The Blog Herald » Trent Hayden

Blogger’s Simplest Productivity Apps

Trent Hayden — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:32:43 +0000

Blogging is hard to scale: Sometimes you feel inspired and you just go and write a cool article. Sometimes you feel swamped and stressed to blog but you need to. There are just a few professional bloggers among us. For the majority of us blogging is a hobby which makes it even harder to organize.

In an ironic twist that has always amused me, productivity apps are seemingly getting more and more complex. With expansive features, complicated installation instructions, thorough sign up policies and a millions steps for setup, it is hardly worth it.

After all, isn’t the point of getting the app in the first place to be more productive? How can it call itself that when it waste so much time and energy just getting the thing up and running? It doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the product.

But there do exist some nice, simple productivity apps out there that get the job done, and with minimum fuss.

Paprika

Put everything quickly into a single place for reference. Notes, to do lists, contacts, appointments…all of your text together in this single app. It auto organizes it for you, then allows you to keep track through a basic tagging system. No frills or extra features. Nothing to confuse you with. You can do a surprisingly large list of things with this app, considering it is a single feature program. It is free, unless you want more storage, which costs $5. But most people will be fine with the standard version.

Strike

I have seen a lot of super simple list makers on the web, but this is my favorite. No sign up, no saving to chart your progress. You just add in what you need to get done, strike everything off your list as you go and you’re done. The only additional feature is being able to share the list with a friend. Which makes it a quick and effective collaborative app, as well.

Stay Focused (Chrome)

Install time for Chrome plugins is about ten seconds. Which is one of the reasons I prefer plugins for that and other browsers to most other apps. This one is really easy to use. Just quickly type in websites you find distracting, put in an amount of time you want to be locked out and hit the Nuclear button. You will be kept from visiting them, so you can get back to work without procrastinating. You can get a little more detailed than that if you want to, but that’s optional.

Easy Voice Notepad (Android)

The idea is simple: you speak into the on board mic of your Android phone or tablet, and it writes it out for you. Quick and easy speech to text transcription which can then be organized, saved and shared. It is also free, which is a huge plus in any app.

Dayline (Apple iOS)

Sync up your calendar, day planner and Google tasks into a single program. It then makes an easy to read list that you can reference, checking off items as you go. Probably the best app I have ever seen that utilized the Google tasks feature in this way. At least for an iOS product.

Productivity should be achieved through simple organization and concentration. If you need a little help with that, a standard app or a productivity cheatsheet should do. The above apps provide just the right amount of help, without all the extra features bogging it down in needless complexity.

Do you have an app you use for productivity that you feel should be on this list? Let us know in the comments.

Denise Walsh is Ambassador Diamond with It Works! a privately-held company. Denise has a rapidly growing team across the USA, Canada, and Australia.

Shared Webhosting: Hostgator Webhosting Review

Trent Hayden — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 08:37:31 +0000

Hosting often is one of the more difficult decisions to make when starting a website and our own Jonathan Bailey has written several entries on the topic already, over at BloggingPro, as part of his Blogging Pitfalls column. The main problem with hosting though is that often YMMV applies and what one thinks is a great host, could be horrible experience for the next user. I recently switched several sites to Hostgator and here’s my experience with them.

One of the main reasons why it often is difficult to decide on a host, is that the user never knows whether the server they receive space on is oversold or not. Most hosting companies, especially larger ones do oversell, in order to keep the price down. Often this results in the dilemma: “Do I go with a larger, and cheaper, host company or do I decide for a smaller company which is more expensive?”.
Making the decision to switch sites to another host is even for experienced webmasters a difficult decision to make. More often than not they will wait until the last minute before making the decision. Additionally switching sites often involves lots of work. So I was recently confronted with the decision to make, a decision I had been putting of for a long time already. I mainly wanted to base my decision on hosting reviews and recommendations of peers, and started mainly looking into the webhosting offerings of Hostgator. What lead me to check out Hostgator was that the guys over at Gravity Forms, a plugin we extensively use, regularly tweet about the awesome support offered by Hostgator, as well as many positive Hostgator review found online.

After having hesitated for quite some time, I decided to pull the trigger and went with Hostgator, especially because of their popular live-support chat, additionally to the fact that they seemed to support most modern features. I thought that such a big and popular webhoster would function quickly and not cause any problems. And honestly, aside from some minor issues, I have been satisfied switching sites.

For the uninitiated who are still not sure about starting a website with Hostgator, Hostgator is compatible with almost any open source script you might use in your career as webmaster. Sadly using the latest scripts might occasionally require you to update several settings, or to quickly hit up the tech support via chat – who will solve most issues within few minutes only.

I did experience some problems with scripts though, especially with the popular script timthumb.php. Timthumb, which is used in many WordPress themes and also other platforms, is not compatible with the specific mod_security rules applied by Hostgator and will require that you contact the live chat.
First of all make sure that all your folders have permission (chmod)755 and then ask the team to add following rules to the mod_security whitelist: 1234234 , 340151 , 340153.

Other than that, my experience with HostGator has been positive and the two or three times I had to contact the tech support team, via chat, issues always were solved within few minutes. Fast and competent support I gladly pay a couple bucks every month for more.
Site speed at Hostgator is fast to really fast, customer support is really fast and in the first month I have not experienced any reliability issues yet. I am not the only one who recommend Hostgator, check out this Hostgator review as well before making a decision.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a reliable, fast webhosting company, with great support… look no further and sign up with Hostgator. You might pay some bucks more every month but the fast customer service and support definitely makes up for these.

Photo credit: Jayntguru

5 Easy Ways to Become a Blacklisted Blogger

Trent Hayden — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:59:24 +0000

Did you know there are some very simple things you can do on the social Web (and you might already be doing some of them) that can get you blacklisted, meaning you’ll be labeled as an annoyance, a person to avoid, or worse — a spammer?

