We are pleased to confirm that we now have a free phone (Toll Free)  number for our clients to use in South Africa. The new South African number is 0800 981 420, and our contact numbers are now:

UK local rate phone: 0845 838 2450
UK local rate fax:       0845 838 2451

SA Toll Free phone:  0800 981 420

Rest Of World:           +44 1932 268230  or  +44 845 838 2450

These days it’s getting harder and harder to actually buy yourself a house, with the increased pricing it’s nearly impossible to even stand a chance of getting yourself a mortgage. Especially younger people which just began their careers will rarely have the salary to cover the mortgage on a house.

For the singles out there prospect appears to be looking especially down as couples have a better chance on getting their mortgage. As couples do make double the income in the modern relationships which involves both partners having a full-time job or at least part time it doesn’t come with a real surprise either. These days you shouldn’t be surprised with a house costing at least 300.000 Eur, or in case you’d be wanting to live within the city center get that figure easily doubled; with your average yearly salary of 25~30k there’s no way a single salary could cover a mortgage required for that.

So is settling together the only way out? It sure looks like that if you want to stand a slight chance these days on buying your own house, otherwise it looks like renting a place is going to be your only option for now. Or you could of course always strike luck and win the jackpot, that should get your mortgage covered as well.

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to participate in a group chat with Darren Rowse of Problogger.net. I got to watch as bloggers from all over the place asked him questions about blogging and making money online with their blogs.

Although I asked him a few questions, I asked him a question that particularly interested me … did he think it was worth it to pay for his recent redesign???

His answer really made me happy … not just because I’m a WordPress designer, but because I have seen way too many people devalue the work people like me actually do. He raved on Ben, and made it clear that he did not overpay for his design, but he didn’t get a steal either. But overwhelmingly, his redesign was worth the money.

But this is not the case with a small percentage of the potential clients who contact me.

On average, I get around 4-5 requests for custom work per week. I don’t like to overcharge, but I have bills to pay, and I believe that my hard work is worth what I charge. Normally, only 2 out of 5 actually pan out into paying clients, which is plenty to support me.

But what really gets under my skin is the cheapos … and you know who you are.

For instance, I recently got an email from a person looking for a PSD to WordPress conversion. Generally speaking, this kind of job takes me a full workday, around 5 hours. So I charge $500 and break the work up into several days, so my eyes stay fresh. Now, if the person had just said “I’m sorry, but I can’t really afford that right now … let me know if your schedule lightens up and if you might consider doing it for [insert price here]”, I would have been just fine with that.

But instead, I heard a familiar theme. You see, if you look hard enough, you can find guys to do your WordPress theme for around $100-$200. They are generally from India, where the cost of living is much lower, and $200 is a lot of money. And this person made it a point to tell me how ridiculous my price was, and how they could find someone to do it on digitalpoint/sitepoint to do it for a tenth the price.

Listen closely …. if you can find someone to do your WordPress custom theme for $200, by all means hire them, and roll the dice. I’m not trying to be mean, and I’m not saying there aren’t exceptions to this, but here is what you will probably be met with.

• Probably broken English
• Time zone restrictions. When you go to bed, they are just waking up, and vice versa.
• Lack of accountability and track record.
• Work that may, or may not be top-notch.

For reference, here’s what you’ll get when you hire an established, reputable WordPress designer.

• We can communicate well. We know what you want, and we can make it happen.
• We’re up when you are. We sleep when you do. If you email us, more than likely, you will receive a response within hours.
• Since we’re public figures, and many of us have released public themes, you can see examples of our work. You can download the themes to see if our code is bad or not. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to use us.
• Valid Code, a deep understanding of WordPress and it’s features.
• And an all around better experience.

Again, this isn’t always the case. In fact, I know Indian designers that do GREAT work! But I’ve had too many clients tell me horror stories about their experience with wasting money on “cheap” work, then come running to me for help. I’m trying to save you the trouble. Cough up the cash, and hire a reputable designer … not the guy who says he’s willing to do your job for the least amount of money on some job board.

