20. March 2007 16:32
Back in January this year I decided enough-was-enough with increasing amounts of automated SPAM coming into my inbox and originating from my site. I decided to do something about it. My contact form has been attracting lots of SPAM bots which were trying their best to relay their SPAM through my site.
My form has always had the To: and From: fields hard-coded however, so I doubt anything ever got relayed, but they all got sent to me anyhow.
As a result I now verify that the form was actually filled in my a HUMAN each time the form gets sent! I've built an ASP CAPTCHA function to achieve this (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), more about CAPTCHAs here.
Accessibility and CAPTCHAs
There are however down-sides to this SPAM free existence. CAPTCHA images in the form that I am using are inherently inaccessible, so I intend to use another system in conjunction with my image CAPTCHA as used my Matt Cutts on his blog.
19. March 2007 16:31
I've had a fair bit of experience employing web developers in recent years, I've also read a fair number of CVs, and posted a number of online adverts.
With recent changes to UK employment law it's more difficult than ever to attract the right candidates and get them to apply, as well as successfully convince the wannabe developers that a particular post isn't for them.
I've read a couple of articles today that interested me concerning recruitment. This article about writing a resume for developers shared some useful tips about writing CVs, most of which I can definitely recommend judging by the CVs I receive.
The second article I read, (but can't find the link!) talks about a novel way of advertising for web developers, advertise in your HTML source code of course! Only developers would look there of course, so you're audience, however small, is highly targeted.
I'd like to add to the list of what not to do while trying to secure an interview:
- Don't SPAM companies with your CV - once is plenty for each position
- Don't include SPAM/holding domains/dodgy sex domains on your CV unless you're applying for a job in this area
- Do we really need to know what your late Father's name was?
- Your National Insurance number is not necessary - haven't you heard of ID theft?
- Weird lists of hobbies which are unrelated to the job you're applying for
- Any lack of formatting, mixtures of fonts, font sizes, colours
- Is a photo of you really necessary?
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Filed under: Web Development
18. March 2007 16:30
It's been a while since I completed my CCNA course, but I've been thinking about the course recently, partly because I'm having a clear-up and I've decided to sell the Cisco 2501 router I bought to practice IOS commands on. I've also given my website a bit of a redesign and I got looking over my CCNA notes again.
I attended evening class at my local college for several years, one night a week to learn about networking through Cisco's online e-learning site. The course was thorough and included hands-on router lab experience, fault-finding etc. Subsequently when I took the exam I got a high score.
What baffles me is the fact that you get adverts on Google for 2 week intensive courses in India. How can anyone possibly learn the whole course material in 2 weeks?? Perhaps if you are already an IT professional and just wanted the certification, but a networking newbie? Beats me!
12. March 2007 18:28
I've finally decided to give my site a face-lift. I first built it in 2002 when the web was a different place, just recovering from a boom and bust. Since then we've seen the dominance of Internet Explorer errode slightly somewhat with the emergence of Firefox/Mozilla, Safari and Opera. Browsers have also become more standards compliant, which has made it easier to build cross-browser sites.
Advances in browser rendering engines have made it possible for more and more sites to adopt XHTML with CSS 2.0 stylesheets with presentation specific HTML consigned to the dustbin.
Moving all presentation logic to CSS is a liberating step to take, but it requires different skills and techniques compared with using tables. It's very powerful, but it also has its faults. Where before you had no option but to use JavaScript to create certain effects, often called Dynamic HTML, now a lot of those rollovers etc can be handled by a Cascading Style Sheet.
I've created a design that follows the current web vogue often associated with so called Web 2.0 sites, I'm still testing and fine tuning the design and initial template, but it will encompass this blog and my whole site, it'll be XHTML compliant using the WC3 strict DTD, my CSS will handle all presentation logic and I will aim to make it as accessible as possible to screen reading devices.
11. March 2007 16:29
I signed up to test the new Windows Home Server Public Beta a while back and received an invitation to download and review it.
Like a lot of people I am frequently running out of storage space on my machines and needing to upgrade. I am also fairly concerned about data backups too, so much so that I upgraded my main machine a while back to include a SATA RAID 1 mirror for my core data over 2 x 320GB drives.
Most people however don't have the need or knowledge to set up a decent backup or redundancy solution, so Windows Home Server when purchased installed on a piece of purposely designed hardware should fill this gap in the market.
When I get a spare few minutes I'll download the DVD and test on an un-used machine. I'm particularly interested in the usability of the software since it will mostly likely be bought by and used by people who are not particularly technically minded.
From what I've heard it does not include Media Center (since it's a headless OS), but it features Windows Media Connect, so I'll be able to stream my music and video straight to my XBOX 360 without having to have my main machine running.
