1. Use two-factor authentication plugins

There is a reason why we dedicated one whole post for this useful tool; they are really handy in securing your site. Two-factor authentication basically means that your account will be linked to your mobile device, and every time you log in, a unique code will be sent to your device and without it, you can never gain access.

However, this method will not be as sufficient if you have to log in and log out through multiple sites or switch between devices. So even though we strongly recommend you to use this tool, of course there are other ways to secure your admin login page.

2. Don’t use the “admin” username

Though this may sound like an old record repeating again and again in every single WordPress security article, sometimes people fall for the most obvious mistake they can find. We cannot stress this enough: Don’t ever use the ‘admin’ username. Never! You will save your site from a brute-force attack just by this one simple act of choosing your username a bit carefully.

If you are already using the “admin” username, then we would advise you to create a new admin WordPress account with a new username and then delete the original “admin” account.

3. Use stronger passwords

Another obvious mistake that many people make is using a short, weak password. You should have a unique password for every single site, and it should be a nonsensical sequence of letters and numbers. Avoid using your name, your username or any particular word in any language, as they are easier to detect.

If you find it hard to remember all those passwords you created, especially when they are nonsensical, a password manager app will be the thing you need. LastPass is a handy web extension that will help you in both generating a unique password and remembering it for you.

4. Hide your username

Logically, if you don’t want hackers to know your “admin” username, you will not want them to know your usernames at all, so of course showcasing your username via author archive or page title would not be a smart move.

Normally WordPress displays your username in your author archive page’s URL, e.g. http://websiteurl.com/author/username/. There is a field in your WordPress database called user_nicename, populated by your log in username, and WordPress uses this field to put together author page permalink. To change it to something else, you need to access your database directly, possibly via phpMyAdmin.

Also remember to check “Nickname” and “Display name publicly as” in the user profile section and make sure they are not your username. By default, your username will be your nickname, and if you forget to change it, your username will eventually appear on the Page Tittle.

5. Create a custom login link

Normally, when you access the admin WordPress panel, you will go through the “wp-login” URL, and it is alright until your admin account is hacked. On the other hand, having a custom login link will make hacking your site a more difficult business.

Stealth Login is there for you to solve this problem. It allows you to create custom URLs for logging in and out instead of using the default page. You can also prevent other users from being able to access “wp-login” directly. This is not a perfect way to secure your site, but if hackers do succeed in getting your username and password, they will not know where to log in. This will also prevent you from brute force attack by bots.

And remember that we can play with the admin WordPress page for more than just security reasons. Here we have found an interesting article covering how to pump up your admin page, so check it out.

Play With WordPress Login Page from InnoGears” on Vimeo.

6. Limit the number of failed login attempts

One good way to prevent your site from being hacked through a brute force attack is by limiting the failed login attempts. This act is done by blocking the IP address after they have tried to login a specified number of times, rendering attack through bots nearly impossible.

Two plugins worth mentioning for this technique are Limit Login Attempt and Login Lockdown. Both of them have similar functionality, disabling requests from IP range after attempting to login too many times, with customization available in the Options panel for your special needs.

7. Limit access to only your IP address

If you are not on the move a lot and only manage your site from a certain place (e.g. your office), then you might want to limit the access to your administration page to only your IP address. To do this, you need to create a .htaccess file in your “wp-admin” folder and paste the following code:

order deny,allow
deny from all
# whitelist Syed's IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist David's IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist Amanda's IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist Muhammad's IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist Work IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx

Change the IP address of those who are whitelisted and you are ready to go.

If you don’t want to limit your site to only some of the IP address, then you can create another protection wall through creating a .htpasswd file and then change your .htaccess file to the following code. In case you don’t know what is .htpasswd and .htaccess file is, please check this out:

AuthUserFile ‘Path to htpasswd file'
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “WordPress Admin Access Control”
AuthType Basic
order deny,allow
deny from all
Require valid-user
# whitelist Syed’s IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist David’s IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist Amanda’s IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist Muhammad’s IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
# whitelist Work IP address
allow from xx.xx.xx.xxx
Satisfy Any

By doing this, you will get another login panel before the WordPress administration login screen. Don’t reuse your username and password though.

8. Access your WordPress dashboard through a HTTPS connection

We have talked about the different ways to prevent a brute force attack for you website, but how about the malicious hacker who will track down your username and password through tapping in to the device where your data is routed and capturing your credentials? Accessing your WordPress account through a HTTPS connection is one good way to protect your site from this.

Normally when you are logging in on the Internet, your data is routed through a number of devices on the Internet (e.g. your wireless router), and if you are not accessing it through a HTTPS connection, your data will appear in clear text, which makes it easier for a hacker to find and see your login details.

What makes accessing through a HTTPS connection different is that it will encrypt your data, hence making it impossible for a hacker to sniff around and find your username and password. You can set up and run your WordPress site on SSL (HTTPS connection) through WordPress HTTPS (SSL) plugin.

