We are used to receiving grades. We have been getting Fs and As since our childhood and I believe that grades are pretty useful. They enable us to see very quickly and clearly who is who. I have decided to assess online photography portfolios highlighting their most common mistakes. Of course, “A” gets the one which has none (rhyme not intended).

I would give “B” to a portfolio with the following mistake - and it is not a scarce mistake - excessive verbosity. Whether commercial or a non-commercial project your photography portfolio is, if it is online, it should be the visitor, not you, who really counts. He or she has come here to watch your pictures, not to read about you. Limit yourself to only the most necessary text information and concentrate on your works. Here it is really that “pictures speak louder than words”.

“C” definitely gets a portfolio where baffling background music starts playing. Most people find it irritating, you know why? Frankly speaking, I don’t actually, but take it for granted! So, if you still want to include some background music, make sure the visitors can turn it on and off, when they like it.

“D” would deserve a portfolio where thumbnails are misleading. Many portfolios have thumbnails that do not give the same impression that the photo itself. Your online photography portfolio is not a comic strip where the visitor is supposed to have fun due to the mismatch with their expectation. As soon as they get tired of this, the site will be closed.

Graded “E” would be a portfolio without any contact information. Good as you are, you may get a lot of people interested in your works and if you leave them without any contact information, all your efforts come to naught.

“F” would get a portfolio with user-unfriendly navigation. Experimenting is a good thing until it is not effective. Make sure that the visitor has no problems navigating your site. Visit your site as a visitor, not as a creator. Would you like it? Is it convenient? Ask yourself these questions before realizing that you have failed to achieve all this. A good portfolio is the one where the visitor feels comfortable.

So, these are my grades, don’t be insulted if your portfolio has got a failing grade. Keep in mind, grading is always subjective.

When you want to have an impressive website, it is not always that you have to use Flash. Several other alternatives are possible and one of them is Swish. Swish templates are similar to Flash templates but they are sometimes more relevant. Let us see when, why and how.

How Use?

The editing process of Swish templates is much simpler and faster than that of Flash templates, so that can save your time, especially if you are customizing a swish template on your own. Swish templates are supplied with all source files (HTML, PHP, PNG, PSD, SWF and SWI), that gives you an opportunity to fully control your future website. Video tutorials and customization manuals are also provided for the latest swish templates. The software necessary for working with swish templates are Swish Max 1 or Swish Max 2, Macromedia Fireworks and Photoshop 7+.

Why Use?

The automated special effects are built into Swishmax, which is not as costly as the “original” Adobe Flash Macromedia and weighs less. The objects that could be included on a swish website are preloders, sounds, movies, animation, 3d-graphics, galleries and many more. The key elements of a swish template are a swish-animated header and imaginative transitions of objects.

When Use?

The area where swish templates can be applied is pretty the same as for the Flash sites. They can perfectly suit both private individuals and businesses if they need to include a lot of multimedia on their website.

Have a look at the screenshot below. It is a Furniture window swish template 2079. There is a lot of movement and the pictures “appear out of nothing” and “dissolve into nothing” in front of your eyes. The template reacts with motion to almost any change of the position of the mouse. It is perfect for you if you have a lot of content (especially pictures) and you need to present it in a very special way.

The next - Creative design swish template - is a yellow and green solution for a business web site. A very creative approach to transitions on the site allows a future website to become a real experience for the visitor.

Swish templates collection at Flashmint.com is being renewed with 2-3 new designs every week to provide its visitors with the widest choice on the Net. And keep in mind, that with each purchase you will still get 6-month free hosting which makes it all a nice package.

Mesmerizing interactivity offered by Flash web-sites runs the risk of being left completely inconspicuous since Flash web-pages do not rank well with search engines. This problem has been attracting attention of web-developers for quite a long time already and it seems that no perfect solution has been offered so far.

Does Google index your .swf files?
The frequent question “Does Google index your .swf files?” seems to have been answered by the company. “Google reads Flash, so optimize it” is the title of the post on the News.com. It describes how Google implements Adobe Systems’ Search Engine SDK technology. However, the results are not absolute and further improvements are awaited, but the web developers can start optimizing the content of the Flash sites. Another good tool to supplement SDK is SE-Flash.com. It checks how appealing your text for a search engine is after you have applied SDK.

SEO and Flash-animated websites
A good starting point for those who look for optimizing Flash is to begin separating such things from each other as the content of the web site and the way it is presented. It is very useful to use html for all the text information on your website adding images made in Flash as a superb final touch. Then, your site, which is in principal html-based, is ranked high by html-oriented search engines. Flash-based animation and interaction will present all this information in a remarkable way and will help you to increase rankings.

SEO and Flash-based websites
If you still prefer your site to be essentially Flash-based, then a good thing is to remove all the content from a Flash movie and include it into an html file. Then, using CSS (.div) and JavaScript (.swf) you can do the following:

<div id=”flashcontent”>

   If the user has the correct version of the Flash plugin
installed, this part will be replaced by the Flash content.
Just add your HTML content here and Google will index it just
as it would normal HTML content (because it is HTML content!)
Use HTML, embed images, anything you would normally place
on an HTML page is fine.

