Filter Foundry - Kevin Postal

<p> <form action="http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/SINGLE_AD_PAGE.php" method="get" name="ad_form"> <input id="ad" name="ad" type="hidden" value="pedigree_bus_bag.jpg" /> <a href="http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/SINGLE_AD_PAGE.php?ad=pedigree_bus_bag.jpg"><img src="http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/images/pedigree_bus_bagt.jpg" width="350" /></a></form> <p></p> <div class="posttextbox"> <p>For the month of March, dog walkers won’t have to worry if they forget to bring poop bags to Trinity Bellwoods Park, in Toronto, Ontario, thanks to Mars Canada Inc.’s latest PEDIGREE® bus shelter campaign. To help promote PEDIGREE® Chicken & Rice+ Dry Food with prebiotics, Proximity BBDO in Toronto developed the first-ever bus shelter ad that also dispenses poop bags. The idea was simple: When it comes to healthy digestion, the proof is in the poop. People walking their dog can grab a bag and put it to use. Most importantly, they can also give some thought to the quality of their dog’s “back end performance” while doing so.</p> <p>Headline in photo: Help keep your dog regular.</p> <p>Agency: BBDO, Toronto, Canada<br /> Creative Directors: Gagne/Dave Stevenson<br /> Art Director: Rebecca Dunnet<br /> Writer: Shiran Teitelbaum</p> </div> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NbdbFKELypohdKXuL-4Mv9Wyzq8/0/da"><img border="0" ismap="true" src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NbdbFKELypohdKXuL-4Mv9Wyzq8/0/di" /></a><br /> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NbdbFKELypohdKXuL-4Mv9Wyzq8/1/da"><img border="0" ismap="true" src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NbdbFKELypohdKXuL-4Mv9Wyzq8/1/di" /></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:V_sGLiPBpWU" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:qj6IDK7rITs"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=qj6IDK7rITs" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:wF9xT3WuBAs"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:wF9xT3WuBAs" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=6vuKzvAPSV0:tQAk36kZyb4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" /></a> </div>

UPDATED: 2 WEEKS, 3 DAYS

Planet Kids

<p> <form action="http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/SINGLE_AD_PAGE.php" method="get" name="ad_form"> <input id="ad" name="ad" type="hidden" value="planet_kids_invite.jpg" /> <a href="http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/SINGLE_AD_PAGE.php?ad=planet_kids_invite.jpg"><img src="http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/images/planet_kids_invitet.jpg" width="350" /></a></form> <p></p> <div class="posttextbox"> <p>Brief: Planet Kids, Bangalore’s leading playschool chain wanted an invite to announce their Annual Day celebrations. This invite would be given to students and their parents. The objective was to create excitement around the event and get their kids buzzing. Oh, and of course the invite had to be cost-effective.</p> <p>Solution: So we decided to create something out-of-the-ordinary, something that would engage their students and get them to transfer the buzz onto their parents. And voila, the ‘hand puppet’ invite was born out of a mere sheet of A4 sized paper. We then went on to create five unique characters so as to encourage greater curiosity, creativity and playfulness among our tiny TG.</p> <p>Agency: Happy, Bangalore, India<br /> Executive Creative Director: Kartik Iyer<br /> Chief Creative Officer: Praveen Das<br /> Creative Director: Carl Savio<br /> Illustrator: Nalisha Chouraria<br /> Art Director: Shatrughan R<br /> Copywriter: Megha Ramesh</p> </div> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tefVF5C72KF-RVgivZSL9KS2Bp0/0/da"><img border="0" ismap="true" src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tefVF5C72KF-RVgivZSL9KS2Bp0/0/di" /></a><br /> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tefVF5C72KF-RVgivZSL9KS2Bp0/1/da"><img border="0" ismap="true" src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tefVF5C72KF-RVgivZSL9KS2Bp0/1/di" /></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:V_sGLiPBpWU" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:qj6IDK7rITs"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=qj6IDK7rITs" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:wF9xT3WuBAs"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:wF9xT3WuBAs" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=3HoxfVutKj4:f0fmIxfSZ3I:gIN9vFwOqvQ" /></a> </div>

UPDATED: 3 WEEKS, 4 DAYS

Cia Athletica

UPDATED: 1 MONTH, 1 WEEK

The Guardian

<p> <br /> </p> <p>This advert for the Guardian’s open journalism, screened for the first time on 29 February 2012, imagines how we might cover the story of the three little pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper’s front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion. Some of the best work I have seen in a long time.</p> <p>Agency: BBH, London, UK</p> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/C7tcXxEcnz8eBxMi4_fV-XGSYFw/0/da"><img border="0" ismap="true" src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/C7tcXxEcnz8eBxMi4_fV-XGSYFw/0/di" /></a><br /> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/C7tcXxEcnz8eBxMi4_fV-XGSYFw/1/da"><img border="0" ismap="true" src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/C7tcXxEcnz8eBxMi4_fV-XGSYFw/1/di" /></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:V_sGLiPBpWU" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:qj6IDK7rITs"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=qj6IDK7rITs" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:wF9xT3WuBAs"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:wF9xT3WuBAs" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?a=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Advertising/designGoodness?i=7GWb966C-WI:ngkdd5txp74:gIN9vFwOqvQ" /></a> </div>

UPDATED: 1 MONTH, 1 WEEK

Spit: Extra Strong

UPDATED: 1 MONTH, 2 WEEKS

Joupi: Bag

UPDATED: 1 MONTH, 3 WEEKS

1STWEBDESIGNER

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4 Tips to Retire Like Warren Buffet

