This is a just a quick reminder to all of our friends using WordPress.  Make sure you update to the new version- 3.1.3.   This will likely be the last version before 3.2.  It has several security fixes.  One of the most common reasons for getting hacked is having as outdated (and vulnerable) version!  Here are some of the updates that were made:

• Various security hardening by Alexander Concha.
• Taxonomy query hardening by John Lamansky.
• Prevent sniffing out user names of non-authors by using canonical redirects. Props Verónica Valeros.
• Media security fixes by Richard Lundeen of Microsoft, Jesse Ou of Microsoft, and Microsoft Vulnerability Research.
• Improves file upload security on hosts with dangerous security settings.
• Cleans up old WordPress import files if the import does not finish.
• Introduce “clickjacking” protection in modern browsers on admin and login pages.

So I was planning on writing this really great article about how to setup an internet merchant account and payment gateway for eCommerce. It was going to have all of these great referenes and break down the whole setup process for client’s to truly understand what they need to do.  Well, Smashing Magazine beat me to it! Go here to read the article,  It is quite handy if you ask me.

Do you have a blog hosted at WordPress.com? If so make sure you go in and change your password. There was a small security breach detailed here: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/security/ It doesn’t sound like a major security threat but it doesn’t hurt to take a bit of precaution. If you are running WordPress on your own server there is nothing to worry about. Happy publishing!

We should all do our part to protect the valuable information on our websites and personal computers.  The more importance we allocate to technology in our daily lives the more it will be exploited by shady characters.  Are you doing enough to keep your information secure?

Take a look at this checklist on the Gmail site to help you keep your email and computer secure.

As a part of the new website rollout we wanted to make ourselves even more accessible to our clients.  One of the most commonly heard complaints about web developers and designers is that you can NEVER get a hold of them.  Calls go straight to voicemail (or worse- VM box is full!), emails are never returned, projects are delayed (even forgotten); unfortunately this is all too common in our industry.

We strive to return all emails and phone calls within 24 business hours and be on Skype, AIM, and iChat during business hours for instant availability.  You can click on the contact page of our portfolio site at  Creation-1.com and check our Skype and iChat status.  Drop us a line and say hi!

Moderating Comments

Editing a post in the WYSIWYG

Adding photos, video, and other media, to your site

WordPress is one of the most popular and flexible open source platforms for websites.  Because of this popularity spammers have found it to be an easy and vulnerable target for all kinds of different spamming methods.

Lets briefly cover the 3 most common types of spam you will be subjected to on a WordPress site.

Comment Spam:
Comment spam is when a comment is left on your post or page that  somehow links back to a suspicious website.  The comment is usually suspiciously broad like “Nice Post!” or “I agree”  or references something in no way related to your content.  The goal of the spammer is to raise the amount of incoming links to a website or even increase the saturation of certain target keywords. Not deleting or leaving yourself vulnerable to this type of spam can cause quite a few problems.  Your Google Pagerank depends heavily on the sites you associate yourself with so keep that in mind.

PingBack/ Trackback Spam:
When you are blogging it feels great to be noticed and have someone link back to your post.  Spammers take advantage of this by creating fake links back to your post.  In turn this “Pingback” records on your page depositing a link from the spammer.  Many people think of this as a good thing because we as bloggers are always looking for incoming links to help us move up in Pagerank.  Don’t let this bite bite you in the rear!  It doesn’t matter if you have a million incoming links if they are all from spammers.  Delete that ugly thing because you do not want your site associated in any way with spam.

Form Spam:
With the same goal as comment spam the spammer builds what is referred to as a “bot” (Think evil Decepticon from transformers).  The bot is programmed to search for forms to submit email spam by automatically filling out millions of forms at a time.  Becoming a victim to form spam can leave your inbox an absolute mess!

Solutions!!

Now that we know how and why spammers work lets do what we can to fend them off!

