In my case, to some degree, “Why should I blog?” is a rhetorical question. As someone who pretty much lives and breathes WordPress development & design these days, I shouldn’t even be uttering this question aloud.

“It’s good promotion.” “It’s good for SEO.” “It allows potential clients to become more comfortable with you.” All of these things are true. But.

I admit it, I’ve been stuck. I’ve been self-editing before I speak, to the point of not speaking (both here and on twitter). I’ve been having conversations in my head about where to take this blog, “finding my voice”, beating myself up about how sadly neglected my websites are in content, design, structure, the whole shebang. (What does shebang mean anyway?)

This blog was started in 2003, before blogging was cool, before there were 10 million sites telling you to “define your niche” and “create a publishing schedule” and “have a commenting strategy”. Before most people knew what a blog even was. I started it because I could, and because it was a way to learn (Movable Type at the time), and because I was inspired by the blog of a brilliant programmer I worked with. At that point I could talk about whatever randomness inspired me in whatever way I felt because pretty much nobody read blogs. Essentially blogging was just for me.

Fast forward some years and I’m fumbling my way through a new life of being a full-time freelance designer, and becoming more self conscious about what I publish in the blogosphere. Not that I was ever raunchy or overly personal, despite the porn-worthy words of my first post, but I began to feel like I have to present myself as An Expert. That I have to be writing for My Audience (which one?).  That I should be writing more and more for my clients. Trouble is, that’s not what this site is about.

In the beginning of my freelance adventures I threw together a quick portfolio site. It does the job, barely, but enough that I’ve hobbled along for far too long. I don’t much like it so I rarely update it and cringe when I hear new clients say they’ve been reading my site. Of course they have. And to them, it’s probably fine – they contact me, after all. But to me, it’s a sorely dissatisfying representation of what I can do. It runs on WordPress too, but I blog over here. The silliness of this does not escape me.

And here is where I often find myself when I write: wondering how I can get to the end of the post with a nice ribbon tied up around it. *sigh*

Before I wrap up I will say that there’s some clarity at the end of the tunnel. I’ll be relaunching with a new webdesign portfolio soon. Then I will be able to blog with my different hats in different places and feel so much more comfortable in them. Maybe I’ll wear a silly hat here more often. Maybe I’ll get over my self-editing a bit more. We’ll see.

Wondering why YOU should blog, and how not to make an ass of yourself in the process?

…she says, putting her Expert Hat on.

You’re not alone. Here are some links I recommend on the subject.

• Blogging Therapy series by Havi Brooks (see bottom of the post for links to topics like mean comments, what if nobody reads my blog, etc.)
• Why you blogging? and Why you hiding? by Karen J Lloyd
• Sonia Simone’s Remarkable Communication – perhaps Slow Blogging or The Sweeney Todd Guide to Blogging.
• Skellie. Especially this recent a-niche-isn’t-required post… there’s hope for me yet.

If you have any thoughts or related links to share on this, I’d love to hear them in the comments. Fire away!

I also enjoyed Chris Heuer’s session on “Death of Advertising” which Ruth Seeley covered better than I could at this late & tired hour. The most memorable thing for me was discovering Blentec’s Will It Blend campaign. It’s mainly videos of their CEO in a “lab” testing their blender’s ability to make “smoothies” out of iPods, lightsticks, and so on. Apparently since this campaign launched their blender sales have gone through the roof and they even get paid to do blender demos as entertainment at events.

On the one hand I want to cheer them on – way to go! Leverage new media creatively! Make it work for you!

On the other, I was so sad to see the toxic waste-filled innards of the iPod mulched and fuming into the atmosphere for the purpose of selling more stuff.

This is at the root of my discomfort around so much branding and advertising: the despair I feel for our overtaxed planet and our underfed souls… some of us at times spending and spending to fill an emptiness that traditional advertising has worked so cleverly to enlarge.

So I guess I have to give Blentec kudos for this campaign; regardless of my conflicted feelings they have created something remarkable.

**OK, so it’s not really sordid, but that sounds catchy doesn’t it?

• She likes to mix her kick-ass marketing advice with a lotta swearing and mentions of sex/nudity/alcohol.
• This leads to much humour for her readers and high rankings on her website for bizarre search terms. I suspect this has taught her a thing or two about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Which brings me to…

A quick review of SEO School

I got my hands on a review copy of this ebook so that I could hopefully recommend it to my clients. Pretty every web designer in the universe has been asked “How do I show up number one in Google?”. Upon hearing this, every web designer in the universe cringes. To even begin to answer that question you’d have to be more specific, like “How do I show up number one in Google for ‘cheese biscuits’?”. The short answer is:

• Nobody should promise that you’ll rank number one in Google for anything except for, maybe, your website’s name. (See SmashLabSucks.com – there’s always the possibility of somebody bigger with more SEO juice affecting the results.)
• SEO is complicated.

Thankfully Naomi’s SEO School contains a long answer in her non-complicated, sailor-worthy language. At $19 on sale, it’s the best deal of the bunch. (Use the coupon code “wood”, without the quotes.)

