I love WordPress – I really do. It allows you to build an amazing website (including a blog, if you want one) filled with great functionality that’s friendly to search engines and easy to use. This site is built in WordPress.

And there’s a reason it’s currently the most popular website platform out there. But the people behind WordPress made a mistake when it came to making sure people understand the difference between their two primary offerings, and you need to understand what that difference is:

1. WordPress (often referred to as WordPress.org) is open source content management system software that runs on your web hosting server.
2. WordPress.com is a network of blogs that runs on that software on WordPress.com’s web hosting server(s).

Even that explanation is confusing if you don’t know what I’m talking about. So let me break it down for you… (more…)

There comes a time in the creation of every website where large files need to be shared among stakeholders. This might be when the website owner is sending content for the website to the web designer, or it might be when the web designer is sending mockups back to their client. Either way, email isn’t always the best way, and you don’t always want your work-in-progress mockups on the internet for all to discover. Plus, email software will often reject emails with huge attachments, and they can be unwieldy for all involved.

If you haven’t heard of it yet, there’s a wonderful service called YouSendIt.com. They allow you to send single files up to 100MB to people, who can then download the file using a link in an email they receive from the service for free. The recipient can download using the link in the email they receive for a handful of days, and then it expires.

It’s a wonderful, easy-to-use service.

If you need to send lots of files to someone, just zip them up and use YouSendIt to send the single zip file. This is a wonderful way to not only compress the size of the transfer, but to make it easy for the recipient to work with lots of files pertaining to one project.

Your operating system may already have an easy way for you to zip up files (Mac comes with one automatically), usually by selecting multiple files in your Explorer (PC) or Finder (Mac), then right-clicking and accessing the “Archive” or “Compress” or “ZIP” function. If you don’t have a ZIP program on your PC, 7-ZIP (http://www.7-zip.org/) is a great, free program for the PC.

It’s unavoidable, to have a website you need two very important things:

1. A domain name (like outboxonline.com)
2. A web hosting service – the place where you’ll put the files that make up your website so that you can access them through your domain name (see above)

These can be mysterious and often confounding propositions – where to begin? (more…)

If you’re anything like me, around the holidays you spend lots of time searching for perfect Christmas gifts online. For friends and family who are far away, anything that helps you avoid the lines at the post office is sweet – but did you know that there is a great tool our there that will tell you if what you’re buying can also benefit a charity?

GoodSearch has created a toolbar and search engine plugin for FireFox that lets you know when your search results in money for charity. Part of what makes this solution so great is that *you don’t have to change your behavior at all*! Talk about perfect usability – just by doing what you always do, you might be helping someone out.

For those merchants who participate, there are coupons available for things like free shipping offers – but the toolbar will tell you exactly how much you would be giving to charity by buying through their service.

What a wonderful way for technology to help us get in the spirit of the season!

It used to be that hosting ads on your content-driven site was a no brainer – there was lots of money for ads out there because there wasn’t much evidence as to its effectiveness. Everyone was throwing money at the internet just to see what would stick. These days it’s unclear whether the time/money/thought you put into online advertising is actually worth it in the end. This doesn’t mean that online advertising is a bad idea, it just means you need to go about it thoughtfully & creatively.

Read more about ways to advertise effectively and creatively…

I’m sure you’ve seen all those people on Twitter who tweet their blog posts, and you’ve probably also seen blogs where they either link to their Twitter account, or show their tweets right there on the page.  How do they do it? How *do* you connect your blog and Twitter?

» Read on to discover how to automatically add your blog posts to Twitter…

Even though books are available in new formats (audio books, downloads, portable for the Kindle…), they’re still made up of words – so how do you make that sexy by leveraging modern media formats?  There are lots of ways!:

• Podcast Promotions.  Whether you’re creating the podcast yourself, being interviewed by a podcaster, or offering your book as an award for a podcast promotional contest, you’re bringing a huge targeted market to your book.
  • If your book is about something practical, creating a podcast to accompany the book is a huge way to connect with your audience.  Many times podcasters go on to be authors, but authors can also move into podcasting!  For example, if your book is a how-to guide to training puppies, a podcast that offers tips and tricks is a great way to spread your message around.  It will bring a new audience to your book, and sustain/enhance your relationship with your readers until your next project is ready.  Just like Rachael Ray started with a cooking show, moved into cook books, then into affiliate marketing, then into her own TV show, magazine and cooking-related products… you too can span the venue boundaries to make yourself an expert!
  • There are existing podcasts, some hugely popular, and cover just about every subject.  So, send some emails to podcast hosts that target your niche (also works for blogs)…
    1. Write a quick introduction
    2. Offer a free copy of your book
    3. Offer up yourself to talk about it/set up an interview
    4. Then offer to help them setup a promotion for free copies to give away to their audience.
    5. Don’t get disheartened if it doesn’t work right away, they likely get lots of similar emails, but will jump at the ones that make sense for their audience. It’s still worth it to make the offer to gain exposure to the right people.
• Book Trailers.  It’s less expensive than you think to create a simple book trailer.  Some people go all out and create hollywood-quality shorts, but even an animated slideshow set to music, or a video of you being interviewed about the book is a step in the right direction.  Help your readership understand the tone of the book in a new way, and bring some life to what would otherwise be left to the imagination. (Note: there’s nothing wrong with leaving a book’s content to the imagination, in some cases that may even be the desired outcome.)
• Television (?!).  Did you know there is a new, dedicated TV show for authors?  Open Book TV, in their own words, “focuses on the writers and other storytellers living and working in a different spot on the planet each week.”  Their episodes are even embeddable in websites (just like YouTube).