Tabitha Potts: Small Business Blog

Spring cleaning your Mac and organising your time

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:25:00 +0000

I've been trying to clear out my clutter online as well as in my home so I can start 2012 feeling on top of everything! As I work for myself I have to manage myself, so I try and organise my time as efficiently as possible.

Here are some of the tricks and tools I've been using that can streamline your life and hopefully, save time and hard disk space.

Sync your task list from Google Tasks to iCal
If you are a Mac user and a Google fanatic like I am, you may find yourself a bit frustrated if you are trying to sync your iCal Task List and your Gmail Tasks List. I've found a small app that enables you to do that: it's called iGtaskforiCal and it's by Innov8tion software - they also sell a similar syncing tool for Outlook. This is very easy to set up and run and you will find your Tasks lists syncing in no time so that all your Tasks are visible in iCal as well as Gmail and automatically updated when you change either. You can also choose to sync your Gmail calendar to iCal - I'd set mine up already so didn't enable this option.

I've got my Google Calendar syncing on my Android as well (using GTasks, a free app available in the Android Market) and it all works perfectly together. This is great because I can set up a To Do list with dates on it that are viewable in my calendar, and I can view everything on my phone or on my desktop computer. It's $19.99 (£12.95) at the moment, but it just saves a lot of time and the only free alternative (a work around where you email your To Do's to Gmail) isn't really that satisfactory. There's a free trial.

Clearing out your inbox
Archive all your email and get it out of your inbox. It's so simple if you have Gmail - just select all your emails and hit "Archive". Your inbox is automagically empty and you can search for your emails whenever you want, or view them under the appropriate labels if you have set up Filters. If you don't use Gmail, thenextweb has simple instructions for doing this. I now have a more or less empty inbox which I can quickly declutter each day.

Get rid of duplicates in iPhoto.
I've noticed that I have a lot of duplicated images in iPhoto from multiple imports, etc, and as most images I use are quite large they are taking up a lot of disk space. I've looked around and the best solution I could find online was Duplicate Annihilator, as Apple does not appear to have an in-house solution for this problem (why not? I don't know). This is not a free app but searching the first 500 images in your iPhoto library is free in the trial version - it costs $7.95 (£5.15) to buy. I found 12 in my first 500 and the app is currently claiming to have found 1143 while searching the computer - that's over 1GB of space! You can set it either to trash the duplicates, or just label them so you can double-check.

Increase my productivity using Rescuetime.
This is a free app and well worth investigating. You can set up projects and keep track automatically of the time spent on them: it also automatically categorises everything you do online so you can see exactly how much time you waste on Twitter and browsing shopping sites...I've set the app with all my different projects: for the billable ones it's a big help although you have to set it up quite carefully for it to be accurate. You can set up daily goals (eg more than one hour on writing) and it will send you a report each week telling you how productive you have been. There's even a widget for your iGoogle page, if you have one set up.

Back up to the Cloud
I'm always terrified of losing data, as I've had several hard drives fail on me. I love the ease of use of Time Machine but my elderly back up drive no longer works with it. I could have splashed out on a new one but I decided to investigate online backups instead and discovered Dolly Drive. There are some disadvantages - the first back up takes forever if you don't use their hard drive service (which is free with some accounts) - but I like the idea of being able to access this data from anywhere and the fact that even if my computer and back up drive were stolen, I'd be able to get hold of all my information again. It's worth noting that if you back up to Dolly Drive with Time Machine you can't back up to a local drive as well, so it isn't a belt and braces solution. However, Dolly Drive allows you to create a bootable clone which you can keep on a hard drive and use to get your computer working if (heaven forfend) the hard disk breaks.

If you fancy doing some more digital decluttering, Lifehacker has a great round up from last year (but still relevant!).

