I must admit my vision of Twitter is very much like that painted by Kelly Forrister  who sees it as the Twitter river.  She works on David Allen’s Getting Things Done Seminars and provides individual Coaching for their clients around the world.

It’s an interesting look on how fast the world is moving, or how little our attention spans are willing to absorb, that a quirky little service like Twitter seems to be luring so many of us in.  Have you ever been to one of those Lazy Rivers at a resort hotel? The kind where you hop in and out as you please? And around it goes, whether you’re in the river or not. That’s the best description I’ve heard of Twitter.

That’s largely the way it goes even if you use some service like Tweetdeck to keep things somewhat organized.  Of course you have Twitter Search and  Hashtags that can allow you to explore just a smaller creek but it is still moving along.

This week I now have a new perspective.  If you want to get together with a few friends just to explore something rapidly, then you can use TinyChat, which are Disposable Chatrooms especially for the Twitter Generation

Sometimes all you need is a simple chatroom for real-time text chats. TinyChat solves this problem by creating simple, disposable chatrooms. Tinychats works exactly as advertised. It’s a disposable, no-frills chatroom, with a deliberately limited feature set. There are no accounts to sign up for and whenever you open up a new room, TinyChat will simply create a new URL for you.

If you are looking for more permanence, then I highly recommend TweetChat, which gives you access to more permanent chat rooms.  In fact they are just showing you the tweets for a certain hashtag, but it is very user-friendly.

To get the idea, you might want to check out Brandchat,which is to be found behind the #brandchat hashtag.  This group meets every Wednesday to discuss branding , brand development and customer service. Every Wednesday morning 10 a.m. CST, they tap into their “collective mind” on Twitter and discuss everything branding. Next meeting is April 1st.  If you have a question, you can even join their Facebook group.  Anything on the Facebook wall gets put on the #brandchat agenda.

If up till now, Twitter has been a raging, tumultuous river, pop into a chatroom and enjoy quietly meeting a few people.  Why not try the Google #friendconnect chat room?  It always is very quiet there.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Twitter Chat Rooms

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• August 19, 2009 -- Guy Kawasaki Repeats Tweets: So Do It (15)
• August 12, 2009 -- Mobile Local Marketing – or MLM (4)
• June 11, 2009 -- Tweet Tips For Max ReTweets (RTs) (5)

Barack Obama relied on grassroots leadership to support him in his path to the White House.  Not surprisingly he is now re-enlisting volunteers to build support for his bold approach for renewing America’s economy.

Democrats mounted a nationwide effort Saturday to try to harness the grassroots support that helped propel President Obama’s campaign and use it to push for his administration’s initiatives.  Volunteers met in 1,200 to 1,300 locations across the country, organizers said — from a library in Arlington, Virginia, to a park in Brooklyn, New York, and to homes and restaurants in California.

In some, participants discussed the president’s agenda. In others, they set out to homes, subway stations and farmers’ markets, asking people to sign forms in which they pledge support for “President Obama’s bold approach for renewing America’s economy” and commit to asking friends, family and neighbors to do the same.

This is the first large-scale effort by the Democratic Party’s new “Organizing for America” initiative to use the network of volunteers to help build and push the administration’s agenda, although in February the group did host house parties where the proposed stimulus bill was discussed.  The objective is that organizers can continue growing the vast database of supporters’ e-mail and text addresses, which will include the Obama presidential campaign’s list of supporters.

The success of this type of initiative will greatly depend on the energy and determination of grassroots leaders like Sergio Salmeron, who energize their friends and team-mates to spread the word.

Sergio Salmeron, who started a Washington-area club after the election for supporters of the president’s policies. His effort Saturday afternoon brought together about 16 people, discussing everything from health care reform and whether the president is being inclusive, to foreign policy and whether the administration is on the right track, to the economy.   “Obama will need your help to win this fight,” Signer said. Then about half of that group set out to seek signatures at subway stops.

Grassroots leadership works well when hierarchies are downplayed and there is strong mutual respect. Activities like Barack Obama’s appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno this week are clearly signs that the president is reaching out to his fellow citizens.

Grassroots leaders were always powerful forces in their own local settings.  What the Internet supports with the increasing popularity of social media is an enormous leverage of the power of their examples. 