<p>Like with any life changing decision, there are pros and cons to the decision to work for yourself. One such con is the responsibility to handle your retirement by yourself. If you aren’t careful as a freelancer you could be setting yourself up for financial ruin later on down the road. The burden of establishing your retirement fund rests entirely on your shoulders. In this post I hope to offer insight into different retirement planning options that can establish a safe financial future for freelancers in any industry.</p> <p><span id="more-67602"></span></p> <h2>1. Save Early</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67698" height="380" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Save-Early.jpg" title="Save Early" width="570" /></p> <p>The most important thing to keep in mind when planning for retirement is that the earlier you start saving money, the more comfortable your retirement will be. You should begin making contributions to your retirement as soon as possible so more interest can accrue. In order for me to illustrate the importance of starting early let me give an example:</p> <p>Freelancer A and Freelancer B are both 20 years old and make $55,000 per year. Freelancer A read this article and decided to start making contributions of $5,000 per year to his retirement fund starting that year. Freelancer B unfortunately did not read this article and bought a car instead. Five years later, B decides he should probably start contributing to retirement, at $6,500 per year. They both want to retire at age 65, and can both secure interest rates of 5%. By age 65, A has $798,500.78 saved up, whereas B only has $785,198.53. Notice how Freelancer B tried to compensate for missing those five years of saving by increasing his annual contribution by $1,500 each year and still came up short compared to A? Interest adds up fast.</p> <h2>2. Save and Don’t Spend</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67699" height="342" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Spend-or-Save.jpg" title="Spend or Save" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1091760" target="_blank">svilen001</a></em></p> <p>The next tip may seem obvious, but watch your spending. Mint.com has received a lot of good press, and that’s for a reason. Seeing how you are spending your money graphically can really help you see just how much money you are wasting. I was taking a look at where I was spending money, and I used to spend way too much money on coffee and restaurants. It’s incredible how much money you can add to your retirement fund if you cut out impulse buys and other unnecessary spending. Let me provide an example:</p> <p>If a freelancer really likes Subway and eats a $5.00 sandwich there three times a week and also loves Starbucks and gets a $4.00 cup of coffee there three times a week , that adds up to $27.00 per week, or $1404.00 per year. Now imagine if this hardworking freelancer only ate out and had coffee once per week instead; the freelancer only spends $468.00 for an annual saving of $936.00. Again, with a 5% interest rate over 45 years, if that $936.00 is put to your retirement fund each year it comes out to $149,479.35 by retirement age, and that is no chump change.</p> <p>Ultimately, there’s two ways to spend money. Investing it or wasting it. Live within your means, and invest in your future. Don’t waste money on things you don’t need, except for on occasion. That said, be sure to reward yourself a little bit if you land a huge contract or accomplish something big; it’s good for morale.</p> <h2>3. Choose Investments Wisely</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67700" height="321" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Investment-Choices.jpg" title="Investment Choices" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/993257" target="_blank">svilen001</a></em></p> <p>In order to actually accumulate interest on the money you put aside for retirement, you will need to invest it. There are a wide variety of investment opportunities available to freelancers, and they can be as conservative or risky as you’d like. As with anything else in life, higher risk investments have potential to yield much greater returns in comparison to conservative investments, but are you willing to stake your retirement on an investment? I’m not the person to answer that. The decision is yours. Here are some options you have for retirement investing:</p> <h3><strong>IRAs</strong></h3> <p>IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts) are often misunderstood. IRAs should be thought of as a collective investment account for retirement. Essentially once your money is in your IRA, you can invest it however you’d like. This includes stocks, mutual funds, CDs, annuities, and bonds among others. The IRA is basically an umbrella account that decides how your investments will be taxed. There are different types of IRAs available, and it is up to each individual to decide the best option for their circumstances. Here are a few options:</p> <p><strong>The Traditional IRA:</strong></p> <p>The Traditional IRA allows you to defer taxes on payments made into the IRA until you withdraw the money when you retire.</p> <p><strong>The Roth IRA:</strong></p> <p>The Roth IRA is another type of retirement account, but instead of paying taxes upon withdrawal, you pay taxes on your contribution.</p> <p><strong>The SEP (Simplified Employee Pension) IRA:</strong></p> <p>The SEP IRA is great for freelancers, because it is a retirement plan that works for self-employed people. It allows your business accounts to make pre-tax contributions to your personal retirement account. You as an individual cannot make contributions personally, however. Of course, taxes will have to be paid upon withdrawal. These accounts are often used to supplement either a Roth or Traditional IRA.</p> <p>Now that I’ve covered three of the main types of IRAs that might interest a freelancer, I will discuss some investment options within the IRAs. Keep in mind; you will want to diversify your investment portfolio to minimize risk. Make different types of investments. Own some long-term stocks, some microcap stocks, and a few CDs (Certificate of Deposits) instead of just a lot of long-term stock investments for example. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, because if that basket drops you will have a hard time retiring.</p> <h3>Personal Stock Investing</h3> <p>Stock investing can be very risky if you’re not very familiar with the stock market and how trading works, but don’t let that scare you away. It is worth learning about. Generally, if you decide to invest in mature companies that send shareholders nice dividends, your risk will be significantly lower than if you were to invest in a microcap company in hopes that it will be the next Apple or Google. Whichever route you take, cut losses before they get too big and take profits when you can. Be disciplined and don’t “marry” a stock, or you will lose a lot of money.</p> <p>One thing I want to caution readers on is a common stock manipulation scheme called a “pump and dump”. Promotion companies are paid by sleazy companies to tout their stock ticker through emails, phone calls, and mailers in order to create more demand. As any economics course will teach you, where there’s more demand and less supply, prices increase. As the prices increase in what is known as the “pump”, insiders and more experienced sell shares as the price per share reaches a peak. With big time selling, the supply goes up and the demand goes down. This is known as the “dump”, and it in turn decreases the share price significantly; sometimes even in a matter of minutes. This causes inexperienced investors to lose all of their initial investment, and leaves them confused. Please do not buy a stock that you read about in an email unless you know exactly what you are doing, even if it looks really appealing. It is almost definitely a scam.</p> <h3>Certificates of Deposit (CDs)</h3> <p>CDs are generally a safe investment to make because they are FDIC insured up to $250,000. With CDs, you put a principal payment down, and a bank offers you a fixed interest rate until the maturity date. At the maturity date you get your initial investment back plus interest. You get to decide when the maturity date is when you make the initial deposit. The longer the term length of the CD you pick, the higher the APY (Annual Percentage Yield) will be. You can withdraw your principal at any time, but you will lose accumulated interest. If you can avoid touching your money, CDs will offer better returns than savings accounts in the long run.</p> <h3>Bonds</h3> <p>Bonds offer many options, from treasury bonds to corporate bonds; it’s wise you do a lot of research to fully understand the different possibilities. Essentially, a bond is an offering from a company or entity that allows investors to finance a project. It’s like a loan from an investor to a company or entity. Rating agencies help individual investors to decide if a bond investment fits within their risk tolerance. Investors require a higher return for riskier bond purchases, so the riskiest bonds will have the highest yields, but also the highest chance of defaulting.</p> <h3>Mutual Funds</h3> <p>A mutual fund is a large pool of money collected from many individual investors and managed by professional money managers. The nice thing about mutual funds is that they allow individual investors to gain access to a highly diversified portfolio that is managed by a financial professional, so it can be fairly safe. There are different mutual funds with varying levels of risk, so again, it comes down to how much risk you are willing to take on. There are many funds out there. Some of the more popular ones imitate the major stock indexes, like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and NASDAQ. Stock indexes give a close representation of the movement of the entire stock market. Research any mutual fund you are thinking of investing in very carefully, and decide if it fits within your risk tolerance level.</p> <h3>ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds)</h3> <p>ETFs are securities that are designed to follow an index, but are tradable like a regular stock. ETFs offer great diversification, but they also allow you to short sale, which is essentially betting that a stock will decrease in price instead of increase. Be careful with short sales, as they are very risky. I recommend doing a lot of research on short sales and practicing them with virtual money before actually taking a short position with real money.</p> <h2>4. Establish Goals and Meet Them</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67702" height="353" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Goal.jpg" title="Goal" width="570" /></p> <p>Retirement starts with planning. Your first step is to establish how much money you will need to survive after you retire, and then you have to figure out how much money you will need to save each year to reach these goals. Retirement is not something you should procrastinate on. Get on the ball. Plan and contribute early, or you will not have a smooth retirement. Here are some tools I recommend to help plan for retirement and keep track of goals:</p> <p><a href="http://mint.com" target="_blank" title="Mint.com - A Great Financial Planning Resource"><strong>Mint.com</strong></a> – Mint is a powerful tool that provides graphs of how your money is spent. It will help you monitor and reduce unnecessary buying. It will also allow you to easily track the balance of your retirement accounts at all times.</p> <p><a href="https://www.google.com/advisor/home" target="_blank" title="Google Advisor - Compare CD Interest Rates and More"><strong>Google Advisor</strong></a> – Google Advisor is a nice little page that Google set up to help users easily find the highest interest rates available on CDs and other accounts.</p> <p><a href="http://bankrate.com" target="_blank" title="Bankrate - Set Goals and Make Calculations"><strong>Bankrate.com</strong></a> – Bankrate has calculators to help you decide the amount per year you should contribute to your retirement funds in order to retire with the amount of money you want to have. It would be easier to use the calculators on this site than to try to figure the calculations out by yourself, because Bankrate’s calculators use the most recent rates for its numbers.</p> <p><em>Disclaimer: The author is not a financial professional, and you should do your own due diligence while looking into retirement options. Be sure to talk to a professional financial advisor to help plan your retirement. This is not something that should be taken lightly.</em></p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=ECIHCr1s_wU:JrUo22blyE0:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=ECIHCr1s_wU:JrUo22blyE0:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=ECIHCr1s_wU:JrUo22blyE0:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=ECIHCr1s_wU:JrUo22blyE0:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/ECIHCr1s_wU" width="1" />

UPDATED: 3 HOURS, 37 MINUTES

Power Your Blogs with Habari: The Next Generation of Blogging

<p>If you are running a blog on a self-hosted platform, chances are you’re using either <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a></span></span> or perhaps <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://drupal.org/">Drupal</a></span></span>. There is no denying the fact that both of these CMSs have excellent capabilities. They are ideal for many different genres of website. However, at times, when all you need is a small personal weblog, running Drupal is a bit overkill. In other instances, when the need of the hour is a no-nonsense and nimble CMS, WordPress might seem a bit bloated to some users.</p> <p>If this is the case for you, <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://habariproject.org/">Habari</a></span></span> might be the CMS meant for your blog. <span id="more-67137"></span></p> <h2><strong>First Look</strong></h2> <p>Habari is a blogging CMS with a modular, object-oriented core. With that said, Habari, unlike WordPress, is not everyone’s blogging platform. If you are planning to create a video blog or a photo blog, Habari may not impress you. It caters to the traditional blogger – and it does its job well.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67141" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Habari -- The Blogger's CMS" class="size-full wp-image-67141" height="130" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/habari-main.png" title="Habari -- The Blogger's CMS" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Habari -- The Blogger's CMS</p></div> <p>Habari supports multiple database back-ends including MySQL, SQLite and PostgreSQL. There is support for Atom feeds, and the plugin repository contains importers for WordPress blogs.</p> <p>However, the USP of Habari, as we shall soon see, does not lie in its blogging prowess (seriously, of the features mentioned in the above paragraph, <em>which one is new?</em>). Habari’s main forte is its minimal and swift operation – the CMS comes with an admin interface which is reduced to the bare minimum.</p> <p>Before we decide the pros and cons of Habari as a CMS, we shall evaluate it under different categories.</p> <h2><strong>Interface, Usage and Performance</strong></h2> <p>The first thing you’d notice once you login to Habari’s back end is the ‘clean’ look and feel. The interface is neat, with the navigation menu sitting nicely in the upper left corner. Just like WordPress, Habari presents you with a Dashboard once you log in. By default, it shows details such as number of Posts, Comments, logged in Users, etc.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67140" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Habari presents you with a Dashboard after login" class="size-full wp-image-67140" height="259" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/habari-dashboard.png" title="Habari presents you with a Dashboard after login" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Habari presents you with a Dashboard after login</p></div> <p>You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate in the admin panel – ‘Q’ for Dashboard, ‘M’ for managing existing articles, ‘C’ for comments’, ‘N’ for New Post, ‘A’ for tags, ‘T’ for themes, ‘P’ for plugins, and so on. Of course, if you are editing an article, such shortcuts become void for the duration you are using the Editor.</p> <p>Speaking of editing an article, the New Entry Editor is plain simple. There are no excessive elements – in fact, it resembles WP’s Editor (after you maximize the latter to full screen).</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67139" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Habari's Article Editor sports a minimal and clean look" class="size-full wp-image-67139" height="412" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/article-editor.png" title="Habari's Article Editor sports a minimal and clean look" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Habari's Article Editor sports a minimal and clean look</p></div> <p>Along similar lines, the Options page too is rather minimal and, to a great extent, empty. It lets you enter basic info about your blog, time and date, language, and other similar settings.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67142" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Habari has a simple Options page" class="size-full wp-image-67142" height="385" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/options.png" title="Habari has a simple Options page" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Habari has a simple Options page</p></div> <p>In the My Profile section, you can edit your details – name to be displayed, password, Gravatar address (you can also use an image hosted elsewhere by placing its link).</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67144" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="User Settings Page in Habari" class="size-full wp-image-67144" height="464" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/user-settings.png" title="User Settings Page in Habari" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">User Settings Page in Habari</p></div> <h2><strong>Extensions, Plugins and Themes</strong></h2> <p>Habari comes with several themes and plugins to its merit. However, most of the addons are developed in-house and/or by the community. So if you are looking for Premium Theme Stores resembling those of WordPress, you’re in for disappointment.</p> <p>Among plugins, you also have the likes of Akismet and Defensio to secure your website, importers for platforms such as WordPress and Serendipity to import your previous data, as well as many others.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67143" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Habari is backed by several community driven plugins" class="size-full wp-image-67143" height="337" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/plugins.png" title="Habari is backed by several community driven plugins" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Habari is backed by several community driven plugins</p></div> <h2><strong>Community and Support</strong></h2> <p>Habari has its own <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/habari-users"><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">user</span></span><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> group</span></span></a> and <a href="http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/IRC"><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">IRC</span></span><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> channel</span></span></a>. The <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/Getting_Involved">community</a></span></span> is quite dedicated and the CMS has a loyal user base. However, the size of the community is rather small as compared to most other CMSs. This can be attributed to the fact that the CMS is still in its infancy (the latest version being 0.8). By the way, the frequency of updates is awesome.</p> <h2><strong>The Good and Bad</strong></h2> <p>Before we pass judgment, let’s sum up the advantages and disadvantages Habari.</p> <p>Pros:</p> <ul> <li>Extremely nimble and easy to use</li> <li>No-nonsense, minimal interface</li> <li>Dedicated community</li> <li>Good documentation and support options</li> <li>Support for multiple databases</li> <li>Ideal for regular blogging</li> </ul> <p>Cons:</p> <ul> <li>Relatively younger</li> <li>Small user base</li> <li>Not meant for photo/video blogs</li> <li>Few third-party developers</li> </ul> <h2><strong>The Verdict</strong></h2> <p>So, is Habari worth it?</p> <p>Definitely yes!</p> <p>If you are looking for a CMS with a clean interface for your blog, you should surely consider Habari. Unlike WP, Habari does not try to do many things – its target audience includes regular bloggers, and it serves them well. Yes, the CMS can indeed make use of few Premium themes and plugins, but all in all, it has all the ingredients to power an average-sized blog.</p> <h2><strong>Links</strong></h2> <p><a href="http://habariproject.org/en/"><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Habari </span></span><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Home</span></span><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> Page</span></span></a> | <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://demo.habariproject.org/">Demo</a></span></span> | <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://wiki.habariproject.org/">Wiki</a></span></span></p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=UtZeD4cBx5E:nIz5YYYFJYc:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=UtZeD4cBx5E:nIz5YYYFJYc:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=UtZeD4cBx5E:nIz5YYYFJYc:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=UtZeD4cBx5E:nIz5YYYFJYc:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/UtZeD4cBx5E" width="1" />

UPDATED: 1 DAY, 2 HOURS

Can You Smell What “The Rock!” is Cooking on Twitter?