Mimimyne won the Greenest Trader 2011 Award from the National Market Traders Federation

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:57:00 +0000

I had some wonderful news this year when I found out I had won an Award for Greenest Trader 20111 given by the National Market Traders Federation, the oldest trade body in the UK for market stallholders. I regularly run a stall at the famous Old Spitalfields Market on Sundays - it's where the old fruit and vegetable market used to be, and I remember visiting it in those days when I was growing up in Spitalfields in the early 80's. It's a wonderful market to trade in as well nowadays as it's enclosed, bright and spacious, has very enticing food stalls and restaurants and lots of exciting events and activities going on. The other stallholders are great fun and sell all kinds of interesting products, especially handicrafts, jewellery and clothing. I won the Award because of the nature of the products I sell and the fact that I transport my goods by bicycle - no carbon emissions there! I wasn't able to go to the Awards Ceremony so the award judges were kind enough to visit my stall and present it to me in person this December: thanks again to the NMTF for doing that!

Creating a Google Business Page using Google Plus

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:21:00 +0000

I was excited to see Mashable post on Google Plus this morning that Google Plus Business Pages were shortly going to be available. As you will know if you are interested in social networking at all, Google Plus is Google's latest effort to go social and has been hailed a success with many people signing up for this new service. However, Google was anxious to avoid people signing up to Google Plus as companies and several people who created business Profiles (instead of personal Profiles) were apparently removed. After a tantalising delay, Google Business Pages finally went live today and I went and built one immediately. You will need a Google Plus account, Google will help you create one if you haven't got one so you can build your Google Business Page straight away. Your Google Plus personal profile seems to have the same relationship to a Google Plus business page as a personal Facebook account does to a Facebook Business Page, ie you will need a personal account to create a Business page and will have to log into your personal Google Plus profile to manage it.

There are several categories of business page, including Product or Brand, Company, Institution or Organization, Local Business or Place, Arts, Entertainment or Sports and finally Other. I went for Brand although Mimimyne could also have been listed as Company or as Local Business (I chose not to do this as I already have a Place listing on Google and my business mainly trades online). These may be editable at a future date, at the moment they don't appear to be - I hope this will be changed at some point as it is easy to choose something you might want to change later!

The next thing to do is choose your tag line (up to ten words), Page name and upload your logo. The logo space is small and square, like a profile photo, so you might want to resize and edit your logo before you upload it. I used a cropped image from my logo which I've used a lot before, for example on my Twitter page, so I feel it is familiar to my customers.

Like Google Plus profiles, the Google Plus business pages have a Scrapbook section where you can put five photos that represent your business. You will find this in the Edit Profile section, just below your tag line, where you are asked to add photos. These will remain on your profile till you edit or change them, as far as I can see, unlike the Facebook Business Page photos which update dynamically according to which photos you have recently added to albums.

The next thing to do on your Profile is add your Introduction (they are quite generous with space here and there are no warnings against using promotional text as there are on Dmoz, for example, but remember to add your keywords!). You can add Contact info including your email, phone, physical address, Skype and Google Talk chat names etc as well as fax numbers and anything else you might need. These all appear on a drop down menu so make sure you check and fill in the ones you want to fill in! You can also set your privacy here (to anyone on the web, or just people in your Circles, for example) although most companies will want this information set to Public.

Finally, you can add photos and posts as you would on a Facebook Business Page. You can't add people to your Circles until they follow you, which is one thing that makes this quite different from a Google Plus profile page, so Google encourages you to share your page on your personal Google Plus stream and link to it from your business website to encourage more followers.

Check out Mimimyne's Google Business Page and please add it to your circles!

Creating a Facebook Business Page competition using Promos

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:52:00 +0000

I have a Facebook Business Page for Mimimyne and am often looking for ways to improve it. I am a little behind at the moment as the change from FBML to iFrames means I will have to learn a new set of techniques which I haven't yet found time to do. However, one thing I did want to do recently was run competitions for Mimimyne's fans in a way that was consistent with Facebook's competition rules. I found a great article by Mari Smith explaining Facebook's promotions rules a little more simply which is a great starting point. Essentially Facebook do not want you to run competitions through Facebook via interactions with fans on Facebook - for example, they do not want you to offer prizes to fans for Liking your page, or contact competition winners via Facebook. This makes life that little bit more complicated for business owners with Pages on Facebook... sigh. So I went looking for an app that would allow me run competitions on Facebook without breaking their rules and found EasyPromos. This is free for the first use so I tried it out to see how well it works. EasyPromos is a little tricky to install on your Page and it could do with more detailed instructions but once I had installed it it was quite intuitive to use. You set up a Promotion as a Draft and add an image, terms and conditions and a start and end date. The Promos page is also added as a tab to your Page. It works quite nicely in that it is easy to promote the page on your Wall so that existing fans will find it easily. You can ask for email addresses and images from competition entrants so that it is easy to contact them and choose what information will be displayed on the competition screen. I ran the competion and found that I quickly gained 43 new fans in a couple of weeks which was a great result for me. You can also display coupons to reward fans and set the Promos tab as a default landing page for visitors. Promos does seem quite a robust and flexible solution for small businesses although once you have run the first competition following competitions will cost $15 each. However, it will give business owners peace of mind knowing they are not breaking Facebook's promotion guidelines and it does look professional.

