Before and After, click for big image.

Share your thoughts in the comments if you like.

Visit the site to check it out.

Our Role

Working very closely with the Portnoy Media group, we saw this project through from beginning to end. The client had a very specific design they wanted to go with, including the thermometer on the front page. The thermometer would be dynamic (change depending on specific information), and go up as people donated money.

Solutions:

The client wanted to be able to manage their donors in a control panel only accessible by the administration. As mentioned above, they wanted this to reflect in the thermometer. They also wanted to be able to easily change the Naming Opportunities page, below is a sneak peak of what we came up with.

From her site:

Penelope is the founder of 3 startups — most recently, Brazen Careerist, a web service to help companies find candidates. Her career advice appears in more than 200 newspapers and magazines including Time magazine, San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe. In a review of this blog, Business Week called Penelope’s writing “poetic.”

After reading through much of her archives, I had some questions I wanted to ask her and she was nice enough to answer them.

Me: What makes you happy?

Penelope: I don’t know. I keep trying to figure that out. I think the answer sort of comes to us in pieces. I try to put them together so they make enough sense that I can take action. Change things.

Me: I was taught there are three things you don’t discuss at work. Sex, politics and religion. This isn’t necessarily the case anymore and you seem to think this is a good trend. What initial steps would you suggest someone take to inject more of themselves in to their work?

Penelope: Make a friend. Take the normal steps toward making a friend, which do not typically involve any of the above topics. At least at first. And then add those topics once the person is your friend. Tim Rath, a researcher from Gallup, found that if you have two friends at work, it’s nearly impossible to hate your job. That’s a good endorsement for making friends. You don’t need to be close to everyone. Just two people.

Me: I see a trend of people deeply intertwining their personal goals with their career goals. Is this a healthy practice? Will this cause people to be more or less successful in the business world?

Penelope: We each define success differently. There are tradeoffs to everything. We need to acknowledge that when we decide our priorities for our goals.

Me: You’ve written about the importance of practicing vulnerability in the workplace and how this is connected with choosing silence over talking. Why is vulnerability so important? In what ways is silence connected to this?

Penelope: If we are not vulnerable then we’re not open to new experiences, and life will get boring and lonely. You can’t let new things in if you never shut up. Talking all the time is a way to put an artificial wall between you and a the world. The unexpected parts of life happen in the silences.

Me: What personal activities do you regularly do to keep yourself in check both personally and professionally?

Penelope: I go to the gym and I read a lot. I blog three or four days a week. That’s a lot of alone time in my head. If I don’t do that, I start to fall apart in my head. So probably writing is something that I need to do to keep myself steady. I’m lucky that it’s part of my job

After college I worked at a residential group home school where I started as a case aid, then became the GED Coordinator. In teaching GED math, I learned a profound lesson that would ripple through the rest of my life forever:

Most things seem harder than they really are.

The kids in my class would get so overwhelmed by fractions. When I was a teenager, I was TERRIBLE at math. I hated the subject. I hated math because I didn’t understand it, and it seemed so hard. The highest math I had ever achieved was Algebra 1 and Geometry. However, when I taught the kids in my program, it all made perfect sense. Fractions were easy, and algebra was . . . fun?

The next year, I was asked to give one-on-one instruction to a student in Algebra 2. As mentioned before, I had never taken Algebra 2, but I could read and understand the textbook better than he could, so I took on that task and found the same thing. Algebra 2 was easy - fun even. I enjoyed teaching, and wasn’t intimidated by the math because I now understood a further truth:

Everything can be understood, and thus learned.

After teaching for three years, I decided to see about designing (which was my college major) and got a job at a sign company. While I was there, we would develop custom solutions, and spend time thinking out of the box. I enjoyed this so much more than designing, that I became interested in Engineering. In the summer, I started on the Engineering track at the local community college, getting some prerequisites out of the way. I took Trigonometry 1 and 2. It was simple, something about understanding how it all works made sense. This new confidence spurred me on to realize this:

With enough Time or Effort, you can do Anything

And that’s the point I want to leave you with. Don’t hold yourself back because a task seems daunting. Every task has it’s own value of cognitive dissonance (the feeling of your brain shaking a big “NO”) that a person must push through in order to obtain control. The goal is not to obtain mastery, but competence in any area you like. Don’t hold yourself back because you’re not the best at any one thing; instead, build confidence by learning a new skill.

