For almost 2 years now Image2Markup has been a busy little PSD slicing shop serving customers around the planet and helping them grow by taking a part of the work load off their designers. The deal is simple – you send the design and get back a working HTML template.

Over time requests for HTML newsletter conversion grew and it was time to make it a separate business.

The deal is still the same – you send your newsletter designs in any layered format and get back a clean, optimized HTML template. Templates are compatible with any mass email sending service so don’t expect any problems there.

Another important reason to use PSD2Newsletter is that every project is tested on 18 different email platforms using Litmus. This is important because almost every service renders a part or the entire template differently. So Gmail and Outlook might display elements completely different. PSD2Newsletter.com takes these pains away. You design, we code and test.

Pricing starts at $250 for first time orders but it’s only $200 for returning customers. PSD2Newsletter does a fantastic job and we want our customers to order often, thus the $50 off. Frequent customers have a “prepaid” option – a $175 per project – a $75 off the regular price (note: this is for high volume customers only).

I’ve picked up 5 (five!) books on Django and started learning. I know there are the official docs and the official book, but I really felt like doing it old school and learn stuff like a complete n00b.

After some test reading, I settled for Learning website development with Django. The book is for true beginners and does things in an old fashion. Throughout the book you build a single website (a bookmark app) and iterate several times over the entire app – from the basic way of getting things done – to what is considered best practice.

After this I plan to read through Practical Django Projects. I initially planned to go with this book first but I don’t like how the author wrote the syntax (e.g. actual code is mixed with normal text – this makes it hard to scan through the text).

In my original post I stated a few reasons why it might suck. Thank God I was completely wrong and Microsoft got it completely right.

The biggest news isn’t the cool interface but XNA support. Yes, you will be able to develop games in a breeze for mobile phones, XBOX and Zune HD at the same time. AWESOME.

Apparently, the hardware minimum specs beat 99% phones out there (thanks Engadget).

• Large WVGA screen with a single aspect ratio
• Five specific hardware buttons required: Start, back, search (a dedicated Bing button), camera button, and power
• Capacitive multitouch
• CPU and GPU requirements (beginning with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon as the go-to processor)
• WiFi
• AGPS
• Accelerometer
• FM radio
• High resolution camera

Interactive games, here I come.

It will also have it’s own AppStore and people say it’s really REALLY good. Let’s hope us EU folks will be able to sell there too.

Now, waiting for the SDK and a proper phone.

1) USA only. This is the same mistake MS made with Zune HD. They create an awesome product (even beating Apple) and then they decide to sell it in only in the US. What about the 5.7 billion people around the globe? Fail. (I’m talking about initial availability. Zune HD is also available in Canada. They will probably make it generally available within 6 months)

2) No XNA support. XNA is a framework (I think I can call it that) built on top of DirectX that enables developers to build games much much faster. Basically everything you need do create a game is in there, you only need to code it. It supports Zune HD, hopefully it will support the Zune Phone. (probably will within 6 months)

3) No app store. What ever happened to Microsoft Bazaar? The AppStore for Windows Mobile devices? And what’s going to happen when MS announces WM7 isn’t compatible with any previous apps? Not good. Hopefully, it will be easy to develop apps for it. I’m guessing C#.

4) Outdated hardware. This is a tricky one. Nobody knows if the Zune phone is real or what it’s specs will be. But we can guess. The problem is MS is trying to create something to compete with iPhone 3GS. What they should be doing is building something that will make iPhone 4G look like a toy. Add a 8MP camera, 65GB storage, 4” OLED screen. (wishful thinking)

SeedCamp sucks. There, I said it. Their name and their mission have nothing to do with what they actually do. As Wikipedia says: “Seed money is typically used to pay for such preliminary operations as market research and product development.”.  What SeedCamp really does is it funds startups who already have a finished product and have probably already taken up capital.

Here’s an excerpt from the email I received:

Some of the more common reasons for not getting selected were that there wasn’t enough information on the team for us to fully understand the depth and experience of the team, or the market opportunity was too small, the company was still at the idea stage whereas we do want to see at least a prototype, or we didn’t see how the company would benefit from Seedcamp’s network and base.

Let’s go through this. I applied with an idea (partially integrated) of an easy way to open an online store and sell stuff without any hassle. Market opportunity is HUGE. Face it, selling online is only going to grow. A prototype was submitted. And I’d benefit in a way that I’d grow my network and gain more experience from the SC mentors.

They had 3 weeks to review my application. That’s 3 work weeks, 15 work days, 120 hours. They had at most 70 applicants (email says more then 50). It takes 5 minutes to go through the prototype I provided. So much about dedication and the will to actually learn about the applicant.

I do understand it’s hard being a sole founder. Investors think people like me must be mad to start something on our own. I guess VC’s never heard of Michael Dell, Kevin Rose or a gazzilion others.

So who did they choose? Go check it out, I’m sure all 20 companies will make a billion dollar product. NOT. But this also goes largely with the Balkan mentality. If you’re friends with the organizers, you’ll get in (PSST, I never publicly accused anyone).

On the other hand, applying to TheDifferenceEngine was something completely different. Jon actually took the time to test the prototype and write a decent email saying I won’t get in but that he wanted me all the best and to let him know when I go live. The man even took the time to follow me on Twitter and DM me a couple of times. Need a mentor? He’s the perfect role model.

SeedCamp or not, I’ll finish the product as I intended (June, July) and launch it on my own. Wish me luck!

The first thing on my schedule is Python. I said it in my About me page and I’m saying it again. I love Python and I want to learn it better. I’ve only scratched the surface and I know I love it. Another reason Python is first on my list is Django, the awesome web framework.

After that comes Microsofts .net platform. This includes both C# and Visual Basic. Even more, I’m interested in ASP.NET MVC (version 2 is coming out soon) – who knows, I hear good things about it.

Moving on from programming, I want to learn German. Again. I studied it in school a long time ago and totally forgot everything. And while I’m still iin Croatia where we speak Croatian and I use English for all my internet needs, German is a language I want to speak once more.

Last but not least, SEO. Search Engine Optimization. The magical keyword. Sure, we all know about meta tags and title tags and Hx tags, but I want to learn more. I have no desire to become a specialist but I do want to enhance my own  websites and bring extra value to future client projects.

So there it is, my motivation. What’s yours?

So the last time I really used IE was the last time I reinstalled Windows and needed to download Firefox. But as Firefox 3.6 came out yesterday (2 days ago really, I upgraded yesterday) the only game I play stopped working.

The reason why I started running IE again is that Battlefield Heroes is not compatible with Firefox 3.6 (yet).

The Battlefield Heroes developers already confirmed the bug and said a fix is on the way. Unfortunately, nobody seems to understand why they didn’t test the game when FF 3.6 was in beta (there were more then one beta versions).

In case you’re wondering, Battlefield Heroes is a free online shooter game. You install on your computer but in order to run it you need to go to the official website, log in and the game launches via a browser addon. At the moment only Firefox and Internet Explorer are supported, and as FF doesn’t work, I went back to using IE to start the game.

Now the fine print: I still use FF for all my day-to-day activities. I use IE only to run the game.

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The site is build on a PHP / MySQL with a CMS for building surveys, exporting results and managing users.