Two years ago I was asked to redesign a website for a small business. The business was about a year old and the owners were using their savings to help keep the business afloat. While their website at the time was "pretty" it lacked in a number of areas. The most important being it was not easy for customers to locate their business via the internet. The business had a sound structure, the staff members were amazing, but no one knew about them.

After evaluating my client's needs, their business structure, and their competitors I proceeded to create a completely new website. It contained about 15-20 pages of content which provided all of the information a prospective customer would need. Over time the client and I worked together tweaking small things here and there but the initial structure was left intact.

The Results

One random day, approximately a year after creating the website, the client called me to say thank you and I could see the smile from the sound of their voice. The website redesign was the catalyst that kicked off an explosion in growth. Over 90% of new customers told my client they discovered them via their website. Surprisingly this was also done with very little social media.

Two years later and the business has now grossed over one million dollars. The client has hired new staff to help keep up with the growing demand and several of their competitors have gone out of business.

Insight

Search engine optimization played a huge role as the client jumped to the #4 listing on Google for their primary keyword. Keywords are the search terms individuals use to find information on the web. The ironic part of the story is many customers were searching for an unexpected keyword to locate the business. Currently they maintain the #1 listing. In addition the content customers were searching for was readily available on the website.

Most web designers cannot get you these results.

I have spoken with so many business owners that want a "cheap" website not realizing it will yield them no more than web pages with pictures and text.

Building it does not mean they will come.

Conclusion

A website must be fine tuned to attract YOUR customers and there is no way to get it right the first time. The web designer should ask the right questions and work with you over time to tweak your website. Additionally they will perform quite a bit of research - I suggest you do the same as well. It should help you both better understand the requirements to your objective.

This takes time and if you expect to achieve these results overnight for a couple hundred dollars then you would probably be better off as an employee instead of a business owner.

Are you achieving the results you expect from your website?

If you're like me most of your important documents and statements are sent electronically or accessed online. Your mailbox goes days and sometimes even weeks before being checked. On the rare occasion that you make a trip to the mailbox, your mail gets thrown in a huge pile with other random pieces of paper.

Shredder

The quickest way to make the pile of paper cluttering your home disappear is a shredder. In the past I would purchase the cheapest one I could find on sale from a local office supply store. After having quite a few of the discount shredders fail I decided to purchase a Fellowes Intellishred Shredder and have not looked back since. It has shredded everything I have stuffed in its mouth without a problem and should handle the abuse of shredding paper for years to come.

Scanner

The scanner is an optional part of the dynamic clutter cutting duo but one that I could not live without. Just like you cannot have peanut butter without jelly you cannot have a shredder without a scanner. The scanner allows you scan receipts and those important statements your bank refuses to send electronically. Afterward you can hand deliver it to the shredder to free up the clutter. I own a Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500 and I love it. It scans my paper just the right way!

• Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 (PC)
• Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M (MAC)

The Reaction

Initial reactions have been mixed and I think many people were shocked by LeBron's decision. Superstar athletes are not suppose to sacrifice money for the chance to win a championship. Cleveland feels betrayed, many sports fans feel cheated, and sports journalists are scratching their head.

An athlete of LeBron's caliber is suppose to define his own legacy with minimal help from others. All of the sports greats in history were leaders and the number one players on their team. The surrounding players help them win championships but it was ultimately their effort and leadership that carried their teams to success. You're not suppose to join other superstars to increase your chances of winning.

All About Business

Professional athletes are independent businesses. Their genetics, unique skills, talent, and physique allow them to make millions of dollars per year working as an athlete on a team. The goal as an athlete should be to win championships for the team which employs them. Although for many the goal is to make as much money as possible while their unique abilities allow them to do so.

By joining the Miami Heat LeBron has decided to sacrifice a portion of his salary at the opportunity to win a championship. Taking sports out of the equation wouldn't you make a similar decision if the opportunity presented itself? LeBron's chances for success has increased drastically. There is so much more to life than money alone. Having faced a similar situation in the past (minus millions of dollars) I made a decision similar to LeBron and know at least 50 other people who did the same.

While the multitude of factors in his decision are more than most people will face, the underlying principles are the same.

Team Sport

Remember the days of playing sports in your local neighborhood? Two individuals would be chosen as captain and they would each take turns picking their team. Each captain would pick the players they feel could best help their team win (most of the time). Why should professional sports be any different?

Basketball is a team sport and you can't win without a great team. The same holds true for life. If you REALLY want to be successful you will need to be surrounded by a GREAT team to do so. You can do quite well without others but you'll never reach the next level without help. LeBron feels he has found the help needed to succeed.

