LiquiScape's blog

Security

2013-02-04T11:43:00.000+00:00

I've just been working through my annual security assessment. An online series of case studies and questions to help me be more secure at work. I enjoyed it so much I thought I'd write some questions of my own.

You print out a database of people's names, DOB, their mothers maidenames, their home address, bank details and name of first childhood pets. You leave it on a bus by mistake. What action should you take?

Cover it up, don't tell anyone. If it gets out blame the trauma from loosing your first childhood pet. Tell them god told you to do it. Tell them you can see dead people and rats crawling over your body. What ever you do don't admit you're *That* stupid.

Ask yourself if you're happy in a job where they pay so little you have to take public-transport every day and yet forced to work from home.

Report it to HR so the people can be contacted and advised to have their mothers maiden names changed by depol, in fact their first pets names should also be changed and perhaps they should move.

You are leaving the office and someone is entering the building without a pass. What should you
do?

Let them into the building politely. No body likes to be rude right?

Get all up in their face and challenge them. If they can't produce a pass or explain exactly why they are here then mace them in the face with pepper spray.

Get the hell out. They are clearly a terrorrist.

You are in your office working on sensitive information. You need to go to the loo. What precautions should you take?

None. You work with trustworthy people because your company isn't run by dicks.

Password protect your screen, bolt your laptop to the desk. Ensure all your stuff, including pens (they cost money you know!) are locked away in a secure vault which only you know the twenty didgit combination.

Tell a colleague where you are going and give them a time you'll be expected back in case they need to inform security of your kidnapping.

You are on the train and take a work-related call. Which of the following are true?

You could divulge sensitive information. Everyone around you are potential spies. The government is watching you. They are tapped into your phone. That van outside really has been out there a long time.

There are no risks, as long as you use a pre-agreed coded language that only you and your colleague use. Some people think they can get away with speaking Klingon or Welsh but unfortunately a few thousand people in the world can speak this and they are probably all sat next to you on the train right now taking notes of what you are saying. They are basically employed to spy on you. You are not alone. Big brother is watching!

Go into the loo to take your call is more secure. The over-whelming stench of piss and that used confom and/or needle are a small price to pay when you're telling your colleague you'll be ten minutes late for the meeting. Remember, you ARE being followed and the information you are discussing could affect you and your organisation.

Which of the following statements are true?

All documents must be shred and properly recycled by professionals. You cannot take shredded paper home to use as hamster bedding as your hamster may be exposed to sensitive information.

Your bin, at home or work, is not secure. That feeling you are being followed when walking home at night is not in your head. It is someone waiting for you to throw sensitive information into your bin.

Documents are more secure if they have the word PRIVATE or CONFIDENTIAL stamped across them. If you see these words you will imediately stop reading because you know you would never read things you weren't meant to read.

Gov.uk - one website for all UK government digital services

2012-11-06T12:08:00.001+00:00

"One Website to rule them all,

One Website to find them,

One Website to bring them all

and in the darkness bind them"

The UK Government are shutting down all departmental websites including arms-lengths-bodies (you don't use the word quango anymore) into one super-site. The question is... will it be super?

As I often do, because I'm lazy, I've chosen to point towards someone who's said it far better than I can:

Rory-Cellen Jones wrote for the BBC:

"Can the government run one decent and cost-effective website, which gives customers speedy access to vital information and services? Unlikely, you might think given a track record of over spending on far too many sites that deliver a poor user experience at a hefty cost.

But today sees the launch of www.gov.uk which seeks to change all that. The vision is of one website to rule them all - or rather a single destination for the government's customers rather than more than 400 different addresses spread across the various Whitehall departments.

If this is to work it is going to need a change of culture, from one where the government viewed its web operations as something to be farmed out to some giant suppliers and forgotten, to something far more responsive.

When I visited the Government Digital Service - now in charge of this operation - there were some encouraging signs. At first glance the office appeared to be awash with T-shirts and ponytails, more like a technology firm than a government department, though with much worse coffee and no free food."

Full article: All right gov? Can government do the web?

In theory it's a great idea. One place to interact with the Government... that means you can renew your passport, driving license, collect pension, do your tax, renew your tax disc, etc online in one place. Businesses will similarly be able to register their business, get all the permits they need to run their business, check export/import rates, etc.

