Smarterware » Lifehacker

The Night Everyone Changed Their Passwords

Gina Trapani — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:58:02 +0000

Lifehacker's publisher, Gawker Media, suffered a severe network breach and the responsible party published the usernames and hashed passwords of 1.24 million readers at Lifehacker and beyond this weekend. 200,000 of those readers' passwords were decrypted. It's late on a Sunday night, and already spammers are using the login details to tweet links from Twitter accounts which use the same username and password as the Gawker accounts. Likely this is just the beginning. If you've ever had an account on Lifehacker, change your password. If you use the same username and password on other sites like Twitter or Facebook, change it there, too. Here's Lifehacker's full FAQ on the situation.

Flash’s Decline on Lifehacker, from 2006 to 2010

Gina Trapani — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:24:46 +0000

Just like it isn't on the iPhone and iPod touch, Adobe's Flash browser plug-in will not be on the iPad, and there are a whole lot of opinions about that decision. Predictably, Steve's apostles are smug, Adobe's pouting, and the rest of us will have to field questions from our relatives about why they keep seeing a blue lego piece. Flash usage has been declining over the years anyway, and a few web publishers have shared numbers to prove the point. 32% of visitors to John Gruber's Mac blog Daring Fireball, which has a large percentage of visitors from the Flashless-by-default iPhone/iPod touch, did not have Flash enabled. Andy Baio says 16% of Waxy.org visitors don't have Flash enabled, up from 4% a year ago. This site wasn't around a year ago, but about 16% of Smarterware visitors don't have Flash enabled either.

Because its readership represents a mixed group of both Mac and Windows users--albeit more tech-savvy ones than your average web surfer--I ran the numbers for Lifehacker, which currently gets about 39 million visits~~ors~~ a month. As you can see in the chart above, the number of Lifehacker visitors without Flash ~~installed~~ enabled nearly tripled from 2.32% in 2006, to 6.07% in 2009.*

My attitude about Flash? Thanks for all the video, but it's time to go. I welcome HTML5 and the browsers that support it. For an even-handed discussion about the realities of Flash from a current Adobe employee who doesn't work on Flash but does have lots of experience with standards, check out John Nack's post, called "Sympathy for the Devil."

* Update: These numbers do not include the majority of iPhone/iPod touch traffic to Lifehacker because a partner manages Lifehacker's mobile site and as far as I know, we're not using the Google Analytics tracking tag for the main site on the mobile site.

How Google Changed the Game in 2009

Gina Trapani — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:37:23 +0000

This past year was a watershed moment for the real-time web, cloud computing, and mobile application development, thanks in large part to Google. This morning over at Lifehacker, I rounded up the biggest Google product releases and updates of 2009.

I may co-host a weekly podcast dedicated to Google news, but seeing the amount of mind-bending stuff Google released this year in one place still blew my mind.

While Google's three biggest launches of the year--Wave, Chromium OS, and Droid/Android 2.0--are still very much developer/early-adopter-only, their impact will resonate through the next ten years on the web (even if they don't stick around in their current forms). For more on Google app updates, acquisitions, legal battles, and a complete timeline of what came out when this year, check it out: This Year in Google: The 2009 Edition.

Tweak MediaWiki to Co-Write a Book

Gina Trapani — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:32:01 +0000

My new book's web site is powered by the same software the runs Wikipedia, the deeply-customizable MediaWiki. Over at Lifehacker this morning, I ran though how to make MediaWiki your own for any collaborative or just easy-to-update web site with a skins, extensions, permissions, and a few more helpful tweaks. Here's how to customize MediaWiki for your next project.

Configure Google Apps For Your Domain

Gina Trapani — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:58:00 +0000

There's always lots of interest in posts about Google Apps, a lesser-known way to put Google services behind your domain name. This morning at Lifehacker I ran down some of the most important Google Apps settings, and how to do things like map multiple domains to one account, create users and groups, and configure your catch-all domain email address. Here's more on how to Trick Out Google Apps for Your Domain.

