Like I’ve said before, ideas are a dime a dozen. What it really takes to make a business is more than just an idea, it takes the execution of the idea. And this is by far the hardest part. I myself have no trouble coming up with new ideas. I actually have lots of them. The problem is that I can’t execute all of them. I just don’t have the time and the resources. So today I’m going to share with you my latest idea. And please go ahead and take it if you want. I’d love to see this product make it to the market! I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Basically the idea comes down to a simple need, the ability to print checks from my computer. Right now in the market there are many great label printers, which is awesome. We use Dymo label printers here at LandlordMax to help us (it’s great for mailing labels amongst other things). It’s an amazing time saver. As good as having sheets of Avery mailing labels are, I often just need to print one label, of even just a few labels and not an entire sheet  of labels.  Hence I almost exclusively use the label printer (I actually only use the Avery sheets to print large quantities of return mailing addresses).

Now imagine if there was a printer just like the Dymo label printer, but for checks! How cool would that be?

There’s some details that would need to be ironed out. For example what do you get with a roll of checks? Does it print out your account information on the bottom of the check or just fill in the fields like the date, payee, etc. That’s the 99% perspiration part, I’m just giving the 1% inspiration.

The key to this printer’s success of course is to make it very easy to use and integrate with. If there was such a printer, and it was very easy to interface/integrate with, we’d almost certainly be supporting it as the primary check printing option for LandlordMax.

You see right now for a software to offer check printing, which we’re in the process of implementing for LandlordMax, you either need to jump through hoops or highly limit the capabilities of your check printing feature.

It basically comes down to a couple of options. The first is to support only pre-defined formats, but this means you’ll also have to sell checks “compatible” with your software. Not exactly where we want to go for LandlordMax. The alternative is to create some form of a “check designer” which allows you to configure how the checks are printed. Of course this option is much more complex for the software company to implement, and hence costs more. But not only that, most users aren’t really interested in configuring their printer alignments just to be able to print checks.

So there you go, a business idea that will solve a common and annoying problem faced by both consumers and businesses. Just think of the possibilities. Hopefully someone will take this idea and run with it!

And if you know of a check printer like this that already exists, please let me know. I’d be very appreciative.

Discuss (10)          Permalink to this article

As you may have noticed, I’ve just updated the design of this blog tonight. It’s been a work in the making for some time now. And even though it’s not 100% complete yet, it’s definitely ready to go live. So let me know what you think! Especially if you notice any issues.

Before I go and take a much needed rest, I’d just like to give a very big thank you to Reuben Whitehouse, the graphical designer responsible for this amazing design (he’s also the guy who designed the website for my book Blog Blazers).  He recently wrote a piece about how he designed the new marching man logo for this blog that you see on the header and footer.

I’m looking forward to reading your comments on the new blog design!

Discuss (6)          Permalink to this article

There are many ways to improve the performance of your WordPress blog, and today we’ll be focusing on three simple and easy techniques. That is, instead of dealing with caching and other advanced topics, we’ll instead focus on how to improve the performance of your WordPress blog by just making some small and minor changes to your WordPress theme.

The performance of your blog basically comes down to 3 main issues in order of importance:

1. The number of calls to your database
2. The amount of code that needs to be executed.
3. The amount of data that needs to be downloaded (images, etc.)

Beyond this you’re getting into the more advanced topics such as caching, etc. And you shouldn’t really be looking at the advanced techniques until you resolve these basic issues first.

1. The number of calls to your database

Every single call to your database is very expensive (this is true for all web application, not just a WordPress blog). It’s not just marginally more expensive, it’s critically more expensive. The good news here is that there is a lot, and I do mean a lot, of room for improvement. Most themes out there completely ignore this issue and just call the database whenever they want any type of data (which is understandable for generic themes, but not for custom themes). In any case, this is very bad. And I do mean very bad. Well ok, maybe it’s not so bad if you have barely any traffic, but as soon as your blog starts to take off it will quickly hamper your performance.

For example, looking at the latest default WordPress theme for version 2.7 (the “classic” theme isn’t much better), in the “header.php” file, you can find:

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”<?php bloginfo(‘html_type’); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo(‘charset’); ?>” />
<title><?php wp_title(‘&laquo;’, true, ‘right’); ?> <?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?></title>
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_url’); ?>” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> RSS Feed” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘rss2_url’); ?>” />
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/atom+xml” title=”<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> Atom Feed” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘atom_url’); ?>” />
<link rel=”pingback” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘pingback_url’); ?>” />

There’s more, but this is enough for our example. If we look at the code above, the method bloginfo() calls the database for every new value. In our example I count 7 new and different values out of 9 bloginfo() calls, hence 7 database calls. WordPress is smart in that once a call for a specific value is made (say “name”) it will cache and re-use the value for that one web request. That’s good and it does help (kudos to the WordPress developers for this), and in our case it saves two database calls. But on the next page request, we still have another 7 database calls to make.

