Twine Leads The Way To Web 3.0

It's been a while since my last entry, my apologies. Largely due to the revamping of our own website at gnidesign and an overload of Search Engine Optimization projects. But with the Thanksgiving holiday break I finally have some time to catch up. So without further adue... let's talk about Twine as it relates to your small business and social networking.


What is Twine?
Not to be confused with my Raleigh, NC based social media guru friends at Twine Interactive, Twine is a new type of social network that I find extremely useful. They push the limits beyond the typical bookmarking website and implement some neat Web 3.0 ideaologies. Twine.com offers the ability to gather and stay on top of your interests by providing a method of managing and sharing your knowledge on the web.


I like Twine over other bookmarking websites because of its collective intelligence of both machines and humans. OK, so what does that mean? Like Delicious and Digg bookmarking web sites, you can use Twine as a collection of information that you've acquired. However, by teaming up with other twine social media users, you begin to reap the benefits of a live and growing collection of information based on your specific interests. These collections are called Twines.


The content on twine is added by humans but then the machine logic adds semantic web tags to your content which enables automatic organizing of your information. On the the social media end of Twine. As you add content to your Twine profile, the engine helps you to discover new people and thought leaders who share the same interests as you.


So whether your interests are seo, web design, computer science, football, cooking or scrap booking. Twine is a great place to meet other folks who share those interests and collaborate on new ideas.


Until next time...


Happy Coding


Bill @ gnidesign

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Social Network Viruses Still On The Rise

Social Networking web sites like facebook and myspace are used by more Internet users than any other medium in the world today. In fact, 4 out of 5 of us internet users over the age of 35 are logging onto a social networking website at least once a month according to the latest CNET statistics. Facebook is the new leader this month registering over 1 billion users (yup 10 digits) so its no wonder that they continue to be the target of choice by internet evil-doers.

The Koobface virus is nothing new but it continues to be the largest threat to social network web site developers and their users. I recently had an experience where this Koobface virus was sent to me on facebook. Lucky for me, ethical hackers are always a step ahead of evil hackers so I recognized the game right away.

Still, I thought it would be a good chance to run the virus in a virtual setting and show my readers what to look out for whille having fun on FB. As a search engine optimization professional, social networking web sites are an essential part of ranking well on google. That said, I frequent many of these sites. While on facebook, I received an email message from one of my facebook friends that was clearly out of character for that individual. That was my first tip that something wasn't right.

The Koobface virus, once it has infected your PC, gains access to your facebook friends and emails each of your friends a message with a link leading them to a web page to innocently download the same virus. It also hijacks your web browser, email and creates a general hostile environment across your network. Viruses are self-replicating. Koobface is spread by a network or by transmission to a removable medium such as a removable disk, writable CD, or USB drive. It may also spread by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is shared by another computer. This is why the Internet and social media web sites are such a hot bed for this type of malware.

So enough chatter, here is what you're looking for...
You receive a facebook email message from one of your friends with a comment about "how great you look in this video" with a link to youtube .

You click on the link and then, whoops! The video has been moved? You are now being redirected to a hackers server.


Next you arrive at a web site that looks just like you tube but it isn't. You are then prompted to download and install the latest version of Flash before you can view the video.

The danger is that most people have been trained by now to only accept links in an email from people you know... well I know this person. So hopefully now you're a little smarter and a little wiser and I can go take care of my cold feeling like I've helped someone today :)

Until next time, happy surfing!

Bill @ gnidesign

The Future of Social Networking

It's been 10 years of developing the web since the first implementations of Web 2.0 began back in 1999. I can't even begin to count the number of web sites I've rolled out in that time. The number of technologies that I have been introduced to and added to my arsenal are enough to make my brain go numb. Interactive information sharing has indeed come a long way and its evolution still amazes me. We've seen dot-com's grow to mammoth proportions and then watched as they fizzle out. Still others thrive for reasons that we just do not have facts or numbers on. In early 2000 it seemed that the peer to peer giant Napster would take over the world and yet today they are lost in the shadows of iTunes and the Zune Marketplace. Some interactive web sites like SpotLife.com were on top for a fleeting moment and gone as quick as they came. Even MySpace has been steadily losing its edge for several years now.

So what's next for the web? I ask myself this question almost daily as it is after all how I keep the family fed and housed. Without a doubt, social networking is going to break through to a new plateau. Websites like Facebook and Twitter have moved beyond cult phenomenom now and have become the daily web diet of the average computer user. These site are not going away anytime soon as long as they keep us engaged with games like Mafia Wars and Farmville. Personally, I never play the games on facebook and most of my requests go unanswered not because I don't want to be bothered, but I just WISH that I had that much time in my life to play because it looks like fun. The little bit of gaming time I do have is spent on Xbox Live where you can find me as Corinthian06.

That said, I think we will see a new trend in these types of sites because the site owners are realizing that we cannot be bought with banner ads and PPC advertizing. We are abhored by pop-up advertizing and that includes innocent surveys. You might say that some types of online marketing are beginning to sour, perhaps losing its effectiveness. So where do large corporations go next to generate profits? Well... they're going to come to the end users. People just like you and me and leverage our network of friends.

