Author: Anthony M

  • Top 7 Features Your Task Manager Should Have

    Top 7 Features Your Task Manager Should Have

    Choosing the right task management tool can significantly enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and improve team collaboration. Here are the top 7 features your task manager tool should have:

     

    1. User-Friendly Interface

    A task manager tool should offer an intuitive and user-friendly interface. This ensures that users can easily navigate through the service dashboard and manage their tasks without spending too much time learning how to use it. Drag-and-drop tasks between boards, minimize the sidebar or other panels to give yourself more space.

    A user-friendly interface is essential for any task management tool because it ensures quick adoption, increases productivity, enhances user engagement, and supports effective collaboration. By reducing errors, boosting morale, and encouraging regular use, a user-friendly interface helps teams manage their tasks and projects more efficiently and effectively. Investing in a task management tool with a user-friendly interface ultimately leads to better project outcomes and a more productive and satisfied team.

    Key points:

    • Reduces the learning curve for new users.
    • Enhances user experience and productivity.
    • Saves time on training and onboarding.

     

     

    2. Collaboration and Communication

    Effective collaboration is essential for successful project management. Your task manager tool should support seamless communication and collaboration among team members. Assign tasks, observe your team, view your colleague’s current tasks, share files, and feel free to comment and react on tasks and boards.

    Among other things, transparency of tasks and centralized information are key features of a project management tool: all project-related information is stored in one place, making it easy for team members to find the information they need, and.everyone on the team can see the status of various tasks, which helps in understanding the overall progress of a project.

    Key points:

    • Keeps everyone on the same page.
    • Facilitates quick decision-making.
    • Enhances team productivity and accountability.

     

     

    3. Task Prioritization and Scheduling

    Managing tasks efficiently requires robust prioritization and scheduling capabilities. The tool should allow users to set priorities and deadlines for tasks. It is also important because it directly impacts how effectively and efficiently a team can manage its workload and achieve project goals.

    A proper task management tool should have customizable labels for setting task priorities, and a due date so you don’t miss any deadlines and can concentrate on the most important tasks at the current time.

    Key points:

    • Helps manage deadlines and avoid procrastination.
    • Ensures important tasks receive the required attention.
    • Improves time management and efficiency.

     

     

    4. Progress Tracking and Reporting

    To ensure projects stay on track, the task manager tool should offer comprehensive progress tracking and reporting features. Plan time for boards and track estimated time for certain tasks. Observe your colleague’s activity to be aware of the current load.

    Proper progress tracking and reporting tool helps you in early detection of potential risks and issues, allowing teams to mitigate them before they escalate. It is no less important for teams that practice agile methods.

    Key points:

    • Provides visibility into project status and progress.
    • Identifies bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
    • Facilitates data-driven decision-making.

     

     

    6. Mobile Accessibility

    In today’s mobile-driven world, having access to your task manager tool on the go is crucial. The tool should offer a mobile view that allows users to manage tasks, collaborate with team members, and receive updates from anywhere.

    Mobile accessibility is not just a convenient feature; it’s a necessity in today’s fast-paced, digital work environment. It empowers users with the flexibility to manage their tasks and collaborate with their teams effectively, no matter where they are. By ensuring real-time updates, enhancing collaboration, and supporting a balanced work-life integration, mobile accessibility significantly boosts productivity and efficiency in task management.

    Key points:

    • Increases flexibility and productivity.
    • Ensures that tasks can be managed anytime, anywhere.
    • Keeps team members connected and informed, even when they’re on the move.

     

     

    7. Flexible plans

    A popular problem with modern task managers is that if you use the service with your team, you have to pay for each employee, which is usually quite expensive.

    In order to avoid this difficulty, use services with an unlimited number of employees. Also, choose a plan for the number of projects that is relevant to you – so you will avoid unnecessary costs. And you can always expand the plan later.

    Extended 45-day trial might be a good bonus for you, because it, at least, saves you 1,5 months of free use, while giving you enough time to make the right decision. 

    Key points:

    • Extended trial
    • Flexible plans
    • Unlimited users

     

     

    Conclusion

    Many services for task management are now available that contain many of the effective tools we have listed. And many of them are quite effective.