Anyone who's tried to renew their driving license online will know how painful it is to have to register for a Government gateway ID and follow the process to completion. It's doable, but not intuitive. As a starter I hope that activities like this will be simpler yet still secure.

I think this site will fail for users who don't know what task or info they need. There are heaps of random pieces of legislation and guidance out there for businesses and public alike. If I'm specifically searching for something, like renewing my driving license, that task is easy to find... but what if I'm a buiness, legally required to hold permits X, Y and Z? There are many activities and pieces of guidance for business and public, regulated by various Government bodies, that people simply don't know are there. Unless I search specifically for something it's hard to find what's relevant to me... as the Gov.uk site grows these lesser known bits of information may become more and more lost.

In theory the idea of Gov.uk is great; one website to rule them all.

We'll have to wait and see what the reality is. It'll all be down to how robust the architecture turns out to be and how good the content is. It'll also be down to how efficiently they continue to improve the site and how much support they provide the 400 departments and agencies that will now be feeding into the site. They've adopted an agile methodology; if they continually invest and improve this site then they've a fighting chance but it's a mammouth task - the needs of the Police vs Defraa vs Natural England vs the Post Office vs the MOD vs JobCentre+ are all very different and the needs of the many many different customers will be massively varied. After all the UK is a very varied place.

Flood aware video

2012-11-06T09:00:00.000+00:00

It's not often that I get to star in a video... and this is no exception.

I recently got involved in producing a video for the Environment Agency to raise flood awareness. It's all about how quickly floods can happen and how you need to be prepared.

Can you spot me in the video? More importantly are you prepared for flooding... do you know if your home or work is at risk and what you would do in a flood situation?

www.environment-agency.gov.uk/flood

Why big fat IT depts suck

2012-11-05T10:43:00.002+00:00

"I'm sorry, the outdated browser you are forced to use won't support Google docs for much longer. We know this makes your job easier but we've just upgraded you from IE6 so be happy with that. Please check back in 10 years for the next upgrade"

"The simple project you have proposed will cost £100K more than it would in the real world. We have taken 6-12 months to tell you this. We will take another 2 years to implement it by which time the project will be redundant and technology will have superceeded it by at least 4 years"

"Thank you for calling our support number. Your call is very important to us. If your problem is urgent try emailing our support address blah@blah.com. We aim to respond within 48 hours."

Do you work for a large company with a frustratingly slow IT department? Why is it that these departments seem to have unfathomably slow processes and a complete unwillingness to be flexible?

One of the most frustrating parts of working for a big company has to be the lack of control that you get when trying to interact with your own IT department. Even as a digital expert you are assumed to be IT illeterate and your computer is locked down to the lowest common denominator level. A level of assumed idiocy that even a monkey, bashing away at your computer solidly for a year, would struggle to do anything that would break the system... except that the reality is that most common error occurs when the poorly executed security controls placed on your machine bugger things up again and again.

It's pretty established that a lack of control in any situation increases stress. This is particularly true in the work place and very true when trying to use my computer on a daily basis.

The big issues about trying to get a project off the ground only to have it shot down based on rediculous cost are bad enough (why are we told that to change that sentence will cost £30K and take 6 months to implement... an inhouse developer could do it in 10 minutes and have time to make a coffee).

It's the little things that really bug me, for example, I can't:

Use a browser other than IE8
Use a USB stick without encrypting it
Leave my computer for more than 15 minutes without it powering down completely
Have more than 100mb of emails
Organise icons on the desktop. Make things ordered and tidy
Clear my cache
Set a screensaver
Watch a YouTube video, check my personal email or cheer myself up with Lolcats

It's just frustrating. Perhaps if I worked in that department it would make sense. I'm sure there are strong reasons to outsource everything and to make everything stupidly secure. I can see why everything should be tested thoroughly but then again perhaps if more was in-house we could fix and respond to things more quickly. It probably is easier to have an army of first-line gerbals providing technical support (but it would be nice if they knew more than how to click the start menu).

Even if nothing changed it would be so nice if it didn't always feel like "us vs them"... we do work for the same people with the same objectives right?

