If you are in business then you usually have enough or your plate without having to worry about working out every last detail on your accounts as well. Sure you could hire an accountant to keep on top of things but for many small businesses just starting out this can be a costly and confusing process in itself. And then of course there are the software giants trying to sell you their accounting software that practically requires a university degree just to print off an invoice!

For the first year of my online business I battled with Quickbooks accounting software but it just seemed to succeed in making everything even more complicated than it already was. When the time came to review all of my systems and assess what was really working for me, this was the first thing that I set out to replace.

I first came about FreeAgent Central just over a month ago whilst researching alternatives and whilst I couldn’t find anyone I knew that had used it, I read a few good reviews online and decided to bite the bullet on thier free month trial. The selling points for me, beyond it’s simplicity, were it’s integration with an iPhone app and the well known Basecamp contact management system which I was also trialling.

I’d love to say that it’s been a thrilling experience using FreeAgent but the truth is I don’t think that I will ever get excited about the accounting side of running a business. What I can say however is it has made invoicing clients and managing the books so much easier. I can manage my accounts on the go and send out invoices without pulling my hair out at the same time. To that extent; FreeAgent Central has made managing my accounts a breeze and I am now a happily paying user. My only regret is that I didn’t find it sooner so whilst you have the chance; take the FreeAgent Trial. You won’t regret it!

Disclosure Notice: As a current customer I am able to offer you a 10% discount when you sign up by clicking any of the links within this post and in turn I will also receive a 10% discount. It’s a win-win situation that leaves more money for the both of us to do the things we love. Thanks!

Claim Your Free Trial and 10% Discount Now!

With the recent release of WordPress 3.0 I’ve been creating some truly unique sites utilising the Thesis Theme in co-ordination with the latest features. Whilst custom post types and taxonomies in Thesis have been well documented elsewhere; one thing that caught me at the last hurdle was the ability to remove sidebars from custom posts whilst leaving them active for standard posts.

After brainstorming different methods and scouring blog and forum posts I finally pieced together a solution that worked. As I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere else, I figured that I would share just in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation.

function remove_custom_post_sidebars() {
if( get_post_type() == 'custom_post_name' ) {
?>
<style>
#sidebars { display: none; }
#content  { width:100%; }
</style>
<?php
}
add_filter('thesis_hook_before_html', 'remove_custom_post_sidebars');

Simply copy and paste the above into your custom_functions.php file and then edit the bit that says 'custom_post_name' to whatever your actual custom post type is called. Pretty simple once you know how

Recently I’ve been upgrading the suite of software and services that I use to run my business. As I go through this stage I plan to share my thoughts and opinions on the solutions that I work with on the chance that they might be able to help you. This WordPress Direct Review is the first in this series of reviews that I will be releasing, so please feel free to ask questions and leave comments so that I can not only share my experiences but also comment on the things that are important for you. If you’ve been using one of my solutions then I’d also love to hear how you make the best use of it within your business..

So without further ado…

My WordPress Direct Review

WordPress Direct is a service that has been marketed every year by the Thirty Day Challenge team to it’s participants. Essentially it acts as a dashboard to quickly install and easily manage multiple WordPress blogs in a single location.Further to this there are autoblogging options that allow you take user generated content from the web and share it through your website.

I first tried out this software at it’s official launch a couple of years back after it was recommended by Frank Kern, creator of the highly respected List Control internet marketing training course. Coupled with the word of Ed Dale I was excited to give the service a try.

At the time I was just starting to get into the world of blogs and blogging however I was skilled enough to install WordPress and a small selection of plugins. I initially started a free trial for my personal blog and was impressed at the variety of options that were available. Cut to the end of my trial and I decided to cancel deciding that I could manage my blog and install a few plugins myself. I still hold this to be true however I was missing out on the true power of WP Direct.

The truth is you can easily create a single blog and do everything that WordPress Direct offers free of charge BUT… When it comes to creating multiple WordPress blogs and managing them all through a simple interface I’ve not found anything that even comes close.
Getting The Most Out Of WordPress Direct

These days I manage multiple sites and blogs that operate in different markets. Even the ability to manage a small network of sites through a single dashboard is invaluable. The old saying goes that time equals money and that is never more true than when working online. Perhaps you, like myself, could install a new blogs, add some plugins and choose a theme with relative ease but what if you could install 10 or even 50 in the same amount of time?