<p>Close the window right now if you don’t know who is The Rock! He follows ZERO users and is being followed by over 2.5 millions users <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/TheRock" target="_blank">on Twitter</a>. As a side fact, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/DwayneJohnson" target="_blank">his facebook page</a> has 6.4 million likes. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_Johnson" target="_blank">His wikipedia page</a> is full of praises for the legend and YouTube is flooded with his videos. The Rock is simply the most important reason behind WWE’s social media success just because of his engaging twitter habits. He forces his fans to “Bring It” in every aspect of their life and people go mad when they read a reply (he replied to me too) from “The Rock!” himself on twitter. A Hollywood superstar, a Twitter superstar, a Facebook superstar, a bestselling author and of course the WWE superstar - the Rock has come a long way all on his own. Today I will dig into the human side of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in order to understand how he keeps Twitter trending.</p> <p><span id="more-67835"></span></p> <h2>He replied to me within 2 minutes!</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67839" height="299" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/reply-to-me.png" title="reply to me" width="570" /></p> <p>Yes! That isn’t a fake screenshot. I sent a tweet on Twitter before I started working on this article. I tagged Dwayne and pat came the reply. Let me just bask in glory for sometime before I move on to the rest of my article.</p> <h2>His quotes are simply over-the-top</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67843" height="200" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/devil-says.png" title="devil says" width="570" /></p> <p>My fingers are itching to write about Dwayne’s recent success in Wrestlemania 28 but sadly, this ain’t an article about Wrestlemania. Rather, this one is about how smart (actually how honest) Dwayne is on Twitter. When you go through his tweets then you will notice a pattern and a purpose. All that he wants is to spread love. The beast is all about commitment to fans and he is doing that so well.</p> <p>Before we move on, let us fall in love with few more tweets from Dwayne:</p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67847" height="200" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/spoken-word.jpg" title="spoken word" width="570" /></p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67848" height="198" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/champs.png" title="champs" width="570" /></p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67849" height="215" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dream.png" title="dream" width="570" /></p> <h2>He replies “Instantly”</h2> <p>At times celebrities give up on their Twitter accounts and let agencies control it for them. They don’t want anything messy to destroy their names and their status. What I can infer from such an act is that they are dumb enough to run away from reality. Look at this man, The Rock! He will reply to his followers all by himself. You can feel The Rock in his replies. You will fall in love with him and he will love you back instantly.</p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67854" height="330" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/replies.png" title="replies" width="570" /></p> <p>Dwayne enjoys Twitter because it gives him instant feedback and helps him stay connected with his fans on the move. The Rock also uses Twitter to encourage and motivate his followers. And, oh boy, they do get motivated. Look at me. I haven’t slept all night and it is 7:00am while I am writing this article. He is crazy and so are his fans.</p> <h2>He Tweets at 3 AM</h2> <p>The Rock! has the habit of getting up between 3 AM and 5 AM for five days a week as he loves to train while the sun is coming up. It is this time at 3 AM while the world is sleeping when The Rock! sends out tweets that go viral. See, it is the commitment of this man towards his fan and his work that makes him tick. Can’t you see that?</p> <h2>He has attitude!</h2> <p>The Rock follows no one on Twitter! Isn’t that something? And, guess what? This attitude goes well with his profession where the champ is always in the arena, fighting! His tweets and his replies are full of energy and attitude. He will throw it on your face so that you realize how important life is for you. His tweets make sure that you are up and on the move during every second of your life. He can even make you feel energetic while you are fast asleep. He is truly The Rock! And, he has attitude which rocks. Hell Yeah!</p> <h2>It is HIM on Twitter</h2> <p>As I said before, The Rock! isn’t like other celebrities who take help of their entourage in order to sent “safe” tweets. The Rock controls his Twitter account all by himself and all the tweets that land up on Twitter smell of his fingers. It is this personal touch that literally forces his followers to indulge in sessions with him. If it wasn’t for the reality of The Rock! on Twitter then I don’t think his popularity would have been whatever it is right now on Twitter.</p> <h2>He organizes Rock Talk!</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67860" height="360" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/rock-talk.jpg" title="rock talk" width="570" /></p> <p>Rock Talk is another idea of The Rock! that indulges his followers into chat sessions. The Rock! willingly sets apart time and during this Rock Talk all he does is send replies to the questions that his followers post for him. It is simple and it works. People love his answers and the amount of time he spends with them on Twitter. Why won’t they follow him and fall in love with him? I don’t see one reason.</p> <h2>The Take Aways</h2> <p>See, I agree that you might not be a celebrity and this will be one major hurdle between you and a huge followers count. But, the path to Twitter success is very simple. Really.</p> <ul> <li>Reply to people’s tweets and tell them how cool they are.</li> <li>Indulge in regular connections with people who matter to you.</li> <li>Retweet their tweets and tell them that their tweets were informative.</li> <li>Be their online friend.</li> <li>Leave tweets that motivate people.</li> <li>Occasional fun is always invited by everyone.</li> <li>Be strong and committed.</li> <li>Tweet regularly without any huge breaks as this leads to follower turn offs.</li> <li>Give time to those who are following you.</li> <li>Lastly, be honest! Please.</li> </ul> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>The Rock! is one of the very few celebs on Twitter who are themselves. He is part of the very rare breed of Twitter users who worship the basic idea behind the 144 character social networking website. He is honest and makes you on the top of the world. Basically, he is everything that a celeb on Twitter should be. And, if you aren’t following The Rock then you are really missing out on some of the very motivational tweets. To wrap up, you get to read incredibly inappropriate, but funny, dirty joke right on your Twitter timeline.</p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=_usSeNiXZrI:aqliqdXFq2o:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=_usSeNiXZrI:aqliqdXFq2o:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=_usSeNiXZrI:aqliqdXFq2o:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=_usSeNiXZrI:aqliqdXFq2o:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/_usSeNiXZrI" width="1" />

UPDATED: 2 DAYS, 3 HOURS

7 Mistakes that Force Potential Clients to Dislike Your Portfolio

<p>A portfolio is a collection of documents, works, progresses and basically everything you’ve done and want to show off. The point of a portfolio is to assist you in the process of presenting your skills, knowledge and experience. A portfolio has the aim of showing who you are in a short but detailed form. It’s important to always have a portfolio as you never know what kind of job opportunities you may have in any unexpected moment. That doesn’t mean you have to create one and carry 5 copies of it with you — instead, you can always keep it online!</p> <p><span id="more-67171"></span></p> <p>Anyone can create a portfolio but <strong>online portfolios</strong> are mostly used by IT workers, such as designers and developers. This group represents the biggest part of portfolio-owners on the internet. In this article we will try to explain the key points of any <strong>successful portfolio</strong> and analyze the mistakes made which really drive clients from your online portfolio.</p> <h2>Your Domain Name</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67173" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/img-1.png" width="570" /></p> <p><a href=" <p>This is the most basic mistake which can be made. If you consider yourself a professional, you must keep the domain name professional as well. The best idea would be using your name and surname as the domain name as it’s neither too personal nor crazy or strange. It will only say that it is your personal page, and that’s exactly what you want to achieve. <em>The bad part may be the unavailability of the domain name.</em></p> <p>In 2011, <a href="http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/01/17/internet-2011-in-numbers/" target="_blank">300 million websites</a> were created and each of them used a unique domain name. If finding suitable domain name is an issue then you should think about other possibilities as well. You may reduce your name or surname to one letter only, or, you may use a common word like “studio”. While no-one will judge you for using any extra word in your domain, it’s not a good practice to use a word like “studio” in your domain name if you actually don’t own a studio and work by yourself. It may make clients think that you are trying to portray yourself as bigger than you are. You may also use words which represent you or anything that may come to mind, but be sure not to let your imagination invent some strange and creepy names!</p> <h2>Bad Domain Pick</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67176" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/img-2.png" width="570" /></p> <p><a href="http://godaddy.com">Image Source</a></p> <p>It is a very bad practice to use adjectives in your domain name, especially the ones which would describe yourself. It is the client’s job to decide whether your designs are really amazing and you are a “talented designer” or you aren’t. You shouldn’t think for your clients and impose your ideas to them.</p> <h2>Good Domain Pick</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67177" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/img-3.png" width="570" /></p> <p>While we already said that using adjectives in domain names isn’t a good idea, I should admit that <a href="http://visualidiot.com" target="_blank">Visual Idiot</a> has done an amazing job choosing a domain name. It’s actually his nickname which makes him popular in the design community. It would be strange using the word idiot in any domain name, but, you’ll immediately forget about it as the site loads. The stunning work VI has done will make you admire him and his skills. I can actually say that his domain pick is perfect and it doesn’t make him appear in a negative space at all.</p> <p><strong>Suggested Reading - </strong><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/tips-before-registering-domain-name/" target="_blank">6 Must Read Tips Before Registering A Domain Name</a></p> <h2>Layout</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67178" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/img-4.png" width="570" /></p> <p><a href="http://www.45royale.com/" target="_blank">Image Source</a></p> <p>Another key element which makes a big difference is the quality of your portfolio layout. The first impression matters much, that is why you should always try impressing your clients from their first moments being on the website. Your layout must be the one which will impress your potential clients. You can’t convince someone that your work is amazing and they should hire you if your own website lacks quality. A visitor won’t ask or seek for the prices you offer, or your portfolio if your website won’t have at least a decent look. Minimalism is totally accepted in your designs but you shouldn’t confuse <strong>minimalism and simplicity</strong>. You don’t want your site to look poorly designed and lack basic functionality. Your website’s quality should never be second rate to your work.</p> <h2>About Yourself</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67181" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/img-5.png" width="570" /></p> <p><a href="http://ormanclark.com" target="_blank">Image Source</a></p> <p>People like to know as much as they can about someone they may hire for a job. Before it goes deep into communication and several mails, it is very good to let your visitors know you from the beginning. This doesn’t mean you must post everything from your medical cart to parking fines.</p> <p>You shouldn’t go too deep into personal life stories, but you should at least provide your name, and details about your professional studies and experience. Obviously this information shouldn’t be located in random places and the best location for it would be an <strong>“About” page</strong>. There have been <a href="http://sixrevisions.com/content-strategy/about-page-guidelines/">several discussions</a> on how to create great About pages so that your visitors won’t leave, at least not because of a poorly written About page.</p> <h2>Two More “Obvious” Mistakes</h2> <ul> <li><strong>Live-Chat -</strong> These services were invented with the purpose of helping customers on e-commerce websites where instant help is needed. In theory, live-chat widgets can be present on your website, it’s actually an unnecessary element, but it depends on the specifics of your website. A team, or a medium-large design studio could implement live chat if they have the right person and time to answer all the questions which may occur, however, if you are a lone freelancer there is no point implementing this time-consuming feature as all the questions could be asked by using the contact form and your job is not answering live chat questions.</li> <li><strong>Inefficient Use -</strong> Another mistake you may be doing is using your portfolio inefficiently. I do not want to say that you should squeeze juice out of your portfolio — what I want to state is that you shouldn’t confuse it with a blog or other personal website. Everything has it’s aim and you shouldn’t mix two different things into one. Your thoughts about Joe’s shoes shouldn’t be near your work examples and your CV. You can always set up a blog on your website, but it should be a different page/category. While this is admissible, you shouldn’t talk about Joe’s shoes on it either. Why? Because most of your eventual clients are not interested why Joe has chosen sneakers instead of boat shoes. I can say that having a blog on your portfolio website won’t hurt you if the discussion and posts are work related. <strong><em></em></strong></li> </ul> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>To sum up, a great portfolio consists of 4 basic parts: domain name, layout, information about yourself and the structure of your page. Each part of it must be well thought out and planned. You don’t want to miss something which you may regret later. Every small detail should be taken into consideration because your portfolio is how you present yourself to strangers. These strangers may want to hire you, and the ultimate goal of a portfolio is to showcase your work, and get more work. In case you need someone to have a look at your design and give you some feedback, you can always ask for some on <a href="http://dribbble.com" target="_blank">Dribbble</a>, <a href="http://forrst.com" target="_blank">Forrst</a> or <a href="http://www.conceptfeedback.com/" target="_blank">ConceptFeedback</a>!</p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=BuPH4nyqmyM:kVLaUFXgTsE:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=BuPH4nyqmyM:kVLaUFXgTsE:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=BuPH4nyqmyM:kVLaUFXgTsE:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=BuPH4nyqmyM:kVLaUFXgTsE:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/BuPH4nyqmyM" width="1" />

