Flash Moto CMS

Flash Moto CMS is a revolutionary Flash content management system aimed at Flash developers and designed to simplify the publication of Web content to Flash websites.

Features

• Flash Moto CMS is the first content management system based on ActionScript 3 and realized as RIA on Flex.
• The final product of Flash CMS use is a complete user and SEO friendly Flash website with a convenient control panel.
• The website is controlled just like a standard CMS but with the extras that Flash offers.
• FlashMoto also offers a collection of Flash CMS templates that correspond to the main FlashMoto requirements.

ConceptFeedback

If you have follow LoonDesign updates, you may notice we reviewed ConceptFeedback awhile back. A few weeks ago they started offering a Premium Concept feature for users who want to get maximum exposure for their concept. Once a premium concept is live, it is featured on the homepage for 1 week, giving users maximum traffic and reviews. They also personally invite our top members (highest reputation scores) to review the concept, ensuring top quality feedback.

Tweet To Win

Tweet one of these 2:

• Tweet this to win a premium concept worth $ 9.99 USD.
• Tweet this to win a license of Flash Moto CMS worth $199USD.

Then, include your tweet in your comment in this post before 16th March 2010. We will select winners randomly. That’s it! I hope you enjoy this giveaway and don’t forget to follow us on twitter or subscribe to our RSS to get the latest updates from us!

• Grand Prize ( 100 credits ): Benard

• 2nd Prize ( 60 credits ): Keint Villarroel
• 2nd Prize ( 60 credits ): webbografico
• 2nd Prize ( 60 credits ): Niki

• 3rd Prize ( 40 credits ): DRAGYN
• 3rd Prize ( 40 credits ): Hjörtur Scheving
• 3rd Prize ( 40 credits ): Adzfar
• 3rd Prize ( 40 credits ): adamos
• 3rd Prize ( 40 credits ): patam

• 4th Prize ( 30 credits ): GeekBlitz
• 4th Prize ( 30 credits ): Bert
• 4th Prize ( 30 credits ): Angel
• 4th Prize ( 30 credits ): BebopDesigne
• 4th Prize ( 30 credits ): gamel James
• 4th Prize ( 30 credits ): Cheap Logo Designs

Enjoy!

Rollip is an online professional photo effects editor. There are 40 effects for you to choose. Simply upload images and select the effect you want, then download the modified images in seconds!

How It Works?

1 credit means 1 photo to process. When your normally buy (pro) credits, you get 15 credits for $2.99 per time you charge.

Upload Process

1. Choose an effect.
2. Upload an image.
3. Done! and download the image. You will receive an email which contain the download link as a backup.

The Result

I’ve tested the effect, please take a look. I am using the Drawing Style.

Original image

Edited image

It is easy and efficient!

What You Can Win?

A total of 660 credits are ready to be giving away! You can modify an image using 1 credit from Rollip.

• 1 x 1st prize: 100 credits
• 3 x 2nd prize: 60 credits
• 5 x 3rd prize: 40 credits
• 6 x 4th prize: 30 credits

How to Win?

• Simply comment on this post using your contactable email before 30th December 2009.
• Winners will be randomly selected.

Enjoy!

ThemeForest is an Envato Marketplace. At ThemeForest you can buy and sell HTML templates as well as themes for popular CMS products like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal with prices ranging from just $5 up to $40. Items are priced on the complexity, quality and use of the file. The site is home to a bustling community of web designers and developers and is the biggest marketplace of its kind.

How to Win?

1. Head over to the post.
2. Simply comment on that post will do.
3. Write about which theme you would like to win and why? And, how are you going to use it?
4. They will randomly pick the winner for each theme.

It is very straight forward, is either people like it or not. User can vote, suggest and comment. It is something “in your face”. The result, any design problems are caught earlier, ensuring that only high-quality ideas make it into launch. It saves your time in keep repeating the same process when you are going to launch a product.

I realize that there might be copyrighting issue when you publish your concepts and ideas. This is the feedback from the company founder and CEO, Andrew Follett.

There is not a whole lot we can do about copyrights that I know of. Design may be stolen, but so far we have had zero complaints and ConceptFeedback is not much different than a gallery site in that respect. Anytime a designer puts his/her work on display, there is the threat of copycats, but I think it is more of a perception than reality.

- Andrew Follett

But, there is also another way to prevent that. ConceptFeedback allows users to post concepts privately. This means they will not show up on the “public” forum and the concept is only viewable by the e-mail addresses selected (this could mean clients, co-workers, friends). You also have the option to do both, put your concept on public display and invite outside reviewers.

