XC Media Design Articles

15 Things Not To Do When Building Your Website

Jae Bradburd — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:08:13 +0000

We recently ran across a fantastic article by Corey Eridon written for Hubspot Blog. The article is a dead on, to the point tutorial on what NOT TO DO on your website when building it. Take a read below and let us know what you think by leaving a comment!

One of the tenets of inbound marketing is not to annoy. So why is it that many websites are still chock full of the elements that so many visitors have bemoaned over and over? Perhaps with the sheer excitement (or terror, depending on your personality) that comes with designing your own website, all of the user experience quirks that have driven you crazy over the years escape your mind. But poor user experience can cause high page abandonment rates, low visitor-to-lead conversion rates, poor organic search listing positions, and a plain ol’ bad reputation. So we compiled a list of the 15 most annoying things we’ve seen on websites to act as a sort of guide for what not to do when designing your website. Take a look at the worst offenders!

15 Things People Hate About Your Website

1 – Pop-Up Ads

Let’s get the most obvious one out of the way. Pop-ups are seriously annoying. Yes, a pop-up could get you a few new email subscribers, but is that really worth all the traffic you lose when visitors abandon your site in annoyance? Convert site visitors into leads with well-written content and compelling CTAs/offers, not interruptive gimmicks.

2 – Automatically Playing Multimedia Content When a Page Loads

Shhhh! I wasn’t supposed to be on this site at work! If someone’s enjoying what they thought was a silent browsing session and they’re bombarded with your theme song or a talking head on a video for which they didn’t press “play” and can’t find the button for “stop,” what do you think they’re going to do? Some might fumble for their mute button, but I can more easily locate the back button in my browser than my computer’s volume controls. Let visitors choose to play your multimedia content; don’t force it on them.

3 – Disorienting Animations

You’re probably familiar with the blink test by now — the 3 seconds users have to orient themselves on any given web page before they click ‘back’ in their browser. Animations, auto-play videos, blinking and flashing paid advertisements, and other interactive entertainment may seem really cool (I’m sure it’s very well designed!) but it detracts from a visitor’s focus during those critical 3 seconds. Nix the animations, and let visitors focus on what they can do on that page with clearly written headlines and explanatory copy.

4 – Generic Stock Photography

You’ve heard using images is great for your inbound marketing, so you go browsing and find this gem for your website:

Are we supposed to believe they work at your company? And are they always that delighted to collaborate over a piece of notebook paper? Show pictures of customers, real people that work at your company, your product, and your location. Or if you’re particularly design savvy, create visuals yourself that directly relate to what you do. Images are helpful if they clarify something for a visitor — generic stock photography doesn’t help visitors, so by extension, it doesn’t help you.

5 – Including a ‘Contact Us’ Form in Lieu of Contact Information

A ‘Contact Us’ form may seem like an easy way to generate an opt-in email list, but it’s really the least valuable form of lead generation for you and your site visitors. It’s terribly generic, and doesn’t indicate the contact actually wants to receive ongoing communications from you — it’s more likely they have a one-time problem or request that needs to be addressed.

So let’s say they do in fact have a one-time request. There’s nothing wrong with having a “Contact Us” module on your site; but it should never be the only means of communication between you and your customers. If your visitor or customer needs help, they want it now. They don’t want to fill out a form and wait to see when, if ever, they get a response. Let people get in touch with you via email, the phone, and social media, and make that information available on your website.

6 – Unintelligible ‘About Us’ Page

Does your ‘About Us’ page explain what you do in business babble, or using the words and phrases common to the general population? Let’s play a translation game using HubSpot’s ‘About Us’ page copy. Would you know what we did if our ‘About Us’ page said this (thankfully, it doesn’t)?

“HubSpot assists organizations across multiple countries reduce churn by backfilling the sales pipeline with highly qualified traffic that generates leads that convert into customers with high lifetime value. We achieve this through leading-edge software that integrates all marketing channels for a synergistic view of the data that determines and prioritizes the high-value marketing activities.”

What? Let’s translate that into the way people actually speak!

“HubSpot all-in-one marketing software helps more than 6,000 companies in 45 countries attract leads and convert them into customers. A pioneer in inbound marketing, HubSpot aims to help its customers make marketing that people can actually love.”

Got it, we make marketing software that helps you get leads and customers. Do a business babble check on your ‘About Us’ page to make sure you’re speaking in a language non-experts can understand. I recommend running it by a few friends and family members that don’t work in your industry for the best results.

