Did Nominet contact you?

(Date March 23rd 2020)

I have recived several enquiries about messages from Nominet contacting domain name owners telling them that their domain name is about to expire, do they want to renew it?

This applies to anyone using a domain name ending in .uk. First point is if I am looking after your domain name, it will auto renew even if I have not raised an invoice for it yet. So continuity is always assured. The only exception to that is where you have told me that you are moving, or you are closing.

With regards to the messages from Nominet, if you read them carefully they are not actually for your domain name, but they are genuine messages from Nominet, here is what has happened:

myorganisation.org.uk vs myorganisations.uk

A year ago Nominet started issuing free domain names to anyone that held a .org.uk or .co.uk domain name. These were issued and added to your accounts without your (or my) permission by Nominet; the body which manages these things. I guess it was an initiative for making money, if we had used it, then people would have been coming to your site at the location, and now they would be asking you for money!

The domain name was the same as the start of your current domain name but just ended in .uk (so no .co.uk or org.uk).

I never used any of them, but had to go through my master account and set every one of them to auto expire, otherwise I would be charging you for two or more domain names.

Do I need it?

Short answer is no, you do not, and don’t feel you have to protect your brand by securing it. As things stand all domain names are well established in Google and Bing already. If some third party picks up your equivalent domain name but ending in .uk vs .org.uk or .co.uk and starts pretending to be you, then you can take legal action against them. I have never heard of it happening, but I guess you can never tell.

If you do want to secure it, let me know very quickly.

← Online Chat App Online Training →

Online Chat App

I have recently come across an online chat feature which you can install on your website(s) and chat with visitors. It does not cost anything and is entirely free. The company that provides it make their money through additional services should you need them such as providing a chat agent for you. If you go for the basic package then it is an excellent way of “being their” virtually for your website visitors.

You don’t have to sit at your computer and wait, you just leave it running in the background, and if someone clicks on the button, then you will get an alert, and they can talk to you using a local instant messenger type interface.

At the time of writing (21/03/2020) I have been using it a couple of days and have installed it on 4 websites and been on two chats in that time.

There is a further way of using this, if you install the app on your smart phone or tablet, you can chat at any time.

Now, I know that this system could be quite intrusive, especially if there was only one person acting as a chat agent. However if you had multiple people, or volunteers on this system, then it could be quite a powerful tool enabling you to continue to provide advice, guidance and support online in these difficult times with Covid-19 prevalent at the moment, and social distancing in place.

How do I install this?

First you need to go to this website: https://tawk.to and take out an account. All they need is an email address, a name and a password. For first time users they will also ask for a website address where you intend to install the other end of the solution. This is known as a “Property” in their language. You can be signed into more than one.

Somewhere in this process you need to acknowledge an email they will send to the email address you provided to them as a means of verifying you are the right person. As you work through this check your mailbox for an email from them and acknowledge it. Mine came in quite late in the process.

Login to your website and go to the Plugins option. Click on add new and search for Tawk.to you will find there is more than one. The one you need looks a bit like this:

You can follow this link to find out about the plugin: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/tawkto-live-chat/ When you have located it in your plugins selection, install it. Then activate it. Once activated there is an option to access settings. All it needs to know is your account name and password. (Email address and password you used on the main Tawk.to website) and you will need to select the website you are using as well in a box for the settings.

Once enabled, switch your view so you are looking at the live website rather than the dashboard. You will see there is a message in the bottom right of your website. If you are online and logged into the tawk.to website and have their dashboard running in another browser window, anyone visiting your site can chat to you.

Extending the service

Being dependent on one person is going to be a bit of a drag, and if it comes to that, they will disengage. From a practical standpoint, you can leave this running in the background on a computer (or smartphone / tablet) do something else, and only engage when there is someone to chat too. That may or may not be convenient. However you could invite volunteers to be your chat agents. If there was a group of people, willing to be online as a pool of resources on your behalf, you are more likely to be successful with this system.

Anyway if you are even remotely interested, it is worth taking a look. With everyone socially isolating currently this would be a useful tool to continue a service remotely, even if it is at 15% of what you were doing before, that will be a huge help to those that have no help whatsoever, and are now feeling more isolated than ever.

Online 24 x 7

Not necessarily recommended for just one person, but it is possible to put the Tawk.to app on your smart phone or tablet and be logged in 24 x 7. So you do not need to be sitting in front of, or near a computer all of the time.

Interested but not sure what to do?

Drop me a line and I will get you set up on it.