    We see the main efficiency in finding a product that contains them all at once so that you don’t have to be torn between two services. That’s why we use doBoard in our projects for our team and can vouch for it.

     

    doBoard Project Examples

     

    Try doBoard

     

  • Our client’s review: WEGETDIGITAL.CO.UK

    Our client’s review: WEGETDIGITAL.CO.UK

    We continue sharing our clients’ reviews and today’s one is kindly brought to you by Carol from wegetdigital.co.uk on WordPress.

    Invaluable Plugin if you have form spam with WordPress

    This works so much better than any other spam protector. Can’t live without it now for clients when they are getting spammed.

  • Critical Security Vulnerability in Shortcode Ultimate Plugin for WordPress

    Critical Security Vulnerability in Shortcode Ultimate Plugin for WordPress

    During routine plugin testing, we discovered a critical security vulnerability in the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin for WordPress which has 600,000+ installations. This plugin, widely used for adding powerful shortcodes to enhance website functionality, is currently vulnerable to a severe security flaw that could potentially allow attackers to exploit and gain unauthorized access to your WordPress site.

    The exploit allows contributors to embed malware JavaScript code into new posts via shortcode, subsequently facilitating admin account creation. By exploiting this flaw, attackers can gain unauthorized access and wreak havoc on websites.

    Vulnerability detailed CVE on WPScan: https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/9eef8b29-2c62-4daa-ae90-467ff9be18d8.

    How to secure your site from the vulnerability

    Don’t rush to delete the plugin. To mitigate the risk you should just update your Shortcodes Ultimate plugin to the latest version. Additionally, implementing robust security measures, such as regular vulnerability assessments and user role restrictions, can fortify defenses against XSS attacks.

  • How to Start Selling on Amazon – CleanTalk’s Experience

    How to Start Selling on Amazon – CleanTalk’s Experience

    We’ve been wanting to make our own branded useful merch for our customers for a while now. For this purpose, we needed a marketplace on which we could place our goods, as well as deliver them to customers. No wonder we chose Amazon. In this article, we’d like to share our experience in launching our giftware sales and hopefully help those who are just thinking about how to start selling on Amazon. 

     

    Step 1: Finding the Right Products to Sell

    One of the most important factors in determining your success on Amazon is finding the right products to sell. If you go to https://www.amazon.com/bestsellers you will see lots of products, that are sold way more often than others. Here you need to research products that sell well to find the ones, you like best or what you would be more comfortable branding. 

    We have chosen the water bottle category for us for several reasons:

    • It’s a product for everyday use.
    • It promotes the healthy habit of drinking enough water every day.
    • These bottles look great and it will be convenient to put a logo on one.

    After choosing the right category and product you will need a product that you can buy as cheaply as possible, apply your logo, and sell at the average market price or higher. To find such a product we went to alibaba.com. It was difficult to find the same item as we wanted, but we were able to find the most similar one and contacted the seller to find out the details.

    The good news was that for orders of 50 pieces or more, the seller would put the logo on the items for free. All we had to do was send the logo to the seller and a day later we received a photo of a bottle with the logo already applied.

    To make sure of good quality goods and quality logo application we ordered delivery of 1 item.

    Despite the $38 shipping cost on a $10 order, it was the right decision. Because after a week we received the product and after that, we were absolutely sure that the product would be a pleasure to use. So we ordered a full batch of 50 water bottles.

     

    Step 2: Setting Up Your Amazon Seller Account

    First, you need to choose a seller account type. There are two types of seller accounts:

    • Individual accounts are free but you are charged $0.99 per sale.
    • Professional accounts cost $39.99 per month, no matter how many items you sell.

    We weren’t sure at what rate the items would sell, so we chose an individual account. 

    After that, you will access your Amazon Dashboard. Once you have connected your payment card and added your brand information, you are ready to add your product to Amazon.

