Web Hosting Podcast - Taking the mystery out of hosting so you can be the master of your domain.

Beginner steps to launching a new website.

By engineertim | June 19, 2018

Today on episode 20 of Web Hosting Podcast. Beginner steps to launching a website. We will cover all the steps needed to go from concept to launch, for the beginner. It is now easier than it has ever been to get a brand new website online and serving content. Have you wanted to make the jump and have your own website? Follow along and learn how to get your own website online.

0. Brainstorm
Choosing the purpose of the website, whether you are going to sell something or just blog, is an important step. This will likely direct your choice on a domain name to use. After all, you want your domain name to reflect the sole and purpose of the web site you are going to launch. Outline and brainstorm what you are going to do with the site first. This includes things you may do later after launch. For example, if you are just going to blog now, but think you might like to sell some merchandise later on. Take this into account and write it down. Don’t leave any detail out. This process will also help you decide what software to build your website with.

1. Domain name.

Your domain is your site address or URL. For example, webhostingpodcast.com is my domain. A domain should be easy to remember and not very long. After all, you don’t want your visitors to have to remember a long confusing URL. For example, webhostingpodcast.com is long but a memorable and easy to remember name. However, the-greatest-web-hosting-podcast-of-all-time.com would be very hard to remember and contains characters that are diffficult. I normally recommend that you not use odd characters or misspelling in domains, unless you have to. This makes it harder to remember.

Domains have to be registered and purchased. This is more like a lease than a purchase. You have to renew the domain every time it comes up for renewal. This could be every year if you chose to register the domain for 1 year. Ultimately it depends on the length you decide. Domains can vary in price depending on what you choose. Typically they are about $14 per year.

2. Hosting.
Hosting is where your site lives and is served from. A good web host is key here. Do not skimp on choosing a great and dependable web host. Often, you can purchase your domain and hosting at the same time. But be aware of the potential hidden costs of doing this. A lot of times a host will give you a free domain for signing up for web hosting. Looking at what the cost to renew that domain per year is important. You don’t want to be surprised when you get a domain renewal charge. There is nothing wrong with registering your domain with one company, and hosting your website on another. You just have to remember that you will have 2 different bills. You can also use a online website builder like, wix, weebly, squarespace or blogger. If you don’t want to have your own personal domain (URL) then these might be a logical choice for you to put some online content. However, if you want the ability to fully customize and optimize your web site along with email, ftp, and other services, then web hosting will be needed.

Also, keep in mind that the actual website software you choose may affect your choice of host. If you are using wordpress, which most people do, then you will want to find a web host that is well equiped and educated about wordpress.

3. The website itself.
Most people starting out will want to use something simple. I highly recommend that you use Worpdress to do this. It is by far the number one blogging platform, but it does so much more. If you want to sell trinkets online, there is a plugin for that (woocommerce), if you want to do photo blogging there is a plugin for that (NextGen Gallery). If you can think of it, then there is likely a plugin for it. If you want to change the look of the site but are not a coding expert, you can just add a new template (these are the wordpress of themes). There are hundreds and possibly thousands of free templates available to change the look of wordpress, just check those ratings before installing anything you find.

If you have chosen WordPress for your site, then you likely will want to choose a WordPress specific host. These are hosts that have trained staff to help you sort out issue. Their servers are optimized for WordPress sites. They often have a simple way or even a automatic way to install WordPress as well as keep it updated automatically. These are the things that often trip people up and make you want to pull your hair out or shut down your website. You take your car, likely, to a certified mechanic when it has issues. Do yourself a favor and take your WordPress site to a Worpdress specific host. There are a lot of them out there to choose from that are reliable and knowledgeable.

For those that want a no fuss site and want to use the online site builders, here are a few that I have used in the past. Keep in mind that this will not give you the ability to have email on your domain. This means that @thedomain.com email addresses will not be available to you without doing more work and spending more money. You will still need to sort that out by using google or other means.

These are free or paid options that do not require a domain name use them.

wordpress.com
Blogger.com
Squarespace.com
weebly.com
wix.com

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Is VR, virtual reality, part of your website design strategy?

By engineertim | June 5, 2018

Today on Episode 19 of Web Hosting Podcast. Is VR, virtual reality, part of your website design strategy? You could be missing out if you are not. With the release of the Oculus Go last month, high end VR experiences have come to the masses. You can take advantage of this by including VR elements easily on your new or current website. Also a very interesting thing happened over the weekend.

