Google Wave
Launching later this year, Google Wave could potentially bring about one of the most significant chanages to the way we communicate online since email.  Yes - it really is big news!!  As Lars Rasumussen (Google Wave developer) put it, “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today.”

If you can find the time (1 hour and 20 mins!), I urge you to watch the video at http://wave.google.com/ and let Google themselves explain it, but essentially Wave is a hybrid communication and collaboration tool, combining email, instant messaging, live chat, wikis, social networking and project management, all in one simple (lets hope so) browser based application.  Head over to the Mashable website for a much more detailed explaination and a summary of all the features.

While it’s not yet live, Google Wave has already been met with a wave (sorry) of enthusiasm from the web community - from designers, developers, users, and industry experts alike.  Let’s hope that when released to the masses (expected to be towards the end of the year) it doesn’t fail to live up to it’s high expectations

Bing
Bing is the new Search Engine from Microsoft, and unlike previous efforts, this one might actually take a slice from the Google pie. So what does the self proclaimed “decision engine” claim to do that’s different from the norm:

• Instant Answers: finds specific answers to informational queries, e.g. “What is 55F in Celsius” offers rich media and structured data and a general search term like “weather” yields a 5-day forecast for your location.
• Preview: enables searchers to find out more information about a site by previewing individual results on the results page to reduce back-and-forth searching.
• Best Match: delivers results with deep links and highly relevant information to help searchers to get the right information faster. 

For webmasters, you can access the Google-like “webmaster tools“, to help better understand how Bing sees your site, and allows you to view stats and submit sitemaps etc.

Early indications are that Bing is being pretty well received by the web search community, although what impact it will have on Google will not be seen for some time yet, but given that they’re reportedly spending $100 million on promoting it, clearly Microsoft are taking this seriously and boast that Bing is just the “first step in a long journey” for their search plans (Qi Lu - Head of Microsoft’s online services).

Wolfram Alpha
It’s own first paragraph explains this new “Computational Knowledge Engine” as “the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone”.  In a nutshell - it claims to provide answers to questions that other search engines (ie: Google) will not provide.

As I test, I used a fairly simple question: “how far is it from Glasgow to London”, and it promptly told me it was 344 miles and showed a nice little map.  Like the examples on their homepage, this is fairly basic stuff, but the simplicity of asking a question in plain English, and receiving one definative answer (instead of the 578,000 results Google gave me) is pretty significant.  To be honest - it’s a different beast to Google altogether, and where it will excel is in “computing” things, not “searching” for websites containing your search terms.

Check out http://www.semanticuniverse.com/blogs-i-was-positively-impressed-wolfram-alpha.html for a good (and suitable geeky) review.

Google Squared
A direct challenger to the Wolfram Alpha site, Google’s been quick to release their own
Unlike typical search, Google Squared extracts data from other web sites, and presents the results as “squares” within what can only be described as an online spreadsheet.  A quick example searching for “Glasgow Web Design” presented me with a nice table of just that - Web Design companies in Glasgow (with NSDesign thankfully within the first page of results!)..

The primary difference between Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha, is that the latter searches only it’s own Databases (currently holding approx 10TB of information), while Google Squared attempts to search the entire data on the web.  How much we’ll all use such a tool on a day to day basis is difficult to predict, but it’s certainly a great start at strcutured searching, with everything is neatly labeled and categorised.
So - Killer Apps, or pleasast distractions from a busy day in the office…?  Time will tell.

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This involves the hacker “injecting” some malicious code into your site (normally on all your “index” pages) in the form of a hidden IFRAME, which then tries to infect any vistors to your website with various viruses and trojans etc.  Often you’ll maybe not even realise your site is hacked until Google detects the compromise, and starts to display the dreaded “this site may harm your computer” message alongside any mentions of your domain, meaning anyone finding your site via Google will most likley keep well away.

Have you been hacked?

Use this online tool to detect if you’ve fallen victim to an iframe hack:
http://www.unmaskparasites.com/
(note that it’s not a definitive check, but a great starting point).

How did I get hacked?

In most cases, the hacker has simply obtained your FTP login details, and is freely adding the extra code to your pages at will.  FTP details are illegally obtained in a variety of ways, but it’s understood that the sudden increase of these attacks has been caused mainly by the your own PC being infected by one or more trojan viruses, which simply lifts all the FTP details straight out your FTP application of choice, giving them immediate access to your site(s).

