Miscellaneous Notes
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BDG - Carolyn Kohler, Great Website Content
BDG - Traci Jones, Trends in Design
BDG - Heidi Foote, Small Business Accounting
WordPress Upgrading
Work for Non-Profits
Web Hosts
Very Miscellaneous
BDG Jan 7, 2011 - Carolyn Kohler, Great Website Content
- note 'F' pattern of where people look when viewing web pages and organize your content in recognition
- don't make pages too read-ie (have too much small text) - people should be able to skim / scan and get needed info
- have a page for each service
- good structure
- tabs L to R best
- get the right search words
- Google Places (to advertise where you are?) and multiple categories
- Dave Taylor teaches SEO classes
- compare to competition
- # tabs? no set rule, but 5-7 good rule of thumb
- main nav also at bottom, for non-JS users
- field called Web Content Writing
BDG Jan 7, 2011 - Traci Jones, Studio No 6 Designs - Trends in Design
- Concept is king (Denver Water)
- 5 things
- Strong color palette
- kaleidoscope, quilting pattern, illumination
- add gaussian blur (blur to create glow)
- Transparency
- increase in icon usage - quick with few words and increase in information graphics
- 3D/sculptured graphics (need 3d software)
- artful; edges extend beyond; collages; subtle movement; hand-done typography
- Put 'Donate Now' button at top right
- Business Book: Switch, by Dan and Chip Heath
BDG Feb 5, 2011 - Heidi Foote, Small Business Accounting for Yearend
- expenses: need receipt if >$75
- look at finances before yearend - maybe spend to reduce profit
- consider car expenses / mileage if use it enough
- cash basis probably for us designers. accrual acctg used by large corporations
- vendor: make vendor inactive if no longer currently relevant but won't delete them
- vendors = expenses, customers = clients (QB terms)
- send 'back up copy' to your CPA
- use separate credit card for business if only to make it easier for me to keep track of
- deposits: make copy of check and deposit slip and keep together
- Sole Proprietor vs LLC: SP uses 1099; someone suing your business CAN go after you personally. LLC: state recognizes but Fed does not so you have to select SP or Corp on Fed (?). Someone suing your business canNOT go after you personality (limited liability)
- reimbursements: do not show as income... inventory? probably not. show as cash, not income
- non-profit that gets discount off my rate: can be charitable only if NOT time charge. in-kind donations don't count eitehr. materials/equipment ARE deductible though.
- Quicken is for personal finances specifically; QuickBooks for business primarily.
- heidi.foote at yahoo.com, 303-503-1211 (bookkeeping and more)
WordPress Upgrading
Tips from Angela Bowman from the Boulder Designers Group
Procedure:
- backup database (use backup db plugin)
- backup wp-content folder
- check to be sure plugins work with latest version
- upgrade WP with auto upgrade
- upgrade plugins
- do this at low peak time, in case auto upgrade fails for some reason (which it hardly every does), and you have to do manual upgrade or roll back to previous version because of plugin issue.
Major upgrades (eg from 2.9 to 3.0) can usually be delayed as they are usually not security updates and may indeed conflict with current plugins. But the little security updates (eg from 3.0.2 to 3.0.5) usually do not cause plugins to break (that would be highly unusual) and are often very important. I simply take 5 minutes to run the auto update and update the plugins (making note of the settings in case those get overwritten). Really it shouldn't take that long to do these little patch updates. I'll bill the client the 5-15 minutes that takes next time I create an invoice. For those more technical clients, they can certainly be instructed in the above steps and do the updates themselves. I keep a spreadsheet of the version levels, security precautions and backup status for each client.
Some updates are not applicable to all users, so it's important to read about the update and decide who is at risk for the particular vulnerability that update covers. You can get more information at http://wpsecuritylock.com. Regina has great security resources and helps people recover from hacks.
Clients need to understand that whenever WP has security update, the security loophole is made broadly available on the internet for hackers to to program into a robot which will crawl the web looking for old versions of WP. The founder of WP said that all of the true WP hacks over the past couple years happened to OLD versions of WP. (This excludes server level hacks and brute force hacks of weak passwords, the former of which you have no control over and the latter of which you have total control over.)
It's my policy as a professional WP developer to not work with clients who do not take their sites seriously enough to keep WP up to date, backup up their WP database and files, or use strong passwords. If they can't or won't do these things, then they shouldn't use WP or any other CMS and instead should perhaps consider a hosted solution (like GoDaddy's website in a night) or a static HTML site. Otherwise, they really do need to know the risks of getting their site hacked and be prepared to spend hundreds of dollars to restore it. That being said, a server side hack is impossible to avoid and does happen occasionally on shared hosting servers. Shared hosting is so cheap, it really doesn't make sense for clients to nickel and dime over these important security updates and backups, particularly since PHP CMSs like WP, Drupal, Joomla, etc. are targeted by hackers.
Design / Dev Work for NonProfits
Question: I was wondering if anyone had a formula on how they price design services for non profits? - Carin Reich, 4/13/11
Betty Taylor:
I haven't done a lot of work for non-profits, but a few thoughts:
I recently did some work for a local non-profit which I wanted to support. I offered a certain number of hours for free (5 in this case) and then a discounted-but-not-ridiculously-low rate for additional work. The discounted rate was about 35%-40% off my regular rate. I had the organization sign a contract. My invoice showed the free time and the full value of the discounted time, so they could see the value of the work I had done. (I came in after the main materials had been printed: if I'd been brought in earlier, I would have asked for my name and website to be added to the "thank you" pages.)