Create your own Google Search Story Video to promote your business

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:28:00 +0000

I recently read about creating Google search stories on Twitter (thanks @Eleesha) and decided to investigate to see if this was something worth doing for my business. I have occasionally seen little videos showing how a search on Google could lead to life changes (the most famous example is the Parisian Love story).

This seemed like a great way for me to talk about why I wanted to set up my business; I was looking for eco friendly designer products for my two sons back in 2008 and didn't find enough eco products for kids that combined fashionable design and sustainability. Things have changed a bit since then!

I have been using Google since it launched and it was thanks to Google I found all the research material and contacts I needed to write my business plan, find funding and so on. I had a lot of help from the British Library Business and IP Centre and the East London small business centre but Google was my starting point and I owe it a big thank you.

You can go to the Google Search Stories site to see what they have put up but the easiest way to create a Search Stories video is using their Search Stories Video Creator Tool. This is simplicity itself: simply choose six searches that tell your story (you can search Images, Products, Blogs and Videos for example), preview them in the preview tool to check that the results are the ones you want to display and choose a soundtrack.

I was thrilled with the results: I will probably tweak this video a bit, adding a products search for example rather than an image search, but I think you'll agree this does a good job of telling a story in a short amount of time! Thanks Google ;)

Please vote for Mimimyne to win funding for a new project at Enterprise Nation!

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:28:00 +0000

Just found out to my great excitement that Mimimyne is in line to win funding of £500 towards the new eco friendly babywear range I've created with Sally Hemphill! I have to get 500 votes to win so am hoping that some of this blog's readers and visitors could spare a few seconds of their time to vote. The new range (so far we have created a boy's shirt and a retro baby romper suit) uses offcuts from soft furnishing fabrics that would otherwise be sent to landfill. We have already created a capsule range but would love to expand and do more. The clothes are made in England by Heba, a women's project based in Brick Lane that helps disadvantaged women in East London find work, improve their English and get affordable childcare.
I've also pledged to put 5% of profits from online sales towards a charity in the UK.

Vote for Mimimyne at Enterprise Nation

Creating a simple mobile App for my small business using AppMakr

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:38:00 +0000

I'd wanted to make a simple mobile App for my business for ages but was held back by the fact that it seemed expensive to have one made for me, and difficult to do it myself as I am not a developer. However, I came across AppMakr on the web and decided to have a go at creating an App myself. AppMakr is currently free to use to create Apps: you simply have to pay Apple $99 for a Developer's license and Google Market $25 for a Google Market account. Your App is hosted directly on the Android Market or in the App Store and you do not have to pay a hosting fee which appears to be the case with (for example) Swebapps. Another free solution, which I haven't tried yet but am going to experiment with, is Google's App Inventor, which seems a bit more flexible than AppMakr in terms of what you can create.

Using AppMakr to Create an iPhone App
Creating an App is relatively straightforward using AppMakr. I began with an iPhone App. You will need to know the RSS URLs' of your blog, Facebook Page or account, Twitter page or Youtube Channel and so on as AppMakr mainly uses RSS feeds to create your mobile App. You can usually find these feeds by logging into your accounts, although Twitter and Facebook have not made this particularly easy! You can add the feeds using the URLs and they will display straightaway on your demo App (shown to the right hand side of the page on an Android style phone). Customised artwork needs to be made to fit the mobile phone screens; I made a Splash screen and a header using graphics created for my website and I will probably create custom icons at some point.