     

    Step 3: Adding a product and setting up a fulfillment plan

    ASIN is an Amazon Standard Identification Number, which is the unique combination of 10 letters and/or numbers that is given to your product by Amazon.
    ISBN is an International Standard Book Numbers, which are unique identifiers for commercial books with a barcode.
    UPC or Universal Product Codes, is a unique 12-digit code assigned to retail packaging to help identify products in the US.
    EAN or European Article Numbers is simply a European version of UPC. It consists of 12- or 13-digit numbers for product identification.

    If your product is unique like ours, select “I’m adding a product not sold on Amazon”. In this case, Amazon will assign an ASIN to your product, which will become your product’s primary identifier.

    After that, you need to fill in all the information about the product in as much detail as possible. Here’s how it looked for us in the end.

    And since Amazon’s interface doesn’t explain what and where it is, we’ve prepared a hint for you.

    1. Title
      200 characters max, capitalize the first letter of every word

    2. Images
      500 x 500 or 1,000 x 1,000 pixels to increase listing quality

    3. Variations
      Such as different colors, scents, or sizes

    4. Bullet points
      Short, descriptive sentences highlighting key features and benefits

    5. Featured offer (“Buy Box”)
      The featured offer on a detail page. Customers can add to their cart or “Buy Now”

    6. Other offers
      The same product sold by multiple sellers offering a different price, shipping options, etc.

    7. Description
      Keywords improve the chances that people will find your listing

    Once your item is added you need to decide how you will package and ship your items. Amazon has 2 solutions for this:

    • You can fulfill orders yourself, maintaining your own inventory and shipping products directly to customers. We call this merchant-fulfilled shipping (MFN).
    • You can send your inventory to Amazon and have us pick, pack, and deliver products through Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). FBA also takes care of customer service and returns.

    We chose the second option because we wanted to delegate this issue to experienced professionals to minimize the possibility of mistakes.

    Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)

    We would like to talk about this option separately, as it has both pros and cons.

    Pros

    • free shipping for your customers;
    • lower operating costs;
    • no need to contend with client inquiries;

    Cons

    • laborious product preparation requirements;
    • potentially costly charges;
    • long-term storage fees;
    • complex sales tax;

    Long story short, FBA is definitely not a cheap option and can make it difficult to justify the expense. But if you want to save your time it is really great.

     

    Step 4: Driving traffic to the product

    When you want to increase your sales in a marketplace you shouldn’t just rely on people finding your product on their own and choosing it because of its quality-to-cost ratio. Because there are indeed a lot of products on Amazon. This is especially true for products about a brand that, few people know about.

    In this case, you need to take care of additional sources of traffic and a good option could be your website or online store, where people are familiar with your brand.

    We have placed several banners on our blog and on our clients’ dashboards. This is roughly what it looked like.

    Statistics on traffic sources and purchases are not available on the individual tariff, so we can’t say for sure what share of sales these banners brought, but we assume that not less than a half, taking into account the fact that the main products of our company and the brand itself for a fairly narrow audience.

     

    Step 5: Keep track of your orders and adjust the price

    In case you’ve enabled the FBA option, the only thing you’ll have to do is keep an eye on the status of your orders and how Amazon does everything itself.

    Also, we recommend you collect sales statistics for a certain period and try to increase or decrease the cost of the product and track the impact of the cost on the number of sales as it can help you optimize your costs and increase your profits. 

     

    We wish you great sales!

    It is difficult to fit all of our experiences into this article, but we have tried to mention the most important issues that we had to deal with ourselves.

    We welcome questions in the comments and will be happy to share more specifics to help you save time and money.

  • Survey: Would You Like to Have a User Verification Badge ✔️ in the Comments/Reviews on your Site? 

    Survey: Would You Like to Have a User Verification Badge ✔️ in the Comments/Reviews on your Site? 

    Many online comments and reviews are helpful, but some might not be written by real users. A special verification badge could indicate if a comment/review is confirmed to be written by a real person. This might help you decide which reviews to trust more when reading/discussing online.

