It’s well known that the iPad is good for couch surfing or looking cool at your local Starbucks. But my decision to buy an iPad was also easily cost justified.

Call it rationalization but if it helps you get over the hump on your decision to buy one you’re welcome to it. I pro-rated my cost justification over a 1 year period of time. I bought a 32MB iPad without 3G for about $600.

Air Travel: If you travel much the iPad can be a life saver. Not only on long flights, but on short flights that turn into long flights. I had a flight from Newark to Dallas (usually about 3hrs) that turned into a 7.5 hr ordeal. Stuck in a small seat without enough space to get my laptop open, the iPad provided hours of entertainment and with the ubiquity of wifi on planes these days, easy connectivity, which allowed at least moderate productivity where there otherwise would have been none.  If you travel once a month or more this is an easy decision.

Hours flying (actual flight time): 240hrs/yr

iPad cost per hour: $2.50

Conferences: I hadn’t really thought about it until recently, but as an organizer of OpenCamp I found the device incredibly useful for having access to info without having to lug a laptop everywhere and I easily got through the day with the battery life the iPad has. I even had someone comment to me it was the first time they’d seen someone using the iPad for “actual work.” Since most will never be conference organizers but will be attendees I was impressed at how many of them I saw in the audience.

With easy access to apps like Evernote and Dropbox, the iPad is going to become very popular at conferences and for a good reason. If you go to one or two conferences a year you’ll be glad you have an iPad.

Time at conferences per year (on the floor or in sessions, I go to more than most): 300hrs (30hrs per conf/10 conferences)

iPad cost per hour: $2.00

Your Health/Working Out: I didn’t think about this one until after I got the iPad but for the long boring elliptical workouts I can take my iPad, load up a good movie and set it in front of me. Being well distracted from the monotony of cardio training makes it much easier to do a long workout whereas before I would stop in 1/3 the time out of sheer boredom.

If you want to get back in shape or just make those long workouts a little easier the iPad is a no-brainer!

Additional time spent working out because of iPad: 2hrs per week (est: 50 weeks) 100hrs

iPad Cost Per Hour: $6.00

Additional Calories burned (while exercising): 1200 per week/60000 per year (i.e. 17.14lbs)

Better Health: Priceless!

A few things to note, I didn’t buy the 3G model but I did get 32GB of memory. Wifi is so common that I really haven’t found it to be an issue. There are few places were I can’t get connected if I want to but the extra memory is nice to keep a few more movies and lot’s of music on the device.

There are some new tablets coming out soon that look like good competitors. Brodie Beta did a great tablet review on GeekBeat.TV of a couple of them. The Samsung looks particularly interesting, though I’m often hesitant to get a first generation device (even though I did with iPad).

My final analysis over the course of a year would be that the impact of the iPad on how I spend my time adds up to 640 hrs for a $600 device or less than $1 per hour. Keep in mind that estimate doesn’t include the intrinsic value of entertainment and fun. Of course I won’t be using my iPad everyone of those hours but the net effect is the same.

If any one or all of the factors above apply to you, you’ll find the iPad a very worthwhile expense. What other practical applications can you think of that I missed? Leave us a comment below…

I’ve run across a few WordPress sites recently that have been spontaneously throwing “Error Establishing A Database Connection.”  Some of the fixes are pretty simple but in a few cases the root cause was a bit more obtuse. Below are a few things to look into that might help fix the issue if it’s happening to your website.

The Easy Ones: Check your wp-config.php file and make sure that all of the following are correct (keep in mind that case sensitivity matters)

• database host
• datbase name
• database username
• database password

Login to phpMyAdmin and:

• make sure you can login to phpMyAdmin, if not the database server might be down, contact your hosting provider
• repair your tables
• optimize your tables

The less obvious cause of the problem may also be that your account was originally set up to use PHP4 and your hosting provider may have upgraded to PHP5. I’ve seen this twice recently and in both cases the hosting provider had to be conatacted to update the account but it both cases it also fixed the issue. The host in question was DreamHost though I know others will allow you to select the version of PHP you want to use when you set it up.

There is more on WordPress moving to PHP5 though WordPress.org still has the minimum requirements set at PHP 4.3. If the easy fixes don’t bring your site back, look into the PHP version, either way it’s probably a good idea to upgrade if you are still on an older version of PHP.

