Today just a few images shot at Cap Sounio where I went for some Sea Urchins with YorgoMan and a nice Lunch with Chris and family.

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Cap Sounio — Sea Urchins.

Today just a few images shot at Cap Sounio where I went for some Sea Urchins with YorgoMan and a nice Lunch with Chris and family.

Related posts:

1. Best Auto Parts by GenesBiz
2. Acropolis Rally 2011 Images
3. Publish Google Maps
4. YorgoMan on Semiomantics Evo2 and XO
5. Vouliagmeni New Church

Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Cap Sounio — Sea Urchins.

This post is for my friends, shareholders and investments in Empire Avenue. It shows you the rational behind my EA performance.

Living in Greece, south of Athens at the beach, the internet is the ideal working place, the more that here in Vouliagmeni, the beaches are equipped with high speed WiFi :-).

I have been developing and building websites for the last 10 years. Today the main demand comes from all over the world for custom design and developments with the aim to gain high visibility on Google and in social networks.

Over the years I have built a solid team of partners from all around the globe with whom we share project developments.

High demand for WordPress based sites have led to the development of an own highly customizable and optimized framework which has proven its performance and efficiency over the last 3 years. The XO Theme for WP can also be bought as a DIY version at http://semiomantics.com.

EA Icon Apple Cloud Style

More recent developments point into the direction of the mobile web, whereas we optimize sites for various mobile platforms and build applications for the restless :-).

I am writing a Blog at http://yorgonestoridis.com which deals with many issues related to my business and life. More specific blogs deal with Digital Photography, Web Design, Online Editing and Publishing, Online Marketing and Website Development.

To pass on the know-how I have been offering daily online calls and monthly 2-days seminars for years, helping people to succeed with their home business or in their endeavor to bring their offline activity to the top of Google.

I like EA as it demonstrates the interaction and interactivity between different networks and the impact of socializing online on traffic and conversion; of course the investment game is far from realist, but it stimulates people to hang in there and to continue to promote less their business than EA.

EA also allows to study networkers’ behavior compared to investors’ behavior in as much as networkers typically seem to use the formula: “I buy your shares if you buy mine”, which is complete nonsense, whereas an investor would rather buy a stock with potential and do everything to help the baby grow ( for example: I recommend all shares I buy, I Twitter about them and as the case may be I look at the blogs and endorse them, I like them on Facebook and I may look at their Fan Page and so on.)

I am too new to the program to measure the impact of Social Network activity on the personal growth, but it will be interesting to draw some conclusions from the stats.

EA Icon Apple Cloud Style 2

There is a lot to learn from EA to finally implement some of the lessons into our own Strategies to promote our own websites and business rather that to build wealth for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and … EA.

For the time being I am happy about any kind of support, be it as a recommendation, a mention, an endorsement or if you like to invest into an aggressive strategy, you are most welcome to grab my shares. Don’t however ask me to reciprocate on investment, as my investment decisions are function of building value for my shareholders; the best I can do for you, is to keep the value of the stock you buy growing faster than your over all performance …  makes sense, does it?

For this reason, I also kick out shares which don’t perform, which would be a problem if the deals were based on reciprocity.

If I can help you or support your action (not your lethargy …) please give a shout using the comment form below and I will sure find a way to stimulate your share value.

If you like the above icons, just grab them, I did them for fun. If you want the PSD file … you better have some influence on the designer … a solid stake in my shares could help :-).

Just shout here below.

• ea icon

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Empire Avenue Intro.

Just some Photos from Syros

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Syros.

2 Days ago I joined Empire Avenue a social network where users compete and socialize. Each user has a portfolio value which increases or decreases in function of the social behavior and wise investment choices. Basically you sell your shares to people who want to invest into your activity and you buy shares from people you trust that they will take well care of your investment.

First, after signing up, fill in your profile, load a Picture, write a short Bio and select a Ticker name. For doing so, you will already collect Achievement Tokens and cash is added to your bank accounts in the programs local currency called “EAVES”.

Second: Link your social network accounts, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on. Again you will earn by doing so and depending on your popularity and activity there, your share value will immediately increase.

Third: Link your Blog(s). There is a special link to link a free WordPress.com blog and then you can link as well your self-hosted blogs by registering the RSS feed links. Feed links need 5 endorsements from other members before you can request an upgrade to blog status.

Once you have 5 endorsements you request an upgrade. In a popup window you will be prompted to read the terms and at the bottom there is a piece of code which you have to publish on your blog. I just created an admin test post into “Uncategorized” with the code in the loop.

Further manual verification will take place manually by EA admin.

The goal of the verification process is to assure that blog contents are your property and can be redistributed, that you produce original content and that you are not using black hat strategies to fool Google and the World.

