What is the cloud?

The cloud is technically another buzz word for the Internet, and when you hear people talking about the cloud or cloud storage, they are talking about their files stored on the Internet. What this means is you can save your personal files not only on your computer, but on the cloud.

How does the cloud help me?

Have you ever accidentally deleted a really important file or had your hard drive crash which made you lose all your irreplaceable family photos? I have. Instead of spending precious time and resources on backing up your files to another hard drive which can also fail on you, why not store your files on the cloud? This ensures that you will never lose your files again for as long as the cloud service you are using is still in business. If you’re extra worried about losing data, you can use both the cloud and your external hard drive. :)

More benefits from the cloud.

The cloud doesn’t just help you backup your files, it gives you a whole new way to access your data from anywhere, anytime. Just got to work and you forgot a document at home? Access it on the cloud from your work computer! Just took pictures of your ski trip? Share it with your friends and family without sending an overly large e-mail! On the train ride home and bored? Read one of the eBooks you stored on the cloud on your smartphone! Hungry? Eat a sandwich! More things are now possible with the cloud (please note: food cannot be stored on the cloud).

So how do I start using the cloud?

There are several services that offer cloud storage. Here are some of my recommendations.

Dropbox starts you off with 2 GB of free storage with 50 GB and 100 GB paid plans. I personally find that 50 GB for $100/yr is a bit too steep and a large hurdle for many, but you can expand your storage with referrals (my link is also a referral). On the plus side, it has one of the easiest interfaces around and is compatible with many platforms like PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, Android, etc., which means you can share between more devices than ever. Adding a lower space/cost plan is currently one of the highest petitions on their community forums, so hopefully we will see more affordable plans in the near future (although I cannot guarantee this since I don’t work for them). One caveat is Dropbox syncs to only one folder (you can choose where to put it), so if you were thinking of choosing specific folders throughout your system, you’re out of luck there. I currently use Dropbox as my primary means of cloud storage.

If you own a Mac, Dropbox still works wonderfully but you also have the option of choosing Apple’s iCloud. iCloud is free with 5 GB if you register on an iOS 5 device (iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad). It works seamlessly between your Apple devices and even syncs to PC. Annual upgrade pricing is $20 for 10 GB, $40 for 20 GB, and $100 for 50 GB. Pretty standard pricing on par with Dropbox except with smaller plans. I was unable to test out iCloud since I don’t own an iOS 5 device (I’m Android all the way).

SugarSync gives you 5 GB of free space, and is probably the best alternative to Dropbox. The pricing is more aggressive, and with occasional sales, it’s hard to say no. During their 50% off sale earlier this month, I picked up a 30 GB plan for $24.99/year. The interface is not as polished as Dropbox, but you have the option of syncing folders outside of the main share folder. SugarSync gives you the Magic Briefcase, which syncs across all your computers and devices all the time, but you can share folders specifically on each of your computers/devices and have them show up under each device entry in the SugarSync Manager software. While they don’t sync to other computers, they are easily accessible.

Ubuntu One also has a 5 GB free plan. I found the interface too minimalist and sorely lacking in features and you can only synchronize folders in your home folder (which is really all the average person needs). Their pricing plan is very simple and affordable: $3/month or $30/year for 20 GB of storage. An extra $1/month or $10/year gives you a music streaming option on your mobile, and you can get as many 20 GB storage add-ons as you want for the same base price. Not bad, but there are no discounts as you add more storage.

Box offers 5 GB for free, with pricing at $10/month for 25 GB and $20/month for 50 GB. Their branding is very nice, but I was very turned off by their strict file size limits; you can only store files that are up to 25 MB with the free plan, and that limit only goes up to 1 GB for either paid plan. I didn’t even bother trying it out, but if you don’t do video editing, it might be up your alley.

Wuala is LaCie’s solution for cloud storage, and while their pricing is better than Dropbox’s, it’s not as good as Sugarsync’s. Their interface wasn’t unimpressive, but it didn’t wow me like Dropbox.

There are so many choices! What’s your final verdict?

