Moving through Unprecedented Times

What has occurred in our country during 2020 has truly been unprecedented. With the onslaught of a worldwide pandemic, some things have dramatically changed – like how we interact with one another. And, unfortunately, other things have not changed – like the apparent corruption and poor leadership throughout the government resulting in a death count we could never have imagined.

The United States being number one on the planet for COVID-19 related deaths is far from our country’s proudest accomplishment. Because the pandemic hit us in an election year it was highly politicized. Unfortunately, it appears science took a back seat to politics. That choice by Washington fueled a truly dangerous situation – as can be attested to by the number of COVID-19 related deaths resulting.

While we are always helpless to change the past – we are always still in control of our immediate response to most stimuli in our daily lives. To those eternal optimists out there, one silver lining may be worth mentioning: The number of individuals who chose to go out and get into business on their own increased. While probably mostly due to severe economic pressure, regardless, they made the leap!

Proud to be Helping new Businesses

We at CharlesWorks are in the business of getting entrepreneurs online. We strongly empathize with all those individuals who – through zero fault of their own – lost their jobs as a result of this COVID-19 pandemic.

We have been so sorry to see so many businesses go under so far.

So, we at CharlesWorks are more proud than ever about the work we do for people. Helping them to get their online presence! Fueling the hopes and aspirations of folks just trying to make a living! Helping them to strive toward being successful at whatever new endeavor they have sought to explore!

The new Remote Workplace

COVID-19 is dictating much of how we live our lives at this point. Most of us understand we are on the virus’s schedule – not ours. COVID-19 has dramatically changed lives in most communities.

Many attempt to work from home. Some are more fortunate as their work may be more conducive to this. Others can’t and must simply remain home to slow the spread of the disease.

Hopefully some of this info will increase your coping with remote working. I’ve worked remotely on occasion since starting my business in 1998. If there’s a way to get it done I’ve pretty much figured it out. Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list and is mostly common sense:

Pros

– You gain your travel time. The importance of this increases with the distance you had to travel to work.

– Travel to work expenses disappear. Gone is the commute wear and tear on your vehicle. Your gasoline cost goes down.

– Driving risks go away. No worrying about being in a hurry and getting a speeding ticket or worse yet having a fender bender. So your car insurance premiums aren’t at risk of going up.

Cons

– Internet service can be slow. During high Internet usage times there can be traffic bottlenecks similar to what happens on the roads. Most people have what’s called asymmetric access to the Internet. In a nutshell this means that information sent from your Internet connection goes away from your device much, much slower than the speed at which it arrives. In techie terms this means your upload is much faster than your download. An example of this is when you type a character on your keyboard and you can see the delay of it appearing on your screen. Add to that the fact that cable Internet service is affected by the number of people online. DSL service is affected by how far away from a connection point you are. Wireless service is even more susceptible to both factors.

– Self-starters do better. Most of us in business for ourselves understand this. We are used to being out on that limb keeping our businesses happening. We understand that working by oneself can take a great deal of focus. It is very easy to become distracted and lose focus. You may need to write out a schedule yourself. It is important that you start work on time and always perform as though you were in an office where others can observe you. Putting on that show for you is every bit as important as putting it on for the boss. And you’ll feel better for it.

– Home computers and laptops can be slow. In the office there may be better machines with more horsepower so to speak to get work done than a machine you are using at home. Be cognizant of things like the number of windows open in browsers, how many programs you have open, and so on. Sometimes spending the additional moments to open and close programs can result in far more productivity and less frustration over the course of a day.

Suggestions for improved productivity

– Separate functions among devices. Let’s say you are connecting to a remote computer. Running Internet based programs from the company workstation uses the Internet connection that the company is physically connected to. Many companies have what’s called symmetric access to the Internet which is faster and considerably more expensive than your home asymmetric service. In techie terms this just means your upload is the same as your download speed. If you have a good data plan on your phone then using your phone separately to look things up on Google or visit sites you need to will help keep your desktop running more smoothly. This is a way of performing what’s called “load balancing” to spread out use across different connections to keep everything running reasonably well.

– Get up and walk around. Not only will you feel a little better but it actually helps to be more productive. If you have multiple bathrooms in your home use the furthest one. It especially feels good for your eyes to look away from the screen on a regular basis.

Setting up your remote services is beyond our scope. However, we can help by referring you to local professionals who do exactly that sort of thing. Feel free to call us at 603-924-9867 and we’ll find a good, reliable local fit for you.

With a little determination, willpower and focus we will all get through this thing. The important piece of this right now is to not overburden our medical systems. Go to https://www.coronavirus.gov for the latest coronavirus (COVID-19) information.

Fitting Everything Together

WordPress has become incredibly intricate over the many years CharlesWorks has been developing websites. As a platform of its own, it consists of thousands of PHP programs (scripts) running in unison.

As open source, the source code is in the public domain. This gives all of us access to it – including those who would use it maliciously. Hence the need for the dreaded security updates.

