Purple Star Consulting just finished off some new sites recently so wanted to show case the clients on our blog. The first one is for a dear friend named Gia. Gia is pretty inspirational to me and so many others out there. She lost 125 pounds all while working full time and being a single mom to three small children. Recently she was featured in an article in the AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution published in GA). From the article came her desire to start an online blog.

Gia is going to feature recipes, weight loss ideas and tips on making it all work! I am so honored that she asked me to create her website! Gia is pretty techie herself so walking her through how to use the blog was a breeze. Looking forward to reading her articles! Check her out at OneHealthyMama.com

The blog was created using WordPress and is self hosted. Hosting WP allows for greater functionality and flexibility on your custom theme and plugins. Below you can see the one of a kind theme I created for the site. The site has a limited color scheme to keep it clean and not too “busy”. Another advantage of using WordPress is that Gia now has the tools needed to update her site as often as she wants to. Already she has a weeks worth of posts written out and ready to publish.  Check her out and tell her I sent you! Can’t wait to read more my friend!

The other day I was looking online for something and stumbled across a great little website called MyLiveSignature. You can use the site to create an image file of your name or signature. Why might you want to do this? Well, if you want to show your name at the end of your blog posts (see mine if you are looking at the main page of this blog post) or in your e-mail signature, you can use regular text, BUT, it will only look the same way if the viewer or recipient has the same font installed on their machine.

You can create animated signatures if your heart desires it, but I just used it to create an image of my name. It is so simple to use, I am not going to walk through each step, but here is the basic premise. First you enter in the name you want to use. Then, the next screen shows you how your name will look in over 100 different fonts. Click through to view and then select the font that you want.

Next pick the size of the font. Then the color. If you want to use the image on a website or anywhere with a colored background, set the background to be transparent. For my purpose, I went with purple text. You can also set the gradient of the text so it looks more like a signature.

Finally, your signature will be displayed to you. You can right click on the image and save it to your computer.

You can then use this image file in your e-mail signature or add it to your blog posts! Quick, simple and easy to use. Have fun!

Have you ever wondered how websites get that image next to the website address (url)? It’s known as a fav or favorites icon and is pretty easy to create. This article will teach you how to create it and then add it to your website. Having a fav icon will help set you apart from other sites and make it instantly recognizable when in their bookmarked favorites. Think of the red Y of Yahoo, or the G of Google.

First select an image that you wish to use for your favorites icon. Many people use their own logo and produce a smaller version of it. Or, you could use a single letter to represent the name of your company. Pick something that will still be recognizable even when reduced in size. For our fav icon, we have the Purple Star from our logo:

The favorites icon is a file type called .ico. You don’t need any fancy software or a tool to generate the icon file. There are many sites out there that will do the work for you. One good one is by Dynamic Drive. Their FavIcon Generator can be found here: http://tools.dynamicdrive.com

Simply click the Browse button to find the image on your machine. The file should be in one of the following formats: .gif, .jpg, .bmp or .png. Once you have the file, click the Create Icon button.

You will be shown a preview of how your favicon would look once added to your site. If you are happy with this, click the Download FavIcon button. This will download it to your computer.

Once you have the file on your machine, you will need to transfer it to your web server to the route directory, or top level of your site. If you do not have access to the web server, or don’t know how to do this, be sure to contact your web designer, or find one to help you out with this. Finally, you will need to add the following code to the <head> section of your index.html or main.html page. (again, if you are not sure, check with your web designer).

<link rel=”shortcut icon” type=”image/x-icon” href=”favicon.ico”>

The href will need to be the path to where you uploaded your favicon file. You should be able to get away with just adding this to the home page of your website. However, if you are not sure, you can add it to all of the pages. Some browsers will need to have their cache refreshed in order to see the new icon next to the url in the browser. Good luck! You can always post your questions below if you are not sure.

GoToMeeting is a tool I have used for a number of years now and is something I couldn’t do without. Sometimes it’s a training session I am giving that has multiple attendees who need to call in from different locations, or sometimes it is a client who needs a little help with their WordPress Blog, either way, GoToMeeting is what I use in these scenarios.

Granted, this product will only be useful for certain business owners but one should never assume, so wanted to share it with you! Here is how it works, straight from the horses mouth so to speak:

Pretty simple right? Some of the features are as follows:

• Show attendees your desktop, or switch to an individual person’s desktop. Great when you are trying to help them solve issues with their machine or a specific program they are using
• You can also share a keyboard and mouse. This allows you to move around their machine, or vice versa.
• You can use their phone service which allows you to have up to 15 people conferenced in on the call at one time.
• Online sessions can be recorded. Great for training sessions that can be used in the future for others to view.

So, as you can see, a lot of great benefits to using GoToMeeting. It’s perfect for the small business owner, just $49 a month for the service. If you want to get bigger and have the need, you can use their GoToWebinar product which allows you to have a maximum of 1,000 attendees at one time!

To get started with GoToMeeting click this link to get a Free Trial + $10 Off or click the ad below. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

When I started out with Purple Star Consulting, I knew I wanted (or needed really) to have a fax number. I looked at some fax machines, all pretty expensive and not within the budget of a new company getting started. Also, I didn’t want to be tied down to having a physical fax machine that I have to use to send and receive faxes. As a consultant working on my laptop, I love that I can do my job from any coffee shop, beach or vacation home in the world! So, I wanted to keep my faxes the same way.

I did some searching online and found e-Fax. I found out that I could get a fax number that sends and receives faxes using my current email address. Click here to check out their site (they have a 30 day FREE trial too!). I need to be able to receive signed service agreements and this service is great. Using a fax number assigned to me, the sender can use their own fax machine and send the sheets of paper through in the usual way. When receiving the fax, it comes through as a PDF attachment to my e-mail address.

The cost for the service is a monthly fee. You get a certain number of free sends and receives, then after that you pay per page. Below is their current costs for their eFax Plus service.

No more buying expensive toner, no more faxes that are difficult to read due to black smudges all over the paper, and no more missing important faxes because you aren’t right by your fax machine! You don’t really have much to lose with trying out the FREE 30 Day trial. If you don’t like it after that, just cancel. Pretty simple!