Much of this day tends to focus on podcast creators, as we share tips and techniques as a community of podcasters (or future podcasters) learning to better their craft. But, it’s also about getting people to become aware of podcasts. While it’s hard for me to believe (as an avid podcast listener), some people are not aware of podcasts – or even if they are – how to subscribe, interact with the hosts of the shows, or join into the community.

I’ve previously written an article about why a business (or organization) should consider getting into podcasting as a method of education, outreach, and marketing. But, in this article, I thought I’d highlight some of my favorite podcasts and encourage you to check one or more of them out. (If there is interest, I’ll write a post about how to subscribe to a podcast. It’s getting easier, but there is some tech involved and/or a number of apps that can be used.)

I’m also going to double-down on my effort to launch my Website Meets World podcast really soon (in fact, I’d hoped to have it ready for today… but a new project had me a bit too busy). I’m just putting this out there, though, as it helps to hold me accountable… and people signing up to the email list provides motivation. 

But enough about me, lets get to the recommendations!

I was initially going to recommend just a few of my top choices, but I decided to give you my whole current subscription list. I have arranged some of my favorites in each category near the top.

For keeping up to date with everything related to cgWerks, I’m subscribed to a number of podcasts related to design, business, technology, social media, marketing, podcasting, productivity, and general technology.

Podcasting

Because I’m so interested in podcasting, I started learning more about it… and I just didn’t stop. I think I have most of the experts in the field covered here. 

The Audacity to Podcast

If you want to learn to podcast and can only pick one, this is it. Listen to the whole library or go pick out your topics of interest. Daniel’s style is to cover a topic in detail and he has a great teaching style.

School of Podcasting (recent winner of the 2017 People’s Choice Podcast Awards in Technology!)

Dave is a veteran in the field of podcasting, and an expert in podcast training. His show covers everything from how-to to industry news, mixing in bits of comedy including the true star, Bernie the Cat.  He also has one of the best courses available to get you up to speed on podcasting if you’d like to start one of your own.

The Feed: The Official Libsyn Podcast

A staple of podcast industry news, stats, wisdom, and tips related to Libsyn podcast hosting. If you’re going to start a podcast, you either want to use Libsyn or Blubrry for media hosting! (There are advantages to either depending on how you want your feed setup/hosted and specific features.)

Podcasters’ Roundtable

A variety of topics related to podcasting in a round-table format with regular podcast veterans (Ray Ortega, Dave, and Daniel from above) joined by guest podcasters who submit topics and are relative to the subject under discussion.

Ask the Podcast Coach

Podcast Help Desk

The Podcasters’ Studio

Because of My Podcast

Podcast Quick Tips

Design

The Boagworld UX Show

The Deep End Deign

The Web Ahead

Business

AskPat

The Smart Passive Income

Entrepreneur On Fire

The $100 MBA Show

Kate’s Take

The Side Hustle Show

Mastermind.fm

ProCoach

Technology

Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP)

A podcast mostly covering Apple, but I just wanted to note that it features the creator of Overcast podcast app, Marco Arment. I switched from Apple’s Podcast app to this excellent app last year. Watch for an upcoming post highlighting some of the upsides and reasons for the switch (along with a couple of downsides too).

Space Javelin

A couple of my favorite Apple industry media people (Mike Wuerthele, Charles Martin) started this podcast after MacNN closed its doors.

Today in iOS Podcast

Hosted by Libsyn’s Rob Walch

AppleInsider Podcast

YouTube/Social Media

Video Creators

Marketing

Moondog Marketing Podcast

The UnPodcast

The Truth About Marketing

Copy Chief Radio

WordPress

WordPress Weekly

WordPress Plug-ins from A to Z

WordPress Resource: Your Website Engineer

Politics / News

Congressional Dish

This is THE podcast every American (or anyone impacted by America) needs to listen to. The host covers what is going on in Congress and the bills being passed and debated. Trigger warning! You’ll likely be shocked and appalled once you find out. 

No Agenda

They don’t call it, ‘The best podcast in the universe‘ for nothing. Former MTV host and podcasting pioneer Adam Curry along with  tech industry writer/analyst John C Dvorak use their knowledge of the the media industry to deconstruct the messages. It’s sometimes irreverent, often hilarious, and incredibly produced for a live show, but whether you agree or disagree with every analysis, you’ll certainly come away better informed about what’s really going on in the world.

Personal Development

A few of these are a bit hard to classify, so I didn’t really try. A couple are also pretty good business podcasts, but for me, they fall more into personal development.

The Model Health Show

As the saying goes, if you don’t have your health… This is another must-listen show, as we’ve all got an awful lot to learn about taking better care of ourselves, especially in terms of diet. Shawn is a nutrition tour-de-force that I’ve yet to hear matched. Especially in the earlier episodes, Shawn goes topic-by-topic related to health and nutrition in a science-educational manner that is genius. What he covers is often the bleeding edge of what we understand about biology and science (as in, I’ll hear Shawn talking about it, and later see it in various science media), applied to our health. Another must-listen podcast!

The Art of Charm

Grammar Girl

The Cliff Ravenscraft Show (formerly Podcast Answer Man)

ONE Extraordinary Marriage Show

Beyond the To Do List

Economics Detective Radio

Noah Kagan Presents

Science Friday

TilledSoil Christian Apologetics

As some of you know (or maybe discovered if you follow me on social media), I also run a Christian apologetics ministry at TilledSoil.org. I have a seminary education/MA in Theology, and am passionate about teaching/training people in this discipline. To keep up with this expansive field of study, I follow a number of podcasts. While they are relatively unrelated to cgWerks, they are on my listening queue, so I wanted to pass them along.

White Horse Inn

This is the first podcast I can remember listening to… even well before it was a podcast (we’re talking cassette tapes, here). I was later putting episodes on CD-R discs for my car and other players before Apple made it easy.

This ministry also produces Modern Reformation magazine, and produces some of the best foundational Christian theology content around. They also touch on apologetics from time to time and were responsible for launching me on my Christian apologetics journey. I was introduced via their podcast to several of the Christian apologists below.

Stand to Reason

If you’re interested in learning about Christian theology (what Christians believe) and apologetics (why we believe it), and can fit in only one podcast, this is it! Greg Koukl hosts this show, often taking live call-in questions in what I can only describe as the most thoughtful, winsome manner you’ll probably ever encounter.

Alpha and Omega Ministries

James R White hosts this more in-depth look at Christian apologetics and theology, and is in my opinion, one of the best Christian apologists around today.

Unbelievable

A dialog/debate show from the UK pairing up, typically, a Christian and non-Christian opponent on some subject matter. A very unique show and one of the best ways to hear multiple viewpoints.

The Cold-Case Christianity Podcast

Hosted by my friend and fellow apologist, (Jim) J Warner Wallace. I started listening to this guy back when he started his podcast and followed him through his career to being a best-selling author and crazy-in-demand-speaker. He’s a former LA cold-case homicide detective (who never lost a case and has been featured on Dateline, etc.). He’s a former vocal atheist, and one of the sharpest people you’ll run across. He applies his detective prowess to Christian apologetics (which in doing so, led him to Christianity).

Intelligent Design The Future

You’ve probably heard of ID (intelligent design) or the infamous Dover trial as portrayed by the media and internet. Well, then you need to to be exposed to the real thing. Doing so will probably change your mind real quick… if not to agreement, then at least to respect for the position (rather than the foolish caricature that is portrayed).

Apologetics.com Radio Show

Cross Examined with Dr. Frank Turek

Apologetics Canada Podcast

cgWerks’ clients (and friends), Andy Steiger, Steve Kim, and others cover a wide range of Christian apologetics subject matter. This is actually how I got *officially* started in professional website design. I’ve watched this ministry/podcast grow (and helped setup the tech!) from the start. They now host multiple annual conferences across Canada that draw thousands of participants and most of the top-name Christian apologists.

Theopologetics

Another friend and fellow apologist, Chris Date, takes a deep dive into topics I seldom hear covered elsewhere. A treasure-trove of Christian apologetics and theology.

Irons Sharpens Iron Radio with Chris Arnzen

Line of Fire Radio

Reasonable Faith Podcast

Mama Bear Apologetics

Apologetics 315 Interviews

This podcast no longer seems active, but has an archive of interviews of just about every well-known Christian apologist.

Apologia Podcast by Reasons to Believe

Fighting for the Faith

Answers in Genesis

I often disagree with aspects of this podcast, but need to keep up-to-date with the information.

A lot of information and time

So there you have it. That’s my current podcast media list. I can’t possibly listen to every episode of all of them, but I actually do listen to every episode of most of the above. Some are daily podcasts ranging from 30 min to over 3 hours, and I only catch a percentage of those.

How is that even possible? (you might ask) Well, that’s partly where Overcast comes in. It has some special algorithms to compress space and speed up listening, so I’m often listening at an effective rate of 2x – 3x… so an hour episode takes 20-30 minutes. But, it’s still a lot and I might not always be able to pull it off. If I can’t then I can certainly trim down the list and/or skip more episodes of the less important shows or less-relevant particular episodes.

