Products We Use
photo credit: me and the sysop
We don’t intend to put up too many advertisements on this blog space. We will likely always have some ads up on the site, but we only place ads for items, products and services we like and use, as stated on our disclosure page.
We wanted a place to tell you why we use the products we advertise and why we recommend them to you. We shouldn’t have to tell you why we like Corvettes.
Basecamp Project Management
Basecamp is an online Project Management service from 37Signals that is used here as our main collaboration and project tool. We have tried other methods of collaborating on projects. With us all working from different places, we have found Basecamp to work best for us.
Most of the other products we tried were decent in concept, but lacked a bit in the execution in one area or another. Basecamp allows us to have several people working on projects within the company, with tasks assigned to each, integrated calendars that we have ported right to our personal calendars, and many other features that all work so well together, particularly for Digital Nomads who work from anywhere.
We haven’t found a better project management solution for our tasks. We especially use it to map out the scope of this blog with Basecamp. We use Basecamp all day, every day.
Highrise CRM
Another product from 37Signals, Highrise is a powerful contact management program. Like Basecamp, it is also internet-based, so you and your team members can access it from anywhere an internet connection is available.
You can manage contacts, tasks for contacts, leads and deals with any and all members of your team, no matter where you are based. Easily track who spoke with who and when, all logged automatically into each customer’s entry, so you’ll never lose track of the progress on a deal or sale.
There are Highrise plans available to handle whatever size operation you deal with — as many as 50,000 contacts.
HostGator Web Hosting
HostGator was something we actually won in a contest online (see entry below). The prize was a year of internet hosting for free. We did considerable research of all the available options, and overwhelmingly decided that HostGator would be our choice for internet host. We have not had any out of the ordinary issues crop up so far.
We did have one problem with them when I was initially setting up our blog here. It was a setting I needed changed on the server side that I could not do on my own. I sent in a support ticket at just after midnight, and prepared to log off to be finished for the night. I wasn’t expecting a response until the next day at the earliest. I was pleasantly surprised by the email letting me know that HostGator support had received my claim, made the setting change and tested the function to be sure it was working as I needed it to.
The email came timestamped six minutes after I sent my claim. That is customer service I am not used to experiencing these days!
If you are looking to set up a hosted blog or website, we can tell you that out of the wide selection of services out there, we chose HostGator.
WebHostingSearch.com
While randomly searching the internet one day, I saw a contest giving away a free year of internet hosting on Jason Sadler’s “I Wear Your Shirt” blog. He had a marketing idea that he would sell days that companies could purchase throughout the calendar year. On the purchased day, he would wear that company’s shirt, promoting on his blog with a video and photographs, wherever he happened to be. As silly an idea as people thought of it, he ended up selling out all days with no problem and is well into his second year of this business.
The contest I saw that day required leaving a comment on the blog post. That 5-6 seconds of my life resulted in being named one of the winners. I was put in touch with Preeti at Webhostingsearch.com, who was very helpful in getting me through the process of picking what web host I wanted to use, and getting it paid for the year. I had all kinds of detailed questions that took up far too much of her time, but she helped me make the right choice and got me set up in no time.
If you buy anything from any of them, we get nothing further from them. We’re just happy with their services!
Thesis Theme for WordPress
WordPress is by far the best blogging platform to use. It is free to use, and is the most flexible software out there for blogging. With that flexibility can come a bit of overwhelm. There are many options and features that can be added and tweaked with WordPress. The basics all start with a look or theme. Getting your blog to look it’s best without looking like every other website out there can be tough if you are not used to designing WordPress blogs. Optimizing your site for search engines to find your blog and so many other design considerations lead a lot of people to just give up on it.
Thesis is a premium theme used by thousands of bloggers out there. Thesis optimizes your site’s design and includes some major enhancements to your search engine optimization (SEO). The flexibility to do amazing things with your blog is still there, Thesis just adds to it and simplifies many of the processes. While many people leave Thesis basically unchanged, design-wise (you will spot the stock Thesis sites all over the place once you get familiar with them), there are many sites that surprise even the creator of the theme.
The options really are limitless, and Thesis makes it much simpler than coding a site design on your own.
Our Web Design
Another contest I won was for a basic site redesign. I had already purchased the Thesis theme, and had an idea for what I wanted the layout to look like. Yet another simple “leave a comment” contest won me a redesign. Danny Cooper was able to make the changes I wanted, as he was familiar with working with Thesis, and had my redesign done quick.
This isn’t really an advertisement for his design services, as Danny is busy experimenting with Micro Niche Finder and working on other projects he has coming soon.
Header Artwork
Another thing we have changed since bringing the blog online in our initial testing and soft launch was our header logo design. Of course if you’ve read this far down the page, you know we also won a new design in another simple giveaway. I spent a couple of days working with David Alexander of Quixotic Media. He has his artist draw up a few different logos to try to give us what we were looking to project until we found the one we liked. What we came up with is exactly what I would have made if I could draw to save my life.
I get nothing more from him if you hire him, but can whole-heartedly recommend their designs. Check out some of their other work on their portfolio page.
Amazon
I love to read. I read up to about 3 books a week. When the subject is within the scope of this space, I will put up book reviews here. Any books or other items from Amazon that we recommend will show up on these pages.
We aren’t going to post random ads for things we don’t like or use ourselves, so anything in the book store will be something we can tell you all about. If you do choose to buy something through an Amazon link, you will pay the same price, but we will get a few nickels kicked over to us to help pay for our next book purchase.
I am going to be getting digital versions from now on, as I can’t keep gathering as many books as I do. This is an example of a text link for the iPod Touch: Apple iPod touch
If you have any questions about any of the products or services listed here, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help you figure out if something is right for your situation.
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