Triune Designs Blog: Web Design, Development, & Marketing

The Jeep Community
Last fall, my wife and I bought an old Jeep Wrangler. Our thought was that it would be a fun vehicle that our family could enjoy driving. (Ah, driving with the top down and the doors off – awesome!!) Little did I realize that we were joining a community. Having only owned 4Runners, Civics, and Explorers in the past, I was never truly exposed to communities built around cars.

Driving around, I immediately started to notice people in other Jeeps waving to me. After a while, I began waving back when people waved at me even progressing to where I was the initiator many times. I noticed other occurrences of the Jeep community. Other Wrangler owners began talking with me when I parked. Friends who own Wranglers offer to help me with various repair projects on the vehicle – more so than when I worked on my previous vehicles. And I am just touching the surface leaving out Jeep festivals, off-roading gatherings, etc.

I have learned that people are passionate about their Jeeps and this passion has developed a great community.

Communities All Around
What is great is that there are communities all around us and oftentimes we never see them. Some are obvious – motorcycle riders have an avid member community; some are not – have you ever seen the Mazda Miata community? Believe me, it is there (one of my old roommates, Chris Crumpton showed me that). And these examples are just dealing with cars, there are thousands of other communities out there centered around church, sports, computers, movies, occupations (just to name a few).

The definition of a community is a group of people with common ownership, common agreement as to goals, or a body of people in a learned occupation. I argue that a community is also built around people with a common passion.

Communities & You
As a small business, you are very passionate about what your company creates or sells. So, use this passion to your advantage and help build a community centered around your business.

You have two options for building a community. You can either get involved in existing communities that are related to your your passion (and/or business) or create your own. There are people who are passionate just like you, it is just a matter of finding them. Once you are involved, you can help that community develop. The other option is to build your own community (using platforms such as blogging, Facebook, or Twitter) and begin showing your passion. Make it easy for other like-passioned people to join you and help the community grow.

Have fun with your passion-based community… and if you happen to see me driving around in my Jeep make sure to give me a big wave. I will throw one back at you.

A few weeks ago I read The Anatomy Of The Twitter Attack on TechCrunch. All I can say is wow!!

In case you have not been following along on TechCrunch (TC) lately, let me fill you in. The online tech publication recently received over 300 documents from a hacker who retrieved sensitive business information from the executives at Twitter. These documents included Twitter’s financial details, executive-level meeting notes, and various documents outlining Twitter strategies, goals, and processes. Using this information, TC wrote a series of behind-the-scenes articles about Twitter and their plans for the present and future.

Security Holes
The Anatomy article reveals exactly how the hacker gained access to Twitter’s sensitive information. Hacker Croll (HC), as he wanted to be called, gained access through a Twitter employee’s Gmail account.

1. HC accessed Gmail for a Twitter employee by using the password recovery feature that sends a reset link to a secondary email. In this case the secondary email was an expired Hotmail account, he simply registered it, clicked the link and reset the password. Gmail was then owned.
2. HC then read emails to guess what the original Gmail password was successfully and reset the password so the Twitter employee would not notice the account had changed.
3. HC then used the same password to access the employee’s Twitter email on Google Apps for your domain, getting access to a gold mine of sensitive company information from emails and, particularly, email attachments.
4. HC then used this information along with additional password guesses and resets to take control of other Twitter employee personal and work emails.
5. HC then used the same username/password combinations and password reset features to access AT&T, MobileMe, Amazon and iTunes, among other services. A security hole in iTunes gave HC access to full credit card information in clear text. HC now also had control of Twitter’s domain names at GoDaddy.
6. Even at this point, Twitter had absolutely no idea they had been compromised.

Your Security
In terms of online security and privacy, this is a horror story at its finest. Jason, Freddy, and all the others would be jealous.

Web developers are always a little paranoid of security and (hopefully) try to minimize the number of security holes on a given website. This mindset should apply to everyone, though. As more of our (and our companies’) information heads on-line we need to stay mindful of keeping our data more secure.

Quick Security Tips
Here are a few quick tips for increasing your security.

• Have a different password for every on-line account.
• Change your passwords regularly
• Keep your password retrieval options up to date.
• Consider changing your security questions to things that are not true, but that you will remember.
• Keep all of your on-line apps and computer software up-to-date. (i.e. make sure you are running the latest WordPress version available. Make sure you are running the latest version of Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox.)
• Always be careful with email and any attachments. This is especially true if the email comes from an unknown sender or from your bank, credit card company, etc.

If you have any other online security suggestions please throw them down in the comments.

Many Thanks
Thanks to TechCrunch, Twitter (reluctantly I am sure) and H. Croll for providing us with this great example our fragile online security.

The bank vault image is courtesy of Anonymous Account and can be found on Flickr.

This morning, I read a Seth Godin blog post about the difference between fidelity (extraordinary experiences) and convenience. Seth’s argument is that the best products deliver one or the other. He also argues that companies run into problems when they muddy the waters and try to provide both at the same time.

I think Seth is right to a point. Either that or there are a few exceptions to his rule. One such exception to this is the creation of a website. Clients who want a website developed want both fidelity and convenience.

Web Design: Fidelity
From a website design perspective, clients want the extraordinary experience. I have always joked with web designers, I work with, that they are the ones who truly sell the company. Why? I have never heard someone approach us and say “I just love your code. The HTML and CSS that makes the website run is awesome!” It is always the opposite. The design is what makes the largest impression on a client. They want the wow factor for their web design – they want the extraordinary experience.

