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Browser Updates

January 14, 2013

Recently there has been news about browser security, notably Java and IE updates.

Java

The U.S. government (Department of Homeland Security) issued a warning late last week asking users to temporarily disable Java on their machines. There was a large flaw discovered in a recent version.

Follow this link to disable Java on your machine and keep it safe from this vulnerability. Once a fix is supplied by Oracle, you should update your Java install, and then you can re-enable Java.

Internet Explorer

The zero-day flaw in IE6, 7, and 8 has surfaced again. Make sure that you install the latest version of Internet Explorer that your operating system supports. If version 8 is the latest version of IE you can install, make sure you apply the Windows Update Microsoft is releasing today and then reboot.

Alan has been creating websites since CompuServe was huge. Today he still is developing websites using technologies such as CSS3, HTML5, jQuery and CakePHP.
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Are You a Human?

January 10, 2013

We have all seen them, those annoying little squiggly letters with lines, symbols, and characters that are hard to read at the end of online forms. Yes, that’s right, the “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”, better known as the CAPTCHA.

The purpose of the CAPTCHA is really quite simple. It acts as a verification that the individual filling out the form is a human instead of a computer. In return, this cuts down on the amount of spam submissions but annoys the human that’s trying to match the cryptic letters, because they happened to forget their secret decoder ring in their cereal box.

Not only that, but as a website owner you could potentially lose submissions from your website, simply because people might not have the patience to try to guess these squiggles or constantly refreshing the CAPTCHA until they find one that can be read. Depending on your website, this could mean a loss of business. Ideally, your website should be user friendly and not irritate the person using it.

Luckily, there is an alternative.

A company called Are You A Human, created a CAPTCHA alternative. Instead of making your users mad, you simply let them play a game. Who doesn’t like to play games? These games are really easy, so hopefully, you’ll “win” everytime. For example, one game asks you to “Add toppings to the pizza.” You’re presented with a pizza and three items (a mushroom, shoe, and anchor). All you need to do is grab the mushroom and drag it to the pizza and done. You’ve verified yourself as a human and can submit your form entry.

The best part is…it’s free. If you happen to use WordPress or Drupal, Are You a Human, offers easy to use plugins. Other plugins are available, along with libraries for PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python, Microsoft.NET, and Java. A paid option is available if you require any specific features or support.

So what are you waiting for? Make your website a little more user friendly and try this CAPTCHA alternate.

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New Year’s Resolutions for Business?

January 7, 2013

As a business owner, it is hard to take time to learn something new.  it is hard to get away from “The Office”  to go to a far away place to often be disappointed in what the content was, how the speaker presented it or maybe the content was WAY OVER your head or completely different than the description and you were paying to be bored.  UGH.

With the New Year, you may be feeling the need to learn something new but just don’t have the inspiration to do it!  But start small and do something that you can stick to.

Here Are a Couple Ideas:

There’s something to be said about people finding a way to “share” and learn new things.  To Grow. Yes, there are conferences, there are still trade shows.  You can spend a lot of money and time traveling around the country looking for ways to learn things.

Learning: Social Media 

The Social Media buzz is everywhere.  It wasn’t long ago when those of us that had been on Twitter and mentioned, “Follow Me on Twitter” got greeted with blank stares or rolled eyes.  Now you cannot watch news programs or a multitude of other shows without a mention of Facebook or Twitter, to keep in touch and get your latest information.

Social Media Breakfast LogoIf you feel like you have missed the Social Media Bus and are behind the 8-ball, then chances are there is a group nearby that you can learn from.  In Maine, there are 3 groups of Social Media Breakfasts that require no membership, no mandatory attendance and are run by local volunteers that want to learn just like you do. And the networking provides other opportunities.

