As it’s my first Mac, I need to learn a new OS, but that can only be a good thing. Previously, testing websites on anything other than Windows platforms wasn’t an option for me. While the differences have been fairly minimal up until now, they were differences all the same, and it’s good to at least be aware of them. Having an OS X machine to hand makes that possible.

So, what new process(es)?

Well, with my old Dell laptop, despite its supposed power, I really struggled to get work done on it. I treated it like a proper computer and added many of the applications and software I would on my main PC. It couldn’t handle that and became slow and unresponsive. It overheated and would shut itself down on occasions (it did this from the very start) and approximately 1 in 10 times that I started it up, it wouldn’t make it to the login screen, which meant it needed a forced shutdown and would then do a full blown crash recovery and restore, losing lots of my settings. Pain in the arse.

The MacBook Air is unbelievably quick. We’re talking around a 10 second startup and a 3 second shutdown. It makes you want to pull it out whenever you get a spare few minutes to work. This time I’ve loaded only the apps and software I really need. I want to keep it lightweight and flexible.

Slightly smaller than a pad of A4 paper

It simply isn’t possible to replicate my home setup on a laptop. So why strive for that? It’s a mobile device. As long as it can do the bare bones of my work in as simple, quick and effective way as possible, it’s fulfilling its purpose.

So this is my setup so far (I can’t promise it won’t change/grow though):

• Photoshop – for image work. It’s a necessity. I looked at Pixelmator briefly, but it’s missing some critical features and I’ve always used Photoshop. No reason to change if the laptop can handle it.
• Coda – for web dev work. I’m still considering swapping for Dreamweaver, but I feel I should take the opportunity to get to know more software. I’ve yet to really get into it but it looks nice and simple to use.
• Dropbox – helps with the portability ideal, allowing me to sync files across my laptop and main working computer. The plan is to move everything to the cloud over time, allowing me complete freedom in where and when I choose to work.
• Firefox – I hear and read lots of talk of designers and developers switching to Chrome for various reasons. I can’t do it. Firefox is too flexible. It’s too customiseable. And we’ve been going together for years.

So while the majority of the software I’ve installed is the same as I used on my old laptop, the MacBook just makes it feel easier to use. It’s way more responsive and it has completely removed all frustrations I had previously with working away from my main desktop. Mobility and economy are absolutely key to getting work done when you’re out and about and the MacBook Air has it all tied down.

Incredibly thin

The positives of switching to this machine continue to mount up. Here are some off the top of my head:

Positives

• It forces me to learn another OS. This is good for the CV but it’s also useful in general to have a wider knowledge of what’s available to you
• It allows me the ultimate setup for cross-browser and cross-OS testing on websites. Windows on one maching, OS X on the other
• It opens up a world of new apps that are only available to OS X users
• It’s incredibly quick. Startups and shutdowns are almost enjoyable now!
• It’s incredibly beautiful. It’s just nice to look at
• Despite the ageing Intel Core 2 Duo processor, it handles multiple applications with ease – no lag and no freezing so far
• It’s super light and super slim
• The battery life is very good (around 5 hours) and easy to manage using the preferences system
• The trackpad is excellent. The multi-touch feature forces it to be a relevant point here. Scrolling has never been so easy or natural.

Negatives

• It’s bloody expensive.

Conclusion

Overall, so far, it’s been refreshing and rewarding to use not just a new, quicker laptop, but to also experience OS X for the first time. It’ll take some getting used to and learning the shortcuts will definitely require some serious cognitive priming – there are four fairly similar (from what I can gather) operator buttons in a line in the bottom left corner of the keyboard, all used in conjunction with the rest of the keys to perform innumerate tasks.

Bit thicker than a pencil

But this thing is genuinely satisfying to use. Which does matter. If I didn’t already enjoy my work, this little Air should breathe new life into it.

When I mention to people in passing that I’m trying to manage a lot more of my business ‘in the cloud’, most people offer up a rather blank expression. Followed by one that says “I know I don’t need to know about this, but I’m guessing I’m about to hear about it anyway”.

The first and most obvious question that comes to people’s mind is ‘What is the cloud?”. So…

What is the cloud?

There are lots of explanations on the web that you could look up for a definition or to get a historical breakdown of how cloud computing came about. Forget that. You’ll get bogged down. Simply put, the cloud is space on the internet to put your stuff. Anywhere that you upload files normally stored on your home (or any single) computer/device to somewhere on the internet, that you could later access using another entirely different computer/device over the internet….is cloud computing. You already use it with Facebook and Youtube. The complexity with which you access and manipulate your stuff is the only thing that makes it any more complicated.

Just think of it as a big space up there in the ether where you can put things you want to be able to access from anywhere in the world using just a browser.

