A question I get asked from time to time is, "Why should I pay you to design my site when there are lots of free options?" And it's a fair question. If you're not analyzing every business expense then you're looking for trouble!

There are lots of free website builders available - Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy Website Builder, or, if you're a little more adventurous, take WordPress for a spin.  So, again, why pay me?

Hiring a web professional such as myself can benefit individuals or businesses looking to establish or enhance their online presence for these reasons:

1. Expertise and Skill: We have the technical knowledge and skills required to create well-designed and functional websites. We are constantly learning new skills and staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends and best practices, ensuring your website meets modern standards such as WCAG.
2. Customization: We will tailor your website to meet your specific needs and goals. We create a unique design for every client to reflect your unique brand identity, making your website stand out from competitors and leaving a lasting impression on visitors. We DON'T do cookie-cutter, choose-your-template websites!
3. User Experience (UX): Everyone understands the importance of a positive user experience, even if they don't realize they

main name renewal scams Questions... Where was your domain name registered, when is it due for renewal, and about how much should you pay for a 1 year renewal (generally)? If you don't know you're a prime candidate for a domain renewal scam.

I'd hoped this may have died and gone away on its own, but it seems that "Melanie" (or whoever she or he really is) is a persistent little scammer that's working hard to screw you over. I've seen this email appear in various clients' inboxes. Always exactly the same format with the site URL changed and he/she uses slightly different names, but the scam is always the same. Get some poor sucker to click on a link to "check out a document listing supposed links to images which are copyrighted". There's a linking to a Google Site. I don't know what's at the end of that, and, frankly, I don't care nor have the time to bother finding out. But you can guarantee it is NOT a list of copyrighted image you are using illegally.

Shock! My site is using copyrighted images illegally!

Don't get me wrong, using copyrighted image without permission is WRONG! 100%. And it CAN cost you money if you do it and get caught. That's why we are carefully about where we source images to ensure they're legit.

But back to the email...

It starts off legitimately sounding. Some poor, hard-working photographer is upset that YOU used

For those who are more my age (suffice it to say, I'm still in my 50s...just!), and took to computing back in our 20s, we remember having to configure EVERYTHING! "Plug-n-play" wasn't even thought of back then, let alone dreamed about. But it did give those of us with some skills the chance to tweak and fiddle. While I, mostly, welcome the new age in computing where things just work (unless they don't!), these advances have made us lazy and un-attuned to potential threats to security. Most of us don't want to spend time setting up a piece of equipment or a software program, we demand that it works "Straight-out-of-the-box" without any intervention by us. I certainly like that for almost all equipment, but for software, that's a different matter. 

Why "out-of-the-box" settings can be bad

While this post can be related to any sort of software, it really references web design extensions. Apart from the fact that we're web designers, these extensions present hackers with their best opportunities for data theft. While doing updates on one of the sites we manage this week, the backup extension we use (for obvious reasons we aren't going to name it!) gave us a

Yes, I confess, the title is a little melodramatic! However, when it comes to your online and IT security, a little paranoia is a good thing! The truth is, there are people out there just waiting to get you. There's an Alan Parson's Project song "The Voice" that sums it up well in one line... "He's gonna get you!"

(As an aside, Alan Parsons was the sound engineer on Pink Floyd's record breaking album "Dark Side of the Moon".)

Good security protocols are your first line of defense. Make strong passwords and don't leave them lying around. If you're really paranoid, change them regularly. Don't use the same password over multiple sites. 

But good passwords is only part of the solution. With the technology available to hackers today, even the best passwords and security protocols are vulnerable. The second string to your online safety is maintaining good backups. Your backups should be both local and remote for good safety.

Making solid local backups 

Your first step in a solid backup regime is saving locally. This doesn't mean just to your hard drive. Those are day to day use files. I think of backups are archives - most of the time, these

Perhaps another, better, questions, is, do you have one? Or what IS a Content Security Policy? That's a great questions!

It's a quite complicated series of policies designed to make websites more secure. You can find Wikipedia's explanation on their site. For more reading (if Wikipedia's definition didn't send you to sleep!), you can look at Mozilla's site.

As with many things website related, the average business owner shouldn't be bothered with having to deal with items like this. They SHOULD be the realm of the website designer, done at the build time of the website. That's why we're going through all our clients' sites, for free, and updating their sites with an updated CSP. We're doing it free for 2 reasons. Firstly, all our clients get 12 hours of free time every year for this sort of thing. Secondly, and most importantly, our original deployment didn't provide as robust a security suite as we had thought, so we're doing what any decent business person should do - giving quality service!

So, back to the original question - what's your CSP? If you don't know, you can check it at this site. When you get there, copy and paste in

 We're all told to be vigilant about internet scams, and to safeguard our online profiles. But, in trying to do this, have we unwittingly exposed ourselves more than we already were? A few years ago, probably through a post on a forum somewhere (I don't remember), I heard about a site called "Have I been Pwned?" From memory, the author of the post touted this as a great way to go and check if your email had been hacked. At the time, there had been a spate of email hack attacks so I went and did a check. Phew! I hadn't been hacked. Now that this latest scam has come around, I have to wonder whether that was a good idea. I mean, really, I had no clue if that site was legit or not. Did I stupidly give hackers a working email address? I haven't linked to the site for a good reason... read on McDuff!

The latest scam is an email giving a password that the author claims to be yours. Interestingly, in one of the 2 emails I've gotten, the password quoted was quite like a password I used about 5-6 years ago (but don't anymore). Initially

A couple of times in my computing life, I've had that sinking, cold pit in my stomach where I realized that I've lost data and have no backup. It's not a fun moment, but, fortunately for me, the data wasn't irreplaceable. I was stupid, but lucky. With some websites taking hundreds of hours of input, I can't afford to take that chance. We take regular backups and send them offsite. What's the point of a backup if it gets destroyed or stolen with your computer? Or subject to ransomware?

If you own a computer, you MUST ask yourself 2 extremely important questions? 1. Would it matter if I lost all the data on this computer with no way to retrieve it? And 2. How long would it take to rebuild this data and how would it affect my business? And you must also be able to answer them - even if it means realizing that the repercussions would be disastrous.

What's worth backing up?

Any information that is crucial to the continuing smooth operation of your business. It may be as complex as technical drawings, to invoices, to the lowly email. Whatever contributes to your day going well is worth