Friday 27th January 2012: 10am – 12pm

This workshop is ideal for anyone who is interested in setting up or running their own WordPress website to promote their business, organisation, band or anything else that they feel is worth shouting about.

If you are a business owner and want to find out how WordPress will benefit your online presence, then this workshop is for you!
The workshop is split into the following sections:

• Best practices in web design
• The capabilities of WordPress
• Demonstration of different WordPress websites and their various features
• What to include in a brief for a web designer

You Will Also Learn About:

1. How WordPress can benefit your business
2. Gain an awareness on how to use WordPress to develop your own website
3. Tips to improve your existing website
4. What essential features you could have on your website
5. How to manage your website’s content yourself

Sign-up Now

To sign-up simply get in touch with either:

1. contact@freshbeat.co.uk
2. ray@pacificstream.info

Where to Go:

• Basecamp3
• 25-31 Parliament Street
• Liverpool L8 5RN
• Merseyside
• UK

While I am still keen on working in public places like these, I’ve since found much better options since I moved to Liverpool several months ago.

What I’m referring to mainly are Jelly co-working events. These are events that run throughout the UK (also internationally, but I won’t focus on that here) and are intended for freelancers / self-employed (some welcome students too) to work together and avoid the isolation of working at home. All within a specified venue where you have access to WiFi, drinks etc.

Since moving to Liverpool, I’ve started regularly attending the Jelly meetups in both Liverpool and Manchester. I’ve met lots of interesting people at both venues, and find it’s a great way to separate work from my personal life. It’s great to come home feeling like I’ve actually been to work, as opposed to everything merging together.

Jelly Liverpool

The Liverpool Jelly (@JellyLiverpool) is hosted upstairs at Leaf on Bold Street (@leafteashop) in collaboration with Open Labs of John Moores University (@OpenLabsLJMU) and takes place on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month.

The events start at 9am, finish at 5pm and are free to attend.

Jelly Liverpool is very well established and celebrated its 1 year anniversary in August 2011, you can watch a short video of it to give you more of a feel of what the meetups are like.

I would certainly recommend paying Jelly Liverpool a visit even if you are from further afield. You will most likely find yourself to be a regular from then on!

Jelly Manchester

Manchester Jelly (see manchesterjelly.wordpress.com and Twitter: @ManchesterJelly) is hosted at Manchester’s creative hub; the MadLab (@madlabuk) and takes place every Friday from 9am to 6pm. The meetup is free to attend however they do appreciate a donation of £5 to help keep everything running smoothly at their hosts; the MadLab.

Every attendee I’ve met at Manchester Jelly has been happy to give a £5 donation each time they attend, myself included.

Manchester Jelly is quite new to the co-working scene as (at the time of writing this) they are soon to be celebrating their 10 week anniversary. However they seem to have done a good job of rounding people up so far as you can tell by the photo above, and its popularity will surely increase as word gets out.

You might think me travelling from Liverpool to Manchester to save working on my own is a bit over the top, but I got a Multi-Rider ticket (basically 5 returns to Manchester from Liverpool) from National Express for £28, with 6 months to use them up (I should probably credit @pantsridelow for informing me of this amazing deal)… whereas 5 returns on the train to Manchester at peak times would have cost me £75! So the coach is a much more affordable option.

To Summarise

For this reason I see no reason why people based within, say, an hour’s journey or so of Liverpool or Manchester can’t attend these events. Especially if they are keen to:

• Meet new, interesting people
• Speak to fellow creatives, and those in other fields
• Make new connections, and possibly to outsource work to them
• Avoid the ‘solitary confinement’ effects of being stuck working indoors all the time

There is also the possibility that another attendee may pass over some work to you. This isn’t what Jelly is strictly about as it is intended to be a co-working event not a networking event, but you’re best bringing your business cards just incase!

Fore more information about Jelly as a whole, check out the following resources:

• http://www.uk-jelly.org.uk
• @ukjelly
• facebook.com/TheBIGJelly

Are you a Jelly addict like I am? Or do you know of any other co-working venues / events that are worth attending? Feel free to let everyone know in the comments

• When: Wednesday 30/11/2011 from 10:00 to 12:00
• Where: Striding Out, Hanover House, 85 Hanover St, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 3DZ

The workshop is ideal for anyone who is interested in setting up or running their own WordPress website to promote their business, organisation, band or anything else that they feel is worth shouting about.

If you are a business owner and want to find out how WordPress will benefit your online presence, then this workshop is for you!

At the workshop, you will learn about the following:

1. Best practices in web design
2. The capabilities of WordPress
3. Demonstration of different of WordPress websites and their various features
4. What to include in a brief for a web designer

Seating is limited so click here to reserve yourself a seat!

