The better twin website was launched way back in 2009 and over the last few years I have evolved as a person, both in terms of my skillset and how I use the web. In 2013, like many others, I use my smartphone a considerable amount and I realize the importance of having a website that reflects this. When I sat down to consider how my site should look, I felt that I wanted my portfolio of work to take center stage, but I didn’t want mobile users to suffer as a result.

Responsive design

Having designed responsive websites for clients, it was high time that my own website led by example. There are many different approaches that website designers can take in order to cater for mobile use, however, I am of the opinion that responsive design is one of the best. I don’t believe that mobile users should be penalized with content taken away from them. I have experienced this in the past and know it is infuriating to try to find content on your mobile that you know is on the desktop version of the site. My approach therefore, was to try to create a seamless experience across devices and screen sizes.

Of course, not everything is suited to fit mobile screen sizes, hence the use of media queries to adapt the full screen background images depending on orientation. The menu will adapts to a more touch friendly version with the header also taking up less space for mobile users. The important thing is that the content remains unchanged no matter how you decide to view the site.

Legible text

In the planning phase, I also spent a lot of time researching font sizes. Previously set at 12px I felt that this was too small for comfortable reading of body copy. I updated this to around 16px for my body font and the results make for a pleasant experience. Choosing the right fonts on Google’s web font service was very important. I was looking for something that was unique (Droid Sans is far too common these days) but something that would aid legibility. For these reasons Lato was chosen for body copy, while headings are taken care of by Signika. I feel that these fonts provide a nice balance for the site.

Disqus

One of the other major changes was to move the site to use of the Disqus commenting system. As much as I loved styling WordPress’ default comment system </sarcasm>, Disqus allows for much more flexibility for visitors when visiting and should hopefully encourage greater user participation. I was experiencing a lot of spam through the comments and Disqus promises to be able to better handle malicious activity. We will have to see on that one.

So after all that, I hope you enjoy the new site and I encourage you to revisit with the various devices you are sure to have these days to see how it performs. I will be adding more to the site over the coming weeks (especially the portfolio) so stay tuned and feel free to leave a comment or contact me with any feedback.

Thanks for reading,

thebettertwin.

Sir Alex Ferguson has announced his retirement, leaving Manchester United after 26 years in charge. He departs with quite a CV, having won practically every trophy available including an astounding 13 Premier League titles and establishing Manchester United as not just a successful football club, but a global sporting institution.

For many fans like myself, Sir Alex Ferguson is Manchester United, having never known a game without the Scotsman chewing fervently in the dugout. Being born after he took charge at Old Trafford, the news brings about a new era where success will be far from certain, regardless of who is appointed successor.

They will be the biggest boots to fill, and it will take a special personality to handle the pressure and media spotlight, especially if results are not immediately positive. Questions arise as to whether the new manager will be given time to get to know the team or whether Manchester United will enter a phase of managerial merry-go-round. Given that Sir Alex will stay on as Director of Football and is said to have been given some say in choosing his successor, the former seems more likely, however, given the current state of football with people demanding instant results, fans may not be so forgiving.

Some may remember Sir Alex planned to retire way back in 2001-2002 with none other than Sven Gorran Erikson lined up to replace him. However, by announcing his retirement in advance before the season began, it had an adverse affect on the performance of the United team and drained his authority. Sir Alex will have learnt from this experience, hence why this news came somewhat out of the blue.

The bookies favorite is currently Everton manager David Moyes with Real Madrid’s Jose Mourinho also in the running and it may come down to the reputations of these managers. Mourinho would perhaps be an exciting choice and probably guarantee trophies for the time that he sticks around, while Moyes, given time, may be able to provide the kind of stability that has been the bedrock of Sir Alex Ferguson’s tenure. Rumours are that Manchester United are looking for someone who “understands the club’s history and is committed to youth development while employing an attractive, attacking style of football”, which would seem to imply Moyes.