Democracy is a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.  Now those same citizens at the grassroots can also make their own impact on how things get done by involving their friends and colleagues.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

Grassroots Leadership

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The NOW Web is a new term to describe the cyberspace collection of all the information packages that may be currently flying around “online”.  Some may assume that must be the same as the Mobile Web.  This is not the case.

The Mobile Web is a subset of the World Wide Web.  The World Wide Web is all those online properties that are accessible once you know their Universal Resource Identifier (URI).  The Mobile Web is that section of WWW.that is accessible if you are using a mobile device.  The Mobile Web is thus defined by the hardware used to connect with it.  It is concerned with online properties that have a URI.

The World Wide Web itself is a subset of the NOW Web.  The NOW Web is intended to signify all those information packages or what might be called Instants that are currently available either via the Internet or perhaps via a telephone circuit or a cell phone wireless connection.  It might be an RSS news feed, or a request to get involved in a Google Chat, or even an indication that one of your Facebook friends has come online.

Clearly any Instants that you may be interested in should be accessible to you and ideally you should be made aware of their creation (via alerts) and of their ongoing existence.  The NOW Web is therefore defined by the interests of users or consumers.  It could be seen as a user-centric defined concept.  There are many technical challenges in working with this expanded NOW Web.  However this way of picturing the flux of information flow may suggest creative ways of better fulfilling consumers’ needs.  This NOW Web way of looking at the online scene was suggested by the way in which Twitter has so grabbed people’s attention and interest.

Footnote:  It should be mentioned that this use of the term, NOW Web, is much bigger than that suggested by Vaibhav Domkundwar.  The concepts are very much related, but this bigger use may suggest more interesting technical solutions.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

The NOW Web Is Not The Mobile Web

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We often forget how hazardous the Internet can be. It really is a jungle out there and some of the denizens have sharp claws. It opens up the whole question of what kind of Internet we would all like.

A discussion at Cre8asite Forums about an article, Clickjacking: Researchers raise alert for scary new cross-browser exploit, raised my sensitivity level. The recommended solution was to download an add-on for Firefox called NoScript. (I assume all my readers are using Firefox — if not, why not?)

When browsing with NoScript I was astounded to find how often others wish to determine what I will see. Quite often the intrusions go completely against my wishes. Nevertheless I found I was so slowed down in my browsing with NoScript, that it now sits available for action but disabled. My browsing is mainly through mainstream websites and I am fairly sure that they are largely to be trusted.

Once you look into this area however, you begin to see the size of the problem. Just two important websites will illustrate the efforts that are needed. At the detection level we have Spamhaus, which is Working To Protect Internet Networks Worldwide. It tracks the Internet’s Spammers, Spam Gangs and Spam Services, provides dependable real-time anti-spam protection for Internet networks, and works with Law Enforcement to identify and pursue spammers worldwide.

Another important organization is StopBadware.org.

StopBadware.org is a partnership among academic institutions, technology industry leaders, and volunteers, all of whom are committed to protecting Internet and computer users from the threats to privacy and security that are caused by bad software. We are a leading independent authority on trends in badware and its distribution, and a focal point for the development of collaborative, community-minded approaches to stopping badware. We invite you to join our community, to help reduce the impact of badware and to regain control of our computers.

To an extent each of us can do our part to spread the word and encourage good practices. Comodo is a well-respected internet security company, selling the digital certificates that make it possible for online businesses to operate on secure socket layers. Comodo has published a Trusted Internet Manifesto. Melih Abdulhayoglu, its CEO, has a blog about the Trusted Internet and covers many other related Internet security issues.

Surviving in the jungle requires vigilance and the right protective gear. This is not a walk in the park.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

Sharp Claws In The Internet Jungle

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Instapaper only came on my radar screen this morning when I read a post from Mark Evans, a blogger worth watching, who was extolling its virtues. As the FAQ says:

Instapaper facilitates easy reading of long text content. We discover web content throughout the day, and sometimes, we don�t have time to read long articles right when we find them. Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don�t just forget about them or skim through them.

