Drupal 7 simplifies Web site management

Drupal, the open source Content Management System (CMS) used to power everything from personal sites to the White House's Web site, is legendary for its flexibility and power. But Drupal has also been known for its labyrinthian administrative interface.

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Drupal 7 represents a conscious effort to make Drupal easier to use, but the results are mixed.

Drupal 7's installation routine is relatively simple — create a database, modify the sample configuration file, and walk through a very short Web-based install. The experience is comparable to setting up a WordPress blog. It's fast, easy, and you'll have no problem setting up a Drupal site if you have any business at all administering a CMS.

After the installation, Drupal hands you off to the administrator dashboard. This is the "now what?" moment. In its just-installed state, Drupal is sort of the Ikea kit of content management — some assembly is required. Specifically, you need to start adding and configuring modules to extend the functionality of Drupal, and theme the site to achieve the look you'd like.

When I say the user-experience efforts for Drupal 7 had mixed results, I should clarify that I find Drupal 7 to be more intuitive and usable than Drupal 6. The user interface isn't just more attractive (it is) but also includes some crucial enhancements.

Managing modules, for example, is much easier in Drupal 7. Now you can install a module just by specifying the URL for the zip file or tarball, though you still have to use the Drupal community site to search for modules. The WordPress Dashboard allows searching for, installing, and managing plugins without leaving the Dashboard.

But Drupal 7 still has a way to go before I'd consider it entirely intuitive. You'll need to spend some time with the Drupal docs to become productive with the platform, even if you're just using default modules.

One example — you can enable tracking and get an extremely detailed log of activity on your Drupal site. But it's a multi-step process, and one could forgive an admin for being frustrated that nodes include a "Track" tab whether it's enabled or not — but without any indication how to enable gathering data.

The flip side is that the new user interface is much easier to navigate than Drupal 6. One major feature that I haven't seen elsewhere is the "Shortcut" concept. If there's an administrative function you use frequently, you can add it to the shortcuts so that it's just one click away when you're in the administrative interface. For example, to moderate comments, you have to navigate to the Content menu, then the Comments tab, and then click the "unapproved comments" button. If your site doesn't allow comments, then this location makes sense. If you're running a site that receives a lot of comments, then this is a hassle. However, you can add a shortcut that puts the unapproved comments piece just one click away.

In short, you will find yourself spending quite a lot of time pouring over the Drupal documentation while putting your site together. It's required that modules have not just "README" but also inline documentation and how-to-use modules from the admin and user perspective. Other projects should take a cue from the Drupal folks here.

Having A Good Maintenance In Your Own Laptop Keyboard

The keyboard is the most frequently used components, which is also easy to the accumulation of dust. Just check there the following keycap which is the best place for dust accumulation, comparing to dell adp-70eb adapter. Excessive dust will accelerate the corrosion of conductive rubber keyboard to damage the keyboard's printed circuit.

Some tips you should notice when using the keyboard
Although most manufacturers have taken into account the durability of the keyboard, especially in the structure which was fully optimized, after a long time, the problem came, just like some key is out of control, or the letter on the board wear off. Consequently, you should notice the below tips:

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Firstly, do not get angry with your own laptop keyboard. In my views, the biggest killer of the laptop keyboard is yourself. For many computer users, after the crash, because of their loss data, they could not help hitting the keyboard. We remind you that this will damage flexible glue that play a supportive role in the keyboard keys.

Secondly, water is the number one killer of laptop keyboard, even the whole laptop. Try not to eat, smoking or drinking water around the notebook to keep the keyboard clean. In particular, if there is too much liquid flowing into the keyboard, it is likely to penetrate deeply into the system, which result in short-circuit and hardware damage, not like HP Compad 463958-001 ac adapter. But such damage is out of guarantee limitations, you have to solve it with your own money. We hope you to be able to develop a good habit to eat or drink away from the notebook computer, which will minimize the chance of problems with the purpose to protect the laptop.

The Right Method to Clean The Keyboard
If we have to clean the keyboard, then we can use the vacuum cleaner with the smallest soft mouth. However, if you want to do a thorough cleaning, the only way is to remove the keycaps one by one, and it is very trouble. You can use a protective film for laptop computer keyboard. This soft uneven film is with lots of keys, just to cover the laptop's keyboard, both waterproof and dustproof, and also inexpensive. When you wanna to pick one, just notice it must fit with your laptop keyboard, as well as feel soft. If facing a stiff keyboard, it will certainly feel uncomfortable. In addition, it is very necessary of regular cleaning and blow the dust.