While I don’t specialize in SEO I’ve been building web sites long enough that I have a good handle on this subject. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to learn a few new-to-me things in this ebook. In the many online tools she highlighted there are some I hadn’t heard of such as one by Microsoft which gauges commercial intent of a website or a search term. It shows for example that etsy.com has a .87 probability of commercial intent whereas unicef.com has a .98 probability of non-commercial intent. Or that “sexy boots” has a .97 probability of commercial intent. (That one’s up for debate, I think.) Another tool to check the age of a website, and so on.

What could be improved?

• Naomi’s already told me the graphics are soon to be re-done, so if you value style as much as substance you might want to buy later when the new version comes out. The current version is fine though.
• A beginner’s glossary of SEO (and/or an index) would be useful. She covers some really ninja-worthy stuff but in a few spots jumps past some basics on the way. For example she first mentions backlinks without explaining the term. Later there’s really awesome detail about what kind of backlinks you want, but at first mention this is probably confusing for a newbie. (Backlinks are the links coming into your site. Like that “web designer” link above? That is a keyword-rich link to my own portfolio I threw in so I could explain it just a bit.)*
• The section for bloggers has some advice I might handle differently or expand on. For instance there are plugins for WordPress that help with some of the issues and tasks mentioned. But I suppose that’s why there’s WordPress SEO Secrets for the really keen bloggers out there.

Conclusion

This part’s short & sweet because I’ve blabbed on enough and my honey is watching the Long Way Round and I’m kinda distracted.  So here you go:

• If you’re an SEO newbie, SEO School is a fabulous place to start. You’ll get an excellent grounding in the basics in a short time and walk away knowing some of the top tips to improving your rankings. Note, she doesn’t get into *how* to do some of the more technical site tweaks. She reckons either you built your site and know how, or you’ll ask your web guy/gal to do it for you.
• You should check out Naomi’s other goodies before you go to bed Thursday night. I’ve  got her Online Business School and you won’t be disappointed if you need an introduction in this area. There’s also a brand new e-book on how to launch your e-book. You’ll need to get the discount codes from her sale page.
• Ewan McGregor is one amazing dude.

*Tip: if you get stuck understanding a term, try using Google as a dictionary. Enter define: followed by your term and you’ll get a summary of definitions for the term. E.g., “define: backlinks” without the quotes.

photo credit: ODHD

Once upon a time I bought a shiny new MacBook Pro. I bought it because although I’ve been a PC user for over 20 years, I needed a laptop and also to be able to test how my websites look on a Mac.  I didn’t believe all the Mac-lover hype – in fact I find the whole love-in kind of obnoxious – but I do agree Macs are well-designed things of beauty, so I figured, why not.

That was almost 2 years ago, and I’m still not comfortable using the darn thing. I didn’t take a full plunge into adapting to it and so it only gets used quite occasionally for testing sites and travel. But even then – when I travel I don’t do the kind of work (neither type nor volume) I do at home. Kind of a chicken-or-egg thing, really. I never took the time to settle into the machine so it’s unproductive for me, hence I expect to be unproductive with it. I don’t go to internet cafes and do the modern mobile worker thing as much as I could if I slogged through the set up and studied the envious, mysterious ways of a Laptop Bedouin.

Now on top of all that, my PC really needs an upgrade and TLC. And I’m planning to move my home office, but don’t want to make my sweetheart pull any wiring, so that got me looking at wireless gadgets for the desktop… and well, I figure I really should have a proper go at adapting to this machine.

I spent time today arranging file structures, looking for software options, etc. I’m slowly getting better with the shortcuts and interface differences. I find “Finder” confusing sometimes; like how to move folders around to very disconnected spots (like the cut and paste in Windows). I seem to have lost one folder that displayed a “poof” and I’m not sure where it ended up. Probably something that’s uber-obvious to a Mac user… But this is the kind of thing I point out when people rave about how eeeaaasy Macs are vs. PCs. Macs take learning too, and if someone who’s very comfortable learning new software on-the-fly like myself can have trouble, that claim is too simplistic.

So if there’s any Mac-savvy readers among you, I’d love your input on software and tips.

Here’s what I have installed

• NeoOffice – just today, we’ll see how it goes
• CyberDuck
• TextWrangler – not sure how I like the integration with Cyberduck, maybe need to configure better or something
• Photoshop of course
• Parallels to run Windows

I also need some time tracking software. I’m used to TimeSlice for Windows. I’d like a desktop app so I can track time when I’m offline too. I downloaded TimePost and discovered it’s really ONLY meant for integration with online services like FreshBooks. I might go there, but until I do it’s kinda useless.  I installed Time Trek and it seemed confusing. Now I’m looking at Fanurio and OfficeTime. Any suggestions?

