Archive for October, 2009
Ok, here we go with the results of our research – as you know it, in this research we were kindly assisted by our audience. So it appears to be that in our first Halloween research post we were right and wrong at the same time. We were right about the fact that there are not much websites that really pay attention to the Halloween design customizations. Come one, 40 websites or so suggested by thousands of our audience… That’s not as many as we expected.
On the other hand judging from what we have received, there’s more that we were able to find initially. Anyways, it’s good to know that our audience really did help us without making us look like idiots that didn’t see something obvious 
Plus, we have already started contacting the participants who’ve been suggesting the customized websites and delivering the prizes to them. In case you didn’t know, the prizes are 10 free unlimited hosting accounts from JustHost, 5 free templates from TemplateMonster as well as significant discounts both from TemplateMonster and JustHost. By the way, we want to address the participants (and the winners) – guys, please allow 2 business days for the prizes to be delivered, ok? No one will be forgotten.
Ok, enough of talking. It’s time for some rating. Please welcome the Top 20!
20. Ehow
* * *
19. Bagolitas
TemplateMonster is glad to present you a comprehensive tutorial of customization of your website Header for such a majestic holiday as Halloween. With a little help of Adobe Photoshop you can spread some festive mood on your website. Just follow all the steps in this tutorial, written in details by our designers, to create outstanding vivid designs for your website. Here we explain you general techniques of how to customize your header. Following our tutorial step-by-step and using your reach imagination you can produce fascinating designs for your website to give it 100% up-to-date look. So let’s begin!
1. Cleaning the Header
At first you have to remove all the useless elements of your header:
Go to the Layers Panel and select Layers or Layer Sets you would wish to remove and then hit the Delete button;
Ok, guys, remember this post we’ve published earlier today? About how bad things are in the field of customizing the websites for Halloween. Well, we were serious when we said that we’re going to do something about it. Right now we’re working on the design part of this ‘awareness’ campaign that will help website owners get prepared for holiday customizations.
And today we start the most awesome part (that by the way will be something that will bring you the killing treats from TemplateMonster and our lovely hosting partner JustHost.com). We know that there are websites that ARE customized for Halloween and that we were unable to find (sadly). So please go ahead and suggest websites that in your opinion have a good Halloween customization and enter your chance to win the freebies.
So here’s the deal. In case you’ve seen a website that was decorated with Halloween customization (that’s supposed to be a non-Halloween-related website, just decorated with Halloween elements) please let us know its URL in the comments section on this page. Based on what you all suggest we will arrange a rating of Top 20 Halloween website customizations and publish it all on our blog this Friday. And here’s how you get these presents from us and JustHost.com:
1. Submit the website URL in the comments section (please note that only websites that ARE NOT directly connected to Halloween are eligible; the ones that have the permanent Halloween topic are not allowed).
Plus, be sure to use an active email while posting the comment. That’s the email we’ll be using to contact you when you win.
2. In case the website you have suggested makes it to the Top 5 of our list you will receive a FREE Website Template from TemplateMonster and one year of FREE Hosting (free domain included) from JustHost.com
3. In case the website you have suggested eventually takes the position 6 to 10 you will get one year of FREE Hosting (free domain included) from JustHost.com and a 50% discount for any product from TemplateMonster.
4. In case the website you have suggested eventually takes the position 11 to 15 you will get a 50% discount for ordering one year of hosting from JustHost.com and a 35% discount for any of TemplateMonster products.
5. In case the website you have suggested eventually takes the position 16 to 20 you will get a 50% discount for ordering one year of hosting from JustHost.com and a 25% discount for any of TemplateMonster products.
6. In case the website you have suggested doesn’t make it to the Top 20 but it does have Halloween decorations and you were the first to suggest it you will receive a 20% discount for ordering one year of hosting from JustHost.com and a 10% discount for any of TemplateMonster products.
Disclaimer:
- - You may start suggesting right now but make sure you do that until 23:59 Thursday, October 29th. That’s the time we close the comments for this post.
- ———————————–
- - The prizes will be delivered only to the participants who are the first to suggest a certain website that either does or does not make it to the Top 20 list. In other words, if someone else has suggested the website before you and this website either makes it to the Top 20 or does not but does have the Halloween decorations, that first person will be the one who gets the respective prize.
- ———————————–
- - Only websites that ARE NOT directly connected to Halloween are eligible; the ones that have the permanent Halloween topic are not allowed, they will not be presented on the list and their suggestion will not be awarded with the basic prizes (20% JustHost discount and 10% TemplateMonster discount).
- ———————————–
- - In case you suggest multiple websites for the competition the results of only one of them will be taken to consideration. For example, if one of the websites you have suggested makes it to the Top 5 and others are on positions 10 and 17, and you were the first to suggest that best one, you will only get the free hosting and a free template for suggesting the website in Top 5.
