Do you find the WordPress editor cluttered when you are writing your blog posts? Between the left and right columns and all the information above and below the editor there is a lot going on on the page which can become irritating and this is where distraction free writing comes in.
WordPress features a handy little tool to hide all these extra elements allowing you to really focus on writing your content. This is done by click the ‘Distraction Free Writing Mode’ button in the top right of the editor:
Clicking this button hides all the excess panels, however, should you need them you don’t need to click the button again, simply mouse over where the panels used to be and they will reappear.
In this series of posts we will be covering tips and tricks to get the most out of WordPress, be it simple post editing, suggestions of useful plugins and themes, or working with widgets. Check back regularly for our most regular updates.
A question that many business ask is whether or not they need an SSL certificate for their website. Until recently the answer has been that if your users were entering sensitive information on your website such as name, address or payment details then you absolutely should be using an SSL certificate. However, if your users were not entering sensitive information on your site then it probably wasn’t necessary to have an SSL certificate.
But this all changed recently with Google announcing that they would be aiming to create a safer web:
“To help users browse the web safely, Chrome indicates connection security with an icon in the address bar. Historically, Chrome has not explicitly labelled HTTP connections as non-secure. Beginning in January 2017 (Chrome 56), we’ll mark HTTP pages that collect passwords or credit cards as non-secure, as part of a long-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure.”
This means two things: Firstly, as stated, Google will mark http pages that collect passwords and payment details as non-secure in search results. Secondly it indicates that this will be expanded to include all http pages regardless of content in future.
“Eventually, we plan to label all HTTP pages as non-secure, and change the HTTP security indicator to the red triangle that we use for broken HTTPS.”
This means that although it may not be immediately necessary to have an ssl certificate from the point of view of being marked secure or not there will come a time in the near future where it is essential.
However, Google have also announced that, in addition to marking sites as secure or not, they are penalising non-https sites position in search results.
This means that whether you are handling sensitive information or not if you want to continue to rank highly in Google search you need your website to be on a secure SSL connection.
What Actually is an SSL Certificate?
Put simply an SSL certificate is a small data file that binds a cryptographic key to an organisation’s details. When installed on a server this allows the website to pass information between the user and the server in a scrambled format that is only decipherable using the cryptographic key. In this way it is possible to pass sensitive information in a much more secure way making your site less susceptible to hackers using methods such as man in the middle attacks.
When an SSL Certificate is active on a website you will see the padlock symbol in the address bar and https (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) in the web address instead of plain http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol).
How Do I Get an SSL Certificate?
SSL Certificates are available from a number of different providers including RapidSSL and Symantec and many hosting providers also offer SSL Certificates.
If you don’t want to have to spend the time working out how to set up an SSL Certificate yourself then check out our SSL Certificate setup service. We’ll guide you through the purchase of your SSL Certificate and then do all the leg work installing and configuring it for you.
One of the things that we are always recommending to our clients is that they should be blogging. There are many benefits to blogging and in this article I’m going to go into the details of what they are and why it is well worth creating the time to do.
Here at Ezone Interactive one of the reasons that we use the WordPress platform is because it is open source, meaning that there are millions of people working and contributing to improving it all the time. This means that any security problems, or compatibility issues are usually fixed extremely quickly after being identified and, just as importantly, keeps WordPress on the leading edge of content management systems. Continue reading “Ezone at WordCamp Europe 2016”
Here at Ezone we pride ourselves in our values; we firmly believe that the figure at the bottom of the financial accounts is just one aspect of our success. We try to add value, in this broader sense, to the company by taking every opportunity to have a positive impact on our environment and those around us and as a part of this we work with a number of charities.
One of these charities is Music in Hospitals Scotland, who aim to enhance the lives of people of all ages in hospital or long term care across Scotland through the provision of live music.
We first started working with Music in Hospitals in 2009 when they started using the WMS to manage the content on their website. They came to us earlier this year interested in redesigning their website as, although the old site had served them well, it was now beginning to show its age. So the goal with the redesign was to create a visually appealing website that maintained the functionality of the old site as well as introducing some new elements such as a blog area to keep visitors up to date with any news and events.
The new site went live in September this year and has been well received. Not only that, but the client was happy with it too:
“Ezone could not have been easier work with. We were really impressed with the speed at which you created the templates for our new site and the non-stop support you gave us both before and during the whole redesign process, at the launch and thereafter. We are thrilled with the end result and the new site is already working very positively for us. We’ve had some terrific feedback from people who’ve used it and we’re all proud to direct people towards it.”
Sarah Bax Music in Hospitals Scotland
We take great pride in these projects, Music in Hospitals were a pleasure to work with and it was great to be able to help them improve their online presence.