In the event that this happens, you don’t want your users to see something like this:

Users will most likely think that the website no longer exists. Instead, use WordPress to display a custom 404 page.

Below is a basic example of all you need, simply state that the page no longer exists and provide a link to the homepage. The 404 page will also match the rest of your website should you set up the template in the same way, so your users will know that they are on the correct website.

Feel free to paste the following on to your own website, remember to save the template file as 404.php and to include any relevant calls to your other template files (e.g. header.php, footer.php):

<h1>Error: Page Not Found</h1>
<p>Sorry but you have tried to reach a page that does not exist.</p>
<p><a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>">Click here</a> to visit our homepage.</p>

The Result: a Friendly 404 Page

You will then see a much friendlier 404 page similar to the following:

When you’re outputting a URL into a webpage, it might not have the necessary http:// at the beginning by default. This will cause the link to be invalid and it will not direct your users to the intended location.

This is handy in WordPress if you are dealing with URLs that have been submitted via custom fields for example (average internet users will most likely not be aware that a link needs to start with http:// and therefore may not include it.

Try this function out (if in WordPress, add it to your functions.php template file):

// add http:// if necessary
function httpCheck($url) {
	if(substr($url, 0, 4) == 'www.') {
		$url = 'http://' . $url;
	}
	return $url;
}

Then, you can simply output a valid URL like so:

<a href="<?php echo httpCheck($someURL); ?>"><?php echo $someURL; ?></a>

You only need to include the httpCheck() function inside the href attribute, the second iteration of $someURL is there purely for display purposes (you could just set it to something like ‘click here’ if you like).

There you have it! Valid URLs without having to edit the value of $someURL manually.

• When: Friday 28/10/2011 from 14:00 to 15:00
• Where: Striding Out, Hanover House, 85 Hanover St, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 3DZ

The workshop is ideal for anyone who is interested in setting up or running their own WordPress website to promote their business, organisation, band or anything else that they feel is worth shouting about.

If you are a business owner and want to find out how WordPress will benefit your online presence, then this workshop is for you!

At the workshop, you will learn about the following:

1. Best practices in web design
2. The capabilities of WordPress
3. Demonstration of different of WordPress websites and their various features
4. What to include in a brief for a web designer

Seating is limited so click here to reserve yourself a seat!

Before getting stuck-in to another bout of insomnia, I thought I’d have a quick nose of my Twitter feed. I thought it was just by chance that a couple of people had tweeted (at 3am) about Steve Jobs, then one or two tweets down I noticed a tweet containing both ‘Steve Jobs’ and ‘R.I.P’… wow! I certainly wasn’t expecting that, at least not yet anyway.

After scrolling a little faster I noticed my Twitter timeline was full of ‘R.I.P Steve Jobs’ tweets. As if it wasn’t obvious enough, I then checked Twitter’s trending topics, and there it was – “RIP Steve Jobs” in number one, along with a couple of hashtags “#iSad” and “#ThankYouSteve“. So it was safe to say that Steve Jobs had officially passed away.

I then saw a link to the official Apple website and instantly clicked it, to see the following:

Certainly a memorable image to say the least. The kind of minimal, yet striking design used throughout the Apple brand. Only this time with a very different story behind it. I decided to add this to my LittleSnapper library; partly as a tribute and partly due to how rare events as memorable as this actually happen.

Now I’ve never exactly worshipped Steve Jobs. A lot of people who know me will most likely think I do seeing as I proudly use an iMac, MacBook and iPhone… but funnily enough I’ve never considered myself to be either an Apple fanboy or someone who worships the ground that Jobs walks (or walked) on. I think Apple products are great tools, but they’re certainly not without their flaws, and I can happily admit that unlike a lot of Apple users.

Still, I can’t help but feel moved by the death of such an innovative icon who is so passionate about what they do. Such a waste for them to be taken by cancer, as it is for anyone else who dies in such a way.

Inspiration

I listened to BBC Radio 4 for a bit (as I normally do when I have trouble sleeping) and of course, Steve Jobs was talked about on each periodic news bulletin. It was then that I heard a clip of his speech at Stanford University in 2005. The clip I heard was from around 12:16 to 12:42 here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

I’ve never heard something so inspiring crammed into such few words. This is about as good advice as you can get no matter what your career (or even if you don’t have one). I certainly know the field I am passionate about, and hearing words like this simply drives me to take it further. Of course, I’m not suggesting to listen to only that portion of the speech, the whole thing is inspiring.

I’ve found, to get where I currently am career-wise and in life in general, I’ve had to adopt this attitude. I’ve had to ignore peoples advice and ignore any small-minded criticisms by those who don’t understand exactly what it is I do. I don’t have time to make these people understand why I do things a certain way, when I do them or what tools I use to get them done. If you know what you’re doing is right then you’ve just got to ignore what people say and go ahead and do it. I know I’d be much less happier and much worse-off if I’d have just done what people expected me to do my whole life.