Exact Metrics!

On many websites I have previously installed a plugin called GADWP which allows you to view Google Analytics data within your dashboard. It is a very useful plugin which once set up provides an instant insight into the performance of your site and how many people are reaching it.

But…..

All good things come to an end. It looks like the author of the GADWP plugin sold it to a company called Exact Metrics. I suppose they were purchasing a very large base of registered users. It does happen from time to time. It is a relatively quick way of reaching a lot of people who share a common interest. Exact Metrics look as though they want to monetize the GADWP plugin, there is nothing wrong with that, however what they appear to have done is removed a lot of the free functionality and now charge a fee. When I first came across this, I set up the new version which replaces GADWP and registered on their site. However all of things I could do before (which btw are free anyway within the Google Analytics account) I now have to pay for. Which is a shame. I think their installed base has shrunk considerably. As you are all charities or not for profit organisations, I know that this is functionality you would not be willing to pay for. I certainly would not either when it is already free.

But there is another but……

It appears that the original author, or at least the original code is available under a new plugin called GAinWP. While going around websites I have been removing the Exact Metrics plugin, replacing it with GAinWP. It works in the same way as the old plugin and gives some very simple views into the Google Analytics Data.

If you want to see Google Analytics data on your site dashboard and have the Exact Metrics panel there now, please do the following:

Go to the Plugins page. Locate GADWP and deactivate it. On the next screen choose other, then deactivate it. This will return you to the plugins page, click on delete to remove the plugin from the installation.

Next, at the top of your plugins page you have an “add new button”. Click on that. In the search box enter GAinWP. You will see two things come up. One is the plugin you are looking for, the other you can ignore. Click on Install Now.

Click on install now. Once it has installed, activate it. If you have independent access to your Google Analytics account for your website you can enable it yourself. If you are not sure, drop me a line and tell me you have installed it, and confirm your website and I will get it back up and running.

← Coronavirus and working remotely Online Chat App →

Coronavirus and working remotely

Right now it is worth considering if you had to work remotely, could you access your email and other systems? It is likely at some point in the near future, if the virus takes hold people may be asked to work from home. Now might be a good idea to give that some consideration.

The following is specifically for those people that access their website and email through my hosting. However it applies to anyone. Some of you I know use Outlook 365 too. What might you need to effectively work from home, and where do you get it from?

Communications

Email

Most email systems offer an online version through a browser as well as through an application like Outlook. The first things you need to know is how to access these systems from a remote location. If your organisation has assigned a laptop, then it is easy, just hook up to the internet at your new location. But if you have a desktop you are probably not going to take that away from the office. To access your email on a different system you need to know the portal or web address for email. For the websites I have built, if you are using the email systems I provide then just go to your website and look in the footer, you will find a link there to webmail. Go there, then you need to enter your full email address and your account password. This will give you access to the same account you used on your office computer.

Other considerations

The email accounts I provide are all 10GB in size. With such a large inbox, you can create folders and move important email into the folders. If you do that on your desktop, those folders are also created on the server if your email is set up as an IMAP account (this was the recommendation I made when issuing instructions). It means the folders you set up are visible on all devices that connect to the same mailbox. If you know you are going to be out of the office, set up a folder and write yourself a few emails with important info on such as:

IT support person and telephone number
Colleagues email addresses, telephone numbers
Important documents
Whatsapp Group (good idea to set that up now).
Key procedures if those are not available online

Think about what you take for granted today because it is to hand. Save a copy locally in your email.

Website

Is your login tied to your browser at work? If it is then you may have difficulty logging in from home. Passwords can be recovered from WordPress websites provided you have access to the email account tied to your login. Make sure you know these three things:

Your user name in the wordpress website
The email address which is tied to your account
Optionally keep a copy of your password discretely without noting in the file name or content what it is for. You do not need to do that if you can access your email account. Because you use your email account to recover your password.

GDPR

Don’t forget about GDPR and your responsibility to keep confidential and personal information safe. This aspect is also worth considering before a crisis forces everyone to work remotely. While in the office you are within a controlled environment. When you are working from home, particularly if the data you are accessing is no longer on the organisation’s equipment, additional care will need to be taken to keep the information secure. An annex to whatever policy is in force to cover such circumstances might be worth considering including the responsibilities of employees and volunteers. Once we are the other side of coronavirus all of the data which may may have been more distributed than normal needs to be brought back under local control.

