Cranial Soup

Tons of Free Stock Photo Sites – Commercial Use OK – No Credit Required

2010-03-27T05:59:00.001-04:00

When you are a blogger, web designer, developer, or creating a product for resale, you might need photos for your posts, templates, and other designs, but you can't just use any photo you find on the internet. That would most likely violate someone's copyright and get you into a heap of legal trouble.
So what are you supposed to do if you don't have a camera or any photography talent?

Stock photos? Sounds good, but most stock photos cost money.

Creative Commons licensed photos from Flickr? That could be good too, but that requires a link back and there may be restrictions against commercial use. Can you imagine having to put a long Flickr URL on every t-shirt and mousepad you make? How would you go about giving proper credit on a small 125x125 ad? And if you are making web templates it might not be the best idea to trust people that use your templates to keep the credit links intact.

So where can you get a whole bunch of great photos to use, that don't require a credit link, won't cost you a dime, and allow for commercial use, too?

Fortunately for you, I have done some research into this and found quite a few sources.

Fotolia has a section on their site where they give away free stock photos. The selection is limited, but they change the photos offered on a regular basis. Good for web use. Files must not be displayed in a size bigger than 640x480 pixels. Can not be used in items meant for resale (no printed t-shirts, web templates, etc)

freestockphotos.biz has tons of photos with varying licenses, many of which allow for commercial use, including items meant for resale. Check the license terms included on the page with each photo.

BurningWell.org has nothing but public domain photos. You can do anything you please with them, including items for resale.

Creating Online has free stock photos that are 400x600 pixels in maximum dimensions at 72 dpi, ideal for web use, and the selection of free photos is at the discretion of each photographer. To learn if a photo has a free download version, check its preview page. New free photos are added daily, so check back often. All free photos are covered by their standard license.

Crestock gives away one free stock photo each day. If you hit the site every day, you can build quite a collection. Sometimes they even give away a vector instead of a photo. All material they give away is covered by their standard license agreement. They also have a plugin for Wordpress, that allows you to use many of their photos for free in your blog posts, but it does link back to their site.

Dreamstime offers some free photos (RF-LL), but their standard license doesn't allow redistribution, and they consider print-on-demand items, t-shirts, web templates and other merchandise to be redistribution. They also have an additional limitation for the free photos: the number of copies is limited to 10,000 copies. If you need more than that you have to purchase the photo under the full standard license.

Free Media Goo provides free images, audio files, textures and flash files that you can pretty much do whatever you please with them except use them in propaganda, pornography, or anything suggestive, according to their license.

freerangestock offers photos you can use for just about anything. They request that you give credit, but they also say it isn't required if you don't want to. There is a credit and link requirement if you use their photos as part of a web template, though.

Image*After lets you do anything you want with their photos, as long as you don't use them to set up a stock photo site that competes with theirs.

iStockPhoto gives away one free stock photo each week, under their standard license. They also give away a free vector, video file, and audio track each month. Free membership is required.

KeyStockPhoto has a number of photos and retro images available. Photos are approximately 5" x 7" at 72dpi. They are suitable for all you web and graphic needs. They can be used on your web site, newsletter, advertising, articles, brochures, presentations, reports, promotional materials, print ads, mailers, handouts, packaging, greeting cards.

Morguefile has some very generous license terms that even allow you to sell the images, as images, as long as you have altered it so that it isn't identical to the original.

PDPhoto.org has some really nice images that you can do whatever you please with, as they are all dedicated to the public domain. There are a few sections containing photos that are not public domain, but that collection is a rather small part of the site.

Photogen has images that are good for the standard commercial uses that don't involve redistribution or printing on products for sale.

Photo Rack says there are no limitations on the use of their images.

Pixel Perfect Digital has lots of great images, but you can't use them for items for sale or redistribution, and that includes not using them in web templates.

Public-Domain-Photos.com has images you can do anything you want with, no restrictions.

PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain photos. You can do anything you want with them, but keep in mind that none of the photos have model or property releases. If you want that type of photo, they do sell some cheap, in the bottom section of the main page.

Unprofound.com was created by designers, for designers and will pretty much let you do anything with their photos except redistribute them as stock photos. The only payment they want is the pleasure of knowing what their work has become. All they want in return is to be able to see what you have done with them, which means either sending them a photo of your product, screenshot of your software, link to your website or template, or whatever other way you can show them what their images have become part of.