I have been using ReadBag, which for me was OK and has some neat features as you can see from the ReadBag blog. Once I had checked out Instapaper however I was hooked. Some people like the fact that with ReadBag you login via your Google account. That is an inconvenience sometimes. Instapaper has the easiest possible of entries: your username, your email address – it’s whichever you choose. That was the clincher for me.

In general both do very similar jobs but Instapaper shows more of the KISS principle. Its elegant design made me think of those fine appliances that Braun often makes. It’s the ultimate in usability without any unnecessary features.

The only quibble I have is its name. It rolls off the tongue easily enough but what on earth does it mean. That is the only aspect on which I think ReadBag did it better. I guess it’s because it also has a feature, Give Me Something To Read. So if the Internet flood has given you absolutely nothing of interest, then you can check out this online paper. Do not try it until October 6th, since the editor is currently on his honeymoon.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Instapaper should be ReadBag

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It really is surprising how major companies deriving most of their income from Internet-related activities do not really understand the Internet. The Internet is about communicating and making contact. Marketing is about dialogue with prospects and customers. Unless that dialogue takes place, you do not make the sale. The Internet is the place for that dialogue, yet some of the most surprising companies do not realize that.

For example Bell Canada is an Internet service provider. Who better than they should understand the Internet? Yet they killed off one of the hottest online properties where one could meet Frank and Gordon, the Bell Canada beavers, after being online for only 12 months. Today almost two years later, the Bell beavers are being buried without trace. What a waste.

Another surprising example is PayPal, now part of the eBay empire. Very many people have been upset at PayPal’s performance over the last three weeks. They could not log in or could not bill customers through the service. Calling the Help Line, if you could get through, gave very little comfort. Apparently the system was being upgraded but no estimate could be given of how long this might take.

There was no information on line and the PayPal blog gives no information about any problems. Since the Internet is about communication, the silence is even more upsetting. Only on eBay Chatter if you were persistent could you find information on Changes to the Resolution Center and Dispute Console

… a huge upgrade to the PayPal Resolution Center, which is the hub on PayPal where buyers and sellers can work out all their transaction and account problems. The new redesign has updated the Center and optimized everything in line with how we’ve learned people use it.

Paypal clearly understands the way the Internet is evolving, since it is now offering PayPal Mobile

Try PayPal Mobile today!
Text home to 729725 (PAYPAL), and we�ll send you a link to our mobile website.*
If you have trouble following the link, just type mobile.paypal.com into your phone�s browser.
Talk back
How can we make PayPal Mobile even better? Tell us what you think.

How can it not realize that the Internet is all about two-way communication?

Thankfully some companies get it. Many individuals now use Twitter to stay in touch and occasionally air their grievances about service frustrations. Frank Eliason is comcastcares on Twitter and he searches for those Comcast needs to be in touch with. When I checked, his last tweak was
@mhnguy Can I help? 18 minutes ago
Now there’s a company with an Internet Mindset.

Related: Do You Have An Internet Mindset?

Post from: StayGoLinks

Internet Marketing Mindsets Are Somewhat Rare

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SMM has now launched a very useful website mini-review service. In doing market research on other website review services, some interesting aspects came to light that many will find of interest.

Free Is Never Free

That innovative thinker, Chris Anderson, will be publishing his new book, Free, at some time in 2008, we presume. This will discuss giving zero cost products/services away for free and then making money on upgraded versions. That’s one of the opportunities this zero-cost virtual world now gives us. A more important sub-theme in the book is that of course everyone pays for such products or services by investing their personal time in them. This means that you should be even more skeptical in checking the teeth of any gift horses. Looking after that horse could involve major effort and expense.

This is particularly important in thinking about website review processes. Whatever you learn from such a process may well involve you in major effort to implement the findings. Given the importance of your website and of your time, it’s important to make the right choice.

Who can best assess your website’s performance?

Whatever objectives you as the owner may have for your website, they can only be achieved if there are enough visitors to the website and if they can take the actions that you hope for. So it boils down to good visitor traffic and visitors having satisfactory experiences on the website. Both aspects are tough to evaluate. If you do not think so, just spend a little time checking out the excellent research work that Jared Spool, and his team at UIE (User Interface Engineering), do on website usability. There’s more to the way visitors move around a website than the you might have imagined.

Which website review process is best for you?

