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The story of the online community with no participating community members… and how to avoid it. Over the years I have been asked to consult on the technical design of many online databases, directories and discussion forums. These tools are well marketed and can be very appealing as a place to build virtual community and

As part of my website maintenance, security monitoring and backup services, one of the things I routinely do for my clients is responding to emails from them asking if an email they have received about their website or email is spam. I also recieve many of those emails on their behalf, where I am listed

Have you run into problems receiving some of your email lately? Are some clients telling you they sent emails you didn’t receive, but others get through just fine? Was it all working great until recently, when it stopped? Here are the most common solution to this more and more frequent problem.

Why you should stop sending bulk emails and newsletters from your regular email program I sometimes run into non-profit groups and small businesses which are still tracking their email newsletters manually. They are sending out email bulk messages, sometimes with an attached pdf newsletter, with multiple people in the BCC field. When people let them

I’ve been in business for 20 years, and one thing I realized recently is that there are a lot of services I provide to clients that they may be aware of and things they could benefit from that I have not been offering in a consistent way. This year I’m fixing that. Domain and Hosting

I love entrepreneurs. Independent, creative thinkers, and do-it-yourselfers, many of whom learn by doing and decide what they want by working on getting there. Many entrepreneurs want to design their own websites themselves. I often come into their lives when they have hit a roadblock between what they want to create and what they have

I like WordPress. I use it every day. I build and customize design templates, which are the things that style how information is displayed on your site. Templates (or Themes in WordPress speak) give you headers, footers, sidebars, specify the colours and fonts throughout the site and where logos and backgrounds go.  They don’t include

Clients, my non-profit clients in particular, often have old lists of email addresses they have had for awhile and haven’t been using. Donors who have given in the past and customers who have purchased can be a good source of referrals and good will if you approach them respectfully with communication they value. There are

A story about that software only one person knows how to use… and they are leaving.

My *client has a custom database system that is was either implemented last year or is several years old. Francine, their chief admin, is the only one who really knows how to use it, and produces some mission critical reports. Francine is nearing retirement, or has accepted a job offer somewhere else, or is pregnant.

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Working from home is a good way to help slow down the covid 19 pandemic. The thing is, what do you do when your laptop is not very powerful, or doesn’t have the network or software resources you use at work? What if a document you need now is on your work computer? If the

Recommended computer hardware and hosting providers for Canadians