In my opinion, the world has changed. The way we communicate with the users is different. It is more direct and transparent. This also can be the key of success for any modern businesses. Company started to care about their user’s feeling while user’s started to demand something with quality.

A little about myself, I recently involved myself more into user experience design. It is a totally different area compare to plain web design. It makes me feel I am more close to a user rather than a designer. Majority of the users more care about the usability compare to the design. It’s extremely important to get honest feedback from the actual users and to know what they really want. So, I think ConceptFeedback can be a great place for us to improve and get closer to the community.

Why I Create This While I Can Download Others?

I am so stubborn, I don’t want to follow others! ( just kidding ). I notice that most of the CSS Grid System have lots of extra classes of elements. It is good and handy but is it really useful for your project? So, I try to create a very simple CSS Grid System just for blog or small website. So, this can be a little different from what you see in other popular framework. You can find all popular css grid system from the Grid System Generator.

Introduction

MyCSS Grid System is using the maximum of 960px width. It comes with the most common layout proportion for blogs and creative web sites. It is also using the best divine proportion in web design. This may not that useful compare to those well built css grid system but I think it somehow do the job.

How It Works?

In the download files, there are:

• index.html
• grid.css
• format.css

You can start coding your project by including the grid.css.

Codes Preview

The grid.css, I am using my name as the first and the last div (Easy to remember, every time you use this system, you will remember my name! Hehe.. So, the first div from the left has a class name “kai”, the last div on the right will has a class name “loon”. So, “kailoon to complete the work!”.

* { /* CSS reset, you can replace with your own css reset codes*/
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}

.b1 { width: 640px; }
.b2 { width: 300px; }
.b1 .b1 { width: 310px; }
.g1 { width: 580px; }
.g2 { width: 360px; }
.g1 .g1 { width: 280px; }
.g2 .g2 { width: 170px; }

.col {
	float: left;
	margin: 0 10px;
	display: inline;
}

.box {
	margin: 0 auto 20px;
	width: 960px;
}

.kai { /* The first left component*/
	margin-left: 0;
}

.loon { /* The last right component*/
	margin-right: 0;
}

.clearfix:after {
	clear: both;
	content: ' ';
	display: block;
	font-size: 0;
	line-height: 0;
	visibility: hidden;
	width: 0;
	height: 0;
}

.clearfix {
	display: inline-block;
}

* html .clearfix {
	height: 1%;
}

.clearfix {
	display: block;
}

The HTML:

<div class="box clearfix">
		<h1>960px - Normal Blog Layout</h1>
		<p>960px</p>
</div>

<div class="box clearfix">
	<div class="col b1 kai">
		<p>640px</p>
	</div>
	<div class="col b2 loon">
		<p>300px</p>
	</div>
</div>

<div class="box clearfix">
	<div class="col b1 kai">
		<div class="col b1 kai">
			<p>310px</p>
		</div>
		<div class="col b1 loon">
			<p>310px</p>
		</div>
	</div>
	<div class="col b2 loon">
		<p>300px</p>
	</div>
</div>

<div class="box clearfix">
	<h1>960px - Golden Divine Proportion Layout</h1>
	<p>960px - The Golden Divine</p>
</div>

<div class="box clearfix">
	<div class="col g1 kai">
			<p>580px</p>
	</div>
	<div class="col g2 loon">
			<p>360px</p>
	</div>
</div>	

<div class="box">
	<div class="col g1 kai">
			<div class="col g1 kai">
				<p>280px</p>
			</div>
			<div class="col g1 loon">
				<p>280px</p>
			</div>
	</div>
	<div class="col g2 loon">
			<div class="col g2 kai">
				<p>170px</p>
			</div>
			<div class="col g2 loon">
				<p>170px</p>
			</div>
	</div>
</div>

Conclusion and Download

It is simple and easy to use as it is very specific. The CSS file size is extremely small, only 778 bytes!. You can preview the demo here. If you have any questions or you find any bugs or you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment. If you find this useful, let me see how / where you implement it. Thanks!

• Drew Douglass – 1000 free standard size business cards.

  I would use the business cards to further brand and promote my name as a freelance copywriter and php/wordpress freelancer. Thanks for running this contest, good luck to all!

• Mario Awad – 1 free 18×24 canvas print.

  I’m currently considering freelancing software development… those cards would come in handy… good luck everyone

The winners will be contacted by the sponsor very soon. Thank you everyone who participated. Don’t give up, we will have another giveaway soon!

Winners

• Heather Flyte

  I think this theme is exactly what our magazine site needs. It’s got all the features, from clean ad-placement to easy navigation between features. I think it will really help in the redesign.