Assuming that you are not about to invest in a massive program of visitor testing of the website, some simpler process that looks at all aspects of performance must be found. All aspects of performance covers a lot of ground. To get a sense of this, you might wish to review a very long checklist for website review put out by Polson Enterprises. Unfortunately this has not been updated since 2006, but most of it is still very appropriate. It stretches to fifteen pages and includes almost 300, often meaty, paragraphs on different aspects of website performance.

A website review covering that degree of detail is a major undertaking. A better initial step is to take a ‘big picture‘ or ‘helicopter vision‘ approach. This will help to identify where work may be needed. If you are searching for free resources for this big picture approach, there are two main alternatives. Some Forums offer such ‘big picture’ website reviews and some experts will do such reviews but require the freedom to publish their work.

Forums Offering Website Reviews

The type of website review you will get from a Forum depends on the interests of its members and their skills and experience. You should only consider active forums where you’re likely to get a number of members commenting. Three Forums seem to do a reasonable job in this respect:

• Estetica Design Forum > Graphic Design & Web Design Critique
  Given the fields of interest of its members, you might expect a review that will put much more emphasis on graphic design aspects of the website.
• Web Design Forum, UK > Web Designing Resource > Website Reviews
  Checking on activity in other threads, although the main emphasis of the Forum is Web design, some attention is paid to other Internet marketing aspects.
• Cre8asite Forums > Web Site Building, Testing and Support > Website Hospital
  The Cre8asite Forums (where I moderate) covers all aspects of web design and Internet marketing. Reviewers would therefore bring a variety of perspectives in their comments.

Experts Offering Free Website Reviews

If you do not mind an expert giving a public review of your website, then there are a number of experts you can consult.

For example, Jackie Baker at Search Engine Guide offers a weekly site clinic column. As she says:

Small businesses are invited to submit their websites for review. Can’t beat a little free advice, right? I’ll be looking at the design, copy, usability, SEO, marketing, and any technical issues that may prevent websites from drawing loyal, active visitors and meeting goals. Each week, I’ll give the top five issues the website owner/manager can address to significantly improve performance.

Scott Hendison offers a Free SEO Site Review. As he explains:

For a limited time, you can get a video made of your own website, seeing how it complies with generally accepted search engine optimization best practices.
…
In exchange, all I ask from you is that you agree to allow me to make my information public, so that others may learn from the experience. Selected video reviews will be shared on my site and on my blog.

Such expert views are likely to be well-founded, particularly since the expert is also going public and their reputation will be affected by what they reveal.

Free Website Reviews Come With A Risk

There is a risk in having your website reviewed in public. The UK Web Design Forum outlines this well:

When posing a link to a site to be reviewed remember that some people may not like your site and could leave comments to that effect. These threads can appear on a search engine results for your website or other searches, so if you get negative comments people who search for your site may see these.

Please be sure that you don’t mind that some members may not like your design and may criticise the work you have done. Most of these members will offer opinions on how to improve, which is what this section of the forum is about. So if you are looking for helpful advice and a honest view of your site this is the perfect place to do it.

Really all we are saying is post your sites at your risks, this forum will not be held responsible for any loss of business or negative things that happen due to you deciding to place your site here for a review.

Time Is Money

Each webmaster will decide for herself or himself how to balance the usefulness of the website review, its cost and the time it takes to get it. However it is done, it is important to have your website performing well and that requires knowledge. SMM is now offering a Website Mini-Review service that gives good value in getting the right big picture view. It’s not free, but it may be less costly, taking everything into account, than these other free services.

If you have your preferred method of assessing the performance of a website that you think others might find useful, why not give details in a comment.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Website Reviews Free, Really?

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You may be aware that the Internet is becoming very crowded. Google will attempt to help you get where you want to go, but is having increasing difficulties. Part of that is Google’s doing. Their methodology depends on links from other web pages, so naturally, everyone is producing web pages. Indeed, some use computer software to generate thousands of web pages to influence their Google ranking. Since Google will only use computer based algorithms, it becomes a battle of the giant computers.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, seems to be acknowledging that his prot�g� has problems. He has accepted one of the Knight News Challenge 2008 awards for a project that will create a technology to give users more information about the origins and sourcing of digital content. He will be working with the BBC and Reuters on what has been dubbed “source tagging“.