- ———————————–
- - You cannot suggest TemplateMonster website customization and TemplateMonster blog customization as the candidates for the Top 20. Come on, that’s too obvious and we’re too modest for that
The results will be published on Friday, October 30th and all of the prizes info will also be delivered on Friday. Off to the comments everyone! Good luck!
Halloween Customizations, guys, is a useful experience we should say. In fact it brings lots of benefits to the site owners attracting the greater customer pool and consequently the amount of profits. If you take care about wonderful foundation to your site visual look, someone will surely notice you.
But as previously, in case of hosting sites, we have encountered with the absence of good Halloween customization examples in a sufficient number. Or else, we may suppose that they do exist, but are thoroughly hidden.
Update: Ok, we assume you might have seen some decent halloween website design customizations. So let us know of those and enter your chance to win the killing Halloween treats from TemplateMonster.com and JustHost.com including free website templates and free unlimited hosting packages. Please see more details in the promo post.
And what we have as a result? The great mass of websites does not have enough serious approach towards customization issue. And in the long run, we see Halloween customizations that, in terms of design execution, leave much to be desired. Many thanks for them even! At least someone undertakes the festive actions for the holiday. By the way, TM home page Halloween customization design is upcoming, shortly (or maybe it’s there as you are reading this).
Have a look at the rest of the bravehearts:
* * *
By the way, this particular customization made by Enom is the best we’ve seen while searching. The elements of customization perfectly fit the design. Way to go, Enom!
Read the rest of this entry »
Many times in your life you have probably seen these petrifying 404 error pages which meant nothing but that you’ve lost your way surfing the web in your pursuance of certain objectives. The 404 error declares that the user’s request was able to communicate with the server, but the server couldn’t find what was requested. And that is probably the only useful information you would find reaching the “zero between fours” dead-end default pages.
TemplateMonster.com shares the point of view that it’s not always supposed to be that way. The 404 error pages must be your light out of the trouble but surely not a common state of “welcome, you’re in Deadlock”. 404 pages should contain helpful information for example Main Page or Site Map links or what’s better – widgets that endeavor to find the correct web page the user required. The visual representation of 404 pages is a question of substantial importance. It’s essential that when someone is looking for something for relatively long period of time without any success he gets rather annoyed with 404s but smart appealing visual elements might cheer him up.
Here are some more useful advices for you to think over your four-Oh!-fours:
Set up your navigation system.
As it was mentioned above, you should provide alternatives for navigating user’s way out of a 404 error page. These could be widgets that find the correct web page, links to your home page, site map, help info, search tabs, assumption lists(e.g. “Perhaps you’ve meant”, “Maybe you would like to …” ), etc.
The Medium is the Message.
Do not forget that even through 404 error page you are communicating with your visitors. Think over the message you would display.
Be careful! Linguistic tips.
Displaying the list of probable errors never put misspelling error or any other assumptions, accusing the user of being sloppy or inattentive, first. Leave them to end your list and better present them in a rather smooth way.
Brevi manu! (latin for ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ ).
Stay informative and at the same time do not provide too much information. Give the users appropriate amount of suggestions to help them find their way out.
Be user-friendly.
Spread some friendly mood on your ‘route 404′. Cross out sever “Error 404. Page Not Found” and change it for more amicable “Ooops!…” or “Sorry…” or else.
Creativity is the key.
Think different! Find unconventional ideas to present your 404 error page. Thus you’ll make your visitors remember your page.
In case you’ve got really excited with this topic we recommend you to visit SmashingMagazine.com 404 error pages review (as well as part I of their best 404 pages review and part II which also rocks). Plus there’s a similar review of 60 best 404 error pages made by hongkiat.com – all these guys have done a great job of collecting these pages and popularising the “404 Error pages” topic. Here are some excellent examples of creative 404 error pages:
* * *
Ok, so you have purchased one of our Flash CMS templates (or maybe you’re just planning to do so) and you are probably afraid of how difficult it seems to install the template. Well, here we are to ruin this illusion and to show you how easy it is to install it all. Please read the instructions below and you’ll see that you can do it even if you’re not a Flash professional.
* * *
I. Delivery E-mail: Flash Moto account
After you have purchased our Flash Moto template you will receive an email under “Flash Moto
Accounts” telling you as follows (example):
Dear Customer,
Your account has been successfully created. Now you can log in to Flash Moto User Account with the
following login details:
E-mail: customer@gmail.com
Password: temp123
URL:
http://account.flashmoto.com
If you have any problems accessing your account please, contact our Support Team at http://chat.template-help.com/
You’re getting this email because you’ve just bought Flash Moto CMS.
(Or at least someone using your email address did.)
II. Account Registration
You should register your product in order to use it on ONE server and for ONE domain name. To do
this, please go to your Flash Moto account at http://account.flashmoto.com and enter your access details provided over the email (example):
E-mail: customer@gmail.com
Password: temp123
III. Account Activation
1. Using this form please fill in your hosting information i.e. your website IP and a website
domain name. To edit your information, please use the “Edit” function as on the preview
below:
There was some ambiguity concerning FlashMoto CMS preorder purchase and FlashMoto CMS in general (judging from the comments on FlashMoto blog entry). So, we and FlashMoto team decided to clarify some points to sound more intelligible to our customers.
