The future looks bleak. As the human population rises, more and more cities are becoming congested. We are running out of room for development. Hence, architects and designers are looking for alternative ways to make room for new infrastructure, and they are taking their designs to the sky – in the form of skyscrapers, of course.

Not only are these skyscraper designs challenging the limits of architectural design but they are also fine examples of sustainable/green architecture. These 20 skyscrapers are built with plenty of mechanisms to recycle waste, harness natural resources, optimize space and natural sunlight etc, on top of being beautiful symbolic beacons in great cities.

Recommended Reading: 100 Imaginative “Cities of the Future” Artworks

Coal Power Plant Mutation. This skyscraper is built over a factory. The 3 long legs of this structure covers the factory’s chimneys; the waste is filtered and carried up 1000 metres to be released. LED lights on the exterior indicate the surrounding air quality. (Image Source: eVolo)

Himalaya Water Tower. Building the skyscraper in the Himalayas has its benefits: during rainy season, the long pipes can collect water and store it for future use. This will help regulate the flow of water all year round for the residents. (Image Source: eVolo)

Air@Port Skyscraper. Building an airport takes up an enormous amount of land so why not build an airport 450 metres above the ground? Visitors will be transported via vertical air buses from the ground up to the airport. (Image Source: eVolo)

Crater Scraper. This is how the designers imagined how the Earth will cope if we ever survive an asteroid strike. The craters are to accomodate settlements and protect them from the attacks. The holes in the roof allow for sunlight to peak through which provides insulation and also allows the capture of water. (Image Source: eVolo)

Aakash Skyscraper. The design resembles a tree-like structure with spread out branches. There are habitable residential units that provide a great view of the city as it is so high up. The terrace will help purify the air in congested cities. (Image Source: eVolo)

Crescent Moon Tower. Not straying away from Dubai’s cultural heritage, the design team has chosen the crescent shape which is a symbol that can be found in the Islamic World. (Image Source: alpolicUSA)

Biotic Arch. This green skyscraper is like one massive vertical garden. The structure will help soak up as much of the city’s carbon emissions as possible. To keep with the green theme, the Biotic Arch produces all of its own electricity via bio, solar and wind energy sources. (Image Source: beautifullife)

City In The Sky. Want a partk with clean, breathable air, far away from the smog of the city streets? Below is a concept where parks are hoisted on steel structures high above the ground. (Image Source: designswan)

World of Chlorophyll. This is how the design team envisioned residential units of the future. The columns resemble stems of a tree and the units, leaves that stick out from the columns. The building has natural ventilation as sunlight can penetrate the units easily. (Image Source: architizer)

The Cloud. Two residential towers are joined in the mid-section by a pixelated cloud. The cloud allows for the ground floor to open a public garden. The aim of the design is to incorporate a public program, having public and private spaces for restaurants, gardens and pools. (Image Source: dezeen)

Skyscrapers for the future. This was an entry for a skyscraper competition. The building is enviromentally conscious as it is able to collect sun rays and wind to power the building. (Image Source: redhongyi)

Velo Towers. The towers are stacked in a way so that its position allows for different activities to be carried out. It will feature roof gardens, recreation centres, pools and other facilities. (Image Source: futuristicnews)

Light Park Floating Skyscraper. If we’re running out of land, why not build a skyscraper that floats? This design stays afloat with the help of helium-filled balloons and propellers powered by the sun. Rain is caught in filters and turned to clean, drinkable water. (Image Source: eVolo)

Avis Magica Skyscraper. This green skyscraper has a vertical aquarium and is able to produce its very own electricity. It will feature a museum as well as an outdoor concert stage. Sticking with the green theme, there will be artificial islands and vegetation areas. (Image Source: gizmag)

The Floating Aerohotel. Alexander Asadov takes advantage of the phenomenon of global warming and the rise of sea levels, and produced a structural design that can be used on water! It wil also have hanging gardens to keep the ecosystem balanced. (Image Source: inhabitat)

Pixel Cloud Skyscraper. It is made with 3866 cubes of the same size but with different levels of transparency. The cubes allow the building to use natural light. Inside, visitors enter the digital cloud and are encouraged to post their dreams. (Image Source: techeblog)

