Archive for August, 2009

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 @ 10:08 PM
posted by admin

builderboyIt is essential to maintain an existing website to make sure that the links are functioning right or the content is error free. The right tools definitely make maintenance of website much easier rather than manually checking for every details and correction to error. With the proper website maintenance tools one can include pictures or text, update content on the website and fix rot links. A website owner has several options that are available to him that will help him with this job.

With the proper tools the webmaster or the website designer who is a professional can make sure as well as understand how to maintain a profitable website. Tools definitely help lower the cost of maintaining a website and are an efficient way to make required changes to the website. These tools also make the website compatible to be viewed on PDA’s and different technological devices that are hand held and are much popular in these times.

Tools such as the Link Check Tool are popularly used by webmaster’s that help them check if the link on the website is not a rot link. Each link on the website is checked and a detailed report of all of them can be compiled. It also gives regular warnings about directory redirects and HTTP redirects. If someone wants to find if the webpage has any bad tags, then tools such as the HTML check and repair tool is used which also checks if there is any syntax error in the code. It creates a report of all the mistakes in the code and corrects them automatically, at the same time checking the appearance of the page with that of the uncorrected version.

It is also possible to check if the website is compatible with different browsers. Different browsers respond differently to HTML tags, the tool makes sure that errors are taken care of since it automatically repairs them and makes it viewable in all browsers. Any website increases in size if there are too many applications or heavy pictures that are included in it. Videos also increase the size of the pages. The Load Time Check Tool checks the time your website takes to download on a browser, along with review on the size of objects that are included. It also checks to see if there is any bad HTML coding that could be the result of the page not loading. Spell check tool as the name suggests, help in checking for any spelling mistakes that the content of the webpage could have. Another useful tool is the Image Optimization tool that helps to compress image files belonging to different extensions. It helps in reducing the size of the image at the same time maintains its quality. It also allows us to compare the images, the final one and the earlier heavy image. Just so that you know there is no change in the quality of the image.

There are several software tools that are available to optimise a website and maintain it efficiently. It definitely reduces the cost, time and effort that a webmaster needs to put in while he maintains the website.

Please contact Whole Integration for all of your website design and maintenance needs.

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Doug’s Web Design LLC / Whole Integration, a Veteran Owned and Operated Business.

Content by Whole Integration

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Friday, August 21, 2009 @ 10:08 PM
posted by admin

security

 

 

 

Some people think that you can create a website, upload it to a hosting server and forget about it. Nothing is more distant to the reality. Everyday new bugs are discovered and exploited, some may be related to the language that was used to create your webpage, (php, asp, jsp etc) others may be related to the software that displays your page (apache, nginx, iis etc), others may be related with third party software (how many sites require the adobe flash plug-in to work properly?) and others may be related to the Operating System that your host server is using.  Whatever is the bug and wherever it comes from you are always at risk.

 

Then doesn’t everyone get hacked and have their sites shut down? The main reason is statistics, there are millions of websites in the world, the chance that someone with enough knowledge and free time to attack your web is like the odds of winning the lottery (but someone has to win the lottery right?).   Another reason is that hacking is not a trivial task, don’t trust the movies, there are no fashion GUIs and handsome teenagers hacking a website in 5 minutes. To hack a website normally requires a lot of hours and a considerable effort that most hackers are not going to spent.

How to be safe? Here are a few tips that will help you:

 

1)      Always have a remote backup of your files, if something goes wrong you will not lose your valuable info in an instance.

 

2)      If you use a third party software, for example Joomla, drupal, osCommerce, Magento, etc check their websites for security updates and new versions, think about it: suppose you are using Joomla 1.0 as it was originally released and you never updated it. If a hacker finds your website, he only has to check the bugs that were found on Joomla 1.0 and patched in the next release. If you failed to update Joomla you are still vulnerable to the reported bugs (and many are very well explained!)

  

3)      Always use passwords longer than six characters, with some capital letters, numbers and symbols. Utilize a vey custom password that fails to meet any dictionary standard word.

 

4)      When hiring a hosting provider don’t only see the price and the promised bandwidth and hard drive space. Ask them what versions of the software they use, how often they check for updates, and if they have an IDS (intrusion detection system). This will help you to make a better decision for you and your company.

I followed all of this advice but got hacked anyway, what should I do?

