St. Petersburg Web Design Blog

Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

Stop Form Spam - but how?

Form spam, everyone hates it.  That’s when some automated software finds the contact form on your web site and uses to tell you about cheesy offers you’d rather not hear, like how they can get to to #1 on Google for anything you’d like for $9.99!  The most common approach has been to use an image based CAPTCHA script to make sure that a human is filling out the form.  The problem is, they really irritate users and now they make programs for spammers that can read the image the Captcha produces so now image based captcha just doesn’t really work any more.

What’s a web Designer to do then?  We have the answer.  We needed a custom script that was secure, easy for users and easy for web designers.  Years ago we developed one for a client, but it was a bit too custom for general release.  So we simplified it so that even an entry level web designer could customize it and implement it.    We made it more secure and kept easy for the one filling out the form to use.  We liked it so much we use it on our own contact page.   So far it has blocked 100% of the form spam and also blocked everyone who has tried to access the form handler page directly (robots, pranksters and hackers, o my!)

Download the source code, see how it works and get support on our Stop Form Spam page.

With methodology that’s typical of both Microsoft and the GOP, these two spent millions making and promoting this huge web application that proports to be just what the people want, ( a “virtual town hall meeting”) which doesn’t work and isn’t what it says it is…

For the record I am NOT a Democrat nor a Republican and I am, like most Americans NOT happy with either party.  This story is not about politics, but instead about what happens when you don’t plan, test and launch a web application successfully.  further this article will speak a little about honesty in marketing.  Any comments that try to say that I’m saying these thing because I don’t agree with the politics of the web site will not be published, as will any comments that rant about one political viewpoint or party.  We welcome all comments that focus on the marketing or technical aspects of this web application.

First we’ll address the “doesn’t work” part, then after the fold we’ll address the part where it isn’t what it says it is.

On the first day I heard of it, I went to check it out. It displayed nothing but a blank screen. I checked the source code, there was the complete source code for a blank html page. Well stuff happens I guess. So I checked back a few hours later, same thing. So I tried in the wee hours of the morning, same thing.  I don’t know how they think this is okay, but if this was my web application, it would have been ready for the massive amount of traffic on launch day, it would have been thoroughly tested before release and any errors that somehow made it through this process would have been fixed promptly.  If not, my efforts would be considered and absolute failure. Given the GOP and Microsoft have access to so many more resources than me, these failures are completely unacceptable.

Now it’s three days later and I go there and, lo and behold, we get a front page. But that’s all. All the pages linked to on this page, return the famous asp.net error screen (which some say is a huge security hole in asp.net web applications). See screen shot above.
There is a video on the front page. It does work. Sadly it’s hosted by youtube and has all Google’s tracking systems intact. Really? The GOP can’t afford to and Microsoft doesn’t have the know how to host it’s own video? They really think it’s okay to give up all that info on it’s users just to avoid hosting their own video?  BTW, youtube.com is owned by Google which is Microsoft’s #1 competitor.  I’d have to say that using youtube to host this particular video on this particular web site and Epic Fail, wouldn’t you?
The video goes on and on about how they want the public’s input on policy. The info the founder (Kevin McCarthy) released to the press used the phrase “virtual town hall meeting”. The site couldn’t be anything further from that. But it is designed to make it look like one.
Here’s some of the differences between a town hall meeting and this web application:
Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone knows that cPanel is the hands down, the most effective, most reliable, most feature rich and the most common Web hosting control panel.

Nope, no they don’t.  I’ve heard for the second time in a year, someone say they’ve never used cPanel for a web hosting control panel.  In both times these were fairly bright guys, these were fairly experienced guys.  Neither was really responsible for choosing a web host ever before though.  Both had also worked mostly at larger corporations.  Yet they had never heard of WHM (Web Host Manager) either.  WHM is the multi-domain to entire server level software. sometimes it’s hard for the open source software to compete against the giants like Microsoft in advertising. Even with this disadvantage, cPanel is used on over 1000 times as many web sites as Microsoft technologies.

That’s okay.  If you’ve never tried cPanel you really should.  It really is the most complete hosting management software out there.

Here’s some of the great features and unique features: Read the rest of this entry »

Ocean Conservancy, a non profit with offices in St. Petersburg FL,  is getting some global internet attention.  It seems that Coca-Cola is hooking them up for Earth Day.

First a few words about the Ocean Conservancy and then we’ll talk about the exciting Coca-Cola and Facebook project.

If the name “Ocean Conservancy” sounds familiar, it may be because they’ve had an office, in between downtown and mid-town on Central ave, sometimes they have those real nice brochures setting out, and have been there for many years.

Read the rest of this entry »

As web designers it’s important to see how your web sites and Applications will look on multiple platforms.  I recently developed a mobile web app and none of my previous mobile device preview tools included the brand new I Pad.    Well here’s one. It’s called IPad Peek.

Writing about the Coleman data leak is going to be tough to do without sounding like a paranoid extreme left winger or an extreme right winger. Let me assure I’ve alway been disappointed with both parties and I am a confirmed independent.

With that out of the way, lets get on with the paranoia:

The Main stream media is definitely reporting untruths about this story. They are saying that the data leak was the result of a hacker and that federal crime has been committed. This is entirely untrue. the only person that’s even saying this is Colemans attorney, well I’m sure some extreme supporters are saying this too.

What really happened.
The developers running colemans site asking for donations to his legal fund screwed up the site. It left the website down for an extended period of time.
While investigating Adria Richards stumbled across the websites database completley unsecured. she did this with a web browser and nothing else. This is not hacking. This is “surfing the internet”.

links:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19912.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=Adria+Richards&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://butyoureagirl.com/2009/01/28/did-norm-coleman-fake-his-own-website-death/

http://washingtonindependent.com/33674/norm-colemans-donor-database-exposed-campaign-claims-political-motives