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Left Hand, Meet Right

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Connecting data in logical ways can be the difference between service that's just OK to service that's surprisingly smooth and fulfilling. It may seem like a no brainer but project scope and budgets may not always allow for every scenario possible to play out in the real world. That being...

Early Coding Memories

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Bill. Mark. Gabe. Elena. Will. All names of people who could really be anybody. A thoughtful video put out by Code.org simply uses the first names of tech greats like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Gabe Newell, Elena Silenok, will.i.am, and more to make a case for teaching code in our...

How Do You Vine?

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Twitter's new social video app Vine is spreading fast and creative uses are already popping up everywhere. But, much like Instagram, will Vine turn into a place to share what you're eating at any given time of day? My guess is no...

Social Media Spam Serves As Security Reminder

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Social media networks seem to be under heavy fire from hackers and spammers. Facebook was the target of sophisticated attack (same with Apple), high profile brands like Burger King and Jeep on Twitter have been hijacked in the last week, plus, have you received a private Twitter message that goes...

Quick Code: Android 4 CSS Transition Problem

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Today I found myself up against a wall when working up a swipe-focused mobile app -- a big, green, seemingly friendly, rounded Android wall who was dancing the robot instead of the electric slide. A CSS3 transition simply wasn't working on Android 4 devices which presented a usability problem for...

Invasion of the UTF-8 Icons

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Alright, who told marketing directors about UTF-8 icons? C'mon, confess. It's OK. I know it was an innocent aside when you were talking tech speak that revealed a whole new world to decision-makers who previously thought only text could be used among the likes of social media, emails subjects, and...

Twitter Introduces Inline Tweet Highlighting

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Twitter seems to introduce incremental new features at a steady pace. Recent hits include expanded content cards and their answer to Facebook's cover image for your profile. This time around they're getting fancier with formatting of a tweet as you type it. Check it out:...

Halloween Costume Contest 2012!

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The SiteCrafting team went all out for Halloween this year. 12 employees wore costumes to work today!Now we need your help. Who has the best costume? Vote in the blog comments and we'll announce the winner on our Facebook page at 3:30pm.This year's entries:AJ as Hopalong CowboyBeverly as TiggerBrandy as...

SEO Basics

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It seems a lot of people think that search engine optimization, or SEO, is a mysterious magic art form that lives in the world of wizards and unicorns. To make things worse, more often than not if you own a web domain you will usually be spammed regularly by a...

Please Step Away from the Office

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Our marketing team recently decided to update our [already pretty solid] website. The weekly meeting would be the obvious choice for ongoing planning and brainstorming to get our new site planned but, instead, we tried something else. A change of scenery. We reserved a spot...

Seeing Our Clients Succeed

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I don't often take the Alaskan Way Viaduct to work, but when I do, it means I'm spending the day at PEMCO assisting with their customer self service site. But, alas, this is not about PEMCO (that article is forthcoming after my time with PEMCO is up).You see, while traveling...

Quick Code: iOS Webkit Inertial Scrolling

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iOS 5 brought about many changes among them was the ability for inertial scrolling (or, as I better think of it, flick scrolling) to work on overflow hidden elements in their mobile Safari browser. This enhancement only takes a mere line of CSS to make happen. Here 'tis:...

Quick Code: CSS3 Transitions for Menus, Navigation

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Soften the edges of hard menu item hover color/image changes with CSS3 transitions. The trick is to place the transition-related CSS on the initial state of the element (e.g. before you hover over it). Then whatever you decide to do on hover (change the background color, in this example) it'll...

Why the world needs Web SQL

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Web SQL is a W3C module for storing data in a database within the browser. The spec defines an API on top of the standard SQLite database, which uses a single file to store data. At the time is was spec'ed, it was one of three persistent data storage options...

SiteCrafting Marketing Internship: Kelsey's Reflections

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Kelsey (pictured above on the left, with Marketing Coordinator, Mandi), one of our stellar marketing interns, reflects on her time spent working with the Marketing team at SiteCrafting's Tacoma office:I can’t believe it’s already been a few months and my time here as an intern at SiteCrafting is almost over...

PhoneGap By Example: Wikipedia

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I've been working with PhoneGap a lot lately while building our iOS and Android apps: Mobile Wine Tour. One of the hardest parts of working with a new technology is finding good examples to learn from. There are tons of tutorials on the net, but I haven't found a good...

A hands-on look at Microsoftâ€™s new Xbox One

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Microsoft is out to conquer your living room with the new Xbox One entertainment system. Now marketed as a multimedia system, Microsoft's newest console has winning capabilities — but also some worrisome failures.

The increasing importance of backups

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Lounge member cmptrgy is so impressed by the current crop of seriously damaging malware, including ransomware such as CryptoLocker, he proposed a master plan against them. Other forum members weighed in; drive imaging is much approved.

