Security Software:

This is software for internet security, firewalls, anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc. Most of these packages, whether integrated suites or individual products, require an annual subscription in order to keep the programs and the signature files up to date. In most cases, the cost of an annual subscription is equal to the initial purchase price.

Most of these vendors are quite happy to have you set up an auto-renewal account with them. You just provide them with a credit card and every year they simply bill the card for the full price of a subscription.  This process is very handy for you. You don’t have to remember to renew the subscription or order software updates.

The process is also very nice for the vendors. They don’t have to sell you again. They get their subscription fees right away, and they don’t have to worry about competition. Every year, at least until the card’s expiration date, it’s a done deal. No effort, no worries.

Financial Software:

These are the programs you use for tracking your money and finances (either home or small business), and for preparing and submitting tax returns. As with security suites, these have an annual renewal/replacement/upgrade cost that is approximately the same as your initial purchase price.

Although these programs don’t necessarily have a subscription program like the security suites (although some do), they use the information you provide when you initially register the product to send you a friendly reminder that it is time to buy the version for the upcoming year. Normally they send an email with a link to a site that will allow you to immediately download the upgraded version after you submit your credit card information.

Again this can be very handy for you, and save the vendor a lot of sales expense and manufacturing expense at the same time. But this is often the most expensive way to keep these programs up to date.

Productivity Applications:

Many productivity applications like photo editing tools, video editing tools, etc. provide annual upgrades. These companies also communicate to registered users via email to notify them of available upgrades.

How do I save money?

As mentioned earlier, these vendor downloads, while very easy and convenient, are often the most expensive ways to obtain upgrades and updates. Because the software vendors want to ensure solid relationships with the retail outlets that carry product, the manufacturer downloads will almost always be at the suggested retail price. And, they assume that you will be overjoyed to pay full suggested retail to have this convenience.

BUT… You can save a substantial amount of money, sometimes 50% or more, just by watching for special first-of-the-year, tax-time, and end-of the year promotions on these products. Even if your subscription expires in June, you can buy the product at a special price in January or March, and wait until your current version is at expiration before installing from the new retail package. This way you still get a full year’s value from your existing software and the new software won’t expire until a year from the date it is installed. You can also find some great bargains on special packages with a 3 PC or 5 PC license, allowing you to install on your entire family’s computers for a single low price.

Places to look for these deals are member warehouses like Costco and Sam’s Club, and big box stores like Office Depot, Office Max, Staples and Best Buy. Similar deals are available at hundreds of on-line outlets, like Amazon.com, Buy.com and more.

Don’t worry about installing your upgrade/update from a new retail package. The installation program will install your current settings and saved information when it finds an existing copy of the software on your PC. Either that, or it will leave the existing installation intact and install to a new folder, so you can import your settings from the existing version.

What the heck? Use some of the money you save to buy me a beer next time you see me at a writers’ conference.

Financial people all over the place recommend that you don’t get them, but supposed there is another option to “just say no”.

Say instead “Hmmm… how much is it?”
The sales person says something like “$89.95.”

Then instead of saying yes, you say “I don’t think so…”
And as soon as you’re out the store you write a check for your SAVINGS account for 90 bucks.

You’re going to end up doing exactly what the store will do with your money. You’re going to make interest on it and hope something doesn’t break. (And in the cases of some stores, they hope something doesn’t break before the receipt fades completely away.)

If nothing breaks, you’ve got the 90 bucks PLUS INTEREST.
If something does break, chances are it’s going to be less than your savings to repair or replace it.

OK, so there is a little risk. But if you put money in YOUR savings account every time somebody tries to sell you a service plan or extended warranty, the odds are very good that you’ll have enough in your savings to cover almost any eventuality.

OK, this is simple stuff that everybody should already know.
But stuff that in the stress of Black Friday shopping, it’s easy to forget.