7 – SEO-Driven Copy

Remember back in the early 2000s when you went to a website and saw paragraphs and paragraphs of copy? Aside from being visually overwhelming, if you read that copy you’d find nothing more than a bunch of keyword-dense copy meant for crawlers, not humans. Unfortunately, some websites are still writing for bots, even though Google’s algorithm is far more sophisticated at determining a page’s relevancy than it was 10 years ago. In fact, now Google will ding you for these types of activities! There’s a difference between search engine optimized content and over-optimized content. Don’t write for crawlers; write for humans.

8 – Not Including Social Sharing Buttons on Your Content

If you’re writing for humans, you probably have some really interesting content on your site. Content that people want to share on social media, perhaps. That’s why it’s a huge disappointment to scroll up and down looking for a “Tweet This!” button, only to realize there aren’t any social sharing buttons on your website! These buttons make social sharing easy for your readers — they don’t have to copy and paste your URL, shorten it, and compose a tweet. And easy social sharing options means your content gets more visibility, which means more site traffic, better search engine rankings, and more lead generation opportunities.

9 – You Don’t Have a Blog

Perhaps I’m biased, but visiting a website without a blog is a turn off. Visitors want to learn about you, and in today’s world where consumers are performing in-depth company research on their own before ever contacting a sales person, an ‘About Us’ page isn’t enough to tell the full story. Think of it like this — the ‘About Us’ page is like your personality at a job interview, and your blog is your personality after a few drinks. After reading through a sample of blog posts over a long span of time, visitors have a much better understanding of who you are (awesome), who works at your company, what you believe, and how you’ve grown over time.

10 – Titles and Content are Incongruous

If you’re an avid content creator, you know how important a well-crafted title is. Great titles are what cause people to click through in their RSS, emails, and search engines to read what you have written. But if they’re met with content that’s unrelated to the title you provided, you’ll disappoint visitors — and they’ll abandon your site. While it’s important to capture peoples’ attention in titles, make sure it isn’t misleading and your content can actually live up to what you promised you’d deliver.

11 – Your Call-to-Action Copy Doesn’t Align With the Offer

Along the same lines, your call-to-action should align with what visitors receive when they redeem your offer. There’s nothing more frustrating than being promised a 50% off coupon in the call-to-action copy, only to redeem it and find there’s a caveat that says you must first spend $1,000. On select items. In-store purchases only. This is not only insulting to your visitors, but it will also kill your reputation and the conversion rates of your calls-to-action and landing pages.

12 – Your Internal Linking Isn’t User-Friendly

When done correctly, internal links are helpful for readers and website alike. They point readers to other relevant information, and help you improve the organic ranking for important pages on your own website. But some websites seem to have trouble executing internal linking correctly, pointing users to irrelevant pages, linking strange phrases within the copy, and overdoing it to the point of making content unreadable.

Include internal links only to relevant pages on your website that will enhance a reader’s experience, and include that link on the anchor text that makes the most sense. Recognize that sometimes, the link that makes the most sense isn’t keyword-optimized anchor text, either, like in this example from yesterday morning’s blog post.

internal linking

I thought about a way to rephrase the last sentence so the anchor text could be keyword optimized, but in the end, the “reference this ebook” text, while technically against SEO best practices, was the most user-friendly option.

(Tip: Be sure to have all links open into a new tab in your browser, not the same window. Visitors may not be done reading the content on this page, and you don’t want to navigate them away while they’re still reading!)

13 – Sliders That Take Forever, and Ever, to Load

Sliders are a great way to showcase multiple images in a space-efficient manner (just check out our current homepage, for example). But there’s a right way and a wrong way to use them. If your slider loads images quickly and doesn’t require a new page to load every time a user clicks, congratulations! Your slider is not annoying. But the web is filled with sliders that, every time you click the arrow for the next image, load an entirely new web page. That can take visitors from a 0 second load time to 1, 2, 5, or more seconds as the entire webpage reloads!

(Tip: If you’re using a slider in a list post, accompany the visual elements with written copy above or below the slider. Many readers are scanners, and won’t invest the time to click through every image in the slider.) 14 – Using Flash

Many designers use Flash on clients’ websites, and it’s enough to make a search marketer cringe along with the site visitors. The problem with Flash is not in its limitations; I’ve seen some stunning websites created with Flash! But search engines can’t read it, so your site won’t get indexed. And another problem? Visitors are often looking for a very specific piece of information when visiting your site — if they have to wait for a 10-second visual introduction to unfold on the screen before they can find your hours of operation, you’re going to have an angry customer (or would-be customer, depending on their level of patience). 15 – The Worst Offender: I Don’t Know What to Do.