Tags To Bring Order To The Cyber Sphere

Tagging certainly seems to be something that has real potential in helping us all navigate our way through the World Wide Web. Tags do of course come in two flavors. You can take a body of text and use a computer to determine what are the most frequently used terms. That is one way and it may be the route that Sir Tim is following. What is much more powerful is to encourage authors to choose a few tags that they feel will best represent their work. Thankfully this version seems to be attracting more and more attention, perhaps given the problems that Google is having with computer based algorithms.

A good example of the approach can be seen in the excellent blog of Kate Trgovac. Just look at her post on links for 2008-05-13. You will find for every entry she has added tags. If you wish to see more on what she believes is important on any given tag, then you can click through on that tag. There you will find the favorites she has collected, which are typified by that tag. She is using the website, del.icio.us, to hold these favorites. That is a free service and anyone can do it.

Picturing Tags – The Tag Cloud

If you want to get a sense of what Kate Trgovac feels is important and worth tagging, how can you best do that? The del.icio.us website does give a listing of all the tags she has used (1203 in all at the moment) with the numbers of web pages for each tag. Such a long listing is a little indigestible, so a visual approach seems more appropriate. This is where the tag cloud comes in. You can see a mini-example at the top of the right sidebar. Perhaps we should mention that the tagcloud.com website is somewhat confusing here, since it seems to be only a register of RSS newsfeeds.

If you’re working with del.icio.us, it would be nice to be able to easily display a tag cloud of your favorites. Nick Bouton seems to have attempted that in 2005 but apparently ran into problems with the server capabilities of the del.icio.us website.

It is perhaps an indication of the attraction of tag clouds that a number of people have worked on appropriate software. Eric (engtech) developed one in 2007, which was somewhat complex. If you can accept complexity, then you may even be tempted to use a Flash Tag Cloud WordPress plugin that Alex Cristache found. It is one developed by Roy Tanck and is called WP Cumulus, in a pleasing play of words on the notion of a tag cloud.

WordPress Has A Tag Cloud Feature

Luckily for those who are enthusiastic about tag clouds, and are authors of WordPress blogs, the whole situation has become dramatically simpler. With the latest upgrade (version 2.5), tags are now much more effectively supported. In particular, there is now a template tag function, wp_tag_cloud. That makes the addition of a mini tag cloud to a sidebar almost child’s play. You may have noticed a small example in the right sidebar when you arrived at this blog.

Making Your Very Easy WordPress Tag Cloud Web Page

Displaying the full set of tags generated for a blog is clearly inappropriate for a sidebar display. What is much preferable is a web page displaying the full set of tags. As it turns out, with a little ingenuity there is a very simple way of creating such a web page. This is done by creating a specific page template just for that page, which we suggest should be named tags.php. A suitable code for this in the basic Kubrics theme is shown below.

<?php /*
Template Name: Tag Cloud
*/ ?>

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

<?php if ( function_exists('wp_tag_cloud') ) : ?>
<div style="margin:25px;border:1px solid #111;padding:15px;">
<ul  style="margin:0 0 0 8px;padding:0;">
<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=24&number=0'); ?>
</ul>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>

<p style="margin-left:33px;">
Tags:
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/tagcloud" rel="tag">tagcloud</a>
 in Technorati |
<a href="http://del.icio.us/bwelford/tagcloud" rel="tag">tagcloud</a>
 in del.icio.us</p>
</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

An example of the output can be seen in the tag cloud page for this blog. The only point to note is that the tags shown below the tag cloud are not a natural feature of a WordPress blog page. Wordpress posts do have tags, but WordPress pages do not, unless they are added manually as is done here. The left-hand tagcloud tag for Technorati is applicable to all tag clouds and can be left as is. The right-hand link for the del.icio.us tagcloud can be modified to link to the individual author’s del.icio.us tagcloud favorites, if so desired.

You can copy and paste the above code to create your own tags.php file and it can be FTP-ed to your own Theme folder. The properties of this file should be set to Read and Write for the Owner and Read only for others.

