It’s been a while now since I have made a serious commitment to another ‘GURU’ or ‘GURU WANNABE” but now I find myself in a very happy position having found what I can only describe as a truly marvellous training source. And if he knew I had suggested he was a Guru etc then I know he would be none too pleased, precisely because he has absolutely no ambitions in that direction at all.

All of us got bled out to varying degrees with the Harward con and understandably are cautious about hooking up with another ‘trainer’ – I know I was, but I am really happy to say I KNOW I made the right choice because the place I get my training from now is absolutely bloody fantastic!

There is sooo much useful stuff in place already and last thursday I got hooked on a webinar that lasted three yes THREE full hours and it was superb for almost the whole time. And how about this too…. EVERY single question got answered. We were shown in real time how to build a PPV campaign, rotate it through seventy or so email submit offers, assign the right budget, track the clicks as they came in etc and yes all live and within the webinar. We are gonna see this campaign right through to conclusion with detailed info along the way. AND ALL the software he used is included with the training and at no extra (i.e. hidden) charge! (And it’s already written and tested … whoopy!)

Truth be known? I reckon I have got more content in my first two weeks of membership (thats good content by the way) than I did in the entire Harward debacle.

It must be obvious by now that I’m a bit like a cat that got the cream so might I suggest you go and watch a shortish video for yourself and if you become a member look out for me in the forum under MilesP. See you there!

Here’s the video http://milessentme.com/rd/JVCSOL

”

So it is always worth looking around for tools that may be of some assistance and then you just might get lucky.

Those of you who know me understand that I am no programmer (except for the occasional embedded system developed in Pascal and usually for PIC micro’s). But even I have been known to knock out the occasional hand coded site although that will likely decrease as my shift to EE increases.

Anyway I happened across TextMate which is an awesome editor for anyone involved in typing anything from text to a full on Ruby code block.
It was not long before I was hooked given the obvious efficiencies that this editor par excellence offered.

Anyway this post is not really a review on TextMate, just take it for a free spin and you will soon see what I’m on about. It does have a collection of pre-assembled syntax bundles that allow rapid pre-assembled code phrases to be placed by the use of a quick shortcut or three. Sadly no bundle for Expression Engine (boo, hiss, heckles etc.).

But a quick search and voila! Mr Chris Ruzin to the rescue… he took the time to build one – great job Chris! you can grab your copy over at his site chrisruzin.net

And so whilst playing around I thought it might be useful to create a cheat sheet (handy whilst getting to grips etc).

If it is of use to you, then print yourself off a copy.

Enjoy!

So why is this site building tool kit so great? Well for me, it combines the best of everything I have worked and believed in for some time. But rather than utilising a disconnected set of tools, Expression Engine delivers the whole kit & kaboodle and in one well structured and realatively easy to understand combination. There are some excellant training materials out there too (I’ll cover those in another post) and the forum is – well like forums should be. No BS, No Bitching, just helpful dudes and at all levels of ability too, which is great.

The link above is an affiliate link (just thought I would be clear on that) and I would appreciate you using it to find out more. The trip will be worth it and the base engine  (core) is actually free for personal non-commercial use, though do read the terms and conditions (as for any product).

[As a sidebar, the affiliate link is protected using a product I created called yourlinkmaster and will only function when clicked on from this site — It cannot be hijacked as it won't function off site — Because you are a reader of my blog I'll cut you a special of 80% off the listed price (The site purchase url's are in the process of being upgraded and are for the present deliberately broken ). If you're interested contact me via the post comment submission (below). End of obvious plug! ]

Getting back to the reasons behind the change,  I think Open Source platforms such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are great in and of themselves, but having used all three over the years (this blog is wordpress) I have to say that for me the Expression Engine power, versatility and availability of additional capabilities fits very well with —Everything— I need for my on-line endeavours.

Now, I realise that is quite a strong statement to make, but I have got to the point where I want to settle down…. with a single delivery platform and totally master it, albeit over time.

Sure I can hand code sites from the ground up to standards compliant xhtml/css2/3 but doing a quality job takes a huge chunk of my time, which is why I like Expression Engine so much. I get to do the hand coding bit when I want, yet have the power of embedding blogging capabilities and other cool database stuff, wherever and when ever I want. Of course the power goes way beyond what I have time to comment on here, but I hope you get the idea.

Give it a go (the free version is fine to start with) and let me know what you think.

See you in their forums (handle is ‘weightonman’ — long story….

One thing that has proved a recurrent problem has not been with the platforms (they’re both excellent) but with managing client expectations. Clients more and more seem to see open source offerings as FREE and therefore of little or no perceived value (despite the huge value that is clearly there to all of us ‘on-line’ types). Yes they are short sited, but this is proving to be commercial reality.

I don’t know if you build client sites yourself but I always work damned hard to exceed their expectations and perhaps I’m getting too old, but I get really p****d off when the pressure is always ‘do it on the cheap’ = poor quality work = something i am just not willing to do.

So I have thought long and hard in terms of whether to change delivery platform (no easy decision as that means a steep learning curve to master the ‘new’ package(s) ). So… it is with regret that after looking around i have come to the decision to make a fundamental change and go ‘commercial’.

There are some really good products out there but of course just as important (in fact to some extent more important) is the quality of support in terms of commercial and peer to peer (i.e. forums etc). Usually though admittedly not always, commercial support is faster and just more…. dependable.

(I’m sure THAT will draw some fire)

So I have dug deep, walked to the edge and jumped off into ee-land.

EE land? Hmmm….

Well so far its a great place to be and I am progressing along that learning curve quite well without too much in the way of issues. The community side seems friendly and responsive too and without the BS so often seen in some places on-line.

EE land is a good place so far..

Where is EE land? and what lurks behind its gates?

Well as they say ‘somewhere’ I’m sure…. I will leave that for another post