Another month (in fact, more!) has passed since I last updated my portfolio. This is mostly due to me being absurdly busy, house-hunting and doing a lot of freelance work.

Anyway, recently I launched two websites; Online CPD and Jaden Rose Guitars. Check them out!

The other week I saw two men standing outside a camera shop in the town center giving out store-branded plastic bags to people. The public were swarming towards them to get a free carrier bag, and 95% of the people within the vicinity took a carrier bag. I’m sure the carrier bags contained something a little more appealing than a leaflet, but the point is that people are used to seeing flyers. They know what a flyer is going to have on it. A carrier bag could contain anything – it could even contain a flyer! Their curiosity and desire for free stuff attracted them to the carrier bags.

I think next time I want to advertise an event or service to an audience, I’m going to print some leaflets and put them inside branded carrier bags. They’ll spread like wild fire.

At the start, I just wanted to play it safe, but now I think things are going pretty well, and I want people to want to get a website with Darfuria – a Darfurian website, if you will – because of me as a brand. This has led me to thinking about things like logos, business cards and slogans. I’ve spent hours thinking about slogans. I’ve thought about slogans whilst I’ve been coding, cooking, eating, pissing, gaming, walking, (not) sleeping and just about every other activity. I’ve thought about what makes a good slogan, what makes a bad one, the slogans I like and dislike, and just now, as I was recalling a conversation I had with someone the other day – I’ve decided on one.

Now, I love language. I love words; especially new, eloquent words. Words that make people sound very clever. I have a mancrush on Stephen Fry because of the way he can articulate himself – it’s fascinating. But on the other hand, long, complicated and bizarre words can confuse people, or make it seem like you’re talking down to them.

I’ve never found the correct combination of words that I have been satisfied with, to convey what it is I do – until now. You see, when I’m talking to someone, and they ask me what I do, I have this internal argument. I start to pause between my words, and I approach the explanation from too many angles, and it’s all a big, boring mess, because the truth is, most people don’t understand what I do. They call me a website designer. I’m not a website designer, I’m a website developer. And I’m not even a website developer, I’m a website designer – but the other kind of website designer. A front-end developer, but I do a bit of back-end stuff too. No, not that. You see?! Oh, and I do other stuff too!

So, back to the conversation I had the other day. Somebody asked me what it is I do, and I simply looked at them and I said “I make websites.”, and that’s it, really, isn’t it? I mean, it’s what I do. Had they asked what my job is, or my job title, then that might have warranted a different response, but making websites is what I do. There’s a time and a place to use complicated words, but I’m all about appealing to the masses, and being the approachable beacon amongst the overwhelming mass of jargon-spewing companies.

So, I’ve taken the first step into creating the Darfuria brand, and my slogan/tagline/what ever you want to call it will be, as reflected on my homepage, “I make websites”.

Good day!

I noticed that when you setup multisites in WordPress 3.0, the default/main/parent website has /blog/ added to its permalinks/URLs. This isn’t ideal, but fortunately there is an easy way of removing it:

1. Login to the WordPress dashboard as a super admin (a user with control over the entire WP installation)
2. Click “Sites” under “Super Admin” at the top-left
3. Hover over the default/main/parent site, usually displayed as ‘/’ – click “Edit”
4. Scroll down through the site options (wp_options) box until you reach “Permalink structure”
5. Remove /blog/
6. Click “Update Options” at the bottom of the page

Done!

Just a quick update, because I’m very busy. Today I launched the new Maplewood Studio website, and a little while back I launched the North West Wedding Guide website.

Hope you’re all very well. I recently got back from Italy, which was beautiful. Fortunately there’s lots of sunshine in Devon, so it’s not too bad being back.

I have done some freelance work lately for a few web agencies, which is one of the reasons there hasn’t been much going in my portfolio. I’ve got about 15 projects on the go at the moment, some of which will be launching fairly soon, others are bigger projects that require a lot of content to be provided by the client(s) before they launch. I’ve also got a considerable amount of possibilities that just need to transfer across to ongoing projects.

I’m selling my iMac next month (£500 for anyone who wants it – it’s only 7 months old), and investing in a Macbook. I’m really looking forward to this because it’s going to give me the ability to work where ever I like. I can finally live my dream of sitting in Starbucks with an Apple laptop working on something, like a cliche. I’m also looking forward to it because the promptness of purchasing one is due to a business trip to Villa Mucci, where I will be experiencing the culture first-hand before returning to not-so-sunny England to re-design the website, and also establish a web presence for other projects the owners of Villa Mucci are investing in.

I feel I should really pay thanks to Paul Hodgson who I worked with very recently on the Box of Frogs website. Paul has been extremely supportive of my work, and aside from his fantastically kind words, he has recommended me to a lot of people. I only wish I knew more people who required professional photography services so that I could return the favour. Paul’s wife Nikki is participating in the Race for Life soon, so if it isn’t too much to ask, please sponsor her. Without Paul I certainly wouldn’t have been as successful as I have been, and the realisation of that has made me focus on marketing a little bit this month.

