Web Design and Development | Nelson NZ
Global Career HQ is a project I’ve been working on for a while with a great company based in Golden Bay.
The recently published site is build on WordPress and leverages the flexibility of the platform including integrations with Salesforce and other third party services.
It’s been a real team project and is still evolving. Stay tuned.
The ‘Panama Papers’ hack has done web developers everywhere a great service.
Mossack Fonseca provided a live demonstration of what can happen when businesses ignore the most fundamental and widely advertised web security advice: keep your site software up to date.
Security Experts have linked the so called ‘Panama Papers’ hack to outdated WordPress and Drupal software.
Whether you’re entertained or infuriated by this unfolding story, its interest for many centres around the open source software used on the websites in question.
Security breaches, hacks and big leaks are not uncommon these days. But this one is making history with its size and impact.
The victims have already started to fall. No doubt there will be a good number to follow.
And why? Security experts are saying it may all have been down to neglected software. Specifically WordPress and Drupal sites which someone failed to keep maintained and updated.
As one commentator so aptly put it:
“It turns out that not updating your WordPress plugins may result in the fall of world leaders and the largest data breach to journalists in history.”
The Panamanian law firm at the centre of this storm, Mossack Fonseca, used both WordPress and Drupal software. Their WordPress site was running a version of a plugin known to have vulnerabilities that gave an attacker access to the web server.
The well-known plugin vulnerability had been fixed in subsequent versions. Those updates had not been applied. Similar vulnerabilities were exploited in their Drupal website.
WordPress and Drupal are both open source content management systems that between them power almost one third of websites on the internet. WordPress is used by major newspapers, top 100 sites and tens of thousands of businesses around the globe.
Is there a security problem with WordPress? No. The core WordPress program is sound, regularly monitored and updated. The problem lies with the thousands of plugins and themes available from a huge variety of sources that anyone has the ability to use on their WordPress site.
It comes down to knowing who to trust and keeping those carefully chosen themes and plugins updated.
Right now, websites are being hacked and exploited. All sorts of sites, everywhere. And amazingly, despite what we all see and know, a hack like the Panama Papers will happen again.
It’s a statistical reality sustained by human nature and old fashioned ignorance.
“It will never happen to me.”
“Why would anyone bother to hack my site, it has nothing of importance?”
“My website is not as important as my actual business.”
Online security is more of a human problem than a software problem. Some people will continue to click on links with unlikely promises of wealth and happiness. Some people will continue to run websites with major security problems.
Sarah Gooding of WordPress Tavern summed it up nicely:
This leak is not a measure of open source software’s reliability but rather underscores how low a priority some companies place on their tech departments and web security. With the rampant software vulnerabilities in this age, not updating software for years constitutes abject neglect of customers.
The bottom line is that software needs to be updated. This kind of routine maintenance is as foundational to a company’s business as brushing teeth or showering is for one’s health. Law firms and companies with such a lax approach to security are either ignorant or unwilling to spend the money to maintain technology that they don’t fully understand. The Panama Papers serve as a reminder that having a competent, skilled tech department is critical for any company that deals in sensitive information.
You don’t have to be a law firm to be a target. In fact, most hackers don’t care about the content on your site. They’re keen to add your site to their network for a variety of evil purposes.
They use automated bots to scour the interwebs for any sites with outdated, vulnerable software. So mostly, it’s not humans trying to break into your site – but automated programs.
Sadly, if your site gets compromised, it will be punished by the all-seeing Google. Google doesn’t like hacked sites because people don’t like hacked sites. And as those who have had a site compromised will tell you, sometimes there is no coming back from a major breach.
There’s one big takeaway from the Panama Papers – how much is your brand worth?
The second point is – act now. If you’re not sure that everything that can be done is being done to secure your online assets, find out now.
People love images. They capture history, tell stories, convey information. Adding images to your website can be a great way of communicating and engaging readers.
Here are 4 easy-to-remember steps to help you get the best from your website images. You can sing them to your favourite line dancing tune each time you add an image to your website.
Give you images a meaningful file name. Google and other search engines will take image file names into account when indexing your site. Google images search is well worth leveraging as part of your SEO plan.
The image file name is a good place for that keyword to let Google know what your image is about.
Typically, your digital camera will output images with a file name like DSC2001.JPG and a very large file size, often around 2MB or more. Sadly, every time someone uploads a file like this onto a website, somewhere a fairy dies.
This state of affairs can firstly be improved by creating a new file name for your image. Here are some things to remember when creating you image file name:
E.g. my-perfect-pavlova.jpg
Properly formatted, creatively thought out image file names will help your images become marketing assets – and will help them play nicely with the many programmes that will be dealing them on WordPress and the internet.
A critical factor in SEO is the time it takes to load your web page. The faster the better. So compressing your images is important.
Significant savings in file size can be made to most images without any discernible loss in quality. Images used on the web don’t need to be the same quality as those used for print.
Part of this process will probably involve resizing your images appropriately. For example, you won’t need to upload an 3200px wide image if it’s only going to be displayed at 400px wide.
Most photo editing software has some form of built-in image compression tool. It may be the option to ‘save for the web’. There are also apps for your particular OS and some online tools.
There are also some WordPress plugins that will compress images that are already on your site. They are not a replacement for properly naming, compressing and resizing images before you upload them however.
If you want better control of the process use a serious program like Photoshop, or its free open source equivalent, the GIMP.
