Asides

The Managed WordPress Hosting 6-Point Check

Posted on | updated:
Managed WordPress Service

The Managed WordPress Hosting 6-Point Check

Our Managed WordPress Hosting service has features such as emergency data restoration and software updates. An important block of the Service includes a 6-point check for items that are often red flags to deeper problems. For example, checking Google for blacklisting or hacked status tells us that the website has further problems to investigate and address.

This is an example of such a case. Google and other search engines aren’t compelled to contact you or to help you if your website is in a compromised state. Google’s Webmaster Tools can be used to declare ownership of the website. In this case, you are likely to receive an automated email but it must be set to do so. This is all you will receive. Just an email and you must take further action. If your website is compromised your search engines results will pay for it. This will increase in severity as time passes. Eventually, the website is blacklisted and completely removed from Google. Ouch.

In my article detailing the Top 3 Reasons You Need A Managed WordPress Service, I discussed the importance of having a human that regularly monitors the status and health of your website.

Our 6-point check includes:

  1. Search engine health
  2. Changelog scans
  3. Internal Malware scanner
  4. External Malware scanner
  5. User Account Checks
  6. Pages/Posts Checks

Again, the 6-point check is in addition to our deeper maintenance routine and is an additional layer of protection for our clients websites.

Changelog Scans

The Changelog scans give us an insight into suspicious activity on the system. Changelog analysis often assist us in discovering malicious activity on the webservers. They help us to identify vulnerabilities as well. Hackers and their script bots are relentless in ferreting out any little opening that they can exploit. System administrators must be diligent and ever watchful. If a hacker penetrates a system, he/she can wreak havoc. This will cost a website owner quite a lot of time and money. Not to mention the possible damage to the brand of the business.

Defend your website(s) with our Managed WordPress Hosting Service!

 

 

Is your slow webpage/website speed due to your CMS?

Posted on | updated:
CMSQuick Web UtilitiesUbuntu

It can be difficult to evaluate what is causing a slower website speed,  especially when you use a CMS which does a lot of the work for you.

We often use tools like Pingdom and PageSpeed Insights to help us find what the actual website speed of the full site is,   and both of those sites have suggestions for

use a tool like Pingdom to test your website speed

speeding things up.

 

A suggestion that often comes up in PageSpeed insight for a slow site will be:

Reduce server response time

They provide additional links and suggestions,  but here is on suggestion I haven’t seen yet,  to help evaluate how much of the speed is a related to CMS or server side processing.

  1. Load the page you are concerned about,   perhaps http://matraex.com
  2. Right click and view the source of that page
  3. Save the text of that page (Ctrl A- Ctrl -C)   open a notepad and Ctrl V,    – Save as temp.test.html
  4. Upload the file to your website (ex: http://matraex.com/temp.test.html) .
  5. Test the site speed with Pingdom and PageSpeed Insights
use a tool like the website performance assessment log to track the differences in metrics

Note the difference in speed,  you can use a tool like the Matraex Webpage Performance Assessment Tool which will allow you to save some of the important numbers you get from each of the sites and then compare them the next time.

If you are on a ubuntu or other linux server and the current working directory is the root of your website,   A quick one line way to create the file is

htdocs> wget -O temp.test.html http://matraex.com

 

 

Top 3 Reasons You Need A Managed WordPress Service

Posted on | updated:
Managed WordPress ServiceWebsite PerformanceWordPressWordPress Optimization

Top 3 Reasons You Need A Managed WordPress Service

Regular monitoring

Any number of problems can arise with a WordPress website. It is important to have a human regularly monitoring your WordPress website. With a Managed WordPress Service, you will have any number of technical staff regularly monitoring your website. Every website on the Internet is vulnerable to a long list of issues from hackers to hardware failure. No system is impermeable and even external events can take a website down such as network router failures.

Freedom to Focus

With a Managed WordPress Service, you don’t have to spend your valuable time dealing with any technical issues. This allows you to do what matters, that is build your content and audience. How can you spend your valuable time on SEO or building new content for your website when you have to deal with technical trouble or malware. An analogy I like to use is that you want to focus on driving your car, not working on the engine.

Expert Support

As a blogger or business person, you should not have to be a technical expert at WordPress. With a Managed WordPress Service, you get a team of experienced WordPress experts that support you when trouble arises.

