Web Design in 1995

Inspired by a History of Web Design article

The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Gold Award Society home page (c) 1995

Inspired by an article on 1stwebdesigner.com about the history of web design shared by @timothywhalin I went hunting in my archives to find the oldest web design for which I still had a copy. Since I started building sites in 1992 I wasn't sure how far back I could go - Managed to find my moldy oldies from 1995 through 1998 and though I'd share them for fun.

It really is amazing how much things have changed. As decidedly tacky as these sites look to modern standards I'm actually not all that shocked looking back at them now. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award site is actually the 2nd version of the first web site I ever created back on a 386 running linux/x-windows installed from something like 20 floppies (if you can relate to this congratulations, you too are getting older!) Sadly, copies of that first version from 1992/3 are long gone but I still have all the working html of the 1995 edition animated gifs and all! The thing even has the old Java Tic-Tac-Doe game embedded in it (ah the good old days)

The Feline Future site was the first commercial site created by PawPrint. It was a team effort along with a trained graphic designer (I was still learning back then and it shows looking at the others) To appreciate it you really need to read some of the software and hardware versions listed there as being components of managing the site (Photoshop 4 and Homesite, for example)

The Quality Inns site was my 3rd commercial web site from 1996-1998 era (the first was also a hotel site) Obviously having some serious fun with photoshop in the design there - it actually was accepting online-bookings and sending out a newsletter.

I found a few other mouldy oldies and may have to dig up some of the others to share sometime.

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Google, Facebook, Pay Pal, and others: anti-phishing email protocol

Can some of the web giants work together to help stop deceptive email?

The plan surrounds the existing systems DKIM and SPF and from a quick read seems to basically be an attempt to back and promote these existing systems with a few add-ons. To quote the dmarc.org web site "A group of leading organizations came together in the spring of 2011 to collaborate on a method for combating fraudulent email at Interenet-scale."

The main difference here seems to be that DMARC includes instructions for what should be done when a email is received that fails the tests. Currently SPF and DKIM just attempt (loosly) to identify valid email but it's up to the client to deturmin what to do if an email comes in that fails the test.

From the dmarc.org site:
"A DMARC policy allows a sender to indicate that their emails are protected by SPF and/or DKIM, and tells a receiver what to do if neither of those authentication methods passes - such as junk or reject the message. DMARC removes guesswork from the receiver's handling of these failed messages, limiting or eliminating the user's exposure to potentially fraudulent & harmful messages. DMARC also provides a way for the email receiver to report back to the sender about messages that pass and/or fail DMARC evaluation."

Will it work, let's hope so! only time will tell what the bad boys can come up with the try and circumvent this latest filter but it certainly can't hurt!

For more information check the http://dmarc.org web site

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PHP 5.4 nearing release

Help test some of the key changes in the PHP 5.4 release candidate

PHP 5.4 final release testing

In a recent post on Google+ the opening is laced with humor "We are in the final push to PHP 5.4 and we need your help. Everyone who is using PHP can give us a hand here, regardless of your technical abilities. Facebook employees, take a break from calculating your stock option scenarios and give us an hour of your time...."

All kidding asside, many developers have been eagerly awaiting this new versinon after primary PHP developemt's 'stalemate' surrounding PHP 6 seemed to delay development for what felt like eons.

There is a lot to anticipate in this release for all PHP developers including:

• Upload progress built-in (finally!)
• Traits
• Closures
• A built-in mini HTTP server
• Syntax and dereferencing changes for arrays

...and other depreciations and minor updates as well as a host of bug fixes.

If you want to help with their final RC testing check the post on Google+ here:
We are in the final push to PHP 5.4 and we need your help

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What did the SOPAstrike accomplish?

after thousands of web sites went offline in protest - was anything acomplished?

After the dust settled on what some refer to as the SOPAstrike and others are calling the largest Internet protest ever what was the result. Did it acomplish anything? All initial reports would seem to concur that is a resounding Yes!

For our part we found a heartening and inspiring comroderie through Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ where geeks and non-geeks came together in support of a unified goal. There was alarm and humour, care and concern.