Some may argue that this super team is guaranteed to win championships and that the outcome of most games will be predictable.This is possible but how many times has your team been stacked on the schoolyard only to be beaten by a team that had no chance of winning. It is amazing how someone's talent can increase when facing a formidable opponent. Each team that LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh face will want to be the underdog that wins. Talent does not equal success.

The Wild Card

The wild card you are not hearing from many outlets is that Florida has no state income tax. LeBron will have to pay tax on the road as athletes must pay whichever tax is higher when playing on the road - the home state or the away state. He still stands to make more money playing in Miami than if he played in any other city. LeBron might be more business savvy than most give him credit for.

Conclusion

Life consists of decisions that help to determine future outcomes. The outcome of LeBron's decision to join the Miami Heat has yet to be seen and is one that will be scrutinized over the next year.

It really doesn't matter if LeBron James wins a championship with the Miami Heat. What is important is that he made a decision which he feels gives him the best opportunity to do so. That is all any of us can ask for in life.

Have you put yourself in a situation to win?

Additional Information

For LeBron James, more cold cash in hot Miami

There are numerous tech articles that recommend a SSD (solid-state drive) as one of the best upgrades you can make to your computer today to improve its performance. With SSD's now being "affordable" I felt that it was a great time to install one into my MacBook Pro. The only downside is they do not offer as much space per dollar as traditional SATA hard drives.

The solution to this issue is to use the SSD for the operating system and applications while storing all of my documents, music, and pictures on the factory SATA hard drive.

The Parts

• Intel 80GB X25M SSD
• MaxConnect Optical Bay Kit
• Teeny Turner

Intel 80GB X25M SSD

At the time of my purchase the Intel X25M was "the best" SSD available. There is a 80GB and 160GB version of the hard drive. I decided to go with the smaller version due to cost and did not need a ton of space since the drive would only be used for the operating system and applications. Currently I am using 17GB of space.

MaxConnect Optical Bay Kit

The MaxConnect Optical Bay Kit replaces the optical drive in your MacBook Pro and is used to install the second hard drive. It came highly recommended in several forums and it works perfectly!

Pre-Installation (optional)

Your SSD hard drive will most likely have a firmware update available for it. The Intel firmware update utility does not work with the latest generation MacBook Pro's and I had to use another computer to upgrade the firmware. It would have been nice to know this before actually installing the drive :D

Additionally you will also want to to make sure you have a full backup of your current hard drive. My recommendations are:

• SuperDuper!
• Carbon Copy Cloner

Installation

• Step 1 - Remove the back panel of your Macbook Pro using the Teeny Turner

• Step 2 - Replace the factory hard drive with the Intel SSD

• Step 3 - Remove the optical drive

• Step 4 - Install factory drive into MaxConnect Optical Bay

• Step 5 - Install MaxConnect Optical Bay with hard drive into MacBook Pro

• Step 6 - Finish putting your MacBook Pro back together

Conclusion

While you can restore your system from backup on to your new SSD I would recommend installing a fresh copy of OS X from DVD. Now you're probably wondering how to do that since you just removed the optical drive.

You can either purchase a USB DVD drive or purchase an external enclosure for the factory optical drive.

An alternative option would be to install OS X before replacing the optical drive with the factory hard drive. This means a little extra work, but in the end it is well worth it.

Additional Reading

How To: Apple MacBook Pro RAID 0 Array with 2 Intel X25-M SSDs

bSimple is great for a basic blog or can be used as the base structure of a more advanced design. In addition the theme has built-in support for Amphibian, an upcoming theme framework I have been working on.

Download bSimple

You know exactly where to find these items if needed and it doesn't help to have them showing up when your trying to find a picture for grandma. The picture screams "DO NOT OPEN" and she wants you to open it anyway :D

Quick and Easy

• Step 1 - Open System Preferences

• Step 2 - Select Spotlight, click Privacy, drag secret folder to window

As you're watching Hoarders you begin to feel good about your situation and are somewhat proud of your messy apartment. However, deep down inside we both know that things are bad, real bad, Michael Jackson Bad.

Don't fret though, the solution to your problem is probably simpler than you realize. Invite a few friends over for some food, fun, and games. Most people really do not want others to see their home in a state of distress. You would be surprised at your motivation to clean and your newfound energy by putting pressure on yourself.

And if you're single inviting that special someone over for a dinner date will result in an immaculate apartment and maybe even a little something extra ;-)

Bonus: Alternative Solution

An alternative solution to your messy apartment is to invite the female parental unit to your place. Nine times out of ten their frustration (and possible guilt for raising such a slob) will cause their maternal instincts to kick into gear and cleanup for you. Just be sure to take your mom out to dinner afterward :D

Structure

The basic structure needed for a blog's RSS Feed is quite simple.