Why do we need it?

I can’t vouch for everyone because everyone has different and varying needs when it comes to managing their files and documents. But there are a number of circumstances when having access to cloud storage would be extremely helpful.

Mobility

The primary reason for using it is mobility. If all of your files are centralised up there in the cloud, as long as you can get to a computer/mobile device with a browser and internet access, your physical location is irrelevant. Which means no need for remembering to transfer everything to a USB stick, no more emailing yourself files from home so you can pick them up in your email at work, no more “Ah crap, it’s on my home computer” moments. It makes you prepared and it makes you flexible.

Security

Storing files with reputable cloud storage services is arguably more secure than keeping them on your home computer or USB stick. You can delete files from your computer and they are gone forever. You can lose a USB stick and they are gone forever. Because cloud storage services are handling other people’s (sometimes extremely important/sensitive) data, they are very hot on security and use high end data encryption making it almost impossible for other people to find and get access to your files. Now ask yourself what could happen if someone sat down at your computer and guessed your girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s/pet’s name to log in. Ask yourself what could happen if you lost your USB stick or it broke. Scary isn’t it.

Nearly all cloud storage services allow you to recover deleted or modified versions of your files. So even if you accidentally deleted one, you can get it back.

Using the same practice as above, you can also keep track of changes made to your documents and roll them back if you were happier with previous versions. While this is not considered full-on, business-level version control, it certainly gives you enough to manage your files safely and securely. More so than your home computer at least.

Synchronicity

One of the coolest features of services like Dropbox and Box.net is the sync feature. What this means is that, with Dropbox as an example, if you open up a file you have stored on their server and edit it, once you save and close the file it gets synced across all computers and devices where you have Dropbox installed. So the next time you open up the file from another location, it will be the most up to date version with all your latest changes. All you need to do is save and close – like you would do anyway :D

Service/product improvement

One of the limitations with using software stored on your computer (like Microsoft Office for example) is that you’re tied into it. Those products won’t improve until a big update is pushed. Quite often people run into problems when running those updates as their computer or OS has changed in ways that can affect the upgrade process.

If you use a cloud-based service like Google Docs (a direct alternative to MS Office), updates are rolled out quicker, more frequently and usually with little or no interruption to service.

Companies like Google recognise the importance of the transition from static file management to something entirely more helpful and flexible and therefore make services like Google Docs compatible with MS Office. What this means is that any document you created with an MS product – like Word docs and Excel spreadsheets, can be opened, modified and saved in Google Docs, totally seamlessly. Also, files created with newer versions of MS Office (with extensions like .docx and .xlsx) won’t even open on some computers with earlier versions of the same software (MS Office 2003 for instance) without the user downloading an addon. How mental is that?

Google Docs has no such limitations, allowing you to do what you like with any versions of MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc docs, from any computer, anywhere. Sweet.

Levelling the playing field

Cloud computing can really level the playing field for smaller companies and startups. Those companies can leverage the power, technology and wealth of much larger companies by renting storage space, functionality or just about any kind of service now.

Renting near unlimited amounts of disk space in the cloud is just one example of the benefits of cloud computing, but what else can you do with cloud computing?

You’re already using it manage your social profiles on sites like Facebook and Twitter. But you can also rent your own help desk and integrate that into your company website. You can make real-time video and audio calls over Skype to anybody who also has Skype installed for free. You can manage your entire business’ financial accounts and invoicing on services like Harvest and Freshbooks. You can manage any type of project with multiple users on applications like Basecamp, Lighthouse and Active Collab. If you’re a web developer, you can even manage your entire development environment online through services like Coderun and Kodingen. The possibilities are endless.

How to get it

There are plenty of cloud storage services on offer. Some are free and some require a (usually small) monthly fee.

Free cloud storage space:

• Dropbox (up to 2GB, up to 8GB if you refer friends)
• Box.net (up to 5GB)
• Google Docs (up to 1GB)
• Windows Live SkyDrive (up to 25GB)
• Memopal (up to 3GB)
• ZumoDrive (up to 1GB)

Paid cloud storage space:

• Dropbox
• Box.net
• Amazon S3
• ZumoDrive

As you can see, most services offer a free trial or small amount of free storage to entice you to upgrade to their premium packages. This is cool because you can then sign up for a free trial and play around with it to see if you like it enough to upgrade to a paid service. Or you could stick with the free version if you don’t need a lot of storage space.

Basically

This is the future not just of the way we work, but eventually the way we live. More and more aspects of life in general are being pushed online through web and mobile apps, and services are cropping up all over the place to cater for things you didn’t even know you needed or were possible. As it becomes easier and quicker to get a net connection from almost anywhere, the barriers to entry of becoming cloud-focused get smaller and smaller. It’s not something to be afraid of. It’s an endless supply of opportunity and it’s something to be embraced. The quicker we get on board with it, the more chance we have of staying flexible and agile in our working and living arrangements – whatever they may be.

