Ugh!!'s Greymatter Honeypot

Getting a 360 degree view

Owen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:22:17 +0000

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And if that’s the case, you can just imagine how great a video can be. And the great thing about the online world is that anyone has a choice of media they can use. You could be using it to market your product, you could be using it to sell a service; you could be using it to make a point. But there’s one thing that is better than a video. Have a look at this 360 view below:

It’s a special applet that shows you a 360 view of any object you want, a perfect way to learn more about an item. In this case the subject is a car; and it’s a perfect example of what can be implemented, for example, on a website dedicated to selling cars. But you can see the potential for any product you may want to sell online.

The website include instructions on how to produce the 360 views, which involves creating two points which are used to align all the images, and then taking photos at 15% angles around the item on display. This should give you 20 photos, but you can take more if you want to make the video a bit smoother. Once the photos are taken, you can log into the 3D Bin website and use the website to upload your photos and make your video. Once the animation is created, the website will give you some code you can insert anywhere you want the 360 view to be displayed. You can use it on your website, on eBay or anywhere that lets you embed your code.

The beauty of this animation is that the person viewing the website has full control of the visual experience. They can spin around the object to their heart’s content, see it from any angle and even zoom in and out to examine individual details. It’s impossible to know exactly what someone is after, but this way, they can just pick antyhing they like.

Check it out.

Isle of Man – Chief Minister at Junior Chamber

Owen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:59:28 +0000

There’s an interesting event being organised this week by the Junior Chamber of Commerce; a briefing and Q&A session with Tony Brown the Chief Minister, with a focus on the recent VAT announcement and the impact on the Isle of Man’s finances. It’s down at the Hilton Hotel on Wednesday 11th at 18:00.

The cost of the event is £10 for Junior Chamber of Commerce members and £12 to non-members. Payment must be made in advance. For details and to confirm attendance contact Rich.Davies@RBSCoutts.com

I’m was planning on heading down there, but still not 100% on a babysitter, so it’s looking a bit iffy.

The cost of cheap hosting

Owen — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:07:49 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

I came across an interesting article a few days ago called The Hidden Costs of Cheap Hosting on a website dedicated to web hosting, which has an interesting web hosting guide. It outlines 3 concerns that webmasters should bear in mind when weighing up the cost of different service providers. The post list performance, downtime and spammy neighbours and the main three problems which can be found on this host.

Poor Performance is where your website runs fine most of the time, but then you get days when it takes forever to load a page, you get all sorts of errors or your page just never loads.
Downtime can be a result of poor performance; where you try to access your site and you just don’t mange. There’s a worse manifestation of this though; where you try to access your control panel, and not manage to get any response; or when you try to contact your provider and get no joy there. It can be quite frustrating when you can’t get an answer to your questions.
Spammy Neighbours are something that you don’t have direct control over. However, when search engines see spam, they tend to keep track of where it’s coming from and call here “Bad Neighboughhoods”. Getting associated with these can be a problem for your website.

These are really manifestations of poor management and policies which characterise cheap hosts. Having too many clients on the same server can lead to performance and availability issues and not managing them correctly or having lax policies can cause problems to everyone. Remember, website hosting isn’t just about finding the cheapest price; it’s about finding someone you can build a long term relationship with; someone you can rely to keep your business running.

Turn your Windows 7 machine into a WiFi router

Owen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:18:35 +0000

Here’s a great concept I came across: Connectify lets you turn your computer into a WiFi router, letting you share your internet connection with friends and family. There are a number of things you can do with this, ranging from sharing your wired connection with other devices around, all the way to sharing the WiFi connection you’re using with other users who don’t have an account. Say, for example, if you’re in a hotel room with your computer connected to the room WiFi and you want your mobile phone to get an Internet connection, this would be an option.

It’s only available on Windows 7 because the software requires some features that aren’t available in previous versions of Windows. Sign up for the Beta and give it a whirl.

Firework season is upon us

Owen — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:34:50 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

It’s that time of year again, when fireworks light up the sky and kids sit around street corners collecting money for fireworks. I’m not actively taking part in Kempton Fireworks this year, but I’ve helped them put their website up and tickets are now available for sale. It’s on the 7th of November and promises to be one of the most spectacular fireworks displays around London. One day, I’ll get someone to deploy one of those live video casting solutions so I can watch them from all the way from the Isle of Man.

