On Current Web Standards

4GHadmin | 25 April 2016

html5.1

In this article we will help bring you up to date with current website development standards.

HTML5 was a many year project that was launched in 2014; mostly as the concerted effort by the W3C organization. The plan was, from that point forward to continue to publish regular incremental updates to the HTML standard; but a few things didn’t happen as planned. Now a newly named organization, the Web Platform Working Group (WP WG) is working towards a HTML5.1 to be released within the next 6 months. The project centers around a general workflow; which means the group will be releasing a stable version of HTML, as a W3C recommendation, about once annually moving forward.

HTML Specification Goals
The core goals for future HTML specifications are to:
* match reality better,
* make the specification as clear as possible to readers,
* to make it possible for all stakeholders to propose improvements,
* and to understand what makes changes to HTML successful.

HTML 5.1 Timeline
The current schedule is to ship an HTML5.1 recommendation in September 2016. This implies they will need to have a Candidate Recommendation by the middle of June 2016, following a “Call For Consensus” based on the most recent working draft. The updated working draft is published approximately once a month; changes are noted within the specification itself.

They practice an evolutionary schedule of “rinsing and repeating”; making regular incremental updates to HTML that is relatively straightforward to implement. If you are interested you can see current chatter from the working group members @HTMLWG on Twitter.

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On webmaster responsibilities for securing their website

4GHadmin | 18 April 2016

websitesecurity
Every day across the internet, hackers, malicious users, and cybercriminals, for whatever motive they may have, compromise thousands of websites. Their hacks are even sometimes invisible to users, but can remain harmful to visitors viewing the page, including the site owner. Unbeknownst to webmasters for some amount of time, their site has become infected with various forms of harmful code; some have shown able to record keystrokes on visitor’s computers, and even steal login credentials for financial account or online banking.

You may ask: Is it my web host’s responsibility to protect my website? The answer is: both yes & no. Your web host, like 4GoodHosting, has implemented strong network security mechanisms and various other security measures to ensure your website works optimally. However, keeping each website secure is also the responsibility of the webmaster. Shared hosting is also by nature an “unmanaged” environment. This implies that each customer is responsible for updating their applications, website code and implementing security precautions to protect their website files and CMS (Content Management Service – such as WordPress/Drupal/Joomla). Over the years we have seen various and some recent vulnerabilities with popular applications such as WordPress. Sometimes these breaches through WordPress have impacted customer websites; because the site owners’ did not keep their applications up to date – even after receiving notifications that their installation needs to be patched due to vulnerabilities that have been identified. Some examples of these attacks are: SQL injections, Code injections, template holes and many more.

If your site gets hacked what should you do? Here is where you should ask yourself: “Do I want to handle it myself? Or get help?” Here at 4GoodHosting we follow a well thought out and rigid methodology that enables us to automatically scan for and identify malware/hacks on our customers’ sites. We have built a rigorous process to resolve and fix the attack, “hack” as soon as possible.

We employ the following steps:

1) 24/7 Monitoring

2) Scanning of the site

3) Assessing the damage (hacked with spam or malware)

4) Identify the vulnerability

5) If necessary, Quarantining the site

6) Validating backup files

7) Clean and maintain the website

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Website Redecorating

4GHadmin | 11 April 2016

4GoodHosting-websiteredecorating

Truly a picture is worth hundreds or thousands of words. Often we do not apply that knowledge towards improving the quality of our personal and small business websites. Images are naturally better, in many cases, because they are much much more conducive at communicating emotion, setting a mood or creating impact. There are many different kinds of visual media: video, artwork photographs, charts, infographics.

Video is the new black

Wherever presentable, video is becoming a “must-have” media for almost any professional marketer. Amazingly, all you need today is a smart-phone. We have all become video camera men and women. It becomes easy to film a basic overview or any kind of video on your phone, and touch it up by utilizing many video editing software applications which make it ready to add to your blog or website.

Video can even create more engagement than static graphics; making it easier for you to allow your brand to shine. It can make it easier to explain the value of your products in a more engaging style and in more detail. People have limited time and limited attention span on the internet: so try to keep your video: smart, basic, and simple.

Photography

Today we have high definition cameras in our pockets and persons in the form of a smartphone. Ironically we still seem to find it a chore to present great or the best images for small business websites. If you’re not a DIY photographer, there are dozens of stock art websites. Here is our recent blog post detailing that:

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Two Dozen Free but Valuable WordPress plugins

4GHadmin | 05 April 2016

4GoodHosting-WordPress-Plugins

A large percentage of the client websites we host are based on WordPress. We are sometimes asked for plugin suggestions. Having the right mixture of plugins can help you take your business or otherwise hobby website to the next level.

With over 44,000 free plugins available in the WordPress depot, there is no lacking of any amount on utility that can be easily added to your website by installing one of them. There are literally thousands of plugins providing features that you might have not known to exist.

However, it can be quite time-consuming to sort the great ones from the bad ones, so we are giving you a list of the best plugins that you must have in the most essential categories. We also list an alternative for many of the categories.

All the plugins considered here are free and can be installed on your website within a few minutes.

A. W3 Total Cache

Speed is one of the most important SEO factors. Faster websites rank higher in Google, this means more visitors for your business website and more conversions.

W3 Total Cache allows you to serve compressed and cached files to your visitors. This reduces the load on your server and your website becomes faster.

B. Soliloquy

Sliders on your WordPress landing pages allow you to easily display your featured content, products, and announcements in a beautiful interactive way. Soliloquy is the best WordPress slider in the market. It allows you to easily create your own beautiful sliders and add them anywhere on your WordPress site.

C. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the most popular conversion rate optimization software. It allows you to convert abandoning website visitors into email subscribers. If you want to grow your email list, then this is a must have WordPress plugin in 2016.

If you don’t have a firewall on your website, then add one today.

D. BackupBuddy

While we’re talking about security, there’s no better security than having a reliable backup system.

As a business owner, you cannot afford to lose your business and customer data in case of a hardware failure or an attack on your host’s servers. The first thing you should setup on all your WordPress sites is a backup plugin. We recommend using BackupBuddy because it is one of the most reliable and easiest way to backup and restore your WordPress sites with just a few clicks.

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