Every day this week, I’ll be posting based upon a random Flickr image that inspires me. Here’s one now.

I love this photo because it’s reflective in nature. It requires one to look at it and reflect upon it, rather than merely appreciating it for its beauty. The message you receive from it is very likely different than the one I receive from it, but that’s what makes great art. The message that speaks to me is that life is a series of snapshot frames. Normally, we don’t notice all of the intricate twists and turns and nuances that speed by as we live our lives. But sometimes, if we stop for a moment to reflect upon our lives, we can catch a quick glimpse of the details we missed, and each detail is like a framed moment, captured at that instant.

Reflecting upon our personal lives holds real value, but that same type of reflection in your work life can as well. My work days are filled with multi-tasking and speed. I know I only have so many hours in a day to get tasks done, so I try to get as much accomplished as possible. Some days, I have to force myself to stop for a while, and just think. At those moments, I take a walk, pace a little, gaze out the window, or just stare at nothing for a while. That’s when I can focus on the details within the frames and see the things I missed. Sometimes, those things are just little details that I forgot to do. Other times, the things I missed were “big picture” things that make me want to slap myself on the forehead, and say “Duh!”

I encourage you to stop occasionally, take a walk, gaze at nothing, and reflect upon the detailed snapshot frames that you missed amongst your hurried life. You might be surprised at the insights you find there.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: details, focus, inspiration, Life, photos, reflections
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Let’s face it, crafting a good blog post or site article takes time. If I can find ways to cut corners, without sacrificing quality, I’ve just saved money. And as far as I’m concerned, saving money is the same thing as making money.

So, here’s one way to quickly, easily, and legally find and use Flickr images in your blog posts or site articles.

First, a quick lesson in copyright issues. Flickr has tons of photos with Creative Commons licensing, which allows you to use them, without cost, but with restrictions. There are various forms of Creative Commons licenses. Generally, I like to stick with the least restrictive, so that I never have to really worry about misunderstanding the license restrictions. The least restrictive license is the Attribution (BY:) license, which means that you can copy, distribute, display, and perform the copyrighted work, as well as any derivative works based upon it, but you must give credit (attribution). In other words, you can pretty much do anything you want with it, including change it, but you must give credit back to the original license holder. In the case of using Flickr photos in blogs, for example, you would generally link back to the Flickr photographer or page it was originally listed on. (Note that the license actually says that you must attribute in whichever way the author specifies, however, in most cases on Flickr, the author doesn’t specify anything. In that case, simply linking back is considered acceptable).

To search for only those photos with the Attribution (BY:) license, just go to the Flickr advanced search page. Type the phrase you want to search for, and then at the bottom of the page, check the following:

__ Only search within Creative Commons-licensed photos
__ Find content to use commercially
__ Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon

This will ensure that you choose only a photo with the least restrictive Creative Commons restrictions.

Ok, now you’ve found a great photo to use. The problem is that it can all become annoying and time-consuming to download the photo, upload it to your site, and then create the attribution links, so I went on a search for a way to make it easier. Lucky for me, you can find almost anything on the Internet, and I’ve found a nice way to handle this.

To use this quick shortcut, you’ll need to first be using Firefox, as this trick won’t work with IE. In addition, you’ll need to download and install Greasemonkey, and then install a particular Greasemonkey script, called Flickr Photo Link. Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and function. More Greasemonkey scripts can be found here.

So what does this Flickr Photo Link script do? If you’re logged in to Flickr, it generates a small attributed photo link in the comment box on every Flickr photo page you visit. To post the photo in a blog post or elsewhere, simply copy the generated HTML from the comment box and paste it anywhere you like. Let’s look at an example. I’ve installed the script and searched Flickr for a photo. I found one I liked, and took a screenshot of what the page now looks like since I installed the script. (See below).

See the code that I circled in red and pointed to? Without this script, that code would not be there. Normal Flickr image pages just show an empty Comments box, but this script automatically adds the code shown here. All I have to do now, to be able to use the photo in this blog post, AND give credit to the copyright holder, is to cut and paste that code here. I’m going to do that now, and the result will be below.

from Polka Dots Fill The Sky

See that photo and credit link above? All I did to produce that was copy/paste the code I was provided by the script I installed. That was so easy. Now anytime I find a Flickr photo that I want to use, legally and easily, all I have to do is copy/paste the code I’m given on the photo’s page. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

As you can see, it automatically chooses the Small version of any photo, so if you want a different size, you’ll need to go with the old fashioned route of downloading and uploading. But you can still make use of the attribution code (the part that starts with “from” in the code above).

