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Make A Website For Your New Small Business

Recently find yourself unemployed and starting a new business? Setting up a website for your doesn’t have to be overly complicated or expensive. As a technology consultant, I often help business owners navigate their options, and I’ve found that the key is matching your technical comfort level with the right approach. Let’s break down the main paths you can take.

The simplest route is using a website builder. The most popular is Squarespace. Others include Wix and Weebly. These platforms offer what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editors, which means you can drag and drop elements onto your pages without touching any code. You’ll pay a monthly fee (typically $20-35), but this includes hosting, security updates, and customer support. The trade-off? Less flexibility in terms of customization, but for many small businesses, the pre-built templates and features are more than adequate.

For those willing to invest a bit more time in exchange for greater control, hosting your own WordPress site is worth considering. WordPress powers about 40% of all websites for good reason – it’s versatile and has a massive ecosystem of themes and plugins. You’ll need to arrange your own hosting (typically $5-25 monthly) and handle updates, but you’ll have more freedom to customize your site. Many hosting providers offer “one-click” WordPress installation, making the initial setup fairly straightforward.

A middle ground that’s gaining popularity is using managed WordPress hosting from providers like Kinsta. (I personally suggest against using WP Engine since they’ve been hostile to WordPress). These services combine the flexibility of WordPress with the hands-off maintenance of website builders. While more expensive than basic hosting (starting around $30 monthly), they handle security, updates, and performance optimization for you. This option makes sense if you want WordPress’s capabilities but prefer not to deal with technical maintenance.

Remember, your choice doesn’t have to be permanent. Many businesses start with a simple website builder and migrate to a more customized solution as they grow. The most important thing is getting online with a professional-looking site that you can manage within your budget and technical abilities.

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How I Used AI To Plan My Vacation To Japan

As a tech consultant, I’m always looking for new ways to put AI to work. But today, I want to talk about something beyond the usual business applications – how I used Claude, an AI assistant, to plan my family’s Japan adventure. It saved me a load of time.

You might be thinking, “Wait, you used AI for travel planning?” Most of us default to the usual suspects: TripAdvisor, travel blogs, and those massive Google Docs we share with family members.

Instead of jumping between dozens of browser tabs and trying to piece together the perfect itinerary, I simply had a conversation with Claude about what my family and I wanted to experience in Japan.

The magic wasn’t just in getting suggestions – it was in the back-and-forth dialogue that helped refine our plans. When I mentioned we wanted to experience both traditional and modern Japan, Claude didn’t just spit out a generic list of tourist spots. Instead, it helped craft daily itineraries that made sense geographically and culturally. For example, when Claude suggested pairing a morning visit to the serene Meiji Shrine with an afternoon in electric Akihabara, it also explained how these contrasts would give us a deeper understanding of Japan’s cultural evolution.

AI adapted plans on the fly. When I mentioned concerns about travel times between locations or specific dining preferences, Claude would instantly recalculate routes and suggest alternatives. No more spending hours on Google Maps trying to figure out if my ambitious plans were actually feasible.

As someone who works with technology daily, I’ve seen plenty of AI use cases, but this experience reminded me why I love this field. It’s not about replacing human judgment – it’s about enhancing it and speeding it up. Claude didn’t plan my trip for me; it planned it with me, taking my preferences, concerns, and family dynamics into account every step of the way.

Be specific about your interests and constraints. The more context you provide, the more personalized your itinerary becomes. And don’t be afraid to ask for adjustments – that’s where AI really shines, iterating and refining plans until they’re just right.

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Preparing To Leave Your Job

More than a few neighbors and clients are currently concerned with losing their federal government jobs. Here are some things that you can do from a technology perspective:

Fired

1. Send yourself your administrative or personal files from your work computer:

Typically, you can not move files to a USB drive for security reasons. Therefore, you should select the files and folders and right-click on them and choose Compress Files. Then you can email the compressed file to your personal email account. Keep in mind that just because sending the email is successful, receiving is not guaranteed. The problem is file size. Google accepts files up to 25mb. Each service has its own size limitations that you can lookup from a Google search. Therefore, you need to check the file size (right click and choose Properties to see the size) before sending. You would need to select just the amount of files for your email to be accepted by your personal email server. Then verify that you have received the files.

2. Download important employment history files such as those from eOPF to show your employment history, typically from your work computer for your login credentials to work:
https://eopf.opm.gov/

3. Make sure that you have your home computer in order. This will allow you to work on your resume, job search, finances, etc. to deal with the situation. This includes having: a reliable internet connection, a backup system for your data, and a basic antivirus such as the free Microsoft Windows Defender Antivirus (Macs do not need anything as they have Anti-virus built-in).

4. Connect to friends and colleagues over LinkedIn. If you want to keep up with people and be better prepared to network and find new work, LinkedIn is a key tool.

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AI Chatbots

AI chatbots are big news. People ask me what they should be doing with them. Here are my ideas to get started:

  • Search: Instead of searching Google for websites, consider using an AI chatbot.
  • Proofreading: Chatbots can offer suggestions and make changes based on grammar and content.
  • Shopping: If you have a specific need, for example for an appliance that fits in a particular set of dimensions and has particular needs, Chatbots can shortcut your research.

Keep in mind that these chatbots do “hallucinate” so always verify important information.

The key is to interact with the AI Chatbots. Don’t just ask it to write you an email. Tell it what you are trying to do and ask it to ask you questions so that it can do a better job. Then provide it feedback and tell it what kind of changes you would like.

I think of these chatbots as smart and very literal minded assistants. The more information that you can provide, the better that the assistant will be able to do what you want.

I personally like using Claude, but I also use ChatGPT. Deepmind (the new chatbot from China) is also highly regarded. Give them a try and see how they fit into your life.

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Stolen Device Protection

Highly recommended: All iPhone users should turn on Stolen Device Protection. This will help against someone “shoulder surfing“ you and then stealing your phone and taking all your money.

As explained by Apple, you can turn on Stolen Device Protection in Settings:

  1. Go to Settings, then tap Face ID & Passcode.
  2. Enter your device passcode.
  3. Tap to turn Stolen Device Protection on or off.