A while back, I posted an article dealing with internet security and protecting your identity:

http://www.delawarewebdesigner.com/rants-raves/protecting-your-computer.htm

http://www.delawarewebdesigner.com/blurbs/the-information-you-should-never-share-online.htm

Recently I have been advising clients on certain basic steps they can take to ensure they do not become a victim of identity theft. It has happened to me before, and it is a complete pain in the ass to reverse everything. Fortunately I caught on fast on the day it was happening (while my bank account was being drained, when 5 figures goes to 2 you know something’s up.) and was able to reverse and resolve the situation in 2 days, recover my money and my good name. I did however have to obtain all new bank account, credit card numbers, checks and the like. Others haven’t been so lucky.
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A highly important decision among computer owners these days is a choice of internet browser. While most people don’t think of this, due to Windows being packaged with Internet Explorer, its useful to know the options available to you. Most people have no intentions of using something else, because they just assume Internet Explorer is ‘just fine’ and has no issues whatsoever. This is not true. Microsoft knowingly facilitates this in order to maintain market share, so I’m here today to tell you a little bit about browsers you may not know about.

There are 4 major internet browsers a user has an option to pick from (in terms of reliability, speed, security, support, and rendering):

1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Apple’s Safari
3. Internet Explorer
4. Opera

There are of course others, like WebKit, Konquerer and the like, but for the typical home user, these are the only ones you want to look at.

Personally, I use Mozilla Firefox 2 (version 3, beta 5 at home) for work and play. Despite its memory usage, I consider it the best, most secure browser around. Version 3 will be released in June for public use (right now beta is available for developers and testers), and it has huge improvements in its memory use, loading speed, security, and page rendering. It also has literally thousands of add-ons and themes to customize Firefox, some of which I could not live without. Mozilla offers their browser for free as well as an email client called Thunderbird which supports POP3 and IMAP (in case you want to replace Outlook Express, too.. go for it.).

Closely behind that, I have used Opera. It doesn’t have the add on support as much as Firefox does, so I don’t tend to use it too often. It is also extremely strict on security, phishing, and spyware filtering, just like Firefox but perhaps even more so. It’s fetching and caching methods offer lightening speed browsing on broadband or higher connections, and is nearly ACID2 compliant (most websites will render correctly in Opera). Beyond that, its pretty safe to say that if you put Opera on your PC, there is less risk that a family member could find trouble on the internet (as opposed to using Internet Explorer) and is extremely reliable for transacting business online.

I have used Apple’s Safari for Windows, and despite what articles are saying, its pretty poor. Just the fact alone that it doesn’t have any malware/spyware/phishing filters and the browser doesn’t allow third-party themes or add-ons, I wouldn’t use this browser until this is addressed (’Beta’ be damned, this is important). Safari also doesn’t support extended validation (EV) certificates either; EV certificates provide better site identification than the regular certificates that encrypted sites use. This caused the CEO of Paypal to tell all of its customers to not use Safari when doing transactions and conducting business, which is a pretty big black eye for Apple in my book when an internet giant like Paypal is telling people to not use your product.

PC World goes more into depth on this subject, and while PC World tends to be a little elementary in its write-ups and articles, I think this one is pretty informative for the average joe.

Updated Web Browsers: Which One Works Best?

While my profession will require me to use Internet Explorer, I can’t express my distaste for it enough. Beyond simple surfing, thats about all its good for. Even with version 8 looming at the end of the year, its nothing more than what Firefox was 4 years ago, or Opera 6 years ago. It just simply does not cut it. It still has major CSS rendering issues, javascript incompatibilities, pseudo PNG support and other screw your day up type problems. While I consider myself an IE6/7 web developer expert at this point, we shouldn’t be at the mercy of Microsoft to jump through hoops for their half assed browser, even though we’ve been doing it for years with Windows. Too late now I suppose.

Note: Delaware Web Design Inclind Inc fully supports cross browser compatibility on both frontend and backend applications. This article is to inform you that using Internet Explorer is basically like leaving the doors to your home wide open in a bad part of town. Try Mozilla Firefox or Opera, you’ll be glad you did

Headquartered in Dover, Delaware, George & Lynch currently employs over 360 construction professionals specializing in a wide variety of heavy, infrastructure related construction services. Celebrating 85 years in business, George & Lynch is more than a familiar company name. The firm has become a major infrastructure contractor in the Mid-Atlantic region and on the East Coast. With a nationally recognized commitment to safety and recently named as the “Best in the Business” for the Delaware construction industry, owners can rest assured that their site construction needs, underground utilities and paving projects are in good hands.

When they needed to completely overhaul their website design and corporate image, they needed the right tool for the job. They came right to Inclind. We provided them with our robust Content Management System with a fresh new design to meet their expectations.

In addition to a transformation of the website design, the redeveloped website includes several additional new sections of content including information on specific projects. It will be much easier to make changes and updates any page of this new website with the included backend intranet branded as Inclind CMS. This content management system will also include a tool to post news releases and a tool to manage employee events. This Inclind product is really a valuable advancement that allows companies like George & Lynch to make adjustments to their website themselves instantly and effortlessly. This is an enormous breakthrough from their previous website, and only Inclind Delaware web design can offer such tools.