Whilst WordPress Direct offers you it’s selection of free and premium plugins to improve on SEO, Advertising Management and simplify content creation. That really is just a small part of the offering, the real value in WordPress Direct is the ability to really scale up your niche marketing efforts without wasting a whole bunch of your time on the mundane tasks surrounding the set up of a new blog.

If you really can’t see the value in spending $2 or even $5 for each blog you create then I would question not only the purchase of WordPress Direct but also your business plans. On the other hand if you are ready to take your niche marketing empire to the next level whilst also saving time and money then WordPress Direct is the vehicle to take you there.

>-> Start Your WordPress Direct Trial Here <-<

Every day as a society we become more and more reliant on technology.  A few weeks ago I was reading a blog post where the author posed the question of what you would do if the Internet suddenly disappeared. The comments to this post were very telling with people talking about how they would lose friends, memories and even entire businesses! The truth is that so much of our lives are inter-weaved with this digital world that we don’t even need the unlikely disappearance of the Internet for disaster to strike…

What if you woke up one day to find that your entire computer was wiped clean? Every last bit of data gone with a virus, or maybe your laptop gets stolen or perhaps there is a fire that destroys your PC. There are so many ways that you can lose your data it is unreal and the implications can be huge. This isn’t some far out disaster scenario it happens to people every day of the week and you will find there are generally two types of people in this situation…

Typically there is the type of person who will get angry, upset and desperately try anything to get their data back before realising there is nothing they can do. It can take more time and money than you’d imagine to get back songs and software but it’s the things that you can never get back like those photos from a family holiday that will really hurt…

And then you have the type of person who takes it all in their stride and perhaps even sits back with a slight grin. Sure it’s still annoying but there is one major difference; this person kept backups!

Now if you are anything like me you have learned this lesson the hard way and are already keeping more backups than you can count on one hand. Unfortunately the majority of people don’t even think about backing things up until they find themselves in the scenario I described above and trust me when I say that it’s simply no fun! Take a moment to sit back and think about how much stuff you keep on your computer. If there is even one thing that you wouldn’t like to lose then you need to come up with a backup plan and fast.

Probably the quickest way to start right now if you’ve never backed up is by reading the short report from IT Arsenal called Backup Informer. I was given a review copy the other day from it’s author and it is not only informative but to the point and contains charts that make it all easy to understand even if you aren’t the most tech savvy person in the world.

As somebody that has had to struggle through the loss of thousands of files up in the past; I can say without a shadow of doubt that you need to back things up whether you read this report or not. The most important thing is that you take action straight away.  The solutions he suggest are all free or low cost and when you find yourself needing them their value is always priceless!

WordCamp UK is currently an annual “un-conference” held in various locations around Britain for users and developers of the WordPress software to get together.  Sessions are held throughout the day where individuals share their ideas & knowledge, network and generally socialise. I had heard of the event before and was even the mailing list at one point; however I managed to find out about this year’s event only a couple of weeks back. Despite the late notice I happened to have some time available and it was actually being hosted within walking distance of where I live so it would have been rude not to make an appearance.

As this was only the second un-conference style event that I had attended and the first related to WordPress I hadn’t a clue about what to expect when I turned up early on the first day. On arrival at the venue I nearly managed to walk past the entrance even though I live in the area but luckily I caught sight of a couple of people walking in. Note to organizers: more prominent posters outside may be helpful in future.

After registering I slapped on a name badge ready and headed into the lion’s den. I was initially shocked to find only a few people there at the start however I got chatting to a few people and an ape and in the following hour things started to pick up until I’d completely forgotten any thoughts about the amount of people that may turn up and the sessions kicked off.

The weekend began with a round of introductions followed by a talk from @mkjones on WordPress themes. I was impressed to see that even though it was clear that the aerage person in the room didn’t approve of the theme; Thesis still got a mention even though there has been some recent controversy surrounding it’s licensing. With over 27,000 Thesis customers, many of whom will be WordPress developers, I am definitely happy that the theme wasn’t simply ignored as open discussion is the only way that developers and businesses can make informed decisions relating to their business.

The day continued with many more interesting sessions including, what I believe to be, the first public demonstration of a forthcoming open source and fully GPL licensed framework called Wonderflux. This looked to be a very interesting project and as an attendee to this years WordCamp I’ve been given beta access so I will definitely be taking a look at this over the coming weeks and months.