You may also want to look at the WordPress Support Forums for other options that might be mentioned as well, if you find another solution to the issue not mentioned here please feel free to come back and leave a comment with what you did to fix it so we can help others in the same situation.

I love plugin discussions! No matter how many times I hear them I always pick up on some plugin that turns out to be useful to me, either on my site or on a client site.

But no matter what site I’m working on there are a hand full of “utilitarian” plugins that I always use. While there are several that I regularly, below are plugins I use without fail. If you know of alternatives to any of these that you like better for any reason let us hear about them! I’ve provided a couple extras as well.

Redirection: Redirection is a plugin that enables easy 301 redirects from any url on your site to any other. This plugin comes in handy in so many ways and so many instances I can’t begin to elaborate on them all but if you deal with anything from an incorrect URL to wanting to redirect specific 404′s to the proper page this plugin make it easy. Note: while I love this plugin it’s usually one of the first I deactivate is something goes weird on my site, it’s good but not flawless, as long as you go in knowing you’ll be in good shape.

WP No Category Base: Ever notice how WordPress automatically adds /category/ to the url for your posts and archive pages? Since it serves no real SEO value, or user value, and makes the URL longer than needed your better off getting rid of it. WP No Category Base does the job perfectly.

Gravity Forms: Simply the best most efficient form builder out there. It is a premium plugin but after working with a few other form builders for WordPress none really compare to easy, flexibility and support. Easily the most justifiable premium plugin purchase you can make. Even if it’s nothing more than a contact form you’ll love the features and functionality of Gravity Forms. Runner up and good alternative, Contact Form 7.

W3 Total Cache: Caching pages is one of the best ways to speed up your site but W3 goes beyond just regular chacheing, it integrates with CDN’s (Content Delivery Networks), AmazonS3 and more. It’s easy to install and set up and will improve the user experience on your site while reducing server load. Runner up and good alternative, WP Super Chache. However, I’ve personally found WP Super Cache takes a bit more work to set up and was in some instances a little buggy, though John P. is a big advocate and knows this plugin well.

WP-DBManager: Backup your database! I can’t say that enough times. WP-DBManager will not only back you up, it’ll store or email you the backup files, optimize your database and more. Essential for running your site.

Headspace 2: Best practice plugin for SEO in my opinion. It doesn’t get as much notoriety as All In One SEO Pack (my 2nd runner up and a great alternative) I’ve found it to be a bit more robust.

Align RSS Images: A good feed is essential to any blog but unfortunately images that you put in your post can get a little funky in your feed, use this plugin to straighten them out.

Google XML Site Maps: Google XML Sitemaps is the easiest and most efficient way to build and publish your XML site map to Google, essential for keeping your site updated with Google, don’t fail to do this one.

Simply Show ID’s: This is more useful from a development standpoint but just makes accessing ID’s for pages, posts, categories,… a little easier when building out your site.

As a bonus, here are a few others I almost always use:

Scribe SEO: Scribe is a service based plugin. The service is not free but unless you post a ton the entry level is probably sufficient and well worth it. Even if you know SEO well Scribe provides some great insight and feedback in an automated fashion that would be much more time consuming to determine any other way. If you’re serious about your writing then you know SEO is an part of the game and ScribeSEO in conjunction with Heasdspace 2 is w wicked combination!

Pretty Link Pro: One of the best premium plugins out there. Lot’s of services provide short link for use on services like Twitter but if you really want to own your content then pretty Link Pro is a no brainer. Pretty Link Pro provides, short linking, analytics, and more using your domain name. As a big advocate of owning and controlling my content I’ve been a big advocate of this plugin since John P. introduced me to it.

Woopra: Real Time Analytics for your website, need I say more. You need to have an account with Woopra but prices range from Free to Cheap and ramp up from there as needed, including enterprise level options. Once you set up your Woopra account you can integrate Woopra in 2 ways, adding javascript or using the WordPress plugin. The latter is recommended as it provides a lot of additional functionality and the plugin is free. If you want some good insight on uses for realtime analytics see the video interview I did with John.