    Vote in the survey   or use the widget below if you see it ↓

  • How to protect mobile app from bots

    How to protect mobile app from bots

    Why it is important to protect a mobile app from spam bots

    Spam bots are a serious threat to your website, but it affects your mobile app just the same. More than 54% of traffic goes from mobile devices and 76% of internet traffic comes from bad bots. This means that bad bots generate up to 41% of your mobile traffic However, we have listed 5 reasons to protect your mobile app from bots and to stop bad bots before harming your app.

     

    Why it is important to protect your mobile app from spam bots

    1. User experience
      Spam bots can flood your app with fake accounts, comments, and messages, which can eventually lead to degrading the user experience for legitimate users.
    1. Security
      Spam bots can carry out malicious activities such as spreading malware, phishing attacks, and stealing sensitive information from users.
    1. Resource consumption
      Spam bots can overwhelm your servers and consume valuable resources, leading to slower performance and increased costs.
    1. Reputation
      If your app is known for being overrun by spam bots, it can damage your reputation and deter legitimate users from using your app.
    1. Compliance
      Depending on the nature of your app, you may be required to comply with regulations related to data privacy and security. Allowing spam bots to operate unchecked can put you at risk of violating these regulations.

     

    How it works

    The Bot Detector works in the background and is not visible to the user. It does not require the user to confirm that he is not a bot.

    how it works

     

    How to install your mobile app spam protection

    If you need to protect mobile apps from spam, you will definitely need a solution that uses API to check registrations for spam. The Bot Detector service uses the CleanTalk check_bot API method via a special library that you can download and integrate with just 1 line of code. You can check out our detailed instructions on GitHub below.

    Go to GitHub

     

  • Magento 2 Security Extension Released

    Magento 2 Security Extension Released

    Good news for website owners on Magento 2.0 or newer. We have updated our UniForce extension, and now it works with Magento 2.X.

     

    What exactly the extension does

    UniForce is an extension that can be installed on any PHP site, CMS, or framework. We also call Uniforce a Universal security plugin for every CMS.

    • Malware scanning
      One-time and daily automatic tests for existing Malware and viruses among the site’s files.

    • Firewall
      Firewall – uses a database of IP addresses of those who attempt to hack sites, personal IP lists, networks, and countries. These lists forbid visiting the site, which means you can’t get to the site from these IPs.

    • XSS, SQL, and exploit-based attacks
      Protect a website from exploit attacks, XSS attacks, and SQL injections.

    • Brute-force protection
      Protect a website from password guessing (brute-force).

     

    How to install UniForce on Magento 2.0 or newer

    We have prepared a detailed 8-step instruction for you on how to install UniForce on your Magento site.

  • We have added a new feature to Security Protection – File System Watcher

    We have added a new feature to Security Protection – File System Watcher

    Introducing File System Watcher, a new feature of our Security protection. It helps to track changes in your site files to detect suspicious ones in time. File System Watcher has already been added to all plans and is enabled by default.

     

    How the feature works

    The feature takes a snapshot of the file system during a selected period and allows you to monitor which files on your site have been modified between selected dates. The snapshots are stored for 7 days.

    You can control the frequency of snapshots in the plugin settings. Alternatively, you can run the snapshot immediately by clicking the Create File System snapshot button and refreshing the page.

     

    How to use the feature and see results

    1. Go to your WordPress site dashboard and go to SettingsSecurity by CleanTalkFile System Watcher.

    2. Select the dates you want to compare and click the Compare button.

    3. Click the View link and you will see the code for the modified version of the specified file.

    To use this feature you have to have a Security & Malware scan plugin installed to your WordPress. Feel free to download it in WordPress catalog.

  • Hubspot emails going to spam – fixing the issue

    Hubspot emails going to spam – fixing the issue

    Hubspot users frequently encounter the issue of their email newsletters being classified as spam, despite having appropriate content in the emails. Even though the email content, headers, and text are all in compliance, you can still see the emails flagged as spam. Let’s investigate the possible reasons behind this occurrence.

     

    Why email from Hubspot going to spam

    • Exclamation points or certain phrases in the “subject” line
      Avoid using exclamation points or specific phrases in the subject line that may trigger spam filters, such as “Make money,” “Free,” or “Not spam.” It is advisable to steer clear of these types of triggering phrases to prevent your emails from being classified as spam.

