What Open Source is NOT
I recently had the opportunity to work on a website that was incorporating a third-party extension to add additional functionality to their site. This third-party bragged on their site about being open source code and fully compliant with Magento E-Commerce. Imagine my surprise when I found huge blocks of code that looked like the following...
$j = 10;
$s = 't$ = htap$aPteg>-sih
;)(hti xe_elif( fhtap$(stsi
))
{ ruos$ _elif = ecnetnoc_teg;)htap$(st
k$ = xiferPyes$(rtsbus 61,0,ecruo
;) = ecruos$os$(rtsbus
;)61,ecru rc$ iraV = tpy::tpyrC_ne-)(yrotcafyek$(tini>ht$.xiferPyrCteg>-si
;))(yeKtp os$ rc$ = ecruyrced>-tpyecruos$(tp
;)
il ecruos$(tsdolpxe = )MROFREP"(eC_SSALC_REs$,"DETAER
;)2,ecruo os$ " =. ecru
;"/*
(trats_bo
;) ruos$(lave
;)ec c_dne_bo
;)(nael } ';
$s2 = '';
for ($i=0;($i+$j-1)<strlen($s);$i+=$j)
{
for ($k = $j-1 ; $k > -1 ; --$k)
{
$s2 .= $s[$i+$k];
}
}eval($s2);
Obviously, this code is not easily readable. In fact, as you can see near the bottom they run their code through an indepth substitution just so the server can interpret it. This is not what is meant by open source. Companies that incorporate tricks like this either know they have bad code, believe their product is not good enough to stand competition, or do not trust their users. Any developer with coding ability can take this code and fix it so that it can be read:
$path = $this->getPath();
if (file_exists($path))
{
$source = file_get_contents($path);
$keyPrefix = substr($source,0,16);
$source = substr($source,16);
$crypt = Varien_Crypt::factory()->init($keyPrefix.$this->getCryptKey());
$source = $crypt->decrypt($source);
list($source) = explode("PERFORMER_CLASS_CREATED",$source,2);
$source .= " */";
ob_start();
eval($source);
ob_end_clean();
}
So I ask...what's the point? Why make your software impossible to be easily read and edited by experienced developers? How do you in good conscience claim the transparent tag of "Open Source" when clearly your code is not. This is just one example of several located in their Magento Booster extension. They also incorporated callbacks to their server. As a developer or a site owner - do you really want your data being passed to their server where they do what they want with it? I don't. I've gone through their code and fixed all their coding that did not adhere to the meaning of open source. If anyone is interested of having a true open source version of this code and you have purchased a valid license, contact me to find out how.
Thoughts on HTML5
At WebSpark, unless you need your App written in a specific mobile platform for a targeted reason, we highly recommend that our clients pursue App Development on the HTML5 development platform. Why? Well, here's some information from WebSpark's owner, David Hurley:
By developing an HTML5 App, we can target all mobile browsers and mobile devices of varying sizes. The current market offers a variety of options: you’ve got screen sizes that are as small as a Blackberry, 240 by 320; then you’ve got phones like the Evo, which are 480 by 960; and then you have the iPhone, which has a retina display. So, because there’s such a wide variety of screen resolutions, instead of targeting one specific resolution size with an Application that’s specific to one platform, we develop on an HTML5 and JavaScript framework, so that it works across all platforms. The finished product will function and act just like an App would, but give you the flexibility of being able to easily fit whatever browser the client (i.e. your customer) has on their phone. Ultimately, your mobile presence is sharp and modern, which increases your return on investment.
Ultimately, the finished product won’t look like a web browser; it won’t have the typical tool bars that is run-of-the-mill browser-looking. It will look and act and feel just like an App. For example, Google does all of it’s development these days on HTML5 in order to accomplish their finish product Apps, instead of developing on browser specific platforms. And, here at WebSpark, we feel like that's a good path to follow.
Quora: Any Questions?
