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What SiteRocker is - and isn't - yet

I think a lot about how to explain what SiteRocker is to folks with both technical and non technical backgrounds.

SiteRocker (currently) is a fully integrated Content and Store Management System ( a CSMS?). The Backoffice contains tools to add, edit and delete content (stored in a database and file system), as well as a complete E-commerce store management system, where you can dynamically manage customers, products, orders and every other aspect of running an online store. Currently the SiteRocker CSMS only runs on Windows Servers with MS SQL Server as the database.

The SiteRocker CSMS system is about 90% complete and should be completed by Summer 2010.

The second part of SiteRocker is the Website Development Platform, i.e. tools (controls, prebuilt modules, Backoffice "Toolbox" section) that make it easier for developers and non developers to build and maintain public facing websites. This part is still in its infancy.

At the moment, there is still a good bit of "manual labor" that goes into building a website, since we have to use standard asp.net tools. However, this is getting better as we continue to develop our SiteRocker WDP controls and modules, and build out the Toolbox. 


 Chickens and Eggs

My brother-in-law James started raising chickens this year. This is a perfectly respectable thing to do in Macon GA, and it's a good idea almost anywhere. James bought 20 little chicks, figuring about half would not make it to adulthood.

Miraculously, almost all survived, and pretty soon, James had to build a chicken pen, then a full blown chicken house. Right on cue, they started laying eggs, and now James's chicken enterprise is generating a dozen eggs a day. Trouble is - James and his wife don't eat a lot of eggs, so there is plenty of surplus for me when I visit.

James's chicken farm is like a lot of businesses - most folks don't plan for either success or failure - they just start feeding the chickens and watch what happens.

A better way to do this is to plan for success, and grow your business into that plan. One of the best books on this is The E-Myth Revisited.

Another key to survival of a small business is the ability to expand and contract fairly rapidly based on business conditions. You never know how many of your chicks will survive, and how many will be roosters rather than hens.

These days, it is a lot easier due to the multitude of out sourced services available. You can contract out (and use what you need) almost all aspects of your business - from space to people to systems. Just be careful you hang onto your core folks, and don't put all your Systems eggs  in the same basket. Get your phone, email, website, etc. from different vendors, so it's unlikely they will all go down at the same time (unless the blog below happens).

And most of all, you need to love what you do, since you will be knee deep in chicken droppings and be eating a lot of eggs if you are successful.

Update: James Cullen Pritchett passed away April 11, 2010 suddenly at the age of 53. Be sure to love what you are doing, since it may be the last thing you do.





 Why the Internet will collapse one day, and what you should do when it happens

It is my firm belief that, one day, we will wake up and try to connect to the world through our websites, facebook, and twitter accounts, and find that the entire Internet is down. We will resort to outdated technologies (television) and find out our worse fears are true - the Internet is completely non functional.

As someone who makes his living from the Internet, this is a pretty weird thing to say. Yet, I have a fairly good understanding of how this corner of the technology world works, and I can see it is a distinct possibility. We have recently seen DDOS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) on Facebook and Twitter, and government and commercial sites are under constant daily attack. Botnets  (networks of infected PCs with robot programs) constantly scan our data center. One day, the Barbarians will break through the gates.

So, what should you do when this happens? First, think "Bruce said this would happen one day". Next, take a deep breath and remember these facts:

  • Human civilization lasted thousands of years without it
  • There will be thousands of very smart people working to bring it back on line
  • The "bad guys" don't want to permanently bring the Internet down - they would be killing the goose that lays the golden cyber eggs.

So, step away from the computer, put down your iphone, step outside and look around. The birds are still singing, the sky is still blue, your heart is still beating. Soon enough, the noise and traffic of our hyper connected world will once more fill our lives with too much information and too little wisdom.

And remember, you heard it here first.

 

 How does Email Work?

There is a lot of confusion about some basics of how email works - what is the difference between Incoming and Outgoing email, where email is stored, and why Highland provides certain services and not others.

Unlike the regular Post Office service, email is not (normally) a two way street. Although it appears in your Outlook, Entourage, or other email client that emails coming in and out are using the same system, often this is not the case.

Incoming mail

An email addressed to joe@domain.com is stored on a server somewhere until you come and download it to your local computer. You have to tell your email client (Outlook, Entourage, webmail, etc. ) which server your messages are stored on and how to log into that server - called setting up your POP server settings. POP stands for Post Office Protocol. You can set your email client to leave a copy of the email on the server or not after you download it. Warning - emails can rapidly build up and completely clog your inbox.

Incoming mail has now become a commodity item in the Internet world, with many companies providing email boxes for less that a dollar a month. Most incoming email systems offer spam filtering and antivirus filters that scan all incoming messages.

Outgoing mail

Outgoing emails use something called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). This is where you compose an email on your email client and send it to someone else.

Normally, this service is provided by the company that provides you with your connection to the Internet - on the device that you are using. So, it is very possible to have a different SMTP setting for your home computer, your office computer and your smartphone.

Now, here comes the part where spammers come into play - and why Highland Software does not offer SMTP service.  Spammers (actually their automated robot programs) are constantly looking for "open SMTP" servers. If they can find one, they instantly start using it to spew out spam. Of course, they don't use their own servers - they would easily be shut down that way.

The big problem for a company like Highland is getting "blacklisted". If a spammer starts using a Highland server for spam, others will quickly find out and block ANY email coming from that server - even legitimate ones like order confirmation emails, notification emails, etc. We definitely don't want this to happen.

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The project was a complete success, and it was delivered on target and within the budget.”

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Owner
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