Resources & Tools

Resources & Tools, to help YOU.

Every graphic artist, web designer, want-to-be blogger (like me), writer, orator, platform-builder, vlogger, and YouTuber needs trusted resources.  Below are some that I and others I’ve learned from, use, and recommend.

Web Design and Hosting Tools – Blogging Tools

Email Marketing Tools – Social Media Tools

Online Shopping Cart & Product Distribution Tools – CPU Tools

Self-Improvement Resources – Leadership Resources

Writing Resources – Blog Courses & Community Resources

Marketing Concept Resources – Publishing Resources

 

Hopefully, they will help you on your journey.

Upfront Notice: Some of these resources are free, and some are not.  What?  In other words, some of the links listed below are affiliate links to vendors. What does this mean?  This means if you click-through to a product on my page and purchase something, I might get a small % of the sale. Bottom line: This helps me cover my operational / website fees and hopeful will allow me to pay myself someday. My promise: I will only link to products that my wife uses, I use, and have tried and believe in.

Web Design and Hosting Tools

  • Bluehost (link coming soon): Need help hosting a blog or website but overwhelmed by the options and technicalities? I choose Bluehost because of their USA based 24/7 customer service.  The team as Bluehost has literally has assisted, taught and helped developed trevordrinen.com / soulremedies.net.  Cost? $3.95 per month will get set up on Bluehost!  I’ve been with a few other hosting companies and Bluehost is the only hosting solution I recommend.  Bluehost plus WordPress equals a winning combination that will save you hundreds of dollars. Bluehost, will also help you register a domain and install WordPress, so that you can get set up in minutes.  You can also visit my Connect page and start a conversation with me about Bluehost.

Blogging Tools

  • WordPress: This is the free blogging software that I use and recommend. It’s not only FREE and a open source blogging tool but is also give you the tools to manage the content easily. Get this, WordPress features a plug-in architecture and a template system.  Meaning, you can change and modify template (FYI, some templates are free while others cost).  WordPress is used by more than 18.9% of the top 10 million websites as of August 2013.[1] WordPress is the most popular blogging system in use on the Internet with more than 60 million websites.
  • ProPhoto: One of the most well-respected layout enhancing tools in the industry, whether you’re targeting mobile devices, iPads, or standard desktop computers.  Cost?  ProPhoto software will costs between $50 – $300 bills dependent on the features you desire.  Why would someone pay for this software?  Unrivaled customization options requiring no previous web skill and a top-notch support system!   In other words, you can edit your sites layout until your heart, mind, and soul are content.  ProPhoto also tosses in the following statement saying, “Your time is valuable. If you purchase ProPhoto and don’t like it, you get all your money back then 10% more as our way of saying sorry for wasting your time.”  It just maybe the winning combination you’re looking for – it was for my wife.
  • Tribe Child Theme: If you find yourself passionate about typography & simplicity Tribe Child might be for you.  Personally, I’m looking forward to this one coming to market as others have suggested it’s beta version as a great for making the content shine.
  • Google Analytics: This is the gold standard when it comes to analytics. If you want to track your unique visitors, page views, bounce rate, and a host of other metrics, you need to sign up for a free account and then follow the directions for installing it on your blog.
  • Akismet: This WordPress plugin is summed up in three glorious words, “Comment SPAM control!”  Akismet kills almost all of your SPAM like a hungry HAWAIIAN!  In other words, it’s dissolved quickly and never sees the light of day. This creates less work for you and less tension for your readers. What? Give me an example?  With Akismet, you don’t have to require them to register to leave a comment.
  • SEO Ultimate: This all-in-one SEO plugin gives you control over title tags, noindex, meta tags, Open Graph, slugs, canonical, auto links, 404 errors, rich snippets, etc…  Cost? It fits nicely into anyone’s budget as its a free plugin with over 1million downloads!
  • ScribeSEO: Want to optimize your WordPress posts?  This premium plugin will cost you a premium price, but it analyses each post, then assigns it a percentage grade (with 100% being a perfect score). It also suggests how to improve the score by offering different keywords and metadata.
  • Online Backup for WordPress: You DEFINITELY want to backup your blog on a regular basis!  Just ask my wife :-/. Storms and disasters happen, and you don’t want to lose days, weeks, or years worth of content simply because you didn’t have it backed up.  Online Backup for WordPress can automatically backup your WordPress database and filesystem on a configurable schedule and can incrementally send the backup compressed (and optionally encrypted using DES or AES) to an online vault where you can later retrieve it.  Backups can also be emailed to you or produced on-demand and downloaded straight to your computer and then uploaded to dropbox for offsite storage.  One choice is VaultPress was developed by Automattic, the same people who built WordPress and costs you $5 per month. The integration is seamless. Simply, turn it “on.” Cost! $5 per month. If that just doesn’t fit into your current budget I used Backup Technology or Online Backup for WordPress, set a calendar reminder, and then uploaded the zipped files to dropbox.  Some friends of my mine prefer other plugins that are free like, Updraftplus