    • The Unsubscribe Button is missing
      It’s important to keep in mind that if an email is not pertinent to the recipient and lacks an Unsubscribe option, the only recourse for the recipient to cease receiving the email is to flag it as spam.

    • Irrelevant offer
      If multiple individuals label your email as spam, it could result in your future emails being automatically directed to recipients’ spam folders.

    • Blacklisted or unreal email in your email list
      We believe you can handle the changes above yourself, but this one requires some help to check email addresses. Since so many bots use subscription forms and use either fake addresses or stolen ones. If you have blacklisted and unreal emails in your email list, spam filters can recognize it and put your emails at risk of going into the spam folder.

      Mailing to such addresses will not be useful, so we made a web service that clears your email list by checking it through a database of 6M email addresses for fake addresses and spam. Use the instructions below to clean your mailing list of “bad” addresses.

     

     

    How to protect your HubSpot forms from spam bots

    The Anti-Spam plugin for WordPress by CleanTalk has direct integration with HubSpot and blocks any spam bots even before they reach your website. Follow this guide to protect your HubSpot forms from spam.

     

    How to clean email list of non-existent or spammers email addresses

    1. Visit the SpamBots Check page, where you can clean your email list by inputing your email list by either copying and pasting it into the designated field or uploading a file using the Browse button. Click the Clear my list button to initiate the process. That is the moment when all the non-existent or spammers email addresses are recognized and filtered. You need to register to check more than 5 emails, and it only takes approximately 30 seconds to complete.

    2. Once the email list has been processed, you will be presented with a summary of the checked emails along with their corresponding outcomes. You can easily download CSV and JSON files or share the check results by utilizing the provided links located in the upper right corner of the page.

    URL to results – share the check results or reset to the full list, including both good and bad lists.
    Good list – remove emails that are suspiciously active or invalid.
    Bad list – leave only emails that are suspiciously active or invalid.
    Copy – copy the entire list of emails.
    CSV – download results of the check in CSV-file.
    JSON – download results of the check in JSON file.

    3. Access the CSV or JSON file and select the emails that are not on the blacklist for copying.

    4. Access your HubSpot newsletter, paste the list into the designated area, and then click on the Continue to organize button.

    5. Next, proceed with the regular process of creating your HubSpot newsletter.

    By utilizing confirmed email addresses, you can prevent your HubSpot messages from being marked as spam, ensuring that more of your newsletter emails are successfully sent and read. Remember to validate all email lists to minimize the risk of your emails being flagged as spam. Email verification is essential for cleaning up email lists, enhancing email deliverability, and boosting engagement rates.

     

    Check my email list

     

  • FluentBooking spam protection for WordPress

    FluentBooking spam protection for WordPress

    CleanTalk added spam protection for FluentBooking using direct form integration. Always be sure to use the most effective Anti-Spam plugin. For example CleanTalk Anti-Spam will guarantee your FluentBooking spam protection in about 5 minutes.

    Once the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin is installed it starts to protect all of the existing forms on your WordPress website. It may not only be FluentBooking but many other forms.

    Download CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin | Download FluentBooking 

    How to install CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin

    To install the Anti-Spam plugin, go to your WordPress admin panelPluginsAdd New.

    Then enter «СleanTalk» in the search box and click the Install button for «Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk».

    After installing the plugin, click the «Activate»‎ button.

    After it is done go to the plugin settings and click the «Get Access Key Automatically» button. Then just click the «Save Settings»‎ button.

    That’s it! From now your WordPress website and FluentBooking are protected from spam.

    You can always use our detailed installation instructions.

    How to check your FluentBooking spam protection in about 5 minutes

    You can test the work of Anti-Spam protection for your FluentBooking forms by using a test email s @ cleantalk.org (without spaces). First, open the form in an Incognito browser tab. Fill in all the required form fields and send a form. After submitting the form, you will see a block message about the block on the form submission.

    If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you. Create your Cleantalk account – Register now and enjoy your spam-free FluentBooking.

    You may view a complete list of CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin features here. https://cleantalk.org/help/introduction 

    WordPress spam protection