Code Food Travel repeat!

Improve Your Mailchimp RSVP Emails with Add To Calendar

mailchimp-event-tips-add-to-calendar-steven-chu-studio-team-chuubie

Here’s the answer to getting people to show up to your events: SAVE US UNNECESSARY WORK. Use an Add to Calendar button in your email which’ll put your event info directly in our personal calendars.

Quick Tip: Make Emails Actionable.

My artist friend just sent out an email for his upcoming gallery opening.
It had a nice photo, it had nice text, and it had no way I could remind myself to go.

The best thing you can do for your customers’ experience (aka. all of us because we all get a ton of emails) is please give us SOME CLUE what is the one thing you want us to do as a result of having given you precious time to read the long email message.

You may have told us the what to do and why in some paragraph, but now show us the do.

It takes 10 seconds of your time to save each person 10 secs of their time.
10 secs per person x # people on your email list = hundreds of minutes saved from everybody creating their own calendar reminders.

Insane right? Why aren’t more people doing this?

 

Here are 2 sites to try out, both have free plans!

addtocalendar.com/

www.addevent.com/

Shopify Limitations: What the platform does not do

Shopify is fast. The interface is much simpler than wordpress, and it doesn’t break (where that’s the only thing wordpress does). However, there are a lot of things you can’t customize.

Shopify is basic.

Here is a list of things I am learning the platform does not do, as I continue to dig in further:

  • There is no easy way to add multiple products at once, except with a csv.. which is a pain in the ass.
  • There is no visual way to add products. It always requires you create a new product from the nav menu.. or duplicate an existing product.
  • You can’t customize Shopify’s product numbering system.
  • You can group products into a ‘collection’, but you can’t have different types of ‘collections’- meaning you can’t sort them, separate them. They are all lumped into one inseparable pudding.
  • You cannot sort your collections in any other way than alphabetical, or completely manual. I prefer to have my collections show by date added – new collections should show first. you can’t do this.
  • You can’t connect Shopify to any desktop app – like Lightroom, which your product photos are 90% likely to come out of if you have a business workflow.
  • And MOST IMPORTANTLY, Shopify product images experience a lot of trouble indexing in google & google images. Their support team says it’s been an ongoing issue, and that your ranking won’t be hurt. but that’s not my point. People shop visually, you can’t tell me or sell me otherwise. You cannot argue against this image:
  • shopify-google-images-indexing-problem
    • I also tried looking for my images in a variety of other ways. They simply don’t exist, and the ones that do aren’t coming up for any of the correct search terms. This is a huge huge blow. WordPress uses a cdn as well, and doesn’t have this issue.

So recommended CMS? I don’t know. WordPress is abismal and slow and clunky, but at least it ranks well and you can configure it to do almost anything you want (except manage an e-commerce business – no, woocommerce does not cut it. no plugin can cut it in wordpress because you have to work within their really outdated backend ui. as they say, you can’t build something awesome on a foundation of crap and expect it not to smell.)

and avoid Volusion.

SOLUTION: iMessage / Messages on Mac stopped working completely

Strategy 1:

  1. Sign out of iCloud, you’ll have to delete all your synced services (calendar / notes / etc.) but don’t worry they’ll come back when you sign back in. It’s just like signing out of your email on a public computer.
  2. Restart computer.
  3. Sign back in to iCloud via System Preferences. Once done, reopen messages, see if it works now.

sign-out-of-apple-id-mac-os-x

Strategy 2:

  1. While signed out of iCloud, go to your Library > Preferences folder. You can get there by clicking on Finder and clicking on the top menu item called GO, then hold OPTION to reveal the hidden Library folder option. Click on Library, then Preference. Delete any com.apple that starts with “iChat”, “iMessage”, and “Messages”.
  2. Restart computer.
  3. Sign back in to iCloud via System Preferences. Once done, reopen messages, see if it works now.

fix-imessage-delete-ichat-imessage-messages-preferences

Strategy 3:

  1. While signed out of iCloud, go to your Library > Identity Services folder, and delete everything inside there. It may get regenerated instantly, but just delete it again.
  2. Restart your computer.
  3. Sign back in to iCloud via System Preferences. Once done, reopen messages, see if it works now.

Strategy #3 fixed the solution for me, and I was able to send iMessages once again, and after I re-enabled Text Message Forwarding from my iPhone, and approved my MacBook Pro, i could send and receive SMS once more.

Note: I am running 10.11.6 El Capitan OS X.

 

Final Strategy:

If you still have problems, contact Apple Support and they should be able to help you fix it within 48 hours of your call.