What sort of trouble should you be concerned with? Malware, hackers, software bugs etc. Many people aren’t aware that almost every WordPress website on the Internet is probed for vulnerabilities and password guessing, all the time. The content or popularity of the site doesn’t matter. Hackers just want to get into your system so they can use to it trick Google and other search engines into helping their money websites.

Having a team of WordPress experts on your side saves a lot of time and money for a low-cost investment.

Matraex Inc., offers an affordable Managed WordPress Service with regular monitoring, hacker/malware defense and removal service, schedule reports, and emergency updates/security patches. Contact us for a free quote!

Integrate local company forms into your bank’s Switch Kit

Posted on | updated:
Bank Switch Kits

A bank’s switch kit attempts to make it easy for a new bank customer to switch all of their automated payments from their previous bank account to their new bank account.

It is most convenient for a customer, when a local company, like the local power utility has a simple form that they can fill out to update the company on which bank account to draw automatic payments from.

Local Company Forms

The larger utilities have these forms available and many bank ‘New Account’ departments have those forms on hand to give to new customers. However, this is still a paper-based solution. In today’s digital processing world, more and more financial institutions provide a digital Switch Kit document to the client to fill out. Most of the time these are in PDF form and are downloadable from the bank website.

So, how does a bank get a copy of the most popular local utilities and company account change paper work to be part of their Switch Kit? Well, most of the time they dont. The complexities of managing a third party document, making sure it is the correct version and getting approval to host the document on bank servers prevents this. Even creating a link from the bank website to another site to download the document from the local power company is impossible.

Generic PDF Switch Forms

For these reasons, banks typically just create generic digital PDF forms that a consumer can fill out, with the local company’s information, and then send in. These generic forms create much difficulty and confusion for the consumer (see How does a Switch Kit differentiate your bank from others?). They require the consumer to research company addresses, contact information and submission procedures.

Auto Switch Kit

Enter the Auto Switch Kit, a web application dedicated to your bank. This secure website has a preloaded list of the most common local companies. We set up each of these forms to integrate, which makes it so that the customer’s information only needs to be entered once and then when saving, the information is merged into each of the PDF forms, whether it is only one or fifteen.

If you need a Generic Form in your Auto Switch Kit, no problem it will be filled out with all of the consumer’s information and merged, so that they only have to fill out the information specific to the local company they want to switch to.

 

 

 

What is a Bank Switch Kit

Posted on | updated:
Bank Switch Kits

What is a Bank Switch Kit?

A Bank Switch Kit is a tool usually focused on automatic payments and direct deposits which help customers switch their account one bank account to another.

How does a Switch Kit differentiate your bank from others?

By shortening the time required to switch automated payment.

The Auto Switch Kit product helps the consumer fill out many forms in a matter of 2 to 5 minutes. Where it could have taken 10 to 30 using other methods.

Generic Method
Most Bank Account Switch Kit forms come with a couple of generic forms
A Direct Deposit Switch form that you would give to your current employer
An Automatic Payments form, which you can fill out to each of your utility vendors
The purpose of these forms is to be generic, in order to allow the consumer to fill out one form for each group that interacts with their bank, filling out the same information MANY times.

The process of switching typically goes like this:

  1. User fills out their name, new bank account information and their employer information on a direct deposit change form.
  2. User fills out their name, new bank account information, power company name, address account number.
  3. User fills out their name, new bank account information, cable company name, address account number.
    This form has to be filled out 5 to 10 times.

Auto Switch Kit
Our Auto Switch Kit takes a different approach to minimize the amount of work that the Bank Customer has to do in order to switch their account (making it easier for them to switch to your Bank)
User selects checkboxes from a preset list of local Vendor companies
User fills their name, new account, and local Vendor account numbers on a single form.
System displays all local company forms, filled out and ready for printing.

Hybrid
Some banks use a hybrid model, where they keep forms for the local companies on hand and provide the consumer with a copy they can fill out. This method does save the consumer the time of having to research where to send the form when they are done, However they still have to fill out every single form.This simple process by our Auto Switch Kit is better that than the generic, one form fits all method:

[vc_separator type=”normal” position=”center” color=”” border_style=”solid” width=”” thickness=”1px” up=”10″ down=”10″]

Generic Auto Switch Kit
How many forms have to be filled out Filling out multiple forms with the same information, one form for every vendor Fill out all information at once
Easy to select and remember Must remember which companies, and then type out the names of each of them. Prompts for the most common local companies such as power and cable and other utilities.
Faster, more accurate information ou must fill out the company’s address information which likely involves researching the correct address and mailing procedure on it. Uses the local company’s local form which has the logo, address information and mailing procedure on it.