9. Use WordPress security plugins

Last but not least, if you find that these actions above are too much, there are always more than enough security plugins for you to use. From Wordfence Security, iThemes Security to Exploit Scanner, plugins developers are there to fight the war against hackers with you.

So what have you done so far to enhance the security for your admin page? Do you find these tips above handy? Comment below and let us know!

The post 9 Easy Tips to Better Secure Your WordPress Admin Directory appeared first on .

It’s that time of the week again: Time for Design Freebies!!! Excited? We are!

This week we will bring you a variation of vintage backgrounds for you to choose from. Flower patterns to snowflakes, if you find what you are looking for here from our list, then remember to comment to us and share it with your friends!

Without further ado, here are the vintage backgrounds freebies of this week:

1. Retro Pattern Set

A set of 25 free 50s style retro color palette with pattern shape recalled from the 60s and 70s, this one is a must have if you want to elevate your website to the next level.

Download

2. Vintage Wood Texture

If you like things a bit rustic, you will find this set extra lovely. Includes 6 papers for you to use.

Download

3.  Playful Retro Pattern

Combo pack of large (1024px * 1024px) (740px * 740px) seamless Playful Retro textures in .jpg format as well as a corresponding Photoshop tileable pattern (.pat) set.

Download

4. Seamless Retro Wallpapers

This seamless retro vectors are perfect for your wallpapers, website backgrounds and decoration. Just remember to pay some attribution to the creator of these patterns by placing a link back to Vector Open Stock in your design.

Download

5. Vintage Floral Backgrounds

These backgrounds are inspired by Van Gogh’s Branches of an Almond Tree in Blossom, and they are really fit if you want a cutesy, womanly looking site.

Download

6. Seamless Snowflake Backgrounds

Snowflakes are symmetrically beautiful, and a sprinkle of them on your website background will surely make your viewer feel the merry of Christmas.

Download

7. Seamless Vintage Backgrounds

This is a set of 20 seamless, vintage backgrounds you can download separately. The actual size of them is 450 x 450 px.

Download

8. Floral Photoshop Pattern

A free set of old fashioned florals photoshop patterns – the set include a Photoshop PAT file and 2 seamless JPEG swatches

Download

9. Vintage Graylands Pattern

A collection of vintage backgrounds in large sizes (500 x 500 px).

Download

10. Vintage Background Papers

This collection includes 15 vintage background papers in 1000 x 1000 px resolution that will greatly benefit if you are looking for a bit darker pattern.

Download

Do you find these backgrounds useful for your project? What would you like to see next? Comment below and let us know. Also, don’t forget to share this to your friends if you like them.

See you next time!

The post Design Freebies #18: 10 Vintage Background Sets appeared first on .

This awesome WordPress slider plugin is worth a look! I’m sure you’ll love it.

Overview of this WordPress Slider plugin

Live preview                Purchase

Slider Revolution is a multi-functional slider plugin which is best for showing almost any kind of content with customizable transitions, effects and custom animations.

Slider Revolution plugin was released in July, 2012. The Themepunch team has regularly updated their product; the latest update was this month, on 11 June 2014.

Slider Revolution is compatible with many browser software versions from IE8, IE9, IE10, IE11, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome.

For developers who care about this plugin, files included in Slider Revolution are JavaScript JS, HTML, CSS, PHP.

Created nearly 2 years ago, Slider Revolution has had great achievements: more than 28,000 purchases with a buyer’s rating of 4.77/5. On average, there are more than 1,500 purchases each month; an incredible number, right?

Customers are not wrong; this WordPress plugin has some outstanding features over other slider plugins to be chosen by so many users.

Which amazing things you can find in Slider Revolution WordPress plugin?

Easily slide editing

Slider Revolution plugin makes it easy for you to create custom sliders using a drag and drop interface, navigation arrows, slider size customization, slider location customization, and media layers. Creating a professional slide show for your site is as easy as eating a pie now!

Media Support

You can add text, links, images and videos with a few clicks with Revolution Slider. This WordPress plugin gives you the ability to make your slideshow more vivid and interactive to visitors.

SEO optimization

This is a new feature just added in Slider Revolution. You can custom image alt tag for SEO purposes.

Slider Responsiveness

With Slider Revolution, multiple size displays can be configured in the slider settings panel in both vertical and horizontal mode, for various screen sizes and mobile devices.

Easily placing on a page

When creating a new slider, a short code for it is automatically created. This short code can be used to easily place the slider in a post, page or in a widget.

Multi-site and multi-language support

Need to show slide captions in different languages? No problem! Slider Revolution is certified for WPML usage and now also supports the qTranslate Plugin.

Import/Export tools

With Slider Revolution you can easily import/export your complete sliders with full content for usage in themes or for easily moving them to another WordPress installation.

Do you get a bargain when buying this WordPress slider plugin?

