The Log
Notes from the crew.
Short, plain-spoken takes on AI, web development, security, and marketing tech, and what each one means for your business. No hype, no homework.
Latest posts
Introducing the Duluth MN Real Estate Guide
A custom, independent field guide to the neighborhoods of Duluth, Superior, and the Twin Ports, built to outlast any single listing.
Old Town Antiques & Books has a new website in Duluth
A warm, custom website for a Duluth antiques and used-book shop, built to carry the store's character online.
Website Design for Duluth, MN Auto Repair Shops and Service Centers
When someone's car breaks down in the Northland, they search on their phone. Make sure your Duluth auto shop's website is the one they find and trust.
Website marketing for contractors and trades in Cloquet and Hermantown
Plumbers, electricians, and remodelers in Cloquet and Hermantown compete for the same searches as Duluth trades. Here's how a website and local marketing help you win the call.
Static vs. dynamic websites: which one fits your business?
Not every site needs a database humming behind it. Here's the plain-English difference, and how to tell which one your business actually needs.
Website design and marketing for North Shore lodges and outfitters near Two Harbors
Travelers planning a North Shore trip near Two Harbors start researching months out. Here's why lodges, outfitters, and small businesses along Highway 61 need a fast, bookable website.
Your email list is the one channel nobody can take away
Social platforms change the rules whenever they like. The list of people who chose to hear from you is yours for good. Here's why that's worth building.
Google's ads move into AI answers
At Google Marketing Live 2026, ads started showing up inside AI Search answers, and a new Search Console report tracks how you appear in them.
A busy summer for new Duluth businesses
Sabor by Pedro's, Voyageur Donuts, a second Dannie Duluth, and more opened around town this summer. Getting found online is step one.
Downtown Duluth reopens with a new plan
After three years of construction, downtown Duluth is open again, and the city adopted a new Downtown Development Strategy in late June.
Writing web content that AI search engines will actually cite
More people ask an AI assistant instead of scrolling ten blue links. Here's how to write pages those tools quote instead of skip.
Website design and marketing for Hermantown, Cloquet, and Two Harbors businesses
Duluth isn't the whole Northland market. Here's how we build websites and local search for businesses in Hermantown, Cloquet, Two Harbors, and beyond.
The EU AI Act's real deadline arrives
On August 2, 2026 the EU AI Act becomes largely applicable, with transparency rules for chatbots and AI-generated content, and real fines behind them.
Website design for Duluth breweries and taprooms
Duluth's brewery and taproom scene keeps growing. Here's what a brewery website actually needs to answer for a thirsty visitor before they walk in.
Websites for Duluth dentists, lawyers, and clinics
For a Duluth dentist, lawyer, clinic, or counselor, your website is the first impression, and trust is everything. Here's what a professional-services site needs.
Figma Config 2026 blurs design and code
At Config 2026, Figma added timeline animation, one-click code layers, and a smarter agent, pushing design work toward full-stack creation.
Duluth web agency vs. a Twin Cities firm: what going local gets you
You could hire a big Twin Cities agency or a national platform. Here's what working with a local Duluth web team actually gets you.
Grandma's 50th sold out in 12 hours. Is your site ready for the crowd?
The 50th Grandma's Marathon brought 22,000-plus people from 73 countries to Duluth in a single weekend, a traffic spike every local business can see coming.
Local web design for the Twin Ports: Duluth, Superior, and the Northland
We're a Duluth web design crew, but the Northland is bigger than one city. Here's how we help businesses across Superior, Hermantown, Cloquet, Two Harbors, and the Twin Ports.
HTTPS and the padlock: what website security actually protects
That little padlock in the address bar isn't decoration. Here's what it does, what it doesn't, and why every site needs it now.
A PeopleSoft zero-day hit over 100 organizations
An unpatched Oracle PeopleSoft flaw let an extortion crew break into more than 100 organizations, mostly universities, before a fix existed.
Why Duluth contractors and trades need a real website
Plumbers, electricians, roofers, remodelers: your next customer is searching before they call. Here's why a real website matters for Duluth trades.
New shops opened across Duluth this summer
A wave of new spots opened around Canal Park and Lincoln Park this year, and the ones getting found all share one thing: an online presence from day one.