</div>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

    // <![CDATA[

    var fo = new FlashObject(”flashmovie.swf”, “flashmovie”,
“300″, “300″, “8″, “#FF6600″);

    fo.write(”flashcontent”);

    // ]]>

</script>

Search engines that cannot cope with Flash, will skip it. Spiders of search engines will find robots.txt-file on your web site which will redirect them to a proper html file with the content you want to be indexed. However, beware that such redirecting can be regarded as spamming, so be very careful while applying this technique.

More useful tips
The use of noembed tags is considered to be one of the best ways of optimizing Flash-based websites. Placing the text information of the webpage between them is essential while securing a good search engine optimization strategy. Another good piece of advice is to make certain that Flash links lead to html pages, not to other Flash pages. Search engines seem to be improving their capability of indexing Flash content, but it is not perfect so far, so avoid abusing it yet.
Taking proper care of your website metadata should be perceived as a very important tool. Leaving metadata fields empty is indefensible, even though it is considered to be less important for search engines nowadays.

Smaller hints
Here are some smaller tricks which you can apply to optimize your Flash content. I strongly advise you to use symbols for every animated element that occurs more than one time and put these elements in groups (as long as it is possible). Restrict the number of fonts and font styles. Try to do it in such a way that a number of colors used in the web design fits into the palette peculiar to the browser.

Off-site optimization
Strengthen the linking from other renowned sites to yours. And the last (but not the least!!!!), be ready to depend on Pay Per Click advertising, since whatever the abilities of search engines to index Flash are, they are still far from being excellent.

This is what actually can be done to make the beauty and charm of Flash be noticed by search engines. As you can see nothing stands still, a lot is changing and more improvements, hopefully, will appear in the foreseeable future.

Having studied the customers’ demands Flashmint team of web experts have developed a new category of web and flash templates – Full Screen Templates. They are very flexible concerning the dimensions of the browser window because they are able to stretch and contract without any damage to the content of the web-site.

Now in Full Screen Templates category there are only four of them. It is just the starting point of their production and this number will be expanded to provide full screen web and flash templates for various customers’ purposes.

Do not waste your time and watch our just-launched FullScreen Web Templates.

Live Demo

Live Demo

Live Demo

Live Demo

You think that you know all what you can do with Flash? Sure? We have put up a top 15 of the best Flash-based web sites of the year 2008. Come and check up on them, I am sure you will find something you have not yet seen.

1. St. Ives Elements – Get a Happy Face is a terrific commercial! It has an excellent combination of graphic motion and outstandingly amazing navigation. The women’s face care means become alive in front of your eyes blending with the natural elements from which they are made. As you put your cursor on one of the components of the web site, it is very suitably foregrounded.

2. Microsoft Office for Mac is a Flash-animated black and white web site from Microsoft with a very peculiar design. The whole array of people, numbers are chaotically moving to and fro on the site. And what is the visitor supposed to do? Of course, buy it. A little bit strange, but still interesting.

3. Robobrawl from Intel and Xeon is a real challenge for a visitor. Can you brawl your way to the top? They have already done it and now it is your turn to try. Excellent 3D-graphics will be a good inspiration for you. So, go ahead, create your own robot and enter the ring.

4. Get out and Play is a movie and a game in one. Have you ever seen anything like that? If not, then go online and have fun.

5. Ecco World offers you a never-ending walk. While walking without making any stops you can try on various models of shoes. While changing the shoes, see how the world around you changes too. So, the question is: is it the shoes for the world or the world for the shoes?

6. Wrap Rage Cure seems to be needed by everyone. According to the site most of us appear to be suffering from this problem. What about you? Study patients’ histories, and I bet you will find yours among them. Interesting visual solutions will help you navigate the site in a very lively and joyful way.

7. Help the Honey Bees is a web site from Haagen-Dazs ice-cream aimed at protecting them from decreasing and disappearing. Explore the site and find out how much food we have due to these perfect little creatures.

8. Nitrocircus will help a user-beginner to learn how to navigate those hard-to-use flash web-sites. You ask how? In the corner of the web page there is a note with five tips how to do it. Meanwhile you can practice and improve your skills while navigating the site itself with lots of obstacles for a “Flash novice”.

9. Lowe’s Sunnyville is a nice green village full of splendid small cottages. What unites them all? Of course, a yard in front of the house. A garden? A lawn? A grill kindom? That is what the residents of Sunnyville have already done with their yards, and what would you like to do? Go and explore it yourself.

10. Red&Blue Summer Collection offers you a very interesting tour through their products. Have fun with an attractive navigation and get to know about the company. Nice pale color palette of the site will definitely charm you.

11. Nitro Group is a company site which is quite impressive. Enjoy flying-in-space-like surfing.

12. Do you live in Motorola City? Would you like to? What do you stand to gain by living in it? Go on-line and find out. You will be accompanied by a very precise and sharp navigation, clean and distinct images. The interaction on the site is very well to the point too.

