Clicks & Notes

Computerworld - Making the Internet Safer For Your Employees:

• covers firewall settings, email security, and group policies

Wired News - Turning the Tables on Spammers:

Project Honey Pot is a distributed system that catches spammers who collect e-mail addresses from websites without authorization, a practice known as e-mail address harvesting.

Computerworld - Study: More identity theft off-line than online:

72% of the thefts of personal information from scams last year was done off-line

Pricelessware:

• yearly roundup of the best free software according to the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup

Acrobat Reader Speedup:

• a free Windows utility that helps shorten the amount of time it takes for Adobe Acrobat to load
• (via SearchEngineWatch)

Make Firefox Faster:

• a trick for advanced Firefox users with a broadband connection
• (via tins ::: Rick Klau’s weblog)

Warning over Microsoft Word files:

• sensitive information can be inadvertently leaked due to the way Microsoft Word maintains data in edited files
• Microsoft has a Remove Hidden Data add-in that can be used to expunge this information

Running open source without dropping Windows:

• businesses are exploring using open source software such as Mozilla Firefox and Open Office in place of Microsoft applications, while continuing to run the Windows operating system
• however, “those with complex Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint files probably won’t be able to work with open source alternatives because of file and macro compatibility issues”
• places to look for open source options for Windows:
  • The OSSwin Project
  • TheOpenCD
• (via InformIT)

Open Workbench:

• an open source alternative to Microsoft Project
• (via Jeremy Zawodny’s Linkblog)

Asterisk - Strategies For Information Gathering–Your Take

Discussion on ways to gather information as part of the web design process provides several suggestions, including:

• documenting the top 10 risks to the project and distributing it to the team
• interviews with stakeholder and staff
• walkarounds / workplace observation
• competitive website reviews
• email surveys (eg. with Zoomerang)
• sifting through artifacts (eg. marketing collateral)

Digital Web Magazine - Interview with Kelly Goto

(Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler recently released the second edition of their book Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works.)

3 most frequent mistakes that occur in a redesign project:

• Not hiring someone specifically to deal with content
• A lack of specific measurable goals
• Not having a clear brand vision

The “New” Usability:

• develops around short cycles or rapid testing techniques throughout the development cycle (this part is key)
• focuses not only on one-on-one but also on many other methods of gathering data and insights
  • contextual inquiry
  • card sorting
  • surveys
  • prototype testing
  • final-assessment testing
• turns from a company-centered vision to a user-centered vision