Look out for the next post and I will show you how I grew from 0 to 40 in 2 days.

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Empire Avenue.

Semiomantics

WP Mobile Themes

WP Mobile

WP Mobile Theme

• Semiomantics Test

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Semiomantics Test.

Vouliagmeni School

Vouliagmeni School

• vouliagmeni back to school

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Vouliagmeni Back to School.

Flisvos Marina by Night

Flisvos Marina Athens

Flisvos Marina

• flisvos marina
• GREECE FLISVOS

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Flisvos Marina Athens.

Superyacht OXI ZEN

• ab yachts oxy zen
• image superyacht

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Superyacht OXI ZEN.

Superyacht Ocean Pearl at Flisvos Marina

Superyacht Ocean Pearl — Photo by Yorgo Nestoridis

Superyacht Ocean Pearl

Ocean Pearl Design by Norman Foster

The Ocean Pearl’ ownership is shared by 8 co-owners; price per share: Euro 1,850,000.

Ocean Pearl at Flisvos

• ocean perl
• superyacht ocean pearl
• norman foster yacht
• superyacht ocean pearl yorgo

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Superyacht Ocean Pearl.

Subsequent to our earlier post about George Accommodation I was wondering about the impact it would have on the best website about George Accommodation. Interestingly, Lalakoi Publishing’s George Accommodation jumped rapidly to Google top 10 (rank 7).

Checking out my stats, I found that the search term most used in this context were (broad search):

• Accommodation in George
• George Accommodation

I wanted to know more and did a quick keyword search and analysis to find that Accommodation in George gets about 135,000 monthly searches worldwide and about a quarter of that locally from South Africa, namely from the Western Cape region and then from Gauteng. The average cost per click is about 70 cents on Google.

The narrow search for “Accommodation in George” generates about 1,900 only monthly page-views on Google (down from 135,000 above) and returns 124,000 search results. While the broad search returns 61 million results.

George on Garden Route Publishing

These numbers may not mean a lot to you, but if you compare them with most accommodation related key-phrases, you may notice that this is pretty good. Comparatively much better than Athens! And here comes in in depth knowledge about local terminology and semantics: the word Accommodation in searches seems to be used more commonly in South Africa than elsewhere. (Yeah, I learned this from the insider Pro, Hanno Coetzee, Founder and owner of the Garden Route Directory.)

My choice remains: the best George Accommodation website is GeorgeAccommodation.com. Just contact them for any further inquiry and if you do business in George or along the Garden Route, you may want to get your site or business listed on the George Accommodation site as well. Insider tip: ask for the charming Christelle :-).

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Accommodation in George.

Accommodation in George, a town on the famous Garden Route in South Africa, is a heavily fought for keyword namely on Google. Large authority websites from the tourist industry occupy the top spots and people looking for Accommodation in George often just get these heavily standardized search returns which are not always very helpful.

George Accommodation has been built by Lalakoi Publishing to provide local Accommodation Providers with customized and well edited pages online. The entries are informative and allow site visitors to get updated content from and about bed and breakfasts, hotels, restaurants and more.

George Accommodation

In fact, George Accommodation is a Directory for Business, Accommodation, Events and more in and around George. Amongst the top 20 search returns on Google under the keyword “George Accommodation” the site provides the most accurate and updated and thus the most interesting information for visitors.

Lalakoi Publishing, the publisher of George Accommodation provides multiple formulas for small and big business to get published efficiently online: while many businesses have their own website, their ranking on Google is insufficient to reach out for visitors. The George Accommodation site acts as a top ranked publishing platform bringing thus individual pages and editorials in front of a maximum of people. Best of it, George Accommodation is part of the Lalakoi Publishing Network, spreading out the Editorials and providing content to multiple online publications.

Part of the network are GardenRouteAccom.co.za, LalakoiPublishing.com, HannoCoetzee.com, GardenRouteDirectory.net, Vacations-in-South-Africa.com and many more. George Accommodation’s content is therefore widely published for the benefit of all businesses using the site to promote their business and to keep their online profile updated.

Sample — George Accommodation on Google Top 10

The above example shows that the Editorial from George Accommodation occupies 8 of the top 10 Positions on Google, published through by publications. Interesting also the ads on the right side. The advantage for advertisers is obvious: with George Accommodation you can get to the top without the heavy cost of pay per click advertising; even better, it’s as if you had 8 ads on this page.

Not all business owners out there are internet savvy. Lalakoi Publishing offers Editing services covering copy writing by a professional journalist and advertising text editor, as well as efficient image editing and publishing.

Also, George Accommodation is available on mobile devices with its Mobile Site where all content is quickly and efficiently available for visitors.

George Accommodation is built on the <a title=“Semiomantics XO — by Semiomantics. href=“http://semiomantics.com” target=“_blank”>Semiomantics XO Framework for WordPress. A modern, dynamic site script, known for its high performance and flexibility for developers and designers.

