During Matt Mullenweg’s State Of The Word address at WordCamp US 2016, he mentioned that they would be ramping up marketing efforts in 2017. Their first TV Ads are now being tested in six markets. Each shares a touching story of a business owner in Detroit who is using WordPress to power their business website. You can check out three of the Ads below.
Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.
Safe web browsing and internet security is more important today than it has ever been. Everyday we hear about another major website being hacked and their service going down, or customer data being compromised. It happens to the best of them, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, they have all experienced these problems, and the sad truth is, it could happen to your photography website too.
We need to be diligent in protecting our website and data by ensuring the web server software is up-to-date, that your Content Management System and plugin software is up-to-date, that security monitoring is in place, and website backups are running daily. But there is another step we can take to help protect our website and visitors, and that’s using SSL and HTTPS.
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and is the standard security technology used to create an encrypted link between a web server and the user’s web browser. Think of this connection like a tunnel between your website and your users. There is only one way in and one way out and all data sent between them is kept private and secure.
To create this secure connection you first need to purchase and install an SSL Certificate on your web server. You will need to answer a few questions about the identity of your company and website and then two cryptographic keys will be generated, a Private Key and a Public Key.
The Public Key is placed into a data file called a Certificate Signing Request (CRS) and is submitted to the Certification Authority that will validate your details and issue the SSL Certificate. Your web server will then match your issued SSL Certificate to your Private Key establishing an encrypted connection to your user’s web browser.
The encrypted connection is made over HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) and will display https in the website address bar along with a closed padlock symbol.
SSL data encryption secures your website visitor’s connection, an when people see that padlock icon in the web address bar, they feel a little safer and trust visiting and shopping on your site. It also helps to limit your security liability knowing that the connection isn’t being compromised by a hacker trying to capture sensitive data.
Google and other search engines like secure websites. They are recommending you just by displaying your website in their search results. If they know your site is secured by SSL, they will be more likely to rank you higher in the results than your competition who aren’t using SSL.
If you have an e-commerce site selling photo products, membership site for online classes, or are collecting some form of sensitive data, SSL is a must!
In the past to purchase, configure and install an SSL certificate on a website could get pretty expensive. But with the different options available today, it’s never been more affordable to secure your site.
As part of Current Photographer’s Managed WordPress Hosting and Support, we offer different levels of SSL encryption. If you need a basic SSL we can set you up at no additional cost and for more advanced needs our low priced SSLs will have you covered.
Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.
WordPress issued a security/maintenance release, version 4.7.5, and is now available for update.
This update addresses six security issues;
In addition to addressing the security vulnerabilities, WordPress 4.7.5 contains 3 maintenance fixes.
WordPress is recommending that you update your website immediately, but before you do make sure you have a full backup copy of your website files and database. You can download this latest version from WordPress.org or update your existing install by going to your Dashboard > Updates, and clicking the link to update.
You can learn more about this security release here.
Since Current Photographer provides Managed WordPress Hosting, our clients don’t have to worry about upgrading their websites to version 4.7.5, because we take care of that for them. We backup the website files and database, run the core update, and then confirm the website is loading properly before going live. If we detect a problem, we’ll automatically roll it back to the state it was prior to the update and inform our clients of the issue. Automatic WordPress core updates is just one of the great features you get with our Hosting and Support plans.
Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.
We’ve seen a few updates to the WordPress core over the last several months, but version 4.8 will be the first major release in 2017. The focus of this update is to refine existing features and prepare for the new Gutenberg editor. Additional features planned for this release include:
• TinyMCE inline element / link boundaries
• New media widgets
• WYSIWYG in text widget
The new widget enhancements are exciting to us as designers. Currently the only way to add media such as photos and videos, to a sidebar widget is to either use a plugin or write some code that would be added to a standard Text Widget. In version 4.8 you’ll have those widgets built right in to the core to make adding media so much easier.
If you’re not a coder, just trying to add some formatted text to a sidebar can be a pain. How do you format a link? How do you make text Bold? Many people just create a Post or Page and use the Visual Editor to create their content and then copy the code in to a standard Text Widget. In version 4.8 there will be a simple visual editor built-in to the Text Widget where you can do some basic formatting. This will be so much more user friendly to the non-coder.
The release schedule for WordPress version 4.8 is:
Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.
We love WordPress and have been developing websites for clients of all sizes since 2009. Many of our clients had never heard of WordPress and some thought is was just free blogging software and couldn’t possibly be used to build a custom website that would fit their needs.
When we told them about its flexibility in design, ease of management, and the functionality that could be added through plugins, they began to understand. The fact that WordPress is the dominate CMS platform worldwide and that it powers over 26% of the internet also helped 😉
The great team over at WPbeginner.com put together a list of over 40 big name brands that have put their trust in WordPress. Companies like TechCrunch, Sony, Star Wars, Disney, and more have all realized the benefits this CMS platform has to offer.
We encourage you to give their article, 40+ Most Notable Big Name Brands that are Using WordPress a read to see for yourself the awesome sites that can be created with WordPress.
Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.
It’s official, Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress, posted that WordPress will be ending support Internet Explorer versions 8, 9, and 10 starting with WordPresss 4.8.
Since Microsoft officially discontinued support for these browsers back in January 2016, Matt said “…to continue supporting them ourselves has gotten to the point where it’s holding back development”.
In general, Internet Explorer market share has dropped over the years in favor of more compatible and reliable browsers like FireFox and Chrome. Research shows that the older IE browsers combined is equal to less than 1% – 3% of total users. That number falls below the threshold where it makes sense for WordPress to continue to develop and test for.
So how will this effect your website visitors? In short, it won’t!
The majority of internet users have upgraded to newer computers and browsers that support the latest internet technologies. What website owners should be more concerned about is mobile compatibility.
With 80% of internet users owning smartphones, it’s critical that your website be mobile-friendly. Social media activity, email, and web browsing are happening from the comfort of the couch and not from the desktop.
We have the luxury of information at our fingertips. When a potential customer is searching for a photographer, you want them to find your site and have a great experience while there.
If your website is not mobile-friendly, you need to consider making it a business priority to update in 2017.
Founder of Current Photographer, co-host of The Digital Photography Cafe Show, Designer, Photographer, and overall tech geek.