Currently, Facebook users have increased significantly on worldwide. The essential successful key of “a Facebook fan page which we like to click on the like button”is, how it is different and more attractive to others. If you are tending to make a unique fan page, you should consider FBML (Facebook Markup Language).

Basically, FBML is a modified version of HTML with some features discarded and other, Facebook-specific attributes added, which can be used for developers to interact with their Facebook accounts. FBML is widely used to develop advanced pages and applications within a Fan Page. Although its simplicity can be easily recognized (friendly to HTML users), developing an advance Facebook page to make it attractive and appeal to your fan page visitors is not an easy job. Luckily, there are some amazing tutorials and guidelines for FBML for you to check as references.

Customize Facebook Pages with “Static FBML” application

This article helps you to create the look of “Facebook Fan Page” to look more professional and ready for use. These applications can use by the Static FBML.

Source: Hyperarts.

How to Add a Comment Box to Your Fan Page

This article discusses the steps that you should do if you want to add variety commentary on the “Box of Fan page” of your account. This application can also function as the development of a community. If you have a product, this application is perfect for promoting your product.

Source: Facebookcustombusinesspages.

How to Put a Youtube channel in a Facebook Fan Page

In this article, you will get directly through a video guide on how to put streaming video link (Youtube) into the application Facebook Fan page.

Source: Facebookcustombusinesspages.

How to add an Image to FBML app for Facebook Fan Page

Do you want to put a picture on Facebook Fan Page, but do not know how? This article will discuss how to install and upload images and photos into the application FBML.

Source: Socialmediaseo.

Adding a Newsletter Subscribe Form to Your FACEBOOK Fan Page

This article discusses how to install a newsletter subscription form on the application up fan page. Guidelines exist in this article is complete. What steps should you do to install all the applications described here?

Source: Mailchimp.

CSS FBML – Include CSS FBML into Your Code

IThis article is a viral tutorial from Mailchimp which shows you how to put the CSS into the FBML application code. You can follow the guidelines in this article, complete with FBML code where you can immediately practice to apply the CSS code.

Source: Quantumfanpages.

FBML can be used Within an IFRAME FACEBOOK app?

This article discusses the related question about FBML application. Here is described around the FBML that can be integrated with other applications that exist on the features of FACEBOOK, for example IFRAME applications.

Source: Stackoverflow.

FBML Mastermind – Advanced FBML Coders

Do you want to deepen knowledge about FBML? You can join this community to discuss all things related to FBML application.

How to Get More FACEBOOK Fans

Guidelines contained pad this article will explain how to keep your fans are increasingly using FBML application to improve the appearance of a landing page on up front-side views.

Source: Capturingyourmarket.

How to Install FBML on Your FACEBOOK Fan Page

You can follow live on the installation guide FBML on a FACEBOOK Fan page. This guide is in the form of videos that can be downloaded or viewed directly through the YOUTUBE application.

Source: Youtube.

How to create an image map for a static FBML tabs on a FACEBOOK page

In this guide you will find tutorials on how to put pictures on the static FBML application page. You can add the picture that you can use a type JPEG and GIF.

Source: Illuminea.

Adding an opt-in box to your Facebook page

One of the successful Internet marketing is a follow up to the customer. Some ways you can do to follow up is how to install widgets opt-in letter. Similarly, for those who use social networking sites like FACEBOOK could use this kind of application through the features available on FBML static.

Source: Webenso.

Facebook: The Most Common Problems & Their FBML Static Solutions

Are you still new on FBML applications and want to try this application? Normally often face the problem of the application, for example an error or does not provide maximum results. In this article contains a guide to how to overcome these problems.

Source: S2vn.

How to Add Multimedia Content to Facebook Fan Page Using Static FBML

This article contains a guide how to put multimedia content on Facebook fan page by using the static FBML application.

Source: Mintblogger.

5 Tips to designing a custom up tabs using FBML

In this article will discuss about how to make a Fan page design using FBML tabs. There are a few tips you should know, for example, a basic knowledge of image editing application.

Source: Dsinelab.com.

How to Use FBML to Display Your Profile Photo on a Custom FACEBOOK Fan Page

This article discusses about how to upload a photo on your profile page via the online application server.

Source: Kimwoodbridge.

How to Build Engaging One-of-Kind Facebook Fan Pages

In this article will discuss about steps by step you need to do to build a Facebook fan Page and more professional and simpler. In addition, the article is also equipped with a drawing how to apply the settings on the menu Fan page.

Source: Thegoodnetguide.

FREE FBML Facebook Fan Page Templates

This article contains a tutorial about how to create a landing page with FBML application Fan Page template. Results of application of this kind are widely used for those who sell a few items in the yard wall up that they have.

Source: Facebookcustombusinesspages.