I’ve learned an incredible amount from these podcasters, so I’d like to take this opportunity on International Podcast Day to send out some thanks. Hopefully you’ll find a few from my list that will educate or entertain you as well.

The post International Podcast Day 2017 – My Favorite Podcasts appeared first on cgWerks.

I’m going to share what I’ve learned over the last 20+ years of working with websites and web servers/hosting, a general overview of web-hosting, and why we picked WPEngine to host our websites as well as our client websites **.

This is a long article (and I’ll keep adding to it), so feel free to jump down to the section that most interests you:

• Background
• Types of Hosting
• Why Managed Hosting
• Why WPEngine
• WPEngine – the good, the bad, (and the ugly?)
• What if I can’t afford WPEngine?

Note: some of the links on this page are affiliate links, which means that if you follow them and make a purchase, I’ll receive a commission. It will not cost you any more, but would help me a lot to keep producing content like this article, YouTube tutorials, etc. Thanks!

WP Engine – Cart Page – Scale Plan – 4 months free

Background

Maybe it’s my IT consulting / data operations engineer background, but I’m pretty picky about doing tech things the right way. Except, of course, when I cheat a bit on my own personal projects and experimentation.

You see, I got into website hosting in a bit of a round-about way. This, combined with my background, has given me some good insight on the topic, and heavily influenced our choice to use WP Engine for our own sites, as well as those of our clients.

I’ve been into website design and web-related technology since the Web began. But, I was typically working on a website for some other company, or on hosting that wasn’t my own to control/decide. I just worked with what was presented to me or available.

In the mid-90s, I used and managed a Microsoft’s ISS server. I doubt it was the best, but websites were simple back then – just some static text files and a few tiny images; maybe a server-side script.

Enter WordPress

A decade later, a friend introduced me to this new platform called WordPress. I initially started with a blog, but quickly realized this would become the platform for entire websites. It just had too many advantages over trying to build and update static pages.

But, along with this power, came new and complex challenges. Suddenly, it wasn’t just a matter of directory/file security, but vulnerabilities in WordPress core and plugin/theme code. Threats to basic web serving started to escalate as well, as hackers with more computing power started new magnitude-type attacks like DDoS and brute-force methods.

At the time, a friend (who I’m eternally grateful for!) let me use space on his co-located monster server, in trade for some help supporting it. It was a great deal, as it allowed me ‘free’ website space in trade for some time. And, we’re not talking any ol’ server here, this box would still compete well with many of the best dedicated hosting options out there. It had gobs of RAM, SSD main/database storage, high-end RAID for big files, terabytes of storage, quad-Xeon processors, etc. It was a serious machine on a serious internet connection.

I never worried about things like caching or optimizing WordPress. It just wasn’t a problem, especially since I wasn’t dealing with any overly high-traffic sites. But, that doesn’t mean we were without problems…

What is time worth?

Running your own website takes quite a bit of time. But, adding on the time it takes to run a website and server down to the hardware and network level, takes considerably more. You need to ask yourself, ‘how much is my time worth?’

I spent hours, which turned into days (sometimes whole weekends with little sleep) pouring over log files to block IP addresses, researching and fixing hacked sites, or restoring site files manually and resetting file-permissions, once, after an unforeseen series of hardware failures. Murphy is alive and well, and things will happen.

What is stability – and peace of mind – worth?

Then there is just the peace of mind which comes with website stability. Even if your site is a hobby, it is no fun to have it be down or hacked. But, when the website is for a business or organization, money and reputation are on the line. While problems can usually be overcome, it’s so much better to just avoid them in the first place. Let your imagination run a bit here… being off-line for a while is probably the least of the potential problems.

What is productivity worth?

Premium products and services are often about more than simply not having as many problems. They are often about better and more efficient ways of doing things (or a more enjoyable experience).

Once I decided to make the move away from DIY web-hosting, I also looked at the features which could save me time, beyond up-time, speed, and stability.

3 types of web hosting beyond DIY

There are three major types of web-hosting (and arguably a fourth that is more about scale/infrastructure) once you move beyond doing everything yourself. Each adds some benefits and typically a cost increase.

Shared hosting

This is the most common kind of web-hosting we typically see advertised or promoted. Unfortunately, this kind of hosting has kind of set a price in most people’s minds about what hosting should cost. This is the $3.77/mo, or even $9.95/mo type of plans. In fact, the issue is less about price, and more about how the sites are being hosted, managed, and supported.

The quality of these plans can vary greatly, but you have to consider what you’re getting for those low prices. At $3.77/mo, how much of anything is someone going to give you for $45 per year? Think about that for a moment. How much does a computer cost? Electricity to run it? A technical support person’t time/salary? When you put it in those terms, you start to realize you won’t get much, or they’ll be losing money quickly!

The benefit of shared hosting (over DIY), is that because these ISPs specialize at this, they usually have the hardware and basic network / operating system support covered. They probably even have some hardware out in front of the web server to help prevent DDoS type attacks. If you’re lucky, they’ve done some OS-hardening to make the servers less susceptible to certain kinds of hack attempts. And, they usually have a ‘panel’ type web interface to help in setting up accounts and services (as opposed to using Unix command line for install and configuration).

The downside, is that to meet those prices, they have to pack a LOT of websites onto each server. Each site is usually a subdirectory, and more prone to being attacked by security vulnerabilities across the server, or from any site on the server. And, it probably should go without saying that while their staff might know something about WordPress, they don’t specialize in it (they often support most every type of website and/or CMS), nor can they provide too much support (before losing money).

VPS (Virtual Private Server)

The next level up is more of a walled-garden approach to the shared hosting above. Think of it like a bunch of mini-servers running on a single server piece of hardware. This helps eliminate some of the cross site security concerns, or a problem in one site taking the others down with it. It also allows server resources to be distributed more evenly and fairly. Each ‘virtual machine’ can have settings for RAM, CPU usage, network usage, etc. If some other site gets huge traffic or has some problem, it is constrained to those criteria, and won’t impact your site.

The upsides are pretty obvious. The downsides, though, are that based on price you might still get less support than you think, and you’re often not dealing with any better in terms of interface and tools (sometimes less!) to help you get your site running and performing appropriately. While you’re walled off from other sites, you still have to deal with most of the technical stuff above the base-OS/network/hardware level.

Dedicated server

Much like a VPS, but you’re getting the whole machine. You have more power for your site, but the same downsides. Support will depend on the plan pricing, and you usually just get a cPanel (interface for administration). Again, the base-OS, network, and hardware are taken care of, but you manage the rest.

‘The rest’ can be a lot of stuff you might not be aware of. You still have to understand WordPress well enough to install and tune it. You have to know how to secure it against hacks, or fix it when it does get hacked. You have to implement/manage backups. Anything you do to the site could potentially crash it, and then you might have to learn how to rebuild it from a backup (assuming you did one). Are you going to manually backup, or buy some service or plugin? The list goes on and on.

Managed hosting

WPEngine is managed hosting, so we’ll be talking more below about the features and benefits. But, think of this as a whole layer of support and specialization on top of any of the previous plans. Instead of just taking the OS, network, and hardware aspects off your plate, they also manage aspects of whatever platform they specialize in (in this case, WordPress).

They will custom-tune the system for the platform, provide backups, provide specialized support and recommendations, and often take care of some level of the administration of the platform (or provide custom tools to help you do so). They may even provide add-on support, like hack recovery, or content delivery networks, staging servers, etc.

The value of these things SHOULD NOT be underestimated! I often tell people that it would take 5 or 6, $six-figure tech geeks to cover what these kinds of services provide, whereas more basic hosting only covers 1 or 2. In fact, I’d say it’s worth much more than the price difference between the plans would lead one to believe.

Cloud-based or distributed

I should mention this ‘4th’ type, which is over-arching (and why I didn’t give it one of the three categories). Any type of hosting could now be spread across multiple physical servers or even across many servers located around the world. It typically will fall under the VPS model (as low-end shared hosting probably doesn’t use it, and dedicated server is usually a physical machine). But, it could certainly be managed hosting, and will often be advertised as cloud or distributed hosting, as a feature (over basic VPS). By being distributed, it can quickly scale and is more fault-tolerant.

Why managed WordPress hosting?

Before formalizing cgWerks as a website design business, I had been helping friends, a few small businesses, and a non-profit with their websites. When one of these grew rapidly, it spurred me to formalize my business services, but also take into account the serious needs of a more mission-critical, and growing website.

I realized that even if I went with a higher-end VPS or dedicated server, I’d still be dealing with a lot of the headaches I had been on our own server. I’ve always been one to focus more on solving business problems and improving productivity, not re-inventing the wheel. I’d much rather put time into implementing something useful, than fixing stuff that shouldn’t have broken in the first place.

So, I went shopping for hosting, and quickly started to discover the world of managed WordPress hosting. While it was considerably more expensive (especially in terms of cost/traffic), I was impressed with the suite of services and tools provided.

Using managed WordPress hosting as the base of my website design offering, allowed me to focus on where my skills are best used, sourcing and implementing new features for clients.

Why WP Engine?

