New free PDF goodies: WordPress Essentials Toolkit and How to Upgrade Anything

December 15, 2010 By

I just added two new entries to my Free Goodies page, and I’m super excited about them because who doesn’t love free goodies?

Not me, that’s who doesn’t! And I bet you don’t not love them either!

Anyway, let’s escape the grammatical weirdness and get on with the free goodies already.

1. The WordPress Essentials Toolkit

I collected my most basic, most important, most get-started-with-WordPress-now blog posts into a handy 28-page PDF that I’ve christened the WordPress Essentials Toolkit (if you download it, you get W.E.T., and that’s something I heartily endorse as a WordPress Swimming Lessons instructor!).

It’s yours free as a thank-you when you subscribe to my Weekly Web Tips via email (you get no more than one email per week, and no email if I don’t have new blog posts). Your subscription welcome message will give you the link (and if you’re already subscribed, you’ll see a link to download the ebook in every edition of the Weekly Web Tips — if you’re reading this post in your email, it should be right over there in the sidebar).

Subscribe right here, or if you can’t see the form, visit my Subscribe page.

2. How to Upgrade Anything

Awhile back, I wrote a six-part series on upgrading. I used it to coach myself through a WordPress upgrade (back before there was the one-click option that I demonstrated in this post), and I’ve found that it applies to all kinds of technological upgrades and transitions.

If you feel overwhelmed by upgrades, or hassled by the need to do them at all, download your copy of How to Upgrade Anything: A six-step process to make upgrades less stressful and more successful. No sign-up required.

Fun with PDFs

I created both of these PDFs using a WordPress plugin called Anthologize. It lets you collect and export batches of blog posts into several formats. It’s still in development, and it doesn’t offer a ton of design options, but it automagically creates tables of contents, and lets you edit the sections you want to export without changing the original blog posts (handy for taking out those bloggy things like “leave a comment below!” in the final PDF).

Anyway, I’m having fun playing with it, and it let me create some cool stuff to share with you. Win-win!

Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: , , , , ,

New Free Goodie: Recording of making friends with technology

October 27, 2010 By

Photo credit: riddle_

Hey, remember that Making Friends with Technology open discussion from a few weeks back?

I seriously waffled about whether to release the recording. I was in a bit of a down mood that day, and I worried that it would be painfully obvious to anyone listening.

In fact, I was pretty well caught up in a spinning vortex of resentment (fewer people signed up than I had hoped for) and self-flagellation (if I had announced it earlier… promoted it more… not been such a huge chicken… surely I would have gotten the response I hoped for).

Which, I have to tell you, totally sucked.

But enough people had dialed in that I felt like I had to keep up my end of the bargain/conversation. The show must go on, I heard like a drumbeat in my brain.

Which is not the nicest or healthiest way to start off an hour of friendly and encouraging discussion.

But here’s the thing: I love technology so much, and I’m so deeply passionate about helping people past their fear of it, that my love of the topic took over my brain within a very short time. And I was no longer on the phone simply out of obligation — I was speaking from my heart.

Sometimes it was a little awkward, because for most of the call I just talked, and even when I paused for questions there wasn’t much interaction (at one point I actually said “wouldn’t it be nice if bacon rained from the sky?” and then realized that maybe it’s only me who thinks that would truly be nice. mmmmm, bacon… Oops, I digress).

In the end, I think I said some valuable and interesting things, and I made the slightly scary decision that letting people hear me (even on a down day) would do more good than hiding the recording away.

So it’s now available for download (the usual AWeber sign-up procedure applies).

…and if all else fails, remember these words:

Klaatu barada nikto.

Filed Under: Real-Life Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Making Friends with Technology: Open discussion October 6

September 29, 2010 By

Meet your robot overlords (not!)

I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with technology (web technology to be specific).

You might know that I’m the world’s biggest cheerleader for the technological tools that make it possible for regular people to build online empires.

But I also get that people might be looking at me like I have two heads when I say things like Have fun with your technology! Don’t be afraid to play with it a little bit! You can be friends with your website!

Because the world wild web can feel like a very scary place. And you can’t relax into a state of play when you’re scared.

Now, I don’t have a whizbang super-duper magic pill that will make the fear disappear.

What I have is my own willingness to play. Everything I know about web technology is 100% self-taught, and believe me, I’ve faced my share of rage-inducing frustration, deep fears of incompetence, and incomprehensible tech glitches! Yet I’m still here, still learning every day, and still passionate about sharing my knowledge and skills with you.

So I’m inviting you to an open discussion on Making Friends with Technology.

Normally I’d call this a “teleclass,” because it has teleclass-style logistics (we’ll all dial into a conference line and I’ll record the call).

But I’m really drawn to the word “discussion” for this topic. Because I want to listen to you and acknowledge your struggles instead of merely cheering from the top of my rah-rah-get-empowered-you-can-do-it soapbox (though I have a feeling I’ll be hopping up on it from time to time because hello, it’s my passion!).

I do have some suggestions for ways to work with fear of techology, and some reassurances (here’s one: You are totally allowed to outsource things that drive you crazy and are hard and scary. I’ll never tell you that you have to do it all yourself). And I have plenty of practical tips for working with the systems I work with most often (websites, email lists, shopping carts).

But most of all I want to invite you to share your experiences and questions (you can email them to me if you’re not the kind of person who likes to speak up during teleclasses — I’ll even keep your name anonymous if you prefer), because I want you to know that you’re not alone, that it is definitely possible to get support, and that entering into a conscious relationship with technology can truly make a difference in your life (online and off).

Here are the deets my friends:

  • Date: Wednesday, October 6
  • Time: 11am Pacific (what’s that in your time zone?)
  • Cost: Free (unless your long-distance provider charges you for the call)

Just enter your email address here to join the discussion:

(Can’t see the form in your email or RSS reader? Swing by the Making Friends with Technology page to sign up.)

I look forward to a fun, fruitful conversation with you!

Filed Under: General How-To's Tagged With: , ,

Free website color clinic teleclass today!

June 16, 2010 By

Today at 1pm, I’ll be doing a free teleclass with artist Amy Crook of Not Dead Yet Studios and Antemortem Arts. Amy’s years of experience in graphic design and fine art are a perfect complement to my WordPress geekery; between the two of us you get beautiful form and flawless function. And that goes for our website work, too ;)

In this no-cost one-hour call, we’ll tell you how to choose (and more importantly, how NOT to choose) a color scheme for your website, give you some solid design principles to help you use color effectively, and offer recommendations for upgrading and fine-tuning your website’s colors. Got a question about color? Join us and ask it live!

Amy is going to announce a special deal just for callers, and this call is also the official launch of our joint WordPress packages, but this is not a sales call. We’re going to have fun picking apart some websites we know and love, and learning to see web colors with a designer’s eye. We’d love to have you join us!

We’re publishing the dial-in number and access code so that you can join us easily. No strings attached, no reservation or registration required.

Free teleclass details

We’ll be recording the call, and we’ll be happy to send you a free copy of the recording plus a 5-page PDF handout on using color effectively online. For that, we’ll need a way to contact you. Sign up here to get on the mailing list for the call recording and handout (this handout was designed by Amy, and she’s an artist — trust me, it’s gorgeous!).

Filed Under: Announcements, General How-To's Tagged With: , , ,
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