Greetings! We hope everyone is doing well and gearing up for the holidays!

We wanted to take the time to post a recap of the year as well as add some insight as to what is coming in the new year.

2011 has been a great year! We built upon the groundwork put into place in 2010 and continued to offer premium web hosting at an exception value. Updates were performed to keep software versions current as well. We have expanded our staff tremendously so that we’re able to serve our clients when they need us!

Towards the end of 2010, we launched our new Affiliate Program! If you haven’t joined yet, jump on over and join today to start earning money!

There will be plenty to look forward to in 2012!

• For starters, we will be launching VPS hosting. This is an often requested service, and we’ll be launching multiple options to choose from.
• Currently, our servers are located in Montreal. We will be expanding to other cities as well – most likely Toronto and Vancouver. This will allow the selection of where a new account is located. Existing customers will be able to move their account to a different location if wanted as well!
• Our engineering team is currently writing a significant update to our billing system. The new version will provide for tighter integration with hosting accounts, add additional features, and more!

We hope 2011 has treated everyone well! We encourage feedback, so if you have any questions or comments, please post them here in the comments and we’ll be happy to answer them!

When it comes to great forum scripts, you have a lot of choices out there.  One forum script that is receiving a lot of great reviews is MyBB.  It is a free and open source alternative to other forum scripts such as vB, IPB, phpBBB, SMF and more.

Here is a little more about MyBB from the developers:

A lot of thought has gone into the MyBB interface to make it easy to use. MyBB uses a standard discussion board structure, so your visitors will feel familiar with the way MyBB works. Your visitors can use the MyBB user control panel to change the way they view discussions. They can also easily start and reply to discussions and markup their posts.

From square one, MyBB does a lot to give you an interface that is not just simply designed but is also familiar to use. You can change things extensively from within the administration panel.  The ability to edit the layout, options and behavior of the script is all located within that area. The MyBB forums are also very extendable.  It has a very advanced plugin system that allows you to tweak almost every aspect of how the forum works and feels to your users.

Already using another forum script?  Their MyBB Merge System will allow you to easily convert your posts from another forum script over to MyBB.  If you need more information, be sure to go check out mybb.com.

Flexible. Elegant. Easy to Use.  These are all phrases people have used to describe TextPatern.  In a day and time where WordPress, Joomla and others get the majority of the love – I am here to introduce you to a script that helps you easily get your content out to the masses.

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Everyone is trying to keep up with the Joneses. It’s just human nature and that’s the theme for this week’s tour of the blogosphere.

Darren Barefoot recently attended his 20-year high school reunion and naturally found himself comparing himself to his former classmates. Of the people he chatted up, he was the only one who was both married and childless. Is this indicative of a generation or simply of the people who choose to attend reunions?

Tyler Cruz has completed his $650 weight loss challenge with Paul Piotrowski. At the final weigh-in, both participants were able to reach their goals, but only barely. Along the way, Tyler has significantly adjusted his diet and exercise patterns. Here’s hoping he sticks to the new lifestyle!

LaToya Irby came across the 2nd Annual Freelance Industry Report and has provided us with some highlights. This considers freelancers as an aggregate — including everyone from writers to designers — but it says that the nearly half of the demographic earn between $20 and $59 per hour with 17% earning $100 or more per hour. Where do you fall on this spectrum?

Neil Patel previously wrote about the ROI on dressing well. Now, he’s talking about the ROI of partying. Paying for the overpriced drink at the club might sound like a waste of money, but it can be an investment if you happen to bump into the right people and talk shop. People are more likely to open up when they’ve loosened up with a couple drinks.

Trent Hamm takes a look at the other side of the comparison equation, outlining what you have that other people might want. Your time, skills, equipment and relationships are all of value to other people. You just have to figure out how to best utilize them in your favor.

Marketing can be a very complicated process, especially when your customers know that they are on the receiving end of the advertising. In the modern age of the Internet, fewer people want to be sold on something and more people want to be informed. That’s why while you still want press releases and killer product pages, you also need something more.

That’s why it can be a great idea to invest in creating a stellar white paper or infographic. This works almost like passive marketing, because it helps to establish you (or your company) as an expert in your field. You are providing the audience with useful or interesting information, and then they see that you are the source. This adds value and credibility to your brand.

In the case of infographics, good ones will oftentimes get picked up by popular blogs that report on your niche, whether it is related to automobiles, Internet marketing, the wedding industry, or any number of other areas. This again works as “free” advertising for your company, since your logo or brand name is attached to that infographic.

Best of all, you don’t really need to produce the infographic yourself. There are many freelancers on the Internet who are available to complete the entire process for you, including the background research, layout, typography, and more. Outsource to these professionals, have your name attached to the project as the official sponsor, and enjoy the passive brand awareness building.

Whether you run a blog as part of a bigger business or your blog stands on its own, it’s important that you have an ability to reach out to your audience and they have an ability to reach right back to you. The comment section is one way to do that, but not all communication is intended to be public. That’s why contact forms are so useful.

There are many different contact form plugins available for WordPress, but most require you to create a separate page for the contact form. That’s not the case with the Slick Contact Forms plugin. Instead, it uses jQuery and AJAX so the contact form can be rendered on any page. There is no page refresh needed.

The contact form can simply float or drop down as a tab. If you prefer, it can aslo be a sticky, slide-out tab. In any case, the contact form can be placed as a widget at all kinds of places around the web and includes three text input fields, as well as a text intro. To fight spam, it uses a “honeypot” mechanism with a blank input field hidden to users but visible to spambots. This is more streamlined that a Captcha-style system.

Learn more about the Slick Contact Forms WordPress plugin on Design Chemical, which is the site of the people responsible for the plugin. Screenshots, installation instructions, a live demo, shortcode information, and the free download link can all be accessed from that page.