The quality, or perhaps rather more accurately, the personal relevance of the sessions varied greatly but the one constant was the great opportunity to connect with talented individuals living and working in and around the WordPress world. There were some inspired discussions over lunch and in the halls where people’s passions shined through and rather than fade away, the depth of conversation picked up and evolved throughout the day and well into the evening.

Fac 251 was the choice of venue for the evening and whilst I’m sure it was something special for those who had travelled from out of town and were interested in the Manchester music scene of days gone by; I found the dance lights and loud music from 6.30pm a little incongruent with the rest of the event. Nothing that time, some good conversation and a few beers can’t fix but it was definitely not the smoothest transition from the conference rooms.

The second day of the event was where I felt I got the most practical information from the sessions with some great presentations on BuddyPress from @pgibbs. For those that are unaware BuddyPress is a social networking project that has recently been transitioned into a plugin that can be integrated with WordPress. Other notable sessions from the day were based around E-Commerce, Enterprise and an interesting analyisis on a recent project by WordPress co-founder, Mike Little, where shared his unique solutions for a highly tailored WordPress installation at imascientist.org.

Whilst the weekend as a whole was overwhelmingly positive and I met many people I have no doubt that I will be contacting again soon, it did end on a slightly bitter note. The last session was intended to generate feedback which could be used to improve next year’s event however Jane Wells stepped in with an amazingly bad timed and probably misrepresented announcement that we could not have another WordCamp UK.

The problem as I see it with the announcement was that the WordCamp UK brand has now been growing over three years and for the individuals in the room we had spent an amazing weekend associating and identifying with the #WordCampUK title through various channels. After a weekend of becoming completely immersed in the WordCamp community spirit Jane essentially stated that the brand could no longer be used and we would have to separate into rural entities. Whilst I am sure it wasn’t her intention it basically had the effect over the weekend of building an amazing community spirit and and then being told that you are not actually allowed to associate with these people. I want to reiterate, this was almost definitely not her intention, but beyond the actual logistics of local vs national events, I would hazard a guess that this is what has added the most fuel to the fire within this discussion.

So what is the future of WordCamp UK? Removing the semantics from the equation; I think that there wouldn’t be a single person in that room who would object to individual towns running thier own WordCamp events if they were able to sustain it and it would more than likely add a valuable assest to WordPress.org, WordPress.com and the communities that have evolved around them both.

My personal opinion is that I really do prefer the umbrella annual events that bring in people from across the country. There is already in fact a local group within Manchester where I live and whilst this event has made me more likely to attend it at some point the national nature of this event is what attracts me to it in the first place. It is a single gathering of some of the best minds that we have working on and around WordPress within this country.

National events mean that you get people coming from all of the subcultures that we have based around different areas of the UK and bringing their own unique qualities to the table. Of course this happens at smaller events but the fact remains that a national event amplifies the possibilities and throws you in with a group of people that you are less likely to make that first connection with on a day to day basis should you remain in your geographical area. By all means host local events if they are requested and in demand but don’t remove the collective UK community events as the value they offer is immense.

In closing I’d like to thank everyone who made this possible and I can say categorically that if the national events continue I will be back!

Yes, I know! Pretty much anything that can be said about the iPhone has already been said… In fact this is probably going to be one of my shortest posts yet. If you are anything like me and you’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of the new iPhone you were probably disappointed to hear about all the reception issues, I was too!

Nevertheless I decided to go ahead and upgrade anyway figuring that I usually use a case anyways. Got a call to go in to the store and pick up my new phone this morning. I’ve been playing around and I can confirm that, in my case at least, there are no reception troubles or yellow screens in sight. In fact I have even tried to replicate the problem (in the UK on O2) out of interest but I can’t get the bars to move down even in a medium reception area.

If you are thinking of getting an iPhone but these issues have stopped you so far, you might as well take the chance. Most companies have a cooling off period and with a bit of luck you won’t have any trouble with your unit. Now all I have to do is find a case that suits so I don’t add any of my own hardware issues

It’s been just over a week since I transitioned to a completely mobile solution and I’d like to say it’s been a success… Unfortunately that’s not entirely the case. You see over the weekend I moved to a new house which was flagged as an area of great reception for O2′s mobile broadband, the only problem being that it wasn’t. After creating my new Marketing Skins site at the weekend took pretty much three times as long as it should due to the connection I decided it was time to take advantage of the 14 day money back guarantee.