Suspended City Skyscraper. This urban waterfront development uses a massive suspension system. It is designed to save precious land; the curving structure hovers over the ocean. The skyscraper uses biomass generators to generate electricity. (Image Source: greenmuze)

Futuristic Skyscraper Design for Battery Park. Christian Hahn’s main purpose of designing this concept is to accomodate pedestrian traffic flow. The honeycomb acts as different floor levels. It will feature residential areas, office space, parks and other facilities. (Image Source: ArchitectureView)

Floating Observatories. The observation decks will float up and down each side, on helium balloons. Each deck can fit between 50-80 people, and they are built with lightweight material to allow a smooth journey up and down the structure. The design of the skyscraper resembles a tree trunk with moving spatial leaves. (Image Source: dezeen)

Tour Triangle. It is a tall glass pyramid 180 metres tall. It is a sustainable skyscraper as it is able to achieve high energy performance. It will use natural lighting and aims to generate four times less carbon dioxide usage that that of buildings with an equivalent size. (Image Source: skyscrapercity)

Photoshop provides unlimited potential when it comes to posters, backgrounds for websites and other design elements. Textures are often used in backgrounds as an addition to the abstract effect. Texture can be created artificially using Photoshop features and filters; alternatively, with a photograph.

I’m pretty sure you have seen lots of stunning pictures all over the Internet that were created using textures. There are tons of ways to apply a texture to an image, ranging from simple toning to completely changing the photograph’s atmosphere for instance with scratches to mimic an old photo, or browning to show age.

How do the creators achieve such a look? You may find some answers in the 20 tutorials listed in this post today, on how to use textures to add extra effect to stunning images.

Recommended Reading: 56 Absolutely Brilliant And Intriguing Photoshop Video Tutorials

How to Use Textures to Enhance Your Photographs

Photoshop Quick Tip: Enhancing Your Portraits with Textures

Mastering Photoshop Textures to Create Powerful Imagery

Create an Abstract Liquid Effect in Photoshop

5 Awesome Techniques for Using Textures in Your Designs

How To Blend Textures With Photos In Photoshop

How to Use Texture and Lighting to Create Rounded Artwork

The Ultimate Wood Texture Tutorial

How to Create a Texture-based Poster in Photoshop

Adding Texture to the Skin

How to Create a Vintage Radio Poster in Photoshop

Hexagon Bokeh Effect in Photoshop

Grungy Metal Texture

Combining Vectors and Textures for a Background with Depth

Canvas Texture Imitation

Wave’s Text Effect

Photoshop Tutorial: Add Texture to Flat Image

How to Use Texture Effects to Create Beautiful Compositions in Photoshop CS5

How to Apply Textures to Uneven Surfaces

How to Create a Grunge Style Illustration with Stains

If you are not familiar with shortcodes, a shortcode is a WordPress-specific code that lets you do creative things with scripts and code. Since you won’t have to fill your posts and pages with long ugly codes, they be condensed into just one line of code – a shortcode.

In a nutshell, a shortcode is basically a shortcut to a long script or piece of code. Even though WordPress has its own set of shortcodes that you can use within your blog’s posts and pages, there are a whole lot more shortcodes available out there, with a ton more flexibility to offer.

Shortcodes can be inserted manually into your blog theme or via a plugin. The problem is finding one that suits what you want to do on your blog. Fret not, in this post, we’ll showcase 10 WordPress plugins that add shortcode functionality to your blog, along with 10 codes that you can add yourself.

Recommended Reading: 50 Essential WordPress Plugins You Should Know

WordPress Plugins

Here are some plugins that allow you to use or custom build shortcodes for use on WordPress. Where relevant, an alternative plugin that does pretty much the same thing is suggested after each plugin.