For a regular license it only costs $19 for all these wonderful features. With this license you can use Slider Revolution a single end-product, which can be used by yourself or sold to your client.

For an extended license it is $95. With this license you or your client can charge a fee for the end-product. In other words, the product can be sold to end-users for a profit.

For you, a normal WordPress user, using this plugin for your site, certainly you can get a great bargain for only $19.

Does Slider Revolution plugin work well with other themes?

Slider Revolution plugin is used in the current top 3 selling themes on ThemeForest:

• Avada | Responsive Multi-Purpose Theme (ThemeFusion)
• Inovado (Minti)
• U-Design WordPress Theme (internq7)

Moreover, it has been used in a great number of other great themes.

How to create a slider with Slider Revolution? (video)

What others are saying about this plugin?

Slider Revolution WordPress plugin has got so many positive reviews, some of them are from two famous WordPress Blogs:

“I thoroughly enjoyed testing and using this plugin, and highly recommend it to all those of you who are looking for a slider plugin, especially if you plan to include some layer-based animation features to your slides.”

WP Mayor

“Revolution Slider is an all-around awesome plugin, and would be a solid addition to any site.”

WPExplorer

WordPress Slider Revolution Plugin Summary

It can be seen that Slider Revolution is a combination of many features for a great WordPress slider plugin: easy editing, various choices of styles and layouts, responsive interface and search engine optimization. If you are looking for a slider WordPress plugin, which creates eye-catching and information-rich sliders, Slider Revolution is a great choice for you!

This is the first blog in our series of products reviews in InnoThemes blog. We do hope to receive feedback from you to make our review more valuable to our all dear readers. If you have any further ideas, then add a comment please! Thanks

The post Product Review #1: Slider Revolution – Responsive WordPress Plugin appeared first on .

We would like to send our sincere thanks to you for standing by us till the seventeenth design collection. Also, we inform you that we would continue to bring you more specific and high-quality freebies.

Today we offer you 20 free minimalist icons that you surely need for your minimalistic design.

Enjoy!

1. Minimalist Icons

This is an awesome set of minimalist icons. After downloading them, you’ll receive a zip file containing the following: .ai file (Illustrator), .psd file, .xar file (Xara) and .svg

Download

2. Minimalist Icon Set

This is a set of over 1000 vectorized icons in 46 categories for you to use in any commercial project you need. This minimalist style fits perfectly with any kind of design, it can be a website, a mobile app or even a desktop interface.

Download

3. Iconic

Here’s a great set of simple yet attractive icons that would be perfect for a minimal design. Iconic is an open source icon set that can be downloaded in PNG, SVG, SWC as well as other formats, thus allowing you to customise them to fit and match your design.

Download

4. Extra IKONS

36 new minimalist icons by Piotr Kwiatkowski, a Dribbble user are worth a look! It is quite popular on this platform.

Download

 

5. Iconmelon

This brilliant collection of various minimalist icons helps you to design a great minimal website.

Download

6. Budicon – 48 Free Icons

It includes all 5 size variations of Budicon, you’ll get 25px, 50px,16px, 32px and 64px. Basically you download this for free with just tweeting about this icon.

Download

7. 44 Shades Of Free Icons

This minimalist icon set was created by  Victor Erixon, a Dribbble user. It has got 1223 likes and many positive review from users.

Download

8. Devine Icons

Clean and beautiful minimalist black and white icons for your next design project.

Download

9. Mnml Icon Set

Here’s another set of minimal icons that work against dark backgrounds. There are 20 standard icons, 1 folder icon, and 5 ‘group’ icons. All are 128*128 transparent-background PNGs.

Download

10. Sanscons

Sanscons is a CSS-friendly version allowing you to set custom backgrounds on your icons. All icons come in a wide variety of colors (13 in all) in order for greater convenience. 

Download

11. Glyphish

You can scale designs up and down by multiples of two and your icons remain crisp. It’s easy to design for variable display size and pixel density. Try free 200 minimalist icons.

Download

12. Symbol Signs Collection

The symbol signs can be used for signage & wayfinding projects. The complete symbol collection is optimized for reproduction methods such as engraving, laser engraving/cutting, screen printing and self adhesive film to manufacture the signs you need.

Download

13. 108 Mono Icons

This Free Icon Pack is for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. It may not be redistributed. There are 108 minimal icons included in this set. The icons are avaliable in 32×32 px .png (transparent background) format.

Download

14. 120 Icon Square Ilepixeli Set

Here is another freebie, 120 square minimalist icons, divided in 4 categories – sound, picture, web and devices. Hope you like it!

Download

15. 45 Blue Drops

This free icon set is created by Zulal Ahmad , a Dribbble user. It has got 500 likes and more than 15000 views on this platform.

Download

16. Simplicio: A Free Icon Set

The main motivation behind the design was to create a simple, even minimalistic set which can fit into every project. The set contains 78 free icons in .png and .ico. You can use the set for free – without any restrictions whatsoever.