This is the worst offender in my opinion — when someone lands on your site, do they know what to do? Alright, maybe they don’t like your stock photos, or perhaps they see a ‘Contact Us’ form that grinds their gears. But visitors may be able to look past those things if they can immediately see what your website does, what the value of that is, and what they should do next. Include clear headline copy, jargonless page copy that explains the value of what you do, and one clear primary call-to-action per page that shows visitors how to take the next steps — whether that’s subscribing to your blog, getting a free trial, watching a video, or any other action you hope visitors will perform on your site.

What website components drive you nuts? Share them in the comments!

Image credit: CyboRoZ

To view the full article, please click here.

Top Apple exec: Instagram has ‘jumped the shark’

Jae Bradburd — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:50:36 +0000

The $1 billion photo-sharing app Instagram — once named “app of the year” by Apple — has now “jumped the shark,” according to Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller.

And not only is Schiller trashing the service (in a brief message to Apple enthusiast Clayton Braasch), he has also deleted his Instagram account (@schiller) entirely (much like some thousands of other users.)

What got Schiller so upset? Not the billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook, apparently. “It ‘jumped the shark’ when it went to Android,” was all the Apple executive wrote to Braasch Thursday.

Instagram launched its Android version earlier this month. In the first five days, the Android app saw five million users sign up. That’s not huge compared to the 30 million iPhone users, but the rate of growth was stunning — and strongly contributed to Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to offer Kevin Systrom $1 billion for the app.

What’s the appeal of Instagram?

Three reasons Facebook bought Instagram

Possible signs of a tech bubble

3 things you didn’t know about Instagram

What exactly Schiller meant is unclear. How can five million new users on a slightly different platform make an app “jump the shark”? Many iPhone Instagram users have seen their follower counts swell, but it’s hard to see what’s wrong with that.

You wouldn’t be hard pressed to see further evidence that the “nuclear war” Steve Jobs vowed to wage against Android is being continued by his successors at Apple.

If a favored iOS app launching on Android is enough to earn a rebuke from a top Apple executive, that may serve as a warning to other app makers who are currently on iOS alone.

Remember, Apple is a company where practically every executive comment is a calculated one. (Naturally, we’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will let you know if we hear back.)

But it’s got to be galling for Instagram. Just four months ago, Schiller was congratulating them on his Twitter feed, where he also plugged his own Instagram account:

@pschiller: Congrats to @foofighters @instagram and all the iTunes Rewind 2011 winners! (btw: @schiller on Instagram ;->)

Follow that account link now, and all you’ll see is an Instagram error page.

You could well argue that with Zuckerberg’s backing and $1 billion in the bank, Systrom et al have no more need for Apple’s patronage. But the majority of Instagram’s users are still on the iPhone, and the iPhone’s handlers apparently just turned hostile.

Update: Braasch reached out to Schiller for clarification, and got the following via email:

Instagram is a great app and community. That hasn’t changed. But one of the things I really liked about Instagram was that it was a small community of early adopters sharing their photographs.

Now that it has grow [sic] much larger the signal to noise ratio is different. That isn’t necessarily good or bad, it’s just not what I originally had fun with.

What do you make of Schiller’s comments? Can Instagram patch things up? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

See the original article on Mashable.com

Facebook clarifies changes to its terms of use

Jae Bradburd — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:43:02 +0000

Facebook unveiled changes to its terms-of-use document on Friday, tweaking earlier drafts in an apparent effort to ease users’ concerns about privacy and how their information is used.

The proposed changes to the networking giant’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities come after the plan was opened up for user comments last month, and just weeks before Facebook is expected to go public in a stock offering some expect could value the company at $100 billion.

Front and center in the announcement was an effort to explain that the way Facebook collects and shares data is not being changed.

“Some of our users and a number of journalists mistook the proposed update to our SRR for changes to the way we collect or use data,” Facebook said in a post on the site. “Our Data Use Policy (which used to be called our privacy policy) governs how we collect and use data. We are not proposing any updates to that document at this time.”

Little has slowed Facebook’s ascent to the top of the social-media world. What began as a dorm-room project for Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard classmates grew into a phenomenon that has amassed more than 800 million active users.

But if Facebook has had an Achilles heel, it’s been concerns about how user data is used.

Because it’s a free service, Facebook depends on targeted advertising and a cut of the micro-payments users make in games and other apps running on the site. Users’ activity on the site is used to paint a picture of them, and shared by Facebook to help those advertisers pick their targets.

Web privacy advocates, including some government officials in the United States and elsewhere, have repeatedly expressed unease with the sheer amount of data Facebook possesses about its users and how that data may be used.

It’s obvious that the company wants to tamp down user concerns about that in advance of its arrival on Wall Street. In its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the word “privacy” was used 35 times.