Before landing on WPEngine, I did a lot of research and reading of reviews. When I joined, it seems they had just experienced some rapid growth and growing pains. The reviews were quite mixed, but after reading more about their founder, philosophy, and the tools they had built, I became convinced they were the way to go.

Since then, the managed WordPress scene has kind of exploded. Others have grown as well, providing some stiff competition. And, older hosting giants have joined the game, offering their premium managed WordPress hosting packages.

While I can no longer absolutely claim WP Engine is the best – as I haven’t experienced all the others – I can say they are certainly a leader… quite possibly the best. While I keep an eye on the field, I see no reason to consider switching. They have outperformed my expectations.

That said, there are a number of managed WordPress hosting providers I have heard excellent things about. For example, I could easily go with Pagely, as I’ve heard such good things from people I trust. I’ve heard good things about Flywheel.

The big thing about WordPress managed hosting, are all the things you don’t have to do. You don’t have to look at a cPanel with hundreds of options. You don’t have to connect FTP (SFTP) unless you want to. You don’t have to worry about directory structure. Setting up a new site (install) is push-button simple.

Their portal/Dashboard is clearly laid out with everything you need right there and pretty easy to understand. Want to do a quick snapshot backup before you update that plugin? Click of a button. Want to restore a daily or snapshot backup because your WordPress site is white-screened after an update? Click of a button (or two), simple.

And, for admin type things you can’t figure out, a quick call, text chat, or support ticket will quickly get you on your way. They’ve even helped with some things which weren’t their problem, and have provided advice on plugin solutions or configuration best practices. While they aren’t going to build your site for you, their support is much more than, ‘fix it because it broke.’

Simple staging server deployment (and backups!) are a life-saver for site development. Within a few minutes, you can have a snapshot of your site ready on a staging server to test or make changes, and then push back to the live environment (with care). Both live and staging environments have the same push-button snapshot, as well as daily, backup systems. I can’t tell you all the times this has come in handy for testing, troubleshooting, or letting a plugin support rep find a cure without messing with the live site.

Mixed reviews?

If you start researching WPEngine, you’ll run into three types of reviews.

The first type are the loud critics. These reviews are often quite unbalanced, even if the critic had some initial reasons for leaving or concern. Sure, I’ve seen a few justified reasons while reading these reviews. They often happened during that rough, rapid growth time mentioned above. From what I could tell, WP Engine did try to keep these people happy, but were unable to retain them. But, the justified reasons often come with a lot of unreasonable ones as well. Many of these type of reviews are quite over the top if you know much about managed hosting.

The rest in this category seem to be from people who just don’t seem to understand the issues involved. Some are from high-traffic sites who got surprised by the cost overages. They based their expectations on their Google Analytics numbers. The problem is that Google Analytics tries hard to measure real users, and exclude all the bot traffic. While WPEngine has, IMO, a pretty fair way of measuring traffic, it takes Bots (good and bad) into account to some extent, as ALL traffic impacts a server. (Note: WPEngine made changes to how Bot traffic is measured a while back, which decreased my billed traffic by about 1/3 to 1/2.)

Others were dead-set on using some particular plugin, only to discover WPEngine didn’t allow it. Some where basing their businesses off of these plugins, and left, quite mad. But, to be fair, these plugins are often not ones that should be used anyway, and have some obvious problems in terms of server-load. I suppose it can be argued that with one’s own VPS or dedicated server, they can run them, even if they are poor or resource hogs. But, there are often better ways of doing such things, and WPEngine typically helps figure that kind of thing out.

The second type, are mostly positive reviews, much like this one. In fact many rave about WPEngine, and I’m really no exception. While I’m going to provide what I see as the good and the bad, my overall experience has been incredibly positive. They’ve made me a fan. The detractors say the positive reviews are due to affiliate commissions. But, I’m sure many, like me, became fans first, and then decided ‘why not’ about the affiliate opportunity. Yes, some sites just try to earn affiliate commissions, but I (and many others) only recommend products we know and use (affiliate opportunities or not).

The third type of review comes from people who left over pricing. I get this one, trust me. WPEngine isn’t cheap. And, when you’re looking at higher-traffic sites that don’t generate revenue, WPEngine might simply not be an option, no matter how good they are. As I noted above, I feel some of these people didn’t consider the costs very carefully. But, others did, and ultimately decided to leave. Price, while I think well worth it, is a very legitimate concern, and a good reason for leaving (or going with something else in the first place).

Just be careful to see if the reviewer is being fair in terms of value. If they are saying stuff like ‘ripoff’ and such, then they probably don’t understand the value. The good ‘left because of cost’ reviews will often admit the features and service were excellent, but just more than they could justify. Fair enough.

WPEngine – the good, the bad, (and the ugly?)

First, I should say that for managed WordPress hosting, you should expect (demand?) excellent up-time, robust/stability, and great service. WPEngine excels at all of these.

The Good

Security / Performance – You really don’t have to worry a lot about regarding security and performance… most of it ‘just works.’ They deal with the caching (it’s quite advanced) and most of the preventative security measures. And, if your site does get hacked, they’ll quickly get Succuri on the case. I’ve used this a couple of times over the last few years, and it’s at that moment when you realize just how valuable the service is.

Custom portal – If you’ve setup a WordPress site on typical shared hosting with cPanel, you’ll appreciate how simple and straight-forward it is on WPEngine’s interface. Given my background, I can easily figure out either, but I bet that’s not the case for many new users on cPanel. I’d guess those same users could figure out WPEngine, at least much more quickly.

Backup – This is such a big one! WPEngine does daily backups automatically. Then, with the push of a button, you can make a snapshot backup whenever you like. It’s so easy, I always do one before updating anything or making any big changes (sometimes even little ones). Restore is also push-button easy. These backups are available for both the live site and staging server.

Proactive Security – As mentioned above, they proactively do quite a bit to prevent you from having security-related problems, or being hacked, in the first place. And, they have real experts on the case, and real scanning tools, unlike some other hosting providers. (Marcus’ story  is pretty sad… especially for a hosting company recommended on WordPress’ site!)

Caching – Setting up and fine-tuning caching can be quite tricky, as well as many other performance oriented tweaks needed to make WordPress fast. You can throw hardware at it (as I did in the past), but even then, it won’t be this fast.

CDN – A content delivery/distribution network serves static files from a world-wide distributed network of servers, so they can come from the nearest point to the end user, and take load off of the main server. WPEngine has this for Pro and above plans. It can be added to the base plan. But, it’s quite valuable to have in terms of scale and performance.

Staging server – I use this all the time to do testing or allow a support agent from a plugin or service to work on fixes on a copy of the live site, but not the live site. It is also possible to move the live site to staging, make changes, and then push it back to the live server, which is nice for big site refreshes.

Updates – WPEngine will automatically push WordPress updates. They have a sophisticated system which ‘looks’ at the site pre and post update, and if anything doesn’t go well, it gets rolled back. Of course, you can postpone their automated service and do the updates and testing yourself. They do security updates quickly, and usually wait a while on major WordPress releases, sending out notices about when it will occur.

Imported/automated SSL – They offer a number of SSL options, from free to paid automatic certificates. They’ll also help you bring in and setup a 3rd party certificate.

Integration w/ Amazon S3 for certain large storage situations – Because storage is limited for the plans, they have integrated a method for certain situations to enable Amazon S3 storage for nearly unlimited file space.

GIT integration – A code and version control system, often used by teams, but can certainly be used for individual development environments. It allows you to push and roll-back changes made to the site code.

The Bad

The infamous (joking) ‘disallowed plugin list‘ – WPEngine has a list of plugins that they don’t allow in their environment. That said, most of these shouldn’t be used anyway, as there are better alternatives. A lot of people complain about this, though. Is it really in the bad column?

Disabled WordPress features – They disable some standard WordPress features by default, such as post revisions. I think they will let you re-enable them, if you need them. Check with support. I admit that sometimes I wish it was on.

Cost per traffic volume – Their value is in other areas, but they are expensive for a given volume of traffic. Higher traffic sites will want to run some numbers and take that into consideration.
(Note: I see about a 5:1 ratio of WPEngine billable visits to Google Analytics ‘Sessions’. However, the ratio is higher on lower traffic sites, and I don’t have any high-traffic sites to check. I’m talking hundreds, or less, real visitors per day, not thousands or millions like some sites. My theory is that there is a certain ‘noise’ level, and that higher traffic sites climb out of that noise, which lowers the ratio. I’d LOVE to hear from some high-traffic sites as to their WPEngine billable visits ratio to some Google Analytics stat like ‘sessions’ or ‘users’.)

No DNS or email, just WordPress – WPEngine doesn’t provide domain registration, DNS servers, or email. However, I actually don’t think that’s a bad thing. You’re MUCH better off using an email service like Gmail, and should keeping your domain and DNS services apart from your hosting anyway. ⁽¹⁾Less reputable hosting services have been known to hold sites hostage via DNS, and the included DNS services with many hosts are poorly setup after-thoughts. DNS is crucial! The world’s best hosting won’t matter if your DNS gets messed up or hijacked.

