There are plenty of great email marketing tools out there, but how easy is it for a non technical person to put out a great (read fantastic) newsletter?  Its a question I get asked a lot, and well the simple answer is, having basic HTML knowledge can take you a long way.

Learning the fundamentals of HTML can free you from relying on your webmaster or a third-party program for simple updates, and it will enable you to update your website, email newsletters, or in some cases add links and graphics to forums and social media sites. And of course, it’s always a great skill to include on your resume!

So here we go with some basics tips  & tricks that could be invaluable to you.

HTML Basics

1. Aligning Images and Text Wrapping

By default, when you place an image on a page, any other elements around it (such as text) move down underneath it. Oftentimes, this might not look desirable. If you’d instead like to wrap text around an image, all you need is the align attribute.

Code Before (No Alignment):

<img src=”screen-create.png”>
Your text here…

Code After (Left Aligned):

<img src=”screen-create.png” align=”left”>
Your text here…

Depending upon your layout, you can use the following options:

align=”left”
align=”right”
align=”top”
align=”middle”
align=”bottom”
align=”baseline”
align=”texttop”
align=”absmiddle”
align=”absbottom”

You can also add extra space around the image if you don’t want text to be too close. You can do this by adding vspace (vertical) and hspace (horizontal) to your image tag. The higher the number, the more space there will be around the image:

<img src=”screen-create.png” align=”left” vspace=”20″ hspace=”40″>
Your text here…

2. Changing Font Styles

Yes, a lot of website editors do come with a rich-text option to change the styles of your fonts. However, there have been many times I can recall still needing to know basic HTML font tags so that I could have more control over my font styles. Here are some easy ones to use:

A. Bold Text

Code:

<b>This is bold Text</b>
or
<strong>This is bold Text</strong>

Output:

This is bold text

B. Underlined Text

Code:

<u>This text is underlined</u>

Output:

This text is underlined

C. Italicized Text

Code:

<i>This text is italicized</i>

Output:

This text is italicized

D. Font Size

Code:

<font size=”2”>This font is size 2</font>

Output:

This font is size 2

E. Font Color

Font colors can use written colors or HEX codes. Click here for a HEX color generator.

Code:

<font color=”black”>This font is black</font>

Output:
This font is red

F. Font Type

Change the type of the font.

Code:

<font face=”verdana”>This font is Verdana</font>
or
<font face=”trebuchet ms”>This font is Trebuchet MS</font>

Output:

This font is Verdana
This font is Trebuchet MS

The following are considered web-safe fonts:

Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans MS, Courier, Courier New, Georgia, Helvetica, Impact, Palatino, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana

G. Combine Multiple Properties

Here is a way you can combine multiple elements in your content:

Code:

<font face=”comic sans ms” size=”2” color=”green”><strong><u>This font is Comic Sans MS, Size 2, Bold, Underlined and is the color Green</u></strong></font>

Output:

This font is Comis Sans MS, Size 2, Bold, Underlined and is the color Green

3. Blockquotes

Blockquotes are great way to pull a quote out of a paragraph and make it an indentation. Here is an example (Note: you will need CSS to style the actual quote, which we’ll cover in a later lesson!)  :)

Code:

<blockquote>”If you want to be happy, be.” – Leo Tolstoy </blockquote>

Output:

“If you want to be happy, be.” – Leo Tolstoy

4. Horizontal Lines

This tag will draw a line horizontally across your page or a section of the page, depending upon where you put it. All you need is the <hr> tag, which stands for ‘horizontal rule.’

Code:

<hr>

Output:

Code:

<hr size=”10” width=”50%”>

Output:

Code:

<hr size=”10” width=”50%” noshade>

5. BONUS: Comments Tag

I love this trick and use it a lot. Sometimes, you need to make notes in your markup but don’t want them to show publically on the page. I also use this to save HTML in a page that I don’t necessarily want to delete, but I don’t want it show on the page either. This way, if I ever need the code, it’s still there, hidden in the background.

All you need to do is put the notes or HTML you want to hide by surrounding it with the start comments tag <!– and the end comments tag –>

Code:

<!– Here are my notes and HTML I want to hide –>

Now that you have your starter’s kit, give it a shot and let us know if this article was useful for you.