UPDATED: 3 DAYS, 6 HOURS

Tips to Find Balance Between Personal and Paid Work Before Life Rips You Apart

<p>I am sure all of us have a lot of work to do during our freelance workday or even during the full-time agency job. But I am also sure that most of us have side projects as well. While some can be beneficial for your pocket and experience, sometimes you just want to develop your own tool, write a blog post or design something for friends or do some pro bono work. After eight hours of work, it is highly unlikely that you want to continue doing the same thing at home, so the question is how to manage doing both while still remaining motivated and focused on the goals. Moreover, if talking about what catches our attention all the time - money - personal projects are not usually the ones that put cash in our pockets.</p> <p><span id="more-66852"></span></p> <p>If we look at the issue from the other perspective, it’s easy to spot designers or developers who only focus on client work and forget side projects entirely - even if they would actually like to create something on their own. While working more and more for money, the time for side projects is less and whereas this helps us grow in the business and drives our career forward, it doesn’t allow us to experiment with our ideas and achieve success on our own. And let’s face it, it doesn’t make us excited and motivated either.</p> <p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-66969" height="379" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hobby.jpg" title="Hobby" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1364888" target="_blank" title="Hobby">onetwo</a>.</em></p> <p>Finding a balance between personal and paid work is a crucial skill designers and developers need nowadays, therefore in this article we will cover some tips on the issue and, hopefully, by the end of it you will know which way to take from now on.</p> <h2>The importance</h2> <p>We covered why both concepts are important for us, but let’s explore the topics a bit more.</p> <p>Working full time is not only important for paying the bills (although this might be the real reason behind it), but also for our careers. Having a lot of experience in the industry can only be an asset and will drive you forward whenever you need - it will now and then even land you that dream job if you are good enough.</p> <p>But the downside of it is that you don’t really create anything for yourself. Everything you work on goes to a client who uses it and besides being able to show it off as your work, you will never get close to that project again. Doing work for others is not always going to make you enthusiastic and will in most cases only be work for money. The lack of real enthusiasm will kill your motivation at some point in time and we all know this is not beneficial.</p> <p>Your client work may suffer because you don’t dedicate time to personal projects. Now I am not saying this is the case all the time, but the thought behind it might be:</p> <blockquote> <h4>Why work on each pixel to be perfect when the client will not notice anyway, and I will not be able to use the work afterwards?</h4> </blockquote> <p>There are lots of debates about this on the web and I will not take part in them; the only thing that I can assure you of is that working for yourself will always end up with better results.</p> <p>People who are dedicated to a cause or a project often deliver work at a better quality. Money is not always the most important factor. I know lots of designers who would give up their non-exciting jobs for being able to work on something they like for the minimum amount of money they need. And I know some of you think the same.</p> <p>On the other side, spending way too much time working on personal projects or pro bono work is highly unlikely to bring you the money you need to survive, much less tuck some away for new gear. It will keep you in better spirits, but on the other hand money is important too.</p> <p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-66971" height="391" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/work.jpg" title="Work" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href=" <p>The bottom line is that while we need clients to pay for our work and keep us financially happy, we also need side projects which keep us enthusiastic and excited. This is the balance all of us need to reach.</p> <h2>Finding the balance</h2> <p>If you are a freelancer, there will be times when there is no time for side projects at all. We are all aware of them. And it is totally understandable! I do not think doing both every day is the solution. Paid work has to be prioritized and finished first. If you aren’t ahead of schedule, don’t think of side projects. This is my rule, I don’t start personal projects if the work I should have done is not finished. Case closed!</p> <blockquote> <h4>There is no problem in putting paid projects back in the queue, if the deadline is not approaching fast, so you can work on something personal. But doing too much of this can get you behind schedule and this creates problems, as work projects need priority in most cases.</h4> </blockquote> <p>There is, however, time for side projects whenever you are ahead of schedule. If there are no deadlines you have to meet in the near future, you should have enough spare time. Some tips to find the right balance could be the following:</p> <h2>Check the finances</h2> <p>Client projects are the ones bringing you the big bucks. They pay the rent, the bills, the holidays and the taxes. They have to be your main focus, I can’t stress enough about how important this is. If you know that by the end of the month you need a specific amount of money, work for it. That is your goal for the month.</p> <p>Working on your personal projects can also be considered kind of a <em>vacation</em> from the client work. You may even find yourself feeling relaxed while working on something you enjoy. If you think it relaxes you, do it in the afternoon - use an hour or a specific amount of time before going to sleep. This way you have something to look forward to every morning. I have a better suggestion though…</p> <h2>The 1/7 rule</h2> <p>There are seven days a week, five working days. Using one of them for personal projects is something I personally enjoy doing. This will help you focus on your client work and make you look forward to the specific day when you take on your side projects. Working on them will be like a holiday for you - as they will allow you to relax.</p> <p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-66970" height="428" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/satisfaction.jpg" title="Satisfaction" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href=" <p>This method might be better than the first one because you will make a clear differentiation between personal and paid work. Monday - Thursday only paid work and Friday side projects, for example. This means four days when you work entirely on your paid projects, then one for the rest. I think it sounds quite fair.</p> <h2>Instant inspiration</h2> <p>Sometimes you might get hit by instant inspiration, which doesn’t happen too often. If the deadlines for the client projects aren’t looming over you, then move on to your side projects and work there. Afterwards, use the allotted time for side projects to get back on track with the paid work. This way you ensure that you deliver quality projects both for your clients and for whoever it is you are working for when working on extra projects.</p> <p>We talked a lot about side projects. When talking about doing something you enjoy this doesn’t necessarily mean designing. You can maybe blog, take pictures, learn to cook or something else. Working on side projects doesn’t mean doing the same type of work as you do between 9 and 5, but doing something that relaxes you and keeps you motivated and focused. The bottom line is that whatever hobbies you have, you can combine them with working on your full-time job and still end up doing both properly.</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>I’ve heard many people say side projects are a waste of time, as they do not always bring you good money. It’s not always about money. Actually, once you have the minimum financial success you need in order to live a decent life, it is not about money anymore. Personal satisfaction is very important in our lives and if you don’t aim reaching it, you career will suffer too.</p> <p>If you are open-minded you will notice side projects can only be beneficial to your career and you will start finding time for them in your schedule right away. None of us is so busy that we don’t have time for personal projects anymore. Time can always be found, all we need is the will to do it.</p> <p>Until next time… how do you combine your side projects to the paid work you do? Do you have a better way or some other suggestions on the topic?</p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=1Bzo4Nt1J3g:xDtUH-fAQcw:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=1Bzo4Nt1J3g:xDtUH-fAQcw:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=1Bzo4Nt1J3g:xDtUH-fAQcw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=1Bzo4Nt1J3g:xDtUH-fAQcw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/1Bzo4Nt1J3g" width="1" />

