Teknovis

The laptop belonging to a friend of mine recently got attacked by a Drive-By Download virus. The particular virus was the Antimalware Doctor, and there is plenty of information about it available online, such as Remove Antimalware Doctor (Uninstall Guide).

Lucky, my friend had a very recent external backup. Therefore, I wiped the laptop and simply reinstalled everything, rather than trying to remove the virus.

However, this made me wonder how Drive-By Download infection occurs. Another friend recommended that I read The Ghost In The Browser Analysis of Web-based Malware. It was an excellent introduction, and it was very readable.

I needed to edit a photo on somebody’s computer today. I needed to crop the photo, and then sharpen it. Unfortunately, there was no software installed on the computer that would do it :(

I previously wrote about an online photo editor called Pixenate in Online Photo Editor. Unfortunatly, it is not able to sharpen photos :(

So I did a search, and I found Pixlr. It is really slick, and it appears to be very functional!

Tags: Pixenate, Pixlr

Today is a public holiday in Ireland, so I have a bit more time to write about something that has been on my mind for the last weeks.

I often have to work with companies that already have a well designed website, but they have no content designed specifically for mobile devices. These companies normally have a very strong desire to target mobile users, but they are unsure of the best approach.

In an ideal world, if a website is well written in XHTML then it should be possible to create a separate CSS stylesheet to render the pages well on mobile devices. This solution is usually easy to do, but it only provides a very basic user experience.

Therefore, there is normally a requirement to create new content specifically for mobile users. There are normally three different options, and each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Mobile Application

This is probably the most popular option, and it is the option with which most users are familiar. The advantages of this option are:

• It is possible to create really attractive applications that make maximum use of the underlying hardware (GPS, digital camera, …).
• It is possible to create a really rich user experience.
• It gives a presence in in the application store.

This main disadvantages of this option are:

• It can be expensive to develop a mobile application because it requires specialist skills.
• It can be difficult to develop for all mobile hardware platforms.
• The approval process required to get the mobile application into the application store can be very slow and subjective.

There are many examples of such mobile applications :)

Mobile Website

This is probably the second most popular options. It involves creating a second website that is specifically designed for mobile devices. This new website can be hosted on a new domain (.mobi for example), and mobile clients can automatically be redirected there based on the HTTP user agent header.

The advantages of this option are:

• It can be very quick to develop.
• It uses existing web development skills.
• It does not require any third party approval.

The main disadvantage of this option is that it does not give a presence in the application store.

Hybrid Application

The advent of HTML 5 enables another option that consists of developing a skeleton application that is basically a dumbed-down web browser. This application is configured with an application specific title, icon, and start page.

The main advantages of this option are:

• It is possible to create a really rich user experience.
• It gives a presence in the application store.
• It can be very quick to develop.
• It mostly uses existing web development skills.

The disadvantages of this option are:

• It is not possible to use the underlying hardware.
• It still requires third party approval.

Hopefully I have not forgotten anything!

Tags: CSS, XHTML

I read some interesting facts regarding the globally increasing demand for storage:

• Walmart adds a billion rows per minute to its database.
• YouTube contains as much data as all commercial television networks broadcast in a year.
• The Large Hadron Collider can generate terrabytes of data per second.

These facts are from a speech given by Jim Held, who is the Director of Terra-Scale computing in Intel.

Tags: Intel, Walmart, YouTube

It is interesting to see that The Times is going to start charging readers for accessing its content online (see The Times charging for online content).

I wonder if it will succeed, because The Irish Times tried this before, and then abandoned it.

Tags: The Irish Times

I came across the Bielefeld Conspiracy today, and I was not familiar with this term.

I was rather amused when I read about it in Bielefeld Conspiracy.

I am still not familiar with the new Wikipedia layout! I still keep looking for the search textbox on the left!

Wikipedia Search

For more information about these recent changes see New features. Actually, the story behind the puzzle globe is fascinating!

Tags: Wikipedia

Today I came across this list of Dot.com website failures: Top 15 Defunct Websites.

I remember hearing about some of them at the time. It is fascinating how many of the websites failed because they were too early, and there now exists successful equivalents.

Over the weekend I did a search using Google for something that was on television at that time. I was very surprised to see Google listing current Twitter postings near the top of the search results!

Tags: Google, Twitter

Google announced its latest offering during the week. It is called Buzz, and it represents Google’s entry in social networking (again).

More opinions of Buzz are contained in Google takes on Facebook and Twitter with network site and Google Buzz - Gmail mod for the Tweetbook set.

I think that it looks like a good idea, and it should certainly appeal to people who already use Google’s other services.

Tags: Google