Regardless of who is to be Sir Alex’s successor, now is the time to look back at the great times. From the first title win in 1993 that ironically ended United’s 26 year wait for the title, to the treble winning success of 1999, every United fan is sure to have a favourite. Fans will also reminisce over Sir Alex’s greatest signings, his greatest team and his greatest match but one thing is certain his haul of 38 trophies during his reign at Old Trafford is unlikely to be matched.

Thanks for reading,
thebettertwin.

Updated May 9th: Manchester United have announced that, as widely rumoured and predicted, David Moyes will be the successor to Sir Alex. In a show of commitment to the new manager he will be offered a six-year deal starting on 1 July. Sir Alex Ferguson, who recommended Moyes to the United Board stated that:

David is a man of great integrity with a strong work ethic. I’ve admired his work for a long time and approached him as far back as 1998 to discuss the position of assistant manager here. There is no question he has all the qualities we expect of a manager at this club.

Moyes was described as having “all the skills needed to build on United’s phenomenal legacy” so all United fans should get behind the new manager and I’m sure next season will be an exciting one.

After ten years and six versions, Adobe have announced that Creative Suite is no more. The Creative suite is used extensively in professional circles, with Photoshop even entering vernacular speech. However, there will be no Creative Suite 7. Adobe will entirely focus its future efforts on Creative Cloud, the subscription based, heavily cloud dependent version of its software.

The news is likely to come as a shock to many and while Creative Suite 6 (the current edition) will continue to be available for online purchase, it will not be updated beyond addressing bugs and OS compatibility. Adobe will instead be releasing an updated suite of applications in June now branded as “CC” apps and only available through their monthly subscription services.

While Adobe’s software has never been known as cheap, many users invest in a version of Creative Suite and never upgrade in order to spread the cost over many years. Adobe claim that this is not a sustainable business model, and the move to Creative Cloud will help to stabilize its revenue. Previously, it would receive bursts of income every two years with the latest Creative Suite release. Convincing users to upgrade was a daunting task that left an impact on product decisions. Some would argue that this drive to create compelling reasons for upgrade would keep driving product innovation forward, and the reassurance of continual income could lead to innovation taking a back seat. Clearly Adobe think differently.

The subscription cost is also far from cheap. The complete version of Creative Cloud will set you back $49.99 per month, or you can purchase a single app subscription for $19.99 per month. This would appear to be a good deal for anyone who uses most of the software in the Suite and upgrades to the latest version on a regular basis. For the rest however, it would seem you are out of luck.

There is also the fact that the Creative Suite is widely pirated. Copies of Creative Suite are easily found on file-sharing services and Adobe believe that the subscription model is an alternative to heavily restrictive DRM which would impair user experience. Cynics would probably claim that this is the biggest reason for Adobe’s latest move and that people who pirate the software would never pay anyway.

The move to a subscription model could also impact how small businesses and nonprofits treat design. For single, infrequent use, it will no longer make financial sense to have a small in-house design team. That money will be shifted out of house to larger firms that use more tools and can make the most of the Creative Cloud negatively impacting small design teams.

So are there any alternatives to the Creative Suite? The biggest problem many will face is that Creative Suite is an industry standard. Working outside of Adobe’s software is a difficult task. It is not impossible, however. Corel provide a suite of tools similar to those found in the Creative Suite, with CorelDraw offering vector illustration and professional image editing tools. There are also freeware tools such as GIMP (Image editing), Inkscape (Vector illustration) and Scribus (Desktop publishing), the greatest hurdle for each being to learn the quirky User Interfaces.

Clearly the future of design in the industry will depend upon the reaction of creatives to this move by Adobe. Have Adobe moved too early? Will we see Creative Suite 6 continued use for years to come? One thing is for sure, it is a significant move by Adobe and their success, or lack there of, will shape the future of other software applications in the future.

Thanks for reading,
thebettertwin.

Leaks of Microsoft’s next update to its Windows 8 Operating System continue on a regular basis, giving us glimpses of the changes the Redmond giant have in store. Code-named Windows 8.1, the latest build (Build 9385) leaked to the internet yesterday and has already been dissected by many for any noticeable changes.