Download

17. Token

TOKEN includes 128 unique icon designs, each is available in dark and light variants.

Download

18. Reflection

It’s simple but elegant and stylish icon set. You’ll find these icons great to use at small sizes, such as for website navigation, menus and more. Both vector and raster versions are included.

Download

19. 350 Free Vector Web Icons

This set of minimalist icons are ideal to use in your next web design project, which can help you to create a minimalistic interface.

Download

20. Streamline

This set of icons is free for both personal and commercial purpose. Hope you can enjoy it!

Download

The collection of this week is useful for you or not? Let us know, we will make the best become better for you! Thanks

The post Design Freebies #17: 20 Free Minimalist Icon Sets appeared first on .

Of course, you will not want a hacker to break into your own “house” and mess up your life, huh? Don’t let the grass grow under your feet. Take preparations for the sake of WordPress security right away!

In this post today, we will cover 5 helpful tips for you to build a thick wall against WordPress hackers. Enjoy!

Tip #1: Use secure hosting

Secure hosting is a very important factor to harden your WordPress security. These are features of secure hosting that you should look for:

• Support for the latest PHP and MySQL versions
• Account isolation
• Web Application Firewall
• Intrusion detecting system

Hosting solutions:  Use hosting from company with strong security measures.

Tip #2: Control Uploading Files From Users

Controling uploading files from users prevents a security threat to your website. Malicious files should be limited by these ways:

• Prevent users from executing files they upload
• Prevent direct upload of files altogether
• Make sure you use secure transport methods such as SFTP or SSH for websites allowing users to upload images directly from the Internet

Tip #3: Use custom secret keys

Some common mistakes you may make with your WordPress login:

• Login with user admin name
• Use default password
• Never reset your passwords

Something too predictable and simple is not good for WordPress security. If you don’t want hackers have a access to your site, start using custom secret keys right now.

Tools for you:

Better WP Security is plugin from Ithemes. It can hide common WordPress security vulnerabilities and keep attackers away from sensitive areas like your site’s login or admin.

Tip #4: Do backups regularly

Backup can help you restore your data in an unexpected case. So, it is better to:

• Do backup on a daily/weekly or monthely basis
• Build a backup plan or use a back up service

Tools for WordPress backups:

Backup Buddy and VaultPress are premium tools, but you will get what you pay for, they are really backup solutions for your WordPress website.

With WordPress Backup to Dropbox, a free choice, you can have your site backuped and your files stored in Dropbox.

WordPress Duplicator is a free tool which helps you migrate, copy or clone a site from one location to another.

Tip #5: Stay updated

Why I say you should stay updated? WordPress as well as themes or  plugins providers often upgrade them on a regular basis. The new version is more complete than the older ones. So if you don’t update, hackers know the sucurity hole in your site and it sucks! To stay updated, remember two things:

• Update new release of WordPress
• Follow lastest update of themes and plugins

Tools to keep your WordPress website updated:

WordPress Updates Notifier plugin will send email to notify you if there are any updates for your WordPress site such as core, plugin and theme updates.

InfiniteWP Client is a useful tool for you to install multiple plugins & themes on multiple sites simultaneously from a central dashboard. Of course its update function is great, too.

I am sure that with only five simple preparation steps you can make your WordPress website more secure.

Follow us to receive informative WordPress infographics, posts and video tutorials. Don’t hesitate to share the infographic with your friends to help their WordPress website secure just like yours!

Featured Image: InnoGears

The post Infographic: 5 Helpful Tips To Boost WordPress Security appeared first on .

As you may know, besides color, image and space, font is a great factor to your design project’s success. It’s the reason why we have collected the most popular and favorite free fonts for you here.

This week design freebies include a set  of 20 great free fonts for graphic and web designers.

Get them now!

1. Disclaimer

Fontfabric type foundry presents Disclaimer – module-based display font coming in two variations : Plain and Classic.

Download

2. Bebas Neue

Bebas Neue is a sans serif font family based on the original Bebas Neue free font. The new weights stay true to the style and grace of Bebas with the familiar clean lines, elegant shapes, a blend of technical straightforwardness and simple warmth which make it uniformly proper for web, print, commerce and art.

Download

3. Vagtur

Vagtur comes from Simon Becker and Sabrina Ekecik. Vagtur is an old Uniprojekt, now brought back to life, with the kind assistance of an intern Sabrina Ekecik.
VAG + FetteFraktur = Vagtur, this font is a mixture of the two classics.

Download

3. Choplin (Medium & ExtraLight)

Choplin is a modern and clear geometric slab serif with a sturdy heart. It was designed based on the Campton Family, with the same principles in mind: geometry, simplicity and neutrality.

Download

5. Vaneer

Veneer from Yellow Design Studio is a high resolution hand-crafted letterpress font. It’s highly customizable with six distress options for every letter and three for all other characters. The Veneer family includes 16 font styles and 4 font styles are free.

