A directory containing personal details about more than 100 million Facebook users has surfaced on an Internet file-sharing site.

The 2.8GB torrent was compiled by hacker Ron Bowes of Skull Security, who created a web crawler program that harvested data on users contained in Facebook’s open access directory, which lists all users who couldn’t be troubled to change their privacy settings to make their pages unavailable to search engines.

What Bowes did is completely legal as the information is public. Maybe when a stalker comes to call on you folks who don’t protect you information (or your “friends”, you’ll realize the importance of securing your profile.

Bowes’ directory contains 171 million entries, relating to more than 100 million individual users – that’s 1/5 of all Facebook’s  half billion user base.

The file contains user account names and a URL for each user’s profile page, from which details such as addresses, dates of birth or phone numbers can be accessed. Accessing a user’s page from the list will also enable you to click through to friends’ profiles – even if those friends have made themselves unsearchable.

Facebook (FB) should be ashamed of themselves for not being more vigilante by either setting the user profiles to secure by default, or by forcing users to make wise choices about their information setting not to mention the information of their friends.

What are you thoughts, is it an issue that FB should deal with directly? Or perhaps, FB should be more diligent in educating it’s users?

The primary reason for using AS was the integration of Active Forums (AF). Active Forums in my estimation is the best forum module for DotNetNuke (DNN). It is robust and feature rich and is far easier to set-up than any other. The user-interface (UI) is more intuitive than that of DNN’s core module and well worth the investment. I have used AF for many years with great success.

The other main reason was we needed to tie it into a blog/article module. AS had hooks for doing so with Ventrian’s News Articles module. And while I’m covering this, with News Article v7.69 , Scott McCulloch (developer) includes an option for Active Social journal integration. Sweet! <digression>And if you haven’t used modules from Ventrian yet, I have a question…What the hell is wrong with you? Ventrian offers the best module subscription on the planet, period. </digression>

First, setup was relatively easy armed with the products documentation and a wealth of knowledge at Active Modules knowledge base and forums. The AS package includes two modules,  Active Social and Active Forums. The AS module once installed and placed on a page has 3 different set-up options.

The Simple install creates 4 pages that host modules for:

• Forums – Contains the Active Forums module, which has your discussion forums and your Active Social group forums.
• Groups – A single page contains the Listing of all the Groups and displays individual groups when selected.
• Members – This page will show the member list and the profile of a chosen member.
• Inbox – Contains the private messaging interface.

The Standard install contains 9 pages and has some definite SEO advantages, this was the configuration that we choose. Those pages are:

• Forums – Same as Simple
• Group Directory – Contains the list of all the groups in the network.
• Group Details – Default view of a group profile. Only visible once a group has been created.
• Members – Searchable listing of all members of the network.
• Profile – This is the page used to display a member’s profile.
• Inbox – Same as Basic Configuration.
• Social Summary – The Social Stream. This page will show you updates and activity for members and groups on the site. It can be filtered to show specific types of information or certain user types.
• Login – Create a separate page containing only the active social login. This will be used for verified registration or other non-standard logins.
• Sign-Up – A page containing the Active Social Sign-Up wizard. Set this page as the “User Page” in the site settings. It will automatically redirect users to their profile.

Lastly there is the Expert Option, which is according to the user manual is not for the faint of heart and in fact isn’t really covered.

The next step is to configure the modules on the pages and set the functionality your looking for. This is probably a good place to stop and resign myself that there will be a part two of this blog.

Comments welcome…

WebMatrix was developed to be easy and focus on getting results for your website. It has integrated the code editor, database editor, web server manager, all while focusing on SEO. And as your needs grow, you can seamlessly move to Visual Studio.

There are two ways to get started using WebMatrix once you have it installed (download here). You can start with a your own project from scratch or start with one of the web popular Open Source web applications such as DotNetNuke, Umbraco, WordPress and Joomla!.

After you’ve begun working, because WebMatrix integrates with IIS Developer Express and is tightly linked with the Web server components that your site runs on, you can directly monitor real-time Web requests and responses to track down problems right at the source. You can even resolve the little peeves like images that are missing.

SEO tools, much like those available in IIS 7.5 , make optimizing your web application easy and will even take you to your weak spots with suggested solutions.

