For my english readers: After the launch of the italian version of Twitter I received, in the last days, a lot of new follower requests because I’m on the “suggested people” section on Twitter. In this post (translated into italian) I want to reply to all my new italian followers that asked to me some general questions about how to use Twitter.

Qualche giorno fa, dopo il lancio della versione italiana di Twitter, ho pubblicato una guida rapida che illustra alcuni suggerimenti su come utilizzarlo al meglio. In questo post potete scaricare una semplice guida visuale tratta da quell’articolo. Potete dare un’occhiata all’anteprima e scaricare il file PDF a questo link.

Anteprima su Scribd

There have been a few projects I have worked on recently that required an author image and a short biography. This is actually a fairly quick process and this post will guide you through the steps of implementing this onto your site.

Getting The Plugin

You will need to download this plugin created by Denis de Bernardy and place the files into the /wp-content/plugins/ directory. After the plugin is installed, you will need to activate it in the Wordpress control panel. You will then be able to upload author photos by clicking on the Users/Profile tab and clicking edit on the author you’d like to add a photo for. You can also update the author’s biographical information on this page.

After these steps are finished, it’s time to add the following code to single.php in your Wordpress template directory (ie. /wp-content/themes/default/single.php)

<div class="box">
<?php the_author_image(); ?>
<?php the_author_description(); ?>
</div>

You might notice that I didn’t throw the entry_author_image class in the code above, but that’s because it is automatically generated by the plugin.

Apply Some Styles

Now the author image and description should be showing up on all single posts, if you would like to style them you can apply some CSS to the box and entry_author_image classes:

.box { 
  padding: 8px;
  min-height: 60px;
  background: #efefef;
}
.entry_author_image {
  float: left;
  background: #fff;
  padding: 4px;
  margin-right: 8px;
  border-right: solid 1px #dfdfdf;
  border-bottom: solid 1px #dfdfdf;
}

That’s It

After completing this tutorial your results should be very similar to the Author section we have below.

As you know, the specification of the new version of HTML and XHTML language is actually a working draft
(take a look here for the HTML5 specification tracker) but there are a lot of web designers and developers that already decided to leave the previous version and switch to the new one (you can find a showcase of HTML5 website here). And you what do you think? Is it time to start switching to HTML5?

This week our weekly inspiring playlist for web designers contains eight new beautiful tracks. Any suggestion for the next issue? Please leave a comment or subscribe to our RSS feeds to stay update on our news!

Lamb – Gabriel

Tina Dico – In The Red

Ivy – Keep Moving

Little Dragon – Constant Surprises

Daughter Darling – Broken Bridge

Mandalay – Beautiful

Michael Penn – Walter Reed

Husky Rescue – New Light Of Tomorrow

For my english readers: After the launch of the italian version of Twitter (yesterday) I received, in the last hours, more then one thousand follower requests. In this post (translated into italian) I want to reply to all my new italian followers that asked to me some general questions about how to use Twitter.

Durante il TG1 di ieri sera è stato trasmesso un servizio sul lancio della versione italiana di Twitter. Dopo pochi minuti, e per tutta la giornata di oggi, la mia casella di posta è stata invasa da più di un migliaio di notifiche di nuovi followers. A quanto ne so, il mio profilo è infatti tra quelli suggeriti da Twitter e secondo Grader.com è il più popolare in Italia. Questo è il video del TG1:

Visto che, oltre alle notifiche, ho ricevuto anche una serie di domande su come si usa Twitter, in questo post illustro rapidamente come utilizzarlo al meglio.

Per iniziare

Una volta creato un account su Twitter è importante, per attirare nuovi followers (cioè persone che vi seguono su Twitter), impostare il vostro profilo aggiungendo una breve descrizione su di voi, un link al vostro sito web (se non ne avete uno al vostro profilo su Facebook o MySpace), una foto e soprattutto qualche tweet (messaggio) iniziale. Dopodiché cominciate a scovare utenti interessanti che credete valga la pena seguire e aggiungeteli alla vostra timeline.

Following and Followers

Una piccola introduzione sui termini. Following: letteralmente sono le persone che voi state seguendo. Followers, come anticipato, sono invece le persone che seguono voi. In termini pratici, il numero dei followers è un indice della vostra popolarità su Twitter. Maggiore è il numero delle persone che vi seguono, maggiore è la vostra popolarità.