Uploading to the Apple App Store
The tricky part is using your Apple Developer's account and publishing your AppMakr first to your phone for testing (AdHoc) and then to the App Store. This took me a long time and a lot of fiddling about generating and uploading certificates, and I'm reasonably technically proficient. I can tell you that for some reason, the Safari browser does not work for generating one certificate (why? It's the Apple browser and I was using a Mac!) and I had to switch to Chrome. My App is now Awaiting Review: Apple checks all Apps submitted to them. AppMakr shows you a graphical display telling you how likely it is to be published.

Creating and publishing an Android App
To create my App for Android I simply copied it over using AppMakr. One Facebook feed refused to work when I downloaded the App for testing, even though it worked in the demo and on the Apple App, so I removed it. I'll probably add it in a future version (you can upload upgrades to your Apps once they are published). Uploading to Android Market was a joyfully easy process compared to dealing with Apple and took me about ten minutes. I haven't had many downloads or ratings yet so am hoping for more!

AppMakr was very simple and userfriendly, my only criticism is that they do not have a simple way to add a URL page for your website onto their apps. My website works well in a mobile browser and I would have liked to be able to add it. I am currently looking at ways to add my products so that customers can shop easily online as well, this is a bit of a challenge but I am hoping to come up with a solution. For a blogger or anyone with interesting content to publish I think this is a very accessible way to create a mobile app.

You can download my App by scanning the QR Code with your Android phone using Barcode Scanner or any similar scanning device to install it straight away.

Nerdy fun: adding a QR code to your business card that links to your LinkedIn profile

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:20:00 +0000

I've been using QR codes on and off for a while now - you can scan them to download apps to an Android phone, for example, and I've used them to do price searches in shops although it did not make me popular. I have also noticed artists doing interesting things with them: one artist at Tent London Digital turned a QR Code into a 3-D sculpture, for example. On a more mundane note, I get frustrated when I come out of a networking event with lots of business cards (too much information! I have to type it all in by hand!) and have often thought QR codes would make the whole exchanging contact information thing a lot easier.

Tada - I bring you PingTags.com. I came across this tip for creating a QR Code for your Linkedin profile from Chris Brogan's website and have created my own using PingTags, which took about five minutes: scan the image above if you have a barcode scanner on your smartphone and see! I will be adding it to my business card so that people can scan in my information and contact me easily after meeting me at an event.

The excellent Mailchimp has also created a QR Code for e-newsletter signups. This is great if like me you run a website and have an e-newsletter created by Mailchimp. Scan this and it will take you straight to my e-newsletter sign up page for Mimimyne.com. I'll be adding this to my blog and perhaps to my business card as well. It all helps, as more and more people have smart phones these days!

Perhaps I should get both of them engraved onto earrings...

Being a mumpreneur

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:56:00 +0000

Today I've been writing a blog entry for Business on Twitter, Nikki Pilkington's business blog. I write a post a month and it takes about an hour of work, which I decided to do this Sunday as it requires some thinking time. Blogging is time-consuming and can be exciting or dull depending on your state of mind. As well as blogging for Business on Twitter, I blog over at Mimimyne. Sometimes I love to write about my products and news at Mimimyne, sometimes I'm more interested in writing about social media, sometimes it will be an event I've attended which excites me and which I want to share. Sometimes I will have guest posts, usually from bloggers who are relevant to my readers. It's important to blog regularly if you run a business! Anyway, today I was writing about Twitter and staring at the computer with what I remember calling 'the writer stare' when I interrupted my mother working and gazing into mid-air (although of course she used a typewriter).

While I was doing this, my six year old son kept running in and out. First of all he wanted the sellotape, which disappears regularly - I probably have twenty rolls of it in my house somewhere. Then he wanted scissors. Next, it was a black pen, then a piece of paper. After a while I asked him if he'd mind going out because Mummy was working and I couldn't concentrate (I'd better explain here that his dad, brother and two dogs were also in the house, so I wasn't being completely neglectful!). As a bribe, I said I'd feature whatever he was working on in my blog.

After an hour or so during which I carried on with my writing, and he carried on interrupting me, I'd produced my blog and he'd produced - this. It's so wonderful! It's his personal sticker book with various characters he's invented. Sometimes I feel guilty that the kids have to share some of my attention and time with my business. But then I see what they can create, all by themselves with hardly any help from me, and realise it's OK. By running my own business and working part-time, I'm not actually shortchanging them. They know I'll be there to pick them up from school and that I will spend most of my time with them, and they've learned a million ways to entertain themselves if my attention is elsewhere for a short while. So I'm going to give myself a little holiday from that omnipresent mother guilt, and just feel proud of my talented son.