How do I fix my site?

The first thing you should do is change your FTP password.  You can do this via your hosting control panel.  Ensure it’s a “strong” password using a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols, and use a mix of lower and uppercase.  Next you should upload a “clean” backup of your site to the server (if you do not have a backup - ask us to help - and review your own backup policy immediately!), overwriting all your files.  Finally, make sure that you do NOT store your FTP details anywhere on your computer - especially not inside any FTP applications (such as CuteFTP, Filezilla etc) or Website Editors or Content Management Systems (such as Dreamweaver etc).  Ensure that any time you connect to your website using FTP or via Cpanel, that you manually type the password each time - do not use anything that connects automatically.

Increase your security

Once you’ve fixed the site, you’ll want to ensure that your own computer(s) is clean, and not at further risk to trojan viruses or keyloggers etc.  Ensure both your anti-virus software, and your firewall software is up to date (if you haven’t got such software installed, do it immediately), and run full system scans regularly.

We also recommend that you enhance your computer’s security by Downloading and Installing Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - a nice (free) utility that from experience we know finds some trojan viruses and other nasties that certain other anti-virus programs miss.
Get it from: http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html 
Launch, and Update the product, then run a “quick scan”, and allow it to fully remove any trojans etc that it finds.  Once completed, consider a full scan on your system which will take longer.

If you think you’ve been hacked, and want any further help, contact us via the normal support channels.  Do not ignore it!! 

Links to similar articles/discussions on this type of hack

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=901622
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=12422
http://blog.unmaskparasites.com/2009/04/15/malicious-income-iframes-from-cn-domains/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3486931.htm
http://blog.unmaskparasites.com/2009/04/29/another-type-of-iframe-hack-php-exploit/
http://blog.trendmicro.com/another-malware-pulls-an-italian-job/

Other good resources and advice on improving security

http://stopbadware.org/home/security
http://onmycomp.com/onmywordpress-7th-wordpress-security-scan

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Many of the sites which were registered in the days following her appearance on the show are branded “fan sites”, but call me cynical – I’m sure they’ll also be fully aware of the potential value such a high profile celebrity name brings with it.  With YouTube now at over 50 MILLION views for the Susan Boyle Clip, it’s easy to see how getting just a small percentage of the current Google searches to your site could bring in some financial gain, not to mention the possibility of Susan herself wanting to buy it from them.

On the 17th April, I emailed Talkback Thames (the production company responsible for Susan’s current fame), and explained:

“…surely you have a responsibility to Susan, to help protect her best interests, and with the knowledge that she was likely to become the subject of media interest (given the show is pre-recorded), I find it difficult to understand why you (acting on her behalf) did not takle measures to ensure the relevant domain names were secured in advance of such public exposure, and therefore protecting her online identity for the future.”
 
I did received a response, claiming that they “already have domain names secured for them (they are just not active yet)”, however I’ve still to find the domains they are referring to, and in a news article released just 1 week after this, Susan herself is reported to have confirmed she doesn’t actually have an official website.

The issue of celebrity cybersquatting is nothing new, and I use Susan Boyle as a very current example, however, I could easily substitute any “reality TV star” from Britain’s got Talent, or X Factor etc.  The same thing happens every year with Big Brother - the contestant’s names are registered as domain names often within minutes of them being announced on the first live show.  We know - we’ve seen the orders!

So whether you’re destined to be the next overnight global success or not, make sure that you understand the value in your own name, and take steps to protect it online by registering your domain name(s),  or risk exploitation by all your adoring “fans”.

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With the emergence of devices like the iphone and Blackberry which use direct user manipulation with the screen, this has allowed screen sizes to be maximised, allowing users to see a lot more data. This is a big advantage for designers. The way in which people appear to be using the mobile web seems to be based very much more on practical functionality, communication, and accessing data/carrying out tasks quickly on the move. In this respect and with the challenge of designing for a smaller screen, its clear that mobile interfaces must be designed with content and usability at the forefront, whilst still conveying a companies branding and image successfully. Some mobile sites which demonstrate successful examples of this stripped down design, content focused approach are Amazon and Twitter.

