Lofts at American Life

Lofts at American LifeLofts at American Life is a Birmingham 1920’s era office building redeveloped to retain the property’s uniquely historical character, while offering the conveniences and amenities you expect in apartment home living. They asked me to recreate their website and make it better. The WordPress website is built in a responsive theme and showcases their floor plans in a gallery and connects to their management portal for payments, availability information, and applications. They manage the portal and the data is pulled into the website using a feed.

LoftsatAmericanLife.com

St. Vincent’s Foundation

St. Vincents FoundationAscension St. Vincent’s Foundation raises funds to support new programs, education, equipment, technology, and capital expansion across Ascension St. Vincent’s. They approached me to help them build a new website that would help expand their reach, communicate benefits, and facilitate donation. The new website is built in WordPress in a responsive theme with many improvements over the old site which was built on an ASP platform. This website uses integrated forms from a third party vendor and had many more images to better engage visitors.

St. Vincent’s Foundation

Global Casting Partners

Global Casting PartnersGlobal Casting Partners is a Aluminum-Zinc-Bronze Die Casting Metal Stamping company that serves the automotive industry. They needed a new website because their site was very old and built in HTML on a prescribed templated structure. The new site was built in WordPress using a responsive theme. The new site incorporated new features and many more images than the previous website.

GlobalCastingPartners.net

7 Simple Ways to Tell if That Menacing Email is Spam

So let’s suppose your spam filter lets an email through to your inbox that looks legit on the surface but is really phishing spam. Not all spammers are stupid enough to pose as a Nigerian prince with piles of cash. Often spammers will use menacing or alert type emails to get you to click on a link. One approach the spammers take is to make it look like there is something wrong with your account.

I got this email today and although I know that my mailbox quota was not exceeded, I checked just in case. At first glance, early in the morning on my first cup of coffee, this email looked kind of legit. Upon consuming more coffee and further examination, I thought this spam example might make for a good post.

 

email spam example

 

Here are some simple things to notice: 

  1. Timing: It was sent early in the morning when someone seeing such an alert might click on a link before examining the email very well.
  2. Look at the From address. (smaller red arrow) This address has nothing to do with my web host or mail server, neither of which is in New Zealand. In the preview window of this email client or on a mobile device the From address is not displayed, so it is important to avoid jumping at the chance to click on a link until you see where the email actually originated from.
  3. Sneaky branding: They include an image that I use in my branding. This is actually a very poor image to choose because it is a tiny favicon and therefore appears pixelated in this email. But automated scrapers can easily grab these little icons for any page on the web. Spammers will try to make you think their missive is legit by any means they can.
  4. Urgency in the message: Notice the scare tactic in the copy. This one states that my mail box is full, emails are bouncing, and furthermore this will be communicated to the senders. These senders might be new business or existing clients, but it is a scare tactic to try to increase urgency in my response. Also, when reading the copy in a suspect email, look for poor grammar and sentence structure. This one is written well, but they do make an error in leaving out a space after ‘not delivered’. Sometimes the English is so bad you know it originated from a non-native speaker and this could raise a red flag.
  5. Appearance of Legitimacy: Notice that at a glance the hyperlink looks legit. Often webmail will use a subdomain for mail functions. However, look closely and you will see the https is followed by a semicolon rather than a colon (circled in red). This makes the automatic linking the email software does inoperable such that the programmed link will be active. They have programmed the link to go somewhere else than that which is shown to you.
  6. Spam Links: If you mouse over the link (careful not to click on it), you will see the programmed link come up in the lower left of the mail window showing you where the spammer really wants to send you when you click the link. (big red arrow) This URL obviously has nothing to do with my domain or hosting. This URL actually goes to a page of their choosing that will seek to do something nefarious.
  7. Fake Corporate Structure: This one is easy for me. The email says it comes from my domain support department. I don’t have a support department. In a small business, you know your business structure and you know if you have a support personnel or whatever bogus department they are touting.

If these little tells do not do the trick, there are deeper ways to dive into an email to see if it is spam. But these simple pointers will help you decide if a suspect email can pass a smell test. If you are still in doubt, and a client of mine, just forward them to me and I will dive in and let you know.

But, when in doubt, do not click on anything!

 

Main Street Lofts

Main Street LoftsMain Street Lofts, a new community offering 1, 2 & 3 bedroom apartment homes in the Fall of 2021, needed a website at the beginning of the year. I have worked with RAM Partners before on other multi-family properties. For this site, they wanted to showcase the Oak Ridge, TN location, floorplans, and amenities as they prepared for pre-leasing.

TheMainStreetLofts.com

DivineDesignDiscipleship.com

Divine Design DiscipleshipThis site was created on a WordPress platform using several plugins to enable publishing of selected content to members based on assigned role. Plugins were used to enable ecommerce, podcasting, and newsletter notification to members.

DivineDesignDiscipleship.com

After 10 years of faithful service the site was redesigned in late 2020 to better feature and promote the podcast. The podcast was submitted to several syndication platforms.

 

Living the Faith Ministry

Living the Faith MinistryLiving the Faith Ministry desires to reach people in the innermost parts of Africa with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was pleased to help this non-profit organization with a logo freshening, website redesign, a couple print pieces they needed to further that goal. The website is built on a WordPress platform and includes a MailChimp integration, donation platform, and is ready for their growth going forward.

Justine’s at the Hollymount

Justine's at the HollymountA small hair salon in Trussville, Alabama wanted to expand their online presence to a website with ecommerce capability. They have been doing Facebook and Instagram, but wanted a digital homebase for their salon. I built an SEO-friendly WordPress website to showcase their style, services, products and personality. Online sales are managed through an existing Square account connected to their online store. I also set them up on Google and Bing to help them get found by customers.

 

Justine’s at the Hollymount

firstfruits ministries Light the Way Home Initiative

Long-time client firstfruits ministries asked me to create product labeling for a candle initiative they were to begin in the Fall of 2020. The initiative, called Light the Way Home, is anchored by scented candles that will be sold to generate revenue for safe affordable housing for at-risk women. The project included labeling and tags for two different candle types, a leave-behind two-sided information card, and a POS tabletop piece.

You can learn more about the Light the Way Home initiative and purchase candles on their website. Click on the image below to view a gallery of the created pieces.

FFM LTWH CandlesFFM LTWH Candles