Having trouble choosing from this massive list? So did I! After a month of trying each of these (some even less), I signed up for Dropbox’s 50 GB plan; the ease of use totally offset the slightly higher price. In other words, Dropbox just works. I also picked up SugarSync, but it has a slightly higher learning curve to the app. If you want something no nonsense that even a monkey could use, go with Dropbox. If your needs are technical in nature and you want to setup multiple shared folders without sharing your entire home folder, you might like SugarSync.

Seriously, the cloud is better than sandwiches?

You can’t share your sandwiches, nor should you. So far, there’s no such thing as a bad cloud. Just don’t expect it to appease your hunger pangs.

What I plan to do is keep the ChickenBall Design name and add a new ChickenBall brand to encompass all my computer-based services and yet keep them separate. As a result, a new business name will become a parent company to house all of this.

The reason this hasn’t happened sooner is because last summer, I had changed careers as a way to explore life outside of a desk and ended up working underground as a mines surveyor. It was an interesting job and I definitely learned a lot about laborer jobs and mining in general; most importantly, I learned a lot about myself, my skills, and my life aspirations. I had to go through a lot of soul searching and I finally decided to continue pursuing my passion for graphic design, but not abandon my technical side, as it is a very large part of who I am. However, I have always been working on both sides of the coin, working in IT and as a freelancer, so I decided to take the best of both worlds and run my own “IT” services.

There’s a lot coming down in the pipeline, but one thing I have learned is that businesses change and adapt as they grow, but they sometimes lose sight of who they are. I stand for the underdog; the one that everybody wants to root for. Coincidentally, I happen to root Android devices as one of my services. :)

Stay tuned for the new branding!

Instead of the usual blog post, I decided to record a screencast tutorial video. Enjoy!

Created using ScreenFlow.

Music: Statia by Gurdonark (http://ccmixter.org/files/gurdonark/19368)

Photo by: Steve Garfield (http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegarfield/)

Social media – love it or hate it, it’s definitely got people abuzz both inside and outside the Net.

I had a Twitter account for ages, but never quite understood the appeal. Aside from key words to tag a particular person or subject, I honestly thought that it was like Facebook, which was all I needed. I was so wrong.

A while ago, my good friend, Ian, spoke to me about the social media stance and how he’d been using Twitter to increase his online clout. I did some research and discovered that almost every web designer that I looked to for inspiration was on Twitter and some other form of social media. It was an eye opener. So, for the last few months, I’ve been immersing myself in Twitter, learning the proper netiquette and such, and while I’ve been using it selfishly as a reference to design articles I find both inspiring and relevant, it’s been functional and enjoyable. On the downside, there’s almost an inexhaustible number of like-minded folks I can follow, however, a percentage of those people that actually tweet useful information to amateurs like me is significantly finite.

Aside from the promotional potential and ability to consolidate updates to your contacts, here’s the big question: why? Why does everybody need to know what one person in the world is doing at any given moment? This method of pushing updates to people whether they want it or not (on a subscribed basis, that is) is almost vain and egomaniacal (nothing against vain egomaniacs, though). The average person doesn’t care whether or not you ate a peanut butter sandwich for lunch (although they should, because peanut butter is tasty). If I don’t think it’s relevant to anybody in particular, I try not to post updates to Facebook or Twitter. However, what is the point of self-promotion without giving the public a face to go with the name? How personal is too personal?

Photo by: Kristina Alexanderson (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalexanderson/)

Passwords are definitely something that we need to worry about now that computers are a big part of our daily lives. Even as a web designer, I pulled the methodology of password policies from my IT experience because having a system of passwords is definitely an advantage when developing and administrating many sites. Today, I’m going to go over ways to make a secure password that will leave the majority of people guessing, and you can apply these strategies into many areas of computing life other than web design.

Plural on the password

Yes, you heard that right. Passwords. Plural, as in more than one. The importance of having a list of passwords is pretty important, even when it comes to your website. Sure, your CMS/blogging framework may provide updates on a regular basis to improve overall security and performance, but when all else fails, the password is the one link that can prove to be the strongest or the weakest.

Mix it up: password basics

Let’s start with the basics: what makes a strong password? Most systems require a password that is a minimum of between 6 and 8 characters. This is so that automated password hacking by cryptography has less of a chance to crack that beloved password of yours. On the other hand, a password that is too long can be difficult to remember and cumbersome to type in. Try to keep it under 12 characters.