What actually happens when we build your Duluth website
From the first Duluth coffee to launch day, here's the real, no-mystery path a web project takes with a local team.
How much does a website cost in Duluth, MN?
Straight talk on what a website costs a Duluth business, what drives the number up or down, and how to get a real quote instead of a guess.
What a CMS is, and whether your site needs one
A content management system lets you update your own website without calling a developer. Handy, but not every site needs the extra machinery.
Meta puts its own name on AI glasses
In June 2026 Meta launched $299 AI glasses under its own brand in 26 styles, its first eyewear designed to carry the Meta name directly.
How to choose a web designer in Duluth
Hiring someone to build your website is a real decision. Here's what to look for in a Duluth web designer, and the questions that separate the pros from the risky.
Web development in Duluth, Minnesota: a plain-English primer
Web design makes a site look right; web development makes it work. Here's what web development means for a Duluth, Minnesota business, minus the jargon.
Claude Opus 4.8 runs codebase-scale migrations
Anthropic's Opus 4.8 catches roughly four times more code flaws than its predecessor and can run hundreds of parallel subagents on very large jobs.
TypeScript, in plain English
You'll never see it, but TypeScript is why a well-built site has fewer bugs and stays easy to change. Here's what it actually does for you.
Duluth's storefront grants missed one thing: digital curb appeal
DEDA's First Street growth grants help with signage and storefronts, but half your curb appeal now lives on a phone screen.
Why we build with Node.js
Node.js runs the behind-the-scenes half of a modern website. Here's why it's a dependable pick, minus the jargon.
Your website and Google Business Profile are a team
For a Duluth business, your site and your Google listing work best together. One without the other leaves customers on the table.
What Tailwind CSS means for your website
Tailwind is a behind-the-scenes tool that helps us build custom designs faster and keep them consistent. Here's the short version.
The SharePoint bug Microsoft forgot to announce
A SharePoint remote-code flaw got patched in May 2026 but wasn't disclosed for weeks, and it was later confirmed to be under active attack.
A poisoned axios update slipped into npm
Attackers hijacked the maintainer account behind axios and pushed two backdoored versions of one of JavaScript's most-used libraries.
New AI models ship, and one big one slips
OpenAI and Anthropic rolled out new flagship models this summer while Google delayed its top Gemini after it fell short on coding and reasoning.
$592K to local causes: nonprofits, don't leave goodwill on the table
The Northland Foundation awarded $592K to regional causes. The nonprofits that turn goodwill into recurring support share one trait: a donation-ready website.
AI is making phishing cheaper. The fixes haven't changed.
Attackers now use AI to target small teams, but the basics, MFA, backups, and updates, still stop the vast majority of it.
Make sure you actually own your website
Too many Duluth businesses find out the hard way that their domain or site is locked in someone else's account. Own yours from day one.
One phone call cost Figure nearly a million records
Fintech lender Figure lost roughly 967,000 customer records after attackers talked an employee into handing over access, no exploit required.
Small business website design in Duluth, from first call to launch
A plain walk through small business website design in Duluth: what you get, how long it takes, and how the whole thing goes from first call to launch.
Browsers keep doing JavaScript's old chores
Chrome 150 and Safari 26.2 shipped features that build menus, popovers, and auto-sizing fields with plain HTML and CSS, no script required.
The five things every Duluth small business website needs
Forget the bells and whistles. A small business website earns its keep with five basics, done well. Here's the checklist.
AI brands outspent beer at the Super Bowl
At Super Bowl LX in February 2026, AI platforms ran more national ads than beer and auto combined, and led the field for engagement.
CSS anchor positioning lands in every browser
With Firefox shipping it in early 2026, CSS anchor positioning now works across all major browsers, no JavaScript required.
Your Duluth website is a boat, not a statue
Launch day isn't the finish line. Here's why a Duluth business website needs steady upkeep, and what happens when it doesn't get it.
WordPress 6.9 adds real team collaboration
WordPress 6.9 brings block-level notes, six new blocks, and a site-wide command palette aimed at teams editing together.
Spotify Wrapped turns your data into a party
Spotify's 2025 Wrapped added an AI listening archive and a live multiplayer party, driving 500 million shares in 24 hours.