A interesting thing happened recently. I was notified by haveibeenpwned.com, that my email address was seen on a hacked site. Listeners may remember that this site was mentioned in Episode 13 as one of the useful tools segment. The site happened to be ticketfly, which was recently hacked and had all of its information released. The interesting part about this the fact that I was notified by haveibeenpwned.com, before news of ticketfly being hacked was released. If you are worried about your online data, and you should be, then I would recommend taking advantage of the free service provided by haveibeenpwned.com.

What is Virtual Reality (VR)?
Virtual reality, as defined by wikipedia is : “a computer-generated scenario that simulates experience through senses and perception.”
I don’t think all experiences have to be “computer generated”, remember those stereographs from the 1800’s? To me those were a form of Virtual Reality. Also, Viewmaster, made a toy that you could put in round slides that presented you with magical worlds. These were not computer generated or had anything to do with computers.

What is the difference between VR and 360?
360 video or pictures are elements wrapped in a sphere. Think of a big bubble that you sit in where the media is projected around you in a sphere, this is 360. Virtual Reality, is stereoscopic depth, interactive elements as well as immersion. The term VR and 360 are used interchangeably, they are decidedly different. Here is a great article on the main differences from Vimeo https://vimeo.com/blog/post/virtual-reality-vs-360-degree-video

Why is VR important for your website?
Remember when everyone thought siri, alexa and google home were just fads and would never take off not to mention the iPod. Now it is reported that 55% of homes have a smart voice device. VR is in its infancy, but it should certainly not be ignore. With the release of the Oculus Go, tether free VR is available to the masses. Lets also not forget that google street view is widely used and constantly adding locations. Google is doing a great job of covering the entire world. If you have a business, you can put your location on street view which will allow your customers to view inside your business. This works on desktop, phones, and VR headsets. I currently use this to view new locations I want to visit. It might be a restaurant, board game store, or a pub.

Types of VR devices.
Google Cardboard – uses a cell phone and lenses. This is like a viewmaster type device.
PlaystationVR – Sony released the Playstation VR headset to be used with a Sony Playstation 4.
HTC Vive and Oculus Rift – These are gaming PC driven tethered headsets. These require powerful gaming PCs and are physically connected to the computer by long cables. These are the top end VR experience.
Oculus Go – This is a simple stand alone headset. It offers a great experience for users and is not tethered to any device. The purchase price is very low at $200.
Other/Windows Mixed Reality – There are a few other devices out there that require a PC that uses windows mixed reality and are tethered to the PC.

History for me of VR.
First use of a streograph as a child. These date back to the 1800’s and used like photos to simulate a 3D (virtual) picture when viewed through a stereograph. Quite a thing to see if you have never used one before.
Then I purchased a viewmaster branded google cardboard device for my iPhone.
Stepped up to HTC Vive in 2016 – still currently in use.
Oculus Go, now used almost daily as a web browser to experience new things and new places.

How I use VR now.
Playing immersive video games on PC.
Browsing the web on oculus go. There are a lot of websites that support VR and have VR elements as well as 360 elements.
Viewing Street View and virtual tours on both VR headset (Oculus Go/HTC Vive) as well as iPhone and Computer.

What devices do I use?
HTC Vive
Oculus Go
Computer Monitor

Website design use cases.
Brick and mortar businesses
Product visualization
Location tours of your establishment

Other use cases for VR workflow.

Handicapped

visually impaired

agoraphobia

Software to help you develop for VR.
Great article on software for VR website developers. Link
Vizor.io – 360 Photo Editor.
Cupix.com – Create beautiful tours in VR from photos.

Sample 360 Photo I took.

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Harden and secure wordpress, using managewp.com and GDPR.

By engineertim | May 21, 2018

Today on episode 18 of Web Hosting Podcast, I continue the discussion of the wordpress hack dissection. I have been asked, since the last episode, about ways to harden and secure a wordpress install and what I recommend to do about managing updates. Also in this episode, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), Are you ready for the coming changes on May 25th?

GDPR New rules for EU take affect May 25th, 2018 – Official Link
The most important pieces that change here
WordPress 4.9.6 was released with GDPR specifically in mind. Release Notes

Simple ways to keep your wordpress install safer.

