Blog

Fighting spam

Robert | March 1, 2012 | Cambodia, Marketing

Everyone hates spam. So why are more and more local companies adopting this awful marketing technique? Ignorance, I suppose. But there are ways to fight back.

During a recent project, I stumbled across a dead-handy WordPress plugin that does exactly what its name suggests — obfuscates your email address.

Type your email address —  [email protected], for example — into any WordPress page, and the plugin will render the html as moc.erehwon@eno-on.

Spam-bots get nothing.

For more on the subject, check out A List Apart’s essay on Graceful Obfuscation.

Your iPhone video to Wordpess web site in 2 seconds flat

Robert | February 4, 2012 | Blogging, News, Tech News, Wordpress

The latest VideoPress upgrade rocks.

The VideoPress upgrade, which allows you to upload and embed your own videos on your blog, now comfortably handles videos from iPhones and iPads. You can shoot vertically or horizontally, and we’ll take care of rotating it for you so that your video looks great when it’s published on your site.

Yet another reason why WordPress is the best CMS ever.

Why GoDaddy sucks

Robert | January 24, 2012 | Rants

Some friends I built a web site for a few years back rang the other day. Firefox and Google Chrome were giving visitors to their site the Big Red Warning.

Like a lot of first-time or otherwise new-to-the-Interweb folks, these friends bought their domain name and hosting services from GoDaddy. They launched their web site and — like a lot of people — pretty much forgot about it.

Until now.

About a month ago, the site got infected with a virus, hence the Big Red Warning.

Go Daddy, of course, who has studiously collected payment on time every time for the last 5 years, had only this to say: We cannot assist you with removing malware from your server.

Sucks to be you.

iPad usability

Robert | December 17, 2011 | Usability

In May, Jakob Nielson did a second round of iPad usability testing. The results are interesting to anyone doing or thinking about iPad development. This is my favorite quote.

I thought I’d driven a stake through splash screens many years ago and eradicated them from the Web, but apparently splash screens are super-vampires that can haunt users from beyond the grave. Several new iPad apps have long introductory segments that might be entertaining the first time, but soon wear out their welcome. Bad on sites, bad in apps. Don’t.

You really can’t say this enough, can you?

Syncing passwords across computers

Robert | August 16, 2011 | Notable

If you use more than one computer on a regular basis — home, work, laptop, ipad, for example —  you know what a pain it can be to keep things like bookmarks and passwords synchronized. Enter Xmarks, which is a dead-handy little browser plugin that makes it easy to sync, um, bookmarks and passwords, across multiple machines.

Xmarks handles the bookmark syncing, and it integrates with Last Pass to support secure password storage. Very useful. And Xmarks even works across browsers — Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Safari.

Electronic tattoos

Robert | August 15, 2011 | Tech News

This is crazy mad — super-flexible, self-adhesive silicon circuit boards that can monitor your heart rate and more.

Known as epidermal electronics, they can be applied in a similar way to a temporary tattoo: you simply place it on your skin and rub it on with water (see video). The devices can even be hidden under actual temporary tattoos to keep the electronics concealed.

… Rogers and his colleagues have separately demonstrated that they can add other useful features to epidermal electronics. Solar cells could one day power the devices without an external source; meanwhile, signals recorded by the devices could be transmitted to a base station wirelessly with antennas. In the long term, Rogers believes the technology could provide an electronic link to the body’s most subtle processes, including the movement of enzymes and antibodies, to track the path of disease. “Ultimately, we think that [our] efforts can blur the distinction between electronics and biology,” he says.

The implications for health and medicine are profound. But even for more trivial considerations, the possibilities are truly staggering. Computers that “read” your thoughts are already far along in the testing stages. And a true union of mind and machine would surely create a class technology currently unimaginable.

 

Tim Thumb vulnerability

Robert | August 6, 2011 | Security, Wordpress

An exploit that allows remote attackers to take over your Web site has been found in the extremely popular TimThumb photo-resizing script.

The vulnerability allows third parties to upload and execute arbitrary PHP code in the TimThumb cache directory. Once the PHP code has been uploaded and executed, your site can be compromised however the attacker likes.

We recommend deleting timthumb.php or thumb.php if your site will work without them. If the file exists in a theme or plugin that you’re no longer using you may want to remove the entire theme or plugin directory. After you remove the TimThumb library make sure you check that your site is still working correctly.

This is potentially a massive threat because, literally, millions of Web sites use the Tim Thumb script. And every one of them needs to be updated. Help spread the word.

For complete technical details, visit the post detailing the discovery on Mark Maunder’s site.

Host Cambodia

Robert | May 20, 2011 | Uncategorized

After literally years of procrastination, K4 Media has finally migrated servers to Host Cambodia. I have used HC for years, and K4 Media hosts dozens of sites with them, from simple one-pagers to large, database-driven social communities. HC is by far the best hosting company I have ever used — fast servers, superior customer service.