Following dConstruct, I have definately felt the need to become greater involved in the general Web dev/geek communitiy. If nothing else it gives me the opportunity to rant about my general work frustrations! Tonight I ended up at PubStandards…..Not a bad night, aside from manly just talking to Dreyfuss and Stu, who happened to be in town for Rails Con Europe 2000 or something! Also saw Frances - sorry I didn’t say hello, I don’t want to be giving a drunken impression of me! Plus, whoever had the t-shirt - Battlestar Galactica rocks!My only major gaffe, aside from the beer consumption, was my chat-up line:

“So, are you here for the geek thing then?”

Unfotunately I had not prepared myself for a “No”! Luckily my phone rang at that exact same instant, diverting me away to see why our homepage was not getting a response from x+1 and also not loading default content…. yeah, my eyes glazed over at this point too! (more…)

Today I came across an interesting corporate attitude. We have been building a range of Flash-based sites and are gearing up to launch them over the coming months.Throughout development, the security guys in the organization have been casting a critical eye at Flash as a technology platform - especially at some of the recent security holes. This is not unlike most operating systems and Web browsers, yes there are holes and they get fixed - with Flash it is certainly something that Adobe are very pro-active when it comes to addressing. Plus most of these issues require access to the SWF file itself…. you would think that if this were true then we would have a bigger problem on our hands!After addressing these whilst in the States, I was thinking that everything was calmed down, and that the security guys (who don’t seem to fully understand or ‘get’ the Web) had been reassured. I was wrong! I was reading the minutes of a meeting between senior technical architects this morning, and this beauty jumped out at me…

The team felt as good corporate systems, a project should be initiated to display a message to the Customer regarding the use of Flash, and its potential vulnerabilities. For example, in a pop-up window, whenever Flash is going to be executed or downloaded. 

Its amazing how one paragraph can make you both smile, cry and bang your head on a desk!Aside from the question as to why anyone would ever thing this is a good idea, is it really wise to tell the user that there are potential security vulnerabilities with a Website? How would you feel if you go to an e-commerce site and are presented with a message like this:

Hello, welcome to SourceBottle!This site uses XY & Z, which have been found to have several, mostly theoretical, security vulnerabilities which may cause your personal details to be compromised.have a nice day! 

Madness! It certainly gives the impression that the company doesn’t know what they are doing. In an age of increasing paranoia about security, I would also imagine that most users would quickly leave the Website and choose to start looking around at the competitors!Oh well… it least it made me smile! (more…)

So, following dConstruct I decided to register on Upcoming.org since everyone seemed to be mentioning it. First impressions are that it is a really nice service - it would have been so useful whilst I was in the USA when finding things to do.One oddity I did find though, I put in my postcode (Brighton) and it suggested I subscribe to London and Maidenhead groups…. London, fair enough - I’m up there quite a bit, but Maidenhead?! I must have missed the memo where it became the geek place to be… Incidentally, there seems to be only one thing on in Maidenhead - something church related.Anyhow, I’m now all setup on Upcoming and using it to keep track of all the latest geeky goings on - hopefully will meet some of you at PubStandards tomorrow! In the mean time, for any of the stalker types out there - you can now subscribe to my events feed! (more…)