To Protect and Secure

Michael and Anne Bello are nuts about squash. They play squash, they met on a squash court, and together, they run collegesquashassociation.com, an amazing site dedicated to playing squash at the college level in the United States.

“I’ve been playing squash since I was about 12,” says Michael. “I started playing in prep school (Williston Northampton). I loved the sport from day one. I played recreationally in college and continued on afterwards.”

On WordPress since 2009, collegesquashassociation.com publishes five times a week. In covering the college squash scene, the site offers photos, videos of squash matches, rankings, match schedules and results, as well as information on getting involved in squash at the college level. Michael says each match teaches him something new.

“Every time I cover a squash match, I learn something new about the game,” says Michael. “It could be the movement of a certain player or the tactic employed during the match. I’ve actually become a better player through reporting on matches for the College Squash Association.”

For Michael and Anne, WordPress makes it easy to publish and VaultPress offers peace of mind, knowing that the content that they’ve worked so hard to create is safe at all times.

“I created my first WordPress site to organize Western Mass squash players back in 2005,” says Michael. “The flexibility and the ease of publishing articles on WordPress is ideal. I was struggling with an easy way to back up the site’s files. I heard about VaultPress on the WordPress.org forums and through a few blogs and I instantly signed up for a “Golden Ticket.” When VaultPress finally arrived in June of 2010, I was thrilled. With the amount of articles, images, and custom themes we have on the site, VaultPress is perfect. I’ve had a few times when I’ve needed to recover certain files, and it was extremely easy with VaultPress. Plus, having Automattic perform critical patches is very reassuring.”

The Bellos’ collegesquashassociation.com is one member of the growing VaultPress community. Learn more about how VaultPress can protect your content, theme, plugin, and site settings and customizations. Contact us with questions, or you could make our day, and sign up to protect your site.

Chris Hunter is a designer and photographer based in Sydney Australia who loves motorcycles: classic motorcycles, custom motorcycles, cafe racers, and racing motorcycles. His three passions come together in his full-time labor of love: Bike EXIF, an amazing online magazine devoted to unique motorcycles and the people who build them. Chris is definitely hands-on, when it comes to motorcyles.

“I ride every day,” says Chris. “I commute to work on my Moto Guzzi V7 Classic. What I love about custom bikes is that you can see the engineering on show. You can see the engine, you can see the battery and the electrics and that’s part of the appeal for me. You can see the bits that are working.”

Running since 2008, the site profiles custom bikes and their builders several times a week. Profiles feature a detailed description of the bike and lots of compelling photographs—the love of motorcycling shines through in the care and attention to detail. When it comes to a personal favorite, Chris turns to Italy.

“I’m a big fan of Moto Guzzi, an Italian brand that has been going for 90 years,” says Chris. “Their bikes are bursting with character and style, and they’re a joy to own. I have pretty wide tastes though, and I love writing about British and European motorcycles in particular, whether they are iconic classics or modern customs.”

Chris uses WordPress for Bike EXIF, after previously running a site on Movable Type.

“I’ve used WP since 2008. I found Movable Type difficult to get to grips with,” he says. “After the MT experience, I started a second site using WP, made a few mistakes with that, and finally put everything I’d learnt into the creation of Bike EXIF. It’s now almost three years old and gets around 1.5m page views a month.”

What started off as an off-hours hobby recently turned into his full-time job.

“At first, Bike EXIF was an experiment and a hobby as much as anything,” says Chris. “Then it took off! I have just left my ‘day job’ as an advertising creative director, so I’ll be able to concentrate on the site (and sister site Cycle EXIF) full-time.”

Chris entrusts VaultPress with backing up all the content on his labor of love and was an early adopter. In fact, Chris and Bike EXIF were among VaultPress’ first customers.

“I was looking for a ‘set and forget’ backup system and was unhappy with the plugins available,” says Chris. “VaultPress sounded perfect, so I requested an invite (I think it was an early stage beta announcement) and as soon as I got one, I loaded it up.”

Chris Hunter’s Bike EXIF is one member of the growing VaultPress community. Learn more about how VaultPress can protect your content, theme, plugin, and site settings and customizations. Contact us with questions, or you could make our day, and sign up to protect your site.