News from Moore Consulting

Why I pay for content - and you should too

2009-06-18T22:31:00-07:00

The idea that 'information wants to be free' is the driving force behind so much content delivery on the Internet. It sounds good, right - progressive and egalitarian? But it's a tenet that's bankrupting newspapers, impoverishing photographers and redrawing the media map. And if we don't start paying for online content soon, we'll all be the poorer.

My first job in the Internet industry was in 1995, when I went to work for fledgling web consultancy Nua. Gerry McGovern (or 'guru Gerry' as we called him not quite to his face), had this weird idea about 'making free information pay'.

We created a bunch of free email newsletters about web stuff, and became very successful as a result. But for us, successful meant getting paying web development jobs.

This approach is still valid and valuable - you spend time blogging, tweeting and the rest to show how much you know, connect with people and (hopefully) get some paying gigs out of it. Professional content creators - individuals and organisations - can and should do some of this, too.

One traditional way to fund this give-away is by advertising, but since that's never really balanced the books online, we need another plan. Which is why I unfashionably pay for content.

A solution to GMail’s ‘On behalf of’ problem

2009-04-06T20:38:00-07:00

Like many, I use Gmail as a clearing house for my 'real' addresses. In other words, when you send a mail to david@moore-consulting.net, it sits on my mail server only until Gmail comes to collect it, and pull it into its non-evil embrace.

Then I check my actual Gmail account (using IMAP so it syncs with my laptop, iPhone and the GMail web interface). I get to use their giant amount of online storage, so there's always a copy in the cloud, and I can get to all my mail (sent and received) from pretty much anywhere with a cell phone signal or an internet connection.

Gmail lets you set things up so when you send mail, it appears to come from your 'real' address, not from gmail.com, so you can be all professional, like.

Not in Outlook

Except in Outlook (and some other mail packages, too, but Outlook is the biggie). What those corporate types see is 'Sent from: Bob Bobbins (bob@gmail.com) on behalf of Bob Bobbins (bob@realdomain.com)' or something like it.

Suddenly you don't look very professional at all. But there is a solution that should work for some people.

Photoshelter showcase my photography site

2009-03-06T17:54:01-07:00

Photoshelter - the online photo archiving, display and selling site have chosen my Clearing the Vision photography site as one of their examples of customization.

It’s in the Marketing/Promo category on their examples page.

I adapted one of their templates and integrated it with Wordpress to make it easy to update the photo and text sides of the site, while giving it all a consistent look and feel (more details on how I did it in my blog post on Clearing the Vision).

Photoshelter has 40,000 photographers using the service, and they chose around 25 sites as examples, so it’s quite an honour.

New site for Santa Fe Partners in Education

2009-03-06T00:08:00-07:00

I’m happy to announce the launch of one of our most recent sites - for the non-profit Partners in Education Foundation for the Santa Fe Public Schools.

The site, like most we work on, is a custom design built on top of the Wordpress content management system. This means Partners in Education get exactly the look and feel they want, but they can also update pages and add news stories themselves.

All David, all the time - Twitter, Flickr and FriendFeed

2009-02-17T18:55:00-07:00

For those (few) of you who might want to keep up with all the random goings on at Moore Consulting Towers, you can now follow me on Twitter: @wycombiensian.

I can’t promise I’ll be funny or insightful, but I can promise a pretty regular flow of tweets.

You can see my recent Flickr postings here on the site, but if you want to add me as a Contact or anything, here I am on Flickr.

For those of you looking for all my blog postings, tweets and Flickr updates all in one place, you might want to look at my FriendFeed page: For those (few) of you who might want to keep up with all the random goings on at Moore Consulting Towers, you can now follow me on Twitter: @wycombiensian.

I can’t promise I’ll be funny or insightful, but I can promise a pretty regular flow of tweets on web stuff, photography and anything else that takes my fancy.

You can see my recent Flickr postings here on the site, but if you want to add me as a Contact or anything, here I am on Flickr.

For those of you looking for all my blog postings, tweets and Flickr updates all in one place, you might want to look at my FriendFeed page:

A new approach for photographers’ websites - integrating Wordpress and Photoshelter

2009-01-21T19:02:00-07:00

I’ve worked on several photographers’ sites (Chris Felver’s for example), and was always frustrated by the off-the-shelf solutions.

So either I built everything by hand (not so easy for the photographer to update themselves), or I was limited in how many text-based pages (news, blog, profile, articles, whatever) I could include.

But now I have a solution - integrating the Wordpress blogging tool and Photoshelter photographers’ archiving, display and sales service to create a dynamic site that looks consistent and makes it very easy for the photographer to upload and organize images and keep a blog going.

I’ve rebuilt my own photography site - Clearing the Vision - partly as an example of what can be done with this approach, and I’m very happy with the result.

End of Year Report

2008-12-31T17:42:46-07:00

It’s been another successful and enjoyable year here at Moore Consulting Towers, and there’s just time for a quick round-up of what we’ve been up to this year.

New sites

It was great to build the new site for the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. A really nice group of people, a fantastic event with really good long-term effects around the world.

Other new work included the site for law firm Harwood Consulting, and for creativity speakers and consultants Robert and Rebecca Bluestone (this in conjunction with Linda Johnson at Swell Design). Linda and I also worked together on the site for photographer Chris Felver.

Another notable new site was for the City of Santa Fe Economic Development team, where we worked with long-time collaborator Frank O’Mahony of NVNG, Inc.

It’s the App Store, stupid

2008-07-27T15:24:01-07:00

Last year, I resisted the temptation of the first generation iPhone. This year I’ve succumbed, and my iPhone 3G is on the way (my cunning plan to wait a week after the launch and just walk into an AT&T store and pick one up as been scuppered by the strong demand).

So what’s changed? Part of it is that my resistance has been worn down by the many reports and sightings of people happily using (and raving about) the phone. Also, we’re now just out of contract with Sprint, so there’ll be no early termination fees for jumping carriers.

But the 3G version of the phone also offers some solid reasons to jump on board now.

Beware - falling pixels

2008-07-17T21:44:00-07:00

I’m rolling out some minor site adjustments to mark Moore Consulting’s transition from sole proprietorship to Limited Liability Company (LLC) status.

So watch for falling pixels and other strangeness. Thanks.

Apple Certified Pro

2008-06-30T15:56:00-07:00

Last week I went to all4DVD in Orange County south of LA for a 2-day training course in Apple’s Aperture. And when the training was over I took the certification test, and passed. So I’m delighted to say I’m now an Apple Certified Pro Level 1 in Aperture.

The course, taught by Aperture Master Trainer Victor Maldonaldo, was pretty intense - it’s been a long time since I spent 2 days solid doing one thing in front of a computer, let alone trying to absorb all the information and instructions coming at me.