That document, which is required for companies filing to go public, was obviously largely positive about Facebook’s upside. But when required to acknowledge potential downsides, Facebook wrote that if users ever widely became concerned about their privacy and use of their data, they could lose some of them.

Facebook writes that it must avoid adopting “policies or procedures related to areas such as sharing or user data that are perceived negatively by our users or the general public.”

In a set of bulleted posts Friday, Facebook outlined the tweaks it has made in response to user feedback and explained items it says raised concerns.

– In a change first noted last month, the document now uses the term “Data Use Policy” instead of “Privacy Policy.” Facebook says this reflects a change that was made last year because they “believe the name is more descriptive of the information the document provides.”

– Language that said “you or other that can see your content and information” was removed for a different definition of how and when apps can access data about your friends. It adds links to more information and how users can control that.

– Facebook also clarified language saying that people should not “tag users if you know they do not wish to be tagged” in photos. That passage doesn’t change how tagging works, but is merely meant to be a guideline, the company said.

– The changes remove a line saying that Facebook reserves the right to deny or limit access to users outside the United States. The site says that line was unclear and meant to reflect places where services are legally unavailable, or places where Facebook is banned.

The document also included a not-so-subtle swipe at one of Facebook’s chief competitors.

“Unlike other Internet companies, we propose updates to our SRR and give our users an opportunity to comment before they go into effect,” Friday’s announcement said.” Your insights and perspectives are really valuable to us, enabling us to respond to your questions and make substantive changes to address your concerns before changes are implemented.”

Earlier this year, Google (which has launched social platform Google+ as a Facebook rival) rolled out significant changes to its privacy policy. While Google went out of its way to publicize the changes to users, feedback was not as aggressively sought and did not appear, at least publicly, to lead to any major changes.

Facebook users can comment on the latest round of proposed changes until April 27, the post said. Written by Doug Gross for CNN.com

New Paypal Scam (TUTORIAL!)

Jae Bradburd — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:00:47 +0000

Some people are getting the following email. STAY AWARE FRIENDS!

To update your billing Paypal records please proceed to our secure webform by update your billing Here.
Thank you for your time, PayPal® Billing Department.

The email look like it has has been sent by Paypal. But when I visited the site using the link in the email to update my banking information on the very first look I understood that this is just another scam.

After visiting the site I checked back the email and checked the email address of the sender and found that it has been sent from service@intl.piypal.com instead of the regular service@intl.paypal.com which is used by Paypal to email its customers.

The website looks like a regular Paypal website but the [verifie-payp---erv.zapto.org] which is the hackers phishing site. (removed few letters from the link, you can check the actual link in the image below)

I entered a test email and a test password to the site and it took me to a page asking me to update my banking information including my credit card details.

If you get this email then please mark this email as spam. Always remember one thing no matter what never give away your personal or your bank details and credit card details just because you received an email asking you to do so. Even if its a genuine email, please verify once as to why they need your details.

Always stay safe online and share this article to increase awareness.

Facebook strips ‘privacy’ from new ‘data use’ policy explainer

Jae Bradburd — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:13:44 +0000

Fantastic little write up by Laurie Segall for CNN Money Talk.

A Facebook data policy document intended to make the site’s methods more transparent is instead kicking up a fresh firestorm.

Facebook made a significant but little-noticed change to its privacy policy on Sept. 23, wiping out the word “privacy” and rebranding it as a “data use” policy. Late last week, Facebook posted a draft version of its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” governance document — an explainer meant to guide users through Facebook’s policies — reflecting the changes. It gave users seven days to weigh in on the draft.

Facebook casts the revisions to its policy documents as a non-event. It says the actual changes to its privacy policy happened six months ago, and that the current updates are simply intended to clarify them.

That clarity is freaking some members out. Many responded on Facebook’s comment page with a wholesale rejection of the new terms. On the German-language version of the proposal, more than 32,000 Facebook members issued the same one-sentence protest: “Ich lehne die Änderungen ab.”

That roughly translates to: “I reject the changes.”

The provision drawing the most heat from commenters is a line describing what data applications can grab.

Facebook’s current policy says: “When you use an application, your content and information is shared with the application.” Its proposed revision amends that line to: “When you or others who can see your content and information use an application, your content and information is shared with the application.”

The idea that apps your friends install can access your information disturbed many of Facebook’s commenters. As one put it: “Strongly disagree — why should I be dragged into apps my friends are involved with?”

You already are. Facebook’s current terms allow apps to tap into all of the information that the app’s users have access to, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told CNNMoney.

