Last night, I cooked up a new service to allow you to manage notes via email. It’s free, and is really aimed at mobile email users (and, in particular, Peek users). It’s really easy to use, it doesn’t require signup, and I think it’s pretty cool.

To get started, all you have to do is pick a secret email box. The harder to guess, the better, because if anyone guesses it, they can get into your notes! This can be any sort of string you want, like “dahsgdjhab1234″. Then, after this string, add “@hdev2.com”. So your note email box would be dahsgdjhab1234@hdev2.com. Don’t tell anyone what it is! Not even me! Just start sending notes to it. When you send the first note, you’ll automatically get a message back with instructions on how to use the service. Here’s what that message might say, if you’re curious:

Hi! Either you just signed up, or you want some help, right? Well, you came to the right place! First things first, you should probably write down your notes email address. This is really important, as I can’t communicate with you without it! Always send your requests to:

THE SUPER SECRET ADDRESS YOU CHOSE!

Now, if you want to store a note, just send it to that address. It’s that easy! I’ll put it into my database and keep it safe for you. If you want to do stuff with your notes, just put one of the following basic commands at either the beginning or end of the subject line of your email, and I’ll act on it!

!a – All Notes. If you use this, I will send you the title and body of all of your notes. If you are a heavy user, this could be a big email!
!l – List of Notes. If you use this command, I will send you a list of the titles all of your notes (even the ones you deleted!)
!h – HELP!!! If you use this command, I’ll send you this email again

There are some advanced commands, too. For these, you have to put the Note ID of the note you’re talking about as the first thing in the body of your email. If you don’t know the Note ID, ask for the list of notes first, and that will have the IDs of all your notes!

!s – Single Note. If you use this, I’ll just send you the note you ask for.
!d – Delete Note. If you use this, I’ll delete the note you tell me to. (Actually, I won’t really delete it, cause I think you might want it back some day, but I will make it inactive so it doesn’t clutter up your workflow!)
!r – Restore Note. If you use this command, I’ll undelete your note. (See, I knew you’d want it back!)

And that’s that!

Questions, comments? Post em below…

The WordPress theme is from http://graphpaperpress.com/.  We are big, big fans of WordPress for a lot of simple to moderately complex sites (like this one you’re on right now).  WordPress allows a lot of flexibility and customizability, and a well developed CMS backend.

What are the upsides of developing with WordPress?

1. Quick development.  With WordPress you’re building your site on top of a solid base that takes care of a lot of the basic stuff, which means less testing is necessary, and less new code is necessary.
2. Less expensive.  This ties into number 1– as it takes less time for us to develop your site on top of WordPress, you pay less.
3. Easily extensible.  Because WordPress has such a large user base, there are thousands of extensions available.

In the end, developing most “simpler” sites in WordPress changes from inventing the wheel to refining it.  Our workflow generally consists of putting together the elements needed to create your site, then going through and modifying things to fit your business and your needs.  Because we have a strong understanding of XHTML, CSS, and PHP, we’re able to tweak existing elements to fit the needs of your company.

So, What are the downsides of developing with WordPress?

1. Limited customization.  With WordPress, you can only go so far, and if your site is going to have advanced features, WordPress isn’t going to be the right solution.  What do I mean by advanced features?  Well… do you want customers to be able to log in?  Interact with the site?  Buy from you online?  Do you want to be able to aggregate information from other sources?  Do you want to interface with other services via API?  If you answered yes to any of these, then WordPress probably isn’t the right solution for you.
2. Security.  WordPress is not completely secure.  That said, it’s not like the computer geek at your local high school could easily break in, but if you had a dedicated hacker looking to get at your information, your site could be compromised.
3. Client Overconfidence. Now this one is a little bit of a tricky area… but I’ve seen a few occasions where the WordPress admin interface is so easy to use that the client will try adding features on their own, which has, more often than not, resulted in the whole site breaking.  Similarly, clients will automatically assume that they’re supposed to install every WordPress update, when, oftentimes, this ends up removing any or all of the customizations we’ve made to the site.

So, when is WordPress the right choice?  If you’re a small business looking for an attractive, simple website that you can update on your own, and you’ve got a moderate level of tech saavy, WordPress deserves a close look, and, at Hotchkiss Consulting, we’re happy to help you figure out the solution that’s best for your business.

So I’m making an early new years resolution.  ‘Tis the season to be redundant.  Fa-la-la-la-la….

I will now offer you, my clients,  some options when it comes to hosting.  I understand that your website is your livelihood, it drives your business just like it drives mine.  A single day that you’re down can cause significant loss, especially if you’re without email for that time!

Continue on to read more about these options:

So, here are your options:

1. Same as always.  We serve your site off of our primary server.  This is a fast machine with a lot of redundancy built in.  If 99% uptime works for you, this will do just fine.  We will keep offline backups of your static pages and scripts.  We will not keep backups of the information in your databases.  If you would like us to do this, there’s a $5-per-backup fee.  You choose the interval.  Monthly, weekly, daily… it’s up to you.
2. Secure and basic.  This is required if you are doing any eCommerce.  If you accept credit cards through your site, this is the minimum.  This covers your hosting on our primary server with a static IP, the cost and hassle of procuring a security certificate, and making it all work.  Like the basic plan, we will keep backups of everything except your database.  $5/backup fee for database backups.
3. Redundant. This is the way to go if your website drives your business.  If our primary server goes down, your customers will automatically and seamlessly be re-directed to our backup server where they will see a static version of your site with any information you want.  So they can learn all about your product, they just won’t be able to log in, see your latest updates or purchase anything.  (You’re encouraged to include information on how they can contact you to place their order)
4. Redundant and Dynamic.  This is the most seamless and fail safe way to manage your website.  If the primary server goes down, your clients are automatically redirected to the backup server, which is an exact replica of your page, including all of the data! So everything continues to work as normal.  There is no interruption, and no lost business.

Confused by the options?  Don’t be!  Let us do what we do best, and help you out.

By the way, our old web host didn’t come back up for 72 hours.  While this is unusual, it’s certainly not unheard of.  Let Hotchkiss Consulting protect you in case of disasters like this.