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Archives for August 2011

Amazon Reveals a New Website Design

August 30, 2011 By AvidNetizen Leave a Comment

I was somewhat surprised this morning when I clicked through an Amazon email to see their new website design. [Read more…]

Future Changes for Google’s Android App Inventor

August 30, 2011 By Topher 1 Comment

Android vs. Alien

Users of Google’s Android App Inventor were greeted today with an email from Google outlining immediate and future changes to the service.

In addition to an immediate change to the URL, Google states that by the end of the year it will no longer be supporting the service.

While your projects are safe for now, App Inventor users will need to retrieve any data that they want to save before the end of the year when MIT’s Google-funded Center for Mobile Learning will take the reins.

In case you accidentally discarded the email, here it is:

Dear App Inventor User,

As a result of the recent changes to Google Labs and App Inventor, effective immediately, the URL for App Inventor will change from appinventor.googlelabs.com to appinventorbeta.com. This URL change WILL NOT have an impact on your projects stored in App Inventor.  All data that you see in your appinventor.googlelabs.com account, as well as documentation and email forums will be available at appinventorbeta.com.

As we announced on the App Inventor Announcement Forum, Google will end support for App Inventor and open source the code base at the end of this year.  Additionally, in order to ensure the future success of App Inventor, Google has funded the establishment of a Center for Mobile Learning at the MIT Media Lab, where MIT will be actively engaged in studying and extending App Inventor.  This transition will happen at the end of 2011.  At that time you will need to download your data from appinventorbeta.com in order to continue working with it in the open source instance of App Inventor.  In the coming months we will send you detailed instructions on how to download your data.

Please visit the App Inventor user forums to get future updates on App Inventor.

The App Inventor Team

© 2011 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

You have received this mandatory service announcement email to update you about important changes to your App Inventor account.

Top image by JD Hancock

If you are interested in making your own Android apps, you can get started quickly with Android Apps for Absolute Beginners through my referral link. Even if you don’t have any experience programming or making apps, this book will get you started in this growing market. Click here to get it on Amazon.

4 Simple Ways to Make Money with Amazon

August 30, 2011 By AvidNetizen Leave a Comment

Though Amazon.com is the world’s largest online retailer, it also provides opportunities for others (i.e. you) to get in on the action. Here are four simple ways you can get a piece of the Amazon pie. [Read more…]

Amazon AppStore: An App Market for the Smart Shopper

August 30, 2011 By SLee Leave a Comment

Amazon AppStore Unlike your highly restricted iPhone toting friends, you Android users have multiple options for obtaining new apps, including Amazon’s AppStore. This alternative to the Google Market is a must-have for smart, thrifty, and shrewd users like yourself. [Read more…]

15 Ways To Establish Your Blog as a Brand

August 26, 2011 By guest Leave a Comment

Brand Your Blog

Brand Your Blog

What is blog branding? It’s very similar to product branding. It’s a way of ensuring that your readers remember the look and feel of your blog, as well as its name and purpose. Blog branding firmly entrenches your blog into the memory of the internet, thus establishing its presence. Here are 15 ways to brand your blog.

1. CLEARLY DEFINE YOUR BLOG’S PURPOSE

Clearly defining your blog’s purpose helps you stick to a topic, gives you ideas for posts and defines and narrows keyword scope for SEO. What a clear purpose also does is to set you apart as unique from other blogs in your niche area. Highlight your blog’s purpose on your About page and refer to it in your posts.

2. CREATE A MISSION STATEMENT

Create a mission statement that states what your blog represents. This lets your visitors know why they’re visiting your blog and how your blog is worth their time. Highlight your mission statement after your blog title, in emails, in your comment signature and so on. Your aim is to make people associate your mission statement with your blog and vice versa.

3. CHOOSE A UNIQUE COLOR COMBINATION

Think of any product line or company; what colors snap to mind? Or, think of a color combination; which organization or product snaps to mind? Transfer this concept to your blog. Use a unique color combination and ensure that this same combination is repeated in your posts, newsletters, personal emails, digital signature and so on. The color combo becomes synonymous with your blog.

