Category: LowCodeUpdate

LowCodeUpdate

Jerry Sandusky, The Konami Code, and Flossing

Twitter is a wonderful place for one-liners. To be funny on the site, you’ve got to be sharp and practice economy of language. You’ve only got 140 characters to make an impression.

And what better way to wind-down the work day than with a selection of some of the day’s most entertaining tweets.

Today, Twitter explores a wide range of topics including Jerry Sandusky, Flossing, Sbarro, and The View. We also learn why it should feel like 1998 to everyone.

Enjoy!

@Justin_Stangel
Justin StangelI just used the “Find My iPhone” to search for Jerry Sandusky. It says he’s at a Dave & Busters. Not good 2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@robfee
Rob FeeJust saw a fat kid in the airport eating Sbarro’s pizza at 9:00am.
I should see if he wants to use this American flag as a napkin. 5 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

@clarkekant
Clarke KantI wish Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Select-Start worked in real life. 13 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@thesulk
Alec SulkinThe View is like cat vomit that can talk. 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

@funnyordie
Funny Or DieHey NYPD: You know wearing riot gear to evict unarmed grad students from tents makes you look like pussies, right? #ows 54 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@TheThryll
WillHate flossing? Rinse your mouth out with blood and cut out the middle man. 4 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@pourmecoffee
pourmecoffeeNBA labor nightmare. Newt Gingrich leading the GOP. It’s 1998 all over again, baby! 1 day ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

@mileskahn
mileskahnSandusky is the Michael Jackson of showering with boys. 15 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

@biorhythmist
mattMy son’s been in the bathroom for an hour and I’m worried that he might be beating my Angry Birds score. 1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@LouBrutus
Lou BrutusAMERICA RECYCLES DAY: Idle NBA players will celebrate by reusing Kim Kardashian again and again and again. 5 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@ERlC_CARTMAN
Not Cartman#WhatYouFindInLadiesHandbags a device to update how sad they are on facebook 9 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

@scullymike
Mike ScullySaw a huge line of kids camped outside a movie theater. Had no idea twelve-year-old girls were so into the life of J. Edgar Hoover. 4 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@TheTweetOfGod
GodThe proper length of time to pause after being asked “Are you sexually attracted to underage boys?” is 0.000000 seconds. 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

@rainnwilson
RainnWilsonWhen you “ASSUME” you make an “ass” out of “u” and Melissa Etheridge 3 hours ago via HootSuite · powered by @socialditto

@FirstWorldLife
First World LifeI drank too much last night and accidentally logged into MySpace #FirstWorldProblems 3 hours ago via TT Commander · powered by @socialditto

@jamonthirteen
jamonthirteenI’m the Gabby Giffords of returning to an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet after said establishment sidelined me with diarrhea for 2 weeks. 2 hours ago via Favstar.FM · powered by @socialditto

November 15, 2011
Ford Shows Off New Promotion Strategy With QR Codes, Escape Routes

To celebrate the launch of the 2012 Ford Escape, the company, who has a sizable presence at BlogWorld, Ford announced the Escape Routes that will show an entirely new method of vehicular promotion.

While discussing the benefits of the new Escape model — you can apparently open the trunk with your foot — some of the details of the promotional strategy were revealed. In order to promote the vehicle, Ford is having it take part on some global adventures. It appears as if Ford is tapping into the reality television/The Amazing Race model by having teams compete while showing off the new Escape. However, instead of racing to see who comes in first, the winners will be decided by voters.

The teams will be competing in what speaker Jim Farley referred to as a “series of spontaneous adventures.”

Apparently, the social media aspect of the web is going to come into play a great deal as well, because Farley mentions using the “social media graph” in order to win. To facilitate the social aspect of Escape Routes, the teams will make short videos to promote the competition and each team will feature blogger/content creator with them.

As for the QR codes, if BlogWorld attendees activate one on their mobile device, they can track the progress of the vehicle up until its launch in two weeks.

During the presentation, Farley stressed that people are desperate for authentic content, which is what motivated the Escape Routes promotion. Farley also feels that vehicles are social objects, and if you doubt that, ask yourself why people spend so much on stereos and/or chrome rims.

It’s all about getting noticed, as are new approaches to marketing, which is something Ford is clearly committed to.

