I just did a site re-design with a new look and feel (barring the damn logo!! argh.. i need to do a new one again crap..), and now collating some nice little topics to write about. If there is anything in particular you want to see, leave a comment, and provided its not illegal or naughty, I just may spiel about it.

Oh yeah, I’m going to be a lot more informal about things now too.. Am getting too old to remain well mannered and non-cranky.

Dee

Yup, took the plunge and got myself an iPad 3G 32gig. Already jailbroke it. Expect some iPad and iPhone posts coming through soon.

Because I travel frequently, I wanted to have a device that can work well with my iPhone and can replace the need for having a netbook as well as a paperback stored in my hand luggage.

The iPad has finally delivered an on the go solution that allows me to connect to my work machine whenever i need to, carry a range of electronic books and media with me for the plane/hotel and being able to browse on a larger screen (than the iPhone).

I had a chance to look at my spam folder in Gmail and I was amazed to see so many emails from “Blizzard” asking me to verify my password:

If you get an email like this, the first thing you do is NOT TO CLICK ANY FRICKIN’ LINK IN THE EMAIL!!!!

Here is how you can spot a fishy email and some steps around keeping your WoW account a bit safer….

Ensure that you look at the email headers and see where the emails originate from. If you are using Gmail, the easiest way to do this is to click on “Show Details” on the top of the email:

Just checking the “from” address is never ever enough. In this case, some idiot tried to send me to a nice looking page to give him my username and password.. lovely.

If you need more information, see if you can see the entire message header. In Gmail, you can click the little drop down button beside the Reply button and select “Show Original” to see the entire trail:

And the real address is now shown:

The funny thing is that my Gmail address is NOT associated with any battle.net accounts :)

Some Suggestions to keep a**holes from stealing your keys

1. Blizzard will NEVER EVER EVER ask for your password. So if you get an email from anyone purporting to be Blizzard and asking for your username and password, its a hacker trying to get your hard earned account.

2. NEVER EVER EVER click any link in any emails that come from Blizzard. It may look like its going to the WoW or Battle.Net sites, but trust me, its not. If you mouse over the link, looking at the status bar on your browser will show you where the link is actually going. This is done by showing you one address, but the on-click takes you somewhere else:

3. If you are in doubt, enter the link to the Blizzard site manually in a browser. Don’t click on any links! (worth frickin’ repeating!)

4. If you are still paranoid, don’t even open any emails that look like these especially if they are not trapped by your spam filters. At the very worst, it is possible for hackers to put malicious code that can redirect you to sites that contains key loggers that can be used to steal your WoW and other personal details.

5. As a general rule, always be careful when using online cafe’s or other public places to log onto any sensitive sites. You cannot guarantee that these machines are not infected with key loggers.

6. Always ensure that your battle.net password is not easily guessable and is different from what you use for other sensitive sites.

7. Always ensure that your machine is up to date in terms of its updates and virus software and that you do run regular scans. I know a few people who have downloaded dodgy software and the “setup.exe” come frequently with a bootstrapper that installs a virus first and then runs the real setup.

8. The most important item that you need to ALWAYS have secure is your email address. Its amazing how often people think that it doesn’t need to be that secure because you don’t have sensitive enough information in it. But imagine how easy it would be for a hacker (once they have your email account) to “reset” any services and be able to have that sent to your email box.

Having your email address details is the first step in terms of having the ability to reset most things that address has been registered against. This includes financial institutions, your battle.net account, etc etc etc. At the very least make sure your email password is frickin’ secure!!

Summary

There is a LOT that can be written around the areas of keeping your “stuff” secure. I’ve only brushed on a high level some of the common sense practices.. There are entire sites dedicated to online security and best practices. Just saw a whole bunch of spam in my Gmail, hence why I thought I’d write something about it to convey my opinion.. :)

Related Posts

  http://www.twitter.com/newbtech

Its a little on the lighter side, but I think it works for me :)

My previous attempts was a little too Web 2.0’ish… so i decided to change the colour scheme around a bit to make it look less so:

I actually wanted a darker “logobar”, but then decided against it.

