OSX Apps I can’t live without…
I’ve been an Apple convert for over a year now, and I find I’m often asked what applications I have installed; so I thought I’d share some of may favourites:
- Divvy – This little app is window management on steroids. Set a keystroke to bring up divvy and you have a grid available to size any window with.
- Secondbar – Working on with dual monitors? It’s a pain not having a menubar on both. Secondbar does as it says by providing a second menu bar.
- SpiritedAway – Perhaps my favourite little app. SpiritedAway sits in the background and minimizes windows in the background after a set period of time. Clean workspace? Yes please.
- Evernote – Note storage for the masses. I use this to keep track of notes / design inspiration. Notes are easily searchable (including scans!), and sync well to iphone / ipad.
- Dropbox – File backup / sharing made stupidly simple. To share, you simply dedicate one folder on your computer to Dropbox and anything within that folder is shared across any device you have Dropbox installed on. You can also sync application settings across devices with this (as I do with 1Password – see below!)
- 1Password – You’re told always to have unique and complex passwords for every different service / application you use; however in practice this rarely happens as a) you physically can’t remember that many passwords b) complex passwords take a long time to type out. 1Password solves both these problems by offering to generate new passwords and storing all your passwords with a ‘master password’ for later use. Couple this with awesome browser extensions, and you have a solution even easier than before; no typing required. You can even sync your passwords across devices so they’re always accessible. [See Tutorial]
- Delibar – Delicious bookmark manager. I have it setup so CMD + B bookmarks the current page. Simples.
- VMWare Fusion – Admittedly sometimes a windows application / environment is needed. Run windows simultaneously with VMWare fusion.
- Textmate – The rightful king of all text editors, and the application I use most frequently being a designer / developer.
- Transmit – A seriously cool FTP client. Also supports AmazonS3 / webdav – and is super fast. Its pretty sexy!
Posted in Wisdoms by Paul | No Comments »
Setting up a Facebook Page for your Business
A Facebook page can work wonders for your business – providing both promotion for your site and offering a new way to interact and get feedback from your fans. Creating a Facebook page however, isn’t straightforward and somewhat hidden from your normal Facebook experience. We’ve written this guide to help you get started!
-
Head over to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
-
Choose a category.
Your choice here will effect the options available in your info tab – so be careful when you choose an option. If you have any doubt as to what category to put your page in – choose “Other Business” as it will revert to the default options which can be seen below:
-
Give your facebook page a name
99% of the time I’d call your Facebook what whatever your business name is called
Your Page should now be created! You can access your newly created page by clicking on the “Ads & Pages” link in the sidebar when your at the Facebook home page and then clicking on your page name.
Extend your Facebook Page:
-
Give your Facebook page a static name.
(Eg. http://facebook.com/thedigitaldawn/ rather than http://facebook.com/pages/DigitalDawn/165597631125.
This can be done by going to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and clicking “Set a username for your pages”. Not all pages are available to do this (It depends on when you created the page) – But you should be able to do it with new pages. -
Add a reviews tab:
Not all facebook pages come with the reviews tab installed by default. This tab enables you to receive and display reviews and is incredibly beneficial as it links real people to the reviews and in a way makes them feel more genuine. To add, simply go to: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6261817190 and click “Add to my page” like so:
-
Create a custom Facebook Page:
If you want to pull out all the stops, you can really impress your customers and create a mini-website page to give your visitors extra information / let them know about promotions / display photographs.
To set this up, you need to add the FBML (Facebook Markup Language) Application then add code (HTML, CSS & FBML) into a box. Your web designer / developer should give you this code. Did you know we can provide this? Get in touch if you want to have the coolest Facebook Page around!
We hope that this guide helps you to setup a simple (but effective) facebook page! Stay tuned to learn how to effectively manage and update your facebook page!
Posted in Website Owner Tips by Paul | No Comments »
Why do you need a website?
By the fact that you’re looking at this post, (Or even website) I can take a pretty good guess that you don’t have a website or are looking to have your website re-done. I’ve written this post to help you understand why (95% of businesses) need a website.
-
You’re always open
A website never turns off enabling customers to access your business 24/7/365. Accessibility is extremely desirable – and making money / dealing with customers while you sleep can never be bad!
-
You become more credible
By simply having a website you give the impression that you’re professional in what you do.
-
Compete with a larger market
Recent figures show that 1.7 Billion people are now online across the globe. Why wouldn’t you want to get a piece of that action?
