In the best spirit of near-weekend navel-gazing I discovered a trifecta of engaging bits and pieces that you really shouldn’t miss out on if you’re even vaguely indulgent in life and business. Admittedly, two are WordPress-focused. But if you read on, you’ll discover that while they’re platform specific, they’re absolutely crucial if you’re working for yourself.
And all are free.
- The fantastic and free WordPress theme, Atahualpa
- Bamboo Invoice
- Rolopress
Atahualpa is the first free WordPress theme I’ve ever come across – and that is quite literally EVER – that offers all the options you could possibly need, wrapped into the funkiest and easiest of Options interfaces in the platform’s admin area.
It deservedly receives plaudits from all over the place. Some have granted it such high repute as to rank among the elite of paid themes such as Chris Pearson’s Thesis (which is damn good, but I ain’t gonna learn hooks right now – I have too much scrawling to do).
Why?
- No need to run down the Headspace/All In One SEO route – it’s all built in!
- Everything is customisable – crucially, for beginners upwards – via the Options panel
- Stack of widgets available out the box. Man, this is crazy cool.
Most importantly…
- It works the second you install it. Even premium themes take a bit of clobber setting up to look awesome. But this… well, it’s sensational.
Of course you can donate (that’s the perk of GPL for me – developers who offer you the chance to reward them fiscally, rather than forcing you to pay in advance and in many cases, pay unsighted for their failures) but it’s not mandatory. Atahualpa simply rocks. If you do blogging, seriously consider this theme.
As a writer of disputable but paid repute, I value my time above anything else. So you can fathom I’m incredibly moved to post what is essentially a free ad for these three denizens of the web realm.
Bamboo Invoice does what a ton of paid services do – better. I love this crazy stuff. Setting it up on a server is a cinch, and a couple of quick button presses and you have your very own fully-fledged invoice system. In an age where we’re all eating each other to save cash, this is the way forward for your fledgling accounting efforts. Hell, I’m rubbish at maths but even I can use this baby.
Rolopress converts a WordPress install into a contact management system. It’s dead easy to use, totally widgetable and is much better than Cloud computing (when it rains, it rains) because you retain complete control of all the data.
Punch in the sensational WP DB Backup plugin to your WordPress platform and you have totally bulletproof data, whenever and wherever you want it.
And on that note…
Have yourself a merry little weekend and see you next week!