SIGHS!

10 useful usability findings and guidelines

2012-10-22T15:12:00.004+01:00

I've just discovered this Smashing Magazine article on 10 useful usability findings and guidelines.

I'll be referring to this again for sure.

In short they are:

Form labels work best above the field
Users focus on faces - and also look where faces face
Quality of design is an indicator of credibility (users judge a book by it's cover, shit design, layout, consistency, typography, errors, typos, usability, rate of update erode credibility)
Most users do and don't scroll - read the article, it makes sense.
Blue is the best colour for links
The ideal search box is 27-characters wide
White space improves comprehension
Effective user testing doesn't have to be extensive (5-15 people)
Informative product pages help you stand out
Most users are blind to advertising (or things that look liek advertising)

Click here to find out why you should never use click here

2012-10-22T10:59:00.003+01:00

One question I'm frequently asked by publishers and people who generally want to revise their "bit" of the website I mainly work on at the moment is why can't we use phrases like "Click here" or "Our address is shown below".

It's sometimes hard to explain but this article from Smashing Magazine sums it up nicely; which I've further summarised below as:

Click here emphasises mouse interaction (press here is more apt for a touchscreen, press enter here perhaps for a screen-reader?)
Click means nothing if you're using a screenreader which reads links in isolation.
Links should tell you about their destination / behaviour - "Click here to download pictures of naked ladies" vs "Download pictures of naked ladies".
Not using click here can help you simplify your links - "Click here to see Hugh's photos" vs "Hugh's photos"

"The challenge is to make your links communicate “click here” without actually saying “click here,” and there are many ways to do this. It will take some thought and effort on your part, but in the end, users will benefit with a better experience"

OMG Shoes

2012-03-07T21:57:00.000+00:00

"Liam Kyle Sullivan is the director/performer behind LiamShow.com, a collection of funny short films created by and starring Liam. In late 2006, Liam's musical comedy video "Shoes" went viral on YouTube, spawning hundreds of fan remakesand launching Liam's character Kelly into internet stardom. Shoes was selected as a viral video to watch by "Entertainment Weekly," was chosen as one of the top 10 videos of 2007 by YouTube, and went on to win the People's Choice Awardfor "Favorite User-Generated Video" in 2008. Time Magazine listed Shoes in their top 50 YouTube videos of all time."

"Liam's video Muffins, a commercial parody, has become another YouTube smash, with his original posting and fans' re-postings of the video combining for over 20 million views. His follow-up to Shoes, Let Me Borrow That Top, in which Liam plays five of the main characters, was nominated for a 2007 YouTube Video Award in Comedy, and has received over 15 million views."

The Liam Show is absolutely freaking fantastic. There are plenty of guys who do a bit of drag out there and post it on YouTube. This guy isn't one of them, he's created League of Gentlemen esque characters on a tini-tiny budget and been lucky (or savvy?) enough to capture the a massive online following via every main social media channel out there:

Website: http://www.liamshow.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/liamkylesullivan
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/liamshow
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LiamKyleSullivan
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/aliamshow
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0838220/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Kyle_Sullivan

His main character is the awesome "Kelly" with the brilliant catch phrase word "Betch" and "Such a deck". However, there are brilliant secondary characters played by him such as the mother and other spin-off characters such as Kelly's awesome friend Heather (she's a vampire).

So the dude amazing use of social media - but the main thing is he's fucking hilarious!

My new shiny

2012-03-07T20:11:00.001+00:00

This is mostly a test. I'm writing this on my new Galaxy sii, which I chose because it was cheaper than I phone and also I wanted to try android out. So far I haven't found myself wanting. indeed this phone seems to be able to do anything that's an iphone can do and more. tony I'm trying to dictate using the microphone function as you can see it thanks tony is a good substitute for currently. still I'm rather enjoying the voice recognition feature. Then using swipe as an alternative to the normal iphone way of typing is great.
the thing I love most about the samsung galaxy s2 is that it offers you choice and customisation.

Let your pigeon spread it's wings...

2012-02-21T11:50:00.000+00:00

Sarah has worked as a barmaid for the past 8 years. She's very good at it but she's tired of working evenings and decides to apply for a job in retail. She puts her CV in but doesn't get the role.