WebMatrix is the easiest way to learn standards-based Web development and makes it simple to build and publish Web sites on the internet. Start with HTML, CSS and JavaScript and then seamlessly connect to a database or add in dynamic server code using the new ‘Razor’ syntax for ASP.NET Web pages. Your code is easy to read, simple to learn, short to write and works with any text editor. Use built-in helper functions to connect to a database, display a Twitter feed, or embed a video. And with a seamless path to ASP.NET MVC it is now easier than ever to create powerful ASP.NET Web applications.

I’ll provide some feedback as soon as I’ve had the time to fully “kick the tires.” Stay tuned.

• Fixed issue with ExecuteSql method overloads to be able to handle ExecuteSQL(string, nothing) again.
• Fixed issue with Indirect Reference to DotNetNuke Library errors.

The release of 5.5 Alpha was a surprise to me. I have seen it progress in Gemini, I was just blissfully unaware of it progress. The focus of 5.5 is localization. I know, your going to say that DNN has localization. Well, in part that’s true. This is not the static strings localization, nope, we’re talking content localization.

You can read that DNN Blog on the topic here.

In the last two or three releases there have been some major issues, one that directly effects me is a missing method from the DataProvider in 5.4.3. What’s makes it slightly more strange is a very similar issue was found in the previous release (5.4.2). Two other “showstopper” issues that also appeared in recent builds are DNN -12501 and DNN-12412.

In DNN 5.4.0 a change to the PageBase class in DNN has caused aspx pages to break in 3rd party modules. Meaning scripts wouldn’t run, RSS and some AJAX callbacks where broken. The problem was fixed, but a game of Jenga has begun.

When it was first announced the rigid release times sounded like a good idea. Every quarter there is a minor release, every Month a bugfix release. The dates for these releases cannot be missed. And to the Core Teams credit, they haven’t missed a date yet. That said, perhaps DNN needs to find a way to detect breaking issues before RTM, beta has always been an expensive way to do so, but one that DNN seems to avoid.

Of course, you’re going to get the people who press a beta into production, but the beta releases would certain produce a better production build to the DNN community.

New Features
Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing), post types, and taxonomies. (Twenty Ten theme shows all of that off.) Developers and network admins will appreciate the long-awaited merge of MU and WordPress, creating the new multi-site functionality which makes it possible to run one blog or ten million from the same installation. As a user, you will love the new lighter interface, the contextual help on every screen, the 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements, bulk updates so you can upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click, and blah blah blah just watch the video.

New Features:

Call Logging
SmarterTrack’s ability to track customer communications across all channels is complete with the addition of call logging. Agents and managers can track both incoming and outgoing phone calls; associate tasks, tickets, and live chats to calls; and view detailed call reports that track call volume and duration for inbound and outbound calls.

Task Management System
Help agents stay on top of their workflow with a new task management system that allows agents and managers to create tasks and track work associated to a specific ticket, call, or live chat.

Mobile Interface Functionality(Free and Enterprise Version only)
SmarterTrack 5.x provides managers with the ability to monitor agents’ tickets and allows agents to manage their tickets and live chats via mobile devices. This functionality is made possible through a WAP interface that works across all major mobile phones, including Android, iPhone, and Windows Mobile devices.

Enhanced Ticket Management
SmarterTrack 5.x includes several enhancements to its ticket system, including the ability to add attachments to tickets without sending a response, the ability to modify an auto-responder’s subject format, and the ability to mark a ticket for follow-up.

Follow-ups
With follow-ups, companies can keep in constant contact with both existing and new customers. Integrated with the events system, follow-ups notify agents when customers haven’t responded or need additional service.

Live Chat Attachments
SmarterTrack 5.x improves the level of communication between employees and customers with the ability to send and receive files via live chat.

Additional Event Categories
Configure notifications based on even more agent-level and system-level events, including task events, live chat events, call log events, POP events, and SMTP events.

Knowledge Base Enhancements
Several enhancements to the knowledge base improve article organization and navigation. Agents will also benefit from the ability to perform bulk operations on news items, canned replies, and knowledge base articles.

Updated Web Services
New Web services available for SmarterTrack 5.x include the ability to query tickets based on a wide variety of search criteria and the ability to retrieve brand information. In addition, existing Web services were updated to enhance functionality and make them easier to use.

