This site runs on WordPress 3.01 – the current version. The theme that styles it is Thesis, a premium theme made by Chris Pearson ‘s DIY themes.

Thesis 1.8 was released last week with a surprising lack of fanfare. Previous versions have had long run ups with a number of emails announcing its imminent arrival. I’ve been receiving regular emails with useful information about Thesis and how to use it best, so I thought last week’s delivery was another one of them. What’s more, you’d be forgiven for thinking that such low key launch would mean that the release would be quite a minor one.

Au contraire, the new features in Thesis 1.8 make it quite a major one. So, even if DIY Themes aren’t making much of a fuss, why do I think it’s quite a major step?

Google fonts

For years, web designers have had to resort to ruses if they wanted yo use fonts that were not “web safe”, meaning those that were not guaranteed to be installed on all computers and therefore displayed more or less correctly on all browsers and all platforms. This has started to change recently with the arrival if web-based fonts that sit on a server and are “sent” to the browser to be displayed as and when required.

There are 28 new fonts in the Google Fonts Directory and the majority of them are web safe with serif, sans serif or even cursive or handwriting (I suppose it takes all tastes!) styles available.

New Header Image and Favicon

Being able to upload a header image easily without fiddling around with bits of code is a big deal for me. I’d love to be able to fiddle around with the code more than I do, but then again I’m a writer, not a coder.

New Security Enhancements

“Thesis 1.8 not only incorporates WordPress nonce field protection, but it also boasts a refined data-handling system that will help keep your sits both safe and stable. Take advantage of it the additional security by upgrading now!”

There you go then.

The recent news of A-lister users like Chris Brogan and perhaps more importantly co-founder Brian Clark defecting from the theme is certainly significant and calls into question Thesis’s domination of the premium theme market. Whether the trickle turns into flood will perhaps depend on the much forecasted arrival of version 2.0.

In the meantime, 1.8 is a serious upgrade and well worth getting.

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I’m not a professional proofreader but one way and another, I seem to do a lot of it. What with blogs, online and offline content and translation, rereading is a big part of my working life. Eliminating typos is a fastidious process but over the years I’ve learnt a few strategies that make the process easier and more effective.

Use the spell check

I know this sounds stupid, but I see many texts where it obviously hasn’t been used. It’s not a panacea because it won’t catch incorrectly used homonyms and the Microsoft Word version is particularly poor on its grammar – its knowledge of French grammar is even worse – red lines under words are a clue, your spelling is rotten.

Print it out

To be honest, this does nothing for me and I used to waste reams and reams of paper, the process took me twice as long as it needed to because I had to correct on the paper and then on the screen  and I still left typos behind! But people still swear by it.

Use a big screen

With the arrival of flat screens, the size of viewing areas has grown considerably and now all operating systems allow you to attach a second screen to your computer. You probably need all the real estate you can get. According to an article published by Jakob Nielsen as long ago as 1997, we read 25% slower from a screen than from paper. Not only is this a reason to write short, scannable chunks of text on the Internet, it’s probably good news for proof readers because we take more time and concentrate more.

Make the text big

Increased sizes and the possibility of adding one or more screens to a computer mean it is now possible to zoom a text in by 200% or 300% or even more. That’s a great way to hone in on small errors like confusing a comma and a full stop.

Let the computer read it to you

Macs have had this ability for years and the quality of the voice synthesis has gradually improved. Even PCs have moved on from Microsoft Sam with its a strange resemblance to HAL, the computer from 2001 A Space Odyssey. Combined with increasing the size of the text on the screen, I’ve always found that this is the best way of proof reading from a screen because not only do spelling mistakes and grammar errors jump out at you, clunky style does as well.

Have someone else read it back to you

This may seem like overkill for a run of the mill text, but if it is really important, another pair of ears may be very useful.

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I haven’t written anything on the blog for a month or so. In the blogging world, that’s centuries.

But I have an excuse, really. I had a whole load of personal stuff that needed to get sorted. It’s all behind me now so it’s time to move on.

We all know that if you go quiet in social media, people will forget you, whatever the value of your insights, whatever your brand value and all that tosh.

I’ll make up for the loss, fill in the gaps and move on to better and greater things.

So what’s your excuse?

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Working at home is a great thing. It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting in my garden wondering what I’m going to do for the rest of the day. I consider this to be a privilege, but if you’re not careful it can be a curse. Stuff happens, things get in the way. Here’s 5 time wasters and ways to avoid them.

Constantly checking email

You’d probably want to know if you’d won the lottery, but do you really want to know what Amazon is recommending straight away? Determine what is important and filter your email. Have a mailbox for clients for example, one for email newsletters or whatever you consider important. Then designate times in the day to look at email. Do you really need it to be on ALL the time?