The policy revision is intended to make that reality clearer to Facebook’s users, he said. Those who want keep apps from sucking in their data can set granular controls on their “privacy settings” page on Facebook.

Facebook likes to emphasize the rule’s benign intent. For example, an app called Gogobot uses Facebook check-in data that your friends have shared with you to map out where those you know have been. The feature is intended to help you find savvy locals to tap for travel advice.

But the changes have some users edgy about just how widely their personal information can be shared — and about Facebook’s incentives to push those boundaries.

“This is a significant acknowledgement that Facebook is focused on data collection, data storage and data sales, because that’s where they make their money,” says Sarah Downey, a privacy analyst at security software company Abine. “They’re more accurately describing what they do.”

Some of Facebook’s other changes to the policy — which was last updated almost a year ago — accommodate its new features. For example, the word “profile” is now often replaced with “Timeline,” Facebook’s latest update to its profile pages.

The new statement also reflects the features Facebook has shut down. For example, language referring to Facebook Deals has been deleted, since Facebook scratched the deal program in August.

Another new provision makes it clear that Facebook can, in its sole discretion, disable some of its features for users in certain geographical areas. The change comes as Facebook and its social-networking peers grapple with heavy legal restrictions on their services in some countries.

Facebook hasn’t set a date for when its revised policy will take effect. The company says it needs to sort through users’ comments and concerns before finalizing the wording.

Please click here to view the original article

The New iPad Buying Adventure (UPDATED!)

Jae Bradburd — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:27:42 +0000

March 16th, 2012 rolled in just like any other day at exactly 12:00 AM E.S.T. Only difference was that this early morning included the launch of “The New iPad” aka “The iPad 3″. Most of us tech. people we gearing our selves to the lines at the local Apple stores, just as we have for many other products from Apple. Just one catch… Apple allowed many other venders to sell the The New iPad without advertising it, even some as early as 12:00 AM on the dot!

So, around 3 AM, I was eating a late night snack when the iPhone buzzed. A text from a good friend out in L.A. had arrived. “Is your Walmart 24/7?” it read. “Yep!”, I replied. “iPads are on sale right now… GO!” it rang in response. “HMMMM”, I thought to myself. No way in hell is it still available. As the techy I am, along with a push from 3000 thousand miles away, I got into the cold Acura RL and drove the 10 minutes down the road to my local Walmart.

I walk in to an empty store besides a cashier who had no idea what an iPad even was. There were signs stating DNI (Do Not Inventory) over both Apple product displays and as I stated, the cashier had zero clue what I was talking about. As Chris left to go find the Manager on duty. Once they came back, I was informed that they had sold a total of 59 in about 10 minutes. He then asked what GB I was looking for and color. I informed the Manager that the color did not matter and 16 GB was sufficient. “Your in luck then”, I was told with a smile. “We got one left”. In shock I actually would be able to play with a new toy before even the pre-order iPad customers could (remember my friend in LA?), I paid… and ran to the car.

Enough with the journey… Now to the iPad
My first impression of the device is that it is about the same weight. My iPad 2 is a 32 GB so I assumed the 16 would be possibly a bit lighter. Not so much. Next, the display is VERY GOOD! I refuse to get into techy numbers, wording, etc. in my articles of buying experiences. All I will say is that for the average user, the iPad 2 is good, with a great display. The New iPad’s display is for the true mobile designer, artist, and media junky! It can not be beat! The camera well is a good bit larger the the iPad 2 and the software to run the new camera is completely different. Also, The New iPad’s a little thicker. I was told this is from a battery that is 70% larger but I assume it is a combo of both that and the fact the new display is present.

Final Thoughts
The New iPad is worth every penny. Its sleek, fast, and completely protable. This time around, it has enough power to supply even us Web and Graphic Developers. Apple has shifted from a great iPad 2 to a very complete and work savvy iPad. I recommend The New iPad nd the iPad 2 at its new, very affordable prices to anyone! Personally, I never saw myself being an Apple, never mind iPad loyalist until I used one. Truthfully, their isnt a product like it and chances are, there never will be.

UPDATE!5/23/2012 @ 7:00 PM EST

As I stated above, the new iPad is great! Its everything you could want in a portable device. My experience did come to a screaming halt about 3 days after getting it though. I was using the famous Facebook App which has a pure white background. This background showed what looked like scratches! I freaked! How in the hell did I scratch my iPad already!?!?! Well, I didnt! At closer examination, I could see what appeared to be hairs… underneath the screen!

I took the iPad back to Walmart which happened to not have anymore in stock. I was refunded with no issue. 2 days later, I went to my local Best Buy and purchased an AT&T 4G LTE version in white. It is fantastic! Best Buy also informed me that I was able to get a student discount on my bill & cell service bill! 15%! This is for students only so make sure to ask about it!