Recent 0ptimization work brings the site quickly to the top of Google. As I am writing, George Accommodation occupies Rank #11 on Google amongst over 60.000.000 search returns:

George Accommodation on Google Page 2

Please note the load of advertisers on top and on the right side! These are people paying for every click up to $2 — $3 (!) while George Accommodation sits there 24 hours per day and moving up.

I would expect the site will reach Top 10 within the next few days.

George Accommodation deserves largely to be listed on Google Top 10 because it provides the most accurate and updated original content about Accommodation and Business in George. The Publishers and Editors, Hanno Coetzee, Aka Lalakoi, and hist team Jenny, Wilma and Christelle (isn’t Hanno lucky!) provide the most professional and efficient service to local business at comparatively the lowest cost.

Site visitors can easily contact the editor and businesses for additional information or fill in reservation forms right on the spot.

For further Information, please contact George Accommodation from HERE.

• george accommodation
• george accommodation review

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at George Accommodation.

This post will show you how to point the A record of a sub-domain to Tumblr from cPanel.

Subsequent to my earlier post about setting up your Own Domain on Tumblr, let’s have a look how you can configure the A record of your domain or sub-domain from cPanel.

Imagine you have a website, well up and running and you would like to add some cheap blogs for your kids under your domain name? Or, you have a business site and would like to add a blog? Or imagine, you are just smart and getting heavily involved on the mobile web, running on a low budget and not too worried about your performance on Google or similar but you love Facebook and you Twitter through your day … and best of all, you don’t want to worry about technology, code, html, php and such nonsense which you leave for the G®eeks!

The example I am using is on yorgoopublishing.com, which is hosted on Hosting South Africa for $49.95 per year; at Hosting South Africa you get a full-featured cPanel (amazing at that price, huh …).

Log in to your cPanel and scroll to “Domains” and select “Advanced DNS Zone Editor”.

Then just create your record (you don’t need to set up a sub-domain previously). For the purpose of this exercise I create an entry “t” for Tumblr to get a sub-domain: http://t.yorgoopublishing.com:

1. Into the Name field, type the desired sub-domain name (t.yorgoopublishing.com)

2. TTL: put default Time To Live: 14400

3. Select Type: A

4. Address: put the Tumblr IP (72.32.231.8)

5. Add Record.

Done.

Test your set-up with the Tumblr Custom Domain Test Tool:

Click on the Image to Test

The test tool will return as per above: the domain is pointing to Tumblr, but no account is set up to use it.

Now log in to Tumblr, click the name of your blog at the top of the Dashboard, and click Settings. Check off “Use a custom domain name”, and enter your custom domain (ie. “mywebsite.com”). Click “Save Changes”.

Click to enlarge

Now your set up is done and you can test again with the Custom Domain Test Tool to get the following result:

Click to enlarge

If you need any help, just post a comment here below or use the Contact Form on my blog.

• tumblr posts with own domain
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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Own Domain on Tumblr.

Tumblr is popular, easy to use, brilliant for sailors in the Mobile Web and it is free to use. Tumblr is basically a free Blog-farm for people who don’t want to bother with custom theme development, hosting and other trouble inherent to an own website.

The downside is the lack of Optimization and extremely limited visibility on search engines as well as limited branding. Of course, when you are using such free websites, you are building rather the owners’ business than your own.

The first step to independence is to link your own domain to your Tumblr and start promoting it. It’s cheap and efficient.

The easiest way to brand your Tumblr is to add your own Domain to Tumblr. This means that you start building your own business and the value of your most precious asset: your brand domain name.

Example: ListenUpLondon

Tumblr lets you use a domain of your choice; the trouble is, that many of the less savvy users have no clue how to do that and for this reason we thought to offer a quick and mobile service for Tumblr users.

In collaboration with YORGOdom, we provide a quick and efficient service to get your Tumblr account linked to your domain. YORGOdom is our customer interface to ENOM, the largest domain registrar which allows us to help you or to do the configuration for you.

Basically there are 3 ways to proceed:

1. Go to http://yorgodom.com and register a domain, preferably a “.com”. The price is $12.95 per year, renewal is automatic until you cancel.

2. Send me an SMS to +447549906313 indicating your name and username you registerred with YORGOdom. Alternatively, you can also mail me at iPhone(at)yorgo.net.

3. I will configure the A records to point to Tumblr and send you the instruction how to proceed in your Tumblr account. Within hours your set-up will be visible.

That’s it!

1. Register a Domain as per above at http://yorgodom.com.

2. After the purchase, edit the domain’s hosting records and set www, and * to the Tumblr IP address: 72.32.231.8

NOTE: don’t change the name-servers (DNS), just edit the records of your Domain or sub-domain.

