button just above search box as image shows:

Finally, entire new page is available with 3 tabs: retweets by others, retweets by you and your tweets, retweeted:

Best information about this new ♦Twitter feature I have found from the 'source', on evhead blog.

p.s. Mashable just reported that new retweets feature has been disabled.

Inkscape Stars Tool Examples

2009-11-08T01:58:00.001+01:00

When working with ♦Inkscape - free vector editing ♦software, it is good to get to know its tools. That's excellent way to shorten time you need to master entire piece of ♦software. Best practise in this direction is to play with different parameters, to adjust them step-by-step and learn how shapes change accordingly.

One of many useful ♦Inkscape tools is stars and polygons tools. Here are some examples of parameters using stars part of tool.

Inkscape Tutorial: simple way to make a snowflake

2009-11-04T13:46:00.001+01:00

Hello. This is first of many ♦Inkscape ♦Tutorials you will see on my blog. I hope you will enjoy it and share it with others if you find them useful. I'm currently using Inkscape version 0.46.

Lets get started. This tutorial will show you very basic and quick way to create unique snowflake. Start with blank document. Choose Bezier tool (win: SHIFT+F6) from toolbar. First we will create single snowflake limb and then we will use clone tool. Ok, so draw straight line and continue to add more points like image shows. Bottom shape is closed path.

Next, we will copy our shape and paste it to duplicate it. Select only one of the shapes and choose Object then Flip Vertical. Align shapes to make single object like image 2 shows.

Now, select both shapes and choose Object then Group (win: CTRL+G). Use colors as you wish for stroke and fill. Make sure our grouped object is selected before our final step. Go to Edit then Clone then Create Tiled Clones and new window pops up. On symmetry tab from drop down meny choose: P6 60 rotation. Select rows, columns if it isn't already selected and type 1 and 6 like image shows. Click on create and snowflake is born!

You can duplicate your newly created snowflake, change rotation and size and make winter on your screen! Since process of making single snowflake is really quick, you can create several different and unique shapes

and make your snow look great.

More Inkscape Tutorials coming soon. Sharing this one will make me very happy! Thanks!

Free Ireland 3D Vector Map

2009-11-01T12:25:00.000+01:00

This is a new version of Ireland Vector file. It is more suiatble in presentation purposes than latest version. Available format for free download are EPS and SVG. Again, this file version is modified using Inkscape, free vector editing software.

Comment for download details or more customization.

Please share this post, someone may find it useful. Thank you.

My SponsoredTweets earnings

2009-10-29T20:13:00.000+01:00

First of all I want to say I was suspicious at beggining about making money with SponsoredTweets and I had a reason. When I sign up a month ago I got few offers (as you can see from image below), but than nothing. I have first lowered my price to incredible $0.09 per tweet, got 1 offer, raised my price to $0.19 just to test how high I can go, got 2 offers and another one at $0.36. And that's it. After that everything stopped.

Like with many other making cash online services I thought the buzz is over, no more offers will ever come. And I lived few weeks believing this, but about 10 days ago everthing changed. Suddenly offers start to rush in and since, they never stopped. It even get better and better since I raised my price to $0.70 right now and I still get new sponsored tweets every day.

Now, you may think those earning are low considering I have 6k+ followers, but there is a catch. As I wrote in one of my previous posts my twitter account is not included in search stream because I had repeated tweets and I didn't know this is against their rules (hard learned lesson). This is the reason my CPC rate is so low. My analysis shows that account with same number of followers which is included in search stream whould have 5 time greater CPC. This means, if you have 6k followers you could ask for $5 - $7 per tweet and you will get offers easily!

Now, it all depends what kind of twitter account you have and do you have true followers or fake ones. More true followers, higher CPC and more money for you. Let's say you get 1 offer per day (seems pretty easy right now) you can make $6 x 30 days = $180 per month. Not bad, not bad at all.

Off course, you should not spam your own stream. One sponsored tweet per 10 - 20 normal ones is quite good ratio. I wouldn't mind if people I follow have this rate of sponsored tweets.

Check my SponsoredTweets profile and hire me!

* there are some tricks I have learned to improve my earnings, but about that in some future post.

The Book of Inkscape - download free chapters

2009-10-27T13:34:00.000+01:00

THE BOOK OF INKSCAPE is new complete guide to Inkscape, free vector graphic editing software. The book is written by Dmitry Kirsanov.

