People always ask me what we products and services we use in our business. Well, they don’t actually ask it like that. Usually, they say something like:
“What telephone service do you use?”
“Who is your web host?”
“Can you recommend a good source for stock photos?”
You get the idea. Rather than answer the questions over and over, I’ve decided to create this little page to let you know what we use here in our home office.
In the spirit of full disclosure, please know that some of these links are affiliate links. After all, I am in business here. :-)
Here we go.
Computers
Our office runs on PCs. I use a Dell for writing and a Compaq for graphic work. I also have a Dell and Toshiba laptop.
I’ve always been a PC guy so that’s what we stick with here.
Domain Names
For years I’ve used GoDaddy for my domain name registrations. After all, they are the biggest around. Here lately, I’ve started registering my names directly with BlueHost. BH is actually a little cheaper and they include one free domain with your account.
Software
Some of the software packages we use are:
The Logo Creator - I am not a graphic artist by any means, but this program allows me to create good looking logos and headers without too much work. Besides, Marc Sylvester (the creator of the software) is a real class act. He provides excellent support and customer service. The software is inexpensive, works like a champ and is backed by excellent customer service. What more could you ask?
DLGuard - If you sell e-books and other digital products (like we do), you want to protect them from unauthorized downloads. That’s just what DLGuard does and does well. We’ve used it for years with no problems or complaints.
We also use the standards like MS Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc.
Stock Photos
Most of the photos we use with our articles come from Big Stock Photo. They have a HUGE selection and they’re priced reasonably. We even use their photos for some of our books and other printed projects.
Telephone Service
We use RingCentral for our business line. It’s a VOIP service that we’ve been using for about two years now and we love it. It allows us to have multiple numbers (including toll-free numbers) so each business can have a different number if we want. We also have multiple “extensions” that can be forwarded to other phones. It’s a great service. I really need to do a full review on it. I feel a review article coming on.
Web Hosting
This site is hosted with BlueHost. I used to run my own hosting business and I gave it up because BlueHost does it better and cheaper. We’ve been with them a little over a year and we have no complaints. They offer unlimited domain hosting, unlimited bandwidth and disk space.
We also got a static IP address for our sites.
Web Platform
Almost all of our websites are built on WordPress. I LOVE WordPress. Over they years, I’ve used Joomla, Drupal and tons of other CMS systems; I’ve even built websites by hand, but nothing compares to WordPress (IMHO). We use the hosted WordPress and not the WordPress.com site. That’s important, especially if you want to use your blog/site to make money.
Many web hosting companies, such as BlueHost, offer a simple install for WordPress using “Fantastico” or “Simple Scripts.” It makes installing the platform incredibly easy and fast. You don’t even have to be (much of) a techie to do it. I always tell people, “It’s so simple even a recovering accountant can do it.” (No offense to any accountants out there. That’s just the way I refer to myself sometimes.)
WordPress Theme
This site uses the “News Child Theme” for Studio Press’ Genesis platform. StudioPress sure makes life easy with their Genesis platform. You can customize the template without editing the individual files or the CSS. How cool is that?
In fact, we love the combination of WordPress and the Genesis framework so much that we use them on just about every website we have.
Well, those are the biggies that we get asked about a lot. If you want to know about any resource that I haven’t covered here, please just let me know and I’ll add it to this page.
