Even if you are already using a task management tool or a project management tool this post will help you look out some of the new features these free newer tools offer.

Lets get started,

Project management tolls for Web Designers/Developers

1. Asana: It is a Free Web based Project Management, Bug Tracking  and  Task Management app. It is free upto a team of 30 members and is compatible on smart phones. The best feature of this app is that its lighting fast and is bundled with keyboard shortcuts. The modern look and feel, clubbed with useful features as labeling,commenting, setting up goals, milestones, releases, creating sprints , backlog, converting features into tasks with deadlines, follow projects and maintaining notes make it one of my personal choice for project management. It is an app made for small designers to big companies. Click here to see Demo Video for Asana project management.

2. Cohuman: Cohuman is more of a task management and collaborative tool rather a complete project management system. This web app focuses on group projects where people can get connected and start working on tasks under projects. The main advantage with this tool is that it creates a priority score for tasks which allows the system to automatically re-prioritize tasks. This way you only have to focus on your limited set of work. Cohuman is powerfully integrated with Google docs/apps and easy task creation just by sending mail. It supports mobile phones as well, so for collaborative projects this tool is definitely in the list. It is an app for Designers and group of collaborative designers. Click here to see more about Cohuman Management tool.

3. Trello: Trello is again more of a tracking tool which can track who is doing what ? rather than a complete project management. Though on the brighter side, it is a tool which you can use for everything including organizing events, sales and client management, bug tracking and just about everything which requires a collaborative effort. The USP of this is that it deals in tasks as cards, where in each card is a new task. With this approach it becomes very easy to monitor who is doing what and how much % work is remaining. It also has some cool features as commenting, voting, labeling, check-listing and notifications. It is a powerful, yet simple tool and if have a small team then it is a great tool to start with. Click here to learn more about Trello.

4. Basecamp: Well, this is one of the most popular web based app which is currently being used by big companies to small web designers, but increasingly it is used for client interaction like Client management and support requests. Again it is not a complete project management system but a very easy to use combination of tools such as to do lists, lists, labeling, file uploading, commenting system combined. But Basecamp comes with a rider which one can not ignore, even if you get a free personal project to try on Basecamp but thereafter the pricing is too high even for small projects. Click here to know more about Basecamp.

5. Nokahuna: Nokahuna is free web based task management app for unlimited projects and members upto 330MB data . This is an amazing app which packs some of the premium features for free. It has projects, tasks, labels, due dates, project categories, commenting,   task stages, re-assignment, messaging, email integration, mobile suppot and project events. Its an excellent tool for task management and an excellent choice for designers and developers whether a small group or a large size team. It stands second in my list. Click here to know more about NoKahuna.

6. TomsPlanner: If you love excel and gantt charts then Tomsplanner is the tool for you. It is a unique app which uses a very intuitive panel for planning of day today tasks. Its a very good personal task management tool but I do not see how it can really fit an organization as a project management tool. Click here to view Demo of TomsPlanner

These are some of the interesting project and task management tools worth looking at and trying out in your projects. This is not an exhaustive list, if you have more suggestions pour them in. Also any feedback on the above tools is welcome. So which tool are you using for your next project?

This brings us to the point, Why is Google PR so important ? To understand this we first need to know some basic facts:

1. Google PR is updated randomly. It may be 1 month, 3 month, 6 months or may be even 11 months and no one knows when the next update is coming. All we know is that when PR has been updated you'll see people talking about this.
The last confirmed PR update was in Feb'12 and is suspected to be updated on 2 May'12.

2. Google Page rank only ranks the web page not the domain or the website.

Suppose my website's homepage is ranked 6 then this PageRank tells the rank of homepage only and not the domain or other pages. However, there is another popular metric which can be used to analyze the ranking of the domain that is "MozRank" from SeoMoz which consolidates the rank of the pages and domain as a whole and is updated consistently.

3. According to many SEO Gurus, Google page rank is a raw indication of link popularity . Take the example of Facebook which has PageRank 9 and Google 10 and accordingly everything relatively scales down, It does not take into account  whether sites are related to each other or not. It takes into account how many pages are pointed towards it and if important pages are pointed it would definitely rank better.