Regex redirection – WPEngine’s default method of URL redirection is Regex based, which is powerful, but difficult for users who don’t know Regex. WPEngine support will help with this, though. You can also install WordPress based redirection plugins, but for performance, you’d want to do the big stuff at the server level.

They sometimes remove data – WPEngine has been known to remove certain data, like an overly big wp_options table. They do this for a good reason, and it shouldn’t cause a problem for well-written plugins. However, if someone got caught off-guard by this, it could be a big issue. I’ve seen people complaining about this in reviews.

The Ugly?

As previously mentioned, there have been a few negative reviews for which the reviewers seem to make some good points (ie: they seem to have been wronged). Most of them have been quite a long time ago, but I can understand being vocal about it. IMO, WPEngine usually tried, but sometimes didn’t go as far as I might have liked to see, to fix the situation.

There is also the possibility of someone developing and basing their business on a plugin which WPEngine deems not to be allowed. I don’t know what exactly happens in that case, but I’ve read reviews that ended up with the site moving. That could be costly, but I think, also easily avoided.

Sometimes, they’ve been known to take actions on security problems prior to getting in contact with the site admin/owner. I can understand that sometimes getting such contact is challenging, and they have to move quickly. My understanding is that there have been times when they haven’t tried (based on reviews). They just made changes or took action. That’s bad, if true.

The big ugly, though, seems to be for high-traffic sites that can’t monetize the costs (or raise enough money). Since WPEngine prices are so directly tied to amount of traffic, you could end up with a budget overrun if you don’t predict and/or prepare. You might end up with hundreds of dollars of bills you can’t pay. In reality, for most businesses, if you have enough traffic to overrun their plan limits, you can probably come up with $1/1000 visits (in my estimation, a couple hundred or more real visitors). It’s a problem I haven’t had to face yet, and hope I never will. (I’ve paid ZERO in overage fees so far. One of my clients would, here or there, if they were on the base plan.)

What if I can’t afford WPEngine?

I have experimented with GreenGeeks, and was happy with them for low-cost, bare-bones hosting for low-priority sites or experimenting. I’ve heard great things about SiteGround. It’s a bit more expensive, but probably worth it. Just keep in mind the price you’ll be paying after year one, not the price listed on the sign-up!

** Since closing the web-design and hosting aspect of cgWerks, I have moved this and my other sites to the best WP Engine alternative I could find (to save money). Note, most of my clients stayed with WP Engine… and it turns out the web firms I moved them to use WP Engine as well. Great minds think alike. So, what is this alternative?

WPX Hosting!

I’ve been quite happy with WPX and the customer support is excellent. It is also consistently the quickest support response I’ve ever experienced. However, the UX/UI experience is somewhere between the basic places that use cPanel and WP Engine (which uses a custom interface). WPX Hosting also has a custom interface, but it is fairly crude compared to WP Engine. So, better than cPanel, but not nearly WP Engine.

It is also extremely fast. Since I haven’t been on WP Engine for a few years, it is hard to compare. But, it is faster, especially on the back-end (admin) side than I remember on WP Engine. They have nice premium features like free SSL certificate (as many hosts now do), free site migration, free hack cleanup, included cloud CDN, optimized caching they install and configure, backup and staging capability, etc.

Bottom line: I’ll absolutely be back on WP Engine, should the scale of business/sites justify it again. But WPX is so good that unless I’m doing a lot of complex site-work, I’m extremely happy here.

Also, I’d generally avoid web hosts owned by EIG. Many of the popular hosting companies out there are owned by one giant company. Their practices (from what I’ve heard) tend to drive down expenses impacting support quality after they are acquired.

If you’re technical enough to setup and manage your own server, WPEngine used to use Linode and now, I think use Google Cloud Platform. You can certainly buy servers (or VPSs) from these people, or Amazon Web Services (who Pagely uses), for cheaper prices and do all the work yourself. I’ll bet, though, that unless you’re doing this on a pretty big scale, you’ll find you don’t come out financially, or you’re a riding a disaster waiting to happen.

That lower price is always tempting until something goes wrong. I hear story after story from many of the entrepreneurs I follow about their path from cheap hosting, to VPS, to dedicated server… and still lots of problems until they hired the right people, etc. Many also make the move to managed hosting if they figure it out before they hire the team.

Or, if your budget is too low, and you don’t have the expertise available, consider just starting with someone like SquareSpace to get a basic site up and running until you can afford, or need, more functionality. Just remember that you likely will need to move some day.

WP Engine – Plans

Did I miss something?

If you’d like to know more about my experience or story, or if I’ve missed something in the above, please let me know in the comments, and I’ll try to respond or fill in the holes in the article.

Also, if you’d like to add additional layers of support on top of WPEngine, we at cgWerks take what WPEngine offers to a whole new level by handling planning and development of your website; updating it; adding content to it, if you like, or training/assisting you in that process; helping you with your marketing, SEO, analytics, etc.; adding email lists, e-commerce, membership areas, etc.; or, just being your Webmaster.

Learn more about the services cgWerks offers here.

The post WPEngine review and web hosting explained – best WordPress hosting? Find out. appeared first on cgWerks.

General hack prevention and password management

Click here if you are aware of the basics, and want to get right to the point…

These kind of hacks seem to happen regularly anymore, so you need to be prepared. My top advice has always been to use a unique, strong password for every account or service. This way, you minimize the damage from any particular hack (not just the Yahoo hack), as the hackers won’t be able to use that stolen password to get into other accounts you might have.

The difficulty this presents, is that it’s hard enough to remember one good strong password. (strong = minimum of 12 characters, with a mixture of numbers, upper/lower case letters, and various symbols. I’d recommend 12-15 as a minimum. If it isn’t random, go even longer.) Remembering them for a bunch of accounts is pretty much impossible. I suppose you could write them all down and lock them in your drawer, but that’s very inconvenient and still quite risky if you ever have a home/office theft.

Password Managers

The solution is to use what is called a password manager. A password manager is software which encrypts your passwords and sensitive information in an organized and searchable manner. It can insert your URL, username, and password (or other information) on command into a login screen, and typically generates strong passwords for you when you create accounts on various services.

Better password managers have a number of other features, such as cross-platform and mobile client apps, and capability to sync the information between devices. This is important, since your passwords are going to be far too complex to remember, and even hard to type. You’ll want this information with you at home, at the office, while traveling, on (or at least alongside) whatever computer or device you happen to be using.

While the method these services use varies, I recommend you consider a few things when selecting one:

You will want to control access to the encrypted file.

Even though the file is encrypted, it’s still possible for some future technology to be able to break encryption, or for some flaw to be discovered, allowing the data to be hacked into. While this is relatively unlikely, especially in the short-term, it is something you should consider when thinking about one of these apps. Where is that data file stored? Who might have access to it? Can you easily manage it? Is it only in the ‘cloud’?

Backup and archive that file!

Murphy’s Law seems to strike at worst time, but pretty much always eventually comes along. Storage devices fail, data gets corrupted, or we make mistakes. You want to have a copy AND history of this crucial file in a number of places. First, you should have a backup system that keeps incremental backups of files you use. Such a system will make a copy of the data that changes at some interval, allowing you to go back to the file in a state before you accidentally pasted your cat’s name over your bank password and absent-mindedly saved. A good example on the Mac might be your Time Machine backups. But, any good backup software will include a timed incremental backup feature.

You should also keep some kind of offsite archive, from time to time, of your data files (for your entire computer, for that matter). For this kind of file, it’s nice to keep a snapshot of it at some interval, much like the incremental backup above, except YOU manage it, not the automated backup software. The reason for this is that automated backup mechanisms sometimes fail, but they also overwrite data after a certain period of time.

The other reason is that if your home/office burns down, or is broken into, you’re likely to lose your backup. I have a story from my consulting history, where an architectural firm was nearly put out of business after a theft left them without their CAD stations, server, backup system, AND the DAT tapes stored in a drawer near the server! Luckily one of the firm partners had taken a couple of tapes home a month or so earlier to work on a large project, and they were able to recover about 70% of their server data from those tapes. Still a huge blow, but fortunately not fatal to their business. Don’t let this happen to you!

Make a todo list entry, and maybe once per month, put a copy of that file (add the date to the file-name) somewhere, like on a thumb-drive in your safe, or if you trust it, into your cloud storage. (See above about about access and trust… while I use services like Dropbox and Google Drive, there is some risk involved to keeping sensitive data there!) These files aren’t typically big, so keep each dated file going back in time. And, like I mentioned earlier, it’s not a bad idea to keep periodic snapshot (bootable if possible) of your entire computer. If you have two external hard drives, you can rotate them off-site somewhere.

Interface and operation

How does the actual app function? Does it fit into your workflow? For example, the password manager I use is able to auto-type information into pretty much whatever app I am using, whereas some can only operate within a browser. If you’re mostly using browser-based services, then this might not be a problem. But, if you’re a software developer, you might want it to be able to paste info into a terminal window, for example.

Do you need to be able to work between family members or a team of people? If so, you’ll have to think of a way to manually keep the information in sync, or use a cloud-based service (again, if so, keep my above warnings in mind).

