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

 Remember what (hopefully) your parents taught you? "Don't sign anything till you've read it through!" Totally brilliant advice, but, let's face it, how many of us do? When you signed that life insurance, or car insurance application, did you read ALL the fine print? How about a mortgage or loan doc? You did? Wow, high fives and mega-kudos to you. The fact is, most of us ever read any of the fine print beyond maybe a line or two.

But, if you're signing a loan doc, or, as you will soon learn what prompted this post, a Merchant Services Agreement, you do look at the dollars and cents part of it, yes? And the term? And the penalties (if any) for breaking the agreement early? I think we all do (hopefully!!). But, 1 month, 6 months, 12 months down the track, do we remember what we signed? Perhaps you get the idea where this post may be going....

PayPal is good when you're starting out 

PayPal gets a lot of flak about their "high" fees, and, it's true, their fees are up there with the "best" of them. But they're no worse than most other "convenience" providers such as Square,

I'm pretty sure we've all had times we've said we hated Microsoft, or Google, or some other company whose product of service really ticked us off. It happens. But when it happens SO often that there are multiple court cases against a company whose practices seem "unfair", and there's even a Facebook Page dedicated to how much people hate them, you have to wonder.... 

Yelp, the name invokes different feelings depending on whether you're a consumer (in which case you likely love the helpful reviews), or you're a business owner (which usually bring feelings of hate. loathing and mistrust). True, I have talked to some business owners who seem to have a happy relationship with Yelp, but I honestly feel they're a very small minority... or they're paying for the privilege.

But hang on. Haven't many people tried to sue Yelp over its supposed bad practices? And lost? Yep, 100% of suits against Yelp have failed. So that makes them innocent, right? Yeah, well, the charges against Justin Smollett got dropped too, but what did the prosecutor who dropped those charges say? "We believe he did what he was charged with doing," he said. "This was not an exoneration. To say he

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

In the past, the Americans with Disabilities Act has, largely, been used against brick-and-mortar businesses to ensure easy access and movement for disabled people in stores.Alarmingly, for website owners, the ADA has turned its sights against online entities - whether or not they have a brick-and-mortar presence. Some high profile lawsuits over the last 12-18 months have had major businesses scrambling to make their websites ADA compliant.

The bad news is... there are no hard and fast guidelines 

Imagine sitting down to take an math exam, and, when you open the test paper envelope, there's a piece of paper that says, "This exam is going to test your math knowledge." and nothing else. It's going to be hard to complete that exam right? 

That's a little like the situation website owners are faced over the ADA and website design. We're told we need to be compliant, just not exactly HOW to be compliant. There are some guidelines - WCAG 1 & 2, Section 508, and PDF Matterhorn. The problem is there's a lack of guidelines on how to interpret it in regards website accessibility and how to implement it properly.

So what should YOU do?

Should you care?

If you

New Years' resolutions are a great thing... IF you carry them out. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (probably) wrote, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"! No plan is bad, but a plan that's never put into action is just as bad.

This New Year, make a resolution to get your website really cranking; and it's not hard to do! In my years of browsing I've seen some pretty horrible, and some pretty awesome, websites. Sadly, I've seen more of the former than the latter. Ever been to a site and thought, "Wow! That's a really cool looking website!" but been unable to find what you want? That's not uncommon. And there's some good reasons for this, but more on that later...

How do I supercharge the website experience for my visitors? 

Google is now placing some pretty heavy emphasis on how users interact not only with your website, but with the results on the SERPs. That's RankBrain and you NEED to understand it and what it's looking for! You can find out more on Neil Patel's article. Or dig deeper into RankBrain here.

Aside from RankBrain, there are really 2 other ranking elements - content and backlinks. And while you have

Happy New Year (almost)! I know it's a cliche sort of thing, New Years resolutions. I also know that most of us end up breaking all our well-meaning promises to ourselves. This year, along with the weight loss, exercise, make-more-money resolutions, resolve this one; 

"I will work on my website to make it more effective this year!"

The world is online more and more, which means your website is competing, online, with more and more sites. This means your site needs to be at its best to just keep your head above water.

Make sure your site is up to date. Frequently I'll go to a site that is still using Adobe Flash animations. Folks, this is outdated technology. Not only will it not display on any of my browsers as I have it disabled by default, but it won't show on Apple products like iPhones and iPads. Then I'll see "Content coming soon" or "Under construction". Yikes! Or I'll view their blog and the last post is 6 months ago, or a year, or YEARS! This lack of maintenance tells your customer you don't care about your online business card. What will they infer about your care of