AT&T iPhone 4S iOS Update to 4G Hoax

Jae Bradburd — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:26:15 +0000

Great article written by David Murphy for PC Magazine. AT&T had me fooled for a few!

4G? Psh. Tell us when a software update transforms our phones into 5G devices: Then we’ll be excited.

Yes, you read that right. A Tuesday software update released by Apple bumped all iOS devices up to version 5.1 of the operating system. And users of iPhone 4S smartphones on AT&T’s network might have been a bit surprised to see the traditional “3G” icon in the device’s upper-left corner magically replaced by a brand-new “4G” icon.

In other words, Apple has finally patented a method for upgrading the hardware of one’s device over the airwaves.

We kid. In actuality, the update relates to the controversial way that AT&T defines its mobile networking. In AT&T land, the company considers its HSPA+ network – a speedy upgrade to AT&T’s HSPA-based “3G” network – a “4G” network.

Much has been written about how AT&T’s playing a “marketing game” with the 4G terminology, but is it really the carrier’s fault that it brands non-LTE devices as “4G?” Should potential smartphone purchasers grab the torches and pitchforks at AT&T’s suggestion that HSPA+ smartphones play in the same family – and supposedly equal the speeds – of their LTE counterparts?

Spoiler: All of the major U.S. carriers share a little blame.

When the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) released its first definition of “4G,” the umbrella term included just two networking technologies: WiMax 2 and LTE-Advanced, representing two standards that could hit the ITU’s “4G” speed requirements of 100 Mbps while mobile and 1 Gbps while stationary.

Technically, both HSPA+ networks and LTE networks were all still considered “3G” by the ITU, even these networks all represented a significant speed boost from carriers’ previous “3G” networks – often based on EDGE (often referred to as 2.75G), UMTS, or HSPA (3.5G).

So how did the carriers solve this dilemma? They ignored the ITU standards and just started branding their new networks as “4G.” All it took was one domino to fall, for which carrier wanted to be the one that stuck to correct terminology of a “3G” network in the face of a competitor waving a big flag with “4G” emblazoned on the side? Exactly.

Even the ITU ended up bending the knee to carriers’ misuse of “4G” as previously defined, as it eventually expanded the “4G” definition to include LTE, WiMAX, and HSPA+.

“As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as ’4G,’ although it is recognized that this term, while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMax, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed,” said the ITU in a statement.

In other words, your AT&T iPhone 4S now says 4G because that’s exactly what it is: an HSPA+ device that runs on a “4G” network, even though the network is technically AT&T’s 3G network, not the company’s separate 4G LTE network.

Confused? You’re in good hands. Even Apple itself is having trouble with the marketing-speak: The company says that its new iPad, “works on GSM/UMTS worldwide network technologies including HSPA, HSPA+, and DC-HSDPA — the fastest 3G networks out there.”

For the full article by David Murphy, please click here.

If You’re Using ‘Password1,’ Change It. Now.

Jae Bradburd — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 01:03:24 +0000

The number one way hackers get into protected systems isn’t through a fancy technical exploit. It’s by guessing the password.

That’s not too hard when the most common password used on business systems is “Password1.”

There’s a technical reason for Password1′s popularity: It’s got an upper-case letter, a number and nine characters. That satisfies the complexity rules for many systems, including the default settings for Microsoft’s widely used Active Directory identity management software.

Security services firm Trustwave spotlighted the “Password1″ problem in its recently released “2012 Global Security Report,” which summarizes the firm’s findings from nearly 2 million network vulnerability scans and 300 recent security breach investigations.

Around 5% of passwords involve a variation of the word “password,” the company’s researchers found. The runner-up, “welcome,” turns up in more than 1%.

Easily guessable or entirely blank passwords were the most common vulnerability Trustwave’s SpiderLabs unit found in its penetration tests last year on clients’ systems. The firm set an assortment of widely available password-cracking tools loose on 2.5 million passwords, and successfully broke more than 200,000 of them.

Verizon came up with similar results in its 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report, one of the security industry’s most comprehensive annual studies. The full report will be released in several months, but Verizon previewed some of its findings at this week’s RSA conference in San Francisco.

Exploiting weak or guessable passwords was the top method attackers used to gain access last year. It played a role in 29% of the security breaches Verizon’s response team investigated.

[Related: Smartphone Features You Don't Really Need]

Verizon’s scariest finding was that attackers are often inside victims’ networks for months or years before they’re discovered. Less than 20% of the intrusions Verizon studied were discovered within days, let alone hours.