You’ll be offered lots of advice from other places:

• Figure out the triggers - While we can do plenty to keep stress out of our life, there will always be triggers in our life in the forms of clients and kids that can set us off. Identifying this did me absolutely no good.
• Try really hard for 30 days - This has got to be the worst. The mere fact that it’s a habit that I want to quit implies that I can’t control myself. Trying really hard only produces guilt when I inevitably fail, which helps no one.
• Accountability - People lie. To themselves and to others. Especially when they feel ashamed. I’ve found having accountability works until you fail after a long stretch of doing good. Then I don’t want to admit that I’ve failed.

Two and a half years ago when I quit my job to run Out:think full time, I had no idea that amount of bad habits I had. It’s amazing how surfing YouTube for three hours a day has a different impact when you’re paycheck isn’t guaranteed anymore.

While wasting time online is relatively harmless, I’ve also battled and defeated darker habits in my life with the process I explain below.

The problem with all of the above advice is that you’re focusing on the problem. You need to focus on what you’re life would be like without your bad habit.

Have you ever watched a tight rope walker? They never look down. Their eyes are always on the end of the rope. Looking down is death.

All of the solutions I listed above are ways of “looking down” at your current situation. Looking down is death.

This process for breaking bad habits keeps your eye on the benefits of breaking the bad habit. If you follow it, you’ll quickly stop caring whether you break the bad habit or not. The end become the focus instead of the process that gets you there and before you realize it, you’ll make it to the other side.

1. Decide that it’s acceptable to fail

You have to do this first. You have to believe it. No more beating up on yourself. No more wishing it would just go away. You’ve got a problem and you’re taking steps to deal with it. No more guilt.

You are going to fail. A lot. And it’s ok.

It’s been drilled into our collective heads that we need to move fast on everything in life and once we’ve started something it needs to move as quickly as possible. If you’ve developed a bad habit over a long span of time, it’s going to take a long time to break it.

Let the guilt go.

2. Decide that you are going to stop trying to break the bad habit

I’m assuming by now you’ve already tried really really hard to stop. It’s normal but it’s how our bodies run. For this process to work you have to give up on trying to stop from sheer will power. It’s time to try something different.

3. Write down a list of all the negative results of your bad habit

Be specific and thorough. Write down every possible way this bad habit is has a negative impact on your life. Here’s part of my list from wasting time instead of working:

1. I don’t make money which means I can’t pay my bills
2. I have to make up the time later, which means time away from my kids. i.e. I traded playing with my son for watching dumb internet videos.
3. I have to make up the time later, which means time away from my wife which causes a strain on our relationship.
4. I fill my head with useless information.
5. I come home feeling stupid and worthless.

This is not about guilt. We took care of the guilt in #1. This is about having clarity on your situation. Once this list is written down, move on to #4.

4. Write down a list of all of the positive things that will be added to your life once your break this habit

Again, be specific and thorough. Obviously most of these will be the antithesis of what you wrote in #2 but this step is still very important. Here’s part of my list:

1. I will follow through on my work which means I will get paid and have money in the bank.
2. I will be able to come home on time or early and spend time with my kids.
3. I will be able to come home on time or early and spend time with my wife.
4. I will come home with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

These are the goals we want to focus on. This is what we really want. It’s not really about the bad habit. It’s about what we are missing out on because of it.

5. Spend 10 minutes every morning meditating on the first four steps

• Every morning before your day starts, take ten minutes to be still and quiet.
• Remind yourself that today you will probably fail and that’s ok.
• Remind yourself that you’re done trying to break the bad habit. You’re trusting the process.
• Thoughtfully meditate over your lists from steps #3 and #4.
• Live your life.

Once you remove the stress and guilt you constantly place on yourself to break your bad habit and begin focusing on the positive results, your patterns will begin to change. It will happen slowly and it will be surprising, but it will work.

She speaks specifically to grad school, but spending four years and tens of thousands of dollars on an undergrad is probably just as much a waste.  I went to college and graduated with a BS in Computer Science.  My GPA was a stellar 2.7.  While I credit college for introducing me to my lovely wife and allowing me to act a fool for an extra four years, I think it was far from necessary in my success.

