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Handy Squidoo Tip: Caption a Lens Logo or Text Module Graphic!

Screencap from my lens

Eureka! Why didn't I figure this out sooner? There is a fairly simple CSS way to force a caption (including an image caption with clickable link) to hang out directly under a Squidoo lens logo or an image uploaded into the text module!

Ta-da! Actual screencap of a lens!

Here. I have, of course, created a new Squidoo tutorial:

Squidoo Image Captions: Handy Tip

Of course, the easiest thing would be if Squidoo would add an optional caption slot for images.

But then, I suppose there's no way to guess what height / style the caption slot ought to be. It depends whether you're trying to make a photo credit or some kind of comment/description.

Squidoo, Zazzle, and Creative Commons

Zazzle Referrals = Creative Commons that Earn Cash?

Last week I had a brain wave. Zazzle designs work a little like e Creative Commons: as a Zazzle Associate, you may feature them on your page or blog by providing credit and a link (in this case, a referral link) back!  You're promoting an artist's products (that's the whole point). But as a side benefit, you have access to a huge body of gorgeous graphics.

Which of course meant I had to make a lens about it:

Want Graphics? Use Zazzle Designs Like Creative Commons

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CSS, Graphics, and Lens Design: My Best Design

I think that to date, the Squidoo Museum is my best lens as far as presentation, although the Fancy Table of Contents lens comes close.

I'd like to talk about how I put together the Squidoo Museum. It demonstrates everything I know about graphics, color, fonts, and CSS.

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Advanced CSS Tricks and Tips: Borders and Backgrounds and Captions, Oh My!

I finally got around to updating my Advanced CSS lens, where I used to post crazy "lab experiments" in CSS.

Now I've reorganized it and made it more dignified (slightly), and added all the tricks I tend to use most on my lenses: rounded corners, background-images for paragraphs, captions under aligned images, drop caps, dramatic numbered lists, and most of all, playing around with the introduction module to make the first thing visitors see look great.

I've moved the old lab experiments to page 2. There's another use for a Page Break!

(My "crazy lab experiments" lens is now ZEE CODE SCRATCHPAD. Once I've got things working nicely there, I may move the "finished products" to the AdvancedCSS lens for prime time viewing.)

Some Squidoo Tutorials: Navigation Aids

Since my lenses tend to be looooong, I tend to develop various strategies to help folks navigate them. I like little inset tables of contents, "shortcuts" that jump to relevant parts of the page, or navigator bars.

So I was working on a Fancy Tables of Contents tutorial collecting my various ways of creating tables of contents, indexes, and the like. And I'm STILL working on it! *laugh* I can always make a small project huge. Then I have to find ways to shorten it.

Along the way -- partly because people are making a big push to update or build Lensographies -- I wound up spinning off one module onto its own page. So at least THAT tutorial is finished:

Build a Better Featured Lens Module

It lets you do three things a regular Featured Lens Module can’t:

  • Feature more than 5 lenses in the same list.
  • Feature lenses in a fixed order.
  • Write a blurb before and after the featured lenses without getting cut off in mid-sentence (doncha hate that?)

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for somebody to find the Easter Egg on my Amazing Nessie Photo, where I am offering $5 to the first person who proves (without any doubt whatsoever) that it's fake. Whoever does so is going to get a chuckle, hopefully.

Because a fool and her money are soon parted, and I am actually trying to teach a lesson with that lens, I will give an enormous clue:

PHOTOSHOP SEES MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE... :D