Happy HTMLing!

The average person does more than 30 searches per day in Google. They also clock over seven hours per month interacting with branded content on Twitter and Facebook. And its not just reading — they also watch more than 180 videos per month on sites like YouTube and Vimeo.  These statistics all add up to one very educated consumer.

Knowledge is everywhere online, and your typical internet user has a voracious appetite for learning. But from the perspective of an online marketer, this consumer is also a click-happy and easily distractible one. Employ the below tactics to make sure they click on — and stick to — your website with a purpose.

Own Their Next Click

Your visitors are going to click, but it’s up to you to make sure the link is productive for your business. In addition to your main navigation links, make sure links to other web properties you own are prominently displayed on your homepage. Have call-to-action buttons and other offers above the fold so they’re as front and center as possible. And wherever you can, prove that your clicks are worth it. Visitors will never know your blog is informative and bleeding edge unless they get there, so if its normal position is in your main navigation, experiment with placing a bigger, more-blown out linking image in the margin, or even a module that shows titles of recent posts. Also, make sure your company’s social media accounts are front and center. A click to your Facebook Page or recent Tweets isn’t a loss, but a click on the back button is.

Be Smart About Flash and Graphics

Image sliders look great on home pages and give businesses the opportunity to convey multiple messages on their website’s most prime piece of real estate. But if you have a scrolling mechanism that shows six images for five seconds each, what happens if your visitor only hangs around for 20 seconds? They won’t see the fifth and sixth image in your sequence. What if those links direct visitors to your biggest money-makers, like your demo request page or free consultation landing pages? Low visibility will dictate a poor return. Lots of companies like to lead with brand messaging in these spaces, but avoid this. Prioritize your best offers, and show them first.

Position Yourself With Simple Language

People are spending seconds — not minutes — on your site, so be as clear and concise as you can be with the language you use. Avoid populating your “Products” or “Services” drop-down lists with brand names, because people don’t know the names of what they’re looking for yet. Instead, use adjective-rich phrasing to explain what those products are, and introduce them to your registered trademark on the product page. And when folks click through to those pages, don’t bury critical facts about your products and services under a mountain of text. Think like your customer. Ask yourself what you would want to know, and use that answer to craft a strong thesis statement for the first paragraph of each page.

With the release of iPhone4S, we thought it was time to wrap up our blog post from April 2011 which spoke of the much anticipated features on iPhone5. The reality of Apple’s latest device release finds improved camera and supposedly great voice recognition as the only advancements from the iPhone4. As Tim Cook admitted (in not so many words) this new release is merely an iPhone 4 with slight upgrades. While this chapter concludes in a disappointing way, we’re looking for to what Apple comes up with next.

—————————————————————————–

Even with the iPad 2 just recently released, all the chatter seems to be about the upcoming iPhone5.  We have been hearing a lot of rumours – but whats the real take on what to expect from Apple.  Our friends at Nowhere Else have put together a beautiful infographic with the latest rumours and progress bars illustrating the likelihood of each one of these rumors to actually occur.

We must say, we are in complete agreement, with one exception: after a slip up from SONY’s Sir Howard Stringer, on their involvement with the next iPhone’s image sensor – we think the chances  of  a better camera are 80 – 90%.

Let us know in the comments if you think these predictions are accurate!

The interesting tendency we’ve traced

In fact osCommerce is now faced with a serious challenger which certainly has no difficulties to penetrate the market of eCommerce open source. The new Magento package is set to take the eCommerce community by storm. It is one of the most promising of the moment having already attracted a large following, and osCommerce the inevitable is going to have to leave its place. Google Trends, in particular, graphically shows this tendency reflecting the situation where the new Magento just beats the hell out of the traditional osCommerce. Magento is now officially the most searched-for eCommerce solution.

Let’s face it – before Magento’s release osCommerce was the most popular eCommerce platform. The situation has surely changed since then, and the greater amount of customers is going now exceptionally with a Magento based shopping cart. osCommerce in its turn enjoys less popularity, though remains being around with a very well established and responsive community to offer support and the majority of followers to prefer using it.

Magento and osCommerce – what’s behind each of them?