November 4, 2011
Siri Bypasses Your iPhone Passcode, By Default

People enable passcode locks on their mobile devices for a wide variety of reasons. Maybe they want to keep a snooping boyfriend out of their recent calls list, or maybe they fear what might happen if they lost their phone and a stranger could browse their photos with ease. Lots of people nowadays have personal banking apps the could be accessible to anyone with access to the phone.

But it looks as though in some circumstances, the new iPhone 4S voice assistant Siri can bypass your passcode and allow anyone to perform tasks on a locked phone.

Sophos’ Naked Security blog stumbled upon this eccentricity of the new iPhone 4S, and the claim’s veracity has been confirmed by this writer.

By default, you can use Siri to make phone calls, check your calendar, send texts and emails (to people in your contacts list) and set reminders, even when your phone is locked with a passcode. There are some things that you can’t do, like interact with apps.

Of course, this is handy for the owner of the phone – not having to enter a passcode for everything they want to do. But it’s a nightmare for the owner if the phone fell into the wrong hands. Imagine your friends getting a hold of your iPhone and texting your ex-girlfriend…yikes.

All kidding aside, it’s a fairly significant security flaw to be the default setting on the Apple device. Luckily, it’s quite easy to fix by going to Settings > General > Passcode Lock and toggling off Siri functionality while lock is enabled.

But plenty of users won’t think to do this, and it’s just curious that Siri is able to do so much on a passcode-locked phone by default.

October 20, 2011
Google Buzz Gets Killed, Along with Code Search, Jaiku, iGoogle Social Features

When Google launched Google+, it didn’t take long for some of us to speculate about the demise of Google Buzz. Now, we don’t have to speculate much more because Google has come out and said they’re shutting it down, along with a few other services.

“In a few weeks we’ll shut down Google Buzz and the Buzz API, and focus instead on Google+,” says Google VP, Product Bradley Horowtiz in a blog post. “While people obviously won’t be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout.”

“Changing the world takes focus on the future, and honesty about the past,” he says. “We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+. Our users expect great things from us; today’s announcements let us focus even more on giving them something truly awesome.”

The other services Google is shutting down include: Code Search, Jaiku, iGoogle’s social features and the University Research Program for Google Search. These will all be shut down on January 15.

iGoogle itself, and non-social iGoogle apps will stay the same.

Google is also officially closing the Google Labs site today, as previously announced. Boutiques.com and Like.com will be replaced by Google Product Search, also as previously announced.

Will you miss any of the products Google is shutting down? Let us know in the comments.

October 14, 2011
Ripoff Report Strikes Back: Removes Code on Site Left by Hacker

The Ripoff Report has struck back against the so-called reputation management companies that claim to be able to remove posts about companies on the RipoffReport.com website. In a recent press release, Ripoff Report claims that they have removed code on their website that was left by a hacker hired by reputation management companies.

A sample advertisement claiming Ripoff Report removal is shown above.

Ripoff Report explained what happened.

“Earlier this year, a hacker, promising his customers “reputation management” services, had embedded code into the website to prevent search engines from recognizing certain postings. In some cases, website visitors were misdirected to a false message stating that the posting had been redacted.”

Although the press release itself offers no specific proof of the fact that malicious code had been embedded onto the RipoffReport.com website, I am personally not surprised that something like this was done by a hacker. There are a lot of companies out there that would like negative reviews of their products or services removed from the Ripoff Report website. From what I can tell, the website only really exists in order to report negatives about a business, company, or individual. So, naturally, a website like that would have enemies.

Another sample advertisement claiming Ripoff Report removal is shown above.

If you search at Google for “remove ripoff report”, or a similar phrase related to getting a Ripoff Report removed, there are a lot of reputation management companies that claim that they can get a listing removed from the RipoffReport.com website. And some will even charge thousands of dollars to get the report removed from the website.

Currently, however, according to RipoffReport.com, there is no way to completely get a negative review or negative post removed from the website. There is a way to respond with a rebuttal. The company says that “Once a company has been named in a consumer’s report, the company may respond by posting a rebuttal. Both reports and rebuttals are posted free of charge, and once submitted they are not removed. Before a report may be submitted, users are required to create an account by providing a valid email address and warrant that any report submitted is truthful and accurate.”

If a search for your company name or your personal name in Google reveals a RipoffReport.com listing, you have a few options:

– Respond by posting a rebuttal.

– Hire a company or individual who has online reputation management experience that can help bring more positive web pages about your company towards the top of the search results. By emphasizing the positive, the hope is that the negatives are pushed down.