Check out these posts for further reading on cloud computing and its uses:

• 50 Great Web Alternatives to Desktop Software
• Salesforce.com: What is Cloud Computing?
• How Cloud Computing Can Help A Small Business Get Out of the Recession

An admin site is something I’ve needed for a long time. It had to work the way I expected, the way I wanted and the way that made sense to me. And I thought I’d make use of all these new WordPress features while I was at it. Two birds, one stone.

The aim: to be able to add clients and projects as elements in their own right

What for?

New Clients and Projects custom post types

Previously you would need to add a ‘post’ that had been coded up to function how you wanted. A bit of hackery was involved to make them appear as something very customised and display them where you wanted, especially if you were running a blog as well (WordPress blogs use posts as the default display method)

What did I do?

Set up a new custom post type for clients. With a few lines of code in the functions.php file it’s pretty easy to do this.

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function wpt_client_posttype() {
    register_post_type( 'clients',
        array(
            'labels' => array(
                'name' => __( 'Clients' ),
                'singular_name' => __( 'Client' ),
                'add_new' => __( 'Add New Client' ),
                'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Client' ),
                'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Client' ),
                'new_item' => __( 'Add New Client' ),
                'view_item' => __( 'View Client' ),
                'search_items' => __( 'Search Client' ),
                'not_found' => __( 'No clients found' ),
                'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No clients found in trash' )
            ),
            'public' => true,
            'supports' => array( 'title', 'editor', 'thumbnail', 'comments', 'custom-fields' ),
            'capability_type' => 'post',
            'rewrite' => array("slug" => "clients"), // Permalinks format
            'menu_position' => 5,
            'register_meta_box_cb' => 'add_clients_metaboxes'
        )
    );
}
 
add_action( 'init', 'wpt_client_posttype' );

Now you’ll have a new section in the left nav of you WordPress admin where you can view clients and add new ones. How satisfying is that! All you need to do now is create a new single-clients.php and customise the hell out of it until you get the kind of page you’re looking for.

Custom post types in-depth: Six Revisions: WordPress Custom Post Types Guide | Justin Tadlock: Custom post types in WordPress

Bonus: Use this Custom Post Type UI plugin to speed up adding and editing custom post types.

The aim: add new ways of filtering content through custom taxonomies

What for?

Multiple new taxonomies for Clients

In the same way categories and tags are ways of grouping related content, taxonomies are your opportunity to make a new kind of group. Using taxonomies I would be able to add groupings such as location, package type, company type etc etc. I would then be able to associate each client to each of these.

What did I do?

Instead of setting up tonnes of categories and tags which all have inherently the same value, I registered some new taxonomies in the functions.php file. To add a taxonomy use the following code:

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add_action( 'init', 'create_company_type' );
function create_company_type() {
 $labels = array(
    'name' => _x( 'Company Type', 'taxonomy general name' ),
    'singular_name' => _x( 'Company Type', 'taxonomy singular name' ),
    'search_items' =>  __( 'Search Company Types' ),
    'all_items' => __( 'All Company Types' ),
    'parent_item' => __( 'Parent Company Type' ),
    'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Company Type:' ),
    'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Company Type' ),
    'update_item' => __( 'Update Company Type' ),
    'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Company Type' ),
    'new_item_name' => __( 'New Company Type Name' ),
  ); 	
 
  register_taxonomy('company_type','clients',array(
    'hierarchical' => true,
    'labels' => $labels
  ));
}

You’ve just registered a new taxonomy to your previous custom post type of clients. That means you can now enter as many different types of company as you want through the WordPress admin, as you would with regular categories, and then select which one your client belongs to. Imagine how far you can take this…

Custom taxonomies in-depth: Six Revisions: A Guide to WordPress Custom Taxonomy | Justin Tadlock: Post types and taxonomies: Linking terms to a specific post and Custom taxonomies in WordPress 2.8

Bonus: Use the same Custom Post Type UI as above to create new taxonomies and link them to specific post types.

The aim: add truly custom meta boxes that display only when adding or editing clients

What for?

I say ‘truly’ because by default WordPress offers a custom fields box which you can manipulate to do anything with. But if you want to add custom fields that have their own title and input field, and that are only displayed when adding a new client, you have to be a bit more clever. For example, if I wanted to add a website address for a client – the website would not need to be a taxonomy or category in itself because I would never sort clients by website address. So they would go in as flat data using a custom meta box.

What did I do?