My recommendations

PasswordWallet by Selznick

1Password by AgileBits

Stay away from ‘built-in’ methods, like Apple’s Keychain

Recently, a flaw in Apple’s iOS device backup to the computer potentially exposed all the passwords to an easy hack given physical access to the computer. While that situation might be rare, imagine if the problem affected the backups into iCloud? Apple (and many other companies) are simply a mess these days in terms of software quality. They can hardly keep the core of things together, let alone side features like this.

Obscurity and specialization are your friend when it comes to things like this. Pick software from a company that specializes in this stuff, and don’t depend on some side-feature of a major OS or other piece of software. And don’t store it in your browser! (Like Chrome asks if you want to do.) Log out of services after you use them. That’s even a good idea on your home computer if you’re going to be away from it for a while. (In fact, I log out of services even during general computer use, as services like social media often follow you around to sites you visit for comment system use. That’s just a bunch of extra info I don’t need to share with Facebook, etc.)

Be aware of phishing, social engineering, and links.

Most of the tips so far help keep you safe from the big hacks where a bunch of account data is exposed. But, there are other kinds of threats to be aware of which are more targeted at you.

A phishing attack is when someone tries to trick you into giving your information. If you fall prey, even the best security methods will fail. Be skeptical about password dialogs, following links, phone calls, etc.

The basic advice here, is for YOU to initiate, NOT to react. If you get a dialog asking for info, are you directly on the site it belongs to (or is the dialog coming from a trusted source, if you can tell)? Is it encrypted (ie: https/SSL)?

If you can’t tell, make sure to go directly to that service and sign-in yourself; don’t trust the dialog or link. If you get a link in an email, it might be best to, again, go to the site yourself and not follow the link.

If you get a phone call from the IRS, your bank, Microsoft, etc. is it really them? How would you know? Most of these places would never call you and ask you for information. It’s likely some scam. So, look up the proper phone number or contact info, then you contact them, login directly, etc.

But, this Yahoo hack exposes a different risk!

One aspect of the news surrounding the Yahoo hack that caught my attention, was that the hackers got the ‘security’ Q&A (questions and answers) along with the data. You know, those questions like: “Where did you go to high school?” or “What is the name of your favorite pet?”

The problem with security questions!

No matter how good the physical/encryption security is, hacks are often accomplished through social engineering. I remember seeing a video of a couple of security experts having access to a reporters bank account within a matter of about 10 minutes without even touching a computer. They had researched a bit about the guy, and posed as the guy’s wife/partner and were able to gain access.

Most services you’ll sign up for, even the most secure ones with multiple-factor authentication, have some method of password recovery or account access, if all else fails. And, these methods are typically very vulnerable.

‘What high school did you attend?’ Give me a break! What is the point of having super multiple factor security and strong passwords if someone can unlock your account with just a phone call and knowing the answer to one of these questions?

It’s a crazy method, but unfortunately, it’s used by nearly everyone; possibly even your bank. So what can you do? Some services are now allowing these questions and answers to be deleted (recognizing the risk). For example, when I signed into my Yahoo account to change the passwords, there was an option to delete them (and replace them with a text to a phone number or alternate email). That’s slightly better, but still potentially problematic.

But, what if the service you use forces you to use these – so called – security questions? What if you answered the security questions at your bank with the same answers the hackers now have from this Yahoo hack? The solution is fairly easy – LIE! It’s a bit of extra work, but might keep your account safe.

Remember that password manager? You’ll need it for this. When they ask what high school you went to, answer with something like: MSWNg67yI95iwPF8m (and be sure to use different random answers for each site!)

In your password manager, keep both the security question and this strong password answer. It is a bit of a pain when they make you do three to five of these, but it will be worth it in the long run. This is a good reason to be sure your password manager supports a notes area, or custom field creation.

And, maybe, just maybe… if enough people start to do this, companies will take a step back and come up with a better authentication method.

The post Yahoo hack: Password management and the problem with security questions appeared first on cgWerks.

Now that the kids are headed back to school, it’s time for many small businesses to ramp up on some new work. What better way to kick off the season than with bonus and potential savings opportunities on our website plans.

Website annual plan bonus

First, we’re offering a 2-month extension to our annual Maintenance level plan ($800/yr CAD | ~$578/yr USD), or Marketer level plan ($1200/yr CAD | ~$868/yr USD) until September 30, 2016 October 31st, 2016.⁽¹⁾Note: While we’ve extended this deal from September 30th to October 31st, plan details and pricing will be changing in October. We’ll be offering more services in a high-end package, but overall pricing will be increasing. If you’d like to get current pricing, hurry.

This isn’t simply a hosting plan, but a comprehensive ‘website care package’ including world-class web hosting, 1 or 2 hours of support and enhancement each month, a bunch of advanced plugins (extensions) to your website, and even one of the world’s best, and possibly most flexible, WordPress themes.

Aside from the hosting and support time, these add-ons are worth an initial savings of up to $515 USD and an ongoing annual savings of up to $402 USD. And, don’t miss that the level of hosting we’re providing would cost you nearly $500 USD alone.

Of course it should go without saying that this includes our exceptional customer service, proactive engagement with your business goals, and business philosophy.

Hurry though, this sale ends September 30th October 31st, 2016. Contact us for more information or to get started.

CAD – USD exchange rate again near 11-year low

Much to my chagrin, the Canadian Dollar (CAD) has dropped to near an 11-year low in relation to the US Dollar (USD). I say this because many of the services I use to run this business are located in the United States, or bill in USD, raising my costs considerably.

But, if you are in the United States, or work in USD, you have an incredible opportunity to purchase services in Canada at a greatly reduced rate.

It doesn’t matter where you are located

While we’re located in the city of Prince George in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, we also work with companies far away. We use advanced software like Join.me and Skype to effectively communicate, give demonstrations, or provide training and support almost like you were next-door (in fact sometimes better, as you’re at your own familiar computer, as are we).

Unique website design service

We provide a unique type of service unusual in the website design industry. Maybe it would be better to call ourselves Web problem-solvers or Web strategists. We provide an end-to-end solution, which includes planning, strategy, marketing, design, and hosting with full on-going support. But what we’re really interested in is what you do with the site after it is up and running. It’s your online communication tool to the world, and we’re here to help you make the most of that. We bring our 25+ years of experience in IT consulting, Fortune 100 IS/IT, marketing, and design to create a comprehensive communications and business solution, not merely a website.

Start saving today

If you’re based in the United States, why not take advantage of the exchange rate, and save some serious money on your website. If you’re not, you can still take advantage of extending our normal 12-month plan to 14 months!

But, don’t do it just because of the savings. We’ll also provide you with some of the best service you’ll find anywhere on the planet!

Contact us for more information or to get started.

The post USD-CAD Exchange Rate And Website Sale appeared first on cgWerks.

As many know who follow me, I love podcasts. I am subscribed to over 50 of them. They are a large part of how I keep up-to-date on the latest in podcasting, blogging, website design, WordPress technology, marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), social media, etc.

I also listen to a number of podcasts for personal development, keeping up on the news (apart from the very distorted mainstream media), health and fitness, history, and even my other work in Christian apologetics.

Podcasts are a lot of work!

And, as someone who is now developing a podcast (with another being planned), I’m well aware of how much work and effort these people pour into their shows, often with very little in return, aside from praise of their listeners or click on a referral link. At best, once they become recognized in their genre, they might begin to gain new clients from their efforts. Until then, it’s mostly work with little return.

Awards

But, each year, there are a few formal recognitions of their efforts. One of these is the annual Podcast Awards. What’s nice about this one is that is that it is listener/community driven. First, the podcaster needs to get enough people to nominate their podcast to make it into the top 10 in each major category. Then, they need to muster support from their communities to vote – daily – or as often as possible. This daily voting over 15 days (which began yesterday, May 29th, 2016) helps smaller podcasts with great audience engagement have a chance against the larger podcasts (as they often fail to get as big of percentage of their audience to take action).

Vote now!

So, please go and vote now – and daily – until June 12th, 2016. (Note, you don’t have to vote in every category… just skip categories you don’t want to vote in or have no preference.)

Or, if you don’t listen to a bunch of podcasts, I’d appreciate you helping some of my favorites. (I’m also including Daniel J Lewis’ recommendations. (of The Audacity to Podcast). Daniel has been my primary influence in getting into podcasting so deeply, so I’d love to support him and his community.)

Note: After you vote, you should get a confirmation email, which you MUST click for your vote to count. If you don’t get this, check your spam folder. And, if you promote this on Twitter, please use the  #pca2016 hashtag.