Crashing IT systems

Admittedly this doesn’t happen very often and, without going down the smug Mac users path, it’s only ever Windows that crashes. Make sure your systems and backups are up to date. Tests your backups as well. Many people think that just because they’ve got back up software, they’re covered. Then they realise they’ve forgotten to include essential work files or worse, it doesn’t work at all.

The coffee pot and the biscuit barrel

In order to finish big jobs, I set myself deadlines, often hourly. An hour’s research for example or so many words written or translated.

While I’m not a complete coffee junkie, I like peppering my day with the odd cup. This involves leaving the office and spending the best part of 10 minutes making it. That’s 10 minutes out of an hour. 12.5%. And I’m not even going to think about the effect on my cholesterol!

I’m not saying don’t have a coffee or eat a biscuit. Just be aware of the time it takes from your busy schedule and allocate specific time for breaks.

Work expands to fit the time

Are you one of those people that, when given seven days to do a one day project, will do it on the sixth day? That’s fine as long as you don’t get asked to do a rush one day job on that sixth day. Will you be wishing you’d done the first job earlier? It’s always better to start (and finish) a job earlier because you don’t know what the future holds.

Worrying about things

Like most freelancers, I spend my life worrying about things that might not or never happen. Am I going to finish the job on time? Will this client ever pay me? What if the phone never rings again?

Now, a bit of worrying is probably a positive thing (you don’t want to get over confident do you), but no-one was ever successful because they worried all the time.

Worries and their twin brother fear are part of life. They are often irrational and prevent us making the right decisions. So here’s a tip. Imagine your worries or fear as a little boy (or girl) that is constantly with you. Then tell then good and firm. “OK you. I don’t mind you coming along for the ride, but here’s the deal. You just sit in that corner, shut up and let me do my work”. That way you’ll get things done.

We all have things that get in our way and stop us from being productive. What’s yours?

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Here’s a question for you. If you’re self-employed, do you think you don’t have a boss or are you the boss?

The difference is quite important. Not having a boss means you work when you want doesn’t it? It means you set the agenda, there’s no-one to tell you what to do and what not to do.

Does that suit your customers? Do you turn up for work when you feel like it or when your customers expect you to be there? Do you deliver your work when you get the time (and invent an excuse as to why it’s late) or do you deliver on time or even early?

I came across this video today, via chrisbrogan.com. The subject matter isn’t important, but have a look, the message is.

Clever isn’t it? There’s no more slouching for us now. We’ve got to deliver.

If you want to be bought by Amazon (or anyone else for that matter), get up early, be on time and BE THE BOSS. As Pete Townshend said (yes, in a different context), “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.

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I wasn’t really sure where I stood in the automatic tweet/real tweet debate. There may have been a productivity argument for tweeting automatically sometimes. But one of Chris Brogan’s tips in 50 Power Twitter tips put it nicely:

“Robot tweets are less sexy than human tweets”.

Tweet automatically if you want to, but don’t expect it to make you sound any better.

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This is my office. The photos are from my iPhone, so they have, let’s say, an artisan quality. A workspace is a very personal thing for freelancers and home workers. We surround ourselves with things we like and things to make us more efficient. I have light, as much space as I can, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock to help inspire me.

In a moment of self-indulgence I decided to interview myself about my workspace. I asked myself what was my ideal workspace and how did I work?

When’s the best time to work?

I love summer mornings. When I can get up at 4 or 5, I can think straight, I’m more creative and more productive. By the time it gets to 3 or 4 in the afternoon, it’s often just too hot to continue. Then by 10, it’s time to be creative again. There’s something about the night as well that lends itself to creativity. It might be the silence. Just like the morning, when the house is quiet I can put myself in my own world that’s free of the day’s troubles, winter or summer, and just get on with things. The thing is, when do I sleep?

What’s the best working conditions?

I love having light. Although it’s the smallest room in the house, the third bedroom, it’s the one with the best light. Sometimes I wish I was an artist, a designer or an architect. Light lends itself to drawing, painting and imagining great open spaces. But me, I write for a living. The images are in my mind and I have to bring them to the page through words.

Light is part of my furniture. One thing I’ve discovered in Somerset is a unique “lightscape” where you can walk across the Quantock Hills and see angry grey clouds combined with a summer blue sky and sunshine. The effect of the light and the shadows from the clouds dancing across the hills is quite stunning likje nothing I’ve ever seen before.

How much space to you need?

