This morning I woke up and the first thing I wanted to do when I regained some semblance of waking sanity was check on the new Macbook Pro updates that were announced at about 3AM in my timezone, while I was asleep (I do that occasionally). Not because I’m an Apple geek, which I am, but because I’m ready to retire my iBook G4 and get something that can actually function while running Leopard. No, not retire: stomp on repeatedly and throw at the ceiling fan until all its little crumbled pieces are scattered around the living room. It has been a source of frustration for me, as...

Here’s an interesting thought to consider: how important is good, up-to-date technology to doing good work? I think that if you tell yourself you need a certain computer before you can start a project, you’re a) kidding yourself and b) never going to start. The computer industry is designed in such a way that you are never content with what you have, because your up-to-date technology is never up-to-date for long.

The old rule of thumb for freelancers goes like this: for every hour of billable work you do, there’s another hour of work you can’t bill for. It could be book-keeping, it could be marketing, it could be organizing or brainstorming. For the record, you shouldn’t be billing your clients using an hourly rate, but by charging a fixed rate for the deliverable. Working out your hourly rates is useful for planning purposes only. Let’s say you’re earning $1,000 a week as a freelancer. Depending on your situation, this probably means you’re comfortable. Maybe...

I just wanted to drop a quick note to my readers about a great service that has just launched. This week I had people asking me what theme they should use for their new site in record numbers, and it’s timely that my friend Nick Cernis (who you may know from Put Things Off) has launched a new site, Wordprezzie. Wordprezzie offers tutorials and themes for WordPress, and Nick has launched out the gate with: A tutorial on WordPress security tips and growing a great comment section, A premium and very attractive theme called Ice Cream Dream, And a free theme called Changing...

Public relations is no longer about relationships. Traditional PR is now about trying to get journalists to notice you and your sensational little stunts. It’s about getting the media to do the relationship building for you. This is why public relations practitioners are failing online, especially in the social media space. By its nature, and by name, social media is about developing relationships with others, whether they’re content producers or consumers. But public relations isn’t about long-term relationship building anymore. It’s about the short-term...