Now, there aren't many books specially about Inkscape (although they are needed) and that is why every new one is very valuable. I have found many tutorials online and I have used Inkscape's help files, but there is certain void in structured representation of what Inkscape can do. It is big misconception that Inkscape is poor because it is only developed until version 0.47 or because it is free. Truth is this piece of software is very powerful if you know how to use it.

Someone on Twitter commented about new Inkscape version asking for some minor feature and displaying dissatisfaction in that way. You need to understand substantial difference between open source software and other solutions is that with open source software you are always invited to participate in development and because of this every complaint is pointless.

You can actually download for free two chapters of 'The Book of Inkscape' to test it first before you buy it. Here are direct download links:

CHAPTER 10 - Gradients and Patterns
CHAPTER 19 - Tutorial: Designing a Business Card

Enjoy!

Free Vermont 3D vector map

2009-10-21T14:20:00.000+02:00

I have improved latest Vermont vector file, added some 3D-ish look, added bigger cities names and state name. Again, all elements are on separate layers. Comment for free download or more customization.

Free Vermont Vector Map

2009-10-16T10:46:00.000+02:00

Vermont vector map is another free map from flitter-flitter productions. You can have SVG and EPS files if you are subsrcibed to this blog via email, just leave comment and ask for it.

I'm planning to make a lot more free vector maps and I hope every new one will be better than previous. If you want me to make any country, region or county free vector map, just ask and I'll do it. Thanks.

Borders and cities on free Vermont vector map are on separate layers. File is creates using free vector editing software Inkscape.

Free Ireland Vector Map

2009-10-07T04:27:00.000+02:00

Hi all ya. This Ireland Vector map is another free vector map by Flitter-Flitter Productions available in both EPS and SVG formats. File is created using Inkscape. It has two layers, first one is island contour with border and second layer contain names of the cities.

For now only e-mail RSS subscribers can have the files. Just leave your comment on this post with your e-mail address and I'll send it. Later, I will upload files for anyone to use. Thanks.

Get e-book about blogging worth $7.5 for free

2009-10-06T03:07:00.000+02:00

I'm giving away few copies of my ebook worth $7.5 titled 'How (not) to blog'. All you have to is tweet next message:

I just bought this interesting book on Lulu 'How (not) to blog' http://tinyurl.com/yam735w

After you do this, leave comment here with your twitter alias and e-mail address and I'll send you my book for free. It's that simple.

How to save in EPS format using Inkscape

2009-10-02T21:58:00.000+02:00

Hello all. One of the questions I received recently was: how to save in EPS format using Inkscape? Although for some of you this question maybe sounds trivial, it's a good thing to help others and share know-how.

When using Inkscape, saving in different formats requires same instructions, so after this quick explanation you will know how to save not only in EPS (which btw stand for Encapsulated PostScript) but to SVG (which is short for Scalable Vector Graphics) and other formats: PS, PDF, EMF, XAML, ...

When you vector file is finished, go to File and then choose Save as... This operation can be done via keyboard shortcut SHIFT+CTRL+S. New dialog box will appear titled 'Select file to save to'. First choose the destination where you want your file to be saved and then go to the bottom-right of the dialog box to open drop-down menu. From this menu choose any of desired file formats (in this case EPS). Click save and you are done.

UNIQUE OFFER: Get Extra Traffic (join twecers)

2009-09-27T18:55:00.001+02:00

Hi web nomads. Most of you seek ways to attract more visitors for their blogs by using different tactics and services. Some of you use Entrecard to get more traffic, but only few have success with it. This is no strange thing because vast majority of bloggers who use EC have blogs with small amount of traffic. It's like many have come to the party, but there is no cake, only few cookies!

Maybe the solution for this situation is some sort of fusion between EC and other social networks like Digg, Technorati, BlogCatalog or Twitter. This is where my idea comes in.

My UNIQUE OFFER concerns everyone who advertise on my Entrecard widget. In order to get extra traffic, from today I'll tweet lastest post of blog shown on my EC widget. This actually means you don't have to do anything! With currently 5400 followers on my Twitter profile (and growing fast) you can surely expect more traffic and maybe some new regular reader also.

I'll report in a month or so about results for me and 'guest bloggers'. If you think this idea sound great, why don't you join? Give the same offer to your readers, help them get extra traffic and make your Twitter profile even more popular. Let me know if you do this, I'll make a list. We should name this service somehow, any suggestions? Entrecard + Twitter = ? ( Twecers maybe :))

Are You Excluded From Twitter Search?