Keep it creative and private

Let’s face it – we all want to remember our passwords easily, so we often fall into the trap of using our dog’s name, favorite sports team, or nickname from high school. However, these kinds of passwords have a huge pitfall – they are not private information. If somebody other than yourself knows the keyword you are using as a password, the higher the chance of your password being guessed in ways that aren’t automated brute force (this presents issues I will touch upon shortly). The best practice would be to use either a familiar but private phrase in acronym form (e.g. “adidas” = “all day I dream about security”, “stywpas” = “sausages taste yummy with pancakes and syrup”, “hitbwditu” = “Hann is the best web designer in the universe), etc.) or a made-up word (e.g. Hann-uary, monitorization, great_jorb, etc.). It may take some time to remember these types of passwords, but if you have something like a personal mantra you chant to yourself in your mind, that could work as well! You could even use a funny CAPTCHA that you saw the other day (turning verbs into nouns and vice versa are always fun). By the way – I would never make up a month after my name, just so you know.

Photo by: Mo Riza (http://www.flickr.com/photos/modomatic/)

Mix up the cases, numbers, and symbols

Now comes the complication that can be remedied in an easy way. The sudden requirement by many companies to include at least one of the following in your password: one lowercase letter, one uppercase letter, one number, and one special character (symbol). Uppercase letters can be difficult to use because many of us don’t think in terms of case sensitivity (i.e. programs usually differentiate between lowercase “a” and uppercase “A”); so the best way to approach this methodology is to exclude either uppercase or lowercase letters altogether. Of course, if you are a case sensitive sort of person, this may not apply to you. So, where do you place these characters then? Well, the last thing you should do is place them all in a row, even if it’s in the middle of your keyword, let alone the start or end. Best practice is to use “leet speak” (or l33t sp34k), which is beyond the scope of this article, but in essence is the practice of replacing letters with numbers and special characters. To find out more about this unique brand of cryptography culture, check out the Wiki article on Leet here. After you gain more of an understanding, you shouldn’t be using passwords like “whitesox82″ or “snuggles*29″ anymore.

Categorize them

Now that you have the methodology of making passwords, you should start making a list of passwords and categorizing them. When I say categorize, I mean grouping your passwords into standard usage guidelines that you would personally follow. For example, you could make a password (or two) dedicated to things like web banking, restaurants, social media, work, and junk. This make it easier for you to remember which password you used for what service. Now, this may seem counter-intuitive because two similar sites like Facebook and Twitter would have the same password – but who would know that? You don’t have to follow the exact same guidelines for grouping – this is entirely up to you. However, I highly stress keeping your categories as minimal as possible – anywhere between 4-6 categories should be easy enough to remember, but the more you start to juggle, the higher the possibility for forgetfulness. By the way, I do highly recommend including the category junk. Who hasn’t signed up for a newsletter or a forum about koala bears just to access private content for a short amount of time and then regretted it later? Just remember that if it ends up becoming a regular category, change the password to match accordingly.

Don’t kiss and tell

You know that close friend or family member that you trust so much? They should be the last person you ever tell your password to. I spoke earlier about people guessing your password without using brute force, and who else would know what kind of password you use than somebody close to you? Whatever the intention of the person you know, sometimes a harmless joke or a heat-of-the-moment revenge attack can have severe repercussions. For example, imagine a person who has her e-mail account hacked into by her brother, who knew what her password was. As a prank, he decides to change the password to a humorous word and she suddenly can’t access her account. What would happen if this brother of hers forgets the password and she didn’t configure recovery options (like secret question/answer) on her account? She would have to jump through hoops to get that password of hers reset, and all because of a “funny” prank.

