Recently I sat down with my associate Craig Crook and we talked again about how technology is changing business.

This time we focused on phones. Phones have evolved into complex systems for communication and the lines continue to blur between virtual and hardware solutions.  Together we explore communication platforms for organizations with growing and changing needs

In this episode, we feature:

• Google Voice
• Onebox
• Grasshopper

Need more help?  Still have questions?  Connect with us and let us Review your needs!

As a web development company, we got asked quite a few technical questions (obviously).  Some of those questions fall outside the scope of what we do – we design and develop great websitea, we don’t fix your brother’s Windows XP machine.

But, one typical question that we get a lot of relates to security.  Specifically, how can I (or my company) be safe online.

Well, this really is a complicated questions.  But recently, I was at a local Starbucks and just had to try out a new firefox plugin.

Recently a firefox plugin was released called FIRESHEEP.  This simple little plugin takes just seconds to install, is incredibly simple to use, but can wreak amazing havoc!

Just what exactly does FIRESHEEP do?  After installation, it adds a sidebar to your Firefox browser.  This sidebar has one simple button labeled “Start Capturing”.  When enabled (meaning you click the button) it captures anyone’s (yes, anyone) login credentials!  What does this mean?  Well, take a look at what I grabbed in just a few minutes at Starbucks:

I’ve blurred out all the names and replaced all the images with the blank people.  But, in just 5 – 10 minutes at a local Starbucks, I was able to log into 3 different facebook accounts, 1 twitter account, 1 wordpress web site, 1 amazon account, and 1 GitHub account (it’s a code storage service for programmers).  Amazing.  Or Terrifying…  All this without ANY special knowledge on my part.  All I had to do was start the plugin.  Then when I clicked on the top Facebook icon, I was instantly logged into facebook AS THAT USER.  I can change things, update things, delete things – do anything I wanted.

So, how does this work?  Well, first of all, I did not ever have access to the users password.  We’ll use Facebook for our example here.  I never had the user’s facebook password.  When you log into facebook, typing in your username and password, you are on a secured web site – your browser has HTTPS at the start of the web address.  What this means is that all the communications between you and the server (Facebook) are totally encrypted and can’t be read by anyone who happens to “capture” them.  So, this is good.  But, once you are logged into Facebook, the pages go back to HTTP – meaning the communication is NOT encrypted and if someone just happens to capture the communication, they can read it.  Now, it gets a bit complicated, but the next step in the process involves how Facebook knows you are already logged in.  Obviously, as you navigate your way around Facebook, you don’t want to type your password in every single time.  So, how does Facebook know you are indeed you?  Well the answer is your cookie.  Websites you visit regularly stores bits of information on your computer called cookies.  These cookies contain various bits of information.  One bit of information is typically a session id.  This session id is a unique number or ID that proves to Facebook that you are who you say you are.  So, when you click on a link on Facebook, the web site asks for this Session ID to verify it is you who really did this.  Without the Session ID, you would have to log in again.  But, the problem is that this Session ID is sent unencrypted to the server.  So, anyone who is listening can get this session ID.  And, once someone has your Session ID, they can “pretend” to be you until you log out (which essentially kills your session id).

Sound scary?  It should.  This means anyone at a public wi-fi hotspot (like Starbucks) anyone can log into your facebook, twitter, google, amazon and other accounts (by the way – firesheep only works on 30 or so sites – but it includes all the big ones).   They could post updates, send tweets, send messages, and more.  All without your knowledge.

So, what can we do to prevent this?  Well, here’s a few simple (and a couple not so simple) solutions:

1. Avoid unsecured wireless – the simplest solution is to have use wi-fi security.  If the coffee house would simply turn on WPA encryption, most of the problems would be solved.  The could freely advertise the password, or just make the password password.  Just by simply using WPA, they would fix most issues.
2. Realize that this is limited to certain sites.  Sites such as you bank always use HTTPS.  And, by it’s very nature HTTPS isn’t vulnerable to this problem. But, it’s still not a good idea to do banking on unsecured wi-fi networks (for many reason).
3. If you use Firefox, consider using HTTPS EVERYWHERE plugin (http://www.eff.org/https-everywhere).  This plugin will attempt to convert HTTP connections to HTTPS connections.  Again, this would solve the problem.  The best solution is just to make Facebook, Google, et. al. use HTTPS.  But, realizing that they probably won’t change soon, this plugin does it for them.  It works on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google Search, Paypal and others.  This is a good solution requiring very little work.
4. Use a VPN solution – a VPN is a Virtual Private Network.  Basically, a VPN creates a private and secure line from your computer to another server.  Then the connection goes out to the internet.  This method virtually guarantees that you are secure.  It definitely solves the Firesheep problem.  However, VPN’s can be a bit complicated and sometimes cost money.  A decent free solution is provided by HotSpot Shield.  This free option does have advertisements and is limited to approx. 2 GB a month.  But, it is a really good solution when at a public wi-fi access point.

