July 4th 1776 the Declaration of Independence has been adopted, since then the 4th of July is the most important holiday of our prosperous country. This day along with the country itself is the essence of Freedom and Independence our ancestors fought for, and for most of us it is the brightest day of the year full of tasty food, fun and fireworks. Thus, before you go for picnics and barbeques FlashMint would like to congratulate you and your families with the holiday. Here is a small selection of Independence Day clip art to inspire you and create a holiday mood.

from funmunch.com

The symbol of the day is the flag of the USA. No one could praise it better than Florence A. Jones did:

Freedom’s natal day is here.
Fire the guns and shout for freedom,
See the flag above unfurled!
Hail the stars and stripes forever,
Dearest flag in all the world.

from download.it168.com

from traditionalpatriot.info

from wallcoo.net

The main things associated with the 4th of July are of cource fireworks:

from sparta.vn.ua

And barbeques:

from amiestreet.com

from thedailygreen.com

from wirededucator.wordpress.com

Well, I think the mood is created, now is the time for the presents - only at 4th of July 2009 you can download any FlashMint web product with the nice discount of 20% using the code “independence”. Enjoy your presents from FlashMint and the most glorious day of our country.
Happy Birthday, America!

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Being the innovator and the flagship in the Web Design Industry FlashMint continues bringing new technologies and revolutionary products to give you the most outstanding and convenient web solutions. Thus, today we are announcing the launch of the most ingenious web product that will make the development and maintenance of a website as easy and fun as the kids’ game is. Please welcome - Website Constructor.

I bet everyone played with the Lego constructor at childhood. Do you remember how fun it was? Well, building a website is now as much fun! From now on you do not need ANY programming skills and technical knowledge to develop a perfect website. Seriously. You do not have to pay loads of money to edit and maintain your website, you do not need to hire tech-savvy designers and developers any more, now you can do everything yourself.

Super scalable multipurpose XML flash template

Do you remember how a house is built? The first thing needed to build a house is a basis. Website constructor plays this role here. What is the next thing needed to build a house? You are right - bricks. The components play the role of bricks in building a website. Thus everything you need to do to get yourself a perfect online house is a site constructor for the basis and flash components to build the walls-site pages upon it. FlashMint offers 8 components now. These first 3 components are the most essential things no website can be built without:

1. Text field
This is a simple HTML page you can put anything on. You can have an unlimited amount of pages with any info you may need to give to your visitors - pictures, your bio, about us page etc.

2. News feed
All the components of this type are dynamical to create a vivid presentation of your latest news. You can choose colors, add pictures and resize your news feed to suit your website perfectly.

3. Contact form
To let your visitors reach you and give their feedback you’ll need a contact form. We offer you the most brilliant components for this task. Till today you needed to have php skills to add a contact form to the site or pay load of money to someone who can do the task for you. Now you can do everything yourself. Easily change colors, add and edit texts and contact information within your contact form.

Well, these were 3 most essential components you’ll need to have a functional website. If you plan to develop a creative online presence you may need these components:

1. Picture gallery
If you plan to build a personal page, or a portfolio, or even an online showcase of the products you sell this is the most necessary component you need. The picture galleries created at FlashMint let you easily resize and edit your images, add and remove pictures and categories, change the color of the gallery and thus give you the full control over your pictures and their presentation at your website.

2. Music gallery
As the picture gallery for photographers this component is important for the musicians. Building a personal page for your band you’ll need to let everyone easily listen to your music online. The music galleries from FlashMint let you add as many mp3 tracks and albums as you wish to. If you want to create a great personal page and share you favorite music with your visitors you’ll love this component as well.

3. Video gallery
You can add an unlimited number of your videos, clips and movies to your website with this component.  You can divide your videos to the categories, thus creating a comprehensive archive.The component works with .flv video format which is one of the most popular video formats.

4. Slide show
If you want your visitors to notice your selected pictures or your best products show them with the vivid slide show.

5. Staff page
This component allows you to create a gallery showing you and your company or family photos and giving your brief bios to let your clients and visitors to know who you are. I believe it is the most creative way to let the world know you

All these components are extremely easy to add and edit. You won’t have any problems with doing it yourself, we’ve put a lot of time and effort to make it intuitive ans simple for you. Besides the described above components FlashMint will soon add the Event Calendar, Shopping Cart and Flex Admin Panel components to give you the fullest control over your website. And what is the most pleasant about it all - the full package will cost you no more than $60.