It’s good to have space. And there’s something about a polished white desk that gives the impression of a wide area. I like to spread out when I work. I use 2 computers with three screens. Surely I don’t need that much? I’m a writer, but much of my work involves research and it’s great to have a few programs and browser windows open at the same time. I’m just starting to use DevonThink as a way of indexing and organising my information, but that still needs a bit of work.

How long have you worked from home? Where is home?

I’ve been self-employed since 1996. I currently work from my home in Somerset. This is my third office in the third house I’ve lived in since moving here in 2003. Previously, I lived in Brittany. Ideal sounding perhaps but it was in a one-bedroom flat without much light that stiffling in the summer. And when I wanted to relax in the evening, the computer sitting in the corner of the living room was constantly giving me the evil eye because I wasn’t sitting in front of it. No, give me an office door I can shut any time.

How do you keep your office organised?

Organisation is a contant battle. I tend to expand to fit the space available to me so I can go from a perfectly organised, clean office in the morning to Armageddon in the afternoon and then back again by the time the next morning comes around.

I work on two computers generally. An iMac in the office and a MacBook Pro for on the road or the evenings when work overruns. I’ve always had issues synching them either using USB keys, network disks or synching programs. I’ve synched the wrong way a few times overwriting the new file with the old one. I seem to have solved that problem with Dropbox where all my files sit on one central server but redundant, local copies are kept on my hard disks so I don’t always need an internet connection to access them.

What piece of equipment do you most covet?

I’m not entirely sure it’s a good thing to covet anything. But I’m desperatly trying to put some money aside for a new 27″ iMac. I have a 20″ model that I bought in 2006 whose hard disk I’m trying to convince myself is failing. It’s not really, it’s working fine. I’d still like a new one!

I haven’t yet found a work-related reason to by an iPad. It looks great for newspapers and magazines. Well, keep looking.

But the real object of my desires is a Hermann Miller Aeron chair. 12 year guarantee and good for my back, perfect really.

What office accessory could you not do without?

OK, I’m a fashion victim, but my Moleskine notebook, especially the larger format. It’s the most stylish and easiest to write in notebook I’ve ever had.

What would you change about your workspace?

Make it bigger

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It’s amazing how time flies. It seems like just five minutes since Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher each contrived to miss a penalty against Portugal in the 2006 FIFA World Cup (c) as we must now call it to send England crashing out in quarter final glory.

Now it’s already South Africa 2010 and we’re ready to go through the whole thing again. For at least the first two weeks there’ll be three games a day to distract freelancers and home workers and prevent them from getting anything done. If you hate the whole jamboree you’re lucky, just turn the television and the radio off and you you can ignore it all. If you’ve more than a passing interest, you’ll need help combining work and distraction. And getting some work done.

I’ve seen every game of the last three World Cups and have developed some stategies to combine working well and keeping up to date. And yes, I know this is tongue in cheek, but for some it’s a real problem!

1. Use a second screen or a second computer

During the World Cup 2006, Internet TV was just getting going. To be quite frank, the quality wasn’t great, it was jumpy, grainy and slow. Four years later, both BBC and ITV channels broadcast over the Internet and even a half-decent 2MB connection should be enough to get streaming that you can watch games without getting that spinning ball that means the connection is buffering every 2 minutes.

2. Do the boring tasks

You can multi-task! We all have boring tasks to do in our businesses. The World Cup is the perfect excuse to get on with them. So, if you have a backlog of filing, accounts or simply organising your workspace (a fancy word for tidying up), you can go ahead and do those tasks AND feel virtuous.

3. Get up early

The World Cup always takes place in June and July. In Europe at least, it’s daylight at 4 or 5 in the morning at that time of year. It’s also quiet with nothing but chirping birds to distract you. As it’s often too hot at 3 in the afternoon, why not get up early and change the way you work?

4. Turn the sound off

A little way of trying to kid yourself you’re concentrating on your work is to turn the sound of and watch out of the corner of your eye. Well, it works for me!

5. Use live blogs or a live updates service

Are you really interested in North Korea against the Ivory Coast? (yes!) Technology now exists to enable us to keep up to date almost in real time without going anywhere near a television screen. You can get scores pushed to your phone or computer and not be distracted by screaming commentators. The BBC also has a live teleprinter service that will tell you when and where all the goals are going in. Personally, I find these more distracting than watching a game out of the corner of my eye, but of they suit you, go for it.

6. Don’t try to work whilst watching the television

After years of trying, believe me, it doesn’t work. Sit in front of the television with a beer, not your laprop. Relax and enjoy.

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Like a lot of blogs and sites, this is a one contributor affair. I come up with the ideas for the content, I write and maintain it and I do the Wordpess and Thesis customisation.

