Skip to main content Screen Reader Website Version

Small Business Sees A Rise In Cyber Threats

Come on, let’s all live in the real world: we’re all vulnerable. Really the only chance you have these days is to make it as difficult as possible for any potential hacker to get to your valuable data. First and foremost this means protecting your data in transit. Using secured connections to transmit data is crucial to any protection strategy. In web terms that means having an SSL certificate installed. There are some variations but most provide 128 or 256 bit encryption which has been relatively reliable, although security loopholes were recently discovered.

Fixed? Yes, but can we be sure. The heartbleed bug went undetected for some time. What else could be lurking out there that we haven’t discovered yet?

Secondly, protect sensitive data at rest. This means encrypting your database. We like to use AES256 encryption. It isn’t foolproof, but it is strong and recommended by everyone’s favorite secret organization, the NSA.

Third, protect your passwords. This means letting your staff know how important keeping this data safe. Don’t leave passwords out in the open and, for the love of everything holy, make them strong. “123456” is not a password (we feel we should not have to mention at this point, but still will, that “password” is not clever… and never was). Keep your passwords safe – sometimes it’s best to create a little song to remember it. Or if you have many passwords, create an algorithm to remember them by. For instance, use the name of the domain you’re accessing to configure a password. If you were logging into Livewiregeeks.com, you might use the L and S as the first two letters of your password, then add some variation, take the numerical representation of that letter and att that to the password. So for a domain called ABC.com, if might be AC321 (the numbers being C=3, B=2, A=1 , added together =5). As long as you remember the process of creating the password, you don’t have to remember anything else. Just looking at the domain will enable to to know the password.

Tedious? yes. Works? yes.

Some more information on the current cyber security situation.

More Web Design Blog Content

You get 15 seconds! Web Design Trends for 2016

Mobile is in and users are becoming increasingly impatient. In 2014, 55% of users spent less than 15 seconds on a webpage according to data by Tony Haile of Chartbeat.  This means you only have 15 seconds to capture a users attention and convert a visitor to a customer.

Updating WordPress Database After Website Move

Boy life sure would be easy if WordPress used relative URL’s throughout the menu and post content but that simply isn’t going to happen, they’ve made that clear. Changing the URL in the admin Settings would then be all you need to do, making moving installations a breeze.

CSS3

Lots of new fun with CSS3. CSS makes styling web pages a snap. Now CSS3, the third “version”,  allows for incredibly robust styling possible. For instance, background gradients are a breeze when before developers had to create them as images or use CSS ‘hacks’ to accomplish those goals.

WP: Adding a HTML5 Search Form

A simple script from your local Gainesville Web Designer. [code scroll=”false” language=”htmml”] <form role=”search” method=”get” class=”search-form” action=”<?php echo home_url( ‘/’ ); ?>”> <label> <span class=”screen-reader-text”><?php echo _x( ‘Search for:’, ‘label’ ) ?></span> <input type=”search” class=”search-field” placeholder=”<?php echo esc_attr_x( ‘Search …’, ‘placeholder’ ) ?>” value=”<?php echo get_search_query() ?>” name=”s” title=”<?php echo esc_attr_x( ‘Search

WordPress Custom Post Type Category Images : Solved

If you’re a WordPress developer, you’ve probably been here. You want to use images for your categories, but they are custom taxonomies. Here’s how to solve that issue. We’re using a plugin called “Category Images” by Muhammad Said El Zahlan. Download, install and activate the plugin. Now you can

Eat More Protien

Meat in your website diet is needed – you’re probably in optimization atrophy … What is meat for your website? Content. Your site need fresh content added to it on a regular basis. Good content. Compelling content. But most of all, it need to be original content. That means