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This quick tip is for filmmakers, videographers, and photographers who make use of model releases. Even if you have verbal permission to film or photograph someone, it’s a really good idea to have the subject(s) sign a release. Normally, this means keeping printed releases with you. I always keep a bunch in my camera bag, but I don’t always have the bag handy, and sometimes I simply run out.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can install the super handy app called mRelease. It will allow you to create, store, and email pdf copies of model, location, property, and crew releases. Your subject can sign the release on your iPhone/iPod Touch (a stylus comes in handy for that). If you’re using an iPhone, you can take a quick photo to embed in their release, which makes identifying people in your footage/photos a snap.

mRelease will set you back $2.99, and it’s nice addition to add to your film/video/photography toolkit to keep things organized.

One of the keys to building websites, is properly preparing images to help pages load as quickly as possible. Generally speaking, programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks are used, but they can be quite spendy, ranging in price from $300 – $1000.

If what you primarily need to do is crop, resize, and compress images for the web, all of those programs can be expensive overkill. You could use programs that come with your computer, like iPhoto on a Mac, or Microsoft Photo Editor on Windows, but there are other, and sometimes much better, options.

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I do my best to maintain regular business hours, but as a self-employed owner of 2 businesses, I have a tendency to work far too much. I spend the majority of most of my days sitting in front of 2 monitors, which is not good for my eyes, body, or brain.

I’ve worked from home for several years, but the same was true back in my on-site freelancing days. Back then, some of my co-workers would take frequent breaks to step outside for a cigarette. They’d get to walk away from their desks for 10 minutes and get some not-so-fresh air. We non-smokers were left sitting in our cubicles. In retrospect, I don’t know why we didn’t just get up and take similar breaks.

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Eventually, we all have to upgrade most tech things, but some of us (and by “us” I mean me) aren’t early adopters of things. A not so well known fact about me is that I was still happily using Photoshop 7 until mid-2008, when I finally upgraded to CS3. Why? Because Photoshop 7 worked, and I saw no reason to upgrade. WordPress is not Photoshop.

And, on a completely unrelated note, I like the word kerfuffle.

Have you logged in to WordPress lately and been greeted with a notice to upgrade to the latest version?

If you have, it means it’s time to upgrade. Before you click on that “please update now” link, stop! There are a few important steps to follow to help minimize any potential problems. I’m all for taking risks from time to time, but not where my entire website or blog is concerned.

I’ve updated this post to include a screencast walk-through of updating WP, because the visual works for some folks, and the written works for others.

Step 1:
Back up your database. There are a couple of ways to back things up. You can either use the export option found under Tools, or you can use a database backup plugin like WP-DB-Backup or WP-DBManager. Whether you’re upgrading or not, you should backup your database on a regular basis

Step 2:
Deactivate all your plugins. Yup, all of them.

Step 3:
Now, click the please update now link.

If everything goes smoothly, reactivate all your plugins and carry on.

If things don’t go smoothly during the upgrade, don’t panic. Take a deep, cleansing breath: inhale, pink… exhale, blue (or exhale primal scream if need be), and perform the upgrade manually. The good folks at WordPress.org have a handy guide for that.

Now, if the upgrade goes smoothly, but there seem to be problems after reactivating your plugins, again don’t panic. Take another deep, cleansing breath and deactivate all your plugins again. After that, reactivate them one by one. When the problems show up again, it’s more than likely the last plugin you reactivated. Check to see if there’s an update for that plugin. If there is, update it. If not, deactivate the plugin. Even if you update the plugin, there could still be conflicts with other plugins, so you may have to do some deactivating and reactivating of plugins in pairs to determine if there are some that don’t play nicely with each other.

WordPress incremental releases, e.g. 2.8.5 to 2.8.6, are usually security releases, so it’s a good idea to stay on top of those. Keep your plugins updated as well. Major releases like 2.8.6 to 2.9 are not something I’d recommend jumping into right away. I’d recommend giving it about a month to allow for bugs and glitches to be found and resolved.