It is important to know when selecting your shopping cart what features you need, which is partially why we’ve composed this article to help you know the advantages and disadvantages of each platform. So let’s get it on comparing these two eCommerce applications and see which one is better to choose while launching online shops.

Magento eCommerce platform is a highly efficient open source eCommerce engine. It offers you an extensive suite of powerful tools for creating and managing an online store. Magento runs on the Apache/MySQL/PHP platform and to create an online store with it you need reliable web hosting services. Support for Magento shopping cart is provided free by an active open source community, professional support by subscription to Varien, the company behind Magento, is cost charging. The large array of the rich features is one of the main benefits of Magento. Let’s now review the key features of Magento that will help you get your store up and running:

• Analytics and Reporting – the script is integrated with Google Analytics (page view tracking, e-commerce tracking) and offers many different reports.
• Product Browsing – multiple images for products, options for extensive reviews, wishlists and much more.
• Catalog Browsing – easy navigation, advanced product filtering system, product comparison.
• Catalog Management – inventory management, batch import and export of products, different tax rates per location, additional product attributes.
• Customer Accounts – order status and history, e-mail and RSS feeds for products in the wishlist, newsletter subscription, default billing and shipping address.
• Customer Service – enhanced features for customers’ accounts, Contact Us form, comprehensive order tracking and history, customizable order e-mails.
• Order Management – create orders through admin area, create multiple invoices shipments and credit memos, call center order creation option.
• Payment – different payment methods: credit cards, PayPal, Authorize.net, Google Checkout, checks, money orders, support of external payment modules like Cybersource, ePay, eWAY, regular credit cards like Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover, and many more.
• Shipping – shipping to multiple addresses, flat rating shipping, supports UPS, UPS XML (account rates), FedEx (account rates), USPS and DHL.
• Checkout – one page checkout, SSL support, checkout without having an account.
• Search Engine Optimization – the most search engine friendly e-commerce application, Google SiteMap support.
• International Support – multiple languages and currencies, list of allowed countries for registration, purchasing and shipping, localization.
• Marketing Promotions and Tools – coupons, discounts and different promotion options.
• Site Management – control of multiple web sites, multiple languages, tax rate with support for US and International markets, customizable outlook through templates.
• Encryption Key – security storage of the sensitive data in the script’s database.

osCommerce is a free open source online store-management software which is powered by very well established and responsive osCommerce community. To run any osCommerce website the web server should support the powerful PHP web scripting language and fast MySQL database. osCommerce offers a wide range of features that allows online stores to be setup fairly quickly with ease. This basic set of functionalities that meet the common needs of online businesses is:

• Administration / Backend Functionality
- supports unlimited products and categories;
- add/Edit/Remove categories, products, manufacturers, customers, and reviews
- contact customers directly via email or newsletters;
- multilingual support;
- multicurrency support;
• Customer / Frontend Functionality
- all orders stored in the database for fast and efficient retrieval;
- customers can maintain their accounts;
- address book for multiple shipping and billing addresses;
- fast and friendly quick search and advanced search features;
- product reviews for an interactive shopping experience;
- foreseen checkout procedure;
- secure transactions with SSL;
• Product Functionality
- dynamic product attributes relationship;
- HTML based product descriptions;
- control if out of stock products can still be shown and are available for purchase;
- customers can subscribe to products to receive related emails/newsletters;
• Payment Functionality
- accept numerous offline payment processing (cheque, money orders, etc);
- accept numerous online payment processing (PayPal, 2CheckOut, Authorize.net, iPayment, etc);
- disable certain payment services based on a zone basis;
• Shipping Functionality
- weight, price, and destination based shipping modules;
- real-time quotes available (UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc);
• Tax Functionality
- flexible tax implementation on a state and country basis;
- set different tax rates for different products;
- charge tax on shipping on a per shipping service basis.

Why exactly Magento beats osCommerce – Key Advantages

• Magento shopping cart is built to be easy to update (+)
The issues why so many people opt for Magento shopping cart are rather diverse. The thing is that Magento is a new eCommerce solution which is being regularly improved. Varien, the company who backs the cart, is very active in updating the code and fixing bugs. At the same time osCommerce is rather outdated and it doesn’t surprise web developers and store owners with the new updates. Magento is superior to osCommerce in the useful features it has, programming structure, and frequency of project code updates.