The good news is that we can drastically improve the performance of our blog theme above with some simple changes:

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8” />
<title><?php wp_title(‘&laquo;’, true, ‘right’); ?>My Blog’s Name</title>
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”https://www.myBlog.com/styles.css” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”My Blog’s Name RSS Feed” href=”https://www.myBlog.com/rssFeed” />
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/atom+xml” title=”My Blog’s Name  Atom Feed” href=”https://www.myBlog.com/atomFeed” />
<link rel=”pingback” href=”https://www.myBlog.com/pingBackUrl” />

These simple changes has dropped the number of database calls from 7 to 1!!! That’s very significant, especially since these expensive. And that’s every time a user calls every page!

Sure there is a small penalty, but it’s extremely minor. For example if we change our blog’s name then we need to manually change the theme as well. But how often do you change your blogs name? I’ve never changed the name of this blog since I’ve started it and nor do I ever plan to. And why would I? I would lose all my marketing and branding efforts.

If you go through the rest of your theme, I’m sure you can extract a lot of database calls. Especially on the header, the footer. But if you look, I’m sure you can find similar code all over the place. Of course don’t go crazy, but do pay close attention to the database calls. Remember this is a simple theme. In a more complex theme you might easily be able to save yourself a good 10-20 database calls, if not more.

2. The Amount of Code to Execute

Very similar to the above tip, look around your theme for places where there are function calls that you don’t need. Trim down your blog’s theme.

A common place to find code that’s executed a lot that doesn’t necesarily need to be is plugins. Some plugins are great and really help improve your blog (such as Akismet for comment spam). But not every plugin is created equal. Some plugins are just badly written and really slow down the performance of your blog. Therefore look at all the plugins you have installed on your blog and limit yourself to only those that create real value. Ask yourself: s this plugin really worth it? And the more traffic you have, the more you need to ask yourself this.

Without getting too technical, since this is suppose to be quick and simple tricks, look for loops in the code of your blog’s theme (“for” and “while” loops). Examine the code that’s executed in these loops because it’s probably executed many times (which is why it’s in the loop in the first place). Is it necessary? Does it really provide something of value?

3. The amount of data that needs to be downloaded

The next most important you should be doing is looking at the main images on your blog. Is your logo’s filesize as small as it can be (while still looking good)? Can you shrink it? Then look at all the images that appear on virtually every page (the RSS subscription icon, the email icon, etc.). Can they be shrunk as well? And don’t just think about shrinking them, ask yourself if you need them in the first place? Do all the images serve a real purpose? Sure that bright yellow flashing gif animation of a flying toaster on the footer is kinda cool retro 1995 style, but is it really needed? That’s one less image you have to download and process.

Another easy place to reduce image size is on the images within your individual blog posts. Are they as small as they can be? Are you using 100kb image files or are you shrinking them down to 10-40kb? Sometimes a little loss of quality can more than halve your image file size, without a noticeable difference in quality to the un-attuned eye.

You can also look at shrinking the size of your css (Cascading Style Shee) file. Are all the styles need and used? If you’re a web geek, you can even consider removing all the whitespace to shrink the filesize. Just don’t do it manually, use a tool to help you out. The same goes for your Javascript files.

Discuss (6)          Permalink to this article

I’m Immortal and I can prove it using valid and correct statistics! It’s pretty simple actually. To prove my immortality, I’m going to use the data from my life.

Here’s how the proof goes. Since the day I was born I’ve never had a day in which I died. Being my age, that’s just under 13,000 days. A fairly decent sample size (I think that with 13,000 flips of a coin we could determine the odds of getting heads or tails). But maybe for those of you who aren’t yet confident, let’s increase the sample size. In all 18,408,206 minutes I’ve lived (give or take a bunch) I’ve never died. Not once!

So based on my past data, the odds of me ever dying are less than 0.00…1%. In other words I’m virtually immortal! How cool is that?

However as we all know this logic is flawed, I will one day die. I’m no more immortal than anyone else. However there is no error in my logic. My sample size is large, quite large (over 18 million data samples with not one instance of me dying). Definitely enough to get a very high level of confidence, statistically speaking that is.

The flaw is that I can’t prove something positively, I can only ever really disprove something. In this case, just because I’ve lived over 18 million minutes without dying, doesn’t mean I’ll live another minute. In other words I can only prove that my theory is false, I can never be sure that my theory is true. I can be more confident, but I can never be sure.