TEST: Use the Tumblr Custom Domain testing tool to check if your domain is configured properly.

3. Now log in to Tumblr, click the name of your blog at the top of the Dashboard, and click Settings. Check off “Use a custom domain name”, and enter your custom domain (ie. “mywebsite.com”). Click “Save Changes”.

Done!

PROBLEMS? Just message me as per above.

Now you can promote your own domain and visitors will automatically see your Tumblr site.

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at How to add an Own Custom Domain to Tumblr.

Tumblr is popular, easy to use, brilliant for sailors in the Mobile Web and it is free to use. Tumblr is basically a free Blog-farm for people who don’t want to bother with custom theme development, hosting and other trouble inherent to an own website.

The downside is the lack of Optimization and extremely limited visibility on search engines as well as limited branding. Of course, when you are using such free websites, you are building rather the owners’ business than your own.

The first step to independence is to link your own domain to your Tumblr and start promoting it. It’s cheap and efficient.

The easiest way to brand your Tumblr is to add your own Domain to Tumblr. This means that you start building your own business and the value of your most precious asset: your brand domain name.

Example: ListenUpLondon

Tumblr lets you use a domain of your choice; the trouble is, that many of the less savvy users have no clue how to do that and for this reason we thought to offer a quick and mobile service for Tumblr users.

In collaboration with YORGOdom, we provide a quick and efficient service to get your Tumblr account linked to your domain. YORGOdom is our customer interface to ENOM, the largest domain registrar which allows us to help you or to do the configuration for you.

Basically there are 3 ways to proceed:

1. Go to http://yorgodom.com and register a domain, preferably a “.com”. The price is $12.95 per year, renewal is automatic until you cancel.

2. Send me an SMS to +447549906313 indicating your name and username you registerred with YORGOdom. Alternatively, you can also mail me at iPhone(at)yorgo.net.

3. I will configure the A records to point to Tumblr and send you the instruction how to proceed in your Tumblr account. Within hours your set-up will be visible.

That’s it!

1. Register a Domain as per above at http://yorgodom.com.

2. After the purchase, edit the domain’s hosting records and set www, and * to the Tumblr IP address: 72.32.231.8

NOTE: don’t change the name-servers (DNS), just edit the records of your Domain or sub-domain.

TEST: Use the Tumblr Custom Domain testing tool to check if your domain is configured properly.

3. Now log in to Tumblr, click the name of your blog at the top of the Dashboard, and click Settings. Check off “Use a custom domain name”, and enter your custom domain (ie. “mywebsite.com”). Click “Save Changes”.

Done!

PROBLEMS? Just message me as per above.

Now you can promote your own domain and visitors will automatically see your Tumblr site.

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at How to add an Own Custom Domain to Tumblr.

The August Ycademy Online Seminar will focus on transforming your WordPress CMS into a powerful Marketing Machine.

Online Marketing is about gaining high visibility within a target market and submitting to targeted audiences our products and services. While a business website is the base of the online presence, the visibility and traffic remain the essential part of the marketing process.

Semiomantics has proven for years its ability to gain high Google rankings, visibility and traffic in most any niche and under most any keyword. The XO script allows us to out-perform competitors when it comes to publishing.

Attracting potential customers to our website is the first step, keeping visitors on the site and making them return is a second issue all together. Also, with the often large number of affiliate links users have to fight with, we need to implement features which make the workflow more efficient and allow to automatically promote affiliate links under multiple keywords. In fact, this does not only concern the promotion of Affiliate links, but any link to which we want to drive traffic.

The Semiomantics XO Framework is built with all the characteristics required for a high performance marketing website. Flexible layouts, easy customization and above all, highly optimized for Search Engines, XO serves as the ideal starting point for any online marketing effort.

Depending on the marketing strategies, various scripts can be added to XO to execute marketing tasks.

The Seminar will focus in depth on two main strategies:

1. Email Marketing
2. Affiliate Marketing

We will look into two aspects of Email Marketing:

1. Technical issues
2. Look and Perception (Design)

Email Marketing allows to follow up on visitors and their interest in our content. These follow ups can be implemented by using features such as

• Opt-in list building
• Auto-responders
• Newsletters
• News blasts
• Individual mails
• Lead capture pages

…  and so on.

Follow-ups aim conversion as well as bringing our content in front of a highly targeted audience (warm market).

The first part of the Seminar will resolve all technical issues and make sure that all participants are fully equipped to launch email campaigns as per individual needs. This means mainly that we will configure and set-up the mailing scripts and features, test them and build one or multiple newsletters to which visitors can subscribe.

Designing a Newsletter is similar to designing a Website in as much as the Look and Feel goes. Also, a newsletter, namely its online version can include functions for feed-back and interaction. We will distinguish between the emails being sent out to subscribers and the online version of the newsletter.

