I have just released version 4.0 of STG FolderPrint Plus.
The changes in this one are worthy of a major version:
– The PDF export system was completely replaced, and if you ever used it, you will notice the difference right away, because it is much, much faster than the old one. You also have a Export to PDF button and menu item on the Preview.
– Preview inside ZIP files. If you are always looking into compressed files and opening them to preview a single file, you'll like this one. I wrote a full post about it.
As usual (for my programs, that is), this a free upgrade for all users, and your old key will just work.
I just finished watching the last video in the DesignBoost Landing Page Design Course. As you might have guessed from the name, it covers how to build good landing pages (i.e.: that convert well for the audience they are intended for).
I took the course because I'm really not satisfied with my current landing pages (or my regular website), and it seemed like it would help.
The course consists of 24 lessons. Each lesson has one or more videos (mostly streamed online via Vimeo), and there are several PDF worksheets to guide your design work. There is also a large download pack with buttons, background and whole page designs that is quite useful.
During the course there are also links to useful resources and articles.
The course starts with defining landing pages and how to use them, including the importance of keeping them focused. It is much easier to convert a specific audience rather than try to make a single page for everyone that converts poorly for all of them. In that sense, all landing pages should have a single strategic goal and an audience in your mind. If you have several goals or audiences (search traffic, PPC, e-mail campaigns, Facebook,etc) , you should design one for each.
To that purpose, several of the lessons involve how match the traffic to the page, defining the sales funnel and conversion goals.
Files in the download pack.
Next the course goes to the page copy, covering headlines, hooks and several tricks to improve conversion (such as using client or download numbers as social boast, testimonials, establishing trust and setting a sense of urgency).
Then it covers layout, design, color and how to use the helper tools and design elements in the download kit that comes with the course.
At this point, if you are following the lessons and assignments with the worksheets you should have a finished landing page design. The final lessons cover slicing (cutting the page graphical elements to convert to HTML), usability and split testing (for split testing, I have used and recommend Optimizely – see my review for more details).
Overall, the course is well thought and includes a process using worksheets so that for any landing page you need to design, you can just answer the questions and cover the guidelines in the worksheets to follow along. I personally felt that it could have had more coverage of layout options. The download pack is very useful. Given the price and time involved (took me 6 hours not counting the assignments), it is a pretty good deal.
I'll definitely go through my old landing pages now with new eyes.
97 Things Every Programmer Should Know is a collection of short essays on many programming topics – coding, testing, pair programming, and more.
You can get a full list of the essays, as well as the full content. It was a bit surprising how much shorter and less readable they seem in this format, compared to the MOBI file.
The essays are somewhat useful, but most of them cover subjects that any good programmer should already have seen elsewhere, and thus were not very useful to me.
That said, while the amount of notes that I took in this book is way below average, it still contains plenty of interesting content.
Some of the essays I found useful or interesting:
38. How to use a Bug Tracker
39. Improve Code by Removing it
41. Interprocess Communication Affects Application Response Time
52. Let Your Project Speak for Itself
56. Make the Invisible more Visible
57. Message passing Leads to Better Scalability in Parallel Systems
The examples and checklist in the end are quite useful. A personal pet peeve for me is sites (as well as magazines) that don't have sufficient contrast! It is still quite common.
Of course, reading this I realize that I really should redesign my blogs and my site… Oh, well…
One common situation when I use STG FolderPrint Plus is doing a search on my graphics folder, and have a whole bunch of results that are inside ZIP files. I don't want to extract them because these are very large ZIP files, with ten of thousands of items (icons in different file types and resolutions or graphic packs mostly).
For the graphics outside the ZIP files, since a few version backs you can preview while using the Search screen. But for each file found inside a ZIP file, I open the ZIP file, find the specific file, and open it to check it out.
But now, on the first feature of FPP 4, it can also preview files inside ZIP files – so you can just click the file, and get your preview right into the program.
FPP 4 will be made available when more new features are ready.
I read Quick & Easy Keyword Optimization, Setting up a Profitable Flow of Traffic – by Karon Thackston – on record time (maybe 15 minutes) , mostly because I recently read her SEO Copywriting Flow recently. And it is on most part the same material.
So, is it any good? Yes, there are a few insights that makes SEO Copywriting Flow worth it, but for the current US$25 (US$15 with the launch discount) difference I can't recommend you get this one instead.
There are a few extra insights here, though:
use keyphrases, individual words and synonyms in your copy. This is not mentioned on the book, but there are LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) tools all around that search for relevant synonyms for keywords.
remember to add your keywords on bullet lists.
position as opposite to avoid calling your product something that users are looking for (i.e.: cheap).
There is also a mention of using Wordtracker Title and Description Wizard. Doesn't seem particularly useful, though.
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