I don’t think we’ll be going to any public displays this year. Navigating around with 2 newborns is a bit tricky and we may just opt for an evening with friends. After all, lighting your own fireworks is more fun than watching someone else doing it for you; I’m sure Arthur will love the experience.

Firefox turns off WPF plugin

Owen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:45:00 +0000

I was greeting with an interesting dialog box when I got back to my computer just now:

I did some digging and it turns out that WPF did have a vulnerability, but it was patched a couple of days ago. Firefox, however, has no way of knowing if you’re running the patched version or the original one with a security flaw (which Microsoft forcibly added to Firefox without warning a few months ago). You can read more about the issue here.

Interesting times huh?

Isle of Man Event: Focus on your soft skills

Owen — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:13:32 +0000

The Isle of Man Section of the BCS is organising an event on the 19th of October called: Focus on your Soft Skills. Here’s a quick snippet about the shape of the event:

The first session will start at 5.30pm and is entitled Understanding and applying your relationship tendencies. There will then be a short break for tea/coffee etc, and the second session will start at 6.45pm and is entitled Managing conflicts collaboratively.

As you can imagine, we’re quite maxed out with the twins, but I’ve got a pass to go out that evening as I believe this session will be quite interesting. Technical skills are relatively easy to amass, you learn a subject, you practice and achieve proficiency. Soft skills are a totally different matter. It’s important to understand your personal strengths and weaknesses and also learn to read those of the people around you, to help you be successful in what you do. And this applies to all sorts of companies. You could be a joke shop with an online presence, an Orange County computer support specialist or even just a corner shop trying to deal with staff, suppliers and customers; soft skills will serve you in all walks of life.

If you’re interested in attending, check out the Isle of Man BCS website and drop Events a line using the contact form.

Google Wave plugin for Firefox

Owen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:51:42 +0000

Here’s an interesting plugin for Firefox if you have Google Wave. To date, I’ve been keeping my browser open on Wave in the hope that someone will send me a message, but that’s quite wasteful on resources. Yes, bandwidth is cheap, it’s not like I’m using commercial satellite or anything like that; but any running process is going to consume resources in some shape or form.

Instead the Google Wave Add-on for FireFox will poll the service for you and let you know if there’s anything new that needs your attention. It’s a tiny widget that sits in your status bar, so it’s not even very intrusive.

Get it here – and if you’re on Wave, I’m owen.cutajar@googlewave.com

National Identity Fraud Prevention Week

Owen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:37:21 +0000

I’ve just found out that it’s National Identity Fraud Prevention Week in the UK at the moment. What is ID fraud? Well, it’s when someone impersonates you or your company and commits criminal deeds which you may eventually be blamed for. The most common crime committed is fraud, using your details to defraud you or third parties. Unfortunately we live in a world where information is readily available, and most of us have no qualms leaving our date of birth on Facebook or telling people what our mother’s maiden name is. Unfortunately these two factors are also used by a number of financial institutions to protect your online account. Do you see where I’m heading with this? No? then maybe this video can help:

The week has been organised to raise awareness around these issues and the website includes a number of real life stories and tips that everyone can follow to minimise their exposure to this risk. Unfortunately everyone can be targeted by nefarious criminals, it doesn’t have to be your postman. It could be a Russian hacker pretending to be an Irvine web design firm; or a buyer on eBay who bought your old computer which had all your passwords stored on it; or a complete stranger who picked our your bank statement from your recycling pile; pretty scary huh?

The end result is that we need to be more aware of our actions and our information. Always be aware of what data you’re “leaking”. Being vigilant and aware is the key.

Introducing Alexander and Aristea

Owen — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:00:47 +0000

You might have noticed a bit of a gap in my blogging over the last couple of weeks, though there has been some action on my personal blog, but for those not in the loop, we’ve been blessed with a gorgeous set of twins; a boy and a girl who we’ve named Alexander and Aristea. Here’s what they look like now that they’re a week and a half old (click for a larger image):

Twins and mum are all doing fine; and Arthur and I are over the moon. I’m not going to say they’re not hard work (my lack of online time will probably attest to that); but we’re enjoying each sleep-deprived minute and are looking forward to what the future has in store.

Just wanted to drop a line to everyone who sent us best wishes whether it was via blog comment, email, Twitter or Facebook. I’d love to reply to each and every of the hundreds of messages individually, but I can’t promise I’ll have the bandwidth to do it. Just keep watching the usual channels and I’ll keep you posted with any developments.