The interface possibilities associated with phones also open new opportunities for designing the best user experience. Built in features like touchscreen, the mobile keypad, accelerator keys, the iphones motion detection and even vibrate could be used to maximise the efficiency of accessing mobile data. The type of sites that have proved most popular among web users support this idea of a more functionality and content focused web. News, weather and sports sites, email, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and of course search engines all rank very highly.

The statistics for mobile use in Britain are also interesting with Britain making up 20% of worldwide mobile web usage, second only to America. The number of mobile internet users grew from 5.8 million to 7.3 million is the third quarter of 2008 according to research from Neilson Online, meaning the mobile web is growing 8 times faster than desktop. The result of this rapid increase in mobile web usage has taken many businesses by surprise and are unaware that a large amount of their potential market are now surfing the web via mobile. In 2009 I think that many companies will start to see the advantage of having a mobile version of their site - not as a replacement but as a peripheral part of their overall brand strategy, allowing them to maximise their exposure to their markets.

As mentioned, social networking and the ability to update accounts like Twitter, Facebook and blogs, on the move and improve communication plays a big part in the mobile web and web in general. At a seminar we attended last week, one of the speakers Joe Hughes from Yomego suggested the theory that in the future social networking will take a more focuses approach where users in certain communities will have their own social networking and communication sites to discuss their interests, hence allowing advertisers to be more focuses aswell. Whether or not this happens to the extent he suggested is debatable, but the web definitely looks set to continue to embrace this social and community aspect of communication and generating content and the role the mobile web plays in this will continue to increase.

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Sounds a perfectly good thing to do, and what harm can it possible cause?  In actual fact – a LOT of harm, to you and any other people hosted on the same server as you!

Lets say your name is dave, and you have the domain poundshop.com.  You setup an email forwarder for dave@poundshop.com to forward to your dave1296@hotmail.com, and all your email arrives very conveniently for you at Hotmail for you to read, and process in the normal way.

But ANYTHING sent to dave@poundshop.com is forwarded on – including all the spam that you’ve been getting lately.  This causes 2 main problems:

1) Some ISPs (such as Hotmail and AOL) don’t recognise the true source of the spam, seeing it as originating from the last “hop” in the delivery route – ie: your poundshop.com domain, and our server.

2) Some ISPs have spam filters in place based on the volume of incoming email, and if you suddenly get a lot of spam email, or – more likely – a lot of “bounced emails” caused by someone spoofing your dave@poundshop.com address, then there’s the potential for a serious volume of email to all be forwarded onto your chosen destination. 

Both scenarios above have the same result – YOU are seen as the spammer, and as a result – the reputation of your domain, and the entire server (with all the other customers hosted on it) is decreased, leading to increased risk of your email being considered spam, or worst case scenario – being totally blacklisted by an ISP or major blacklist provider.

The situation increases exponentially when you setup “catch-all” email forwarding, when EVERYTHING@poundshop.com is forwarded on.  Imagine a spam attack where the spammer sends literally millions of emails to any_word_or_phrase@poundshop.com – all of which are forwarded on, and all of which result in you “spamming” yourself. 

Our advice – NEVER use catch-all email forwarding (in fact never use catch-all email full stop), and only consider email forwarding of any sort if you 100% really have to.  Personally I cannot see any valid reason for needing to forward email.  Some people say that forwarding to Hotmail is convenient as it allows them to pickup their mail from anywhere.  These people don’t realise we provide a perfectly good webmail system to do just that.  Others say it allows them to collect all their various emails into one handy account, and therefore not login to multiple email boxes – this is fine – but forward them all to an address on your domain – NOT an external one.

Many web hosts are now banning email forwarding, removing the capability all together.  And the result for these hosts is a serious decrease in spam complaints against their servers.  We’re not planning on removing email forwarding just yet, but in the long run, it might be inevitable for anyone running a mailserver to come to the conclusion that forwarding email externally is just too much trouble, and the benefits to everyone by turning it off, far outweigh any benefits of having this so called “feature”.

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Much of the work we were involved in was focussed around the use of IT (and later the web) to Architecture and the Built Environment, and Abacus developed what was at the time one of the biggest 3D city models – 25 square kilometres of Glasgow City Centre.