Download

6. Campton

Campton is a simple sans serif with a geometric skeleton, based on the mid to early twentieth century visual trend of achieving neutrality. It is perfectly suited for graphic design application ranging from editorial and corporate design to product design.

Download

7. Lovelo font

Lovelo free font is remake of the original Lovelo Inline – designed by Renzler Design, Vienna, Austria.

Download

8. Porto

Porto was born to be part of a logo design but it didn’t turn to be. It is such a gorgeous font that thousands of people appreciated it  on behance.

Download

9. Uni Sans Free

Fontfabric type foundry presents Uni Sans Free. This four-font set from well known best seller Uni Sans is available for free download.

Download

10. Baron (Free Typefamily)

Baron is an free uppercase display typeface inspired by the classic sans serif font familes. This typeface is perfect for usage in posters/logotypes and headlines. It is free for both personal and commercial use.

Download

11. Tesla Font

The inspiration for this typeface was found in the circuitry of lightbulb filament and wiring intricately crossing paths.

Download

12. Higher

Higher is a free font by Marisa Passos, an user on behance. It has got 16221 views and 6966 appreciations.

Download

13. Navia

Navia Type is designed to communicate modernism with the sharp edges that evoke contemporary style. This font is ideal for titles, portfolios and logos.

Download

14. “Cortes” – A Free Typeface

Cortes is a geometric modern style font that should be used as a display font only. If you need the thins to be thicker, add a stroke in the program of your choice. This font is for personal use only.

Download

15. Knewave

Knewave is bold, painted face. Get it for free!

Download

16. Junction

Junction is a a humanist sans-serif, and the first open-source type project started by The League of Moveable Type. It has been updated (2014) to include additional weights (light/bold) and expanded international support.

Download

17. Ostrich Sans

This is a gorgeous modern sans-serif with a very long neck with a whole slew of styles & weights: Dashed (thin), Rounded (medium), Ultra light, Normal, Bold (race track style double lines), Black, Inline (with italics), Heavy (round).

Download

18. Portico Identity

This font is made by Eddie Lobanovskiy, a user on Dribbbles. It has got 1549 likes and 45320 views on this platform.

Download

19. Glamour

Glamor Type Family, including a set of 24 fonts with more than 200 unique characters per font, is free for personal and commercial works. OTF & TTF files are in attached ZIP folders.

Download

20. Maven Pro

Maven Pro is a sans-serif typeface with unique curvature and flowing rhythm. Its forms make it very distinguishable and legible in context. Maven Pro’s modern design is great for the web and fits in any environment.

Download

We hope that you like these free fonts and use them for your next design project. Let us know your experiences at that time.

See ya’ in our next design freebies collection!

The post 20 Greatest Free Fonts For Graphic And Web Designers appeared first on .

InnoThemes pick: Balsamiq Mockups

•  Price: $79

Balsamiq Mockups is a wireframing tool that includes several drag-and-drop elements, all in the style of hand-drawing. Why do we like Balsamiq so much? Because it makes you feel like you are drawing a draft on paper, and that feeling does give you the freedom to do more tweaking here and there, as well as giving out feedbacks. We also love it because all the elements are there and you only need to arrange them. In fact, we have used Balsamiq for the InnoThemes site, and this is how we did it:

Balsamiq Mockups is great with the ideas phase of the project, however, with such simplicity, it is not much of a prototyping tool for showing off to clients.

InnoThemes pick: FlairBuilder

•  Price: $99

One of our core wireframing tools, FlairBuilder brings creative, interactive wireframes for both websites and mobile applications. And unlike Balsamiq, FlairBuilder has both ‘high-fidelity’ and ‘low-fidelity’ modes that you can switch back and forth between to suit your need, whether it is drawing out the basic concept or creating a prototype for a client. You can even add events to elements to make them interactive. FlairBuilder’s versatility is a sure win.

InnoThemes pick: Adobe Fireworks

•  Price: $282

A classic in designing wireframes and prototypes for web, Fireworks is still one of our ‘go-to’ software tools, despite an ocean full of wireframing and mockups apps out there. Not just because we, as designers, are accustomed to using core Adobe products, but because the design in Fireworks can be adjusted to pixel point and then exported to CSS file with ease. If you want to create a static web page, everything can be done with only Fireworks.

Another plus point of Fireworks is that it works seamlessly with Dreamweaver.  You can jump back and forth between the two softwares packages without any problems. For example, if you want to edit the appearance of one element in Dreamweaver, you can simply click on it in ‘Edit with Fireworks’, and voila, you are there.

InVision

•  Price: $25/month

InVision was included in our ‘must-have’ list a while ago, so we do indeed adore this software. With InVision, you can link up UX sketches, designs, and wireframes, and then present a ‘near-ready’ prototype with your teammates. InVision makes your prototype more interactive, easier to visualize and easier to receive feedback from your team.