4. PageRank is believed to be calculated on logarithm scale. SEO Gurus believe that PageRank does not use log base 2, rather uses log base 8-9 which is not observed through the toolbar PageRank.

5. PageRank is a floating point number which we call as Real PageRank, calculated and updated multiple times a day internally. Google decides which url's to crawl and how to prioritize pages. Important pages are crawled more frequently or pages where the content is unique and updated frequently.

7. The  history of PageRank is very important. A site is having PageRank of 6 and suddenly it dropped to 2, this might be due to google penalization or the site did something wrong. It is also possible that the site has done nothing wrong but a site linking to the site has been affected and that link was devalued.

8. PageRank should not be used for understanding the SERP ranking. They are not related to each other. It should not be used for valuing link prospects rather domain authority, page authority, anchor text, number of visitors can be used.

9. PageRank should not be treated as the primary metric for measuring performance of your website. The most important performance indicators are keywords, traffic, quality visits and visitors on the website.

Apart from above facts, we still haven't touched on why PR is important. Well its simple fact, its the only measurable metric defined by Google to track your SEO performance.

Also "higher PR pages have a better chance of making to better search engine rankings", errr.. not necessarily true, in-fact ideally most websites with high PR have high domain authority and therefore rank higher in SERPs.

Getting high PR is like a mouse chase where we are the cat, as soon as we thought we have it, it just slips away and takes a new turn.

But the real crux of the book lies in the later half when the author starts describing the "importance of keywords", "How to do keyword research" and "Competitive keyword analysis". The best part comes when the author defines what keyword assessment metrics one should use. Of all mentioned in the book my favorite are:

1. The PageRank Competitive assessment
2. Calculating Keyword Potential

Just a short summary:
The Pagerank Competitive assessment: For a particular keyword,calculate sum of Page ranks for top 10 results and number of results thrown by Google. If Sum of PR's < 35 and number of results < 100,000 then you have a higher probability to make it to the number one spot in Google, similarly other cases are mentioned.

Calculating Keyword Potential: For any keyword get the search volume and CPC. Export the result to excel sheet and apply the Adsense formula. The logic here is that if you were at no. 1 spot in Google for this keyword, you'll get almost 40% of traffic out of which 5% will convert, i.e they'll click where you want them to click. So the revenue you can earn via Adsense is equal to the maximum marketing budget you should allocate for CPC campaigns on this keyword.

This is the most Awesome and logical explanation I've ever heard in CPC/SEO campaigns.

To be honest, I've always believed that the biggest weakness of SEO campaigns is that there is no defined metric to judge the credibility of the campaign we've chosen. Why we chose a particular keyword to build back links and go for a CPC campaign while other keywords were neglected.
The book also then discusses on how to get back links for selected keywords and mentioned some of the upcoming trends, which I was unaware of.

"Getting to know SEO" covers and updates even the best in this business. Its a great job by Andre Kibbe (Content analyst and SEO expert from Envato ).

You can get this book here for $15 : Getting to know SEO

You spend hours tackling this issue and find that everytime you review your code, you're finding new bugs. Most often the project efficiency and your dedication towards a project is governed by the number of WTF's encountered while coding. And when the number goes beyond the threshold you realize maybe the  old high school development tool you are using to code is outdated and you need a replacement.

Here are some of my recommendations on Best development tools for Awesome WordPress Developers:

Best tools for WordPress development on MAC

1.  Espresso [ For HTML/CSS/JS/PHP ]
2. MAMP [ For Development, Setup Apache/Mysql ]
3. Transmit [ For FTP/SFTP/S3/Dev server ]
4.  SpriteRight [ Image Sprite Creation with CSS ]
5. NetTuts + Builder [ Auto CSS creation ]
6. CODA [ PHP/HTML/HELP/SVN/FTP]

Best tools for WordPress development on Windows

1. PHPDesigner  [ PHP/HTML/CSS/JS/FTP/HELP ]
2. XAMPP [ Development Setup, Apache/Mysql ]
3. Tortoise SVN [ SVN ]
4. GIMP [ Sprite Creation ]

This list isn't exhaustive so go on, comment below and add more !