Portable Drives

While it may be possible to use Cloud based storage, or even remote access to the usual data you access at work, you could also consider portable hard disk drives or USB memory sticks. If you use these make sure they are encrypted. If a drive or file is encrypted then if it falls into the wrong hands it will be virtually impossible to decrypt.

Make sure a nominated person is issuing passwords, and these are recorded somewhere centrally and securely with access provided to the chair or another backup responsible person. This ensures you do not get locked out of your own systems.

Remote Access

For any remote access to your systems make sure the passwords are changed regularly, and you know who has access. Personally I find the idea of having a backdoor into a system dangerous. But they are frequently used, and often left open, particulary where you have a remote IT support person. Make sure you have a policy where access can be turned on and off when required, passwords and user combinations are under very tight control, and used on a need to know basis. You should be in control, not your external IT support company. Your organisation is ultimately responsible for the safeguarding of your data.

← Coronavirus Guidance Exact Metrics! →

Coronavirus Guidance

I am sure we are all going to be fed up of hearing guidance on Coronavirus over the course of the next three months. However it is important to disseminate information relating to it to make sure the message gets to everyone, and where possible the virus is contained.

I had two requests in one day to incorporate guidance on Coronavirus on two different websites. I have adapted content from three sources: NHS, Government and AgeUK (who also used the same NHS and Gov sources ). Guidance may well change of course. Right now 11/03/20 it is up to date.

An example can be found here: https://homestartbarnet.org/coronavirus-advice/ I can package that up and add it to your site very quickly if it is a Divi website. Contact me if you would like it adding to your site. The only caveat is once I add it, you will need to keep it up to date. But it will at least get you started.

Contact me for help.

← Custom Header and Footer Coronavirus and working remotely →

Custom Header and Footer

The Divi Template has had a few additional features added over the past few months. One quite important one is the ability to add a customised header, footer and content area. These are defined centrally. In fact multiple different headers and footers can be defined and applied to specific groups or pages or posts. I have started experimenting in this area on some of the new sites.

Application for Home-Start

I have received a few requests from Home-Starts (I host 34 of them) asking me to add a donate button to pages. I have in the past added this in as a separate block within pages. Now there is an alternative way of doing this.

As of 12/2/20 I have one design available. I am open to modifications to it, however there are certain rules that need to be observed in the way it behaves.

There are actually three headers, one for large screens, one for tablets and one for smart phones. They are all different. The desktop and tablet versions show the Donate (and Get Help) buttons. There is also a sticky menu available when the user scrolls down the screen. This “sticks” the menu to the top of the screen.

Please note these are all scaled to fit the page. Click on the desktop version to see it full size.

The images below are scaled. Please click on them to see them full size.

1). Wide Screen Version

2) Tablet Version

3) Smart Phone Header

I have not installed one of these on a site yet. If you are interested in this please contact me.

Anti Spam Measure for Forms

I have used a variety of Form Managers on sites over the years. The majority of you should have Contact Form 7 on your site. I have used a standard feature in Contact Form 7 which is a hidden field. Computers can see it, but humans cannot see it, so they do not fill it in. If the form is submitted and the hidden field has data in it, it is not accepted becasue it has been added by a computer so the form is rejected.

It certainly helps in most cases, but I am also aware that some of you seem to have websites targetted from time to time. Here is another simple addition to your forms which may help. It is a simple quiz which will prevent submission unless the answer is correct.

There are standard forms of recaptcha used by Google. It relies on a human interpreting what is in a picture, or pictures. It can be particularly tiresome on some websites. I have also noted a difference in operation of Google Recaptcha with different types of browser. It works very well with Chrome, less so with other browsers.

The following is a simple addition to your Contact Form 7. Download the file by clicking at the bottom of this post and copy the text and insert it just above the entry for the Enter button.

Here is an example:

I have inserted another form control between the message area of the form and the Enter button. Here is what it looks like in the Contact Form 7 Layout. Highlighted in yellow below.

It may look complicated, but it isn’t really. There is a short explanation at the start and a series of questions, each with the response expected like this:

“1 plus 2 =|3”

You can build your own questions for example:

“What is the capital of France?|Paris”

Anyone submitting a message can see the question, but not the answer.

Of course none of this should be really necessary. But unfortunately there is a large group of people that must see some success from sending spam messages otherwise it would not be worth effort.

Will this solve the problem?

I honestly do not know. I am pretty sure with some of the anti spam measures which are often defeated, there must be people who are paid to paste messages into forms. In which case none of these methods will work. But if you are currently plagued with spam messages coming in via the website, this may be worth a try.