I'm a Guest Business blogger for Business on Twitter!

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:50:00 +0000

Recently I've been busy posting on Nikki Pilkington's excellent Business on Twitter blog and sharing my knowledge about social media. My first post is about starting a new business account on Twitter and my second is about netiquette and tips for new twitter users. I'm keeping it simple and straightforward so that users new to twitter can use the tips to help their own businesses!

I've been nominated for the Virtual Business of the Year Awards! Please vote for me

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:53:00 +0000

I was thrilled to find out that I've been nominated for the Virtual Business of the Year Awards. This is an exciting award run by People Per Hour to reward virtual businesses like mine and I would LOVE your vote! Please visit my page and vote for me if you would like to support green businesses like Mimimyne!

E-innovate Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I gave a short presentation on social media recently for the National Black Women's Network as part of their eInnovate or Bust! series. It was a great venue (the Boho Bar in Lordship Lane) and a fantastically welcoming audience with a lot of questions about social media. This is the outline of my presentation which was based around my own business start-up story and some of the challenges I have overcome while running Mimimyne. Apologies if the display is a little off-true as I've had to resize the presentation, but you should get the general gist and there are some useful links included...

Interview with me by Business Plus Baby at the Mumpreneur Awards 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:22:00 +0000

A wonderful day out at the Mumpreneur Awards 2010, where I was nominated for the Best Online Business Award. This is a short interview with me about what I most enjoyed at the conference.

Watch me reading my short story The Djinn at the Idea Store, Whitechapel

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:18:00 +0000

I was lucky enough to be invited to read at the Idea Store Whitechapel on Tuesday 13 July. I read along with authors Daisy Goodwin, Uchenna Izundu and Bobby Nayyar. This was for the launch of a two volume paperback capturing London in all its diversity, consisting of brand new stories for each of London's 33 boroughs. The video shown below was produced by Charlie Sen.

Ways to improve your Facebook Business Page

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:24:00 +0000

Add a Shop Tab
I have been doing a bit of maintenance on my Facebook Fan Page and came across this excellent add-on, Shoptab. It's only useful if you have products to sell but it is fantastically convenient and simple to set up if you do. I have a self-hosted ecommerce website but having a shop on Facebook too is great in terms of visibility and I think fans are bound to be more engaged if they can shop and view products directly from Facebook rather than having to go to a different site. It costs $10 a month at the moment, which I think you'll agree is a bargain! I had to hack around with my Google Merchant product feed in order to upload it to Shoptab, but the results are worth it and meant 200+ products were uploaded in an hour or two. If you don't have the ability to export a Google product feed from your own ecommerce site, you can create one manually using a spreadsheet or just type the products into Shoptab, one by one.

Build a Custom Landing Page
Another useful tip from Mashable is to build a custom landing page which will be my next project on my own site.

Customise your Profile Page Image
You can also hack the profile page image on your Facebook Fan Page which I've done on another Page I admin, the Dappers Fan Page. It's a bit fiddly and only recommended if you are familiar with image editing techniques.

Creating Custom Tabs on your Facebook Page (including Newsletter and Youtube tabs)
I've used Static FBML (which is essentially simplified HTML) to create custom tabs on my own Mimimyne Facebook Page, including a newsletter sign up tab with code from Mailchimp which will provide you with ready made code, and a customised Youtube Tab with embedded Youtube Videos (I learned how to do this from this blog).

Apps are constantly being created to do jobs like these but it really is worth investigating Static FBML if you want to have control over your Page and how it looks.

There is a great round up on customising Facebook Pages on Techcrunch which links to Static FBML as well as some of the apps that can help you do this if you don't want to mess around with code.

Tips on essential apps for your Facebook Business Page
Finally, here are some great tips from Matt Silverman on apps that can improve your Business Facebook Fan Page! It's amazing what we can do with these pages nowadays, even if you are irritated by certain tricks Facebook pulls on Page Admins such as suddenly changing the size of images allowed in Pages, they have given us the opportunity to make Business Pages very engaging and entertaining.