What about you?  Any ideas?  What do you do to be secure when out in public?

One of my favorite companies to watch, listen to, learn from, and use products by is 37 Signals.

I find their cloud products awesome to use (I’m an avid user of Highrise, for example). Their books equally inspiring.

Just recently, one of the designers for 37 Signals, spoke at the future of Web Apps conference in London.

In this talk, he described a five step process for creating a real-world web app:

1. Model
2. Screens
3. Designs
4. HTML/CSS
5. Live Code

While I would have to admin that nothing is really super unique, they way Ryan and 37 Signals works is a great study in getting things done.

Hope you enjoy the talk as much as I did:

Ryan Singer at Future of Web Apps, London 2010 from Ryan Singer on Vimeo.

There’s a new buzz word going on around the web.  It’s called HTML 5.  And, unless you are a web designer, you probably haven’t heard anything about it.  But, it is rapidly promising to be an amazing way to bring new and exciting things to the web.

Need some proof?  Check out this link that showcases some of the coolest new features of HTML 5, created by the boys at 9Elements Design Studio: HTML 5 DEMO!

Now for many of you – about 32% of you to be exact (according to my Google Analytics) – you saw nothing except the “OH NO” warning.

Wonder why that is?  Well, the simple answer is that Internet Explorer doesn’t yet support HTML 5 elements.

There’s a simple test out that tries to tell us how well any particular browser does at implementing the new HTML 5 standards.  You can find this test at http://www.html5test.com.  I recently went through the test with 6 browsers – 3 Mac and 3 PC.  Here’s the results, starting with the best:

1. GOOGLE CHROME for the Mac
   As you can see, Google Chrome for the Mac scored 137 points out of a possible 160.  A pretty good score.
2. GOOGLE CHROME for the PC
   Now the real question here is why Google Chrome for the Mac scored 137 but Google Chrome for the PC only scored 118?  But, 118 was still good enough to snag second place
3. SAFARI for Mac
   Coming in just 5 points behind Google Chrome for the PC is Safari – Apple’s built in browser for the Mac.  Still a pretty nice score!
4. FIREFOX for PC and for MAC
   Here we have a tie (the way I think we should).  Bot Firefox for the PC and Firefox for the Mac scored exactly the same score – 101.

   Now, before I move on to last place, notice the above score.  All of them are above 100.  In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty good result for modern standards such as HTML 5.

   But, now we have last place:

5. Internet Explorer 8 for PC
   A whopping 19!!!! You have got to be kidding me.  This is the best that Microsoft could do?  All the other browsers score over 100 and Internet Explorer – the most recent up to date version – scores only 19?  Obviously something is very wrong here.

So, with all this information about browser scores and HTML 5 comes the obvious question – WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?  Well, the answer is that HTML 5 is going to be the future of the internet and wether you are choosing a browser or, even more important, choosing a web developer, you want someone who is familiar with HTML 5 and can leverage all of its power for your site.  You don’t want someone stuck with old, out-dated technologies designing your site using the same tools, the same tricks that were popular ten or even twenty years ago.

Got questions, want to make comment?  Comment below or CONTACT US today to talk more!

Microsoft Office has become a staple of almost all businesses.  We don’t really even talk about Word Processors any more, we just talk about Word.  But, at $300 – $350 for the full version, it can quickly become a very expensive choice.  For a company with 100 employees, this comes out to a cost of $300,000!  And, assuming that Office is upgraded every 3 years, that cost continues to grow!

But, is there really any other option?  Don’t I just have to own Microsoft Office if I want to work with the rest of the world?  The answer is a resounding NO! There are many options.  And, the best news is that many of them are FREE!

I want to look at just one option here – Google Docs.  This is, in my opinion, one of the best options available to replace Microsoft Office.  It has most of the critical features found in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and it is free!  100% FREE!  And, Google Docs, offers some great collaboration tools that you simply cannot find in Microsoft Office.  So, if you are interested in saving $300 per employee, and want to work together better, read on!