A website that works for everyone in the Northland
Roughly one in four adults lives with a disability. An accessible site serves more Duluth customers, and reads better to Google, too.
Gemini 3 lands, and the bar moves again
Google shipped Gemini 3, its most capable model yet, topping reasoning leaderboards with a million-token context window and strong coding scores.
Faster fiber is coming to the Twin Ports. Is your site ready?
Fiber-to-the-premises is rolling out across the Twin Ports, finally making a media-rich, fast website worth building for local businesses.
Next.js 16 makes Turbopack the default
Next.js 16 ships Turbopack as the standard bundler and rethinks caching, promising faster builds and clearer control over what gets cached.
A slow website is a closed door for your Duluth business
Most people leave a site that takes more than a few seconds to load. For a Duluth business, speed is quietly costing you customers.
Bentleyville's record crowd is a seasonal-marketing masterclass
295,300 visitors, all for a free light show. What Bentleyville teaches every local business about planning around seasonal traffic.
React2Shell: a critical flaw in React servers
CVE-2025-55182 lets attackers run code on servers using React Server Components, and exploitation started within days of disclosure.
Get your Duluth website ready before the holiday rush
Winter brings Bentleyville crowds and holiday shoppers to Duluth. A few website fixes now make sure you catch them.
Olmo 3 ships as a truly open AI model
The Allen Institute released Olmo 3 with its full training data, checkpoints, and pipeline, not just downloadable weights.
Google puts AI agents inside Google Ads
Google announced Gemini-powered agents that suggest campaign changes and explain traffic shifts on request.
Better CSS color is now safe to use
Modern CSS color functions like oklch() and color-mix() reached Baseline Widely available, meaning broad browser support.
Your Duluth restaurant menu shouldn't be a photo of a photo
Plenty of Duluth restaurants post their menu as a phone snapshot or a PDF. Search engines and hungry customers can't read it. Fix that.
Chrome moves toward warning on every non-HTTPS site
Google announced Chrome will start warning users before loading sites that still run on plain HTTP, making an SSL certificate non-optional.
The web was given away in 1993
On April 30, 1993, CERN put the World Wide Web into the public domain, free for anyone to use. That single decision is why the open web exists.
Millions of attacks hit outdated WordPress plugins
Security firm Wordfence blocked millions of attacks in October 2025 targeting known flaws in unpatched WordPress plugins.
When off-the-shelf software doesn't fit your Northland business
Sometimes a spreadsheet and three apps duct-taped together isn't enough. Custom web tools can run the parts of your business nothing else covers.
Safari ships a CSS function that picks readable text
Safari 26 became the first stable browser to ship contrast-color(), a CSS function that auto-selects black or white for legible text.
A self-spreading worm hit the npm ecosystem
The Shai-Hulud worm compromised over 180 npm packages, stealing developer credentials and using them to spread itself.
Northland nonprofit websites that punch above their budget
Northland nonprofits do huge work on tight budgets. A clear, trustworthy website turns visitors into donors and volunteers.
OpenAI ships its first open models since GPT-2
OpenAI released gpt-oss, two downloadable open-weight models under Apache 2.0, its first open release in roughly six years.
Google Ads gets an AI creative studio
Google began rolling out Asset Studio, using its Imagen and Veo models to generate ad images and video from prompts.
Sell to the whole country from a Duluth storefront
The shelf space in your Duluth shop is finite. Online, it isn't. A good store lets a local business reach customers everywhere.
Websites for HVAC and Plumbing Companies in Duluth and Superior
A burst pipe or a dead furnace doesn't wait for business hours. Your website needs to be ready the moment a Duluth or Superior homeowner starts searching.
Passkeys go mainstream as passwords fall behind
2025 was the year passkeys reached everyday use, offering small businesses a login that resists the phishing that beats passwords.
Duluth's tourists are searching. Is your website ready?
Summer brings a wave of visitors to the North Shore, most of them planning on a phone. A few website fixes turn searches into customers.
Responsive web design: one website, every screen
In 2010, Ethan Marcotte coined 'responsive web design.' It's why a good site now reshapes itself for a phone, tablet, or desktop instead of shipping separate ones.
CSS gets an if() function for conditional styling
Chrome 137 shipped the CSS if() function, letting developers express conditional styles inline without extra JavaScript or preprocessors.
Ivanti EPMM flaws chained for remote takeover
Two Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile bugs could be chained for unauthenticated remote code execution, and attackers were already using them.
Google Ads pushes AI Max into search campaigns
AI Max for Search is a one-click suite that expands keywords, rewrites ad text, and sends clicks to matched landing pages.
Chrome keeps third-party cookies, ending the countdown
Google confirmed it won't add a cookie choice prompt to Chrome, leaving third-party cookies in place with no removal timeline.
Chrome 135 brings carousels to plain CSS
Chrome 135 shipped scroll-marker and scroll-button pseudo-elements plus shape(), letting developers build carousels without JavaScript.
OpenAI ships GPT-4.1 with a million-token window
OpenAI released GPT-4.1 and its mini and nano siblings through the API, with big coding gains and a one-million-token context window.
JavaScript was built in about ten days
In 1995, Netscape gave Brendan Eich roughly ten days to create a language for the web. That rush job now runs on nearly every site on earth.
Duluth bets on steady marketing with a five-year deal
The Duluth City Council approved a five-year marketing contract with Visit Duluth, a vote for consistency over start-and-stop promotion.
Google Business Profile puts your posts in one place
Google consolidated updates, offers, and events into a single Publications hub, making it easier to keep a profile active and current.
"Talk Duluthy to Me" shows the power of sounding local
Visit Duluth and Madden Media kicked off 2025 with a tourism campaign built entirely on local lingo, a reminder that voice sells a place.
OpenAI's Operator tries running your browser
OpenAI released a research preview of an agent that clicks through websites on your behalf to book, shop, and fill forms.
PowerSchool breach exposes millions of students
A single stolen support-portal credential let attackers reach personal records for tens of millions of students and teachers.
DeepSeek R1 shakes up the AI cost math
A lab released an open-weight reasoning model rivaling top systems at a fraction of the training cost, rattling markets.
WordPress or custom: what should a Duluth business build on?
There's no single right answer, but there is a right answer for you. Here's how we help Northland businesses choose.
Vite 6 lands with a new Environment API
The build tool behind much of the modern web shipped its biggest release in years, adding a flexible new Environment API.
Perplexity puts ads into AI answers
The AI search engine began testing sponsored follow-up questions, an early look at how advertising fits into chat-style answers.
Signs it's time to redesign your Duluth website
If your site is slow, hard to update, or embarrassing on a phone, it's costing you. Here's how to know it's time for a refresh.
Minnesota quietly built the supercomputer
St. Paul's Engineering Research Associates in 1946, then Control Data and Seymour Cray's supercomputers: some of computing's biggest leaps happened in Minnesota.
Most Duluth customers see your website on a phone
More than half of web visits happen on a phone. If your Duluth site was built desktop-first, you're showing most people your worst version.
WordPress 6.6 is out, and it's a reminder to keep your site current
WordPress 6.6, released in July 2024, adds design tools and pattern overrides, and its arrival is a good prompt to check your update habits.
How Duluth customers actually find you online
When someone nearby searches for what you do, local SEO decides whether they find you or your competitor. Here's what moves the needle.
Duluth's summer tourism cooled in 2024. Owned marketing softens the dip
A slower 2024 summer, with fewer Canadian visitors and wildfire smoke, is a reminder that borrowed foot traffic isn't a marketing plan.
DIY website builders vs. a local Duluth developer
Those drag-and-drop builders look cheap and easy. For a lot of Duluth businesses, they quietly cost more than hiring a local pro.
Google just deleted your old analytics. Make sure you exported it
Starting July 1, 2024, Google permanently deleted all Universal Analytics data, leaving GA4 as the only record going forward.
Google changed how it measures a slow site. Here's what to check
In March 2024, Google swapped FID for INP as a Core Web Vital, and by mid-2024 the old metric is being retired from measurement tools.
Why a Duluth business still needs a real website
Social media isn't enough, and a builder page isn't either. Here's why your own professional website is still the foundation.
The Duluth brands that went national
Maurices started as a single Duluth dress shop in 1931. Cirrus Aircraft builds personal planes here. A Duluth address has never capped a company's reach.
Two CSS features quietly made websites easier to build
The :has() selector and text-wrap balancing both reached broad browser support by early 2024, letting developers drop scripts and hand-tuning.
A new accessibility rule is a good reason to check your site
The Justice Department's April 2024 web accessibility rule targets government sites, but it signals a standard every business site should be measuring itself against.
Best Buy started as a Minnesota record store
In 1966, Richard Schulze opened a small hi-fi shop in St. Paul called Sound of Music. It became Best Buy. Big brands start small, and usually local.
3M began on the shore of Lake Superior
In 1902, five men founded Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing in Two Harbors. That company, 3M, went on to invent masking tape and the Post-it Note.
A global electronics giant runs from Thief River Falls
Digi-Key, one of the world's largest electronics distributors, has shipped parts worldwide from small-town northern Minnesota since 1972.
The most famous bug in computing was a real moth
In 1947, Grace Hopper's team found an actual moth stuck in a computer relay and taped it into the logbook. The word 'debugging' has stuck ever since.
Linux began as a student's hobby
In 1991, a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds shared a hobby project he swore wouldn't be 'big and professional.' It now runs most of the internet.
The hamburger menu is older than you think
That three-line menu icon on every phone site was designed in 1981 for the Xerox Star, decades before the smartphone made it famous.
Susan Kare drew the Macintosh, one pixel at a time
The original Mac's icons and fonts were hand-drawn on graph paper by Susan Kare in the early 1980s. Small details, enormous impact.
One idea in 1994 saved the look of the web
Before CSS, styling a website meant a tangled mess. In 1994, Hakon Wium Lie proposed separating design from content. We still use it daily.
The first .com domain was registered in 1985
On March 15, 1985, a Massachusetts computer company registered symbolics.com, the first .com ever. Today the web has hundreds of millions.
The first banner ad ran in 1994, and it worked
On October 27, 1994, AT&T ran the web's first banner ad: 'Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will.' A huge share of viewers clicked.
The night the internet learned about worms
On November 2, 1988, one program, the Morris Worm, jammed thousands of the internet's computers overnight and put security on the map for good.
Va Bene's lakeside cafe gets a fresh website
Another generation of website for a beloved Duluth lakeside cafe, keeping a favorite spot current as the web changes.
A refreshed website for a Duluth law office
A credible, findable website for a Duluth law practice, plus the search marketing to bring in clients at the right moment.
The Duluth Winter Village website is ready for another season
A refreshed event website for the free outdoor winter market on the Glensheen grounds, ready before the first snow.
Chester Creek Dental's new website is live in Duluth
A friendly, custom website for a Duluth dental practice, built to reassure new patients before they ever call.
Cassini's Pizza's new website is live in Cottage Grove
A new custom WordPress site, splash page, and menu design for Cassini's Pizza, a Cottage Grove, Minnesota pizzeria.
A new campaign website for Jim Stauber's County Commissioner run
votestauber.us is live for Jim Stauber's 2013 St. Louis County Commissioner campaign, with campaign materials and email signup to match.
LIFT4Charity's pledge-per-pound fundraising platform is live
A custom fundraising platform where people lift weights at Koko FitClub and sponsors pledge per pound is live, with Stripe donations and an admin center built to handle the math.
Champion Finders launches a marketplace for champion bloodline puppies
A from-scratch PHP marketplace where breeders list champion-bloodline puppies and buyers browse for free is live, with subscription billing and a full admin center.
A Total Cost of Ownership tool ships for 3M's Personal Safety division
A custom web application with data-driven calculations, interactive charts, and a live SOAP integration into 3M's own systems.
A calm new website for Moore Counseling Center
A counseling practice needed a website that felt safe before a single word was read. Here's the calm, custom WordPress site we built for Moore Counseling Center.
ionOklahoma Magazine launches on a custom WordPress platform
A hand-coded theme, a business directory, an events calendar, and a newsletter engine built for an Oklahoma lifestyle magazine.
A new SXSW event site is live for the Oklahoma Film & Music Office
RSVP registration, marketing collateral, and a site built to represent the state well at South by Southwest.
Next step
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