Build your web house in no time and have fun!
P.S. Do let us know what features would you like to have on your website and we’ll develop components for you. We want to give you an opportunity to build the most perfect functional website you ever dreamed about.

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If you own a website for some time you know how often the desire to improve something here and to add something there comes. Of course you can redesign your website completely, but there is a far more easy and cheap solution - Flash components.
You already know what Flash components are, but just to remind you - these are ready-made Flash files, applications and extensions aimed to help you enhance your existing HTML, CSS and Flash websites, add functionality to them and endue your website with more incredible features and live action. There is a huge number of Flash components, including menus, image viewers and galleries, buttons, navigation systems, video and music players, effects, icons and illustrations, animations, preloaders and scrollbars, news readers and banner rotators etc. Today I’m going to showcase the most creatively designed Flash components from FlashMint collection.

If you plan to add an image gallery to your website to show your art works to your visitors than these Flash components will be of special interest for you:

3D 2 level XML gallery flash component

3D slider XML gallery flash component

These two Flash components are created with the use of 3D technology. They most likely will impress any picky visitor. Designed in a futuristic manner these image galleries will emphasize the creative beauty of your photos and images.

Resizable XML slideshow flash component

This plain and simple slideshow component is yet stylishly designed and will be a great solution for showcasing your art works if you are a fashion photographer.

Image gallery with albums XML flash component

With this gallery component you can arrange your photos to the albums thus making it easier for your visitors to find an image from some particular event or date. What I love about this Flash component is its grey color palette, looks very stylish.

XML staff page flash component

The main goal of this Flash component is to let your website visitors know you and your staff or family. The component features image gallery, thus you can not only tell who you are but also show yourself to your visitors.

XML flv video player flash component

This is a brilliant solution if you dream to feature your video clips and movies or music videos at your personal web page. Designed to be plain and simple in maintenance this video player certainly is a great choice.

Advanced news reader 02 xml flash component

This is a great way to broaden your website functionality, displaying the title, date and description of your news.

These are my personal Top 7 Flash Components, check out other Flash components at our collection.
What components would you like to add to your website?

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Following the subject of Best Photography Flash Templates it appears that Photo Portfolios are never too much, they are among the most popular web designs. I assume the reason of this popularity of online photo galleries lies in the huge popularity of the photography itself. People tend to capture the most important events of their lives and their every day life, their vacancies and birthdays, people they meet and places they visit and as much natural is their desire to share these memories and precious captured moments with other people. Thus, as the demand on the Photography templates is not falling but on the contrary - increasing we are giving you another showcase of the most fresh and brilliantly designed Flash website templates aimed for creating online photo portfolios from FlashMint designers.

It so happened that most of the chosen web templates are Flash CMS v3. This revolutionary technology developed by FlashMint experts give the photographers incredible opportunities that were impossible before; among the key features are the unlimited amount of created pages, comfortable Flex Admin Panel, unlimited number of galleries and wonderful ability to edit photos directly at the web page and an amazing feature of adding title and description to the home page which makes your online portfolio SEO friendly and thus closer to success and huge number of visitors. Flash CMS v3 templates are the most ingenious solution if you dream to create a SEO friendly, easily to edit and maintain photo portfolio.

Flash photo gallery CMS v3 template

This online portfolio template is a marvelous example of the latest web design trends perfectly embodied in the product. The use of vintage and old school design elements makes this Flash CMS v3 template not only up to the minute but also very personal and nostalgic, creating the atmosphere of good old days and giving your visitors the feel of comfort and coziness.

Online photo portfolio CMS v3 flash template

Designed with the use of blue color palette this Flash template is perfectly suitable for any type of photography you enjoy creating - from wedding photos to still life and concert photos.

Photographer portfolio CMS v3 flash template

I really love the color combination used in this design. This Flash template will be a great choice as for a professional photographer so for an amateur.

Photographer website CMS v3 flash template

The distinctive feature of this photo portfolio template is the bright and creative header. Even an accidental visitor won’t be able to leave a website with such header without looking at your art works.

John McCoist photography XML flash template

This Flash XML template closes my today’s selection of the best photography Flash templates. It is brilliantly designed to suit any of your artistic creations and being XML it is comfortable in editing and maintenance.

Check FlashMint collection for more ingeniously designed Flash templates for online photo portfolios. And don’t forget to subscribe to our blog RSS feed to get the freshest news from FlashMint.com

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Last week has been fruitful for interesting posts, thus we decided to share some of them with you. If you missed these posts by any chance do read them, we think you might find them useful and worth reading.