Non dovete necessariamente seguire tutti quelli che vi seguono. Twitter non funziona come Facebook dove dovete “approvare” le richieste di amicizia che ricevete. Se un utente vi aggiunge alla sua timeline voi non dovete necessariamente aggiungerlo alla vostra.

Cosa pubblicare su Twitter?

Non c’è una regola. Ognuno pubblica ciò che vuole. Pensieri, osservazioni, domande, link a siti interessanti. Se avete un blog, tenete a mente che Twitter è uno strumento potentissimo per ottenere una grande quantità immediata di traffico sui vostri post e renderli popolari in pochi minuti sui più diffusi social network (ad esempio delicious.com). Se avete un buon numero di followers “di qualità”, ovvero utenti attivi che a loro volta hanno un buon numero di followers attivi, ogni volta che pubblicate un post interessante, questo verrà “rilanciato” dalle persone che vi seguono, così da generare una specie di effetto domino che vi porterà un enorme traffico sul vostro sito.
Se volete pubblicare delle foto su Twitter utilizzate Twitpic, un servizio semplice e immediato per informare i vostri followers sui vostri ultimi scatti.

Utilizzare un client

Per sfruttare al meglio le potenzialità di Twitter, vi consiglio di procurarvi un client. Un client è un piccolo programma che vi permette agevolmente di postare nuovi tweet, seguire i messaggi della timeline delle persone che state seguendo, inviare direct messages e molto altro ancora, il tutto in maniera molto più agevole rispetto all’interfaccia web. Se siete utenti Mac vi consiglio in particolare Twitterrific o Tweetie, (le cui versioni mobile per iPhone credo siano le migliori in circolazione), oppure Twhirl o TweetDeck se siete utenti Windows.
Personalmente non uso mai l’interfaccia web di Twitter ma preferisco utilizzare Twitterrific, sia sull’ iMac che sull’iPhone. L’immagine qui a destra è una schermata di Twitterrific. I tweet in risposta ai vostri tweet sono evidenziati di colore differente e saltano subito all’occhio. In questo modo è molto più facile e immediato “conversare” con i vostri followers molto più di quanto non lo sia attraverso l’utilizzo dell’interfaccia web originale di Twitter.

Funzioni base

Per inviare un messaggio pubblico ad un utente utilizzate @nomeutente seguito dal testo del vostro messaggio:

Per inviare un messaggio privato ad un vostro Follower utilizzate d nomeutente seguito dal testo del vostro del messaggio:

I messaggi privati possono essere inviati esclusivamente ai vostri followers. Se volete aggiungere dei tag ai vostri post utilizzate #nometag:

Come Re-Twittare un Tweet

Per rilanciare al gruppo dei vostri followers, un tweet interessante di una utente che voi state seguendo, è sufficiente utilizziate RT @nomeutente seguito dal testo del messaggio, ad esempio:

oppure usare via @nomeutente alla fine del tweet:

Se utilizzate l’interfaccia web, basta cliccare sull’apposito tasto re-tweet:

Aggiornare il profilo su Facebook con Twitter

Se avete un profilo su Facebook, potete aggiornare agevolmente il vostro status con i tweet postati su Twitter. Per farlo dovete aggiungere l’applicazione Twitter al vostro profilo. Per trovarla, basta cercare, nella barra di ricerca di Facebook “Twitter”. Il primo risultato dovrebbe essere proprio quello dell’applicazione che vi serve:

Aggiungete l’applicazione al vostro profilo e selezionate Impostazioni > Impostazioni applicazioni dalla barra di Facebook:

Ora selezionate e modificate le impostazioni dell’applicazione Twitter in questo modo:

A questo punto, ogni vostro tweet postato su Twitter aggiornerà automaticamente il vostro status su Facebook.
Se avete domande o suggerimenti lasciate il vostro commento. Grazie!

If you are a freelancer designer or developer and you are looking for a comprehensive suite of tools for online invoicing, time tracking, payment tracking, sending estimates and client management, I suggest you to try Ronin, a powerful web-based application that helps you to take your business to the next level.
The only thing you have to do in order to use Ronin is to create a new profile choosing the free plan or buying an advanced plan at an affordable price. The Ronin interface is clean and really simple to use. You can quickly create new projects and, for each of them, add user and client profiles with which you can interact along the entire lifecycle of your projects. All profiles in fact are complete with activity log of past project items and comments.
Invoices are fully customizable using HTML and CSS so you are no longer restricted to select few from a predefined gallery. Professional Plan allow you to get PayPal and Authorize.Net integration, so your clients can pay you directly on-line after receiving your invoices. For all features I suggest you to take a look at the official Ronin web page. Absolutely to try!