Do It Yourself

Locate your contact form by logging in and locating Contact in the side bar. Look for the form(s) and open one. Towards the bottom of the form you will see the text:

[submit “Send”]

Place some line breaks between this and the content above it. Then click on the download button to download the example code. Then paste it into the space you have made. Save the form and then go to your contact us page and test it. Make sure it works and you still receive a message through your website before leaving.

Any problems drop me a line or call me. Click on the button below, you should see the text, copy it, and paste it into the form as described.

Download Code Here (text file) opens in a new window

Adding a document to a button

This article is mainly aimed at those people with Elegant Themes Divi based websites. This template has lots of features enabling you to build and maintain interesting interactive websites. With the prevalence of mobile devices representing more than 50% of the accesses to your website, you need to take more care with links. A finger is larger than a mouse cursor. Buttons can often get around this problem, they are easy and natural items to touch and therefore cause something to happen.

Many of you have referral forms on your websites which are used by your clients. These change fairly regularly, so you need to reassign a new document to them, or add new buttons into your website. They are also used on policy pages to facilitate downloading policies. The page comprises an array of buttons in this case.

Buttons are preferred to links

I have touched on buttons in the past, in all of the most recent websites (probably since late 2017) there are library elements built into your website which follow your colour schemes. This saves you from having to format the button when you add it to the website.

The tutorial below tells you how to upload a document to your media library, how to add a button to your website and how to link the document in the library to the button.

Click on the button below to download the tutorial.

Download the tutorial for adding buttons

Processing Form Data

I was asked if it was possible to add a form to a website for an event dinner, collect the responses and place them into a website to reduce the laborious activity of copying feedback in forms by hand. Other examples of where you might want to do this are with a census, or survey. In the past I have helped to set these up and created the associated form, the responses come back as emails. These then need to be processed by hand.

Having given this some thought, there is another way you could do this to simplify the data collection and processing. The problem is getting the responses into a spreadsheet. Once it is in a spreadsheet, then it is relatively easy to write formulae to process it, or extract the data you need.

There are several aspects to this, some may not be that obvious:

1). The form data can present the options, and the form can only respond with a single selected option. So for example we can say you have a menu choice: Rolled Pork, Rolled Brisquet, Vegetable Stack. You can only select one of them. What is selected and returned in the form is the precise choice of words. If it is precise, then it is unique. You can process it in a spreadsheet.

2). While you can have forms that say Enter A,B,C,D, E, F where A is strongly agree, and F is Strongly disagree. What you get back is A, B, C, D, E, or F. But this is not easy to process. Whereas “Strongly Agree” is easy to process. So use the language that humans understand. You can abbreviate it later in a spreadsheet. This is of much greater importance if you are not a computer programmer, or software engineer. Those people can think in terms of variable names, and values. If you are not used to thinking that way, keep it simple.

3). If the website uses Contact Form 7 (one of the most popular contact form plugins and one I have been using for several years now), you can build the response email up very precisely. So much so that you can create the top part of the email in a human readable format, and the bottom part in a computer readable format which you can use in a spreadsheet.

4). Send a copy of the response back to the person that sent it to you. It is good manners really, and in the case of a Dinner Dance, you have a hard copy of what you ordered for dinner.

Processing the Data

You will see examples later in this article, let’s assume that I am collecting feedback on dinner choices. I have created a form which I can collect information from people. In this case I have received the following:

Starter: Smoked Salmon with Celeriac and Prawn Salad

Main Course: Slow-cooked Rolled Brisquet with gravy

Dessert: Summer Pudding

I can format the responses in the email which comes back to the organisation like this for human consumption, and like this for adding to a spreadsheet:

Smoked Salmon with Celeriac and Prawn Salad,Slow-cooked Rolled Brisquet with gravy,Summer Pudding

You will hopefully agree that the first version is easy to interpret, but the second version on a single line you have to look more carefully at to interpret. So we provide both.

CSV

The second version is the data presented in a CSV format or Comma Separated Value format. If you look closely the three values are separated by commas.

I can paste that second CSV formatted row into a spreadsheet row for later formatting.

Wait while collecting form data

If I use a special email box for all of those responses, I can set up the form and forget about it until I need to do some processing. All of the data will go to a special email account. I just work my way down, open up each one and paste the CSV formatted line to a new row in the spreadsheet.

Convert the CSV rows to columns

Next I choose Data in the spreadsheet, highlight the rows of responses and convert the rows of CSV data to columns. After this is done, all of my First Course, Main Course and Desserts are all in aligned columns.