Social Media Breakfasts here in Maine are located in Bangor, (first Thursday of the month) Portland (last Friday of the month) and Central Maine ( third Tuesday of the month) – these are rules of thumb and the schedule may change. Check before you make the drive, I made that mistake once.  There are minimal costs to cover your breakfast and you should RSVP so they have a head count. There are different topics every month and there are different levels of experience all in the same room.  Everyone is there to help one another.  These are run by great volunteers that have bothered to help you promote your business out of the goodness of their hearts.  Thank you to all of them!  *

Learning:  Networking 

New ways to network and one of them that many use is LinkedIn.  Do you have a LinkedIn profile? We wrote something here and still stand by it.   If you don’t, you should and get yourself on one of the message boards or the groups.  Much of this is FREE but there is a monthly fee option and if you are paying it, I am sure you are using it and don’t need me to tell you anything!

Start Small

Think of one thing each month that you can PLAN on doing.  Put it on the calendar.  Commit to it.  If it is something like participating in a LinkedIn group or listening to a webinar, close your office door.  You are working.  You are working on you and being a better business owner.  If you can, plan a few months a head.  You will save time, money and make money all at once!  Hope to see you at one soon!!

*Social Media Breakfasts in Bangor are now held at Husson University.

*Thank you, Social Media Breakfast for the use of your logo.

 

Kelly's been known as the Marketing Maven since before the term was hip. (That means she's old.) She loves to get people together and help when she can to bring resources to the table and solve problems!
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Sephone State of the Browser: December 2012

January 2, 2013

Every six months we go through the Google Analytics reports from a handful of our most popular sites across a number of industries in hopes of seeing patterns about web usage.

Why do this? As developers this is really handy info to know; it lets us judge what percentage of web users run different browsers. Over time it becomes more difficult to support older browsers, and we’ll focus our time on newer versions instead. It’s good news for us because newer browsers allow us to code sites in a way that allows more features and interactivity, and it’s a good thing for customers because it’s less time (and money) spent supporting outdated browsers that not many people use.

This year we broke the numbers down even farther to focus on mobile usage. Let’s take a look at what we found.

Sephone State of the Browser: December 2012

 

What’s amazing about this report is that combined Internet Explorer usage has dropped under 40% of total traffic. When we did our first report in the middle of 2008, Internet Explorer made up over 80% of the traffic we saw on the sites we sampled; with the growing popularity of browsers like Chrome and a larger number of people using Macs loaded with Safari, IE’s numbers continue to shrink. The increase in traffic from mobile devices using the Android browser and Mobile Safari on iOS also contributes to IE’s weaker numbers. As a reminder, we recommend that you use Chrome, Safari, or Firefox for the best experience on the web. They’re all free.

Speaking of mobile, this chart is pretty incredible:

Sephone State of the Browser - Mobile Usage: December 2012

Mobile usage on the sites we sampled has more than doubled within the last year alone. As of December 2012, about 19% of traffic to the five sites we sampled comes from a mobile device (phone or tablet). Mobile’s rate of increase continues to accelerate as well. We’ll be talking a lot about mobile in 2013.

Interested in some of our past data? Read our past State of the Browser reports.

The data above represent traffic during the month of December 2012 to five sites developed and maintained at Sephone. The graph shown above is a simple average of each of the five sites and does not represent the relative popularity of the five sites and the effects of that on the percentages.

Justin is one of the developers at Sephone. He's interested in user-driven design, social media, and web services. He also enjoys learning and exploring new ways for businesses and people to use the web.
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Help Your Customers Understand What You Do

December 31, 2012

For better or worse, I have a reputation of being the geek in my family. Whenever a bunch of us get together – say, at a Christmas dinner – I usually end up being a part of a couple of conversations about the latest gadget or tech news story that’s made its way to CNN.

Over the past few years I’ve noticed more and more of these conversations have been about how difficult it is to use technology. Relatives have trouble setting up email on their phones or figuring out how to control who sees the stuff they put on Facebook. Sometimes I try to help and see that, yup, it really is tough to do what they’re trying to do. But I’ll admit, sometimes I say to myself, “How can they not understand that? It’s so simple!”

When that happens, I catch myself and take a few steps back. It’s simple for me to find something on Twitter or take a photo with my phone because I do it all the time. My relatives don’t. They work in banks, hospitals, and schools all day; tech isn’t their area of expertise.