HTTP Header

The header should be sent as text/xml to the browser. Some suggest sending it as application/rss+xml but I have found that browsers prefer text/xml instead.

XML Declaration

RSS Feeds must validate as XML and requires a valid XML declaration.

RSS Element

The RSS element specifies the document as RSS.

Channel Element

The channel element contains information (metadata) pertaining to the feed.

• title - name of the channel; most often this is the same as the name of your site
• atom:link - the URL of the file serving your RSS feed
• description - a brief description of the channel (your website)
• link - the URL of your website

Item Elements

Item elements represent your blog posts and should contain the following information:

• title - title of the blog post
• link/guid - the URL of the blog post
• description - a brief description (excerpt) of the blog post
• content:encoded - the full blog post (or excerpt) in HTML

Example

The following example is very similar to the code used to power the feed for this blog and should help you get started. However, it does not explain how to retrieve your posts from a database as each person's database server and schema will differ.

<?php header('Content-Type:text/xml; charset=UTF-8'); ?>

<?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>'; ?>
<rss version="2.0" 
  xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
  xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
>

<channel>
  <title>My RSS Feed</title>
  <atom:link href="http://mysite.com/rss2.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
  <link>http://mysite.com</link>
  <description>My Site Description</description>
  <language>en-us</language>
  <copyright>Copyright (C) Me</copyright>

<?php foreach ($_posts as $_post): ?>
  <item>
    <title><?php echo $_post['title']; ?></title>
    <link><?php echo $_post['link']; ?></link>
    <guid><?php echo $_post['link']; ?></guid>
    <pubDate><?php echo $_post['date']; ?></pubDate>
    <description><?php echo $_post['description']; ?>.</description>
    <content:encoded><![CDATA[<?php echo $_post['content']; ?>]]></content:encoded>
  </item>
<?php endforeach; ?>

</channel>
</rss>

Additional Reading

• RSS 2.0 Specification
• Howto Create an RSS 2.0 Feed
• Create an RSS feed with PHP

Yesterday I was asked this question from a woman while at the gas station. Before she approached me I noticed her talking on a cellphone and she seemed to be a little frustrated. My initial reaction to the question was a look that said, "Sorry, I am not interested". She politely told me it was OK and moved on.

Immediately I began to feel guilty and question my decision as I continued to pump gas at the rate of $2.69/gallon. What if she really needed just a dollar to get home? If I gave away $1 each day my world would not come crumbling down financially. The same holds true for many of you reading this post.

(A pickup truck pulls into the gas station as I continue to ponder)

Humans should help each other whenever possible especially when it requires minimal effort. Giving her one-dollar would cost me less in time, energy, and money than answering a question from most of my friends. The woman then began to approach the pickup truck as I yelled "Ma'am! Ma'am!". As she approached me I reached into my pocket to retrieve some money and smiled as I gently placed a few dollars into her extended hand. She said, "God bless you", and smiled back.

As I sat down and began to crank my car I noticed her running to the bus stop in my rear-view mirror. A few dollars was worth a lot more than I anticipated.

function pluralize($_string) {
  $_es = array('x','s');
  $_es2 = array('sh','ss','ch');

  if (in_array(substr($_string, -1), $_es) || 
    in_array(substr($_string, -2), $_es2)) {
    $_string = $_string.'es';
  } elseif (substr($_string, -1) == 'y') {
    $_string = substr($_string, 0, -1).'ies';
  } else {
    $_string = $_string.'s';
  }

  return $_string;
}

Gist

Additional PHP Pluralize Methods

• Simple PHP Pluralize
• PHP Pluralize Method
• Improved PHP Pluralize Method

Classified Information

In my opinion (which all my blog posts are) there is a vast amount of GREAT information residing in books. I'm even proud to say that I'm the owner of quite a few books myself, most which have never been read. Many times you can get much more substance from a book than you can a blog post or article. This information remains hidden from those who rarely crack one open. We have the ability to read so might as well take advantage of it right? And in the process maybe learn more than the current events of our favorite celebrity.

The Challenge

In my quest for knowledge and a challenge I have decided to read 50 pages a day until I make it through the backlog of books in my library. The goal is to learn new things, foster creativity, and relax. Living in a society in which technology is a constant part of everyday life it will also allow me to break away from the grid and escape The Matrix.

The Key To Life

And most importantly reading is the key to life ...

Download

The MongoDB team provides a precompiled driver for OS X on GitHub. Download the latest version of this driver and uncompress the zip file.

Install

Copy the mongo.so file to the following directory:

/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5.3/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/

Afterward open MAMP Pro, select File, navigate to Edit Template, and select PHP 5.3.2 php.ini.

In the Extensions section of your php.ini add the following line:

extension=mongo.so

Restart the server and you should be good to go!