Akismet Plugin- Your first line of defense:

Akismet is no secret to WordPress users.  It’s only one of two default plugins in your WordPress install (The only one that actually does anything).  Despite this you wouldn’t believe how many sites I have logged in to and seen that the plugin is NOT ACTIVATED.  Yes, you have to register at wordpress.com and paste in your API key.  It takes an extra step but it will save you hours of daily work. I cannot stress this first step enough.  Akismet will save you from a majority of comment spam in one swoop.

Comment Timeout Plugin- For the old time bloggers:
As you write more and more articles you will notice that your archived articles are being spammed more than your fresh articles.  Often times an article can be grabbed by a spam bot and it will be difficult to release the hold of this evil little vulture!  That’s where Comment Timeout comes in.  You can set a number of days for your article to be open for commenting and then they will be disabled.

Captcha- Are you human?:
A captcha is a non- machine readable image that makes the user verify the contents before commenting or submitting a form.  You can find plenty of plugins for this both for commenting as well as contact forms.  Captcha can verify that your user is human and not a “bot”.

Wordpress Admin Settings-  Your built in spam ninja!:
Wordpress has a few settings that you can tweak to make your life easy when dealing with pesky spammers.

1.  Force your users to submit their name and email before they can submit a comment.
2.  Go to the Options>> Discussion panel and change your comment moderation.  Set the number of links for a comment to be held in moderation to 1.  The Default is 2.  Now when someone leaves a link on a post it is held in moderation.  Most spam contains links.
3.  In the comment moderation panel add to your spam words.  For instance, if you are getting hammered by prescription med spammers add words like, “viagara, tramadol, vicodin” to your spam list to prevent these comments and links.

Extra Tidbits-

Use a Gmail filter: Gmail has a pretty good spam filter.  You can utilize it by forwarding your email to your gmail account and forwarding those filtered emails to your “spam free” email account.

Replace text with an image: If you have your email address displaying on your site make sure it is not static text.  Create the button in photoshop and save it as a JPEG, GIF or PNG.  This will help your email address from being swooped up by the spam bots.

Don’t be a dummy: Think twice before you post your email address on a forum, newsgroup, or message board.  Spammers don’t just get email addresses from thin air (Although they are working on it).

Captain Obvious: Decide carefully what your companies email addresses will be.  If you don’t have an IT staff to clean up your email mess make sure you don’t have a corporate structure email.  For instance CEO@mycompany.com, or firstname.lastinitial@mycompany.com.  Get creative!  admin@ or webmaster@ are all just begging to be spammed!

I hope you came out of this with a bit more insight on how to prevent wordpress spam and maybe even spam in general.  The root of spam is held in the hands of greedy humans who’s ideas are constantly evolving.  As web publishers we need to be moving right along next to them with a shield to block these mischievous little creatures!

This one’s for the mac users out there who want to publish your iCal but don’t want to pay $100.00 a year for such a basic service.

Before I start I must mention that Google Calendar is much better for people who need multiple people publishing to the same calendar.  If you just want to have clients and/ or co-workers view your iCal calendar on their iCal then this will work great for you.

1.  Go to http://box.net and sign up for a free account.  It’s super fast and easy!

2.  Open iCal

3.  Right click on the calendar you want to publish and select “Publish”.

4.  Check the appropriate boxes according to what you would like to publish and select “Private Server”

5.  Enter https://www.box.net/dav/Documents as the base URL and use your box.net email login and password for the login and password fields.  Sometimes this wont work.  In that case either get rid of “https” and just use “http” or use “https://www.box.net/dav” instead of “https://www.box.net/dav/Documents”

6.  Press “Publish”

7.  To send the calendar to your colleagues you can right click on the calendaer and press “Send Publish Email” .  Make sure you give them your email and password.  You may want to use a password that is not the same as your other accounts and keep the box.net account empty of any private info.