The plugin supports 31 icons as can be in the image.

How to use VibeCodes:

1. Download and install the plugin.
2. You'll see a TINY MCE button in your posts editor.
3. Click on posts editor and select size of list.
4. Click insert, you'll see shortcodes inserted into the code. The short codes would look like
   
5. [list size="32"][star]this is a listitem[/star][help]this is a list item[/help][/list]
6.  Now above short code the icon type of list element is defined by the shortcode, such as [star] [/star] shortcode is inserted for elements beginning with a star icon. Similarly for other icons. All these shortcodes are given in the plugin TINY MCE button popup screen for help.

View VibeCodes Demo
List styling plugin

Download from this link [Members only, register as member here (its free)]:
This content is for members only.
Above Plugin is GPL and you can use it any of your commercial projects. Do post your suggestions or feedback for the plugin.

Enjoy!

vFlexslider has the following features:
* Responsive image Slider plugin for WordPress.
* Combination of vSlider framework and responsive flexslider.
* Two simple transitions Fade and Slide [Up,Down,left,right].
* Touch enabled for touch screen phones and pad [Android and ios supported].
* Mouse, Keyboard, Scroll navigation options.
* Pause and Play support.
* Random, Loop, start slide sequence options.
* Tiny MCE button support

Since vFlexslider is based on vSlider Developer framework to make it W3C compatible and error free. If you need to make any modifications to the look and feel of the slider. You need to open plugins editor and make the CSS changes in the vflexslider.css file.

Since the slider is responsive in nature, it does not require auto re-size features and image quality control. The assumption is that the featured images would be big enough to be accommodated in the slider without any resizing.
Note: It automatically takes the shape of the covering div.

View vFlexSlider Demo
Responsive WordPress Slider
Download from this link [Members only, register as member here (its free)]:
This content is for members only.
Above Plugin is GPL and you can use it any of your commercial projects. Do post your suggestions or feedback for the plugin.

Enjoy!

( v )

It is the most easy to edit theme which comes with inbuilt layout designer, post styles, and page formats. Not to mention the most important feature which was introduced in TwentyEleven was "Responsiveness". Which means Twentyeleven theme supports any resolution starting from iPhones to the big iMacs. Thanks to Automatic for taking the WordPress themes a leap forward.

Its not just about design, if you are on web then speed and support of different resolutions is a key factor in deciding the winner.

For Free WordPress themes designers Twentyeleven remains their hot favorite but editing Twenty eleven Theme for a client project or a customized version is not a good idea, simple because any update in Twenty Eleven would override all the custom changes.

Using a Child theme is the best possible solution for such situations. Here are my suggested blog posts in case you want to create your own Twenty Eleven Child theme :

Download a Free Twenty Eleven Child theme :

Download from this link:
This content is for members only.
Above theme is GPL and you can use it any of your commercial projects. Do post your suggestions or feedback for the theme.

Enjoy!

ImagePreview Features:

1. Simple & Lightweight plugin : 40kb size.
2. Auto adjust according to space available.
3. Comes with TinyMCE Button.
4. Multiple ImagePreview supported.

See it live and Download Free for Members! Click here to Register
This content is for members only.
Steps for adding For Multiple ImagePreview thumbs or direct usage in the Theme:

1. Install and active the plugin
2. You would require to add some HTML which is understood by the plugin, for example:

<ul class="preview">
<li class="imagepreview"><a href="http://www.google.com"> <!--- First Image -->
<img class="smallpreview" src="http://main.vibethemes.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/themes/vibethemes/img/flying.png"    alt="MrVibe" data-image-preview="http://main.vibethemes.netdna-cdn.com/img/VeryVibe.png">
</a> </li>
<li class="imagepreview"><a href="http://www.google.com"><!--- Second Image -->
<img class="smallpreview" src="http://main.vibethemes.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/themes/vibethemes/img/flying.png" alt="MrVibe" data-image-preview="http://main.vibethemes.netdna-cdn.com/img/VeryVibe.png">
</a></li>
</ul>

<script type="text/javascript">

$('.imagepreview').imagePreview({

});
</script>

Change Link to your desired reference point, smallimage to thumbnail ro small image version and large image to larger image version.