Once the functions decided, we will apply graphic design to make the mails and newsletters look attractive and functional.

To start personal Newsletter Theme Development, each participant will receive a copy of the XOmail theme, which will serve as a bases point for customization and adaptation to individual needs.

At the seminar we will customize the Email marketing publications to fit into each participants XO theme design (Logo, color, graphics, fonts, layout).

The set-up and implementation of the above will take a good part of the Seminar’s 2 day schedule.

To conclude the Seminar we will have a closer look at one aspect of Affiliate Marketing, namely the integration of automated link promotion. This is not only important for affiliate marketers but for all those who sell own products and services as well (target your shop). In fact, you could also just promote and automatically build links back to your main authority posts or pages.

Join the Seminar and we will show you how :-).

As usual, the Seminar will take place Saturday and Sunday from 1 pm — 9 pm London Time.

Ticket price: as usual: $85

Discounts for Ycademy Pros as usual — please ask Bianca for the Code. (bianca(at)ycademy.com)

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Marketing with WordPress Seminar.

This Tutorial will show you step by step how to build an attractive menu using sprites for your WordPress Photo website. I have used this feature on the below demo site:

The menu is placed in the header.php of the WordPress theme (here its Semiomantics XO) in replacement of the navigation.

The image file consists roughly of a Filmstrip serving as mask and then the images which are inserted into the film strip. In the normal position, the images are dimmed by a black fill layer at about 75% opacity.

The final image looks as follows:

Download my PSD file from HERE.

When you open the file in Photoshop, you will find 3 folders in the layer stack:

The bottom folder contains the lower film-strip, the next folder concerns the upper film-strip and on top you find the Semiomantics XO Photo Publishing ad which I kick in as a bonus.

To start, just make the “ad” folder invisible by clicking on the eye icon placed to the left of the “ad” folder.

Then expand the folder called “lower” and inspect its content. The lower folder represents the images we will see when hovering with the mouse over the final menu.

At the bottom of the stack you will now find a green and a black background layer. Use whatever you feel more comfortable with, I suggest to use green for editing and if you publish on a dark website, save the final image with the black layer switched on.

On top of the background there is an empty Image Layer which is just a placeholder to show you where to insert images.

After that come the images I have inserted and which you will replace with your own photos or graphics.

I did not create a set of re-sized pictures for the purpose; I just placed photos using the “Place” feature: go File — Place, select a photo from your hard drive and place it on the canvas. When it flies in, it comes with the “transform” handles and you can easily move it into position and re-size it before confirming the placement.

Do this with 4 Photos and delete my pictures.

Make sure you place all your images above the green or black background layer and BELOW the Mask layer.

If you wish, just edit their style by double clicking the Mask layer for example (the layer style pane pops up) and by changing the color using a Color overlay or a gradient or any other style.

Also you could fill the Spocket Holes with any color or texture, by selecting the layer (hold down the control key and click on the layer — you get the marching ants around the holes and can fill them using the Fill tool from Edit — Fill.

The Text layer is a Kodak type of text layer which gives the typical film look. You may delete it and create your own texts. I kept it more or less as is as on the hover function the look is more important that the menu list item title.

I have just added as a sample a layer called Yorgo which can serve as a sample for your own text layer.

We are now finished with the lower folder.

Expand the “upper” folder. In my case I used the same images, however you may load different images.

If you use the same image, just select your image layers from the “lower” layer (hold down the ctrl key and select the 4 images) then right-click on the selection and go “Duplicate Layer”; you will now get the 4 image copy layers just above the originals and note, the copies are now selected: with the mouse just push these 4 image copies up into the “upper” folder and drop them above the “Image Layer”. Then delete my images. Now your layers are correctly organized, but your images have not moved.

While your 4 images in the “upper“folder are still selected, use the Move Tool from the tool box and hold down the “shift” key while you drag the images up from the lower part of the canvas to the upper film-strip.

This operation will place your images automatically properly in the upper film strip.

Note now that your Images show as in the lower layer, however they appear dimmed.

To achieve the dimming effect you could just load a black color fill layer on top of the photo layers and fill it with some 75% black. To make this sample more interesting, I have placed with each image a separate fill layer, which allows you to create for each image a different color layer with different fill factors.

These layers are referred to as Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3 and Layer 4 in the upper folder.

Example:

If you also re-style the mask, you could get some interesting effects:

Of course you could also use patterns for the overlay effect:

Ok,OK, it’s always the same … so lets go funky-freaky-grungy-trashy:

Enough … as you see, your creativity and imagination are the limit.

To get rid of the Kodak stuff, like the image numbers top and bottom of the film-strip, just delete or hide the “Text” layer.