1. Shortcode

A simple plugin that adds several useful shortcodes for you to show off your blog’s contents quantitatively. A few of the codes include:

• [postcountbr] – displays total number of published blog posts
• [catcountbr] – displays total number of categories that contain one or more posts
• [tagcountbr] – displays total number of tags that contain one or more posts
• [totalwords] – displays total number of words in published posts
• [commentcount] – displays the total number of approved comments
• [pagecount] – displays the total number of published pages

2. WordPress Shortcodes

This plugin includes more than 20 WordPress shortcodes and an easy-to-use shortcode editor. You can use it to add cool elements like:

• SEO-ready tabs, buttons
• author cards
• message boxes
• smart links
• sections
• lists, etc to your blog.

You can even combine multiple nested shortcodes to create unique elements like a list of buttons or links.

More: Two similar plugins are J Shortcodes and Arconix Shortcodes - which also have a collection of useful shortcodes for use, e.g. to create content and information boxes, buttons, tabs, accordion panels, toggles and more.

3. Post Content Shortcodes

This plugin adds two shortcodes:

[post-content] – lets you display the content of a single post or page, within another post or page. You must use an argument within the shortcode to specify the post ID. You can also use arguments to display a featured image, post excerpt, and post title.

[post-list] – displays a list of posts within another post. It also supports optional arguments for customizing the list such as order options, post types/statuses to use, display images, excerpts, etc. You can even pull a list of posts from another blog, by adding the blog’s ID as an argument in the shortcode.

More: If want to display a list of attachments within a post, check out the List Attachments Shortcode plugin (by the same developer).

4. Shortcoder

Shortcoder lets you create custom shortcodes via a visual editor. You can also store frequently used text, HTML, and JavaScript snippets. It has a tinyMCE button that you can use from the blog editor to insert shortcodes, thereby allowing you to add your own custom shortcodes.

More: If you’re looking for something similar, try out Shortcode Manager, which lets you create, manage, import and export shortcodes.

5. Hide Broken Shortcodes

Sometimes, you may have accidentally disabled shortcodes, leaving their functionality somewhat disrupted. Rather than go through each page or post to remove these "broken" shortcodes, an easier way is just to hide them. This plugin will help you do that.

More: Hide Unwanted Shortcodes is a similar plugin that works to prevent broken shortcodes from showing up on the site. You can then edit the shortcode from the plugin’s settings page.

6. Column Shortcodes

If you’re looking for an easy way to create columns within your posts and pages, this is the perfect shortcode plugin. Just choose your desired column width from the shortcode selector pop up, and it will be added to the post editor. There are 10 column widths to choose from full width down to one sixth. You can also customize the padding of each individual column.

7. Metaphor Shortcodes

If you’re looking for a responsive column grid for your posts and pages, try out the Metaphor Shortcodes plugin. You can set certain attributes for your columns such as span, start, end, and class. This plugin also comes with a few other handy shortcodes, including:

• Post Block Shortcode – display the title and excerpt of any post type, anywhere on your blog
• Post Slider Shortcode – create a horizontal slider of any post type and display within your content
• Pricing Table Shortcode – create various types of pricing tables to display within your content

8. ShortCodes UI

ShortCodes UI is another plugin for creating shortcodes that come with its own tinyMCE and Quicktag buttons. You can easily insert shortcodes in your posts and pages from both the visual and HTML editors.

It is great for beginners who know little about code, and there are video tutorials to help. For those who know a little more about code, they would probably appreciate the syntax highlighting code editor. There is also an import/export feature so you can move your shortcodes from one site to another and even share with friends.

More: My Shortcodes is a similar plugin with a beautiful UI that lets you create custom shortcodes. Within the plugin’s admin panel, you can manage, edit, activate/deactivate, and export elements and shortcodes. The live preview lets you see how your shortcode looks without adding it to a post or page.

9. Last Updated Shortcode

This is a very simple plugin that lets you add the [lastupdated] shortcode to your posts and pages. It will then display the date and/or time of the last update. There are also options to change how the date/time is formatted.

10. Geoportail Shortcode

This one adds a Geoportail map into your posts and pages with a shortcode. You can then set the map size, zoom level, location (latitude and longitude), size (normal, mini), territory, layers and more. The map supports geotagging (which you can enable with this plugin Geolocation), so the location of your posts will be reflected.

