I don’t know about you, but I have Comcast as my ISP and I swear their Slowsky turtles have staged a revolt! Everyone I have spoken to in our area is dealing with ridiculously slow Internet connections for the past few days. It is making me a little CRAZY.

It’s a good thing the Slowsky’s are so cute, otherwise I might have to have to make turtle soup!

Just sharing some of my favorite reads and finds for the week!

• Drew McLellan wrote a a wonderful educational piece for anyone who has ever hired a web designer - Are you being held hostage by your web designer? Lesson #1 - always do your own domain registration to make sure you own it. There are some other good lessons in the post - but I’ll let you go over and discover them for yourself.
• In case you missed it, Wendy posted the Top 10 Internet Home Business Ideas You Can Start and Run in Your Underwear.
• Brian Gardner released his new premium WordPress theme, Revolution. Revolution is just what it means - a new way of looking at WordPress as a CMS. I have a few projects in mind that would really work well with the Revolution theme. September is looking good. Randa or Randa Clay (nice new header, by the way) and Charity of Design Adaptations both posted their take on the new theme - insightful and right on the money!
• Looking for some really sharp and creative backgrounds and patterns for your site? I was Stumbling today and found Squidfingers. There are 158 patterns that you can get - for free!
  
• Have you ever wanted to test out a font, but wasn’t sure of what it would look like on the screen. Typetester is a WAY COOL tool for previewing fonts, sizes, styles and more.

We have a Guest Blogger today!  Mike, a.k.a DevDad, is a web designer and SEO specialist from Tampa Bay, Florida. Mike writes at DevDad as a way to document his life as a stay-at-home dad, as a new business owner, and as a guy who is trying to figure out how to juggle more than he is used to.

One of the things I have struggled with throughout my entire career, whether working for myself or someone else, is whether I should focus on the things that make “bringing home the bacon” exceptionally easy, or those that I legitimately enjoy. I have always done web design, but don’t consider myself particularly gifted when it comes to the actual creation process, and more importantly, I don’t really enjoy it. What I love, however, is the internet marketing field as a whole.

I love writing and turning the basic text people throw on their websites into optimized, sales-driven page copy. Yes, it’s geeky, but besides my daughter, I literally live for making websites successful. I do not, however, live for making websites. There is something magical about turning a side project into a self-sufficient driving force for a client’s business. While the actual design process is obviously an essential factor in terms of success, it just isn’t where I shine. When success is quantitative, you can quickly and easily measure whether or not you are doing your job, which, for me anyway, is extremely important.

There are literally thousands of web designers out there who consider themselves SEO specialists - I was one of them, only the opposite. I have become an internet marketing specialist that is also a designer. If we could all face the facts about what we are and are not, we’d all have businesses that produce higher quality products, and as a result, are much more profitable. It took years, but I have come to the realization that I am not a web designer. I have an eye for good design, but I lack the interest, workflow, and at times, the ability to take on large-scale design projects. Sure, I’ve completed dozens of websites, and have overwhelmingly happy clients. I just don’t love it.

So, to all you designers out there who pretend to be marketing people, and marketing people who pretend to be designers, why not focus on what gets you hot? If it’s design, focus on design! If it’s marketing, focus on marketing! If it’s both, more power to you! For those of you that realize that you really enjoy or excel at one aspect of the internet “game”, I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love to collaborate on projects to make sure everything is completed quickly, properly, and passionately. I can even think of one guy that would love to work something out with a designer who is tired of doing the marketing on client projects!

Char speaking now! I agree with Mike. There are so many aspects to working in Web design and it is difficult to be good at it all, especially if you are interested in taking on larger projects. One of the biggest benefits to blogging and social media is the ability to connect with others in your field who have complimentary skill sets to your own.

Here are a few more of my favorite posts on finding your passion and putting it into play in your business:

• Finding your passion amid the hate - one of many great posts from Tony at Success from the Nest
• How business strategy can be about love - part of a back and forth series between Dawud and Liz
• What’s my passion? by Phil Gerbyshak the Make it Great Guy