Suffice it to say, if you want your blog and your foray into blogging to be successful, then you need to avoid the 5 ways to become a blacklisted blogger described below.

1. Fill your blog posts and comments on other blogs with links.

If you want to annoy people or be labeled a spammer, then fill your blog posts and the comments you leave on other blogs with links. This includes links back to your own site as well as affiliate links, text link ads, and so on. Links should enhance content. They should not detract from it making it impossible to find the links that are actually useful vs. those that are just self-promotional or revenue-generating.

2. Only talk about yourself.

Follow the 80-20 rule where 80% of the content and conversations you publish and participate in on the social Web are not self-promotional and 20% or less are self-promotional. No one wants to read what you have to say if all you ever do is talk about how great you are or your business is and try to sell your products or services.

5 Tips For Building Expertise Through Blogging

Trent Hayden — Sun, 16 May 2010 21:58:57 +0000

How much time do you need to put into a niche before you can declare yourself an expert? Well, many bloggers seem to disagree, judging by their self-proclamations after only a few months, but once upon a time you were classified as an expert if you had spent roughly 10,000 hours on a skill, in a focused, structured manner. If we’re referring to a career job, at roughly 40 hours/week, that comes out to about five years. But when it comes to working online and establishing your expertise, the Web doesn’t wait around. Five years is too long, since Web technology is always changing.

20 Easy Ways to Ruin Your Blog

Trent Hayden — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:53:23 +0000

If you want your blog to be successful, then you need to start thinking immediately about how your blog is designed and configured. In other words, the way your blog is set up could ruin your chances of building a successful blog.

With that in mind, following are 10 of the easiest and most common ways that people ruin their blogs. Avoid them!

Too many ads
Blinding colors or colors that are too light to read
Pop-up ads – make them go away!
Keyword stuffing – you’re not fooling anyone with that list of keywords stuffed into the sidebar or footer.
Clutter – where’s the real content?

The Ultimate Guide to Building Your Blogging Brand – Blog Like A Pro!

Trent Hayden — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:46:32 +0000

Currently, there are approximately over
150 Million blogs worldwide with a large majority of them talking about the same things, in same boring way. Millions of them look the same, many bloggers express themselves the same way and even more are blogging without passion, authority, concrete goals and without having a respectable brand. Many of us fail to realize that while we blog expecting to achieve success, we are also responsible for our personal brand.

Successful professional blogging is no longer for the average Joe with average goals. It is for the prudent who will approach their audience seriously and strive to build their company, and more so, personal brand.

Here is a massive guide that will get you started on the road to developing your blogging brand for success.

Set Goals, Huge Goals!

Before you register that domain or go crazy thinking about the right name for your blog, write down clearly defined goals for your site. Get a pen and paper, or however you write notes, and start jotting down everything you may require and what you NEED to be successful with your blog. Spend a week or two to decide your direction and focus on it. Your goals may not be set in stone for the entire lifetime of your blog since you will definitely grow, mature and learn so your goals should grow with you but remain in a general direction.

Aim for the sky! If your blogger friends want to achieve or are achieving $1,000 per month, shoot for $2,000 per month. Never limit your goals to match your peers or environment.

Howto: The Complete Guide to WordPress Security

Trent Hayden — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:28:44 +0000

Keeping your WordPress installation is usually not something a lot of people spend a lot of time on. However, I believe WordPress security, tightening up the place should be your first priority every single time you install WordPress. No exceptions.

With the recent Pharma hack, more info about it plus a solution on Chris Pearson’s blog, going around I thought it was time to focus on WordPress security today. There are a lot of things you can do build extra layers of security for your WordPress installation.

There are a few different layers involved to secure your WordPress installation. I shall list them grouped together as much as possible.

Server-side & .htaccess

WordPress security starts of course by using a proper hosting company. If a server setup is not secure by default then no amount of security measures is going to keep unwanted visitors out. Please look around before you decide which hosting partner will work best for you.

7 Steps to Build A Better Blog

Trent Hayden — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:13:44 +0000

This is a guest post by Onibalusi Bamidele, a 16 year old young entrepreneur.

Building a better blog is not that easy, it requires dedication and sometimes it requires parting with your money. Why build a better blog you ask? Building a better blog is critical to your online success and all the elements listed below will help you have a better blogging experience.

Nice Design

So many people think this is not a criterion but so many people tend to leave some blogs if it does not have a good design. You need to have a nice and good looking blog, that has a
better design and that easily draws people attention. They all want information and there are several places to get the same information you provide on the internet so you have to give them a good reason to even read your blog, a good design comes in in this place because so many people believe people with good designs have good content while
those with a poor design have poor content. It might not be easy to get a free wordpress theme that will help your blog look more unique, you might need to buy a premium theme which makes your blog look even more better. The Thesis wordpress theme is a good example to use, you can get a custom designer to help you customize it to the look of your
blog. You are parting with your money but having the right theme will pay off later.

Get Ready for WordPress 3.0

Trent Hayden — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:43:53 +0000

Those of you who actively look at what kind of news is presented to you in your WordPress dashboard already know WordPresss 3.0 beta 1 is released just before the weekend. Even though the actual release of WordPress 3.0 will be at least a couple of weeks away, it’s good to be prepared to the new stuff which WordPress 3.0 will bring to the table.

You of course already knew WordPress 3.0 will be sporting a brand new default theme, named Twenty Ten, but there are quite a few more new features that can improve your WordPress experience. Instead of listing every single feature, I thought it would be nice to make a list of those who already wrote about WordPress 3.0.