Category Archives: Blog

Formulas for Social Media Content

When it comes to social media, sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start with writing content. This can be particularly difficult to accomplish within 140 characters, while managing to be engaging and interesting. The best approach is to find a formula that works for you, and stick to it – with perhaps occasional variation. There are several different formulas currently getting a lot of use. The article linked to below lists several of these different formulas. Try a few out to find out what works for you!

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239716?et_cid=68027&et_rid=23287790

Message from GlobalSign Regarding Certificate Transparency Requirements

We wanted to pass on an important notification that we recently received from GlobalSign regarding Certificate Transparency requirements that will be changing no later than December 31st.

“In order to improve the security of Extended Validation (EV) SSL
Certificates, Google Chrome intends to require Certificate Transparency
(CT) for all EV SSL Certificates issued after December 31, 2014.
Certificates not enabled for CT will no longer display the green address
bar in Chrome starting in February 2015.

To support this initiative and to ensure the best browsing experience
for your customers, GlobalSign will be posting all previously issued
publicly visible EV SSL Certificates to qualified CT logs during
December 2014 in order to have them added to the Google CT whitelist.
Starting no later than December 31, 2014, all GlobalSign EV SSL
Certificates will be published to CT logs during issuance. Publishing EV
SSL Certificates to the CT logs and including Signed Certificate
Timestamps (SCTs) in them will ensure that your customers websites will
continue to display the green address bar in Chrome.

For further details and upcoming dates, please see the information
below.

What is Certificate Transparency?

Certificate Transparency (CT) project provides an open framework for
monitoring and auditing SSL Certificate issuance based on Certificate
Authorities posting SSL Certificates to publicly accessible Qualified
Certificate Transparency Logs. These logs can be monitored by
enterprises to track the issuance of certificates for their domains
and to allow for corrective action to be taken should
mis-issuance be detected.

The official Certificate Transparency Project describes the 3 main goals:

http://www.certificate-transparency.org/

  • To make it impossible (or at least very difficult) for a CA to issue an
    SSL Certificate for a domain without the certificate being visible to
    the owner of that domain.
  • To provide an open auditing and monitoring system that lets any domain
    owner or CA determine whether certificates have been mistakenly or
    maliciously issued.
  • To protect users from being duped by certificates that were mistakenly
    or maliciously issued.

Google’s CT Roadmap for EV SSL

In order to improve the security of EV SSL Certificates, Google Chrome
is requiring Certificate Transparency (CT) for all EV SSL Certificates
issued after December 31, 2014. Google’s schedule for enforcing CT is as
follows:

By January 1, 2015, all previously issued EV SSL Certificates with
validity beyond February 2015 must be submitted to a CT Log so they can
be included in the Google whitelist.

By January 1, 2015 the issuance of new (including re-issued) EV
certificates must have Signed Certificate Timestamps (SCTs) included, or
they will not receive the traditional Green bar EV treatment by Chrome.

Beginning in February 2015, both Chrome desktop and mobile versions will
not display the prominent Green Bar associated with EV SSL Certificates
if it is not on the whitelist or if it does not have SCTs in the
certificate.

Changes for GlobalSign Customers

No later than December 31, 2014: GlobalSign will be posting all publicly
visible EV SSL Certificates to at least one qualified CT log in order to
have them added to the Google CT whitelist. Internally accessible EV
SSL Certificates can be reissued after December 31, 2014 if they need to
receive the Chrome EV treatment.

Starting no later than December 31, 2014: All EV SSL Certificates will
be published to CT logs during issuance and will include SCTs.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The GlobalSign Support Team

US: 1-603-570-7060 | UK: +44 1622 766 766 | EU : +32 16 89 1900

https://www.globalsign.com/

The Importance of Images in Search Engine Optimization

When people approach search engine optimization (SEO), images are often an afterthought. In some cases, images might not be considered at all, if a site is looking to go for the easiest targets in SEO. However, due to Google’s introduction of “universal” search results in 2007, images are a very important aspect of SEO. For more information on ways to make images work for you, click here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239826.

Update on PayPal’s Discontinuation of Support for SSL v3.0

PayPal has released an update regarding their discontinuation of support for SSL v3.0 due to the POODLE vulnerability. They have found a short-term solution that will allow continued support of most of SSL 3.0 until 1/12/2015 at 12:01 PST. PayPal’s revised statement can be read in full here. However, versions that are vulnerable to POODLE will still be discontinued on 12/03/2014 (tomorrow). This grants a small reprieve for a certain number of people that would otherwise be affected tomorrow. For more information on this issue, please refer to our previous blog post.