Then, you notice the other text layers on top of the stack: GREECE, LIFESTYLE, ARCHITECTURE, NATURE and YORGO’s; just modify the text by editing these text layers or delete them and create your own. I have used these text layers as menu labels. The font I used is Gotham but you could use Myriad pro which is just perfect and Kodak like.

If you use, as I do, the best WordPress theme framework, Semiomantics XO, it will be easy to just copy what I am doing here. If you use another Theme, you will have to adapt the instruction to your theme.

Edit header.php from your XO theme or, if you use a child theme, copy header.php from your XO theme folder to the child theme folder and edit it in your text editor (PSPad for example).

From your original XO header.php delete lines 144 — 153 (they concern the Navigation bars) and ad at the same place your menu links and a style class like so:

 <div class="sprites">
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/nature-photography/" class="sprite1" title="Nature Photography by Yorgo Nestoridis"></a>
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/architecture-photos/" class="sprite4" title="Lifestyle Photography by Yorgo Nestoridis"></a>
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/lifestyle/" class="sprite3" title="Lifestyle Photography by Yorgo Nestoridis"></a>
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/greece-photos/" class="sprite2" title="Yorgo Nestoridis Photography"></a>
 </div>

Note: you insert this code just before the header closing </div> which is originally on line 154.

Let me comment the above:

1. We create a div class to be able to style and position the menu bar as a hole. (line 1 above)

2. We enter the html code for the URL we want to link to from the menu; NOTE: each link is associated with a different style class we create class=“sprite1”, class=“sprite2” and so on. These style classes will allow us to style each menu list item individually using the CSS style sheet. (lines 2–5)

3. We close the sprites class div we had previousely opened on line 1. (line 6)

You may just overwrite my links with yours as well as the titles, but leave the sprite1, 2, 3, 4 classes as is.

You are almost done; we just need to add a few lines to our style sheet. From your WordPress theme or Child theme, edit style.css and add the following code:

.sprite1, a.sprite1 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 0 0;
float:left;

}

a.sprite1:hover{
background-position:0px -239px;
}

.sprite2, a.sprite2 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 257px 0;
float:left;
}

a.sprite2:hover{
background-position:257px -239px;
}

.sprite3, a.sprite3 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 513px 0;
float:left;
}

a.sprite3:hover{
background-position:513px -239px;
}

.sprite4, a.sprite4 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 769px 0;
float:left;
}

a.sprite4:hover{
background-position:769px -239px;
}

Replace my background image link with yours: upload your sprites to the Media Library from your WP Dashboard and grab the link from there.

You may now position your menu if needed or add a border by adding one more line as I did on mine:

.sprites {display:block;margin-top:30px;border-top:1px dotted #fdd89e;border-bottom: 1px dotted #fdd89e;padding:10px 0 10px  0; }

This is it.

If you encounter any problem or need help, just comment here below.

Related posts:

1. Evo 2 Home Page Tutorial
2. Evo2 Gallery Tutorial
3. Simple Sprites Menu
4. Thesis Tutorial Header Banner Rotator
5. Apple Touch Icon Tutorial

Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Photo Sprites Menu Tutorial.

This Tutorial will show you step by step how to build an attractive menu using sprites for your WordPress Photo website. I have used this feature on the below demo site:

The menu is placed in the header.php of the WordPress theme (here its Semiomantics XO) in replacement of the navigation.

The image file consists roughly of a Filmstrip serving as mask and then the images which are inserted into the film strip. In the normal position, the images are dimmed by a black fill layer at about 75% opacity.

The final image looks as follows:

Download my PSD file from HERE.

When you open the file in Photoshop, you will find 3 folders in the layer stack:

The bottom folder contains the lower film-strip, the next folder concerns the upper film-strip and on top you find the Semiomantics XO Photo Publishing ad which I kick in as a bonus.

To start, just make the “ad” folder invisible by clicking on the eye icon placed to the left of the “ad” folder.

Then expand the folder called “lower” and inspect its content. The lower folder represents the images we will see when hovering with the mouse over the final menu.

At the bottom of the stack you will now find a green and a black background layer. Use whatever you feel more comfortable with, I suggest to use green for editing and if you publish on a dark website, save the final image with the black layer switched on.

On top of the background there is an empty Image Layer which is just a placeholder to show you where to insert images.

After that come the images I have inserted and which you will replace with your own photos or graphics.

I did not create a set of re-sized pictures for the purpose; I just placed photos using the “Place” feature: go File — Place, select a photo from your hard drive and place it on the canvas. When it flies in, it comes with the “transform” handles and you can easily move it into position and re-size it before confirming the placement.

Do this with 4 Photos and delete my pictures.

Make sure you place all your images above the green or black background layer and BELOW the Mask layer.

