I see this a lot, really, a LOT. Someone decides they have an awesome idea for a new business and starts researching how to start a web site to sell their product. Obviously, its human nature to try to get the best deal we can and free sounds amazing! Or does it? Here are my top 10 reason to avoid free web sites.

1. Is it really free? Sure, the basic personal version is free. Did you consider you may want more space, add on a domain, a different look, and oh did you want email as well, we can do that but start adding on the fees. Sorry guys, but the free is part is usually just to get you in the door and signed up thinking you found a great deal.

2. Who are you really promoting? So you think you are promoting your products or services, but really you are also promoting their services and interests as well. I’d say %99 of free sites have either advertising or pop-ups that they throw onto your site. So when your visitors visit and get side tracked by the add they stuck in your margin and click-off, did the free site really help you get a sale or did they just get a sale for one of their advertisers? Not to mention, its just annoying to see when trying to shop!

3. Unprofessional. When I go shopping for a product I may have hundreds of choices for where to buy it. I’m going to ultimately buy from a site that looks secure and trust-worthy. If they have ads or are using a free template seen on 20 other sites I’ll probably pass them up. I’m going to buy the product from the site that put more effort into their storefront. Would you rather buy a new computer from a reputable store or from someone selling from the trunk of their car? Which one are you going to be more willing to turn your credit card information over to?
Read More…

I’ve been lazy with my reviews, so here’s one about a product that has helped me catch up lately! I started back to school for the year in August taking on a 19 credit course load! All I can say is: whoa! How is a mom of three busy children supposed to keep everything organized, work and do great in school? I decided to get technical and try another Apple product.

I picked up a 32gb iPad in September in an attempt to better organize my life, and boy have I given it a workout! I have to start by saying that I previously brought my Aluminum Macbook to school everyday in order to follow along on power points, do assignments and have an easy way to look up the information I was looking for. I love my Macbook, but lets face it, it can be a bit heavy and cumbersome. The iPad may seem like a giant iPhone and many people say it wont replace a laptop, I beg to differ.

The iPad comes with many standard features that you may already be familiar with on your iMac or iPhone including: iCal, Notes, Contacts, Mail and Safari among others. We are also big fans of MobileMe to help keep our calendars organized and contact books synced.

After unboxing and playing around with my new toy, I immediately purchased 3 apps that I knew would come in handy to make the iPad an essential tool for me. Pages, Keynote and Task PRO. Pages allows me to download (or load) my study guides and assignments right to the iPad so I can review and work on the go. Pages does come with a lot of useful templates and I am even able to create newsletters and documents for work by loading my own templates too! Keynote allows me to view Power Point presentations my instructors lecture from, enabling me to follow along easier no matter where I sit. I can pull up the information again at anytime without printing off several dozen pages. Task PRO allows me to keep track of lectures, skills and assignments so I always know what I need to get done. The extra wireless keyboard we had for one of our iMacs works very smoothly with the iPad to make typing even easier. Although, I do find that having to turn off the bluetooth when I’m wanting to use the onscreen keyboard again is a bit frustrating.

With wireless enabled I can study and research anywhere on campus or at home. The iPad fits easily in my purse so I don’t have to worry about forgetting it at home, its always on hand so that I can pull it out to study whenever I have down time without bringing a bulky laptop or piles of papers.

Besides the education and organization aspects of the iPad I’ve also found that its become an awesome tool in other areas of my life as well. With the camera adapter I use the iPad to free up camera space and easily share pictures with others. When I’m ready to load them to my computer it transfers full resolution versions of my photos! I won’t have to tell other photographers how valuable it is to be able to proof photos right on location versus waiting until you’ve gotten back to a home computer. Instead of shoving the latest book I’m reading into my purse, I can purchase it for my iPad and have it with me without having to worry about bent pages or losing my place. The screen is also the perfect size for watching movies. Earlier this month I had to bring 2 of my children to a boring meeting with me. Thinking ahead, I loaded a favorite kids’ movie and plugged in 2 sets of headphones. (jack splitters are invaluable for multi-kid families!) The only noises they made during my meeting was the occasional giggle of glee. The iPad helped get us out of there much faster so we could get to the really fun stuff, like playing at the park!