You may recall all of the attention Barnes & Noble, Inc. received when they introduced their associate plan? The way it worked was you put some links to some of their products on your personal website and a user purchased that book by following your link you received a few pennies. That didn't work very well for you and me because the business model was terrible and the associate plan was eventually phased out. Now imagine this idea on steroids, with enough of a profit margin for social network junkies like you and me that it could be lucrative?

Enter blastoffnetwork.com. This is a genius blend of social networks aggregation and multi-tier marketing and frankly... I like it! This is good for people, good for the economy and what the heck, we're hanging out on facebook and tweeting on twitter anyway, so why not get paid for it right?

By the way, you can find me on right here on Facebook, or follow me here on Twitter, and if you are reading this I would be more than happy to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn!

If you are looking for additional information on BlastOff, sorry I can't help you with that but you can contact denisek@nc.rr.com with any sign-up type questions.

Until next time... Happy Surfing!

Bill @ gnidesign

Web Application Security - Hacker or Knowledgeable Surfer?

If you haven’t already figured it out, my blog is all about protecting and educating you, the Internet user, from potential hackers and the ever increasing number of inexperienced web designers. That’s right, I said web designers. New social networking websites are popping up every day and are very popular with many Internet users. Whether they’re a newb or a tech savvy surfer, websites like myspace, facebook and twitter have become a powerful communication platform for everything from making plans with friends for a night out to keeping in touch with distant relatives. But beware friends, what looks like a professionally designed website may not always be professionally done.

Case in point, during my own surfing the other night I stumbled upon this networking site for local clubs and their patrons in some pretty major cities. Once you register as a member on the site, you are free to post messages and communicate with other users. You can also post pictures of yourself and your friends out partying at the sponsoring establishments. Being relatively new to the area I live in, and not really into the club scene, I decided to take a look around and see what’s out there. I got much more than I ever expected!

Secure IT!

While browsing, I realized that there were some areas of this website that were off limits to me until I sign up as a free member. Fair enough, so I click on the "Register Free" link and I am presented with a form into which I am supposed to enter my personal information. I notice the obvious straight away, there is no “https://” preceding the URL in my browsers address bar, nor is there a lock icon in the bottom right corner of my browsers status bar. So what’s that mean? Well, those 2 indicators tell me if the page I am on is using Secure Socket Layers (SSL) as a means of encrypting and protecting my personal information before I transport it over the Internet. HTTPS, or HyperText Transport Protocol Secure on port 443, is a protocol that is simply HTTP but it’s more secured as it uses SSL underneath HTTP.

Ok, so I’d already seen enough to know that I was not going to enter any of my personal data. But wait, it gets worse! This websites developer broke just about every rule of programming basics that I could think of and I was only on the site no more than 15 minutes. Since I was not going to register, I just poked around and looked at few pages when one page gives me this weird error.

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14'

[MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver][mysqld-5.0.41-community-nt]You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 's Date'' at line 1

/scripts/dataconnection.asp, line 30

Programming Tip #1: Always create a default web page to handle the most common server errors.

So in reading the description of the error on this page, it tells me, the programmer, a few things that might be useful in debugging the problem with the code. It tells me the exact page and line number of code that caused the error. I’ve boxed out the page for reasons you will understand within a few more sentences. So for me, being a programmer of many years, I’m curious now and want to see what the problem could be. So I point my web browser to the alleged problem page to see if I can spot the source of the problem. I immediately roll my eyes and shake my head in disbelief. I can hardly believe that someone would construct a site in such a manner. I quickly disregard the multiple instances of loosely written SQL statements that are now fully exposed to SQL injection attacks. This sites developer had given me the precise name and location of the database that is the backbone behind the entire site.

I’ll spend a little time on the multiple problems with this single page because I’m shocked at what passes for proper web design these days. Another crucial mistake, the ASP programmer developed this site around a Microsoft Access database. MS Access databases (.mdb files) are the least secure databases in the world next to a flat text file. Not only that, but these databases are easily downloaded by a user if they know its location. Since they told me the exact location openly I did just that. Well ok, only long enough to take some screen shots for this blog and then I deleted it because I am a really nice guy.

I didn’t think anyone really used MS Access for such web applications except for in school projects and pre-development pages. My recommendation if you are creating dynamic web applications is to us MySQL Server. It’s free, secure and available by most web hosts for a small additional fee. If you can spring the extra cash, go with my personal preference, Microsoft SQL Server. Budget crunch or not, there were still a few precautions that the lazy developers of this site could have taken. For one they could have moved the database outside of the hierarchy of the websites root directory. That way, the IUSR (assuming the use of IIS here) can still read and write to the database but it is not accessible to be downloaded through a web browser. Too complicated? Try this, one thing Access does provide is a few different security features to lock a database so that its contents cannot be viewed without first entering a password. Apparently this wasn’t a very important step either as I was able to open the database and view all of the personal information of more than 12,000 people in my area.

The database included first and last names, email addresses, passwords, cell phone numbers, home address etc. This in my opinion is just pure negligence on the programmer’s part and this person should be flogged and thrown off the nearest tall building. Especially in today’s society given the focus that is on identity theft. I could go on and on with this topic and I will likely come back to this as an example of basic programming do’s and don’ts. I didn’t mean to rip on the folks who created this site but it was too perfect of an example for my first blog post to pass up.

Hope you enjoyed my first post, now go tell your friends to read it too!

Happy coding,

Bill @ gnidesign