Share your feedback or request for next freebie at VibeThemes.com.

1. Which keywords should I select to start my SEO campaigns?
2. What kind of advertising should I start with Adwords?
3. Which banner ad style would be more successful? What should be the language of the Ad , formal or informal ?......

Various methods can be used to find or to do the analysis but have you heard of a survey followed by a simple marketing research, which can answer most of your concerns.

Why marketing research, it sounds very complicated...

Marketing research is not at all complicated provided you are clear on your objectives.
Traditionally, Marketing Research was the tool for big companies which used to analyze its promotional efforts, competitors but now with the advancement of technology and availability of research tools have made this possible for even a small blog or a website owner to go for it without shelling big bucks. Yes you heard it right, if you know some basics you can simply do a small survey followed by a simple research to achieve your objectives.

Optimizing ad placement through analysis and marketing research can reduce the cost of finding the right audience and raise the effectiveness of activities that follow like banner, text advertising etc.
One careful study of banner advertising found that proper audience affinities, the tendency of different sites to attract very different readership, boosted visit likelihood by 38% and visit to purchase conversion rates by 24%.

Not only this, marketing research` can provide you answers to your concerns such as like your competitor or other blogs from the same niche, blog content analysis, blog categories and attributes comparison etc.

We will start off by finding out

Where do you stand as a blogger or website owner against your competition? in other words How do people perceive you in the market?

Are you the most stylish among your competitors? Most knowledgeable or more fun ?

There are various direct-indirect methods available to find this out. Which we will cover in our next post.

Where do you stand against your competition.

Essential Features

1. Fast and optimized  (minimal number of HTTP requests to the server).

2. Elegant with good readability.

3. Lots of images which are optimized.

4. W3C validated

Good to have Features

5. Custom page and post template to create some promotional or special posts.

6. Custom Contact form

7. Multiple Sidebars including widgetized footer

8. Inbuilt SEO Widget ( Not my suggestion, I would still recommend using Vibe SEO Pack.)

9. Inbuilt Advertisement Widget.

10. Ability to change the Theme of the Blog with changing Campaign or seasons. ( if you have more suggestions, do post them in comments)

vCandy: Fastest WordPress Theme

This motivated me to create an ideal theme for bloggers, vCandy which as all the features mentioned above . AFAIK, it is the fastest WordPress theme till date. It scores  94 to 96 on Google Page speed and 92 on Yahoo yslow, Click here to know more, ( you can even compare your favorite theme with vCandy via this link as well). Apart form this the theme is 100% W3C validated Click here to know more. Page load time varies from 0.6s to 1.1 s.

Now, many may argue that the page load time of a site depends upon many factors, including the server configuration ( Apache or Nginix + hardware), therefore it was necessary to test this theme on the Worst case and Best case scenario. I have included lots of images in the blog posts of this theme (some are 1024x800px) but the theme automatically takes care of optimizing the images as well. In any scenario, the scores remained above 85 (Page speed) and 80(Yslow).

However, just by following few simple steps such as defining expiry of js,css and images in the .htaccess file, installing and configuring few popular plugins such as:

1. W3 Total Cache

2. WP Minify

3. WP HTAccess editor

4. WP Sanitize

I was able to improve my scores to close to 90.
All this I tried on a shared server, on a VPS you can see the current theme it scores 96 and 92. In any case I did not achieve these score even after switching to minimalist themes on the same WordPress installation.

We are providing free support to fist 25 buyers of vCandy ( Minor customizations and achieving top Page speed scores). Hurry before the count down (sum of the numbers Single Site License + Multi Site license) reaches 25!

Total vCandy sold= 38+23

vCandy Showcase Page
vCandy Features and Description
vCandy Theme Demo
Fastest WordPress Theme | Size: 250 Kb