I think all of us have dates that stand out in our lives. For me, that date is March 17, 1993. Yes, it is St. Patrick’s Day, but that isn’t why the date stands out for me. It was the date when I signed my first CorelDRAW book contract. Twenty years later, I wrote One Door Is Closing, Another to Be Opened to announce that I had written my last book on CorelDRAW. That post also had a lot of unanswered questions as to my future direction. Now that the 25th anniversary of my first book contract has arrived, it is time to try and answer a few more questions.

Let’s first talk about my CorelDRAW activities. I announced five years ago that I would not be writing any more CorelDRAW books and that hasn’t changed. If there was even a slim chance my mind could change five years ago, it is far more slim today. At the time I was still writing some magazine articles about CorelDRAW and doing some live CorelDRAW training. My last magazine article ran a month ago and I’ve taught my last class. Could I write another article or teach another class? It isn’t impossible, but I certainly won’t be pursuing anything.

Loyal readers of this blog have certainly noticed that posts related to CorelDRAW have become rare. While I’m sure I’ll write about CorelDRAW from time to time, it isn’t something that will be covered here often. For those of you looking for CorelDRAW information, we have a lot to offer on our dedicated CorelDRAW Unleashed site. There are free video tutorials, my training materials, add-ons, artwork and much more. While we won’t be adding much to the site in the future, it still has a wealth of information to benefit users.

Now let’s look at how our product offerings have changed drastically in the last five years. Many of our offerings had been supplied on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. We incurred the cost of producing the discs and shipping them to you. Now those products are all downloadable, even the massive 9+ GB CorelDRAW X6 Unleashed bundle. While we still have a small cost to pay for these big downloads, they allow you to receive products quicker and without shipping costs. This also includes our Seamless Textures Unleashed collections where we’ve added thousands of new textures in the last five years. Our most popular products are vehicle template subscriptions used by thousands of vehicle wrap designers worldwide.

Not only did we move our content from discs to downloads, we also have taken the content from the Unleashed Productions Web site and divided it among ten different niche sites. As part of that process, I gained a lot of expertise in developing WordPress Web sites. While I have been involved in developing Web sites since 1995, the move to exclusively developing in WordPress has happened in the last five years. Being able to help other people and businesses build their presence on the Web is something I really enjoy. I’ve solved many problems in developing my own sites, and this allows me to provide solutions to clients very quickly and for a reasonable investment.

Of course there is a site devoted to my Web development efforts and you can visit it at Web Design Solutions Unleashed. Even if you don’t need our assistance in developing a Web site, we can help you keep your WordPress site maintained and secure. For those who don’t have a need for themselves, I hope you’ll consider referring others who have a need so that I can be of help to them.

All of these other changes means our office needs have changed drastically in the last five years. We no longer have physical inventory, our paperwork is very minimal and we are no longer providing training classes in our office. Thus there will be an office change in the near future to something far smaller. As our current office was designed as part of my home, I’ll be putting my home on the market in about two months. If I didn’t mention this, most of you wouldn’t even notice. The mailing address (that rarely is used) will change, but all of our online locations and phone numbers will remain the same. As described in Switching Our Phone Service to Ooma and Connecting to Alexa, we can answer our phones from anywhere in the world where we have Internet or phone service.

Everything I need to complete my work can be done anywhere I have a computer (and phone) connected to the Internet. This means I can spend more time in front of a keyboard at Casa Coburn in Loreto, Mexico. I’ve provided a link to my home in Loreto where I’ve been spending time over the past dozen years. Now I have everything I need to spend more time there. For those who simply want to know where to find Loreto, you’ll find a map below.

While no one knows exactly what the future may hold, I have far more answers today than I did five years ago. WordPress has replaced CorelDRAW as the primary product of my business focus. What hasn’t changed is helping others get the most out of the products on which I focus. Now I’m able to do that from whatever location I choose and being somewhere near the beach is very appealing to me.