Use the functions.php file to add a bunch of meta boxes to the custom post type of ‘clients’. The code is as follows:

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// Add the Clients Meta Boxes
 
function add_events_metaboxes() {
    add_meta_box('wpt_website_address', 'Website Address', 'wpt_website_address', 'clients', 'side', 'default');
}

This will add a nice and neat little box to the side of your main content area where you can enter a website address for the client.

Custom meta boxes for client info

Custom meta boxes in-depth: Shiba Shake: Add a Standard WordPress Meta-Box | Farinspace: How to Create A Custom WordPress Meta Box Instead of Using WordPress Custom Fields

Bonus: Use the Verve Meta Boxes plugin to add all sorts of new meta boxes.

The (nearly) finished product

Mixing all of these features together and with some customised single.php and taxonomy.php templates, this is what I ended up with. It’s not finished (probably won’t ever be as I continue to add functionality/improvements) and I’m still uploading content, but at least I now have a platform I’m comfortable with and that does the majority of what I need.

Client page using native WordPress featured images

Single client page

Client details

Projects page sorted by progress and showing project type (taxonomy)

Single project page showing filterable taxonomies such as server numbers, domain renewal dates and documentation provided

File repository for templates and re-usable docs (looking a bit bare at the moment)

Integrated Google calendars for schedules page and knowledgebase page

It was actually really enjoyable to build for many reasons. Partly, because my primary browser is Firefox, so I didn’t need to concern myself with Internet Explorer and cross-browser compatibility (although it does render pretty neatly outside of FF). But also, manipulating your own data rather than a clients’ for a change is actually very satisfying because you know exactly how it should work and be used. The only restraints are ones you decide to impose on yourself.

This is nowhere near finished and I intend to work on it over time to build up to a more robust and complete system.

Conclusion

This is obviously not a comprehensive post on how to combine custom post types, taxonomies and meta boxes. More an indication of how they could be used to compile something very customised.

While the introduction of these new features certainly improves the WordPress system as a whole, the features are not entirely complete and small bugs do exist. Though I have no doubt they will all be squished over time and hopefully some nice UI built into the core to add and manage them all. Still, these features alone have taken WordPress from awesome blogging platform/potential CMS to fully-fledged CMS as far as I’m concerned. Good work guys.

The options

Up until now I’ve tried various things. None quite lasted the distance for one reason or another.

Excel

I started out using Excel spreadsheets to collect and order information. It made sense. Tabular data, easy to read, easy to access. The problem with this, however, is that it was all static information. It was also all in one place. Meaning if I ever wanted to update it when I was somewhere other than home, I needed to have copied an up to date version to a USB stick, or emailed myself the file. Awkward.

I’ve never been a fan of Excel either. It’s just too static. So I quickly ran out of patience with it and soon found myself dumping info into Textpad files and leaving them close to hand on my desktop. Not exactly efficient. Next, I began looking for options online.

Evernote

Evernote is a phenomenally handy service. And although it’s primarily used for bookmarking, it’s one of those services that is so flexible it could be used for just about anything. It can be used as a bookmarking tool, file backup, moodboard, contacts manager and many other things. But…it didn’t have exactly what I wanted. I still intend to use Evernote as I think it’ll be particularly good for managing moodboards. But it’s not the CRM or project manager I’m looking for.

Basecamp

Basecamp (by 37 Signals) was an obvious choice. It seems to be the preferred option for thousands of web designers and agencies. So I set myself up with a trial and got to playing with it. It is very good. But it’s also $49 a month, and is primarily focused on managing projects. I wasn’t keen on every aspect of it’s functionality and wanted more control over the layout. I kept thinking ‘it could do with an input field for this and an option for that….’. I wanted something that could handle more than just projects. It needed to manage my clients, contacts, template files and a knowledgebase where I could dump info as well. Sure, if I was happy to shell out the $49 a month for Basecamp and $24 a month for Highrise (37 Signals’ contacts manager) I’m certain they would’ve done what I wanted and more. But I wasn’t.

The solution

I love web apps. I love web tools. There are so many extremely helpful things out there. But nobody can know how I work better than me. Which left me with one option – build myself an admin.

Naturally I turned to WordPress as it’s the tool I’m most comfortable with. But more than that, it has plenty of built-in functionality that I could use:

• built in image and file uploader – would be perfect for the file repository and knowledgebase areas of the admin
• content is easily categorised and ordered by date by default
• with the introduction of WordPress 3.0, custom post types offer the abilty to add different kinds of ‘post’ or content, making it infinitely flexible
• custom meta boxes can be used in conjunction with custom post types to enter more varied info
• custom taxonomies can be used to easily organise data and make it simple to filter my clients or projects, for example, by website package type

Conclusion

Customisation is the key to productivity for me. Unless it works the way I want, more likely than not I’ll stop using it. Everybody works slightly differently. Everybody thinks slightly differently. So for me personally, the only way to get something truly usable that I won’t quit on after a month or so is to build my own system. So that’s what I did.