Tributes

President Obama summed Jobs up perfectly:

“Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it…. The world has lost a visionary”

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

I can only hope that Apple continues to grow as he intended. My thoughts go out to his family, friends and loved ones. RIP.

If your organisation falls into this category then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Obviously there is only room for one charity (at the minute anyway, there will most likely be more opportunities for others in future).

In your message, please state the following:

1. The address of your current website (if any)
2. What your organisation does
3. How many members of staff your organisation has
4. Whereabouts you are based
5. How you would benefit from a website

Then, if you meet the right criteria, you may be able to get yourself a beautiful website tailored perfectly to your organisation’s needs… completely free of charge!

Please use one of the tweet buttons on this page to spread the word.

Rest assured, it doesn’t have to be this way. It is much more efficient to use WordPress’ get_permalink() function. All you have to do is include the ID of the page or post that you want to link to, like so:

<a title="About Us" href="<?php echo get_permalink(8); ?>">Read more about us.</a>

This code tells WordPress to link to whatever page or post has an ID of 8. Also, don’t forget to include echo before you call the get_permalink() function, otherwise your hyperlink won’t link to anything.

Make Life Even Easier

Another way to make things even easier for you is to use a great little plugin called WP Show IDs by Primo Themes. This will display the ID number of each post / page in your WordPress backend, like so:

This will save you from having to hover over the appropriate link in your WordPress backend and view the ID from within the URL in your browser’s status bar.

To be honest I have no idea why this feature doesn’t already exist in WordPress, apparently it used to exist but now it no longer does! At least you can easily get around it with this nifty little plugin nonetheless.

Not only that, but working at home can be far too distracting, with family members, household chores etc.

I’ve read several blog articles in the past about the benefits of working out of the house for freelancers. I read these before I’d even started freelancing properly and instantly thought “how could anyone get bored of working from home?!”.

I mean let’s face it, working from home is pretty amazing. You have benefits such as having your music as loud as you want and choosing your own working hours (well, within reason).

Recently, I’ve started getting out of the house to do my work. I’m not able to do this everyday, but I seem to be doing it more and more often as it brings some quite noticeable benefits.

Reasons Why I Like To Work Out Of The House

1. Making the journey (whether it be walking, public transport, driving etc) can help to clear your head in the morning.
2. Less distractions = more productivity. Not only this, but I somehow manage to resist Facebook, Twitter and YouTube a lot better when I’m working from the library, although I have no idea why.
3. Less possibility of going insane due to isolation.
4. Separation of work from your personal life, at least now there is a change of scene when you get home rather than being in the same location all day and all night. This makes me feel like I have an actual job, unlike sitting at my own desk all day.
5. Meeting clients can be a lot more convenient. You can always head over to a nearby coffee shop to meet them, unless you’re already in one in which case they can come to you.

Where To Work

Most freelancers I’ve read about in this way tend to work from coffee shops, but I find it really hard to concentrate in them. Not only that but you feel pressured (or at least I do anyway) to buy food / drinks while you’re in there, which can rack up quite a few expenses, especially if you’re in somewhere like Starbucks. After all, you can’t exactly operate your whole business empire inside a small coffee shop without even buying anything in return for their free internet policy.

The main reason I don’t like working from coffee shops is because it is often really inconvenient to plug your laptop in should it need charging. Far too much hassle for my liking.

So where else can you work? I find the library is the best bet. Sure there is no free Wi-Fi in the one I go to, but the lack of noise, large (sturdy) desks and no pressure to be buying anything more than makes up for it. The library I normally work from has plug sockets that are easily accessible too, and I’m guessing this is the case with most libraries.

What You’ll Need

If you decide to work from anywhere that doesn’t offer Wi-Fi access then simply invest in a wireless dongle. I signed up on a 24 month contract with Three. £15.99 a month for 15GB of bandwidth, bargain – http://threestore.three.co.uk/broadband. I’ve found it to be just as reliable and fast as my home broadband. A lot more reassuring than relying on internet provided by a coffee shop or internet cafe that’s for sure.

If you decide to go with coffee shops or internet cafes, you may need to register as a member or pay a small fee in order to use their internet. I heard the Wifi in Starbucks was completely free these days, but this wasn’t the case in the local branch I visited. So you may have to pay to register as a member, but then you’ll be able to use their Wi-Fi whenever you visit.

At least in coffee shops it’s a lot more convenient for speaking to clients on the phone, so it’s up to you where you work. You could always spend one half of the day in a library and the other half in a coffee shop just to break the day up a bit.

Your Opinions

What do other freelancers think? Do you prefer the convenience of working from home or have you had enough of the isolation? If it’s the latter, where do you like to work in public?