There is a new Q&A website on the block and its name is Quora. This site lets you ask any questions that you have and gathers responses from other users. Quora preys on the desire that more and more internet searches are geared for, that being the search for “truth”. With the vast amount of information now available on the web it has become harder and harder to determine what is trustworthy, and true sources for information. As users become more intelligent and discerning in their searches they are trusting websites less and looking more for answers directly from another person.Quora fills that gap. It has exploded in recent months with massive traffic increases and a huge increase in popularity. Quora allows you to ask your question and then wait for an answer from the community. As other users find your question they can choose to follow it themselves if they are interested in knowing the answer as well. Additionally you can post your question direct to your Facebook or Twitter page to get more responses from users that you are friends with already as well.
What does this mean and how does it affect you? As sites such as Quora rise in popularity it becomes more and more apparent that users are more interested in the relationships and trust of another person over the pages and pages of computer generated search results. Google may start to lose popularity (as impossible as that may sound). Bing markets itself as the decision engine and often shows commercials poking fun at the thousands of links that Google provides and the resulting confusion it causes with users. Quora takes it to the next logical step - let people answer people. Use crowd-sourcing to effectivey answer questions and provide valid and relevant responses.
So the next time you are looking for an answer to a particular question - Quora it.
Can I Be First?
Everyone wants that coveted first spot on Google (or Bing or Yahoo). That leads to a very simple problem. Not everyone can be first. Someone has to be second. I warn anyone that comes to us and says “XYZ Company has promised me that I will be the first result on Google.” No one can guarantee that with 100% certainty. If they could, they would undoubtedly be too rich to be worrying about your site. Google’s proprietary algorithm for ranking search results is one of their most closely guarded secrets. It is the key to their unprecedented success. They’re not giving it away. And they are always changing it. This causes me to to bring up two important issues.
First, run from anyone that guarantees you the first result on Google. If they do manage to get you the first spot - it won’t last for long, or they’re using black-hat techniques (that’s another post). I wouldn’t believe anyone that tries to guarantee that.
Secondly, and more importantly I think there is something very valuable to keep in mind. Someone has to be second. And I would say there’s nothing wrong with second, or third, or even fourth. In my experience the first four results all show “above the fold” or at the top of the page. If someone is searching for a keyword that is relevant to your industry the chances are good that they’ll do a bit of research, and that means clicking on a few different links. Not just one. That means, in my opinion, landing in the top four positions on a wide number of keywords is much more valuable than capturing the top spot on a single result.
We love search engine optimization and marketing. We are working constantly to optimize our clients for the ever-changing algorithms used by Google (and of course, Bing, and Yahoo).
The Day the Internet Ran Out of IP Addresses
It was announced today that ICANN (the group in charge of dispensing IP addresses) has just given out the last set of IP addresses. Now there’s nothing to panic about. A little background might be in order here. Currently IP addresses are given to every computer connecting to the internet. These typically take the form of four octets. They are technically called the IPv4 addresses (the 4 representing the four octets). There exists a central ring of servers called Domain Name Servers that take a name (such as rockyourtechnology.com) and match that name with the corresponding IP address (in this case 74.52.51.152). This makes it easy on us humans, because I’m betting you can remember rockyourtechnology.com much easier than that string of numbers. Because IPv4 take the form of four octets they can be rearranged to form up to 4.3 billion addresses (or 2^32). And today it has been announced that there are no more of those numbers available. That doesn’t mean they are all in use, but it does mean that major organizations and ISP providers can no longer request blocks of those numbers to use. The supply is gone.
Enter the future. IPv6. No longer will we use a set of four octets but we are now beginning the transition to a new form. IPv6 addresses are written in groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by colons, for example, 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334. (Want to try and memorize that?) So, what does this all mean? Well, as this new protocol begins to take shape and become more prominent and IPv4 becomes more scarce there will be attempts to take advantage of this scarcity. Who wouldn’t like to have that nice set of numbers instead of an unmanageable string of random letters and numbers? It remains to be seen what will happen exactly and how things will unfold - but rest assured that we are on top of it. We know the technology. We understand the issues, and we can answer your questions.
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