 

Don’t panic, the banks also take a lot of precautions and they get their sites hacked from time to time. Take a deep breath and contact your hosting provider or sysadmin. Don’t touch anything, even the most paranoid hacker leaves some traces, (sometimes the traces are only visible with root access) so if you start changing things you will help him to hide his actions. Instead compare the files (after the hacking) with the files of your last backup. The modification date of a file will reveal what files were changed in the last days, and if you compare the size in KB of the current files against their backups, you will find out the files with more or less code. Also inspect the server logs; they can reveal valuable information about how the hacker got access.

 

After you have an idea of how the hacker got in, (or even if you did not find it out) you should create a “honeynet”, whats that? Short answer: a trap. Once you restore the website, the hacker will be tempted to hack it again, so you should start monitoring your website in partnership with your sysadmin and/or hosting provider, and leave it untouched for some time, this way any action can be associated with the hacker and will reveal his techniques.

 

Jorge

Whole Integration

 

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Doug’s Web Design LLC / Whole Integration, a Veteran Owned and Operated Business.

Content by Whole Integration

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 11:08 AM
posted by admin

tools“The aim of a true achievement must lie, not in futile efforts towards the complete accommodation of man to circumstances in which he chances to find himself, but in the maintenance of a kind of candid discontent, in the face of the very highest achievements” ~ Walter Horatio Pater.

 As Walter puts it, maintenance is actually the fuel that keeps us going. Be it the circumstances we deal with in our life, or the challenges we experience on the web, the story is similar. All we need is to maintain and keep the websites fresh with website maintenance and we will have fewer reasons to complain. 

In today’s time, the technology is continually advancing. A regular visitor to a website can easily be lured into another, merely because of the monotonous content, the look, and the options that remain un-upgraded. We keenly observe these days every web portal is innovating by introducing something new each day that its immediate competitor doesn’t offer. We all know how the chat was introduced in several e-mail portals after google took the lead. So, let’s understand how we can stay in lead in keeping the websites fresh.. Here are some tips:

 * Keep a close tab on the deadline and keep your website up to date. Make the changes visible for your visitor by including new RSS feeds, new links, offers, backgrounds, etc.

 * Check to eliminate all the reasons for the visitor getting to read this statement, “The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.” Let’s admit it, we can’t afford this happening. It’s important that we ensure that all the links work, by deleting/correcting any that don’t

 * Ensure all the images are displayed properly. Use Alt Tags behind your images, in case the picture doesn’t load correctly. The Alt tag will display and the user still knows what the picture is about.

* Are you online? Most of the web monitoring companies can stay watchful on the downtime being experienced each week. Please consider to change your web host if they cannot ensure the site is operational 24 hrs a day.

* Wanna stay safe? Always have a back up database of your website’s content. You could also copy and paste the content, with links, into a document and store that. If something goes wrong, you can rebuild your site fairly quickly.

There are many things that all webmasters must do on a regular basis to ensure that their web sites remain functionally fresh. Let’s put together a check list of introspective questions that can might help in letting your creative juices flow out.

 1) Have you promoted your website constantly?

2) What attempts have you taken to get people to your site?

3) Have you checked is there is a “link rot” happening somewhere?

4) Have you kept changing the content constantly to keep your visitors glued?

5) Are you checking the page counts to know if your website is being constantly reviewed?

With all of these maintenance options and suggestions above, you will have all of the knowledge and information needed to make the right decision about your website and your maintenance.  Please feel free to contact Whole Integration or Doug’s Web Design LLC about all of your website design maintenance needs.

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Doug’s Web Design LLC / Whole Integration, a Veteran Owned and Operated Business. 

 

Content by Whole Integration

Murrieta Website Maintenance, Temecula Website Maintenance, SoCal Website Maintenance, Los Angeles Website Design, Orange County Website Design, Murrieta Website Deisgn, Temecula Website Design, Orange county website design companies, OC Website Design Companies, Los Angeles Website Design Companies, San Diego Website Design Companies, Orange County Web Design, Webmaster, Maintenance, Content writing, Color Blind Website Design, Web Design, Corporate web design, corporate, web design maintenance, ecommerce, oscommerce, zencart, magento, custom design, custom website design

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Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 06:08 PM
posted by admin

maintenance guyIf you think that hosting a business website for your business is sufficient to carry out your business successfully, you are wrong. Your website must be updated with new content and existing bugs and errors in your website must be cleared. You have to maintain your website from time to time and ensure that all the contents presented in your website are relevant and up-to-date. Sometimes, you may wish to post interesting news in your website about your niche. In that case, your website must be updated more frequently to display current trends and news. Thus website maintenance is an integral part of continuous online presence of your website. 

