Apply for a free print design consultation with Kevin Slimp!

Our Hometown, Inc. — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 22:12:00 +0000

Our-Hometown is excited to announce that our friend, partner and frequent guest-contributor Mr. Kevin Slimp has agreed to offer our publishers the opportunity to meet with him for a FREE consultation on ways to improve their newspaper product!

Kevin is well-known in the newspaper industry for his wide array of expertise across various stages of the newspaper production process — everything from writing effective headlines and designing effective advertisements to developing an attractive theme and laying out the final product. He leads webinar sessions every month teaching both basic and advanced design concepts in software like Adobe Photoshop and InDesign that are used to produce content.

Needless to say, a one-on-one consultation with Kevin Slimp could be invaluable for your newspaper — and Our-Hometown customers now have this resource for free!

If you’re interested in scheduling a free consultation with Kevin Slimp to talk about your newspaper’s print design, please fill out the form below with your information and indicate what days/times would work best for you.

Please note that you will be required to upload & attach a .PDF of one of your newspaper’s recent editions for Kevin to review ahead of time.

We have more exciting things in the works with Kevin, so keep an eye out for more announcements in the coming weeks!

The post Apply for a free print design consultation with Kevin Slimp! first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Office Hours: Our-Hometown in 2021

Our Hometown, Inc. — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 01:27:44 +0000

During last week’s Office Hours, President Matthew Larson and the rest of the Our-Hometown team discussed our recent blog post highlighting our major announcements and accomplishments of 2021.

Watch and listen as the team recaps and reflects on the events of the past year in the video below.

Be sure to join us each Wednesday for Office Hours!

The post Office Hours: Our-Hometown in 2021 first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Security Features

Christopher Winders — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 13:00:56 +0000

At Our-Hometown, the security of our customers’ websites and data is one of our top priorities.

Our engineering team has provided an detailed overview of the multiple layers of security within the Our-Hometown platform. Click on the question to expand the response.

1) Do you guys have a super high level of Admin clearance on the website that if we had a breach of someone stealing a user name and password to login and try to take control of our website, you could gain control and reset all the user names and passwords immediately? What is your protocol if this happens?

2) In the event that this happens how do we contact you after hours, in an emergency?

3) What kind of security prevention is in place to prevent this kind of a from happening?

4) What are the different levels of users and their access that we have on the website?

The following are more tips and features designed to keep your website secure.

Website Security Refresher

Use Two-Factor Authentication
Use Strong Passwords
Don’t Share Accounts/Logins
Adjust Former Employee Accounts
Manage Screen Share/Remote Access Software
Keep your Anti-Virus and Firewall protection up to date

Two-Factor Authentication

Two-Factor Authentication, or 2FA, still requires your staff to login with their normal username and password, but upon doing so they are asked to enter a special pin code that is delivered to the user via mobile, email, or in our case, an authentication app such as Google’s Authenticator.

Customizable Membership Paywall

Digital Subscriptions integrate directly with the Our-Hometown WordPress CMS, allowing you to sell and manage online subscribers through the same portal you use for updating your website.

You will have complete control of the pricing, duration, access level, and renewal settings of each subscription plan you create.

Payment Gateways with SSL security

Choose from Stripe, Paypal, or Authorize.net to handle all encryption and security required today. Once you’ve set up your payment gateway, you’ll be able to accept credit cards for digital subscriptions, placing classified ads, paid forms, paid directory listings, or any other products you’d like to sell on the site.

Auto-Renewing Subscriptions with Stripe

One huge benefit to taking subscription orders through your website is the ability to enable Auto Renewing (or Recurring) subscriptions with the use of Stripe, our preferred supported payment gateway. Auto Renewing subscriptions are important because they represent predictable revenue that you can depend on being there on a monthly or yearly basis, and serve as a great method of retaining subscribers who might otherwise let their subscriptions lapse.

Stripe Update for Gravity Forms

A recent update for the GravityForms plugin that comes included with Our-Hometown’s WordPress Publishing Platform has introduced a more secure way of connecting and communicating with the online payment gateway, Stripe.

The post Security Features first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Office Hours Announcements - Our-Hometown