• Magento has many add-on modules within the rest of new and important capabilities (+)
The feature set for Magento includes not only all of the features of osCommerce, but also many of the add-on modules. For instance, it includes coupons, order editing, SEO urls and meta tags, abandoned shopping cart reporting, product comparisons, editable order emails, shipping estimator in shopping cart without the need to login, and much more. Magento also has ‘store view’ which allows online shop keepers the ability to set up multiple stores – with the same products, at different prices, and even in different languages – from a single admin area

• Magento runs fairly slow, heavily layered and overly complicated coding style and thousands of files requires a lot of time to learn and do customizations (-)
Some people insist that OsCommerce is easier to edit and Magento is better for web developers rather than shop owners. Other people argue this statement proving that Magento is also easy-editable software. It seems Magento is really easy to install and manage if you know how to do it properly. However, getting started with Magento can be difficult without the right guidance. For some Magento is way overly complicated to customize efficiently. It is rather inconvenient to manually add a large number of products at once to a Magento installation. Plus it needs dedicated servers from particular hosting providers in order to run fast shops while shared web hosting account will be enough for osCommerce.

• another appeal of Magento is in its nice default template (+)
Magento templates and themes enable the owners to customize the look and feel of the store, even optimize it for mobile phones. Modular code enables them to upgrade the Magento installation while retaining their customizations. At the same time installing an osCommerce template is not an easy task. osCommerce does not support a template installer option. Installing a new template for osCommerce is actually a new installation of the osCommerce files. So, there is no graphic template system meaning it is harder to modify the design to adjust the style and layout. Additionally, it can take a lot of time and money to install all the add-ons you want. osCommerce, by the way, has the most available number of contributions and modifications which is a way beneficial.

• And finally Magento offers well organized back-end along with cleaner site structure (+)
People prefer using Magento for the cleaner admin, code, and much more. Magento system scores highly for its look and sensible overall features. Its back-end is well organized and most items of concern are thoroughly covered. Talking about osCommerce, some people admit that its code is a real mess and the back-end is really pitiful. Others mention that the structure of the site, written in PHP and using clear definitions, is rather sensible with all the text seen on an osCommerce store being handily stored in reference files which contain only plain text for translation. All in all, osCommerce is known to be easy to install but a real pain to configure and customize.

What this means for us as an eCommerce community?

Magento project has revolutionized eCommerce with its flexibility and power. It takes the best things from osCommerce such as being open source, easy to modify, and having a strong community, but then takes these to the next level of sophistication. Magento developers practiced all the advantages of the last time to shape web application incorporating the richer user interface and better ergonomics.
This comparison of Magento and osCommerce shopping cart does not claim to be anyway exhaustive. So, if you had experience with either Magento or osCommerce, please share your perspective in the comments to mention particularly what others should consider before switching from one application to another.

Magento configuration

1. let Magento put session data in database instead of files. Part of configuration to do that in local.xml

2. use global attributes for products if you dont need per view attribute values (admin -> attributes)

3. enable APC or Memcache cache backend and of course enable caching in admin -> cache management

4. enable Mage_Compiler module and disable unneeded modules in admin -> system -> configuration -> advanced

5. Enable Flat Catalog indexing

6. Other useful tips

If you dont have fast connection enough or you want speed up user connections to your Magento you should do few optimalization. You can batch resize product images, or merge and compress CSS files.

6.1. Image size optimalization

You can simply follow tips for resizing images from this How to Article – Resizing images that are too big or too small for the product pages, en-masse. (Tips from this article need linux compatible OS with some basic programms installed.)

6.2. CSS files compression

Open your Magento layout definition XML in your view. And copy all CSS files contents to one css file, and include it instead of multiple files. Then use CSS Compressor to compress CSS files by removing unnecessary space and definitions. There is possibility all files in one will not work together, then you will have to experiment with right combination (eg. reset + menu + clears , boxes , your own … ).

6.3. Javascript files compression

Is used by Magento by default i think, otherwise you should enable it in your Magento administration.