I put an ad on the Exeter Gumtree, but unfortunately that hasn’t generated any work for me. I’ve looked into PPC advertising on Google and Facebook, but I don’t yet have the budget to invest into that. Today I spent some time cold-emailing (like cold-calling) some companies who I felt could do with a redesigned website, so we’ll see how that plays out. If anyone has any innovative marketing tips, I’d love to hear them.

I have a fantastic idea for new website content, which I won’t yet reveal. However, to be able to start making this content, I really need to invest in a logo. I’m not much of a logo designer, and a logo is a very important aspect of a business. Once I have the logo, I’ll start work on the content.

Anyway, there’s plenty going on, and I can’t wait for lots of these projects to be completed so that I can add them to my portfolio and share with you the beautiful work I have been doing. Hit Stuff launched today, so check that out in my portfolio.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I launched a website, as a lot of my current projects are bigger than the quick-to-turn-around ones you sometimes get, so it brings me great pleasure to announce the launch of the new Box of Frogs website. Box of Frogs is the first photography website I have done, so it’s nice to have completed a website that focuses heavily on imagery, rather than text or other media. I’m very, very pleased with the result.

I’m going to find a better way of announcing/advertising this, but I am offering an affiliate commission to anybody who puts a client in touch with me, who pays for a piece of work. Word-of-mouth marketing is so very effective, and it’s so difficult to be in so many places at once by yourself. My portfolio is an example of the quality of work that I do (I’ll add some testimonials soon). So, if you can put someone in touch with me who is looking for a website, or help with a particular web project, I’ll happily pay you a percentage of any earnings.

I proceeded with my application, and noticed that there was no confirmation screen. Instead I was presented with a nice receipt page that states I have completed my application, and have made a £500 payment to PayPal Top-Up. Great. Knowing that I only had about £90 available in my bank account, I got quite scared. Very scared, in fact. The transaction status is already showing as completed on my account status page, so I couldn’t simply click a cancel button.

I called the bank and explained the stupid error I just made (despite the fact I think both the form could have been clearer, and there could have been a confirmation page), and asked if there was anything they could do. They stated that they could cancel the direct debit, but when they do that, PayPal tends to use the debit card that has also been added to the account. Now, I knew that the debit card that had been added to my PayPal account is actually an old card that is no longer valid, however I didn’t want to go through the inconvenience of having to setup the PayPal direct debit once again. I told the bank I would call PayPal, and call back if they couldn’t help.

I called PayPal, and once again explain my situation. The adviser stated that as the transaction is showing as completed, they are unable to cancel it. However, she explained that she could cancel the direct debit payment for that individual transaction, and the funds would simply be withdrawn from my debit card instead, which I was fine with because I knew the debit card wouldn’t work. I agreed to this, and stopped worrying about the situation.

I checked my Internet banking the morning after this madness, and noticed that I had been paid. With the knowledge that everything with PayPal should be safe, I paid some bills and purchased a few things online. Fast-forward 24-hours, and I see a delightful message on the Internet banking website stating that PayPal have indeed withdrawn £500, through a direct debit. Great. Now, my available balance was about £495, so the PayPal transaction had only taken me £5 overdrawn, which isn’t so scary, however the bills and purchases that weren’t direct transfers were yet to come out of my account. They amount to roughly £60, which would lead to me being £65 overdrawn. Now, this wouldn’t be such a problem if I had actually received my PayPal top-up card, because you’d assume that I could just visit an ATM, withdraw the £500 and deposit it into my bank account – problem solved. However, it takes PayPal at least 5 working days to send the card, and a further few to send the PIN – and you can’t activate your top-up account until you’ve received your card. So I’ve just sent £500 to myself, to a location that I can’t even access until roughly 10 days after I’ve made the payment.

I have subsequently contacted PayPal stating that they have taken the money via a direct debit, despite the fact I called and the adviser said she’d cancel the direct debit payment for that transaction. It’s 2am, so I don’t expect I’ll get a response any time soon. I’ll give them a call in the morning, but I doubt they’ll be able to do anything. I’ll probably just have to rescue the situation with my credit card, to avoid the daily overdrawn charges on my current account.

What a fiasco. Wish PayPal had made that form a little more clear.

I have re-launched two websites this week, the first being Emily’s Portraits, which belongs to my friend Emily. She is a great portrait artist, and works to an unbelievably low fee, hand-drawing portraits from a photograph that you provide her with.

The other website I have re-launched is Wud Records, which is my Dad’s. That website went from being an archive of information about Wud Records to becoming a project that required a more professional design and an online store.

Both of the re-designs are live right now, so check them out.

You’ll notice that all of my old blog posts have been moved to a category labeled “Archive”. I may sort through them at some point and categorise them better, but for now they are marking a cut off point, as this is the new me! I plan to continue blogging in much the same manner as I was before. I have nothing to hide from anybody. However, the main outlet for this website is now going to be my website development work, which as you can see, since November, I have been doing a fair amount of.

I’m very busy at the moment managing Monkey Lord, and managing Rob Chappers himself, but once things have calmed down a bit, I’m hoping to do a regular blog post, as well as a regular YouTube video.

Anyway – I hope you are all very well, and have been taking care of yourselves. If you know anybody who wants a website, you know where to send them, right?