In having a look around the web I’m not so sure that some domain owners look at their piece of internet real-estate from all angles.

What looks like an acceptable business name can take on a new dimension when all the words are strung together in a domain name.  You may intend for others to pronounce your domain one way, but have you looked at some of the other possible pronunciations.

Here’s a couple of examples  …..

Psychotherapist Kate Burns must get some strange looks with her domain kateburnstherapist.com (thankfully this now forwards through to kateburnstherapy.com).  The original domain could be read as “Kate burns the rapist” or “Kate Burns, the rapist”.  I wonder how many other therapists have “therapist” in their domain name without seeing how others might read it.  I wonder what the people at Therapist Finder where thinking when they chose the domain therapistfinder.com

There is a site called Experts Exchange (which I’m a member of) where techies share knowledge and answer each others’ questions. Intially the owners of Experts Exchange picked out what seemed like the obvious domain name of ExpertsExchange.com and operated with that for a while. That was until they found out that some people were reading the the domain name differently, mispronuncing it as ExpertSexChange.com. They have since added a hyphen and changed the site name to Experts-Exchange.com.

But The guys as Experts Exchange weren’t the only ones confusing themselves as providers of sex change therapy.  What about the guys at dollarsexchange.com (in fact they are a currency exchange).

Before you start questioning where my mind is, I also offer up to you a short trip to Spain choosespain.com (I’m not sure if pain is what I look for on a European trip) or the engineering firm Dickson who used to used the domain dicksonweb.com before changing it to dicksondata.com

And Australian businesses are not imune - what about the guys at Web One (now owned by iinet) webone.com.au

Enough for the frivolities for one day.  The message here is to take care and look at your domain name from all angles, spellings and pronunications.

Thanks to a heads up I got from Peter over at Saasu I’ve been at my desk messing around with the computer, even when I’m on holidays (some of you would not find that surprising).

And this is the reason …

Animoto is an application that takes images that you have on your computer, adds a soundtrack (either yours or theirs) and renders it together in a funky video format. You don’t need moving images - this will create the movement from static images for you - and you don’t need to be a geek - it is easy to understand. And as most small business owners love, it is a free application (for videos of up to 60 30 seconds).

In my opinion this leaves YouTube for dead when it comes to small business possibilities.

Have a look at a quick Working Solo intro that I put together in about 40 minutes of messing around.

My brain is very quickly ticking over all the ways that some of my clients could use this application.

If you get something together then drop back and let me know and I will come by and have a look.

The second, and main purpose of this post is to ask you a question (yes you sitting there quietly reading away thing that no one is watching).

Even though I’m on my mid-summer/new year holidays and there is plenty of others things to be doing (like watching cricket and hanging out with my man) I’m also in planning mode for Working Solo. There are already plans afoot for 2008 that are very exicting but one of the things that I’m going to complete before I get back to officially working (on Jan 14) is a new look and feel for this site.

So I’m asking for your feedback …

If you could change ONE thing about the Working Solo website, what would it be?

Any and all suggestions will be considered.

The genius level is the result I got when I tested this site using the Blog Readability testing tool.  Some may think that this is a good result, but when it comes to providing a website that is readable and understandable by a broad section of the small business community I may be missing the mark (unless all small business people are also geniuses).

This is a fun test for your site to waste a few of the pre-Christmas minutes where motivation may not be at its highest. BUT don’t neglect the more important message that it contains.  Can people really understand the messages that you are trying to get across?

Just the name of Typepad’s help feature - “knowledgebase” - can give an indication to the unwary “user” that the instructions may be targetted at the more computer-focused clients. (The IT industry will hopefully learn one day how to use real plain-English, only they refer to clients as users and help/how-to/instructions as a knowledgebase).

In the past Typepad’s help system didn’t do much to help or educate the everday “user” in search of answers. Sometimes it just confused the situation with more jargon.