Free FBML template for Facebook Fan Pages

Are you Facebook user? And want to market your products through Facebook. There are so many applications that you can use to market your product, one of which is the landing page templates that are integrated with FBML. In this article will explain some information about the templates that you can get for free.

Source: Homegain.

7 FBML examples to rock your Facebook fan page.

In this article, you will find some applications that can be developed by the FBML. Among them are adding your news, friends sharing application, multimedia, Google analytics, image profile, and so forth.

Source: Webdistortion.

From a few tips that we have described above, all intended to make us able to do setting up on our Facebook account. Interested? Why not to try. Because I have been try this applications, and very amazing results.

Already have a FB account? here is FB Login

Since the mid 90’s marketers and companies have been optimizing their sites for search engine optimization. Now SEO has evolved in a way no one could have imagined back then. Smartphones are taking over the mobile market, and most cell phones have access to the Internet.

Neilson is predicting that by 2013, “penetration [of mobile Internet] will reach the halfway mark, and by 2014, 142.1 million users, representing 53.9% of the US mobile user population, will access the internet using mobile browsers or applications.”. With these kinds of numbers it is hard to deny the need for mobile SEO, as it is becoming more and more popular among Internet users.

A Quick Look at SEO History

Image: collectiveclicks

SEO started out very simple, “all webmasters needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a spider to crawl that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.”

After webmasters found out ways to manipulate their rankings, Google decided to take action and introduce a best practices agreement. Around 2004 Google announced they use more than 200 different signals to populate the search results. Now real time is a factor amount other things such as link building, meta tags and a slew of other tactics.

In 2009 Matt Cutts, announced that Google Bot would no longer treat nofollowed links in the same way, in order to prevent SEO service providers from using nofollow for PageRank sculpting, according to Wikipedia.

The Difference Between Mobile and Web Based SEO

There are many differences between mobile and traditional SEO. This is because the way you surf the Internet on a mobile device is much different than if you would be on a computer. There are less click through options (which is best practices) on a mobile device, and usually less typing involved.

Even the layout of search results are different on a mobile browser, the paid ads are actually in line with the organic ones, but are still labeled as sponsored. Another thing to take into consideration is where you want your mobile landing page to go to. Different keywords may be set up to different pages, to help with fewer click through rates. Remember people searching on a smartphone are usually in a hurry, and don’t want to wait on a page loading, or needing to click around to other pages to find the information they are trying to find.

According to Search Engine Land, “one of the more frustrating differences between the mobile search engines is the number of results they present on the main results page, and the number of results that they will present on the secondary ‘web results’ page. Because mobile search engines are designed more like portals than traditional search engines, they have all come up with a variety of ways to present the information that is yielded from a search result. This can be handy for users but makes tracking and comparison a bit trickier.”

When looking at your mobile analytics, it can be easier to compare search engine to search engine, instead of across the board. A ranking of 6 might be on the first page for Google, but not for Yahoo!.
The bots crawling your mobile site are also looking for different things than a traditional bot. They are looking for your site to render well on different types of phones, and search results can actually vary from phone to phone. To make sure your mobile site renders well on all mobile devices, make sure you are optimizing for multiple user reach not just say iPhone users.

Subdomain or .mobi?

When setting up your mobile website there are a couple options to choose from. Trying to establish itself as the .com of the 90’s, .mobi is has been setting itself up as the domain to use in the mobile realm.

Because this platform is so new, businesses who may have missed out (or couldn’t afford) the domain they hoped for with .com could get it for their mobile site.

Companies that have already taken advantage of the .mobi domain are:

• Balfour Beatty
• Nike
• Target
• Wachovia
• NPR (National Public Radio)

When it comes to mobile SEO, .mobi seems to be a better choice as far as search engines are concerned. This is due to the fact that every .mobi site receives its own Internet Zone File, which are the files that search engines use to start their crawls.

Internet Zone Files in general, are stored in the Internet domain name registry that, “receives domain name service (DNS) information from domain name registrars (in this case .mobi).” The information is then centralized in a database and propagates the information in these files on the Internet so anyone can search for the domain around the world.

Playing devil’s advocate, Inc. Technology’s Marc Saltzman reports that, ““Previously, companies would pursue the creation of mobile sites (.mobi), with much lighter content and faster load times to support first generation mobile browsers, but today, mobile browsers are becoming much more ‘normalized’ in nature and tend to perform similar in results to standard Web browsers.”

Using a sub-domain is a viable option for many reasons as well. One being you can use the same analytical tools to go over the data of the site. Because it is part of your original site, you will be able to use the same analytical tools for site analysis.

Using the analytics tool will allow your programmer to see which browsers your mobile visitors are using, which will allow him or her to program the site best for those browsers.

If duplicate content is a concern, there is a way around it. Using a technique called browser-detection and redirection should take care of this for you. This technique will allow the web crawlers to see that this is just a mobile version of your site, and not duplicate content. If you see that the redirection doesn’t seem to be working, a canonical tag will, “push all the value from your mobile site back to your traditional site, and then rely on your browser detection and redirection to take care of the rest.”