New Gmail Widget Tells You All About the People You’re Emailing

Google has introduced the people widget, a new Gmail feature that adds contextual information about those with whom you exchange email.

During the next two weeks, Google will roll out the new feature. It will appear on the right side of the Gmail interface and shows a picture of the person whose email you’re reading, a short paragraph summarizing the last email you received from that person, subjects from emails from the past month, an abbreviated calendar showing availability, and documents that person has recently created.

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If you’re engaged in a group email conversation or a Google chat, all those participating will be listed along the right side, and above them will be icons leading you to a variety of ways to communicate with them, including chat, email, calendar events and phone calls.

This feature hasn’t arrived on our Gmail interface yet, but we’re eager to try it. It looks like a quick and efficient way to get your bearings when you receive an email.

Thermal Imagers for Swine Flu Detection

Just as X-rays have become a common feature in baggage screening, a number of airports around the globe have now installed thermal imaging units to screen passengers who are suspected to be infected with the H1N1 virus. Infrared cameras equipped with thermal imaging capabilities were originally installed in major airports of Asia during the outbreak of SARS in 2002 and at the Beijing International Airport during the 2008 Olympics. Since the most common symptom of the swine flu virus is rise in body temperature, scanners with infrared cameras are an apt solution to identify infected cases.

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The working of these scanners is simple. The thermal imagers attached to these scanners help determine the temperature of the body passing through it based on the amount of infrared radiation emitted. It works on the basis of a simple rule, which is: 'The higher the temperature, the higher the infrared radiation emission'. Using this principle, passengers with unusually high temperatures can be easily identified and escorted for further testing.

Typical thermal imaging scanners see in grayscale. Integrating the infrared cameras with software and setting them for isotherm allows you to choose different color palettes for a variety of temperature scales, thus enabling you to map temperatures on a human body. The machines can be set up such that when a traveler with a fever (typically more than 38 degrees Celsius) passes through the thermal imaging scanner, his features can be highlighted in a pre-assigned color. These thermal imagers are known to be extremely sensitive and have the ability to measure temperatures which are less than 0.14 degree Celsius.

Since elevated temperatures are indicative of several other illnesses, too, infrared cameras are used in airports as an efficient tool to screen thousands of travelers for dengue and bird flu as well.

Today, thermal imagers come with a number of high-end features such as hot spot tracking, alarming, and relay systems. Implementing such equipment at airports helps prevent any problems that can possibly escalate into epidemic proportions if not contained in time.

Having said this, it is vital to keep in mind that readings from infrared cameras cannot be used as the last word, simply because illnesses such as the swine flu have a gestation period of about two days before the temperatures of a human body start to rise. Thermal imaging scanners do not detect the virus itself but only abnormal temperatures, still playing a significant role in spotting possibly infected travelers.

Hotmail Exploit Silently Snooped & Microsoft Audio CAPTCHA Easily Defeated

Bad news for Microsoft again as security researchers prove two very different fails - Hotmail exploited to silently "steal" email and Microsoft audio CAPTCHAs defeated. The audio CAPTCHAs were also easily broken for Digg, Yahoo, eBay, and Authorize.

More bad news for Microsoft in the form of security researchers proving two very different fails - audio CAPTCHAs defeated and Hotmail exploited to silently "steal" email.

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The first fail is not leveled solely against Microsoft, but Stanford University researchers found a way to break popular audio CAPTCHA technology used by Microsoft's Live.com, Yahoo, Authorize.net, eBay, and Digg. In "The Failure of Noise-Based Non-Continuous Audio Captchas" [PDF], the researchers built a program called Decaptcha that can listen to and decipher audio CAPTCHAs. The study called most CAPTCHA methods "inherently insecure." By using Decaptcha, the "per-captcha precision of Decaptcha is 89% for Authorize, 41% for Digg, 82% for eBay, 48.9% for Microsoft, 45.45% for Yahoo and, 1.5% for Recaptcha. We improve our previous work's result on eBay from 75% up to 82%." They concluded that Decaptcha's accuracy for commercially available audio CAPTCHAs rivals crowd-sourced attacks. To exploit the vulnerability with Decaptcha's system would require no specialized knowledge or hardware. "Its simple two-phase design makes it fast and easy to train on a desktop computer."

