We've all visited secure sites; they stand out by showing a small padlock icon either in the browser's address bar or below in the status bar. (Another way to tell is if the address starts with https:// the "s" stands for Secure.)

Handy, but hardly trustworthy. The padlock icon only lets you know the transmission is encrypted, so it's much harder for someone else to see the data flowing by, but it does not let you know if the website you're dealing with is in fact the one you intended to work with.

Think of it as a locked briefcase being transported by an armored truck to an impostor. This isn't good. Phishing, or the attempt to acquire sensitive information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity, is on the rise.

Thankfully, modern web browsers such as Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8, now make it easier to ensure secure transmission as well as the validity of the organization you are communicating with. If the website being visited is using an EV SSL Certification, the address bar, or a portion of it, turns green.



5 steps to increase customer's trust

• Encourage your visitors to upgrade their browser.


• Review your company's privacy policy and how customer data is stored and protected.


• Gather materials needed for providing proof of identity.


• Contact a reputable Certificate Authority (CA) and purchase an EV SSL Certificate.


• Implement the EV SSL Certificate showing your firms' legitimacy.

Web sites using EV SSL Certificates

Bank of America

E*TRADE

X13

X13 works with Verisign and Geotrust, the largest Certificate Authority's (CA) to help customers implement Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates.

X13 recognizes the work of the International Diabetes Federation and its important mission of diabetes advocacy and awareness this November 14th, 2009; World Diabetes Day.

Diabetes currently affects more than 285 million people worldwide. A further 344 million are at high risk of developing diabetes. The International Diabetes Federation predicts that by 2030, over 435 million people will live with diabetes worldwide. Over the past 30 years the global figures for the number of people living with diabetes have skyrocketed, with severe consequences for healthcare budgets worldwide. Diabetes is one of several non-communicable diseases that threaten to overwhelm healthcare systems and are emerging as a serious barrier to economic development.

We're excited Ubuntu 9.10 has been released. The Ubuntu distribution of Linux is a favorite here at the office, and we applaud the efforts of the many developers who have worked to bring the world a better free operating system.

X13 relies exclusively on Ubuntu Server Edition for stability and security.

Ubuntu is a community developed and supported open source software project. Since its launch in October 2004, Ubuntu has become one of the most highly regarded Linux distributions with millions of users globally.

Read the release here:
Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Edition puts the user at the heart of its new design

I recently found Lala, a free service which lets you take your music collection with you, so you can listen to it anywhere using a web browser.

They have more than 7 Million songs, it's easy to find new music, but my favorite feature is the ability to have my music collection, of 45 thousand songs, on any device connected to the Internet: My machine at work, my cell phone, my laptop. The ability to walk into my friends home and turn on a play list is convenient.

Lala also sells songs, provided as 2 options. You can either listen to the song online (10 cents), or download and keep as a DRM-free (non-copy-protected) MP3 file (89 cents). If you purchase a song to listen to online, and decide later you want to own it, you can buy it for the difference (79 cents).

The free Music Mover tool quickly uploads music from your computer to your Lala collection, and is smart enough to compare what you have and what files they already have, so when I added a few thousand songs, only a handful needed to be uploaded.

I'm enjoying listening without any commercial interruptions, and their website is also ad-less. The interface is similar to iTunes, and pretty easy to figure out.

Lala gets an A, for providing a useful and entertaining service via the Internet, and for keeping our office rocking.

note: this article is intended to open eyes regarding client-side DNS performance. As in making your web surfing experience faster, this has nothing to do with the performance of your website.

Using dig for windows, I asked 3 servers to return a record, in this case, cnn.com. Query all servers for the same record, so it's the same size result.

