The bad news is that you have to get used to it.  Everything is different.

To keep you from having to learn Typepad all over again, I have written Guide to Typepad.  It's over 30 pages long and is full of screen shots and detailed step-by-step instructions for all the common (and some not-so-common) tasks.

It's full color and plasti-coil bound.  If I have built a TyperPad blog for you then you will be able to get Guide to Typepad at a greatly-reduced price.  Even at full price it will be a bargain.  If it saves you only 30 minutes of hunting around it will pay for itself.

Stay tuned for more information over the next week or so.

Today a new client came to me wanting some minor tune-up work done on her blog.  It's Wordpress, installed on her server. Unfortunately - like a lot of Wordpress themes - no accomodation was made for printing.

If you are shopping for a Wordpress theme and can view a demo, do this:  RIght click and click on 'View Source'  Then look for something that looks like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="...." type="text/css" media="print" />

That "media=print" is the key. It means that the theme's author has thought about printing and if someone prints the page it has a higher probability of looking good when printed.

What About Typepad?

Typepad includes the print version of the stylesheet automatically. It probably won't print your fancy banner but it will print the name of your blog and look presentable.

The long-and-short of it was that he had been hacked.  Every now and then, a vulnerability is discovered in Wordpress.  The release a new version to patch the hole, but it is up to you to keep up with the new releases in order to avoid the same fate as my friend.

This is another reason why I like TypePad: It's always up to date and I never have to worry about keeping the software up-to-date.  Typepad takes care of that.

Since I'm on the subject of security, the biggest vulnerability of a Wordpress blog is typically the username: When you install Wordpress, it automatically creates an administrator account with the username 'admin'. If you don't change it, you've just cut the hacker's problem in half.  The first thing you should do upon installing Wordpress is to create a new administrator account with a unique name and delete the 'admin' account.

And then there's your FTP account

If you host your own blog (using Wordpress, for example) don't forget about the security of your FTP account.  FTP is the method for uploading and downloading files to and from your server. (If you installed Wordpress on your server, FTP is the tool you used to get the files onto your server in the first place.)  If your FTP account password is compromised it may take days to figure it out.  Make sure you have a good strong password there too.

If you are interested in marketing and you don't follow Hugh MacLeod's blog Gapingvoid, you should.  I consider Hugh to be one of the thought leaders in marketing and social media.  A couple of years ago Hugh coined the term Global Microbrand and I've been using it ever since.

Hugh is probably most famous for his cartoons drawn on the back of business cards, later evolving into a line of blogcards/streetcards.  When I saw Wolf vs Sheep for the first time it resonated with me and I have kept a supply of Wolf vs Sheep blog cards on hand ever since. (I also have the Wolf vs Sheep signed numbered print but framing will have to wait).

When Hugh announced that he would be offering Bluetrain as the first in a series of numbered, signed, fine-art lithographs, I had to have one.  I've finally managed to get a custom frame made for it with museum glass.

It hangs on the wall in my office facing me.  All I have to do is to lift my eyes from the monitor a few degrees and there it is, reminding me:

The market for something to believe in is infinite

APEX National focuses on the needs of general contractors and property managers, but they also have many high-end residential clients.

The thing that sets APEX National apart is how tuned in they are to the needs of their clients.  If you are a general contractor or property manager, I'll bet APEX National can help you in ways that you've never thought of.

Business Blogging Pros welcomes our newest Client, Paul Schween Seminars.

Paul is a sales trainer who turns average performers into top performers.  He recently spoke at a networking function I attended and can say that he is also a dynamic and entertaining speaker.

Almost everyone needs to create a Landing Page now and then. 

If you are using Wordpress, most themes contain a 'No Sidebar' template and you can use that. For this client we created a special template that removed the theme's extraneous background colors. 

Typepad users may be frustrated because they can't select the template on a page-by-page basis and don't have a way to eliminate the sidebar. Here's the trick but it requires a PRO level Typepad account: Create another blog in the same account. Select the same theme and give it all the same stylesheet customizations. Then select a Layout that contains no sidebars. 

The final thing you should do is to give the landing page it's own short memorable domain name. GoDaddy makes it very easy to forward a domain name to a specific page on your blog.

It looks like a website, doesn't it?  A couple of weeks ago, Karroll K. Alexander of the Alexander K Group asked me to provide him with a proposal for replacing his existing website with a Typepad-based blogsite.  The result is what you see here.

More and more, small business owners are opting to use a high-end blogging platform as their sole web presence, taking advantage of the platform's content-management features to provide them with an easy-to-maintain site.

Yes!

Pamela Slim (@pamslim on Twitter) and I were having a conversation via Twitter today about the frequency of our blog posts since the advent of Twitter.  The truth is that the combination of your blog and Twitter is very powerful.

There are lot's more ways that Twitter and your blog make a powerful conversation.

If you want to attend a webinar about leveraging Twitter in your business click here.

Business Blogging Pros welcomes our newest client, Norma Huibregtse and Captivated Customers. Norma's company is dedicated to helping your increase sales through improved customer service.

Norma's blog is another great example of something we're creating a lot of lately: A single combined website and blog that is the client's entire web presence. The best part of one of these blogsites is that the owner can maintain it herself. We are teaching Norma how to maintain the site, create new pages, add them to the menubar, etc. It's really pretty easy, and it's very empowering for Norma.