2009-09-23T17:31:00.003+02:00

Hello dear visitor. I have been doing a lot of reading lately about social networks, specially about Twitter, how to use it to extend your blogging experience and how to improve your online search abilities. Some advices I read were very useful, others not so many.

One of the recommendations I've got from 'twitter expert' was that it's OK to post same tweet in different periods of time in order to enable all of your followers to see your tweet. If your followers have many of their owns, few thousand or so, it is quite possible they will not see your tweet and therefor they will not be able to respond, retweet or whatever.

It seems like that Twitter itself is not much favorable of repeating tweets and they see this action as aggressive approach. Their goal is to provide real-time quality search results which is something repeating tweets ruin. That's why Twitter excludes accounts who uses aggressive tweeting from their search results. You can check is your account is excluded or not if you type 'from:username' in Twitter search box. If there is no results, you are not included. I'm not sure when my account is suspended from Twitter search and if it will be restored, but I have learned valuable lesson not to repeat my tweets.

image by Kevin

I have changed my tweeting habits and now I post only once, only good content and comments. This has allowed my to rapidly grow the number of twitter followers as you can see on blog sidebar today I already have 5400+ followers.

How many tweets per day do you post? Hubspot claims that 22 tweets per day is optimum, because it is average number of tweets per day across twitter network.

Anti-inflation action and consequences in virtual economy

2009-09-13T15:33:00.004+02:00

When digital economy wants to succeed like real one it has to obey same economic rules and laws. If your system produces much more currency units than it spends you will get rapid inflation and value of your currency will drop. This is something previous owners of Entrecard never understood and that's why system was ill. When you run a contest and give away 75k+ units (in this case Entrecard credits) you can't expect value of credits to remain the same.

image by kevindooley

Lucky for the community, new owners came and with better management things are moving to the right direction. First anti-inflation action was introduced few weeks ago. Entrecard stopped giving credits to people receiving drop, only those who actually drop (click on widget) will be credited. This is great move, but it comes with consequences.

Some of the popular 'movements' are now absolute like 'U drop I follow'. This idea was established to allow people who drop regulary to gain extra credits. Memebers of 'U drop I follow' practicly said: if you drop on my widget you get one credits and I get one credit, then I will return the drop and we both get 2 credits each. With new anti-inflation action this doesn't work anymore, so 'U drop I follow' is pointless.

Other ideas like 'U drop I link' etc are also affected. Off course, if you wanted to pay respect to those coming to your blog without any thoughts about earning credits you will not be distracted by the action. I would like to see your comment on this one, thanks.

'Almost Free' Twitter Background

2009-09-08T02:42:00.004+02:00

Every once and a while I like to change things on my blogs and social networking profiles, just to keep it fresh and interesting to myself and to others.

Here is my newest Twitter background image. Name of this masterpiece is 'Almost Free'.

This image doesn't have to be finished work, but can act as open canvas for some future background version as well. Image uses 3 layers. First one is for radial gradient black-brown-dark green-light green. Second layer is for linear gradient, transparent to solid black. Third layer is for letters. They have small black stroke and just a speck of blur.

How to get more traffic to your blog and make money online using it

2009-09-02T02:41:00.005+02:00

This is probably THE most asked question in the history of Internet, right? Actually, second part of the question, about making money is easy. Everybody knows if traffic is there, money is there also. There are millions of ways to monetize high traffic blog. Main problem is traffic.

I'm not going to say 'content is king' (or queen) that's sooo familiar sentence, but yet very few (including me) understand what great content really is.

image by sjcockell

I wanted to say a few words about ad networks that pop every once and a while. First of all, they don't work. I know, it sounds horrible, but it's true. Remember BlogRush? Remember what incredible buzz was around it and what happend? Check their website to find out [evil-eyes].

Another failure is obviously Entrecard. You can notice I still have their widget on sidebar, true, but I'm giving them second change (everyone deserves second change) since they have new owners and from what I have seen they are moving in right direction with keeping credits inflation down, improving interesting forum and excellent market, though still in beta. Entrecard is failure because they promised traffic and they didn't deliver. I think they should move away from this directive and represent their website only as blogger community.

Ad network I also wanted to try (widget installed, but waiting for approval) is BlogUpp. You don't even need to register for it, it's automated system which promises 9 of your ad views for 10 widget appearence on your blog and that's highest rate ever! So, with CTR of 2% for your 1000 page views you will get 18 clicks. I have right now around 500 page views per month, so I can expect 7-11 clicks in September. We will see how that goes.