I recommend that you stay away form any companies that claim they can completely remove postings from RipoffReport.com, as that does not appear to be the case.

In a related story, you might recall that recently Ripoff Report removed themselves from Google, which was apparently only a mistake by the company. In one of my recent blog posts, I examined how removing your website from Google can help–or hurt–your search engine rankings.

Check out billhartzer.com for more articles by Bill Hartzer

August 22, 2011
QR Codes and Mammograms: Better Health Through Technology

If you ask most people, I’m sure that they would tell you that the health care field can greatly benefit from the rapidly growing tech sector. Whether it is better machinery, more organized record keeping or doctors having accessibility to things like iPads, new tech can change both medical research as well as medical practice.

The Athens Regional Medical Center in Georgia is using a different technology to improve patient care in one small way.

The hospital is using QR codes to help women schedule mammograms. The hospital has been inserting the little black-and-white boxes into their various forms of advertising, such as newspapers and magazines.

When a woman uses her smartphone to capture the code, she is taken to the Athens Regional website where she can book her mammogram.

Marketing manager Courtney Alford-Pomeroy has this to say about the campaign (as quoted at Athens Banner-Herald –

We felt that women in our community were looking for more convenience in accessing their health care…the QR code was a test to see how popular this is going to be in our market.

The multiple-source approach to the QR code placement allows Pomeroy to see where their marketing is the most effective, whether that be magazines, newspaper ads or postcards.

It came down to wanting to be able to track where people were reading about our services and pulling up our services on the website. I want to make sure that we’re targeting people in the places that are most convenient for them.”

And just how successful have the QR codes in the ads been? Apparently the hospital has seen a 15% increase in the visits to the online mammograms form. Also, those who use the QR code to visit the online mammogram request site are more likely to actually schedule an appointment.

Pomeroy said that she plans on using QR codes in their next “health and marketing campaign.”

Do you think QR codes would increase the chance that you would schedule a procedure? Mammograms? Prostate exams? Even basic physicals? Let us know in the comments.

August 9, 2011
The Most Used iPhone Passcodes Are Depressingly Simple

In my mind, there are only three good reasons to use a passcode lock on your smartphone. The first is obviously security – you don’t want your dumb friends peeking at your private texts. The second is to prevent butt dialing or any other unknown activities that could stem from accidentally unlocking your phone in a traditional way. And lastly, passcodes make it harder to use your phone while drinking, thus reducing your latest Facebook embarrassment.

But if your reason was mainly security, wouldn’t you want to create a 4-digit PIN that wasn’t unbearably easy to guess? Apparently not, according to data posted on app developer Daniel Amitay’s blog today.

One of Amitay’s iOS apps is called “Big Brother Camera Security” Basically, the application will snap a picture of whoever is trying to use your phone without your consent. If they get the code wrong, snap! You have a picture of who was trying to access your device. You can also set it to sound an alarm.

Based on the passcodes of the over 200,000 subscribers to the app, we get some information on the most common passcodes. And unsurprisingly, people fail to secure their phones with any code that would actually secure their phones.

For an app whose sole purpose is security, the top password is 1234. The second most common passcode was 0000. And the bronze goes to 2580, which as you probably know is simply a straight line down the middle of the keypad.

Here’s a graph of the top 10 most common passcodes. It looks as though 1,425 people thought that 5683, which spells “Love,” was a good choice.

Apparently, people also love to use years as their passcodes. Whether they coincide with dates of birth, graduations, or anniversaries, 1990-2000 were in the top 50 most used passcodes and 1980-1989 were all in the top 100. One is the most common digit for the first spot in the code, while zero is the most common in the last spot.

So, guys, you’ve gotta step up your password game. I know you don’t want to make them so complicated that you forget them yourselves, but there is a happy medium between digits with no significance and 1111. And with these statistics in hand it is very likely that I could break into your phone with minimal effort.

Formulaic passwords are never a good idea, yet 15% of all passcode sets were represented by only 10 different passcodes (out of a possible 10,000). The implication? A thief (or just a prankster) could safely try 10 different passcodes on your iPhone without initiating the data wipe. With a 15% success rate, about 1 in 7 iPhones would easily unlock–even more if the intruder knows the users’ years of birth, relationship status, etc.

So next time you want to check out your boyfriend/girlfriend’s texts from last night, try a couple of these simple combinations. There’s a really good chance that one of them will work.

June 13, 2011