Though it’s good for the ideas phase of wireframing, InVision is more fully utilized at the simulation phase, when a little bit of real-life action with the design can go a long way. And there are possibly thousands of layers in your design, which could make finding a mistake difficult at that time, so InVision ‘click and comment’ system is a sweet extra. After all, InVision is created to make our design collaboration a more comfortable road.

Indigo Studio

•  Price: $495

Indigo Studio might seem a bit pricey compared to other software of the same type, but there is a reason why Indigo has become one of the hottest wireframing tools in the recent times. Not only does Indigo provide you with the traditional layout of a UI tool, it also gives you storyboard mode, allowing designers to put together the users’ journeys in broad overview. Also, once you have all your elements in place, you can include a set of interactions to make a clickable prototype.

One powerful feature of this software: With Indigo, you can import your static mockups from Balsamiq and make them interactive. However, there have also been complaints about Indigo Studio, mostly about its data plan and limited annotations. Many people are satisfied with it, while others still think Indigo is a bit lacking compared to its price. What is your opinion?

Axure

•  Price: $289 – $589

Another famous prototyping tool is Axure. Axure is known for its efficiency in creating interactive prototypes quickly and without any knowledge of front-end coding. Focusing most on UX, Axure gives you the ability to create highly functional, rich prototypes with conditional logic, dynamic content, animations and calculations.

On the other hand, because Axure is a pure prototyping tool, its feature for documenting process flows and integrating prototypes with other UX-related documents has never been a priority. Axure also does not provide much of an environment for collaboration, as InVision does.

UXPin

•  Price: $14.99/month

If you are not that experienced and you find the tools above, especially Axure, hard to use, then UXPin might be the answer for you. UXPin offers you a complete tool kit of useful design elements and pattern with easy drag-and-drop, and you can map out your site online with an infinite number of people. It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s responsive. Nearly everything you need for a good design can be found in UXPin.

Because UXPin is made for beginners, of course, their interactions are more limited than Axure or Indigo.  However, if you are only looking for something simple and your site is not that complicated, then you should give UXPin a go.

Proto.io

•  Price: from $24/month

For those out there who are creating a prototype for mobile devices, then let us introduce you to Proto.io, the prototyping tool that will cater to your every needs. Be it you want to see gestures, touch events, animations or screen transitions, Proto.io can bring it to you. In just a few minutes, your interactive interfaced prototype is complete, and you can test it on any actual device that you like.

The drawback of Proto.io is also its highlight; you can create prototypes for PC, but it’s not nearly as magical because Proto.io is made for touch features.

Above are 8 prototyping tools that you can use, from the basic ideas phase to full-blown prototype testing. Have you ever used any of these tools? Do you find them efficient or annoying? Comment below and let us know.

The post 8 Premium Wireframing & Mockup Tools for Designers in 2014 appeared first on .

Line Icon Set For UI & More

This icon set is very popular on behance. It gets 88652 views and 9012 appreciations. Luckily, it is free for download, be quick before the author sets a price on it

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100+ Free Simple Line Icons by Mirko Monti

100+ simple line icons for web and UI design are available for free; check the preview file to see all the icons.

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Free Simple Line Icons Set Vol.1

Here’s a set of 40 simple stroke icons that are great for mobile applications, websites, user interfaces and more. All icons are pixel perfect, fully scalable vector shapes available in two sizes, 32px and 64px.

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Simple Line Icons Set Vol.2

The second volume of stroke icons collection with 40 new icons are used in your websites, apps and user interfaces.

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Free Simple Line Icons Set Vol.3

This is the third volume of the line icons collection with 40 new icons, perfect for your web and mobile projects. As you already know, all icons are pixel perfect vector shapes available in two sizes, 32px and 64px.

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Free Simple Line Icons Set Vol.4

The fourth volume of the line icons collection is ready to use in your web and mobile projects. These icons are fully scalable vector shapes available in two sizes.

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48 Icons By Robin Kylander

This freebies by Robon Kylander, an Dribble user has got many likes and views. Enjoy it to see how amazing it is!

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DRIPICONS – 90+ Free Vector Line Icon Font

This free design resources is created by Amit Jakhu, which can minimalize your web and mobile interface.

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Free Minimal Single Line Icons

This line icon set gets 1210 views, 73 appreciations on Behance. Surely it can help you to save time on your design piece and increase work’s quality.

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20 Settings Line Icons

This freebie includes 20 iOS7-style settings line icons (brightness, search, volume, etc.).

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24 Ecommerce Line Icons (PSD, AI)

This is a set of 24 line icons for ecommerce shop. These line icons are pixel perfect and come in vector PSD, Illustrator AI and EPS formats and can infinitely be scalable. These icons are created in 50 x 50 pixels size mainly aimed at iPhone ecommerce apps.

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Buddha Line Icon Set

This is a set of beautiful line vector based icons, perfect for App and Web design. This freebie is only the first part of upcoming icon pack, that will contain several releases.