In 1998, I was challenged with the task of making the model available online, and using new and exciting visualisation technologies such as VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) and QTVR (Quick Time Virtual Reality) – carried out a prolonged R+D period which resulted in a system we called “The Glasgow Directory”.

In short – An interactive Map/3D Model which accurately gave a true reflection of the real city with layers of data accessed on request. Our urban information system allowed web-based users to explore and “walk around” the virtual Glasgow model, highlighting areas of interest such as key city landmarks, tourist resources and more, with fancy 360 degree panoramic views of selected street-scapes… this sounding at all familiar yet?

When the Glasgow Directory was launched, it was very well received within the web research world, particularly those working in the field of VRML and city visualisation. As a result, I was fortunate enough to present a number of academic papers at various locations across Europe, highlighting our innovative system, and explaining our ideas to take it further in the future. Anyone know if Larry Page or Sergey Brin visited around that time?..

Ok – being serious – I don’t actually think that Google based their Google Maps (and more recently – Google Street View) on the VRML Glasgow Directory, but in retrospect, some of the similarities are astounding….

Above… George Square and the City Chambers… both systems have the ability to explore the “virtual space”, identify the street names, buildings of interest etc…

 Glasgow Catherdral from the roadside….  left is the VRML Glasgow Directory, right is Google StreetView

  Using the Map as an information system, searching for a good Bar in the Merchant City - in this case Bar 91

Unfortunately, much of the original source for the Glasgow Directory is now lost. Regrettably this includes a lot of the later research and development including embedding realtime audio, location specific navigation feedback (VERY similar in nature to Google Maps on the iPhone with GPS) and multi-user “avatar” based interactions.

Some links to material and examples that I did manage to dig up:

Working Glasgow Directory (kind of) – requires a VRML client such as the Cortona Plugin

Research Stuff:
Inside The Map - Academic Paper written by myself for a Cartography Conference
Visit VR Glasgow  - Academic Paper written by Myself and Prof. Tom Maver

So Google.. if you’re reading this… own up – was it me that invented Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Street View? I’ll assume that I did until I hear back from you. In the meantime, I’m off to dig out that primitive working example of an online video sharing site that I remember showing to some Paypal employees back in 2001…

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- The inability to alter kerning of the characters.

- Flash has often been criticised for its poor anti-aliasing and this can sometimes show on the rendered text.

- Sifr can be tricky to setup and get working correctly.

- Sifr fonts cannot be scaled when you change the size of font in the browser. It only changes when the page is reloaded. Some consider this quite a serious usability problem, though because Sifr is mostly used on headers and large areas of text that probably wont require scaling, this is debatable.

- It requires the user to have Flash though nowadays almost 95% of web users have this.

A convincing alternative to Sifr which I came across recently is Cufon developed by Simo Kinnunen . The aim of Cufon was to achieve the same effect as Sifr without the need for additional software. Some specific requirements were set out when it was being developed. These were:

- No plug-ins required - The font should be able to be displayed without flash and using only the users standard browser. Cufon uses javascript to render the font.

- Compatibility – It had to work on all browsers. This has been achieved with Cufon displaying correctly on IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox and Safari.

- Ease of use – configuration and setup for Cufon is minimal compared to Sifr.

- Cufon loads faster than Sifr with no flickering, even for larger areas of type.

Cufon works as an interface to Fontforge so it creates an SVG font based on the source font, converts it to VML(as IE only supports this), then is rendered using an engine written in javascript. The rendering engine outputs two versions of the font, one in VML shapes and one using the new HTML5 canvas tag. The font can be loaded into the file easily using the normal <script> tag. The font compresses well also for a minimal file size. The advantages are convincing, however little study has yet been done on accessibility of Cufon and scaling etc yet. Also until the issue of distributing copyrighted fonts is resolved it could be a while till custom fonts become common practice.

http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/

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Deciding to work for free for one day only in December 2008 proved to be one of the most controversial decisions we had taken at NSDesign for a long time!

In one fell swoop we managed to upset the Design Business Association (DBA), were the subject of a two week forum thread in Design Week, and gained several column inches in the process.

We were accused by the DBA of de-valuing the work we do on a daily basis in the e-commerce, digital and design field. Was it genuine concern for our industry or complete over-reaction? I know which side of the fence I am standing on, and from the majority of online comments from others in this game, it appears I’m not alone.

