VB Tech Services

VB Tech Services is a smaller firm based in Florida with a focus on quality. Unlike most small firms they don't rely on shared reseller servers that can be overloaded. They use semi-dedicated servers to ensure resources are available at all times for that sudden surge of traffic.

The hosting plans are reasonably priced and can support larger volumes of traffic compared with most shared servers. If you are looking for better reliability or just more resources to stretch out take a look at VB Tech Services.

Pros

• Yearly Billing includes Domain Name
• Guaranteed Resources
• Professional Hardware
• Industry Standard cPanel
• Personalized Service

Cons

• No Automatic Installers
• Limited Space and Bandwidth

If you do decide to use VB Tech Services hosting, please mention my site when signing up. It is completely free to you and it helps support my site. Thank you.

Basecamp is an amazingly simple Project Management tool that connects your employees with the tasks and milestones at hand. Basecamp allows you to enter specific Projects that you are working on and it then creates an area in which you can collaborate on that project. You can bring in people from multiple companies across the globe to work on any number of your projects. Project areas are broken down into standard sections:

• Overview
  • A snapshot of everything dealing with that project.
• Messages
  • A very effective message board for that project's players to us to collaborate with one another.
• To-Do
  • Where all To-Do items are assigned to your team players and organized by sub lists, that you specify.
• Milestones
  • Organizes all the milestones (large events) for the project. You are even able to tie them to To-Do lists.
• Writeboards
  • A writeboard is similar to a message except it can be edited by anyone in the project, great for drafted proposals and such.
• Time
  • Allows you to track time spent on the project, by employee. (Only in Plus accounts and higher).
• Files
  • Houses exactly that, files. Organized by date and who uploaded them.

Pros

• Enables quick and easy collaboration on any type of project.
• Simple and intuitive design, (almost anyone can use it if they know how to turn their computer on).
• Unlimited user accounts.
• All managed on BasecampHQ servers, so no hassles for you to worry about.
• The option to use 128-bit SSL on your Basecamp site (Free on all account types).
• The Trial account is free, forever (which I highly recommend if you are unsure).
• There is a $12/month Personal account (not listed on the pricing page), which you can access when upgrading from a Trial account.
• You are able to customize the logo on your site and the color scheme.

Cons

• All non-trial accounts are not free.
• Stylistic customizations are very limited.
• Limited storage space (although the limit is generous).
• Limited number of users (unless you get the Max Account).

Recommendation

Basecamp is great for teams of any shape and size, the trick is determining which solution is best for you. I use the Free Account (which only allows you to manage 1 project) to manage this site. However, I do work for a company that has enough work to warrant the Plus Account. The best way to determine which type is for you is to examine the features along with your average active workload (how many projects does your organization work on at one time?).

Whether you simply use the Free version or buy the top of the line account, I recommend Basecamp strongly. It enables simple and effective project management and collaboration. The company I know that uses Basecamp is very happy with what it has done to reshape and simplify the website design and development process from start to finish. It is worth every cent.

Here is my attempt at creating a list of good products for use in building a well priced computer. The intention is that the computer will function perfectly with Windows 7 and the Adobe CS5 Suite, making it a great and effective tool for the web developer and designer. I plan on building this computer in the next month or two and will post my thoughts on it after I have completed it. If you are looking to build a computer, I hope this helps.

Can't remember where I learned this but it is fairly common and works wonders. In case you have not heard of it in the past, Gzip is a server process that essentially compresses your files on the fly before transmission to the user. It is primarily used to compress text files such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with impressive results. Take the 90KB Mootools framework for example, Gzip reduces it to 26KB saving the visitor time and your bandwidth.

#Gzip
<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript
</ifmodule>
#End Gzip

Usage

This code can most likely be placed anywhere in the .htaccess file. I like to put it below the Rewrite conditions and above the Expires for organizational purposes. Note that the If statements are really only needed if you are unsure that your host has it enabled or not.

Pros

• Drastic file size reduction, need I say 26KB is less than 90KB more than once?
• Great for mobile users (where every KB counts).
• Easy to implement in the .htaccess file.
• Saves bandwidth.

Cons

• Increased server load.
• Not enabled by default on most shared servers.

Recommendation

If your hosting setup has Gzip enabled I highly recommend that you enable it in your .htaccess file by copying and pasting the below code into your .htaccess. If they don't have it enabled, simply ask (that is what I did), most of the time they will simply enable it for you. It also comes recommended by Google and Yahoo, click here for more details from Yahoo.

If you use @font-face (like I do) to enable cool custom fonts on your website, please read this article. I love @font-face to more effectively choose nice fonts for my website, but I never liked the 200-400 KB .ttf files that the user had to download in order to view the fonts. I did a little research and realized that I could simply add these heavy files to the Gzip process in my .Htaccess file (If you would like to read more about Gzip, click here). Turns out that it is very simple, just specify the type that you want to be added along with its corresponding file extension, then add that file type to your current list of file types to Gzip, below is the code needed to Gzip all files along with .ttf, .otf and .eot (three file types used in the @font-face process).

Code

Here is the code that enables Gzip for only .otf, .eot and .ttf files.

#Gzip
<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>
<ifmodule mod_mime.c>   #Checks if your server supports Addtype
Addtype font/opentype .otf
Addtype font/eot .eot
Addtype font/truetype .ttf
</ifmodule>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype font/truetype font/eot
</ifmodule>
#End Gzip

If you want to apply this to other files on your site at the same time (as almost everyone would), then here is the code that enables Gzip for .otf, .eot and .ttf files along with all the other files you would normally use on your website. The code without Gzip enabled for the font files can be found on my page about Enabling Gzip.

