(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today is cool tools day.
That means it’s time for a quick rundown of cool software, plugins, handy gadgets, and widgets that make life easier for freelancers and creatives.
Today’s batch includes three tools: a handy wordpress plugin, a web archive that tracks changes on just about every website on the internet (plus lots of extra goodies), and a collection of icons that you can use on your website or for apps.
Zemanta
First up today is a tool I’m just trying out. It’s called Zemanta. It looks at your blog post and finds relevant links, images, and tags (automagically). You can set preferences, and the images are tagged with the appropriate usage license. You can specify (to a point) which feeds it looks at to get related content, and also add twitter or facebook feeds. I got the tool image by typing tools into the search box (without leaving WordPress), and then clicking on it. Pretty cool, but I had a heck of a time getting it aligned properly. A bug?
The wayback machine
If you’re a Rocky and Bullwinkle fan, you’ll remember the time machine from the Mr. Peabody and Sherman cartoons. This wayback machine. is an internet archive that preserves web sites, photos, audio, animation and more. You can search for old versions of your own website or download free books, movies, and free recordings
Scribd
Scribd: Tons of forms, eb00ks, and documents Learn more about business, baking, get office forms, templates, and lots more. Many are free, some are paid.
Free web icons
Dryicons: Free blog or website icons: social sharing, flowers, e-commerce, sports, and holidays. Lots of different styles, from “grungy” to “ink drawing” to “sleek.”
Hey Jodi, I was looking at Zemanta too a little while back, but I haven’t tried it yet. I was a little confused looking through some of their info—can they sometimes insert links to some of their paid advertisers in your site using the language in your post? But you can choose to have them be posted or not? Anyway, let us know if it looks like a useful tool after you’ve tested it.
It will make suggestions for links (photos, keywords, other articles, etc. ). You can choose which ones you want (or none).
I did have a lot of trouble getting the image aligned properly. It inserts code that’s supposed to automatically line it up, with an attribution link, but it kept centering it rather than putting the picture on the right.
I posted my problem on their help forum, and someone responded in 20 minutes! We went back and forth a few times, but no fix yet. I finally ended up coding it the old way. I’ll let you know how it goes going forward.