Turner's Perspective

I stayed up late to install the new Macintosh Operating system: OS X Leopard.

I'm pretty sure this officially makes me a geek.

But I wanted to get it installed and working for one very specific reason - to see how easy it would be to edit the new templates available for the Mail application.

Apple snubs the business market again.

From the first moment I saw the templates that would be available, I was upset. Once again Apple has decided to ignore the business market and only include templates for personal email use. While the templates are great and just mind numbingly easy to use, there are no templates that allow you to change out a logo for business use.

So my task tonight was to see how difficult it would be to edit an existing template and create my own Mail template.

The image on the right is my first attempt. I edited the existing "Fun" template, which actually required almost no HTML changes. It was almost entirely graphic editing. The process is really simple if you know how to do some basic image editing and understand that you need to save your changes over top of the existing files, using the exact same file names and formats.

I've experienced no problems with the upgrade so far. For those of you who are going to be making the leap to OS X Leopard and are not afraid to dive into the guts of the Library folder and edit package contents, a more complete description of how to edit Mail templates in OS X Leopard is located here.

Enjoy!

For those who don't read the comments... here are two more templates that have been "de-cuted" and made available for download.

Mac OS X Leopard Mail Templates - White 1 and White 2

And a very simple letterhead template that you can place your own logo into. Instructions and download are here:

A Customizable Letterhead Template For Mac OS X Leopard Mail

Ana Connell - Burbank Real Estate Expert asked for this tutorial.

And since she's not the first to ask me, I thought I'd get this one up as quickly as possible. Earlier today, she wrote:

"I would love to know how you type around an image that's been added to a post. I know it's possible because I see it all the time, just don't know how! I've noticed it in your and Laurie Manny's posts and really like the overall presentation it creates.

Right now I add an image and can only start my text either beside the image (on the very bottom of the image), or below it. Hope I've explained this well enough! If you have any questions, shoot me an email or give me a call, thank you!"

So, let's wrap some text around an image.

The image you see to the right has already been added to this post in a way that makes it wrap around the text in the post. The video below will show you have we did it, but the graphic is what you will see when you add a graphic and then click on appearance. I personally like putting my images on the right of the post. I think it makes for easier reading to keep the left edge justified.

Now, to make this work the way Ana wants it to work, we need more text.

If you have a small amount of text and your image is large, there is very little you can do to make the text "flow" around the image. The best that can happen is that the image sits to the right or to the left. But if you have enough text, as I'm attempting to provide here by rambling on and on and on, then you can make the text flow above and below the image as well as to either side.

Here's the video. Enjoy.

Unless you've been living in a cave, you probably know we're on fire alert here in Southern California, specifically here in Santa Clarita.

John Evarts was forced to evacuate his home last night. He and his family are staying next door at the home of Martin Rodriguez. We could have a small ActiveRain gathering on our street right now. :) My family is all packed and ready to leave, IF NECESSARY, but we don't feel in danger right now. There is an aggressive air attack happening overhead right now. The fires are about 3/4 to 1 mile away, but the wind is blowing away from us at this point.

The photo above was taken just a few minutes ago. It shows how close the the Canyon Country/Agua Dulce Fire has come. The photo below was taken last night before we went to bed. The fires in this photo are about 4-5 miles away.

If you'd like to see more photos, from my perspective, you can see them here:

Photos Of The Southern California Fires on Flickr

Photos Of The Southern California Fires at InTheViewFinder.com

And How To Anchor Links Properly

The request for a video tutorial on how to add links to your blog posts came from several people, both in public and in private.

Once again, for many of you this may seem pedantic. But if people are asking, that means they don't know. And considering it's importance, it's best not to assume that people know. So, let's make this educational for more than just those who don't know how to link yet.

It's important to know more than the mechanics. It's important to know the right way to link as well.

If I want to give Nick M some link love, there are a couple of ways I can do it.

I can do this: Click Here to read Nick's Blog.

Or this: Read Nick's Blog.

But the best way to give him link love is like this: Nicolas M - REALTOR® in Palm Beach, South Florida.

Why? Because the link "anchor text" is very important.

And it has to do with relevancy and helping the search engines understand what a page is about. A link that is sent using relevant anchor text is more valuable to your search engine optimization than one that is not. "Click here" adds no value to Nick at all and in fact may even hurt. What you are saying to the search engines is that Nick's page is about "click here." If enough people did that to Nick, he might be on the first page of google when you search for Click Here, but that's probably not what he wants to be found for.

"Nicolas M - REALTOR® in Palm Beach, South Florida" is relevant to the content on his site. What we are saying, to both the person clicking the link and to the search engines reading the page is "this page is about Nick, a REALTOR® in Palm Beach." I'm willing to bet that's the search term Nick is going after - "Palm Beach Realtor."

We all get lazy. I do too. Sometimes I'm simply not paying attention and don't write good anchor text for my links, but it's always a mistake when I don't pay attention to how I'm linking.

Here's the video:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Note: I mention one of the more famous anchor text pranks, but I misquoted. It was actually on the term "miserable failure."

More often than not, numerical data is best presented visually, in a chart.

There's no question, a good chart can have tremendous visual impact and make boring data come alive.

So, a good 3d bar graph or pie chart can really help when it comes to illustrating numbers. Stephanie Edwards-Musa wanted to know if there was an easy way to get create chart graphics for inclusion in posts here on ActiveRain.

There is.

Google To The Rescue

The recently updated spreadsheet application from Google has a very cool feature that allows you to export charts to an image file (PNG) to use wherever you see fit. The graphic you see here in this post was created using a Google spreadsheet. Here is a link to the actual Tom And Jerry spreadsheet.