The bad? I want WiFi printing! hey, awesome that it allows bluetooth printing, but I don’t have a bluetooth printer! Our home network is all wireless with wireless printing, it would be amazing to be able to print my documents without having to sync to my computer. Fortunately, Apple seems to be taking this request seriously and promises to unleash WiFi printing to the ipad in November. Yay! I also with this device had a USB port to allow easier data transfer, but I can live without. Many say the lack of camera is a deal breaker for them, not so much for me. I can’t imagine trying to take a picture with the iPad, it just is not light enough to comfortably do so. Which brings me to weight. Sure, its lighter than a laptop, but it does have some weight to it. You wouldn’t want to hold it out in front of you for long, but I haven’t found that I’m tempted too either. I sit with it either on my lap or table anyways, so it hasn’t been a big deal for me.

Overall it has been well worth the investment! I feel more organized now and don’t worry about missing an assignment or not having my materials with to study. I’m sure I’ll get a lot more use out of it as I continue on as well.

As I mentioned last week on Facebook, Web Savvy Mama is having another gift card giveaway! This time the lucky winner will receive a $15 iTunes gift card! Use the gift cart to buy music, ebooks, apps or gift it to the hard to shop for person in your life!

So what do you have to do to qualify to win?
Here is the lowdown on the giveaway:

1. “Like” Web Savvy Mama on Facebook.
2. That was it. Easy enough eh?

Want more chances at winning? Here’s how to increase your odds! 1 additional entry per item!

* Leave a RELEVANT comment on any of my other blog posts (please comment back here with link to post)
* Follow me on twitter at @websavvymama
* Blog this giveaway
* Post about this giveaway on Facebook, please leave a comment with the URL to where you posted.
* Tweet this giveaway: I entered to win a $15 iTunes giftcard at @websavvymama http://bit.ly/wsmitunes (1x per 24 hrs )

The fine print: Contest ends October 31st 2010 at 11:59 pm. Winner will be drawn randomly from all eligible entries on November 1st 2010. Winners will be notified via Facebook with information on how to claim their prize. Winner will have 72 hours to respond with appropriate information. If winner fails to respond, a new winner will be chosen.

Oh, did I mention that becoming a fan of Web Savvy Mama on Facebook automatically enters you into future contests?! How awesome is that?

Here area a few of my current favorites, I had a blast working on each of them!

[Show as slideshow]

The clients I’ve had for years probably already know my history of how I became a web designer, my love of all things artistic, that I’m a mom of 3 kids and have been married for over 10 years (together for 15, can you believe that?). What most of my clients and blog readers don’t know, is that I have a personal site that I also use as a sort of “cover-it-all” business card so to speak.

Just recently I decided that it needed a face lift. I designed the site back when I was in school for design, so it was a bit dated. As the story with most designers, we do everyone else’s sites first and often neglect our own! I decided that I needed to just jump in and do it and stop procrastinating!

Well, the new site is ready for everyone to see! I decided that if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it different! I broke every rule that I have for web design and decided to stop thinking rationally with this one. I told myself I’d never create a horizontal site; well I guess its true, you can never say never. When you visit the site, you’ll see what I mean. Most will either love it or hate it, and my feelings will not be hurt if its just not your style. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think!

So I’ve waited far too long to get around to playing with a calibration tool for my monitor. I finally bit the bullet and decided it was time. While at a local camera and photography store I noticed they carried display calibrators so I decided the Sypder3 Pro was destined for use in my home office.

A display color calibrator reads your monitor and sets up a profile to adjust your settings so that you see the truest colors possible. This is important if you do a lot of photography or graphic design, you want to make sure the colors you see and design for are what the final printed product will look like. Of course, there are always fine differences in printers as well, but at least this helps get is closer. If two people look at the same image on different uncalibrated computers, they may see very different colors! Your purple-ish may be my blue-ish. Contrast plays a part here too. I’m sure you can imagine the frustration when a designer and client are having trouble agreeing on a color pallet because they are seeing 2 completely different colors! The problem only compounds further for photographers, for whom color editing can make or break a shot. Spending a good amount of time on a photograph only to find out after its received back from the printer that your colors are off can drive even the most patient artist to madness. Calibrators are supposed to help alleviate some of that stress.
Read More…

« Previous Page — Next Page »