The Blog Artist

 Hi guys... for those of you who've been using my graphics to design your own wallpaper/calendars, this month I've also giving you a "blank canvas" to make things even easier to put your own designs together quickly.

October 2009 wallpaper/calendar (preview)

 The image above is a preview of the October wallpaper/calendar we're giving away on my art website Its a photo of a chessboard I finally finished last month.

 If you'd like to use the image above on your own blog or website, you can either download it and give it away as is or feel free to add your own text below the image.

 And remember, people do not download wallpapers to see advertising on their computer screens so... less is more, keep it simple.

And a "blank canvas"...

 And... if you'd like to create your own wallpaper/calendar, I'm also releasing the background image with the October calendar ready for you to add your own image and text.

 You can download it here and using any graphics program, add your own text and image.

A quick example...

 The image above shows an example of how you can add a simple photo and a little text to turn the "blank canvas" into your own masterpiece. Just...

- download the background image

- open it in any graphics program (it's a standard .jpg image)

- add your own photo and text

- save it

- upload it to your blog or website to give away

- it's also a good idea to create a small preview image so it fits well into your blog

Note: You do not need any expensive programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc... to add simple text. You can do this with pretty much any graphics program you have. If you don't have one, there are many free and inexpensive graphics editors that will do the trick. I'll review some in an upcoming post.

 Once again, I'm releasing this image into the blogosphere under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license which in plain English means you can use it however, wherever and whenever you like including on commercial blogs & websites, no restrictions

 On that note boys & girls, have a great week...

 To save you time, here are some of my favorite resources that I found on the web this week. Unless otherwise indicated, these are all freebies!

 MailChimp has introduced it's "Forever Free pricing plan" which allows subscribers to send upto 500 e-mails per campaign and 3,000 emails per month at no cost. Check it out at... MailChimp.com

 Stop wasting time with spammers on Twitter. We will validate your followers so you don't have to. Check it out at TrueTwit.com

 Find all your favourite internet resources and services on your mobile: create your own mobile space from a selection of hundreds of services, widgets and RSS feeds. It's easy and it's free at goojet.com

 Finding all the cool, useful stuff on the web can be a major pain. Here are some of my favorite reads from the past few days.

How the yoga brand Lululemon turned fitness into a spectator sport by Bryant Urstadt

 Lululemon, if you don’t know, is a brand of yoga apparel. Avril Lavigne wears Lulu. Brooke Shields wears Lulu. Felicity Huffman, Jennifer Garner, Courteney Cox, Kate Winslet, and Kate Hudson wear Lulu. There are Lululemon blogs with names like Lululemon Addict and hundreds of Facebook groups... read

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Report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter  by Dan Macsai

 If I wanted make sure this post did not go viral I could promote it on Twitter by posting something like this "was bored watchin the game on tv and saw this thing about RTs...made me lol after i had really bad stomach cramps".

 Note the lack of punctuation, the use of of slang and abbreviations, the limited vocabulary, and the awkward overshare.  read...

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If Craigslist cost $1  by SethGodin

Some things are better when they're not free. Money creates a sort of friction. In the digital economy, magical things can happen when there is no friction. You can scale to infinity. On the other hand, sometimes you want friction.  read...

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Why the News Media Became Irrelevant—And How Social Media Can Help  by Michael Skoler

 Journalists are truth-tellers. But I think most of us have been lying to ourselves. Our profession is crumbling and we blame the Web for killing our business model. Yet it’s not the business model that changed on us. It’s the culture.  read...

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Tokyo Café Targets Trend Makers  by Miho Inada

 Pitching new products to affluent and influential young Japanese women. It's called a marketing café, a first of its kind in Japan. Sample Lab Ltd. opened the Lcafe last month as a way to reach Japanese women in their 20s and 30s with information about new products.  read...

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 If you're wondering how to customize your blog, take a look at our group's guidelines page for tutorials and graphics that you can download and use on your Active Rain blog .

 If you have questions about technology, blog design or building web presence, let me know and I'll try to answer them in a future post!

http : / /twitter .com / garaughty

 If you'd like to participate in any of our upcoming marketing partnerships or to stay on top of all the new graphic goodies we'll be giving away , please subscribe to our blog using the button below . . .

 For more info about how we can help you stand out from the crowd, contact GiselleStCyr@garaughty.com

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