Revenant Design Blog

I had lunch today with Lee DeForest who I've worked with for twenty years.  We always have new tech discoveries to share that make our work easier or more effective or just more fun.  Here's some we've scrawled on napkins recently:

• Setting Up Online Donations for Nonprofits: Razoo.com, Wired For Change and Network for Good
• Calendars for installation on your site: WebCalendar and A-Cal
• Online File Backup System: Carbonite
• Drop-down menu software: Likno (I've used them for many years.  Soon they'll have software for tabs as well)
• Statistics for your site: Net Applications and StatCounter (free)
• Email encoding: West Bay Web
• Great site hosting: Bluehost (I've also used OLM, Ebound, Hostway, Yahoo, IPower, Verio, GoDaddy, and others and none compare, in my opinion, to the service and features of Bluehost.) 

Comment (0)

Through the years we've seen the problems clients can find themselves in when a domain name is not properly managed.  With so many other responsibilities it's easy to lose track of renewing a domain.  If you've changed your email address, you may not even be able to renew the domain.  There's also some security issues involved.  Not to paint a scary picture but it's worth having someone like Revenant Design manage your domain names.  For $35/year you'll have piece of mind.  

If you insist on managing your own domain name, then we highly recommend Directnic.com.  We've used them for years and they're great.  Their pricing is excellent along with their support.  We also recommend that you keep your domain name registration separate from your site hosting.  Many hosts now make it very easy to manage your domain names through them.  That's fine unless your host goes down.  Then, chances are, you can't access your domain name either to point it to another host.

If this is all too much to think about, just let us manage your domain names for you.  You'll still own them and be listed as the owner which gives you control over the domain.  You just won't have the hassle.   

Comment (0)

As multi-tasking becomes more and more pervasive we're learning the hard way of the downside of dividing our attention into smaller segments.  Two of the most thoughtful articles I've come across recently dealing with this were in today's Britannica Blog.  Be sure to watch the video at the end of the first article.

• Is Multitasking Evil? Or Are Most of Us Illiterate? by Howard Rheingold

• Multitasking, the Effects: A Culture Less Thoughtful, Less Productive, Less Creative by Maggie Jackson

   

   

Comment (0)

Comment (0)

If you have a wordpress.com site and would like to add email subscription capability, here's one free way to do that:

• Set up a Google Feedburner account.  If you already have a Gmail account you can set it up through that account.  Just go to  feedburner.google.com.  You'll see the familiar Gmail sign in box.
• List your RSS feed within your Feedburner account.
• Cut and paste the code from Feedburner into your Widgets section or somewhere within your wordpress.com blog.  This will create a link to a custom Feedburner subscription page. 
• As people sign up, your list will grow.  You can export the list for uses elesewhere. 

Comment (0)

To be helpful to those who are experiencing rough economic times, I'm offering a new service.  In a nutshell, I'll guide you through the best way to create your own site that you can manage and update.  With Joomla and Wordpress both offering excellent options, this strategy is more viable than ever.  But if you've delved into either of those services you may have become frustrated with achieving your goals.  You want your site to look professional and that should be possible with those technologies.  You may just need a little support.  So, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it a quick scenario of what you want to accomplish and I'll see if it's a fit for me and my schedule. 

Just to give you some idea of cost, you should be able to host your site and pay for a domain name for around $100/year.  That price should also cover an installation of either Joomla or Wordpress.  The lowest cost option would be to put your site on wordpress.com.  That's free and quite easy to use.  Much easier than wordpress.org which is what they call wordpress on another host.  There are many templates available for purchase and some decent free templates as well.  From there you can build out the site using your content, logo and images.  Templates vary in cost but probably plan on a $50 one time fee.  I would charge you an hourly fee that would probably total somewhere between $250 - $400. You'd just pay for as much support as you need.

Comment (0)

When I was in high school, a long time ago now, I was captivated by a number of bands but none more than Deep Purple with Ian Gillan's amazing vocals.  Here's a little something from Youtube that gives a sense of his voice.  Click here to view.

Comment (0)

Here's some new iTunes playlists that cover quite a wide spectrum. These links will open in iTunes on your computer.

• Bail Out Blues Tonic - A mix for those weary of the economic news and realities.  There's some lamenting pieces in here but mostly it's intended to be a balm for the bail out blues, a solace for the world weary.
• Class of 76 - Frankly, not that great of music, especially if you weren't there.  But if you were, these were some of the main pieces played at the Y dances by the local bands and the soundtrack for our high school and college years.
• Accent on Accent - I started collecting these songs into a playlist about a year ago when it occurred to me how someone's accent can become an element in a song like timbre or tone or range. 
• Sadieville - A mix for a trip we made to visit friends in Sadieville, Kentucky.

Comment (0)

Free used to mean lousy quality.  That's not necessarily the case anymore.  We've been referring clients to stockphoto.com for years as a high quality source for photography and graphics that is very affordable.  However, we've come across some free sources that you should definitely check out:

• Smashing Magazine - They also have wordpress themes and other cool stuff as well
• Wikimedia Commons - It takes some time but there's great pictures here
• FreeRangeStock - Some truly amazing photography
• Photogen - Also good but read the terms of use
• The Stock Exchange - Another great resource

Comment (0)

It's easy to let these rough economic times make us overly aware of what we don't have.  The reality is, for most of us, we're still doing far better than people around the world living in poverty.  Sometimes your perspective receives a necessary correction when you reach out to give to someone else.  That's our experience anyway.  Here's a list of some great groups to consider supporting.  A wonderful thing about the Internet is how it has impacted NGOs and charities.  Maybe you only give $25.  But there's strength in numbers.  You feel like that does make a difference because if a thousand other people do the same thing, it's suddenly $25,000.  It feels good to be part of this world.  

• Kiva - They are part of the microfinancing movement that really has made a difference in giving assistance to entrepreneurs in poor countries.  They have an incredibly high rate of loan repayment.  Then you get to loan the same money to someone else.  Their site gives information on each person and what their enterprise involves. 
• Heifer International - Here you give an animal or group of animals to people in need and they then pass the offspring on to others.  Literally the gift that keeps giving.  You can give as little as $20 for a flock of geese or buy a heifer for $500. 
• One Laptop per Child - To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

Comment (0)