6.4. Gzip / Deflate  compression

As written above, you can use PHP gzip output filter, or Apache module mod_deflate. Be noticed, than you can use just one of them

I hope you liked this post, and find it useful.

3E Solutions has been working on various new blackberry application developments and  research from past two years. We have come up with very high end applications which are enriched with features and fascinating designs. Above application is one of them. It has mind blowing user interface designed by the team and the functionality you have never seen anywhere. Application is already making news in the market.

3E Solutions is now one of the big players in mobile application development which includes iphone and Anroid.

And with Android making a 10-position jump in the most recent edition of the Online Talent Report, it clearly indicates a spark of heavy interest in development on the open-source platform. Regardless of if you’re an amateur developer, a veteran coder, or an entrepreneur looking to learn more, we’ve got you covered with our 10 best Android development resources on the web.

Android Developers Site: In order to begin development for the Android platform, you’ll need to start here at square one. From this site, you can download the software development kit (SDK) and the tools required for Android development and testing. This is also the very same site that you will be coming back to when it is time to publish your app onto the Android market. The site also features extensive documentation on the APIs associated with the platform.

While the Android Developers site does in fact feature a forum for help with the Android Market, it doesn’t have a general purpose discussion area for new coders who may have development related questions. Instead, Google refers users to the second resource in this list, Stack Overflow.

Stack Overflow: Stack Overflow is an online discussion forum suited for a variety of programming questions across a variety of platforms. It’s chock full of stuff for Android developers because it’s the primary site recommended by Google for those looking for help with Android related problems. Rather than being broken down into sub-forums like many other online discussion forums, Stack Overflow is organized according to tags. It also allows visitors to vote on the best answer, similar to other question and answer sites like Yahoo! Answers.

The site gets a good amount of activity and questions get answered fairly quickly. It should be one of your first stops online if you find yourself stuck without a clue, after searching the Android Developers site, of course.

Eclipse: Eclipse is the most commonly used integrated development environment (IDE) used for developing Android apps. Not only is Eclipse a powerful IDE in its own right, but Android support is deeply engrained in the application. This means that launching the Android emulator and installing software onto it no longer requires command line utilities and multiple steps. Another example of the implementation between Android and Eclipse is the fact that Eclipse offers a special wizard to properly sign code for release into the Android Market. The deep level of integration makes this tool a must-have (or at least a must-check-out) for all Android developers.

Anddev.org: Run out of officially supported Google resources? This online Android development community should be everyone’s first stop after your options run dry. Unlike Stack Overflow, this discussion forum operates in a much more traditional fashion. It also has many subtopics and an active community of users. For new and still learning developers, there is an entire section dedicated for tutorials on a variety of subjects.

The site is also home to the user-contributed Android learners book “AndBook”. Unlike many wiki-style documents, AndBook is available in PDF format for you to download. It’s informative and well organized and would make an excellent read for any aspiring Android developer.

Shiva3D: If mobile gaming or three-dimensional environments are a part of your roadmap, Shiva3D is definitely worth a test drive. This 3D graphics engine and development environment is designed for independent developers and is one of the first to provide support for Android development. The engine includes all of the features you would expect from a commercial 3D engine, including physics and a simple-to-use editor. (That editor, however, requires Windows to run. Mac users, don’t fret – it performs well under Parallels as well.)

One of the great things about the software is that the free trial is fully functional and not time limited, meaning you can try it for as long as you desire or even fully flesh out your game before dropping any cash on a license to build and publish your game.

AdWhirl: Monetizing – one of the key words on the minds of entrepreneurs seeking a piece of the mobile app pie. If you are thinking about releasing a free app and monetizing it using advertising revenue, this is one of the first options that you should look in to. AdWhirl has long been one of the go-to choices for iPhone developers, and they’ve recently released an SDK and officially set up shop on the Android platform.

AdWhirl isn’t a broker firm itself – instead it serves as a mediation layer that allows you to use the services of many different ad companies. You can sort the companies in order of presence in order to give impressions to the ad company that is most successful for you. When the fill rate for your first choice drops below 100% and they don’t have an ad for you to display, the software will automatically start making its way down your list until it finds a company that does have an ad for your app to show, allowing you to get as close to a 100%% fill rate on your app and ensuring maximum monetization.