Meal Planning using Google Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:23:00 +0000

This is a great tip I got from this site, Simple Mom. My husband and I had been discussing budgeting for our family food shop (dull, I know) and he mentioned that a colleague at work had a menu plan. My immediate response was "There must be an app for that" but having ransacked the Android Market, iPad apps etc (we are a geeky family) I couldn't really find anything that worked. However, the Googlel calendar idea works perfectly and is a very fool proof way of planning family meals.

I don't want to restate everything on the Simple Mom website, but essentially you set up a separate Google Calendar from your usual one (you will need a Google account for this). Each recipe is an "Event" and you can set it to recur every 2 weeks or whatever you want (I set it to two weeks but think we will get bored of that so will probably create a calendar with a month's worth of meals in it). I put the URL for the recipe (if I'm using one, there are a few dishes I could probably cook blind fold by now) in the "Where" field and the text of the recipe in the "Notes" section. You can then email yourself reminders of what you're cooking each day (by adding a reminder to each "Event" or recipe).

Why do this? The basic reason is that having a menu plan eliminates waste. If you know what you are going to cook for the week, it is a huge help when doing your weekly shop, stops you ordering too much food (and having to put it in the bin or panic eat it before it hits the use-by date) and helps you keep an eye on whether you are cooking nutritious food for your kids. You can plan things sensibly, for example if you are cooking chicken every second Sunday, you know you will have chicken stock and so make sure you have the ingredients for risotto, soup or whatever you usually make with it. I have now saved my shopping list for each scheduled week in my Ocado account, so all I have to do is bring up "Week 1 Shopping List" in my account and add all the items straight away when doing my shopping online. If you use Epicurious and some other recipe websites, you can also email yourself a shopping list.

Interview with me on Family Friendly Working Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:07:00 +0000

I'm on Family Friendly Working blog! Check it out http://www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk/2010/08/12/mumpreneur-profile-tabitha-of-mimimyne/

Thoughts on designing blogs using Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 11:04:00 +0000

As regular visitors to this blog may have noticed, I've been experimenting with its look recently. My custom website design (which was self-hosted, and incorporated a Blogger blog) was starting to look a bit tired and I thought I'd like to move on to the flexibility of a 'blogsite' for my personal blog. I started off blogging on Blogger years ago, attracted by its simplicity, but more recently have done a lot more using Wordpress and love all the features. However, rather than move everything over to Wordpress lock stock and barrel (I'm lazy!) I decided to give Blogger a whirl for redesigning the site and it has certainly changed and improved a great deal.

The most dramatic change for someone who hasn't really used Blogger in a while apart from updates on the fly, is the 'Pages' feature which in a similar way to Wordpress allows you to create static HTML pages as well as the regularly updated blog pages. This is great news if you want to create a personal site like this: it really is child's play to create the Pages and you can change the order of them and customise them really easily. I have found that the Amazon 'Preview' widget doesn't appear to work on the Pages, but this may be a glitch. As you can see, I use the Pages feature to create static pages for my writing, web and TV experience as well as a separate page for my CV. The great thing is that these pages are very easy to edit using the Blogger interface - no more faffing around with Dreamweaver and FTP for those all-important updates.There is a limit of 10 pages, but to be honest most personal sites don't need much more.

Another big change is the Blogger template designer. This offers a lot more scope for customisation than it used to. For example, one Travel template by Sookhee Lee offers you the use of iStockphotos wonderful images as backgrounds. I gave this a whirl but in the end went for the simpler Watermark template by Josh Peterson as I felt it was very easy to read. The great thing about the template is that you could really try a different look every day if you wanted to; it's very easy to apply a style to your blog. You can then customise the layout (column width, how many columns etc) of the template you have chosen although be warned applying a different template may alter your 'custom' layout. Think of it as choosing a great outfit (the template) and then accessorising (with custom elements like widgets or layout changes)!

There are some great new features as well which make using Blogger a lot easier. Below is an example of one: Zemanta gives you a choice of 'related articles' to link to in your blog. You can control which articles you use (or use none) but it does allow you to give extra rich content to readers. Once I have got the hang of using the Amazon Associates add on I imagine that will be quite helpful too: at the moment none of my Product Previews seem to work, I suspect that I will have to edit each product link (sigh) to activate the code.