Whilst doing that, I give it my tone and personality. I like to write in what I think us a relaxed but intelligent style because that’s how I perceive myself. I write about things I like again because they reflect my business and to some extent my personal life. I am however discreet because it would be easy to put off potential clients and buyers by being too touchy-feely or by moaning too much.

Really putting personality into a web site

I came across Be Awesome Online today whilst reading Copyblogger. It’s not often I click through to a particular contribtor’s web site, but this time I did and I’m glad because it got me asking questions of myself.

At first look, Catherine Caine’s site is a well-designed sales engine. That’s not a criticism, on the contrary, it shouts load and proud what it is and does it in a pretty engaging way.

When you dig a bit deeper though into the blog pages, she reveals far more. She’s (probably) not yet a six-figure blogger and has trouble getting to the end of the month sometimes. She also suffers from energy sapping depression in the winter months with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

She is refreshing because a real person shines out from under all that writing that she says she loves doing.

Honesty as a sales tool

Now I’m no advocate for Catherine. I’ve never met her and in fact until a few hours ago, I’d never even heard of her. What I like about her is that sales blurb is saying, “Come on guys, we all feel the same way about this. We’re all a bit scared sometimes, we all doubt our abilities, lets just be honest about it”.

There’s arguments for an against calling one or two-man bands a “brand”. It doesn’t matter whether you call it a brand, an identity or a personality, if it isn’t distinct and doesn’t show up, something’s wrong.

Have I been doing it wrong?

This site reflects was I am and when you call me, email me or just make a comment (because you will, won’t you?), you’ll know exactly what or who to expect. The picture at the top is really me, in my office in front of my Jackson Pollock, staring into the webcam on my iMac.

I have fears and there are times when I don’t think I’m going to make it. I have days when everything goes wrong and I just want to give up. Freelancers don’t have an awful lot of support networks and it would be good that sometimes we could use these “social” media to be a little more ourselves than what we would like to pretend to be.

Like Catherine, we just might come over as more personable, more approachable and in the final analysis, more fun.

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Earlier in the month I compiled a playlist for the car that was unashamedly 1970s. It was full of stuff I could turn up loud and sing out of tune to with no fear of reprisals. I can’t tell you how good that drum section and Herbie Flowers’ bass sounds on Nilsson’s Jump into the Fire on Nilsson Scmilsson sounds flying down the motorway. Or Led Zeppelin’s Rain Song or anything by Bad Company or Free. Old hippies never die I suppose, they just get nostalgic from time to time.

But just to prove I don’t live in a time warp, this month’s playlist of music I work with is rather electronic. And thanks to Stuart Maconie and those great people at emusic, the month has been at bit expensive as well.

Darshan Ambient - The Zen Master’s Diary: very close to ambient. One reviewer on emusic says, “This is how I start Sunday morning, along with coffee and the paper. Masterful and mellow”. There you go.

I Monster - Art of Chill EP: part of the 2-disk Art of Chill Volume 6 put together by I Monster. We’ll have to forgive them a dubious version of a dubious song, Tina Turner’s The Best, the rest is a gem. Part Air, part psychedelia, three short(ish) tracks. Just fresh.

The Lickets - Journey in Caldecott: An apparently elusive duo. Hypnotic, melodic and and somehow elevating.

Lemon Jelly – Lost Horizons: Not at all ambient, call it chill, down-tempo or whatever you want. Unchallenging, pass the day away with it.

Rhys Chatham – A Crimson Grail (for 400 electric guitars): 400 electric guitars and the Sacré Coeur cathedral in Paris. Epic, mad and it works.

The Advisory Circle - Other Channels: Retro-synths and public information films. What’s not to like? Like the rest of Ghost Box‘s output.

Sylvain Chaveau – The Black Book of Capitalism: This is an elusive record, a mix of electronic and acoustic. It paints scenes, creates atmospheres.

The Jellyheads – Filthy Mechanoid: Downbeat/down tempo (what the hell is the difference?). Basic guitar, bass and drum supplemented with all kinds synths, software and kitchen utensils (apparently). A glorious smorgasbord.

Inch Time – As the Moon Draws Water: I’ve seen this described as “slow dance music for melancholic robots”. I’ll leave the dancing to others, another electro-acoustic affair with a whole variety of influences, jazz, world and techno.

Kraftwerk – Trans-Europe Express: OK, this is retro-electronica, but I came to Kraftwerk very, very late. I’d liked an extract from their second album that appeared on the Vertigo sampler Suck it and See, but not all the 80s stuff that I found too mechanical. Take them out of that horrible decade and they sound they sound revolutionary. Mea Culpa, I’m catching up as I write.

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