Cocos2d-Android: While this project isn’t quite as complete as the projects that have inspired it (such as the iPhone and Desktop/Python versions), it’s very much in a useful state for Android developers. Cocos2d is a fairly robust and easy to use 2d graphics framework and includes built-in support for the box2d physics engine.

The engine utilizes OpenGL for the fastest rendering possible which also allows for easy implementation of features, such as rotating and scaling sprites. The Android version already includes many of the features that are available in the more mature versions of the API and is actively being developed, meaning further improvements upon the framework.

The Cocos2d framework has been used in many successful apps on the iPhone store and will no doubt become a major player in the Android market as well. If you intend on writing 2d based games, this is certainly worth taking a look at.

Geocade: Geocade is a social gaming network that is one of the few that has already implemented support for Android devices. The code offers several features that will add value to your app for the customer, such as location-aware high scores and discussion boards. Wouldn’t you be interested in finding out where you rank among “space blasters” in the entire Bay Area?

However, the customer isn’t the only one that will benefit from usage of this network in your app. In addition to the increased downloads that social gaming networks such as these create, Geocade publishers can easily implement feedback surveys to get direct feedback from their customers to add and prioritize improvements that your community really wants. The company also has a revenue sharing agreement to give you a cut of the profits from ads that display while the user is navigating the network from within your app.

Android Stats: Once you’ve finished up your app and it’s ready for download on the Market, you’re eventually going to become curious about how it is performing in relation to other apps. Sure, the Android Market tells you how many downloads your app has, and the Market console even tells you what percentage of those downloaders still have the app installed on their phone, but it doesn’t provide any insight on one key element – your competition. This is where Android Stats comes in.

Android Stats is a site that keeps track of your app rankings so you can compare your app to the apps that you are directly competing with. This can be useful for marketing purposes or for getting ideas on where your app needs to improve in order to increase sales.

Cyrket: Unlike the iPhone App Store, the Android Market lacks a web-based or desktop software-based method of shopping and browsing. For developers who are running older versions of Android on their phones, this means not even being able to see the screenshots of potential competition. When deciding upon a new product to release, it is important to make sure that the market isn’t already oversaturated with apps of its type or to evaluate the quality of your would be competitors. Google doesn’t make this easy, but thankfully Cyrket allows you to browse the Android Market (as well as Palm and Windows Phone marketplaces) to perform this type of market research.

3E Solutions is one of the leading Android application developers in the market. 3E’s Android experts developed mind blowing applications for various businesses and industries. 3E also has highly expert team for developing iphone and Blackberry applications.

You want to promote your website and bring more fan base to your site. A great way to do this is to integrate Facebook with your website, basically using Facebook as a RSS feed.

What you want to do with your drupal website is to have a setting so that when you publish a node, it would post to your Facebook account so that subscribers would be able to view your new content and know to go visit your site.

To accomplish this I would recommend you to use the module Drupal for Facebook and enable the “Drupal for Facebook Stream” that is included with the module. Once you have properly installed it you will need to create another custom module to actually use the Facebook API to post to an account.

Follow the instructions on Publishing to Facebook Wall to set up your custom module.

From the code found in Publishing to Facebook Wall, fb_stream_publish_dialog() actually uses the function FB.Connect.streamPublish(), which prompts a user to login and share content. A good read on this function would be Implementing Feed Publishing form your Website or Application

I have also had to implement this feature using the Facebook Connect module. Since it already has the Facebook library, I just had to call the FB.Connect.streamPublish() function in javascript. Here is sample code of a function I created to post a teaser about a node.

function post_to_facebook($node) {
global $base_url;
if ($node) {
$site = variable_get('site_name', $base_url);
$autopublish = 'true';
$feed_js = array(
'name' => $node->title,
'href' => url('node/' . $node->nid, array('absolute' => TRUE)),
'description' => $node->teaser,
'properties' => array(
t('read') => array(
'text' => $node->title,
'href' => url('node/' . $node->nid, array('absolute' => TRUE)),
),
t('visit') => array(
'text' => $site,
'href' => $base_url,
)
),
);
$actions = array();
$actions[] = array('text' => t('Read More'), 'href' => url('node/'.$node->nid, array('absolute' => TRUE)),);
}
drupal_add_js('$(document).ready(function() {FB.Connect.streamPublish("", '.drupal_to_js($feed_js).', '.drupal_to_js($action_links).', "", "'.t('Something to say?').'", "", '.$autopublish.');});', 'inline', 'footer'); }

What I really like about this implementation is the ability to not have to be logged into a drupal account, they just need to login to their facebook account. Enjoy!