Additional Image Sizes: Sometimes the base image sizes that WordPress generates aren’t quite enough and you need some extras for different thumbnail sizes or whatever.  Creating them manually  is a time consuming pain, I was about to write this plugin but fortunately was smart enough to look before I lept to see if there was already one out there, and sure enough… it’s a great little plugin that will save  you a ton of time if you use anything beyond the default WordPress image sizes on your site.

OpenCamp, a multi-platform conference is coming up at the end of August with an incredible line-up speakers. I’ll also be presenting in the WordPress track (disclaimer, I’m an OpenCamp Co-Organizer).

I’m going to be covering content organization strategies using Categories, Tags and Taxonomies in WordPress. Despite the fact that the use of Categories and Tags is fairly rudimentary for most WordPress users, I’m going to challenge the way you traditionally use them and quickly get into custom taxonomies so this will be an intermediate level “user” course. I’ll get into the technical bits of custom taxonomies just enough for you to know how to implement them but otherwise this will be a discussion on content organization in WordPress rather than a technical one.

If you haven’t seen my initial video on building content maps that would be a great place to start and if you watch it before OpenCamp it will definitely make the session a lot easier for you. I’d also recommend reading my post a basic explanation of WordPress Taxonomies if you aren’t already familiar with them.

I’m really looking forward to speaking at OpenCamp and while my topic is WordPress-centric the tactics can really be employed across most platforms though the implementation details will vary. I’m a firm believer that “content is king,” but there are several considerations beyond just good writing that go a long way toward better content for your site. And better content usually means more traffic, more comments, more sales… which we all want right?

Considerations when developing your web content:

1. Have a plan. As simple as that is, you’ll do better if you have a strategy than if you take a completely ad-hoc approach.
2. Understand how your content fits together. It’s fairly easy if your site is pretty niche focused but the more topics/ideas you cover the more understanding the big picture will help.
3. Take your time. It’s been suggested that you can improve your writing in just 24hrs by simply waiting 24 hrs from the time you write it to the time you publish it, and no one would know better than our premiere content speaker Brian Clark from Copyblogger.
4. Pay attention to details: John P., the OpenCamp Godfather (sorry John couldn’t help it) gave a great talk on driving traffic to his site, illustrated through how much work and detail he puts into every post. It doesn’t mean every post has to be long, but adding things like title and alt attributes to your image and link tags, properly naming images that are in your post, etc… can make a world of difference.

All of the OpenCamp Sessions are going to be recorded so as soon as this one is edited and ready I’ll be making it available.

I hope to see you at OpenCamp, even if you aren’t based in Dallas don’t be afraid to come in for the event, we have people coming from all of over the country, the World actually, and most of us that live in the area will be staying at the hotel. If you do make it, please be sure to come introduce yourself, I’d love to meet you in person.

So lately Cali and John & Gio have given me a little crap about my new avatar, Dave thinks I look like Lex Luthor (bah!). No doubt it’s a great picture taken by Leigh Cariccoli so it’s not an affront to her awesome photography skills (you should seriously hire her for an avatar shoot if you can) but rather it’s me, they say I look mean. Ok ok… maybe, but then I kind of like it!

Either way, since “bizarro-evil” Scott doesn’t come around [all that] often, I’ve decided to throw it out there and see what everybody thinks. Since this is spur of the moment I’m not going to get terribly technical about this, I’m just going to post the options in there and let you decide.

Just leave a comment with the number from the image you think makes the best avatar in the comments below. If you think more than one will work then list them in order. I’ll close the comments at the end of the weekend and tally up the results and use that new avatar.

No, I don’t smile a lot in photos and most of these were taken on a very bright sunny day hence the sunglasses.

A. Self Portrait

B. Smiling Scott

C. Black & White Scott (a.k.a. Floating head Scott.

Photo courtesy John P.

If you haven’t been keeping up with all of the OpenCamp news you might have missed that the U.S. Army Golden Knights (check out their new site) Parachute Team will not only be attending OpenCamp but will be doing 2 jumps for us!