But help is at hand! It will be much harder to be confused by jargon when you can now see pictures to guide your way. Typepad are using video tutorials (also known as screencasts - yes I know more jargon) to provide you with a visual how-to on some of the most frequently asked questions.

Here’s the complete list:

• NEW Getting Started with TypePad
• NEW Using FeedBurner with TypePad
• NEW Tip: Creating a Blogroll
• NEW Tip: Verifying Your Site with Google
• Advanced Templates: Creating and Customizing Template Modules
• Creating a New Basic Design
• Displaying HTML in Weblog Posts
• Accepting an Author Invitation
• Displaying Custom Content and HTML in Your Sidebar
• Domain Mapping with GoDaddy

[Hat-tip to Mike Sansone for the heads-up]

This year I am honouring a resolution that I made last December (who said resolutions were just for January) - I’m going to be more organised for December and have a plan on how the next few weeks are going to be used in the business.

So for this week and next I will be -

• focused on tidying up all the clients projects I have on my plate
• sending a note to all my clients who still need to get me content/details so the project can be finished setting a deadline of next Monday (10th) to receive any oustanding material (otherwise the project will have to be moved into January).
• sending out Christmas cards and other tokens of my appreciation to clients, champions, advisors and friends thanking them for helping me have a great 2007.

Once these next 2 weeks are finished I will be spending the week before Christmas focused on Working Solo (as Michael Gerber would say “working on the business, rather than in the business). There are many ideas running through my head about how I can best serve my clients (current, past and future) and now is the time to start planning for 2008, so when January comes I can hit the ground running.

Allocating (and following through) on this business development time in December is one of the biggest things that I haven’t been doing that I need to change. For me planning and development activities in January makes me feel like I’m already behind the game; running to play catch up right from the very beginning.

I will be taking 3 weeks of annual leave from 21st December to 14th January. My clients will know how to contact me if things are urgent but often it is them who encourage me to have a good break, as they need me to be at my best to help with all the great ideas they have been brewing for the new year.

To all the solo and small business owners who read this blog - I’m curious as to what you end of year plans are and how you will be handling the transition from this year to the next.

(btw - the graphic in this article is the 2008 slogan not just for Working Solo but for the Maclean family this year. If you like it don’t just grab it but ask instead as this is covered by copyright).

1. the true-blue standards techos that say there is really only oneway to do email and that’s plain text and html (and css) should be kept to websites
2. the designers who love to show all their creative abilities, and have clients demanding html email newsletters, but hate the fact they have to use html coding from 1999
3. the business owners or marketing managers that wants to to look good and convey their brand in all its glory but wonder why they have to worry about something as confusing as standards
4. the regular readers of email and subscribe to newsletters that believe that a picture tells a thousand stories and want to see the product (or other images) rather than being told about it and doesn’t really care if the email can’t be read in other email systems as long as it works on theirs.
5. vision impared-readers of email that rely on support devices such as screen readers due difficulties in viewing the html emails.

These 5 groups are the loose communities of concern when it comes to html email but don’t be fooled that it is this classical carving up of interests and positions is straight-forward.

At the moment the discussion (sometimes it escalated into a conflict) about the future of html emails is being waged between the developers (programmers, standards experts, software developers, email client providers, etc) and designers.

Only yesterday a shot was fired in the support of emails standards and it came from Australia. The guys at Freshview (Dave, Ben, Mat and crew) are the project management and logistics behind a campaign to get wider acceptance and implementation of css standards across all the various email platforms. They have started the Email Standards Project and I for one are behind them 100%.

As a reader of this blog you will probably fit into 1 of 2 broad categories : either you are a techie-type that is interested in the details of this project (in that case you should head over to the Email Standards Project website to find out more details), or you are a business owner and really wondering what this has to do with you (then stick with me because this has everything to do with you).

As a business owner you may not be clear on what standards actually mean in the web or email world, but you should be caring what it means to how your business looks online. Like most business owners you will spend a good deal of time and/or money crafting your brand, deciding how to get your message across in a busy online world and communicating in a way that you hope people will buy from you.