Conclusion: free ad networks will never work, only paid ones, trick is to find virtaul currency (like EC tried to do with their 'visit=credit' policy) which can be easily earned but yet can be measured and have constant value. One who figures out what that currency is will be very rich dude.

How much you can earn with microstocks ?

2009-08-29T12:07:00.005+02:00

Last year in May I wrote an article Metabloggers about how much money you can earn online and when blogging will become regular job. One comment was from unnikuttan who said:

I think this is all about making big stories. but nobody really earns it.

I can understand if your online presence is poor or you just visit few websites like Facebook and your own blog you have the right to think like this, but to live in ignorance is hardy a choice these days : proof of online earnings are everywhere and everyone can make money online and I'm not talking cents here. This was also true in May last year.

image by pogwebsite

I wanted to discuss just one aspect of online income possibility and that's microstock photography. Though, 'photography' part has changed very much lately, because these days you can sell almost anything online. Microstock agencies now accept vector illustrations, Flash files, even videos and I believe this is going to expand more.

First of all I suggest Google blog search on microstock earnings. Take a look at few links, do quick analysis and you will find some interesting answers.

Pixel Away has earned around $900 in July 2009 mostly via Shutterstock and iStockPhoto and made it total of $7215 in less than two years. Luis Santos from Lisboa, Portugal has earned $93.56 in July 2009 half of that from Shutterstock. His portfolio is different from agency to agency : 311 images at Shutterstock, 302 at Fotolia, 74 at iStockPhoto etc.

So, how much money you can earn with microstocks? It depends on your images quality and portfolio number. You will need around 200-300 images on few major agencies for money to start coming in. I'm still far away from these numbers with only 100+ images at Fotolia, however that's not my primary goal right now.

If you want to track people who sell photos online, check this list of 25 Microstockers.

Blog Most Frequently Used Keywords

2009-08-23T03:42:00.003+02:00

This image shows most frequently typed keywords on this blog.

Click to expand.

Generated by Wordle.

Create Vector Map Using Inkscape

2009-08-21T22:34:00.004+02:00

Process of creating vector map from raster image in Inkscape is really simple, but this process requires some time and effort. You can start with finding desired raster image online. If you are not able to download it, use Print Screen keyboard command to copy image to clipboard and then paste it in PhotoShop or whatever raster editing software.

If you have your map in paper or in some book or whatever form, you can take a picture of it and use that image file. Image doesn't even have to be perfect, you only need contours.

Open new Inkscape document and select File - Import... (or CTRL+I) and browse to find your raster image. You can scale imported graphic to fit working area.

Select Layer - Add Layer and name new layer 'vector', also choose Position - Above Current from drop down menu (see image below). Go back to Layer 1 and lock it and than again back to layer vector. This is to make sure you don't accidentally move raster image below.

Zoom in with + key on keyboard and zoom with - key on keyboard if necessary. Select Pen tool from toolbar (Shift+F6) and you are ready for details. You will need some practice if map has curves, but you can also get away with all straight lines just draw nodes closer. It isn't very hard to learn how to use pen tool properly in Inkscape, but some other time about it.

When done, select one more time Layer 1 and choose Layer - Delete Current Layer. Your vector map is almost ready. Add some color to it, maybe some gradient and vector is ready for further manipulation. Save file as Inkscape SVG, Plain SVG or EPS format.

I have done many of those vector map files (Germany, USA, Europe, France, regions maps, you name it!) and some of them I have even sold via different online microstock websites.

I offer myself to do this job for you if you can't find time for it or you just can't be bothered. Feel free to contact me via e-mail ffprod66 [at] gmail [dot] com, send me your raster images or I can find them for you if you wish.

Income-flow blog and other new stuff

2009-08-18T14:04:00.003+02:00

Few new things. First I wrote new article Make better blog using free flash stuff, check it out and leave comment if you like.

Second thing, related to first one is new clock widget within resources section on sidebar. To get any of the 30+ free Flash clocks, go to flash2nd.com blog.

Few days ago I found my old Entrecard drop list, some 100 blogs which I didn't use for a long time and I was disappointed to find out many of those blogs are now removed from Blogger or long time ago abandoned. One good thing however has come from this - I registered new blog with interesting URL Income Flow.

I don't have much time to run it all the way but I have offered co-authoring if anyone is interested.

Let me know.