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Free Vector Line Icon Set – 50 icons

Download these 1000 line icons to unleash your creativity and reach perfection.

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Tab Bar Icons iOS 7

This is a series of iOS 7 inspired tab bar icons with a mix of default icons and custom ones. Those new icons are here to help you refresh your apps and test the water of the new apple iOS design paradigm.

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Tab Bar Icons iOS 7 Vol2

Volume 2 of iOS7 styled tab bar icons with 32 new icons to use in your apps. Normal line and filled style in these freebies can help you pick what is best for your project.

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Tab Bar Icons iOS 7 Vol3

Third volume of iOS7 tab bar icons with a collection of 32 icons may help you create web and mobile apps.

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Cicons: 40 Outline Icons

Cicons is a set of 40 outline icons created by Vlad Cristea. All icons are pixel perfect, fully scalable vector shapes available in PSD, AI and EPS formats.

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Streamline Icons

This set is from the Streamline Icons Pack. Free for download, you only have to pay with a tweet.

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Linecons – Free Icons

Linecons is a set of remarkable free vector icons. The set contains 48 fully scalable vector icons with outline styles. You can use these icons when creating web and mobile interfaces. They will suit any site themes and any design.

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Social Media Line Icons

Thin and modern style. This set contains only essential and popular social media icons.

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This free social media line icon set has brought you to the end of the collection today! We hope that you can enjoy it to the best. Like this post or share with us your expreriences with these freebies to help you have the better resource next time.

The post Design Freebies #15: 20 Free High-Quality Line Icon Sets appeared first on .

The question is: While there is always patch for vulnerability now, is it best to use static passwords?

The answer is certainly no. Two-factor authentication can solve this problem. This service will try to verify that you really are the person you say you are, and not just accept the password you give.

This blog post can give you an overview of two-factor authentication, and then how you can apply it to your WordPress site.

Who are you, two-factor authentication?

It used to be that having a strong password policy was enough to prevent hackers from accessing to your site. However, as security continues to evolve, it is clear that a strong password is not enough. A simple and effective way of improving the way you secure your WordPress site accounts is by using a method called two-factor authentication.
Two-factor authentication is a method where your users are required to log in with two “factors”: a password or a code from a device that they have, maybe their mobile phone. Two-factor authentication is one of the best things you can do to make sure your accounts don’t get hacked.

WordPress is not the only one applying two-factor authentication; a lot of sites have recently implemented it, including many of our favorite services: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Dropbox, … etc.

It’s clear that two-factor authentication is well known, right? You need to have a deep awareness of its necessity to boost your WordPress site security.

Do I need to add two-factor authentication to my WordPress site?

Google’s spam guru, Matt Cutts, has commented about the importance of two-factor authentication:

Two-factor authentication is a simple feature that asks for more than just your password. It requires both “something you know” (like a password) and “something you have” (like your phone)…It’s a lot more secure than a password and keeps unwanted snoopers out of your online accounts.

Do you think you need two-factor authentication for your WordPress site? Believe me; you will be persuaded to do it right away

• Using your username and password along with some personal information that only you have access to makes it harder for potential intruders to gain access and steal your personal data or identity.
• Moreover, two-factor authentication can help to protect your site from brute force attacks. Brute force attacks work by systematically checking all possible keys or passwords until a valid one is found.

Two-factor authentication can help you avoid this problem through its password-verifying process.

Dear two-factor authentication, how do you work?

Remembering many different account passwords from your WordPress account to gmail, bank, or even your favorite forum account is always a challenge, right? So I’m sure that many of you will use the same account password for many sites. This means that your accounts can be hacked in a domino effect.

Well, two-step verification is just the solution for that. Even if the hacker knows your WordPress username and password, they will not be able to access your site. Because your site is directly connected with your mobile device, you are the only person who should have access to this to get a unique code for each login.

The unique code often expires in a short amount of time for security purposes too.

Recommended two-factor authentication plugins

Google Authenticator

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The Google Authenticator plugin for WordPress gives you two-factor authentication using the Google Authenticator app for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry.

If you are security aware, you may already have the Google Authenticator app installed on your smartphone, using it for two-factor authentication on your WordPress site.

You will need to download and install Google Authenticator both on your WordPress site and your smart phone to ensure you login to your site by opening the app on your phone and entering the provided authenticator key.

Cleft

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Cleft is a mobile app that replaces usernames and passwords with your smartphone.

After installing and activating the Cleft plugin on your WordPress site, you create a Cleft profile on your phone too. Cleft uses that profile to generate a new digital signature every time you log. Then you sync Cleft Wave to identify yourself on your WordPress login.

Duo Two-Factor Authentication

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Duo Security provides two-factor authentication as a service to protect against account takeover and data theft. Rather than relying on a password alone, Duo’s authentication service adds a second layer of security to your WordPress accounts. Duo enables your admins or users to verify their identities using something they have – like their mobile phone or a hardware token – which provides strong authentication and dramatically enhances account security.