• Aaron

  Like: I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to design a template that looks similar to the Tuts web designs (aka PSDtuts, Nettuts, etc); the our magazine theme looks quite similar to what I want. A+ design in my opinion.

  Usage: I’d use this theme as a starting point for my iphone game review blog/site. It’s got everything I need built right in to the default layout – video, blog, and flickr rss in the sidebar.

  Thanks and good luck with the contest!

The winners will receive their prizes soon via email. Thank you everyone who participated. Don’t give up, we will have another giveaway soon!

The Artwork

The Products

Something about our sponsor

UPrinting is a very professional online printing company that you can both get your designs printed, including canvas prints. They are fast in delivery. They are not only doing business card printing, but also covers postcards, brochures, labels and stickers and a lot more. Check out their website see the wide range of products they covered.

If you are going to kick start your own business, you will not want to miss this chance! Business card is a very important marketing tools for all of us.

How to win your free business cards?

Leave a comment at the end of the blog post, describing what you would use the free business cards and/or canvas print for.

• Please post only one comment per person, duplicated comments will be deleted and void.
• Comment box will be accepted until 31^st March, and we’ll randomly generate 2 winners.
• Winners will be contacted via email, so, please leave your comment with your contactable email address.
• Winners in the United States and Canada qualify for free shipping. Shipping fees will apply to winners outside these areas.

Prize

• 1000 free standard size business cards for one reader
• 1 free 18×24 canvas print for one reader

You can choose from any of their stocks for these items.

Know the market

It is always a good practice to do some research before doing something. Don’t wait, browse through the ThemeForest categories and check out what is available. You can see the design trend, buyers’ preferences and how the items are being priced. There is always a reason why an item can be the top seller in a short period of time. If you couldn’t find the reason, why not purchase it and have a look by yourself? See for yourself the reason why the item is a top seller.

Below are the top selling items from each category.

WordPress

PSD Templates

Site Templates

Know the market

Make sure you read the guidelines before submitting any files. This will reduce the chances of you having to re-upload your items again after being rejected by the reviewer.
Take WordPress as an example, you need to include WordPress default CSS for the images. You are not allowed to include any plugins within the download but you can provide a link for download from the original source.

Take a look at this help file template

Know your expertise

This is common, do whatever you are good at. For example, if you are not good in jQuery, do not implement that. I am not stopping your desire to enhance your Template. Normally, people will read tutorials and learn the basics. Some of them will download the source files and edit. I am not saying that this is bad. But, imagine a scenario where a customer requests some modifications due to their site setting? Are you sure that you will be able to handle those requests if you have limited knowledge in the required fields. Definitely it will be easier if you recommend another developer to him.

Besides, try to use your strength and fully implement your forte into the template. If you are a talented designer, try to do your best and create something that is really visually awesome. Functions are not everything but your template have to be very attractive and not forgetting the usability and UI.

Niche or general

I will go for niche. The question is how narrow is it. Take a portfolio wordpress theme for example. There are a lot of portfolio themes available in ThemeForest. Some of them are performing very well. Their common attributes are a design that is awesome; ease of focus and easy to navigate. Priority is design, the interface.

A portfolio site must be good looking, attractive and able to attract the user to continue browsing. Secondly, it must be focus oriented. Your portfolio showcase is the one that needs the most attention. Finally, equally important is the ease of navigation and of course the ease in contacting the owner.

Maybe you will go for a more general approach, a personal blog or a magazine. This is also good if your theme can be used for various types of sites. Indirectly, your target user groups will be bigger.

Test your work

Please do not directly upload your item right after completion. I suggest you to recheck it in different browsers, test it in offline and also online environments. I strongly recommend that every author need to set up a demo site for their item.

This is optional, try to validate your works with CSS and XHTML validations (except PSD Template). This is will absolutely increase the value of your work not only in the eye of a reviewer but also in the potential buyers.

Files included

In ThemeForest, they request different files in different categories. But all of them require a good help file.

Ready for support

In addition, always be ready in providing good supports to your customers.

References

After all, I hope this article can let you know what you need to prepare before submitting to ThemeForest. Besides, there are a series of interviews of ThemeForest Top Sellers ( authors ). You also can read some tips from them and try to make some money from the amazing marketplace. Finally, I hope this article can help you. Thanks!

WordPress 2.7

For anyone who want to modify their theme to compatible with 2.7. You can take a look at my recently tutorial. It shows you how to separate comments and trackbacks in WordPress 2.6 and 2.7.

