My iPod Touch is my Laptop

drew — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:53:15 +0000

I was initially envious of my coworker’s iPhones. I had a Blackberry of the Pearl and Curve generation, and it was outclassed in every way. But then I heard about the iPod touch, and realized I could save about $600 per year (in data fees) by buying this $200 device and cutting off my data on the Blackberry. Now I’m not connected all the time mind you, which is sometimes frustrating, but I like to think it keeps me sharp.

When I’m at my home, work, the coffee shop, my friend’s houses and the local bar I’m connected via wifi, and using these apps.

Mail.

Boring, I know. Maybe even obvious. But staying on top of email makes it manageable. I can scan for anything urgent, and quickly delete emails that don’t require me.
Tip: For Gmail users, change your delete to actually archive your mail. Settings > Mail > Gmail > Advanced > Deleted Mailbox > All Mail on the server, now go back and set Remove > Never.

Fring.

Helpful when you want to have a quick chat with someone without the tedium of texting back and forth. Connects to Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, SIP and Twitter Contacts.

Wordpress.

Has all the functions you would need on the go. Check comments, and compose drafts even when not connected to the internet.

Conclusion App

After 2 years the iPod has certainly paid its dues. I’ve stayed connected to my work and assuaged my envy of iPhones without the data fees. I’m sure it will be outdated soon, but for the moment it’s great.

Wordpress Plugins we Often Use

Jordan — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:25:50 +0000

On every Wordpress site we draft up, we’ll need to extend the basic functionality. It’s a great system, but it isn’t intended to provide a full website out of the box. We use these free plugins to kick it up a notch, hopefully you’ll find one of our magic bullets useful.

Exclude Pages from Menu

Each page will have a check-box that defaults to including it in the user’s menus. But when you have a page that you’d rather not be in the main navigation, this will quickly remove it.

Dragon Design Sitemap

A simple, friendly map of your site is useful for both users and search engines. There are a lot of them out there, but this is simple and flexible. To go further, you can create a sitemap just for search engines with Karailiev’s sitemap.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is a great plug-in for building a quick customizable contact form. You can create your own fields, drop downs, radio buttons or anything else you need and it works flawlessly. This means coding an entire contact form can be reserved for working on a very custom project.

Role Manager

When you present your site to a client, you may want to give them access to just the essentials. You may also want to create a new class of user that differs from the generic Wordpress standard user classes, and Role manager gives you control over these very specific attributes.

WP-DB-Backup

We use this to schedule database backups which are emailed directly to a gmail account where they are filed away. We haven’t needed it yet, but being able to resurrect the dead is a pretty good skill.

Search Unleashed

Extend the search plug-in utility with increased ability, and improve the presentation of the results. Search Unleashed allows for highlighting and customizing your search index which is very nice for quickly evaluating if you found what you were looking for.

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