Pixmac has a selection of images that you can use, but not in anything considered redistributable (like mousepads, t-shirts, etc.), and at a max of 400x400 resolution on the web. There is an exception to the redistributable rule which would allow for use in web templates, providing they are made for use by one specific client. In other words, you can't use their images in web templates you plan on offering to the general public, where more than one person or company could download and use them.

Do you know of a stock photo site that I might have missed that will allow you to use their images commercially, without credit? Leave me a link in a comment.

My Top 10 FriendFeed Friends

2008-12-04T17:42:00.001-05:00

In response to Growmap's Top 10 FriendFeed Friend Challenge, I figured I'd post my list and tell a little about my FriendFeed experience and give some tips to those of you that might be new or may be a bit nervous about jumping in and friending strangers.

What exactly is FriendFeed?

Simply put, FriendFeed is a social network that aggregates your activities from other sites and networks. It's lifestreaming.

But it is much more than that. It's a great place to meet people that share your interests, share content, discover great content shared by others, keep up with news and events, engage in conversations, etc, etc, etc. It's the grand-daddy of social networking and a never ending internet content feeding frenzy.

It does not replace the social networks you are already a part of. It compliments them, making them even better.

How did I find FriendFeed?

I was introduced to FriendFeed by Chris Brogan. I was looking for a way to combine all my internet activities into a single RSS feed that my friends and readers could subscribe to. Sites like FaceBook were falling flat and not fulfilling the needs I had. I needed a service that wouldn't limit the number of blogs I could add, could handle some obscure services, and would be able to include my Backtype feed, containing comments I leave on the blogs I read. Chris assured me that FriendFeed was more than capable of doing all that I wanted, so I decided to give it a try.

How did I find people to follow?

When I came to FriendFeed, I came alone. I had no friends that used the service (that I knew about). Originally I didn't intend on using it for social networking. I just wanted to get myself together in one feed.

But curiosity got the best of me and I decided to do some exploring and see what kind of real potential the site had, beyond consolidating my activities into a single RSS feed. To do this, I had to start from scratch, finding interesting people to follow.

I decided to start by subscribing to Robert Scoble and working my way from there, following the writers of some of my favorite blogs and other people of interest. This was the same thing I did on Twitter, although I didn't find Twitter as engaging as FriendFeed. (conversations are much more difficult for me to participate in and follow on Twitter)

Who are the most interesting people I have found?

Of the almost 300 people that I have subscribed to on FriendFeed, these are the top 10 that have captured my interest the most:

Rahsheen - Author of the social media blog, SheenOnline. He is always posting something interesting to to think about and discuss.
Mona N. - Author of Pixel Bits, a great blog about gadgets, technology, pop culture, and Legos. She posts lots of stuff that just screams for you to comment and share your thoughts and opinions.
Kol Tregaskes - Author of the Squashy Frog photography blog. He is always posting links to lots of visually appealing stuff. If you want to be a better photographer, he's the one to follow. And if you just want candy for your eyes, you won't be disappointed.
RAPatton - Subscribing to this guy will bring you a real mixed bag of stuff, most of it quite interesting. If you love click adventures as much as I do, you'll really appreciate what he shares.
Stupid Blogger (aka Tina) - Author of Is This Stupid?. Besides informing you of all the ridiculous stuff she comes across each day, she is also very friendly and down to earth. She is one of the few that I am subscribed to that really lets you inside her head. She makes it quite easy to get to know her as a person. If you are a nice person that has no real friends (online or off) subscribing to her will make you feel like you have at least one.
Live4SoccerVacations - When you have had a bad day and need a good laugh, if you are subscribed to this guy, you won't have to look far.
Cee Bee - If it's cool, unusual, amusing, or nostalgic, you'll find it here.
Duncan Riley - Editor of The Inquisitr.
Robert Scoble - He's Robert Scoble. Need I say more? You can not join a social network he is a member of without subscribing to him or finding him interesting. It's just not allowed.
Zee - Founder of We Do Creative, he has also contributed to The Next Web, ReadWriteWeb, and The Inquisitr. As a fellow reject of the "Internet Addicts Anonymous" outreach program, he'd rather stay addicted than limit or give up his surfing habits. It's a good thing for him that he was able to find numerous ways to make his addiction profitable.