Microsoft To Sell Windows 7 Without IE in Europe: Odd and Unnecessary at Mashable

Stan Schroeder discusses with his readers the announcement that Windows 7 is going to be released without the browser installed. It’s really odd from Microsoft, we all understand Stan’s frustration here. But whether it’s good or bad is up to you of course.

Smashing magazine always gladdens us with the useful articles, incredibly inspiring showcases and great sets of useful things every designer appreciates. Last week they had two fruitful posts that we’d love to share with you:

50 Fresh Useful Icon Sets For Your Next Design

Free stuff is always useful, isn’t it? This selection features 50 free sets of icons including Web Application Icon Sets, E-Commerce Icon Sets, Free Multimedia Vector Icons, 172 final country flag icons, Symbol Signs, Social Icon Sets and General Icon Sets. There are big and tiny icons for every purpose. I especially liked the Social Icon Sets, some very cute pics there.

Effective Strategy To Estimate Time For Your Design Projects

Have you ever been late for the deadline with a project? Sam Barnes suggests a brilliant strategy to estimate the time so you can arrange the proper deadline with your clients. We find these tips to be very useful. Of course every designer has his own style of work and formulas to calculate the time needed for the project, Sam Barnes offers a way to make your calculations more accurate.

Why Designers Should Learn How to Code at SixRevisions

The article by John Urban gives few reasons why you should learn to code your designs. Personally I think the designer shouldn’t do the work of a developer. Of course if you know how to do everything from A to Z your value is higher, but being honest will you do everything as good as you would do one single thing? I think a designer should know how to design a page that will be easy to code but shouldn’t code it himself. Read the article and a discussion below it and make up your personal opinion.

The last two links we are going to share with you tonight are showcases of truly inspiring pictures.

40 Examples of Incredible Photo Manipulation from WebDesignerDepot.

Some of the showcased here photos really amaze, one has to be either a magician or a true master of Photoshop to create something alike.

23 Striking Examples Of Nature Photography Through The Photographer’s Eye at SmashingApps

It always amazes how some people see the incredible where no one else sees it. Nature is all around us, but can you be proud of taking such breathtaking pictures of it?

Well, this is what we’ve been reading last week. Do not hesitate to share what you think is worth reading in the comments below.

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When we say Flash templates we mean FlashMint, when we say FlashMint we mean Flash products (Flash design, flash websites, Flash CMS, Flash components). Everyone knows how extremely interactive and visually impressive Flash designs are. Well developed Flash websites require little bandwidth and are usually real masterpieces that are able to carry the viewer to the world of designer’s fantasy and unbelievable reality. Though being in the business for a while we constantly come across strange misbeliefs considering Flash in web design, thus today I’m going to bust those myths to give you more confidence in Flash.

#1 Flash is not SEO-friendly

This is a common misbelief that search engines like Google can not read the Flash texts. In fact Google does read inside Flash for a long time already. Here’s an article on the theme written back in 2004!

And here Adobe itself explains how SEO and Flash work together.

#2 Flash is slowly loading

Yes, Flash was slow…. ages ago. Nowadays Flash supports such data transfer/storage technologies like SWX, Native XML, SOAP, etc and the general access to broadband Flash is loading very fast. Of course if the code has been written by someone incompetent Flash may be really slow.

#3 Only few people have Flash player installed
Yes, Flash website can work only if the user has Flash player installed. But I can’t imagine where this odd myth that only few people have it installed has come from. In fact Flash is immensely popular. Of course there are groups of people that do not have Flash player and even do not know what it is, but this groups won’t be even 1% of Internet users, and do you really think these people might be your targeted audience?

#4 The content is not separated from presentation

Of course someone who is really incompetent and new to Flash development may write a mess, but experienced developers use XML for content, for presentation they use Flash movie clips and for behavior external ActionScript files. And believe me we at FlashMint do not have inexperienced and incompetent developers.

Hope the myths are busted for you, there’s no reason to not use Flash if you want your website to be unique and possess the awesome features that only Flash can give.

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Not long ago we were hosting a thrilling MacBook Air Giveaway with all FlashMint.com customers. The event went extremely well and a big thanks goes out to everyone who participated!
We hope that all of you are now enjoying the  websites built on the basis of our web templates.

Just like Mitchell LeBlanc who has bought PhotoStudio Papervision 3D XML Flash Template for his girlfriend building a beautiful Photo portfolio website.