8.  Sit back and relax knowing you just saved $100.00!

The Genus online business system has initiated a massive improvement over it’s “Sitewalk” feature.  In Sitewalk the user can edit the website without going in to the back end WYSIWYG editor; essentially editing the site from the front end.

Utilizing Abobe’s InContext editing, the process is much more intuitive and robust.  There are no more pop up windows for text fields.  You are actually editing the content directly into the website!  Sitewalk will be phased out in 12 weeks after the current beta trial is completed.  Give it a go on your own by logging in to your site and going to Website–> InContext Edting.

If you don’t have a Genus site you can always try a no obligation free trial and see for yourself here.

I just read a Great Article at Problogger.net about 30 Valuable Lessons Learned Using Social Media For Small Business.  The article reiterates a lot of the advice that I personally give to small business owners.  Especially the advice about blogging and focusing on the outlets that will be the most powerful for your business.

We have started a new user group on the popular social networking site Biznik.  The group  Basecamp users is for new and experienced Basecamp users to help each other collaborate more effectively.   The plan is to have discussions around the subject of Basecamp as well as other 37 Signals products such as Highrise and Campfire.  We will publish articles and in the future hold events revolving around the use of Basecamp and how it can help you work more effectively.  Join now and participate in the conversation!

This post serves as a reference for how to set up your email on several different devices and email programs wether your website is hosted on Media Temple or with Creation-1.

Set Your Email up With:

• Outlook 2007

• Windows Live Mail

• Apple Mail

• Iphone Mail

• Blackberry

• Entourage

I recently published an article on Biznik titled How To: Choose a Web Host. Take a look and hopefully it will help you make a more informed decision!

WordPress for iphone:

Wordrpress for Blackberry:

I have been hearing a lot of clients, project managers, art directors and even designers refer to the “fold” of a website. Besides the most obvious fact that you cannot fold a monitor (yet), I think there are a lot of misconceptions created when you apply the concepts of print design to web design.

1. The UI is completely different. You cannot scroll down a newspaper.
2. Unlike a newspaper you cannot control the location of  “the fold” due to the diversity of devices.
3. The way people interact with a newspaper is completely different than a website.  Multimedia is approached differently by the brain- we tend to scour it more aggressively.

While as a guideline it is good to put some essential information at the top of the page, it does not mean you need to put ALL of the information at the top of your page.  While you want the user to know who you are and what you do; you also need to have them look around your site for more.

To read more about this subject I recommend taking a look at the Iampaddy blog article Life below 600px which also gives an interesting perspective on the issue.

• What is it?
• Is it a professional tool or just for bloggers and amateurs?
• Is it here to stay or is it just a fad?
• What is WordPress used for?

All of these questions are answered by the man himself- Matt Mullenweg (Wiki Page).  To make a long story short, this guy invented WordPress.

One of the first things you should do after you finish your new website is to submit your domain to the search engines.  Most of the search engines will eventually pick up your site, but it doesn’t hurt to take the initiative and submit your URL.  Just follow these links to submit to the corresponding search engine.

Google- Google is pretty simple.  Just go here and submit your URL.

Yahoo- You have to sign in to your yahoo account to do this.  After that go here and submit your URL.  You can also submit your RSS feed.

Bing- Submit your URL to Bing here.

Ask- Ask does not take domain submissions but you can submit your sitemap by entering this url into your address bar and entering your domain name where it says “<your domain name>”.

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://<your domain name>/sitemapxml.aspx

I just read a great article at Smashing Magazine that is a must read for anyone thinking about a new website.  We build 95 percent of our websites with a content management system that allows the client to update and edit their content with ease.  The article helps explain the capabilities of content management systems and the basic principles behind  them.

Click Here to read the article!

People always ask us who we recommend to host their website.  We always say Media Temple! At Creation-1 we have used Media Temple since the beginning in 2006.  The three main reasons we have stayed with them is:

1.  They have great products and the most intuitive user interface to manage your services.

2. They deliver helpful US based 24/7 phone support with an average wait time of 2 minutes.

3.  They are constantly developing and improving upon their product offerings to help you utilize cutting edge technologies.