First of all, let me say that this isn’t a review of Google Docs.  Nor is this a side by side comparison of the benefits of Google Docs versus the benefits of Microsoft Office.  All I want to do, is introduce people to Google Docs, and maybe, just maybe, make you think that there might be another option.

Google Docs provides an excellent replacement to MS Word, MS Excel, and MS PowerPoint.  Below you will see my file listing (well, part of it), in Google Docs:

Listing of My Google Docs (notice that many are shared)

Looking over the list, you’ll see that my files include Word Processor docs, Spreadsheet Docs, and PDF’s.  Also, you will notice that many of them are shared – “me to 1 collaborator”.  This means that we BOTH can work on the document.

Recently I was working on a project with a client.  She e-mailed me a list of edits in a Word Doc.  I made the changes and noted all my changes/question in BLUE.  Then e-mailed the new document back to the client.  She made further comments, this time in red.  The client’s associate also made comments and clarifications, this time in green.  The process continued a back and forth process until the Word document was basically useless.

There is, of course, a better way.  All three of us could have been working on the SAME document.  Then we can see all the revision

See Revision History - Working Together on Google Docs

Once I open up a Google Doc, you’ll see from the file menu an option to “See revision history”.  Clicking on this option brings up a screen like the one below:

Listing of Previous Version of One Google Doc

From this screen, you can see the entire revision history, when the revision was made, and who made the revision.  You can instantly roll back to a previous version and then come back to the current revision.

Now, there is never a need to e-mail documents back and forth.  No need to invent different colors for everyone on the team.  And, no need to use the ultimately annoying track changes in MS Word (where every change, every spelling fix, everything has a line and box beside it).

Now, just share the doc on Google and you can all work together.

With Microsoft’s SharePoint conference in Las Vegas starting today (Monday, October 19), Google has broadened its Going Google ad campaign.

Not familiar with the campaign?  It is Google’s ad campaign to push harder into the business world with its enterprise offerings.  Here’s a short YouTube video Google put out:

If you haven’t been watching Google for a while, then you might have missed what they’ve been doing lately.  While still owning the majority of search volume online (around 60-65%), Google has begun pushing into other areas as well.  A few of the key areas that I think any business should consider:

• GMAIL – Google has made some incredible changes to G-mail that can be a HUGE time and cost saver to many businesses.  Now any domain (yourWebDomain.com) can run it’s own e-mal through Gmail.  What does this mean?  It means that you can take advantage of Google’s Anti-Spam features (powered by Postini) – which are some of the absolute best in the business.  You can also read your e-mail online through the G-Mail interface.  You can have an assistant send e-mail on the boss’s behalf ( e-mail delegation), and e-mail archiving.   You get ALL of this without giving up your own domain name.  This means that you continue to have you e-mail as Joe@YourDomain.com, but the e-mail is routed through the GMail Service.  The person sending you an e-mail AND the person receiving an e-mail from you all see the Joe@YourDomain.com as the e-mail, but you get all the storage, spam filtering, e-mail archiving / backup, web interface, etc. of Gmail!

  Cost: $5 per user per year
  Savings:  This could be a huge savings.  Companies can stop paying thousands of dollars for expensive spam filters / appliances.  Also (as you will see below), this cost could be even bigger in that you could COMPLETELY DITCH an Exchange server!  This could save thousands more every year!

• Google Calendar – Google calendar is a powerful, shareable calendaring system.  And, the best feature is that it can integrate seamlessly with MS Outlook and Apple iCal!   In addition to this, it completely supports multiple users – meaning you can see when other in your organization are busy and schedule meetings with them.  You can also share your calendar, allowing others to simply view it, edit it, etc.  Again, this gives everyone all the functions of a typical MS Exchange server at a cost that will save thousands every single year.

  Cost: $5 per user per year (this is the same $5 user per year as the above, not in addition)
  Savings: Again this could be huge.  Getting rid of an Exchange server will save any organization thousands of dollars a year.

• Google Docs –  Google has been putting out three very powerful web based programs – Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and PowerPoint programs.  These programs aren’t as advanced as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  But, most users don’t use the advanced features in these programs.  And, again, the cost savings is HUGE!  All three programs also allow for complete sharing of docs.  This means you NEVER again have to e-mail a doc to a co-worker.  You simply share it with him or her and you both edit it together.  You can see changes made by Co-Worker X and roll back, etc.  It makes collaboration a snap!