UPDATED: 4 DAYS, 6 HOURS

A Handy Guide to Proper Typography for a Successful Design

<p>Basically, typography is the art and technique of arranging typefaces for communication purposes. In other words, typography is a simple arrangement in order to transmit a message, while good typography is the attention to visual accuracy and details, even the small ones. Typography started when writing appeared. The most simple arrangement of letters was also some sort of typography. Nowadays, typography is an element we see everyday and everywhere — Prints, Books, Newspapers and letters, TV and Web. Even the foremost websites were caring about typography, and were trying to improve it as much as possible with the resources available at that time.<span id="more-66855"></span></p> <h2>Web Typography</h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-1-6/" rel="attachment wp-att-66859"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66859" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-16.png" title="img-1" width="570" /></a></p> <p><a href=" <p>Web typography is just one of the most recent branches of the general typography concept. While images can also transmit a message, most of the content available on websites is made up of text, that is why so much attention has been given to web typography lately. While planning and designing a web page, typography isn’t less important than the visual hierarchy, selection of correct colors, functionality and many other features. We should never under-estimate the importance of web typography, nor think that it plays a minor role for a great user experience.</p> <p>Anyone who strives to have amazing typography must understand that print typography and web typography are totally different things. While some principles may be the same, web design is a totally different “environment”. Both print typography and web typography have their own rules and guidelines which must be respected. A crossing of these two may result into mixing different principles which almost have no chance to exist together.</p> <h2>Hierarchy</h2> <p>While you may already be familiar with hierarchy in web design, you may feel that there is a hierarchy in typography as well. Hierarchy in typography will give you a starting point for reading the text displayed. This is quite important because you always want to deliver your message correctly and you want your readers to understand it properly. Lots of websites don’t have this issue anymore but you should keep it in mind, so your website doesn’t appear on a one-century-old websites’ list.</p> <h2>Spacing Issues</h2> <p>While there are really very few websites with typography hierarchy issues, there are quite a lot with spacing issues related to their typography. As there must be a logic in spacing between all elements on a website, so there must be a logic in your typography spacing as well. You may want to get familiar with a few terms like: Leading Size, Kerning, and Tracking.</p> <p>Leading Size is the tool which allows you to increase or decrease the whitespace generated between the text rows available. You can <a href="http://uxmovement.com/content/increase-text-leading-for-easy-reading/">read here</a> why increasing it will help your readers reading your text. Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a font with the aim of achieving a more pleasant visual look. By using the Tracking tool, you can achieve almost the same effect, the only difference between Tracking and Kerning being the space generated. While tracking generates an equal amount of space between each character, kerning adjusts the space based on character pairs.</p> <h2>Colors and Color Palette</h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-2-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-66862"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66862" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-23.png" title="img-2" width="570" /></a></p> <p><a href=" <p>The colors in typography don’t specifically mean the color of your text which is usually of one color, instead they mean the over-all colors used on your website. All the colors and graphics used on the site will represent a “background” for your text, that is why you should be careful with the colors used. They must always fit the color of your typography, and should never obfuscate your text. You can also experiment with bigger-sized typography (also called as macro typography) to achieve better results. Defined in a simple way, macro typography is the use of bigger-sized text for attention-grabbing purposes. It is usually not longer than 1-4 words that is why it is important to keep it as short and correct as possible. It may be followed by some heading-sized text under your key message, but it’s not as important because that isn’t the focal point on your site, while big-sized text is.</p> <h2>Examples of Macro Typography in Websites</h2> <h2><a href="http://www.thepurplebunny.com/">Purple Bunny</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-7-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-67078"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67078" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-71.png" title="img-7" width="570" /></a></p> <h2><a href="http://matt-hall.co.uk/">Matt Hall</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-8-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-67079"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67079" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-81.png" title="img-8" width="570" /></a></p> <h2><a href="http://viljamis.com/">VS</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-9-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-67080"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67080" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-91.png" title="img-9" width="570" /></a></p> <h2>Font Pairs</h2> <p>Font pairing is the process of combining 2 or more typefaces with the aim to create a nice combination. While this sounds interesting, for beginners it is a hard job. Choosing one font, or a few fonts that are nice is well, but when your aim is to combine 2 fonts to achieve a perfect paring, it is much harder then it sounds in theory. Font Pairing has the aim to reduce the flatness which may be created while using one font choice, even with different styles. It would be a good practice to use one font for all headlines you may have while the other one for simple paragraphs. There is even a great <a href="http://bonfx.com/the-big-book-of-font-combinations/">book by Douglass Bonneville</a> with thousands of font pair combinations for those who’d like to see ready examples.</p> <h2>Contrast of Size/Weights</h2> <p>It would be a big mistake if you make your fonts non-differentiable. As you already know, it is very important to use a pair of fonts in order to have decent typography, and not some uniform text. Even if you have found an amazing font pair, you shouldn’t forget about setting correct sizes and weights for your fonts. Setting unsuitable weights and sizes will basically ruin your pair as it will become hard to understand that you have used different fonts. Your fonts should never be lost in the background because of similarity, incorrect size or mismatched background color.</p> <h2>Font-Replacement Methods</h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-3-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-66866"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66866" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-32.png" title="img-3" width="570" /></a></p> <p><a href=" <p>The old times are gone when designers had to use only fonts available on user’s computers or even images with text so they would see the correct font. As technology evolves, HTML5 is starting to get over flash, and there are a lot of amazing tools which would let you replace any font they have in the collection, without making your users install any specific font in order to view the text correctly.</p> <h2>@font-face</h2> <p>@font-face replacement method is one of the easiest methods. It has been introduced only a few years ago. It is really easy to implement as there is no more messing around with Javascript and jQuery code while you are installing it. It only relies on CSS, and takes addition of a few strokes of code to be up and running. The only con which font-face may have is that rendering is interpreted in different ways by different browsers. Using the latest versions of browser should minimize this problem, but, anyway it’s on the horizon and we mustn’t forget about it.</p> <h2><a href="http://www.google.com/webfonts">Google Fonts</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-4-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-66870"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66870" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-43.png" title="img-4" width="570" /></a></p> <p>Even though Google released its font directory only in 2010, it already has almost 500 font families. Google Fonts API is being widely used because of its simplicity and trust the company has built itself overtime. The only con Google Fonts has is its lack of really qualitative typefaces. Even if Google offers full font families, they don’t have those premium-looking fonts which would make your website stand apart.</p> <h2><a href="https://typekit.com/">Typekit</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-5-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-66873"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66873" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-53.png" title="img-5" width="570" /></a></p> <p>Typekit is a well known service which has been used a lot over the years. It has become really popular because of its huge font collections. It has almost one thousands fonts and most of them are looking amazing. Typekit got popular because it offers those premium @font-face solutions that Google doesn’t offer. Launched in 2009, it also got some popularity being founded one year earlier than the Google Font directory. The only con which troubles some of its potential clients is the paid subscription method. It is a yearly fee you have to pay, besides this, you are also limited to a specific number of page views per month and fonts per website, depending on your plan.</p> <h2><a href="http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface">FontSquirrel</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/handy-guide-proper-typography-design/attachment/img-6-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-66876"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66876" height="350" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/img-61.png" title="img-6" width="570" /></a></p> <p>The best thing about FontSquirrel is that it has lots of fonts available which are used widely and it is absolutely free. It is being loved for the number of nice fonts it provides and the absolutely free usage on as many websites as you would like. FontSquirrel even allows you to use a @font-face generator which lets you create your custom kit @font-face fonts.</p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=19AKycY-AME:msoMtnx4Ogc:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=19AKycY-AME:msoMtnx4Ogc:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=19AKycY-AME:msoMtnx4Ogc:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=19AKycY-AME:msoMtnx4Ogc:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/19AKycY-AME" width="1" />

