With this blog post I start a series of tutorials. I am a big user and fan of the Toolset Plugins, using them you can build any kind of dynamic content, you can use Types to create a custom post type and Views to display it anywhere in your posts, pages and widget areas.

This tutorial show you how to build a simple dynamic testimonial system in your WordPress powered website using Types, CRED and Views.

The steps are as follow:

1. With Types, you create a Testimonials Custom Post Type, adding also two custom fields
2. With CRED, you create a "New Content Submission Form" that will feed the Testimonials custom post type
3. With Views, you create a View that will display all testimonials entries in the WordPress page you choose

Just to give you a real sample of what I'm saying I show you the testimonial listing page in my website: My Testimonial Page, it has been built with the Toolset Plugins.

I made a video to show step by step how to do it, enjoy...

I don't know you but speaking by experience I had in the last few years at least two major computer crashes with loss of data and guess what... I had to re-setup the computer email program again. I have also clients and guess what... had many calls asking for some help on how to re-setup the email programs on their computers all POP3 and SMPT server info and so on. Since I am a big fan of Google Services after the latest computer crash I decided to try Gmail as a web based email solution. My main objection was that I was not very keen to show my business prospects that I was using a free service, as you probably know Gmail is free. I am quite fussy, so I like to know in deep the web applications I use and doing that  I have discovered that Gmail allow businesses to use their own email address while using Gmail. So instead to show to your prospects yourbusinessname@gmail.com that looks no different than Yahoo or Hotmail just to quote other popular free email services, you can use yourname@yourbusinessname.com and people who are reading your email won't see that you are using Gmail.

If you are running a business it's not that good to show your business prospects that you are using a free service.

Judge by yourself:

bill.jones@bjsolicitors.co.uk or bjsolicitors@gmail.com

which one looks better?

To give you  a proof of what I am saying see the screenshot below from my Gmail account. As you can see when you send an email recipients will see in the "From" field your business email.

A screenshot of my Gmail account

Further we can setup Gmail to use its own server on sending email, this is a big advantage, because Google servers are very reliable. Just to recap the steps listed below will show you how the system work:

1. Gmail go to our server and collect any email sent to yourname@yourbusinessname.co.uk - In technical terms is the POP3 fetching
2. Gmail display in your inbox all email collected from your email account in our server
3. When you send an email Gmail will show in the "From" field your business email so nobody will know that you are using a free service
4. On processing the email sending Gmail will use its own very reliable servers

So you get the advantage of a web based service like Gmail that you can access from anywhere using any device like laptop, smartphone and tablets with all of your emails stored in the Google server with the chance to show your own business email address to your prospective customers.

If for any reason your computer crashes your emails that are stored on the Google server are not affected.

When we setup Gmail for our clients we like to assure them on saying "From now on even if your computer crash ten times, your emails, contacts and business info won't be lost, the only info crucially important for you to remember are the username and password to access your Gmail account"...