Through the years we have dealt with ALL the other big names in hosting.  No one even compares to Media Temple, especially in customer service!  I prefer to support a company that does not outsource it to the US as it is part of the Creation-1 policy to not outsource any work outside of America. The people who work there are always competent and respectful and in 4 years we have never had a problem.  The same cannot be said for the other hosting companies we have worked with.  With other companies, we often encounter poor, outsourced customer service, poor uptime, slow websites, slow database, long wait times for domain propagation, irregular Database setups and the list goes on!  So take a word from someone who’s been around the block-  Just click here and start now with Media Temple to save yourself the trouble.

Online Business Solutions

You’ve gone through all the steps and now you’re business officially has a web presence.  How do you take the next step?

Web Strategy Consulting

An Efficient and Comprehensive web strategy is the most important aspect of making you business thrive online.  Our outlook on the current state of the web is that websites are no longer just online brochures. They are freestanding business machines that interact with potential customers, sell products, establish your credibility and expand your network.
We will get to know your business, discover your goals online and explore the best ways to fulfill them.  Creation-1 can provide competitive analysis, third party technology research, content analysis, information/site architecture, open source strategy development, market research, and overall business strategy implementation.

SEO

The best and least labor intensive strategy in gaining traffic and search engine rank.  We can modify the code in your website to get it more recognition from major search engines such as Google and Yahoo.  We will use multiple techniques and coding languages to help your business be seen by more people.

Advertising

Advertising works!  You know it…We know it.  So what are you waiting for?  Get your business out there! Creation-1 will manage your campaign using a  combination of powerful advertising outlets. With plans to match any budget, we deliver new customers right to your “doorstep.”

Networking

Networking is an essential tool for any business.  Creation-1 will get more people linking to your business and talking about your products in online publications.  By establishing your site firmly in the online community you will gain more inbound links and increase overall traffic to your website.  Reach your target market by aligning yourself with the websites that matter most to them.

Let’s Create Business!

So Now what?  Sit around and wait for the customers to come through the door?  Of course not.  Like any business, if a website is to succeed it must be easily found, properly promoted and enjoy a network of professionals all working toward similar goals. These are just general descriptions of the solutions we offer.  After a consultation we can create a detailed plan of action along with an estimate coinciding with your budget.

Contact us now and we can help you plan for a successful marketing campaign!

WordPress has released version 2.8!  If you are using the WordPress content management system and haven’t updated it in a while please CONTACT US .  You are missing out on some amazing new features like:

- More freedom with your widgets.

- Auto update of your plugins.

-One click WordPress version update!  Yes its TRUE!

- Better theme selection and previewing and more!

Your really missing out on an overall faster and more convenient system as a whole.  Are you ready to make the switch?  Give us a call- 206.245.3539

You will often find yourself needing to check your email but for whatever reason you do not have access to your computer.  This is where the beauty of webmail comes in!  Just open up your browser and you can read your most current emails online.

Creation-1 Hosting Clients:

1.  Open up your browser.

2. Type in webmail.yourdomain.com

3. Your username is your email address.

4.  Your password is the same password you used to set up your email account.

5.  Press the “Log In” button

6. Check your email

Genus Customers:

1.  Open up your browser.

2. Type in mail.yourdomain.com

3. Your username is your email address.

4.  Your password is the same password you used to set up your email account.

5.  Press the “Login” button

6. Check your email

Notes:

Your default email program is what decides how early emails are deleted from the server.  Emails that are not on the server are likely archived on your computer.  These settings can be adjusted on your personal computer.  Also, Please use Firefox and save yourself a headache.

