How to embed GettyImages in to your blog posts

Embed from Getty Images

An image helps your blog posts. I know, I’ve been using them for years on my work blog and this personal one.

Getty Images

So I was excited to hear this news:

“Getty Images makes 35 million images free in fight against copyright infringement” – Source

That is so cool. In fact, the image up top is from GettyImages.com.

Embed

To make sure you can embed an image in your blog, here’s what you do:

1. Go to this url: http://www.gettyimages.com/embed
2. Put in a search term like “dog” or something.
3. From the results, click on the image you’d like to embed.
4. You’ll then see a button with these characters: 
5. Click it and copy the iframe code.
6. Paste it into your blog post and you’re done.

Embed from Getty Images

Tip: How to enable Markdown for WordPress.com

If you’re using WordPress.com then you can easily enable Markdown support in their online editor:

---

Enabling Markdown on WordPress.com

To start using Markdown, go to Settings → Writing in your blog dashboard, check the box next to Use Markdown for posts and pages, and save.

When writing Markdown, make sure to use the Text Editor for the best results.

via Write (More) Effortlessly With Markdown — Blog — WordPress.com.

Learn more from this excellent post Write (More) Effortlessly With Markdown.

---

If you’d like to learn about my Markdown history, check out this post:
Writing with Markdown for WordPress (on Windows)

Writing with Markdown for WordPress (on Windows)

I’ve just written a blog post for my DevExpress work blog using only the Markdown syntax. Woohoo! I’m proud of this because it’s been on my todo list.

This wasn’t my first attempt at learning/using Markdown but it was the first post that I wrote using only Markdown. And without using the excellent Windows Live Writer tool.

Ok, I know I’m late to the Markdown party. So what?

Great, wtf is Markdown?

Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax[5] designed so that it can optionally be converted to HTML using a tool by the same name. –Wikipedia

John Gruber first released Markdown in March 2004.

Since then, it’s appeared on popular sites like stackoverflow and Github.

Learning Markdown

The syntax, imho, is very easy to learn. John Gruber’s site has the original documentation on Markdown and I recommend it:

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

The best way to learn is to start writing using Markdown asap. Below, I list a couple of the tools that I like.

If you prefer to watch a video:

And there’s a plethora of google search results that help you find just about anything. For example, this page shows how to add YouTube links:

[![IMAGE ALT TEXT HERE](http://img.youtube.com/vi/YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID_HERE/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID_HERE)

Tools

Scribefire can be used directly from your browser to create blog posts. You can write using Markdown. I use the Chrome extension but I’ve also used the Firefox version. Both are great and free.

MarkdownPad 2
This is a desktop application that similar to Sublime Text or Microsoft Word. The main view is split from the Markdown syntax and a preview window on the right. Here’s what I like about it:

• Split View for editing and preview.
• Shortcuts for inserting links. Love the Ctrl-L for links specifically. Yes, I can use autohotkey for it but I just didn’t want to. 🙂
• The editor helps you to learn Markdown because you’re forced to write in Markdown. It also helps to learn because of the built-in shortcuts.
• There’s a free and pro version. Free version works great. But support your local dev and buy a license.

It does not support publishing to a blog engine. At least, not the free version. So what, it’s still awesome.

The only odd thing I’ve found is that cut/paste has an odd pause for some weird reason.

What about images?

The one big thing I do miss from Windows Live Writer (WLW) is it’s ability to insert, upload, and manipulate images. And I’m sure I’ll likely use WLW again for those image heavy posts.

For now, I have to manually upload an image and then link to it.

Plaintext snob?

My friend Drew had this to share about my Markdown adventure:

Thanks Julian, for the nudge to get me to write on my personal blog again.

Blog using the drip approach

Seth Godin got me thinking with his recent post about writer’s block:

Writer’s block was ‘invented’ in the 1940s. Before that, not only wasn’t there a word for it, it hardly existed. The reason: writing wasn’t a high stakes venture. Writing was a hobby, it was something you did in your spare time, without expecting a big advance or a spot on the bestseller list.

My writer’s block for not writing so much on this blog is because I want to post interesting and useful things that help people. The problem, of course, is that those type of posts take a lot of time to research and write. And there are still interesting things that I run into every day that I’d like to talk about. So, I’m going to attempt to take Seth Godin’s approach called “the drip”:

Consider the alternative to writer’s block: the drip. A post, day after day, week after week, 400 times a year, 4000 times a decade. When you commit to writing regularly, the stakes for each thing you write go down.

This may sound like I won’t focus on the long interesting posts. But I think it’s the opposite. I believe the act of writing more will get me to want to write about all those interesting topics including the long and short posts.

If you haven’t read the post yet, go get inspired by Seth Godin to write more:

Writer’s block and the drip

AutoHotKey – Easily Create An HTML Link

I’m huge fan of AutoHotKey which saves me a ton of time in not having to type repetitive keystrokes. Basically, it helps me be a better keyboard ninja.