  Cost: FREE (although when used with the $5 per user per year, it is a bit simpler to collaborate)
  Savings: Well, let’s see with the average cost of MS Office from Amazon running around $325, the cost savings is $325 multiplied by the number of workers who choose to use Google Docs.  Again, The answer here is THOUSANDS more, potentially!

• Google Analytics – Do you have a website?  Do you know how many visits you get?  How long people stay on your site?  Which pages are visited the most?  All of this data is available for FREE from Google.  Simply add a few lines of code to the bottom of your website and you can get all the data about your site you could want and MUCH more!

  Cost: FREE
  Savings: None, unless you are paying for an analytics page now or using some stupid looking hit counter (then you don’t save money, you just save the hassle of having a stupid hit counter on your home page)

These are just four of my favorite Google products right now. There’s a ton more that we could talk about.  Things like: Google Voice, Google Wave, Google Checkout, Google Wave, etc.  All of these are available for free and could save companies a ton of money and a lot of time.

Interested?  Got Questions?  Leave me a comment or contact us.  We’d love to talk more with you about how we can help save you money!

Just recently, I’ve been watching the Digg Dialog with Marissa Mayer. I’m embedding it below.

But, first of all, a little information to make sure we are all up to speed:

1. DIGG – for those of you who don’t know about DIGG, you have to check it out. Digg is one of the most popular web site’s in America. Founded by Kevin Rose (his blog – http://kevinrose.com/), DIGG (http://www.digg.com) is a user generated news site.  Users submit new articles that they find on the web.  Then the users vote (i.e. DIGG) these stories up or down.  Stories with the most diggs appear at the top (on the home page).  With well over 50 million users – it can be VERY interesting to see what is being dugg right now.

2.  DIGG DIALOG – this is the same concept as digg – but applied to interviews.  DIGG will announce a new Dialog coming up.  Then users will submit questions that they would like asked.  Users will then vote (digg) stories up or down.  The top 10 questions – as determined by US, not the interviewer or news channel – are then asked.

Previous Dialog’s have included Trent Reznor, Richard Branson, Nancy Pelosi…

3.  MARISSA MAYER – Marissa is the Vice President for Search and User Experience at Google.  Her influence is all over the search side of Google.

So, the top ten questions, as voted on by the DIGG community were asked of Marissa.  Here’s the video:

]]> http://www.designedbyeh.com/web-design/digg-dialog-with-marissa-mayer/feed/ 0 http://www.designedbyeh.com/web-apps/where-in-the-world-is-my-iphone/ http://www.designedbyeh.com/web-apps/where-in-the-world-is-my-iphone/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:39:39 +0000 Eric http://www.designedbyeh.com/?p=338

So, I was just reading looking at my RSS feeds this morning at the downtown Fort Wayne Starbucks.  While looking over updates for the morning, I noticed the Apple MobileMe RSS had an update (read it here: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/news/2009/06/find-my-iphone-announced-at-wwdc09.html).  The entry was about the new Find My iPhone feature that Apple just announced at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC).

Here’s the brief (very brief) run-down:

Suppose you have an iPhone, and it gets lost or stolen.  Using Apple’s new feature, you can log into your mobileMe platform and find out EXACTLY where that iPhone is.  You can even remotely “wipe” all the data from the phone.

The feature also works with the iPod touch for those of us stuck with Verizon Cell Phones.

Here’s a couple of notes:

1. You must have a mobileMe subscription – which I think it totally worth it for the sync features alone
2. The feature won’t be available until the new iPhone 3.0 OS is realeased on June 17
3. Obviously, the iPod Touch can only transmit its location over open Wi-Fi – so it’s not really that useful

I’ve included two screenshots from my mobileMe account below:

Mobile Me - Lost my iPhone Menu Item

MobileMe Lost My iPhone page

]]> http://www.designedbyeh.com/web-apps/where-in-the-world-is-my-iphone/feed/ 0 http://www.designedbyeh.com/uncategorized/fort-wayne-area-phone-calls-less-than-300-month/ http://www.designedbyeh.com/uncategorized/fort-wayne-area-phone-calls-less-than-300-month/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:09:11 +0000 Eric http://www.designedbyeh.com/?p=315

So, I’ve just started getting really upset at my cell phone bill. I live and work in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area and have Verizon as my cell phone provider. Now, Verizon does a fine job of cell phone service. I get 1,400 minutes a month for around $105 a month. But, recently my bill has been closer to $200 a month after all my overages. Most of the time, I can trace my overages to long support phone calls, etc. Making a call to tech support on behalf of a client that ends up lasting 30 – 45 minutes can really start to eat into cell phone minutes.