We are always asked by clients about what applications we recommend to use for email marketing and sending bulk newsletters.  We broke down our three favorites and discussed some of the pros and cons.  Overall, Genus is the most affordable, comprehensive and feature rich application because it is fully integrated with your website.  So here is the Comparison of Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact vs. Genus:

MailChimp [http://mailchimp.com]

Pros:
Subscriber based system allows for unlimited emails to be sent.
Free account: limits 100 subscribers, 6 mail-outs each month, branded with MailChimp badge.
Good for high volume/frequency marketing campaigns.

Cons:
Subscriber based system ultimately limits target specific marketing capabilities.  In reality, you will not be sending marketing campaigns to all of your subscribers each month.  You will be conducting a much more targeted campaign that will utilize only a portion of your total subscribers.
More work to integrate customer database into marketing campaign.  With Genus, you are able to easily segment your customers by creating reports based on products purchased, total purchase amount, etc. Otherwise, you will have to export all of your order information, segment it manually via Excel and then import into MailChimp.
Customers must Opt-In which requires customers to re-subscribe to a newsletter they have already subscribed to.  This is especially important when importing existing databases.

Summary:
MailChimp is a superior marketing service if the client needs more than 10,000 emails each month; however, this service can get quite expensive depending on the number of new subscribers each month.  Unlimited emails is appealing but for smaller companies who do not require high volume marketing campaigns Genus is a much more cost effective service that will cover the majority of their marketing needs: templates, database segmentation, reports, etc.  The integration with existing and new customer database and the ability to segment that information based on specific customer interactions makes Genus a much more viable marketing service.

Constant Contact [http://constantcontact.com]

Pros:
Unlimited emails to a selected number of subscribers.
Online survey functionality for an additional fee.
The same overall features as Genus

Cons:
Not integrated with your website like genus is.
Expensive.
You will have re- import your subscriber list from your website into constant contact and vice versa.

Summary:
Constant Contact is recommended for clients who wish to distribute surveys and receive in depth analytics regarding the results.  The email marketing service offered by Mailchimp is better; if not the same as Constant Contact.  With genus, the email marketing is included in your package as long as you have under 10,000 emails a month.

Genus [http://TryGenus.com]

Pros:
Unlimited Subscribers.
Fully Integrated with your Website.
No opt in required for your primary list upload.
10,000 emails a month FREE.
Setup loyalty campaigns ex. Send birthday messages with coupons etc.
Create email lists based on your eCommerce sales. ex: A list of all people who spent x amount of money or bought x product.

Cons:
Additional fee for over 10,000 emails per month ($0.01/email, charged in 1,000 increments)— This is unlikely for most businesses.

Summary:
Genus is ideal for the business who is looking for a fully integrated solution.  With Genus you wont have to navigate through multiple websites and applications to send newsletters or campaigns.  There are over 200 templates that you can customize with your logo, company name and color scheme.  Once you are setup there is no migrating between different programs.  Everything you need to manage your online business is inside Genus.  Each of the 6 aspects of Genus are able to communicate with each other and read information from the other.  No other email marketing system can create a list based on customer actions such as store sales or specific product purchases without the knowledge of code.

1. 1. It is Dangerous! You are more susceptible to attacks by viruses, spyware and adware using IE.
2. 2. It always crashes.
3. 3. It makes the websites you go to look ugly.  Microsoft is stubborn and will not cooperate with certain code that is being developed for today’s web.
4. 4. Internet Explorer is Ugly!  Just look at it.

Please read this article about the lack of security of Internet Explorer -  Calls Against Internet Explorer Grow Louder.

On a more humorous note, read about the Firefox Vs. IE Showdown.

So if your ready to quit being miserable, or to stop seeing dating site pop ups Download Firefox!

Sign up for GenBook

• A Domain Name:

If you don’t already have one, you can register the name yourself or do a search to find out if a name is available at Register.com or we can assist you in setting it up if you are not sure how to go about it.  Domain registration fees  usually run about $30.00 a year or less.

