Once that is done, I knock off as many of my daily tasks as I can. Usually, that means I am running a little behind on my daily task list (who isn’t?). So for my clients, a big thank you for your patience in any delays in addressing your tickets. For my family a big thank you for dealing with my earlier than normal wake up hours and very unruly schedule. To my friends, I’ll catch up with you next week.

1. Domain guessing
2. Internet keywords
3. Keyworded bookmarks

I turn off Domain guessing and Internet keywords; and instead use Keyworded bookmarks extensively. Accessing two of these settings requires entering about:config in the address bar. This provides direct access to Firefox’s configuration settings but is not recommended for novices. Learn more on about:config. When you are done with your settings just close the window/tab displaying about:config.

Domain Guessing

This feature converts a poorly formatted address and guesses what properly formatted address you really wanted. See Domain Guessing for details. I disable Domain Guessing as a security enhancement. I do not wish to be automatically taken to a web site based upon my mis-typing.

Disable it

1. Go to about:config
2. Search for the setting browser.fixup.alternate.enabled, easiest to just type fixup in the filter bar
3. Double click the entry to change it from true to FALSE

Internet Keywords

This feature submits any word entered in the address bar to a search engine and then automatically directs you to the first search result. See Internet Keywords for details. I disable Internet Keywords for security reasons.

Disable it

1. Go to about:config
2. Search for the setting keyword.enabled, easiest to just type keyword in the filter bar
3. Double click the entry to change it from true to FALSE

Keyworded Bookmarks

Now that I have disabled two features that provide shortcuts for address bar entries, I will add my own keyword shortcuts. Once done, I can just type in:

• mail to be taken to my corporate webmail
• wiki to go to my wiki
• blog to be taken to my blog’s login page
• etc

The simple steps are (in Firefox 3.3.6):

1. Add your most used web site pages as bookmarks
2. Use the menu Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks (or Ctrl+Shift+B)
3. Select a bookmark
4. In the bottom left click the More button
5. Add you keyword
6. Close the window

Now type your keyword into the address bar and quickly access your most used sites.

Changelog

1. FIX: Shortcodes within an inlined post are now processed. Uses do_shortcode().
2. FIX: Comment metadata now shows correct number of comments made.
3. NEW: Change code convention to shortcode which allows use of the standard shortcode functions. Old insert methods are deprecated but will still work.
4. NEW: Recursive inlining now allowed when using new shortcode styling. Protection against infinite loop coded.
5. NEW Added the showcontent attribute to control display of the post’s content.

Shortcode convention

Users will mainly notice that the code used to inline a post has been updated to the shortcode convention.

[ggisinlinepost id="%id" attribute1="%attr1" attribute2="%attr2"]

The previous code convention while deprecated will still work: [-ggis-inlinepost id=”%id” titletag=”%tag”-].

Usage is covered on the ggis-inlinepost page.

Meaning of literacy

I am using the term literacy to encompass a wide range of ideas on learning, education, workplace skills, soft skills, computer skills, and general increase in knowledge and skills. I will focus mainly on adult literacy but will also include some thoughts on children.

What gives me the authority?

I have been involved in adult literacy education for nearly 15 years but I am not a professional educator. I started tutoring adults with Milwaukee Achiever Literacy Services in 1996.  In 2004, I joined their board of directors and then was Board Chairman from 2006-2010.

During that time, I have devoted many personal hours to thinking about not only adult literacy but how our community could most effectively benefit from, pay for, and deliver literacy. Still being on the board but no longer chairman allows me the opportunity to consolidate and communicate my thoughts on the big picture of literacy.

Is literacy important?

Yes! It is extremely important and in a future article I will review a variety of statistics that show just how critical literacy is for the success of every community and ALL of its members.

Community

My understanding of how literacy fits into a community comes from the greater Milwaukee, WI area. I am certain that many of the ideas presented will have a wider applicability but the details will always be based upon and derived from the Milwaukee area.

Series

One reason that it has been difficult for me to write on this topic is that there is so much information and every topic seems interconnected with every other topic. I will attempt to start the series with simple overviews of the various topics. Next, I will try to demonstrated the connections between them.

