The vagueness of “about us” pages

Jokob Nielsen concludes that the usability of website “about us” pages has actually decreased over the last five years, asserting that many organisations prefer to spin weasel words and marketing bullshit instead of offering an honest and concise summary of what they actually do.

Spam still thriving

Here’s a scary statistic.

According to a recent survey by Marshal, almost 30% of internet users have purchased the following from spam, which manages to find its way into their inboxes:

• pornographic material
• fake watches and designer goods
• cheap drugs and prescription medicines
• pirated software

That’s a staggering one in three users who support these criminals by buying their garbage.

Still partying like it’s 1999

Q: Who gives you a clear picture of what’s going on in the business community by helping you instantly visualize and understand the relationships that drive decisions and create opportunities?

A: Marketvisual do, that’s who!

But only if you use IE, running on Windows. Try searching their people directory using anything other than IE and you’ll get this:

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Spamming the search engines with deliberate typos

With so many websites competing for the same keywords, it’s possible to attract some visitors by deliberately spelling keywords badly. While this will make you look pretty silly in most peoples eyes, the minority who can’t spell may still get to your website via a search engine.

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Is your router’s UPNP still enabled?

We’ve known for several years that almost all internet routers which support universal plug and play have some nasty security issues, including the one you probably use at home.

A big problem for home users is that the router manufacturers almost always configure UPNP to be enabled when it ships out of their factory. While I can understand the really old routers shipping in this insecure state, I was very surprised that Virgin would allow their Globersurfer II wireless router to be still configured this badly, as recently as only a few months ago.

But irrespective of who provides your internet service or which make and model router you use, you need to make sure that UPNP is disabled. Otherwise, you’re a sitting duck.

Oh, and if you’re not sure just how UPNP was supposed to benefit mankind, read this article.