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A Russian malware called SoakSoak has infected over 100,000 Wordpress sites since this Sunday, turning blogs into attack platforms. It's a potential shitshow, and it could've been prevented earlier this fall.

Google has already blocked 11,000 domains to try to curb the damage. According to security firm Sucuri, the malware uses a vulnerability in a slideshow plug-in called Slider Revolution. The Slider Revolution team have fixed it with updates. The problem is that the old,vulnerable version of the plug-in is still bundled with Wordpress themes, so lots of sites are still using the wrong version.

Wordpress just released WP 4.0 and Joomla 3.x is in a constant upgrade cycle. They both are promoting one click upgrades that you can do yourself. 

This is just not true for anything other than the most basic websites.

As there was a huge initiative by the organizations behind these CMS system to upgrade this week, our phone is ringing non-stop as website owners are crashing their websites.

There really is a process that must be followed.

1) check for server compatibity. Will the servers PHP and mySQL support the new version of the CMS

2) check all plugins and extensions. Are they compatible with the new version

3) check the template for compatibility

4) if your site customized in any way, those customization may have to be done over

And then, if all of this checks, upgrade a work copy of the site. DO NOT UPGRADE A LIVE WEBSITE!!

Best is to call us.

Let us know if we can help

INTRODUCING OUR MALWARE, VIRUS AND WEBSITE ERRORS SCANNER

We have been working away at improving our services. This month we added a new website scanner for detecting hacks, malware and errors. No longer do you have to load a hacked website and infect your computer. Just do a scan, get a report, and we can remove and clean the site. Its right on the frontpage of 911websiterepair and you can use it as many times as you want. We get a copy of the report and will contact you to see if you need help cleaning the site. If you use the scanner, we will give you a 20% off coupon on the removal.

INTRODUCING SITESASSURE: WEBSITE PROTECTION PLANS

We partnered with some customers of ours to fill in a real need for website monitoring. The solution is Sitesassure.com. Just look at all the things you get. Daily virus, malware and error scanning, a firewall, backup program, no extra charge malware removal, 5 hours of programming time and huge discounts on future work. Just add the urls to be scanned to your control panel and you will get a daily report. If we see your hacked, we may even have it fixed before you get up in the morning and find out about it.

VISIT Sitesassure.com and check out the service plans

INTRODUCING ROB JONES

We are adding onto our staff to improve quality control and programmer management. Rob has been a long time customer. Who better to know our services that a happy customer. Rob and the staff hit it off and he took our offer to join the team. He still maintains his own company http://www.creative-pro.net. He has become a valuable time member and we are glad to have him.

INTRODUCING WEBSITE DESIGN AND MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT

With Rob we add new skills and services. We now offer Website Design, Logo Design and Custom Mobile App Development. And at really great prices. Get 70% off mobile app development pricing today.

INTRODUCING QUOTE MATCHING

Do you have a quote for work from another company. Let us know, and as long as its reasonable, we will do our best to match or better it. Don't hesitate to tell us about it. We know we need to work within our customers budgets and we will do whatever we can to save you money

If any one has any questions, call us at 860-294-2444

Best

Mike, Rob and the Team

I hope that you will see what makes us different from this conversation. We take a lot of calls for repairs and website help. Our due diligence seems to scare some people off. We do a site assessment before we agree to take on any project and create a plan of action before we give a quote.

here is a typical call.

911: Hi 911websiterpair, this is Mike

caller: my website is broken, can you fix it?

911: tell me what the issue is

caller: its broken, how much will it cost?

911: well, i need to know what the issues are.

caller: i just want to know how much

911: ok,  whats the URL, let me take a look, what is happening, are there error messages

caller: yes, the site is not loading

911: ok    URL please

caller: ah um www.mysitedoesnotwork.com

911: ok   i see the error message, and im running a scanner against your site to see if you have been hacked or have malware. im also checking your listing on google to see if you have been blocked

caller: all i want to know is how much

911: we have to perform an assessment, just like whe you go to the doctor. I cant fix your site if i dont know whats wrong. I need to ask a few more questions

1) did you recently try to update your site

2) do you have a backup

3) what type of site is this, (joomla, wordpress, etc)

caller: i saw the upgrade button and clicked it and now its broken like this

i dont have a backup

it is wordpress, a friend of mine made it for me and i know nothing

911: where is your site hosted

caller: i think its godaddy

911: can you give me the admin login credentials, i need to see the backend of the site

caller: why   im not giving you access,you might break it

911: only way to determine whats wrong, we have the credentials to hundreds of sites and never have an issue, and your site is already broken.

caller: why

911: because when you upgrade a site you cannot just hit the update button, it does not work like that, you have to check and see if all the plugins  and the theme are compatible with the new version of wordpress and then get the latest copies of those and install separately. When you clicked the update button it only updated the core of wordpress, not the plugins. This is most likely what happened

caller. how do you fix it

911: well, could be an issue. we need to find a backup, godaddy should have one,

then we move the site to our dev server

then we check for all the extensions and customizations to make sure they are compatible

then we do the upgrades and update on our dev server

once everything is completed, we have you check the work, and if you approve, we move it to live

caller: thats way more than i want, all i want is my website fixed.

