We have put together a quick guide to cookies that will explain everything that you need to know about the regulation changes and what you can do to stay on the right side of the ICO.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that are downloaded to a device e.g. a computer or mobile phone when the user accesses certain websites. These cookies allow the website to recognise the user’s device.

There is usually nothing sinister at all about this as cookies can perform many useful functions to the user.

When you access a website, your browser is requesting information from the website’s server. The server issues the cookie file which is stored on your browser. The cookie file usually contains the alphanumerical details of the cookie, the name of the server that the cookie was sent from and the lifetime of the cookie.

Cookies usually expire within 30 days and the files are deleted from your browser’s memory.

What has changed?

Before 26 May 2011, all a website owner had to do was state that cookies were used and that users could opt out. Most website owners would drop this information into their privacy policy.

Now, cookies can only be placed on a user’s device with explicit consent. The only exception is when the use of cookies is “strictly necessary”.

The law has a very narrow interpretation of this so you may use cookies in an e-commerce website so that the user’s browser remembers what is in their basket when they navigate from one page to another, however, you would not be able to store cookies that remember the types of products your customers were browsing.

What will happen if I haven’t made any changes yet?

The changes were implemented months ago but it’s understandable that some business owners are so busy that they wake up one morning and suddenly weeks have passed since they added something to their to-do list!

Fortunately, the government is taking a phased approach to implementing these new regulations.

If the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) were to receive a complaint then they will work with website owners to make their websites compliant.  Whilst the ICO doesn’t appear to have outlined how they intend to enforce these regulations, it is advisable to speak with your web design agency a.s.a.p. to find out exactly where you stand in relation to the new regulations.

How can I make my website compliant?

1. You could infer consent from a user’s browser settings, however many browsers aren’t sophisticated enough for you assume that consent is actively given. Some browser settings may allow some types of cookie but not others. This will be an option in the future but not something you can realistically rely on right now as the current ICO regulations don’t allow it (watch this space for a predicted change though).

2. The ICO website (see the screenshot) has a banner at the top of the page asking users to accept cookies from their website. This is one method you can use to get consent, however, it can be distracting and intrusive for your website’s design.

3. You could add your cookie information to your terms and conditions for when new users sign up to your website. Please note that you would need to alert existing users to these changes and you would need to send an email out or find another way to inform your users of how you use cookies.

There are loads of imaginative ways that you can make your website compliant with the changes. Whilst these changes have now been implemented, if a complaint hasn’t been made about your website you can’t assume that one won’t be made in the future and so you don’t have to do anything. If you are unsure about whether your website is compliant with the new regulations then speak to your web design company.

Disclaimer: We do not take any responsibility for how your website complies with laws or regulations, this information is general guide only.

In an interview with the BBC, Schmidt reluctantly expressed his and the company Google’s interests in China. He stated that although the company pulled out of communication with China in March last year, he hopes to re-conciliate the censorship differences and once again merge Google back into the country.

Schmidt believes that with careful website design taking in to consideration different cultural sensitivities, he does not see why countries such as China cannot benefit from Google. This along with the specific governments playing a role in watching what Google does with reference to policy concerns and anti-trust issues within the chosen countries will ensure that Google runs smoothly and above board in most countries across the world.

As well as Google’s plans to re-conciliate with China, Schmidt also spoke about suggestions that the multi-million pound company has lost its edge over the likes of Facebook. In response to these claims Mr Schmidt claimed that Google still very much has its edge and is still the innovative leader at scale. He did however state that ‘yes’ Facebook and other social networking sites may have stolen a bit of thunder as Google itself has been too late in creating social capabilities to their core products, which in a way is a polite way of saying that they totally missed the most important and popular boat to sale past the World Wide Web in the past decade, perhaps ever!

So, everything is rosy in the Google garden, the company is turning over an estimate 80 million per day and they are set to target the mass country that is china, happy days!

Not only do companies advertise down the right hand side of the site, but now you can get specialised ‘Facebook deals’ just for ‘checking in’ via Facebook place apps to shops, cafes and other businesses.  In return for using this app on your Smartphone, you can get deals on a number of products including 50% off a cup of coffee, extra dishes at your favourite restaurant or even free gifts. Wow!

The whole point of this venture is to get businesses involved with their customers. This may be due to the fact that many big-brand websites now have more fans on Facebook than they do hits to their websites.

