Hey everybody. See that little green thing just to the left here? That’s right, you’ve got a chance to win this 2GB Green iPod shuffle! If you don’t know about the iPod shuffle or you’re saying to yourself, why would I want an iPod shuffle? You can head over to the Shuffle page at Apple and take a look. You’ll notice that it’s small and compact, perfect for on the move. I know there are many colours to choose from, but there is a reason that I’m offering a Green one. Although it does look exceptionally cool, it’s more relevant of what I’m asking of you all…

Ok, so here’s the deal. I’ve decided to start getting back into my design work, including but not limited to web design, logo design etc. Ii’ve got a plan worked out, but the problem I’m having is… coming up with a name for, i guess you could say, the ‘business’. I’ve had a couple of ideas, but it’s hard to come up with something that is unique, interesting, available in domain registration and available for business name registration. It seems that everything I’ve come up with so far is taken in some aspect and sends me back to the drawing board. This is where you come into it…

I’m giving one lucky person the great opportunity to name my new business identity and if chosen, be the winner of a green iPod shuffle! Even if I don’t choose your idea directly, I may choose to follow the direction of your idea in which case you will still be awarded the prize! Here’s the scope: I want to be able to provide design products and services to everyone and anyone that needs it at reasonable prices, and I want to provide these products with the client’s products hopefully being carbon neutral. Hence the green.

Yes, computers, websites and the internet do use energy, directly and indirectly. Carbon offsetting these products means offsetting the the computers used to create the products as well as the servers that hold their websites to reduce their carbon footprint. Think about facebook, which is just such a huge website… Well somewhere in the world, there are servers (like big computers) that are turned on 24/7 to make sure people can access it. That is a lot of computers that never get turned off and use up a large amount of energy, not to mention the millions of people that access it everyday using their own computer.

So that’s basically it. That’s my idea. But yep, can’t think of a name. That’s the only thing holding me back so far. So… do you think you’ve got what it takes? Think you can come up with a unique, interesting business name for me? If so, you can email me: rjcoutts (at) gmail (dot) com (replace the at and the dot of course) or you can leave your idea in the comments…

Thanks for reading! Hope you can come up with something new and fantastic!

Cheers.

An idea or concept may or may not be chosen, therefore a prize may or may not be awarded. Only a chosen idea or concept will be the recipient of said prize. Submitting ideas and or concepts transfers the rights of said idea or concept to the author of this post therefore ownership is obtained by the Author. Cheers.

Hey everybody! Oh my goodness what an epic journey it has been trying to get this thing back up and running! It has been more than a year since my last post, and many things have happened since, but I’m back for good now! I promise!

As you can see from the picture and the witty title, I am getting back into the swing of things. This means I’ll be posting a lot more often with interesting (mostly) bits of information for you all. The first bit of information I’m going to release to you guys is basically the whole reason how I made it to this point. You see, for the past year, I’ve been avoiding this website like the plague, because I was afraid. Yep, scared of a website. Why? Because it was in such a mess and I didn’t know how I was going to fix it up. I made a couple of attempts in the past few months, but today, having nothing to do, decided to sit down and have a real go at it, and I did. I’m about to go into some Internet techno-babble here so be warned… For those of you that know Wordpress at all, you might know that it’s up to version 2.9.1 right about now… well, I was still on version 2.0.2 with only a manual upgrade possible. So yeah, I tried numerous times to export and import my database in Wordpress to a new one, but was constantly greeted by errors and confusion. So, I did probably what I should have done some time ago and searched the Wordpress forums! And Alas I found my solution!

Basically I wanted to export from an older Wordpress database to an upgraded fresh install Wordpress database. Sounds simple, and I didn’t think it was, but it turns out that it is. So what did I do? After my searching I was lead to the Wordpress-to-Wordpress Import Plugin from the guys over at Technosailor.com. At first I thought it too good to be true, but from seeing the comments of 3,000+ I decided to give it a crack. Lo and behold I was finally & safely able to export my precious precious posts, pages and comments. The next part I also wasn’t too sure about, but Wordpress has advanced so much that I was simply able to import everything with one click! So here I am, writing in a brand new user interface, installing themes and plug-ins like nobodies business and using little funky things like widgets!

WIDGETS ARE AWESOME!

Anyway, from here on out you can expect to find me posting more often, hopefully with some points that you might find interesting. I tried to use my previous custom theme but as it was built for the previous version is didn’t seem to want to work. So the theme you’re seeing at the moment is just a theme I picked from the ‘featured’ in the theme section of Wordpress. It’s the ‘Piano Black Theme’ created by mono-lab. It’s a pretty sexy theme and is compatible with widgets. I hope to be recreating my own theme in the near future and hope it to look as good if not better than this one!

A few other things on the horizon, I plan to re-start my freelance design work, including web design and such. If you’re looking for someone to build and/or maintain a website for you or your company, feel free to give me a shout and I’ll be happy to help you out. Not just websites too, logos, business cards, invitations, the works! Also keep an eye out for a couple of brand new web sites I’ll be starting that some people may find interesting.

Well, that’s about it for now I think. I will definitely be posting more and more so bookmark me and follow my RSS feed!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers.

Ok, so, it’s been over a year since my last post. What can I say? Sure, I could come up with a bunch of excuses as to why I haven’t posted anything, and who knows, maybe they’re valid excuses… but the fact of the matter is, i just couldn’t be bothered. Honestly, I am a lazy person. Not as lazy as some, but still quite lazy. So, how come all of a sudden I can be bothered? Well, it’s not that I can be bothered… even now as I type I’m thinking of hitting that ‘Save as Draft’ button so I can continue on doing something else… But, in all honesty, I have an obligation. An obligation… to the fans.

I don’t know if you all experience it like I do, but when you stop declaring ‘fan mail’ as ‘fan mail’ and start declaring it as ’spam’ – that’s when you realise you’ve lost the passion. It’s no longer about the people but more so about the money and the fame, and it’s not what I wanted to become. So I’ve decided to make a comeback. I’ve stopped living the life of a star and have come back to my roots… And this is where it starts, my first blog in a year and a bit.

Now, after all this time of neglect and abandonment, are you, my people, the fans, even still out there? If I can just reach one of you perhaps that will be just enough for that one person to spread the word that I’m back. A wise-man once said “Post, and they will come.” – I don’t remember who it was but I’m sure he was old and wise. I imagine him in a robe of sorts, holding a staff, and he says it to me with a hand on my shoulder. He also has a long white beard, which I’m tempted to pull to see if it’s real… oh crap… it is…

So… people of the interwebs… I am back! Go, spread the word. May you enlighten people of possibly one of the best comebacks of all time. Me! And don’t worry, I am dedicated to bringing you more of what I used to bring you. Whatever that was. News? I dunno, whatever…