Why? The employer doesn't look at her skill set. Sarah has great customer service skills and knows how to handle money and stock - she's perfect. However the employer looked at her job title and decided a barmaid couldn't possibly be suitable based on simple heuristics they probably weren't even conscious of.

Sound familiar? Over the years I have had numerous job-titles that reflect only a percentage of the job I do. Company X will think a Digital Producer does one thing, Company Y another thing and Company Z has never heard of Producers but calls them Project Managers and Company W calls them Account Managers. There will always be an overlap of skills and sometimes new skills must be learned.

The reality is the label means very little. I've been involved in strategy, wireframing, site mapping, user testing, requirements gathering, content mapping, card sorts, working with clients, creating project plans, executing project plans, research, managing budgets, prototyping, invoicing, proofing, copy writing, writing test plans, testing, writing scope docs, writing service level agreements, recruiting perm and freelance staff, content management, studio manager, traffic managing, writing tech specs, events management, etc.

All to varying degrees of course - the point is while I might excel at some of these things and be a novice at others the list of skills can't be encapsulated in a short job title.

I believe it's important for employers to look at a person as a whole and not pigeon hole them based on a few labels. At the same time I believe it's important for employees to be careful of becoming a jack of all trades.

Everyone can learn and evolve in their career, most won't become a master of everything. There will always be skills you're a novice at and others where you're an expert and many more sitting in the middle.

Happy Valentines

2012-02-14T08:13:00.001+00:00

Google+ vs Facebook

2011-12-28T16:08:00.000+00:00

So which is more awesome Facebook or Google+ - watch this video and you can decide... AWESOME - although they need to bring it up to date to talk about how horrific timeline is? As the lovely Kevin put it: "‎- love the way Google are pushing, no, force feeding us Google Plus. The latest attempt via the new navigation bar and it's veiled funneling. It's no Facebook. Bottom line, why do you want two online social lives? If it could import your existing FB then they'd have something but, as it stands, it'll die just as its predecessor Google Wave and Google Buzz. Watch."

Light saber elves

2011-12-22T12:42:00.003+00:00

What could be better this Christmas than two women dressed as elves, one in a wheel-chair, having a light saber battle?

And this is completely unrelated but it did make me laugh:

2011-12-22T09:49:00.000+00:00

Happy birthday to me :-)

Looking for a housemate

2011-12-21T19:33:00.001+00:00

I'm looking for a new housemate.

Max (my current housemate) and I have been brainstorming things a new housemate should not say:

"Is there enough room for my drum kit?"
"I'm a jobless layabout who'll probably sell your stuff to buy meth"
"I only work nights and in the day demand absolute SILENCE"
"I hope you don't mind if I smoke the odd spliff... like everyday... in fact I'm high now" (I had this one before)
"I'm going to have a lot of late night callers... of the ederly persuasion"
"I hope you don't mind if I bring my four pitbulls"
"What star sign are you?"
"O I love the gays, you're going to love me! We're going to be BESTIE mates"
"Do you think the ceiling is strong enough to support a swing... did I say swing? I mean sling!"
"Is there electric in your loft? I want to set up a meth lab"
"O, I see you're near a school" rubs hands together.
"I hope you don't smoke, it upsets my shakras"
"Is there enough room for my collection of plastic ponies? I currently have three rooms worth"
"Are there a lot of cats in the area? I love cat meat"
"Does the house face east, I can't sleep if it doesn't face east"
"Has someone died in the room? No, ok... I'll give it a miss"
"You have a pretty face"
"Jesus loves you and I'm making it my mission to save you"
"I'm a fan of Justin Bieber"

If you're not one of these people then you can view my ad on Gumtree here.

Top 10 UK Meme's

2011-12-21T12:30:00.000+00:00

The BBC has announced YouTube's top 10 UK videos.

