Newsletter - May 2009

C-M-What?

It’s the end of April, and it’s been a busy spring for Orphic Workshop. We'’ve been working away on a number of new sites, and realized for the first time that we’re producing more CMS sites than static. Still, a lot of people don’t know what a CMS is, and what it can do for them.

CMS stands for Content Management System, and at the core creates a framework for your website that allows for easy updating of content – text and photo edits, even new pages.

It's useful for users because almost anyone can make the changes to their site themselves, vastly reducing the expense of site upkeep and maintenance. And if clients don’t want to be their own webmaster, it still cuts down on the costs, because its easier and faster for someone else to make those changes.

We’'ve experimented with a number of different CMS programs, and we'’ve been remarkably happy with an open-source solution named Joomla. Using an open source solution helps keeps the costs down, and there’s a very active community of users and developers that have created plugins, components and modules, allowing snap-in functionality, from calendars to newsletters to shopping carts to blogging. Its not quite as simple as building blocks, but its considerably more streamlined than coding it all by hand.

Site development is faster too. Where as our website development time was six to eight weeks, once we have content in hand a CMS site can take as little as three weeks. Again, less time means less expense.

One problem with CMS programs in the past was that they weren'’t very search engine friendly. Clients would end up with webpage addresses that ended in a string of numbers or symbols. That’s been resolved now, so that its harder and harder to tell a CMS site from a static site.

To wrap it up: If you’'ve been looking at your old website and thinking you’'d like to change it, but have been worried about finances (and who hasn’t!) this is a great opportunity. Less upfront cost, more flexibility, less maintenance expense.

Additionally we’re offering a 10% discount on all new designs or redesigns commissioned before June 30, 2009.

Spring and Summer SEO special

We’ll do a full keyword analysis, offer better metatags for the home page, and implement those new terms, as well as submit the site to the engines, and offer solid suggestions for improving the rest of the site, for the discounted rate of $250. If you agree with the suggestions for the rest of the site, we’ll make a full list and estimate of costs, at our usual $75/hour.

IT update:

"Scareware" is the name for the newest and biggest class of threats to your computer's security and well-being. The growth of these new types of mal-ware has become prolific in the last few months, and it looks like it's only going to get worse. So, what is "scareware"?

Scareware is a type of software that is designed to cause concern or fear over the secure state of your computer. A common tactic is to convince users that their computer is infected with a virus, then suggest that they download, and pay for, anti-virus software to remove it. Usually in cases like this, the virus is non-existent, but the software that is downloaded contains malware. Many of the varieties of scareware that are out now will even simulate Windows Blue Screen errors in order to convince a computer user that they have been infected. And the names and websites used by some of these products can be VERY convincing. The names include Antivirus2008, XPAntivirus, SpywareSecure, and Winfixer, and many of the websites have a professional, official-looking design, and copyrighted material and trademarks.

The ultimate goal of these types of software is pretty simple - to get your credit card number.

There are a number of different types of scareware out right now. For a quick overview, you can go to Wikipedia.org ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scareware). For more information on how to protect yourself from scareware, and other types of phishing attacks, visit the Anti-Phishing Working Group's consumer advice page: http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html for more information on what to look out for to protect yourself.

The Conficker worm, another piece of malware that you may have read about, is also using similar tactics. If you're unsure whether you may be infected with it, you can visit the Conficker Working Group's page for a free, fast check on your computer. Go to http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/wiki/, then click on the "Check for Infection" link.

If you have questions about what security software you're using, or what products we use or recommend, feel free to contact me at ken@orphicworkshop.com. We're happy to make recommendations to help keep our customers safe.

Thanks for reading, and please contact us today if you have any questions

Everyone at Orphic Workshop

Remember, you can contact us anytime for any of your web development or IT needs.

Email
Voice:505-349-3877
Fax:877-754-1266