Just as important as the content this group posts and shares, is the conversations they start and contribute to. They really understand what social networks are for and they know how to do it right.

How should you find people to follow?

Now, this might not be the appropriate list for you to subscribe to, since your interests may differ from my own. The nice thing about FriendFeed is that it is different for everyone. Your Home page is not like anyone else's. It's what you make it, and you do this by subscribing to people that post the type of content you are interested in.

My suggestion to you would be to visit each of the pages of the people from my list, look over the postings they make, click some links that catch your eye, read the FriendFeed comments to their posts, then move to their "Likes & Comments" page and do the same. If you like what you see, subscribe to them so you can see more of it.

Make sure you post content, too. This is how people become interested in you. The more you post and share, the easier it will be to find others that like what you like, and more people to subscribe to. Commenting and clicking that "Like" link helps, too.

And check out the rooms that the people you follow are subscribed to. You can find interesting things and people there too.

You could even subscribe to me, if you want.

With some effort from you, you might find yourself on someone else's FriendFeed Top 10 list, some day.

WARNING:

Be really careful with FriendFeed. It is very easy to get sucked in, addicted, and totally obsessed. If you find your productivity going downhill, you will have to set some limits for yourself. Try Instant Boss and only pay attention to FriendFeed while you are on a scheduled break.

The 10 Commandments for Marketing Your site on Digg

2008-11-24T21:17:00.009-05:00

Never submit pages from your own sites. Never Digg anything from your own sites. This is the most important rule of all, so this is why it is first. If you follow nothing else on this list, at least follow this single most important rule.
Create a proper profile with an image and links to your websites and profiles on other social networks. Your profile is an important part of your site activities. It allows people to get to know who you are and more about you. The default image provided by Digg doesn't make a good impression on anyone. A properly filled out profile invites social interaction. Digg is a social site. It's important to be social. Most of the traffic I get directly from Digg is people visiting my sites through links on my profile.
Avoid using the Digg shout system as much as possible. Even if you keep your shouts private, people and search engines can still see and find them. These shouts can hurt you. It can be viewed by some people and search engines as a form of spamming.
Make friends with your Digg mutual friends on other social sites that have a private message system in which private messages are never made public and accessible to search engines. Or even better, use instant messaging and email, instead.
Get your Digg friends to submit your content for you, and don’t use the same person too frequently…rotate them. (use the private message system on other sites to suggest what to submit and Digg) And not every page on your site is a worthy candidate for submission. Be selective and only give them links to the best content you have on your site. Be very critical of your own work. You know what will appeal to the masses and what won't. Don't act like you are stupid. Don't submit things that will likely only get a few Diggs. This will hurt your site, in the long run when your content is submitted to Digg and gets a low number of Diggs. Google rates your content in part, by the number of Diggs it receives. Choose wisely.
Get real friends that are also members of Digg to submit and/or Digg your stuff. (same thing…contact them offsite) Make sure those friends are not connected to your Digg profile in any way.
Digg a big variety of content submitted by others (not just your friends), from the upcoming section, and don’t Digg anything lame. Think massive quantities of mass appeal. Ask yourself the following: "What would the majority of people assume about me if they were to see this in my Digg history?" If it's not something good, don't Digg it, even if you really like it.
Make sure you comment and say something intelligent that won’t get voted down, on at least 50% of what you Digg. Commenting and interacting with others is being social. You need to be social on a social network, or it just won't work. You want to be one of the first few to comment as frequently as possible, and you don't want to seem like you are some sort of idiot. And vote up the intelligent comments that you like, made by others. The more you are an early commenter with something intelligent to say, and the more social you are, the more likely it will be that you will catch the eye of a more powerful Digger that likes you for what you have to say and what you Digg, and he will be more likely to check out the other things you Digg, and then possibly Digg things that you Digg. More powerful Diggers have crowd appeal that you don’t. Their followers are what you are after and you get to those through them.
Do not attempt to friend the top dogs on Digg until you have established a very strong profile and have an abundance of experience. They are not going to friend you back if they don't know who you are and have never seen you around the site. An even better idea is to wait for them to friend you, first.
Never friend anyone on Digg that breaks the above rules. Remember the old saying "Birds of a feather flock together". Don't mark yourself as "guilty through association". Anyone that breaks the above rules are poor quality Diggers and their activities can get you marked as a spammer or poor quality Digger, yourself, and then either your account will get banned, you submissions will get constantly buried, or people just won’t Digg your stuff. If that happens, then you will be useless to your mutual Digg friends, and they will not be willing to help you as much. They may even stop following you. Leave the poor quality Diggers that break the above rules as just followers and not mutual friends. Don’t follow them or you will be following them to failure. Associate yourself only with quality.