4. CHOOSE AN ORIGINAL BLOG DESIGN

An original design can do great wonders for your blog’s branding. Find a design that distinguishes your blog from the thousands of other blogs out there. It’s a good idea to create your own design; you can customize your colors, add custom blog headers and footers and design new fonts.

5. PICK AN ORIGINAL NAME FOR YOUR BLOG

Pick an original name that reflects your blog’s content and its purpose. If possible, get a .com extension for your blog, as this is the most common one. If you are not able to do so, indicate the extension when you mention your blog name. Keep your blog’s name short, easy to remember, easy to spell and niche-relevant.

6. PUBLICIZE YOUR BLOG

Popularize your blog on sites such as Technorati and StumbleUpon, get backlinks, post comments on other blogs and send out email newsletters. Guest blogging is a great way to bring visitors in to your site. This not only raises awareness, but also earns you links. Guest blogging is also a great way to showcase those writing skills!

7. POST IDENTIFIABLE COMMENTS

When you post comments on other blogs, make sure you mention your name, followed by your blog’s name in the Name field. Be consistent about this. Soon your comments will be easily identified by your name and your blog’s name. You get more search engine credit this way.

8. STICK TO A CONSISTENT WRITING STYLE

The way you write is one of the main parameters that visitors use to determine the overall quality of your blog. A consistent writing style will help you strength your blog’s brand. Decide on a style and stick to it so that people know what to expect when they see a post from you. The writing style fits in with the blog’s branding just as much as other elements do.

9. DON’T CHANGE YOUR TAGLINE

A tagline is not mandatory but helps to stick your blog in people’s memories. Create a descriptive, short, catchy and easy to remember tagline. Start using it consistently with your posts. Don’t experiment with a bunch of taglines on your posts before you finalize on one; you’ll only lose out on branding mileage if you do so. Add the tagline to your website’s tag, so that the tagline is displayed prominently whenever your blog is displayed on search engine results.

10. DESIGN A GREAT BLOG LOGO

A great logo represents your blog visually, just as a country is represented by its flag. Your logo might require a certain amount of investment; even if you have to scrimp on other investments, make the logo your priority. Your logo will be the first thing that people see and the image they’ll recall later.

11. DESIGN A UNIQUE FAVICON

Design a favicon using your logo and the initials of your blog’s name. Your favicon appears on your user’s bookmark, which makes them recognize your blog site immediately.

12. LET YOUR BLOG’S DESIGN FLOW WITH ITS CONTENT

Match your blog’s content with its design and vice versa. It’s incongruous to blog on race cars on a background of flowers or landscape scenes. If you’re providing serious news, opt for a traditional design. If you are blogging about celebrities, use interesting celebrity collages on your borders.

13. POPULARIZE YOUR BLOG’S NAME ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

Create accounts for your blog on various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed and so on. Getting your brand within social networks is like advertising in the front page of all dailies in the world. Even if you are a well known figure, create social networking accounts on your blog’s name.

14. SPLURGE A LITTLE ON ADVERTISING YOUR BLOG

A paid promotional effort, added to all the above efforts, can put your blog on the map more quickly and effectively. Evaluate your budget constraints and decide how much advertising you can afford. By using paid advertising, you can deliver tailored messages to specific audiences.

15. SPREAD THE WORD

Use your blog’s name and your logo in as many places as you possibly can. This has the same psychological impact as product advertising has. Advertisers barrage the public with a repeated image and message for months, to get people to instantly recognize the product. Input your logo, your mission statement, your blog’s name and URL into your email signatures, guest post bylines, online forums, Ad banners and so on.

This has been a guest post by David. David works for conversion rate optimization Company and helps businesses in landing page optimization, conversion optimizations and affiliate marketing.

If you are interested in contributing a guest post, please contact us.