• A Hosting company:

Creation-1 can host your site or recommend a hosting company if you don’t already have one (most basic hosting programs cost anywhere between $10-30 a month, depending on options selected)

• Email Address List:

Provide a list of email addresses related to the site.

• Brief description of business & collateral materials:

State your goals for the site; also provide any relevant print and marketing materials you currently use (logos, brochures, etc.) that will help guide us through the design process.  A logo is not part of your web design package unless it has been pre-arranged in the estimate. We would love to create your logo and brand Identity.  Let’s talk about this before we begin designing the site.

• Basic Site Structure:

How many pages? menu-sidebars? top-navigation bar? a list of reference sites?

• Text and images for each of the main site pages

We need all of the assets for the site in order to complete it in a timely manner.  Please collect ALL of your images and have them prepared in an organized fashion.

Taking these preliminary steps will help the design and development process go smoothly.  It’s always good to get off on the right foot and be methodical and organized in our work.  Building a website takes work from both parties to be successful.

Reader Denise Brown writes: I just read your article “Follow the Spam.” There was a sentence in there regarding unsuspecting users’ email accounts being used to send spam. About two weeks ago, I received spam from what appeared to be my own email account. The address was the same as my email account, and I thought it was weird, but just used the Yahoo! Delete Spam button. Should I be concerned about my email account? If so, what should I do? I like my email address, have used it for years, and don’t particularly want to change it, but will if I have to.

This is an important point that I probably should have clarified at the time. Put simply: What you see in the “From” field on an email has little bearing on where it was actually sent from. Why? It’s one of the easiest things to forge in the book.

In fact, so-called address spoofing is such a common trick that it’s become a major tool in phishing scams. The hope is that a suspicious recipient will just look at the sender, see it says “admin@ebay.com” or “service@paypal.com,” and assume the message is legitimate. Of course, it’s as phony as a three-dollar bill, and if you click on the links in that message, you’ll be whisked off to a scam website.

With general “Viagra”-style spam, one common trick is to simply forge the email of the recipient as the sender as well, which is what you’re seeing. So you@yahoo.com receives email sent from you@yahoo.com, or so it seems. Again, the idea is that you might trick a few people into thinking they actually emailed themselves. Of course, it’s all a fiction.

That doesn’t mean that spam never comes from the address in the From field or that legitimate email accounts can’t be hijacked for evil ends. They can. But compared to spoofing, both are fairly rare: It makes much more sense for a spammer to hide his tracks as much as possible to prolong the amount of time before he gets caught and that account or computer becomes defunct. It should go without saying that you should protect yourself thoroughly with antivirus and anti-spyware applications so that doesn’t happen to you.

• Your domain name -example.com
• Your Email address username@example.com
• Your email password.

Here’s What To Do:

1. Open Apple Mail.
2. From the Mail menu, choose Preferences.

3. Click the Accounts button and click on + button at the bottom.

4. Perform the following steps:

• Select POP3 the Account Type drop down.
• Enter Account Description as you want it to appear.
• Enter your Full Name as you want it to appear.
• Enter your full email address username@mt-example.com in the Email address: field.
• Click on Continue

5. Fill in the following fields:

• Enter mail.mt-example.com in the Incoming mail (POP3) server: field.
• Enter your full email address username@mt-example.com in the User Name field.
• Enter your email password in the Password: field
• Click on Continue

6. For Authentication drop down choose Password and click on Continue

7. Perform the following steps:

• Select mail.mt-example.com in the Outgoing mail server: field.
• Make sure to check mark the Use Authentication check box.
• Enter your full email address username@mt-example.com in the User Name field.
• Enter your email password in the Password: field
• Click on the Continue button.

NOTE: Keep in mind that many Internet service providers force you to use their Outgoing mail server.  if mail.your-domain.com is ineffective,  Contact your internet service provider or search online to find out what the Outgoing mail server address is.

8. Close the Accounts window, and click the Save button.
Congratulations, you have finished setting up your email account!