And what kinds of things should you submit and Digg besides the usual stuff that has mass appeal, and content of good quality from your friends? Submit and Digg high quality pages that link to yours. Your goal should be indirect traffic coming from those sites to yours and not from Digg to yours. This is one easy way you can reward people that are kind enough to write about you. You give those pages more traffic and a boost in page rank and have more links pointing to you in the top 10 results in the search engines.

The goal is not to get a day of traffic from Digg. The goal is not to increase your own page rank for your site (this will happen any way if you follow my suggestions). The goal is not for your site to make the front page of Digg.

The goal is to take over the entire front page of the search engines so all links will point to you, directly or indirectly when someone searches for something.

Most people never go to page 2 of the results. They usually find what they want on page 1. If every article on page 1 sends them to you, you WIN BIG TIME, even if your site is buried on page 8 of the search results, which it won’t be if you are paying attention and learning from what I just said.

The higher the page rank of the sites that link to you, the higher your page rank will be. Why have a bunch of PR0 sites linking to you when you can actively do something about it and help turn them into PR3 or higher? This is one case where nice guys don't have to finish last. Being nice can help you finish first.

Top 25 Ways to Pull a Dollar Out of Your Ass

2008-02-28T22:13:00.001-05:00

Hunt in the usual places for change: check the pockets and lining in your coats and jackets, check your couch cushions, your desk drawers, under the bed, your car, etc. I know this is obvious, but most people never think of looking in all those places when they need quick small cash. They will usually look in most of them, but forget one or more.
Check the rebate sites and match products against receipts of recent purchases. If you don't check you will never know what money you have thrown away, that you were entitled to get back.
Put some ads on your site or blog. Adsense is easy to set up and you will eventually make something from it. And there are other programs that will pay off even sooner, since they have lower minimum payout thresholds. So shop around and see what is agreeable with your conscience and can fit in well with your site and not scare your visitors away.
Give away something for free on your site, and put a donate button right under it...and ASK for a donation! If you have any kind of art software like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Paint.net, etc...and you know how to use it...make some blank buttons or something, that people can use for their websites and post it in your blog. Release it under a Creative Commons license, require a link back to your site if they use it, and even if people don't donate, it will drive some traffic your way, which you just might make some money off the ads they may click.
Sell off your unwanted junk at a yard/garage sale, flea market, ebay craigslist, etc. Why throw away something other people want and would be willing to pay for?
Turn your trash into treasure by getting crafty, then sell your creations. I once took a bucket of water, some glass bottles & jars, and old nail polish and made some really cool looking stuff by filling the bucket with water, dripping the nail polish on top of the water, and dipping the glass into the bucket. The effect was like a swirly Easter egg, and since some of the nail polish had glitter in it, it looked even better. I painted the rims with some crappy quality silver nail polish that I didn't like and sold them for $0.50 each at a flea market. I made quite a bit by cleaning out my recycle bin and selling the stuff, rather than letting it all go to the curb. Tall narrow jars, like the kind from olives, make nice bud vases and sell even faster with an old silk flower you would have thrown away, stuck inside it. Wash the flowers first, if they look a bit grimy.
Return bottles for deposit. In some states, you are required to pay a deposit on bottles, which is included in the purchase price of the product and will be refunded upon the return of the empty bottles. If you live in such a state, go get your money back.
Find a coupon for $2 or more off on some brand of cigarettes, purchase the cigarettes, then sell them to someone else for $1 off the regular price. It helps if you know a smoker that smokes that brand before you buy, though.
Sell your old cd's that you don't listen to any more to a second hand cd store. Tastes change, and there is no reason why you should keep something you aren't going to listen to any more, just to let it take up space and collect dust. You can get cash for it and someone else won't have to pay full price.
Sell your old unwanted fiction books to a used book store. Keep reference books, and in the future, get your fiction from the library instead of buying it. There is no reason to pay for something you will read only once. The library has so much in the way of good works of fiction that you will never run out of stuff to read. And you can read it all for free.