If you are unfamiliar with a canonical tag, here is how Google tells you to insert this tag into your site:

“to specify a canonical link to the page http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish, create a <link> element as follows:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish"/>

Copy this link into the <head> section of all non-canonical versions of the page, such as http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish&sort=price.

If you publish content on both http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish and https://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish, you can specify the canonical version of the page. Create the <link> element:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish"/>

Add this link to the <head> section of https://www.example.comproduct.php?item=swedish-fish.”

On Page Optimization

When it comes to your title tags and meta descriptions it helps to add mobile to the copy. This alerts the web crawlers that your page is being created for mobile browsers. Just like you would for a traditional website, make sure you set up a mobile sitemap. Let the bots know where to go to find information easily. According to Search Engine Land, “Google has a tool that can help you build a mobile sitemap. If you are using multiple markup languages, for instance XHTML and WML you should submit a separate mobile sitemap for each language that exists on the site, and include only the pages that will render in browsers that can read that type of code. Be sure to link to the mobile site map in your robots.txt file, just like you would for a traditional site map.”

An example of a single site map provided by Google is below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
 <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"   xmlns:mobile="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-mobile/1.0">
    <url>
        <loc>http://mobile.example.com/article100.html</loc>
        <mobile:mobile/>
    </url>
</urlset>

Just as you should for a traditional website, make sure your HTML code is clean, and not sloppy. This can confuse web crawlers and make your loading time longer than necessary.

Submitting your site to the major mobile search engines is another must. According to Mowbi these are the top places to consider:

• Google XHTML http://www.google.com/xhtml
• Google Mobile http://www.google.com/mobile/
• Yahoo Mobile http://mobile.yahoo.com/search
• MSN/Bing http://home.mobile.live.com/Home.mvc
• AOL Mobile http://mobile.aolsearch.com
• ABPHONE http://www.abphone.com

Local Search

Local search is becoming more and more popular on the web, and for mobile Internet browsing it is even more so. More times than not many people are searching for places to go, or what is around them. How many times have you been out and Googled a restaurant or shopping malls around you on your phone? Chances are if you haven’t you have been with someone who has.

Diving into local SEO is a somewhat new tactic, and Google themselves are making changes often. “In the last couple of weeks, Google has been placing increasing importance on local business listings by experimenting with the placement of the 7-pack listings.” With more and more changes to come, reading up on how you can keep up with Google will be your best for mobile and traditional web.

As the mobile web evolves so will the SEO best practices. These are just some of the many tactics you need to be aware of when optimizing your mobile website. As the search engines evolve, mobile SEO will become more and more a necessity.

Being self employed has its ups and downs. You get to make the rules, and work the hours that are best for you. On the down side, it is up to you how to get clients and in turn make revenue. Especially in the world of web design, it can be a tough market to plow into.
With that being said, with the right type of marketing tactics, you should be able to set yourself apart as a designer. After all, if no one knows about you, it will be hard to get anyone to pay for your great designs.

In this article I’d like to share some useful tips to consider when you are about to make a website together with some social tricks to attract attention.

Showcasing Your Talents

What better way to show your skills than to have a website of your own. Being able to build a well designed, easily navigated website will let potential clients know what you can really do. Lisa Buyer, of the Buyer group looks for, “an up to date website, [and] a list of links to recent site designs,” when looking for designers.

Image credit: Kim

Using your best techniques and design style will let potential clients know right off the bat what your best attributes are. Posting testimonials (once you have gotten some) on your home page will show visitors what others think of your services.
Also make sure you include an About Me section on your website. This section doesn’t have to be long, but writing a few paragraphs about yourself and background can be useful. Besides work related information, put a few facts about yourself. People tend to appreciate that you’re a real person, and not just a great web designer.

Blog

Your website is basically a live profile for anyone to see. Putting links to your best work, will allow for your audience to find even more examples of your work. Implementing a blog can also be useful.

Constantly updating your blog is a must. Your goal should be to get loyal readers, so make sure you update your blog once a week, or daily, depending on your schedule. Think of your blog entries as a favorite TV show. Your readers will want to “tune in” at the same time every week. This will also show you know how to keep a schedule and be committed to projects.

For content, don’t be afraid to “give away” free information. Give some tips for anyone who may be starting out as a designer, or someone who is trying to do it themselves. This can set you as an expert in your field, and in turn gain more traffic to your blog.
Also share up to date information about your industry. Your blog can act as a networking opportunity as well. Many blogs not only have great content, but have great comments. Letting other people discuss a certain topic in your field can introduce you to many new people, which could lead to a job opportunity.

Networking

Take a traditional and non-traditional approach to networking. Go to industry events and start talking. You never know who you can meet, or be introduced to—so keep yourself in the loop.

