What web design software do you use for creating websites? That was the question Dustin Hartzler posed for Episode 95 of the Your Website Engineer Podcast. He asked several web designers and developers what software they used, such as their OS, IDE or code editor, FTP client, graphics editor, browser, and productivity tools. The podcast […]
PHP for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide by Larry Ullman My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book introduces PHP through well-explained, realistic examples. After exploring the basic concepts and syntax of PHP, it shows how to work with files and databases. It’s not as straightforward as Head First PHP & MySQL, but it definitely […]
BackWPup is a free WordPress plugin that automatically backs up your WordPress database and files. You can back up to your web server, or send your backups offsite (highly recommended). I back my sites up to SugarSync, but you can also back up to Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Rackspace Cloud, and other services. […]
The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself by John Jantsch My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is one of the best marketing books I’ve read! Jantsch, clearly a master marketer, shows how to guide prospects to you. How? Educate, and you won’t need to sell. He tells how to build a referral […]
Step-by-step instructions to copy and migrate a WordPress site with the free Duplicator plugin.
Design Is a Job by Mike Monteiro My rating: 5 of 5 stars This succinct book is densely packed with sage business advice for designers (especially web designers). Monteiro rightly calls it “a guide to making a living as a designer”, and shows that he has a lot of experience in the industry. It’s quite […]
I've used Wave Accounting for over a year, and I highly recommend it for freelancers and small businesses. It's like Mint, except for business accounting rather than personal finance. You connect your bank accounts, and Wave automatically imports income and expenses. You can also manually enter transactions. Like Mint, Wave Accounting is free to use […]
The Complete Idiot's Guide to WordPress by Susan Gunelius My rating: 3 of 5 stars An easily understood, very basic WordPress guide for beginning users. It's focused on blogging rather than building traditional websites. The first half covers WordPress.com, and the rest covers WordPress.org. The Attracting an Audience section has valuable chapters on SEO, feeds, […]
These are excellent tutorials and resources for learning the WordPress Admin Area (AKA Administration Screens). I first published these resources for my WordCamp Grand Rapids presentation The WordPress Admin Area: A Guided Tour. Free Text & Screenshot Guides Free Video Tutorials Paid Video Tutorials Paid Books Need Help with WordPress? The resources above will put you on […]
I had the awesome opportunity to be featured in two episodes of This Week in Web Design, one of my favorite web design shows. I didn't personally appear in episode 32, but I did in episode 33. In Episode 32: How do I plan a website redesign?, they analyzed my/OptimWise's attributes and my clients' attributes, and […]
You can use the WordPress editor in Visual or HTML mode. I often use the HTML mode for HTML or JavaScript snippets from other websites, such as when embedding widgets or video clips. Everything works fine until you switch the editor back to Visual mode and save the post or page; then WordPress often garbles […]
The question of how to price services is age-old. Web designers and developers generally charge by the project or by the hour, or use some combination of the two. I believe that whenever possible, you should charge based on the value you deliver to your clients. That value is based more on your skills, experience, […]