Many believe that the Smartphone app is nothing short of pointless as many Facebook and Smartphone users just won’t be bothered to ‘check in’ to every place along the highstreet; however, I beg to differ.  Upon reading about this new craze of Facebook deals, I decided to check out my own Facebook friends to see who actually uses the ‘check in app’. To my amazement, I would say at least a quarter of my 890 Facebook friends have checked in to somewhere at some point, and so the offer of freebies or discounts to them would be welcomed with open arms.

Facebook itself claims that it does not take a cut out of this venture as it is all about optimising user’s experiences and making the site more fun.

In my opinion, this does appeal to many a Facebook user after all everybody loves a freebie!

Books really are treasured items that live on; they are read by one person, then passed on to another and so on, their trails often lasting a lifetime. So you can imagine my surprise  and confusion when I read the headline ‘E-book downloads outsell paperbacks’, could the oldest classic alive ‘the book’ really be on its way to the recycling plant?

Over recent weeks Amazon has announced that in the United States the the Amazon website that more E-books for Amazon’s Kindle devices have been purchased than paperback books in the last 3 months of 2010.

Although this may be the case for Amazon, do not fear book-lovers all is not as bad as it seems as paperback book sales also appear to on the increase, just not as high an increase as e-books. Amazon are said to be selling 115 e-books to every 100 paperbacks.

Amazon have no reason to relax as yet though as although the company has seen increased sales of its e-books, its profit margins are not on the up and are infact down due to the company spending money on discounting, acquisitions and building new depots. The company’s shares have fallen 9% during after-hours trading and they are not selling overall; what they were expecting.

So will Amazon overtake the paperback? Has the paperback book seen better days? Have we all forgotten tradition in place for technology? We are certainly seeing a massive migration of purchasing through the online space.

Who knows, only time will tell. All I can say is; watch this space!

Amazon Kindle

Phew, we are ok! God has payed a blinder there… just pipping Jesus to first place.

There are several advantages to cloud computing:

• Scalability – easy to grow or shrink with demand
• Instantly available
• Save money – pay only for what you use
• No hardware to deal with

How it works:

Cloud computing involves surrendering control, which some people find liberating while it makes others very nervous. For instance, users of a site like Salesforce.com don’t know or care how the site is executed, how it deals with failures, where it is located, or any of the other little details one has to deal with when running business operations. So what DO they want? They want their service to work when they need it.

The potential uses of cloud computing are infinite. If you utilize the correct middleware, you can hand off all of your programming needs to a cloud computing system. Literally, everything from basic word processing software to customized computer programs designed for a specific company can work on a cloud computing system.

Cloud computing is a metered service similar to a public utility like cable, cell phone networks, electricity, water, and natural gas. It allows a computing system to attain and release computing resources on demand. Cloud computing also allows the deployment of software applications into an environment running the necessary technology stack for development, staging, or production of a software application. It manages this while minimizing the necessary interaction with the underlying layers of the technology stack.

There are three distinct sub-areas of cloud computing. They are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, which are discussed here.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):

With IaaS clouds, it becomes simple and affordable to distribute resources such as servers, connections, storage, and any other tools necessary to build an application environment from scratch. In other words, rather than purchasing servers, software, data center space or network equipment, clients instead buy those resources as a fully outsourced service. IaaS clouds are the core infrastructure of PaaS and SaaS clouds.

Platform as a Service (PaaS):

PaaS clouds are designed to deliver a cost-effective cloud-based workspace environment (hardware architecture or software framework). They allow a company to deploy applications without the costs and complexities of buying and managing the essential hardware and software.

Software as a Service (SaaS):

Software as a Service has been around for a while and even precedes the term “Cloud Computing”. It is basically a cost effective way for businesses to acquire rights to use software as needed without having to buy licenses for all users and applications. With SaaS, a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand.

Recently Cisco Systems, EMC, and VMware announced that they are teaming up to sell hardware and software for cloud computing. The three companies are creating something they call the Virtual Computing Environment Coalition “to accelerate customers’ ability to increase business agility through greater IT infrastructure flexibility, and lower IT, energy and real-estate costs through pervasive data center virtualization and a transition to private cloud infrastructures.” With advocates like these, it looks like cloud computing is here to stay.