#Gzip
<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>
<ifmodule mod_mime.c>   #Checks if your server supports Addtype
Addtype font/opentype .otf
Addtype font/eot .eot
Addtype font/truetype .ttf
</ifmodule>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript text/text font/opentype font/truetype font/eot
</ifmodule>
#End Gzip

Yes, it is really that simple. You may ask "How effective is this method?". Well, before enabling, I had two .ttf files that totaled around 450 KB, afterward they only totaled 208 KB! You do the math, that is a 54% reduction! I highly recommend this if you use @font-face.

Enabling Gzip

If Gzip has intrigued you, visit my page about Enabling Gzip for more details about what it does and how to enable your website to use the power of Gzip.

Below is a list of all the MODx stuff that I have modified or created.

The problem any photographer faces be it amateur or professional is what to do with all their photos. We take them with the intent of sharing them with others, but how do we accomplish this goal? The answer is typically to put them on a website. It sounds simple, but if you have tried, the question now becomes how do we accomplish this task without learning a ton about websites or spending boat loads of money to hire someone else? The answer is Zenfolio, a company dedicated to providing us photographers with the total solution for sharing our images with others.

Zenfolio offers three different levels of subscription depending on what your goals are. The Basic package is designed for when you just start out as a photographer and only have a few pictures that you would like to share. As your collection grows, you can move up to the Unlimited package which gives you an unlimited amount of space, online ordering, and more control over your gallery. Now if you are looking to sell your photos and actually make a few bucks, then you want the Premium package which enables you to remove all the Zenfolio branding (which isn't bad by default), markup the order pricing, and even watermark your photos! Yes, this truly is one stop shopping with all order processing and printing handled by MPIX Labs, a division of Miller Labs one of the oldest printers in business.

As if that wasn't enough, the entire service, regardless of package, is wrapped up with a great web interface to manage all those photos. The web uploader works great so that you can upload your full sized images and use Zenfolio as a backup service in addition to a gallery. Yes, it really is a great service and if you take pictures, then I highly recommend you give it a try, they offer a free 14 day trial so you can check it out before buying.

Pros

• Zenfolio sub-domain name (username.zenfolio.com).
• Has an amazing web interface that allows you to do almost anything.
• Great Photo Backup Solution.
• Hidden and Password protected Albums.
• 1GB Limit increases by 1GB annually (Basic account only).
• Unlimited Storage (Unlimited / Premium accounts only).
• Amazing Lab Pricing (Unlimited / Premium accounts only).
• Automatic Order Fulfillment (Unlimited / Premium accounts only).
• Custom Domain Name (Unlimited / Premium accounts only).
• Can set your own domain to point to your gallery (Unlimited / Premium accounts only).
• No Branding (Premium account only).
• Automatic Watermarks (Premium account only).
• Can Charge a Markup on Lab Prices to Make a Profit (Premium account only).

Cons

• Limited Storage Space on Basic Account.
• Automatic Watermarks Require the Premium Account.
• Basic and Unlimited Accounts have branding (minimal, but present).

$5 Discount

If you are already sold on the idea of using Zenfolio, then I have some good news. You can save five dollars (yes $5) off your first year of service regardless of plan you buy, simply by using this coupon code: RHA-QB8-NEY. True, this a referral code, which means that I also get $5 off my next renewal, but with a service this good it's worth sharing for others to enjoy! Put that extra $5 towards a new camera or a vacation with all that extra time you will have saved.

Referral Code: RHA-QB8-NEY

My Photo Gallery

My photo gallery can be found at http://gallery.salscode.com. It runs on Zenfolio Premium.

Recommendation

If you haven't figured it out from what I have said already, my recommendation is that it is definently worth every penny!

If you work with several computers it can be hard to keep track of what files you have where or which thumbdrive has that important document. I was able to eliminate most of these problems using the Dropbox service. The service allows me to keep all the files in a single folder, in sync across multiple devices from my computer to my phone. If I don't have them handy, a quick visit to their website gives me access to all my files so the question isn't do I have that file, it's which file did you want?

Pros

• Free 2GB of storage, expandable to 6GB if you refer others.
• Automatically saves all files to your online account.
• Your files are safe should your computer crash.
• Automatic file sync between several computers.
• Easily share a file or folder with others.
• Saves versions of every file so you can undo changes to a file whenever you want.
• Saves files that have been deleted so you can undelete if need be.
• Mobile friendly website and free iPhone application (other phone apps coming).
• Easy to use software and website.
• Easy to use public photo gallery.

Cons

• Limited space options (Free, 50GB, and 100GB).
• Shared folder count against all users quotas (for now).
• Version history limited to 30 days without "Pack-Rat".
• Multi-user/Business plans (for now).

Compatibility

• Windows: XP, Vista, and 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Mac: OS X Tiger (10.4) or later
• Linux: Ubuntu 7.10+ and Fedora Core 9+

Download

Visit the Dropbox website to create an account and get started.

Recomendation

I highly recommend you give this service a try if you shift between several computers and/or devices. It's hard to go wrong with a 2GB free account to get you started. If you need even more space they offer a 50GB option for $10/month or $99/year. With the Pro accounts you are able to earn up to 6GB of additional space instead of the 4GB with the free account. Talk about sweet!