Once the tags.php file has been uploaded, the Tag Cloud web page is very easily created as a New Page in the ‘Write Page’ Subpanel. Select the template to be used at the very bottom of the Subpanel from the drop-down list. Its name is Tag Cloud. In the Title field, type a suitable Title such as ‘Tag Cloud for this Blog’. Within the Content field, type the text which should appear as the heading within the Page and this is all that is required. This could appear as follows:

<h2>Tag Cloud for this Blog</h2>

The template will then automatically add in the complete tag cloud together with the two tag links for tagcloud which appear below it.

Once the Tag Cloud Web Page has been created, a link to it can then be displayed at an appropriate point on the Home Page. Visitors to the blog can then easily use it to get a sense of what subjects the blog covers.

Related:
Tags Attract Eyes
Tag Clouds To Guide You

Post from: StayGoLinks

A Very Easy WordPress Tag Cloud Web Page

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QuickTax is the Intuit Canada program that infuriated me into writing this blog post. I might have written a similar post some time back when Intuit Canada forced me to upgrade my version of Quicken, which I use merely to download my bank records. The upgrade was at full price with no recognition that I was already a customer. The upgrade had several non-intuitive features, which was not helped by an inability to access the online Help. They seemed to imply it was Microsoft’s problem when eventually customer service replied by e-mail after 48 hours and suggested a patch to give access. Life is short and one cannot blog about all egregious examples of poor customer service. .. and Mark Minasi has described well the Nonintuitive Actions from Quicken’s Maker about this Quicken forced upgrade, with many commenters expressing similar frustrations.

Then my bank encouraged me to check out the Intuit Canada QuickTax software for tax returns, with the added advantage of being able to submit returns online.

Perhaps I should have learnt. Leopards rarely change their spots. However the QuickTax offer was enticing. I did twice check with technical support on some questions I had and unfortunately on both occasions was misinformed. Surprisingly I had to call a Montreal number, 514-227-3063, which took some digging to find. From the contacts I made subsequently with this number, I was probably being redirected to India.

As suggested on the website I checked with the Canada Revenue Agency Netfile site to ensure QuickTax was certified and read the following:
*Free offering:
Each QuickTax product must be purchased and can produce a limited number of returns over $25,000. However, you can prepare up to 18 free tax returns for anyone who earns less than $25,000 net individual income per year (line 236 on T1).
This same information can also be found on the Intuit Canada website.

So having done sufficient due diligence, as we thought, we started preparing online returns. Perhaps we should have checked some of those reviews that Intuit Canada featured on the website. Here is what jord of Toronto wrote.

That is not an extreme review since more than 10% of reviewers rated the product even lower. One would have hoped that a company bold enough to call itself Intuit Canada would have produced an intuitive software. Sadly that is not the case. If only I had read what Jonathan Chevreau wrote in the Financial Post on the QuickTax package (neither quick nor painless), I could have avoided all this frustration.

Indeed by reading his article, I could have avoided an additional frustration that Intuit Canada creates. Using the online version of QuickTax, you must pay an additional fee for every tax return created. I believe his account is correct, although it’s somewhat tough to figure it out and technical support in my case gave incorrect information.

The CD versions of Quick-Tax Standard, Platinum or Unincorporated cost $40, $60 and $80, respectively, which permits the preparation of just two returns for gross incomes above $25,000, plus up to 18 Freedom returns for those with gross incomes below the threshold.

Beyond that, you can unlock the ability to process other returns for $10 extra per QuickTax Basic return or $15 extra for the other packages. So, for the 40% of its customers that need to process more than two $25,000-plus returns, it will cost more this year. Single users can pay just $20, $30 or $40, for the three Web applications, but couples will have to pay twice that to process joint Web returns.

Fortunately, you can find cheaper alternatives at Canada Revenue Agency’s NetFiling site (www.netfile.gc.ca). One alternative, UFile.ca, is still available for $16 for the Web version and $30 for the CD.

Intuit Canada may feel they are being reasonable in all this. After all you don’t need to pay if you try the product, find you don’t like it and decide not to use it for your return. Given that you have invested a great deal of time in entering data at that point, that’s a tough decision. In addition they suggest they will probably give you your money back in the very small print.