In my next post I’ll go into a little more depth of how I used some of WordPress’ newest and most impressive features to create a system to keep me organised.

Worst Case Scenario

I get more than enough emails from people who have been ripped off by supposed web designers. They tend to go something like this:

• Clients asks ‘web designer’ for a website
• web designer agrees
• client pays designer up front
• web designer has a half arsed go at one page
• client is not happy and asks for a re-design or a refund
• ‘Web designer’ has already disappeared off the face of the earth with the money

This is about as bad as it can get. The client is majorly pissed off (understandably) and is left with nothing, or at most, something completely unusable, and the so-called designer has sullied the name of web design once again. This is fairly typical of the worst kind of relationship a client can have with a designer. The one that doesn’t exist. There is no understanding, no agreement and probably no contract involved.

Poor relationships between client and designer don’t always start off like this though. Sometimes they can deteriorate over time. The trouble usually arises when both parties fall out of sync with each other. This can happen for many reasons:

• The client can outgrow the web design company, asking for things that smaller web companies don’t have the capacity for
• The web designer can outgrow the client, wanting to move on to ‘bigger and better’ things and feel as though the client is holding them back
• The web designer can become irritated by the client’s continued requests
• The client can become irritated by the designer’s reluctance to carry out continued requests

So how can you avoid these situations?

Choose your web designer carefully

Look for a proven track record and look for evidence of previous work. Then go a step further and check out the work in detail. Do the websites look real? Are they for real companies? Do they function how you would expect them to? Check the designer’s own site for testimonials. Good designers have good reputations. Good reputations result in glowing references. Have you heard of them before? And most importantly, are they a genuine web designer? If they don’t have their own website, I’d be extremely cautious.

Don’t skimp on it

I don’t know what it is about web design but everybody seems to think the idea is to get it as cheap as possible. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable paying a reputable company a little bit more money to ensure a smooth and successful website build, than risk it all on somebody you know nothing about, with the potential for it all to go wrong. I know I would. Unfortunately, everybody seems to know their cousin’s best friend’s one-time GCSE Art student who knows how to work wonders with MS Paint and a free website template. And he can always do it for about £60 or a set of HMV vouchers. Sometimes, you really do get what what you pay for.

Get past the thinking that it’s about how much money you can save and still get a site out of it. Get into the mindset that as long as you’ve done your research, paying that little bit extra will save you a tonne of hassle and money in the future.

Don’t play the big boss man

Something every client needs to come to terms with now, before they are forced to come to terms with it in the future is that your web designer is not your employee. Yes, they may carry out work for you and yes, you may pay them for their time and work. But ultimately, what they are doing is something you are not capable of or do not have the time to do yourself. They are providing a service and they are helping you out. It only takes one argument, one disagreement or one big mistake, and if your designer decides to drop you as a client, you’re left in the awkward position of having a website and no web designer. Then it’s only a matter of time before things become unstuck.

Playing the big boss man will not get you very far and the “I’ll just fire them and hire someone else” attitude is rarely the right answer either. Websites don’t all run off the same code or use the same systems, so if you’ve already had work done, there is likely to be a legacy trail of work and systems in place to support your site. This makes it very difficult to pick up and move elsewhere. At least not without cost. Sometimes it is plain impossible. That leaves you with one option – bag it and tag it and look for someone else to build you a new website. Lots of hassle. Lots of outlay.

Work together

Your web designer should be more akin to your business partner than your employee. Web designers, as a general rule, are busy, busy people. They have very long to-do lists. How they prioritise those lists can depend on a lot of things. But one thing is certain, the worse the relationship with a client, the lower down the list that client’s requests will fall, no matter how professional the designer may be. Nobody likes to work with or for annoying people and nobody likes to work on things that they consider unreasonable or unnecessary. I’m not saying everyone else doesn’t have a lot to do, but you stand a far better chance of getting your requests completed if you’re on good terms with your designer than if you aren’t. It’s the same in any industry. Writing polite emails and having some patience doesn’t cost you anything but a bit of thought. But it will go a long way to strengthening your relationship with your designer. If you’re both happy and pulling in the right direction, things will run a whole lot smoother.

Be smart

Use contracts. And when presented with contracts or proposals – read them. Properly. With regards to payment, here at WHD we take a 30% deposit up front (before any work commences) and the rest on completion of the website before it goes live. We provide the contract in both paper and digital copies so our clients have every opportunity to understand how we work. Working this way has many benefits.