Hardware-wise, I need to attach the MacBook to a keyboard and monitor for when I’m at home. Or maybe just put it on some kind of riser that keeps it at a better angle for typing. I hate typing on this thing with the edge of the laptop pushing into my arms. Any tips on external monitors or docking stations or really, anything that might make a person love their Mac are most welcome

1. Multicolr photo search – choose a few colours, and it’ll show y a grid of photos containing those colours. Just discovered this via DFCKR. Beautiful!
2. Flickrvision – a map of the world constantly displaying recently posted photos from around the world, by David Troy. Troy’s Twittervision is also a very cool way to see the flotsam, jetsam and zeitgeist of the world.
3. PictoBrowser – Builds a little Flash gallery using your Flickr photos, generating HTML that you can paste into your website.
4. FlickrFolio – it’s not yet launched, but this looks like it will be a nice minimalist way for an artist to build a portfolio out of their Flickr photo sets.
5. Photosets for inspiration: from business cards to a neon graveyard. There is a fantastic array of interesting photo sets and groups on Flickr.

Bonus WordPress Plugins for you WP lovers:

1. FlickrRSS – I’ve used this to pull in photos on a few sites, like Joanne Probyn‘s home page, and it works quite well.
2. PictoBrowser plugin – haven’t tried it myself. Have you?
3. Photo Dropper – for easily finding creative commons-licensed photos to include in your posts.
4. I know there’s a ton more which I haven’t tried, so here’s Specky Boy’s 10 Amazing WordPress plugins for Flickr. Looks like his site is ful of other great round-ups too. Oh, the Internet, it just never ends!

• GrooveShark.com – Oh, my god I LOVE listening to this free music site while I work. The interface took me a little bit to figure out, but it works very well once you do. You can search for music, make your own playlists, etc.  When it’s playing you can turn on the autoplay feature and it will fill up the queue with similar songs. So very cool.
• Naomi at IttyBiz often has useful and colourful advice on marketing for small businesses. This week she’s begun a free series on how to make money online, starting with “Why we’re broke and how to fix it“.
• Speaking of making money online, I just discovered E-Junkie’s Fat Free Shopping Cart after trying out (and being impressed by) their cheap Shopping Cart solution. Oh, and if you’re signing up for e-junkie, search the web for discount codes; I found one for about 100 days free.
• Ma.gnolia online bookmarks – When I watch people trying to find links in their browser bookmarks, I wonder how I ever did without online bookmarks. I obsessively save things that I find in Ma.gnolia and love that I can search them later from anywhere. It’s like outsourcing part of your brain!
• Freecycling is a great way to get to know folks in your neighbourhood while recycling things. You can list items you don’t need and others come take them off of your hands. Or vice versa. Art and construction supplies, clothes, books, you name it, you’ll see it posted to the list sooner or later.
• Free eye-candy: Beautiful, wonderful Daily Dose of Imagery like the Yellow Buses and this Reader Behind Glass. And a couple of lovely slide shows from the Sydney Morning Herald – one on wisdom and another on sculpture by the sea.
• And just about every day I’m thankful for WordPress, the plugins people release for it, and other open source software that makes my life easier.
• UPDATE: I knew I was forgetting one! If you’re a webdesigner, you may find crossbrowsertesting.com *very* handy.

How about you? What’s on your list?

Take for instance Danny Barnes and his Banjo. Yes, banjo. But not just any banjo; the sample he gave us for the site sounds like some wild combination of hilbilly pickin’, traditional Japanese music, and sci-fi soundtrack.

Or Brian Lamb‘s Confessions of a Mashup Unartist which I would describe as an aural collage. (Um, Brian, you are an artist. Get over it. )

Both of these samples made me smile. Go, listen now, to these really inspiring people! Oh, and let me know what you think about the website. I’d love to hear it.

Once you enable the features in Labs, they may appear in your Settings tab, just to keep things interesting.

I also enabled the “Take a Break” feature that turns your email and chat off for 15 minutes and reminds you to go take a walk or something. I didn’t like this one so much. It disables the whole gmail screen, so you can’t access things you might want if you’re still working but just trying to avoid incoming messages. I’d like that feature since my mail is both taskmaster and a reference library of sorts. Not to worry though, close the tab, reopen, and you’re in business.

While I’m at it, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Better Gmail Firefox extension which I also find handy. If you have any Gmail tips, feel free to share in the comments.

Google’s realization that links were a kind of user generated “voting” on the best site for a topic (i.e. Page Rank) and could be used to deliver better search results was arguably the real beginning of the Web 2.0 revolution.

Web 2.0 is held to an unrealistically high standard. Instead, people have to view Web 2.0 and collective intelligence in its proper context. These aren’t magic bullets that solve every problem, and collective intelligence has its downside – collective stupidity, collective cupidity, and the like.

He briefly mentions his company’s Make Magazine and Maker Faire. Sounds like a really fun science fair for grown ups adults.

I created the contest banners for Darren (PutPlace is a client of Capulet Communications), so I thought I’d share it with y’all. You could have a lot of fun with your entry, dramatizing a story that happened to you or even making one up.

PutPlace is a recently launched service that solves several problems shared by many of us these days. It offers

• easy, secure, version-controlled back-ups
• easy sharing of content to multiple sites or devices e.g. photos to Flickr and Picasa
• access to your files from anywhere — since it backs up your computer, you can easily access your files from anywhere with an internet connection.

I haven’t tried it yet, but since that feature set really kicks my external hard-drive’s butt, and the beta service is free too… I think I will. Never hurts to have more than one backup just in case!