10 Most Useful Opera Widgets

Opera widgets are free and small web programs that run outside the browser and make the desktop experience more fun. They can also be useful providing easy and quick access to information or services. There are about 1300 widgets of many kinds. Examples include news feeds, different games, pixel rulers, world web cams, search tools and many others.

Installing widgets in Opera is very easy. To do this, use the Widgets panel or menu and select "Add widget". This will open a web page where you can choose and download widgets that Opera will install automatically.

The most of widgets are very funny but only some of them are actually useful in a real life situation.

This is my list of 10 the most useful Opera widgets that work well for me.

Scientific calculator

The Scientific Calculator Opera Widget provides the look and feel of a real calculator. It allows you to perform mathematical calculations with advanced scientific functions.


TouchtheSky

This very useful and nice widget provides you with international weather reports, in detailed, compact and mini modes. With the help of touchtheSky widget you can find out such information as temperature, wind speed, air quality (including humidity, pollen levels, and UV levels), weather forecast for five days and so on.


Google Translator

Google Translator allows you to translate text directly in the widget or translate a specified web page.

Of course, this widget will translate only the languages that can be translated by Google's own translation service.


Time and Date

A customizable calendar widget with events and reminders.

Torrent PowerSearch

This widget is excellent tool for searching for torrents across multiple sites.
It will display search results in tabs simultaneously for all sites you have selected. Displays all the key information: name, download link, size, seeders, and leechers.


GoogleToolBar

This nice widget provides you quick and easy access to google services.


Flash Video Downloader

With the help of Flash Video Downloader you can download embedded flash video from video sharing websites like YouTube. Just put the link to the video you want to download to the appropriate field and click "Download!"
You also can use this widget to download flash games from such sites as gamesvine.com, gamespot.com, armorgames.com etc.

ImageGrep

The ImageGrep Opera widget shows search results from image-search websites such as Google, Flickr and so on.

iTunes Widget

iTunes widget will show on desktop the latest music provided by iTunes. New Releases, Top Albums, Top Songs, Just Added and Featured Albums and Exclusives available on iTunes. This widget supports all store languages, genres and types.

Functions 3D

You can use this widget to built surfaces from mathematical expressions. Just enter a mathematical function and have it rendered in a 3D space.

I like all these Opera widgets and use it everyday.

Content source - http://good-software.blogspot.in/2008/11/10-most-useful-opera-widgets.html

10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics

Information graphics, visual representations of data known as infographics, keep the web going these days. Web users, with their diminishing attention spans, are inexorably drawn to these shiny, brightly coloured messages with small, relevant, clearly-displayed nuggets of information. They’re straight to the point, usually factually interesting and often give you a wake-up call as to what those statistics really mean.

Who can resist a colourful, thoughtful venn diagram anyway? In terms of blogging success, infographics are far more likely to be shared than your average blog post. This means more eyeballs on your important information, more people rallying for your cause, more backlinks and more visits to your blog. In short, a quality infographic done well could be what your blog needs right now.

Designing An Infographic

Some great tips for designing infographics:

• Keep it simple! Don’t try to do too much in one picture.
• Decide on a colour scheme.
• Research some great facts and statistics.
• Think of it as a visual essay: ensure your arguments hold and are relevant.
• Remember that it’s all about quickly conveying the meaning behind complex data.
• Draw conclusions.
• Reference your facts in the infographic.
• Include your URL so people can be sure who made it.

Ideas for infographic formats include:

• Timelines;
• Flow charts;
• Annotated maps;
• Graphs;
• Venn diagrams;
• Size comparisons;
• Showing familiar objects or similar size or value.

Here are some great tutorials on infographic creation:

• How to Create Outstanding Modern Infographics
• Infographic Designs: Overview, Examples and Best practices
• Tutorial: Create Cool Infographics
• 10 of my Favourite Infographics
• 40 Useful and Creative Infographics
• Seven and a Half Steps to Successful Infographics
• The Anatomy of an Infographic
• 10 Tips for Journalists Designing Infographics

Creating Your Infographic

• Plan and research.
• If required, use free software to create simple graphs and visualisations of data.
• Use vector graphic software to bring these visualisations into the one graphic.

