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Ribbons of Red: Journal

A blog of inspiration.

Essential WordPress Plugins for Small- to Medium-Sized BusinessesDecember 18 2008

Gone are the days where Dreamweaver (or FrontPage) was required to keep a company website up-to-date. WordPress is all the rage these days and allows my clients, small- to medium-sized business owners, the ability to maintain their company website with ease.

With over 3,000 WordPress plugins available, it can be overwhelming to choose which plugins will work best for your company website. Below is a list of what I have found to be the most essential WordPress plugins for small- to medium-sized business websites.

1. Akismet

Stop spending time deleting spam and more time creating content! Akismet automatically identifies and blocks comment and trackback spam so you don’t have to.

2. All In One SEO Pack

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is extremely important if you want your website to appear or rank high in search engine results. The All In One SEO Pack allows you to add titles, descriptions, and keywords which increases the chance of someone finding your websit

Ribbons of Red Featured on Smashing MagazineNovember 26 2008

This week, Ribbons of Red was featured on Smashing Magazine for releasing an iPhone Vector Pack Freebie. The vector pack comes with several buttons, six different iPhone interfaces, and three keyboards. You can download the iPhone Vector Set for free at Smashing Magazine. This is a great way to present mobile websites or applications to clients, and I hope other mobile designers will get great use out of it!

The iPhone Vector Pack Includes

1. iPhone
2. Dictionary Scrubber
3. Three keypads (Letters, Numbers, Symbols)
4. Large Key Press
5. Application Icon
6. Title Spinner
7. Date Spinner
8. List Chooser
9. On/Off Sliders
10. General Slider
11. Loading Icon & 3G Icon
12. Call Options (Mute, Keypad, Speaker, Add Call, Hold, Contacts)
13. Six Interface Modes (Welcome, Application Home, Pop-Up Notification, Call Mode, Full Keyboard, Internet)

FreelanceSuite Consumer Alert!November 19 2008

Earlier this week, I posted a review on the new project management system, FreelanceSuite. I purchased it for $69.00, after loving the demo, but since the purchase have been very dissatisfied with the lack of support and the product’s bad functionality/usability. I requested a refund from FreelanceSuite, and it’s very important you read this (if you are in any way, shape, or form interested in this product or just curious as to how this whole thing played out). This post is what the nightly news usually dubs as a CONSUMER ALERT or BUYER BEWARE.

As mentioned in my previous post about FreelanceSuite, their customer support is very quick to respond (although not very good at providing helpful information). The minute I requested a refund, there was no one to be found. After being avoided for several days, customer support finally got in touch with me.

I will let you read the conversation I had with FreelanceSuite below; you can draw your own conclusion as to whether you want to give your hard earned, freelance dollars to this company or not.

Me: “After having trouble during the installation, and then finding out my cli

Product Review: FreelanceSuiteNovember 17 2008

Choosing your first project management system can be a daunting task, at least it has been for me. There are just so many choices out there both free and paid.

Lately, there has been a lot of buzz around FreelanceSuite. For those of you who do not know what FreelanceSuite is, it’s a fairly new project management system that lets you keep track of projects, tasks, deadlines, invoices (clients can even pay online through the FreelaceSuite interface!), and much more. You can even mass mail all of your clients in a (text) newsletter type format.

FreelanceSuite has a full demo of their product online. I played around with the demo and loved it. I found that it was not only easy to pick-up, but simple enough for my clients to grasp with out a through explanation. That was HUGE for me. The interface was also attractive (which is always an added bonus). After a month of indecisiveness, I finally bit the bullet and purchased it for $69.00 this past weekend.

1. Purchase, Download, and What You Get

All in all, FreelanceSuite was very easy to purchase. After you create

Easy, FREE Ways to Organize Your Design InspirationNovember 10 2008

Successful web and graphic designers are constantly seeking inspiration for their projects and ideas. I admit, up until recently, I’ve been very bad about saving (and seriously organizing) websites, photos, graphic snippets, copy and other items I’ve found to be extremely inspiring. Thankfully, I gave Evernote a try and have been using it for my inspiration library ever since! Below, you will find a list of other great tools to help you build your own inspiration library!

1. ScrnShots (Image Based)

If you capture your inspiration via screenshots, then this web-based, social bookmarking site might be for you. Start by creating a free account, and within minutes you’ll be uploading your inspirational screen grabs. The great thing about ScrnShots is there are NO LIMITATIONS on how many images you can upload to your account. Once you upload an image, don’t forget to tag it. This will allow you to search through your gallery for gems later.

ScrnShots also doubles as an inspiration gallery. Looking for a new way to make a form? Type “form” in the sear