Web Development: Convenience
If design is the fidelity side of the equation, then web development is the convenience side. From a development side, there is not much in the way of a wow factor for the average web user. Customers want convenience. Whether they use a content management system or ask a company to provide updates (quickly), it is all about updating the website with great ease.

For the web user, it is all about the website loading properly and quickly. If the website takes too long to load the convenience factor begins to decrease.

Your Thoughts
Are fidelity and convenience intertwined in website design and development? Does website design have a convenience factor to it? Does website development have a wow factor to it?

So, I have an apology to everyone out there in Triune Designs land. We have been a little bit off track the past few months in terms of writing for this blog.

The sabbatical has been semi-intentional. In all honesty, things have been busy around here and somehow writing for the blog got pushed to the back-burner. I know, I know – for shame!!

But that is not the only reason for the dry spell. Another reason is that we have been talking about the vision and growth for Triune Designs. Part of the discussions have included where this blog is headed and what discussion topics are more appropriate in this arena.

While we are not completely finished reassessing our company’s direction, I hope that the blog can get a kick in the butt and get going again.

Until the next time… Leo

David over at Web Ink Now wrote about his top five Twitter applications. He then challenged his readers to provide a list of their top Twitter apps.

So, here are my top Twitter applications.

Twhirl (for my Mac)
TweetDeck seems to be the choice of Twitter power users everywhere; I am not a power user.

After trying out a few different apps for my Mac (including TweetDeck), I finally chose Twhirl. Twhirl has all that I need in a nice clean interface. Twhirl allows me to have multiple accounts up at the same time so I can easily follow what is happening in my personal and business tweetstreams. I also like the Growl notifications, which allow me to follow along without having to to constantly switch over to see new tweets.

BirdFeed (for my iPhone)
I have tried five or six different Twitter apps for the iPhone. A while ago I read about BirdFeed on TechCrunch. They spoke highly about the new app so I thought I might give it a chance. I have been using Birdfeed ever since.

Birdfeed has a simple and clean interface, it allows me to easily see mentions/replies, and it provides easy access to retweeting or replying to other people’s tweets. Birdfeed also bookmarks my Twitter time line so I can easily refer back to a recent tweet I want to see. Finally, I like how the interface looks similar to the iPhone texting (or iChat conversations) interface.

Flickr (for sharing photos)
Flickr was a little late to the Twitter-picture game, but I am glad they are here. Facebook and Flickr are the two places I share my photos with the world. Since I am already adding my photos to Flickr, it makes things easy for me to reference my “photo” tweets through them instead of worrying about another website.

FriendOrFollow (for a bird’s eye view of my Twitter community)
FriendOrFollow easily allows me to keep track of my Twitter community. On their website, I have three options. I can see who is following me (with no love in return), who I am following (without reciprocation), and who are my friends (those who follow me and I follow back).

The benefit of using FriendOrFollow is that I have a better idea of who I am actually engaging with on Twitter. The information is used (in conjunction with other criteria) to allow me to make more informed decisions on who I should continue following.

Your Favs
There are my favorite Twitter apps, but I am more interested in you. What are your favorites?

Do you have a great post that you want the world to see for a while? Then let me introduce you to sticky post! Sticky post, meet reader. Reader, meet sticky post.

Your Normal Settings
In your default WordPress blog setting, every time you publish a new post the older ones get bumped down one notch. The newest post takes over the top slot and is the first one people see when visiting your blog. This keeps your blog clean and tidy in chronological order.

Being A Little Sticky
There are, however, times when you might want that special blog post to “stick” around for a while in the top slot. WordPress allows you to to do this in the visibility settings on the right side of your post editing page.

Here is what to do:

1. Find the publish area on the edit post page.
2. Find the visibility setting (see image below).
3. Click “edit” to the right of visibility.
4. Check “Stick this post to the front page” (see image below).
5. Click ok to save the change.

That is it. You have just allowed that awesome post to hang around for a while longer to bask in all its greatness.

Thanks to Noupe for highlighting this feature in WordPress 2.7. If you want more great tips and tricks to master WordPress check out their article.

Hotlinking (or inline linking) is defined as

the use of a linked object, often an image, from one site into a web page belonging to a second site. The second site is said to have an inline link to the site where the object is located.

Cite: What is hotlinking?

Reasons Why You Should Not Hotlink

• The website owner hosting the original image can change the image to anything they want and (aside from deleting it) you have no control over the image. What could happen is the person actually hosting the image changes that “awesome Twitter icon” you hotlinked to and it has now become offensive material.
• You run the risk of exposing your users to possible phishing attacks or cross-site scripting. Again, hotlinking leaves you and your users vulnerable to the image owner’s mercy.
• You are stealing the other person’s bandwidth. Each time the page with the inline-linked image is viewed, the image is pulled from the other person’s server and not yours. Therefore, you are using their resources for that image instead of of your own. It is the same as running an extension cord from my house to yours so you can use some of my electricity to power your house.

Here is my suggestion for using someone’s image the right way.

1. Make sure the picture can be used on your website.
2. If you may use their image, copy the photo and add/upload it to your own web host/server
3. Give credit where it is due and provide attribution.

This way, it is a win-win situation. You get to use an awesome photograph or image and use your own resources to show it. They get proper credit and link-juice to their own website.

Happy blogging!!