Once you get your business cards printed, think of creative ways to get your card out to potential clients. Mike Smith writes in his blog, that you should, “find the beginner XHTML/CSS or web design for dummies books and put your business cards inside them in every library you can get to. This way, anyone looking for [those] books to do their own website will instantly be met with a way to get out of reading the book and trying to do it themselves.”

Social media is also a great way to meet potential clients and colleagues. Twitter has become a networking dream. You now can find people all around the globe, and you can do it at home.

Participating in chat discussions on Twitter is another way to find the latest on industry trends, and is a great way to stay connected with fellow web designers worldwide.

Dribbble, the Twitter equivalent for the design world, is another online networking option. The downside to this site is that it is invitation-based only. You may have to dig around for an invite, but it could be useful down the line.

The Perfect Pitch

Besides getting a potential client’s attention via your website or networking, it is imperative you can pitch a prospective client. Putting yourself out there is a must in the freelance world. Honing your skills and being able to pitch a company can be a bit difficult at first.
One thing to keep in mind is you don’t want to come off like you are just copy and pasting the same pitch to someone. Instead do a little research and find out what they do, and who they are.

Image credit: AkidaSoren

Simply putting, “Hi John,” will let the person know you took the time to find their name, and spell it correctly. Try and keep your pitch short and to the point. We all are busy, and don’t have time to read lengthy emails. Your first email should only be one to two short paragraphs long. A short introduction of yourself and what you do is best.

If they are interested they will email you back for more details. Keep a list of who you are pitching, and send a follow up email a week or two after the initial email. Sometimes people do mean to respond, but get busy. After a few emails though, I would leave it alone, and assume they are not interested.

LinkedIn is another site that is great for connecting with businesses. Sending the correct person a quick line about your services could get you a new client. However when you do make contact, whether it is through an email or a social networking site, make sure you pick up the phone to further the discussion.

When you are talking to a client, or a potential client your voice can help get them excited about your ideas. If you are excited, chances are you can get them equally excited about a partnership.

Make sure your responses back to a client are in a timely manner. If you take a week or longer to respond, they might feel they aren’t a top priority of yours. You may have a pressing matter, but let them know you are still working on their project as well. A quick email only takes a minute.

Quality Work

The best type of promotion is really your work. Quality work will keep your clients happy, and in return they will probably recommend you to their friends. Keeping up a good relationship is best. Always keep your client informed and give them your best work.
Once you get the ball rolling and a few clients on the table, you should be able to see what types of networking and pitches work best for you. It may take a little bit of trial and error on your part, but marketing yourself is something you need to work on as much as keeping up to date on the latest web design techniques.

Many people these days feel that their minds are being flooded with various bits and pieces of data or information and they quite naturally find that it is more and more difficult to organize many of their thoughts. Along with this lack of logical thought the people start to experience moments of time where they find they are forgetting relevant facts, dates, events and similar data. During important meetings these same people may find that it is difficult to even take simple notes. The problems that I have just mentioned are typical of those that many people have been experiencing lately in their daily activities.

The process known as mind mapping has proven itself to be a helpful and very useful instrument for both individuals as well as corporations from all areas of the globe. In this article we’ll talk about mind mapping, why you need it, how to produce effective visual mind maps and the tools.

Mind mapping in perspective

Mind mapping is a technique which is performed individually in order to produce visualizes makeup and categorizes these arrays of different ideas. It was created as an aid to help people in their efforts to achieve effective study habits, to clearly organize their thoughts, to perform problem solving procedures, to write in an understandable manner as well as to do well in their daily decision making regardless of the particular thinking circumstances which may be involved.

From Ben Heine

What’s more, they are very quick to review as you can often refresh information in your mind just by glancing at one. In the same way, they can be effective mnemonics: Remembering the shape and structure of a Mind Map can give you the cues you need to remember the information within it. As such, they engage much more of your brain in the process of assimilating and connecting facts, compared with conventional notes. If you’ve already made your list, try turning it into a mind map.

Further reference

• Mind map – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Visual mapping types

Mind Mapping is just one of several methods of mapping out information and ideas that one can utilize. Our brains think in unique and exponential ways. Each and every piece of information is best studied and memorized through a structured process of learning that assimilates each chunk of information in the most effective and efficient manner that naturally mimics the brain’s cognitive thinking patterns. Within this branch of the IQ Matrix we will discuss some of these types of maps and their purpose. We will also delve into the computer generated and hand drawn methods of Mind Mapping that you can utilize on a daily basis.

From Will UK

The following is a quick break down of 7 unique mapping types that can be utilized to effectively represent the information. How you apply these maps will vary in accordance to the structure of the information you are learning, and upon your purpose, objectives and goals.

