Jambour Blog

It's also not often I talk about server upgrades because they are often just done in the background. Today I rebuilt the server from the ground up in a new virtual machine and running on Ubuntu 18.04.

As a result, we also now use PHP 7.2. I have also increased maximum file upload sizes to 50MB for all users.

I know PHP gets a lot of criticism (particularly from people who like other languages) but I still strongly believe in PHP as I have done since I began to learn it, even though several websites I work on are moving to other languages such as RoR. I didn't choose to stand by PHP because it was what I was learning or it was forced on me, I chose it because I genuinely believe PHP fits the specification for a backend language.

Although none of the websites I host store any personal information due to the nature of the websites, it is still within the scope of a web developer to ensure that all websites are now compliant.

As mentioned, no websites stores personal information. We use Matamo to monitor page visits on the sites hosted here but we request only anonymous information. This information means nothing to the end user, and at the end of the day it is also at their own discretion whether to give this information to us at all.

The final countdown has started!

Jambour Digital will cease to build new websites for new clients from August 1st this year until January 2019. After this date I will no longer take on any more websites and whilst I have made it very clear that all websites so far have all been favours for people, this will no longer continue after August.

This is because I will start teacher training. This website will continue to remain up but it will be only for existing clients.

So if you are wanting me to do a website for you, get in touch before the 1st of August!

One of the main new things to come to Jambour Digital's website is the Client Panel. This allows me to easily see what kinds of requests clients want.

• The main benefits to this are that it's a single location for all requirements - easier to check on for me.
• Everything is clean and easy to see - a real benefit for keeping organised with requirements
• Everything is real time - I can see when a request was made and respond to it efficiently

The Client Panel also offers interaction between the developer and client - in an easy to manage way. Comments can be left to the client on their request but further to that clients can then respond to comments.

UPDATE

I've updated the Client Panel even further - now:

• Emails are sent out whenever someone comments on your request or on a comment you have made.
• Requests can now be marked as Completed
• Uses CKEditor to format text as it is written
• Comments are now nicely arranged
• New Switch User functionality allows the super users to go into someone's account without the need for a password to add requests for them - this is good because whilst the system is just getting formally introduced I am still receiving email tickets - I add these manually to the Client Panel so that they are managed easily.

At 11.30 we will be running some maintenance. Websites will go down for about 20 minutes. This maintenance involves adding more security to the server to protect it further after recent events and the server needs to be taken down and snapshotted before we initiate this.

The last week is the first week we have achieved exactly 100% uptime since beginning Jambour Digital. We normally achieve around 99.8% uptime because of things like server maintenance and such, but we're happy to announce 100% uptime this week!

As part of our commitment to our clients, we will be updating websites to use my Girder framework in the next few months.

This update will modernise websites the same as I did on my own website. This makes websites perform better, respond better and become easier to update. It will take a while to do the remaining three websites, but we will do what we can to do this before the end of next month.

The Girder framework is really lightweight yet provides several features that make it ideal to develop websites, so it's really a no-brainer. 

Once again BT has messed up with our Internet connection! This means nothing for the websites we host but it does mean that our phone line is currently down. It will affect how much work we can get done in the same timeframe as we are working from smartphone data which is a bit more pricey and is making it difficult to work at present.

We can advise you at present to use email to get in touch with us but do not expect us to reply as promptly as if you were to phone us.

Our phones are back up again as of Sunday 28th of January.

At Jambour we aim to offer the best service possible. As part of this, one of the services we offer and include in all of our packages is automatic backups.

This means if, say, a webpage's content is changed and you wish to revert it, we can carry this out. Backups are carried out every day automatically by the system and are stored for two days on the server then moved to another computer system for another 5 days.

On top of this, we absolutely must make images of the system to minimize downtime on the occasion that some goes wrong. Unfortunately, this type of backup requires the websites on the server to go down for about 20 minutes. This is why this backup method is only performed once a month. 

As mentioned, the monthly backup is more crucial than the content backups because that allows us to restore the system within about 10 minutes if something were to go wrong. However, there will downtime on your website as a result of powering the system down whilst this is done. 

Keeping your own content to the minimum possible size will help keep backups speedy and efficient.

We've got a bunch of different opening times in December as follows:

From the 10th onward we'll be only open until 13.00 each day of the week. We also will not be open on Saturdays from then as well.

We'll be closed from the 20th of December until the 27th of December and then closed again on the 30th of December until the 5th of January. Between the 27th and 30th of December, we'll be operating the same shorter service.

In this time we will not be taking phone calls or answering emails. You are welcome to leave a voicemail or send an email to us though. 

Oh and it's probably important you know that all our server maintenance will continue over the festive season, so don't worry about your backups and so on!