Direct Link: http://www.roninapp.com/

Posting news on your website is an excellent way of adding content, adding value, getting backlinks and social media links. But there are some important points to follow to ensure your news is presented professionally. Remember, your news can help market your website to customers, and it can also provide information for journalists who may also give you publicity through their own online or offline media. Our simple guide will point you in the right direction.

Timing

Timing is crucial with news. Often you can write the article in advance, for example if you are moving to a new office, you will know ahead of the date and you can give your move some pre-publicity. If your news article is reactive, for example, if a bug is discovered in your CMS software, be quick to respond. Posting an article on your website may save you calls from journalists, or at least will offer an explanation to those affected. If you write an article in advance, write different article to coincide with the event.

Reaction

When your news is reactive, turn negative into positives. For example, if you have suffered a fire at your office. Post an article saying all your client records are ‘in the cloud’ or backed up offsite and you will be able to continue working and keep your deadlines.

Content

Don’t waffle. Explain everything without using any more words than necessary. Fill the first paragraph with a succinct summary of the whole article, then expand on it further down the page. Make your news accurate and easy to understand. Journalists will avoid stories that are overcomplicated or will cut out technical jargon. Their aim will be to encourage readers to read all the article. That should be your aim too. Always give a link to a contact, contact page or phone number.

Pictures

A picture paints a thousand words. Always include a picture if you can. Make it as relevant to the article as possible. If you are taking it yourself, look at the kind of pictures others use to get an idea of what is right. Have some stock pictures on your site that journalists can download in high-resolution.

Placement

News is a very important website commodity. If you have a separate news page and have regular articles, give the page link a high priority in the navigation menu.

Share it

Make sure your news page has a feed, so it can be syndicated to your visitors and journalists. Make sure it’s clear whether articles can be reproduced on other websites or in print media. If you only want to allow a link, give the link code. And make sure there is a way for readers to send the article out to thir favourite social network, such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.

Attribution

Add the author’s name to the article and a contact link. Or use quotes from a named member of staff.

Information

Make sure your site has all the information a customer or journalist will need elsewhere. An address, telephone and email address for the head office and an address for each satellite office or branch. Providing details of your company or service in ‘About us’ will provide a journalist with background information for their readers who may not know what your website is about. They are unlikely to write about a service or company that they cannot explain.

Blog

If your site has a blog, write about your news giving it a personal slant. A blog is more informal than news and it’s another way of spreading it.

I recently wrote an article here on woorkup.com entitled “As a web designer, are you leaving money on the table?”. It created quite a stir across twitter and other social networks. In the article, I communicated that once our firm left the standard hours/project based billing system and moved into a retained system, our revenues rose significantly, our relationships lasted longer, our need to spend more on advertising diminished and our firm became less vulnerable to the recession than other area firms. Towards the end of the article, I offered to hand over our standard retained-fee contract for anyone who might be interested in moving into this business model.
Needless to say, 100’s of designers took me up on the offer. I can say that I am a better man for it. I’ve met so many great designers who are eager to explore this method of client transactions. I’ve met exceptional people who will become tomorrow’s important thought leaders. Throughout all the contract requests, questions, concerns and replies, one theme kept arising regarding the article that I felt needed to be addressed.The overriding theme was:

So as promised, I am going to break down the client-side benefits into 5 categories:

1. Education
2. Encouragement
3. Time
4. Competitive Advantage
5. More Customers

Let’s break down the first of 5 here.

1. Education

One of the most important duties that any service based business can perform is the education of their clients. For accountants, they have to instruct their clients on the best ways to structure their company so that they pay their fair share of taxes, but not a dollar more.
A travel agent must educate the client on the conditions of the local environment that they will be sending them to. What is the food like? What places should they stay away from? Where are the best restaurants? What sites are there to see?

What I’ve learned through the retained process is that the majority of small to medium sized businesses literally have no clue of the power of the web.
They have limited knowledge of the power of social media integration. They are clueless about dynamic vs. static content and they don’t know the difference between a website that acts as a brochure as compared to a website that is an employee that works for them while they sleep at night. Before going retained, most of my clients felt that simply having a website was sufficient.

So being the businessman that I am and wanting to give the client exactly what they wanted, and nothing more, I simply built them a website. That was it.

