Tech Solutions Archives – Direction Forward

Discounted subscriptions and longer trials for Squarespace

We are pleased to share that we continue to be recognised as a Squarespace Partner and can provide our clients with exclusive features and discounts.

This status highlights our expertise in using, deploying, and supporting the Squarespace platform. As an official Partner, we can offer clients the following benefits:

10% off the first year of a new subscription
Extended 3-month free trials, allowing more time to refine and perfect before launch
Priority support, ensuring faster resolution of queries or issues
Early access to new features, so you can use the latest innovations

For more information or to discuss your next project, please get in touch.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has announced that its Web Check and Mail Check services will be retired on 31 March 2026. This marks the end of nearly a decade of free scanning and monitoring offered by the UK Government for common web and email security threats and vulnerabilities. Organisations will need to have an alternative in place before the end of March when findings and alerts from Web Check and Mail Check will cease.

Since 2017, Web Check and Mail Check have supported UK organisations in identifying email security weaknesses, website misconfigurations, and exposed or vulnerable services. However, the External Attack Surface Management (EASM) landscape has evolved significantly in the intervening years. Whilst the free government tools were intentionally simple, EASM platforms now provide more sophisticated monitoring such as: continuous mapping of internet-facing assets and analysis of vulnerabilities; monitoring configuration drift across domains, certificates, and services; assessing email security controls and configuration. They also address modern risks and threats that have developed since Web Check and Mail Check were established.

Given the depth and breadth of these platforms, the NCSC states that continued operation of Web Check and Mail Check duplicates capabilities which are available (and more comprehensively so) elsewhere. They are thus refocusing resources on other projects.

What action do you need to take?

Organisations will need to transition to other tools. It is strongly recommended to adopt an EASM solution in advance of the NCSC’s retirement date on 31 March 2026. It is crucial that organisations continue to monitor attack surfaces, domain reputations, email compliance, and other potential vulnerabilities.

We provide ongoing vulnerability scanning services as well as offering penetration testing for comprehensive reviews. For email compliance alone, we provide reputation monitoring, compromise monitoring (including dark web), and managed support for all the key compliance standards: Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Sender Policy Framework (SPF). You can read more about DMARC and why you need it to prevent spoofing, phishing, and misdelivery in this article.

Please get in touch to add proactive security services and monitoring for your organisations. You can also find out about our suite of Cyber Security services here.

We are pleased to announce that we have been officially recognised as a Squarespace Gold Partner. This status highlights our expertise in designing and building on the Squarespace platform.

As a Gold Partner, we can offer our clients exclusive benefits, including:

20% off the first year of a new Squarespace website subscription
Extended 6-month free trials, allowing more time to refine and perfect your site before launch
Priority support, ensuring faster resolution of any queries or issues for our clients
Early access to new Squarespace features, keeping our websites at the forefront of innovation

For more information or to discuss your next project, please get in touch.

London Lettings Network wins London Homelessness Awards 2024

We are pleased to report that the London Lettings Network has been recognised as the first prize winner of the London Homelessness Awards 2024, for our client Housing Justice. The award reflects their commitment to addressing housing challenges in London and underscores the platform’s value as a resource for the community.

The London Homelessness Awards, now in their 25th year, are among the most prestigious in the sector. They celebrate outstanding projects and initiatives that support individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in London. Winners receive a share of the prize fund as well as development opportunities.

About the London Lettings Network

This new online platform, designed and built by Direction Forward in collaboration with our client Housing Justice, is designed to simplify the search for rental properties in London that accept Housing Benefit. It collates properties that meet specific criteria, making it easier for users to find accommodation without requiring specialised knowledge or insider connections.

The London Lettings Network serves as a central resource where both clients and caseworkers can access up-to-date property listings without managing subscriptions to multiple email lists or third party websites. This dual functionality provides a streamlined, efficient way to navigate the London rental market for those utilising Housing Benefit.

We are proud to have partnered with Housing Justice in developing this innovative tool that contributes to a more inclusive and equitable housing market. Congratulations to the London Lettings Network on this well-deserved achievement!

Google’s URL shortener to be discontinued

Google is progressing the shutdown of its URL shortener. Consumer access to the service ceased back in 2019, with Google announcing then that all URLs would continue to work. However, they have now announced that any URLs using the ‘goo.gl’ path will no longer return a response after August 2025.

From 23 August 2024, some ‘goo.gl’ links will display an interstitial page (i.e. a page that appears before the target content) to warn users that the link will no longer be supported. The number of ‘goo.gl’ links displaying this warning will gradually increase until next August. After this date, no ‘goo.gl’ links will work.

Who does this impact?

Anyone who has created or used a goo.gl link in the past. It is worth conducting an audit of the links you use on your website, social media profiles, and email campaigns – anywhere that you may have used a shortened ‘goo.gl’ link.

Bitly, another link shortening platform, also recently announced changes to their plans – with the number of links available being downgraded from 10,000 to 10 per month. A drastic change.

This won’t impact any services or systems managed by Direction Forward – we have developed our own URL shortener in response to the changes that top tier providers have been making.

What do you need to do?

We recommend that you transition any ‘goo.gl’ URLs to a reliable service as soon as possible to avoid disruption to using these links

If you would like to use our reliable URL shortener, please get in touch with us to discuss how we can help.

Here’s an interesting tech solution in a surprising place. This is reasonably topical, as it’s something that’s been in the traditional media quite a lot recently:

Archaeology

In particular, we’re going to look at an online resource for what is shaping up to be one of the most important excavation sites in north-western Europe, the Walbrook Discovery Programme.

For those of you that aren’t aware, the Walbrook site is currently being excavated just to the north of Cannon Street station in the square mile (London, UK). They are about 8-10 metres down below ground level and have been discovering all kinds of amazing things underneath our feet. This, however, is not the news. Archaeological works take place every day in the city of London, Greater London, and indeed across the entirety of the UK. What makes this site so interesting, is its use of social media and in particular a WordPress blog to keep the public informed.

Very rarely do you see tech being used to such an end-user friendly degree within heritage, and the WDP does a very good job of keeping the tone light, but the content interesting. There are videos about how to clean, record and then excavate a Roman floor (with quite an interesting sound track), and articles about different types of artefacts; about different structures; about all kinds of interesting pieces of archaeology.

I’ve never seen information presented so well in an ongoing excavation, and think this is a great model for other archaeological companies, and possibly even academic departments to consider. And it just goes to show, that tech solutions aren’t just limited to 21^st century problems!