Click here to view the video.

Your blog can snow too! If you have a self-hosted wordpress blog, you can upload this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/let-it-snow/and activate it. That’s all you need to do!

Check out our blog templates, themes and headers.

Enjoy & Happy Holidays

Yahoo mail, well.. yahoo mail is cool in the fact you can change the color of the background but other than that, it’s just like any other e-mail opp out there. There is nothing special to it. I have had a few of my client’s e-mails (coming from yahoo) end up in my spam folder for no apparent reason.

What do I recommend? Gmail. 100%. Remember when you had to know someone who was using g-mail to be able to sign up? Well the times have changed. You can now go to gmail.com and sign yourself up for a fabulous e-mail address. Everyone is switching over to g-mail and let me tell you why.

The space is incredible. With 7174 MB, how can anyone use up that much space? 9,000 e-mails later, I am still at 12% capacity. Incredible.

The chat feature. Google chat is the best and easiest way to communicate with your e-mail contacts. Anyone who has g-mail can easily be added to your google chat (in the e-mail sidebar) so you can send them a quick hello while logged in to your e-mail. It’s great. I love chatting with my clients and it really comes in handy when I need some information and don’t want to send an e-mail.

Labels. Some were weary at first about not having folders but imagine this, what if you had an e-mail that needed to be in more than one folder at a time? Predicament! With labels, you can label it “Follow up”, “Trip to NYC” and “Reservations” all at once. You can also color coordinate your labels. You can choose different colors for different labels and it makes things THAT much easier to find.

Search. The search feature really helps. Type in someones name and all the e-mails with them will show up. How’s that for folders?

I can’t recommend g-mail enough!

Blogger, Wordpress, Wordpress.org: What is the difference?!

Blogger.com
The price: Free
Offers Hosting: Yes. Hosted with blogger and has blogspot.com at the end of your blog. (Example: deliciousdesignstudio.blogspot.com)
Supports Widgets: Yes
Supports Ads (Google, BlogHer, etc): Yes
Allows for customization of design: Yes
Can be transformed to look like a website: Yes
Allows Pages: No
Domain Linking: Yes. You can link your domain (example: www.domainname.com) to your blog for free.
Able to import & export blog: Yes
Offers widgets such as blogroll, subscribe to, follow me, twitter: Yes
Note: Great for those who do not want to pay for hosting. Who want a blog and to be able to have free control of their design, widgets and ads.

Wordpress.com
The price: Free
Offers Hosting: Yes. Hosted with wordpress and has wordpress.com at the end of your blog. (Example: deliciousdesignstudio.wordpress.com)
Supports Widgets: No. Does not support 3rd party scripts or most html codes.
Supports Ads (Google, BlogHer, etc): No
Allows for customization of design: No. Wordpress.com charges $15 for css customization, which only allows you to change colors.
Can be transformed to look like a website: No
Allows Pages: Yes
Able to import & export blog: Yes
Offers widgets such as blogroll, subscribe to, follow me, twitter: Yes
Note: We do not offer design services for wordpress.com blogs

Wordpress.org
The price: Free, Hosting required
*Most hosting providers cost anywhere from $5-6 dollars a month. Yes, that’s it. They almost always come with a free domain name too.*
Offers Hosting: No. Visit our recommends page for hosting information and ideas.
Supports Widgets: Yes
Supports Ads (Google, BlogHer, etc): Yes
Allows for customization of design: Yes
Can be transformed to look like a website: Yes
Allows Pages: Yes
Able to import & export blog: Yes
Offers widgets such as blogroll, subscribe to, follow me, twitter: Yes
Note: Great for businesses or those who are serious bloggers. Great for professionals and also those who want to use a great blogging platform.

Here you can see Martha explain exactly just what a blog is, and if you look closely, you can see me 52 seconds into the video.. with my pink laptop:

As soon as you read this.. export your blog and save it to a folder on your computer so you can rest easier :)

Give it a try!

The most common answer I have for that is, get it before someone else does. Whenever a blog increases in traffic and popularity, the domain name could be equally as popular. Random generators and businesses will purchases a domain name if they feel it could benefit them, such as, being offered money to sell it.

When I first started out in the blogging world and started my own ventures, I remember someone once telling me.. “purchase the domain for that!” and now I understand why that is one of the first things I wanted to do. Just remember, if you don’t purchase it.. someone else will.

Imagine having a blog that is pretty popular.. and not purchasing a domain name for it. Later on you decide “hmmm… I need the domain name. It would be easier for people to remember” so you go to purchase it, and surprise! It’s already gone. You go to the website and see it’s a bunch of search engine results. Yep! It was snagged it before you got it.

Don’t let this happen. There are a few options for purchasing a domain name.

Name.com:

Purchasing a domain name through name.com is 5.99 a year and can be linked to your blog. If you have a blogspot blog, linking your domain to it is free. However, if you have a wordpress.com blog, they charge $10 a year.

Self-hosting:

If you decide to upgrade to the wordpress platform but want to host it yourself so you can have ads, and other 3rd party scripts, I’d suggest reading my hosting page and who I refer.

The average price for a professional custom blog design is $600 – 2500, with some design firms charging up to $6000.

The average price for a professional website design (informational and e-commerce) is $1200 – 4500, with some design firms charging up to $7500.

The average price for a premade blog design from a small design firm is $55-150. This is for designs that are not custom made and can be sold a multiple of times.