Watermarking your still images, audio, animations or video is a great way to keep others from just taking them. There are lots of ways to accomplish this.  Today we talk about still images (photos).

Watermarking still images using an image editor:

Most photo creation programs come with a watermark embed feature. However, if they don’t and you want to create a watermark you certainly can. Here is how you do it.

First of all you need to understand what a watermark is. A watermark is a transparent image (.gif or .png) that appears over top of the image you are using. You flatten or merge the image layers to create the embedded watermark. A Watermark can be text or graphics.

The way you choose to watermark your image is up to you. For example, in Photoshop®, you create a new transparent layer over top of the image. Then add your text or logo in the top layer and drop the opacity to the desired level (I like to use 45%). Flatten or merge the layers and save the image for the web and your watermark will be embedded. Here is an example of a watermarked image using this technique.

FREE watermarking programs.

There are two types of watermarking programs. On line services and software programs you download to your desktop.

On-line programs:

Watermark Tool – upload your image, add your watermarking text, choose the color, hit generate and you’re done.

PicMarkR – Upload your image(s) – apply your watermark and get your watermarked image(s). You can upload images from your computer, Flicker or your blog.

WaterMarkMagic enables you to impress, overlay and link images, pictures, photos, calendars, reports, maps, charts, patterns, designs, logos and icons. Results can be printed, saved and shared in PDF format. You can upload images from Flicker or your computer.

FREE Watermarking Software:

UMarkLite – Freeware - Adds a watermark, does batch watermarking, and saves your settings for later use.

VXEI picture uploader - This free program does a lot of things. Batch watermarks, uploads and resizes your photos before uploading.

WaterMark is an open source image-watermarking tool.

Protect your Images by disabling right click:

Now if watermarking does not work for you, you can protect your images is by disabling the right click. That way no one can right click and save your image. If you want to do that you can use a bit of java script, which you would place right after the head tag.

Here is the script:

From Java Script Source.

I hope you enjoy these freebies. If you have other watermarking software or online tools you use let me know! I am always looking for great software and services.

When offering Freebies, I always make sure that what is listed here is safe. However, nothing is 100% safe. I always download my free programs from trusted sites and you should too.

With the instances of malware and sypware and viruses increasing daily in free software, downloading from a trusted source has become even more critical.

I trust downloads.com and majorgeeks.com because they test all the free programs they offer.

I do have two trusted sites I will share with you for testing software that you get from friends. – My thanks to Gizmo Richards (Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter) for turning me onto these sites!

1. Jotti’s – This is a malware scanning site that uses a variety of virus scanners to scan any files you have downloaded.

2. Virus Total – This is also a free on line malware and virus scan. Both on line tools use the same technique, which is to run your freebies through a series of virus scan programs. Using these programs does not guarantee that your file is harmless.

Unfortunately, to date, there is no 100 % effective solution to detection of malware or spyware. Using the on line software is far better than crossing your fingers or blind faith. Remember use protection…. and you should remain safe. If you have any suspicion or doubt, abstain from downloading the software.

With summer in full swing, picnics and parties abound. Email invitations are a better alternative to paper invitations for several reasons.

1. Write the invitation once and send it to everyone at the same time.

2. No trees are killed in the process

3. No stamps are needed

4. No paper cuts on you lips from licking envelopes or water on your desk from your sponge bottle.

5. They are FREE and Easy!

So now you’re convinced this is the way to go, where do you find FREE invitations? It just so happens that I have a few sites I can share with you.

Evite – You can create your invitations from hundreds of designs or customize your invitation with your own design.  You can import your contacts from your address book (two steps). Evite sends a link to your invitation to your guests email address and tracks RSVP responses. Your guests can reply to your invitation on the site and view maps and directions. You can even send invitations to a phone. You can ask your guests to bring something to the party, poll your guests and even ask for payment from your guests (if for instance you are hosting a fundraiser). They have a party tips and tools section and even a drink calculator that will tell you how much alcohol you need to purchase for the party. 

American Greetings has a site for sending FREE party invitations. They have dozens of invitations. They don’t offer customization unless you become a member. However, do they offer background music (which you can turn on or off) and the cards are animated and stylish. Memberships are good for one full year.

My Punch bowl Sign up for a free account and you can use the tool to help you pick the best date for you bash and send out a save the date card. Create your invitation and send it to your guests email.  You can use their on-line party checklist to make sure you haven't forgotton anything. They offer RSVP and a Great after Party feature that lets you share your party photos on Flicker and YouTube. If you need a reason to party (your kidding right) they have a list of days like Cousin’s Day, Parent’s Day and my persoanl favorite National Milk Chocolate day!