• Cyclical Maps
  Are used to represent key terms within stages in a cyclic process.
• Radial Maps
  Are Mind Map type structures with sub-topics radiating from a central image or word.
• Converging Maps
  Are used to represent causes that lead to a single effect.
• Hierarchical Maps
  Are used to represent key terms as smaller and smaller parts of a larger topic.
• Interacting Maps
  Are Concept Map type structures that interlink with each other in a variety of ways.
• Comparison Maps
  Are used to compare two or more things with each other. The central interlocking part represents the object’s shared components or characteristics.
• Linear Maps
  Are Flowchart type structures that represent linear stages of a process that has a beginning and an ending.

Benefits of mind mapping

My photo on Flickr 3rd Anniversary by neloqua

Link to the original post of Benefits of mind mapping and 10 reasons why mind mapping software should be the foundation of your personal productivity system. Click here.

Common mistakes that you should try to avoid.

An Honest Mistake by artzy.viva

Link to the original post of 10 mistakes to avoid with mind mapping software Click here.

So, where the tips to produce effective visual mind maps?

Mind Mapping by sirwiseowl

However I’ve lost count of the number of people who tell me that they were first introduced to Mind Maps in two minutes on some course or other and that as a result they just didn’t “get it”. That is a real shame, because, although they are easy to use, a few guidelines and directed practice means that people get far more benefits from the technique. The following suggestions may help to increase effectiveness when you making a mind map.

1. Just focus
   Start your session in a quiet, light environment where you will not be disturbed until you are finished. If you are doing your mind map on your computer, turn off your chatting client (YM!, gTalk, MSN), email, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and everything else that you have running except the mind mapping software. It is too easy to “take a small break” that turns out to waste 30 minutes. If you are using paper, make sure your desk is clear, except for the paper and your writing materials.
2. Start with good question or idea.
   Think about what you want to accomplish during your session, and start with an idea that is precisely defined, so it will help you work towards your goal.
3. Write down every thought or idea that comes to you.
   Do not judge your ideas too heavily before you put them down, because you may change your mind later and regret throwing them out.
4. Set your goals, but feel free to deviate from it.
   As your brainstorm grows, follow your creativity and expand it however you like. Don’t feel constrained by that bubble in the middle, because it is only there as a starting point.
5. Leave yourself enough room to expand.
   Don’t expect to fit everything onto one piece of paper. Make sure you have extra paper, and draw your branches generously far apart, so you have room to expand on ideas. Obviously this does not apply to brainstorming software on your computer, as you can move stuff around easily. Color code, doodle, scratch out and do whatever else you want to your brainstorm, if it will help you get a better understanding of it. Again, you don’t have to be neat and tidy. Think of your brainstorm as art, and act creatively.

Once you understand how to make notes in the Mind Map format, you can develop your own conventions to take them further, just like the way I use this when start up.

• Use single words or simple phrases for information.
  Most words in normal writing are padding: They convey facts in the correct context, and in a format that is pleasant to read. In your own Mind Maps, single strong words and meaningful phrases can convey the same meaning more potently. Excess words just clutter the Mind Map.
• Print words.
  Joined up or indistinct writing can be more difficult to read.
• Use color to separate different ideas.
  This will help you to separate ideas where necessary. It also makes your Mind Map easier to remember. Color also helps to show the organization of the subject.
• Use symbols and images.
  Where a symbol or picture means something to you, use it. Pictures can help you to remember information more effectively than words.
• Using cross-linkages.
  Information in one part of the Mind Map may relate to another part. Here you can draw in lines to show the cross-linkages. This helps you to see how one part of the subject connects with another.

Which is the best tools for mind mapping?

What’s “best” depends so much on how you use mind maps. Some people use them for study, some for planning projects, some for organizing information, some for sparking ideas and facilitating brainstorming sessions, some for planning the writing of a report or blog. Some mindmap alone, others mindmap in groups. Most of us probably do all of these from time to time, so we need a quiver full of arrows to choose from.

So, it could be up to you. Every tools are great if you know how to do. There are several software products available for mind mapping. I personally use MindManager on my desktop computer and have also used it on my Windows XP laptop.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of good options in this area. Here are 30+ very powerful mind mapping tools (applications & web services) that you can use for brainstorming, strategizing, project planning, and even for managing tasks.

01. MindMeister

MindMeister is by far the most simplistic mind mapping tool in the top five, but its simplicity is definitely an asset. Once you’re logged into the service, you can create a fully functional mind map using little more than the directional arrows and the Insert key to add new nodes to your map. Additional customizations like font size and node colors are available for when you want to go beyond the basics. In the upper right corner is a navigation window, handy for when your mind maps become larger than the display space.

Exporting is also a strong point for MindMeister; you can export your files to a text outline, PDF, JPG, PNG, or GIF. MindMeister’s history function lets you view past versions of your mind map and revert to them if you desire. You can share your maps for public collaboration or hand-select collaborators.