Email Marketing Tools

  • MadMimi: Instead of settling for the status quo, MadMimi was born… so that everyone could create a well-designed, elegant email. Even Grandma. (It’s that easy.)  Then they added robust delivery, easy audience management, tracking and support. All handled in that simple, powerful, semi-rebellious way that makes the other, complacent email marketing companies nervous… and you happy.  If you need to do some email marketing, on a small or grand scale.  MadMimi is my personal email marketing tool weapon of choice. Why would I choose MadMimi over Mailchimp or AWeber? (1) Cost: FREE for the first 2500 subscribers (2) Ease of Navigating Setup & Add-ons (3) Awesome Customer Support.
  • Mailchimp: Any Internet marketer wanting your best interests will tell you, nothing is more important than building your own email list.  Mailchimp, is super easy to use and free for the first 2000 subscribers. It’s been ideal for my desires to genuinely connect and learn from others. It has a super easy-to-use interface, great analytics, and is 100 percent reliable. It’s what I used to use.  Some other friends of my mine prefer AWeber.  I think it comes down to a personal preference as you can’t go wrong with either one.  Why would I choose Mailchimp over AWeber?  Cost! FREE fit nicely into my startup and families budget vs AWeber‘s $19 per month fee.
  • Feedburner: This is a free solution from Google and for many it does the job.

Social Media Tools

  • HootSuite: This is my Twitter dashboard. (It can also be used for Facebook, LinkedIn, too.) It allows me to monitor direct messages, mentions, and the tweets of those I follow. It arranges lists of users into columns (e.g., Family, Friends, Associates, Mentors, Industry Leaders, etc.), this way I can quickly see what’s happening with any specific group.  I also have started using this tool to send messages and replies.
  • Pluggio: Pluggio is a secure, web-based system to help individuals, businesses, organizations and marketers easily grow and manage their social media profiles. It includes a suite of tools to organize and keep track of multiple accounts, get more followers, and automate the finding and publishing of excellent targeted content.
  • SocialOomph: This is the service some use to manage scheduled tweets. They have a file with 10-100 most popular blog posts. Essentially, the program includes one tweet for each post. It is a great way to keep my older posts visible. It has the potential to drive a lot of traffic to your site.
  • Buffer: This is one of those ideas that is so simple and so elegant, you slap yourself on the forehead and say, “Of course!” You add tweets to your Buffer whenever you want. It then spreads them out during the day according to a schedule you pre-determine, so it doesn’t overwhelm your followers.
  • TweetPages: Has spectacular customer service and are very affordable but don’t fit into the free category.  This design service is use to keep social media branding in sync. They will take your blog design and the used it to design your Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube profiles.

Online Shopping Cart & Product Distribution Tools

  • Paypal: Basically an online bank account that makes it easy for you to receive payments.

