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          Applegreen is back and raring to go, so don't hesistate to contact us with your project! Plus: important information about website security. Read on...

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Applegreen is back in business

We are safely home after a fascinating two-month visit to Sri Lanka. We will be contacting individually those clients who requested updates or experienced problems while we were away. However, please feel free to take the initiative and contact us as soon as you wish.

We look forward to working more creatively than ever. We were not idle even in Sri Lanka: we used the trip to experiment with a travel blog on our favourite platform, WordPress.

Though WordPress was first designed to be used as a blogging site, it has now developed into a complete content-management system for static websites, enabling these to be updated by non-specialists. Much of Applegreen's work with WordPress has been for this type of website.

Thus Sri Lanka Blog was intended as our first experience of real blogging on the move, using portable devices such as a smartphone and an Ipad. With this in mind, we created a bespoke design in WordPress, added an Instagram photo feed, and off we went.

We are pleased to report that the system works well. We were able to write and upload regularly, share individual posts on Facebook and communicate with our friends back home as well as new friends in Sri Lanka. The Instagram feed is at the bottom of the page.

A big thank you to all our clients for your patience during our journey.

Website security: http vs https

One issue that arose during our absence was a decision by browsers to label some non-https websites as "not secure". So have plain http websites suddenly become insecure overnight?

The answer is no, of course. But as the extra "s" suggests, https websites do offer more security because they are encrypted. In these days of widespread hacking, browsers and search engines have been promoting a general move towards secure hosting. Now that the proportion of https websites is rising, they have decided to change their labelling policy to encourate all the others to convert.

The new labelling will be rolled out over time. It has already started with webshops that accept credit cards, and all sites that include a login. That means all WordPress sites: some of you may have noticed the change already. So how to get rid of the "not secure" label?

Unfortunately, it will mean more expense for website owners because a security certificate has to be purchased and then renewed every year. This will add an extra £30-55 per year to hosting costs, depending on the type of website.

For our clients whose hosting we manage, we plan to offer this upgrade when your renewal becomes due. But some hosting companies are giving special offers for the first year of the certificate, bringing down the initial costs quite significantly. Please contact us as soon as possible if you are concerned and would like to take advantage of the special offers.