Remember it

This is easier said than done; it’s difficult to remember one of these types of passwords, let alone an entire list of passwords and associated categories! All I have to say is: practice, practice, practice. Practicing often makes you remember. Turn off all password-storage tools in your web browser and don’t choose to save your password on particular sites. Make it so that you have to type them in every single time. This will ensure that it gets ingrained in your memory. I don’t even remember what my passwords are anymore without thinking hard – simply typing them has become muscle memory for me. If you must write your passwords down, do it in a document or utility that stores and encrypts passwords with – guess what? – another password. Alternatively, you can write them down on a sheet of paper and store them in a personal vault, hidden storage location, or safe-deposit box at the bank. Whatever you do, don’t ever store them in a place where people can easily find it, and keep it as far away from your computer as possible. It will become difficult at first, but memorizing passwords is like memorizing anything else – practice using it often and as much as possible!

My site has been up and down since last week; this is because I changed hosts last Sunday and decided to do a little cleaning up at the same time. I’ve been using Bluehost for almost a year now. The live support was helpful, and downtime rarely happened thanks to their 99.9% uptime promise. However, the speed was quite slow. At first, I thought it was just the fact that I had a lot of WordPress installs, but that was not the case. If anything, I was in buyer’s denial – after spending precious money on hosting and domain transfers, I couldn’t allow my site to devalue even further by changing hosts again; but that was then, and this is now.

(mt) ≠ Empty

So, this past weekend, my friend and Unspeakable Media partner-in-crime, Ian, suggested that we should move to Media Temple, after citing his own similar experiences with HostGator. So, I bit the bullet last Sunday and bought a month’s hosting as a trial. Moving is always stressful, but (mt) made it as easy as possible. At first, it was a little disorienting working with something that wasn’t CPanel, but you know what? I like the new interface. I miss only a couple things from CPanel such as the web-based file manager (which allows all sorts of file operations without all FTP protocol handshaking overhead) and SimpleScripts (with its large amount of applications). Aside from that, I have no other complaints. Now, for the good stuff of (mt).

Make it go faster

I’ve known speed before. I used to host with Ace of Space back in the day, but they were Canadian, so localized hosting always responded fast. However, many of my peers and colleagues in different areas of the world would say otherwise. So, I moved to US hosting to get wider reception. Unfortunately, it meant that the tables were turned and my link to the site was slow. After a string of hosts that culminated in going with Bluehost, (mt) proved to me that it was time to abandon inexpensively priced hosting. However, (mt) isn’t that much more expensive. Instead of paying $180 a year, I’m only paying roughly $30 more (if I decide to go with an annual subscription, and I most likely will). I’m only using their (gs) Grid-Service plan right now, but the (dv) Dedicated-Virtual may be the next step if the business takes off and I acquire enough clients. Only time will tell.

Frugality isn’t necessarily a bad thing

I’m not saying that Bluehost and HostGator are bad hosts because they are slow. Far from it. The problem was that I had outgrown them much faster than I originally thought I would. In fact, I was already leaps and bounds ahead of where I was when I moved to Bluehost, and I should have just went straight to (mt) in the first place. What I’ve taken away from my experiences with different hosts is this: there’s a time and place to be cheap, and that is when you are just starting out with freelancing or hosting. If you only host one site or you’re a casual enthusiast with limited funds, then either Bluehost or HostGator is the way to go. However, if you are a power user that needs that critical response time or has the extra cash in hand, then definitely go to (mt). In other words, don’t bite off more than you can chew, but make sure you meet your needs.

Or, you know, just do what I did and wing it.

2009 was a year of struggle; workers struggling to find a new place after losing their jobs as a result of the recession, companies struggling to stay afloat, and people struggling to find solace from the loss of their beloved celebrities. To me, it was a struggle to find my place in the world outside of my Northern mining town. Unfortunately, I was unable to forge my path due to many reasons, one of which was thinking ahead. I let my emotions guide my way, and as a result, I was unprepared for the harshness of the outside world.

The year in projection

2010 is going to be the year I change all that (well, obviously, I can’t solve the world’s problems, but I can affect my own). Starting with my own name, I’ve decided to create a new personal brand identity, along with rebranding for ChickenBall Design itself. What does this mean? It means that the way I present myself and my one-man design firm is going to change.

Change forward, not backward

Who I am, my thoughts, and my blurbs about life are going to be separated from what I represent, the services I offer, and my portfolio. Speaking of my portfolio, I’m planning to build one. I may be inexperienced and just starting out, but I plan to hit the ground running after exercising my legs with figurative walking. I want to prove my worth not just to people and potential clients, but to myself.  I’ve never felt so passionate about web design than I have while doing computer repair. My life as it is at this time of writing is unfulfilling, so I’m filling it fully.