Still remember the old version?

Why Redesign?

Actually, there are a few reasons behind this. Long time ago, I mentioned that I want to have my own comic series online. The previous layout is not suitable to add in more section. Secondly, the submission of Web Design News is getting more day by day. I’ve learn a lot from the user’s submission too. I think it is a good place for you to crunch some latest web design news.

Thirdly, the freelance job requests are killing me. I am a good guy and I hardly say no to them. So, every time I will try my best to fulfill their requests. Now, I create a status header. You must be noticed there is a little boy sit on the top right of the site. It will show my current status to the potential clients. So, if they need something urgent and my status is hired. Then they can look for someone else. But if they really want me, they still can contact me for arrangement.

Besides, I also want to have a complete and nice online portfolio. Now, you can check my latest portfolio here. (I will try my best to update)

Lastly, I can write post faster and easier with this new theme. I have made myself a theme setting for all my needs. There are also a few different templates for different categories.

What’s New?

I have a new logo now. Initially I draw this for the sidebar twitter icon. But I like it very much. It’s like a bird but also look like a penguin to me. Just cute! So, I take it as my site logo. Nice?

I’ve create a set of icons special for my site. I like them very much and they blend well into the page. Do you like it? I was thinking to release for download in several sizes. Do you want them?

Since I’ve turn into a full time freelancer, and online portfolio is very important to me. I take the footer to be the my portfolio gallery and displayed in every pages. Feel free to check them out.

Different template for portfolio post. I think this is the most straight forward way to present my works. What do you think?

Here we go! I’ve added a comic section. There is not much restriction on the content but I try to make it related to web and fun.

We accept interesting story from you and we turn it into comic. If you can draw, feel free to upload your story in comic. There will be credit given to the author.
Want to get even more involvement? You can draft your own character and send to us too. But, don’t forget to include the character personality, style and characteristic.

Thanks To:

I would like to thank all of you for your great suggestions and contributions from all of you.
Special thanks to Collis who get me involve in ThemeForest and also have a change to work with the amazing Envato team (freelance). I learn and gain a lot from him. I learn how to deal with clients, what is my value, where is my position and what I gain from ThemeForest is the source of freelance works.

Thanks to Sponsors

• Job.WebDesignerWall
• Elegant WordPress Themes
• PSD2HTML
• W3Markup
• Markup4U

I want to say thank you to all our great sponsors for helping keep LoonDesign running at full steam. I will try my best to boost the traffic here and make your money worth!

Conclusion

I am very enjoy using this new layout. More efficient and organized. I am a good guy. I like sharing. So, Please help me spread this New Layout Relaunch to everyone!

Coming Up Next

There will be a contest coming soon, ya, you hear me right, LoonDesign first ever contest! I’m now talking with a few sponsors about the prizes. Stay tune!

Feel free to browse through the site and if you find bug, error, typo etc. Or you have any better idea . Kindly let me know. Thanks!

Why I Want To Win?

I have been in this field (web design) for almost 2 years. I have learn something. However, I learn more from blogging. Blogging makes me start this blog and also following by my other WordPress site. Recently, I joined Envato as a freelancer to help on the fast growing site – ThemeForest. I also make some money there by selling premium themes. I have to say thank you to Collis for giving me this great chance to work with them. It is an exciting experience to work with them.

I wish I can win the Carsonified competition and have a chance to attend one of the great event. To meet some people, learn from them, exchange idea etc. My priority would be the Future of Web Design. I heard about this event early of 2008. I just wondering why there is no such thing in Malaysia? I also wish that I can meet up with Collis and Mark or someone that I know from blogging.

Recently, I just resigned. Now, looking for jobs. I want to win this ticket to give myself a chance to revive.

Conclusion

Anyway, I don’t know how many comments I can have in this post. I still hope that I can win this golden ticket and continue my journey in web design, learn more, explore and meet some amazing people out there! And, contribute more for our local web design industry.

If you want to join, just head over and read more about the competition. Stand a chance to win!

Update

It’s not my day … but I still have to say congratulation to Jakub who won the ticket!

Thanks everyone who show their support to kailoon! Thanks!

Features

• 2 widget-ready sidebar.
• FeedCounter in Text
• About Me section in the sidebar. Edit using the custom admin panel.
• Custom Admin Panel
• Special comment fields with avatar.
• Google Adsense or any image banner in sidebar ( 300px X 250px ).
• Google Analytics easily insert field.
• SEO Friendly

Head over and have a look. More information on obtaining a blog host and how to install the WordPress theme to your site can be found at web hosting search.