Sendomatic If you are having a very small party Sendomatic might work for you. You can send up to 4 email addresses for free. They have an easy to use event center that tracks you RSVP’s and let’s your guests send you a response with a message and you can resend an invitation if needed. They charge for invitations in excess of 4. It must be said they do not have any ads.

They have a special section for business use where they provide event planning and management software.  You can easily create your own event website, send the invitations, track the RSVP's and manage your event.  If you are having an event for you clients this might be worth the cost.

So, what are you waiting for get that party started…. and don’t forget to invite me!

Since gardening season is in full swing and I live in the Garden State, I thought it might be fun to share with you some tools that will help you to diagnose your tomato plant ailments.

The inspiration for this post belongs to Michelle Fabio on my favorite gardening blog Tomato Casual.

Michelle’s post discussed a tool developed by the Aggie Horticulture team at Texas A & M. The purpose of this tool is to help you to diagnose and solve your tomato’s ailments using the following diagnostic categories. Green Fruit, Ripe Fruit, Leaf, Stem and Root.

Select the appropriate category. You will see a group of photos that corresponds to your tomato problem. Choose the appropriate group of photos. Select the photo that looks most like your tomato’s ailment from a second group of larger photos and you will be provided with a description of the ailment and instructions on how to control it.

I want to thank Michelle Fabio for this great tool and Reggie Solomon of Tomato Casual for the permission to share it you.

Here are three other FREE on-line veggie diagnostic tools and sites I dug up.:)

Cornell University’s Vegetable MD Online is a good tool for diagnosing most veggie Problems and has a Tomato Diagnostic Tool. To use this tool, select the part of the plant where the ailment exists (click inside the box), then scroll down to the bottom of the page and have a look at the pictures. The disease, symptoms and part of the plant affected is listed. This tool is also available in Spanish.

Not sure what is wrong with your veggie plant? Ask the Plant Doctors at Cornell University.

Washington State University has a diagnostic web site called Hortsense. Select the category vegetables from the menu on the right and then select tomatoes from the next menu. You will be given a choice of diseases or insects. Choose the one you want to know more about. You will learn more about that specific aliment and how to manage it.

If you love Tomatoes, or just enjoy them, I invite you to visit Tomato Casual and spend some time there. If you are an avid Urban Gardner (as I am) their sister site Urban Garden Casual is well worth your time.

 All Photos taken by Caryn Webb in her Urban Garden

Happy Fourth of July!    

Time to celebrate our country's birthday and time for some fun. When the picnic gets a little dull here are some fun activities, games and puzzles for you and the kids.

Fourth of July Coloring Pages for the kids. Here is a link to print out some coloring pages to keep the young ones busy this holiday.

Like puzzles? Have I got a site for you! On this site you can make your own puzzles. They are fun and easy. For example make a word search puzzle. Enter your words and puzzle is created. Print it out and pass it around! You can download a demo but to use it all the time you have to purchase it.

Give it a try it's fun. Below is one I created

Free Flag pictures for download at Comstock.com and Free animated Fireworks gifs

Here is that puzzle I created, this is an image so you can cut and past it. into word to print and play with it.

Find the Following Words in the puzzle below.

Picnic, BBQ, Red. Betsy Ross, Songs, Blue, Sparklers, Fireworks, Stars, Flag, Stripes, Hamburgers, Watermelon, Hot Dogs, White, Music

The name of the site is Opsound.

  Opsound is an open source music site.

Artists are encouraged to share their music and listeners are encouraged to download and use the music. All the music that is available on this site is released under the creative commons copyleft license (the "Attribution-ShareAlike license"), this license allows listeners to download, use, remix and copy the music with a credit to the original artist.

You will find music from a host of genres.  If you are looking for music for a project or just something different for your iPod or MP3 Player this is a great site to visit.

   Since it is Earth Day I am asking you to do something good for the earth today.  Choose something from the list below or come up with your own.  Below is a list of 10 things that you can do to go green right now this very moment!

A friend of mine told me he uses shredded paper in his cat litter boxes.  I don’t have a cat so I can’t vouch for this method but he claims it works.

Do you have other ideas or do you do things that you can share that are free and help save our resources?  Share them in the comments section.

1. Turn off your computer and other office equipment at night. Put all your equipment on a power strip and turn it off at the end of the day.
2. Turn off the lights in rooms that are not in use (common sense but how many times do you really do it).
3. Stop using paper or styrofoam cups and or plastic utensils and switch to using a mug for your coffee and silverware.
   