Perhaps the biggest change for those involved with any form of web development is the overhaul of the web developer tools included with Internet Explorer 11. Developer tools are included with most modern browsers (press F12 to access them) and allow for the viewing and modifying of HTML, JavaScript and CSS, as well as providing a platform to test for bugs and performance issues. Microsoft have included built in developer tools ever since the release of IE8 in 2009, yet they have received little to no attention ever since.

Fast forward four years and the IE development tools are receiving some much needed love. Aesthetically, the design of the tools has been brought in line with other Microsoft software, now resembling the UI of the current Visual Studio or Microsoft Office. Hopefully this change signals a move away from legacy menus that still permeate Windows 8 and make it feel at times that it has an identity crisis.

The visual changes are not alone however, as Microsoft have included many new features. One of these is a new Emulation mode which allows for testing of how the site performs at various screen sizes and on different device types. This is vitally important for Microsoft’s push into the tablet market with developers having a whole slew of new screen resolutions and sizes to cater for.

Windows 8.1 is certainly shaping up to be a significant improvement for Windows 8 users, addressing many complaints and these updates to the developer tools are a welcome one. While they are unlikely to help Internet Explorer to reverse the trend of flagging market share, any improvements that make web developers lives a little easier must be applauded.

Thanks for reading,
thebettertwin.

As Microsoft have experienced over the last couple of decades, with popularity comes the menace of hackers and other nefarious people targeting your platform in an attempt to breach security. WordPress is now estimated to be running on around 17% of the world’s websites and a new botnet of ”tens of thousands” of individual computers has been reported to have been attempting to brute-force users admin accounts.

Observers speculate that the attack is an attempt to build a formidable botnet of compromised WordPress accounts that is likely to be used in a much larger attack. The botnet attempts to login with the (old default) “admin” username and thousands of common passwords. Web host HostGator said it had seen more than 90,000 IP addresses involved in the attack. “The attack is well organized and very distributed,” engineer Sean Valant stated on the company’s Gator Crossing blog.

As of WordPress 3.0, which released almost three years ago (time flies!), users have been able to pick a custom username on installation. This should mean that the majority of new WordPress websites no longer use the default “admin” username that this botnet has been targeting.  However, for many users pre-3.0 update, the default admin account has probably never been changed.

Matthew Mullenweg, a founding developer of WordPress, has commented on the situation, recommending that users should change this default “admin” username if they haven’t already done so, set a strong password, and make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest version of WordPress. This, he states, should put you “ahead of 99% of sites out there and [mean you will] probably never have a problem”. This would also mean that you can avoid shelling out for costly “solutions” that many companies will try and advertise as needed, when they are not.

This type of attack is of course not limited to WordPress, but any account that uses common usernames and/or passwords. Users would be advised to use combinations of lower and uppercase characters as well as numbers and symbols for their passwords and change them on a regular basis. You should also avoid using the same password on multiple websites.

Thanks for reading,
thebettertwin.

It is a concept that many probably didn’t even realise was possible, but security experts are claiming that the internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind. Popular internet services like Netflix are said to have been affected and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

Global internet traffic is said to have slowed after disagreements between a spam-fighting group and a hosting firm has led to a multitude of denial of service attacks on the domain name servers of the spam-fighting group, Spamhaus. Spamhaus claim that their servers have been under attack for over a week with peaks of 300 GB a second in an attack that would result in the collapse of most servers.

Spamhaus hosts blacklists that are designed to stop email spam around the world. Recently, the London and Geneva based company used its email spam list to block servers from Cyberbunker, a Dutch-based web hosting service. Spamhaus claims that Cyberbunker is working with other criminal groups in Eastern Europe and Russia to launch these denial of service attacks in retaliation.

Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide “what goes and does not go on the internet”, however, they stopped short of admitting complicity. Denial of Service attacks are illegal in many countries and five e national cyber-police-forces are said to be investigating the attacks.