We’ve talked a lot about looking at your business through your customer’s eyes here in the past. When you work in a field for a long time, it can be easy to forget that not everyone understands the ins and outs of whatever it is you do. Whether you’re blogging, using social media, or talking to potential customers face-to-face, sharing your knowledge is a great way to develop new relationships. Remember, though, to talk about it in a way that the people who don’t do what you do can understand.

Help your future customers learn and be more comfortable with your area of expertise. You may find they’ll start thinking of you when they have a question about it.

Justin is one of the developers at Sephone. He's interested in user-driven design, social media, and web services. He also enjoys learning and exploring new ways for businesses and people to use the web.
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Verify Your Domain Information

December 21, 2012

A few days ago we received a notice from our domain registrar , Network Solutions, about verifying our domain contact information is up to date.  It is a requirement of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, that Network Solutions and other domain registrars like Godaddy, Register.com, Domain.com, send out this notice to ensure that your info is up to date, should they need to contact you about your domain.  The domain contact information is called the WHOIS record, and you can check to see if yours is up to date by visiting: http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp, and entering in your domain name(s).

What am I looking at?

In most cases with the WHOIS record you will want to make sure that the registrant info is your contact info.  The registrant is who the domain registrar will contact in the case of needing to reach out to the domain owner.  Even if the domain is registered through another company, such as us here at Sephone, the registrant contact should still be you or your business.  This ensures that you own the domain should you ever need to move it or make changes to it.  The other contacts you see, such as Technical and Administrative Contacts should either be you, or the company that you registered the domain through.  Here at Sephone we list our selves as the Tech and Admin contacts, and the customer as the registrant.

What do I need to do?

It is important to note that in most cases this is not a spam email, and you should verify the information.  If nothing has changed or the information is correct you do not need to do anything.  If you see something that needs to be updated though, you should be able to update the WHOIS record through your domain registrar.  If you are a Sephone client, please let us know and we will be happy to make the update for you.

Brady is the voice on the other end of the phone line when you call Sephone. He graduated from the New England School of Communications in 2009 and assists Sephone in building and maintaining our sites.
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SEO Snakeoil

December 19, 2012

We have been saying for years that anybody making promises about number 1 rankings in Google is flat out lying. There are some very good legitimate things you can do to your website to improve your rankings, just be careful about getting scammed.  Don’t just take our word for it, Matt Cutts, an engineer at Google, shares his views

Alan has been creating websites since CompuServe was huge. Today he still is developing websites using technologies such as CSS3, HTML5, jQuery and CakePHP.
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Holidays are more than wrapped packages, aren’t they?

December 19, 2012

Holidays mean different things to different people.

Often circumstances dictate the mood for the occasion.  Tragedies or victories within your family or extended community can make a person stop, think and feel grateful for family, friends, business associates and others. And not so much for the iPod, iPad, Kindle or other “thing-a-ma-jig”  that is on your “List.” 

 

We want to “Thank You” for all you have given us these last 11+ years.

We are grateful for the relationships that have begun and grown over the years.  To our customers, our networks and all of us that make Sephone, we are grateful. Period.

We have some different Holiday Hours than our usual 8-5:

  • Monday, December 24, Christmas Eve and Tuesday Christmas Day we will be CLOSED.
    We will reopen December 26 at 8am and resume normal business hours through Friday December 28.
  • Monday, December 31, Sephone will open at 8am and close at 3pm.
  • Tuesday, January 1, Sephone will be CLOSED.
    We will reopen January 2  at 8am and resume normal business hours through Friday, January 4, 2013 (WOW! That feels weird!)

From our Geeks:  (Bless them!) “During this time our technical team will be on alert and able to respond to any critical events such as server disruption resulting in website downtime. Due to an emergency, if you require immediate service, please submit a support ticket at support.sephone.com. Any support requests that are not an emergency will be handled when our office resumes normal operating hours.”

And from all of us!  To You and Yours: However, whenever and wherever you celebrate, be safe, be merry and bright. And to a prosperous 2013!

~ Sephone

*Thank you to Dreamstime for the use of the beautiful image.

Kelly's been known as the Marketing Maven since before the term was hip. (That means she's old.) She loves to get people together and help when she can to bring resources to the table and solve problems!
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