See for yourself how this tool can help you.

Request a demo

[contact-form-7 id=”9161″ title=”PDF Switch Kit Demo”]

OpenVPN requires IPv4 forwarding to allow routing between servers

Posted on | updated:
OpenVPNUbuntu

OpenVPN requires IPv4 forwarding to allow routing between servers

The problem: no connectivity between two computers that are both connecting into an openVPN server.  the open VPN server is able to connect to both of the computers

Open VPN Setup

Two different computers connecting to the open VPN server on the same C class IP.

  • computer 1: ifconfig-push 10.1.11.13 10.1.11.1
  • computer 2: ifconfig-push 10.1.11.211 10.1.11.1

 Solution

The short term solution is to run a command that enables IPv4 forwarding

#sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

However this will not survive a reboot.  so open the sysctl configuration file and set it.

>vi /etc/sysctl.conf  #uncomment the net.ipv4.ip_forward line

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

That’s it,  the 2 computers should be able to communicate

 

3 Ways to Improve Your Boise Website Design in 2016

Posted on | updated:
Website DesignWebsite DevelopmentWebsite Performance

3 Ways to Improve Your Boise Website Design in 2016

Here are 3 Ways to Improve Your Boise Website Design in 2016. Google now applies a score to your website by checking to see if it is mobile-friendly. Another important update for 2016 is to build brief, easy to read content. The third website checkup is for fast page loading. All three combined help build an easy to read website, that loads quickly, and scores well with the search engines.

Mobile-friendly

Also known as responsive design, restructures and adjust various content sizing depending on the device the visitor is using. For example, if Joe from Boise, Idaho visits this page on his desktop computer, he will get a full, wide-screen content rich experience. If Kelly from Garden City, Idaho were to visit this same page on your iPhone 6, she would be served the same content but slightly adjusted. Some photos would be scaled down to fit the smaller screen better, the text would be increased for easier readability. Finally, the content would all be stacked up for easy vertical scrolling. No content would be tiny or pushed off the side of the screen. Thus, Kelly would be presented with a mobile-friendly website design.

Easy to Read Content

The search engines also apply a readability analysis of the content on a web page. Statistics show that many visitors on the Internet are not masters of the English language. Therefore, simple, short sentences make it easier for you to communicate your message and obtain better search engine results.

Fast Page Loading

Finally, the third way to improve your Boise Website Design in 2016 is to have your website optimized for speed. No one likes waiting for slow loading web pages and the search engines have come to realize this. So in some cases, the faster your website loads, the better it helps your search engine rankings.

The 3 Ways to Improve Your Boise Website Design in 2016 are mobile-friendly website design, easy to read content, and fast page loading times. If you are interested in a free quote or website design analysis, please contact us at (208) 344-1115.

Matraex Builds Responsive Websites

Posted on | updated:
UtilityWebsite Design

Matraex Builds Responsive Websites

As a Website Design company here in Boise, we run into customers that have websites which are very difficult, or impossible to use on a mobile device.

Example Output from Mobile Tool

Often times this is because the website is old and needs to be redesigned. In this case we are able to redesign the entire website, and make sure that the new design is responsive and looks good on mobile devices.

Some times though we run into websites which were built where the website owner just did not think about making the website look good on a mobile device. Sometimes website owners dont even have a mobile device themselves so they do not check that their website has been built responsively.

With all of the reasons above,   we found a need to be able to quickly check how things looked on a mobile device.   So we build a tool which shows what the mobile responsive site looks like.

The ‘On A Mobile’ Tool

  • A user can see what their site looks like on a mobile device
  • It allows a user to enter their website and it pulls the website up sized as it would be on a a mobile phone.
  • The tool emulates a resolution 320 x 480 and fits the screen size into a mobile phone frame to complete the picture.

The full URL to the tool is:

  • https://www.matraex.com/onamobile.php

Much like our other free website and DNS and domain tools,  Matraex, offers this tool for free for others to use.

