Download the latest Pixelita whitepaper on Troublefree WordPress Installation and Upgrade here (255KB PDF)! The appendices contain a sample wp-config.php file and links to help you lock down your site from hackers.

If you’re like me, you probably made some New Year’s resolutions to get better organized this year. Pixelita Designs is busier than it’s ever been right now and my Christmas present to myself this year was to purchase the Small Biz version of Ilija Studen’s Active Collab, a Basecamp-type project management tool. I tried out ActiveCollab back when it was open source, as a substitute for PHPCollab, the PM tool I’d been using pretty much since I started doing web design for a living. PHPCollab is an awesome PM system with Gantt charts and a pre-populated web design project template with helpful milestone presets, but it’s overkill for most of our web design projects and not nearly as intuitive as AC is. Plus, development seems to have stalled out, with a new version 2.5 being promised for nearly a year now. And my clients found PHPCollab a bit cumbersome to navigate, whereas they all love AC and use it consistently. But to be fair, there are several other PM systems out there, such as old timers BaseCamp and PHPCollab, and some relative newcomers, like 5PM and CollabTRAK, which I’m going to briefly review for you below.

A lively discussion on a design forum prompted me to make the following observation, which I felt deserved its own post, touting the power of Twitter. Here’s my story. So … tell me what drew you to Twitter?

I joined over a year ago and didn’t really see the point of it. I mean, do I really care that your two-year old just spit up her strained peas all over your Vera Wang silk scarf? But this past July I started using it as a tool to advise my web hosting clients about server issues. And the lightbulb moment, when I really understood how Twitter can galvanize a community was during Hurricane Ike. I live in Houston, Texas, which took a direct hit from Ike on September 13.

I was able to stay online via my Verizon cell phone while huddled in my hallway that night while a local TV station twittered what was going on around us. But it was during Ike’s aftermath that I had new respect for Twitter. That same TV station continued to twitter about useful pieces of information: Who has gasoline and how much it costs, who is handing out ice and bottled water, the status of electrical outages (they were citywide for days), which restaurants and grocery stores are open for business, etc. It was an invaluable resource for late-breaking very salient information. I’ve been hooked ever since!

Want to share what brought YOU to Twitter? Drop a comment below and don’t forget to leave me your Twitter ID!