The plugin also includes a shortcode builder, for custom map shortcodes, and a live preview, so that you can see your map before posting it.

Shortcodes

These are fun and simple shortcodes that you can use on your blog – no plugin necessary. For each shortcode we will provide you with:

• The meat of the shortcode – a long piece of code that must be pasted into the Theme functions file (functions.php) for your blog, from the Editor in the WordPress dashboard (Appearance > Editor).
• The shortcode, which can be placed anywhere within your posts and pages, to add the functionality.

Some of these may need a little customization (i.e. adding your own Google AdSense code), so you’ll need to know a thing or two about editing codes. Others may have optional parameters that you can add, like width and height. You can find out more by clicking on the link for each shortcode.

Insert AdSense Ads

Insert AdSense ads within your content, wherever you’d like.

Shortcode: [adsense]

Code:

 function adsense_shortcode( $atts ) { extract(shortcode_atts(array( 'format' => '1', ), $atts)); switch ($format) { case 1 : $ad = '<script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-6928386133078955"; /* 234x60, created 16/09/08 */ google_ad_slot = "0834408702"; google_ad_width = 234; google_ad_height = 60; //--> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script>'; break; } return $ad; } add_shortcode('adsense', 'adsense_shortcode');

Show Related Posts

Show related posts above or below your content.

Shortcode: [related_posts]

Code:

 function related_posts_shortcode( $atts ) { extract(shortcode_atts(array( 'limit' => '5', ), $atts)); global $wpdb, $post, $table_prefix; if ($post->ID) { $retval = '<ul>'; // Get tags $tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID); $tagsarray = array(); foreach ($tags as $tag) { $tagsarray[] = $tag->term_id; } $tagslist = implode(',', $tagsarray); // Do the query $q = "SELECT p.*, count(tr.object_id) as count FROM $wpdb->term_taxonomy AS tt, $wpdb->term_relationships AS tr, $wpdb->posts AS p WHERE tt.taxonomy ='post_tag' AND tt.term_taxonomy_id = tr.term_taxonomy_id AND tr.object_id = p.ID AND tt.term_id IN ($tagslist) AND p.ID != $post->ID AND p.post_status = 'publish' AND p.post_date_gmt < NOW() GROUP BY tr.object_id ORDER BY count DESC, p.post_date_gmt DESC LIMIT $limit;"; $related = $wpdb->get_results($q); if ( $related ) { foreach($related as $r) { $retval .= ' <li><a title="'.wptexturize($r->post_title).'" href="'.get_permalink($r->ID).'">'.wptexturize($r->post_title).'</a></li> '; } else { $retval .= ' <li>No related posts found</li> '; } $retval .= '</ul> '; return $retval; } return; } add_shortcode('related_posts', 'related_posts_shortcode'); 

Insert PayPal Donation Link

Add a PayPal button, making it easy for readers and visitors to donate.

Shortcode: [donate]

Code:

 function donate_shortcode( $atts, $content = null) { global $post;extract(shortcode_atts(array( 'account' => 'your-paypal-email-address', 'for' => $post->post_title, 'onHover' => '', ), $atts)); if(empty($content)) $content='Make A Donation'; return '<a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr? $account.'&item_name=Donation for '.$for.'" title="'.$onHover.'">'.$content.'</a>'; } add_shortcode('donate', 'donate_shortcode'); 

Display A Google Map

Add a Google Map of any location to your posts.

Shortcode: [googlemap src="google_map_url"]

Code:

 function rockable_googlemap($atts, $content = null) { extract(shortcode_atts(array( "width" => '940', "height" => '300', "src" => '' ), $atts)); return '<div> <iframe src="'.$src.'&output=embed" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="'.$width.'" height="'.$height.'"></iframe> </div> '; } add_shortcode("googlemap", "rockable_googlemap"); 

Display External Files

Add external files like text and images into your posts.

Shortcode: [show_file file="http://www.test.com/test.html"]

Code:

 function show_file_func( $atts ) { extract( shortcode_atts( array( 'file' => '' ), $atts ) ); if ($file!='') return @file_get_contents($file); } add_shortcode( 'show_file', 'show_file_func' ); 

Add A Login Form

Add a login form to your posts and pages, not just the sidebar.