First Thanksgiving reimagined by Wednesday

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The character Wednesday Addams, of "Addams Family Values," manages to wreak havoc on at least two institutions: summer camp and Thanksgiving. In this video, she revises American history, starting with a redo of the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Win7â€²s XP Mode virtual disk can grow huge

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Although Win7's free XP Mode is excellent for running old software, its virtual hard drive can become overly large. But there are ways to control it. Plus: Getting XP-era software to run on Windows 8, and a warning about "silent failures" in Win8's File History.

Manipulate document, image, and video formats

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Utilities do many things, but they exist for one simple reason: they let us prevail over the limitations inherent in Windows and common productivity apps. Here are four small apps that can reduce work time and save money spent on paper and ink.

Everyone gets a holiday from Windows patching

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The only Windows update this week is a new version of .NET Framework — Version 4.5.1 for Vista and Windows 7. Plus: Useful apps and tips for new Win8 systems, some USB driver problems and cleanup, and two patches for IT pros.

Websites donâ€™t like old browsers or old settings

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A Lounge member's Win7 machine came with IE 9 installed. Why then, do several websites accuse Saki23's browser of being outdated — and refuse to display their pages?

Hardly anyone more cooperative than a hungry dog

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Witness the evident canine interest in a Rube Goldberg contraption that leads to both food and a dog's favorite toy — the tennis ball.

Working with user accounts in Windows 8x

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Changing user account types in Windows 8.0 and 8.1 should be easy — if you understand how they work. Here's what you need to know. Plus: How to protect your files from CryptoLocker, what to do when Windows 7 tools disagree on whether SP1 is installed or not, and ways around a System File Checker failure.

Apps for synching Windows music with Android

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Your smartphone is so much more than a means of communication. Camera, calendar, link to the Internet's vast information — it's most likely also your day-to-day, portable music player. But if you're using Windows Media Player on your desktop and an Android phone, synching music between the two devices can be a real hassle.

Web Administration Scripts

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During the past month or so, I've also been dealing with an aggressive DDOS (that's a "distributed denial of service") attack on my server, one that's been a huge pain, as you might expect. What's odd is that with multiple domains on the same server, it's one of my less-popular sites that seems to have been the target of the attacks. more>>

Web Security

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As I write these words, many Ruby on Rails developers are worried. more>>

The Secret Password Is...

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If your password is as easy as 123, we need to talk. more>>

Government: Using an Open Source Framework to Catch the Bad Guy

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Every security policy provides guidance and requirements for ensuring adequate protection of information and data, as well as high-level technical and administrative security requirements for a system in a given environment. Traditionally, providing security for a system focuses on the confidentiality of the information on it. more>>

Elliptic Curve Cryptography

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When it comes to public key cryptography, most systems today are still stuck in the 1970s. On December 14, 1977, two events occurred that would change the world: Paramount Pictures released Saturday Night Fever, and MIT filed the patent for RSA. more>>

Wi-Fi Mini Honeypot

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Do you have an old, unused wireless router collecting dust? Have some fun and make a Wi-Fi honeypot with it! more>>

Configuring One-Time Password Authentication with OTPW

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Password authentication contains a lot of assumptions about security and trust. Encrypted SSH tunnels and public key verification are two common ways to ensure that your password is not compromised in transit. But, what if it's the computer you're currently typing on that can't be trusted? more>>

Crashplan, the Only Reason I Install Java

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I'm the sort of person who doesn't like to install Java. I actually don't like to install Flash either, but it's still tough to survive browsing the Internet without Flash installed. There is one program that makes me break my own rules, however, and that's Crashplan. more>>

January 2013 Issue of Linux Journal: Security

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Sticky Note of Doom Years ago, I had the brilliant idea that all my users in the finance department should have complex passwords. This made perfect sense to everyone, since dealing with millions of dollars of revenue is something that should be secured. So, the passwords were changed with complexity requirements enforced. I slept better that night knowing our paychecks were no longer secured by passwords like "mustang" or "mrwhiskers". more>>

Tarsnap: On-line Backups for the Truly Paranoid

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Storing backups in the cloud requires a level of trust that not everyone is willing to give. While the convenience and low cost of automated, off-site backups is very compelling, the reality of putting personal data in the hands of complete strangers will never sit quite right with some people. more>>

KeePassX: Keeping Your Passwords Safe

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For a long time, my password tracking system was quite simplistic: hope I remembered the right passwords for each site or record them in an ordinary word-processor document. Such methods obviously have great flaws. I might have a hard time remembering a password for an infrequently used site, and a word-processor document isn't the most secure place to store passwords. more>>