Anyways, let me know what you think :) and if anyone wants any backgrounds done, I’ll looking for practice :)

Disclaimer: this are my opinions and descriptions only. This isn’t industry standard or based on extensive study. Its merely my observations over the years. So take with a grain of salt :)

Author Types

Open Extrovert

There is the “Open Extrovert” – someone who writes about every facet of their lives and are not afraid to give their thoughts on everything.

These people usually have long and wordy blog posts and are conducive to open discussions. The posts that they make may be opinion based and will pose open questions to their users.

They generally have a wide range of followers and frequently these websites tend to build into a community. These people love social networking and frequently have an account in just about every social networking site in their age group.

SME (Subject Matter Expert)

The “SME” or “Subject Matter Expert” – someone who is technically adept at some particular product or service and will go to great lengths to describe in detail all aspects of that product/service.

These frequently have a blog or website where they can “share” their wisdom. Usually in the form of tutorials or how-tos.

Usually analytical in nature, the good SME will provide step by step instructions on how to get the best out of their products/services.

Collector

The “Collector” – also recently known as the “ReTweeter”, this person loves browsing and researching. He/she will go through all the news feeds and sites finding links for the subjects they are passionate about. They thrive on finding sites that may have nuggets of information that they believe is important enough to forward.

Then this person will collate these links and put them on their website or recently use Twitter to propagate the links. They usually don’t write their own posts, apart from “list posts” to tell everyone where to go.

These people perform one of the most important functions in terms of internet collaboration. These list posts along with search engines are usually the best way to find information.

Fake Extrovert

The “Fake Extrovert” – someone who creates a website with the intent of getting their thoughts and knowledge public, only to freak out when someone disagrees with them. This results in them being overly cautious when publishing any post or comments.

Frequently analytical in nature, the Fake Extrovert wants to show their emotions, but may find it difficult to do so when under pressure.

These people, when browsing, seem to think that everyone is an author/contributor (because they don’t see the lurkers) and wants to conform to what they believe is the normal standard.

So they start by making small remarks on forums and if their confidence increases, they may even create a blog or two.

Reader Types

This is only a subset of the different types of readers out there. In particular, I wanted to write about people i describe as Lurkers, Fanbois and the Avid Commenter :)

Lurkers

The “Lurker” constitutes the majority of Internet users out there. These make up the biggest user base. They usually have a wide range of sites they go through every day but only for the sake of browsing. They can be looking for something in particular, or generally meandering.

1. The “Voyeur” – someone who gets pleasure from going to many different sites and reading what other people are thinking about. They get the most buzz from forum or news sites where the information is flowing through fast.

They normally don’t make any comments at all even if they feel strongly about a subject. Generally introverted in personality, these people don’t want to make themselves known.

They are usually afraid of even the possibility that someone will disagree with them in public.

2. The “Nonchalant” – someone who loves browsing and will spend time doing so, but hasn’t got the need to reply/contribute to the subject. They are more laid back and will reply if they want to. They are not fussed about what other people think and will take things with a grain of salt.

For them, browsing is an enjoyable activity and one associated with little to no stress. Generally non-competitive.

Fanbois

The “Fanboi” is someone who feels extremely strongly on a particular product or service and so strongly that they are unwilling to see any criticism placed on their product/service. Their belief is so strong that they are against seeing any alternative out there and will often see only the upside of their products and downsides of any competing products.

This is quite frequent on game sites where “fanbois” from competing games will often congregate on a forum and have pointless arguments about why their game is the best and how the others will never match its capabilities.  Eventually, these types of threads end up in the “Rants” section.

The Avid Commenter

There is the “Avid Commenter” – someone who likes to comment on anything and everything. These normally come in four varieties:

1. The “Naysayer” – someone who loves to rant and disagree. They thrive on attention but are unwilling to start any conversations. However, they are more than happy to disagree on every post and will often go around in circles around a every point to render the thread useless.

2. The “Troll” – this is a term popularly used to describe a person who starts arguments up for the sake of arguments. Again, this may be an attention seeker who may start a topic that they know is controversial in nature or intentionally tries to instigate argumentative discussions.

3. The “One Sentence Replier” – a person who replies to any and all posts that they see, usually with a single simple sentence that adds absolutely no value to the post. Something simple like “Thank You” or “Excellent post” or “Agreed!”.