All the Google Wave Tricks I Know (So Far)

Gina Trapani — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:28:45 +0000

Been spending several weeks working, playing, and talking about Google Wave, picking up tips and tricks for usage as I've gone along. The Wave preview is very young, with lots of broken windows and signs that point to nowhere, but there's still lots of neat little functionality and must-know searches, operators, and quirks. This morning over at Lifehacker I got to run those down in my Google Wave 101 feature article. There I included my best answers to the most frequently asked questions I've gotten about how to use Wave. I've also started a public wave of comments on the article where other Wave users can ask questions and add insights. If you've got a Wave account, after the jump you can dive in.

You'll have to sign into Wave in order to see and participate in the embedded wave below. Keep in mind that there's a little more turbulence in Wave today than usual. Viva la preview!

Google Wave 101 [Lifehacker]

How to Integrate Your Google Apps

Gina Trapani — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:26:10 +0000

The information you keep in Google apps like Gmail, GCal, Reader, and Voice doesn't just live in one place. There are a few easy but non-obvious ways to plug different Google apps together and share their data and features.

Thanks to things like Labs and gadgets, you can get your Calendar in Gmail (and vice versa), Docs in Calendar and Gmail, Profile info in Google Reader, Google Voice SMS in your Gmail, and just about everything on iGoogle. Here's how.

Read the rest at Lifehacker »

Snow Leopard Benefits for Users

Gina Trapani — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:06:20 +0000

My positive take on Snow Leopard published over at Lifehacker this morning, where I tackle what all the non-developer-specific improvements 10.6 offers to upgraders. In a nutshell, it's speed, a better Dock and menu bar, Microsoft Exchange support, QuickTime X and helpful Finder tweaks. Here's the full article: Snow Leopard's Four Best Improvements (for Civilians)

Off to Comic-Con; Have Some Links

Gina Trapani — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:16:27 +0000

Things have been quiet here this week and will be till Sunday because I'm working at Comic-Con, San Diego's nerdy popular culture explosion at the downtown convention center. If you're in San Diego and going to CC, come say hi to me at The Guild booth #4417, where I'll be helping out selling The Guild DVDs and t-shirts. In the meantime, catch up on stuff I've been posting elsewhere.

At Lifehacker earlier this month I published How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack and then the follow-up, WEP Cracking Redux: Beyond the Command Line. Both these articles got a huge response, but don't worry, I'm not going blackhat: it was all proof-of-concept.

Also at Lifehacker: Gmail Tasks Keeps It (Too) Simple. Very exciting news that Google is moving into to-do lists, but they need to take it up a few notches.
Inspired by the reader response to the Gmail Tasks piece, over at the Pelotonics blog PeloLife, I posted Simplicity vs. Features: Crafting the Perfect Task Manager.
How to Troubleshoot a Flaky Internet Connection [Lifehacker]: This is everything I know about getting back online when you get knocked off.
Must-Have Google Search Tricks [Work Smarter at HarvardBusiness.org]
Save Hours of Typing Time with Text Expansion [Work Smarter at HarvardBusiness.org]
Extreme Ways to Shorten and Reduce Meetings [Work Smarter at HarvardBusiness.org]

Back next week--hope to see you at Comic-Con! If not, keep an eye on what's going on there at io9.

Everywhere But Here: June Posts About the Internet

Gina Trapani — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:00:17 +0000

Rather than put up a new post every time I do something somewhere other than here, I'll save it up and get it all over with in one giant self-promoting shot once a month.

Here's my Mac-heavy byline roundup for June.

Gmail Power Tools [Macworld]
Hands On with Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Developer Preview) [Lifehacker]

Contributed sections to Customize the OS X Workspace and Manage Files in OS X Your Way [Macworld]
Tweak Your Way to a Better Finder [Lifehacker]
Extreme Makeover: The Email Inbox Edition [Work Smarter at HarvardBusiness.org]
Master the Art of Working Remotely [Work Smarter at HarvardBusiness.org]
Coming to a Microsoft Shop Near You: More Macs [Work Smarter at HarvardBusiness.org]
Co-Twittering @Pelotonics with CoTweet [PeloLife]
Springtime for Apple Podcast (MP3 Available) [Copper Robot]
A rant on the uselessness of user manuals [T3 Magazine] -- Doesn't appear to be available online yet, but I had tons of fun writing this and will add the link when it comes online. T3 is a UK mag but I believe there's a US edition available as well at your local newsstand.

That is all. Carry on.