Thanks for your patience!

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Any H&M client who has a question about this new billing cycle should contact me in the usual ways. 

Look for information in a future blog article about increased services that are being rolled out to all H&M clients at no additional charge.

The post EB Hosting & Maintenance to be Billed Quarterly appeared first on Electric Bricks.

AspDotNetStorefront Interactive E-Commerce Workshop – August 14-16, 2013 – Denver, Colorado

Starting in August, there will be an Interactive E-Commerce Workshop, held in Denver, Colorado, that aims to educate users on new approaches to selling online. It looks to be a very hands-on experience and I’m sad that I won’t be able to attend due to another obligation. Especially since I’ve never been to Denver.

There will be one-on-one mentoring, networking opportunities, and lots of instruction on multi-channel selling. There will also be exhibitors and vendors on hand to talk about products that work with or compliment AspDotNetStorefront software.

AspDotNetStorefront Developer Conference – November 4-7, 2013 – Ashland, Oregon

The Developer Conference will be held in November in Ashland, Oregon, the hometown of the company’s US headquarters. If you’ve never been there, Ashland is a pretty little town with excellent restaurants, welcoming accommodations, and ridiculously friendly residents.

The agenda for this year’s conference includes topics such as:

• “A form inside a form”
• Storefront skins – using responsive design
• JQUERY and how to use it
• AspDotNetStorefront, Azure, and the Amazon cloud
• and other development topics.

There will also be one-on-one time for developers to talk with and get help from the actual programmers who write the software. I’m especially looking forward to this as I’ve made several customizations to the Q Source website, for example, that I’m sure could benefit from a little streamlining. I also have a list of questions about things I’m not entirely happy with in the software that I hope can get resolved in a future release.

The conference is still quite a ways off but I have to admit, I’m really looking forward to it. I had a great time in Ashland last year and I certainly came home better for the trip. I will post a follow up, perhaps while I’m at the conference, and I’ll be sure to be implementing the things that I learn for all of my clients on this platform.

The post AspDotNetStorefront 2013 Conference Schedule – Heading Back to Ashland! appeared first on Electric Bricks.

Once properly installed and configured, BulletProof Security helps to protect WordPress website against XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection, and SQL Injection hacking attempts. The recent attacks were of the SQL Injection variety where the hacker tries to get into the website’s database to reek havoc. Once a hacker is in they could do anything from add viruses or code to your pages and posts to locking you out of your site or just deleting all your content. Nice guys, huh?

But you can rest easy for now and continue creating great content. BulletProof Security is shielding your site and, in addition to regular back-ups of your site files and database, I will continue to look for suspicious activity and new ways to protect your site as the hackers evolve their methods.

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• Better audio/video support without relying on a plugin or a third party media hosting service.
• Improved auto-save. If your browser crashes, your computer dies, or the server goes offline as you’re saving, you shouldn’t lose your post.
• Improved post locking that not only lets you see when someone is currently editing a post but you can kick them out of it if they fall asleep at the keyboard.
• and more…

I’ll be sure to let everyone know when the final release of WordPress 3.6 is available and when your site has been upgraded. As usual, I will test each site with all installed plugins and theme options to ensure compatibility. And of course I’ll be sure to let you know if there’s anything you need to know to use this new version.

The post WordPress 3.6 Beta 1 appeared first on Electric Bricks.

Edwards’ Dodo, painted by Roelant Savery in 1626

Let me guess. You spend your entire day sitting behind your laptop in a nice quiet office with a fresh cup of coffee close at hand. There are no distractions and you have plenty of time to focus solely on the blog article you’re writing this week. Maybe you’ll even have time left over to start planning your next article or getting a jump on your taxes.

Yeah, right! The idea of staying in one place and getting all your work done in one sitting went the way of the Dodo at about the same time the first beeper showed up. Mobile computing has changed the way we think about the work we do and where we do it. Sure, schedules have gotten a lot more hectic but all this moving around with our smartphones, laptops, and tablets gives us the opportunity to become richer, more experienced people with more to offer our coworkers and customers. If the only thing I ever saw every day was the same four walls I wouldn’t have much to draw on for inspiration. Working outside the office occasionally gives me perspectives I might not normally have.

Taking WordPress With You

That all sounds great. But what’s the reality of getting real work done when we’re not sitting comfortably at a desk? Truth is, it’s not always easy. But there are things that can make it simpler. Smartphones and tablets have led the charge in this revolution. By now I’m sure you’re an avid user of apps for things like Facebook and Twitter. But did you know there’s also an app for your blog? Yup! There’s a WordPress mobile app that lets you manage many of the features of your site right from an iOS (iPhone, iPad, etc.) or Android device. Not only can you write or edit posts and pages, but you can manage comments, upload images into articles, get site stats (with the Jetpack plugin – contact me for info on installing and configuring this plugin), and control several other WordPress features. I even wrote some ( not all ) of this article on my iPhone.

Don’t Throw Out Your Laptop

Now, like most apps, the WordPress mobile app is not a full-featured replacement to your regular computer. And unless you’re 17 years old, typing a 500-word article on a smartphone can be pretty tedious. But having the ability to at least start a draft or make some quick edits to your website without firing up your computer can be pretty liberating. And if you’re one of those people that spends a lot of time at trade shows, conferences, or any other type of scheduled event, being able to write and publish a blog article while still attending the event is a pretty neat trick!

Both the iOS and Android versions are free and available in their respective stores. If you’ve got a smartphone and your site runs on WordPress it’s kind of a no-brainer to get the app. Even if you just keep it around to make an emergency edit to an article when someone points out a typo. Just beware that if you upload a photo by using the +Photo button on the lower-left of the dashboard, it’ll automatically post a new blog article of the image when you publish it. Not exactly what most of us would want, I think. I’d prefer it if it just went into my media library for later use. But I’m sure future versions will offer more and better features. Stay tuned!

The post Write Where You Are – Get Going with WordPress Mobile appeared first on Electric Bricks.

41 International Space Station Website Visitors!

I didn’t even realize there were that many people up there! Needless to say, I was very curious what the scientists in the Space Station Control Room were looking at on my site so I dug a little deeper. By clicking on their dot on the map I was able to see exactly what pages they were on at that moment, and coincidentally they were all on the same exact page. Weird. What are the chances? Turns out that they were all looking at a page called “April Fool’s”…

Do I have a page on my site called “April Fool’s”?

The post 41 Website Visitors from the International Space Station! appeared first on Electric Bricks.

I’ve also started two new projects: LadyIris & Co. and The Actor’s Garage. Both projects are in their infancy and each is pretty different from the other. LadyIris & Co., a landscape and floral design company, is new and never had a web presence before. The owner, Melodie Primus, has a keen eye for design and has a real talent for photography, too. She has an enormous collection of photos of her work that we’ll be showcasing on the forthcoming site – eye candy, all of it. But since spring is already upon us I put up a placeholder site that directs potential clients to her Facebook page until the site is ready.

The Actor’s Garage, on the other hand, is a well-established acting school for kids on Long Island. Ann Graf has been teaching her technique since 2004 and is growing her business to include offering subscriptions online. Her current site needs a complete makeover, as well, which we’ve just begun. Already things are shaping up nicely and I should have something more to show in the next few weeks.

I’ll follow up with more info on both of these projects as they progress. In my free time  I’ll also be redesigning the website for the Moriches Community Center, a local charity I’ve been web design for since 2001. I’ll be giving them a new look as well as moving them from an old CMS to WordPress. Look for more updates soon.

The post Recharged! appeared first on Electric Bricks.

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing [Infographic]

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