Today we’ll ask the age-old question: Mac or Windows? It will be interesting to see which is most popular in the Envato community.

I’ve been keeping a tally in my head every time I publish an interview or “Meet the Staff” or workspace or desktop post. I think the race is very close.

I’d be keeping a tally on how many use Linux too, but I’m sure it’s already lost the race. But I’ve added an “other” category just in case. And you can select as many operating systems as you use.

So let the race begin. Which operating system do you use?

Congratulations to ThemeForest author Kailoon (real name Kai Loon Chan) whose work has been featured in the first ever issue of WordPress Genius Guide! Kai Loon’s file Our Magazine is being given away on the cover CD of Volume 1 of the all new WordPress Genius Bookazine. Well done, Kai Loon!

Our Magazine by  Kailoon, $35 (or FREE in Volume 1 of WordPress Genius Guide)

ThemeForest.net WordPress Theme - Our Magazine

WordPress Genius Guide - Our Magazine

Well done, Kai Loon, always exciting to see/hear ThemeForest being mentioned in print!

Congratulations to this week’s featured marketplace authors!

Featured ActiveDen Author: flash2d

This week’s featured author is flash2d, who has 13 items, including the newest from the Cartoons category.
View flash2d’s Portfolio

Featured AudioJungle Author: Allegro120

This week’s featured author is Allegro120, who has 51 items, including the newest from the Individual category.
View Allegro120′s Portfolio

Featured ThemeForest Author: outerspice

This week’s featured author is outerspice, who has 8 items, including the newest from the Blog / Magazine category.
View outerspice’s Portfolio

Featured VideoHive Author: MrMotion

This week’s featured author is MrMotion, who has 11 items, including the newest from the Corporate category.
View MrMotion’s Portfolio

Featured GraphicRiver Author: redeffect

This week’s featured author is redeffect, who has 21 items, including the newest from the Miscellaneous category.
View redeffect’s Portfolio

Featured 3DOcean Author: andyskb

This week’s featured author is andyskb, who has 6 items, including the newest from the Phone category.
View andyskb’s Portfolio

Featured CodeCanyon Author: CodeCanopy

This week’s featured author is CodeCanopy, who has 4 items, including the newest from the Miscellaneous category.
View CodeCanopy’s Portfolio

Featured Tutorials Author: Zeplix

This week’s featured author is Zeplix, who has 30 items, including the newest from the Adobe Photoshop category.
View Zeplix’s Portfolio

Featured PhotoDune Author: JohanSwanepoel

This week’s featured author is JohanSwanepoel, who has 172 items.
View JohanSwanepoel’s Portfolio

Rockable Press have just released a new book: Getting to Know SEO. In this book, content analyst and SEO expert Andre Kibbe gives you a solid grasp of what SEO is all about, and how it can help you generate steady and sustainable traffic to your site or product.

What’s Inside?

Optimizing your website to rank as high as possible on search engines is more important than ever. But the Web is full of snake oil salesmen offering questionable tips and theories to make your site Number 1 overnight. Fear not – there’s nothing like that in this book.

Instead, you’ll receive simple and sensible explanations that give you a solid grasp of what SEO is all about, and how it can help you generate sustainable traffic to your site. Andre explains:

Whether you have a blog or an ecommerce site, you need to have a keyword strategy that accounts for what’s visible on the page, and what’s baked into your site’s HTML.

You’ll find out how editing the title tag of a web page can make a huge difference, and how to compare the commercial value of dozens of keywords using a spreadsheet and a formula that projects the potential AdSense earnings each keyword would bring in with a #1 ranking.

One thing you won’t get from Getting to Know SEO is a dump of questionable SEO theory and tips. Genuine SEO isn’t an overnight phenomenon. It’s simple, but not easy.

If you’re willing to do the work of writing and editing your content to be keyword compliant, and do some link building, you can get the most sustainable, qualified traffic available: search traffic.

If you’re serious about using SEO to drive traffic to your site and you’re unsure of how to get started, then my book can help you.

Here’s a brief overview:

• Content + Links = SEO
• The Importance of Keywords
• Keyword Research Explained
• On-Page Optimization
• Understanding Backlinks
• Getting Links
• Understanding Competition
• Sharpening the Saw

Want to know more? There’s plenty more detail on Rockable Press. You might also like to check out Andre’s recent article on FreelanceSwitch, Getting the Gist of SEO.