UPDATED: 5 DAYS, 6 HOURS

Beginner’s Guide to Launching a Successful Blog

<p>We are all aware of just how fast the Internet grows. The American search engine giant, Google, reports that more than 1 trillion websites were indexed in 2008. Twenty years ago Google only indexed 15,000 new URLs per year. In a stunning <a href="http://mashable.com/2011/06/19/how-many-websites/#17199How-Big-Is-the-Web" target="_blank" title="How Big Is The Web?">report from Mashable</a> last summer we found out that 150,000 new URLs are created daily. While it is nearly impossible to figure out the exact number of web pages out there, it is clear that <em>mammoth</em><em> </em>is the right word to use to describe the internet in 2012.</p> <p><span id="more-67233"></span></p> <p>Out of the 150,000 URLs created daily, there is a high chance many of them are blogs. The blogging industry has evolved a lot in the past 10 years. In 2000 blogs were rare and didn’t exist on the same scale they do now. Very few actually believed that blogging could become it’s own industry with rules, guidelines, competition and involving a fairly decent amount of money.</p> <p>One of the largest issues of the industry is the reduced number of people who can access those available funds. Big companies always prefer to advertise on big, serious and successful blogs than on smaller, personal ones. Launching a blog doesn’t automatically make you successful and you need to take some steps and put in a serious amount of work to even reach the state where you can fight for good money. By reaching those heights, however, not only will your financial success be guaranteed, but also a tremendous reputation in the industry is an added advantage.</p> <h2>What’s the topic?</h2> <p>One of the most difficult tasks is to choose a niche. And I think that if you can’t find a topic within few minutes, just off the top of your head, you are headed for problems. In my opinion blogging should not be done for money, but for something you are passionate about. Having a personal blog where you tell people what kind of cereals you ate in the morning might be fun for your mom and neighbors, but it will not attract interest from the companies. Very few bloggers without a specific topic are worldwide or even nationally successful. A targeted topic such as design, IT or sports would probably work best.</p> <p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-67237" height="380" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/writing.jpg" title="Writing" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href=" <p>More importantly than choosing a topic is being passionate about it. You can’t write about something you don’t personally enjoy. The alternative would be to hire people to write, but let’s face it, how probable is it for your investment to pay off? Probably very low. I would only start to hire people to write on my blog after it is already quite successful and has a chance to survive in the crowded industry. Spending lots of money for a blog in the beginning is not something I would recommend.</p> <p>The domain name should also be relevant to the topic you discuss and if you need some tips about how to choose the best possible domain name (which can and will be a hassle, believe me), you can read <a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/tips-before-registering-domain-name/" target="_blank">Tips for Registering Domain Names</a>. <em>Don’t make it too long and keep it easy to remember.</em></p> <h2>Hosting</h2> <p>While this is a small step and might seem unimportant, using a reliable hosting company is something you should look for if you want to have a successful blog. Keep in mind that downtime will not make you more popular. There are not too many things more annoying than trying to access a web page that is down. This will make your readers less interested if you show a lack of professionalism in this regard.</p> <h2>Know your competitors</h2> <p>Carefully studying the others in the industry, especially the direct competitors, is something I would start doing right away. You need to get a feel of how the successful blogs manage out there if you want to own one of them. Knowing who it is you are up against can’t do any harm now, can it?</p> <p>It would be a good idea to follow their activity for a period of time and pay attention to how they do everything, from the length and structure of their posts, publishing times and the way they interact with their followers. Even you interacting with them - and this way creating a network - might help you later on. Although pretty much everyone fights for the limited amount of money available in online advertising, bloggers help each other and are usually part of the same network (look at the Smashing Magazine Network - blogs that would normally compete with each other are driven by same <em>umbrella</em> <em>community</em>.).</p> <p>Interacting with the followers can bring you much more than just good debates. I often get article ideas from your comments here on 1WD, which I appreciate a lot. But this way I consider I give you something back for your involvement with the community. So make sure you keep your users engaged and write articles that create debates and encourage further discussions.</p> <h2>The design</h2> <p>Blogs are mainly created to share information - but so are newspapers, television websites and online magazines. And they all need to look good. Without forgetting your main goal (writing) you need to think of a good design. Now you might not be a web designer and might not be able to develop a theme for yourself; no problem. There are lots of marketplaces on the internet where you can purchase a premium theme which is bug-free and supports the latest version of WordPress (I assume there is no question about what CMS to use - if there is, forget about it now and go for WordPress). If nothing suits you (although I think this is quite impossible), you can hire a designer, but this will probably eat lots of your financial resources.</p> <p><strong>Suggested Reading -</strong> <a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wordpress/wordpress-theme-free-or-premium/" target="_blank">Choosing a WordPress Theme: Free or Premium?</a></p> <p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-67235" height="346" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/blogging.jpg" title="Blogging" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/577027" target="_blank" title="Blogging">Moriel</a>.</em></p> <p>The need for a good design is big and you can see it all over the place. Blogs and online magazines opt for redesigns quite often - and even spend thousands of dollars on new visual concepts, identities and layouts. So if the big players use fine tuned designs to their advantage, it must be something worth trying, right?</p> <h2>Content is King, SEO is the Court Jester</h2> <p>Ok, quite far from the truth, but it works well for a subtitle. You can read a great piece of advice on this <a href="http://blog.nj.com/business_101/2010/10/content_is_king_-_seo_is_the_court_jester.html" target="_blank">from Michael Giaimo</a>.</p> <p>The bottom line of his article is that while SEO is important, it still is less important than the content. Before starting to think about high page rank and clicks on Google make sure the content will keep the visitors returning. There is no need in investing money in advanced SEO strategies if the users will leave your page immediately after reading the first article title.</p> <p>SEO is not to be neglected and I am aware of this - and so should you. The only thing I am saying is that there is something else you should think of before going for a SEO specialist. It is maybe debatable and I would like to hear your opinion on this in the end.</p> <h2>Have a strategy</h2> <p>There would be no football without a goal. There is no successful business without a strategy. A blog is a business like any other and it should be treated as one. Think of how many posts you want to publish a day/week, the length of the articles, the images you will use, the style and so on. In the end this is what will describe and categorize your blog.</p> <p>Having some spare articles to publish if needed is something that I did many times in my blogging days. When posting often it does happen that you are not available for a day or two and there you go, your followers get nothing from you. Write some articles in advance and always schedule them. Here at 1WD we have articles scheduled for almost a week in advance, which gives us a huge advantage over competitors who don’t adopt this style.</p> <p>It is also a great idea to keep a posting schedule, as readers will create a habit around your blog. Another reason for having posts scheduled in advance - users expecting content will always get it, regardless of your availability at the moment.</p> <h2>Run a social media launch campaign</h2> <p>Start creating a Facebook and Twitter page before launching the blog - this might help you raise some awareness over the launch and make people excited. You also need to make sure you maintain the social media accounts, nothing looks worse than a company with an inactive Facebook page. I know starting form zero followers is tough; and probably the first 100 are the toughest to get. But keep in mind all pages start from zero and yet they can reach millions. Time is your best friend in blogging. You need to wait in order to be successful, as this can only be achieved through hard work over a longer period.</p> <h2>Be ready!</h2> <p>Blogging is a tough business. Make sure you know what lies ahead of you. Countless hours of work, lack of proper sleep during many nights, motivation issues and frustration are coming and going in the industry; but it is quite impossible to reach success without passing through these stages.</p> <p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-67236" height="428" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/opinion.jpg" title="Opinion" width="570" /></p> <p><em>Image by <a href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/503227" target="_blank" title="Opinion">guil</a>.</em></p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>Don’t create a blog only for money. Money should be the final prize and achievement, your passion for the topic should be the main reason you invest time and financial resources on it. Readers can feel when a blogger is not passionate about the subjects he is covering and they will not return. You don’t want to be one of the unlucky bloggers. Think twice before launching a blog and think even more about its topic, your motivation and willingness to commit to your cause.</p> <p>Until next time… do you have a personal blog? How well do you think you maintain it and why? Do you set some rules for yourself and some guidelines for the blog? Do you pay people to write there, turning a blog into a small business of itself?</p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=xGPkhub0X_4:VTrxau204Is:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=xGPkhub0X_4:VTrxau204Is:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=xGPkhub0X_4:VTrxau204Is:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=xGPkhub0X_4:VTrxau204Is:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/xGPkhub0X_4" width="1" />

UPDATED: 6 DAYS, 6 HOURS

Guide to User Flow – The “Foolishly Ignored” Backbone of Website Design

<p>User Experience, Responsive Web Design and similar terms have made such a serious impact on the lives of web designers that they have almost forgotten the core of website design - User Flow. <em>I hope that we, the web designers, remember that website design is not just about “how it looks” but also about “how it works”</em>! It is easy to get sentimental with your passion - website design - which forces you to jump right into the website design phase without considering the end user expectations. Website designers concentrate so much on the information architecture of a website that they tend to forget the user flows that are the basis of all conversions benefiting the website. We can either give up on end user just for the look (and all other silly adjectives) of our website or start giving priority to <strong>User Flows</strong> in order to increase the returns from the website.</p> <p>So, once you have made up your mind that you will break the shackles of information architecture, aesthetic looks, <a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/auto-completion-scripts/" target="_blank">user experience</a>, responsive design and other silly terms then you can start reading further. It is time to <strong>design user flows</strong>.</p> <p><span id="more-66191"></span></p> <h2>Know Your Goal!</h2> <p>Oh please! Can we have a new sub-heading?</p> <p>Actually, I know that “Know Your Goal” thing is an obvious subheading to start with but it fits well in this scenario. See, you cannot start designing user flows unless you know what you are going to design for. This is when it becomes important for designers to sit with their client and understand the basic purpose of the overall design. Are they looking for sales or are they looking for a page which they can get the visitors to sign up for their email list?</p> <p>See, web designers must understand that the questions mentioned below <strong>aren’t the reason</strong> why you are designing a website:</p> <ul> <li>Do you like the new design?</li> <li>How is the new layout?</li> <li>What do you think of the latest UI improvements? Are they impressive?</li> </ul> <p>Clients might target positive answers to these questions but sooner or later they will understand that their positive reactions are good for nothing. At the end of the day conversions matter for any website and if the new design isn’t bringing in conversions (in whatever beneficial format) then the newness of the website is worthless.</p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66676" height="300" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/know_your_user.jpg" title="know_your_user" width="570" /></p> <p>Henceforth, next time when you have a website design project, think of the user flow which is going to benefit the overall design. Two major pointers that will help you keep a check on actual user flow and how to design for them are:</p> <ul> <li><strong>The business purpose of the website</strong> - These will decide the respective action that you will want the website visitor to take in order to help the client achieve the business purpose.</li> <li><strong>The user’s objectives</strong> - This is more like for-the-user tactic where the user flow is all about the user. Here the purpose of designer is to understand what exactly will the user look for from the website, their desires and their needs? At the end of the day it is all about satisfying these desires of the end-user.</li> </ul> <h2>Your User Is Your Goal. Explore Them!</h2> <p>We are discussing the <em>importance of User Flow</em> for a website henceforth it has to be the user who will make or break the website. The job of the website designer is to understand the users and their requirements. One needs to start with a detailed study of every possible website requirement and the kind of final product that the client is expecting. Some of the example user objectives to get you started are:</p> <ul> <li>Finding specific content.</li> <li>Buying a product.</li> <li>Buying a gift for someone (which is different from buying a product for yourself).</li> </ul> <p>Now, the hidden business objectives for which clients would want to launch a website that covers such user based requirements will be:</p> <ul> <li>Increase subscriber base.</li> <li>Sell specific product.</li> <li>Earn leads.</li> <li>Get the product promoted on social networking sites with the help of user only.</li> <li>Create a database of contact details.</li> </ul> <p>A website designer who clearly understands the requirement of both parties (user and end client) will have a sure advantage over those designers who <em>aren’t putting importance on user flow.</em></p> <h2>Define the Start and End of Your User Flow</h2> <p>User Flow is a state diagram of sorts which defines the path that the user will follow when it visits a particular website. We must understand the initial point from where the user starts and where their should end. It is these two points between which the website designer will have to carve his own space that will give the requisite comfort to the user.</p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66677" height="300" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/users_like_kids.jpg" title="users_like_kids" width="570" /></p> <p>Typical mediums via which a user can enter your website are:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Subscriber Emails</strong> - Users can come from a newsletter email that is sent to them.</li> <li><strong>Social Media</strong> - Users can use your links in the social media world to land on your website.</li> <li><strong>Paid Advertising</strong> - Google AdWords campaigns and other similar paid advertising methods are an important way to guide users to your website.</li> <li><strong>Organic Search Queries</strong> - Google Traffic (which results from organic search queries on Google) is an important source for website traffic.</li> <li><strong>Referral Links or Press </strong><strong>Publications</strong> - Users can come to your website via various blogs ( and other similar sources) that are talking about you.</li> </ul> <h2>Important Questions to Consider</h2> <p>When designing User Flow it is important to understand that detailed analysis of the requirements is a must. In order to get a clear picture of what users will be looking for, web designers must conduct in-depth interviews of their customers. Look, anybody can collect information that is nothing but speculation, but that is not how a website user flow is designed. Making stuff up as you go will take you nowhere.</p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-66678" height="300" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/water_flow.jpg" title="water_flow" width="570" /></p> <p>So, take a printout of the following questions and add a few more from of your own. Then start answering each of them in as much detail as possible:</p> <ul> <li>What unique features of your website or product are most appealing to the end-user?</li> <li>Which kind of user would want to use these features?</li> <li>Why would they want to use these features?</li> <li>Are there any other desires that these users have?</li> <li>What sort of problems are they facing in fulfilling these desires?</li> <li>What kind of questions do they have about your website or product?</li> <li>What are their hesitations?</li> <li>What kind of information will they want if they plan to take any action?</li> <li>How can you touch the user emotionally so as to make them perform the desired action?</li> </ul> <h2>Present Crystal Clear Information</h2> <p>I have always preached about being “Crystal Clear”. No matter what we are up to, we must understand the importance of Crystal Clear Information. I agree that most of us are here to earn a fortune and we are all very much determined to do anything that will help us reach that goal, but this should not mean that we start deceiving the end user just for a few extra dollars.</p> <p>The purpose of User Flow is to fill in the gaps that are left while designing a website. This is done by following a detailed User Flow which covers every small pointer that concerns the user. See, the goal of a website designer is to shape the thought process of the user in a manner that they are determined to perform the action for which the website was designed. It is about optimizing every step which the user will perform in order to sell your product. Below pointers will help you shape the thought process of the user:</p> <ul> <li>Every step (or webpage) that the users visits must present a very clear picture of what the whole setup is about and how it will benefit the user if they perform the next action.</li> <li>Give the user detailed information and give them the offer to grab extra benefits if they perform the desired action. Also, make sure that these benefits are worth the user’s time.</li> <li>The information presented must be easy to digest and the user should not feel like they might just get tricked.</li> <li>Minimize the amount of friction that users face while moving forward. Look, if you ask for extra information from the user then it might just act as a turn off and they might hop to another window. Get the picture? Don’t ask users to perform actions that are of no benefit to either side.</li> <li>Present very clear approaches to next steps so that users aren’t confused of what needs to be done.</li> </ul> <h2>Further Reading</h2> <p>User Flow is a science in itself and it cannot be mastered after reading just a couple of guides. It is a time-consuming process and requires web designer’s diligence to reap positive results. Below, we present you with more guides that can help you approach User Flow in a smarter fashions:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/hotel-booking-from-start-to-finish/" target="_blank">Designing Hotel Booking From Start To Finish</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.websequencediagrams.com/" target="_blank">Web Sequence Diagrams</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://productplanner.com/" target="_blank">Product Planner</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/tools-for-sketching-user-experiences/" target="_blank">Tools For Sketching User Experience</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://experiencinginformation.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/customer-journey-mapping-resources-on-the-web/" target="_blank">Customer Journey Mapping Resources</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2011/09/the-value-of-customer-journey-maps-a-ux-designers-personal-journey.php" target="_blank">How Customer Journey Maps Are Being Used In Boeing</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Flow-The-Psychology-Optimal-Experience/dp/0061339202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332691096&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.alistapart.com/articles/designingforflow/" target="_blank">Designing For Flow</a>.</li> </ul> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=M0y7GQGTn4Y:x_WQXlqR5Qk:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=M0y7GQGTn4Y:x_WQXlqR5Qk:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=M0y7GQGTn4Y:x_WQXlqR5Qk:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=M0y7GQGTn4Y:x_WQXlqR5Qk:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/M0y7GQGTn4Y" width="1" />