1. You’ll get paid to learn more at your first job

Just about any college graduate will tell you they learned more in their first six months out of school at their first job than the prior four years.

The math doesn’t add up when you learn more in less time while somebody is paying you instead of vice versa.  Learn on somebody else’s dime.

2. The piece of paper isn’t necessary

There are a huge number of companies out there that won’t hire someone if they don’t have at least a college degree.  Thankfully, the number is decreasing but it’s still out there.  So what to do?

From my observations and experience, if the company is more interested in a degree than your skill and expertise, you probably won’t be happy there.  This is a place that values bureaucracy over logic.

Also, most good jobs are landed because of who you know over what you know.  Spend time developing relationships with influential people and you’ll have no problem finding your place.

3. All of the “book learning” can be had for less than $500 on Amazon.com

The best programmer I know (that also makes a helluva a lot more money than me) doesn’t have a college degree.  He flunked out.  He learned the trade by sipping Starbucks at Barnes and Noble and reading books from the computer aisle.

If you’re worried about the technical knowledge, it can be had for much cheaper than a tuition.

4. There are to many pointless majors

If you do decide to go to college, please don’t major in philosophy, english, history, psychology, etc. How pointless. If the degree requires you to keep going to school for 8 more years to earn a decent living and/or has the single career path of becoming a college professor, don’t waste your money.  

Invest in a skill that you can actually sell.  That way if you can’t continue because you run out of money or you realize you hate school, you have something to fall back on like getting a job that makes more than $10/hour.

Exception

I would like my surgeon to have a generous amount of advanced education.

One of the greatest features is the ability to give your client their own login so you can have all of your communications in the same place.

After using Basecamp for awhile, I’ve found several instances that it’s not a good fit to bring your client in:

1. Their filing system is built around email - One of my clients prints out every email associated with a project and puts it in it’s corresponding folder in their filing cabinets. Since every other project is built around emails and replies, they were quickly frustrated by how Basecamp treats messages and asked me to simply reply to them in an email.
2. They see it as an extra step - While we all know having all communication and files in one place actually saves time, there are clients that will see logging into a different system only as a time waster. You can try to persuade them otherwise, but I’ve found that in most cases you need to just let the dream die.
3. Security concerns - Just as people wouldn’t buy online a few years ago, there are some people that will only trust their email. In Outlook they trust.
4. They won’t consistently use it - For Basecamp to work, everyone has to use it all the time. It is merely another layer of complexity if it doesn’t replace phone calls and email as your main source of communication. I’ve found that many clients, no matter how much you encourage them otherwise, will not do this. (Although I’ll add here, a good way to nudge someone is to start copy/pasting their emails into a Basecamp message and reply there instead of emailing back.)

In this post I’ll describe two common examples and how to accomplish them. But first, here’s the piece of code we’ll be using:

<?php
include(TEMPLATE . '/template-file.php');
?>

This bit of code is extremely useful as it can be used in any template file to include any other template file. Here’s the two most common uses:

Category Sidebars

If you would like to show a different sidebar based on which category the current post is in:

<?php
if(in_category(1)) {
include(TEMPLATE . '/sidebar-1.php');
} else if (in_category(2)) {
include(TEMPLATE . '/sidebar-2.php');
} else {
include(TEMPLATE . '/sidebar-post.php');
}
?>

This could be useful to show a different FAQ for a product category, a different set of widgets if it’s the News category, etc.

Homepage Header

Since the homepage is often a separate layout from the rest of the site, you may want to have a header-home.php template file that is used on the home page and then the default header for the rest of the site.

So you can continue using the default get_header() call on all the template files, here’s the best way to go about it:

1. Duplicate your header.php file and name it header-default.php

2. Create a header-home.php file and insert your markup for the home page header

3. Open your header.php file and delete everything (only after step #1 of course) and add this code:

<?php
if(is_front_page()) {
include(TEMPLATE . '/header-home.php');
} else {
include(TEMPLATE . '/header-default.php');
}
?>

Most bloggers have their favorite articles they’ve written. And while these may not be the most commented or most linked to, they are the best in displaying what the blogger writes about and his expertise. So what’s the best way to highlight these in a list on the home page or sidebar?

One option would be to hard code the links. However, as with most problems in hard coding anything, it’s going to be hard to change and will cause problems if you change the anything in the future.