• The client feels more comfortable not parting with all their cash in one go
• The web designer has some incentive to finish the project on time and to a good standard
• The web designer has some insurance against the time he/she puts into the beginning of the project, be it creating mockups, wireframes, storyboards etc
• There is no air of mystery or potential deceit
• Both parties understand and accept the situation. Everybody is happy.

We also try our very best to keep up with the client if they are growing rapidly, or to support them if they are finding it hard going. We answer emails as quickly as possible and keep them updated with all work. They in turn listen to us and value our opinion on subjects that fall within our domain. A mutual respect is pivotal to a smooth working relationship.

Conclusion

My advice? Just play nice.

It’s a good sign that 15 pages in I was already considering exactly how I was going to get across the level of respect I have for this book. Turns out I’m not a good enough writer to fit in all the superlatives and similes without turning this into a sponsored review. It’s that good.

Jason Fried and the David Heinemeier Hansson are the guys behind 37 Signals – an online suite of customer relationship and project management tools aimed primarily at web designers and developers. Their company consists of just 16 people, spread across 9 cities and 2 continents, yet it turns over millions of pounds in revenue every year. They don’t aim to please everybody in what they do. They please themselves by building products they believe to be truly useful. And in so doing, they please many, many more. Something they are evidently proud of.

Rework is the second book from 37 Signals, though this one is more of a manual than anything else. In its first week of launch it became a New York Times best-seller. And understandably so. Its chapters are littered with nuggets of useful, every day best practices and suggestions for running a sleek and successful business – whatever field you’re in. They actually make sense. Books like this run the risk of coming off as cheesy and unrealistic. But this one is nothing if not realistic. Keeping well clear of the ‘self-help’ and ‘motivational speaker’ genres, it carefully positions itself somewhere between ground-breaking white paper and, well…rant.

Something I particularly like about Rework is that everything discussed can be applied to any situation, work or otherwise. It’s written by web designers by trade, but spoken from the mouth’s of those who have been there, done it, disagreed, reworked it and written about it.

The chapters are short and punchy. There’s no lag, no filler and nothing unnecessary. Every paragraph makes sense and is about as succinct as you would want it to be. This makes it incredibly easy to read, whether you’re sitting down with it for a good session, or just dipping in and out on the train to work, like I did. I still finished it in 2 goes.

One of the biggest things I’ve taken from this book is that is that it doesn’t matter what’s gone before. It doesn’t matter that others have tried and failed. Their misplaced conceptions or ill-conceived ideas are what commit their ventures to failure. You create your own luck and in spite of others. You succeed because of you.

“Evolution doesn’t linger on past failures. It’s always building on what worked. So should you.”

Despite Seth Godin’s (American entrepreneur, author and public speaker) warning that some of it may make uncomfortable reading, I actually find it quite soothing to be told that there is more than one way to skin a cat. That just because we already have these processes and policies in place, we don’t necessarily have to abide by them if we believe there is a better way to achieve the same outcome or better.

Without wanting to give too much away, there are a couple more quotes that I have to share. On startups, new businesses and those that have always thought about it but never quite got round to it:

“When you want something bad enough, you make the time – regardless of your other obligations. The truth is most people just don’t want it bad enough. Then they protect their ego with the excuse of time.

Don’t let yourself off the hook with excuses. It’s entirely your responsibility to make your dreams come true.”

Ok, so talk of dreams coming true might’ve caused a few pairs of eyes to roll skywards and some of you will brush it off as more clichéd rubbish for the people not living in the ‘real world’ to chase. This is probably a clear indication that either you have everything you need….or you’re missing something pretty major in your life to strive for. You be the judge on that one.

On the subject of building a rockstar environment (one where all employees are highly skilled, highly devoted and near-miracle-working geniuses):

“Rockstar environments develop out of trust, autonomy, and responsibility. They’re a result of giving people the privacy, workspace and tools they deserve. Great environments show respect for the people who do the work and how they do it.”

Nuff said.

Conclusion

I felt genuinely inspired and invigorated from page three. Page one was blank and page two had the chapter title :). I only really need one word to describe it: loaded.

It’s loaded with bullshit-meets-reality scenarios. Loaded with paragraph after paragraph of pure and unadulterated truth. It scythes down all antiquated and inflexible structures that we have grown to be comfortable or accepting of and replaces it with workable, sensible solutions. Drop it on the boardroom table and it will go off in the face of those who persist in unnecessary formalities and needless protocol. It questions everything and offers more, to the point where I want to get wrist bands made up with ‘WWJFD?’ embossed on them, standing for ‘What Would Jason Fried Do?’.

I have found my bible. But I won’t be lending it to you.

Buy it yourself if you seek genuine enlightenment.