Keep your wordpress install updated. Plain and simple. Have a update schedule and stick to it. Some plugins need the core of wordpress updated before it will be allowed to update the plugin in question. If you are on a old version of wordpress, it is very likely your plugins are outdated as well and possibly contain exploits used to hack your site.
Don’t use plugins that are outdated or no longer maintained. These could easily have old exploits that leave you open for a hack and they will never be updated. The plugin could also be purchased by a hacker group, which has happened, and they add code to exploit your install. If you see a plugin that has not had updates for many years then suddenly has 1 update recently, be wary.
Use strong passwords and don’t use the default username “Admin”
Use a plugin to block failed login attempts.
Move wp-admin url to something else.
Ensure the PHP version you are using is still being maintained. If you are using PHP 5.x series, you really should migrate to PHP 7.x.
Use common sense. Don’t login to your wordpress site, even over HTTPS, in a shared wifi environment. This would be coffee shops, bars, the mall, etc.. Even over HTTPS, information can be intercepted.

If you are new to wordpress and managing updates, you can use an external management application that provides additional services. I personally use managewp.com for this task. It has many features (listed below) and is 100% free for unlimited domains. Best of all, well maybe not best, they gave Web Hosting Podcast a coupon code to use after you sign up. Use WHPOD after you enter in your billing details, this will apply $10 to your account so you can try the paid options for nothing.

Initial questions about managewp that I am often asked by listeners and pretty much anyone that will tolerate me talking about this product.

Q: why would i want to use it?

Q: how difficult is it to signup?

Q: do i need to be a techie to set it up?

Q: how much for basic services?

Q: how much is x feature?

Q: can i get help?

Q: Is it secure?

Current pricing for a site is free for unlimited domains. This free plan includes the following addons.

manage updates, plugins and themes
Monthly Cloud Backup
1-click login
Performance Check
Security Check using sucuri
Collaboration
Analytics with google
Manage Comments
Code Snippets
Maintenance Mode
Client Report
Vulnerability Updates
Templates

The following addons are paid options per month per site. Total price for all Premium addons is $8/mo.

Premium Backups $2 +.13 per GB of traffic.
Clone (requires Premium Backups)
Safe Updates (requires Premium Backups)
Templates (requires Premium Backups if creating a template from a current site)
White Label $1
SEO Ranking $1
Uptime Monitor $1
Advanced Client Report $1
Automated Security Check $1
Automated Performance Check $1

Plugins I currently use the paid versions of:

Premium Backup – I schedule a nightly backup to their backup location and a weekly backup to DropBox. I also use “safe updates” which allows me to perform a backup before I run a update, then verify the screen image of before and after the update to determine if I need to roll back.

Security – This allows me to schedule a scan of my site daily. This not only scans my site for issues, it also checks for vulnerabilities in plugins and checks the web of trust to ensure my site is not listed on any “not safe” databases.

Uptime Monitor – This sends me a email and text message if my site goes offline, but not only that it also verifies that a specific keyword is found on my site. This helps let me know if my site has been defaced, which would still mean it is up and online.

SEO Ranking – I paid for this just to see how it works. This allows you to set up to 100 keywords and track them for your site with SEO.

Advanced Client Report – I also paid for this to see how it works. This allows me to get a weekly report for my site. it tells me what has been updated, SEO and Analytics reports as well as security audits. It pulls all the information from the plugins active in my account and sends me a nice little report every week.

Plugins I don’t pay for.
Advanced Performance – I already spend a lot of time using pagespeed tools to get the most performance I can. I am always tweaking things. It is just easier for me to trigger a Performance Check manually since I am always in my managewp dashboard.

My total monthly cost is $6. $2/mo. for Permium Backups, $1/mo. for Uptime Monitor, SEO, Client Reports and Security Check.

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Dissection of a WordPress hack.

By engineertim | May 8, 2018

Today on episode 17 of Web Hosting Podcast, Megan and I, dissect a website hack we have been working on. We discuss the how, the what and ways to prevent future hacks. We also discuss the defacement of webhostingpodcast.com and how I recovered the site so quickly. And remember those quick tips I use to run? They are coming back in a new way!

Podcast phone line 971 249 2359 is manned by me on Thursdays 9AM PST – 12PM PST. Feel free to call in and press (2) to reach me directly during those hours. If you want to just leave me a message anytime, press (1) and it will send you directly to a voicemail box.

Dissection of a WordPress hack we have been dealing with, the topics we cover are.

How we think it happened.
How we cleaned it up.
What could have prevented it.

Info on what we found from sucuri, regarding this specific website hack.