Hack and / - Password Cracking with GPUs, Part III: Tune Your Attack

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You've built the hardware, installed the software and cracked some passwords. Now find out how to fine-tune your attacks. more>>

A Penetration Tester's Toolkit

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Ever wonder exactly how vulnerable your network is? Using these tools can give you an idea and provide the means to protect yourself. more>>

Hack and / - Password Cracking with GPUs, Part II: Get Cracking

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Your hardware is ready. Now, let's load up some software and get cracking. more>>

Samsung Proposes Five-Year Moratorium on Patent Lawsuits

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The company's deal was offered to the European Union, which is investigating whether Samsung is violating regulations on standard-essential patents. [Read more] ... The company's deal was offered to the European Union, which is investigating whether Samsung is violating regulations on standard-essential patents. [Read more] Read more at CNET News

When Open Source Invests in Diversity, Everyone Wins

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Jessica McKellar is an entrepreneur, software engineer, and open source developer. She helps organize the Boston Python user group and plays a big role in diversity outreach by... This article is part of an interview series highlighting the speakers of the upcoming All Things Open 2013 conference in Raleigh, NC Jessica McKellar is an entrepreneur, software engineer, and open source developer. She helps organize the Boston Python user group and plays a big role in diversity outreach by introducing and welcoming more beginners and women. Participation has increased from 0-2% to 15% and the user group has sustained this over the past two years. It's results like this that convince Jessica that when open source communities invest in diversity outreach, everyone benefits. Since implementing a beginner series, intermediate workshops, and open source sprints, the Boston Python user group has over quintupled in size, from 700 members to 4000+. They are now the largest Python user group in the world. That type of growth is something all open source communities should aspire to. Read more about Jessica McKellar in this interview. read more Read more at OpenSource.com

3D Printing Surfaces Interesting Legal Issues

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3D printing looks set to take off in Singapore, but the cool technology throws up legal questions around product liability and copyright. 3D printing looks set to take off in Singapore, but the cool technology throws up legal questions around product liability and copyright. Read more at Enterprise Open Source Toolkit

Observations From NSA Open Source Industry Day

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I attended the NSA Open Source Industry Day in Maryland this year and thought I'd summarize what did and didn't surprise me. We'll see if these observations prove controversial or helpful! More importantly we'll see if organizations can effectively manage, govern, and secure their applications given the reality of open... I attended the NSA Open Source Industry Day in Maryland this year and thought I'd summarize what did and didn't surprise me. We'll see if these observations prove controversial or helpful! More importantly we'll see if organizations can effectively manage, govern, and secure their applications given the reality of open source, agile development practices, and component-based development. read more Read more at OpenSource.com

The Role of Software Patents in the Patent Reform Debate

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Momentum seems to be building in Congress to tackle patent reform. From an open source perspective, any reform that reduces the risk and expense of patent lawsuits is surely a good thing. But the reforms under current discussion so far have largely been focused on the problem of NPEs (non-practicing... Momentum seems to be building in Congress to tackle patent reform. From an open source perspective, any reform that reduces the risk and expense of patent lawsuits is surely a good thing. But the reforms under current discussion so far have largely been focused on the problem of NPEs (non-practicing entities) and have not directly addressed the problem of software patents. Are the two issues best viewed as one? So argues Boston University Professor James Bessen in his recent piece, The patent troll crisis is really a software patent crisis. read more Read more at OpenSource.com

How to Build an Open Source Community

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Community is vital to an open source project. An active and supportive community is the heart of the project. However, having an open source licence is not enough to bring users and developers to your project and build a community. This document looks at what makes a successful open source... Community is vital to an open source project. An active and supportive community is the heart of the project. However, having an open source licence is not enough to bring users and developers to your project and build a community. This document looks at what makes a successful open source community. read more Read more at OpenSource.com

Free Software Foundation LibrePlanet Videos Now Available

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The Free Software Foundation has announced the availability of the first set of videos from the 2013 LibrePlanet conference. This set includes talks by Marina Zhurakhinskaya, Benjamin Mako Hill, Stefano Zacchiroli, and more. The Free Software Foundation has announcedthe availability of the first set of videos from the 2013 LibrePlanet conference. This set includes talks by Marina Zhurakhinskaya, Benjamin Mako Hill, Stefano Zacchiroli, and more. Read more at LWN

Cloud Jobs: Some New Things You Should Be Learning

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Looking for a new IT job? The roles of cloud architect and cloud engineer are taking shape, opening new career doors for IT professionals.

How to Set Up The Ampache Streaming Music Server In Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

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Ampache is a cataloging and streaming service written for the web which recently moved its development to github. It is current receiving active development so I'm hoping for continued improvement and enhancements over time.

How to Move from Windows to Linux

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A suggestive guide on how to move from Windows to Linux. Get a taste of Linux without disrupting your Windows installation.