I think that rather than taking away from the work we do, we actually opened up our service to a much wider audience who now realise a lot more the true value of our work and what it can add to businesses.

We did not intentionally set out to upset anyone or diminish the service that our industry provides. Nor did we intend it to be seen as a sinister or cynical stunt or ploy. It was simply a light-hearted idea, aimed at helping other SME’s and raising our own profile.

The idea (first suggested by our Head Developer Martin Sarsini) was to spread a little festive cheer helping out companies who were maybe struggling with the credit crunch or who were just looking for some advice on how to improve their web offerings.

The debate which raged in the weeks after the announcement initially took us by surprise, however I stand by the decision and am happy to announce that in just one day we helped out over 30 individuals and organisations (a few of which were existing clients) and had a seriously good time doing so.  

In this industry a lot of the work we get depends on pitching to potential new clients and showing them what can be achieved. If you look at what we did on the 19th December you could say it was simply a day of showcasing our work to prospective customers – no different to what we do an a regular basis, albeit highly focused into one day of this and nothing else!

The actual range of work carried out was pretty varied, with us doing everything from adding some festive sparkle (custom graphics and backgrounds of a Christmas nature) to a handful of websites, to general “spam advice” and consultancy on bulk-emailing and ensuring legal compliance with regard email communications.

In addition we conducted a number of site reviews, providing recommendations on improving design, usability and SEO, designed new logo concepts for a mobile-disco operator and online video production company, and setup a blog for a Cricket Club!
 
We also helped out several more companies with their various queries and not once did any of our team feel we were selling ourselves, the company, or the industry short. What we did feel was that we were opening up many new potential business opportunities for ourselves.

We may not benefit from any immediate “paid work” as a result of the efforts we went to, but those companies we helped out will certainly have us at the forefront of their minds when they do need the services we provide.

In this current economic climate small companies like ourselves need to be more flexible and creative and stand out from the crowd more than ever before, and I for one will do everything within my power to ensure that NSDesign continues to be the success it has been in the last few years.

2009 sees a decade in business for us and we are aiming to build on the strong foundations we have developed over the last ten years which culminated in us winning the “Outstanding Performing Business with less than 25 Full time Employees” - ROCCO Business Award.

There are many challenges for us (and indeed all design companies) in the year to come but no matter how tough a year it is, when Christmas is approaching next year, I would not hesitate to offer another “work for free” day - and unlike the DBA, do not expect our industry will crumble as a result!!
 

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The focus of the talk was on the highs and lows of setting up and running your own business, drawing on experiences and “lessons learned” since founding NSDesign over 10 years ago.

All in all - a really good afternoon, for me, and also (from the great feedback) for the students also..  always inspiring to see them asking some good questions, many of them tied to the current economic issues we’re all facing today.  And of course - always nice when a few of them ask for jobs!

So thanks to everyone who attended, and for the many that have since follwed me on twitter.

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Teaming up with the Scottish Rocks Basketball team, we invited over 100 customers to the game against Cheshire Jets, enjoyed a load of on-court shenanigans, before opening up the bar with free food and drink to all..  In summary - a seriously good night.

We started the night (before the game) with our 5 competition finalists taking the court to attempt a free throw.  From the five, one made it, so congrats to Robert Scott who won an iPod:

We then picked Martyn Robertson at random, who won the chance to shoot for a brand new car…  Something we’d been promoting for the past few months, and given us a lot of publicity…  So did he make it?..  Check out this Youtube video for a full summary of all the shots!!

The Game itself wasn’t the best, and the Rocks ended up losing, but as with any Basketball game at Kelvin Hall, the excitement, cheerleaders, and genral fun and games kept everyone enjoyed until it was time to hit the bar…

After the game it was up to the “Kelvin Suite” (a very posh name for the wee bar up the stairs from the court), and everyone enjoyed some free food, drink, and birthday cake (both of them!)…  It was also our opportunity to say a few thanks for clients, like Simon Howarth - our very first customer back in Feb 99, to staff, and to everybody connected to NSDesign over the 10 years…  You can view my “Thank You” speech on You Tube.

All in all… a seriously good night, and one that marks a very special decade of NSDesign.  Here’s to the next 10!!

Check out more of the party photos at Facebook

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