Our Picks

Steve’s picks:

• Peoples Choice: No Agenda Show (interesting and humorous – sometimes NSFW – deconstruction of mainstream media and world events)
• Arts: B&H Photography Podcast
• Business: The Productive Woman (Daniel’s recommendation, see below)
• Education: School of Podcasting (another excellent, how-to-podcast, podcast hosted by our friend Dave Jackson)
• Entertainment: Triplecast (Daniel’s recommendation, see below)
• Government & Organizations: Congressional Dish (crucial to listen to and support if we want to save the USA… Congress is the key. Know what’s going on in there… hint: it ain’t pretty!)
• Kids & Family: Dad Spotlight (Daniel’s recommendation, see below)
• Music: The Bugcast (Daniel’s recommendation, see below)
• News & Politics: No Agenda
• Religion & Spirituality: The Briefing (recommended by James White, the host of my favorite Christian apologetics podcast, The Dividing Line.)
• Sports & Recreation: Packers Fan Podcast (Daniel’s recommendation, see below)
• Technology: The Audacity to Podcast (IMO, the best how-to-podcast, podcast hosted by our friend Daniel J Lewis)
• TV & Film: ONCE – Once Upon a Time podcast

Daniel J Lewis’ recommendations:

• People’s Choice: The Hollywood Outsider (friend of Noodle.mx)
• Arts: Resourceful Designer (member of Podcasters’ Society)
• Business: The Productive Woman
• Education: The Wired Homeschool (friend of Noodle.mx)
• Entertainment: Triplecast (friend of Noodle.mx)
• Government & Organizations: Congressional Dish (friend of Noodle.mx)
• Kids & Family: Dad Spotlight (member of Podcasters’ Society)
• Music: The Bugcast (friend of Noodle.mx)
• Sports & Recreation: Packers Fan Podcast (friend of Noodle.mx)
• Technology: The Audacity to Podcast
• TV & Film: ONCE – Once Upon a Time podcast

The post 2016 Podcast Awards: Voting now open! appeared first on cgWerks.

My initial interest in distributed computing was most likely triggered by my work with ElectricImage Animation System. It uses a network rendering engine called Renderama, which allows a large computer animation rendering job to be completed by any number of computers you have to throw at the job.

I think I next heard about people joining the SETI@home project, but that did not interest me much, as the probabilities of there being life elsewhere in the universe are staggeringly slim. If I were going to throw computing power at something, I wanted there to be a reasonable chance of it counting for something.

Folding@home

Then I ran across Stanford University’s Folding@home efforts. As it says on their website, “Help Stanford University scientists studying Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and many cancers by simply running a piece of software on your computer.”

When I started in 2002, getting everything setup and running properly was a bit challenging, as it required having files placed correctly and a bit of command-line work. My statistics page lists June of 2002 as the point where I switched from solo-folding to a team, so I’m guessing I started in January of 2002 (possibly even December of 2001) to reach the number of submitted work units by June.

Protein folding

The Wikipedia article on protein folding explains it like this:

“Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain acquires its native 3-dimensional structure, a conformation that is usually biologically functional, in an expeditious and reproducible manner. … Amino acids interact with each other to produce a well-defined three-dimensional structure, the folded protein … The correct three-dimensional structure is essential to function … Failure to fold into native structure generally produces inactive proteins, but in some instances misfolded proteins have modified or toxic functionality.”

This results in various diseases and allergies. Hopefully, if the reasons for the misfolding can be discovered, it might lead to cures. We’re basically running computer simulations to try and cover all the possible ways a protein can fold. Since there are a lot of proteins to examine, an extreme amount of possible ways they can fold, and a lot of computing power required to model each possibility, distributed computing is the only real answer.

You can read about some of the results and objectives on the papers section of Stanford’s site.

Team Mac OS X

In June of 2002, I discovered there were actually a number of teams competing for fun, comprised of individuals like me, implementing one or more computers towards the project. I found Team Mac OS X which had a community forum, providing information and friendship within the very large Folding@home community. I was pretty hooked.

Over the years, I’ve had anywhere from one computer, to maybe a dozen or so contributing to the project. While my numbers are kind of small in the big-picture, it all helps. And, over time, I’ve reached a ranking of #86 on Team Mac OS X (I’ve been much higher at points when I had more computers running), and am currently ranked 10,400 in the world (out of ~1,827,278 contributors). Not too shabby.

It’s now super-easy to contribute. On the Mac, it’s just an installer and a ‘control panel’ web URL, or I think there are even Chrome extensions that can run it directly in a browser window. I’d install it though, as you’ll want to just let it run in the background.

Tips

If you’re interested, just head to Stanford’s site and get going. However, I have a few tips and warnings from years of folding experience.

Folding (or any kind of distributed computing) is probably going to try and maximize output, or at least offer that kind of functionality. The problem is that many computers aren’t designed to run all the CPU or GPU cores 100% 24/7. That’s more the kind of thing servers, workstations, or pro machines are designed to do, which is why they often cost considerably more money.

I’m a Mac user, so to run 100% 24/7 I’d want something like a Mac Pro. Since I don’t have one of those… yet! … I limit the amount of CPU power Folding@home can take.

To put it another way, for many consumer computers, it would, IMO, be a good idea to limit the amount of CPU/GPU that Folding@home can take. You’ve been warned!

While it is designed to ‘get out of the way,’ in that it runs at a lower process priority, that’s not enough. (if you’re running it, and then start up some other app, it will reduce it’s usage to allow the other apps priority) Via the web control panel, you can set it to ‘Light’ which I’ve found uses ~50% of the CPUs. I’ve been running it 24/7 on my iMac for years now, and it hasn’t caused any problems.

That said, if the weather got extremely hot, it might not be a bad idea to shut it down for a bit. And, when I’m doing something else that’s highly CPU intensive (like encoding video, 3D rendering, etc.) I do typically stop the folding. That’s super-simple to do via that web control panel. I just keep it bookmarked. Also, if I’m doing something really mission critical, I tend to quit everything but the app I’m using, which would also include folding.

Statistics

If you start folding, you’ll probably want to keep track of your progress or your team’s progress. There is an incredible site by Extreme Overclocking that displays this data in any number of ways, even including projected overtake data. Here is Team OS X and my (SteveW928) data on that site.

Happy Folding!

The post Folding@home – 10 Million point mark reached appeared first on cgWerks.

What is International Podcast Day?

A day to raise awareness about podcasting and podcasts, as well as celebrate within the podcasting community.

New to podcasts?

If you’re new to podcasts, now is a great time to learn about them. ***Warning*** Once you do, there may be no going back. I hardly watch TV, listen to the radio or music anymore, as there is almost always a podcast I’d rather listen to.

No matter what your interests are, there is probably a podcast about it. And, if you do want to retain your connection to TV shows or music, there are probably podcasts which will enhance your knowledge or entertainment level around those interests as well.

A quick search via Apple’s iTunes or via the Podcast app on your iPhone (or iOS device) might be the best way to find one you like, but you can also usually find them via their website as well or via various apps on other platforms.

The nice thing about mobile devices and podcasts is that it makes it so easy to reclaim some time that is otherwise wasted or where you can effectively multi-task, like doing the dishes, the daily commute, or even some forms of work.

Already into Podcasts?

Well then use this day to reach out and introduce someone you know to the wonders of podcasts. Or, maybe reach out and thank one of your favorite podcasters. I’m sure they will appreciate it. Maybe add another podcast subscription to your collection.

Are you a podcaster?

It’s then a great day to celebrate and join in the community. Even if you still haven’t quite jumped in all the way (like me), this is quite a friendly group who can give you the remaining know-how, or help welcome you and encourage you to overcome any fears or hurdles in the way.

My podcasts?

I’d also like to announce that I’m planning to start two podcasts in the near future (late-2015 or early 2016), one on how to build and use websites at WebsiteMeetsWorld.com and the other, a Christian apologetics podcast at TilledSoil.org. That should keep me more than plenty busy!

But, I’m also an avid podcast listener. I had thought about listing them all here until I realized the time it was going to take me to list and link 54 of them. Yes, I can hardly believe it myself…. I follow FIFTY-FOUR podcasts!

These range from about once per month to once per day episodes, with the average being weekly, and in length, from 1 minute to over 3 hours. Actually, several of them are 3-hours or more. Of course, I can’t listen to every episode, especially all the daily ones. But, I’m guessing I listen to about 80-90% of the episodes across them all.

I decided to pick out and highlight some of my favorites. And don’t forget to check out our article, Why Your Business Should Consider A Podcast.

Podcasting

The Audacity to Podcast w/ Daniel J. Lewis
School of Podcasting w/ Dave Jackson
Podcaster’s Roundtable w/ Ray Ortega and other hosts

Marketing / Entrepreneurial / Design

AskPat and Smart Passive Income w/ Pat Flynn
The UnPodcast w/ Scott Stratten and Alison Kramer
EOFire w/ John Lee Dumas
Kate’s Take w/ Kate Erickson
The $100 MBA Show w/ Omar Zenhom
Online Marketing and Communications Podcast w/ Jon Buscall
The Deep End Design w/ Wes McDowell, Mikelle Morrison, Nick Longo
The Boagworld Web Show w/ Paul Boag, Marcus Lillington

WordPress

WordPress Weekly w/ Jeff Chandler, Marcus Couch
WordPress Plugins from A to Z w/ John Overall, Marcus Couch

Personal Improvement

The Art of Charm w/ Jordan Harbinger
ONE Extradorinaiy Marriage w/ Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo
The Anxiety Coaches Podcast w/ Kevin Davis, Kelli Walker
Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing w/ Mignon Fogarty

News & Politics

Congressional Dish w/ Jennifer Briney
No Agenda w/ Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak

Comptuers / Tech

MacNN Podcast w/ Charles Martin and other hosts

Health and Fitness

The Model Health Show w/ Shawn Stevenson

Christian Apologetics

Alpha and Omega Ministries w/ Dr. James White
Stand to Reason Weekly Audio w/ Greg Koukl
The Cold-Case Christianity Podcast w/ J. Warner Wallace
Unbelievable? w/ Justin Brierley
The White Horse Inn w/ Michael Horton
Apologetics.com Radio Show w/ various hosts
Apologetics Canada Podcast w/ Andy Steiger, Steve Kim

OK, I guess that list got pretty long after all! Many thanks to all of the above (and those I didn’t list), and be sure to check some of them out. Happy #PodcastDay  !!!