911: I know, this is what needs to be done. we will get your site working, updated, and warranty the work

caller: i dont have a lot of money

911: i will try to work within your budget. can we have the login so we can quote, you can email it to [email protected]

caller: ok i will email, how much will it cost

911: i cant quote until we do our accessment. your website also shows that its infected with malare. we need to clean the site too

caller: why wont you answer my question   how much

911: first we assess the site, then we quote

caller: ok    i dont have time for this, i will send the email

click 

SO...why did i share this.

1) this customer could really know what they are doing, and manipulation for a cheap price (yes, people do this)

2) there are freelancers and developers who would just throw out a price. This will screw themselves and the customer, WHY! 

Because the developer could just have agreed to fix a $10,000.00 website with extremely complicated customizations for $40.00.

The developer who did not do an assessment, may be in over his head and not have the ability to complete the upgrades and any customizations.

or

The site could be completely destroyed and need to be built over from scratch.

The instant answer does not serve the customer or the developer well at all. By doing our due diligence, we can assess so that all the bases are covered, insure the work is feasible, and even warranty it. And best of all set a reasonable expectation for the client and our staff.

Do you really want to hire a programmer who does not even know what the problem is?

Get our assessment for FREE!.

If you want and feel the need to shop our price and assessment around, so be it. Its about your website and keeping your business on line. Just remember us when the programmer you hired did not fix the site. We will jump in where he left off.

We have actually had many customers who did this, hired the cheap guy. Then another cheap guy. And sometime even a third cheap guy. Then came back and we fixed the site. But now they were out the cost of the two or three failed attempts. They even tell us they have spent their money and ask us to reduce our rate. That is not our problem as our quotes are highly discounted, but even with that, we have shaved a few dollars off the price here and there.

And dont for get, we WARANTEE the work.

Get your free assessment now!   Fill out our handy free website assessment form.

I've been doing INTERNET development since 1994. At first I worked for ecommerce companies, and then went on my own as a developer/internet business consultant. I had a lot of successes and survived the boom and the bust. On my own i was the only one working on my projects. It was great not having a boss, but i was limited by the number of projects I could take at a time and my own skill sets. I was not scalable.

So time went on and I started outsourcing little pieces of work to off shore companies. It was always a problem. They over promised and under delivered. I tried China, Vietnam, India, and Mexico. And the whole escrow thing I just hated. The big problem was using those freelancer sites. I did not like the poor communication

Well, its happened again, actually 3 times this week alone. A past potential customer contacts us and tells us their programmer has disappeared, did not finish building their website, and will not return phone calls or emails. This happens all the time. Here is what usually happens in our world.

Customer submits to us for a quote and then decides to go with another person or company. That  person or company under quoted and did not check for feasibility of the requested functionalities and tasks. We cannot compete with $1.00 per hour programmers and companies that fail to tell their potential customer that what they want cannot be done. Because  another person or company under-priced, short estimated the time frame, over promise and did not do feasibility studies, they set themselves up for failure.

And that is where we start our relationship with you. Its easy to do, as every call we get we hear the same story over and over again...

1) developer could not do the job

2) developer took my money and did nothing

3) developer does not reply to emails or phone calls

4) developer never had a phone number for contact

5) i'm screwed, the budget is gone, and i still need to get this site programming done for my client

6) i found out it was a lone programmer who was over booking his time and could not possibly do it all

7) we were limited to the skillsets of that one lone programmer.

8) they cant communicate, have poor communication skills, and cant speak english.

9) they over promise and under deliver

10) programmer worked on my live site without a back up and now it is destroyed and cant be restored

11) i took a project and im in over my head, i am clueless and need help, SAVE ME!!!

I was recently asked for marketing ideas that could possibly build traffic and help with customer retention, cheaply. All i have is just the normal die hard guerrilla marketing tactics. We are not a marketing company, and concentrate on development, which is what we do best. These bullet points should help anyone's website though.

just to share some experience

The other day we took our dog to the vet. This vet is a specialist and was referred to us as the best, and he seems to be. Prior we had seen two other vets who had both concurred the same diagnoses, GME. This vet did his exam and did not see the same things the prior vets had seen. The first two vets claimed the dog was almost blind. But this vet said his eyesight was good.

I'm telling this story because i liked what he said.

In the beginning, when we were new and optimistic, we bid on everything. Well, over time we have learned not to do that. We now do proper quotes and feasibility studies. Admittedly we got ourselves into a lot of trouble. We ended up with projects that were actually impossible to do. This resulted in not only unhappy programmers and staff, but very unhappy customers.

We did everything we could, we even hired other programmer on our own funds, tried work arounds, and compromises, and in some cases this all worked. We did not charge for the time over runs because they were really our fault. But for a few projects. there was nothing we or anyone in the world could do. The impossible could not be changed by begging, pleading, yelling, screaming, threats and intimidation. No matter the expertize, impossible remained impossible. So, who ever said that you can do anything with php and mysql, well, they were wrong.