So that’s my tip of the day for all of you who want to use Flickr Creative Commons photos, legally and easily. Have fun!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Author, Creative Commons, Flickr, Flickr photographer, Greasemonkey, HTML, images, photos, scripts
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Need a free stock photo? Free … meaning you don’t have to pay anyone cold, hard cash for its use? Look no further. I’ve compiled my top 10 list of favorite stock photo sites that don’t cost you anything. Make sure you read any terms of usage, however, as you may need to attribute its source via a link or mention.

EveryStockPhoto – Excellent place for searching multiple sites for just the right pic. It also includes some nice social aspects allowing everyone to rate and tag photos. I’ll be using this one a lot from now on.

Morgue Files – Don’t be turned off by the name of this one. It refers to the name that newspapers gave to the storage area where they kept files, old stories, photos, etc. In any case, this site offers some really nice photos.

Stock Xchng is a very popular user-contributed source of photos. Definitely bookmark it.

Image*After – Has a nice collection of photos and textures, with good search functionality.
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Photogen – Nice collection of good quality photos.
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Free Digital Photos – Good quality photos for free, although their best quality pics come with a charge.
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NOAA Photo Library – This is just one example of the many photos you can use for free from the US Government sites. You’ll find more listed at the directory at the bottom of this list. This batch contains some amazing oceanic and atmospheric photos.
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BurningWell – Not the prettiest site in the bunch, but so what? It’s got what you need – free use photos.
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Backgrounds Archive – Pretty photos. Big photos. Pretty and big photos. What more can I say?
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PD Photo – Lots of travel and country-specific photos, along with some more general categories too.
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Public Domain Photos – Claims to be the largest collection of public domain photos. It also has clip art.
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WP Clipart – Speaking of clip art this site has lots of clip art to choose from, with some photos as well.
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Uncle Sam’s Photos – As promised up above, this is a nice directory listing more of the U.S. Government’s repositories of free to use photos.

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And yes, I know there are more than 10 in the list. Consider it lagniappe. If you can’t find the image you need from one of the above places, it just might not exist! Good luck, and happy photo hunting!

Affiliate Marketing Tip

Using attractive or attention-getting photos can mean the difference between making an affiliate sale or not. If you are promoting an affiliate product, make sure you show as many pictures of the product as possible. It also never hurts to add additional pics, such as the ones you’ll find at the sites listed above, that help the user envision how great his or her life will be once the product is purchased. Look for happy, smiling faces, and beautiful nature pics. These can enhance your promo article or blog post.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 81 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bob Nolin, clip art, free pics, free stock photos, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Photo Library, photos, pics, prettiest site, search engine, search functionality, stock photos, ultimate search engine, US Government
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

First of all, as you all know, I’m a terrible cook. So, I’m always on the lookout for sites that help me deal with that problem. When a recipe for a steak sandwich showed up after I clicked the Stumble button, and there were pictures for every single step of the process…I mean every one…I was elated. I soon discovered that she is a master of photographing the steps involved in cooking whatever dish she is posting about. (She is also a master of photographing all kinds of other interesting stuff, as well).

Although I might have signed up to receive her feed based on the recipes alone, I know the real tipping point came when I started reading her non-recipe posts. Oh man, that gal is some kind of funny. She’s a straight-shooting woman who once was a valley-girl type, and who is now a marlboro man’s wife, living on a real working cowboy ranch. Her take on life on a ranch is amazingly funny.

If you like recipes with pics of the process, subscribe to her blog.

If you like funny women, subscribe to her blog.

If you just want to be occasionally entertained, subscribe to her blog.

Thanks for making me laugh, Pioneer Woman, and for helping me cook a little bit better.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, funny woman, photos, pics, recipes
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Global Wildlife Center, photos, pics, wildlife
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

First up is a glamour shot of me when I was 30 years old. This one always cracks me up.

Next is me on my wedding day nearly 5 years ago.

Here we have a pic of one of my dogs when he was just a puppy. Awww, isn’t he cute???

Next up…my front yard…

And now…the back yard…

And this is my sweet, sweet granddaughter, McKayla…

Finally, yes, you finally get to the end, my most current pic from my vacation a few months ago.

What? You’re still awake? LOL. That’s it, folks. You can go back to whatever you were doing before I interrupted you.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: DazzlinDonna, McKayla, photos, pics
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.