It is entirely possible that in the course of writing my thoughts, the thoughts themselves will evolve. Hopefully by the end of the series, a coherent picture of how we can improve our community’s literacy will emerge.

I will attempt to do one article post per week but there will certainly be some weeks when that is not possible.

Time to get started!

1. FIX: Correct paragraph/newline formatting.
2. NEW: Inlined post now recognizes the ‘more’ shortcode.
3. NEW: If a post requires a password, the password entry form will be displayed.
4. UPDATE: Improved display of metadata.

The metadata uses the following CSS classes for display:

• entry-meta
• meta-sep
• meta-prep

Please post your questions or comments on this post here.

Browser fingerprinting is performing a series of tests to attempt to uniquely identify a browser and the machine from which it is being used. If one is able to fingerprint a browser, then one may reasonably assume that the person using the machine is consistent. The ability to fingerprint punches a huge hole in various techniques used to maintain privacy or anonymity while browsing.

Here is more information from EFF:

• EFF Research Shows More Than 8 in 10 Browsers Have Unique, Trackable Signatures
• Browser Uniqueness White Paper
• How unique is your browser?

Some of the bits of information that your browser exposes to allow it be be fingerprinted include:

• Browser plugins
• Installed system fonts

These bits of information are only available using javascript. Disabling javascript certainly does enhance your privacy but it also negatively impacts your online experience.

This is an area that requires more research and the development of anti-fingerprinting techniques.

For more on Zeus, see this Wikipedia article.

As always; keep your software updated, use anti-malware detection software, use a well-configured firewall when accessing public Internet access point, and use common sense to recognize phishing attempts.

The idea of digital books on an electronic reader is great but the books are often encumbered and the electronic readers are not even close to the ideal. Will we ever get there? I think eventually the readers will approach the ideal but I am not as certain about the digital content.

Why am I concerned about the content? Well, think of the things you can and cannot do with a paper book. Then think about how you would be able to accomplish the same things with digital content while preventing lender abuse. It gets complex quickly and typically involves some type of Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Once you involve DRM, questions arise over who owns the digital book. Do you own the book you purchased or did you just purchase a set of viewing rights? Also with DRM, there is a required communication between the reader device and the rights management software. This then involves issues of privacy and censorship.

As an aide to determining the future of our digital books, I suggest you visit EFF’s Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers.

To me a digital book is nothing more than a rights managed HTML page with a few annotation features. All this on an expensive single use reader, that still has many usability issues. No, I have no intention of purchasing an electronic reader in the near future.

In the meantime, you can protect yourself somewhat and still use Acrobat Reader. These steps do not guarantee your safety but do reduce your risk profile.

Disable Javascript

Many of the attack vectors are related to the use of javascript, so the obvious solution is to disable javascript. Follow these steps:

1. Open Acrobat Reader
2. Open the ‘Preferences’ dialog from the menu Edit > Preferences
3. Uncheck the Enable Acrobat Javascript from the ‘General’ or ‘Javascript’ tab
4. Save your changes

Prevent the Display of Acrobat Documents in the Browser

This prevents malicious links from displaying a PDF in you browser. Combined with the next recommendation, it also forces you to be more aware of the files you are about to view.

1. Open Acrobat Reader
2. Open the ‘Preferences’ dialog from the menu Edit > Preferences
3. Uncheck the Display PDF in Browser from the ‘Internet’ tab
4. Save your changes

Prevent Internet Explorer from automatically opening PDF documents

This step involves editing your registry file and is usually reserved for advanced users. Please make a backup of your registry before completing this step.

1. Start the registry editor (regedit)
2. You will be modifying 2 key values, so navigate to these branches:
   • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AcroExch.Document.7
   • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AcroPDF.PDF.1
3. In each branch, modify the key EditFlags. The new value should be:
   • 00 00 00 00 (REG_BINARY)
4. Save your changes.

If regedit refuses to save your changes, you may need to modify the permissions on the branch. Do this by right-clicking.

Do Not Open Untrusted PDF Documents

If you do not know who the PDF is from or are unexpectly asked to open a PDF, just say no.