• What is the purpose of the site?
• What is the target audience?
• In the case of sites built to support fiction projects:
  • What real world component is the site supposed to emulate (a business, a media outlet)
  • How dynamic will the site’s content be?
  • Will the site’s content be required to follow or synch to a specific timeline?
• Will the site require user registration?
• Will parts of the site be restricted to specific users or user groups?
• Will the site have an ecommerce connection?
• Does the site have any specific requirements for look and feel?

Once these questions are answered, we apply them to a grid and drill-down process to determine the technology.

The first decision point is among the following high-level application types. This top level decision is based primarily on type and volume of content,

• Content Management System
• Blog Engine
• Forum Engine
• Social Networking Engine
• Third party website
• Other

The second decision point is the our defined emulation model (for fiction project websites only):

• Will this site emulate a business?
  • Will we have to provide pseudo-transaction capabilities?
  • Will we need to be interactive with visitors
  • Do we need to closely emulate a REAL business site in look or feel?
• Will this site emulate an organization (e.g. political party, lobbying organization, etc.)?
  • Will we need to have special types of subscriptions beyond RSS?
  • Do we need to take extra care regarding posting (since many loose cannons and nutcases play in the political blog realm)
  • Do we need to emulate a real organization for parody?
• Will this site emulate a place?
• Will the site emulate a person?

In the current state, these are the engines we’ve chosen:

Joomla! content managment:

• Our company website
• Our company technical division website
• Two fictitious newspapers
• One fictitious broadcast network
• One fictitious radio station
• One fictitious magazine
• One eMagazine
• One RSS collection site (parody government intelligence agency)
• Two branded author sites
• Two rock band sites
• A web presence workshop tutorial site
• Owners personal website
• Fictitious religious organization
• Fictitious city web site
• A fictitious large retailer
• A writer who is a dog

WordPress:

• This blog.
• Two branded author blogs
• Three music-related blogs
• One political blog
• One fictitious author blog (tutorial)
• Fictitious airline
• Branded author website
• Fictitious rock band
• Humor blog

b2Evolution:

• A blogging services website
• An internet fiction project core site

bbPress:

• prototype forum

BuddyPress

• Prototype social network for writers

Concrete5:

• Fictitious food company

Coppermine Gallery:

• Three site related galleries
• On fictitious art gallery

Drupal:

• Fictitious author tutorial site.

Moodle:

• Our online education site

PHPbb 3:

• Fictitious author tutorial site
• Tutorial interactive site

SMF (Simple Machines Forum):

• Our forum prototype (currently not in use)

Blogger:

• Fictitious bank PR blog
• Satirical history blog
• Junk mail rants blog
• Parody financial dictionary
• Fictitious fiction book site blog
• Fictitious author tutorial blog

We also have current multiple presences on:

• Facebook
• Live Journal
• MySpace
• Squidoo
• Twitter

Nearly a dozen more sites are currently in design stages.

The first major change, is a host deployment tool. We currently have around 80 applications deployed across 50 websites, all of which are hosted on BlueHost servers. Several months ago, BlueHost implemented Simple Scripts as a replacement for Fantastico Deluxe to do application deployment. Revisions and updates are much more up to date and the installations are straightforward and painless.

Key open source applications have recently released major upgrade versions for better security, greater ease of use, and enhanced functionality. Joomla! content management (www.joomla.org) 1.5.x has major improvements over 1.0.x, which also required replacement or modifications to all the existing templates we have in use.

Drupal’s 6.x releases have been much more flexible and robust for our needs, so we’ve expanded the use of Drupal (www.drupal.org) as a CMS in a number of websites.

A major player in what we do, WordPress (www.wordpress.org) has introduced a wide variety of widgetized flexibility in verion 2.8.x and they have introduced some exciting new applications that we’re already running test configurations on. WordPressMU allows multi-user blogs. BuddyPress is bolt-on to WordPressMU to give it robust social networking capabilities, and BBPress is a new forum/bulletin board engine from WordPress.  This blog was upgraded to 2.8 and a new theme installed within the past couple of days.)

Next post, we’ll give some examples of how we’re putting these upgrades to work.

Ron