Plus I know that the content in the columns is predictable and finite, I am not going to find Jelly under Dessert because it was not an option to start with.

Add in some formulae

Choose a location at n+1 rows down your sheet where n is the maximum number of responses you were expecting.

If I choose a range for say the Dessert column on the spreadsheet and I carefully look at the available options I will find that there can only be four possibilities. In this case none, Summer Pudding, Chocolate Tart or Lemon Cheesecake. I can now set up a formula which will count the total number of instances of “none”, “Summer Pudding”, “Chocolate Tart”, “Lemon Cheesecake”. In other words I have created an automatic way of counting the instances of a given response in a single column.

Summary

If you have something moderately complex you wish to achieve, it is possible to build CSV based response and paste these into a spreadsheet, convert them to data in columns, and then process the columns. It can make the tedious steps of processing information a lot easier.

I am looking at this right now as an example for someone, so I will come back and provide a downloadable guide here once I have progressed it further. (January 2020).

Update Feb 12th 2020: This system has been implemented and is in use with a client. It is now very very easy to collate all of the responses and run some analysis on a spreadsheet to identify, total income, total number of attendees, total plates of each type for the kitchen, and also identify special dietary needs. If the user had to paste each value from every email it would have taken a considerable longer period of time.

Contact me to discuss further if you want to do something like this.

Questionable Advice?

I have had several requests over the past two months to add “DONATE NOW” buttons onto all pages on a website. One request in particular came via a voluntary advisor which seemed totally flawed to me. However I can appreciate that most of you are dependent on “external voluntary experts” of which I guess, I fall into that category too. So here is my take on it, like all gifts, you can choose to accept it or not. It is just an opinion.

When you look around the web, particularly on charity sites you tend to see the Donate buttons plastered everywhere. The advice given to my client was to add a link under the button which goes directly to a preferred fundraising portal. Say for example Virgin Money Giving. That sort of sounds ok, but I disagree, for several reasons:

1). Let us assume I have arrived on your website, I am not that familiar with it, I have looked around and now I wish to make a donation to help you. So I click on the Donate Now! button. What happens?

It takes me to a completely different website, it may have your logo there, but it has someone elses logo there too, I am not sure if this is a scam or not, so I leave. Did you get your donation? No.

There is a web standard called WCAG2.1 which states that a link that opens in a new window, or takes the person off of the website needs additional text to advise the user before they click. Think of it as a best practice. You cannot do that here. Let us look at another case:

2). I am familiar with your organisation, I have visited several times, and I can read (!). I want to make a donation. If I want to make a donation, which page would I go to? Chances are you have a Fundraising page at the top of your menu. That is where I would go. I did not need a button plastered everywhere.

The Donate Now button is not dissimilar to someone on the street asking you for money; they have not established a compelling case why you should give them money, but they are asking anyway. Chances are most people will ignore it.

It is much smarter to sprinkle Donate Now buttons within the content on your site AFTER you have just made a case for why it might be a good idea to donate. It is more subtle, less “in yer face”. While I have no firm evidence to support this, I suspect it will be more successful than the former method which has the subtely of a sledgehammer.

If you must, do it this way…

If you must put a Donate Now button everywhere, it should really link to the fundraising page, or the page in your website which lists the various methods of raising funds. In this way the user is still on your website. So within the page you can explain that by clicking on a link or icon on this page you will be sent to the fundraising partner page, specifically to your account on that page, and it will open in a new window.

By doing it this way, you conform to best practices in WCAG2.1, and you are holding the hand of the donor and reassuring them as you take them to the appropriate website.

I personally would be more likely to donate that way rather than the sledgehammer approach.

Why the sledgehammer approach…

I am being disingenuous really, I don’t think people really mean to use the sledgehammer approach, but I think there is a reason why they propose to do it this way. Fundamentally the person making the recommendation is making an assumption: they love your charity, everything about what you do, and as such they are already bought into the value you provide. So in their case you do not need to engage into a sales pitch, they are already sold. So the button is all they need. Well that is fine for them.

But your adviser is not your average donor!

However the people you are hoping to donate to your organisation are not bought in yet, so you have to do that as a separate activity. Taking them to the fundraising page first is vitally important. Of even greater importance, sprinkle those donate now buttons within your content, say after a moving testimonial from one of your clients, or a case study. I think you will have much greater traction with your market.

← Do you have a Social Media Editor? Processing Form Data →