Tuesday Travels: Cool Project and Productivity Tools for Freelancers

Violin tools (just a few)

Image via Wikipedia

Mockingbird – web-based program that lets you quickly create application mock-ups and share them.

Twitcleaner – find and purge bots, spammers, and low-value people from your stream

Myfonts – three tools in one! first, new fonts; second, a font finder; and third, fonts sorted by categories (like script or funny)

Trello – a virtual project “bulletin board”, good for people (like me) who think visually.  Much better than reading a project spreadsheet.

What are your favorite productivity and project tools?

Tuesday Travels: Web Design Templates and Tools

Lower case ‘a’ from Adobe Caslon Pro, superpos...

Image via Wikipedia

Web design inspiration to get your brain humming with ideas

Catalog of free open-source fonts why stick with the same old boring fonts (or old web limits), when you can have fun?

Typography calculator – so you know what line height to use between your paragraphs (you know, leading, back in the day). Enter your type size, and the width of the page, and get suggestions. It will even display the results in the appropriate font face.

Inexpensive or free wordpress themes. These are modern, and minimalist designs. The site comes up in German, but there’s an English option.

Tuesday Travels: Do You Know These Email Marketing Secrets?

Whispering at Walton HallGetting visitors to your site is great, but if you want them to come back, and if  you want them to buy something from you, you’ll need a way to reach them directly.

One great way to do that is with email.  Done right, it’s building an asset; done wrong it’s a disaster.  Here’s how to do it right.

Email Writing Tips From Spammers

Start Your Email Newsletter Without an Opt-in List

Five Simple Tips for Better Email Marketing

How to Put Your Email Marketing on Automatic Pilot

 

Tuesday Travels: Fun Tools for Freelancers

Mission Statement

Image by dipfan via Flickr

How to write (or not write) 404 error pages, mission statements, and make your own mini “movies” (no actual skill required).

Entertaining 404 pages – don’t just redirect people, show a little personality

Bad mission statement generator – write like the big, giant corporations do (or not)

Buzzword generator – you too can create gobbledygook

Text to movie – if you can type you can make a “movie”

Tuesday Travels: Writer’s Resources

Writing Sunset Italy-Roma - Creative Commons b...

Image by gnuckx via Flickr

A collection of tools and resources for writers, scribblers, and scriveners (though many are useful for all creatives).

25 Useful Document and File Comparison Tools – Some free, some not (includes software for Mac, PC, and Linux).

Writer Beware – Run by science fiction writers, but a useful early warning system for all writers against scams and ripoff artists.

Why Creatives Are Different – What, me weird?

Letters of note – This one from a man who got a speeding ticket for doing 911 km (as a baby)?! The story reminds me of my grandfather, who got a parking ticket six months after he died.

(PS: I hit publish yesterday, and then belatedly realized that the follow-up to yesterday’s post should be tomorrow, not today. Sorry about that.)