Here are some highlights from the aftermath:

• Google reports collecting 4.5million signatures on their petition alone (just one of many)
• The Fight for the Future PIPA video has been viewed over 3.5 million times (2.1 million times on January 18th)
• More then 2.5 million Tweets were sent on the subject
• Engine Advocacy, a service that helps people call their local members of Congress, was averaging roughly 2,000 calls per second!
• Wikipedia reports four million people used its blacked-out site to look up contact information for their local representative
• TED, the hub of intelligent thinking online produced a stream of related video talks to inspire and edify

But the most significant and impressive result:

Lawmakers in the US flipping sides:
As of the evening January 18th: 68 support, 71 oppose. That morning, it was 80 support, 31 oppose.

Another hidden silver lining in all this also happened yesterday, it was harder to spot and many won't even have realized that it happened. The world grew just a little closer, yet again, through this massive confluence and focused communication. The Internet again served up what it's best at doing; bringing all people together as equals to enhance understanding.

Now the question remains given the few days remaining before the US votes on this legsliation and Big-media already pulling out their immence pocket-books to try and turn the tide, will this be enough?

For anyone in the USA:
You can sign the petition here if you haven't already, and contact your legislators here.

For anyone in Canada:
Petition the State Department here and check out Why Canadians should care about SOPA

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Google Search Going Social

Google search now understands not only content, but also people and relationships

Google is starting to do exactly what everyone thought they would and combining more and more of the content from Google+ (their social network - and if you're not a member get cracking!) directly into search results. Today they have announced that you can control your search results to include the personal "social" results and/or global results in a Google Blog Post. The important thing to consider is how all this affects you when you're seeing where your web site fits in the search results.

For a long time it was simply, just go to Google, search for one of your keywords and see where you come up. Sadly, those days are long gone (although, not everyone knows it) Today, when you search, Google is taking a lot more then just the key phrase into account including:

• Location
• Your personal search history
• +1 from your friends
• etc

Their announcement of "social search" will mark results with a small "person" icon to indicate those that are personal. You can also toggle the personal result off if you wish by clicking a globe icon at the top. In addition to their blog post they have an intro to Social Search page that outlines the changes.

What this means when you's looking for yourself:
It is becoming increasingly important to look at how you are viewing search. You may even want to go so far as to install a different browser and not log into Google when doing "test searches" Even then your results will be greatly influenced by your location which is determined by your IP address.

What this means for SEO
Having the Google [+1] button on your web site is now almost a 'critical' addition. We have provided this in the XDe CMS since 2 days after Google released the API and the fact that it's now taking such a prominent role in search is really no surprise. If you don't yet have it on your pages you really need to consider adding it. Search results in the primary search engine show who +1'ed a page to anyone that knows those people. In effect 'highlighting' these results and making them far more likely to get clicked.

The downside to all this
All these changes are transforming search from being related to the best content to more of a popularity contest - while in some cases this will still favour the best content, in many other cases it will just favour whoever is already the most 'known' making it far more challenging for the new comers to even get heard at all.

Regardless of your take on all these changes, it's critical to understand them so you know what you're looking at when you do searches and evaluate your own business' position.

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Use Klout to build your Social Network

Designed to measure your influence, Klout is also a great networking tool

The outward focus of Klout is to measure social influence online, but it is also a great way to grow that same influence, using Klout as another place to interact and meet new people. Their +K system for assigning influence can be a great way to grow and help others do the same.

What is Klout?
In their own words "When you recommend, share, and create content you impact others." Klout attempts to quantify that influence by assigning a numeric score to your influence online. While this may seem pointless to some, it is already being used in everything from job interviews to customer rewards. One part of Klout's system is the "+K" a means they developed to allow users to give other users 'points' for being influential about specific topics. Using Klout's +K system you can actually 'bestow' that influence on others and they can return the favor back to you.

Using Klout to grow your network
Using this as a way to grow your network becomes easy after you get into it. If someone gives you +K for a particular topic you can then turn around and give them +K back. That, in and of itself isn't such a big deal, but when you start to find new people through Klout's topic pages and share +K with others who are influential about the same topics as you, or those that interest you, it becomes very powerful.

Just this morning I've added 5 new followers on Twitter and G+ who I discovered through sharing +K all of whom followed/circled me back. All 5 are engaged, and in some way have related interests.

So try it for yourself. Explore the Klout Topic pages and try giving some +K (you get some every day to hand out and you get more when people give you some) Then see who interacts with you as a result and start your connection with them. I now make checking Klout a part of my morning routine.

Need some help getting started - Find my topics on Klout here:
http://klout.com/#/pawprint_net/topics

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