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Don't let your WordPress site get hacked

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It has happened again, another one of my colleagues sites was hacked. Sadly as WordPress gains popularity it’s becoming the victims of numerous hacks. WordPress is more complicated than regular HTML sites and requires that the database be backed up. This requires a special steps that not all hosting companies provide.

If you have a WordPress site, please make certain your hosting company is backing up the MySQL database as well as the files.

We backup all of our clients databases on a daily basis. In addition we offer a premium WordPress hosting system that offers in addition to our regular hosting the following additional features:

  • Weekly complete backups including MySql database to Amazon servers
  • Installation of dedicated security plugin and implementation of additional security
  • Speed Optimization
  • Regular updates of WordPress core files and plugins (this is perhaps the best way to ensure the security of your site)
  • Additional programming time if required is discounted from $125 to $100

Click here for more information on our WordPress Hosting Service

Or call us directly at 860-304-6369.

 

 

Why My Clients LOVE WordPress

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A few months ago my company created a new site for Wilcox Energy, a premium energy company delivering oil and energy services to residences located in Westbrook and surrounding towns since 1955.

Julie head of marketing wanted to have a special message with important information for their customers in the aftermath of  hurricane Sandy. She wanted the message to “hover” over all the pages. The perfect solution would be a javascript pop up. With a regular non-WordPress site she would need to hire a programmer and wait at least a couple of days.

However, since their site was created in WordPress Julie was able to download a free pop up plugin. Plugins are little programs that add cool functionality to WordPress. Most are free.

The pop up plugin was free and within an hour Julie had configured the desired javascript plugin.

Click  here to view the site and see the plugin in action.

This is a great way to easily project an important message to your clients.

 

 

 

Facebook to charge users to "promote" posts to their friends

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Facebook is experimenting with a new revenue stream, paid personal posts, but the idea could backfire. “I don’t think the average user will pay to have a post promoted unless it was in some way related to business or advertising. When asking our fans if they would be willing to pay, the general response was a flat-out ‘no,'” said Lauren Formalarie of SayItSocial.

Facebook wants you to advertise … to your friends.

The world’s largest social network, which announced Thursday that it has crossed the billion-user mark, has struggled to make money from its enormous pool of users. The solution: Turning individual users into advertisers.

“I thought it was a joke at first, to be honest,” explained Cameron Yuill, founder of digital media technology company AdGent. “Now they’re going to charge me $7 to tell my friends something?”

Facebook announced Wednesday that Joe Sixpack will soon be able to ensure that you’re reading his messages, thanks to an expansion of the Promoted Posts program, which lets businesses pay anywhere from a few dollars to a few thousand to ensure that hundreds of thousands of Facebookers see your posts.

I toyed with the idea of “paying” to promote this post, then I realized Mark has enough money and doesn’t need any of mine to promote his new ideas.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/10/04/facebook-to-charge-users-to-promote-posts-to-friends

Richard Branson 5 Tips to Start a Successful Business

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Richard Branson author of “Screw Business as Usual”

Five great tips for Richard Branson on  how to simply start a successful business.

 

1. Listen more than you talk

We have two ears and one mouth, using them in proportion is not a bad idea! To be a good leader you have to be a great listener. Brilliant ideas can spring from the most unlikely places, so you should always keep your ears open for some shrewd advice. This can mean following online comments as closely as board meeting notes, or asking the frontline staff for their opinions as often as the CEOs. Get out there, listen to people, draw people out and learn from them.

 

2. Keep it simple

You have to do something radically different to stand out in business. But nobody ever said different has to be complex. There are thousands of simple business solutions to problems out there, just waiting to be solved by the next big thing in business. Maintain a focus upon innovation, but don’t try to reinvent the wheel. A simple change for the better is far more effective than five complicated changes for the worse.

 

3. Take pride in your work

Last week I enjoyed my favourite night of the year, the Virgin Stars of the Year Awards, where we celebrated some of those people who have gone the extra mile for us around the Virgin world. With so many different companies, nationalities and personalities represented under one roof, it was interesting to see what qualities they all have in common. One was pride in their work, and in the company they represent. Remember your staff are your biggest brand advocates, and focusing on helping them take pride will shine through in how they treat your customers.

 

4. Have fun, success will follow

If you aren’t having fun, you are doing it wrong. If you feel like getting up in the morning to work on your business is a chore, then it’s time to try something else. If you are having a good time, there is a far greater chance a positive, innovative atmosphere will be nurtured and your business will fluorish. A smile and a joke can go a long way, so be quick to see the lighter side of life.

 

5. Rip it up and start again

If you are an entrepreneur and your first venture isn’t a success, welcome to the club! Every successful businessperson has experienced a few failures along the way – the important thing is how you learn from them. Don’t allow yourself to get disheartened by a setback or two, instead dust yourself off and work out what went wrong. Then you can find the positives, analyse where you can improve, rip it up and start again.

Google Maps Goes Underwater

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Dive into the Great Barrier Reef with the first underwater panoramas in Google Maps

We’ve added the very first underwater panoramic images to Google Maps, the next step in our quest to provide people with the most comprehensive, accurate and usable map of the world. With these vibrant and stunning photos you don’t have to be a scuba diver—or even know how to swim—to explore and experience six of the ocean’s most incredible living coral reefs. Now, anyone can become the next virtual Jacques Cousteau and dive with sea turtles, fish and manta rays in Australia, the Philippines and Hawaii.

Supercharge your WordPress site

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WordPress speed testGoogle is always trying to improve the users experience. This is the reason they add page load time their algorithm in ranking sites. Everybody is in a hurry, nobody wants to wait for a slow loading site. With more and more sites using WordPress it’s important that your fully optimize your WordPress for speed.

Fortunately, there are some basic rules and techniques to follow that can improve your website performance and increase the quality of your viewer’s experience.

Here’s my top five:

1 Optimize your images: I love to use sliders with 3 to 5 pictures on the home page and many others load up images on your home page. Images grab attention and quickly tell the “story” of your company. However, make certain you resize the images to the appropriate format before uploading them. If the image size is large, make it smaller to improve your page loading speed. Here’s one of our site’s with a couple of 870 x 400 images in the slide show, each image is less than 100K. Smaller images should be even slower. This is perhaps the fastest and easiest way to improve load time.

2: Upgrade your software: This is also important for security. WordPress developers are always working to create a better and faster versions of their software. So upgrading WordPress, your themes and plugins is important.

3: Install W3 Total Cache: This plugin is easy to install and works great. It reduces page load time and improves overall site performance.

4: Limit Number of Post on Home page: Optimize home page: Don’t over crowd your home page with numerous posts. Fewer posts also improves the look of your site. Limit number of posts to 4-6 and show excerpts only instead of full posts.

5: Use a good hosting provider: Ooops here comes the self-serving plug. All my sites are hosted on my dedicated server at RackSpace. This provides the fastest possible hosting since I am not a shared server with other “unknown” sites that could be sucking up the bandwidth. However, there are many good reliable providers out there. Here’s a good link to test the speed of your site.