The first jump will be on Thursday evening August 26th and we’ll be “pushing” some of our more notable speakers out the door with them. Admittedly I’m a little envious, it would be an honor to jump with those guys one day. The second jump will truly kick off OpenCamp on Friday night August 27th and will be an exhibition jump with all the pyrotechnics and cool stuff that they do. (see video below)

If you aren’t entirely familiar with the Golden Knights they’re not dissimilar from the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels, only instead of flying planes they’re jumping out of them! It’s really a huge honor to have these guys not only in attendance but to actually jump for us. The Golden Knights typically do exhibition jumps into sporting events (big ones like Superbowl or the Indy500), they take ex-presidents who like to jump up with them and are currently in Switzerland doing a jump competition right now. So to have them doing this for OpenCamp it can’t be overstated what a big deal it is.

Having them in attendance is also a great opportunity for us to give something back to the soldiers. Come out to OpenCamp, spend some time with the guys and be generous with your knowledge of web technology, social media, SEO or podcasting and help them accomplish their mission of spreading the word about what they do.

Since they’re usually the ones taking care of us, let’s make sure we take good care of them on their trip to Texas (you do need to be registered for OpenCamp to attend). While your at it follow them on Twitter and Fan them on Facebook!

The smoke gives you a better sense of how fast they are actually falling!

I’ve been an Evernote user and big fan of the application for sometime now but one thing I’ve struggled with in the application has been the disconnect between my notes and the various ToDo’s associated with them.

Sometime ago Evernote introduced the ability to insert a checkbox (instructions at the bottom of this post) into your notes to flag something as a “ToDo” item which helped, but still fell a little short since I now had to go through my notes to find the ToDo’s. Part of the problem was me, since I was used to a traditional ToDo lists (outside of Evernote) which were all consolidated and orderly. Yet there was a problem with those consolidated lists too… a lack of context around that ToDo item.

Of course some ToDo’s are easy to figure out and don’t need context (“Pick Up Dry Cleaning” for example), but with others, particularly those more business oriented, or associated with on-going projects, it helps to have other information to refer to.

Back to Evernote…

So I set out for searching for a way to create a dynamic, consolidated list of the items in Evernote that I mark as “ToDo” (by adding the little checkbox) in Evernote, without the need for yet another 3rd party application. While I assumed there must be a way to do accomplish this in Evernote, I was wrong. However, there is something better, and if you can challenge yourself to think a little differently, and appreciate having your ToDo’s in context this might work for you too.

As it turns out there is an array of Evernote search parameters that you can use from within the Evernote application and on the web interface. One of those parameters is:

todo:[true|false|*] -  If the argument is “false”, this will match notes that have ToDo checkboxes that are not currently checked. If the argument is “*”, this will match notes that have a ToDo checkbox of any type. If the argument is “true” then it will match notes with ToDo checkboxes that are currently checked.

So, in your search bar simply type “todo:false” and you’ll get back all of the notes which have unchecked ToDo items.

Why This Is Better Than A ToDo “List”

While it challenges us to think about the ToDo list a little differently, I’d argue it’s better because it puts our ToDo’s in context (surrounded by the notes on that subject). And by combining the todo: search parameter with other search parameters, for example tag:tagname we can easily refine our searches and see only what we want to currently focus on, again, kept in context.

I’d recommend creating and saving searches that you use frequently so that you can easily execute the search later without having to type things in every time.

Adding The ToDo Box:

In case you are not sure how to add the ToDo box in Evernote here is a quick tutorial:

If you prefer to use keystrokes then on Mac try : Command+Shift+T

on Windows try Control+Shift+C.

Cali Lewis makes regular appearances on Fox4′s “Good Day Dallas” to discuss tech. In this episode Cali talks about the upcoming multi-platform, multi-media tech conference “OpenCamp.” (Note: Cali and I are both on the OpenCamp planning committee along with several others). If you haven’t had an opportunity to learn more about OpenCamp visit the OpenCamp website.

Whether you’re an expert or total novice OpenCamp provides a ton of opportunity to learn, network and socialize. Get a feel for the killer line up of OpenCamp speakers as well or just register for OpenCamp now.

The fact is that if most people treated their cars like the treat their website no one would get anywhere. I’ve built a lot of websites, especially in the last two years, and I’ve realized that I don’t always do a good job of explaining to people what they need to know about them. What results is frustration for everyone, especially around the issue of maintenance.