Although the researchers generated 4.2 million audio CAPTCHAs, which are offered as a choice for visually impaired users, not all technologies measured the same vulnerabilities. Google's reCAPTCHA which is used on sites like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, 4chan, StumbleUpon and Ticketmaster, is not wide open to attack because the audio CAPTCHA scheme has semantic noise built into it - added noise like conversations in the background.

This is not the first proven flaw, or real-world attack against CAPTCHAs. Last year, Webroot showed how a Pushu variant Trojan was bypassing Microsoft's Hotmail and Live CAPTCHAs to spam users. Now there's more bad news for Hotmail users. For at least two or three weeks, a Hotmail exploit made it possible to trigger an attack to silently snoop on targeted victims' emails and contacts as well as add email forwarding rules to users' accounts.

According to Trend Micro, the attack could be carried out by simply opening or previewing a maliciously crafted email. It required no clicking on a link; instead if the tainted email was opened, embedded commands would upload a victim's contacts and emails to servers that attackers controlled. It also enabled email forwarding on the targeted Hotmail accounts, so that attackers could continue to "steal" correspondence and snoop on any of the victim's emails in the future. The vulnerability took "advantage of a script or a CSS filtering mechanism bug in Hotmail" and therefore automatically executed, downloading a script from a remote URL.

Trend Micro said Microsoft has patched the Hotmail bug, but it was being used for in-the-wild attacks. They discovered it after a colleague in Taiwan opened an email which was supposedly a security warning from Facebook. After first discovering the Hotmail bug, Trend Micro wrote, "The email message seems to have been specially crafted per recipient, as it uses each user's Hotmail ID in the malicious script that it embeds." They also pointed out an "often ignored" danger to businesses who allow employees to check their personal email accounts at work. If an employee was targeted and victimized, it "gives the attacker access to sensitive information that may be related to their company, including contacts and confidential messages."

At the time of posting, Microsoft had not replied about how many Hotmail users may have been compromised or if targeted Hotmail accounts, or any Hotmail users, have been notified.

Update: Microsoft Senior Response Communication Manager Bryan Nairn replied, “On Friday May 20, we updated our Windows Live Hotmail service to address a targeted security issue that could allow information disclosure if a customer was affected. No action was required for customers, as they were automatically protected by the update.”

Steve Molkentin, Microsoft Career Factor Idol Winner – The Job Seeker

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Steve Molkentin, Microsoft Career Factor Idol Winner – The Job Seeker.

Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki

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Steve MolkentinSteve is a passionate IT professional who firmly believes that Information Technology is nothing without a grounding in excellent customer service.

As a career Microsoft IT professional, Steve has been involved in designing and delivering deployments of all key server and OS products into the enterprise since NT4 and Windows 98, and is seeking to grow his skill and certify as a Microsoft Certified IT Professional on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 through the Career Factor program. He's also looking forward to sharing his experiences through social media and in speaking engagements during and afterwards. A motivated and dynamic leader, Steve is excited about developing a skill set that will benefit a future employer and allow him to offer significant benefit through his knowledge of best practices and the application to the enterprise.

Living in Brisbane, Australia, Steve enjoys spending time with his family (gardening & watching movies & TV with his wife; reading books, playing Lego, & chasing his young son and daughter) and encouraging the IT community within Australia and New Zealand as a core team member of www.autechheads.com – the largest online user group of IT Pros in the region.

He enjoys playing guitar, Xbox/Kinect, reading & generally being a proud #geek evangelist. He often talks too much and enjoys television far too much.
DISCUSSION:

Q:
Steve, thank you for coming in today to share your insights and experiences with the audience.
A: "No problem – honoured to chat with you."

Q:
What initially drove your passion for technology?
A: "I've been interested in technology for a long time. The first indications of future geekdom spawn from Year 10 in High School (circa 1988), where I worked at the local Fruit Shop all summer to save enough money to purchase a Commodore 64 with a 5 & 1/4" disk drive. It was awesome. Beyond that, it was the opportunity to get my hands on the latest gear and help solve problems for people in an area I showed aptitude."

