@font-face is all the rage in the CSS world these days and I’ve been dying to give it a whirl. This entry won’t discuss the best practices in terms of CSS syntax or the ins-and-outs of @font-face; that has been done in numerous other places which I will link to at the bottom of this entry. I’d rather focus on a specific Windows-related issue.
Many universities have implemented whole disk encryption on university-owned laptops in order to provide protection against data loss if the laptop is lost or stolen. Truecrypt and PGP Whole Disk Encryption are two common software solutions used. However, recent research from Invisible Things Lab has come up with a proof of concept (dubbed Evil Maid Attack) that would allow them to hook into the encryption software and sniff the password.
Attack happens like this:
Attacker has access to your laptop for 1 to 2 minutes (like a maid at a hotel)
Attacker boots laptop from a USB stick and infects the system with the Evil Maid Sniffer
Victim returns to the hotel room, boots laptop, enters in disk encryption password (that is now sniffed by Evil Maid)
Victim leaves laptop in hotel room again
Attacker can now boot laptop again off the USB stick and acquire the sniffed passphrase.
At this point the attacker can either steal the laptop altogether, or boot it up and steal specific information.
So, what can you, as an end user, do to alleviate this attack? Short of never leaving the laptop physically unprotected (i.e. place it in a safe when you leave the room), not much. I know that sounds pessimistic, but the harsh reality is that whenever a device leaves your hands, it has become insecure. Assume, that even with encryption, you are still at risk.
(via Invisible Things)
“You don’t have to give up the power of Microsoft Project for the simplicity and efficacy of Basecamp. The IntelliGantt Add In for Microsoft Project gives you the best of both worlds, which means a happy project manager and a happy team.”
That quote, from the Team Direction Web site, pretty much sums up my latest breakthrough as project manager for Web Communications. But how did I get there?
Our department has been using Basecamp since before I worked here. It’s a great online tool for managing project tasks because it allows everyone on the team to see to-do lists across multiple projects and to add, delete and mark complete those to-do items as needed. You can give team members access to as little or as much as needed and there are no syncing or hosting issues since it is Web-based.
Monthly charge or not, we weren’t ready to give up our Basecamp account. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. While Basecamp allows you to assign milestones within a project, it doesn’t have the ability to apply complex dependencies among those milestones. (You know, task B can’t start until task A finishes, no matter how late task A runs, and so on…) Yes, if you move one, Basecamp can move all subsequent milestones back by the same number of days, but this is far too simplistic for the level of complexity in a multi-person, multi-project office.
Gantt charts are my friend. I’m a visual person, and I really like being able to see a project (or several projects, in my case) laid out in front of me on a timeline— no imagination required. In a perfect world, our department would switch over to Project and take advantage of its collaboration features. But the problem with that is that we’d need the more expensive MS Project Server and the Web Access add-on. What’s more, we would have to purchase 12 licenses and somehow get our IT department to expedite their process for evaluating software and providing support. Not likely.
So, I compromised and decided that we really only need one copy of MS Project Standard for our department. The least expensive solution in the Project family of products.
I ‘d make my Gantt charts and print them for my office wall from time to time so that others could check in to see how things were shaping up. And then I could take some time to transpose those dates and to-dos into Basecamp. It’s not ideal, but it’s a cost-effective compromise.
But what if Project could sync with Basecamp? That’d boost my productivity like none other, right?
The IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project seems to have been developed with MS SharePoint in mind, but it does sync with Basecamp. Here’s a screencast about integrating Project and Basecamp. I struggled a bit at first, but once I enabled Basecamp’s API, it worked like a charm. (You need to be the account owner, not just an administrator, to do this.) I’m still working out the kinks, like how to set up MS Project so that milestones and to-do items appear correctly in Basecamp, but it’s already saving me mucho time.
As it stands now, all of the line items from MS Project show up in Basecamp as one to-do list. I still need to assign responsibility for the task, but I’m guessing there’s away to automate this that I haven’t found yet. I also need to manually sort to-dos into separate lists for easier reading in Basecamp, but that’s not too time consuming with the drag and drop feature.
As with anything, the longer I use the software, the more adept I’ll become. I’m definitely open to advice if anyone else has a similar set-up, though!
Our office has grown to where we’re not a few people who wear a bunch of “hats”. We now have a group of people who are specialized in their own little world. Whether it be technical or content, we all have our own avenues we traverse in the web world. This situation creates communication problems where we have to explain how we do our jobs, or even what certain words mean, to our own office mates. This eats up precious time and creates “knowledge gaps”.
Smashing Magazine - a great web resource for developers - has provided an aggregate list of web glossaries for just this problem. Categories include typography, usability, marketing, CSS and XHTML and more. It might not make a writer an expert on analytics, but it is a great way to get started; or at least give someone some working knowledge on a subject.
So if you’re having a problem trying to explain what resolution is to a client or what the heck wysiwyg means, check out this helpful listing:
This week, we had the big boss command us to put the AddThis button on MizzouWire’s story pages. It’s a handy service that helps visitors share your content by emailing it or posting it to various social media sites.
Well, that depends …
It’s never easy to just add a feature to your site. Even little buttons have their problems. The AddThis button, for example, uses off-site JavaScript to work and if you don’t apply it in a certain way, it might affect your site in unexpected ways.
