Lately, the industry has seen an elevated level of attempts to take advantage of code vulnerabilities in the software powering websites. Hackers are a common and persistent threat to any website, but there are steps you can take to protect yourself and to make your websites and applications harder to exploit.

Some time ago we began to allow people to change their telecoms provider but keep the same telephone number (fixed land line). Along came mobile phones and the same principle followed – we could change our network and keep our same cell phone number (subject to certain physical handset license restrictions notwithstanding). However, the VoIP market is still firmly entrenched and you cannot change your VoIP provider AND keep the same number.

I read a brilliant post on ZDnet today by Ed Bott about the recent exploit of Adobe, Google and other companies. A lot of media channels have tabled this exploit as reason to abandon Internet Explorer and, while there is an inherent trust issue with Internet Explorer (which is explained in depth in the report and summarised below), the fear induced by other media reports should be taken with a pinch of salt – if you adopt good security practice if you are using IE (or any browser or operating system for that matter), you will be as safe as you can be.

I have been reading Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk recently (an excellent and very practical book by the way) and came across a section on Web Analytics in the book. I have reproduced it below (with permission) as it makes a very important point – don’t obsess about your web stats!

Email is essential to your business. But how your email server is managed has an invisible and intrinsic effect on whether your email reaches your recipients, especially if you have a tendency to send emails to large numbers of recipients. Here are some tips about how to avoid being blacklisted and your message not getting through.