Q:
Can you profile your history up to your selection by Career Factor?
A: "I lost the full-time job I was in just prior to the global financial crisis, and bounced through a few contracts which helped keep the money coming in but didn't allow me to establish myself anywhere, and I felt my technical skill set suffered because of it (in that I didn't progress it as cash was tight and there was little opportunity to get my hands on the latest technology during that time)."

Q:
What was the catalyst in applying for Career Factor?
A: "I saw a friend of mine (Farhan Sattar) tweet about the fact he was applying, and I asked him what it was. I looked into it to discover the applications closed that night Australian time, and left it at that. Another good friend (AuTechHeads Group Lead Matt Marlor) was chatting with me on Twitter with an hour to go to the deadline, and really encouraged me to do it. I filled in the application and uploaded the video with minutes to spare. Ultimately, I saw it as an opportunity to upskill in preparation for hunting for a (full time) job again in 2011."

Q:
Can you describe your personal experiences for the challenges and process leading up, winning, and after winning Career Factor?
A: "Leading into Career Factor I was excited about the opportunity it presented – upskill, be mentored, grow as a technical professional. Hearing I'd been selected in the program was massive...especially as the only person in the southern hemisphere (which presents its own challenges, but such is life)."

Q:
How does social media accentuate what you are doing in Career Factor?
A: "It's critical. To be able to connect with like-minded technology professionals, as well as direct access to product owners and teams within Microsoft really helps when you're working through a section of new technology you don't understand or are having trouble with, they're just a tweet away. It's also good to keep track with my CF buddies and how they are doing, and what's happening within tech trends globally."

Q:
From your experiences with Career Factor, what tips would you provide to job seekers to help them in their journey?
A: "Stay in touch with technology trends; have a great support network of friends & tech professionals to talk to and talk through how you're feeling (being unemployed can really affect how you feel); set solid and achievable goals as far as plans for study and exams."

Q:
What are the most exciting opportunities you are working on with Career Factor?
A: "Studying for certification to update/upgrade my old MCSE to an MCITP cert. It's a lot of work, but entirely worth it. I won't make an MCITP before TechEd like I was planning, but working hard."

Q:
What are your future career aspirations? What are you most passionate about?
A: "Establish myself in an organization where I can have real influence and offer direction that will help the company save money yet utilize the latest Microsoft technologies to help their business run better. More than anything, I want the teams I run to deliver a superior level of customer service for the business and its customers."

Q:
What drives your passion for Microsoft and Microsoft technology solutions?
A: "Microsoft works hard to develop a complete suite of enterprise-grade and market-leading products that exist to help a business compete in a global marketplace. My experience with them has always been that they deliver on what the products set out to do, and in doing that you know that the next version will (generally) add significant features that benefit their customers."

Q:
What are your tips, lessons, and best resources for those wanting a career in computing?
A: "Talk to people in the industry. Network every chance you get. There are lots of good online resources to start learning, quite often including 90-day evaluation versions of products that are the full versions that you can use to gain experience and help with certification. Getting certified helps too, but (at least in Australia) it's not critical. Have a great attitude and be prepared to start on a HelpDesk answering the same question 50 times in an hour. And get involved with a user group – invaluable skills and information can be gained from working with and listening to your peers."

Q:
Why does certification fit into your career plan?
A: "It's proof of what I know: a validation of the effort put in and an acknowledgement of the skills I've worked hard to gain. Microsoft certifications are globally recognized, so I know the skills I have are transferable all over the world."

Q:
Can you describe your experiences with IT communities and then provide your recommendations?
A: "Being involved with a user group has been a complete win for me – the Microsoft user community is alive and well online and offline, and I've found a heap of support, encouragement, conversation and thought that has challenged the way I think about technology. It's critical to any IT professional to be involved… to both learn and give back. I entirely recommend getting involved. I'm connected with a great offline one (Brisbane Infrastructure Group), and a spectacular online one (http://www.autechheads.com) which has challenged the way I think about the application of technology as much as confirmed the way I understand it should be used."

Q:
In all that you do, what are the biggest challenges, and their solutions?
A: "Convincing the organization to spend coin on technology in smarter ways. If the decision has been made to licence a specific way, it can be tough to help the company see the investment by altering that even though significant benefits exist when you do. Also, sometimes convincing the organization OR the tech professional to see the benefit in certification. One sees it as a threat that their employee becomes more valuable to others; the other sees it as a burden (sometimes)."