Bizarre Deaths Blog Niche Idea

2009-08-12T14:07:00.004+02:00

While working on my news editor job every now and then I read about some bizarre death. Stories are from all around the world and there is no country excluded. People are fragile that's a fact, but often stupidity and prejudices are playing main role in tragic events.

I came across this idea to start with Bizarre Deaths Niche Blog, not because of some morbid impulse but as a way to document how one can easily forget about its own vulnerable existence. I don't really have time to do it, but if you do, feel free to.

Here is a place to start: List of unusual deaths.

image by fotologic

Make Money Online Trial / Error Method

2009-07-30T17:37:00.003+02:00

You have a choice to listen what other bloggers say about making money online, to follow their steps or you can try it for yourself and learn from your own mistakes. My choice was to make mistakes.

I have registered with Triond a very long time ago and during this period I have published about 25 articles. I did fair share of promotion on Twitter, StumbleUpon and other places and my income is $3.69 until today. Some might say 25 articles is too little, but I was rather taking in account time spent on these articles and not their amount.

My calculations show that with regular blog and only Google Adsense ads and with same time spent on promotion I would earn much more money than this. There was no 'long tail' earnings with Triond, none. In days when I tweeted my links, cents were coming, but in other days 0 visits.

Now, here is one good advice. If something doesn't work for you, don't do it! Give yourself some time, a week, a month or even 3 months to try out some making money online service, but when that period ends and if it isn't working for you, search for something else. This is why I deleted 'recent articles Triond widget' from my sidebar.

Just one more thing. Keep an eye on Entrecard, they have new owner and they are finally moving in right direction.

Inkscape Cloning Examples Project

2009-07-23T15:20:00.004+02:00

It's time to post little more on Inkscape and some of the advanced tools. One of those is very useful clone tool. For quick start, create new document, draw simple rectangle and select it. To use advanced setting of clone tool go to Edit > Clone > Create Tiled Clones ...

New window opens up with different tabs: Symmetry, Shift, Scale, etc. To create next effect leave default settings except for this changes: number of rows 1, number of cols 60; Rotation cols 6; ShiftX col 90 and ShiftY col 1. Click on create button.

Now, why this post has Project in its title? Simple, my plan is to collect a couple of most interesting Inkscape clone examples from my work and publish them for free in a form of e-book in near future. All examples will be presented as set of images (like one above) with cloning settings text, cloning object and cloning effect result.

Feel free to subscribe and stay informed when e-book is published.

Wanna join the project? Contact here or via my twitter page.

Celtic Style Invitation Card

2009-07-19T00:57:00.003+02:00

My new client requested Celtic style invitation card without explanation what actual event is all about. So, all I have to start from is one word : Celtics. I have few days for this one. Here is my first try:

any ideas?

How to hack Twitter Trending Topics

2009-07-18T12:46:00.002+02:00

How to get involved in Twitter Trending Topics?

When you sign in to your twitter account via web, on your dashboard, just below search form you have access to twitter trending topics. These terms are most talked about and mentioned keywords on twitter at the moment. Right now, some of those are Harry Potter, Spongebob and off course Michael Jackson. So, who decided what's trendy? Actually, you do, together with the rest of the community. It's an easy way to track popular or important events like #iranelection obviously is to many people.

Tweeting about trending topics can get you more attention from other twitter users, but also, be aware that more and more often twitter spam invades trending topics and you should be aware of this to understand why some tweets you see don't have anything to do with actual topic.

Is it possible to predict next trending topic and get involved early on to gain more of community attention? Some will say that you need special psychic abilities to predict future events, BUT there is a hack to do this in some cases. Off course, nobody couldn't predict Michael Jackson will become trending topic, but even you could predict Harry Potter will with every new movie, right? That's one way, to track previous trending topics and make conclusion about future ones.

Here is another good one. If you use Firefox you may have installed eQuake alert addon which warns you (shakes your browser) when new earthquake strikes. Few days ago, while I was doing my online stuff, FF shook so hard I though Earth is fallen apart! eQuake reported new strike near New Zealand with 8.2 magnitude which is a lot. Right that moment I tweeted about it. CNN reported same quake 6 minutes after me! Then I watched how New Zealand enters Trending Topics and goes up to second place, just below Harry Potter (it seems like Mr. Potter shakes the Planet with grater magnitude). Later I realized that some people reported the quake even before me, but I was one of first few and that made great experience.

What's your opinion? How would you predict next trending topic?