Matt Blancarte dot Com Design – Business – Two Cents

I recently received a cool plaque from Izea for my participation as a speaker at IzeaFest! It spurred me to write a post on my first time representing UBD on stage. Enjoy!

I’ve heard that some people would rather die than endure a public speaking engagement. I can identify with that…

Early in 2008, UBD was asked to attend a new conference by the name of IzeaFest. We of course accepted and made plans to exhibit and be a part of the Extreme Blog Makeover panel. I ended up taking the challenge of speaking on behalf of the company, which led to pretty extreme stress, anxiety, and in the end an overwhelmingly satisfying feeling of accomplishment. Kind of an emotional roller coaster you could say.

The goal of this post is to give you insight into what it’s like to take on a public speaking engagement for the first time, and how not…

First off, congratulations to UBD’s first year anniversary. If you haven’t entered our contest, follow that link to win some awesome prizes! We’re giving away an iPod Touch and our new Citrus Theme!

So, as the title inquires, how fast is your internet connection?

Bandwidth is everything.

If I can’t connect and move files, thoughts, money, etc. around quickly I begin to lose my marbles. Have you ever lost a cell phone and gone without it for a day or two? I have that similar feeling when my internet goes down for 30 seconds…

I strongly recommend testing your internet bandwidth for a few reasons:

• You’ll get to see if you’re getting what you’re paying for.
• If your speed is slow, you can consider upgrading to a better service package from your provider.
• If your speed is fast, you can brag to all of your friends and colleagues.
• You can rank your connection against the rest of…

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m one of the Unique Blog Designs founders. I started this personal blog back in July of 2007, and had it running for a few months. With the launch of UBD, I ended up spending all of my time working on the business, and designing for clients of ours. A blog-hiatus ensued, if you will.

Finally, a few months ago I finally sat down and began working on my personal blog design which was in need of desperate help. There’s something wrong when you’re a blog designer who uses a free theme for your personal blog… Anyways, I spent an entire weekend working on this design, and it turned out very well. Most of the designs I produce are spec’ed out by our clients, so having free-reign was great.

99% of blogs have white or light backgrounds and dark text (for obvious reasons)…