-
Connect with your customers
The web allows you to connect with customers in ways that we’re previously unimaginable. With the social-web now upon us, you can get enormous amounts of feedback from customers and free promotion (often without them knowing it!)
-
Cost effective advertising
While websites can sometimes be a little costly to set up – the majority really aren’t and once paid for that’s it (minus server /domain costs). You wont have to repeat that cost each month or year (unlike a business directory listing) and mid-to-long term they are incredibly cost-effective.
-
Save time keeping your customers up-to-date.
Updating your website can take a matter of minutes. Compare this to ringing up all your customers or creating and sending out a brochure.
Convinced you need a website yet? Get in touch with us for a quote!
Posted in Website Owner Tips by Paul | No Comments »
The Dawn is Here
Yes, I’m very pleased to announce the opening of Digital Dawn! It’s been a while in the making, but the site is finally here and we (as a company) are looking forward to getting stuck into some projects! Digital Dawn came as the next logical step to me (Paul Millar) for business growth. I’ve been making websites for clients for four years now under my name and it’s been great – but now I’m looking to go bigger and better than before. A ‘new dawn’ is most definitely on the horizon…
So What’s New?
-
A new brand image
I’m no longer tied down to “Paul Millar” – While I do like my name, it doesn’t really give room for expansion / isn’t very creative. I brainstormed company names, and eventually “Digital Dawn” was born – killing two birds with one stone! The name itself captures the fact that we’re still very early in the digital age – and that we still have lots of exciting technological things ahead of us. I believe firmly that your not on the web yet – now is the perfect time to do so.
-
A Team!
I’ll now be working alongside multiple specialists in their respective areas (PHP developers, ASP developers, print designers etc. ) should your project require it. This means that we can become more efficient in what we do and take on a larger range of projects whilst still maintaining the highest quality (of which you are used to!).
-
DawnHost
I’m also pretty excited to announce that we will be making our hosting service available to the public. Previously, if you wanted to join the party on the Digital Dawn servers you had to have been a design client. We now feel however that we’re ready to release this highly-reliable service to the public. DawnHost will be available shortly – we’ll let you know when through this blog.
-
A Blog!
This one’s a little bit of a no brainer – as your currently reading it! – But a new blog has also been born. The intent of the new blog is to provide you with the our news, our thoughts, special offers and website owner tips. So – if your a website owner, be sure to check back for tips on how to improve your website!
Wrapping it Up!
I hope this post clears a few things up as to who we are / what has changed. Be sure to check back soon for more updates or to get in touch as we’re always interested to hear about your project!
Posted in Digital Dawn News by Paul | No Comments »
The Endz
My latest site has just been launched… Hoorah!
There will be quite a lot of changes coming up as the site develops, but we’ve launched it as soon as we could to allow sponsors to look at it / get away from the icky landing page!
Quick Link: www.theendzdrama.com
Written by and starring actors who have grown up in ‘The Endz’, this exciting new drama series is a tenacious portrayal of life on the streets of Manchester. Like nothing you’ve seen before, this realistic and harrowing insight into the young lives of city kids, will envelope you into a dark and unsettling environment.
Posted in Digital Dawn News by Paul | No Comments »
Back Home & Refreshed!
I’ve spent the last month back in the UK seeing friends and family. Sort of like a holiday, it helped me think up lots of new projects to venture upon – and now i’m back (and all refreshed) its time to give them a go! I’ve registered a couple of domains (which shall remain secret for now!) but I’m very excited for the future… Will keep you updated on my progress as I start work upon them!
Since I’ve been back I’ve also been working on a project for a new Internet drama series called “The EndZ”.
Taken from the website:
“The EndZ” is a tenacious portrayal of life on the streets of Manchester. Like nothing you’ve seen before, this realistic and harrowing insight into the young lives of city kids, will envelope you into a dark and unsettling environment.
The site is still in development, but I hope to have it finished off within the week. In the meantime you can view the holding page and the pilot episode for the series which is very much worth a look at!
Link: The Endz
I’ve also ditched cannybill (the service I had started using about two months ago for billing clients) in favour for freshbooks. Its much easier to use & work with, looks nicer, and although it doesn’t integrate with my server (like cannybill is supposed to but i never quite managed to get working…) it sure is a better experience in every aspect.
One last mention to both The Brown Cow Inn and Janet Hampson for giving me some work whilst home! Thank you very much!
Posted in Thoughts by Paul | No Comments »