Official link

02. Mindjet MindManager

Mindjet MindManager isn’t cheap by any means, but you get more than your share of value and sophistication for the hundreds you spend on the program. The interface and feature set of MindManager are very polished, and the primary menus are set up like the Microsoft Office Ribbon. After the initial installation, MindManager walks you through the creation of a sample mind map—helpful both to familiarize you with the interface but also to show you features you may have overlooked.

MindManager is definitely oriented towards corporate environments, including extensive integration with the Office suite and support for linking your mind maps directly into common database formats like MySQL and Access.

Official link

03. XMind

XMind is the kind of free application that makes you forget you’re not paying for the privilege of using it. The interface is simple and intuitive to use. You can quickly move through your entire mind map with only a handful of keystrokes or jump over to the outline view for even quicker navigation.

In addition to a basic mind map you can also create fishbone, organizational, tree, and logic charts. You can export charts as HTML, images, or text, and XMind comes a free account on XMind.net which allows you to share your charts online and embed them into blogs and web sites.

Official link

04. FreeMind

One of FreeMind’s strongest selling points is a Java-based implementation. Whether you use it on Ubuntu or Windows, the features and user interface remain consistent. FreeMind is keyboard friendly with the core functionality well covered by keyboard shortcuts.

The visual elements of your mind maps are highly customizable, including custom icons for flagging nodes on the map, color coding, grouping, and more. Mind maps created with FreeMind can be exported as HTML, PDF, and PNG files, among others.The support wiki for FreeMind is extensive and goes well beyond simply explaining how the application functions, covering things like how to add your own keyboard shortcuts and how to make the application portable.

Official link

05. iMindMap

iMindMap can claim two distinctions among the top five tools. First, it’s the biggest download (weighing in at 135MB). Second it’s the only application on the list developed by Tony Buzan (who lays claim to being the inventor of the mind map). iMindMap takes a different approach to mapping than the other applications in the list.

Rather than create new nodes off the main idea by adding boxes, nodes are created by clicking in the center or the main idea and drawing away from it with the mouse. Each new idea is a branch off the center. Strangely, many of basic feature available in free mind-mapping software are only found in the more expensive versions of iMindMap, like the ability to expand and collapse branches. Mind maps created in iMindMap can be exported as PDF, JPG, PNG and text outline.

Official link

06. WiseMapping

Wise Mapping is the web mind mapping tool that leverages the power of Mind Maps mixing new technologies like vectorial languages (SVG and VML) and the power of the whole Web 2.0 concept. No pluggin required.

Official link

07. CmapTools

Cmap Tools: Free to universities, students, federal employees, and individuals for personal use.

Official link

08. Mindomo

Mindomo is perhaps one of the best free web-based mind mapping applications. Mindomo comes with a very elegant interface which mimics Microsoft Office. Flash-based, the service offers many different export options and formats, alongside a rich choice of layouts to arrange your ideas. Mindomo supports multimedia files and image uploading, as well as organic style maps. The free version is ad-supported but you can switch to one of the available pricing solutions.

Official link

09. Bubbl.us

A flash based brainstorming tool that you can share with others and also embed in to your site.

Official link

10. ConceptDraw MINDMAP

ConceptDraw MINDMAP is a powerful business and personal productivity software application that provides visual organization and access to information for individuals and organizations

Official link

11. Curio

Curio is another application that looks like it was designed for the OS X platform, with a fairly advanced interface allowing several complex features. These include in-built searching of popular image website, encryption, a “dossier” screen to help track the requirements of a project, and a full-screen presentation mode.

Official link

12. Semantik

Semantik is a KDE Linux application for creating mind maps, though they can be viewed in different formats, such as a linear tree view with retractable and expandable branches.

Official link

13. Mindplan

Free for all who don’t need MindPlan as a groupware tool. Get the personal edition for your private life or your business.

Official link

14. Recall Plus

RecallPlus is software designed specifically for students who want to learn faster and improve their marks. RecallPlus goes beyond simple note-taking and organizing – it actually tests students on their notes so they can learn the information. RecallPlus is the only true study software because it is the only software that combines concept mapping of notes with testing.

Official link

15. DeepMehta

DeepaMehta is a software platform for Knowledge Management. Knowledge is represented in a semantic network and is handled collaboratively. DeepaMehta combines interdisciplinary research with the idea of Open Source to generate a true benefit for workflow as well as for social processes. At the same time Deepa Mehta is an indian movie director.

The DeepaMehta user interface is build according to research in Cognitive Psychology and accomodates the knowledge building process of the individual. Instead of handling information through applications, windows and files with DeepaMehta the user handles all kind of information directly and individually. DeepaMehtas user interface is completely based on Mind Maps / Concept Maps.

Official link

16. Mapul

Would you like to create a mind maps in Web from anywhere at anytime with no complex software to install or maintain? With MAPMYself you can just do it because it is a free Web-based online mind mapping tool. MAPMYself is unique web based software allows you to create completely organic looking mind maps. We integrated the own and an your ideas to helps more when 2000 peoples to accelerate learning, improve your memory, increase your productivity and save your time.