Three days later and I’ve switched over to Three’s Mobile Broadband offering. This has been a much better overall experience with great reception and data usage tracking actually built in to the connection manager. Without a doubt one of the most welcome features is the lack of third party compression scripts (such as is seen on O2) that were making my web development work that much harder.

Of course no matter which mobile broadband provider you use there will be certain areas with stronger coverage and others with none at all. That being said; when you add in the fact that Three don’t try and mess with your data stream I would definitely recommend their service over O2.

Until next time…

Disaster Strikes

Yesterday I woke up to find myself without an internet connection on my computer. I’m currently living in temporary accommodation for a week until I move into my new house and unfortunately after spending over an hour on the phone with tehir tech support team there wasn’t even the hint of a solution. Many people I’m sure could simply sit it out until the weekend without the internet however as I make my living online I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands and set up a backup solution that I could use not only this week but for the foreseeable future.

First Steps

Luckily my main method of communication with online co-workers and clients is still managed via email. This is something that I could easily access as soon as I found there was a problem via my iPhone. This allowed me to almost instantly set up a vacation responder alerting people sending emails of the problem and the fact that emails may take slightly longer. Following this a quick message was pinged from my iPhone to the social networks where I am occasionally contacted.With these initial damage limitation steps in place it was time to get to work.

VOIP Calls

It turns out that there is a promotion on the Skype app until September that means you don’t need a subscription to make VOIP calls via your mobile. This meant that I could use the credit already in my Skype account and make a few calls over the Skype app on my iPhone that would have traditionally been made over Skype on the PC.

Where Backup Plans Worked

After making some important calls I realised how thankful I was to have copies of many documents that I use regularly stored on my PC as well as “in the cloud”. The current set up I use for this is a folder on my computer where I store documents currently in use that are automatically copied on a daily basis to my cloud account with Amazon s3 via Jungle Disk.

Getting Back Online

Sure it was great that I had a lot of my work stored locally and could connect with people via my iPhone. Unfortunately with several deadlines approaching this would simply not be enough to get through the week. It was at this point I decided that it was time to register for mobile broadband; after all the 3G for my phone does me well most of the time so I would take a chance on mobile broadband with my current carrier O2.

Rather than lock myself in for an expensive contract despite all the promotions running like free laptops and cheaper pricing etc I opted for the pay as you go to provide more flexibility. Another benefit to this was the possibility of cutting my losses instantly if the mobile broadband completely failed my expectations.

The costs to get started with O2 Mobile Broadband were:

• £19.99 – 3G Mobile Broadband Dongle
• £15.00 – 3GB of Data or 1 Month Usage; Whichever comes first. (I’m assuming this will be data usage)

Upon setting up the device I was pleased to find that it was an extremely simple install. I had a quick read through the terms and whilst there seems to be no restrictive policies in place, the more privacy concerned amongst you would probably want to take notice that they do track everywhere you visit against an “anonnymous UID”. The pure fact that I’m adding this to my site via their dongle means that they have a pretty good idea of who I am regardless of their personal data stance.

I’ve now been using the dongle for just under a day and the truth is it has really saved me from what could have been an awful situation for both myself and my clients.

There are still a few downsides to using this connection:

- Data Usage

No matter how you try and spin it and mention the amount of emails that can be sent with 3GB the cold hard truth is that the average user will use a lot of bandwidth. When you factor in that I work online often uploading hundreds of files to my server at a time when creating a new site I am sure that I will more than exceed the usage before the month is up provided that I don’t use any other connections meaning the true cost will be much higher than £15 per month.

- Budgeting

Another problem that is potentially specific to O2 is the fact that their current connection manager doesn’t actually provide you with any way that I can see to view your data usage. If you click to view usage they simply show you a measurement in days and hours, which is fine for those that aren’t expecting to go over 3GB but for those of us who will likely go over that amount several times in a month the unpredictability of running out of usage could prove a real problem.

- Compression Woes

In a bid to ensure that the average customers don’t go over the 3GB limit  too frequently, I presume, O2 have implemented compression technology. This makes everything that viewed low quality unless you manually select each page to load at full resolution. Not only is this frustrating, especially when designing websites, but the feature to make select the uncompressed image to download doesn’t always seem to work, meaning I’m stuck with the option of trying to work with poor quality images or selecting an alternative.

