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Create Wicked Cool Marketing Graphics

4/13/2014 By Ravi Jayagopal Leave a Comment

If you read my earlier post, you already know how awesome I am at creating graphics (not!) 🙂

Here’s a software box image I created many years ago (around 2001) for my then-active web site, WebmasterInABox.net – later renamed to MyWebmasterInABox.com, because Google banned the original domain when the site got hacked and was injected with malware for a period of time back in 2005 or so. And since I had not been actively maintaining the web site at that time (thanks to my J.O.B), I never even realized that my site had dropped out of the rankings until after a few months, when I noticed a big dip in sales.

Anyway, here’s the terrible CD box cover image that I created myself back in 2001.

wbib

Fast-forward many years later, I wanted a more professional image for DAP. So I paid someone about $200 for this software box image.

DigitalAccessPass_Box

 

Then again in 2011, when we were getting ready to launch WickedCoolPlugins.com, since we were planning on launching multiple plugins, I figured $200 – or even $100 – per image was going to be wasteful and expensive. By this time, of course, there were many marketplaces where you could hire designers – like dribbble, odesk and even fiverr.

Still, I managed to overcome good sense, and tried creating this myself during that launch. Took me only about 5 hours!

box_smp

And then I found the holy grail of “Graphics Tool For Noobs“.

The one below took me less than 10 minutes.

Drag, drop, done.

STU-Cover

Box Shot King: Easily the best option even if you are a Photoshop guru, better than using Photoshop macros.

Filed Under: Business Tools, Digital Access Pass (DAP), How-To, Internet Marketing, Online, Paid Software, Personal Tools, Ravi Recommends, Remarkable, Tools, Webmaster Tagged With: Images

Create Super Cool Buttons

3/23/2014 By Ravi Jayagopal 1 Comment

Ok, I have a confession to make.

I suck at creating graphics. Be it any kind – buttons, ecovers, banners, etc.

Here’s one I created at the peak of my graphic-creation prowess.

addtoorder1click

Makes me want to throw up 🙂

The problem with buy buttons, is that you can’t get them easily.

If you go search image sites, you may find some decent buttons – but they will never ever have the words you want. They will not have the colors you want.

If you want to outsource it to an image person, they usually charge you like $50 – $100 per image. And if they’ve never done any marketing online, then their buttons would look something like this:

buy-button-terrible

And that’s absolutely terrible! Feel like throwing up – twice!

I would rather go with my own terrible creation from earlier.

Not.

Anyway, if you want a quick way to effortlessly create beautiful buy buttons with your own text, maybe even dollar amounts on them, etc – then I’ve got the most awesome online tool that I discovered just recently.

Here are a couple of buttons I created myself.

Took me all of 1 full minute to create these.

add-to-cart

add-to-order

buynow

checkout

Actually, just the first one took 1 minute. The rest took like 10 seconds each, as all I had to do was change the text.

And this online tool that I used to create these beauties (yup, I have set my bar pretty low) even gives you a permalink – a permanent link to the template – that you can save and go back to each time you wish to create a new button in the future.

And the cool thing is that the permalink stores all of the button’s settings – including font type, color, background colors, gloss type, etc.

You can find a link to my template below. Feel free to modify it, save it, and add yours to the comments section below.

Oh, and feel free to right-click & save-as the above images to your computer and use them as you deem fit.

No charge. It’s free. Enjoy!

Click here for my “Add To Cart” Button Template.

From the awesome DaButtonFactory.com.

Filed Under: Business Tools, Cool Sites, Downloads, Free, Online, Tools

Carbonite vs Dropbox vs Amazon Cloud Drive vs Google Drive

10/15/2013 By Ravi Jayagopal Leave a Comment

Backup Restore Buttons Showing Data Archive Or RecoverySo many awesome file backup services available today.

So, which one is the best to back up files on your computer?

For the sheer reason that you can back up files from all over your computer, in all kinds of directories, all from right where they are – disorganized and un-categorized and lumped up on your desktop like a sick cat threw up – and not have to worry about putting them all onto one single folder each time just so it can be backed up (like you have to do with Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive or Google Drive or Microsoft Sky Drive), my vote goes for Carbonite.

Plus, Carbonite offers you unlimited backups for one flat fee – so you don’t have to pay per GB backed-up like with the other services. And they also have a business plan to back up upto 3 computers (which is what I have myself for my computers at home).

And there too, you get unlimited backups without any limits.

So my most recommended backup service for your precious pictures, videos, documents, software, and any other junk you have collected over the years…

Winner: Carbonite

 

Filed Under: Business Tools, E-Business, Online, Online Services, Personal Tools, Ravi Recommends, Remarkable, Technology, This Versus That, Tools

Ubiquity: Mozilla’s Mother Of All Mashups

8/27/2008 By Ravi Jayagopal 1 Comment

If you don’t know what a “Mashup” is, fret not.

You’re now going to witness one of the greatest “mashup” tools ever developed…

Full story: Introducing Ubiquity

Filed Under: Firefox, Google, Industry News, Internet, Mashups, Mozilla, Online, Productivity, Purple Cow, Remarkable, Social Media, Technology, Tools, Video, Web2.0

Low Cost Online e-Faxing: MaxEmail.com

4/1/2008 By Ravi Jayagopal 1 Comment

I was recently in the market for an “e” fax solution. I looked at quite a few services. My basic requirements were these:

  • Reliable
  • Low cost (not necessarily free – because I wanted the service to be reliable and accountable)
  • Didn’t need a local area code – anywhere was fine, as I don’t receive too many faxes
  • Offer a free trial – so that I can experience it first-hand
  • Offer a decent number of incoming pages in the package
  • Offer a low-cost pay-as-you-go model for additional use
  • After hunting around the web, looking up various forums and wasting time on made-for-adsense spam and junk-review sites, I stumbled across MaxEmail.com.

    You can get your incoming faxes sent to your email address as a PDF attachment.

    I went through their 1-month free trial, was highly satisfied with the quality of their service, and just now signed up for a whole year at $24/year (their “lite” plan).

    If you are looking for something similar, go check out MaxEmail.com

Filed Under: Email, How-To, Online, Online Services, Productivity, Ravi's Rants, Scripts-n-Software, Tools

About Ravi Jayagopal

Ravi Jayagopal

Ravi Jayagopal is a full-time entrepreneur living in sunny San Diego, CA . He is the Co-Founder & Co-Developer of DigitalAccessPass.com (DAP), the premier Membership Plugin & Content Delivery Platform for WordPress. Check out his Podcast about Membership Sites & Online Courses, at SubscribeMe.fm. Ravi is also the creator of CoolCastPlayer.com, a pretty and powerful podcast player plugin for WordPress. And creator of S3MediaVault.com, S3 Video Player for Amazon S3. Ravi first started selling online in 1997. Check out his book "Subscribe Me: Making, Marketing & Monetizing Online Digital Content with Membership Sites, Online Courses and Subscriptions"


Ravi is also the host of the "Subscribe Me" podcast at SubscribeMe.fm

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