If you wish, just edit their style by double clicking the Mask layer for example (the layer style pane pops up) and by changing the color using a Color overlay or a gradient or any other style.

Also you could fill the Spocket Holes with any color or texture, by selecting the layer (hold down the control key and click on the layer — you get the marching ants around the holes and can fill them using the Fill tool from Edit — Fill.

The Text layer is a Kodak type of text layer which gives the typical film look. You may delete it and create your own texts. I kept it more or less as is as on the hover function the look is more important that the menu list item title.

I have just added as a sample a layer called Yorgo which can serve as a sample for your own text layer.

We are now finished with the lower folder.

Expand the “upper” folder. In my case I used the same images, however you may load different images.

If you use the same image, just select your image layers from the “lower” layer (hold down the ctrl key and select the 4 images) then right-click on the selection and go “Duplicate Layer”; you will now get the 4 image copy layers just above the originals and note, the copies are now selected: with the mouse just push these 4 image copies up into the “upper” folder and drop them above the “Image Layer”. Then delete my images. Now your layers are correctly organized, but your images have not moved.

While your 4 images in the “upper“folder are still selected, use the Move Tool from the tool box and hold down the “shift” key while you drag the images up from the lower part of the canvas to the upper film-strip.

This operation will place your images automatically properly in the upper film strip.

Note now that your Images show as in the lower layer, however they appear dimmed.

To achieve the dimming effect you could just load a black color fill layer on top of the photo layers and fill it with some 75% black. To make this sample more interesting, I have placed with each image a separate fill layer, which allows you to create for each image a different color layer with different fill factors.

These layers are referred to as Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3 and Layer 4 in the upper folder.

Example:

If you also re-style the mask, you could get some interesting effects:

Of course you could also use patterns for the overlay effect:

Ok,OK, it’s always the same … so lets go funky-freaky-grungy-trashy:

Enough … as you see, your creativity and imagination are the limit.

To get rid of the Kodak stuff, like the image numbers top and bottom of the film-strip, just delete or hide the “Text” layer.

Then, you notice the other text layers on top of the stack: GREECE, LIFESTYLE, ARCHITECTURE, NATURE and YORGO’s; just modify the text by editing these text layers or delete them and create your own. I have used these text layers as menu labels. The font I used is Gotham but you could use Myriad pro which is just perfect and Kodak like.

If you use, as I do, the best WordPress theme framework, Semiomantics XO, it will be easy to just copy what I am doing here. If you use another Theme, you will have to adapt the instruction to your theme.

Edit header.php from your XO theme or, if you use a child theme, copy header.php from your XO theme folder to the child theme folder and edit it in your text editor (PSPad for example).

From your original XO header.php delete lines 144 — 153 (they concern the Navigation bars) and ad at the same place your menu links and a style class like so:

 <div class="sprites">
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/nature-photography/" class="sprite1" title="Nature Photography by Yorgo Nestoridis"></a>
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/architecture-photos/" class="sprite4" title="Lifestyle Photography by Yorgo Nestoridis"></a>
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/lifestyle/" class="sprite3" title="Lifestyle Photography by Yorgo Nestoridis"></a>
<a href="http://photo.yorgoopress.com/greece-photos/" class="sprite2" title="Yorgo Nestoridis Photography"></a>
 </div>

Note: you insert this code just before the header closing </div> which is originally on line 154.

Let me comment the above:

1. We create a div class to be able to style and position the menu bar as a hole. (line 1 above)

2. We enter the html code for the URL we want to link to from the menu; NOTE: each link is associated with a different style class we create class=“sprite1”, class=“sprite2” and so on. These style classes will allow us to style each menu list item individually using the CSS style sheet. (lines 2–5)

3. We close the sprites class div we had previousely opened on line 1. (line 6)

You may just overwrite my links with yours as well as the titles, but leave the sprite1, 2, 3, 4 classes as is.

You are almost done; we just need to add a few lines to our style sheet. From your WordPress theme or Child theme, edit style.css and add the following code:

.sprite1, a.sprite1 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 0 0;
float:left;

}

a.sprite1:hover{
background-position:0px -239px;
}

.sprite2, a.sprite2 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 257px 0;
float:left;
}

a.sprite2:hover{
background-position:257px -239px;
}

.sprite3, a.sprite3 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 513px 0;
float:left;
}

a.sprite3:hover{
background-position:513px -239px;
}

.sprite4, a.sprite4 {
display:block;
width:256px;
height:236px;
background:url('http://photo.yorgoopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-sprite.jpg') 769px 0;
float:left;
}

a.sprite4:hover{
background-position:769px -239px;
}

Replace my background image link with yours: upload your sprites to the Media Library from your WP Dashboard and grab the link from there.

