Articles - Page 3 of 3 - Anvil Zephyr

April 20, 2017

How do you choose a good password?

To choose a good password is more important now than ever. So how do you choose a good password that is also easy to remember? A surprising fact is that the length matters. A lot. So my suggestion is simple. To choose a good password, create an easy to remember string of words. Here are some examples along with their password score. Password Score wherethesidewalkends 4 / 4 bewarethejabberwock 4 / 4 fromheretoeternity 4 / 4 joemaryalicejohnmichael 4 / 4 As you can see, symbols, numbers and capital letters are not required for a good password. However, I would...

March 26, 2017

Authorize Capture or Just Authorize?

What is the difference between authorize and authorize capture? During the checkout process, your website sends customer information and instructions on what to do with it to your payment gateway in the form of a ‘request’. The two most common requests are Authorize and Authorize Capture. Your gateway then acts on your request by communicating with your customer’s bank on your behalf. They try to determine if the card is valid and the requested funds are available. If all goes well, they request that the bank funds be held (so they are not available to anyone else) until the transaction can...

January 4, 2017

Recommended plugins for WordPress

What WordPress plugins should I have? I get asked this question a lot so thought I would write a post about my most recommended plugins. I try to keep sites lean. There is nothing worse than opening a WordPress dashboard and seeing a list of pink boxes screaming for an update. Even a seasoned developer hates this because there is no guarantee that an update to a seemingly innocuous plugin, won’t break a site. Plus, it doesn’t make sense to load a bunch of files to just do something I can code in 10 lines. And that happens alot....

April 22, 2016

Avoid attacks!

If you have a payment gateway, odds are good your site will become the target of an attack. Here are some things you can do to diminish the odds as well as the damage. Authorize.net users can utilize the (now free) Fraud Detection Suite tools and set filters. The Daily Velocity Filter can be set to a reasonable number based on your business activity. For example, if you’re only doing 10 sales a day, set the number to 20. Woocommerce users can install this plugin: WP Recaptcha Integration: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-recaptcha-integration/ It works with the latest Google No Captcha checkbox UI on the woocommerce checkout page....

April 21, 2016

Authorize.net Technical Updates

Once again Authorize.net is sending out emails to their clients regarding technical updates. I’ve checked numerous sites and the only changes I’ve had to make are regarding the Akamai SureRoute Reminder. According to Authorize.net: We strongly recommend that you proactively update your website or payment solution during Phase One rather than waiting to be automatically updated during Phase Two. This will allow you to sooner take advantage of the uptime benefits Akamai offers and provide better platform reliability. I’ve been charging $30 to make this change and check for the other issues listed here. Email me if you need this service....

April 2, 2016

What is a browser?

Why is there more than one browser? Are all browsers the same? A browser is like a chauffeur and interpreter for the internet. It takes you where you want to go (a webpage) and then translates the code it finds into a visual representation on your screen (or printer). Like most things, competition arises when there is either money or disagreement involved (or both). And that’s a good thing. Since your browser is your window to the internet world, can you imagine how different your experience would be if that window was controlled by only one company? Right. So thankfully we...