You will find the plugin I used to find that the wordpress core files had been modified. This plugin is since abandoned by automattic (the makers of wordpress, woocommerce and jetpack to name a few) but it can still be used. You need to download the hash file for the version of wordpress you are using. I would just like to point out that other external and filesystem based scans did NOT find this hack. Only by careful examination of the output of the exploit scanner were we able to find the source of this hack. It is no longer enough to just scan with one tool and think the site is clean. I recommend that you scan with multiple sources if you think you have been hacked, or if a hack keeps coming back after being cleaned. I also, and I can not stress this enough, recommend a daily backup of your website. There are many tools out there that will help you obtain a regular backup to a external location, such as dropbox, s3, ftp, or google drive. There is no reason to not have this setup for your site.

This is the plugin link
And this is the location of the hash file on github.

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Opus Interactive on location interview

By engineertim | April 23, 2018

Today on episode 16 of Web Hosting Podcast, I venture out on location to talk to Shannon and Eric about their company Opus Interactive. We also now have a phone number for the podcast for you to call into.

Opus Interactive is located in Hillsboro, Oregon at the Infomart Datacenter, this is the same world class facility that Linkedin chose to house their infrastructure. Opus Interactive has additional locations in Portland, Silicon Valley and Dallas with more coming online. The Hillsboro facility is 345,000 square feet and has 24 MW (megawatts) of power. That is enough to power almost 4,000 homes according to some sources. I would highly recommend that you visit their website for more information on Opus Interactive and the services they provide.

We now have a google talk phone number that you can all into the show on. On Thursdays, from 9am PST – 12PM PST, I will be taking calls. If you have a question, idea, or just need some guidance, feel free to call the number and press 2 when prompted. This will put you into a queue that will allow me to take your call on a first come first served basis. If you would like to just leave a message, you can press 1 and I will get that voicemail emailed to me. Please make sure to let me know if I can put the recording into the podcast. If you are not comfortable with that idea, then no problem, just let me know. Since this number is a google talk number, I have no idea how well it will work. This is an experiment that I have wanted to try for quite a while, please keep that in mind.

Web Hosting Podcast Phone:
971 249 2359

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How is your web host possibly failing you?

By engineertim | April 9, 2018

Megan Ferrell of websites503.com joins me to discuss,

How is your web host possibly failing you?

Security communication – security (awareness of vulnerabilities), transparency of security information. Notification of security changes in the industry that could affect you and your potential customers. This would include things like PCI, GDPR , SSL/TLS changes just to name a few.
General information – weekly or more updates via newsletter with information that is valid and current. Not just a “hello we are alive, spend money please” Can be done via social media or blog posts as well. As long as it is active!
Keeping old software versions alive – old no longer supported versions of php, apache, mysql, etc with no hope of moving off of them. Ensuring your host provides current versions of software to ensure you are running current.
No other service options – not providing services you may need to grow (marketing advice, development advice, update services, moving to SSL)
Proactive and not reactive – notifying you that your site plan may need to be increased before it becomes a problem for you. Notifying you that you are running outdated software before it becomes a big problem for you. Working with you to ensure you are taken care of before things become your problem to deal with.
Easy to contact – whether via email, online chat, slack, phone call or smoke signals it should not be difficult to get a correct answer. The support person should be proven to be industry leaders, after all you are paying the hosting company to provide professional and competent employees.
Documentation – good current documentation, knowledge base, videos

Security news!

Security updates for drupal 7.X and 8.X that are critical!
A remote code execution vulnerability exists within multiple subsystems of Drupal 7.x and 8.x. This potentially allows attackers to exploit multiple attack vectors on a Drupal site, which could result in the site being completely compromised.
Drupal Info Here

WordPress 4.9.5 addresses some security and bug fixes.

WordPress versions 4.9.4 and earlier are affected by three security issues.
WordPress Info Here

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Robert Indries of dgstudio.com is our special guest to talk marketing, development and hosting.

By engineertim | March 27, 2018

In this episode I talk with Robert Indries of dgstudio.com about marketing, development and web hosting.

dgstudio.com is a full service creative agency for your business brand and website.

Robert, gives some great advice about getting your marketing brand out there. He provides several tips for things you can do for free as well as what not to do.

If you would like to be our next special guest on web hosting podcast, fill out the contact form here and we will make it happen. Please be sure to include a topic you would like to discuss.