Another problem due to the compression technology is that debugging the code of a live website has become impossible via the browser. I’ve yet to work out exactly what the script is doing but I find tons of code within the source code of live web pages that is being generated by my connection manager rather than the website itself. This is more than frustrating and I can’t seem to find a way to disable this feature.

Keeping The Music Alive

Another thing that struck me once I’d installed the mobile broadband is that I love to listen to music whilst I work. The amount of music that I actually have on my PC is minimal as I usually stream music via Spotify however with just 3GB data allowance I am sure Spotify would eat through my bandwidth in no time. Luckily as premium subscriber to Spotify I now run their app on my iPhone and have hooked it through my PC speakers turning my phone into a stereo system for half the day.

So What Do I Think 24 Hours Later?

Whether it’s an iPhone or another device it looks as though the smartphone has actually become an integral part of my set up. This will definitely mean that the battery life of these devices will become more and more important in the years to come.

In regards to the mobile broadband it certainly does the job and should be more than suitable for the average user or even writers etc. However for the more tech based web professional, the current technology is probably too limited to rely on for anything other than a last resort.

All things considered…
The situation has definitely been averted from a “disaster” even if the solution isn’t perfect.

It’s been a few weeks since my last post so I wanted to explain what I’ve been up to and why the blog posts have slowed down a bit… The truth is it’s been a very busy start to the summer on both a personal and professional level. Professionally of course there was the official launch of the services side of my business called Mixed Media Marketing. Then there was the widely anticipated launch of WordPress 3.0 which brought in a flurry of business both new and old which is showing no signs of slowing down. All the while I’ve been hard at work developing a skin for the Thesis Theme which is designed especially with Internet Marketing in mind.

At the same time as all of this I’ve also managed to visit two music festivals, including the Beach Break Live student music festival that I’d been promoting around Manchester. Made me look forward to L.E.D. festival at the end of summer even more and I may even try to catch Glastonbury next time after enjoying these so much.

Ellie Goulding Live at Beach Break

On that note, if you’re interested; my favourite live acts from these festivals were:

• Ellie Goulding -  Amazing voice live and seems very genuine underneath it all.
• Akala – New to me and I must admit I wasn’t sure at first but it’s stuck with me.
• James Yuill – Always great music to chill out with and has a new album.
• I Blame Coco – Would be great to get more of her music on Spotify!
• Plan B – Pasionate storytelling but not enough of his own material at the show.
• Kissy Sell Out – Good hard beat you can’t help dancing too.

Good times all round and I even managed to sneak in time for a woodland adventure course and quick surf weekend! Sounds like I’ve been busy right? Well I’m also moving to a new house just to complicate things even further! However once I’m finished with that I will be in one place for a little while so you can expect to see my Thesis Skin released and some more specials at Mixed Media Marketing…

Until Then,

Keep Smiling

What if you could have a professional install blogs for you without breaking the bank? That’s exactly the opportunity that I’m offering you through my newly launched website at www.MixedMediaMarketing.co.uk – Yeah, I’m English but this is a global offering because we’re digital now

Many people find that installing and setting up blogs is one of those tasks that always ends up taking far too long. I know how it is, when minutes turn into hours and you still don’t get your site looking how you want it to. If you’ve ever found yourself setting up a new blog or website and spending a ton of time messing around trying to get things “just right”. Or perhaps it’s just one of those things that you simply can’t do? Well I’m here to offer a solution…

I will personally install your site using both premium themes and plugins to create great looking WordPress blogs that could easily be sold for double or more. So for a limited time to celebrate the launch of this new site I will be selling these blogs with a 50% discount. Whilst these sites will soon be costing the general public $290 or more you can get yours at the special launch price of just £99 ($145).

Here’s exactly what you are getting today…

- WordPress Blog Installation & Configuration
- Premium “WooThemes” Theme Installed
- Basic & Premium SEO & Security Plugins
- Mobile Optimized Design
- 50 Social Bookmark Submissions
- 50 Directory Submissions

This means that not only will your get your new blog set up with a professional image, you also benefit from a range of premium plugins and SEO tweaks. When combined with the social bookmarking and directory links that will be submit for your new site your new blog should start ranking in the search engines quicker than ever before. Just click below to see more…

Visit Mixed Media Marketing to Claim Your Discounted Blog