Even scarier: Few companies discovered the breach on their own. More than two-thirds learned they’d been attacked only after an external party, such as a law-enforcement agency, notified them. Trustwave’s findings were almost identical: Only 16% of the cases it investigated last year were internally detected.

So if your password is something guessable, what’s the best way to make it more secure? Make it longer.

Adding complexity to your password — swapping “password” for “p@S$w0rd” — protects against so-called “dictionary” attacks, which automatically check against a list of standard words.

But attackers are increasingly using brute-force tools that simply cycle through all possible character combinations. Length is the only effective guard against those. A seven-character password has 70 trillion possible combinations; an eight-character password takes that to more than 6 quadrillion.

Even a few quadrillion options isn’t a big deal for modern machines, though. Using a $1,500 computer built with off-the-shelf parts, it took Trustwave just 10 hours to harvest its 200,000 broken passwords.

“We’ve got to get ourselves using stuff larger than human memory capacity,” independent security researcher Dan Kaminsky said during an RSA presentation on why passwords don’t work.

He acknowledged that it’s an uphill fight. Biometric authentication, smartcards, one-time key generators and other solutions can increase security, but at the cost of adding complexity.

“The fundamental win of the password over every other authentication technology is its utter simplicity on every device,” Kaminsky said. “This is, of course, also their fundamental failing.” To top of page.

Original article by Stacy Cowley can be found HERE.

How to Open a Winmail.dat File (UPDATED!)

Jae Bradburd — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:16:19 +0000

I recently signed on my services with with a great company. After signing on, I noticed all the internal emails are sent with the mysterious Winmail.dat file attached. “What the heck is a Winmail.dat” is what most Internet users would say when seeing this. Being a bit familiar with Web Technologies, I knew exactly what it was.

The winmail.dat file usually appears because various mail programs handle message formats differently. Certain messages sent from the Microsoft Outlook mail program (or a Microsoft Exchange server) may arrive with a winmail.dat attachment if your own mail program is not set up to handle mail in the Microsoft Outlook Rich Text Format.

Unlike plain-text formatting, this Rich Text Format can display different text styles, fonts and colors within a message. The winmail.dat file contains the Rich Text Format information for the message, but usually will not open normally. (These attachments are sometimes called T.N.E.F. files, short for Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format, which is the technical term for the format Outlook uses.)

If the winmail.dat file needs to be opened to read the message or its intended file attachment, there are a few ways to troubleshoot. One is to ask the sender to change Outlook’s settings so that mail can be sent in the plain-text format, and then to resend the original message. Microsoft has information on how to do this at support.microsoft.com/kb/290809.

Another approach is to download a program that can translate the winmail.dat file. Several developers have created helpful programs that can open the files. The MozillaZine site has a list of shareware for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems, along with more information about dealing with winmail.dat files, at kb.mozillazine.org/Winmail.dat_attachments.

Users with Microsoft Word can sometimes get to the text in the winmail.dat file by opening it from within Word and scrolling down through a lot of garbled code until they reach the main content of the file.

UPDATE: I found an awesome program for us MAC users that will convert the winmail.dat file easy and for free. Click here to download the DMG for TNEF’s Enough. Just scroll down a bit and click the image of the application.

How to make a Facebook Reveal Page with iFrames

Jae Bradburd — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:22:32 +0000

I recently wrote a tutorial for my personal blog due to a lot of my clients wanting to know how to do the Facebook Reveal Page. Truth is… it does take a great deal of knowledge in HTML, PHP, and other forms of Web Development. Dont worry, Im here for you if you need help though. Give it a try!

Lots of people, including myself, absolutely love Facebook for Social Media Marketing. It really is the medium that supplies the worlds hunger for media. Why not harness the power of this medium by “making people like your page”! Here is an example of a reveal page:

As you can see, the image I used for XC Media Design, a Westerly, RI Web Design and Marketing Firm, is blurred with a button stating ” Click The Like Button For Exclusive Offers”. This gives the end user a “reason” to “like” your page before even knowing what your page is! Thats called marketing!

After the end user “likes” the XC Media Design fan page, this is what they will see:

This is actually an HTML website that iFrames is projecting into the area on the fan page canvas. Pretty cool huh? This is how you do it!

Step 1: Become a Facebook Developer
It sounds fantastic- but really anyone can become a facebook developer by searching “Developer” and choosing the App marked “Developer”. You will need a verified Facebook account to become a developer, meaning you must have at some point provided Facebook with a credit card or phone number. If you have not yet done so you will be prompted to Verify your account during this process.