One drawback with Blogger is the fact that the images are hosted in your Picasa account. This means if you are a keen Picasa user that you may find you exceed your image allowance of 1GB, as has just happened to me! I am trying out these tips for reducing Blogger image storage usage before I purchase more storage.

Also, it's really daft that Blogger doesn't offer a ready made Contact Me form of some kind. I tried creating one using Google Docs form creator, but gave up in the end (it was too hard to customise, and instead of emailing you the messages it creates a special spreadsheet for them) and used Email Me Form instead. I'm very wary of putting email links of any kind on websites, as I've witnessed the flood of spam that ensues.

Anyway, as I do quite a bit of blogging on Wordpress already I have decided that given Blogger's new features I am going to keep my personal site on Blogger for a while, so I can keep up with developments in both blog platforms. As Blogger is Google-owned, it is sure to keep developing and may well end up with 'must-have' features. If you miss the vast array of customisable WP themes, try visiting Wordpress to Blogger which has a lot of handy themes you can use as well as the ones on the Blogger Template Designer.

My business Mimimyne is shortlisted for three national business awards in the UK!

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:09:00 +0000

I just wanted to share with you the great news that my online eco store, Mimimyne has reached the finals for three national awards! On Wednesday 11th August I will find out where I have reached in the Finals for the Make Your Mark in the Markets Awards run by Enterprise UK. The prize is a year's free trading at my local market.

I have also just found out that I made it to the Finals in the Babyworld Parentpreneur Category in the 2010 Remote Worker Awards run by Paula Wynne. The awards ceremony for this is at the Grand Connaught Rooms, 61-65 Great Queen Street, London, WC2B 5DA on the 1st September and I will also have a stand giving away some Mimimyne Smartbags at the event.

I’ve also been chosen as a Finalist for The Best Online Business Award, sponsored by Create.net, at The Mumpreneur Awards 2010. There were 302 entrants for this so I am very pleased to have made it through to the final 6, as you can imagine! The Awards ceremony is at the Mumpreneur Conference 2010 on September the 18th.

It’s a massive recognition for the business and a huge confidence booster for me to have got this far. I started Mimimyne only two years ago and have run it single handedly most of that time. It’s certainly been tough at times, so it’s wonderful to have this recognition. I hope the facts that I always put my customers first, have a fantastic range of designers working with me and have worked hard to create an ethical business that also celebrates great design for children will help me to win one of these awards!

Mums Business Club Networking Event in Tower Hamlets

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:24:00 +0000

I am now the Tower Hamlets representative for Mums Business Club and will be hosting a meeting roughly every month for Tower Hamlets based women entrepreneurs including those who are hoping to combine starting a business with raising a family.

The first Mums Business Club Tower Hamlets meeting will take place in the gorgeous venue of Ping Pong Dim Sum in Appold Street, near Liverpool Street Station, on Tuesday 14th September from 10am to 12noon.

We will be charging £4 entry fee per visitor and Ping Pong are generously offering us free tea and coffee while the networking meeting and expert speaker sessions (to be confirmed closer to the date) go on. You can pay online through Eventbrite (link below) or pay on the door. Each guest who chooses to stay on and buy a delicious lunch at Ping Pong Dim Sum after the networking session will be offered a free cocktail, alcoholic or non-alcoholic!

Event Registration Online for Mums Business Club Tower Hamlets powered by Eventbrite

You will be able to learn about how to set up a small business, work from home and be your own boss while still managing to have a family life: not an easy thing to do and best learned from people who've actually been there! We're happy for men and women without children to come along too, of course - all are welcome. Ping Pong has a baby buggy parking area, a toilet with baby changing facilities and a lift to the Private Dining Room on the first floor where we will be meeting. There are no private breastfeeding areas at present but we will do our best to accommodate and help you. Children are welcome but are parents responsibility!

Ping Pong Dim Sum Appold Street
3 Appold Street
London
EC2A 2AF
tel: 020 7422 0780

View Map of Venue

My first published short story is available on Amazon!

