Social Media shoots Bangs out of obscurity

Last year I helped Bangs, an up-and-coming rap artist, set up his own Wordpress site while working with him at the Artful Dodgers Studios, Gateway.

Bangs, through his Facebook promotion, the ineffable wonders of global buzz, and 1.1 million views on youtube, is in the right place at the right time, and surfing a wave of global interest that could go anywhere, or nowhere… Read More »

Posted in In the Media | Tagged Artisteer, Bangs, Facebook | Leave a comment

The Social Media Revolution

Just the pace of this brilliant video is overwhelming: it does a great job of conveying the staggering pace of social media adoption worldwide.

Another clip really worth checking out is Kevin Kelly speaking at TED.com; he points out that the web is only 5000 days old!  His predictions for the next 5000 days are thought provoking. Read More »

Posted in In the Media | Tagged evolution, social media, typogpaphy, web2.0 | Leave a comment

Increase your converstion rate by qualifying your customers

It is common for businesses to field a host of questions from our prospects who might be:

  • evaluating whether we are the best person for the job
  • looking for an inappropriate solution to their problem
  • doing background research with no intention to purchase

These enquiries are not genuine propects: enquiries such as these which do not lead to sales take time away from your engagement with customers who want to pay you.

Read More »

Posted in Business, SEM | Tagged 7 Habits, Content Generation, conversion, sales | Leave a comment

Hosting your website

There are a multitude of very similar sounding plans available online, so once you’ve found a few hosts which meet your basic requirements, the choice comes down to reliability and expense.  Here as elsewhere it is very true that ‘you get what you pay for’.  That is to say that if you are creating a mission critical website which absolutely must be available without fail, you should handball this whole process to your IT department / webdesigner / pet geek.  If you want to get the ball rolling without the associated (significant) expense, read on. Read More »

Posted in Business, In the Media, Tutorials | Tagged bluehost, hosting, wordpresss | Leave a comment

Overview of building a website

What do I need to get my own website?

Essentially, you’ll need:

  • A domain name – this is the equivalent of your business name online.  It is the link that users type in to their browser to visit your site, also called a URL (Universal Resource Locator)
  • A web host – To make your website available 24 hours a day, it needs to be hosted on a commercial server with a reliable connection to the net.  You might think of it as the stable which houses your thoroughbred website!

These two items are ongoing expenses which are required to make your site available to your customers.  Once you’ve got these covered, you’ll also need… Read More »

Posted in Tutorials | Tagged CMS, domain name, hosting, overview, themes, web publishing, WordPress | Leave a comment

Microfinance – another way of spreading the love

Kiva Logo

Kiva is a non-profit organisation which facilitate micro loans to entrepreneurs all over the world. It inspires me each time I revisit the site and its reports. I was moved again today to support an internet cafe in Peru.. my US$25 contribution contributes the mere $625 Mr Yuri requires to get his business off the ground. Read More »

Posted in In the Media, WordPress | Tagged kiva, microfinance, video | Leave a comment

Custom Admin Branding: code update

I love the Wordpress plugin Custom Admin Branding by Josh Byers..  who doesn’t love seeing their shiny, official name at the top of their admin panel?

I noticed, though, that when when I updated the plugin to 1.3.5, my custom files were overwritten.. Doh!  It defeats the purpose of auto-update if we have to resurrect our settings afterwards, clearly, but every journey progresses one step at a time, and I’ve been rapt to have such a great plugin, complete with annotated photoshop templates. Read More »

Posted in Hacks, WordPress | Tagged Custom Admin Branding, customisation, php, plugins | Leave a comment

PHPlist link promotion method takes the cake

..err, excuse the pun :)   I’ve been using the great PHPList Form Integration by Jesse Heap, and have come across his really simple way of reaping some SEO benefit from all the work he puts into the free plugin. Read More »

Posted in SEM, WordPress | Tagged cake, phplist, plugin, wedding | Leave a comment

Internet Censorship in Australia

The Australian Government wants to implement filtering of the Internet, ostensibly to restrict access to unsavory illegal content.  Unfortuately, it will be ineffective (trials have shown that the filter blocks huge numbers of legitimate sites), expensive (costing over AU$44 million in the first year and AU$33 million per year thereafter).

Draconian? Maybe.  Effective?  Absolutely not. Please sign the petition to voice your rejection of their proposal. Read More »

Posted in In the Media | Tagged censorship, getup, internet, isp, petition | Leave a comment

Photoshop Bug: Ruler not aligned to Pixel Grid

I had trouble getting designs pixel perfect in Photoshop for a while, particularly when adapting someone else’s document.

I found that whilst zoomed in to pixel-level, my cursor wouldn’t line up with the ruler, and I couldn’t move the ruler origin accurately.  After a while, the solution presented itself… I wasn’t the only one fooled! Read More »

Posted in Software | Tagged bugs, photoshop, screenshot, solved | 2 Comments