Yes, many times the top-tier of designers are too busy to take on work, or charge more than you can afford. But, many times, they will pass you along to another reputable designer that they know has a light schedule at the moment. The WordPress design community is rather tight, and most of us know each other and have standing relationships like this. We can give you the name of someone who better fits your criteria.

What about newcomer designers?

If you are an up and comer WordPress designer, and are getting pissed at me right now for this article … I don’t blame you. I know it sounds like I’m telling people to never go with a guy with no portfolio or example work to reference. And to a certain extent, that’s true.

Here’s how to fix that problem…

Send emails to 5 of your favorite designers with samples of your work. They can be free themes, or paid client themes. It doesn’t really matter, because we’re going to go straight to the code and look at how you structure it and how well you know your WordPress. If you’re modding K2 or SandBox, don’t expect any referrals from us. Write your own freakin’ code!

But if it’s clean, well structured, and shows you have a grasp on what you’re doing, you might just get a referral or two. Once you’ve built up your portfolio and have a couple of successful free themes, you’ll be in the “reputable” category. People can trust you.

So quit being a cheapskate!

You need to realize there’s inherent value in a good designer.

I know that if I were going to hire someone to design by blog, I’d go for Brian or Chris first, and see who they refer me to. Then, I might ask Ben (because of his work on Problogger) or Charity (because I’ve seen her code), or Darren (because Mimbo rocks!) There are others you could ask (including myself), but you get the point.

What about Blog Design mills?

I won’t name any names, and my opinion doesn’t really matter that much, but I’d say you need to avoid them. Although they may claim to be unique, it doesn’t make it so. Chances are, you blog will end up looking much like 100 others … and that’s fine, but for $500-$1000, I want something that can justify that cost.

Am I Angry?

Not at all! I have plenty of clients, and don’t need to accept every offer for work. I also have the satisfaction of knowing that the cheapos probably just wasted $200 on a theme that sucks.

It doesn’t bother me when people can’t afford my services. In fact, I’ve been known to offer discounts to people who are honest about their situation.

What I don’t like is when people throw the “I can find it cheaper at another site” argument at me, as some sort of justification. I know you can. I don’t care. I’m confident in my abilities, and if you think you can find someone to do the sort of work I do for half as much, GOOD LUCK!

And good riddance. You’ll probably be back anyway

Sorry RedCine sucks. (build 90)
I think the wires are crossed on the Windows side of the world.
Red is not interested in your workflow, in this manner

UK mobile network O2 has launched a free service for its customers, allowing them to backup all of their contacts, text and picture messages, and create online albums and blogs.

Anyone with a compatible phone and either a monthly contract or pre-pay account with O2 can set up a Bluebook account. Within this, an unlimited number of Blueblogs can be created.

Blueblogs are intended to be used to document a person’s life, and can be created from the content already stored on a mobile phone, as well as from a PC.

Blog entries can be created directly from a mobile phone, and it’s as simple as sending a free text or picture message to the short code “40202″, starting with the word “blog”.

All blog entries and comments are moderated by O2 — it’s not clear whether this is an automated or human process, though I’d suspect a combination of the two leaning heavily on automatic filters — so it can take up to an hour for them to be published once sent. This would make it difficult to “live blog” an event — best use Twitter or another microblogging service for that.

Blueblogs are either published (globally accessible) or unpublished (private) — there are no other security levels. O2 suggests that if users want to create content only for a selected group of contacts, they should use the Albums module instead.

O2 says that an unlimited number of Blueblogs can be created, though I’m not sure whether O2 is using “blog” and “post” interchangeably, as there’s no obvious way of selecting which blog to publish to. However, if a user sends a message via the phone, it automatically goes to their primary blog.

Blogs can be keyword tagged, and comments can be deleted.

The system sounds like a cross between Twitter and regular blogging. I can imagine that it will be easier for many people to write micro-blog posts, given the nature of text messaging.