As always, if you need support due to this issue, please contact us.

Giving Thanks

We certainly have a lot to be thankful for around the BCS Engineering office. However, we are particularly thankful for the extremely tasty treats that we recently received in the mail from our friends over at Big Red SEO. It is hard to tell which of the Noshsense bars were the favorite, but they were definitely a big hit around the office! Thanks to Kimberly and Conor Treacy of Big Red SEO for this wonderful 12th Anniversary (and birthday) gift!

Happy 12th Anniversary….to Us!

Our business started in 2002 with a couch and a laptop…..well, and a baby and a new Mom. Our founder, Carrie Saunders, was at home with a new baby and missing her technology work at Ohio University. She decided to approach her favorite local kid’s store to see if she could help them expand their business online. After Carrie got her feet wet with that first customer, she discovered a niche that wasn’t being served. Because of this, she focused on learning everything she could about the X-Cart shopping cart platform.

Before long, business was booming in the basement of her house with 3 other full-time employees. About that time, her husband Brandon Saunders decided to leave his network engineering job and join the business as a Partner. When Brandon joined full-time, he was able to round out our service offerings to include hosting and a variety of network engineering and IT-related offerings.

Flash forward to present day – we are still working to help businesses increase their sales through a variety of e-commerce solutions that we support and customize to meet our customers’ needs! Now, instead of a new Mom and a laptop on a couch in the basement, we are an office of 12 people with a worldwide client base. What is really cool is as we’ve grown, we’ve kept our family focus and really think of our clients as friends that we are helping out along their way. Our goal is to always provide a top-quality product with the best customer service available.

Contact us for a quote to help you with your X-Cart, Magento, or BigCommerce shopping cart. From hosting to SEO to app & program development, chances are that we have seen your request before. Because of this, we have experience implementing and supporting the solution that is best for you!

In celebration of our 12th anniversary, we are also offering 12% off of all BCSE mods on our site! Take advantage of this offer while it lasts!

PayPal Discontinuing Support for SSL v3.0

Due to the Poodle Vulnerability, PayPal has previously stated that they will discontinue support for SSLv3. PayPal’s original statement on the issue can be found here. A date has just been released for the discontinuation of support – December 3rd. If you use PayPal Payments Advanced, you must have the Poodle vulnerability patch before this date. Refer to our previous blog post regarding which versions of X-Cart are affected.

Contact us if you need support due to this issue.

Is Providing Your Customer with Information Really a Good Idea?

Based on common assumption, it would seem that providing your customer with more product information and reviews is good customer service. And good customer service drives sales, right? It turns out that one of these assumptions actually hinders sales in most cases. It has to do the divide between what customers think they want and what they actually want. Most retail sites would likely benefit from removing reviews and extended product information – or at least making it hidden from view unless clicked.

Interested to see how this might pertain to your site? Read more here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238984

Important Notice Regarding X-Cart Version and Poodle Vulnerability

X-Cart just released the patch for the Poodle vulnerability on 10/30/2014. We’ve reviewed the patch files and have assessed what likely will break if you do not apply the patch based upon each X-Cart version. Please see the list below to find your X-Cart version and what may break once the respective application removes SSLv3 support from their system. We are highly recommending applying this patch even if you do not use the listed functions/features below.

Important: Authorize.net users using X-Cart version 4.3.x through 4.4.x need to patch before November 4th 2014! Authorize.net and X-Cart have provided a very short time frame to get the patch in place! If you are looking for a quick, emergency fix instead of the patches, both our Authorize.net CIM Module or our Authorize.net DPM module will take care of any related issues.

4.2.x:
UPS Realtime Shipping

4.3.x:
UPS Realtime Shipping
Authorize.net AIM Payment Processor

4.4.x:
UPS Realtime Shipping
Authorize.net AIM Payment Processor

4.5.x:
UPS Realtime Shipping
Paypal Advanced

4.6.x:
UPS Realtime Shipping
Paypal Advanced

Anyone using X-Payments. However, X-Payments is *not* fixed by this patch. You will need to get the latest version of X-Payments to fix this issue.