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Blogs ยป Archive for February, 2005
Measure System Security Redux
Apple has joined the Center for Internet Security (see last post) in providing serious benchmark tools for OS X system security.
The Common Criteria Tools are recognized globally in fourteen countries and for some technology buyers are a deciding factor. Extended detail is available at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology site.
Free IntelliJ IDEA for OSS Developers
Have you been thinking about starting an Open Source Software (OSS) project? Do you already contribute to one? If so, JetBrains is willing to part with a free license to their top notch Java IDE, IntelliJ IDEA.
This is actually becoming a recurring theme in the Java development arena; large software vendors seem think that getting their products into wide circulation in the OSS arena is a great form of advertising. I can’t say I disagree.
IntelliJ IDEA is by all reports an awesome piece of engineering, and although I’ve used Borland JBuilder for years, I’ve definitely wanted to give alternatives like IDEA and Eclipse a try. This offer might be just the ticket.
To get in on the deal, you have to fill out an application form online. If you qualify, you’ll receive a free license for one year. You can renew the license every year as long as you continue to be active in a qualifying OSS project.
If you want to hop on the bandwagon and you don’t already have an OSS project underway, you can grab a free 30-day evaluation copy of IntelliJ IDEA, get your project underway, and then apply for the free license.
Take advantage of free tutorials about optimizing web marketing and navigation
If you haven’t already, take a free tutorial on http://www.Clicktracks.com/ about their product. I was very impressed with their simple but powerful product.
As web designers/developers most of you know that your clients don’t just want fancy design. They want to know that their web site is getting results. I haven’t found free web log tools that match paid tools like ClickTracks. Plus, the education that the company provides gives a great overview of how to think like a businessperson/marketer, not a mere designer.
Plus, if you master this sort of tool, you can earn terrific revenues serving as a business consultant to your clients while also redesigning their site to match your analyses and get even better results.
Why wouldn’t you become an expert in something so simple, powerful, and seemingly required?
P.S. If you have compared ClickTracks to other products, let us know what you have found.
SEO Showdown: Real Results vs. the Straw Man
I am a little bit chapped today. Chapped, as in something has “chapped my hide,” cheesed me off, and generally irritated me. Okay, maybe a couple things. (There is a point to this, and a payoff for reading it, I promise!)
The first thing that irritates me is that the “new thing” in search engine optimization (SEO) appears to be press releases. Everyone is sending out press releases to get more links to their sites, their clients’ sites, etc. They’ll just make up any old thing and pretend it’s newsworthy, because it doesn’t matter. Nobody actually reads online press releases, do they?
The online PR thing is automated and all these press releases end up archived somewhere, with link popularity passed on indefinitely (maybe). But it’s only a matter of time before the PR wire turns into total spam, isn’t it? I can see it now, we’ll see days with press release titles like:
- “Online Viagra Seller Offers Best Prices, Free Shipping”
- “Web Casino Offers Gamblers $50 Free Just For Signing Up”
- “Supermodel Has Wardrobe Malfunction, Photos Online Now”
- “Search Engine Optimization Firm Achieves Top Google Placement for Highly Competitive Keywords”
Wait a second… that last one is from an actual press release. Maybe we have …
When is a list not a list?
I think web page semantics are a relatively flat discussion topic.
What can you say? If you believe that giving your pages meaningful structure is valuable, you do just it. Markup is something you do to inject more information into a document. There’s a little room for argument on whether ’subheader B’ is an h3 or an h4, but, in general, there are limited ways of marking up a given page sensibly.
On the other hand, if you don’t put too much stock in semantics, all bets are off. Tags are simply a loose bucket of ‘browser lego’. The sizes may differ a little, but in essense, the red blocks don’t mean anything more than the greens or yellows. You grab the first block that fits nicely into your next gap and stop when you’re happy with the result.
Which is cool. That’s not me, but it’s fine for anyone to choose that approach.
The thing that I’ve found slightly bewildering lately is a mini-trend towards fractured semantics or what you might call ’semi-antics’.