I’m Sold. How Do I Get Hold Of It?

From Rockable Press! Visit the site, or use these links:

• Download a sample.
• Buy eBook via eJunkie: $15
• Buy eBook via the Tuts+ Marketplace: $15

Living in Istanbul, being inspired by music, “do not make something just to make it”, and being a Google lover. This week we meet Mesut Danış (Balistique) from VideoHive.

If you’re an Envato marketplace author and would like to be interviewed for the blog, head over to this form. We’d love to hear from you.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, what do you do for a living?

My name is Mesut and I’m 27 years old. I’m from Turkey and I live in Istanbul. I grew up here and I love this city.

I’ve been working as a motion/3D designer for eight years. I worked in several national TV channels and production companies. At the moment I’m only working as a freelancer.

I love my job because it makes me really happy to create things that people likes and it’s a great feeling to know people appreciate your work. I can’t imagine myself doing another job.

Which marketplaces do you belong to? What types of files do you sell?

I’m an VideoHive author and I make After Effects templates for VideoHive. I make trailers, intros, presentation and openers, etc. But I want to be a part of 3DOcean and GraphicRiver in the future if I can manage to find spare time from my work.

How did you get started? Have you had any formal training?

When I finished high school I was playing professional basketball, but it wasn’t as good as I expected it. One day I meet a friend of mine, who works for a production company. We had a little chat about his job. After a short while I started working for the same company and that’s where I met After Effects.

I have not had any formal training, but my curious personality helped me a lot to learn all about After Effects and other software. I have had a lot of help from the Internet as well.

Describe your home workspace.

I have a small and simple office in my house. I use a mid level PC computer. And that’s where I do all my work.

I have some of my projects posters on my wall for motivation, and most importantly I have my Vuvuzella on my table for making my music.

Describe your creative process. What steps do you normally follow to create your files?

Most of my items started with music. For me music is very important because it’s where I get all the inspiration. When I listen to music I start imagining scenes, then I start working on them. Then I follow my imagination and everything comes along. Every project has its own process.

What is your advice to other authors regarding how to create a successful portfolio?

Our job has a very strong competition. Because of that, only unique and quality items can survive.

The most important thing I can advise is, do not make something just to make it. Try to use your imagination to make a variety of items that have quality and stand out.

What do you do to market your files?

I have a website where I have all my works presented. I also upload my videos to some social websites.

What are your three favorite files, and why do you like them?

My fist favourite file is BlacKnight. It helped boost the attention to my items.

My second favourite file is UnitedMotions. I made this template with my wife Berrin, and it was fun working with her.

My third favourite file is Purple Party, because its my best seller.

Apart from yourself, who is your favorite marketplace author, and why do you like them?

I have three answers for this question.

1. InlifeThrill. I like him because this guy makes remarkable files.
2. sonorafilms. I like him because this guy is a master of the keyframes.
3. DaniMult. I like him because this guy has his own unique style.

What do you do in your spare time?

Generally I do not have any spare time. I am a computer guy and I love my Google.

For those of you who don’t know Australian music very well Goodbye Cruel World is the title of the greatest hits album Brisbane band Custard released when they broke up. As most of the Envato community isn’t based in Australia, I’m guessing that covers most of you. Goodbye Cruel World also makes a pretty good title for the blog post where I say goodbye to Envato.

In a few weeks I’ll be finishing up as manager for the Marketplaces dev team and moving on. I’ve had an amazing four years working for Envato. When I think back to the time when I joined, to where we are today, I can’t help but think what an amazing run it’s been. I joined the company when we had only one marketplace, FlashDen (in fact that was the company name then too), and I was roughly user number 38,000. We now have nine marketplaces and around 1.4 MILLION users. We could fit an entire database backup on a burnt CD back then! Those were simpler times.

For those who are wondering, I’m leaving to join my friend (and former Envato dev team member) Glen‘s startup Goodfilms. I could never have left Envato for just another regular job, Envato is just such a different and special place I’m probably ruined for normal corporate gigs for life. That said, I’ve always wanted to try the startup life, so when Glen tapped me to join him as co-founder I decided it was time to give it a go.

