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What’s Changed Now?

It takes one look at a shiny new iPad, a hyper-intelligent cellphone or a massive LCD monitor to recognize that the way individuals access and subsequently view web content has evolved. Formerly, any responsible web developer, concerned with how their fixed width website might render on a mobile device, was forced to build and redesign a second site that would comfortably display content in a phone’s browser window. But now with the variety of Wi-Fi capable devices on the market, what is a responsible web developer to do?

Two Words: Responsive Design

Responsive design is not some new-fangled technology, but rather, a series of techniques and processes that when followed, enable the layout of a webpage to adjust and adapt according to the size of the screen it is viewed on.

1. The site structure must consist of a fluid or flexible grid foundation.
2. Images on the site (whether background or hard-coded) must be fluid as well.
3. The layout of the web pages must adapt according to the screen resolution using media queries.

Responsive Design in Action

Want to see responsive design in action? Slowly reduce the size of your browser window and watch as this page reconfigures as the window decreases in width.

A Step in the Right Direction

Over the past few months both VR’s design and development teams have been consumed with the notion of responsive design. Although us designers don’t always seem to be speaking the same language as the developers (could someone please define “cookie”!?), we seem to be in agreement: Responsive design represents a step towards consistency and continuity in the world of web.

Over the next few weeks VR plans to publish a variety of articles that take a closer look at many of the issues, techniques and even controversies surrounding responsive design. So stay tuned!

Don’t Miss These Articles:

Responsive Web Design, Ethan Marcotte — May 25th, 2010
Responsive Web Design: What it is and How to Use it, Kayla Knight — January 12th, 2011
Understanding the Elements of Responsive Web Design, Jason Gross — March 14th, 2011
Beginner’s Guide to Responsive Web Design, Nick Pettit — August 9th, 2011
Designing for a Responsive Web, Max Luzuriaga — August 9th, 2011
The Ultimate Responsive Web Design Roundup, Cameron Chapman — September 1st, 2011

1: Check for now vulnerabilities on any plug-ins and themes:

Using a popular frameworks like WordPress is a double edge sword. On one side, theses frameworks provide perfect targets for hackers who want to deliver widespread destruction, and on the other hand there is a massive community of developers and security experts constantly working to close these holes. If there is a well-known security issue with a plug-in or theme, someone has probably documented it in a blog or a forum. Finding it can be as simple as typing “_plugin_name_ Security” into Google.

2. Move wp-config to the directory above the root

This will help prevent hackers from making changes to your WordPress configuration.

3. Remove any unnecessary plug-ins

Each plugin is a potential hole for hackers to exploit. Keep only the most necessary plugins and immediately delete ones that are no longer in use.

5. Keep all components up-to-date

This is obvious. Take advantage of the hard work put into improving WordPress.

6. Never hack the wp-core

Two very good reasons for this:

1. You’ll be more reluctant to push new updates, knowing any changes you’ve made will be overwritten.
2. Your code is likely be less secure than the peer-reviewed WordPress source.

7. Add a server-side authentication to wp-admin:

A few ways this can be implemented:

• Whitelist of IP address that are allowed to access wp-admin (IIS | Apache)
• BasicAuth username/password login
• HTTPS SSL

8. Change the URL of wp-admin

One of the biggest threats to WordPress sites are brute-force attempts on password cracking. Even a strong password may fail if the hacker is determined enough. One way to limit these attacks is to change the “/wp-admin” URL to something less obvious.

10. Restrict File Permissions

Your server should only have write access inside the wp-content directory. WordPress officially recommends to give write access to this entire folder, but it is more secure to give write access to only the uploads folder and any folder required by a specific plugin (ex. a gallery plugin may require write access to a galleries folder).

11. Grep you file structure for suspicious code

Using a plug-in such as Ultimate Security Checker you can easily scan your system for potentially malicious code. This tool will return a lot of ‘false negatives’ so it is importaint to carefully examine each line. DO NOT just start deleting every line it returns. Look out for calls to “gzinflate()”, “base64_decode()”, eval(), pre_replace(), and strrev(). These functions are often chained to hide and evaluate malicious code.

Example of malicious code found by Ultimate Security Checker. This line uses preg_replace() with the ‘eval’ flag to execute malicious code. The code is compressed and base64 encoded to try and conceal its functionality.

12. Change the SQL table prefix

Changing the SQL table prefix can keep your site safe for WordPress specific SQL Injection attacks.

Example of SQL Injection that can be used to change a user’s password so a hacker can retrieve it.

13. Update and Secure your PHP configuration

Not all PHP builds are created equal. Some php.ini configurations can provide hackers with additional fire power. Use a tool like PHPSecInfo to identify and remove any issues.