Some of these customizations come in the form of “Plugins”. They’re modules that you can add onto your WordPress installation that can extend the functionality of your blog in both mechanics, interaction, and usability, and there are literally tons of plugins out there that you can sift through to customize your blog. I’ve compiled a short list of very informative blog posts that cover the best and most useful plugins for WordPress you can find.

Nicholas Cardot at Site Sketch 101 has an excellent, excellent post covering “The 15 Best WordPress Plugins To Use In 2010”. My favorites on this list include WP Super Cache, Akismet, Wptouch iPhone Theme, and Thank Me Later. Check out all 15 over at Site Sketch 101 now.

Joseph at VisionWidget.com has put together an incredible list of 48 high-quality WordPress Plugins for “branding your perfect blog”. Favorites include All in One SEO Pack, Community Cloud, What Would Seth Godin Do, Yet Another Related Post Plugin, and GD Star Rating plugin. Lots of stuff to go through here, so be sure to check it out.

If you’re someone who frequently handles images, Robysottini’s Blog has just posted a great article on “10 WordPress plugins to work with images“. I personally like Watermark Reloaded, WordPress Media Flickr, and Faster Image Insert.

Ajaxline.com recently posted an article suggesting WordPress plugins that you should take a look at as well. Global Flash Galleries, Bulk Delete, WP to Twitter, Login With Ajax, and My Quote are some I’m going to give a test drive today.

If social media and promotion are your thing, then check out Webexpedition18.com’s article “Best WordPress Plugins To Promote Your Site”. Nikola Lazarevic suggests plugins like Digg Digg, a button generator for your site, to generate more social awareness and consequently drive more traffic to your site. While many of the plugins might overlap in terms of functionality, it’s good to know what’s out there so you know what will fit your blog and use case the best.

And as always, if there isn’t a plugin that does quite do what you need it to do, we have skilled, professional WordPress developers at 3E Solutions to deliver what you need. Do you have any plugins that are your favorites? Shoot ‘em to us in the comments below

Apple Developer’s Site: This is the first stop that any potential iPhone developer will need to visit when getting started. From this site, you can sign up for the developer program and download the necessary tools required to build iPhone apps. There is a developer fee of $99/annually in order to submit your newly built creations to have them appear on the app store, but you can download the tools and play around with them with a free account.

The site also features the entire reference library for the iPhone SDK, which although not as instructional as a tutorial, is still an indispensable resource for those who have already gotten comfortable with the iPhone development process. In addition to the reference material, you will find developer forums at the site which allow you to ask questions to other developers. Most developers are willing to help new coders learn the ropes, as long as you show that you’ve made some effort to learn on your own or to find the answer for yourself. The forums at the official Apple site have the added benefit of being frequented by Apple engineers.

iPhone Dev SDK Forums: The forums at iPhoneDevSDK.com are another great resource for all developers. The community is robust and offers advice on everything from coding to promotion techniques and even job postings. One thing to be aware of is that there are frequently posters popping in trying to capitalize on developers. Be wary of business offers, especially from people with a low number of posts. Consider bringing the potential client on to Elance so that you can not only be protected by Escrow but you can also use it to build up your feedback and job history.

iCodeBlog: iCodeBlog.com features some of the best tutorials on the web, both on beginning and more advanced development concepts. It should get the novice beginner off to a good start as well as teach the established user a few things about parts of the API that they may have not explored yet. The blog is updated on a regular basis and would make a great addition to any iPhone developer’s bookmarks.