Official link

17. MindView 3 Business – Professional Mind Mapping Software

MatchWare’s MindView 3 Business is a professional Mind Mapping® software application that allows users to brainstorm and visualize ideas quickly and easily. MindView 3 Business makes meetings more productive, accelerates project planning and helps turn ideas into action faster than ever before!

Official link

18. Edrawsoft

Mind mapping (or brainstorming diagram) involves writing down a central idea and thinking up new and related ideas which radiate out from the centre. By focusing on key ideas written down in your own words, and then looking for branches out and connections between the ideas, you are mapping knowledge in a manner which will help you understand and remember new information.

Official link

19. MyThought for Mac

MyThoughts for Mac Creates Fluid, Organic, Curvy Mind Maps that work in a way that the human brain enjoys!

Official link

20. Mind42

Mind42 is a totally free mind mapping web app and it is one of my favorites. The interface is a good one, and it has some excellent features such as easy navigation for large mind maps with zoom and birdview (and branch hiding, but that’s pretty standard these days), and the ability to attach notes and images to branches, which isn’t always allowed in “pure” mind mapping software. You can also link branches to other sites and see a preview when you rollover the link, which I think is probably the only appropriate use of those preview rollovers anywhere on the net.

Official link

21. Gliffy

Diagram Software for the rest of us! With Gliffy online diagram software, you can easily create professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more. Our online diagram editor makes it easier than ever to create great looking drawings.

Official link

22. Wikka Wiki

WikkaWiki is a flexible, standards-compliant and lightweight wiki engine written in PHP, which uses MySQL to store pages. Forked from WakkaWiki. Designed for speed, extensibility, and security. Released under the GPL license.

Official link

23. Labyrinth

Labyrinth is a lightweight mind-mapping tool, written in Python using Gtk and Cairo to do the drawing. It is intended to be as light and intuitive as possible, but still provide a wide range of powerful features.

Official link

24. Pimki

Pimki is a PIM (Personal Information Manager) loosely based on Instiki’s Wiki technology. This is the place to dump your brain, organise your thoughts and Get Things Done. The ease of use and immediacy of a wiki combined with extended view to slice and dice the data give you a unique power to store, manage and retrieve all loose bit of information in your life.

Official link

25. Xmind Pro

XMind Pro makes it easier to express your ideas and share your information using its Presentation function. Launch your XMind Pro, where you can draw a mind map or open existed maps. One click enters you into Presentation mode, where your map will be shown on the full screen. You can just use the navigation toolbar within Presentation mode or Spacebar, Enter, Tab, or Arrow keys to navigate through topics. Every time a new topic is selected, it will be highlighted and positioned in the center of screen so your audience can concentrate on it.

Official link

26. Visual Strategist

Visual Strategist – founded by Kyle McFarin to assist Entrepreneurs and Organizational Teams in Strategic Management.

Official link

27. Blackbelt mind map training

Black Belt MindMapping teaches you mindmapping in 5 days. Every day has its own color. We go from yellow to orange to green, blue to brown. You receive the black belt after sending in the completed final assignment. You receive this

assignment at the end of day five (brown).

Official link

28. DropMind

Choose to use a desktop or web-based version of DropMind for real-time collaboration or the ability to add hyperlinks and images.

Official link

29. Mindcad

Organize your ideas using a tool that complements the way you think. Drag in text and images from Safari, Word, the Desktop and most other OS X applications. Place them anywhere on multiple worksheets within a single document.

Official link

30. Wridea

Wridea is an idea and content manager marketed towards writers but can work for any individual or group wanting to organize projects, papers and more.

Official link

31. Dabbleboard

Dabbleboard is an online white board that lets you create mind maps, sketches, project outlines and more with your group.

Official link

Conclusion

Mind Mapping is an extremely effective method of taking notes. Mind Maps show not only facts, but also the overall structure of a subject and the relative importance of individual parts of it. Lastly remember that the use of mind map is not just limited to inspiration and creativity. Instead use this “power tool” to develop projects, make better decisions, learn effective time management and manage information efficiently. Mind mapping software tools can be used in different ways in your personal and professional life to yield beneficial results.

Now it’s time to get your feedback about this post – Please feel free to leave your comments if one of you had experience about mind mapping or maybe I’ve missed another tools. I think, share would be very good for everyone and communities.

Who doesn’t love motion effects, right? shadows following the motion of movements while in a fighting scene, some of my favorite scenes are from The Matrix, Kung Fu Hustle, etc. I don’t event know how this effect is called, but sure is an awesome effect. The good news is that now-a-days we can create animations and play with them. It’s no an easy task to control distance and motion (the complex the code, the better control). The amazing part is that something like this can be done with 5 lines of jQuery!