UPDATED: 1 WEEK

18 Hosted CMS to Solve Your Needs and Grant You Unlimited Jedi Power

<p>When it comes to choosing a CMS, there are a lot of options to choose from. One can go with traditional ones, such as <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a></span></span>, <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://drupal.org/">Drupal</a></span></span> or <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://joomla.org/">Joomla!</a></span></span> Alternatively, one can opt for a hosted solution too.</p> <p>Hosted CMSs tend to be quite popular with designers. While they may not be able to compete with self-hosted ones in terms of scalability, they have several advantages of their own. Apart from included hosting, they also come with A+ grade support from the CMS manufacturer, and thus you know that if something were to go wrong, you won’t be left feeling lost. Secondly, most of them feature intuitive interfaces to help you develop websites easily.<span id="more-67191"></span></p> <p>Apart from that, almost all hosted CMSs come with Reseller Tools – you can re-brand and re-sell the websites you create to your clients. Thus, using a hosted CMS allows designers to not just work in an easy manner but also gain a residual flow of income. You have ready-made hosting, support and CMS deployment at your service – all you need to do is create websites and receive payment! Also, almost all hosted CMSs nowadays offer a free trial, so you can try before you buy.</p> <p>In this article, we take a look at some of the major hosted CMSs. However, before we take the plunge, it is worthwhile to point out that this article, for the sake of clarity, mentions CMSs that project themselves as Content Management Systems in the proper sense of the term. Thus, awesome services such as <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://wordpress.com/">WordPress.com</a></span></span> have been left out (although WP.com offers WordPress as a hosted solution, it projects itself as a blogging tool and not a regular CMS).</p> <h2><strong>1. Agility CMS</strong></h2> <p>Agility CMS lets you manage your content and create websites in a snap. The CMS comes with its own Content API. You can also use Agility CMS to manage websites built with ASP.NET</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67193" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Agility CMS" class="size-full wp-image-67193" height="189" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/agility-cms.png" title="Agility CMS" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Agility CMS</p></div> <p><strong>Pros:</strong><strong> </strong>Great Rich Text Editing, support for JSON API and ASP.NET.</p> <p><strong>Cons:</strong><strong> </strong>Bit overpriced, may seem too sophisticated for some clients.</p> <p><strong>Pricing:</strong><strong> </strong>Basic Plan at $200 per month (includes two content editors).</p> <p><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/">Website</a></span></span></p> <h2><strong>2. LightCMS</strong></h2> <p>LightCMS is a CMS specifically meant for designers. You can create a free website with 3 pages, but if you wish to resell and create unlimited websites, you’ll have to opt for the paid plans. The CMS does not have the typical Admin Dashboard – instead, it features in-context editing, that is, you can edit your website simply by clicking on the respective regions.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67200" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Light CMS" class="size-full wp-image-67200" height="207" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/light-cms.png" title="Light CMS" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Light CMS</p></div> <p><strong>Pros:</strong><strong> </strong>e-Commerce Tools, Reseller options, special plans for web designers.</p> <p><strong>Cons:</strong><strong> </strong>Needs better documentation.</p> <p><strong>Pricing:</strong><strong> </strong>Basic Plan with 1 GB storage at $19 per month.</p> <p><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.lightcms.com/">Website</a></span></span></p> <h2><strong>3. Squarespace</strong></h2> <p>Squarespace is another hosted CMS that lets you create a blog, website or portfolio. The CMS offers excellent templates, stats and specialized features for particular websites such as photo galleries.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67205" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="SquareSpace" class="size-full wp-image-67205" height="262" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/square-space.png" title="SquareSpace" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">SquareSpace</p></div> <p><strong>Pros:</strong><strong> </strong>Awesome apps for iOS and Android, Importers for WP, Blogger and others.</p> <p><strong>Cons:</strong><strong> </strong>Virtually nil</p> <p><strong>Pricing:</strong><strong> </strong>Standard Pack at $8 per month (billed annually) with 500 GB bandwidth and 2 GB storage</p> <p><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.squarespace.com/">Website</a></span></span></p> <h2><strong>4. HiFi</strong></h2> <p>HiFi lets you create websites with zero design constraints. It offers a slick API and intuitive interface.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67198" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="HiFi" class="size-full wp-image-67198" height="323" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hifi.png" title="HiFi" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">HiFi</p></div> <p><strong>Pros:</strong><strong> </strong>Excellent SEO settings, easy to use interface.</p> <p><strong>Cons:</strong><strong> </strong>Plans should be limited in terms of bandwidth instead of pages.</p> <p><strong>Pricing:</strong><strong> </strong>Starter Plan for $19 per month (maximum 25 pages).</p> <p><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.gethifi.com/">Website</a></span></span></p> <h2><strong>5. Adobe Business Catalyst</strong></h2> <p>Adobe Business Catalyst is an all-in-one platform for building websites, online stores and managing businesses. As the name suggests, it is useful only if you have enterprises and businesses as your clients. Apart from content management, BC can also help you with turn-key eCommerce, CRM, email marketing and other similar tasks.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67192" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Adobe Business Catalyst" class="size-full wp-image-67192" height="330" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/adobe-business-catalyst.png" title="Adobe Business Catalyst" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Adobe Business Catalyst</p></div> <p><strong>Pros:</strong><strong> </strong>Ideal for businesses and organizations.</p> <p><strong>Cons:</strong><strong> </strong>May not suit the needs of non-businesses.</p> <p><strong>Pricing:</strong><strong> </strong>The Basic+ Plan is available for roughly $12 per month. It includes 1 GB of storage and 1 TB of bandwidth, along with hosted emails.</p> <p><span style="color: #000080;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.businesscatalyst.com/">Website</a></span></span></p> <h2><strong>6. Webvanta</strong></h2> <p>Webvanta lets you build websites with ease. You can embed functionality such as blogs, photo galleries, slideshows, forms, etc. As a designer, you also have the option to become a partner and re-brand the CMS. For end users, there is a free plan with limited functionality.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67209" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Webvanta" class="size-full wp-image-67209" height="184" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/webvanta.png" title="Webvanta" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Webvanta</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Special plans for designers, priority support, monthly webinars.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Pricing on the higher side.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Starter Plan at $149 per year (includes Premium Hosting).</p> <p><a href="http://webvanta.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>7. Webpop</strong></h2> <p>Webpop is another cloud-based hosted CMS for designers. Unlike others, Webpop does not offer unwanted abstraction and instead allows you full HTML and CSS control. In fact, Webpop’s pricing plans too are modeled around designers’ usage – Personal, Freelance and Agency!</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67208" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Webpop" class="size-full wp-image-67208" height="339" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/webpop.jpg" title="Webpop" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Webpop</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Excellent stats and analytics, gorgeous layout.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Virtually nil, though it can use a limited features’ Free Plan.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Personal Plan is at $19 per month, which allows you to have 1 GB storage, 5 projects and 1 client/collaborator.</p> <p><a href="http://www.webpop.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>8. Edicy</strong></h2> <p>If Webpop is meant for designers, Edicy caters to end users. It offers out of the box SEO, responsive templates and layout, and support for building multilingual websites (native support, that is – you don’t have to do the translation).</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67197" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Edicy" class="size-full wp-image-67197" height="258" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/edicy.png" title="Edicy" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Edicy</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Multilingual features, Competitive pricing.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Edicy’s own website seems to be slightly slow in loading (compared to others).</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Pro Plan at $9 per month, with 5 GB storage (Free Plan also available).</p> <p><a href="http://edicy.com">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>9. Shopify</strong></h2> <p>Shopify is a hosted CMS meant for creating e-commerce websites and stores. It provides you with all the functionality you need to run your e-commerce website, such as product/inventory/customer management, payment gateways and even fraud detection.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67203" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Shopify" class="size-full wp-image-67203" height="271" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/shopify.png" title="Shopify" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Shopify</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Ideal for running an e-commerce website, good tools for designers.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Not useful for non-e-commerce sites.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Basic plan at $30 per month with 1 GB storage and unlimited bandwidth.</p> <p><a href="http://www.shopify.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>10. Magento Go</strong></h2> <p>Magento Go is another hosted solution for e-commerce websites. Basically, it is the hosted version of the famous e-commerce web application <a href="http://magentocommerce.com/">Magento</a>.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67201" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Magento Go" class="size-full wp-image-67201" height="304" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/magento-go.png" title="Magento Go" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Magento Go</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Terrific features for e-commerce stores.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Awkward pricing (after 800 MB, the next storage option is 5 GB, with no other price point in between).</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>‘Get Going’ Plan at $15 per month with 200 MB storage and 4 GB bandwidth.</p> <p><a href="http://go.magento.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>11. Highwire</strong></h2> <p>Yet another e-commerce CMS, Highwire lets you manage orders, customers, products and marketing in an easy manner. As a designer, you have full HTML and CSS control, and as an end-user, you have unmatched e-commerce tools at your service! There is also a free ‘Facebook’ Plan for users.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67199" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Highwire" class="size-full wp-image-67199" height="309" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/highwire.png" title="Highwire" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Highwire</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Awesome stats and analytics, good tools for e-commerce.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Can use a better documentation.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Bronze Plan at $19.95 per month (unlimited features, but your sales volume cannot exceed $1500 per month).</p> <p><a href="http://www.highwire.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>12. SolidShops</strong></h2> <p>SolidShops is a solution for e-commerce stores. Bored of e-commerce already? Well, SolidShops is different from the rest in the sense that it focuses on designers, not end users or store owners. The feature set is mere essential, and the focus is on simplicity. Also, it offers full design control.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67204" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="SolidShops" class="size-full wp-image-67204" height="327" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/solidshops.png" title="SolidShops" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">SolidShops</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Meant for designers of e-commerce websites.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Simplicity in features may not suit everyone.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Basic Plan at $29 per month with 100 MB storage.</p> <p><a href="http://www.solidshops.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>13. Volusion</strong></h2> <p>Volusion is a hosted CMS meant for (yes, you guessed it right) e-commerce websites. It offers several beautiful templates, management tools for orders, customers, products, as well as many unique features such as email newsletters, customer wishlists, daily deals, etc.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67207" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Volusion" class="size-full wp-image-67207" height="277" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/volusion.png" title="Volusion" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Volusion</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Many unique features for e-commerce websites.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Needs better documentation.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Steel Plan at $19 per month with 1 GB data transfer.</p> <p><a href="http://www.volusion.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>14. Concrete5</strong></h2> <p>Concrete5 is primarily a self-hosted CMS like Drupal and WordPress. However, they also offer hosting and thus, Concrete5 can be run as a hosted solution too. Speaking of the CMS, Concrete5 is easy to use, features many unique elements and can power many different genres of websites, from enterprise entities to blogs. I once did a two-part review of Concrete5 <a href="http://www.youthedesigner.com/2012/01/18/an-introduction-to-concrete5-cms-part-i/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.youthedesigner.com/2012/01/23/an-introduction-to-concrete5-cms-part-ii/">here</a>.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67195" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Concrete5" class="size-full wp-image-67195" height="332" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/concrete5.png" title="Concrete5" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Concrete5</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Awesome CMS with in-built Sitemaps, Stats and SEO.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Slightly expensive (CMS itself is free, but the hosted version isn’t).</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>$45 per month with 5 GB storage and 25 GB bandwidth.</p> <p><a href="http://www.concrete5.org/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>15. Breezi</strong></h2> <p>Breezi is a visual CSS Editor and edit-in-place CMS meant for designers. It offers great control over style, useful apps, powerful WYSIWYG, custom tracking codes, integration with Google Fonts Library, and several other features.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67194" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Breezi" class="size-full wp-image-67194" height="320" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/breezi.png" title="Breezi" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Breezi</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Interesting set of features, good support.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Still in BETA, so may not be everyone’s cup of tea.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>$12 per month.</p> <p><a href="http://breezi.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>16. CushyCMS</strong></h2> <p>CushyCMS is a simple CMS meant for designers. It is versatile and swift in operation and offers several features.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67196" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="CushyCMS" class="size-full wp-image-67196" height="326" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/cushycms.png" title="CushyCMS" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">CushyCMS</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Extremely easy to use.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Features may seem limiting as compared to others.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Pro Plan at $28 per month (Free Plan also available with limited functionality).</p> <p><a href="http://www.cushycms.com/en">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>17. Vae Platform</strong></h2> <p>Vae Platform is an integrated CMS and e-commerce solution along with redundant hosting. It includes support for shopping carts, newsletters, analytics, etc. Also, the CMS offers full support for PHP, CSS, MySQL, and Subversion. It also comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67206" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="Vae Platform" class="size-full wp-image-67206" height="210" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/vae-platform.png" title="Vae Platform" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Vae Platform</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Perhaps the best pick for e-commerce websites.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>May seem expensive if you do not need the advanced features.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Solo Plan at $299 per month which allows hosting 10 websites.</p> <p><a href="http://vaeplatform.com/">Website</a></p> <h2><strong>18. PageLime</strong></h2> <p>PageLime is a CMS meant for designers. It offers reseller tools and support for mobile devices. We did a detailed review of PageLime <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com//design/pagelime-web-designer-cms/">here</a>.</p> <div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_67202" style="width: 580px;"><img alt="PageLime" class="size-full wp-image-67202" height="275" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/pagelime.png" title="PageLime" width="570" /><p class="wp-caption-text">PageLime</p></div> <p><strong>Pros: </strong>Reseller tools, iPhone app.</p> <p><strong>Cons: </strong>Feature set not as advanced as other CMSs in this league.</p> <p><strong>Pricing: </strong>Professional Plan at $19 per month which allows you to have 50 websites (Free Plan with limited functionality also available).</p> <p><a href="http://pagelime.com/">Website</a></p> <p>With that, we come to the end of this round-up. Do you use a hosted CMS? If so, feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments.</p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=rE7xJo1cjiU:z3JWU_HMttY:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=rE7xJo1cjiU:z3JWU_HMttY:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=rE7xJo1cjiU:z3JWU_HMttY:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=rE7xJo1cjiU:z3JWU_HMttY:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/rE7xJo1cjiU" width="1" />