It is not uncommon in very complex sites for issues to arise after the application of security updates to the WordPress core, themes or plugins. You must bear in mind that each of those types of components are the culmination of many, many programmers. Looking at WordPress as the huge working system that it is can leave one in awe that so many moving parts can be harnessed in unison. Most of the time, anyway!

In very simple sites (like this one) there are seldom issues. In many cases simple sites can evolve into complicated monsters. We’ll have to see what happens here. The addition of a weather widget in the sidebar- a rather simple endeavor – will make it just a little more complicated!

Many Developed Parts in WordPress

WordPress is a complex system of parts. These parts must work in unity to reach the desired result. Most of the time the WordPress core, plugins and themes work great together first time out.

There are those instances, however, when they do not. This means that CharlesWorks web developers must research and try different combinations of plugins (mostly) to accomplish the desired specific functionality and aesthetics. Here, within the CharlesWorks testing domains, CharlesWorks web developers are able to perform that process behind the scenes.

Highly Customized WordPress CMS

The phrase “WordPress CMS” generally refers to the software used “behind the scenes” in all the WordPress components. That software operates what’s called a content management system (CMS). WordPress is very powerful and complex. It consists of the WordPress core itself, themes, plugins and possibly other software created for a specific purpose. The WordPress CMS has evolved through development on a worldwide scale by thousands of people volunteering to do so.

WordPress itself along with many plugins and themes are themselves free software. Free software simply refers to the fact that one does not have to pay a fee to use WordPress and its free plugins and themes. What costs money are things like the customization involved in development and design, the search engine optimization and turning the WordPress site into a unique representation of your business, the domain name and the website hosting.

We at CharlesWorks don’t want – and we’re certain you don’t really want – your website to look like numerous others out there on the web. We strive toward a combination of aesthetics and functionality to deliver as unique as possible representation of your business on the web.

Portfolio of Some Websites CharlesWorks Hosts

Just a note letting you know that we put CharlesWorks.it online. It contains a portfolio consisting of a small sample of the variety of sites hosted here at CharlesWorks in Peterborough NH.

There are a variety of website developers who choose to host with CharlesWorks.

One of our strengths in this regard is the ability to make custom server configuration changes to accommodate developers website development needs.

Another of our strengths is our familiarity with the northeast. Most of the professional web developers partnered with CharlesWorks know members the CharlesWorks staff and desire to keep the business local. Being based in the northeastern United States we always want to recommend our “neighbors” first when it will be best for the end website client.

Professional website developers who have chosen to partner with us are more aware of these differences than novice web developers. The professionals CharlesWorks partners with know they will receive the best support possible. CharlesWorks strives to make its professional web development partners look good to their clients.

 

Sandbox Development Sites

At CharlesWorks we like to use what could be called “sandbox sites” similar like this one. This allows us to research, develop and test various specialized functions for your website out of the public eye.

This WordPress site is kept up to date running the latest software. Your development site is also kept updated to the latest software so when your site “goes live” it has the latest and greatest online. “Goes live” just means the site will be shown to the rest of the world using your domain name instead of the development address.

The WordPress Platform

WordPress is an incredibly wonderful platform to build your website on. It is composed of the WordPress core, plugins and themes. As we’ve said before, there are numerous developers who work on various components of the overall platform.

WordPress’s popularity has grown immensely since it’s inception.

Edited Note:
As of January 2018, nearly one third of all websites on the Internet are operating on the WordPress platform.

Our Own Hosting Infrastructure

CharlesWorks is unique in the Monadnock area in having its own infrastructure right in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Additionally, CharlesWorks has backups spread about in other locations of the United States.

CharlesWorks is operated and manned by believers in the local economy. Every dollar sent off somewhere else lessens the local economic strength.

While CharlesWorks has clients on four continents, the bulk of its client base is in the northeastern United States. This allows CharlesWorks to connect its clients to each other. CharlesWorks associates also refer business to CharlesWorks web clients – another unique quality this company. In that regard, three of CharlesWorks associates are involved in BNI, an international referral organization. They make referrals to businesses and help other businesses grow.

Charles Oropallo, founder of CharlesWorks, has been quoted as saying, “If I can’t find a CharlesWorks web client that provides a particular product or service, I probably don’t need it.”

CharlesWorks Website Development

Welcome to a CharlesWorks Website Development Testing site.

CharlesWorks focuses mostly on business and organizational websites. We’ve been doing this sort of thing since June of 1998. Another strong CharlesWorks focus is E-commerce. Businesses and organizations alike need to raise or acquire funding to stay in existence. Whether it is selling widgets or seeking contributions E-commerce capability is often needed on websites.

We’d love to get you into a WordPress website. Whether it is moving a current design or creating a brand new design for you – it’s what we do full time here at CharlesWorks. And we can usually do it for far less than our competitors!

Give us a call at 603-924-9867 to find out more details about having CharlesWorks handle your web presence – whether existing or new! And ask about the FREE SSL (Secure Socket Layers for increased security) Certificates that are provided at no additional ongoing charges for our web hosting clients!