The video simply walks through the steps required to go from data to chart to graphic. It's ridiculously simple. And, the tool gives you visual feedback on the changes you make to your chart as you go.

Here's the video:

And For My Fellow MAC Users Out There... iWork's Numbers has amazing charting features.

Example 3d Chart from Apple's iWork '08.

The ActiveRain Video Tutorial List

Since holding open auditions for suggestions, many have submitted, both in public and private, their requests for tutorial videos.

Here is the list so far:

• How To Make The Most Of Your Profile's Real Estate
• How To Add Widgets And HTML To Your Sidebar
• How To Copy And Paste
  
• How To Add Links To Your Blog
• How To Flow Text Around Images In A Post
• How To Embed Anything In Your Active Rain Posts
• How To Add Your AR Blog Posts To Various Groups
• How To Create Image Links In Your Posts
• How To Create Custom Graphics From Stock Photos
• How To Set Up A Domain Name To Forward/Redirect To An Existing Web Page
• How To Make Great Looking Charts To Add To Your Posts
• How To Add Some Depth To Your AR Posts

This post will be continually updated with the links to posts and videos as they are created. You can also find the ActiveRain Video Tutorials here.

A Quick Copy And Paste Tutorial

First, ignore the form tags. ActiveRain obviously doesn't want people creating forms in their blog posts, so the only way to make this work is to leave the form tags visible.

Now, with the cursor over the highlighted text, right click the mouse for options, and select 'copy'. Once you've done that, left click in the empty box 2 below, then right click your mouse again, and select 'paste' and you will have copied and pasted the text.

<form>

The ability to cut, copy, and paste is found in most programs. Sometimes, the ability to do these tasks via the mouse is disabled, but is still quickly achieved through the use of the shortcuts outlined above.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

The most common question asked of me by ActiveRain members is, "How do you get all of those widgets in your sidebar?"

So, let's get this ActiveRain Video Tutorial about the Sidebars out the door.

This video covers two areas:

• copying and pasting into your sidebar from outside sources, widgets,
• and creating your own html for your sidebar.

There are lots of widgets you can add to your sidebar, like LibraryThing, which is one of my favorites. There are literally thousands to choose from at Widgetbox. Getting those into your sidebar is as simple as copying and pasting the code they give you when you set up your widget. It's pretty simple, once you know where to paste it!

What is not as easy, for most, is creating your own "widgets" for your sidebar.

The example to the right shows what I mean. What if you want your logo to point to your bog or to your website and you don't know how to write HTML? There may be a widget generator out there to help you, but you don't need it. This video should clarify how to create your own and give you a simple way to customize your sidebar to your heart's delight.

Here's the video:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

This is the first in our series of ActiveRain Tutorials, so I thought we'd start at the beginning.

I've set up a demonstration account for a fictitious agent named Ima Realtor. Hopefully the NAR won't make me change her last name. I like the way the name flows. :)

This video tutorial is not meant to cover every aspect of what you can or should do to make sure your profile is tuned to attract search engines. The goal is to illustrate how to utilize every inch of the real estate ActiveRain has provided to get the most from your profile content. From the beginning, you want to take up as much of the real estate as you can, paying close attention to how you want to be found on the Internet.

This video has a heavy focus on the profile photo and the quantity of content in your profile.

Why the photo?

Because it's a mini-billboard. If you're going to upload your personal photo, then you might as well make sure it works as hard for you as it can. Which photo on the right stands out most? There are lots of ways to make your photo stand out, but one of the keys is maximizing the space provided.

Why the quantity of content?

Because more content means more points and better visibility. The quality of the content and the quality of the links contained in that content is what will help drive the search engines to you, but when it comes to content, more is always better. Luckily, ActiveRain also rewards you for paying attention to this fact.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Open Call For Ideas

It never fails. Each time I post one of my tutorial videos, like this tutorial on Picnik.com or this tutorial on how to embed anything in your ActiveRain posts, I get an email or two asking how to do something else on ActiveRain. It happened again yesterday. So...

I's time for a complete video tutorial library.

I truly enjoy doing them, so don't be shy. As Sue Argue says, everyone starts at the beginning. There are lots of places on ActivRain where you can find written descriptions with photos, but sometimes it's helpful to see it in action.

So, leave your requests here and I'll make a list. Once the list is together, I'll knock them out one at a time and post a complete list of videos for everyone to use in their online learning process. Don't be afraid to request a tutorial on something that's outside of ActiveRain that might help you here... like embedding Trulia Stats, for example.

Go ahead, raise your hand. There are no stupid questions.

A little while back I wrote How To Add Some Depth To Your AR Posts, but it was for MAC ONLY.

Jennifer Wilson, really wanted a way to do this on her PC, that was easier to use than Photoshop and she wrote a post about it. Well, since it's my fault that she is on this hunt, I felt it was my responsibility to find a solution that would apply to my PC using friends as well.

PICNIK.COM

I've reviewed Picnik.com before, but haven't been back in a while.

I am delighted to tell you they have enhanced their offering and have added a ton of new features, most of which you can use for free and without ever signing up for an account. The image to the right was created online at Picnik.com without signing up for an account. It's easy, fast and you can see everything happening in real time on screen. So, you won't have to guess if it's going to look right.

As you can see, it does the trick of making the image pop off the page. This is just one technic and style you can use there. There are others as well.

Video Tutorial

The video below shows you exactly how I did this, but I think you will find that the site is simple to follow and WAY EASIER to use than Photoshop!

Jennifer... this one's for you.