The moderation delay could be a pain — even if someone commented straight away on a post you’ve published it could be two hours from the time the article was sent to the time the comment is published. That could lead to slow conversations — if conversations take off. Hopefully O2 will work on speeding this up, though I understand their reluctance to allow self-moderation or a free-for-all. O2 does state that the maximum time for moderation should be under an hour.

I’ve signed up for the service but haven’t yet tried out a Blueblog. Hats off to O2 — I had some problems registering on Wednesday, but O2 actually sent me a text message to apologise and asked me to try logging in again. Very nice bit of automation there.

Anyone in the UK with O2 can sign up at bluebook.o2.co.uk

You’ve seen the shots. You know they were all shot with one light. The question is - have you figured out exactly how they were shot?

Yes, I’ve actually learned some things from Strobist - and I’m sharing some of those things with you…

In case you haven’t seen the shots, here they are again:

Ryu on Black
As you can see, we have the main light on camera left. That silver and black thing you see on the flash is a reflector, making the flash a much bigger light source than it actually is. It also acts as a gobo - keeping light away from the lens and preventing flare.

What’s that fancy reflector I’ve got on the right? It’s a (used) piece of bond paper that gives me just a little fill. This keeps Ryu’s arm and leg from getting lost in the shadows.

Ryu on White
This setup is a bit more complicated than our low key shot. If you haven’t guessed already, the camera position for the shot is just off the bottom of the frame. Yes, this is a top view shot.

Anyway, we have three reflectors working for us here, and that doesn’t even include the background. Off at the top-left corner is a reflector for the background. If this wasn’t there, the background would be dark gray instead of light.

The reflector doesn’t completely block the light from the flash though - this gives our subject a little bit of rim light. This still keeps most of the figure in shadow though - and that’s where the two reflector at the bottom come in. These two bounce light back at our subject - giving us fairly even lighting up front.

Right Hook
Yes, the image is a bit dark. Yes, it’s another bird’s eye view shot. Yes, that’s the flash off to the right.

To control the spill from the flash, I snooted it with a bit of foil and black duct tape. That’s part of the reason the background stayed practically black.

Near the top-left corner is a small mirror held up by some adhesive clay. This gives us a cross-lighting setup - defining the edges on the left side of the frame.

Tags: Strobist, Canon Speedlite 430EX, Ryu, Street Fighter

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Related Articles at drivebyshooter.net:

• Long Day
• Street Fighter
• Shoot Recap: San Beda Football
• Showbiz
• Link Love 2007.01.23
• Shit
• Shit Happens
• Drive By

“I know how to do all that stuff. And I have the entrepreneurial spirit to acknowledge that I don’t need to do a good pushup, as long as I know how.”

My fiance, Samantha Hahn, joins me for a very special Valentine’s Day episode to discuss the entrepreneurial spirit, the Holy Spirit, and fine spirits.

Show notes:

• startupspark.com: Top 10 Ways You Know You’re An Entrepreneur
• New York Times: Believing Scripture but Playing by Science’s Rules
• Associated Press: Epicureans Fly to Bangkok for $25K Meal

We live in a world today where electronic technology is inextricably linked to our lives. Virtually everything we do is aided by the same, and it is difficult to find a particular arena where such technology has not come into effect. The advancements in technology are meant to make our lives easier, and help us get things faster. Technology such a touch panel, makes systems such as automated teller machines, information kiosks, cash registers, much more user friendly by allowing touch sensitive inputs. In every area, applications of electronic technology facilitate productive and effective systems.

An Industrial computer is the lifeline of industrial or business systems, and the software platforms for these are specifically created to meet the client specifications. Such industrial computers form a core part of any industrial structure. There are other electronic equipments required by business and industrial systems, which facilitate various functions. Transponders also have various applications, whether they are in the forms of cards, coins, etc. Electronic technology has permeated the very fabric of our industries, businesses, and social structures. Obsolescence of mechanized systems is a clear proof of where the electronic technology is headed for. The challenges now faced by industries and business systems are to constantly upgrade their systems with the latest electronic technology so as to be on the foreground of a progressive vision.