Level3 - 4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.2, 4.2.2.3, 4.2.2.4, 4.2.2.5

OpenDNS - 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220

Comcast - 68.87.85.102

Qwest - 205.171.3.25, 205.171.2.25

Example

C:\dig>dig cnn.com @4.2.2.1

The results will contain lots of stuff, look near the end of the record for this:

;; Query time: 10 msec

So run dig, and compare your results, and choose the option with the lowest query time. I like DNS. Is there any coincidence there are 13 root servers? ;)

Any design is greatly aided by the use of a font which accentuates its graphic and thematic intent. Creating a custom font for your digital work can add a personal level that is not often present in digital mediums.

Yourfonts.com offers a free online tool that is great for hobbyists and design professionals alike that allows for the creation of a personalized font from hand lettering.

Simply visit http://www.yourfonts.com/print.html, follow the instructions and you will have a custom font in minutes (note you will need access to a printer and scanner).

From the entire crew here on board the X13, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season. Forever frozen in time, Cole has chosen to commemorate this moment with the following snapshot.

X13 is doing a hardware refresh next week. It's cold out, which makes hunching over hot servers almost enjoyable, especially for a bit-head like myself.

After a decade of walking behind the curtain and seeing what makes global communication and commerce possible, I have both an enormous appreciation and respect for technology. I used to be the server whisperer. Like a veterinarian or mechanic, I could put my hand on a muggy forehead and make an educated guess about what was ailing the machine. (Hearing the whir of 80's era Mac SE-30 hard drives in today's movies thrills me.)

In February of 2001, I left Sun and decided to dust off my entrepreneurial spirit and jump into the hosting industry. With the help of 3 angel investors (craig m., lori g., ken g.) and a business plan guru (chris n.) I was off and running, purchasing a Sun Cobalt Raq 4 for our first server.

Through the favor of a friend, this little blue pizza box sat inside an Inflow (now SunGard) datacenter, nestled between giant colorless servers owned by MessageMedia (later known as DoubleClick, then absorbed into the largest consumer information company, Google.)

Eventually we grew into our own colocation cabinets, paying $400 per megabit (316GB) of data transferred, and servers were about $5000.

Today, premium bandwidth is under $40/Mb, and servers are about $2500.

	OLD	NEW
System	Sun Cobalt Raq 4	Dell Power Edge
Processor	AMD K6-2, 450MHz, Single Core, 32-bit	(2) AMD Opteron 2350 (K10), 2000MHz, Quad Core, 64-bit
Memory	512MB	10GB (10,240MB)
Storage	73GB	3TB (3,072GB)
Software	Red Hat Linux 4	Debian

1. Clean up your site.

Akin to washing the car before trying to sell it! Remove old content, ensure all links are working, correct spelling errors, and give it a quick sanity check. Do the pictures make sense? Is the navigation linking to everything which is important? Is the text brief? Use the free tools available at http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/ to make sure your site is technically sound.



2. Create a site map.

This is a file, which search engines come to your site and read, so they know where to find your content. You can view our sitemap.xml file for reference, make one by hand, or find a site which can generate one for you. When you're done, upload it to your site.



3. Search engine submission.

• Google (Also powers AOL Search)
  
  http://www.google.com/addurl/


• Yahoo! Search
  
  http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html


• MSN Live Search
  
  http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx


• Ask, Powered by Teoma
  
  http://static.wc.ask.com/en/docs/about/webmasters.shtml#18

4. Get your name out there.

Email signature, printed marketing collateral, letterhead, voice mail message, etc. Here's some Logo advice from Entrepreneur magazine



5. Talk to you customers.

Repeat business is just as good as gaining new clients. Follow up and see hoe things are going, explain any new products or services you're offering, and ask for a referral. Here's your script: "Do you know of anyone I should contact?" The power of a referral is much greater than any advertisement. After contacting their lead, be sure to thank the referrer. Mail them a gift at Christmas. Continue to build and strengthen your business relationships, but we'll save that for another article.



6. Call X13.

This isn't free, but it could save you money. X13 improves websites. Tell them what you need, and they'll let you know if it can be done. They manage the project, work with the developers, etc. It's like having a team of internet experts.