It is in fact remarkably simple to affect the infrastructure of the Internet due to inherent weaknesses in the web’s domain name system. Professor Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey, described to the BBC how DNS systems are “…essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless.” With this attack, he continued; ”if you imagine it as a motorway, attacks try and put enough traffic on there to clog up the on and off ramps, with this attack, there’s so much traffic it’s clogging up the motorway itself.”

Thanks for reading,

thebettertwin.

Microsoft have been steadily releasing updates to its core Windows 8 applications in order to make them suck less. The Mail, Calendar, People and Messaging app, Xbox Music, Xbox Video and Xbox Games have all seen updates rolling out for Windows 8 and Windows RT.

For an operating system that is dependent on the strength of its applications it is an area that many have criticised Microsoft for. Many of their apps lacked functionality, were slow and were prone to crashing frequently. These updates aim to address many performance issues as well as providing a few new functionality additions.

The Mail app has seen a significant overhaul. It now allows users to create, rename and delete email folders from within the application, along with the flagging of important emails. There is also the addition of a search button, however, that only opens the charm bar. The Calendar app has received an updated interface while the People app now lets users post messages to their friends Facebook walls.

Xbox Music has been the source of numerous complaints since the Windows 8 launch, seen as a totally inadequate successor to the Zune application. The updated Xbox Music brings a separate volume control independent of the universal Windows 8 system volume. There is now the option to have all songs added to Xbox Music available across your devices, as well as the option to add matched songs to your cloud collection. Finally, there is also a new now playing interface which improves upon the song list.

Xbox Video doesn’t seem to have received as much attention as the Music app, although noticeably faster, new features are few and far between. It has, however, added the ability to restore previously purchased videos that weren’t showing up in users’ video libraries. Users who purchased movies on the Xbox 360 version of the Xbox Video app experienced issues where movies purchased on the console didn’t show up in the Windows 8 and Windows RT app. Now, a user can click a restore button in the app’s preferences to recover videos that weren’t properly syncing with the app as long as the rights for those videos are applicable for playing on a PC.

Finally, Xbox Games now displays the last game you have played on the home screen, faster and smoother access to related downloadable content for games and easier access to game trailers and screenshots. Microsoft have also added some enhanced communication features inside the app too, like the ability to send and receive text messages between Xbox LIVE friends and toast notification similar to those available on the Xbox 360.

While these updates are a step in the right direction there is still a long way to go. Windows Blue is reportedly aiming to refresh these apps in a big way, but regular updates from Microsoft are needed to encourage people to embrace their app store model.

Thanks for reading,

thebettertwin.

HTML5 was heralded as the end to flash video on the web thanks to its support for embedded video content, however, due to disagreements over video codecs developers still don’t have an agreed standard to use. For a while it did seem that most companies were united behind  the H.264 codec which offered extensive hardware support and was being included in Windows 7 and Apple’s OSX.

Critics of H.264 claim that it is not free to use, it is not open source and developers may end up paying for its use in the future. This in part led to Google’s launch of its open source VP8 video codec that it acquired when it purchased a company called On2. This was to form part of a new format called WebM.

Google has tried to push the adoption of WebM, even dropping support for H.264 from its Chrome browser. This was despite (or perhaps because of?) the fact that H.264 was becoming the most widely adopted format. Licencing concerns over H.264 were also somewhat allayed by the MPEG-LA, who made H.264 royalty-free as long as it is freely distributed. Many believed that the move by Google was simply a ploy to try and force people to adopt WebM so as to give them greater control over media on the internet.

Nokia have thrown a spanner in the works for Google, however, having submitted a paper to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that lists 86 patents, both approved and pending, that it will not donate to the IETF standard for VP8. Nokia also won’t be offering FRAND access to those patents for the codec. Nokia claim that they support “open and collaborative efforts for standardization”, but Google’s VP8 does not qualify as open. They go further accusing Google of ‘forcing’ VP8 video codec on the world.

Their full statement reads:

“We are now witnessing one company attempting to force the adoption of its proprietary technology, which offers no advantages over existing, widely deployed standards such as H.264 and infringes Nokia’s intellectual property. As a result, we have taken the unusual step of declaring to the Internet Engineering Task Force that we are not prepared to license any Nokia patents which may be needed to implement its RFC6386 specification for VP8, or for derivative codecs.”