Shortcode: [devpress-login-form]

Code:

 function devpress_login_form_shortcode() { if ( is_user_logged_in() ) return ''; return wp_login_form( array( 'echo' => true ) ); } function devpress_add_shortcodes() { add_shortcode( 'devpress-login-form', 'devpress_login_form_shortcode' ); } add_action( 'init', 'devpress_add_shortcodes' ); 

Display Private Notes

Add a private note to your post or page that will only be visible to admins.

Shortcode: [note]Your Note Here[/note]

Code:

 add_shortcode( 'note', 'sc_note' ); function sc_note( $atts, $content = null ) { if ( current_user_can( 'publish_posts' ) ) return '<div class="note">'.$content.'</div>'; return ''; } 

Registered Users Only Content

Add content that only registered users of your blog can see.

Shortcode: [member]For Registered Users Only[/member]

Code:

 add_shortcode( 'member', 'member_check_shortcode' ); function member_check_shortcode( $atts, $content = null ) { if ( is_user_logged_in() && !is_null( $content ) && !is_feed() ) return $content; return ''; } 

Embed YouTube Videos

Not only can this embed YouTube videos, but it can also be used for other media like audio and images.

Shortcode: [youtube id="_ggWarwhv9M"]Check out this video![/youtube]

Code:

 function wptuts_youtube($atts, $content=null){ extract(shortcode_atts( array('id' => ''), $atts)); $return = $content; if($content) $return .= "<br /><br />"; $return .= '<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/' . $id . '" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>'; return $return; } add_shortcode('youtube', 'wptuts_youtube');

Obfuscate Email Address

Keep your email safe from spammers by rendering it unclear when scraped from a page.

Shortcode: [email address="you@email.com"]

Code:

 function emailbot_ssc($attr) { extract( shortcode_atts( array( 'address' => '', ), $attr ) ); $email = '<a class="email_link" href="mailto:'.antispambot($attr['address']).'" title="Send Us An Email" target="_blank">'; $email .= antispambot($attr['address']); $email .= '</a>'; return $email; } add_shortcode('email', 'emailbot_ssc');

If you’ve seen the Iron Man movies, you’re probably familiar with Tony Stark’s J.A.R.V.I.S. system, the digital home assistant he built for himself. In the films, J.A.R.V.I.S. wakes Christine Everhart up, helps Tony Stark develop his Iron Man suits, engages him in conversations and generally manages almost everything in his life.

If you’ve always fancied having something like J.A.R.V.I.S. in your life then, the Cyman Mark 3 Assistant Dashboard might be right up your alley. It is a virtual assistant that will help you organise things, automate tasks, set reminders, find information and almost everything else you’d expect from your own digital personal assistant.

Recommended Reading: 5 Free Virtual Assistants For Android

Getting Started

First, download both the Assistant Dashboard itself and its Cyman Mark 3x Chrome helper extension from the Chrome Web Store. After you’ve installed both the Dashboard and the helper extension, you can launch the Dashboard from Chrome’s App Launcher.

When you first launch it, you should be prompted to log in to Cyman. You don’t have to register an account, as it will log in to Cyman using the Google account you’re signed in with on Chrome. It will also remind you to install the Cyman Mark 3x extension as well.

Once you’ve logged in, you’re good to go. Before you begin using the Assistant Dashboard though, you have to tell it your name and optionally, your gender. You can also change the name it responds to, if you feel like it.

Cyman Mark 3 Assistant Dashboard Features

Note that the Cyman Mark 3 Assistant Dashboard responds to both voice and text commands. Of course, for the full J.A.R.V.I.S. experience, you’ll want to use voice commands, but rest assured that you’ll be able to use the Assistant Dashboard even if you don’t have a microphone – it just won’t be as cool, that’s all.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at some of the things the Cyman Mark 3 Assistant Dashboard will do. As with any good real-life butler, the Mark 3 Assistant Dashboard can be asked to create lists and reminders. To set up a reminder, for instance, simply use the "remind me to" command.