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After much debate and discussion in the comment sections of the original article, as well as other sites talking about it, I was asked if I’d like to write a response. I was honored and set to writing one up. Follow this link to read why I don’t think managed Web hosting companies are in much danger.

The post cgWerks featured on WPMayor.com – future of web hosting response article appeared first on cgWerks.

Classes were offered, helping businesses properly prepare to greet and serve all the new people in town. But, were their Websites ready? If my experience holds true, probably not.

Click bait? Kinda

While the opportunity to create a Website for the 2015 Canada Winter Games has come and gone, it is a good representation of why a Website is so necessary. Prince George is a transitional city. New workers routinely come to Prince George, or at least come through PG when conducting business around northern BC (and beyond) . Every year (or more often), many new students call Prince George home, for at least a time, at UNBC or other local schools. The Winter Games represent a daily occurrence, just on a bigger scale.

As I’ve talked to business owners in Prince George, all too often I find they don’t see a Website as a necessity, or they are depending on a rough ‘web-presence’ such as a Facebook page (more on that later). Or, worse, they once had a very ineffective ‘Website’ and now consider it a waste of time and money. These people were often burned by high-cost – but nearly zero-effect – offerings by big traditional media outlets who scoured the area with their teams of sales-reps. And sadly, many who do have a Website don’t see it, or use it, in an effective manner. (I’m also guilty of this, but at least I can claim the “shoemaker’s children” excuse, right? But I’m not pushing for perfection on this point, just forward momentum. We can all do more with the business tools we have.)

Why a Website?

“I get my business through word-of-mouth.” I often hear something similar when speaking about Websites. The truth is, I currently do too – at least a good portion of it. But this hardly means a Website is unnecessary. Even if most of your customers just walk through the front door, you likely still have a phone. The Internet is not an either/or proposition any longer; it is mode of communication with existing and potential customers.

Rather than simply being an Internet ad, a Website is a form of contact, relationship building, discovery, customer service, image, marketing, business-to-business relations, and a great way to tell your story. Once this is understood, saying there is no need for a Website is akin to saying there is no need for a phone! (Actually, it might be worse than having no phone.)

First impressions really are important

First, note that 80% of potential customers will check out your Website (or, try to). But, as for the above ‘word-of-mouth’ potential customers (the best kind!), consider this: Recent research has measured the impact of perception on referrals. Over 50% of referrals never end up talking to you, because they rule you out before they get that far. Why? They look at your Website (almost 30% cite this reason), check social media, Google you… and decide against following through.

Is it a good idea to be passing up 50% of the best possible method you have to gain new customers, especially when 72% of businesses identify attracting new business as their biggest challenge? If a potential customer – a referral nonetheless – rules you out before even attempting to talk to you, what good is that phone?

Own your Internet presence! or, Don’t build on rented property.

One thing I have been troubled by in the Prince George market, is the number of businesses and organizations who rely solely on social media (especially Facebook) for their Web presence. Why this is such a bad idea will be the topic of a whole other article, but to summarize it, control of the experience and visibility (social media continues to evolve and change, often to the detriment of the ‘page’ owner) and building YOUR audience (site authority, search ranking, email list, user retention, etc.). You need to own the home-base of your Internet presence. Social media then becomes a great tool for driving customers there. And then, while changes to social media need to be watched, they typically don’t make or break your connection to your customers.

Every day is a mini-Winter Games for businesses

Every day, new people come to Prince George. And every day that your business or organization doesn’t have a Website, you’re losing a lot of great opportunity to reach these potential customers. The way businesses prepared to welcome new people to the area should be business as usual. This including having a good Web presence.

cgWerks is a Website design and Internet marketing services firm based in Prince George, BC. Please see our Web Design services page for more information. Also, watch for upcoming articles on why every business needs a website, why businesses should blog, and why businesses should consider a podcast.

Photos: © Depositphotos.com/pressmaster, Depositphotos.com/pressmaster/gubh83

The post Canada Winter Games in Prince George: Was your Website ready? appeared first on cgWerks.

With the release of Mac OS X Yosemite, Minecraft stopped working for anyone who has updated (or any new Yosemite users, such as a new computer purchase). Mojang is of little help so far and seems unconcerned. (Read my update below, as Mojang finally seems to be working on a fix!) The ‘fix’ options so far are to 1) Install an old, specially modified version of Java 6 released by Apple, or 2) install the latest Java version 8 from Oracle and implement a workaround. Fortunately, the latter (a MUCH better option, IMO) is not that difficult. (The article is long due to detail… the steps are relatively easy!)

Get right to the solution.

Overview

• Step 1 – Remove old Java
• Step 2 – Install Java
• Step 3 – Configure Java
• Step 4 – Download Minecraft
• Step 5 – Play Minecraft!
• Step 6 (optional) – Make it pretty!
• Step 7 (optional) – Play with a console controller?
• Estimated time: 10-15 minutes

Background rant (or, Hello Mojang… anyone home?)

Apple officially released OSX Yosemite a month ago on October 16th, 2014. While a month is quite a while to wait for such a crucial update from a major software vendor, Mojang at least had access to Yosemite since the PUBLIC beta offering on July 24th, 2014. And, one might expect that they started testing Minecraft on Yosemite, along with other software developers, back on June 2nd, 2014. Apparently not (or insert other excuse here…. Microsoft acquisition?)

Actually, there are a few other possible theories. If you’re interested, read on. Otherwise, skip to the next section below to get on with the fix.

I waited about a week before installing Yosemite. I usually find it best to wait for the dust to settle after a major software release. I had not been reading about any crucial problems so I decided to upgrade my mid-2013 MacBook Air, as I primarily use my desktop for business work. Everything seemed great until I tried to launch Minecraft.

I did a bunch of reading and was bit shocked Mojang hadn’t addressed the issue yet. So, I contacted @MojangSupport. They responded as if they were unaware of the issue and recommended I report the bug. I started looking at the bug reporting system and noted several tickets addressing or related to the issue. They seemed to be largely ignored. After some more exchanges with @MojangSupport, they basically said they were billing and account support. For other support, submit a bug report (to an ignored bug reporting system? Anyone see a problem here?). Apparently they have no actual customer support for this kind of problem. ⁽¹⁾As an aside, I think this has been a long-term problem. Mojang seems more structured more like an open-source project. If you’re not enough of a geek to figure out setting up an account and installing Minecraft, you are left searching for assistance. I’ve talked to parents, for example, who have been interested in Minecraft for their kids, but felt intimidated over how to get it going. It isn’t that hard, and it’s well worth the effort, but most people are used to simple installers.

One theory is, of course, speculation about the effects of being purchased by Microsoft. Maybe they just aren’t in any hurry to fix problems on non-Microsoft platforms? Maybe Steve Ballmer was sent over on a last contract project to teach proper support etiquette? jk

Another is that maybe Apple has a new version of tweaked Java in the works. Yet another, is that there is a problem with Java 7/8 on dedicated GPUs, causing everyone to hold off.

Whatever the reason, Mojang is being quite unprofessional. At the very least, let us know what is going on! And please, don’t pretend there is no problem.

So, I decided to try and implement some of the various ‘fixes’ to see what might be the best way to get Minecraft working with the latest Java release on OS X Yosemite.

Update: Saturday, November 22, 2014

One of my friends feels I’ve maybe been a bit too hard on Mojang. After all, people can ⁽²⁾While I didn’t test it, there were mixed reports when I was first dealing with this problem click the ‘more info,’ go to Apple’s support page, download and install Apple’s modified Java 6, and get Minecraft working again. As noted, I don’t feel that is a good solution, and certainly is a pretty lame thing to just leave the way it is by Mojang. But, maybe the ‘crucial’ language I’ve used could be deemed a bit over the top.

Also, some in the Minecraft support community have been telling me this has been around since Mavericks was introduced, as that is when Apple stopped installing Java by default. I seriously don’t remember installing Java when I bought my Mavericks based laptop or when I upgraded my desktop to Mavericks. Maybe that’s old age creeping in on my memory. But I, and the above friend, are almost positive the process wasn’t the same.

