Performancing Stream of Consciousness – Wed Apr 9, 2008

Interesting links for Wednesday Apr 9, 2008:

1. ScribeFire blog post editor, which is already incredible for streamlining blogging efforts, will have a great new feature: tabbed editing. That means that if you’re like me and tend to work on multiple posts simultaneously, ScribeFire will be an even greater productivity booster. There’s a preview release, before a general release. They’re looking for feedback before making tabbed editing available as an official feature.
2. Jason Schuller at WP Elements has just released two slick WordPress themes, VideoFlick and Video Elements. VideoFlick is a video gallery theme similar to that used on Jason’s TrailerFlick site, where the home page shows movie posters. It has a number layout and color customization options, and is available under “donationware” terms, requiring a minimum US$5.00 donation. The Video Elements theme was once called the WPE Video Gallery Theme. It’s great for when you want to present both video and text. This theme costs $25.00, and future upgrades will be free. There are links to live demos for both themes on Jason’s site.
3. Themelab has released The Transmission, also a WP theme. [via BlogPerfume] This free theme has eight different colors to choose from, and the design integrates the flickrRSS theme. There’s also space for a featured post, including an image.
4. Is this weird or what? Yahoo! is going to present Google AdSense ads beside their search results [via SEOBook]. I wonder how this is going to sync with a takeover of Yahoo! by Microsoft.
5. To have financial success as a freelancer, it’s important to separate want vs need purchases. But sometimes wants are also needs, or can be justified that way. Check out Skellie’s 12 guilt-free purchases for home offices. Gadgets tend to be one of my regular guilt purchases – when I had money – and one way to justify gadget purchases is to make sure they’re good for work tools.
6. With a number of bloggers recently landing book deals, there might be an interest for others to do the same. WEBook is a new website that offers tools for eBook writing. This includes being able to offer sampler pages, embedding the PDF file into your feed, selling to readers, and so on. NorthxEast has a detailed explanation of how the WEBook site works.
7. Zoe Marlowe writes about various online image editing tools over at Devlounge, including Adobe Photoshop Express, Picnik, FlauntR, and Kuler.
8. With bloggers and freelancers sometimes on the go, using publicly available Wi-Fi is sometimes a necessity. Samuel Dean over at Web Worker Daily offers a few tips for keeping public Wi-Fi sessions secure.
9. If you want to make the switch from a full-time salaried job to a self-employed web worker, have a look at Mike Gunderloy’s tips for funding your web work dream. Also keep an eye out at FreelanceSwitch for my article on a short savings guide for freelancers (which will be published sometime this week or early next).
10. Graphic Push gives a scathing assessment of a new “crowdsourcing” site, 99Designs. The site apparently expects that designers will submit their designs for clients to consider, and if they “win”, they’ll get paid. I haven’t visited 99Designs to get a clearer picture, but if what Graphic Push is saying is true, then this is very bad news. Designers, like bloggers, will be working hard and getting nothing in return. Consider: if 10 designers submit their design and only 1 can “win” the job, what hope is there – especially if lots of clients decide they want to pursue this model of non-payment? Blogging hasn’t gone this way – not yet.