On a related note, you can also schedule actions for the Assistant Dashboard to do using the "remember to" command. You can, for instance, tell it to automatically open your favorite tech news site in 10 minutes or tell you a joke at 10 a.m. every day.

You can also ask Cyman to look for factual information. Just ask it something factual using commands such as "who is", "how old is" or "what is" (amongst others) and Cyman will use sites such as Wikipedia, Google and Wolfram Alpha to get this information and then present it to you. It will also open a new Chrome window with the Wikipedia page of whatever you searched for. Cyman can also do a Google Images search for you if you ask it what a particular thing "looks like".

Of course, the J.A.R.V.I.S. comparison wouldn’t be complete without alarm functionality. It won’t automate your house like in the first Iron Man film, but Cyman will indeed wake you up almost exactly like J.A.R.V.I.S. did. Just tell it to "set my alarm" to a particular time. By default, the Assistant Dashboard will read out the latest general news headlines as part of the alarm, but you can change the news feed that it will read out.

This isn’t all that Cyman Mark 3 Assistant Dashboard can do, of course. It can also retrieve and read out news headlines, translate text, open and close tabs in Chrome, tell you jokes, convert between different units of measurement as well as find nearby places of interest. There are a number of example queries in the Dashboard itself to help you get started, but the best way to find out what it can really do is to just give it a go yourself.

Upgrade Options

If you’re thinking that all of this convenience comes with a catch, you’re right. The free account (or "user profile"), called Prototype, limits you to 25 commands per day. That’s probably enough for general light usage, but if you want more then you’ll have to upgrade to either the Shell or Armour user profiles.

Shell costs $2.12/month and increases this command limit up to 75 per day. The Shell account also allows you to send texts and make calls through the Assistant Dashboard, as long as you have the Cyman Mark 2 Assistant app installed on your Android smartphone.

Armour costs $3.78/month and removes the query limit entirely. It also adds the ability to receive mobile notifications on your computer as well as use your smartphone to control the desktop app, again in combination with the Cyman Mark 2 Assistant app.

If you are using WordPress, you can add additional content in the sidebar using widgets. WordPress, by default, provides a set of widgets for showing post categories, tag clouds, search, and calendar. Following WordPress standard themes like TwentyTen and TwentyTwelve, widgets will be shown in all the pages — homepage, post, page, and archive.

But what if we want to display the widgets only in one particular page. Let’s take a look at our options for this.

Recommended Reading: How To Display List Of Authors With Pagination [WordPress Tip]

Different Sidebar File

A WordPress theme requires sidebar.php file to hold the widgets, and uses get_sidebar() template tag to display the widgets on the pages.

We can create multiple customized sidebar files to display in the theme template files.

For example, let’s say we have a Contact page, and we want to have the sidebar in this page to be different from the sidebar of other pages. In this situation, we can create a new sidebar file, and name it something like sidebar-contact.php.

Then, in the contact template file, we can call our new sidebar, this way.

 get_sidebar( 'contact' ); 

Everything that is added in the Contact sidebar will be displayed in the Contact page, and won’t be displayed in the other pages. That way that we can display widgets that are more related to the page.

Using Conditional Tags

The above method assumed that you have created a custom template for your page. Alternatively, if you haven’t created one, you can use conditional tags.

Below is an example of code that you can add in page.php; this code will show the Contact sidebar in the contact page, while showing regular sidebars for the other pages.

 if ( is_page('contact') ) { get_sitebar( 'contact' ); } else { get_sitebar(); } 

Using Jetpack

Alternatively, you can also do it from the back-end admin with Jetpack. In Jetpack, activate the module called Widget Visibility. With this module, we can hide or show widgets for certain pages.

Go to Appearance > Widgets. You should now find a new button added in the widget named Visibility. Click on the button and set the parameters.

In the above example, I have set a widget that will only show in the Contact page. Apart from Pages, you can also select Categories, Tags, and Posts.

We hope this tip can be useful for you and if you have any question regarding this discussion, feel free to ask in the comment box below.