  1. Go here: https://getsupport.apple.com/
  2. Click on “Apple ID” in the bottom row.
  3. Choose “iCloud, Facetime, Messages”
  4. Choose “Talk to Apple Support Now” or “Schedule a Call”

Best of luck!

 

Domain Host with FREE DNS Management – Save Money on unused domains

Hibernate your domain! How to put your domain into preservation / low cost mode.

Say you have a domain that you used to use, but aren’t actively using anymore – your fees are domain name + hosting, and dependencies are any services you signed up for or rely on through that former domain.

Mine for example is InstaTechie.com (formerly I ran a face-to-face tech concierge in NYC) – but I’ve since put it into hibernation.

My domain host (ENOM) does not provide free DNS management, so I was ecstatic to find that NAMECHEAP offers free DNS management for sites not hosted by them. Such a smart entry level product!! I got to try out their interface, and I must say it’s DEFINITELY better than GoDaddy’s.

GoDaddy vs. NameCheap

  • So it looks like GoDaddy also offers this service, but of course it’s a lot less clear and less user friendly.. as is GoDaddy’s M.O. https://www.godaddy.com/help/add-off-site-dns-20165.
  • For a direct side-by-side between their interfaces and usability, I read this which was pretty useful: https://www.shivarweb.com/2336/namecheap-or-godaddy/

 

 

FOLLOW THESE STEPS:

  1. I registered my domain on Namecheap’s FreeDNS service.
  2. Then I pointed my domain host’s Nameservers to Namecheapswitching-to-namecheap-free-dns-servers-steven-chu-chuubie
  3. Then I set up my google apps services (now G Suite) MX records back up so I can have email, and I added in A records so I can use GitHub’s free web page hosting service (you can alternatively route your A records to the platform of your choice. This same process will work for Amazon AWS, Shopify, etc):namecheap-advanced-dns-github-pages-google-suite-mx-steven-chu-chuubie-instatechie

 

ET VOILA!

How do I set my domain to use Namecheap’s FreeDNS service

Our FreeDNS service can be used for all domain names (except .DE domains) registered with other domain registrars.

In order to set up your domain to use the Namecheap’s FreeDNS service, please follow these steps:

1. Sign into your Namecheap account (The Sign In option is available in the top hat of the page).

2. Mouse over Domains at the top of the page and click on FreeDNS:


3. Add your domain (yourdomain.tld) or any subdomain (blog.yourdomain.tld, for example) to our FreeDNS service at the FreeDNS page and click on Get DNS:

4. Click on the shopping cart icon next to your domain and then click on the Set up DNS button:

5. Once you’ve done so, the following message will be displayed:

After you enroll the domain to use our FreeDNS service, you need to change the nameservers settings at your current registrar within 10 days to the following ones:

freedns1.registrar-servers.com
freedns2.registrar-servers.com
freedns3.registrar-servers.com
freedns4.registrar-servers.com
freedns5.registrar-servers.com

We will then try to verify if your domains are correctly pointed to our nameservers by continuously monitoring your domain’s DNS settings.

The FreeDNS service will be activated once we make sure everything is set properly.

It is possible to activate your domain on FreeDNS without pointing it to out nameservers. In order to do so, it is needed to authorize your domain name via email.

In order to proceed with activation, please follow these steps:

– Select Domain List from the left sidebar:

– Click on the caret for your domain and select the Authorize FreeDNS option:

– In the modal window, choose a valid email address and click on the Save changes button :

The system will send a verification email through which you can activate FreeDNS for your domain.

Due to security reasons, an authorization email cannot be sent to any other email addresses that the ones shown as your authorization email choice options. Please note that an authorization link lives only 48 hours.

NOTE 1: If you are having issues with email verification, feel free to contact Support Team to have your domain(s) authorized manually.

NOTE 2: If you wish to use the FreeDNS service as a backup to the existing DNS, add at least 2 our FreeDNS nameservers to the current DNS of your domain at your current registrar. For information on how to set up DNS at your current registrar, please check their FAQ documentation. In this case, authorization by email is required.

6. To add all your domain settings (host records, email settings, etc.) to your domain, please follow these steps:

– Select Domain List from the left sidebar and click on the Manage button next to your domain:


– Click on Advanced DNS at the top of the page. Here you can manage domain’s host records, mail settings and enable/disable the Dynamic DNS service:

NOTE 3: Please mind that if you change nameservers on your registrar’s side to our FreeDNS without adding any host records at Namecheap, your services will stop running.

Additionally, your services will be down for some period of time after the settings are added. Usually, DNS propagation takes 24-48 hours, and in some rare cases, it may take up to 72.

That’s it!

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