4. Use the stairs instead of the elevator and save energy and loose weight!
5. Print only what you need to Print use both sides of the paper and buy recycled paper.
6. Recycle your paper, glass and plastic.  
7. Unplug your cell phone charger when not in use and don’t charge your cell phone overnight.  Charge your phone, take it off the charger and unplug it from the wall.
8. Pick up the trash outside of your office or home whenever you see it and dispose of it properly (recycle those discarded water bottles and throw out fast food bags).
9. Get rid of those water bottles and drink water from the tap.  You can purchase filters that fit on the faucets or use a filtering pitcher if your water is hyper chlorinated or tastes bad or you like it cold.  Use your insulated coffee cup to put water in to keep it cool on your desk.
10. Use the junk mail before you recycle it.  I put my junk mail in a box and cut it up and use it as scrap paper  great for shopping lists!

  Happy Earth Day, Everyday!

This week’s freebie is Jaxtr a calling tool that allows potential clients to call you on your cell with just the click of a button.

Jaxtr: Links your phone to the web so anyone visiting your site, blog, and ad…can call you and your number remains private.

I have been using this with success and like the fact that I can easily put a widget or call me button on my blog or site. I can also include a link in my e-mail signature. The service and calls are free (even international calls).

Callers do not need skype or any type of headset. They simply click on the widget or button and are asked to enter their phone number. Then a call is placed to their landline and when they answer their phone, your cell phone rings.

Some things I don’t like about Jaxtr:

1. Limited customization of the widget (can change the color and size) and no customization of the ugly orange button.

2. By default your calls are sent to your voicemail if you have not approved the phone number. So you have to change this setting in your account so that every call rings your phone. Not a big deal you just need to be aware of this.

How it works:

Sign up for a free account.

Enter your number to receive calls.

Jaxtr will send you a voice mail to confirm that things are correctly set up.

Choose your Widget.

Put it on your site or blog.

Wait for the phone to ring!

Want to try it? Call me now!      

 Silly stuff for Fun

Send your Valentine a Flipbook Kiss!

Remember Flip Books?  We all made them as kids So what if you could make your own Valentine flipbook for FREE and Print it.

Well, there is a program called Flipbook Printer and of course it is FREE

Flipbook Printer is a program that lets you make your own printed "Flipbooks" from avi movie files and print them on business cards.

It's the ultimate in low-tech movie making fun!

Want a version for the Mac?  Try Movie Flipper

Stuff for Kids 

Billy Bear4Kids.com This is a Great Site…One worth linking to.  All kinds of Holiday and Everyday stuff for Kids to Download and Learn.

All kinds of free Valentine stuff for kids (and kids at heart) including books to download, online games to play, free love notes fonts, valentine paper you can print, gift box templates, word games, storybooks, cards…and more.

Valentine Coloring Pages for Kids:  Here you will find all kinds of Holiday Coloring Projects for Kids!  Suitable for printing.  This makes a great link for your website!

Valentine Cards/Coloring Pages:  These images can be used as cards or printed out as coloring pages

Stuff for Adults

Valentine Poetry:  Here is the place to look for that romantic poem to put in your Valentine’s card!

Valentine Desktop Theme:  Download and Install a desktop theme and icons on your Sweethearts Desktop!

Images in this post from Hellasmultimedia.com 

The bear images below are Billy Bear4Kids.com - Love Note Fonts 

Site Grader  is an easy to use web based tool that will assess your sites current search engine optimization and provide some good tips to improve your search engine ranking. 

To use the tool, enter your website URL, key words and competors site (this is optional I skipped this) and email address then select generate report.

The tool will assess your home page and three additional pages for all kinds of things such as:

number of images

headings

readability level

blogs and rss feeds

converting qualified visitors to leads

number of inbound links

key works, the monthly search volume and your ranking with the key words you have so that you can better customize your key words for searches

which directories your site is listed in or not listed in and more.

Within a few seconds it assesses your site and provides you with a free report and suggestions to improve your site for a better search engine ranking.

At the bottom of the report you are invited to download a free marketing kit.  I recommend it.  Additionally you can register for a Free Webinar on Wednesday, February 13, 2008, 2-3PM EST -Topic- Search Engine Optimization 101.

This easy to use, fun tool was a real eye opener and keeps your report in the data base so that after you implement the suggestions and assess your site a second time you will be able to compare the reports.

Oh, BTW they e-mail you link to a copy of the report so you can review it and implement the suggestions at your leisure.

More Freebies next week!