I want to say a big thanks to the community of authors and buyers across all of the marketplaces. I think that one of the best things about this job compared to others I’ve had is the very direct and genuine relationship the community and staff have built over the years. I’d been used to jobs where they stuff the developers in a corner and tell you to be quiet… to have been able to talk every day in the forums with the users actually using your work has been absolutely amazing. Beyond just being fun and motivating, I think that the back and forth between the community and the dev team has been the biggest factor in making the marketplaces what they are today. So once again, to everyone using the marketplaces and jumping on the forums – Thanks!

So what does this mean for the Marketplace Dev Team? Ideally it will be business as usual. Pete, who has been lead architect and second in charge for the past couple of years, will run the team while we search for someone to lead the team forward. The team itself is the strongest it’s ever been, and growing rapidly.

I can’t remember the last time I wrote a welcome or goodbye forum post about the team so I’ll just give you the full roster: Lucas, Pete, Jack (or Chendo), Mark, Ben, Matthieu, Dave, Steve, and then Julian who starts in a week or so. These guys are all top shelf developers and I feel like I’m leaving the marketplaces in the best possible hands.

So see you later Envato, thanks for an awesome 4 years and the best job I’ve ever had.

P.S. The header image is from way back when Glen was on the team and we did the massive server move project in 2010.

This is the stylish workspace of GraphicRiver and PhotoDune author Clemens Posch (clemensposch). Design isn’t just a strong element of Clemens’ files – he has surrounded himself with it!

I’ll let him explain his workspace in his own words:

My workspace based on a simple black Ikea table. A 22″ Eizo TFT monitor connected to a MacBook Pro. In front of it, my Intous4 flipped upside-down because I’m left handed. And the Magic Mouse perfectly presented on my Persian-style mouse pad!

Clemens lives on GraphicRiver.

His MacBook Pro.

A Magic Mouse on a flying carpet… Makes sense! Clemens admitted to me: “I’m proud of my retro speakers behind my monitor and my awesome mouse pad. ”

What do you think of Clemens’ workspace? Let us know in the comments.

Would you like your workspace featured on Envato Notes? Upload your photo to somewhere on the Web and let us know about it on our Write a Post page. Or upload it to Flickr and tag it with #envatonotesworkspaces. Either way, add an interesting description. Each week we’ll choose and publish a new photo.

Do you have a blog? Do you have a Facebook Fan Page?

Do you want to grow your Facebook Likes & get a boost in traffic to your blog?

Well get involved in The Big Like Switch!

What Is “The Big Like Switch”?

The Big Like Switch is a single blog post that is posted on numerous design blogs and websites with the single aim of driving traffic and exposure to all of the participating websites.

The blog post will list each website that is participating with a short excerpt about that website, a link to them and like button or link to their Facebook page.

The blog post will then be posted on each participating website as well as being promoted on their Facebook page, resulting in a huge amount of promotion for each individual website.

Entry Requirements:

• You must have an established design related blog
• You must have an established Facebook Fan Page

I Want In! How Do I Enter?

Please don’t go promoting your website or Facebook page in this particular thread. Please simply comment in the forum to say you want in, then send me your details via my profile page and I will keep you updated.

Hopefully this idea will generate us some really good traffic!

This afternoon WordPress evangelist Japh Thomson was looking for something to do, and ended up on QR Pixel.com. He created the code below.

I love the Envato logo he put in there. But the million dollar question is: Where does the QR code lead to? Let us know in the comments.

Last year Travis “KingDog” King ran an interesting competition. He’d send Envato logo stickers to anyone interested, and they would take photos of the sticker in interesting places from around the world. Over the next weeks we’ll bring you some of the best.

This wet Envato logo was photographed on Marina Beach only moments before it was lost forever in the Indian Ocean. The photographer, Suren, tells the story.

“Every photograph has a story behind it, and this picture has one too. I had a different vision for the location of the Envato sticker. But here is the story.

“While I was walking over the shores of Marina Beach and I took my phone out of my pocket, the Envato sticker which I had with me flew away. I thought it was over.

“Fortunately, a person (who must have been watching my zany antics) picked it up from somewhere and gave it over to me. I took my digicam and was taking a few close-up shots of the sticker.

“Again, the waves came and took it for themselves. Luckily sometime later the sticker came washed to the shore. I took one last photo, then I never saw the sticker again. It must be somewhere in the Indian Ocean.”

“Now, I am going to ask you a question. Where in the world is my Envato sticker?”

So keep your eyes open. If one day when you’re surfing or snorkeling or fishing you come across Suren’s sticker, let us know!