Clearly Nokia feel that WebM and VP8 are not as open or free as Google would like people to believe and that there are better alternatives, namely H.264.

What this means for developers is that there will be plenty more wrangling, legal and otherwise, before a standard of web video can be used. For consumers it may also mean having to download separate plugins, VP8 for Internet Explorer and Safari, H.264 for Chrome, in order to view video on the web. In other words, everyone suffers.

Thanks for reading,

thebettertwin.

2013 seems like it will be a great year for catching up with some of my favorite bands who I never managed to get around to seeing live. After seeing the awesome Killers, when the chance to see the Stereophonics came up, it was not to be missed. Playing later in the year the band will be touring for their new album Graffiti on the Train. Having listening to it a little bit, the singles they have released so far are the standouts while never quite reaching previous heights.

The album tour promises that the four-piece will be performing tracks from their 20 plus year back catalogue including the classics; The Bartender And The Thief, Have A Nice Day, Mr Writer, A Thousand Trees and the number one hit Dakota.  The scary fact that Stereophonics will have been performing for over two decades is certain to make any fan feel old.

Stadium tours are a key source of revenue for bands who often see little return on album sales, even if they are platinum hits. Record labels will swallow up the majority of the profit to recoup their costs spent on marketing and advertising. It is record labels therefore; who are the most vocal when it comes to their perceived loss through piracy. For tours, a greater percentage of ticket price and merchandise go directly to the band, so fans who want to support their favorite musicians, would be better going to see them in person if the tickets can be had before they sell out.

Live performances are not without their issues however, the problem with ticket touts and the sellers of fake merchandise is a continual thorn in the side to ticket vendors and fans alike. Nevertheless, these are easy enough to avoid and most people can simply enjoy the good music.

Hopefully, Kelly won’t get a sore throat, causing the gig to be cancelled, like what happened with Brandon Flowers and The Killers, although at the rescheduled dates his voice was phenomenal. I’m sure Kelly’s gruff Welsh vocals will be just as good in person.

Thanks for reading,

thebettertwin.

Music piracy is causing the loss of millions of pounds in sales every year if the Phonographic Industry is to be believed. Their mantra that is often bandied about whenever piracy is being discussed has led to laws being passed, websites being shutdown and greater restrictions on internet freedom being enacted.  However, a new report, published by the European Commission Joint Research Centre claims that music web piracy does not harm legitimate sales.

Proponents of a free internet have often claimed that piracy is actually beneficial to legitimate sales, and that a pirated download does not equal a lost sale. This report seems to reinforce their assertions. The report has been dismissed however, by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) as “flawed and misleading”.

Despite the opposition of the IFPI, the report continues that “our results suggest that Internet users do not view illegal downloading as a substitute to legal digital music… it seems that the majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals in our sample would not have been purchased if illegal downloading websites were not available to them.” The sample analysed the habits of more than 16,000 European consumers over the course of one year and concluded that there is unlikely to be significant harm on digital music revenues as a result of copyright infringement.

The IFPI have been highly critical of the report, releasing a statement claiming that “the findings seem disconnected from commercial reality, if a large proportion of illegal downloaders do not buy any music (and yet consume, in some cases, large amounts of it), it cannot be logical that illegal behaviour stimulates legal download sales and inflicts no harm.” This statement ignores one of the key statements of the JRC report in that users do not view an illegal download as a substitute to legal digital music.

They also wildly claim that; “it is in fact clear that piracy is as great a threat to the growing subscription and free-to-user streaming sector as it is to download services” when in fact this is far from clear and they have no supporting evidence for this assertion. In fact the growth of such services, would seem to suggest that the opposite is true.

The battle over whether internet piracy harms the music and film industries is sure to continue on, however, the research from the JRC suggests that it does not have quite the impact the IFPI would like to have people believe. Maybe consumers should go back to recording music off the radio, oh wait… they weren’t happy about that either!

Thanks for reading,

thebettertwin.