Everybody and their brother can call themselves a web designer these days. All you have to do is slap some html together, and all of a sudden you’re hanging up your shingle. Chris is the real deal, though, and he has saved my butt throughout the web design process.

Chris held my hand throughout the whole thing. When I called him in a panic saying that I was going to be a Problogger sponsor in the grand total of four days, he calmed me down and told me not to worry, he could do it. And he did. When I realized 36 hours before my launch that it might be a good idea to have StumbleUpon and Digg buttons, and change the location of my comments, and figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with Feedburner, he was calm and professional and made it all happen.

This is what’s great about Chris. He creates clean designs. He knows that the point of a website is communication – with your readers, your customers, or your friends. He knows how to get a point across without cluttering up your site with a bunch of useless widgets or unnecessary words.

Here’s what Chris says about Cagintranet:

“A small, yet highly focused design studio built on exceptional work, great relationships and an uncanny knack for the creative.”

It’s so true. When I first called Chris, he picked up on the second ring. We talked about my site. We talked about our kids. We just talked about stuff. He got back to me with a totally reasonable proposal really quickly, and off we went. I later found out that the entire point of Chris’ existence is not actually to pacify me at all hours of the night. He also has a day job with a major financial corporation in Pennsylvania and a wife and a 13-month old and other clients. Not that I would know – he was totally focused on me and what I needed throughout.

I found Chris through his blog, AdClustr. Chris doesn’t like ugly ads. I like people who don’t like ugly ads. He has some great ideas for ad integration and features examples from real, live blogs. This is important, because there are so many people around the blogosphere that think they have a clue what they’re talking about but can’t point to an example of it. They rant and storm about theoreticals, but that’s very little use to a new blogger who doesn’t understand the terminology. Chris obviously puts his experience as a web designer to good use here and explains things well. Here are some cool things floating around in his blog:

Help Yourself By Cloaking Affiliate Links

12 Ways to Force Your RSS Feeds To Earn Money

Have Happy Customers? Give Them What They Want!

Check out his web design site. Check out his blog. When you’re ready to launch your home business website or redesign your blog, this is the place to go.

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Anyway, Jarkko Laine is a software developer in Finland who is Insanely Interested In Everything. That’s his tagline – his wife made it up. (A little shoutout to Jarkko’s wife, Mari – I have a husband like that and I know how you feel, honey.)

Here’s what Jarkko has to say about his site: “This blog is all about creating software in a honest way that is good for you, your environment, your family, your customer and all the people around you.”

Now keep in mind, if I ever got it into my head that I could create software, my husband would choke on his Snickers from laughing so hard. I am not a software person. Not. At. All. However, I still think Jarkko’s site rocks. I kind of want to be a software person now. Okay, not really. But you see what I’m saying.

He really is interested, not to mention interesting. He ran a series of posts throughout the month of September about things that other people were insanely interested in, and then interviewed them, asking very intelligent questions. Jarkko talks about all sorts of things, all of which are, well, interesting. (Hey, maybe if I keep writing “interesting” over and over, I’ll rank on Google for it.) He writes big, beefy posts that don’t skimp on content. I like that. (Marketing Guru Extraordinaire Seth Godin recommends short posts. I don’t agree. That’s why I read his books and don’t subscribe to his blog.)

Both Jamie and I agree that his site is nice to look at which doesn’t happen very often since I’m incredibly picky and he’s color blind. The blog is attractive, but still masculine, and nobody’s going to look at you like you’re an idiot if they come up behind you while you’re surfing it. He has a few featured sites in the sidebar which aren’t ugly or spammy, one of which is for Blog Mastermind. If the quality of Jarkko’s site is any indication, I have a feeling he’s a student of the program. (I purposely didn’t link to Blog Mastermind there. If you want to sign up for it, which you probably should, go give Jarkko your affiliate dollars. He deserves them more than I do.)

Here are some things to check out on Jarkko’s site:

If you’re a fan of Zen Habits, read How To Be The Next Leo Babauta.

If you’re launching your home business while working a full time job, read The Seven Deadly Sins of a Side Business Entrepreneur.

If you think you might need a career at some point, read What Is A Rewarding Career And How You Can Get One.

If you need some inspiration and a jumpstart to your creativity, read You Can Sell Anything, Just Do It.

If you’re still reading this instead of checking it out, go read Warning: To Achieve Great Results You Have To Endure Some Pain and watch the video. Seriously, go watch it. I’ll wait.
One of the coolest things that Jarkko has to say is this:

“Writing about something in a way that other people will benefit from it forces you to really think about the topic.”

As bloggers, writers, copywriters, marketers, or people who deal with other people on any kind of a regular basis, we should keep this in mind.

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Anyway, Scott of Hello, My Name Is Scott fame has his phone number on his website. He has a home business office number, yes, but he also has his cell phone number. Yup, his cell phone. As in, the one that he carries around with him when he’s having lunch with his girlfriend.

Why does Scott do this? Because he’s a guy who wrote a book called The Power of Approachability. He’s a guy who has been wearing a nametag for 2,527 days straight in order to increase friendliness and approachability in the world. He wants you to contact him. He wants you to say, “Hi, Scott. My name’s Naomi.” (Well, unless your name’s not Naomi. Then that would just be weird.)

Basically, Scott’s website and blog are about improving your business through making yourself different and approachable and generally awesome. He has tips for trade show networking and business cards. He talks about the phrases that payses. He gives 9 cool self-motivational tips for entrepreneurs.

What Scott’s website has to say about Scott:

“His ubiquitous web presence and powerful platform have earned him a surprising amount of credibility seeing that he’s just some guy who wears a nametag every day.”

And yes, he wears one every day. All day. In bed. In the shower. 24/7. How? By going big and getting the damn thing tattooed on his chest, which is just about the coolest thing I’ve heard in a very long time. That? That is branding. Like, with a freaking BRAND.

I would only make two recommendations about this home business site. I’m not in love with the white-on-gray text. It’s hard to read. When you have more than 700 pages of free articles on your site, readability is pretty important. I find myself having to leave for a while and come back to read his archived articles if I’m in the mood to read for any length of time. I’m a home business owner. I don’t really have time for that.

Also, if I were Scott, I’d increase interlinking between articles. In the Phrases That Payses, for example, the one I read was called 58 (More) Phrases that Payses, although I had a hard time finding the originals. It might increase his stickiness if he were to put something at the bottom of each article linking to similar ones.

All in all, fantastic. Although I wouldn’t expect a whole lot less from a dude who can command upwards of ten grand for a speaking appearance at the ripe old age of 27.

Oh yeah. He has a pretty awesome post about bad sweater parties, too.

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