Personal CPU Tools

  • Apple iPad with Retina Display MD510LL (16GB, Wi-Fi, Black) 4th Generation: 9.7 Retina Display; 2048 x 1536 Resolution | Apple iOS 6; Dual-Core A6X Chip with Quad-Core Graphics | 5 MP iSight Camera; 1080p HD Video Recording | Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n); 16 GB Capacity | Up to 10 Hours of Battery Life; 1.44 lbs
    • Purchase (*shipping & handling via amazon)
  • Apple MacBook Pro ME294LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display, 2.3 GHz Intel Core-i7 quad-core processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz) with 6MB shared L3 cache | 512 GB PCIe-based flash storage; 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory | 15.4-inch (diagonal) Retina display, 2880×1800 pixel Resolution; LED-backlit with IPS technology | NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory | Mac OS X Mavericks, Up to 8 hours of battery life
    • Purchase (*shipping & handling via amazon)

Leadership Resources

  • How to Win Friends & Influence People by Carnegie, Dale You can go after the job you want…and get it! You can take the job you have…and improve it! You can take any situation you’re in…and make it work for you!  As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie’s principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age.  Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.
    • Purchase Book
    • Purchase Kindle *Sorry, this item is not currently available 
  • Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Meacham, Jon The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.
  • The One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson For more than twenty years, millions of managers in Fortune 500 companies and small businesses nationwide have followed The One Minute Manager’s techniques, thus increasing their productivity, job satisfaction, and personal prosperity. These very real results were achieved through learning the management techniques that spell profitability for the organization and its employees.

Personal Development / Self-Improvement Resources

  • Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words by Hall, Kevin and Stephen R. Aspire! by Kevin Hall is your path to “Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words.” Through stories and linguistics, Aspire! explores eleven words that, when fully understood and put into practice, can help anyone achieve their best and highest self—in goals, relationships, and business. Spencer Johnson, M.D., the New York Times bestselling author of Who Moved My Cheese?, praises  Aspire! for providing “tools we can use to shape new thoughts and beliefs to help us change, and create something better for ourselves and our planet,” while Richard Paul Evans, author of The Christmas Box, says, “Aspire! has the power to help individuals and teams focus on their true purpose and reach their best and highest aspirations.” 
  • On Writing Well: From Stephen R. Covey’s eldest son comes a revolutionary new path towards productivity and satisfaction. Trust, says Stephen M.R. Covey, is the very basis of the new global economy, and he shows how trust—and the speed at which it is established with clients, employees and constituents—is the essential ingredient for any high–performance, successful organization. For business leaders and public figures in any arena, The Speed of Trust offers an unprecedented and eminently practical look at exactly how trust functions in our every transaction and relationship—from the most personal to the broadest, most indirect interaction—and how to establish trust immediately so that you and your organization can forego the time–killing, bureaucratic check–and–balance processes so often deployed in lieu of actual trust.
  • The Likeability Factor, by Seth Godin. This book will show you how to do all that by raising your likeability factor—or how much other people like you.  After all, life is a series of popularity contests. The choices other people make about you determine your health, wealth, and happiness. And decades of research prove that people choose who they like. They vote for them, they buy from them, they marry them, and they spend precious time with them.  The good news is that you can arm yourself for the contest and win life’s battles for preference. How? By being likeable. The more you are liked—or the higher your likeability factor—the happier your life will be. This book will show you how to raise that likeability factor by teaching you how to boost four critical elements of your personality
  • The Zen Leader by Whitelaw, Ginny. The Zen Leader does not encourage you to just “be peaceful.” Neither does it suggest you work harder, faster, or ignore the pressure. Quite the opposite: it’s about using the pressure to propel “flips” in consciousness that create transformational leaders, leaders who create the future with joy and enthusiasm, rather than drive themselves and their people to exhaustion.
  • Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. This book is about you-your choices, your future, and your potential to make a huge difference in whatever field you choose. There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there’s a third team, the linchpins. These people figure out what to do when there’s no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art. Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. They may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom. As Godin writes, “Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.”

