The SnackTools range!


The SnackTools range is a series of online apps that allows you to design, for free, a large assortment of media that you may wish to include on your website. The list goes thus:

  • BannerSnack - Create great banners in many sizes in Flash and HTML5. The banners can include any text and image you want. If anyone remembers Swish,  it’s just like that if not better and easier to use.
  • PhotoSnack – Upload your photos and create amazing slideshows that you can then download, embed on your website or copy and paste links to share the slideshow on a host of third party social websites.
  • PodSnack – allows you to compile a playlist in customisable mp3 players. You can then embed or link these players to your website.
  • TubeSnack – Like PodSnack, but with videos. You can add videos to a playlist either from YouTube or from your own server. The great bonus here is that the videos aren’t in Flash and so will work on your iPhone and iPad.
  • QuizSnack – Hold your horses, this one isn’t just for quizzes. You can also use it for polls and surveys. You don’t even need your own website as you can publish your questions straight onto Facebook or other social websites.
  • FlipSnack – Convert exisiting pdf documents into great looking pages similar to thos on iBook. Your pages will flip over – it’s looks flash. But unlike Flash, this also works on iPhones and iPads too!
  • SlideSnack – If you have slide show presentations or documents in Word, Keynote or Powerpoint, this app will convert them easily and give you simple links that you can use to share the slide show with friends or collegues. I believe you can even add voice clips too.

Isn’t that an incredible array of stuff! All free too! Aren’t you guys lucky! There are even a few beautifully animated videos to get you started for some of the apps and each site also has a Live Chat help facility. Because it’s free, most of your production will be watermarked by the company, but there is an option to upgrade your account to lose this.

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Make a simple site for free

Pen.io was featured on this weeks BBC’s Click. I took a quick look and found that it offered a very simple solution to web page creation, albeit very simple.

I have done a quick demo by creating an ActorCV Pen.io Demo Page. It even has a great cut and paste embed feature so you can see it below.

The site and concept are still very young and the authors promise exciting new developments in the future.

Also, check out www.posterous.com – another great blog site that’s free to sign up to.

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New app from Mailchimp

I have mentioned the brilliant website Mailchimp before. In a nutshell, it provides everything you would need to manage email campaigns including functions to collect and store peoples email addresses, design and send impressive looking emails and monitor what happens to those emails after you’ve sent them (whether they’re opened or if email addresses are dead ones etc…) on a thorough statistical level. And on a starter level, it’s free to use!
This site is ever expanding. Their latest exciting news includes the release of a free app for iPhone and Android users which allows you to monitor your latest campaign statistics whilst on the move. Fabulous stuff.

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Cheap Printer Ink website

A great little site I’ve used recently and thoroughly recommend is this one – www.printerinks.com. Their website is easy to navigate and offers ink for a vast range of printers. You would be hard pushed not to find your printer there no matter how old it is. I’ve got an old Canon Pixma ip3000 (though I do pine for a new one – see my Amazon wishlist) A colour cartridge (and it requires the three primary colours so multiply the cost by 3) is usually about £12 per cartridge. At this website it cost under £9 for ALL THREE cartridges incl VAT and delivery. A bargain like that is worthy of a mention on this website.

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Cloud drive – accessing your files on the move.


ActorCV makes no secret that it recommends you buy your server space from one.com – we don’t even earn any commission for saying so either! But before this post turns into a blatant free advert for them, I would like to mention a little upgrading they’ve done in their services. The most significant addition recently is the one.com cloud drive. Basically you can set up a file on the server space who’s files you or anyone you give permission to can access and even change (depending on your settings of course). And you can do this from any Windows running computer (MacOS is on its way) or through apps for Android, iPhone or iPad. You can sync files on your computer (the software one provides basically copies the files you choose to the server), then access them later on, say, your phone. Or send someone a link (that can expire) to a particular file. It opens up a world of possibilities especially for those who work on the move. All cloud storage is included in your server space allowance.