Duo is easy to setup and use. With Duo there’s no extra hardware or complicated software to install, just install this plugin and sign up for Duo’s service. Then you can set which user roles you want to enable two-factor authentication for — admins, editors, authors, contributors, and/or subscribers — without setting up user accounts, directory synchronization, servers, or hardware.

The only problem with this plugin is you only have a limited number of people who can use the website with the free version.

Well, have you used two-factor authentication for boosting your WordPress security or not? If yes, which plugins have you used? Share with me your ideas in the comment box below. One more thing – don’t forget to share this post with your friends. Thanks

Feature image source from threatpost.com

The post Boost WordPress Security By Adding Two-Factor Authentication appeared first on .

Whatever it is, take a deep breath and enjoy the weekend with our freebies collection!

We offered you with an awesome collection of free flat icon sets two weeks ago, right? So today we will offer more flat design freebies for your next projects: Flat UI KITS. UI KIT is a great tool to create a user interface design, which helps to create innovative design.

So don’t beat about the bush any more. See what we have today!

1. Flat UI KIT By Hugo

You are currently viewing flat UI KIT (psd), a free UI KIT design made by Dribble user naming Hugo. It has received more than 13,000 views and 250 likes on Dribble.

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2. Flat UI KIT By Designmodo

Flat UI by Designmodo contains many basic and complex components which are great for designers to have at hand: buttons, inputs, button groups, selects, checkboxes and radio-buttons, tags, menus, progress bars and sliders, navigation elements and more.

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3. Freebie PSD: Flat UI KIT  (Blog) By Riki Tanone

Here’s a nice free PSD kit of some widgets that are popular to use in web design. This one also has a wonderful color palette.

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4. Flat UI KIT (PSD) By Devin Schulz

It is a more extensive PSD for flat colors that has a very simple color palette. It includes everything from navigational buttons to tag styles.

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5. Avenger

You will be fascinated with how this stunning flat and simplistic design can look. A lot of UI elements are into one document.

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6. Freebie PSD: Flat / UI KIT By Sebastiaan Scheer

This UI KIT features a very popular color and makes it a monochromatic color palette. The typography is delightful as well.

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7. Eerste – Flat UI KIT

The elements are organized in folders so you won’t have to search through a multitude of layers to get what you are looking for. The graphical elements of the UI kit are: vertical menu, sign in menu, social media profile, horizontal menu, comment form, pricing table, video player, calendar, newsletter subscribe, checkboxes, dropdown, scrollbar, pagination, search, share buttons and music player.

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8. Metro UI KIT

Colorful Metro UI KIT is for free download and any use. Collection of blocks includes calendar, stats, chart, icons, menu, search and account. All are designed in Metro style.

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9. Vertical Infinity

This huge free flat style UI KIT contains different styles of Menus, Dropdown lists, Buttons, Form Elements, Check Boxes and Radio Buttons, Toggle, Navigation and Paginations, Tags, Alert Boxes, Progress Bars, Login Forms, Contact Forms, Weather Widgets, Calendar Widgets, Social Buttons, Media Players,  Attachment, Profile Elements.

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10. Free Spark Flat UI KIT

Spark is a flat and clean style UI KIT created in Photoshop. Free for commercial and personal use.

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11. Free News Flat Concept UI KIT

This free UI KIT was made by Ozer Yilmaztekin, it has received a lot of views and shares on behance.

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12. Combination UI KIT Pack

This new freebie includes most advanced UI KITS up to date, which includes a lot of components to help you design web and mobile apps.

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13. Free UI KIT PSD

This design freebie certainly can help you boost your work flow.

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14. RAMPY – Free Flat UI KIT

This is a flat UI KIT that you can download for free. This kit consists of various widgets: calendar, profile, login, contact, gallery, video, article and map.

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15. Bleya UI KIT

Here’s a bunch of flat UI elements for web design, free to download. Enjoy!

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16. Flat Style & iOS 7 Line Style UI KIT PSD

The components in this pack contain stroke/line elements basically inspired by the iOS 7 style. Each element is grouped with their layers and named properly for easy recognition. It can help you save your design time as you don’t have to create elements from scratch!

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17. Free Flat Bank UI KIT

Really quick UI of a bank interface, hope it can help!

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18. Free Flat Purple UI KIT

Sleek and simple, this UI KIT is available for everyone to use.

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19. Flatty UI

Flatty UI is a flat design UI pack which meets some needs of designers and helps you get started to create your own flat design.

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20. Flat Rounded Square UI Kit

This UI KIT is designed by Freepik, available in PSD format and for easy modification. It can be used to design and mock-up web, app and software user interfaces. There are 20 original icons come with the UI kit as well.

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I really hope that this collection of Flat UI KITS can help you! Click on the social buttons on the left to share with your friends these awesome freebies. Thanks!

The post 20 Free Flat UI KITS To Boost Up Your Workflow appeared first on .