Non-profit doesn't mean "no money". Bigger non-profits may have good budgets for marketing, since marketing is so important to their efforts. Of course all organizations (and businesses) want to save money if they can, but you can save them money while charging your full rate by being efficient and your talented self! (And my rate, even as I raise it, is a lot less than an agency that has to pay support people and big-office overhead.)
I will only offer a discount to groups that I want to support with my time - I wouldn't offer a discount to every non-profit, because I wouldn't want to end up doing a lot of work at a discounted rate for groups I wouldn't donate to otherwise.
A designer can NOT "write off" their time donated on taxes. (If you donate goods like printed booklets, you can write off the cost of paper and printing, but not the design time.)
Contracts are important! Make sure the scope of the project (or your involvement in it) is spelled out in detail, even (especially) for free or discounted work.
Some people like to do discount work for non-profits with the stipulation that the designer gets some amount of creative freedom, or gets to present the concepts in person to the organization's board of directors, or something else that may benefit the designer.
Web Hosting
- This brings up a broader subject. What's a good host? I've heard bad things about a lot of them.
- GoDaddy has 24hr phone support, but have unreliable servers and are not WordPress friendly
- Aplus.net has been called "the worst host ever." It took me me 54 support emails to fix problems with a WordPress installation. There's no phone support.
- A theme provider I use just moved his WordPress site off of Bluehost because "they don't offer an easy upgrade path - they are strictly a shared server host" so they are not good for high traffic sites.
- I use Pair Networks and am very happy with them - see www.pair.com. They're reliable, fast, and have excellent tech support. They also allow me, as a web developer, to have as many domain names as I want, so I also host client websites under them. They are a bit more expensive than GoDaddy for the single website, but for what I do, they're perfect, and they let me set up whatever I want. As far as Wordpress, I do have to upload a copy of Wordpress for each client website and keep it up to date, which you may consider a hassle. I figure it's not too big a deal.
- Hostmonster problems with email?? (But wait! see below. Initial complaint: For about the last month and a half, my emails have been having problems where they keep getting blacklisted with various spammer lists. So my emails get bounced back with unreliable delivery to the recipient. If I don't hear back right away, I have been calling clients to see if they received my email or I use my hotmail account to ensure that messages go through. I have chosen to use hostmonster since they are optimized for hosting WordPress sites. But, to state the obvious, this is inconvenient and feels unprofessional, especially since it keeps happening.)
- Hostmonster: My first thought was whether you were sure it was HostMonster that was blacklisted. For instance, if you use an unreliable email marketing company, you could just as easily get your email address on a blacklist account. However, let's say that wasn't the issue. I did a quick search and found that HostMonster offers something called a Dedicated IP address. You may have to log in to see it, I got to it by going to https://my.hostmonster.com/cgi/dedicated_ip On this page, it discusses the problem with a shared hosting solution, which any of the low cost options are. Shared hosting has its problems, but are also cost-effective. A Virtual Dedicated server is MUCH more expensive – about $150 a month, as opposed to $8.99 a month. The problem you were experience could be because you are on a shared hosting plan with someone else who was blacklisted. So, this option of a Dedicated IP address could resolve it. Have you spoken to HostMonster? I have over 60 sites with them and have not heard this problem with any of my clients or my own site. However, I did have a client whose site was going down constantly. I monitored it with Uptime Robot: http://uptimerobot.com/ - which is free. And, then I went to HostMonster, showed the report and they moved her site to another server. She has not had a problem, since. Again, I know this is a bit different, but it shows they do take responsibility when needed. So, my first advice is to check with them, and check out this service they provide – remember, I just heard about it when I researched it today, and am leaving town, so haven't had time to check it out more. It is only $30 more a year. As a side note, I have my email go thru Google's server, so you could also try that option. It's part of their Google Apps program for small biz, when I signed up it was free – not sure if there is still a free plan, but here is a link: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/smbs.html
- PLEASE understand, if you stay on a shared server, you are subject to everyone you share that server with – it is irrelevant if it is HostMonster, BlueHost, HostGator, GoDaddy or any other company providing a shared solution. If you have a busy site or need more protection, you will need a Virtual Dedicated server, like http://mediatemple.net/webhosting/dv/ This option that I mentioned from HostMonster might be a cheaper alternative, for your specific problem. Think of a shared server like living in an apartment complex. You could live there for years and not have any problems and then one day a new tenant moves in above you with lead shoes and loud music. It just takes one bad apple to make everyone's life more miserable, but if you can do some things to make it more pleasant, without kicking out the schmuck upstairs, I say check out this Dedicated IP option and see if it is the potential solution.
- Follow-up: I called Hostmonster and discussed the issue further. It turns out a dedicated IP will not fix the issue. It's the mail server that is blacklisted and not the web server. They said the only way to avoid this all together is to get a Google Apps account. I may move to Google Apps down the line, but for now I've decided to wait a bit longer. As others have mentioned, overall, I've been very happy with my experience with hostmonster.
Misc
- komodoedit is another good code editor
- international color consortium