Juno Web Design

The main concerns about cloud computing are security and privacy. The thought of handing your important data over to something called a “cloud” can be daunting. Nervous corporate executives might hesitate to take advantage of a cloud computing system because they feel like they’re surrendering control of their company’s information. Data inside the ‘cloud’ is outside a company’s firewall and that brings with it an intrinsic threat of risk, because services that companies outsource evade the physical, logical and personnel controls that I.T. shops wield over data maintained in-house. Other fears include:

• Risk of data breaching
• Appeal to cyber crooks
• Lack of specific standards for security and data privacy
• Questions about jurisdiction. European concern about U.S. privacy laws led to creation of the U.S. Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, which are intended to provide European companies with a degree of insulation from U.S. laws
• Data location. Cloud users probably do not know exactly where their data is hosted—not even the specific country

• Best practice issues:
o Exception monitoring systems
o Vigilance, or lack thereof, over updates and ensuring that staff does not receive unauthorized access privileges
o Third-party companies who may be able to access data
o Password creation and protection
o Availability guarantees and penalties
o Accommodation of personal security policies by the cloud computing company

Other issues with cloud computing are more philosophical. Who owns the data: the company who places their data with the cloud computing service or the cloud computing service itself? Can a cloud computing company ever legally deny a client access to their own data? Companies, law firms, and universities are currently debating these issues and others.

There is also growing concern about how cloud computing could impact the business of computer maintenance and repair. If companies make the leap to centralized computer systems, they will have less need for internal I.T. support. By removing infrastructure ownership from I.T., suddenly I.T. no longer has control over key business resources, which makes it feasible for someone concerned with a cost/benefit approach, like a CFO, to start limiting I.T.’s control. It is doubtful that this will have much of an impact on the cloud computing industry; the same concerns were no doubt raised when inventions like the cotton gin, assembly lines, and, well, computers first appeared.

Juno Web Design

Cloud computing evolved from the knowledge and experience of managed services, Internet services, application service providers, etc. Its technology is the result of a paradigm shift and is improving business computing because: (1) it is modular, compartmentalizing software applications and associated hardware and infrastructure; (2) it is uniform, utilizing the same resources that customers share. A business using cloud computing can avoid large outlays of capital expense as well as perpetual maintenance costs, thereby aligning cash flow with total system cost.

Data centers are known to be very inefficient, and clustering and virtualizing their servers has met with only limited success. Over time, there will be a logical segue to scalable computing based on/in the cloud. The future of computing is going to consist of the combination of service orientation, service management, and cloud computing. Some of the reasons for this are:

• Hardware costs would decrease because cloud computing systems would reduce the need for advanced, expensive hardware on the client side. It would no longer be necessary or desirable to buy the fastest computer with the most memory or largest hard drive. Rather, all a customer would need to buy is an inexpensive computer terminal, a monitor, input components such as a keyboard and mouse, and only enough processing power to run the middleware necessary to connect to the cloud system.

• Clients could access their applications and data from anywhere at any time using a computer linked to the Internet. Data would be stored offsite rather than take up space on a hard drive on a user’s computer or a corporation’s internal network.

• Since cloud computing is a “pay as you go” system, companies would not have to buy software or software licenses for each employee. Instead, the company would pay a metered fee based on usage, much the way open source software (as opposed to proprietary software) works. For the most part, cloud computing infrastructures are built from open source components because the cloud providers are hesitant to make large investments without knowing the payoff.

• Cloud computing customers would no longer have to worry about physical space in which to store servers and other storage hardware. They can store data on a third-party’s system, thus removing the need for physical space on the front end.

• Since cloud computing offers tried and true hardware, operating systems, and applications, customers could save money on IT support (for obvious reasons, this is not a concept that IT support personnel in general buy into).

• If the cloud computing system’s back end is a grid computing system, customers could take advantage of the entire network’s processing power. For instance, scientists and researchers who work with extremely complicated calculations could send the calculations to the cloud for processing. The cloud system would utilize the processing power of all available computers on the back end and significantly speed up the calculations.

• Cloud computing provides a way to outsource non-critical applications to organizations better suited to run them, allowing IT to focus on critical applications.

• Cloud providers are more efficient at IT operations, using fewer man-hours for standard tasks (again, not a popular concept with IT support personnel).

• By buying hardware in large volume, cloud providers get better pricing.

So, these are the arguments FOR the cloud computing revolution/evolution. My next article will look at the perceived disadvantages of it and why not everyone is buying in to it.