All the time and effort that goes into this online communications must be doubled, tripled or more if you need to craft your communications in a way that matches the technology that your marketplace is using. If one part of your market sees a beautifully crafted marketing message and other parts get something that looks like a 3-year-old’s finger painting then your effort and money is being wasted in what might be a crucial sector. It is for reasons like these that you need to be aware of web and email standards - even if you don’t understand them.

Back in 1994 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded as an industry consortium dedicated to building consensus around Web technologies. In 2007, 13 years later things are much better but we still don’t have consensus and designers must ensure that website work across multiple versions of browsers and computer platforms. There are really only 3 main areas to be concerned with full css (cascading style sheet) compliant browsers, partially compliant browsers and Internet Explorer 6 <g>.

The state of css-supported email systems (aslo known as email clients) is a lot worse than this. Have a look at the current compliance of the various email clients on the Email Standards Project or, if you interested in more detail, visit the 2007 Guide to CSS Support in Email that the Freshview guys have on the Campaign Monitor blog.

So as a business owner you might want to know what you can do about this (without having to learn CSS standards). Just 3 easy steps for now -

• Transfer your own email client over to one that strongly supports css standards (there is more to email than Outlook and Outlook Express and it won’t cost you the earth)
• Make your opinion known about what you, your business and your customers would like by writing about this in your blog or newsletter
• Grab the “I support email standards” image above and put in on your site or on your email newsletters.

Don’t let the guys who think that email should only come in black and white determine how your communicate with your customers!

In fact I find many tasks more productive when they are done with pencil and paper in hand (and often away from the computer as well). This productivity of this pen and paper approach was expanded when I first came across David Seah and his Printable CEO™ Series.

Only yesterday he released the 2008 Compact Calendar. This is a very easy one-page overview of of all of 2008 as a continuous series of days/weeks (and not broken up by months like most calendars). Like David, I print out one of these pages and use to to “doodle” my planning. This is a very smooth way to do either personal or professional planning for the new year (how did it come around soooo quickly?) Daivd also has somegreat suggestions on how to use the calendar.

David compiled his calendar for the USA and already there are a range of country specific calendars including France, New Zealand, Italy, and Japan. Seth Yates has compiled an Australia calendar with all the major holidays for most states into a single page.

I decided to take the Australian calendar and provide a breakdown into specific state-based ones with just public holidays just for your state. At this stage there are calendars for New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (VIC), Queensland (QLD) and South Australia (SA).

Compact Calendar 2008 - NSW

Compact Calendar 2008 - VIC

Compact Calendar 2008 - QLD

Compact Calendar 2008 - SA

Western Australia, Tasmania and Northen Territory to come.

Why not have a play with this approach when you sit down to do your 2008 planning (and stay tuned for the results of my Working Solo planning as there are some interesting announcements on the horizon).

Visa Virtual Prepaid provides an immediate and safe way to shop online or over the phone for consumers who may not have their own bank account or who may not choose to use their credit or debit card for purchasing online. - from Visa Australia media release

With the VCard you get a card number, expiry date and security code just like a regular card, but one of the additional security benefits is that once the money runs the account runs out.  If you want to have more VCard money then you get another card number.

Getting a card can be done over the web at www.virtualvcard.com and by for it with your credit card (but that defeats the purpose a little for people that don’t want to use a credit card on the web) or you can purchase one from any Mobile Quix outlet.

Emails from clients that I had previously whitelisted are getting trapped, along with emails from services that  had always made it into my inbox in the past (although there are also less people offering to medicate me as well).

This means that I have had to be more vigilant in checking the spam boxes (not good to miss that client email giving you the go ahead is it).

I suggest that you also include this as part of your daily housekeeping duties.  If you don’t know how to get into your spam boxes then check with your service provider.  And if I’m your service provider and you don’t know, then definitely give me a call (the email might just get caught in the spam trap).