6. Try QuickTax for 60 days. If you are not 100% satisfied, simply e-mail quicktaxonline@intuit.com within sixty (60) days of purchase to request a full refund of the purchase price. Please provide your order number (see confirmation of purchase screen) and the reason our product did not meet your needs.

If Intuit Canada was at all customer-centric, they would realize what an extremely poor job they’re doing with their QuickTax online software.

Related: QuickTax Disappoints

Post from: StayGoLinks

QuickTax From Intuit Canada Is Non-Intuitive

Posts from the Archives You May Enjoy

• July 29, 2006 -- Quirks and Standards – The Genesis of StayGoLinks (2)
• October 6, 2008 -- The Big Footer League (1)
• November 5, 2006 -- Mobile Worlds Apart (0)
• August 17, 2008 -- Google Gphone. Which One? (2)
• May 20, 2008 -- A Very Easy WordPress Tag Cloud Web Page (40)

If you have a high-traffic blog, then you certainly deserve congratulations. Unfortunately some of your admirers may be hackers who would like to ride on your success. In a way there is good news and there is bad news. The bad news is they may well try to hack in to your website. The good news is they may do it in a way where you won’t even know. However that is no consolation.

Perhaps one of the most visible case studies on that is the blog of Matt Heaton, the Bluehost and Hostmonster CEO. The Kakkoi website provides a good account of what has been happening there. At the time of writing this post, the blog is still hacked although you would not know by looking at it.

How Can You Guard Against Hacking?

In some ways security for your blog is similar to security for your home. Almost every home security system is crackable, given time. However if you have a fast response to any signs of a break-in, then you may significantly limit any damage that is caused. Indeed any potential housebreaker may decide to go for an easier target.

The same principles apply in considering websites and blogs. The article, Guarding Your WordPress Blog, suggests two main priorities for your blog security. The first is continuing vigilance, since many hacking activities seem to take place during weekends and holidays. The second priority is to ensure that your blog is as secure as it can be by upgrading to the most recent secure WordPress version and by hardening your total WordPress installation.

A Rapid Way To Spot Intruders

Expert hackers often attempt to gain entry without leaving visible traces. So how much effort should you put into searching for signs of entry every day? One method that will often detect such entry is to look at the source code for a typical blog entry. It takes a little time, but usually signs of entry are fairly visible given the pharmaceutical and porn links that are included in the code.

A more rapid way of doing such a check is to create a test page within WordPress. WordPress supports the creation of both blog posts and pages. Pages are entries that are not tied to a particular date. All that is needed is a test page with the title of ‘Test’ and the content of ‘test’. Such a page is generated by the WordPress software in a similar way to each blog post. If a hacker has been able to gain entry and modify the blog post content, then this will also affect the Test page.

If Mozilla Firefox is your browser, then you can do a very rapid check of your blog security. Just visit the Test web page. Clicking on the Tools > Page Info navigation menu choice will give you information about that Test page including its size in bytes. Unless you change something in your Theme that affects the header, sidebar or footer that size should always be the same. Such a check of the size of the Test page can be done in seconds as often as you wish.

Unfortunately in other browsers such as Internet Explorer, checking the size of the Test web page takes just a little longer. One way is to look at the Source code in Notepad and save this as a text file. You can then check the size of this text file. Each time you do this you should find the text file is exactly the same size. If you have a number of blogs to check, then you might be advised to keep Firefox available as your way of doing this check as rapidly as possible.

One small note of caution is that you should do the check while not logged in to your Administration Panel. If you are logged in, then the resulting page contains a few extra bytes. Equally if you arrange a rapid cache arrangement for your blog using wp-cache, then this may add a few extra bytes. However if you use the default value where web pages are not cached for more than 3600 seconds, then a daily check of the Test web page should not run into problems.

Conclusion

The simplicity and rapidity of this method of checking for intruders is such that a daily check is only a matter of seconds. If you feel that your blog is less attractive to a hacker, then a weekly check each Monday morning should be sufficient. If you make regular backups of your blog and of its database, then if ever you find that a hacker has struck, putting things back in order should not be too onerous.

Related:
WordPress Blog Hacked
Hacked: It Could Never Happen to My Site (Famous Last Words)

Post from: StayGoLinks

Fast Alarm For Hidden WordPress Hackers

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