There may be ulterior motives behind this behaviour.

Frequently, these people have a blog or website that they want links to, and by replying in this fashion, they normally associate their website URL to their login name. This results in link backs to their website.

4. The “Informer” – usually someone who has the inherent need to comment on all posts but because they have some research skills, they will usually put helpful links to related websites. They are generally helpful in giving some level of guidance to the other readers.

In Conclusion

No one fits into any one of the above boxes completely. I’ve written this intentionally in an open manner to solicit comments. There are many other “types” that I have in mind, but I think I’ll keep them there :)

There may be a lot of reasons why people need to change, but there are always more reasons to delay the change as much as possible. We tend to get comfortable living with the inadequacies of our current situations and finding workarounds to get things done. While at the same time we complain about how our current world can be a whole lot better. Funny thing is that it can, but putting a change into what we perceive as a working environment, can be like jumping off a bridge.

If you want to move jobs or houses, its very much a situation where you cannot revert back if things go bad. IE, you’ve jumped off that bridge and now find yourself in a whole new environment from which you have to learn your “workarounds” all over again. And face it, there will never be a perfect environment where you won’t have to make any changes at all. Every change brings with itself some joy and some regrets. Its in our nature to miss what we no longer have even if we changed willingly.

Thank god its not the same for operating systems. Technology these days allow us to experiment with different operating systems all the while having a back up ready to revert back to if you don’t like what you see. It gives us the opportunity to leap over the fence and truly see if the grass is greener.

We as users are spoilt for choices. With the latest builds of Linux and Windows coming out and developers listening more and more to their followers, the quality of operating systems are increasing with every release. With that comes better application interfaces that allow developers to create amazing software.

There are alternative application solutions to practically every software out there. See my post on alternative applications for Linux as an example. Also, check out http://alternativeto.net/ if you want to see alternatives for Windows and Mac based software.

People can also dual/tri boot or use Linux Live CD’s or use Virtual Machines to experience other operating systems. We’re truly spoilt.

With so many choices available as well at the ability to revert back, I still see many people wanting to go one way or the other. So, its either Windows or Linux but not both. People gravitate towards the two extremes and always looking to get rid of one or the other.

I am happy.. in both the Linux and Windows worlds. I can honestly say I’ll never get rid of Windows. Applications like Adobe Photoshop and Windows Live Writer while having alternative solutions, will never be replaced in my toolbox. They have become a staple part of my daily user experience and I cannot see that changing in the near future. However, it will always allow me to play with other software knowing I have those as my “back up”..

As long as we have a choice to come back, we will continue to experiment and will eventually change on our own. We don’t need to be pushed, coerced or actively look for a reason to change. That will come naturally.

Its important that people continue to have choices and our need for change will always result in corporations striving to ensure that we all have quality user experience. And that is something to look forward to.

I saw that the majority of the blogs out there served two purposes: 1. a personal blog that was hardly visited apart from family and friends, and 2. a resource blog that specialized in one or more areas and over time grew to have a wider audience.

Also, i noticed resource blogs coming in many flavors. A lot of resource sites out there are simply portals that spin out dozens of posts every week with links to everything to do with their subject. This is "good" in some ways, but the articles are not really written by the site owners.. they are simply pointers to other peoples work.

Then you get the great tutorial sites that pick a product such as Photoshop and go hard out in teaching its audience on how to best use that product.

I didn’t (and still don’t know) the purpose behind my blog.. Ideally I want this site to be a place where people can come and see my experiences with test driving new applications or technology. This doesn’t mean that I need to be an expert at these applications. Rather its more of a casual look and more than just providing a blurb and link. Certainly a product may take more than one article to cover off and we want to start doing that as our knowledge of that product grows.

I want a wide set of audience and LOTS of comments :). I don’t want this to be a portal site as such (y’know… the articles that begin with "25 ways to do something" and end up with 25 links to other sites).

So, if there are any products out there that you want us to test drive and play around with and give our thoughts on, please let me know via email or leave a comment here. Our next applications will be the Zoho suite of online applications and ScreenToaster (a great little tool everyone can use to "Record" their desktop and create mini movies)..

Till then.. thanks for reading my ramblings and leave a frickin’ comment!