Juno Web Design

WordPress (WP) is an open source application that web developers use to publish blogs and basic content management. BuddyPress (BP) is an open source package built on top of WordPress that converts WP into a social network (think Facebook). Both are written in PHP scripting language.

BuddyPress does not enjoy the status, widespread use, or intricacies that Facebook and MySpace do; rather, it operates on a much smaller scale, and only in combination with WP. It inherits and extends upon the basic functions of the WordPress engine including plug-ins, themes, and widgets. Upon installation, BP is immediately ready to roll as a basic social network.

When BuddyPress is first installed, a “Basic” group is created with “First Name”, “Last Name” and a profile picture upload function. These fields are the “key” to each member’s profile, so they cannot be removed or modified. However, the site administrator can add fields to this Basic group by using the extended profile component and can specify each field’s type, e.g. text boxes, date selectors, radio buttons, etc.

Here are the features contained in the BuddyPress packaged plug-in:

• Extended Profiles – Web designers can add numerous custom fields to create extended blogger profiles

• Friends – Users can search for, add, and interact with other users. Each member has a visible list of his or her friends on the site. Friend lists are searchable and members can click on each friend for more information.

• Private Message System – Users can exchange private mail with other users

• Activity Stream – Users can keep up with their friends’ activities as long as they are connected. Activity streams combine all of a user’s activity across a BuddyPress installation. Friends’ activities are also recorded and reported. Any type of data can be tracked using the activity stream component, such as wire posts, blogs posts, new friendships, and blog comments.

• The Wire –Members can post messages to other members’ profiles or leave messages for other group members.

• Groups – BuddyPress groups are an assembly of members, wires posts, and forum topics, usually encompassing a similar interest. Any member can create a group in BuddyPress and thus become the group administrator. The administrator can enable certain features such as a group forum (bbPress) and Wire.

• Forums – With the Forums component, groups can create and administer their own bbPress forum. Group members can post and reply to topics all from within the group’s page. Forums can be attached to any content within an installation, which means that third party plug-ins and new components can utilize the Forum component in the future.

• Blog Tracking – This component combines all blogs, blog posts, and comments for each member so that other members can easily find blogs that a member owns or belongs to as well as recent posts and comments.

Because all BuddyPress plug-ins are stand-alone, developers can use them in two ways, either as a whole package or piecemeal in order to customize their existing blog network. If you are a plug-in developer or theme designer and can’t make it to the camp, or if you just want more detailed information, check out the BuddyPress website (www.buddypress.org) and jump on the bandwagon.

Juno Web Design

Some of the upgrades included in Android 2.0 are:

• an overhauled browser with a better user interface and HTML5 support
• the ability to search all saved SMS and MMS messages and automatically delete the oldest messages in a conversation when a defined limit is reached
• support for multiple email accounts
• more comprehensive camera controls that support built-in flash, digital zoom, and scene mode
• improved keyboard layout makes it easier to hit the correct characters and increases typing speed
• “smarter” dictionary “learns” from and expands with word usage
• Bluetooth 2.1 support
• an upgraded version of Google Maps with layer support

And there’s more. Android’s voice control has its own dedicated dashboard and is embedded throughout the whole system. There is a new setup for contacts that imports them from any source and a function called Quick Contact that allows users to contact each other instantly by tapping an icon associated with a specific person. Testers say the virtual keyboard is easier to use, and a new browser URL bar allows users to tap the address bar directly to navigate and conduct instant searches.

If you are currently a developer, you can use the Software Development Kit Manager to add Android 2.0 support to your SDK and update your SDK Tools to Revision 3 (this is required for the new build). If you are a new developer, you can download the Android SDK from the download site.

Non-programmer types will have to wait a little while to get their hands on 2.0. Droid Smartphones featuring Android 2.0 are supposed to be launched by Verizon on October 30 or November 6, depending on the source. This Motorola phone is generating rave reviews and raising hopes that programmers can write hot applications for a winning mobile platform that is basically the anti-Apple iPhone. Ads during the U.S. NFL games on Sunday taunted the iPhone for what it lacks, including a keyboard, 5-megapixel camera, and the ability to run simultaneous applications, widgets and even take pictures in the dark. It even criticized the iPhone for not being open to allowing developers to customize applications for it, ending the ad by noting, “Everything iDon’t, Droid Does.”

Of course, no product is perfect out of the box, so all you Android developers get in there and start finding the bugs and fixing them.

Web Design | Google Logo