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MIGRATING YOUR SITE TO HTTPS WITH INSTALLATRON.

Migrating your site to SSL : HTTPS with installatron. Useful website tools to use for your site.

By engineertim | March 12, 2018

Useful website tools to use for your website.

https://www.ssllabs.com/
This is a useful site to check your site for proper ssl settings. You will get a grade once the report is done. An “A” is the best, while a “B” would be acceptable, you should really try and get the “A” grade. I would also recommend when you do your test that you click on the check box that says “Do not show the results on the board”, unless you have a perfect score you want to show off.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/
This site is useful to check if the email you use for logins has been seen on hacked lists. It is also very useful to check the security of passwords you use for logins.

https://www.whatismyip.com/ – list your current IP address

http://www.whatsmyip.org/ – Not to be confused with the .com version of the site. Many useful tools from gzip testing, to password generation. Not as useful as it once was since it does not seem to handle https based websites. But the DNS tools and password generator is quite useful.

https://checkgzipcompression.com – another tool for checking to ensure your site is using gzip compression. This one works with https based sites.

Speed test – google and http://www.speedtest.net/

https://slack.com – Team focused chat with many useful options.

Moving a site to ssl with installatron one click installer. This assumes you are using cPanel with autossl enabled.

1. Test your site to ensure you have a ssl certificate installed. This can be done by going to https://yourdomain. If you your site loads with no errors you can proceed. Some common issues you may run into, site is not fully secure and ssl mismatch. You may need to resolve these errors before you proceed.

2. Inside of your cPanel account, create a new subdomain using the subdomain tool. You will need to wait for the server to generate and install the free SSL certificate for this subdomain. You can test this just like step 1 above.

3. From inside of installatron, clone the live site to the new subdomain, but make sure to select the https version of the subdomain. This should only take a few minutes depending on the site size. This will create a complete copy of your site and move it to the subdomain you created. You can now test the site and fix any issues you may have by going to the subdomain https site. For example, https://subdomain.yourdomain

4. Once things look good on the subdomain, you can go into installaron and clone the site back to the live site but use https version in the drop down.

5. Once the live site is cloned back to https, test again. Things should have been resolved when you used the subdomain, but there may be some lingering links or code that may need to be changed.

At this point your site should be using a valid SSL certificate. If you are uncomfortable doing these steps you may want to contact your developer or your hosting company to see if they can help you out. I would also recommend that you have a full backup of your site before proceeding with anything that is going to change your site. This would include installing plugins, updating core site files, etc… A backup is a simple way to ensure you have a way to get back to a known working state.

Please understand that you use these instructions at your own risk. I do not acceptable responsibility for anything you do to your website.

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Commonly used web hosting terminology.

By engineertim | February 27, 2018

I discuss some of the more basic web hosting terminology used. This is the link I used for the glossary of terms.

This episode may be a little basic for some listeners, but I want to make sure that everyone knows the terminology and language that we talk about. My hope is to bring some listeners up to speed that may be confused by some of the terminology used in hosting. Again, this episode may not be fore everyone.

Additional information you should know:
Google will be marking all sites that DO NOT use https, ie http, as not secure starting in July 2018. This will happen with chrome 68. If you are not using https on your website, you have a limited time to get this going. What this means is users to your site will start to see a “not secure” icon in the title bar. This has the potential to scare away your users/customers. If you are currently not using https, your SEO is most certainly being affected, this is another reason you really should be using HTTPS.

Gutenberg is coming to WordPress 5.0 are you ready? For those of you that may not know, gutenberg is the new editor that is coming out in wordpress 5.0. There is a current test release you can install through a plugin. I would not recommend doing this on a live site, it is still quite beta and breaks a lot of things. It is coming though, so if you have a test site I would recommend installing it there and take it for a spin. More info on WordPress and gutenberg can be found here.

This podcast now has a facebook page.

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Marketing Automation with Mautic

By engineertim | February 12, 2018

What is Mautic?

Mautic is a marketing automation platform. There is a paid version at mautic.com and a open source self hosted community version at mautic.org

First, lets talk about marketing automation. If you are familiar with applications like, hootsuite, hubspot and mailchimp, then you likely have already seen or used a marketing automation tools. The idea or concept is simple, marketing automation is the act of using software to automate marketing actions. This alleviates the repetitive tasks that are executed during a marketing campaign. These could include, email, social media, and other actions related to marketing your online presence.