13. Activoo is a … Any ideas what might it be? I will give you a hint, you can use it to help a funny pig find a boyfriend. Interested? Then explore the promo-site of a well-known company. Have fun!

14. Taco Bell Direct Daniella will serve you very delicious and yami-yami tacos. Which would you like: Fresco Style or Regular Style? Gotcha! No tacos from Direct Daniella! Be the photographer in a Taco Bell photo shoot because Daniella is not a waitress.

15. Honda (UK) Problem Playground is a very stylish Flash-based website from Honda. A lively intro will grab your attention at once gluing you to the site. Surf it and find a lot of useful information about it.

Nowadays if you want to have a web-site you do not need to start from scratch. Web templates providers can offer you a wide range of their products from which you can choose what matches your needs best. Here at Flashmint you can find a wide variety of flash templates at most reasonable prices. And this is not all. You get a 6-month free web hosting with our hosting partner company - Servers4flash.com.

To get a better idea you can visit our customers’ websites created with our flash web templates. For example, the following web-site gallery at arlinephotography.co.za is made on the basis of Photo folio CMS flash template 2028. It includes 3 sub-chapters About, Contacts, Packages. All the photographs are arranged in two lines resembling a film with multiple shots, one is vertical, another is horizontal. As you place the cursor on the films, they move enabling you to see all the pictures in the set. The vertical film includes the names of the pictures. If you click the cursor on one of the pictures you can see it in full. You can add your comments to each picture. An interesting intro (a camera) and black background is a good touch which makes this website recognizable among similar ones.

White photo portfolio CMS flash template 2031 is one more but completely different photo gallery. Created in soft pale colors it looks very light and almost transparent. The web-site ruthmoscovitch.com that used it gives you a very nostalgic feel. It includes only three sub-chapters About, Portfolio, Contacts. The pictures preview is arranged in a winding line of which you see only some part. The whole pictures appear gradually and very unhurriedly. It is a good solution for a personal portfolio of a mature photographer.

Online portfolio CMS flash template 2014 is a good option for creating a very elegant picture gallery. It is very crisp and feminine and is for those who prefer only the most necessary details. The web-template contains the site navigation bar and a row of pictures which move as you place your cursor on it. Black background makes it look very stylish and fashionable. You can see it yourself at nataliadrulle.com.

Warez trading, aka non-commercial hobby of collecting and trading copyrighted works, has been determined as a major cause of online piracy. Due to growing popularity, Flashmint could not escape this phenomenon either. So called warez distributors and collectors go on uploading on the Net weird files named “Flashmint warez”, “Flashmint torrents”, “Flashmint serial”, “Flashmint keygen”, “Flashmint crack” etc.

But this post is not about their unethical deeds but about Problems You Will Encounter if collect, distribute or download Flashmint templates illegally.

• Be aware that 99% of Flashmint files at warez portals or torrents websites contain bugs and viruses which do not only let you use the downloaded template, but can damage your soft, hardware or any possible files. It will cost you much more expensive to restore your computer and software than buy a web template directly from Flashmint.com for $60-$90.
• Most of warez websites require registration before letting you download so called “Flashmint templates”. As a matter, the only thing they need is your e-mail address. Guess what for? Yes, be ready to receive thousands of spam e-mails a day!
• All web templates at Flashmint are digitally protected. It means that unique digital code embedded into each web template lets Flashmint owners monitor how products are sold and used. The aim is to prevent illegal templates usage and protect customers’ rights.
• It doesn’t matter whether you collect, distribute or just download Flashmint cracked files, it is illegal and strongly prohibited by Flashmint Intellectual Property Policy, it means you are violating international copyright law and making yourself open to criminal prosecution.
• By downloading and using so called “flashmint warez”, “flashmint torrents”, “flashmint serial”, “flashmint keygen”, “flashmint crack”, etc. you financially support organized crime. Remember – the piracy hurt those who pirate. Sooner or later you’ll become the victim of the very organized crime yourself.

What Benefits You Get If Buy Templates at Flashmint?

• The first and foremost is that you get quality and affordable website or flash templates directly from producer. It means you protect yourself from any possible troubles and misunderstandings in future. Why not care about your protection?
• If you encounter any problems with a web template installation, making changes or others, Flashmint Support will be at your help to solve your problem at the shortest time. But keep in mind, before applying to support read FAQ, unless you find a solution after that, feel free to submit a ticket.
• Your private information such as name or e-mail address will never be disclosed to third party as it’s claimed in Flashmint Terms of Use. Also we do not have access to your payment details because all payments are hold at PayPal.com and 2co.com.
• You order will be worked up from several minutes to a couple of hours. Agree, it’s not very long to wait for really quality product?

To conclude, everyone chooses his own way, but before - think over about the grave consequences you will have if use Flashmint templates illegally.

Here it is - FlashMint official blog! It is going to be useful, advisory, sometimes fun and entertaining. Here you’ll find out fresh news to keep informed about latest trends and releases, some do’s and dont’s to make you well grounded in flash and web templates area, and reviews to know unbiased opinions.