We’ve all been there. A button on our site that leads to all sorts of awesomeness, dormant and unclicked. How do you spice it up? Iconography, my friend. And good iconography at that. First, the free option: FontAwesome. FontAwesome is a font filled with icons (think Dingbats or Wingdings). In this case, all the icons…
The marketing of web design is probably not something you know a lot about. Turns out, it’s pretty laden with buzzwords and jargon that is not only confusing, it can cost you time, money, and your hairline. I went through a few of the biggest names in DIY websites, compared them to the big web…
We get it. You hate spam. Everybody does. As of 5PM on July 1, 2014, Akismet had filtered out 176,453,691 spam WordPress comments since 12:01 AM July 1, 2014. That’s 176.5 MILLION spam comments that were stopped. And that’s just on blogs that have Akismet installed (WordPress.com by default, and quite a few WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and other…
In the grand scheme of things, the Heartbleed bug was pretty bad… but it certainly wasn’t any worse than some of the silly stuff some folks try to get away with every day in terms of security. Like using “Admin” as your WordPress username. Using “Admin” as a username is ridiculously stupid. Not only is it easily hacked,…
I recently got into what could only affectionately be called a “pissing match” with another 15-year veteran of web development. The basic gist of the argument was this: I believe it’s perfectly OK for you to use discount (HostGator, BlueHost, etc) hosting if you’re a newbie* (*you know, as long as you back up your…
Common sense on what a “strong” password is has changed a little bit. Chances are, you might think a strong password is: (at least) one upper-case letter (at least) one lower-case letter (at least) one symbol (at least) one number And as a result, you’ve probably generated a password something like this: $ax0ph0n3 – Right? Turns out, that…
Your generic email address is losing you money for no good reason. A study conducted by Visible Logic indicated that 70% of those who see a “generic” email address on your business card (ie: @aol.com, @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com) have a lesser opinion of you than if you had an @yourbusiness.com email address. In fact, of…
Are you hiring a web designer, graphic designer, copy writer, or any other professional to help you with your business this year? You need to check out our latest presentation! 10 Questions to Vet your Contractor. The questions cover everything from what to expect when you’re reviewing the contract to how to understand what a…
When I teach, I usually explain websites as houses. The blueprints/structure? WordPress. The land you build on? Hosting. The address? Domain. The style and layout of the house? Theme. If you’re totally new to websites, don’t get overwhelmed by this graphic, just try to learn as much as possible. Intimate knowledge of every aspect of…
Today’s HostGator, HostMonster, and BlueHost hosting outage caused a mass of problems for geeks everywhere as angry friends, family, and clients emailed to say something like this: “WHERE THE HELL IS MY WEBSITE!?” So, I wanted to do something to help out those that were affected (my sites were down today too). Here are some quick…
