What went wrong
Looking at what works and what does not work on the web, we found this remenant of true idiocy of web idealism from a site called "cluetrain", a very early weblog.
It is an authorative guide to itself, and even featured a paraody of itself. It has not published since 1999. Perhaps its owners would like to comment about it. email me .
Here is a fair use quote: One day their site may vanish.
Allen.com: Web Marketer's Guide to the Cluetrain
April 30, 1999 — Cliff Allen
"...it's clear that the Cluetrain Manifesto will lead to increased communications with the wide range of people who make up a company's community."
ClickZ Network: The Electronic Connection
April 21, 1999 — Sean Carton
"It's a powerful vision and one that I think resonates with a lot of us whether we immediately 'get it' or not. The web and the Internet revolution hasn't been a loud, noisy one. Instead, it's been a gradual process of many of us figuring out how to best use these new tools we've been gifted with. Even though our corporate parents haven't figured it out yet, we've all begun to figure it out. The Cluetrain Manifesto's the first time its been put into organized sentences."
What went wrong with the web was it was invaded by everyone. It was not a marketing dream, it was networking computers. The internet's true value is still evolving.
Home shopping will become common place when it's more like playing The Sims, artificially intelligent electronic servants you order to buy the shopping for you. It is then delivered to your door. Any issues? You drag your Sim Servant out for a dressing down when it buys peaces instead of onions instead of the wrong brand of tea.
The extending of computer software via an efficient network carries new possibilities. Music software, Flash technology and superior sound, and you can make a web ad to back a primary media assault.
The way to connect people to the web is by writing your website name down in an attractive and memorable way, and putting that in front of their faces every day for about three weeks. It is called a Logo.
This is a new awareness of a kind of danger. A kind of paradox. As you advance technically, the need for technical advance increases. But when the demand slacks off a need exists for efficiency to be built into systems.
A development strategy exists over a period of time. It is the creation of a machine that integrates with a business function. A computer system can perform no magic for a business unless it relates to a function, until the Internet provided a free form of detailed advertising exposure.
But is the web an efficient medium for advertising?
The answer is yes, but only when it is supports a complete campaign, including designed brochures, letterhead, millions of logos. The internet is no billboard. It is more like watching 100 books at once. It is reference resource we get lost in. We require physical guides to lead us in. Promoting your website is a key element to making it possible for it to work. You must make it work, and then promote it with gusto and confidence. Nothing else will work.
sfsw.net uses design, on paper, for advertising placement with linked web campaigns. It requires a tailored campaign and a budget. It will get you hits, and if you think out your website we can implement your ideas rather than our own.
A website by itself is only as useful as its most useful function. Otherwise it is a page in a floating magazine that has a limited and confined value to your business. Unless you promote it.
Security
It's a normal enough afternoon, a distant radio is playing. A customer just got off the phone and said he could not access your website for days. For some reason your company website is dead, but it seemed okay to you. It there on the receptionist's screen, after all.
Worse, a virus hit your laptop, so you have not been checking the website from home like you used to. Now you are running around in circles trying to figure out what is going on with all this new technology your business relies upon. The hosting company admit to nothing. But worse three days later and still the site is not working...
Security issues jump out at you, presenting a problem that threatens your business or internet access. It may be shocking to find your cyberspace representation suddenly vanished, or worse is being manipulated in the hands of others. We are hearing a lot about "root exploits", good old fashioned dangerous virus attacks, where someone else controls what a Windows 2000 server dishes up over the internet. Who can update it.
These are the dangerous forms of the information terrorist. They open back doors so they can lurk in your system, hiding files and their traces, using your resources and locking up your bandwidth. Or worse, replacing your customer database with inaccurate data. There are many new access points when access to company data over the internet is provided, security is controlled by software. Security breaches are often controlled by sofware.
We develop and host sites for clients, and in reselling hosting services we have learned that it is best to provide redundancy. We advise
international redundancy. Switching between alternative services takes a day or two. It may be weeks before a hurricane allows your battered hosting provider to get back on their feet. It is important to back up your system especially databases. All this takes time. It is best to prepare.
Whether you are running one, five, twenty five or five hundred websites, if things go wrong you have to jump, and jump you do.
Businesses want security and continuity. In one incident, half our websites suddenly vanished as did access to their control panels. When faced with a threat we evolve methods and thus we now provide redundancy to our business hosting customers. We set up a second host. Or three. Recovery is quick and efficient.
We have resolved the best solution is to create backup or alternative sites for each client. And to host the domain (name control) separately from the site, so if the site goes, the domain point at a new service. This is actually remarkably technical stuff.
Now. if there is an outage in one backbone, you can just switch your site over to another, so your site returns to life more quickly. Of course we are more likely to detect sites that go down before a client notices.
Providing redundancy to our "Business Hosting" clients means alternative hosting arrangements. Its a real form of insurance. Not a guarentee, but a way to provide you with a better service.
In these uncertain days, we create backup hosts so we can switch services, so, in case of fire or water damage to hosts, service can be resumed easily. Remote hosting of your web assets often makes sense especially when you are looking for an international audience. Separate hosts located on different backbones also makes a lot of sense.
That is one aspect of security, and an easy practical method to resume services in the event of interruptions.
But what are the security concerns in industry? Confidential email is one thing, and fairly easily achieved. It is also possible to provide secure hosts on the internet when you want to specifically control access to someone that identifies themselves to data otherwise completely unavailable.
Authentication of the user is just the first step. If we are worried about convential threats, such as industrial espionage, we would be wise to use services that are:
- Transparent to the user (non-instrusive)
- Integrated into normal practice
- Confidential (securely encrypted)
- Time limited (evolve into new services)
There are many potential problems with security. Not the least of which are the armies of ego maniacs who will try and break your security if it is worth doing.
In an election, you need to know what is a vote, and what is not. A better system has no way of creating anything but one valid vote for each voter. Security is like that, just as you can't see where the holes go in a swiss cheese, you can not prohibit access everywhere, but you do not want your company secrets published either.
Good security people know that it is a balance between informtion needs, and limiting access. Remote logging is also an excellent tool.
The best security does not damage productivity, but limits the possibility of damage, and at the same time, moderates consequences. It is a dual thing, both prevention and cure.
For more information see the sfsw tech newsletter on the sfsw.net site.
Service Interrupt
Some of our sites experienced an outage from March 22, for a number of hours. The explanation from the upstream hosting provider was computers "were accidentally destroyed". As they were relocating them, one can assume that they mean physically destroyed.
It also also conceivable they could mean one or more of the "root" virus-hacks that have recently gained notoriety, resulted in a massive failure. We lost a dedicated host!
It was also as the Iraq war started. Terrorism thus entered the analysis but a fire is the most likely event to "destroy" computers.
Most of our sites were moved within a 12 hour period to emergency services. A couple were a little more tricky, but normal services have been relocated and are now being resumed.