Use a tool like PHPSecInfo to identify and remove any issues.

Urban dictionary defines a sledneck as “a person from a mountain state, no flatlanders, who tears it up on a snowmobile.” And, tear it up we did. Last week, the VR Interactive Team (sans co-founder, Brian, who had to have shoulder surgery ) headed out into the Wyoming backcountry south of Jackson for a day of team building on snowmobiles. Even those of us who had never been on a “sled,” quickly were grinning ear to ear and getting sore thumbs from laying on the throttle (even though, we were told to keep our Polaris 550′s and 600′s under 100mph by our guide, Mike McCloud). Yep, nerds turned into slednecks pretty quickly.

Using Transceivers to Team Build

We stopped about half way in to our destination, Granite Hot Springs, in a snowy meadow to refresh our transceiver, or avalanche beacon, skills. Project Manager, Chris Hanson, and VR co-founder, Jed Frumkin, gave us a welcomed refresher on how to properly use our beacons. We then ran through some buried beacon finding drills in small teams. Our guide, Mike, gave us some additional tips that he got at a recent avalanche course he took for his other job as a Snow King ski patroller.

These tips definitely came in handy in our final skills test in the afternoon. Jed asked Mike to go bury a beacon in a meadow while we were gaping in wonder at the Granite Creek waterfall and driving our sleds up steep hills. Next, we split up into teams of two by last name and were told to find the buried beacon, which had a substantial amount of money attached to it! We used some of the skills we had learned earlier to quickly communicate with our team member to make a search plan and then execute it (without crashing into each other).

The teams took different directions in searching the large meadow atop our ‘biles, transceivers in hand. But, we all came together as a team once the Frumkin-Hanson team pinpointed the area where the beacon was buried. Digging furiously alongside other team members, Chuck Trout recovered the beacon and the cash prize for himself and his partner Web Designer, Galen Strasen. They promised to buy drinks later and donate the rest of the money to charity!

Some Team Achievements:

"Top Speed" Jay Cogen on his 600

• The whole team came together as a whole by helping each other and having fun outside the office
• Web Designer, Jay Cogen, hit the top speed (78mph!) for the VR folks
• Six out of eight team members survived minor snowmobile crashes
• Six out of eight team members perfected newly learned “powder turns”
• Two team members learned to drive sleds and quickly adopted the “need for speed”
• All eight snowmobiles survived the VR team (for the most part)
• All eight of us were “tuckered out” and some us even “hit the hay” really early that night

Granite Hot Springs, Wyoming

If you’ve never been to Granite Hot Springs, then go. It’s located 30 miles from Jackson, WY in the Gros Ventre mountain range in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. We snowmobiled about ten miles in from HWY 191 and changed into swimsuits to soak for about an hour in the natural, hot spring pool (just be glad that there are no pictures of this since our bodies all so white from being layered up for months). It’s the pool that Travis Rice snowboards into from a rocky cliff above it in the movie, That’s It, That’s All. After our soak in the 93°F to 112°F thermal bath, we were called to our five-star lunch prepared by our awesome guide.

About our Guide: Mike McCloud

VR Team and our guide Mike

We certainly lucked out with our snowmobile guide from Jackson Hole Snowmobile Tours. Not only was he a wealth of knowledge about all things snowmobile, avalanche safety and the Jackson Hole area, but he’s an awesome cook!

He made us a wonderful (and huge!) steak cooked to order and served it up with pasta salad, baked beans, marinated mushrooms, garlic-stuffed bread and brownies. Pretty deluxe for eating in the Wyoming backcountry, huh?

From the Jackson Hole Snowmobile Tours Website:

“Mike has been in Jackson Hole working ski patrol, snowmobiling and running river trips for over a decade. Mike has guided commercial raft trips on 3 different rivers for 17 years and counting, been on the Snow King Ski Patrol for over 10 years, and has been guiding commercial snowmobile tours for over 5 years. Mike has an AAS Degree in Business, and is a NOLS Graduate. He currently holds an Outdoor Emergency Care Certificate and is a member of the National Ski Patrols Pro Division.”

If you’ve been procrastinating updating your brand’s Facebook page to comply with the changes in Facebook Timeline, good job: It’s only a few days until it goes into effect on March 30th.

But, if it weren’t for the last minute nothing would ever get done. Don’t panic. It’s not as big a deal (for most businesses) as you might think and you can make a few important changes pretty quickly.