Here’s an easy way to use custom fields and query_posts() to create your ‘Top Ten’ list:

1. Setup a custom field called ‘topposts’

1.a. You can do this by using the normal custom fields portion of the write/edit page. In this case, the key will be ‘topposts’ and the value will be ‘1′.

1.b. Or, if you use the More Fields plugin I reference in this post, you can just create a simple check box in the sidebar of your write/edit page.

2. Add the code to your theme

Once you’ve gone through and selected all the articles that you want in your ‘Top Ten’ list, we have to add the query_posts() call to your theme.

Thankfully, there is a custom field reference for query_posts(). Here’s the code:

<h3>My Top Ten Posts</h3>
<ul>
<?php
query_posts('meta_key=topposts&meta_value=Yes&showposts=10');
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
</ul>

Just drop that code in on your sidebar or home page and you’ll have your top ten posts showing.

There have been a lot of security issues with WordPress in the past and, if you don’t setup your installation correctly, it can be wide open to hacker attacks. Here’s a few things I’ve seen:

• Embedded spam links - A hacker will add code to your site that will show hundreds of spam links in the footer/header of your site. This is often hard to catch as the code will only show these links to Google and other search engines so you only realize something is wrong when your traffic numbers tank because you’ve been pulled from the search results.
• Phishing pages added to your site - Spammers that are sending out those phishing emails trying to trick people into giving away their bank account information will add html pages to your site that they then link to. This is big time bad news as you’re IP will get flagged and traffic will again nose dive.
• Database edited or deleted - In many instances this could be the worse thing to happen. You can recover from getting pulled from search engine results, however you may not recover from your database and files getting deleted. (I should also mention here that you should be doing regular backups of both)

While there are plenty of things that hackers can do when they gain control to your site, those are the most common ones I’ve seen. So how can you possibly defend against these attacks when even Al Gore’s site is getting hacked?

Follow these tips and you’ll be well protected:

1. Download and install the WP Security Scan plugin

This is the best security plugin I’ve come across. It checks several of the common things that make your site easily hackable (I go over a couple of these below), it scans all of your directories to make sure they have the correct permissions set and it has a simple tool for creating extremely strong passwords.

If you only do one thing to help protect your WordPress site from hacking, download and install the WP Security Scan plugin.

2. Change your default “admin” user

Open up your database administration tool. In most cases this will be phpMyAdmin. Open up the “users” table and edit the row for “admin”. Simply change the “user_login” field to something else and save it.

This will protect your site from brute force password attacks. If there is no user “admin” then the hacker will be forced to guess both the username and the password which is virtually impossible.

3. Change your table prefix from “wp_” to something else

Be very careful with this one and, as with any time you are making changes, backup your database.

What we are going to do here is change all your table names from wp_options, wp_users, etc to something like wp_3jd73_options, wp_3jd73_users, etc. This will make it extremely difficult for a hacker to run rouge SQL queries since they will not have the name of the tables.

Thankfully, this is very easy to do if you followed my advice in step #1. There is already a tool in the WP Security Scan plugin to do this.

Also, be sure to check that all your plugins are working correctly once you’ve made this change. Some very old or poorly written plugins may be directly referencing your tables with “wp_”. If this is the case, I suggest either deleting the plugin all together or upgrading to the newest version.

4. Move the wp-content folder to a different location

Moving your wp-content to a different location helps in a couple different ways.

First, and most importantly, it guards against hackers trying to access the folder.

Secondly, it makes upgrading your WordPress installation a breeze because you won’t accidentally overwrite you wp-content folder if you upload all the WordPress core files at once.

Once you’ve made the move, you need to let WordPress know where it’s located now.

Add this line to your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', 'http://www.mysite.com/7h3j6d/wp-content');

As with step #3, you may have some plugins that are directly referencing wp-content/ in the root of your site. So be sure to check all the functionality and delete/upgrade your plugins accordingly.

Lastly, use some common sense

Most of the security issues with WordPress (including the ones I’ve dealt with) can be prevented or easily fixed by doing all the normal things that everyone should. Keep strong passwords, backup regularly, keep WordPress core/plugins up to date, etc.

By following these tips you’ll have a safe and secure installation of WordPress that will make it so difficult to find a vulnerability that it will keep the hackers moving on to someone else’s site.