UPDATED: 1 WEEK

InkThemes Giveaway: 3 Winners of Colorway Premium WordPress Theme

<p>April has just begun and how do we celebrate it? With an awesome giveaway by <a href="http://www.inkthemes.com" target="_blank">InkThemes</a>! Today you will learn about InkThemes and their awesome premium theme Colorway which costs $45, but for 3 of our loyal readers it will be given absolutely for free! Now, isn’t that amazing?</p> <p>What are you waiting for? Read on!</p> <p><span id="more-67476"></span></p> <h2>The Lucky Winners!</h2> <blockquote> <ol> <li>Dhiraj</li> <li>Elaine Harman</li> <li>Grimaldo</li> </ol> </blockquote> <h2>The Prize</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67477" height="514" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/inkthemes-colorway.jpg" title="inkthemes-colorway" width="570" /></p> <ul> <li>Colorway comes with 8 color schemes, which makes it pretty flexible to your design tastes</li> <li>It has a built-in image and video slider</li> <li>Templates for Contact Us page and Gallery</li> <li>Ajax-based admin panel</li> <li>Tons of customization options</li> <li>Video and PDF documentation</li> <li>Access to Members Area</li> <li>PSD file</li> <li>Forum support</li> <li>Theme updates</li> </ul> <p><a href="http://www.inkthemes.com/wp-themes/colorway-wp-theme/" target="_blank">Click here to learn more!</a> | <a href="http://inkthemes.com/wpthemes/colorwayhotel/" target="_blank">Demo</a> | <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/colorway" target="_blank">Colorway Lite</a></p> <h2>Sample Uses</h2> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67478" height="661" src="http://cdn1.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Inkthemes-Demo.png" title="Inkthemes Demo" width="506" /></p> <h2>Want to become a Member?</h2> <p>InkThemes currently has 17 premium themes available, and over the months it will continue to grow. All themes are elegant and are very easy to install, pretty flexible, and purchasing a theme or a membership automatically grants you access to their Members Only section with lifetime support.</p> <p>You can either <strong>purchase one theme for $45</strong> <strong>or be a member and get them all for only $125</strong>!</p> <p>Don’t forget to check their <a href="http://www.inkthemes.com/pricing/" target="_blank">pricing details</a> and benefits!</p> <h4>Are you an affiliate marketer?</h4> <p>InkThemes offer a high commission rate of 50% per sale. <a href="http://www.inkthemes.com/affiliates/" target="_blank">Become an affiliate</a> and start earning passively with the help of InkThemes!</p> <h2>How to Win</h2> <p>To win, all you have to do is:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Like</strong>, re-<strong>Tweet</strong>, <strong>Pin</strong>, and tell everyone about this post</li> <li><strong>Comment</strong> about what you think of Colorway (use a valid email address so we can contact you)</li> <li>Don’t forget to check out InkThemes on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/InkThemes" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/inkthemes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> to be updated whenever a new promo is available!</li> </ul> <p>Winners will be selected randomly using Random.org. Announcement will be made a week from now.</p> <p>Go start sharing!</p> <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=HkiuxseRgFw:yegnSMCK7EI:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=HkiuxseRgFw:yegnSMCK7EI:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?a=HkiuxseRgFw:yegnSMCK7EI:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img border="0" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/1stwebdesigner?i=HkiuxseRgFw:yegnSMCK7EI:F7zBnMyn0Lo" /></a> </div><img height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~4/HkiuxseRgFw" width="1" />

UPDATED: 1 WEEK, 1 DAY

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