ST5 has, as I’ve mentioned previously, some welcomed new features. SmarterTools says they’re moving toward making ST a CRM application. The new set of features certainly put it on that path. The Call Log feature is a great addition allowing for other forms of communication besides email. Although the Call Log feature is a great asset to the application, the big one for me is the Follow-Up feature.

The Follow-Up as implemented in ST5 allows for agents and admins to place follow-ups on tickets. Follow-ups are incorporated with the system events allowing notifications to be sent to the agent as well as admins. These can be (and should be) assigned at the ticket level, not the agent themselves. Should a ticket be transferred, so is the follow-up.

Even though beta, other than a few bugs the application worked as expected. ST has never been the most intuitive software, but once you start working in it it becomes very clear. The newly added features fit directly into the ST interface, making them easy to deploy and use for agents.

Now, on a more personal note and an observation about SmarterTools employees. I mentioned in my last post I was having difficulty with a web service for single sign-on (SSO). This web service was to integrate DNN and ST logins. Shortly after the beta was released, I was contacted by SmarterTools. They wanted to assist in getting the web service issue resolved so that they where confident in the new web services in ST5. They even went as far as looking at my source code to verify it was not there service (it was my error).

Andrew handled my ticket, he was professional and did a complete analysis, for free!  And yes, he followed-up too. You don’t find many companies willing to spend time and resources on an issue raised in the self-help forum.

They’ve one me over and I highly recommend ST5. And by the way the new ST5 Web Service document can be found here.

It packs some nice new features such as SMS, ical Import Export and an Assets module. It also appears that some existing third party modules are also being rolled in with tighter integration, those would be the Projects and Mobile modules and API‘s. There are also quite a few bug fixes addressed in this new version, a complete list can be found here.

5.2 Key Features

• SMS Module.
• Mobile API module  (not included in VB1, extension module will be provided in a week’s time).
• Project Management (not included in VB1, extension module will be provided in a week’s time).
• User List view Navigation.
• Calendar ical Import Export.
• Reports Enhancement- Added Line Item Support.
• Assets Module.
• and more – Detailed list can be found in the Release notes,

5.2 Release Plan

Before releasing the final version, we will be releasing a couple of builds of 5.2 to the community to get feedback and fix issues. We plan the following releases before the final version.

• Validation Build1
• Validation Build2 (if necessary – to be determined based on nature of fixes changes made after Validation Build1)
• Release Candidate (RC)
• Final Version

When I start and during testing of this build, I’ll post my findings here. If you are currently testing, please share your comments.

• A website? That may be why they came to us and what the end goal is, but that’s not why they choose us. A lot of companies create great websites.

• A good time? Fun is a big part of it, who wants to deal with up-tight people all day. But even we know that there are better ways to spend money and have fun than hire us.

• Our methodology? They definitely want to know we have one, but the details aren’t as important to most clients as they are to us.

• Experience? Again, this is part of the reason but not what makes them say yes.

See, they don’t decide to hire us for the website they’ll get or the promise of  a cold beer, cocktail or even because we’ve got hundreds of web projects in our portfolio.

So why do they hire us?  Because we put them at easy about their project.

When most clients set out to select a web firm they are probably apprehensive at best. But somewhere along the project, some clients turn overbearing and feel they need to micro-manage. Most clients like to be in the front seat, but they prefer the shotgun position, not behind the wheel. So, what do you do with the client who insists on driving?

In my eyes, there are several ways to approach this issue.

• First, you could resign from the project and request the client find someone else to finish it (or recommend a company you don’t care for).
• Second, you could tactfully push back on the client and tell them who is in charge of the project and ask that they allow us to do our job.
• Third, you could take what the client says, give them what they want, and finish the project as quick as humanly possible so you can move on.

So which do you choose?

In my mind, the best thing to do is to finish the project as soon as you can (without jeopardizing the integrity and quality) and put the whole thing behind you. When it’s done you can always elect not to work with the client again. It may be difficult to handle it that way, as some dialogue will be needed in the future. However you always want to make sure you remain professional in all business situations regardless of whether or not the client is right or wrong. This will ensure that your reputation will always be positive and no bridges will be burned. At the end of the day, your responsibility is to make sure the client is happy.  Stick with that principle and you’ll be in a good position.