Theme and Layout

Until recently I’ve kept the default theme for Firefox, thinking that the only available themes were from the Mozilla site. Then I discovered www.getpersonas.com which has a beautiful range of much more exciting and better looking themes. At the moment I’m using a nice and neutral theme called ‘LE – about that walk‘. But I’m sure it won’t be long before I create my own. I’ll keep you posted!

Click to enlarge

Add-ons

I currently have 34 add-ons installed, many of which are helpful only to web developers and designers. So instead of exhaustively explaining each one, I’m going to talk about just the ones that other people might find genuinely useful or helpful in some way.

All in one Gestures

All-In-One Gestures is a mouse gestures add-on that was built to increase your productivity. It’s very simple to use. You can assign functions to just about any mouse gesture. So, for example, you can right click and flick the mouse to the left and it would go back a page. Right click and flick it to the right and it would go forward. Right click and flick it up and down and it will reload the page. Sounds pointless, but once you’ve used it for a little while you’ll come to rely on it. It feels very natural to use and requires that much less concentration than aiming for a button.

Options for All-in-One Mouse Gestures

Download it here

Delicious Bookmarks

This is a nifty little add-on that allows you to save and bookmark websites directly to your Delicio.us account without having to visit the Delicious website. It also lets you open up a sidebar from which you can manage all of your bookmarks.

Icon shortcuts to Delicious account

Download it here

Drag and Drop.io

Drop.io if a free online file hosting service that allows people to easily store and share files. It is an excellent service that allows you up to 100MB of free storage and unlimited accounts. With this add-on, you can drag files from your desktop onto the little Drop.io icon on your browser and it will automatically upload those files to your specified account. Beautiful.

Drag files to Dropio shortcut for automatic upload

Download it here

Echofon

Those of you that are regular Twitterers will know that there are countless Twitter services available to you. I use Echofon as I can quickly and easily post and read tweets and messages from an icon on my browser without needing to open up Twitter itself.

Access Twitter from a small dialogue box

Download it here

Facebook Toolbar

Facebook Toolbar is an add-on that allows you to post status updates from a little input form on your browser. Again, there is no need to visit the Facebook site. A sneaky little add-on for those of you who would do well not to be seen throwing sheep at people while at work ;)

Post Facebook updates quickly and easily without visiting the website

Download it here

Foxtab

This is a fantastic little add-on for those of you who regularly find yourself losing control of how many tabs you have open at any given time. Click the icon or both mouse buttons and a screen will open up showing you thumbnails of each tab you have open, offering a more natural way to view all of the sites you’re browsing. You can even customise the look and functionality of the splash screen.

See all your open webpages in one go

Download it here

Image Zoom

Image zoom is a simple but useful add-on that gives you options to enlarge images when you right click on them. You can zoom in and out at will. Especially useful for graphic designers interested in the smaller details, but generally nice to have for all.

Magnify any image

Download it here

Instaright

Instapaper is an online news bookmarking service. It lets you save articles from around the web in a simplified format for offline reading. Which is great if, for example, you spend a lot of time travelling and want something to read but have no internet connection. Instaright gives you the option to save articles directly to your Instapaper account with a single click.

Send articles directly to Instapaper for offline reading

Download it here

Screengrab

A useful add-on for anyone. It’s thoroughly annoying when you want to take a screenshot of a website you’re looking at but only get the top half or only the bit that shows on screen, while the rest is cut off. Screengrab lets you take a snapshot of the entire page, a specific section or just the current view and copy or save it to your computer. No more multiple screenshots and stitching them together. Very helpful.

Easily capture entire webpage screenshots

Download it here

Search Preview

One area that the Bing search engine beats Google (for me) is the search preview aspect. Bing gives you a little thumbnail snapshot of each website whenever you perform a search. This add-on gives Google the same ability. I’ve always preferred Google as my search engine of choice, so this is a bit of a find for me personally.

See a thumbnail of each website before you visit it

Download it here

Shorten URL

Particularly useful if you ever share links on Twitter and find you’ve run out of characters. Shorten URL lets you shorten any link using a number of URL shortening services. Just choose your service and you can shorten any link within 2 clicks.

Shorten any URL on right-click

Download it here

Tab Mix Plus

Tab Mix Plus is one of my favourite add-ons for Firefox. It gives you absolute and comprehensive control over your browsing ‘sessions’. From remembering all your tabs, to customising colours of viewed and non-viewed tabs, to setting mouse click actions to just about anything else you can think of regarding tabs and browsing.

Take control of your tabs and browsing sessions

Download it here

Webmail Notifier

I used to keep a Hotmail tab and a Gmail tab open just so I could keep an eye on what’s coming in over email. This add-on replaces both of those tabs with a little icon that flashes up a little message when you get a new email. Perfectly useful and unobtrusive.