Top image by Acradenia

Flick Kick Football is Hours of Fun for Soccer Lovers

August 20, 2011 By SLee Leave a Comment

Flick Kick FootballWith the flood of new apps (games and otherwise) flooding into the world of Android, it can sometimes be overwhelming to try and find one worth its salt. For Android-powered soccer lovers, this burden has at least been temporarily relieved by the latest in the Flick Kick series: Flick Kick Football. [Read more…]

Improve your HTC Battery Life in 3 Easy Steps

August 20, 2011 By SLee Leave a Comment

BatteriesWhen I first started using a smartphone, I was a little surprised at how short the battery life was compared to my feature phone. Moving from an iPhone to the HTC EVO was even more of a surprise. I could usually get two days out of my iPhone 3G before needing a recharge, but when I first got my HTC EVO, I couldn’t even make it through a full day before needing some more juice. [Read more…]

Duke Nukem Forever “The Duke Dome” Walkthrough

August 14, 2011 By SLee 3 Comments

Duke Nukem Forever Chapter 7: Duke DomeThis walkthrough for Duke Nukem Forever Chapter 7: “The Duke Dome” will show you how to complete the seventh chapter of Duke Nukem Forever and get your ego cap reward.

Getting to the Duke Dome

In the last chapter, Duke escaped Vegas in Ruin through a sewer, which is where you find yourself at the beginning of this chapter; to get to the Duke Dome you must find your way through this sewer pipe. When you get to the end of the sewer pipe, continue through the path of rubble. Avoid the electrified puddle by jumping from the bank to the pallet in the middle of the puddle, and from the pallet to the other bank.

When you get to the end of the rubble path, your progress is blocked by a fire. On the left side of the fire is a corpse hanging from a piece of rebar. On the corpse’s back is a fire extinguisher. Shoot the fire extinguisher to put out the fire, then continue into the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel is a ladder. Climb up the ladder to continue to the Duke Dome.

Outside the Duke Dome

When you get to the top of the ladder, you will see two construction workers standing on top of some crates talking about ridiculous things. They notice you and tell you to get on the crane to get out of the area that they are trapped in.

When the crane comes over, jump inside the box that it’s carrying. Notice that it has a resupply crate; you’re going to need that very soon. As the crane starts to take you away, an Assault Commander comes and kills the guys you first saw in this area. The crane then takes you over to a parking structure that is infested with aliens. Use whatever fire power you can find to kill them.

After each wave of aliens, the crane moves you a little bit further where you have to take on another wave. Remember to use the resupply ammo crate to keep well-stocked with ammo. Also be sure to use the metal sheet on the left side for cover when you need it. After a few of these waves, the aliens run a car out of the parking structure that collides with the box that you are being carried around in, and it will drop you to the ground below.

When you are on the ground, hope over any obstacles in your way, and find the gate with the glowing lock. Punch the lock off and go through the gate to the plaza in front of the Duke Dome. There are a handful of Pig Cops here that you have to take care of. Remember to hold on to your pistol if you are trying to unlock the Duke Nukem Forever Gunslinger Achievement.

When all the Pig Cops are dead, you need to figure out how to get out of the plaza. On the side opposite of the one you came in, there is a red, explosive barrel. If you haven’t shot it already, shoot the barrel to destroy some boxes that are holding up an open crate. When the crate is low enough for you to jump into, can climb through it to get to the next area.

After you jump out the other side of the crate, you see a construction trailer directly in front of you. The door to the trailer is locked, so you have to find another way in. Go around the back of the trailer and climb up the ladder to the roof. You can then go through any open skylights or punch one out and jump through it to get into the trailer.

In this room is a copy machine. Walk up to the copy machine and press “X” to open it and again to make a copy. This is your one and only ego cap reward at the Duke Dome for a whopping +1 ego point.

After stroking your ego, walk into the next room and on your left is a telephone. This is the next message in the Duke Nukem Forever Call Waiting Achievement.