We added a couple of links to the tool which will allow others to share the results they get,  and then if the person viewing their website would like some help fixing issues on the website.   We have a quick form they can fill out so they can request help with it.

A couple of features we would like to add to this tool if people find it useful

  • Automatically generate and save an image
  • Allows the image to be shared by facebook
  • Create a service which automatically emails the mobile image to the website owner once per month to make sure they are aware of what it looks like over time
  • Compare tool,  which shows the full website next to the mobile website

Matraex builds responsive websites services nationwide from our humble offices here in Boise, Idaho.

Website WordPress PHP Custom Application Development Boise

Posted on | updated:
CompanyPHPWebsite DevelopmentWordPress

Website WordPress PHP Custom Application Development Boise

I was asked recently, what kinds of work do you do for your clients.

The short answer is “Matraex, Inc provides Website WordPress PHP Custom Application Development Boise to small businesses”

Below I describe our services in more depth.

Contact me to discuss what we can do for you – Michael Blood – 208.344.1115 x 250

Matraex, Inc – Nationwide Web Services

  • We design online presence websites in WordPress.
  • We custom build web applications for businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals with ideas.
  • We create custom automation and time saving software using the web.
  • We support, refresh, repair and enhance existing websites and custom applications.
  • We provide Managed WordPress Hosting services.
  • We build, host and support custom scale-able hosting environments.

Matraex, Inc – Basic consulting and technology list

Matraex Inc, – Boise, Idaho Web Services:

While we work for clients nationwide. A large percentage of our clients are from here in Boise, Idaho. When items become complex we are able to work directly with clients in our office onsite at our client’s office. We communicate via skype or just on the phone.

WordPress Website Development

WordPress is an online, open source website creation tool written in PHP.  WordPress allows Matraex, Inc to quickly create a beautiful online presence for your business and the give you the ability to login and make simple updates to your site.  It is the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS)

We offer WordPress  Website Development solutions that are compatible with all business models and industry verticals. Our team of WordPress developers provides WordPress CMS development, plugin development. Also theme customization and maintenance services as well as ongoing security and update services through our Managed WordPress Hosting.

When you engage Matraex, Inc  to build or enhance your online, unless you have another tool in place. We will likely recommend that we develop your marketing presence using the WordPress Content Management System.  Depending on your vertical and your website needs we will either find existing WordPress plugins. We also build new plugins which add the needed custom touch to your website.

WordPress Plugin Development

A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that can be uploaded to extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress site.  Matraex, Inc builds custom plugins such as this,  any time that our client needs are not met with the base WordPress Package.

In each of these situations,  Matraex, Inc relies on its deep knowledge of WordPress. Also the WordPress SDK and the PHP programming language to implement new and innovative website features.

Legacy WordPress Plugin Repair and Replacement

In many cases we have customers with existing WordPress websites with plugins which are out of date. Even some what wont work with newer versions of WordPress,  in these cases we can:

  • Find an up to date WordPress Plugin which replaces the functionality of the out of date plugin
  • Make changes to the WordPress Plugin code to bring it up to date or
  • Build a replacement plugin made for the current version of WordPress.

Custom Web Application Development

Matraex, Inc works with entreprenuers, business owners and individuals with ideas to define innovative Web based applications and solutions which solve real world problems.   Our team takes stakeholders through a process to define problems and craft potential solutions.  From this we build a project that  our clients want and the Matraex team can commit to.  We then work closely with the client to get constant feedback throughout the development process to implement a fabulous product.  Each of our Custom Web Application projects are implemented into a production hosting environment,  where we continue to support them as needed.

Web Task Automation

Most people that work within a small business recognize problems and issues within their industry that need to be fixed.   Small tasks which take up more time,  than the value they provide.  They often know that if they had the software,  the task could be automated.   Matraex, Inc builds the custom software that provides this automation.   We work with our clients,  the industry professionals who understand the issues. We create software which reliably accomplishes and automates the tasks.   We periodically followup on the process to confirm that the software continues to accomplishes what has been intended or whether it could be improved.

PHP Development

PHP Powers nearly 70% of websites and has emerged as the most preferred & widely used server-side language.  Historically, 90% of our development projects have been done with PHP. All new development projects are done using PHP, whether it is within the WordPress CMS. The laravel Framework, uses other composer packages. Or a custom frameworkless PHP project using a homegrown library of functions.