Interactive Genuine Writing Resources

  • The Art of War – Beware, this book will kick your butt and isn’t meant to be read quickly. It’s one I keep laying around and read often before I go on a long walk. Simply put, this book is a must-read for aspiring writers and thinkers.
  • Writing Well: This writing classic is a must-read for the aspiring author who wants to write nonfiction. This more contemporary approach to writing for anyone who wants to be a novelist.  The Book pulls no punches and forces you to focus on no-fluff writing that gets to the heart of your message or story.

Course & Community Resources

  • How to Start a Blog that Matters: Hundreds of millions of blogs are online today. Thousands more are started every day. Anyone can start a blog in 5 minutes, but very few people will start blogs that matter.  What’s the difference between most blogs and the select few that attract huge followings?  That’s a question Corbett Barr, started asking himself long before I started his first blog. Since then, he has started three popular blogs, and has helped friends and clients attract huge audiences and build thriving, sustainable businesses built around blogs.  Corbett has also seen plenty of bloggers work incredibly hard on something that never takes off.  By studying these differences and through the work he has been doing for the past four years, the he has developed a repeatable formula for building successful blogs.  This formula is what I used to create blogs that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors per month (including Think Traffic and Expert Enough).  Corbett, has also used the formula to help clients launch or grow blogs that attract from 10,000 to 100,000+ visitors per month (including wildly popular sites like Live Your Legend and Man Vs. Debt).  Why did he create this course?  Because he believes in the ability of blogs to change the lives of the people who start them and the readers who follow them.
  • Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Godin, Seth A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It?s our nature.Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they?re enabling countless new tribes to be born?groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?The Web can do amazing things, but it can?t provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals? people just like you who have passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips.If you think leadership is for other people, think again?leaders come in surprising packages. Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a ?sheepwalker??someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don?t do very well these days.Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers. . . .
  • The Freelance Writers Den: Decades of experience as a freelance writer, runs this fantastic community of writers and bloggers who want to actually make money with their words.
  • The Killer Tribes Community: It’s a great place to share, connect with, and learn from other bloggers who are in search of communities.
  • The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World, If you’ve ever thought, “There must be more to life than this,” The Art of Non-Conformity is for you.  Based on Chris Guillebeau’s popular online manifesto “A Brief Guide to World Domination,” The Art of Non-Conformity defies common assumptions about life and work while arming you with the tools to live differently. You’ll discover how to live on your own terms by exploring creative self-employment, radical goal-setting, contrarian travel, and embracing life as a constant adventure. Inspired and guided by Chris’s own story and those of others who have pursued unconventional lives, you can devise your own plan for world domination-and make the world a better place at the same time.

Marketing Concept Resources

  • Permission Marketing: Seth Godin is a Kung Fu master of kicking traditional business thinking in it’s butt!  In, Permission Marketing, he puts the customers, not the marketers, in control of how products are advertised. It’s genuine, relevant, and has become a classic in our culture.

Publishing Resources

*The world is definitely bigger than me!  On this note, I’ve had to lean 100% on the wisdom and experience of others,

  • Walking on Water: This classic was written by Madeleine L’Engle.  It’s a series of essays of faith mixed with a dash of art, explaining that writers don’t write to get published. They write simply to write.
  • Writing a Winning Book Proposal:  Before you attempt to “Get Published” I’d recommend knowing the in’s and out’s of writing a proposal.  Here publishing veteran Michael Hyatt takes you by the hand and walk you through the process of crafting a great proposal for your novel or nonfiction action packed best seller!
  • Get Published: This is a 21-part audio course on becoming an author!  This program from Michael Hyatt is the most thorough step-by-step guide to publishing I’ve come across.

Additional Resources By YOU

*If you know of a resource that is a MUST add to this list please let me know about it!

How?

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*A special shout out of appreciation to Live 2 Lead ( Umair Khan ) for guidance and encouragement, Zen Habits ( Leo Babauta ) for ideas and uncopywritten info, the crew at Fizzle ( Corbett Barr ) for practical steps, and to Soul Remedies ( Leah Drinen ) for your never ending support.  Each of you who have been master instructors, correcting and inspiring; while being genuine friends!

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