Why MMCIS does not recommend Client FTP access to their site

Our clients generally rely on us to do even minor updates. The wisdom behind this practice is based on our long history of managing web sites. Our ability to administer our clients websites quickly and inexpensively is based on the skills, tools, and procedures that we have established over the years. As any one who has done web site administration knows, even the best tools have do not ensure that making even a small change on a page will not break the page so that it does not display correctly in one or more of the major browser environments.

Here are just some of the considerations that we feel make this the preferred practice:

• We use a combination of Adobe CS3 (Dreamweaver and Fireworks) to create and maintain the html pages on our clients web sites. Most of the pages on your site are "generated" from components such as templates and library items. Objects such as the navigation area are specified in Fireworks png files. Making a small change to an specific page may then be wiped out the next time the site pages are re-generated from the source objects.

• Some of the pages on your site (e.g., the form pages) are generated by our WebKit tools from definitions in database files. Again, a change to the page would be lost when those pages are re-generated during other maintenance.

• Unless you do web site maintenance as the main focus of your job, differences between the major browser environments can blindside page layout. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera each have their own quirks, so even pages that displayed perfectly when the page was designed can appear broken today.

Our clients agree that we are very responsive in posting changes and when there are critical timing constraints that we can schedule those so that the postings are up when needed. If there are other concerns that you have, we would be glad to address them.