Matraex builds PHP websites using MySQL, Linux and Apache which is popularly known as the LAMP platform.   We are able to launch new LAMP shared or dedicated development and production environments in minutes at one of our two redundant Data Centers (Involta and Fiberpipe)

Our company’s PHP Development Services offer multipurpose solutions that encapsulate the following:

  • PHP Web Development
  • PHP Application Development
  • Custom PHP Development
  • PHP Software Customization and Integration
  • PHP Porting and Migration
  • Packaged PHP Applications
  • PHP Professional Services
  • PHP Outsourcing

MySQL and Postgres Database Administration

The custom applications that Matraex, Inc develops integrate with a database to store persistent application data.  Some applications like WordPress automatically setup and  manage all aspects of the MySQL database architecture. But our custom applications require database administration (DBA) services for setup and maintenance.   Matraex, Inc has Oracle Certified MySQL Administration experts to address the Database needs of these custom applications.

Matraex, Inc internally follows very stringent Database Naming conventions which we have used for more than 10 years.  These standards allow our development team to very quickly create custom relationships.  We also area able to easily read and understand relationships in existing applications we have built.

Website Overhaul and Repair

Websites get old,   designs get tired and software gets outdated.  Matraex, Inc breathes new life into websites by either a small simple change. Or a complete website overhaul.  Depending on the client need we address goals and budget to recreate websites which perform.

Matraex offers Website WordPress PHP Custom Application Development Boise.

PDF Form Import Tool For Financial Professionals

Posted on | updated:
Bank Switch Kits

PDF Form Import Tool For Financial Professionals

The PDF Switchkit is a PDF Form Import Tool For Financial Advisors. The financial industry is tough. Everyone wants a piece of the client’s wallet, and the more you have, the better and more profitable the relationship can be. If you are a bank teller, personal banker, even a mortgage officer or financial adviser, you are tasked with gaining more share of the wallet.What are some of the objections you have heard from your potential customers or clients when it comes to converting them to a quality customer? There are a lot of them, but in the financial industry in particular, one of the top objections for not moving business to your branch…

“I don’t want to have to change account numbers”.

It’s understandable, this is no easy feat. In today’s digital world we tend to set it and forget it when it comes to paying your bills. Just provide the phone company with your account number, routing number and a signature and you’re set. Each month the phone company happily goes in a takes what you owe on your bill and you never have to think about it.

Convenience is king in today’s world — if you want business,  you have to be easy to work with and you have to be convenient.
When you have a special product or service that is hard to find elsewhere and provides a quick and easy way to do business, then you get an edge on your competition.

So let’s say you are the financial institution’s front line, a teller at a local branch.
The banking industry can be rough. Executive leaders push for more clients to come through the doors and ask for branch personnel to get more products in every
wallet through cross-selling or promotions geared at increasing the customer base. As the front line, you have to listen for the verbal clues from customers that indicate a financial or personal need that you as a bank or credit union can fulfill.

Even the smallest comment can indicate an opportunity.

 

“I would just deposit this check at my bank, but it is drawn on your bank and you are closer. “

Typically, the conversation goes somewhat like this:

“Have you ever thought about doing your banking with us? “.

And here it comes…wait for it…

“I would love to do my banking here, but all of my automatic payments come from my current bank account. I don’t want to have to change all of that. “

What if the conversation didn’t have to end there? … What if your company had a solution for this? … What if the teller could offer a response like,

“I have a kit that can help you with that. I have all of the forms you need to make the switch.
What kind of automatic payments do you currently have coming from your other bank’s account. “

 

Now… they can

 

PDF Switch Kit

Features
Benefits
Professional Management of PDF forms for switching business to your company Convenience of having all of the required forms available to the customer
Complete form once and fill in many PDFs with the click of a button Save time by quickly inputting your customer’s information – only once for all forms.
Offer a service which is unique in the industry – set your company apart Increase credibility and gain recognition for having cutting edge technology available to your customers
Convert your potential clients more easily and for less cost. Save money by converting a potential customer to a raving customer. Overcome the number one objection to doing business with you
Learn More…Contact Us

 

PDF Form Import Tool For Financial Professionals