Step 2: Create Your First App
What? No training? None needed! Just click on the “Apps” button of http://developers.facebook.com/ and then on the Create new App tab in the upper right.

You will be prompted to input the App Display Name (Why not choose “My First Landing Page” ?). You do not need to worry about the Namespace option as custom tabs do not necessarily require this function. Once you have chosen your App Display Name and agreed to Facebook’s terms click Continue. You will be prompted to answer a Capcha for security.

You will be taken to your App’s editing page. There’s a lot on this page but take special note of the two strings of random numbers at the top marked APP ID and APP SECRET- you will need them soon! For now, however, you can put this page aside and move on to creating your actual landing pages.

Step 3: Create Your HTML landing pages.
What the Facebook App you created in Step 2 does is take an actual HTML website you host on your server and tell Facebook to take that website and drop it on your Facebook page. But there’s some funky code and special PHP files involved with doing this. I’ve done this work for you so if you want to work from a template please download my custom template by clicking HERE.

In this zip file you’ll find the following items:
likeimage.jpg – Element of yourlikepage.html
notlikeimage.jpg – Element of yournotlikepage.html
yourlikepage.html – What users see when they LIKE your page
yournotlikepage.html – What users see BEFORE they LIKE your page.
index.php – A bit of code to help facebook figure out what to show when
facebook.php – A lot of code to help facebook out
addtext.txt – A link to help associate your app and html with your page.

The images I provided are simple and you can change them at your discretion keeping in mind that a maximum width of 519 pixels will work best on your Facebook page. The HTML files are fully editable meaning you can place video, links, slideshows and anything else allowed by HTML documents. Go wild- the design end and marketing end of this is all you! When you’re done creating what your pages will look like go on to the next step.

I suggest editing the yourlikepage.html with dreamweaver or a similar text editor. Make it into a “real website page” with all the correct tags, links, images, etc. Also, I suggest editing the notlikeimage.jpg image to just be a screen shot of your all ready made yourlikepage.html. Use Photoshop or a simliar image ediotr to create a “blur” effect. Add a layer with a button, ribbon, etc. and then write some catchy text over it. This will create a custom look and feel.

Step 4: Using your APP ID, APP SECRET and UPLOADING YOUR PAGE
Use notepad to open index.php from the template. You’ll see a bit of code but all you have to worry about is copy and pasting your APP ID and APP SECRET from your Facebook app where prompted

$app_id = “APP_ID_GOES_HERE”; $app_secret = “APP_SECRET_GOES_HERE”;

Click “Save” and then open “yourlikepage.html” in note pad and copy and paste your APP ID where indicated

appId : ‘APPLICATION_ID’,

Click “Save” and then do the same for “yournotlikepage.html”

Once finished use an FTP program to upload all the files to a unique web directory. I suggest using “http://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/” to keep things straight.

Step 5: Creating Your Tab
Assuming you followed the directions in Step 4 and uploaded your files to ”http://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/” go back into your Facebook Developers account and start to edit your App’s BASIC settings. You can leave most of it alone, but scroll down to the bottom and where Facebook asks you to select how your app will integrate with Facebook select “Page Tab” which should be the very last option.

For your Page Tab Name choose something like “Welcome” as users will see this name.

Under page tab URL input: ”http://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/”

Under page tab SECURE URL input: ”https://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/”

If your web host does not offer HTTPS then get a new web host and join the rest of us in 2012.

You may leave the final field blank as you do not want users editing your page.

Click “Save Changes” and then click on “ADVANCED” under settings in the top left hand corner.

There are many fields here, but you only need to change one. Scroll all the way down and under Canvas Settings make sure that the HEIGHT option is “settable” or you’ll get ugly scroll bars on your landing page!

Step 6: Enable Your App & Set it as the Default Landing Page
You’re almost there! Remember that addtext.txt document in the template? You will need that to enable your new fancy App on your Facebook Page. Open the text in notepad and where it asks for APP ID input your APP ID

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id= APP_ID_GOES_HERE&display=popup&next=http://www.facebook.com

Copy and paste the text into your web browser’s Address Bar and click “enter” and you will be taken to a page which lets you install the App to any Pages you administrate. Select the desires page and you’re almost there!

Once the App is installed go to your Facebook Page and click “Edit Page” and go to the “Manage Permissions” tab.

There should be a field titled “Default Landing Tab” which has a drop down menu. Click on the drop down menu and your new app should be listed among the other selections. Choose your App and then save your progress.

That’s it! Now when new users see your page they’ll be greeted with a unique message and when they click “LIKE” a new message will appear! Now do us a favor, go to our Facebook Fan Page and click like! More tutorials await!