I was fearful of giving any real advice about the power of the web because I felt that if I turned the client on to new strategies, they would want me to implement those strategies under the “budget constraints” that were initially agreed upon. It’s very hard to include client education in the hourly/project-based model up front. Thus, if I did consult with and educate client, I would lose considerable time and money working for free.
When a designer feels like he/she is working for free, he/she begins to regret the relationship or they are completely taken advantage of by the client if they choose to educate the client without being paid. Because we all have a wealth of information to share, but continually restrain ourselves from sharing that information with the client, for fear of working for free, our clients clearly lose.

2. Encouragement

As a businessman and hopefully a responsible family man, I have this really crazy and unfortunate relationship with a very important professional services provider in my life. This is a person whom I really like and respect. I view his work as critically important to my business and personal needs. There is just one huge problem: I HATE calling him for any reason whatsoever!

My attorney has a wealth of valuable information. He keeps my family, my business, and me straight. But truth be known, I should call him more than I do. There are many loose ends that I need to tie up, from a legal standpoint, for both my business and my family. Why do I hate calling him? Because I know that I’m going to get hit with a fat bill.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve thought to myself, “If only I could send him $500 a month to have his ear, I would jump on it.”
Instead, I find myself becoming the DIY (Do it Yourselfer) legal eagle. I’ll try to write my own contracts. I will go online and file my own legal papers without him viewing them. Essentially, I try to become an attorney, when I have no business being an attorney.
As designers, we are the “attorney” to our client. They value our work. They like us personally. They know they need us… But! They hate calling us because they know they will get a big fat bill!
So what does the bill-weary client do to your precious web design? They tamper, piddle and mess up a good thing. They basically become do-it-yourself web warriors. Or worse yet, they do nothing with their site and they lose valuable opportunities to become a better company. And that is not good for your client, you, or the client’s clients.
As designers, we should be on retainer in order to encourage our clients to pay attention to their online presence. By being on a fixed payment system, the client feels obligated and comfortable calling you when they have needs. This makes them a better company. It gives you more experience and it positions your services as valuable.

3. Time

In my humble opinion, there is nothing more absurd than a website that is left alone for years, months, or even weeks. Gone are the days of “build it and they will come.”
A website should be the hardest working executive on the client’s payroll. It should reach customers that sales people can’t reach. It should act as an ambassador to the company while everyone is away for the weekend.
So what does every hard working executive in any corporation need? They need a personal assistant. They need someone to schedule meetings, a person to make adjustments to strategies, take minutes and communicate to the employees and customers the happenings within the company.

Your clients simply don’t have the time it takes to maintain a solid web presence. They are busy. They are running their company. They are dealing with internal and external issues that take their eyes off the “web ball.”
As a retained service provider, you are always there to maintain the client’s web initiatives. You are the web’s personal assistant. You see to it that it doesn’t miss a meeting. You see to it that it incorporates the latest plugins. You see to it that it has all the necessary widgets and you see to it that the executive isn’t caught off guard by failing to meet a guideline or deadline. In conclusion, time is money and that money should be your money. So position yourself as a reliable, “always-there” comrade that the client can trust to keep their web presence solid.

4. Competitive Advantage

Based on what I can tell, 70% of the web design community is operating on the billable hour/project business model. That means, 70% of your client’s competitors have paid a one-time fee to have a website built. This is great news for you, the newly retained designer. Why? Because as a retained designer, you can implement all the advantages listed above to help your client beat their competitors. Think about it: If your client’s competitors have ugly, do-it-yourself websites that haven’t changed in months, and your client has fresh, updated web initiatives, your clients become more attractive to their clients. When your client’s clients are evaluating which firm to utilize, and they do their due diligence by researching each firm on the web, they will likely choose the firm that has consistent, relative and up-to-ate activity on their website. They will choose the firm that is embracing technology to its fullest potential.
It has been said that activity breeds success. So a highly active website with lots of moving parts, fresh content and the latest activity will breed success for your client.