Update: Friday, December 12, 2014

Good news! It appears Mojang is actually working on a fix. And, what is even better is that this should be a pretty comprehensive fix, with rebuilt launcher and bundled Java (to try to get everyone on 64-bit, the latest version, and kept up to date). I guess a large percentage of their user-base is still on old versions and/or 32-bit java, even on new machines. Aside from taking WAY too long and not communicating well, kudos Mojang! The bad news, it’s going to be a while yet (sometime early next year). So, if you’re hankering for some Minecraft over the holidays, it might be worth trying our tutorial.

Update: Saturday, September 12, 2015

Mojang releases the fix! Actually, it is much better than a fix. Mojang finally did this right and bundled everything needed into one package/app. This way, everything should always be running the latest and greatest, and the install is as simple as any other Mac app. You just drag the .app file to your Applications folder!

Here is the announcement of the new Mac Minecraft installer for anyone interested.

Of course, you can get this by visiting Minecraft.net downloads area.

YAY!

The ‘fix’

A real fix needs to come from Mojang, in terms of a new launcher that properly recognizes other Java versions (or the latest version), as well as install instructions for Java as needed. Until then, here is a ‘fix’ you can implement yourself.

Disclaimer: I’m no expert on Minecraft code or Java. Minecraft is my ONLY Java based concern here, so I did no testing to see if this fix impacts other Java dependencies. Also, all my Macs previously had Apple’s Java 6 installed. I don’t have a ‘clean’ Yosemite install to try this on, but my guess is that it would work. (If you try it, I’d LOVE to hear in the comments below! I’m going to try and do some testing soon.) In other words, try this at your own risk.

Important: As noted above, there seems to be an unresolved Java issue where version 7 and 8 automatically use a dedicated GPU if available (vs integrated GPU). This might impact battery performance negatively until resolved (integrated GPUs typically use far less energy and might be quite capable of running Minecraft). I’m running a mid-2013 MacBook Air with integrated Intel HD Graphics 5000, so this is not an issue for me.

Check out our YouTube video instructions:

After upgrading to Yosemite (or on a new Yosemite based machine/install), you’ll get a dialog similar to this one when you try to launch Minecraft. ‘To open “Minecraft.app” you need to install the legacy Java SE 6 runtime. Click “More info…” to visit the legacy Java SE 6 download website.’

Step 1 – Remove old Java

Let’s try a basic attempt to get rid of old versions of Java. (Note: I realize some of the guts of Apple’s Java 6 install go deeper, but this gets rid of the obvious stuff, and should render it non-functional as far as I can tell.) Caution: If you need Java for other reasons, you might not want to do this without a bit more research and/or testing.

Note: I don’t think you’ll see anything JavaScript related in any of these, but if so, you can ignore that, as JavaScript is a different than Java.

Directly inside your hard drive, you’ll see a Library folder. First look in Internet Plug-ins and get rid of anything Java related (probably just a Java applet plugin).

Hard Drive/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ (look for Java related items)

Also under the Library folder, there might be a Java folder. Toss that if it exists.

Hard Drive/Library/ (look for Java)

Do the same under the ‘home’ (Hard Drive/Users/username/) Library folder, which Apple has hidden, making it a bit more tricky to access. When you are at Finder (ie: click on your Desktop to make it the ‘active’ app), drop-down the ‘Go’ menu and notice a ‘Library’ folder appears if you hold the ‘option’ key down (and disappears if you release it). Select that Library folder and it should open.

Same as above, check your Internet Plug-ins folder (for Java-related items) and look for a Java folder.

~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ (look for Java related items)
~/Library/ (look for Java)

Empty your trash (if you’re sure there isn’t anything else in there you need. I say this as I used to have a client who stored stuff in there they didn’t think they might need again, but never emptied it… eeek!)

Update: Tuesday, November 18, 2014

My desktop iMac has an additional Java install location with an alias into the above folders. It is located at:

Hard Drive/System/Library/Java/

I haven’t upgraded this system to Yosemite yet, but am planning to do so in the next few days. It is my production machine, and is the result of at least a couple of years of OS X upgrades (last clean install was probably Snow Leopard). I’m going to test also trashing this Java folder, but if this is your case, you might want to wait until I’ve reported back.

Step 2 – Install Java

Install Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

Open Safari, go to Oracle.com and look for the Downloads menu. To the left side, you should see “Java for your computer.” This will take you to the following page:

Download Free Java Software

You should just be able to hit the red “Free Java Download” button, but you could also go to the “All Java Downloads” link on the left and pick the appropriate version for Mac OS X.

You’ll get a file currently called: jre-8u25-macosx-x64.dmg

Install this. There isn’t anything tricky, but it will need your admin password. On completion, it asks you to test it with your browser. You don’t need to do that or worry about the results (FYI: mine indicated Java wasn’t working).

Step 3 – Configure Java

It is a really good idea to change the default configuration of Java for safety purposes.

Under your system Preferences, there should be a new Java control panel. Open it. We’re going to go to the Security tab and uncheck “Enable Java content in the browser (Only disabled for this user).”

This is an important step, as most of the Java insecurities you’ve probably read so much about over the last year or two were vulnerabilities accessed via web-sites being visited. In other words, they were browser related. You should almost never need Java via the browser (or if you did for some reason, only enable it for that one trusted purpose, then disable it again).

Note: pay attention to the warning that this only applies to the current logged in user if you have multiple users on your computer. If so, remember to disable it for other users as well!

Another Note: Part of the good aspect of Apple’s special version of Java 6 is that they had removed the ability for it to function via browsers. So, we’re effectively trying to replicate that security advantage via these settings. If you are unsure, check individual browser settings to be sure Java (not JavaScript) is disabled.

Step 4 – Download Minecraft

To make this ‘fix’ work, you’ll need the Linux version of Minecraft (.jar file) from Minecraft.net.

Go to Minecraft.net and look on the right side under the ‘Get Minecraft” button for the “Already bought the game?” and click the “Download it here” link.

That should take you to this page:

Minecraft download page

Click on “Show all platforms” and download the Minecraft.jar under “Minecraft for Linux/Other”

This file is going to be your new ‘launcher’ or ‘application’ for Minecraft (instead of the Minecraft.app file you already have).

You can put this file in your Applications, or maybe on your Desktop (or an alias to it on your Desktop).

Step 5 – Play Minecraft!

Test it out!

Double-click Minecraft.jar (you might have to ‘right-click’ (or ctrl-click) the icon, and then select ‘Open’ the first time so it becomes trusted by OSX) and you should get the normal Minecraft Launcher you’re used to seeing. Click Play if you’re logged in and you should soon be playing Minecraft!

If want to be sure you’re running on Java 8, you can bring up the ‘debug’ information you’d use to get your coordinates, etc. (Typically F3, so hold down the Function key and press F3, ie: fn + F3).

You should see, in the upper right, “Java: 1.8.0_25 54bit” similar to the following screenshot:

Of course, if Oracle updates Java this will vary and you SHOULD be able to update Java via the control panel or by downloading and installing future updates. You’ll want to keep an eye on this, as new releases often include security patches (and you won’t get them via Apple updates).

Note: The big reason I went with Java 8 vs Apple’s Java 6 is that there have been a bunch of security holes patched since Apple released it. I’m also pretty sure I’m seeing decreased CPU load on Java 8 as well (which I’d also expect). As mentioned above, my MacBook Air doesn’t have a dedicated GPU, so if you’re a MacBook Pro user, you might want to use Apple Java 6 or limit your mobile (on battery) Minecraft time.

So, just launch that new Minecraft.jar to launch Minecraft, just like you used to launch using Minecraft.app.

Enjoy! Please leave a comment below letting me know if it worked (or not). Thanks!

Step 6 (optional) – Make it pretty!

Of course, it bugs me that my old Minecraft.app has a pretty Minecraft grass block icon, while my new Minecraft.jar is just a generic Java app icon. We need to fix that!

Do ‘get info’ (Apple + i) on both the Minecraft.app and Minecraft.jar files. Select the little icon in the upper left of the info window (it will highlight) of Minecraft.app and go to Edit -> Copy. Then select the JAR icon in the other info window and do Edit -> Paste.

You’re Minecraft.jar icon should now be nice and pretty like your old Minecraft app.

Step 7 (optional) – Play with a console controller?

Controllers – I love this little app so much, I just had to mention it. If you’d rather play Minecraft with a console controller rather than your keyboard, there is an excellent way to do so on the Mac. It even supports PS3 controllers via Bluetooth with the native Mac hardware Bluetooth (OSX Lion and above). (If you’ve ever tried to make a console controller work with Windows, you’ll quickly recognize the value of this app.)

Please buy the app and send the author a note asking to support ‘toggle’ type key settings. You’ll know what I mean if you’re used to crouch in Minecraft on the PS3. Currently you’ll have to map crouch to a button that is easy to keep pressed down while you’re working the other controls. A ‘toggle’ would allow a button to change the state until pressed again. That would be a really nice addition to an already awesome app.

Special thanks to BoaConstructor for the helpful article. While I read a bunch of articles on the topic, this one ended up being the closest to what I found to work best (though, I found I didn’t need the Java JDK step, and wanted to refine it a bit more).

Oh, and if you need a website or know someone who does, please check out our Website design services!

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