Other new features that One have introduced include a Webcreator, Photo Gallery, Blog and a Multi Admin function that allows you to link all your one.com accounts (if you have more than one site) together!

For more information about the Cloud Drive watch this video made by one.com

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Chris Ryman – Actor


Actor Chris Ryman was about to visit some contacts he had in LA when I suggested ActorCV could do a website for him. Despite the short notice, a flash website was up and running within 24 hours. He already owned a URL that he’d bought off Reg123. We were able to link the website to that. It can be seen at www.chrisryman.tv
We were also able to download his showreel off Vimeo, re-edit it to make it slightly shorter and place it in a flash player all of its own on his site. Chris is delighted with the site and is recommending ActorCV to his friends. Rather than charge Chris for the site, he was very generous and purchased me some gifts off my Amazon Wishlist. Great stuff!

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Earn money from your videos


ActorCV prides itself in showing how you the Actor can achieve stuff online for little to no cost, but this idea may actually make you money!

If you’ve got original videos on your website that you own the copyright to, then why not earn a little extra money advertising. It is quite common now for a 15-30sec advert to play before a video clip. Well, if you set up an account with Longtail, they will make sure that advertisers pay you your share every time that commercial is played either pre or post your video clip. To maximise income, why not have both! And text adverts like the ones YouTube has been using for years can also appear during the video! So three potential opportunities to get some cash. Great idea and money for old rope!

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New Film Review site


Have set up a new film review site with my friend Susanna. We will both be co-administrators of the site (though we have our own individual login details). This is the first WordPress site I’ve co-authored and maybe we will have more contributors further down the line (many hands make light work). Not each contributor gets full access to the site mind. With a WordPress site, one can assign various different levels of clearance and priviledge to each individual contributor, so you don’t need to worry about someone entering the site and wrecking it by accidentally deleting things they shouldn’t. Good huh?!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, check out the new site. It has the snappy title of www.filmfridays.com and the aim is to submit independant movie reviews weekly. Incidentally, the domain name www.filmfriday.com costs $2,500. Whereas by just adding an “s” at the end (which I prefered anyway) the domain name www.filmfridays.com only cost £20 including webspace and database! And that’s not the US/UK exchange rate doing it’s magic there, that is simple URL craft! Read more about choosing a good domain here

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Thumbs down for moo.com

Moo.com - A bit disappointing

I was really hoping that I’d be able to promote a new site I’ve found on the internet as a useful one for actor/self-promoter, but unfortunately my experience with them has been disappointing. Moo.com’s quirky selling point is that it allows you to produce business cards or postcards etc…. with a different image on each card. Their website is easy enough to follow, though it is a little frustrating that even if you register on the website, it won’t remember your uploads. This meant that when I revisited the site to continue my order, I had to upload the images all over again.

However, it’s downfall came when it failed to turn up at the specified time. After waiting two weeks, their automated software (called Little Moo) sent me an email saying “We spotted a problem with your order and because we want it to be perfect, we’re sending it back to Big Moo to get printed again”. Then a week later, after I sent a request via their website asking to speak to a human, I got another response which actually said they were chasing up the order.

So, all in all, this meant I then had to wait a month in total. By the time I got the prints through (20 for about £15) the meeting I had planned with a client to showcase the artwork had passed and I was left a little annoyed and unconvinced that I had value for money!

So sorry but Moo.com gets a thumbs down from me. Will let you know when I’ve found somewhere better!

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Keighley Antiques

It’s not always actors websites that I design. I have recently completed one for a friend who sells antiques as a hobby. They wanted to be able to showcase their collection and receive contact from anyone who was interested in purchasing said antiques. Using WordPress as a template, I helped set up this site on their own dedicated server space so that they could add, amend, update, delete antiques in their collection, in the appropriate categories despite having little experience with maintaining databases. Et voila. Simple but functional with, I hope you agree, a dash of elegance and sophistication to give a website that looks great and serves it purpose not just for the person running the site but for visitors too.

So remember, you don’t necessarily have to be an actor to use our service!

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