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NBD News
May 24, 2009

New look for Nora Brown Design

The big happening at Nora Brown Design this month is the redesign of my portfolio and blog (this newsletter will catch up next month). While there are still kinks to be worked out, it's largely complete. Along with the redesign, I've been posting more regularly on my blog about some items I hope you'll find interesting and useful, including a slew of Google tools:

Be sure to grab my RSS feed to stay up to date on useful web services, seo information, tips for business blogging and more.

In this month's newsletter, I'm featuring one of my most recent sites: LuxuryCruiseBible.com. In the Explainer, I touch on the extremely important topic of backing up your website data. Online survey services are highlighted in the What's Next segment, and for the May contest, all you have to do is take one, and everyone could score big!

Featured Client: Luxury Cruise Bible

This month my featured client is Andrea Rotondo and her website LuxuryCruiseBible.com. Andrea has been a great client to work with--organized and ambitious in what she wanted to accomplish on her site, which has several unique components:

After completing her site, Andrea had me update the look of her blog and Twitter page to match. Definitely check those out along with the new site if you're interested in travel and cruising!

Explainer: Backing up your Website

Thanks to client Joan Wilder, I've been doing a lot of research recently about the various ways to keep your website data safe and backed up.

There are two components to most website backups. One is the "static" files for a site--css and javascript files, and images, for example. The other is the "dynamic" data, which is stored in a database, and includes all your site's text content, among other things. So to have a complete backup, you need both: the files and the database . The files are easy, as I have them stored locally, I make regular backups, and have even started sending backup DVDs to the secure, not-so-undisclosed location known as my parents' house. The database is trickier, because it is usually being frequently updated and thus should be backed up on a regular basis. The good news is, most hosts do this automatically. The bad news is, if something goes horribly wrong with your web host or your account is canceled, this may not help. Here's what we can do about it:

  1. Make sure your account information, including contact email, phone, and payment information is up to date with your web host. This only takes a minute, and ensures they will be able to contact you quickly if something goes awry.
  2. I have signed up for a great service called AreMySitesUp.com, which sends me email alerts if it isn't able to access one of the sites on my list, thus giving me an early warning of possible problems.
  3. A majority of my clients are with godaddy.com, aplus.net, or dreamhost, so I am working on ways to have automatic database backups emailed from those webhosts. Stay tuned!

What's Next: Online Surveys

Last month I looked at a couple of online polling services. Those are fine for individual multiple-choice questions, but what if you want to collect a more in-depth variety of data? There are several websites which provide this capability. I tried out three, SurveyMonkey.com, Icebrrg.com, and Survs.com, and you can read my full write up here . To summarize, Survs and SurveyMonkey are both superior to Icebrrg. Survs is still in beta, meaning its pricing is unpublished and you can only get a basic account, but it has a great, clean interface and is meant to be collaborative, so teams can build surveys. SurveyMonkey is very well established and has everything you need, though it's a little on the ugly side compared to Survs.

NBD News Contest for May

Unfortunately, last month's contest fell short of the %50 participation needed to win. But folks, this month you have another chance, and I have a more enticing prize for you! I have created a short (4-question) customer satisfaction survey. So this time if you choose to participate, you'll not only have a chance to win, you'll also be providing me with truly valuable feedback. Just visit my Nora Brown Design Satisfaction Survey and take a few minutes complete it. I'd really like to get as many responses as possible, so if at least %50 of current or former clients take the survey, I will give everyone $10 off any work done in the month of June.