Now before I dive into my analogy I want to reset expectations a bit, especially if you’ve ever felt like your website was more work than you bargained for, that it should somehow be easier or that you just don’t want to mess with it. Keep in mind, your car will get you from point A to B but it costs you money to do so. However, unlike your car, your website can be a source of revenue, not just a necessary cost center. Think of it that way and you might not mind taking care of it so much.

So think about your website like this… your website, like your car, requires maintenance, some of which you can do, some of which you have to pay a specialist to do for you. But if you take care of it it will perform well for you for a very long time.

We all know when we buy a car that we have to put gas in it, change the oil, add air to the tires, get new breaks and tires from time to time, replace the air filter, and oddly enough, upgrade the software.

Content = Gas

You don’t have to blog or add fresh content to your site, but without it your site will go about as far as your car if you don’t add gas. It might still look pretty,  and people will see it if  they happen to drive by, but it isn’t going to get you where you want to go. So give it some gas, keep your content fresh and up to date.

Perform Regular Maintenance

Like your breaks, fluids and numerous other components, your site has to get upgraded from time to time. In the WordPress world, it’s painfully easy to upgrade the core software and plugins (virtually just the push of a button). In some others it may be as easy or somewhat more complicated but whether you do it yourself or pay someone to do it, maintenance is a necessary part of being a responsible site owner. You wouldn’t fail to change the tires on your car so don’t neglect your website when it needs and upgrade. BTW… not keeping things up to date is one of the biggest causes of getting hacked.

Not All Cars/Sites Are Created Equal

Like a car, you have to pick a site platform that is right for you. Put the face/color on it you want and keep it shiny. The occasional face-lift or polishing will keep your site looking new for a long time.  As for what’s under the hood, talk to an expert and figure out what platform is right for you based on your Business Requirements, timelines, budget, … do not base it on what the used car salesman, um..er… consultant happens to know (have in stock, if you will). I focus on enterprise CMS’s and WordPress. I don’t know Drupal well but I did recommend it to someone recently based on their needs as a better fit than WordPress (to all of my friends in the WP community, it can happen!)

Speaking of Requirements, here are a few things to keep in mind

If you have an Accord budget, don’t expect a Ferrari, but don’t spend Ferrari prices if you need an Accord. Sites can get complex, take planning to be well executed and that is just the beginning. Just because the software may be free doesn’t mean getting your site built will be cheap. That said, there are also lot’s of shops that have packaged offerings to fit most budgets and get you going. But if you want a completely custom look and feel, custom functionality, e-commerce functionality, … expect to pay for it. And the more complex, the more maintenance you’ll have down the road.

Your Responsibility

Finally, know what you are responsible for. This is the one that often killed me as a consultant, and while it’s a some what understandable perspective, it’s dead wrong; it’s the question of who owns the project. You should expect your consultant to walk you through it and take good care of you in the process and even play project manager, but ultimately this is your site, your business and YOUR project.  Here are a few things you can and should be doing:

1) Own the requirements, the business ones, not the technical ones (usually). Do your research and take some time to plan what you really need and want the site to do. Start with the laundry list and scale it down from there. If you need a business consultant to help then so be it, hire one (contact me if you want). There are technical business people out there but in my experience most fall into business or technical.

2) You Own the Content. This is a big one, I realize that many people think of their site and the content on that site as one and the same but they are far from it. While your website is being built you have work to do too… developing your content. Make no mistake about this one, that content is an important part of your business, especially from a marketing standpoint so you better own it.

3) Stop changing your mind. Your consultant’s time is not to be spent “experimenting.” I’ve had a lot of client’s want to do that and I understand that they aren’t always 100% of what they want or how something will look (that’s what comps are for early on). But where it get’s sticky is when you want to keep trying things to figure that out but don’t want to pay for your consultant doing 2x – 3x as much work. It’ll never be perfect, get it out there and then start making changes in batches.

Take care of your website like you would your car, a car that can actually make you money, by understanding that performing regular maintenance and being a responsible owner is a part of the deal and you’ll build it into your routine.

In the video below I review “The Referral Engine” by John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing. If you read only one book on marketing this year read “The Referral Engine” and take action! John takes a brilliantly process-oriented approach to making your business easily referable by other businesses & clients.

You can read and see more video reviews of “The Referral Engine” on Amazon.