There is glowing switch next to the door. Flip the switch and then an alien drop ship shows up. There are several weapons lying around inside the trailer, and it is a pretty easily defended location, so I recommend killing as many aliens as you can through the windows in the trailer, taking cover as needed. After you kill several waves of aliens, some berserking pig-cops show up and turn the trailer over. Escape through the skylights and kill any pig-cops you see.

When all the aliens are dead, find the gate in the chain-link fence. There is a spotlight shining on the switch to open it. Hit the switch, but the gate doesn’t open. Follow the on-screen instructions to force open the gate and proceed forward to trigger part two of the Duke Dome.

Duke Dome: Part 2

Walk into the crate directly in front of you. It will tip forward, allowing you to go out the doors on the other side. Follow the path around to an area with a lot of other crates. There is a flickering spotlight on a dark red crate directly in front of you as you approach.

The goal in this Duke Dome crate puzzle is to get that crate to tip forward so that you can jump on top of it and get to the scaffolding on the other side. To accomplish this feat, you have to load the crate full of barrels to weigh it down. There is a barrel visible on the crate to your left. Grab it, walk around to the back of the dark red crate, and throw it in to the far end. Then walk back around and shoot the the red barrel that’s visible in the crate behind the one you got the first barrel from. This will cause two more barrels to fall out the back side of this crate. Walk around to get these barrels and throw both of them into the dark red crate.

When you have all three barrels loaded in the crate, walk back around and climb up the ladder on the side of the crate you got the first barrel from. Then jump from that crate onto the top of the dark red crate and continue across to the scaffolding. Follow the scaffolding and jump down into the next area.

You see two aliens flying the twins to the Duke Dome, and they cry out, “Duke, save us!” On some more scaffolding close to where the twins are taken in, two other aliens who seem to be keeping guard notice you and start to attack. Kill them and continue around to the crane. Try to use the crane, and Duke says, “Hmm, needs juice.” You have to find a battery to power the crane.

Get out of the cockpit of the crane and climb on top of it. Walk to end of the crane boom and jump onto the scaffolding at the end. The top level collapses, dropping you onto a lower level. Jump down from there to the next level and from that small platform onto a lower one that has a room in it. You can find at least a pistol in that room. (If you are working on the Duke Nukem Forever Gunslinger Achievement, you should already have a pistol, and this will just be additional ammo for you.) Use your pistol to shoot the red barrels in the crate that is suspended in front of you. Then jump into this crate and continue to the other side.

When you get to the other side, find the ladder up to the next level. Then go up the planks and up the cinder blocks into the top level. You find the battery you need and an RPG launcher in a room on the top level. Pick up the battery and the RPG launcher. An alien ship shows up and destroys the room you were in, dropping you down a level. You must fight the alien ship with the RPG launcher. Use the EDF ammo resupply crate in the corner of this area to get more RPG’s as needed. When you damage the ship to a critical level, it will destroy the wall that is retaining you and fly off into the distance.

Go through the hole the alien ship created and turn left. Go through the gate to get back to the path to the crane. Take the path to the right and back around to the crane. The battery area of the crane is glowing, showing you where to put the battery you just collected. Follow the on-screen instructions to insert the battery, and then go back to the crane cockpit.

Your goal here is to make a hole in the side of the Duke Dome so that you can get it in. Grab the crane controls and swing the wrecking ball into the side of the Duke Dome. The scaffolding will collapse and some aliens will show up. You don’t have to worry about shooting the aliens. Just keep slamming the wrecking ball into the side of the Duke Dome, and the collision will take care of the aliens. Continue slamming the wrecking ball against the side of the building until it falls off. Then move the crane boom as far left and as far down as you can.

Exit the crane cockpit and climb on top of it and across the boom again. Jump down through the hole you just made. Kick open the door and go through it to end Duke Dome.

I hope you liked this walkthrough for Duke Nukem Forever Chapter 7: “Duke Dome.” Continue to the next walkthrough for Duke Nukem Forever Chapter 8: “The Hive” or go to the Duke Nukem Forever Walkthrough Table of Contents.

Did I forget anything? Are you having trouble with something? Leave a comment below.

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