Whole Integration offers website maintenance services. You can get the services depending on your affordability. Website maintenance involves a lot of tasks. By outsourcing this to another company, you can concentrate on your core business process. Further, as you let website expert’s work on your website, you can be confident that all parts of your website are taken care of by the experts. You can give your own input so that the main theme of your website never changes. 

Update text 

One of the key website maintenance services is text updates. The company which gains access to your web hosting account will add new updates to the existing text on your website. If changes are to be made to the existing content, the company will do so. Moreover, new links can be created to convey more information through your website. 

Update graphics 

People get bored with the same old fashioned look of your website. Depending on your business and trends, some changes in website graphics can be done. These changes can make your website more interesting. Just by changing the location of graphics, many websites have experienced increased productivity. The company providing maintenance services will take care of editing existing graphics and adding new ones. 

Navigational changes 

While designing your website, you might have used some navigation pattern. But your users may find the pattern uncomfortable. These navigational changes can be made to your website to make your website more navigable. 

Page design changes 

Depending on user reaction and statistics, changing of page design is also one of the important website maintenance services. However, the look of the whole website need not be changed unless truly necessary. 

Integrity checks 

Just by making changes, website maintenance service is not complete. All the changes must be checked for integrity to ensure that the changes are appropriate to your website visitors. Retesting of your website must be done after each and every change. 

Communicating third party services 

For proper website maintenance, the company you have hired will communicate with third parties such as credit card processors, hosting companies and others to make changes visible in your website. Page design changes that affect third party services must be communicated properly to ensure smooth functioning of your website. 

Website backup 

It is important to keep a backup copy of the whole website. This will help you in times of distress. Website maintenance service provider will take a complete backup of your website incorporating each and every change. 

Please view our website for more information regarding your website maintenance.  If you would like to contact us about your website and the maintenance you would like to start, please contact us.

Content by Whole Integration

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 @ 10:08 PM
posted by admin

maintenancemanWebmasters have a varied list of tasks on their hands when it comes to maintaining a website. Enhancing a website, deploying it and rectifying its defects are all steps to maintaining a website. Constant and timely updating of content, checking for any rot links, deleted or exposed files and spell checking are responsibilities of the webmaster. Continually maintaining the website and keeping it free from inaccuracies can go a long way in getting a top ranking in any search engine.

Website owners have the responsibility of continually emerging with better and newer strategies to keep up with the constant changes in the web community. With a rapid change in technology, maintaining a websites values are challenging, yet benefiting when you are making consistent content changes on a routine basis.

In order to keep the website fresh, functional and useful it is essential for a webmaster to maintain certain must do’s. Some of these are crucial and some of the tasks are listed below.

  • Content updation will ensure that the website is constantly updated with content that is relevant to the emerging market trends and products or services of a business. Content that is fresh will keep visitors informed and abreast of changes in products and services of a business. This also attracts search engines, which are constantly looking for something new and fresh content. In turn the website earns good rankings on these search engines.  

 

  • Redesigning a website ensures that the look and feel of the site is constantly improving, with the emergence and inclusion of newer web designing technologies. For instance Web 2.0 helps in making a website that is interoperable, communicative and easy to share information with. Along with the basics in design, it even helps in development of web based communities and web applications like video-sharing, mashups, social-networking sites, blogs and forums.

 

  • Portfolio of a company needs to be constantly updated. Upon successfully completing a project, the information should be added to the company’s portfolio. This helps build the organisations reputation and also attracts new business.

 

  • Newsletters help webmasters to spread the message across if there is a new product or service that the business has introduced. Visitors should be constantly updated of important events or news listings earned by the organisation. This can be communicated through a newsletter, in a way establishing a constant connection with the visitors and the business.

 

  • Link rots need to be checked by the webmaster on a regular basis. There are high possibilities that a link within a website could be broken, creating a negative impact on the business. There could be link rots if the linked site has been abandoned, moved or modified regularly or due to certain reasons. Since this is a common occurrence with external links, it is imperative that links in a website should be checked.

 

  • Site reviews should be checked frequently. A complete site review will generally highlight mistakes in the content like spelling, grammar and accuracy. Also since change is inevitable, facts produced in the content should be regularly checked to see if it still is true.

 

  • Security and privacy policy ensures that all the information that is gathered from visitors are safe. This will make the visitor confident to check on the website again. Privacy policy should be continually checked against practices that the business follows and updated with relevant changes.

With the right maintenance team involved with your website design, not only will you gain more active responses from search engines, you will maintain a well organized design.  Design maintenance is not only a necessity, it is a crucial and important step to owning a website.

Original content by Whole Integration

 

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