Full search engine optimization capabilities were implemented as well so anyone looking for the services George & Lynch offers can find them easily in any major search engine. Inclind’s web applications allow for very organic search engine methods to be executed by the user, and our web applications are intelligent enough to manage this without any interaction at all. Our adherance to strict web standards allows us to deliver websites that are accessible in any major browser equally, reaching a wider audience than their old website could.

“We have enjoyed working with Inclind, and look forward to working on other projects in the future.” says Dave McGuigan, George & Lynch’s Vice President of Business Development.

Somebody actually called to tell me about a week late to say, “Hey, did you hear? The war is over! Blu-ray wins out over HD format. Can you believe it?” As it turns out Best Buy and Netflix have both decided to drop HD in favor of adopting the Blu-ray format.

Named for the blue laser that reads it, these discs hold many times the data of a normal DVD. In fact, storing 50GB some dual-layered discs hold more than some ipods. Now if only my car could read Blu-ray…I’m sure it’s not that far in the future. Toshiba may have won the Betamax-VHS wars but Blu-ray will help Sony boost the sales of their PS3 console.

Today was a pretty busy day, with the eagerly awaited launching of the new version of the Prudential Gallo Realtors website (http://www.prugallo.com). The new version of the site catches it up with its recently upgraded intranet, and introduces a significant number of new features and capabilities that we’re all proud of.

When the day was over, we got down to the next order of business: a proper preemptive bon voyage to one of the most despised burdens of the web development world: Internet Explorer 6.

Today was a bit of a milestone, with Microsoft having announced a decision to roll out Internet Explorer 7 as an automatic upgrade to certain corporate users still using IE 6. For more insight about the roll-out, about why IE 6 sucked so bad, and why the upcoming IE 8 isn’t much better, head over to Kevin’s blog. To celebrate the approaching demise of IE 6, we decided to host an “IE 6 is Dying” party, complete with subs, chili, beer, and of course, an IE 6 pinata/unholy effigy.

Graphics Designer Tom Brown (who has probably been tormented by IE 6 the most, having to constantly come up with creative ways to get IE 6 to render websites correctly) did the honors of annihilating the demon-logo with a wooden handle while Shaun held on for dear life keeping it steady. We certainly hope that someone from Microsoft will stumble upon these pictures and take our frustration to heart when deciding whether or not to make Internet Explorer 8 finally comply with decade-old standards.

In any event, it was a fun end to a productive day.

What does that mean?
 When I build applications, I like to strictly maintain to all of the perceived standards that I think of or any that might occur to me as I’m building and the variants that I believe are allowable from this consistency.

How about some examples?
 Perfect consistency in my folders, components, functions, methods, files, tables, columns, you name it, I’ve got a good reason why I name it or space it or look at it a certain way.  

Have you ever looked through a piece of code someone else wrote and changed it to adhere to my precious standards?
  You bet. 

Have you ever argued relentlessly about such important concepts as how a database table is properly named?  
 Yes.  

Do you ever hold back from imparting your wisdom to your fellow employees by showing them the importance of a file being correctly indented or of a more sane folder structure or a "better way" then they explained?
Daily. More than that if I’m being honest.

Could you go on and on about different aspects of programming that you’ve deem immovable?
No need to answer that one.

What purpose do these standards have other than the noted annoyances caused to others?
I like to think that by strictly maintaining all of these standards, it allows me to use my thought on more important innovation instead of wondering how something is going to be named, or spaced, or whatever. 

Where does the practical part come from?
The practical part comes from being, well, practical enough to relent from these relentless standards.  For example, I like to name all database table names singularly (item instead of items).  What happens when I think a table should be called "group".  I have two options.  One, when calling the table via SQL, put the table in brackets, so that the reserved word is not taken as such.  The other is to break the rule and name this one plural.  I choose to name the table plural as I’d rather see an "s" at the end of group, then go through all the SQL code and put brackets around it.  Do the brackets even work in all cases?  Well, not real sure. Hence, me taking the easy way out and putting an "s" at the of group. 

Has anyone ever thought that much about singular or plural table names?
I hope so.

What is the purpose of this rant?
Well, I intended on describing all of the standards as I see them, but then two things happened.  One, I fell in love with the Q&A writing style.  Two, I don’t think (in most cases) it matters what specific standards you hold.  Just that you have standards. You have enough attention to detail to care about something as minute as the naming convention of a file (lower-case first word, upper case first letter of all other words,  acronyms should be all CAPS, abbreviations only if you can pick somebody off the street and they’d understand what you mean).  You’ve had enough thought about them to be able to stick up for these.  But also be practical enough to realize that the other side is better and switch quickly.  And, if that you aren’t hurting your productivity too much by sticking to these standards.  If you are, then make an exception.  Although, you must have a very good reason to stray.  In most cases, even if it seems like sticking to standards takes longer, it doesn’t because you need to think less when you look back it at.