The latest A List Apart article on two column lists is a case in point.
To achieve this layout (pictured above) the article suggests an approach …
Is This Microphone On?
Howdy, all!
- My name is Dan Thies, and I am your new SitePoint blogger for search engine marketing. I guess a brief introduction is in order.
Who Is This Guy?
- I’ve been building and promoting websites since Netscape was a start-up, and I’ve been dealing with search engine optimization as long as there have been search engines. I have been much more heavily involved with search engine marketing since 2001, when I published my beginner’s book, SEO Fast Start. We’ve sold just under 5,000 copies of that book, with the 5th edition due out next month.
- You will find me on several different fora that discuss search engine marketing. I am a moderator at the High Rankings and Best Practices forums, a membership committee volunteer for SEMPO, and a member of the executive committee of SeoPros, the Organization of Search Engine Optimization Professionals.
- I started my current company, SEO Research Labs, in 2003. We provide support services and training to SEO/SEM consultants, site designers, …
Measure System Security
As a follow up on changing the default password, I was running an overall security audit on a number of systems I manage, as part of a monthly administrative routine.
As many readers know I try to inject security-consciousness into many of my columns and blog posts, referencing authentication, intrusion detection, spam prevention and other factors/products for securing your open source system. Thus, I decided to explore the Center for Internet Security’s benchmark tool for Linux. Currently it supports only Red Hat platforms (Enterprise Linux and the Fedora Cores).
Installation is as simple as untarring the download and switching to the root user. The tool is read-only – so no fear is necessary in executing the script. I ran the tool on my own dedicated web server as a test prior to shifting to any customer hardware. This particular server runs Fedora Core 3, uses iptables for firewalling, and allows ssh and sftp only for remote access. It also contains the usual LAMP-platform daemons, Tripwire for Linux for intrusion detection and change control on configuration files, and QMail as an MTA (running vpopmail, qmailadmin, tcpserver and spamassassin).
This box runs a tight ship and little is …
Welcome to Key Words!
Welcome to Key Words: SitePoint’s Search Engine Marketing Blog.
We’re pleased to introduce expert search engine marketer Dan Thies, who’ll regularly bring you news, views, and updates on the search marketing scene from across the Web. Check back to stay one step ahead in the battle for stellar search results!
Internet Explorer 7
It seems that the endless stream of security problems combined with Firefox’s growing market share have finally had an effect: Bill Gates has announced plans for IE 7. There aren’t that many details yet but it seems the focus will be improved security and better protection from phishing; there’s no news at all on better support for CSS, PNGs and other improvements so for the moment it’s safe to assume the rendering engine will remain mostly unchanged.
There has already been plenty of reaction to the news. Here are a few of the most notable posts I’ve come across:
- Post on the official Internet Explorer weblog (mirrored by Robert Scoble).
- Asa Dotzler of the Mozilla project.
- PPK, who doubts that the core engine will see any improvements.
What’s keeping you from PHP5?
First up: as an in-house SitePoint’s PHP coder/waterboy, I’m stepping in for Harry as a guest blogger while he digs his way out from the February Zurich snowfall. Hopefully we’ll see him back and all thawed out soon ;-)
What’s keeping you from PHP5? For me this question applies on three fronts. It encompasses work we do on SitePoint’s PHP codebase, work we undertake for clients’ projects and tinkering I do in my spare time.
Only in the latter – the 2am toiling PHP geeks promise to do during the swearing in ceremony – have I made any semblance of a switch to PHP5. SitePoint.com is firmly entrenched in PHP4, even though PHP5 offers many enhancements I’d like to take advantage of.
I suspect many, indeed most, large scale custom built websites using PHP are still running on PHP4 with no plans (short term at least) toward making the switch. In fact – perhaps because it’s my first blog – I won’t throw unfounded claims into the wind; so let’s have a look:
http://www.php.net/
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.3-dev
http://www.vbulletin.com/
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.11-dev
http://www.friendster.com/
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.8
Friendster is an interesting one, given their much publicized – and comparatively recent – switch from JSP to PHP.
Surely if …