5. More Customers

In the graveyard of “website-broken-dreams” there are millions of lost souls wondering around aimlessly trying to travel to the other side. You know, that “heavenly” place of new business, more revenue and more customers.
Millions of companies have hired web designers, just like you, hoping to find more customers. In the grand scheme of things, web design isn’t so much about a design that “pops” or “reaches out and grabs you” as it is about the client’s desire to get more customers.
Of course in the beginning they’ll never tell you this. They’ll tell you it’s about a new and exciting image. They’ll tell you it’s about updating their old site. They’ll tell you all sorts of things that have nothing to do with new client acquisition.
But let’s be real: They really don’t care if you throw a turd on the screen. If the site helps them sign new business, they will forever be indebted to you, the designer.
I have found that there is literally no way to do this on a billable hour/project based model. For all the reasons listed above, a web initiative is destined to fail in today’s dynamic web environment if the designer and client do not enter into some form of retained agreement.
I have seen one-man shops who sell hair bows sell 3 hair bows a month with a static web presence and I have seen one-man shops who sell triop eggs (look it up) make millions by expanding their web presence.
So it doesn’t matter if the company is big or small or what they sell. If they have a solid web initiative, fueled by a competent web designer (you) they can do amazing things.

In Conclusion:

So now that I’ve laid out the 5 most important areas for the argument of a retained fee structure, let me also address another glaring issue facing designers: FEAR.
Most of you are fearful to ask a small company for $20K a year to manage their website. I have one thing to say about that: Don’t be!
Companies pay more than $20,000 for a part-time receptionist. Surely your web strategy will gain them more business, more revenue and more productivity than any receptionist could ever imagine.
Stop thinking about yourself as just a web designer. Start thinking about yourself as an invaluable part of your client’s growth strategy. Help them grow. Help them stretch their imagination. Help them view the web for the tool that it is.
Be confident. Be proud of your work. Be an expert. Be a valued business partner. Get the money that you are worth. Give them outstanding service. Solve their problems. Don’t be an order-taker. Be a solution provider. Get serious about web design. Make tons of money. Give back to the design community. Chart your own path.

Cheers!

Ryan

For questions you can contact me on Twitter.com/ryankovach

There are a lot of tools out there for helping freelancers with productivity. I wanted to share a free, web-based tool that I have been building in my spare time called Project Bubble.
Project Bubble is a free, easy-to-use and fun project management tool. Easily manage your projects, invoices, time sheets, clients and files. I also wanted to share a few others that I have looked at over the past few months in my efforts to find decent web apps to help my productivity.

It’s a problem of motivation

Has anyone seen that film Office Space? It’s one of my favourite movies ever. Peter Gibbons get’s asked why he isn’t being very productive at work:

The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care. It’s a problem of motivation, all right?

I love that film. Do you ever find yourself feeling unmotivated but you know that you have a load of work to do and if you don’t have a productive day everything is going to just slip behind and deadlines won’t get met?

You need the motivation to do the work that’s all, and if you can get organised and in to ‘the zone’ you will be able to get lots done. How do you start though? Do you have all these projects whizzing around your head or have a hundred Stickies on your desktop with all the tasks you need to do?

You might not be able to afford a project manager to organise it for you, so what you need is a bit of software to do it for you. You log in, and it says this:

“Hi Stu, you have 3 active projects on today. 1 of them needs to be finished today, and you have 3 to-dos (like ring the client, and organise the meeting) before you finish that task. Don’t worry about the other 5 projects, they can be done later in the week.”

Perfect, right?! Well that is why I decided to build my own software to meet this need. Before I go in to how I did that, let me just share some other apps out there that are amazing.

Project Management With Ease

Thanks to modern browsers and frameworks like jQuery there are a lot of cool web based apps now that handle project management. Obviously BaseCamp springs to mind, but there are countless articles on BaseCamp out there. Yes it’s amazing, and loads of organisations use it, but it’s costly. As a freelancer I wasn’t prepared to pay the fees that BaseCamp charged, and I still thought it could be a lot simpler.

ActiveCollab

ActiveCollab is a great tool. I really like it because you can manage projects, tasks, milestones and invoices altogether. It’s got a very nice, easy-to-use interface and makes doing the management a complete breeze. Not only that but you can share your projects and tasks (though I’m the only one in my company at the moment, as are most freelancers). ActiveCollab offer a free trial, but then they charge to use the service.

NoKahuna

NoKahuna is also very easy to use and they offer a free version which is great. You can create public or private projects and set up tasks or messages for a project. You can even upload files to a project or message. It has a dashboard so you can see an overview of your projects. It’s a simple system (when free), but you can pay for more features if you want.

Nirvana

I found Nirvana recently and it looks amazing. It has an Apple-esque design so obviously the user interface is bound to be easy to use and familiar. You can manage tasks, milestones and projects but also you can export them as well which is helpful. It’s invite only at the moment, but you can sign up for an invite on their site.