Q:
Provide your predictions of future IT trends and their implications/opportunities?
A: "Cloud services will feature prominently (but that doesn't do away with the need for supremely skilled IT Professionals). More and more options will be available in the cloud, offering flexibility to the organization that will challenge old "we need metal in the server room" mindsets. Also the locked in SOE on specific hardware will become less commonplace, and more and more organizations will lean on a "BYO" client approach. Services will need to suit this model, and IT teams will need to be prepared and supportive of these changes. Good customer service ALWAYS wins out."

Q:
Please share some stories (something surprising, unexpected, amazing, or humorous) from your studies, work, or time with Career Factor?
A: "The camaraderie within the CF team has surprised me pleasantly, especially as I feel so generally disconnected from everyone being all the way over here in Australia. It shouldn't have, as all the other participants are wonderful people. I'm really looking forward to meeting them at TechEd in Atlanta. Also the support from the IT pro community of my journey has been excellent and very encouraging."

Q:
If you were doing this interview, what 3 questions would you ask and then what would be your answers?
A:

1. What has been the best resource you've found to help you on your Career Factor experience?
A1: The practice exams, no question, along with the Microsoft Press books. Detailed, functional and spot on.
2. How have you found juggling life and study through your time in Career Factor?
A2: Really difficult at some points. Finding the motivation or beating off the demons of anxiety and the feelings of being depressed due to being unemployed has been hard. The support from the wider community has been invaluable.
3. What are you looking forward to most about TechEd North America?
A3: Seeing a much larger community come together and the conversations and challenges that represents. TechEd in Australia is about 3,500 people – North America is (I'm told) at least 3 times that! Can. Not. Wait.

Q:
What three lessons have you learned from your life experiences?
A:

1. Trusting people doesn't cost anything. Believing in them does, but it's so worth the expense.
2. Smile when you talk to people, especially when you answer the HelpDesk phone. Usually people are cranky, and an understanding and positive voice on the end of the phone can usually fend off all sorts of tirades that were previously locked and loaded.
3. Don't be afraid to say no, but don't have it as your default setting.

Q:
Steve, we will continue to follow your contributions with Career Factor and more broadly. We thank you for sharing your time, wisdom, and accumulated deep insights with our audience.
A: "Thanks so much!"

Planning For Social Media Integration

Social media has the ability to connect with a bigger audience quickly and can help to increase the number of followers and prospects and improve brand credibility. Having a social media presence often has unexpected benefits, but to leverage them, you may need to be opportunistic and up to date on current events and trends. Most brands are already using social media, but it needs to be used efficiently to benefit your business. Strategists and practitioners will learn that failing to plan is planning to fail, so with a little planning it is possible to make social media integration work to your benefit.

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Social media is essentially a channel, service or network used for intelligence, communication and visibility. If lucidity and genuineness were prevailing maxims over past years, it is accountability, metrics and outcomes that will serve as the foundation for social media success in the coming years ahead. It takes more than just a Facebook or Twitter presence; effective social media integration needs to address business dynamics. It is a real-time communications tool that can be integrated into any aspect of your business. Many companies treat social media as its own entity and a new department of their company.

Evaluate your objectives for a flawless integration
It is important to ascertain the main goals and objectives of your business. If the objective of the company is to increase sales, it is necessary to understand the current strategies for increasing sales. Before social media integration it may have been your strategy to increase the number of customers by increasing brand awareness. This would have been possible by advertising in magazines or putting up billboards. With social media integration, the strategy remains the same, only the medium changes. Keeping that in mind, you can then advertise on your Facebook page or give out a promotional code to your Twitter followers thereby allowing you to track your results.

Social media allows easy integration into the other aspects of your business. While it is one thing to be involved in social networks like Facebook and Twitter, it is a whole other thing to integrate these networks and communities into your marketing strategies. A social media marketing strategy entails taking the time to step back, assess your organizational aspirations, and align them to your social media goals to engage your customers and donors and enhance your online brand and reputation.

Social media integration for effective results
An effective social media solutions gives you goals and metrics to ensure that your efforts have a lasting impact. You can develop a trusting relationship once you have spent the time listening to and engaging with your customer and constituents. Your followers become contributors and advocates, spreading your message and in turn increasing traffic and revenue.