Focus on Telling your Brand’s Story Visually

1. Add a cover photo image (851 x 315 pixels) that either leads the user’s eye to the most viewed app (notice how Livestrong leads the user’s eye to the blog app, which is located in the most-viewed area) or tells the story of your business.
2. Make a profile picture (180 x 180) that your users identify with (since Starbucks is instantly recognizable, they can just use the icon portion of the logo, but if your business is small you may want to consider using a text logo, or both icon and text).
3. Add some milestones to your timeline such as important dates for the business with photos. Coca Cola added a testimonial from 1892 that the customer said, “this is going to be big.“
4. Organize your apps or views so that the most important ones are the four (4) that are showing on the top level of the apps. You can post up to twelve (12) apps or views. The Captain Morgan page has the “Rumpedia” app in the best spot to feature tantalizing recipes that may encourage you, well, to drink more of the Captain.
5. Devise a plan for your pinned post, which is the first post (on the left under the profile picture) that stays up for a week. You could choose to use a current event or keep re-pinning something you always want to show. Red Bull used a picture of Red Bull athlete Lindsey Vonn after she set a record for World Cup points since they knew it would generate interaction from her fans.

• Cover photo: 851 by 315 pixels
• Profile picture: 180 by 180 pixels
• App and Views image: 111 by 74 pixels
• Thumbnail: 32 by 32 pixels
• Images within wall posts: 404 by 404 pixels
• Highlighted and milestone images: 843 by 403 pixels

Good Examples of Timeline Pages

• Livestrong – cover photo leads the user’s eyes to the blog app
• Captain Morgan USA – clever way to incorporate profile picture into cover photo and centering the apps (since the size went from 520 to 810 this looks better than the left-justified default
• Coca-Cola – Good use of milestones (including an image of a hand-written testimony from 1892!)
• Starbucks – Simple look with branded apps
• Red Bull – Customized apps displayed prominently and pinned post encouraging interaction

Facebook Timeline Resources:

• Facebook Marketing Solutions page
• Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand
• 15 Must Know Tips to Rock Your New Facebook Timeline Business Page
• Facebook Eye-Tracking Study: Profile Timeline vs. Old Style
• Understanding Facebook Timeline: What It Is (and Isn’t)
• Making the Most of Facebook’s Timeline for Brands
• Reference of Dimensions for Facebook Timeline For Pages [Infographic]
• How To Customize Timeline On A Facebook Page
• The Top 3 Facebook Marketing Mistakes Right Now

Need Help or Customized Applications?

VR Interactive is a full service website design shop located in Jackson Hole, WY. This is a great opportunity to jump into a fast paced established and growing web design firm. A large portion of our client base is outdoor, travel, and action sports oriented clients.

The Ideal Candidate:

We are looking for someone with 2+ years experience in web development. The ideal candidate shall display sincere attention to detail, the ability to self-motivate, creativity in solving problems, leadership, the ability to work with other developers, and shall demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of ground-up website deployment and web programming. Additionally, as we are a .Net shop, an understanding of visual studio is preferred, and PHP/RUBY/Coldfusion programming is a plus.

• Object Orient Programing in ASP .Net
• WebServer Maintenance and Deployment
• CSS/HTML standards
• AJAX/Advanced JavaScript implementation, JQuery
• Database Development

Position Responsibilities:

• This position requires the ability to multi-task and meet deadlines, while being detail-oriented, and showing the ability to work in a fast paced environment.
• Foster a collaborative working environment, and encourage new ideas from the team for both internal and external projects.
• Build out .NET / PHP components for Content Management systems
• Design and Deploy mobile applications

QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED:

• Ability to hand code W3C compliant – HTML, CSS, XHTML, XML
• Solid understanding and expertise with XHTML, CSS, cross-browser/platform issues
• Experience managing webservers and webserver technologies
• Experience in JavaScript and JavaScript libraries (Prototype, JQuery).
• 2 + years experience with ASP.NET
• Experience with PHP and MySql
• Knowledge of Office applications (Word, Excel, Access)

PLUS FACTORS:

• Previous experience with implementations of large-scale business web sites
• Previously working for an interactive agency, design studio or adverting agency.
• Passion for Web 2.0. – Social Media outlets and social media marketing
• Experience with Flash and Action Script
• Experience developing and deploying mobile applications
• Experience with web services and WCF

The VR Interactive team has a unique blend of skills and talents in the web development field. Stop by our office upstairs in Buffalo Junction in Jackson, Wyoming to chat with us anytime.

The VR Interactive Dream Team:

Brian Modena

Co-Owner/Web Developer Brian Modena dreams in divs. As a CSS expert and programmer, he makes websites and applications and makes them look good! When he’s not styling the code at work, you can find him styling on his Santa Cruz mountain bike up on Teton Pass or skiing the famous JH powder.

Jed Frumkin

After graduating from Brown University in 1999, Jed founded VR Interactive and began developing for a number of clients in the action sports, real estate, and lodging industries. Since then the firm has grown, but you can still find this Co-Owner/Web Developer of VR Interactive standing (yes, standing) at his computer programming all day long. When he finally does leave his stand-up workstation, he’s usually playing bass guitar in the popular JH band The Deadlocks, biking, or skiing.

Charles Trout

Originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Lead Programmer Chuck Trout is known for finding creative and elegant solutions to programming and development problems. When he’s not solving the problems in the VR dev world, he likes to ride his motorcycles, hunt, ski, etc.

Galen Strasen

SEO Guru/Web Designer Galen Strasen makes beautiful websites and gets them to rank high in search engines. When she’s away from the code, keywords, and analysis, she likes to travel (she just returned from a backpacking stint in Southeast Asia), spend time with her pet bunny, rock climb, and paint her fingernails obnoxious colors.

Chris Hanson

Project and Account Manager juggles all the VR projects with complete composure. When he’s not keeping online projects in line, he spends his free time in the mountains fishing, skiing, and hunting. He just tagged and processed this year’s elk (yum!).

Myke Myers

Myke is our new .NET Developer with ten years of professional web development experience under his belt. He’s still getting used to Jackson’s fresh and clean mountain air since he just moved from the upper east side of Manhattan, but once his lungs get used to it, he’ll be shredding the slopes on his snowboard. He wanted to get back to mountain living after having lived in South Lake Tahoe before the “Big Apple.”

Jay Cogen

Originally from Tuxedo, NY, Jay’s a WordPress/PHP Developer and Web Designer who rode his motorcycle all the way from South Carolina to start working at VR Interactive in late October. Since the tank only holds three gallons, he had to stop every 120 miles across the US. A graduate of Northeastern University in Boston, he’s been traveling for the past 3.5 years living in the Caribbean, Colorado, New Zealand, and Montana. In his spare time he likes rock climbing, free diving, skiing, and motorcycling.

Christine Mychajliw

Content Management/E-Marketing Specialist Christine Mychajliw (say, “Me-Hi-Leave“) likes to ride bikes, ski, hike, and cook when she’s not wrangling content, blogging or communicating in 140 characters or less at VR Interactive.

Charlie Jonas

Junior Programmer Charlie is joining the development team as a recent computer science graduate and brings a fresh perspective on new technology with him.

VR Interactive Expert Partners and Agencies:

VR Interactive also works with a number of expert partners such as contractors and agencies further increasing what can be achieved. A few notable partners are Scott Wood, John Pansewicz, Massie’s Studio, and Champ Internet, among others. This means we have the expert resources on call if we ever need to respond more quickly to our customers’ needs.

VR Interactive announces the launch of Buy Button (BuyBtn), an easy and exciting new way for affiliate marketers to generate cutting-edge “Buy Now” direct link buttons and product searches with all of their AvantLink affiliate info embedded. This will revolutionize the traditional methods that web designers and bloggers have used to write code and create fancy yet functional buttons that properly reflects affiliate identification numbers and tracking codes.

The easy-to-use “wizard,” found in the AvantLink “Affiliate” section under “Tools,” steps users through a series of easy decisions that even for someone with no coding knowledge will find easy to quickly create a button or a product search. The clean interface stores the encoded buttons inside a list for each of their websites with a preview of how the button looks, the type of button (direct link or product search), the name of the button and the Get Code link. This allows bloggers and web designers to come back any time and click on the Get Code link and copy/paste it into their blog or website.

BuyBtn makes attractive yet functional "Buy Now" buttons

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. Many bloggers use affiliate marketing to earn income based on the content that they push.

BuyBtn will streamline the process that a blogger would use to “get rewarded” for writing about a company’s product. For example, an outdoor gear blogger could write a story about the best type of soft shell jackets for backcountry skiing. After identifying the product to promote, the blogger could log into their AvantLink Affiliate account and quickly generate a fancy, yet functional “Buy Now” button that would include their affiliate ID and tracking info and simply copy/paste the code into the back end of the blog post. The result, an attractive but code-compliant button that would take the reader to a merchant to buy the product and would allow for the blogger to get credit, where credit is due.

Likewise, the blogger could highlight a search of products that would fit their post. So, say the blogger is writing about the best type of softshell jacket that a backcountry skier would want, he/she could use BuyBtn to generate the code that would reveal the results of the search. So, it could show numerous jackets from one brand in one attractive window that would open from the Buy Now button. See an example of this in the Stoic Outerwear Gear Review on the blog, The Deal from CleanSnipe.

An example of BuyBtn search results for Stoic gear

Buttons, Buttons, Buttons

There are 6 current button color options, but they can be customized.

BuyBtn is easy to use, but here’s a Help Document PDF just in case you need it. Follow BuyBtn on Twitter for more juicy tidbits including user tips, button-in-use examples and upgrade information.

About Avantlink

AvantLink (www.avantlink.com) has created an efficient and productive platform for serious Affiliates & Web Retailers. They are unique because they only work with high-value merchants with substantial catalogs on a percentage of sale. This particular advertiser segment can best utilize the industry-leading Affiliate Tools AvantLink is known for.

About AvantLink App Market

Recently, AvantLink launched the groundbreaking and, frankly, freaking awesome AvantLink App Market. The concept is simple–they opened our network up to third party developers who have great ideas for affiliate marketing tools, allowed them to build those tools, and then make them available to all of the affiliates on our network. Think “iPhone App Store for affiliate marketing,” except all of the tools in its market are completely free to AvantLink members!

Check out the AvantLink App Market accessible via the “Tools” page of your Affiliate account. They feature specific applications now via a blog post series.

Here’s how Google +1 for AdWords works:

An example from Google’s e-mail to AdWords users
Let’s say you own a hotel in Madrid. Brian had a lovely stay at your hotel last summer. When Brian starts researching accommodations for his next trip to Spain, he searches on Google while signed into his Google account, and sees your ad. He clicks the +1 button on the ad to recommend it to his contacts.

When Brian’s friend Ann plans her trip to Spain, she signs in to her Google account, searches, and also sees your ad – plus the personalized annotation that Brian +1’d it. Knowing that Brian recommends your hotel helps Ann decide where to stay during her travels.

Think of the +1 button as a way for fans of your business to recommend what you offer, for all their friends and contacts to see. By helping searchers see more personal, relevant ads, we believe you’ll see more qualified traffic. You can also add the +1 button to your site to give your customers the opportunity to +1 your site after visiting it.

Are you engaged?

Google thinks that you’ll definitely use this “word of click” advertising. In their introductory video (below), Google says it saves you time since you can +1 something that you wouldn’t necessarily send an e-mail to a friend or write a post about and the results will show up right when it’s most useful — on Google search (as long as their logged in).

According to the Google AdWords Innovations Page, “As results become more personal and relevant, we believe that users are not only more likely to click, but they’re more likely to act as well. +1 annotations bring you pre-qualified users, who just received recommendations from their friends and are actively looking for your content. This powerful combination may result in more conversion and deeper engagement with your site overall.”

What else do I need to know?

The +1 button shows up for signed-in users of Google.com using a modern browser. Since it’s tied to your Google account, you can’t click the button numerous times to “ballot-stuff” an ad because it will only allow you to click it once (we tried it, and it changed the number briefly then adjusted it).

According to the HubSpot Blog, it can impact the score of your ads and increase your click-through rate, “Since your ads gain more credibility the more they are +1’ed, it increases the likely hood of other users enaging with your ads. This extra level of engagement can increase your ad’s CTR (click through rate). Although +1’s are not part of the quality score of your ads, the historical CTR of your ads is. So, +1’s can most certainly impact the quality score of your ads.”

The ROI Revolution Blog suggests using canonicalization in your HTML header since it can help you retain your +1 data across pages. Learn more about this at the Google Webmaster Central Help Center.

Whether you will you click the +1 button is up to you, but the impact on your site is more favorable than not, so get some more info and add your button!

More info:

• AdWords Help Center
• How to add the +1 Button
• Free phone support for AdWords

VR Interactive is a full service web site design shop located in Jackson Hole, WY. This is a great opportunity to jump into a fast paced established and growing web design firm. A large portion of our client base is outdoor, travel and action sports oriented clients.

The Ideal Candidate:

We are looking for a WordPress developer who is experienced in building and supporting custom WordPress themes and plugins. The ideal candidate should display attention to detail, show creativity in solving problems, and shall demonstrate a thorough understanding of php, mySql and website design. The ideal candidate may also have knowledge of ASP.Net. This position is in-house only.

Qualifications Required:

• PHP
• mySQL
• jQuery
• HTML
• CSS
• Design

Position Responsibilities:

• This position requires the ability to work well in a team setting, while being detail-oriented and self-motivated.
• Foster a collaborative working environment, accept and encourage new ideas from the team for both internal and external projects.
• Special consideration will be given to any candidate with experience in Object Oriented Programming.

For more information or to apply, please send resume, cover letter and include links to top 3 sites you have built in WordPress and top 3 plugins you have built to Natalie@vrineractive.net.