Our 2010 Web Site ReDesign

Author: Jerrald Hayes; Published: Feb 17, 2010; Category: News; Tags: Web Design, WordPress; No Comments

In preparation for the release of 360 Difference 3.2 later this winter or early spring we’ve redesigned and reorganized our website.

We stepped away from the HTML table based design we had here and remodeled the site this time using CSS to format the presentation and WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS). To do that we took the Evo4 CMS WordPress Theme developed by Ray Gulick of Evolution Web Development as a development framework and modified the CSS to look like another Macintosh inspired WordPress theme we’ve used before called iTheme design by Nick La (our design for the HowToDisposeOf.com website uses Nick La’s iTheme as a framework and we just we made changes there to the CSS too to get the right look for that site).

You can see from the screenshots on the right of the two designs that they have a very different look so when you see how the Evo4 theme can be CSS coded to look like iTheme you can begin to see the power and design flexibility that CSS gives to web designers.

Our choice of using WordPress as a Content Management System also enabled us to use the WP e-Commerce plug-in from GetShopped.org to organize and run The 360 Difference Store.

As we continue to add software products this spring and post training videos and answer support questions in our FAQ we hope you’ll all tell us how this new web design looks and works for you.

How Much Should I Charge by Ellen Rohr

Author: Jerrald Hayes; Published: Feb 17, 2010; Category: Books; Tags: Accounting, Markup; No Comments

How Much Should I Charge?:
Pricing Basics for Making Money Doing What You Love

By Ellen Rohr
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While she never uses the phrase ‘Capacity Based Markup’ in plain simple language that anyone can understand Ellen Rohr lays out and explains the mechanics of setting a price for your work using what is essentially a ‘Capacity Based Markup’ methodology.

Also I highly recommend her companion book:

Where Did The Money Go?- Easy Accounting Basics for the Business Owner Who Hates Numbers

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It a great book for gaining a simple understanding of the accounting basics as contractors we often seem to skip over when we first go into business and don’t really pick up on or get interested in until we’re inspired by a crisis.

Running a Successful Construction Company by David Gerstel

Author: Jerrald Hayes; Published: Feb 17, 2010; Category: Books; Tags: Markup; No Comments

Running a Successful Construction Company

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Running a Successful Construction Company by David Gerstel is considered by many to be a seminal classic book on running a building and/or remodeling contracting business in addition to giving us a great explanation and the definitive phrase "Capacity Based Markup".

Is in Chapter 5; Estimating and Bidding, and more specifically on pgs 167 through 168 that Gerstel talks about using what he calls a “Capacity Based Markup” which is the same thing as what is otherwise known as a PROOF or Indexed or Labor Allocated Markup which Irv Chasen, Ellen Rohr, and I all talk and write about and why it’s a safer better bet for a new contractor with a varied mixed of projects to use.