Good News For Theme Developers

I am very excited about the launching. It is because I think it is a good place for web designer, wordpress theme developer, Joomla and etc. Developers can register to become an author. They can sell their design too. You will no longer worry about the marketing for your design work. What you need to do is only put 100% effort in creating high quality template and upload.

Payment Rate

Author will take 25% of the sales while TF (ThemeForest) will take 75% of it. You may think that it is a big cut. Even I also feel like that is too much! However, after I read a bout their explanation and I rethink according to my experiences running this site. Initially, I also want to sell WordPress Themes here. However, it is too much for me to handle effective marketing and creative work at the same time. So, I decided to give this a try.

My Themes!

I already uploaded 2 WordPress Themes and one Joomla Template. There is a unique design personal blog theme and another is the most wanted Premium Community Type WordPress Theme. Both with their own custom admin panel.

Our Community

CatEatFish

MyCloudyDay

My first ever joomla Template.

First Launch Contest

There will be a contest for the launching which worth $ 4,600! Check here for more details on what you will get if you win. It is easy to enter the competition. Log into Devsnippets.com, then login and submit the news. thats all! So, head over and submit some of your favorite snippets now!

Web Design News

just in case if you don’t know, LoonDesign also provide the web design news section. I build this after I know about it from noupe. I found that it is useful and it really can help the readers in building traffics and spreading the useful news! I quickly try to make one by customizing the comment.php in WordPress. After all, the reaction is quite encouraging. Do you mind to let me know whether it help to spread out your news? I hope it perform well and do help you in bringing in new readers!

Cheers!

The Survey 2008

I already took the survey. Some of the questions are really what I was always thinking. If you are also a web designer or whoever making websites. Do you think that you are getting the money which match the your efforts and workloads? For overseas, I am not sure. I think you guys maybe better than us who are in Malaysia. I read an article about how to price your work. The minimum charges for a basic web site is USD 2000 (RM 6000). Basic which means is static, no CMS. Here, I bet you have to take that offer in around RM 1000 or lesser. Plus, you will have endless modification works.

In this survey, they did asking about the satisfactory of your current work. How you charge your clients? What’s the different after you change the pricing? And also what is your job title?

So, May I know your Jon Title? Can someone who read this article write your job title here? For example, for me:

Web Designer – CSS, Photoshop, Illustrator, PHP, WordPress.

My Experiences

Me, myself have received quite a few offers. After I sent my quotation. There will be no reply at all. Price problem? My quality of work is bad? I am pretty confident on my works actually. Further, I did sent along what I will provide with the price given. Also some extra features that he/she never think about which can help his/her online business.

I am very happy when someone want to start online business, especially in Malaysia. I will try to help them as much as possible. But, if you are focusing on online business. In other words, your main income will be from the internet. So, you better take good care of your website and system, right? You may need to pay more for that. That’s normal. Who can provide you a complete CRM + nice layout + maintainence while your offer is less than RM 1000? Will you take it? I have no idea.

My little opinion, the web designers / developer also human being. They also have to pay bills and all that. Besides, the times and efforts they put are deserving the price they quoted. We also don’t want to bring down our reputation and porftolio. Business will only grow when there is a win win situation for both sides.

My Survey

I also created a survey below. Please spend some times on it. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

The Video

If we can use this in web design. So, we no need to border much with the complicated layout and we can all go for fluid layout with all kind of design! Have a nice day! By the way, the video is about 1 year ago. Anyone of you know about this software? Is it in the market right now?

Experience and Expectation

Okie, I am not going to compare or argue both of them. But I did tried them before. I also received cheques from them before. Okie, case close. Now, TechnoratiMedia, a place that you can earn something in USD. However, I still don’t know how is the performance. But I do believe that it depend on the traffics of your blog. Nothing like “I am friend of one of the insider, so I earn more.” or “the band isn’t match the earnings” or even “I got RM xxx in my account and I cash out 4 months ago, but it still pending, the person in charge say I am a frauder!” may not happen. I didn’t say it won’t happen. Just the possibility is lesser.

I expect that their network is way way wider. I also expect that they will have a better frauding system. So, what we need to do is only focus on our blog content. Nothing is more important than controlling your blog content quality if you wish to make money online. Try to turn your interest into business. Maybe it is just a small business and you only able to earn some pocket money. But, trust me, you will be very satisfy with that.

If you like photographing, write something about it. Share your thoughts, idea, skills, experiences etc. If you like to eat, share the good places you found. A niche blog is always better than a “rojak” (mixed content) blog.

Conclusion

Good luck to you all and happy blogging! Cheers!