So, I’ve just started looking for a better solution – something that works well here in the Fort Wayne area.  And, about the same time, guess what Google introduced?  That’s right – Google Voice (http://www.google.com/voice).  Now, Google voice is a private beta service.  You can only use it IF you had an account with the company they bought – Grand Central.  But, it just so happens that I do indeed have an old Grand Central number.  So, I’m part of the private beta.

Here’s a brief run down on Google Voice.  First – it provides no dial tone.  It is simply a number that others can call and then it is basically forwarded to another number – like a cell phone, home phone, VOIP phone, etc.  It also has GREAT voice mail and a ton of features (caller ID, call waiting, call listen in, all that normal jazz).  The voicemail is really nice in that Google will attempt to transcribe the message and e-mail you a written copy of it with a link to listen to it.  So, if the transcription isn’t good (although it has been really good so far), you can simply listen to the voice mail as you would any other.

At Google Voice’s home page you have a list of all your addresses (imported from Outlook, Address Book, or Gmail), list of all incoming calls, all placed calls, all voicemails, etc.  Basically it is a lot like GMail, but just for Voice.

Now, the problem is NO DIAL TONE.  This is a forwarding service only.  So, what good is that?  Well, for me, not much as my goal is to offload work from my cell phone.  So, I paid for a SKYPE IN number.  A Skype In number is a number OTHERS can call me at and it rings my skype.

So, that’s all good, but how about making an outgoing call?  Simple.  I go to Google.com/voice and click place call.  Then I type in the number or select it from my address book.  Google then calls my skype (so skype thinks it is an incoming call).  Once I pick up skype, then Google calls the number I wanted to call.  And, now, Voila – I have an outgoing call, WITHOUT paying for skype out.

Just in case you are wondering, skype in is only $2.95 a month.  And the sound quality is great.  So, now, for right at $3.00 a month, I have unlimited incoming and unlimited outgoing calls and great voicemail and all the features (like caller id, etc.) that I could want.

Plus, should I ever want to, I can forward my Google Voice number to my cell phone, home phone, etc.  Just in case.

So, far, from my experience here in Fort Wayne, it is awesome, cheap, and a great service.

Any else tried out either Skype In/Out or Google Voice?  Let me know.

]]> http://www.designedbyeh.com/uncategorized/fort-wayne-area-phone-calls-less-than-300-month/feed/ 0 http://www.designedbyeh.com/web-apps/politics-get-dugg/ http://www.designedbyeh.com/web-apps/politics-get-dugg/#comments Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:15:01 +0000 Eric http://www.designedbyeh.com/?p=265

Digg (www.digg.com) is my favorite web site. For those of you who don’t know what it is, let me explain.

Basically, it is a “social news network”.  People (like you and me) surf the internet and find articles that we think are interesting and submit them to digg.  Then, other digg users (there are hundreds of thousands of them) see these newly submitted articles and decide if they think it is important or not.  If I like the story, or think it is important, i digg it (vote for it).  

The more digg’s the higher a story appears on the web site.  If a story gets enough digg’s, it appears on the home page.

So, basically instead of a very small minority of people deciding what they think we should hear about on the evening news, I get to decide – we all get to decide.

So, Digg has taken this concept one step farther.  What about a political interview.

What if we could interview political leaders.  But, instead of just the person doing the interview asking the questions, what if we could all submit questions?  Then, we all digg questions we like.  And, finally, the highest dugg questions get asked of the political leader.

Sound interesting?  

Well Digg has done it twice.  During the Democratic National Convention, they interviewed Nancy Pelosi (that’s right – Speaker of the House).

Now, they did it again with John Boehner – Republican House Minority Leader.

CNN actually conducted the interview, but Digg users (that’s you and me) submitted and voted on (dugg) the questions.  

Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s the video from CNN:

And, here’s the link to the Digg page:
http://digg.com/dialogg/John_Boehner_1?FC=UASDJB3

]]> http://www.designedbyeh.com/web-apps/politics-get-dugg/feed/ 0