The GIMP is widely used and tutorials are only a Google search away.
Hot tip – if you’re dealing with a typical photo, the JPG format will usually be the best option. If it’s a graphic with few colours, PNG will sometimes give better compression results (and will be the default format for images with any transparent regions). Avoid GIFs (unless it’s an animation of course) and TIFFs.
When it comes to actually placing your images onto a web page there are some other things to think about. First up is the ‘alt tag’.
Setting up an alt tag on your images is good for SEO and UX.
What is it? The alt tag sits in the bit of HTML code which tells your browser to render an image. A simple version of that code with an alt tag might look like this:
<img url=”/img/lensify-200×200.jpg” alt=”a 50mm camera lens”>
The alternative text tag should describe what is in the picture. Keep in mind that it will be read by machines and humans. It’s used to improve the accessibility of websites.
For example, if the images are not being displayed on a page for whatever reason, the alt tag text will display in its place. Screen readers will also use the alt tag to help the vision impaired better understand your page – they will read the alt tag text where your image is placed in the flow of the page text.
Google also factors the alt tag into search results, so key words in the alt tag – if they’re appropriate – can be a good thing.
If you’re using something like WordPress there is an alt tag field you can fill in when adding images to a post or page.
The title tag is a little bit like the alt tag. When there is a title tag associated with your image it will usually show up when hovering over the image. Add one if you think it will enhance the usability of your image. But don’t use the same text as your alt tag.
There is a bit of a debate around whether to use title tags these days. While WordPress still has a title field on its media uploader, by default it no longer inserts them into its image code – which is a good indicator that you may be better off focusing on other things. Like the alt tag.
If you use someone else’s copyrighted image on your website, you may get sued. Best not to find out, so skip Google Images, Pinterest etc. as a place to find pics to enhance your blog post. Tempting though it is.
If you have guest posts or people submitting images to your website, it’s important to make sure they have ownership of, or a license to use, the image – or it’s in the public domain/open source. Remember, you’ll be the one facing legal action because it’s your site.
No – “someone else gave me that image Your Honour” won’t work.
There are places to find free images that are public domain or have licenses that allow use under certain conditions.
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There’s a bunch of other things to talk about when it comes to choosing and using images on your website. Another post may be on the cards.
If you want to read up on the more technical aspects of image optimisation, places like this are a good start.
The main thing is – take the time to get your images right first time. People love images, but the bar is set high these days. People are used to stunning, high quality images that load quickly.
If you need some image work done, I’d be happy to help. I’ve taken a few photos and work on image post-processing pretty much every other day.
Happy image processing!
Buying a house can be a traumatic experience. It’s a big investment. For many of us, the biggest investment we’ll ever make.
So you want peace of mind that what you’re about to sign on the dotted line for is in good shape. A pre-purchase building inspection is where most of us will find this.
Nick Marer has been in the house business while – over three decades in fact. So he knows his stuff.
I recently fashioned a WordPress powered website for this building inspection service he’s been providing in the Nelson region for some years.
Like all good business sites, it’s still growing and evolving. I’m also doing ongoing SEO work for this project. Feeling curious? Take a look: nelsonbuildinginspection.co.nz
See what happens when you ignore your own best advice?
Yes, I’ve been shamefully remiss as far as blog updates are concerned. Is there any comeback from that? By way of excuse, the first half of this year has been pretty busy in the WordPress universe.
If a common theme has emerged from the work I’m doing at the moment it’s both the versatility of the WordPress platform and challenges facing businesses seeking appropriate solutions to their needs.
Is WordPress the best solution for your business? I recently reflected on how much time I spend just staying up-to-date with WordPress development and associated technologies. This is part and parcel of working with any advanced business software – web-based or otherwise. Things constantly change; there is always more to learn.
A surprising percentage of my current work could be termed ‘WordPress Rescue’ – unraveling poorly deployed WordPress sites. It’s a privilege to be able to help businesses get their sites back on track, but it can be a time consuming and costly exercise.
When it comes to finding the right solution for your business needs, Caveat Emptor. Do your homework, search for objective information on your product or service. Don’t let others do the thinking and research that you as a business owner should be doing.
In other news, I’m doing some video work these days and have a couple of projects on the go. One of these is a short video I’m putting together with Lee Woodman, a friend who is currently exhibiting at the Salt Gallery in Nelson.
Exclusive World Premier will be right here – stay tuned. In the meantime if you’re in Nelson, check out the exhibition which is on till June 30.
Hey – thanks for reading this far! More soon on some of some of our current project work. Take care out there.
The Grape Escape Café & Catering has been delighting visitors with culinary its prowess and great coffee for many years.
Situated in idyllic surroundings close to vineyards, beaches, art galleries, Richmond & Nelson shopping, it lies in the heart of the region’s great attractions.
Earlier this year, owners John and Penny Appelman engaged LifeformLabs’ web design services, looking for a full rebuild of the site to bring it up to speed with current web technologies, and to put them in control of content, SEO and social media.
WordPress was the obvious choice for a fresh new site that is responsive – adapts it’s layout to display well in any device – and optimised for search engines.
After careful planning, testing and refining the new site is live. Designed for easy expansion and changes, there’s more planned to fully showcase their great café experience and catering services.
If you feel like some exquisite cuisine, fine coffee or tea, you can find them only minutes from Richmond.
They also specialise in out catering for your wedding or event around the Nelson region and the café itself is a popular venue for corporate, family and private events.