Check your state's unclaimed funds list for your name. I have found quite a few people I know on the list for my state, including my uncle, and an ex-employer.
That recent purchase you haven't opened, used, or worn that you really don't need, take it back for a refund. Impulse spending can be a serious drain on your wallet. Learn to control it.
Sign up with mysurvey.com and take surveys. The more people you have in your family, the more surveys you will be asked to take. You will make at least 10 points per survey, more if they ask you to take a long one. I have taken surveys worth 250 points each. When you have 1000 points you can cash them in for a $10 check.
Sign up with memolink.com and click links in emails and take surveys. You don't have to buy anything to make cash from them. Use some free email account to do it separate from your regular one. They will send you emails that if you visit the site you earn points. When you earn enough points you can redeem them for money. I have received quite a few $10 checks from them doing that.
Do some paid consumer product testing with ACOP. They are one of the few companies I know that will pay you for product testing. It's not a scam. It can be tough to qualify for a product test, but when you do, you usually can make a few bucks and get a free product out of the deal, too. I have tested all kinds of things from toothbrushes, to shampoo, to feminine hygiene products. I have been paid from $2 to $7 per test. I have also taken paid surveys with them. They don't run on a points system and they don't make you wait till you have accumulated a certain amount in rewards before sending you the cash. They pay for each thing you qualify and participate in, and mail out the money soon after you complete it.
Check your junk mail to see if it has cash included. I once received a letter from some magazine company asking me to go to their website and take a survey. The letter came with a $1 bill as compensation for my time and trouble, that I could keep even if I declined to take the survey. Now I never throw away junk mail without checking it for cash first.
Keep an eye on your neighborhood trash for sellable furniture. Grab it, clean it and sell it. (see #4) I once had a neighbor that was moving and threw away some beautiful glass tables that I grabbed & cleaned and hid in my basement till the following month's yard sale. I then sold them to another neighbor for $50. She never knew she had bought someone else's trash.
Write an easy to follow guide or how-to book and self publish it on lulu.com. Everybody knows how to do something that not everyone else knows how to do. All you have to do is explain it well. Put some time & thought into it and write something worth buying. Then upload the .pdf and charge a reasonable price for it.
Think up witty sayings to put on T-shirts and start a cafepress shop and sell the stuff on your site. Ask your site visitors to send you photos of them wearing the shirts, for publication on your site. Start your visitor gallery page off with a photo of yourself or your pet wearing one of the shirts. It's a great way to connect with your site visitors and a great incentive to get them to buy a shirt.
Sell your broken jewelry as scrap metal. If you can't wear it, and it's not fixable, it's as good as trash. But it's trash with a monetary value, if you sell it to a jewelry store.
Sell the collections (coins, stamps, toy cars, comic books, baseball cards, dolls, etc). You are probably keeping them thinking that some day they will be worth something. Today is someday. You should check and see if it is true. If it hasn't gone up in value after 5 years, sell it for whatever you can get for it and cut your losses. There are better ways to invest your money than in "stuff". If you have fallen in love with the stuff and can't bear to part with it, you have reduced its value to $0. Never fall in love with an investment. Sentimental value can't put food on the table.
Sell your old vinyl records. If you don't have a turntable any more, what good are they to you? You probably will never listen to them again. You might as well turn them into cash and let someone else enjoy them before they get warped or damaged and become worthless.
Sell those textbooks you don't need any more. Next time buy used books and you might even make a profit when you sell them.
Stand by a pay phone, holding the phone to your ear, and ask people that pass by if they have a quarter. People will assume you need it for the phone and usually give it to you if they don't mind wasting the time it takes to dig in their pocket for it.
Check the ground in the parking lot outside a convenience store for change. You would be amazed at how many people don't like change and will just throw it on the ground. There is a store in my neighborhood that is always good for finding at least $1 in nickels, dimes, and pennies.