And this is exactly what’s gotten the world in such financial trouble. Statements like “The market never goes down x% in a given month.” or “The US government can’t collapse.”. Our sample size just isn’t big enough. We can never prove this to be true, we can only disprove it. Just like we can’t disprove/prove we’re immortal until we die.

Therefore you have to be careful of what’s being said out there. Remember that rare events do happen, and they happen much more frequently than we think. Several are happening right now. The Feds bringing the interest rates to near 0%. The real estate market collapsing on itself. Deflation looking like it might be a real possibility. The government needing to bailout the corporate world on a never before seen scale. It’s all happening, yet it’s not possible. Another once in a lifetime event is happening again and again and again…

However there is good news. Learning and knowing to appreciate rare events can be an incredible benefit. You should plan for them, because although rare they do happen very frequently (that last sentence sure sounds like something Yogi Berra would say).

If you’re interested in learning more about this, I strongly recommend the books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan (the inspiration for this post). Both are amazing books that will really open your mind. And they’re not just about finance, they can be applied to anything in life.

Thank you also Jian for recommending these books.

Discuss (5)          Permalink to this article

Today I will be on Small Business Radio hosted by Anita Campbell to talk about my latest book Blog Blazers at 1:30pm EST. Don’t forget to tune in as the topic of the show will be “Advanced Blog Tactics Used By Professional Bloggers”, which will come from both the interviews I conducted in the book Blog Blazers and my own personal experience. It’s going to be a great show so don’t miss it!

Discuss (7)          Permalink to this article

In my book Blog Blazers I asked 40 high profile bloggers which books they recommend you read. Below is a list of the top 10 books they recommended, with each and every book getting at least two or more recommendations. So if you haven’t already gotten all your Xmas presents, maybe you can get a book or two from this list to go along with your copy of Blog Blazers from Amazon!

1. Clear Blogging
2. Purple Cow
3. Naked Conversations
4. SEOBook
5. On Writing Well
6. The Elements of Style
7. Cluetrain Manifesto
8. Made To Stick
9. The Long Tail
10. Blink

Please note that these interviews were conducted about a year ago, so some books like ProBlogger from Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett where not yet available.

Discuss (3)          Permalink to this article

Sometimes not knowing you can’t is the best thing for you.

How many times have we been told we can’t do this or that? How many times have stopped only because we’ve been told it’s not possible? How many opportunities have we missed because we didn’t think we could do it? We’ll today I’m going to share with you the story of Cliff Young and the power of ignoring the “it’s not possible” advice.

In 1983 Cliff Young showed up to run a 543.7-mile (875-kilometer) endurance race from Sydney to Melbourne in Australia that takes place over 5 days. Being such a grueling race, you’ll generally only find world class athletes competing in it. But not in 1983. Cliff, then 61 years old, initially showed up for the race in overalls and boots to compete.

As you can imagine Cliff gathered a lot of attention before the race started. Most of it pretty negative. They told him, “You’re crazy, there’s no way you can finish this race.” To which he replied, “Yes I can.” and continued to give an explanation of why when he was younger he would run for 2-3 days at a time and round up as many as 2000 sheep over 2000 acres.

Still no one believed him. He did get attention because, well, you have to admit, it sounds like lunacy. How could this 61 year old man initially dressed in overalls and boots run a 5 day grueling race against world class athletes?

And then the race began. As you’d expect, the athletes quickly left Cliff in the dust. Not only that, but he didn’t exactly have the best running form. There was even some fear going around that he would hurt himself. But on the race went.

Now, before we go on, the common strategy for running this race by the world class athletes is to run 18 hours a day and sleep 6 hours at night. This way they can stay alert and keep running.

Not so for our friend Cliff. When he said he use to round up sheep for 2-3 days, he meant 2-3 days straight. Straight through the day and night that is. So instead of sleeping like the world class athletes, Cliff did the impossible. He ran through the night. He never really stopped (except to eat and some other basic necessities). He just kept going. He believed it was possible even though everyone else told him it was impossible.

Of course Cliff didn’t run as fast as the world class athletes, but he ran 24 hours a day for 5 days. If you do the math, running an extra 6 hours a day over 5 days adds up to a lot of time. It adds up to an additional 30 hours of running. And this gave Cliff a big advantage.

Not only did he finish the race, he won it!! And not by a slim margin. He broke the course record by 9 hours! Yes a full 9 hours. He crushed his competition.

So if someone tells you it’s not possible, just think of our friend Cliff before you resign yourself and give up. Think: What would Cliff do?