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:07:00 +0000

I had the wonderful opportunity this summer of writing a short story for 33 East: Volume 1: 33 Boroughs, 33 Shorts, 1 London (London 33 Boroughs Shorts)

('Recommended reading for anyone who loves London' Time Out). I've decided to put an extract up here to give you a taster of my short story. It is about Salima, a young married Bangladeshi woman living in Tower Hamlets who believes her house is haunted by a Djinn or ghost.

Extract from The Djinn by Tabitha Potts (all rights reserved).

The Curate was busy putting his notes together to prepare for the latest
local history walk he was leading that Saturday. He loved to explore
architecture, the traces of life lived hundreds of years ago that still
survived unacknowledged in the modern chaos of the city. He loved
the city farm, with its collection of hardy-looking Gloucester Old Spots,
and went there often to visit the ruins of a mediaeval monastery that sat
there unnoticed and unvisited except by a herd of athletic miniature
goats. He would personally scrub away sprayed-on tags proclaiming
the might and dominance of the Stepney Massive, or the same sort of
graffiti he remembered from his own school days in Surrey, differing only
in the types of names and the breadth of knowledge and inventiveness
of the sexual techniques described, when they appeared on the walls of
his beautiful church. He felt a thrill of pleasure when he looked around
the stone building that sheltered his flock as it had done for centuries,
withstanding even the Blitz. It had been a bit of luck to get a challenging,
inner city parish, that had a church at its centre as old and beautiful as
this. The Curate knew God didn’t care about architecture, but was honest
enough to admit to himself that he did.

The Curate’s latest walk would start on Cable Street. He would explore
the Ratcliffe Highway, where sailors from all over the world could once buy
wild beasts of all descriptions, from lions and hyaenas to parakeets, moving
on to the boundary stone marking the borough of Ratcliffe or ‘Sailortown’
notorious for its taverns, drug dens, brothels and general debauchery for
hundreds of years. He would show them Stepney Causeway, where Dr
Barnardo asked that one of the doors be kept permanently open after one
child came looking for shelter, was turned away and died two days later of
starvation on the streets. He thought how a historical distance could make
a world where anything or anyone could be bought and sold and life itself
was cheap seem exotic and fascinating while in fact the reality must have
been – and was still – terrifying.

The Rector approached him as he was rearranging his notes.
‘I have something interesting for you, Andrew,’ he said cheerily. ‘An
infestation, you might say.’
‘An infestation?’
Andrew, a serious man, had never understood the Rector’s donnish
mixture of learning and levity.
‘A supernatural infestation. A young lady who lives in one of the old
houses over there.’
He gestured towards the row of Victorian terraces opposite the
graveyard.

Interview with me on Brazilian TV (Globo News)

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:42:00 +0000

I'm on Brazilian telly (Globo News)!

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:13:00 +0000

Wow, looks like the TV programme I was on has gone out in Brazil! I've had two emails from Brazil already.

How we sold our family car on Ebay

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:19:00 +0000

I never learned to drive and as a result cycle, use public transport and walk everywhere, but until yesterday we had a family car which my husband drove at weekends, mostly for shopping and trips to the country. Recently we moved house into a car-free development, and as a result we decided it was time to say goodbye to the car. I must admit, as I typed its details into an Ebay listing I felt a little sad. We have had some great fun on family outings in our car, it was very reliable (only breaking down once in four years) and also was a useful receptacle for boots, surf suits and miscellaneous childrens' toys and junk. However, look at the plus side. We can join a local streetcar service for essential journeys so that we are still able to make spontaneous trips when we can't use public transport. We won't have to pay for road tax, car insurance or the car's annual MOT. Financially, we will be saving hundreds, possibly thousands of pounds. And environmentally, we will be practising what we preach. I think electric cars are great (at an event I went to recently, one person arrived in a G-whiz and another in a Lexus hybrid) but they are financially out of reach for a lot of people and they still consume energy. It is possible to take steps to reduce our dependence on cars, by sharing, renting and reducing use and and by getting rid of our car I feel that my family has taken a big step forwards. I'll be posting soon with news about how we have found the car club: we are going to join Zipcar as it's the only service which will let us take our dog Dexter on board!

noreply@blogger.com (Tabitha Potts) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:55:00 +0000

Mimimyne reviewed in the Wharf Newspaper http://bit.ly/b4vmDM