Often for blog posts, I need to encapsulate a link with a HTML anchor tag. So that http://Mehul.net becomes http://Mehul.net

So I’ve hacked up the following AutoHotKey script which allows you to highlight a link and press Control+Shift+L and it automagically converts into an HTML anchor tag.

Copy this script into a autohotkey script. Load the script. Select an HTML link and press Control+Shift+L.

;————————————————————-
; Create A Link — Ctrl+Shift+L
;————————————————————-

^+l::
{
Send, ^c
Sleep 50
var=% “” . clipboard . “”
clipboard=% var
Send, ^v
Return
}

To learn more about AutoHotKey, check out these LifeHacker posts:

Turn Any Action into a Keyboard Shortcut

Hack Attack: Knock down repetitive email with AutoHotKey

I’m a Creator and Social Manager

Taking up Travis’ suggestion, I took the color career test and got the following results. Surprisingly, it is not too different than my day job:

—————————————————-

Best Occupational Category

You’re a CREATOR

Keywords

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

These original types place a high value on aesthetic qualities and have a great need for self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Fields of interest are art, drama, music, and writing or places where they can express, assemble, or implement creative ideas.

CREATOR OCCUPATIONS
Suggested careers are Advertising Executive, Architect, Web Designer, Creative Director, Public Relations, Fine or Commercial Artist, Interior Decorator, Lawyer, Librarian, Musician, Reporter, Art Teacher, Broadcaster, Technical Writer, English Teacher, Architect, Photographer, Medical Illustrator, Corporate Trainer, Author, Editor, Landscape Architect, Exhibit Builder, and Package Designer.

CREATOR WORKPLACES
Consider workplaces where you can create and improve beauty and aesthetic qualities. Unstructured, flexible organizations that allow self-expression work best with your free-spirited nature.

Suggested Creator workplaces are advertising, public relations, and interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. Other workplaces to consider are art institutes, museums, libraries, and galleries.

2nd Best Occupational Category

You’re a SOCIAL MANAGER

Keywords:

Tactful, Cooperative, Generous, Understanding, Insightful, Friendly, and Cheerful

This very social type enjoys working in groups, sharing responsibilities, and being the center of attention. Fields of interest are instructing, helping, nurturing, care giving and instructing-especially young people. They discuss and consider feelings in order to solve problems, lead, direct, persuade, guide, organize and enlighten others.

The year 2008 in photographs – boston.com

Check out this set of pictures from Boston.com. It shows greats photos of events both happy, momentous and extremely tragic.

And this is only the first part. I’ll have to keep an eye out for parts 2 and 3:

The year 2008 in photographs (part 1 of 3)

2008 has been an eventful year to say the least – it is difficult to sum up the thousands of stories in just a handful of photographs. That said, I will try to do what I’ve done with other photo narratives here, and tell a story of 2008 in photographs. It’s not the story of 2008, it’s certainly not all stories, but as a collection it does show a good portion of what life has been like over the past 12 months. This is a multi-entry story, 120 photographs over three days. Watch for part 2 and part 3 tomorrow and the next day. (40 photos total)

FoodFeed.us and Twitter

When twitter first came out, I thought I wouldn’t want to know what my friends were up to all the time. Well, that was one misconception I had about twitter. Twitter is pretty cool, when I have time to pay attention to it.

This new service foodfeed.us looks interesting. It allows you to post from twitter, updates on what you’re eating. I’ll use it as a food tracker for now but part of me wonders if this is like TMI (too much info). [Btw, if you’re mind immediately wonders if there will be feeds for other necessary body functions, then please drop me a line so I know I’m not alone 😉 .]

FoodFeed.us

Plan vs Planning

I saw an article on goal achieving (yet again) and one of the items it mentioned was planning for the next day, week, etc. I casually asked my friend if he planned his days. He sent me this interesting quote from Eisenhower:

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

I asked him what he thought the difference between plan and planning meant and I like his explanation:

ME: “Does he mean it’s more important to go through the act of planning and then dump the plan which comes out of it?”

Friend: “not dump the plan, but not to treat the plan as a set of instructions. Circumstances often invalidate the plan, especially longer term plans, but the act of planning prepares the planner for the future even when they have to stray from or abandon the original plan.”

Anyway’s, as a little reminder to myself to go through the act of planning, I’ve posted this entry. Thanks goes to my friend Drew.

Jott’s Web 2.0 Sites Integration

I started using Jott.com this week and it’s useful. I tried it November 07 but the transcription service wasn’t that great and I didn’t get my email very quickly. Seems they’ve worked the bugs and it’s worth checking out again. As I setup more contacts, I noticed that I could even twitter from my cell phone now. That’s cool. They also have a ton of other sites integrated like blogger, Xpenser, and bunch more which I’ve never heard of. Here’s the full list: