3 Months ago I built a Kynetx application that annotates search results that point to the StackOverflow site.

I’m very excited about releasing the next version of my Kynetx application that utilizes a recently released Kynetx action, percolation. This action digs deep into the bowels of the dark search engine pits and pulls out relevant search results.

If you’ve already been using the first version app, you already have the update. The code updated as soon as I pressed the version update button! : ) Now install the app if you don’t already have it and start having fun searching.

.. And come join us at our next Impact Conference! Developers, entrepreneurs, and everyone else is invited to come and learn because THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING! Visit http://www.kynetx.com/ for more details.

Google Chrome

Mozilla Firefox

Information Card

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Testing my web development in IE is the bane of my existence. Since I run Apache and MYSQL on my local host on my Mac it was always a trick to view my work though my Windows VM until my friend Mike Farmer showed me an easy way to access my development environment on my Mac from my virtual machine.

Steps:

1. Get default gateway of VM machine
2. Use that address the same way you would “localhost” on your Mac

Example:

Get IP address of VM

Local Mac development environment

Dev environment from VM

One of my co-workers recently tweeted, “I really want to know how I missed this web comic. Hilarious!! http://bit.ly/7das6F“. That got me thinking about how much people do miss from their favorite comic sites or any site on the web for that matter. Of course you can subscribe to RSS and get all their updates but those who valiantly use and keep up with their feeds know how quickly it can become overwhelming. But what about all of the people who like sites or products but don’t know how to set up an RSS reader or who just don’t want to? How do you get your content to those people all the time without them having to type in your URL?

With Kynetx!!

With Kynetx you can customize the users experience on your website AND ANY OTHER WEBSITE YOU DESIRE!!

Are you getting excited yet? Are you listening or paying attention?! Are you thinking about the possibilities??!!!

In this example, if a user really loves the comic “Geek and Poke” why not make the content available to them anywhere they go on the web in unobtrusive manner? In fact, if you do it well, the users will be giddy with the results and love your product even more! It’s a little known secret that people actually like advertising. THEY DO! People love to buy stuff! What people actually hate is irrelevant and irritating ads that are in their faces. I took 3 sites and customized the users experience based on the context that they really enjoy the comic “Geek and Poke”.

• Google.com
• CNET.com
• CNN.com

Here are the after and before photos of what the user will see as they visit these sites.

Geek and Poke on Google.com

Geek and Poke on CNET.com

Geek and Poke on CNN.com using Kynetx technology

All the user has to do is download an Information Card into their Card Selector on their computer!

Check out this presentation by Kynetx to learn a bit more. (Make sure you watch it full screen. It looks much better!)

If you would like to try it out for yourself, drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar: Geek & Poke or click to download the information card below to your card selector.

Geek and Poke Information Card

Just visit any of the three sites with the card installed or click on the bookmarklet while on that page and you to can see the magic happen. ; )

Do you know what SSL, TLS, and https mean and do? You deal with SSL, TLS, and https whether you know it or not and it is very important!

TLS = Transport Layer Security
SSL = Secure Socket Layer
https = Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

Private and sensitive information gets sent over the internet all day so what is preventing someone from stealing that information? In order for information to be securely transferred over the internet 2 basics are needed.
1. Confirm server identity
2. Encrypt communication with server

You don’t want to send information to someone who is impersonating the person you actually want to send it to, do you? SSL and TLS provide a way to verify the identity of the recipient. In it’s simplest form, there are many companies that will give people digitally signed certificates vouching for that person saying in essence, “we have checked to make sure this person is who they say they are and we think you can trust them.” When you browse the web, your browser has a list of companies that it will trust to tell you who you can trust. So, when you connect to a server your browser can check their certificate and if it is signed by one of the companies that you trust then your browser will trust it.

Private conversations are good when you are sharing sensitive or private data. You don’t go walking around on the street shouting out your birthday, credit card number, and social security number so why would you do it on the internet? TLS and SSL provide a way for you to have a private conversation with a server so that others can’t “listen in” on your conversation by encrypting the data. Most data on the web is transferred using http but when it is secured using TLS or SSL it is called https.

It’s important to know when you are or aren’t using https when browsing the web to protect your information. Most browsers have visual indicators to show that https is being used. Make it a habit to make sure that your information will be secure before sending or retrieving that data.

Resources to learn more of the nitty gritty of SSL, TLS, and https
TLS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security
http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/tls-charter.html

SSL:
http://www.verisign.com/ssl/ssl-information-center/how-ssl-security-works/index.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7130470471741831613&ei=JETxSrXaC5v-qAPLzKWxDQ&q=ssl&hl=en&view=2&client=firefox-a#

https:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Secure
http://www.ourshop.org/resources/ssl.html

Images via CC BY 2.0
Lock and Chain: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bala_/
Silheuette: http://www.flickr.com/photos/narciss/
Yelling: http://www.flickr.com/photos/demibrooke/