July 2011

A question of risk

How would losing your web site affect your business?
That might seem like a silly question, but a surprising number of small organizations don't think it can happen to them. Think again -- web sites get lost all the time, through a variety of means. The server hosting your site might have a hardware failure. Your site might get hacked. Your web developer might accidentally delete something critical. Your host might go out of business, leaving you stranded. If you're in the tech world, you hear about these incidents all the time.
When you're using a Content Management System (CMS) such as Drupal, Word Press, or Joomla, there are even more ways things can go wrong. Your database can get corrupted. There's lots more ways an attacker can break in. Your site changes much more often, so backups get more difficult. Traffic spikes can make your site unresponsive, with much less traffic than a static site. A security update can break functionality.
You really only have 3 options:

Spend a lot of time making sure your site is kept up to date, backups are in good shape, and you're covered for the most likely causes of failure
Pay somebody to make sure your site is kept up to date, backups are in good shape, and you're covered for the most likely causes of failure
Take a chance that you won't have a mishap, and if you're wrong, pay the consequences of lost data, missed opportunities from having your web site gone, loss of reputation for not being able to keep a professional web presence, cost of hiring professionals to clean up the mess (potentially at a higher emergency rate)

Which choice have you made?
Obviously, if your web presence is not critical to your business, you can get away with door #3. At worst, you'll need to recreate your site from scratch. For personal sites, hobby sites, or small businesses who mainly market their services through other means, a $10/month shared host and a $500 site may be all you need.
As your business grows, however, that becomes less and less an acceptable choice. You buy insurance, don't you? Why not take measures to prevent you from having a major business setback?
Read the rest of the article on Freelock.com
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Freelock News
It's been over a year since our last newsletter. Time flies! Lots of stuff happening at Freelock, as well as for me personally.
First off, 2011 so far has been a banner year. We've had a couple big projects that have kept us overbooked, and along with our stable of ongoing clients, new staff, and personal distractions, all our efforts have been going into delivering the work we've sold.
And suddenly, we're caught up! We've managed to get our ongoing work planned out and scheduled. We have a great team put together, and as we fill our sales pipeline, already have 2 or 3 other developers lined up to help us accommodate new work.
Personal distractions, you say? Why yes, I have been distracted from work, by our new daughter Hazel who is already nearly 7 months old. Having an entirely new set of family responsibilities has forced me to get the business much better organized and running without me needing to put in 55+ hours a week.
Among our new hires is Matt Simmons, who has added a huge amount of management/organizational development capability to our operations, really helping us improve our communications and project management. He's starting to write blog posts here on Freelock.com, too.
For the first time in well over a year, we have some developer time available. If you have a web development need, or know somebody else who does, please drop us a line or put us in touch!