These days nearly everybody wants, and even expects, to be able to make their own edits. I’m in full agreement. You shouldn’t have to call a web designer just to correct a typo in on your “about” page or anywhere else. That is why I have embraced the “content management system,” or CMS, as they are most often called.

In the past people who wanted to edit their own sites would have to have something custom programmed, or purchase software like Adobe’s Contribute to enable them to access their pages. Seems like now, every other month, I hear about a new CMS, or a a hosted CMS service, that gives people more options and flexility than ever when it comes to maintaining their website.

To be a “web designer” you need to wear several different hats, some of which don’t fit very well, and there is nary a party hat amongst ‘em. Yes, I do the graphic design of a page, but I’m also called upon to help clients figure out what they need to put on their pages, write content, edit photos, build the design in HTML/CSS, set up a content management system, make sure everything works together, and test out the system on a variety of operating systems and browsers.

Following site launch, there is a period of training clients on how to use their CMS, so they can make small changes to the site themselves. Some clients find the process intimidating, while others find it intoxicating, and end up getting drunk on the power it offers them over the appearance of the site.

Despite controls that will prevent clients from getting in over their heads, inevitably they will run up against something they want to do but can’t and I will have to give them more access. Flash forward to 3 months later and visiting the site can sometimes yield some unpleasant surprises.

A carefully crafted color palette may end up marred by a client wanting to creating some really eye catching headline for their text, and they somehow managed to make it bright blue on an otherwise neutral color palette. “Bigger” and “more colorful” are the two requests clients can get caught up with.

It can be a slippery slope, as one of my favorite YouTube videos, “Make My Logo Bigger Cream,” points out. When a client becomes particularly adamant, I ask them, “If you make everything super colorful and huge, then what is going to stand out?”

This usually gives them pause, and they generally back-off a little bit. But I digress. I was talking about content management systems, right? Yes, which is about giving clients control, because ultimately they are the ones who care the most about their own content. They are paying the closest attention to detail (one hopes).

I really like to give clients control of their own content, despite the risks of things breaking or looking funny sometimes. After all, I’m in the business of designing, rather than tinkering. I really don’t want to get paid to fix your typo. If I happen to be on your site and find it, yes, of course I will fix it.

For me the growth and popularity of content management systems is a godsend, and I’ve just found a service called Page.ly that will also maintain nightly backups of your site and keep the software updated, if you are on Wordpress. I will likely recommend it to some of my clients that would be suited to it.

So this brings up the next point, which CMS do I choose? Well, that depends. Do a quick Google search, and you will come up with maybe 10 that are popular, and more than a hundred all told. I have touted Wordpress on my own site and use it myself, but it’s not the only one out there, nor is it appropriate for everyone. For a small business, it can be very easy to learn and have lots of flexibility for those on small budgets.

It can be a pain in the ass to keep Wordpress sites and their respective plugins updated all the time. So when you multiply one site with, say 10 plugins, by 30 sites, and Wordpress gives you an update every few weeks, that’s a lot of updating. And, if you are someone like me, you’d rather be designing.

You can protect yourself to a certain extent with regular backups of your site; but wouldn’t it be better not to let the bad guys have their way at all? Once your site has malware installed on it, any visitors to your site with PCs will likely get infected, and then Google will slap a big ugly graphic on your site’s homepage.

Anyone searching for you will read a warning message in the search results. Even worse, you infect hundreds of visitors before Google has a chance to notice.

Even if you get your site back up and running in short order, there is still the matter of clearing yourself with Google, which can take up to 2 weeks. At this point, I’d like to remind you of the old adage, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

I have been a big fan of content management systems, especially Wordpress, but their biggest strength—the modularity of Php—is also their biggest vulnerability. In other words, this moduularity is kind of like having a number of armored plates rather than one large sheet of metal protecting you: in between the plates you can still get stabbed—if your attacker knows where to press his blade.

Everyone who uses Wordpress gets the same set of “plates”, and so this makes the attacker’s job that much easier. He knows where the vulnerabilities are. Larger companies with big budgets likely have devoted some time and money towards web security, and have likely plugged up their holes, or moved their plates around to keep potential attackers guessing. Small to mid-sized companies, however, are more liable to fly by the seat of their pants and hope for the best.

This is what web hackers are counting on, and as a result the largest growing segment of sites getting attacked is in small to mid-sized business websites. This is not good news, but fortunately there are some simple steps you can take to protect yourself. I will list some of the more common measures, but by no means is this a comprehensive list.

1. Use strong passwords.
2. If you are logging into your site from a PC, do regular scans to make sure your machine is clean. If you get keystroke logging software on your system it doesn’t matter how many times you change your password because someone else can see everything you are doing. If possible, limit other online activities that could compromise the computer you use to access your website or web hosting.
3. For wordpress sites, research and utilize the more popular and well-reviewed security plugins.
4. Periodically search the web (or create a Google Alert on this topic) for current threats to content management systems.
5. Hire a programmer to “harden” your Wordpress installation. In other words, to make it hard enough to break in that the attacker will look for an easier target.

It’s just like if you leave your house with doors and windows unlocked: it doesn’t mean that you will get robbed, but if someone with thieving intent happens by, you don’t want to inadvertently roll out the red carpet. So do the right thing and visit the dentist once in awhile and install some security measures. You won’t be sorry.

“It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”

Now that he’s been thoroughly ridiculed for his lack of understanding of the subject, it might just be time to re-examine his description. He may not have been totally accurate for 3 years ago, but I think that his description is now coming of age—or is it just life imitating “art”?

Yahoo has created something called “Pipes”, and it seems like it is just the beginning of what is being called next generation of the internet, “The Semantic Web.” I’ve worked as a web designer for several years, but I’m a newbie like everyone else when it comes to Yahoo Pipes.

The web started out being about hyperlinking information…kind of like one thread connecting to a single location, and another thread connecting to another (Will I be ridiculed for this description?), but the staggering amount of data that has made it’s way online in the last 20 years has set the stage for a new kind of web, one that makes sense of this massive amount of information. And the best part is you don’t have to do a heck of a lot of work to get the information you are seeking.

Yahoo Pipes is an online application that lets anyone take their favorite data feeds, for example, apply some filters to it (allow red but don’t allow blue), and then get a list of what’s left, either in a browser or delivered as a feed. How marvelous! And that’s just the beginning.

I can’t claim to understand all that is possible with this, but I know that it’s going to blow my mind when I do. I’ve just created my first Pipe that acts as a job-feed, and I have to say my mind is still reeling. I feel as if I’m stepping into the future of the web and I love it.

They even have their own blog. Their video documentation leaves a bit to be desired, but it’s possible to find some people sharing their skills on YouTube.

It’s fun that they do it on graph paper, as if you were gonna sketch out plans for a house, but the best part is actually connecting the pipes. If you haven’t tried it, I won’t spoil it for you.