Mautic is either a paid solution or a self hosted open source solution. I am going to specifically discuss the mautic.org version or self hosted version.

Requirements:

PHP 5.6.19 php 7.0 supported

Mysql with innodb 5.5.3

Web server: apache 2.x, nginx 1.x , iis

Pro:

Free with a paid option, active development and updates. Active community. Addons for just about anything you can think of. Works both in desktop browser and mobile friendly.

Cons:

Not the easiest to install. Must setup cron jobs correctly. Documentation is a little lacking in clarity. Easy to get overly excited about all the options, sidetrack syndrome.

mautic includes 31 integration plugins installed by default (list below). This can be expanded by installing additional plugins from the mautic marketplace located here. There are also many ways to integrate common CMS applications into mautic, like wordpress, magento or woocommerce by using CMS plugins.

Mautic plugins available after install.

Amazon s3

Clearbit

ConnectWise

Constant Contact

Dynamics CRM

Facebook

FourSquare

FullContact

Gmail

Google+

GoTo Suite

HubSpot

iContact

Instagram

MailChimp

Mautic Focus

OneSignal

OpenStack

Outlook

Pipedrvie

Rackspace

Salesforce

SugarCRM

Twillo

Twitter

vTiger

Zoho

I personally have been using the twitter plugin and a plugin for wordpress. The wordpress plugin allows my contact form data to be inserted into mautic. I use contact form 7 and the associated mautic plugin to do this. The twitter integration allows me to gather twitter data that is permitted by the twitter API and capture it inside of mautic.

The email portion of mautic allows you to do targeted email marketing using contacts you collect. The collection process can be any way you choose. A simple example would be from a contact form on your site, or maybe through a e-commerce platform that would allow you to collect your customers contacts for future campaign targeting. How you choose to get the contacts is up to you and your platform of choice.

Workflow concepts in mautic:

This is a big subject that I am still learning about. One of the interesting features of mautic is the ability to create a workflow of actions based on rules and triggers you setup. For example, I collect information from twitter. I can then decide to collect those twitter users inside of mautic. My rules I have setup collect information from hashtags. I use two distinct hashtags to collect my target. #wordpress and #webhosting, are my chosen tags to capture, and once a contact is pulled in, I can then define an action. These actions can be used to trigger other actions. For example, when I capture a contact through twitter their base points are 1, if they use the hashtag #wordpress they are given 2 more points, another 2 points for using #webhosting, and another 2 points if they mention me on twitter. If a contact reaches 8 points, I can choose to execute another action, if I have their email address I can send them a personalized email. Since I am collecting leads through twitter, I have their twitter name, I can now sent the contact a personalized tweet when they reach 8 points.

Forms and PopUp on your site:

With mautic, you can create static assets (Images, pdf), forms, dynamic content, and landing pages. This allows you to collect contact infomation by offering them a pdf, for example. You can have pop overs to promote something through the website. These are done by first creating your component, then adding a small bit of code to your site. Other ways of doing this is through plugins, wordpress has a supported mautic plugin that is free to use.

Other ideas:

e-commerce (woocommerce), target users from your store that order more than X times, you define what X is. Example: if you have a customer that orders 3 times, then you could send them a custom coupon code for being a loyal customer. If they order 5 times, maybe send them a free gift. You can also organize your customers by location. Maybe you want users that order 5 times that are located in the United States to get a free gift, while ignoring customers outside the defined area. Capture lead information in exchange for a free PDF download. This is often used by marketers that want to make something available but not charge for it. Capturing the lead becomes the actual cost and your contact database can be one of the most valuable assets for any business. Since mautic also uses the MaxMind GeoLite2 database, you can track IP addresses that come to your site. This gives a a very fine grain way to track customers point of entry. This same information can be obtained through normal web analytic software as well, no concern on privacy there. There are many many different ways you could use mautic through your current site.

Conclusion: Mautic is a excellent platform if you put the time in to setup, learn and use it. The learning curve can be a little steep for a new user, but the time you spend with it will pay off if you stick with it. Being a free application, the price is right. If you are looking for a way to do marketing automation, you really can’t go wrong with mautic. My only regret is that I do not have a way to try the premium paid version of the software at this time.

Final note.

I attempted to record a part about creating the cron entries for mautic. It was a train wreck and after hearing it, I decided to remove it from the episode. I fully plan on creating a youtube video that will cover cron entries. It was just too confusing to explain things with only audio.

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