AdWhirl: With a large and growing list of companies offering ad services, many developers have successfully used ads to earn a little green with their free apps. When you install AdWhirl into your app, you will be able to sign up for many of these services and serve all of them from the same code. AdWhirl also features an online management system that allows you to give preference to the ad company that is paying you the highest rates. The real advantage of using an all-in-one solution such as AdWhirl is that no single service offers 100% fill rate. With AdWhirl, when your top priority ad provider doesn’t have an ad for you, your app automatically falls back on the next choice. This helps to insure that your app is showing as many ads as possible and increases your revenue.

Cocos2D: If you haven’t already heardGames comprise of a huge part of the mobile App industry. If you plan on creating games for the iPhone, you are going to want to step up the graphics level more than the basic iPhone tools will allow. Cocos2D for iPhone is an amazing, and free, SDK that will allow you to bring the full power of OpenGL ES to your game. With an easy to learn API, you’ll be able to create and animate sprites, complete with hardware scaling and rotation and many other, more advanced special effects. Cocos2D also features two built-in physics simulation libraries, Box2d and Chipmunk, for those developers looking for more advanced object interactions. The toolkit has a large following and users on the forums at the Cocos2D site are always willing to help new people learn their way around.

SIO2 Interactive: This free and open source 3D graphics engine shares many features with its commercial counterparts. The engine is based around the free Blender modeler and allows you to create the scene for your 3D game within that program and then hook it almost effortlessly to your code. There are several tutorials on the project’s website to get beginners up and running quickly with SIO2 itself, although some people find the learning curve for Blender to be steep.

Additionally, for those who want to study a completed program to learn more about the inner workings of the engine, full source code to four apps is available for purchase from the project’s homepage. The source code comes with all resource files and a video tutorial to teach you key points about the coding process. The license for the engine, while free, does require a splash screen a credit within your app. Optionally, developers can pay a fee for each game developed for the right to wave those requirements.

Shiva 3D: Shiva 3D is a commercial 3D graphics engine designed for indie developers. You’ll actually need Parallels running Windows to run the level editor, making it slightly less than ideal. It is still a grand resource for iPhone developers though, because other commercial 3D engines for iPhone, such as Unity or Torque charge an additional, and rather large, fee to use their platform on the iPhone. For one low fee, the makers of Shiva include the tools necessary to build on the iPhone.

The software has a free learning addition that, unlike its competition, is not time limited so you can get to know the software without feeling rushed. Also unlike its competitors, the free version of Shiva includes some iPhone projects so you don’t have to pay money before you get to play around with using the system for iPhone development. In the end, the hassle of installing Windows on your Mac is the cheaper option. Especially considering the non-expiring demo will allow you to fully flesh our your game before you spend a dime on licensing the software needed to run it.

OpenFeint: OpenFeint is a great way to add online functionality to your iPhone app. After you integrate the SDK into your app, the OpenFeint website connects with it to enable online high scores lists, wrapped in a growing social network atmosphere. With OpenFeint installed, your users will be able to see which games their friends are currently playing and challenge them, access location-based leader boards, save their game to the network and resume it on any compatible device, and connect with you via forums. OpenFeint enables you to send newsletters to your users, has systems in place for cross promotion of your apps, and includes support for free to paid up sells.

Urban Airship: The 3.0 release of the iPhone OS brought with it some powerful tools for developers. These include push notifications and in app purchases. The use of these tools, however, requires access to your own servers, and for more complex apps, a large amount of custom code. Urban Airship, for a fee of course, will provide the server space and custom code that your app really needs to take advantage of these technologies. Like many tools of this nature, Urban Airship provides you with source code that you will need to integrate into your program in order to take advantage of their features. Installation isn’t hard however, and since they are a paid service, support questions are answered relatively quickly.

AppViz: Once you have an app on the app store, Apple doesn’t really make it as easy to track and monitor your sales as they could. The daily sales reports come in the form of tab delimited spreadsheets in plain text files. AppViz is a program that will download your daily and weekly financial reports and present the data in a much more readable way. The program will estimate what your payouts will be for a given month, and give you a graph of sales trends. The AppViz demo comes with a 30 day free trial, after which a modest fee is required to keep using it. Apple has been known to make a lot of changes to the way iTunes Connect works, and the developer does a great job of keeping up with these changes, but it does mean that you may need to download updates frequently.