You can find the list here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16257294

I've picked my 2011 favourites and pasted them below:

You can't beat the original Nyan cat!
Although Dog tease is pretty cute
As is anyone taking the piss out of Rebcca Black

Some that didn't make the official list but did make some of my personal favs:

You've got to love Lady Gaga, especially when you parody her - check out the halloween special.
And the Cher vs Lady Gaga sketch

Anything Simons Cat really <br>A
Nyan cat's Russian counterpart - Russian Nyan cat
Not everyone was a fan of Rebecca Black

The Hobbit

2011-12-21T09:24:00.001+00:00

FANTASTIC - The Hobbit trailer is here and it looks great!

Christmas cheer

2011-12-20T12:00:00.000+00:00

This short is a bit cheerier than my assortmant of insanity wolf pics from yesterday:

Merry Christmas! from Felix Massie on Vimeo.

Little Mix

2011-12-19T19:30:00.000+00:00

Why did Stoats teach Little Mix how to fly?

Seriously, about 40 seconds in they say it, "Stoats taught me to fly..."

It's nearly Christmas, but it's also Monday

2011-12-19T08:30:00.000+00:00

It's nearly Christmas, but it's also Monday

Happy Friday

2011-12-16T17:11:00.002+00:00

The Ferret of Happiness sends you love!

Timesheets

2011-12-15T14:03:00.001+00:00

We all love timesheets right?

Yeah, none of us do - but if you're trying to get people to do them, or you're the person being told to do them, then perhaps one of these lovely pictures below can help lighten the weekly nagging email that goes out to help motivate the most precious of weekly jobs... filling them out.

More Grindr fails

2011-12-15T13:57:00.000+00:00

Well I had a bit of time at lunch so I thought I'd scour the web for some good old Grindr Fail humour:

Simon's cat again

2011-12-15T13:17:00.002+00:00

Hoorah, another Simon's cat is out to bring me Christmas joy and educate me on the wiseness of not letting your cat near the turkey.

It's a wonderful world

2011-12-12T08:51:00.001+00:00

What a brilliant Attenborough ad - just magical.

It's David Attenborough reading the lyrics to "It's a wonderful world" with some glorious footage from across the many brilliant natural history documentaries the BBC have produced.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16069118

Contagion

2011-11-10T09:07:00.001+00:00

I watched the film Contagion last night. IMDB only gives it 7.1 but I'd give it more, it's a great movie. The film is all about a new infection similar to Sars or H1N1, except it's a lot more aggressive (similar to Spanish Flu).

Having spent the morning sneezing on my keyboard it definately has got me thinking about how easily a new disease could be spread. In fact, I was just coughing and can now see little spots of flem on my monitor. Grim indeed, should have covered my mouth really but it took me by surprise.

Indeed in our little office, which can be a bit nippy at times, we regularly see a domino effect where one person gets a cold, then someone else, etc, until it's done the rounds in the office.

It's terrifying to think about the possibility of such a disease spread, it's real, it's possible, and in the best case scenario millions die, in the worst most of us do... it's depressing. So I think instead I'm going to focus on the two more serious messages contained within the film Contagion.

Issue 1: Is Gwyneth Paltrow a disease ridden whore who'll kill us all?

Answer concluded by the film Contagion = YES. No seriously, watch the film - her character is a transnational tramp who slags about and kills us all. Seriously, it's hilarious. I actually wonder if they created the film just to take the piss out of Paltrow? The autopsy scene is the best, the cinema audience actually cheered when they cut her head open!!!

Issue 2: Is Matt Damon a hot fatty?

Answer conclucded by the film Contagion = YES. Matt Damon is a caring and loving dad, driven to eat his feelings by his bitch wife Gwyneth Paltrow. Clearly Damon has bulked up for the film, and not in the way most actors bulk up for an action-role, seriously the boy has eaten a lot of pizza. Was it nessasary? Probably yes, if he was his usual sexy-self you'd have sympathised less for him. His lardiness helps you understand why he would have scrapped the barrel and settled for Paltrow, who's constantly jetsetting off to foreign climbs to have sex with horses and eat raw dog meat. The amazing thing is, that even though Damon has gained ALOT of puppy fat, he's still adorably hot.

So the most important message of the film is: Look after yourself or Gwyneth Paltrow will give you a disease and you'll never get a girl/boyfriend (unless you're Matt Damon).

But seriously, watch the film - it's good!

Now wash your hands!