Be instantly notified when you receive webmail

Download it here

Word count Plus

I already write too much in my blog posts so this little add-on will help me keep track of how many words I’ve written. Just highlight any text on a page and click the icon and it will tell you how many words you’ve selected. Hover over the icon and it will tell you how many characters there are. Simple but helpful.

Get instant word and character counts from the corner of your browser

Download it here

Conclusion

I hope this series of posts has maybe expanded your view on ways you can use and interact with just about anything online. Just be careful you don’t go plugin crazy and add everything, as it will eventually start to slow down your browser. This is a list of just some of my current add-ons, but there are literally thousands to choose from. Whatever your interests or hobbies, I advise you to check them out. You might just find something you didn’t realise you couldn’t live without.

Check out the other posts from this series:
The Power of the Browser – Choose Your Weapon (Part 1 of 3)
The power of the Browser – Make it Yours (Part 2 of 3)

Themes

From experience, this is the thing most people are interested in to begin with.

How to Install a Theme in Firefox

There are two places you can choose themes from. The first is the Firefox Add-Ons site and the second is the Firefox Personas site.

To Install a Theme From the Firefox Add-Ons Site

• First off, visit the Firefox Add-Ons site
• Click on the image of your desired theme
• When the page loads, click the button that says ‘Add to Firefox’
• When prompted, accept the software installation
• A Firefox dialogue box will open up after it has finished downloading. Click the button that says restart.
• Your browser will open up, sporting the new theme that you just installed. Easy :)

If you want to switch back to another theme you have installed, go to Tools > Add-Ons and click the Themes tab. Select ‘Use Theme’ for the theme you want and hit restart again.

To Install a Theme From the Firefox Personas Site

• First off, visit the Personas site
• The cool thing about this site is that once you install their plugin, you can hover over any of the themes and it will automatically change your browser’s theme on the fly, so you can see what it would look like without needing to restart
• So click the button that says ‘Get Personas For Firefox’ and when prompted accept the installation
• Click the button that says Restart Firefox
• Your browser will open up with the theme you selected and you can also hover over any other theme in the gallery to see what it would look like and click ‘Wear It’ to install it.

Optionally Customise the Layout of Your Buttons and Toolbars

So now your browser looks just the way you want, save for a few buttons that you’d like to have in different positions. You can alter this to some degree too. To do so, right click on the toolbar and select ‘Customise’. A dialogue box will open up and you’ll be able to drag your buttons around your tooolbar until everything is where you want it to be.

How to Install a Theme in Google Chrome

• First off, visit the Chrome Themes Gallery
• Choose the theme you’d like and hit Apply Theme
• The theme will be applied instantly without a need to restart

If you want to revert to the default theme, go to your ‘Settings’ icon, then ‘Options’ and then the tab named Personal Stuff.

Add-ons

Add-ons can improve your browser in just about any way imaginable. I use Firefox as my main browser because it has by far the widest range of addons and plugins available and is a very secure browser. But Chrome has a decent set of extensions and more are appearing all the time, while extensions are even being developed for IE8 now.

How to Install an Add-on in Firefox

• First, go to the Firefox Add-Ons site and pick on of the hundreds of helpful plugins available
• Click on ‘Add to Firefox’
• When prompted, accept the software installation
• Click Restart browser and your addon will have been installed

To see a list of all installed add-ons at any time, go to Tools > Add-Ons and click the ‘Extensions’ tab. While add-ons are very helpful, try not to get carried away installing everything under the sun as they will eventually slow down your browser!

How to Install an Add-on in Chrome

• First, visit the Chrome Extensions site
• Choose your extension and select ‘Install’
• A dialogue box will appear telling you what info it needs access to. If you trust it, select ‘Install’
• The addon will be pinned to your toolbar

To manage your addons, go to your Settings icon and select ‘Extensions’.

How to Install an Add-on in Internet Explorer 8

• First, go to the Internet Explorer Addons site and pick and choose one of the addons
• Click on ‘Add to Internet Explorer’
• When prompted, click on ‘Add’
• The addon should now be installed, though, rather unhelpfully, IE won’t give you a success message

You can view all of your IE8 Add-Ons by going to Tools > Manage Add-Ons

So, you can see how quick and easy it is to install an extension or add-on to whatever modern browser you’re using to add a bit more power or customisation and makes things a little more personal.

In the next post I’ll be writing a brief breakdown of the plugins I use and why they help me during every day tasks.

Check out the other posts from this series:
The Power of the Browser – Choose Your Weapon (Part 1 of 3)
The Power of the Browser – My Browser Breakdown (Part 3 of 3)