Ultimately, if you have a little design skill, the very best approach is to create all the simple graphs and illustrations yourself using vector graphic software. Your end result will be more visually attractive and you will have more freedom to be creative with it.

Free Online Tools For Creating Infographics

Stat Planet

Stat Planet allows you to create some amazing interactive visualisations, which you can then use as is or create a static image. It can be used within your browser or downloaded for free. Stat Planet gives you access to some great world data and lets you customise that in your visualisations. It also has some great map-based visualisations to try.

Hohli

Hohli is an intuitive, simple online chart maker. It’s incredibly easy to pick your chart type, add some data, vary the sizes and colours and see the finished chart. The finished charts are also very well designed and look great!

Creately

Creately lets you make easy-to-make diagrams and flow charts (easy to collaborate too). When you start, you can choose from a number of purpose-designed diagram types and quickly add your data to make your own chart. The end result looks very professional.

New York Times

New York Times’ Visualization Lab lets you use statistics from recent NYTimes articles to create visualisations in various formats. You can also see other people’s visualisations and see how other people choose to display the same data.

Many Eyes

Many Eyes lets you upload your own data or use data already stored on the site. The visualisations themselves are well-designed and very professional-looking. This is definitely the easiest way to use your own data for online visualisations.

Google Public Data

Google Public Data lets you easily take public data and transform it into an infographic of your choice. These beautiful, colourful graphics simplify and communicate the data perfectly.

Wordle

Wordle lets you create word visualisations using text you enter. There are plenty of interesting designs to choose from. Enter whole books, short passages or see what other people have used. In this example, we can see the US constitution visualised.

Free Software For Creating Infographics

Tableau

Tableau is a free Windows-only software for creating visualisations. As you can see, these impressive graphs are colourful and quite unique.

Gapminder

GapMinder is a free Adobe Air (cross-platform by nature) application to ensure you have current data on major world issues and can create visualisations for your purposes. Data is updated yearly and released with new versions of the application. The visuals are also quite impressive!

Inkscape

Inkscape is a free vector graphic software available for many platforms. This is the ideal free option for the creation of your overall infographic. Simple and intuitive, you should have no problems importing your visualisations and combining them with other visuals to create your masterpiece.

Love Infographics?

If you’re a fan of infographics, these tools will probably become part of your everyday blogging tools. Feel free to let us know of more great tools in the comments!

Content Source 

- 10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics

New Marketing Techniques For Software And Technology Companies

Given the rapid pace of change across the industry, software and technology companies everywhere are in need of new marketing techniques to help spread the word about their latest products, services and advances. Of course, despite the constantly shifting technological landscape, some things never change. Whether you are a software firm, a mobile app developer, an IT firm or a web-services business, there are three essential marketing must-haves if you want to be successful:

• You need to set yourself apart from the competition.
• You need to get found on the Internet.
• You need to convert website visitors into leads and, eventually, into new clients.

Square 2 Marketing’s proven Reality Marketing™ approach helps you (and your prospects) look at your technology company differently, creating the kind of remarkable product and service offerings that raise the stakes, leaving your competitors struggling to keep up.

Once you start thinking differently about your business, you can begin to think differently about how you market your business. New marketing techniques like inbound marketing offer technology companies like yours the ability to create targeted educational content that leverages search and social media to get your products and services found online.

Now that your software or technology company is getting found, Square 2 Marketing gives you the conversion tools and tactics your sales team needs to nurture new prospects into long-term clients. But that may be easier said than done.

Very often your prospects are nervous, anxious or just hesitant when it comes time to make a decision. That’s perfectly understandable. Chances are, your products or services represent a large investment of time, money and energy. Prospects need to feel comfortable and reassured. Based on the educational inbound marketing approach above, Square 2 Marketing helps you move away from the old, outbound sales model toward a new, consultative sales process in which your team guides prospects to the best possible solution.

Want to learn more about how the new marketing techniques we offer benefit software and technology companies like yours? Reach out to a Square 2 Marketing Strategist today.

Content Source - New Marketing Techniques