In Conclusion

My English teachers warned me against using “in conclusion” to conclude an argument, but I’ve always been one to challenge the rules, and this is exactly what I’m doing.

Seeing as how my de facto web framework of choice is WordPress, I thought I would share some blog posts detailing configuration, usability, and hacks. I even plan to implement many of these tips in my own site.

How to use WordPress as a Truly Customized CMS – A short tutorial on making WordPress less of a blog and more of a CMS.

How to Use WordPress Revisions to Go Back in Time – A handy usage guide on how to manage posts with multiple authors or edits.

5 Useful And Creative Ways To Use WordPress Widgets – Take a step further to bring widgets into the forefront of your WordPress blog with this nifty guide.

10 Killer WordPress Hacks – Anybody who seriously wants some custom options utilizing the power of PHP without actually knowing PHP can benefit from this post.

10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress – Don’t take any chances with your admin panel’s security being compromised – follow these steps!!

Mastering WordPress Shortcodes – A handy way to embed simple or complex functions into your posts and pages, thus controlling exactly where they appear in your site without having to hardcode them into your themes.

10 Exceptional WordPress Hacks – More like X hacks. I find that the first hack for TinyURLs is useless to somebody like me who thinks that the URL should be transparent to the average end user. Why bother with something like this when it’s more work for the same end result in the viewport? Other than that, there are a lot of useful hacks here, especially #2, #6, and #9.

Custom Fields Hacks For WordPress – Ever wonder what those Custom Fields are for in WordPress when you create a new post? Well, wonder no more! More hackerisms exclusively using Custom Fields to control post behavior individually.

10 Useful WordPress Loop Hacks -While I would only use a couple of these hacks, they pertain to the Loop and are very useful for those who want to hardcode hacks into the template itself, as opposed to the Custom Fields hacks.

Power Tips For WordPress Template Developers – Some general tips on how to achieve common WordPress CMS functionality that isn’t built into the system, but can be unlocked with a bit of hacking.

WordPress Theme Development Frameworks – Even with all the versatility that most users see as unique, designers mostly do repetitive work to obtain that individual look on each of their projects. Why repeat all the boring stuff when you can get a theme framework instead?

For example, I turn to hard rock or heavy metal when I’m working on something edgy. I immerse myself in action movie scores when I need to set a tone of epic proportions. Pop music for hip and modern, electronica for futuristic and experimental, and the list goes on.

I’m into a number of artists, but most recently, I’ve gotten into the latest from Michael Giacchino (who composed the score for the new Star Trek movie), Halestorm, Lacuna Coil, Linkin Park‘s New Divide, and the Battlefield single from Jordin Sparks. Even though they’re not as recent, Bullet For My Valentine‘s Scream Aim Fire and In This Moment‘s The Dream still rotate in my playlists.

Do you also use music as inspiration? If so, who do you usually listen to? If not, what do you use?

This is where the fantasy ends and harsh reality begins. I found out that a number of blogs only provide excerpts or summaries of feeds. This means that in order to read full articles, you have to click through to visit the actual blog. This is what one would call ‘a bad thing’ because of the following reasons:

(1) Time and bandwidth is used up in visiting a site that may or may not be optimized for a mobile viewing experience.

(2) End users like myself who have an amount of feed subscriptions numbering in the double digits may be discouraged from even reading the full article at all.

(3) Frustrations may even escalate to a complete unsubscription of the offending blog and possible boycott.

(4) It’s just not cool, dood.

So, after learning about this setback, I found out that I was also guilty of this treasonous act – my feeds were set to summarized. That changed immediately, so now my blog feeds are the full enchiladas, complete with salsa (hot or mild choices available).

I know that the reason for summarizing your feeds is to generate more traffic for your blog. However, if you use services like FeedBurner, which also tracks your feed statistics, you shouldn’t need to cripple your feeds anymore. Gimmicky tactics to lure people to your site are tacky. Besides, that’s what money is for.