I don't like to be critical of developers who create programs which they then distribute at no cost but...
In making changes to our website I have been using a number of programs to help me. I have also at the same time been trying to make the website W3C compliant as well as improving our SEO rating.
One program I have been using suddenly without prompting started putting in a whole lot extra tags to do with base_target _top in all the 'td' tags, it has littered the code with empty 'span' '/span' and 'small' '/small' tags whereas other editors use 'strong' tags.
One issue that related to leaving untidy code around is that file sizes increase unnecessarily which impacts directly on download speeds.
Another program I have been using has a good tool to validate the code in the file. It advises about closing tags such as using in preference to and applies this to 'img', 'hr' and 'meta' tags. However it's own HTML editor strips these trailing \> closing references out of the code.
Come on guys - good programs but please test that there is consistency when you have finished.
Friday 28 March 2008
Thursday 27 March 2008
New malware threat hits unprotected computers
Today we have had two incidents of a pernicious malware infection which is identified by the desktop background being altered to a red image with a 'Privacy protection threat' warning. It is accompanied by a number of popups trying to get you to obtain malware removal programs. These popups appear at regular intervals even in idle mode. Both machines also had the Windows Task Manager disabled although regedit and msconfig were available for use.
These two incidents are on unrelated equipment. One machine had a copy of McAfee installed but we cannot vouch for the state of the updates licence. The other machine had lost it's antivirus and was thus totally unprotected. We believe the infection has been brought in by a trojan horse but our invesigations have not identified the causal agent.
The totally unprotected machine allowed us to install and run Panda AntiVirus, which removed some threats but did not entirely clean the machine. We did a system restore to a week ago and then reinstalled Panda. Other machines on this network which were protected seem to be unaffected.
The other machine gave us grief. We could not get Panda installed initially because we could not remove McAfee. We disabled startup options in msconfig and trawled through registry to remove relevant McAfee keys. We have loaded Panda and done a system scan but we are not sure how complete the clean up has been. We may have to use system restore on this one as well.
This malware seems to strike fast. Dont let it cripple your system. keep your anti virus up to date.
Both systems running WIndows XP. One using XP Home, one XP Professional. Both SP2.
These two incidents are on unrelated equipment. One machine had a copy of McAfee installed but we cannot vouch for the state of the updates licence. The other machine had lost it's antivirus and was thus totally unprotected. We believe the infection has been brought in by a trojan horse but our invesigations have not identified the causal agent.
The totally unprotected machine allowed us to install and run Panda AntiVirus, which removed some threats but did not entirely clean the machine. We did a system restore to a week ago and then reinstalled Panda. Other machines on this network which were protected seem to be unaffected.
The other machine gave us grief. We could not get Panda installed initially because we could not remove McAfee. We disabled startup options in msconfig and trawled through registry to remove relevant McAfee keys. We have loaded Panda and done a system scan but we are not sure how complete the clean up has been. We may have to use system restore on this one as well.
This malware seems to strike fast. Dont let it cripple your system. keep your anti virus up to date.
Both systems running WIndows XP. One using XP Home, one XP Professional. Both SP2.
Website upgrade
A considerable amount of time has been spent recently trying to improve the layout and accessibility of our website.
We have done a check on our site to obtain the Google PR number which we felt was lower than we wanted.
We have made significant changes to improve readability, we have added many more images, we have added more links.
The transition is by no means complete and we have yet to nudge our PR reference to the level we would like.
On the other side we have also taken time to look at other URLs reference numbers. A number of those we would expect to be in the region of the top quartile are achieving a score of 7 out of 10. Many more, and these include sites which are aesthetically pleasing, seem to languish in the lower quartile: 1s, 2s and 3s.
We were very cheeky and did the same test on the Google site itself. Now get this. Google.co.uk only scores 8 out of 10 but surprise, surprise google.com achieves the magic 10 out of 10.
One thing we have learnt is that home pages with Adobe Flash or a single large graphic and a link through do not score very well at all. Our home page which has a high proportion of words and links to other sites seems to score better.
If you want to make use of our experience and serivces to help you with your site then please use our site to make contact.
There is more yet to be done so feel free to comment if you have constructive ideas we can put in place.
We have done a check on our site to obtain the Google PR number which we felt was lower than we wanted.
We have made significant changes to improve readability, we have added many more images, we have added more links.
The transition is by no means complete and we have yet to nudge our PR reference to the level we would like.
On the other side we have also taken time to look at other URLs reference numbers. A number of those we would expect to be in the region of the top quartile are achieving a score of 7 out of 10. Many more, and these include sites which are aesthetically pleasing, seem to languish in the lower quartile: 1s, 2s and 3s.
We were very cheeky and did the same test on the Google site itself. Now get this. Google.co.uk only scores 8 out of 10 but surprise, surprise google.com achieves the magic 10 out of 10.
One thing we have learnt is that home pages with Adobe Flash or a single large graphic and a link through do not score very well at all. Our home page which has a high proportion of words and links to other sites seems to score better.
If you want to make use of our experience and serivces to help you with your site then please use our site to make contact.
There is more yet to be done so feel free to comment if you have constructive ideas we can put in place.
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