Purchasing the template Mitch has won the world’s thinnest notebook which he is extremely happy about. Have a look at his shining face

Well done Mitchell! Hope you will take full advantage of the Air!
Our next winner can be You as more exciting giveaways will come shortly! So stay tuned and who knows maybe you will ride the luck with FlashMint.com next adventure!

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Yep, you are right, FlashMint has gone mad and instead of rising up the prices we are actually lowering them. From now on the price on every osCommerce template from FlashMint diverse collection is twice lower! This means that FlashMint osCommerce designs are the cheapest eCommerce templates you can find. And this is not a short-term offer, the price on our osCommerce skins is to be that low forever!
So, if you plan to launch an online store it is about high time to start choosing a template that will suit your ecommerce business best.

Below there are some awesome design you might like.

HiFi HiEnd online store oscommerce template

This stylish ecommerce template is designed for online stores that specialize on HiFi systems, the cute header hints on the oriental origin of the products. Thus if you plan to trade the famous for their quality Japanese HiFi systems than this osCommerce design is waiting particularly for you.

Electronics store osCommerce template

Plain and comfortable skin for launching an osCommerce store for selling electronics online. Your gadgets will be snatched up in no time.

Pets osCommerce template

This cute and plain design is a great choice for you if you love animals and want to launch an online store for pets and their owners.

Check out our collection for more great osCommerce templates.
Where else do you think you will find it cheaper?

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You have for sure seen FlashMint Professional Joomla templates that comprise awesome designs with the highest quality.
Joomla! is an extremely convenient CMS platform that allows you creating beautiful websites that are very easy and comfortable in maintenance. As well as another Content Management System - WordPress, Joomla! is an open source, this means that it is being constantly developed and innovated, there is a great number of add-ons and extensions to improve your Joomla website. Well, below is the list of the useful Joomla extensions for almost every possible purpose from administration to social networking and image galleries.

Administration and security

JoomlaCloner
What is a first thing you should think about when launching a website? Well, backup of course. This is a very useful and handy component that allows you to “clone” your Joomla installation and move it on any location over the Internet.

Joomlapack
Another backup & restore tool that makes it very easy to backup your website even if you are new to Joomla! and web presence.

RSFinder!
This handy extension gives you a quick access to anything on your Joomla website by creating hot keys at your keyboard.

jSecure Authentication
Don’t give the hackers an easy access to your insights, this small Joomla! module will help you.

Photos and Images

Phoca Gallery
This nice Joomla! component is an image gallery with a slideshow. Give your visitors a comfortable image gallery

Simple Image Gallery
An easy way to add images to your Joomla! articles.

Expose Flash Gallery
This is a great extension, it allows you to create an awesome Flash based gallery with your images and pictures.

Social Networking

Ultimate Social Bookmarking Plugin
This great plugin adds small to all the the major social media bookmarking applications to the bottom of your articles.

Twitter Module
Twitter is one of the most powerful social websites nowadays. This little plugin allows you to display tweets from the account you identify, giving you an opportunity to encourage Twitter followers.

Twitter Plugin
This plugin makes a tweet each time you have a new article posted, thus letting know your Twitter followers that you have an update at your Joomla website.

Sociable Plugin
A very convenient tool that inserts small social media bookmarking and sharing links at the end of each of your articles.

Misc

JCE Content Editor
More feature rich content editor than your built-in Joomla editor, giving you complete control over your content.

jForm
Very easy, intuitive tool to add simple forms to your website.

JoomlaComment
If you want to get feedback from your visitors and readers than you need to allow them comment on your articles. This nice plugin will do the task.

What Joomla extensions you find to be the most useful while updating your websites?

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You for sure noticed the quality and creativity of the pictures embodied in your website templates from FlashMint. If you ever wondered where is this incredible clip art taken from than here’s the answer - one of the stock photos providers we use is Photos To Go. And we had just renewed our long term agreement with them, thus wait for more creative web templates from FlashMint built with the ingenious help of PhotosToGo.com

If you’ve been looking for qualitative clip art for your website design then we recommend to check them out.

Photos To Go is a rich stock image library that offers thousands of qualitative royalty free images for immediate download. Finding a perfect image at Photos To Go is extremely easy, these people work without cease to bring this comfort to you. There are three membership plans available- for 3, 6 and 12 months, every plan allows up to 30 downloads per day. All the photos presented at the collection are taken only by the professional photographers and selected carefully to suit any of your demands on the quality of the pictures.

To get all the freshest news from FlashMint.com subscribe to our RSS feed!

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