What is important to know is that FlashMoto CMS standalone version does not include any design at all. It is oriented towards web developers who will attach the design on their own, certainly if they have all necessary Flash skills. And by the way, it could be whatever design or Flash template they like, not even necessarily the one from Template Monster.
Another thing to mention is that FlashMoto CMS standalone version currently works with PC platform. At present there are some complications with the Mac, but FlashMoto team is about to settle them up.
If someone cares about the costs, the price for FlashMoto license for one website (domain) will be $199, however in case you use the preorder purchase option you may buy it for $159 (you save $40). So, that is the license for one site (domain) that you buy by preorder.
For Flash CMS Templates, Template Monster declared the sale prices (about $250) that are based on the cost of the license on FlashMoto ($199) for one domain plus the price for the design and its integration. So the design and its integration costs are in fact about $50.
Considering the stated items, for those who are not familiar with Flash we do not recommend buying FlashMoto CMS. It’s meant for professional developers only. We suggest that end users who are not very good with Flash purchase our Flash CMS Templates that are optimized for easier installation and configuration.
The last, but not the least – the release date of FlashMoto CMS standalone version is the 4th of November. That’s the final date and the launch is not to be rescheduled.
Hopefully, you’ll find this information helpful!
Update: FlashMoto has introduced its customer-support and feedback community for overall users’ feedbacks. So from now on, any person concerned has a possibility to ask a question, share an idea, report a problem, or give praise on FlashMoto related issues, mainly FlashMoto products and services they use. To take part, please feel free to visit the FlashMoto community section.
When witches go riding,
and black cats are seen,
the moon laughs and whispers,
’tis near Halloween.
With these plain rhymed lines we announce the Halloween season 2009 to be officially started, the countdown is on and now more than ever our mission is to help you enjoy Halloween as much as we do. So, welcome to an ideal entranceway into a Halloween gifts yard!
For this holiday we got some pumpkin ideas to make you scream with delight! Template Monster is coming from the underworld to present you 20% discount for terrific Halloween Templates. These scary desserts will be given to you during fifteen days from October 15th to the 1st of November 2009. And make sure, there’s no trick to these Halloween treats – so get terrific Halloween Templates and it’ll be all fright on the night!
By the way, you may also knock on Template Monster web doors to gather sweet freebies for the Halloween festival! We’re cooking the perfect design product pudding for FREE sharing. This creepy design is expected to grow out of the ground within the same period mentioned.
So, Happy Halloween and Happy Haunts for Deadly Good Template Designs!
And the last thing for you, get amused with our Halloween joke:
Q. What’s Monster’s favorite dessert? A. I-Scream Templates!!
Guys, it calls for your attention – FlashMoto starts the preorder off-load of the CMS standalone version. Intended release date is the 4th of November 2009.
What to mention is that now purchasing you can save as much as $40 (regular price for FlashMoto CMS is $199). So, you are currently free to pick the CMS to work with any Flash website for as low as $159.
The reason for such pleasant agitation is quite simple. After successful launch of Flash CMS Templates more and more people want to apply CMS over and above the templates from TemplateMonster.com, namely for their individual projects. Even previously we and the guys from FlashMoto received such kind of requests. That considering, a long-awaited release of FlashMoto CMS was hastened, for your infinite delight!
Now you are able to make the most out of it, enjoying sizable discount. Get the Standalone version of premium quality Flash Content Management System making preorder purchase at FlashMoto.com to eventually receive anticipated CMS on the day it’ll be released.
Make time out to exploit the situation and save your money!
Update: FlashMoto has introduced its customer-support and feedback community for overall users’ feedbacks. So from now on, any person concerned has a possibility to ask a question, share an idea, report a problem, or give praise on FlashMoto related issues, mainly FlashMoto products and services they use. To take part, please feel free to visit the FlashMoto community section.
Alright, we don’t have much discovery-related templates but this sad fact doesn’t mean we won’t give you anything for this holiday. We decided it will be better if any of you would choose a template that you want and get a discount for it instead of us setting a discount for the products that we choose. Anyways, it’s your chance to look a gift horse in the mouth
As for the discount itself – well, you probably know it’s about Columbus Day. Even after 500 years this fella still makes great discoveries. This time Columbus gives you a 30% discount for your purchases at TemplateMonster. And by saying that Columbus gives you a discount we really do mean just that – use the promocode “columbus” at checkout page and the price will be accordingly reduced. The promocode may be applied for any of our products (including the brand new Flash CMS template) and is only active today so hurry up to TemplateMonster and use it right now!
Please note: the discount can only be used for regular purchases and will not be applied for unique and buyout purchases.
Featured Templates
Follow TemplateMonster Updates
Rss Feed: