Website Design

Archive for the ‘News Blog’ Category

Does your website use blogging software such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal? Does your website use a shopping cart such as OS Commerce, ZenCart or CubeCart? Are you an artist using image management software? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you are a prime target of hackers.

Hacker is one a terms that has a different meaning depending on who uses it. Among computer programmers, those geeks that forge the software we use, to be a hacker is to be a rock star of the computer world. Hackers are programming code jockeys that can weave together bits of high power code and scripts, inventing new purpose as they go. They are gurus, the Maharishi of the internet.

Why people hack is its own subject. I expect many hack just for the sake of hacking. They explore the possibilities with no malevolence. These are the digital hooligans, or digital graffiti artists of the internet. Others are the sadists who derive pleasure from creating havoc among the unsuspecting, wiping out entire websites. Finally, the more prevalent and easily the more burdensome are those who are paid to hack. Most hackers would like to get in to your shopping cart software to steal the credit card numbers and other personal data that may reside there. They want into your Blogging software in order to commander its emailing capabilities, thereby using your server to send out reams of spam, instead of there own.

Software developers are well aware of hackers and take precautions to thwart them. As hackers find a way  to exploit software, developers release patches to fix the ‘holes’, it is an unending, ongoing process.

Bottom line: Keep your software up to date! Who’s responsibility is it to keep website software up to date? It is the end user’s responsibility to keep software up to date. That is the simple factual truth, However,  I think in a perfect world the software would be smart enough to upgrade itself. WordPress comes closest to this with dashboard upgrade notification and one click upgrade process.

One of the big challenges that lies before any software platform, will be to put in place a distributed infrastructure that allows users to have their installations automatically upgraded as often as necessary. This would, of course, be a truly complex developer/development problem and I have no idea what the ultimate solution might look like but, sadly, it will have to be done at some point. Hackers never rest and are getting better. Therefore, no matter how important it is for users to upgrade, the reality is that a significant number of them will not.

Wait, there is more to the equation. Consider the underlying software that power these programs. What of a MySQL vulnerability or one within PHP itself to allow your site to be compromised? Obviously this is an impossibility.

I won’t rip you off!
I charge generally a modest $25.00 to upgrade software, unless there are unusual complexities such as customizations that would need to be preserved. If you have questions about your website software, I urge you to contact me for upgrade counseling and advice.

Current Versions

• WordPress: 2.8.6
• ZenCart: 1.3.8a
• OS Commerce: 2.2MS2
• Joomla: 1.5.51
• Drupal: 6.14
• Easy PHP Calendar: 6.0

When twitter first became the rage I found myself tweeting quite frequently throughout the day. Today, I find myself tweeting several times a week; I’ve slowed down substantially.  Realistically, even though I have hundreds of followers, I don’t think many of them read my tweets. It is far more likely that one of my  tweets using a hashtag gets read. If I stick #fortcollins or #jayleno or better yet, #tigerwoods into one of my tweets; thousands of people who follow those subjects will see my entry in their list.

Twitter Desktop Applications
I don’t go to http://twitter.com to read tweets, that would take too much time. Instead I use Seesmic. Seesmic is a deskktop twitter application that runs in the tray on my Vista computer. It allows me to have several twitter accounts and to send tweets to any or all of them. It also allows me to organize whom I follow and thereby filter incoming tweets into sensible categories. There are plenty of other twitter applications that do some or all of this. I’ve tried most of them and settled on Seesmic.

Seesmic Desktop Twitter Application

If you intend to use twitter and be able to leverage its social power then a desktop twitter application is highly recommended. You may want to consider TweetDeck, TwitterFox, Twhirl (Windows & Mac), and plenty more.

That time of year has come around again where Flash and the family will be heading out of the basement with all its attractions and into real life instead. Our first stop will be Ja Jolla. Grandma and Grandpa are demanding to spoil Zac and Max up close and personal. From there we take the train to Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley. Aunt Judi is looking forward to sharing the fruits of California’s immigration while enjoying 100 plus degrees of valley weather.

I’ll have a laptop in tow (I’m borrowing one) so will be getting my mail almost (but not quite) daily. Additionally, I’ll have my phones forwarded to my cell. Don’t be bugging me unless it is an emergency. BTW, an emergency is NOT a typo you found, that has been there for over ten years!

One can not actually embed an image or video into a twitter tweet, but one can upload an image or video to one of the many services whom in turn will provide a shortened url to the content to be copied and pasted into your tweet. Some of these FREE Services will even post the tweet with the image and or video url in it to your twitter account; provided you supply your login and password. A couple of my favorites are Posterous and PikChur (impossible bad spelling url)

Here is a brief roundup,  and by no means a complete list. New services continue to come online:

TwitPic
TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter You can post pictures to TwitPic from your phone, their API, or through the TwitPic website itself.

Pikchur
Pikchur is a way to share photos with your friends and family, no matter where they are! Pikchur accounts include a social aspect.

yFrog
Post images and video. Supports the iPhone app Tweetie to post images and video straight from your phone.

Flickr
Flickr has just released their long awaited feature for posting photos to Twitter. It’s been in beta over the past few weeks but now is live. Flickr is a free images hosting service, maybe the most popular too.

Posterous
No account necessary. Email attachements to upload photos, video, mp3’s and files for instant posting. Posterous accounts include a social aspect.

Twitgoo
No account necessary. Email attachments to upload photos, video, mp3’s and files for instant posting.

FileTwt
FileTwt, a beta service for file sharing on Twitter, is a basic but convenient utility for quickly sharing any file, up to 20MB, with your entire Twitter network or just a single user.

TwitDoc
The EASY way to share your documents on Twitter. Upload your file, shorten the URL, and post a tweet all in one easy step.

Twitter just released a new widget designed to pull targeted information. In its simplest form one can easily add a dynamic scroller of twitter feeds specific to ones city, town. That just scratches the surface of what the widget can pull in and display.

Twitter’s Search widget makes use of Hash Tags and key words, focused by AND/OR operators. Lets use Oprah Winfrey for an example. Searching the hash tag #oprah gives us all tweets that specifically use the oprah hash tag. Adding in OR #oprahwinfrey will then display all tweets with either #oprah or #oprawinfrey. The following is a list of search operators supported by twitter:

Search Operators

You can type these search operators directly into the search box. (Alternatively, you can use the advanced search form to automatically constuct your query.)

Operator	Finds tweets…
twitter search	containing both “twitter” and “search”. This is the default operator.
“happy hour“	containing the exact phrase “happy hour”.
love OR hate	containing either “love” or “hate” (or both).
beer -root	containing “beer” but not “root”.
#haiku	containing the hashtag “haiku”.
from:alexiskold	sent from person “alexiskold”.
to:techcrunch	sent to person “techcrunch”.
@mashable	referencing person “mashable”.
“happy hour” near:“san francisco”	containing the exact phrase “happy hour” and sent near “san francisco”.
near:NYC within:15mi	sent within 15 miles of “NYC”.
superhero since:2009-07-26	containing “superhero” and sent since date “2009-07-26″ (year-month-day).
ftw until:2009-07-26	containing “ftw” and sent up to date “2009-07-26″.
movie -scary	containing “movie”, but not “scary”, and with a positive attitude.
flight	containing “flight” and with a negative attitude.
traffic ?	containing “traffic” and asking a question.
hilarious filter:links	containing “hilarious” and linking to URLs.
news source:twitterfeed	containing “news” and entered via TwitterFeed

Example Oprah Feed

Twitter Search Widget»

All FLASH HQ subscribers will begin receiving my Social Media Series; a series of tips and free tools to help you manage twitter, facebook and more.

Social Media Package

You get:

• 3 social media accounts; twitter, Facebook and scrnshots
• Custom graphics for twitter, Facebook and website links
• Registration with top five twitter search engines
• Facebook business page
• Twitter feed integration into website

Cost: $250.00

Ease of use sums it up. Compared to most social blogging platforms Facebook is tops when it comes to ease of use. While Myspace may have been the rabbit out of the gate early on, it is Facebook that won the race.

Since August of last year, Facebook has doubled its user base to more than 200 million active users. The common wisdom is that all those users will translate into millions of advertising dollars. The value isn’t in the users, but in the network effect all the connections between the users. Mix that with the huge lock-in that Facebook has by its nature; it is worth a larger multiplier.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization
The content you or your users/visitors creates is indexed by Google, Ask, Live Search, Bing and others. It behooves those serious about their internet visibility not to discount social media.

Read about Facebook page growth»

Why Facebook is better than MySpace»

Did You Know?
One can send out a tweet via twitter (quite a few other methods as well) and have that tweet automatically posted to your Facebook page. Other social media such as flickr, can do the same thing.

I discovered twitter when it was in its infancy. Back then I found no use for it as the only use appeared to be for posting inane updates; I’m brushing my teeth. Just looked out the window. Wearing my old shoes today.” Honestly, who would care? Apparently enough people cared to keep it alive; look at what twitter has become today.
Note: (tt) = twitter terms

Twitter is all over the place
Good Morning America doesn’t ask for emails anymore – they want you to twitter them. What gives? What’s so great about Twitter? How can it be a tool for your business? The key question today is how a service with bite-size messages can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary.

Naysayers
There are a lot of naysayers out there when it comes to Twitter, the most popular microblogging platform at the moment. Such ignorance is incredibly shortsighted. Success in business has much to do with relationships. By following people on Twitter and other microblogging platforms like Facebook, business owners have an opportunity to foster relationships on a deeper level than if they were to just read someone’s blog or socialize at a conference.

Blogging Bog Down
Anyone with a basic education and a Web connection can microblog, which in the case of twitter limits you to 140 characters. The incredible growth of blogs is well-documented. If microblogging is easier…

By publishing your Twitter feed on your homepage, you can share vital business information your visitors; similar to your Facebook status (more on that later).

For businesses that have daily news/information to offer, adding a twitter feed to your homepage boosts the impact you can achieve with a Twitter account and keeps the Search Engine gods happy too, because you are adding fresh content to your homepage on a daily basis. Yes, you must “tweet” or post to twitter often! Get creative and think of ways that you can offer fresh snippets of information to your clients. You learn to think in new productive ways.

Businesses such as H&R Block, IBM and Nike are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the Flight 1549 Crash Landing on the Hudson River) Loads of new applications and services are growing around the Twitter platform, leading some to suggest that the microblogging service could become a powerhouse in social media.

How I’ve Been Using Twitter
In my world, there are constantly evolving tools for design, css, javascript, php etc. The professional who develop these tools use twitter extensively. By following (tt) them I see their tweets (tt). Good ethical twitter users tweet about things of value. Rather than posting inane trivial blips, they record valuable information, links and more. I have found more relevant information in searchers of twitter than I have in those same searches on Google.

Here are some of the reasons I twitter:

• Myriads of resources: useful articles, code, blogs, audios, video, and upcoming teleseminars.
• Access to movers and shakers (I’ve exchanged messages with luminaries like Guy Kawasaki and Shane Chipp; I’ve sent messages to Oprah’s Twitter account, but am not convinced that anyone actually reads them. As of today she has 1,643,233 followers.
• Powerful ways to grow my own community and get connected with people I ought to know about
• Ability to flag useful articles, including some that I write, or events I am involved in.
• And yes, a number of new friendships.

All this with only a few hundred twitter users that I’m following.

You get:

• 3 social media accounts; twitter, Facebook and scrnshots.
• Custom graphics for twitter, Facebook and website links.
• Registration with top five twitter search engines.
• Facebook business page.
• Twitter feed integration into website.

Cost: $250.00

1. Tweet: Your 140-character (or shorter) message
2. Twittering: The act of sending your tweet
3. Followers: People who receive your tweets
4. Retweet: Forwarding a tweet to your followers
5. @ : The symbol that precedes the name of a person you’re replying to
6. #: Hash Tag, a symbol preceding a acronym, keyword or run on keywords as in #FortCollins #FCIP
7. Tweep: Someone you know on Twitter
8. Tweeple: See “tweep”
9. Twoops: Accidentally sending a direct (private) message publicly

@QuickColorado is a reply specific to me, yet visible in my public twitter stream.

#Oprah entered into a tweet makes a clickable link that takes a user to a twitter search for Opera, whereupon one can see all the tweets that have #Oprah in them. Focused tweets. Try it»

Social Media Package

You get:

• 3 social media accounts; twitter, Facebook and scrnshots
• Custom graphics for twitter, Facebook and website links
• Registration with top five twitter search engines
• Facebook business page
• Twitter feed integration into website

Cost: $250.00