Our team has been working hard this past week and through the weekend on launching our new website. Our blog already has a new look.
We are rolling out https, a new responsive design, and new content. Although all pages may not be completed yet, we were so excited to change our site that we boosted our time to at least get what we have in place posted.
In addition to the design change, we will be making sweeping changes across all our social media profiles in the weeks to come. We will be changing how we create and post content and the frequency when we do post.
Stay tuned for more site improvements and customer engagements.
Seems simple, just install code and you’ve got a chat app. But not so fast. I am finding out from personal experience that not all chat apps are alike.
I started out with Drift and still have that chat app on my website. What I found as I used the app was it slowed my website to a crawl for load time. I think much of this is the code is installed in the head tag as instructions state, but may be better installed before the ending body tag </body>.
What is happening on my site is the page is taking so long to load and the navigation does not operate until the chat app function appears – I consider this very bad. Drift must have made a code change to the asynchronous code recently as the page load time was not an issue before but started about two weeks ago. As a result I have been actively looking for a website chat app replacement.
I have tried three Tawk.to, MyLiveChat, and now Pure Chat. I am using Pure Chat on my website right now and so far I do like the free version. What I consider important for a website chat app are the following:
Easy to install
Able to configure colors
Has a rock solid mobile app
Does not impact page load speed
So far Tawk.To and My Live Chat were too complicated for my needs and cumbersome to use. Pure Chat has easy set up and I do like the mobile app which is simple to use.
We are in the middle of updating our website. The change will be big and we think the new look will be well received. Our site will be using HTML and PHP in a responsive site design. The look will be fresh and innovative.
Launch date is set now for the end of July to early August. If you have been reading Nancy McCord’s web posts on WordPress of late, you will know that she has selected to not build in WordPress due to theme updates, plugins that lose compatibility over time and slow load speed.
We’ll keep you posted with messages as we get closer to launch.
Yikes, an Important Plugin for my WordPress Theme has Been Abandoned!
If a plugin that is important to the look and feel of your WordPress website is abandoned, it is best to start looking for an alternative.
Recently in the news, several popular abandoned plugins were purchased and used to disseminate malware. It is not recommended to keep using a plugin that has been marked abandoned at WordPress.og. So what should you do?
One, search for alternatives using the plugin name. In many cases others just like you have had a similar problem and have created, found, or written about good alternative plugins. Do some research and see if you can find a good replacement option.
Two, be sure is has been abandoned by visiting WordPress.org. Look to see if there are comments that point you to alternatives.
Four, leave the abandoned plugin installed and take your chances that nothing will happen and your site will not be hacked. Just be aware that as WordPress updates, the plugin may stop working entirely.