Discuss (14)          Permalink to this article

Not sure what to get that special blogger or programmer for Xmas, other than a copy of the book Blog Blazers? Then you’ll want to check out these t-shirts offered by Andy Brice.

The best part is that not only will you be giving a great Xmas gift, but all the commissions from the sales will be split equally between two very good charities: jaipurfoot.org and sightsavers.org.

SightSavers is a charity that’s trying to alleviate sight problems all around the world. Last year Sightsavers and their partners treated more than 23 million people for potentially blinding conditions and restored sight to over 244,000 people. And Jaipurfoot offers an effective and easy-to-fit prosthetic lower limb that can be produced for a little as $30 and is provided for free by the charity. They have provided over 300,000 limbs in 22 countries.

So if you haven’t finished your Xmas shopping, check out these great t-shirts. My personal favorite is “Be nice – I have a blog”.

For more information and details please visit Andy’s blog.

Discuss (3)          Permalink to this article

Blogging is a marathon and not a sprint. Starting a business is a marathon and not a sprint. Achieving success is a marathon and not a sprint.

Sure you have to work very hard at the beginning, but you can’t stop after a short sprint. You have to keep going. You have to persevere. I’ve said it numerous times here, it’s not the quality of your idea that matters, it’s the execution over time that matters.

Now don’t get me wrong, you definitely should take advantage of the excitement and motivation that comes from starting a new project such as a blog. That’s a very good thing. But whatever you do, don’t lose your momentum completely. It’s ok to fall behind here and there, we all do it, but don’t stop. Whatever you do just keep on going.

The majority of time the difference between success and failure is that the person who succeeded persevered. It’s not quite as simple as that, but have no doubt that it plays a major role in success. It’s easy to get stopped by the first road block. Most people do. Maybe it’s that you don’t understand something. Maybe you’re tired. You’ve had a long week. You have a social event you’d like to attend. Maybe it’s that you’re not sure what to do next. Whatever it is, keep moving. Don’t stop whatever you do.

A classic example of a blog with really good potential is Hiring Horror. A lot of people like to hear about hiring horror stories. It’s entertaining and we’ve all seen too many of them ourselves. Which of course makes for a potentially very interesting blog. And indeed one was created, Hiring Horror.

Looking at the posts (please note I have no idea who’s behind this blog), they definitely jumped out from the starting gate. On the first day alone there were 4 posts! Then the next day there were 2 posts. Then the weekend came with no posts, which is not that unusual for a lot of blogs. Monday another 2 posts. A couple more days later, another 2 posts.

And then the momentum really started to fall apart. 5 days later there’s only 1 more post. It took another 4 days for the next post. Then a lengthy 11 days for the next post. Then 16 more days for the next. Now we’re at 21 days since the last post and still counting…

This is a classic example of starting off with a full sprint and quickly fading. Although I can’t know for sure, I suspect the authors (there appears to be more than one) were all excited and expected to write several posts a day. And at first they were really motivated and couldn’t wait to write. The excitement of something new was abound.

Then the weekend came which slowed things. After the following week, well, the excitement had probably worn off and it became something they had to do. The zest was gone. And so the posting ratio fell fast. And within a few weeks all interest waned and the blog pretty much died. Maybe we’ll see another post, but I wouldn’t count on it. And it’s too bad because it had the making of a good blog.

Unfortunately that’s the same way most blogs (businesses, projects, etc.) start and fade within a few months. Everyone gets excited. They get a burst of energy. And then once the novelty fades things start to crumble until the whole thing ceases to exist.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be this way. You can succeed! You can make it! You just have to be aware of this before you start whatever it is you want to start. Make sure it’s worth it and push through it. As the movie Run Fatboy Run asks, what will you do when you hit the “wall”? Will you push through it or give up and go home?

Discuss (0)          Permalink to this article

Because of everything that’s happening with Amazon, I’m going to go on a lurk and offer free shipping for the book Blog Blazers until Xmas when you buy it directly from the official website (for Canadian and US orders). For international orders, until Xmas as well, shipping will be reduced to $5. In other words, I’ll cover your shipping costs.

I’m doing this because I’m very annoyed with this Amazon “Temporarily out of Stock” issue. I just don’t want to put anything in the way of you getting and benefiting from your Blog Blazers book before Xmas. The best part is that you don’t have to wait on Amazon to get free shipping. And you don’t have to buy $25 worth of books to get that free shipping!

So if you haven’t already bought Blog Blazers, now’s the time. This is special free shipping offer and it’s only going to last until Xmas!

Discuss (2)          Permalink to this article