Starting from a simple jQuery animation

If you are cool or at least have worked with jQuery, you can easily implement this animation. I will do an example with a moving ‘dot’ from left to right using animate() function:

$("#ball").stop(true).animate({left:500}, 1000).animate({left:0}, 1000);

The result:

The dot you see above was created using CSS3 (I’m sorry some IE users that I don’t have time for styling this ball, so you are viewing the ugly square. I’m really sorry!):

#ball {
    display: block;
    width: 80px;
    height: 80px;
    background: #333;
    -moz-border-radius: 40px; /* FF1+ */
    -webkit-border-radius: 40px; /* Saf3+, Chrome */
    border-radius: 40px; /* Opera 10.5, IE 9 */
    position: absolute;
    top: 50px;
    left: 50px;
}

Boring? Here is Shadow Motion

Basically, jQuery or even CSS3 doesn’t have any built-in effect or property to make shadows (I mean in plural, more than one shadow). When I watched some fighting scenes in movies, and I wondered, can jQuery can do something like it?

Oh yeah! jQuery can create this effect. The trick is here: lets create some images then make it follow the first animation and fadeout… NOPE, no this way. Lets look back at the example above. jQuery have a function named clone(). The .clone() method is a convenient way to duplicate elements on a page. Use this method, you can duplicate a specific element into many copies. Please note that it doesn’t make sense when we duplicate to many html elements with the same ID attribute. The best way is use class name for the element instead. However, it doesn’t mean we don’t have any way to duplicate the element by ID.

In this case, I will remove it and set a name for class attribute (remember to create css style for new class name):

$("#ball").clone().removeAttr("id").attr({class:"ball"})
                   .appendTo("#demo");

I’ve tried to duplicated ball in specific numbers. However, the motion depends on the speed of the main element. That’s how we will control the duplicated elements by the time. If the motion is moving fast, we will duplicate it fast, and, if the motion is moving slowly, we’ll need one or two frames duplicated… You need jQuery Timer to do such thing.

In each instance of time, we’ll make one copy.

$("#ball").everyTime(80, function() {  

    $("#ball").clone().removeAttr("id").attr({class:"ball"})
                   .appendTo("#demo")
                   .everyTime(480, function() {
                    $(this).remove();
    });

});  

$("#ball").stop(true).animate({left:500}, 1000)
          .animate({left:0}, 1000, function(){

                $("#ball").stopTime();

}); Â

The code above will duplicate one copy every 80 milliseconds. But if don’t break the clone method, you will have have enough balls for Olympic games in 100 years. Inside the everyTime(), I call again this method but restrict it in every 480 ms to remove the duplicated one. Let count, we will have 6 (480/80) copies go after the main element.

The result:

Almost there, Lets do the fadeout effect.

$("#ball").everyTime(80, function() {

    $(this).animate({left:500}, 1000).animate({left:0}, 1000);

    $(this).clone().removeAttr("id").attr({class:"ball"})
           .appendTo("#demo").fadeOut(480, function() {
                $(this).remove();
    });

});

The final result:

To control the time for duplicating, you can also use window.setInterval(); to replace the everyTime() method.

Boring? See, this is ajax loading effect!! (Windows user please see here)

The code:

function animateit() {

    var deg=0;
    var dif=3;

    var centerX;
    var centerY;

    centerX = $('#demo4').width()/4+20;
    centerY = $('#demo4').height()/2;

    $("#ball4").everyTime(1, function(){

        /* Increment the angle: */
        deg+=dif;

        /* Calculate for the animation in circle */
        var eSin = Math.sin(deg*Math.PI/180);
        var eCos = Math.cos(deg*Math.PI/180);

        /* Setting the css properties */

        $(this).css({
            top:centerX+120*eSin,
            left:centerY+120*eCos
        });
    });

    /* Setting up new timer for shadow with 10 shadows in total */              
    $("#ball4").everyTime(80, function() {
        $(this).clone().removeAttr("id").attr({"class":"ball"})
               .appendTo("#demo4").fadeOut(800, function() {
                            $(this).remove();
          });
    });

}

Bug?

Yes, the ugly truth about this bug is processor usage. The weird is it happens only with Windows OS even when I’m running a 8Gbs ram machine (Windows 7) – the same with Windows Vista. However, the animation works very well in Mac OS. If you are a Windows user and not happy with what you see here, you can check it via Mac screenshot below.

Any suggestion for a better CPU usage optimization in Windows would be appreciated.

What do you think?

This effect can be used for any animation if you want to implement the shadow motion (I’m not sure if the term I’m using is correct… please help me on getting a proper name). Any suggestion for better control would be appreciated! This tutorial is just providing you an idea for such animation with jQuery. I’ll work on optimize this effect, maybe I will write a little more, then probably publish the plugin. If you want to contribute a suggestion, please do so by commenting, Cheers!