Bubbling With CodeIgniter

So after looking at what else was there I thought I’d have a go at making my own. Thanks to CodeIgniter, I was able to build this app, called Project Bubble, in just 2 weeks. I came up with a friendly name, got a friend to do a logo and then just uploaded it to the web. The following video contains an introduction to Project Bubble:

Project Bubble | Project Management Made Simple from Halogy on Vimeo.

I was the only user for months, and it was perfect for me. I would login in the mornings and it would tell me what projects were active, who my top clients were and what tasks needed to be done today. Obviously I had to update it at the end of the day ready for tomorrow, but it took a lot of stress out of the day. One of the most important things for me in the architecture of this app was just to keep things simple and not too clumsy. So I used a lot of jQuery, AJAX (tools to make things load smoothly and quickly), and tried to design it in such a way that you could see all your projects, to-dos and be able to re-order them on the go.

Then came the need to have a system for invoices. What would be so cool is if I could just generate an invoice off a project that I had been working on. The tasks could act as items on the invoice, so I could set the time spent on each task, set how much my fees were and then click Generate and it would make a PDF which I could send to the client. First though I wanted to see what else was out there.

Getting the Boredom out of Invoicing

I used to make documents for every invoice using inDesign. It was a fiddly and lengthy process, but the up-side was my invoices looked really nice. However, when a client gets your invoice the first thing they think about when they receive it is not “ooh what a lovely looking, nicely designed and well branded invoice”, they are thinking about the cost of course! So auto-generated invoices are ok, if you can find the right tool out there to make them for you.

There are LOADS of systems you can use that do this. Some have been around for a long time, for example I remember using a tool years ago that I installed to my web server and it generated invoices for me automatically with my logo. However what people want these days is not to have the hassle of having to manage and host software, they want cool ‘Web 2.0′ apps that are really easy to use.

So here are a few:

Invoice Machine

The Invoice Machine is amazing. I really like it because it’s just so simple and there are lots of buttons and icons to do stuff. With TIM you can create your itemised invoices, set tax rate, discounts, and even choose a theme. Then with a permalink, send them to your client and they can pay with PayPal, which in turn marks them as Paid. It’s got a really nice interface too. They charge to use the service, it’s free though for 3 invoices per month (but I can’t imagine many businesses surviving on 3 invoices per month). TIM haven’t been active for a long time, apparently it’s because they are working on a massive update? You can follow them on Twitter (@invoicemachine).

MoneyBird

Found MoneyBird recently, and they are very friendly. The service is very similar to Invoice Machine only they offer an SSL which can be very useful and bring comfort to your clients because of the added security. They offer a very generous (all-in) package for just $14.00 per month, as well as a free version for 3 invoices again. Again, on Twitter they are @moneybird.

Back to Bubble

So inspired by these amazing web apps I decided to add invoicing features to Project Bubble. As I mentioned earlier it would be cool if you could just run an invoice off against a project, so keeping in the same flow of ’simplicity is best’ I added a system that did just this. I tested this feature with a client recently and simply created an invoice on a closed project (with tasks), clicked on Send, and they paid with Paypal. Bingo!

This kind of system is great because it takes a lot of time, hassle and stress out of our days. When our days are full of coding or being creative with designs and branding we don’t really want to be doing all that management stuff!

Have a go…

A few weeks ago I decided to share Project Bubble with the world, and now you too can use it for free. I’ve had lots of feedback and tried to build the features in as people have requested them. Also people have been requesting language translation and lots more, which is brilliant and I hope to do this soon. Of course PB doesn’t have tools like BaseCamp integration, or Gant charts – but I think if you want things like this then you should definately look at the premium tools out there, like ActiveCollab.

So why am I doing it? And will it always be free? I think mostly PB will always be free yes, though to cover hosting costs I might charge to use the Files part of it later on, but I just enjoy developing and sharing web-based creations like this and getting feedback – so keep your thoughts coming! Incidentally, if you have found any other apps (free or otherwise) that help productivity feel free to share.

Choosing the right hosting company is a crucial aspect for the success of your web site. When I switched from Blogger to WordPress I spent a lot of time looking for a company that offered high-quality services at an affordable price. After some days of researches I decided to host Woork Up on MediaTemple.
Now, after three months, I can say I’m really satisfied about their service and in particular about the customer support that helps you solve quickly every issue.
And you, which hosting service do you suggest to use and why? Please leave a comment, thanks!