Sure, if you just copy and paste the code where you want the button, it’ll work, but here are some of the problems we ran into.
I’ll try to list off all of the relevant sites/tools that we discussed today. I’ve also uploaded the actual powerpoint presentation file if anyone wants to view it.
The turnout at today’s Web Developer’s meeting was overwhelming. Make no mistake, I hold no delusions that the packed house showed up just to see my lovely face (and it is lovely). No, I know that the vast majority of them showed up for the Google Enterprise Search presentation given ably by Nathan Rader and Corey Bradford of Google.
So what did I take from the presentation? It’s pretty obvious that the Search appliance would be an enormous step up in terms of usability for our users; and that’s what it’s all about right? Being able to weight results, key in on specific results, point specifically to what resources (internally and externally) we want to index, etc. Not to mention the other opportunities that arise with analytics, maps and other Google apps in the future.
But even more so, I can tell from the influx of e-mails that this morning’s meeting is going to create a storm of discussion over whether this is a solution for us, and that is EXACTLY what the Web Developer’s Group is all about. Call it synergy, cooperation, collaboration or whatever, but it’s basically working together. If we all get involved here on campus there’s no end to what we can accomplish together. Working in a vacuum gets you nowhere and I can only hope that the meeting this morning is a harbinger of larger meetings in the future. So, thanks to all who made it out today. I expect to see you all out in a month!
It appears that the announcement of Google’s new Web browser, Chrome, was sent out bit early in comic book form. What got my attention, being a comic geek, was that the comic was drawn by none other than the awesome Scott McCloud, creator of Understanding Comics.
You can read the official word about it on Google’s blog. You can also read the comic and get a more detailed rundown at Google Blogoscoped. I recommend reading the comic. McCloud does such a good job at explaining complex concepts and breaks down everything into easily understood pieces.
At first glance, it appears to be open source using the Webkit rendering engine with a brand-spanking-new JavaScript engine called V8. There’s also the standard stuff other browsers have like plug-in support, tabs and phishing protection. The focus on the project seems to be on making the browser faster, more efficient with memory and more secure.
I know what everyone is thinking: “Great. Now we’ve got another browser to test in.” Don’t fret yet. Since it’s based on the Webkit rendering engine, your sites should look just fine. (You test in Safari, right?) If you have a Web application, it remains to be seen how it will handle existing JavaScript code. Chrome is in beta and currently only available for Windows, with Mac and Linux versions on the way, so you have some time to see how things sort out.
Yes, I know that there are already a million posts around the web on the best Firefox extensions. However, I had a colleague ask me for some resources specific to making a site more Accessible. So I sent her a list of Firefox extensions specific to testing a site for Accessibility, and thought I would share them here as well.
First, here is the list of IT Accessibility Standards for the state of Missouri: http://www.oa.mo.gov/itsd/cio/standards/ITGS0003.pdf. This is the standard that we try to meet with the websites/web apps we develop.
This Mozilla/Firefox Accessibility Extension makes it easier for people with disabilities to view and navigate web content. Developers can use the extension to check their use of structural and styling markup that support functional web accessibility. In addition, it provides link to submit a page to the Functional Accessibility Evaluator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by a modern screen reader.
Enables you to see what a page will look like when viewed with Lynx, a text-mode web browser. It is also presumably, how search engines see your site. In addition, it can help determine if web pages are accessible to the vision impaired. Also gives a pretty good idea of how your site will work when javascript is unavailable.
Absolutely invaluable collection of tools/utilities for web developers. Way too many features to try and list. If you do web development, you need this extension.
Performs an inline evaluation/validation of the html code of any page you look at. Essentially, this is the same thing as running your code through the W3C.org’s code Validator, except that it is done locally on your computer. It also allows you to see, at a glance via a status bar icon, if the page you are viewing passes the validator, and if not, how many errors/warnings there are. Having standardized code doesn’t make your site Accessible, but having standardized code makes it easier to make it Accessible.
Another invaluable web developer tool. Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. I could not live without Firebug and the Web Developer toolbars installed. Well, I could live, but I certainly couldn’t develop nearly as efficiently.
YSlow analyzes any web page and generates a grade for each rule (based on Yahoo’s “Rules for High Performance Web Sites”) and an overall grade. If a page can be improved, YSlow lists the specific changes to be made.
It is a great time to be a web developer! We recently mentioned how Opera had released version 9.5 of the Opera browser. Today, the mozilla foundation will release version 3 of Firefox.
To celebrate the release of Firefox version 3, I thought I would provide you with a list of interesting articles and a download of FireFox 3 - Revealed courtesy of Sitepoint.com.
First up, get the most out of Firefox 3 — with this FREE eBook from sitepoint.com!
Next up, webmonkey (yes, they are back!) has a great article on Why You Should Download Firefox 3 Right Now
Last, LifeHacker speed tested the 4 major browsers (Opera 9.5, Safari for windows 3.1.1, Firefox v3 RC3, IE 7) to see which was the fastest in 3 major categories: startup time, Javascript & CSS, and memory use. Speed Testing the Latest Web Browsers
Regardless of which browser you find to be your favorite, the fact that all the major browser vendors are updating their browsers to better support CSS, HTML standards and Javascript will surely make our lives as developers easier and more efficient!