You may now position your menu if needed or add a border by adding one more line as I did on mine:

.sprites {display:block;margin-top:30px;border-top:1px dotted #fdd89e;border-bottom: 1px dotted #fdd89e;padding:10px 0 10px  0; }

This is it.

If you encounter any problem or need help, just comment here below.

• sprite menu wordpress
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Related posts:

1. Evo 2 Home Page Tutorial
2. Evo2 Gallery Tutorial
3. Simple Sprites Menu
4. Thesis Tutorial Header Banner Rotator
5. Apple Touch Icon Tutorial

Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Photo Sprites Menu Tutorial.

To illustrate yesterday’s training, here are 3 pictures I just shot out of the window with a point and shoot camera:

No Zoom

This first example shows that the sun and the warm colors around represent a small amount of the total image size. To get a dark foreground I used centered metering which causes the foreground to be overexposed since the metering is dominantly done on the light areas around the center of the image.

Medium Zoom

Using Zoom to focus on the warm color range around the sun and by lifting the camera we reduce the importance of the fore ground in terms of importance. The foreground is nicely over exposed while we get plenty of the warm gradients.

Full Optical Zoom

Forget about the foreground, we just zoom in and try to capture the interesting edges of the cloud. Compared to what the eye sees in nature (first picture) we are here entirely in the heart of the warm color range with an over-saturation of orange/reds. The contrasts get harder and we may miss out on some gradients, however such pictures can be spectacular.

• how to take sun set
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• Photographers taking sunset photo shot

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Photography: How to take Sunset Photos.

Amazing, Paul Allen’s Super Yacht Octopus! Yesterday I went to meet some friends here in Vouliagmeni at the main beach. Some 5000 people who obviously could not afford to go for the usual holiday break during the week-end of August 15 were hanging out in the Vouliagmeni bay with a direct view on the Super Yacht Octopus belonging to Paul Allen.

Imagine the people here on the foreground being some 20 meters away from my camera while the yacht is about half a mile off the coast! With its over 126 meters its the 12th largest private yacht worldwide.

Imagine now, 5000 people having paid some 150 Euros for their Windows in bankrupt Greece having the beautiful view polluted by Microsoft Co-Founders Yacht a whole Sunday in the immaculate bay of Vouliagmeni! 5000 people paying 150 Euros, thats 750 000 Euros or about 1 Million of Dollars contributing to Paul’s 200 Million Dollar Yacht.

Back in 2003, when the Super Yacht Octopus was delivered, people had already bought Windows 95, 98, Millennium, 2000 and just started upgrading to Windows XP .… not to speak about Office!

And while I was calculating and imagining Paul sipping Champagne on the Air Conditioned deck his Guests had fun with the Jet Skis and the ballet of the Helicopters polluted acoustically the place.

Up to now, I was a Windows freak, may be also just because there is nothing better out there. But as I am sitting in front of Windows all day long, frankly, I don’t need to sit in front of Paul’s Yacht he has screwed out of my (and other’s) wallet when I am taking a day off at the beach!

If this is the way Microsoft is building its image, then, believe me, there is no big future wherever Paul parks his Yacht.

When a week ago I spotted the Super yacht for the first time here, I thought it was funny .… yesterday when sitting at the beach, I thought it was more of a provocation and my friends agreed.

I know, Americans love to talk about The Dream and Americans have been kept dreaming into the biggest dept ever created on earth by People like Paul Allen who have raked in the Billions while the stupid crowd has been kept dreaming. Sure Greece is Bankrupt and in bad shape; the USA are not much better and the per capita debt may even be bigger than the Greek debt. The difference is however that the American Households are debt ridden as well while here in Greece, the households have a positive net value.

Paul, your impressive Yacht is a beauty but it is the wrong time and the wrong place for it here. Take your boat and go back home to where you come from — Seattle may appreciate your show-off more than we do here. May be you should think of using your money in a more intelligent way than to screw up the summer break of Greeks who are happy to get away from Athens for the week-end of the 15th of August ( just for your educational shortfall: the 15th of August is the second most important religious holiday here — but I cannot expect that you care about other people’s culture and the places where you park and pollute the place with your provocative Octopus).

Like so many people having been able to accumulate big fortunes, Paul Allen is called a Philanthropist. A Greek term meaning etymologically someone who “loves Humanity”. Here is something you can do positively Paul: next time you park in Vouliagmeni, pick me up with one of your helicopters or tenders for a cool drink and a guided tour through your superb Yacht. May be at the same time we can discuss business as it is my business to publish better online. I will prove it to you, making sure that my views about your local Philanthropy here get to the top of Google.

You can reach me by phone in Vouliagmeni at +30 210 8960637 — your time is mine :-).

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Copyright © Yorgo Nestoridis - Original Article at Paul Allen Provocative Image.