There's still room for one more!

The New York Web Standards Meetup Group will be meeting at theMechanism on 21 June 2007 at 7:00 pm to discuss search engine optimization [SEO]: separating truth from dirty lies!

Finding yourself working with so-called “SEO companies” and wondering why they exist in a world of Standards markup? Are you looking for ways to improve your Search Engine Rankings?

Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, Dave Fletcher and Lead Programmer at theMechanism, Jeffrey Barke, will offer their thoughts about Search Engine Optimization with examples of good markup and directory structures, as well as things to look out for when dealing with so-called SEO Companies & Experts.

After the talk, we will open the floor to a monthly design critique. We encourage attendees to bring current or past projects they feel comfortable showing to get collective input from the group, as well as discuss topics and desired presenters for future Web Standards meetings.

There is no fee—and beverages as usual—will be provided. RSVP now!

21 June 2007 . 7:00 pm
theMechanism|eEmerge
440 9th Avenue 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001 [map]

Please contact us if you’d like to present at the July or August meetup.

If you're using the WordTube extension for WordPress , haven't been hacked yet, and haven't heard about the remote code execution vulnerability, then you're very lucky and should read on.

The Problem

The following critical problem affects every version of WordTube prior to 1.44. From Secunia:

M.Hasran Addahroni has reported a vulnerability in the wordTube plugin for WordPress, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose sensitive information or to compromise a vulnerable system.

Input passed to the "wpPATH" parameter in wordtube-button.php is not properly verified before being used to include files. This can be exploited to include arbitrary files from local or external resources.

Solution

Upgrade to version 1.44 immediately!

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a maxi-media firm in New York City and London.

Adhesive is a WordPress plugin that allows one to easily mark certain posts as "sticky." Sticky posts always appear at the top of the page when WordPress displays several posts, but if more than one post is sticky, the post with the latest post time will appear topmost.

Adhesive was originally written by Owen Winkler and available at http://www.redalt.com/downloads/. Unfortunately, it is no longer available, and the last version by Owen doesn't play well with WordPress 2.1. So I fixed it and am making Adhesive available here.

Installation/Usage

Simply follow the download link below, unzip the download and drop it into your WordPress plugins directory. Then activate Adhesive via the plugin administration panel.

To make a post sticky, edit it and either check the "Sticky" checkbox located in the right column below "Keep this post private" or in "Custom Fields" add key sticky with a value of 1.

Please note that if you deactivate Adhesive, all posts marked sticky will revert back to regular status. To upgrade this plugin and preserve posts' sticky status, just overwrite the old Adhesive files with the new ones.

Download Adhesive

→ Adhesive 3.4.0 for WordPress 2.6.5. Last updated 29 November 2008. Release notes.

Adhesive has been tested under WordPress 2.6.5 in Firefox 3.0.4, Google Chrome 0.4.154.25, Internet Explorer 7, Opera 9.62 and Safari 3.2.1 running on Windows Vista. If something isn't working right, please leave a comment.

Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism - New York, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

Standardistas and accessibilitistas: This call to action via 456 Berea St concerns a disturbing direction the next HTML specification is heading in. Roger Johansson writes:

What is currently going on in the W3C HTML Working Group is very disappointing and something I never expected to see when I joined it. I was naive enough to think that everybody joining the HTML WG would be doing so out of a desire to improve the Web. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case […]

In Roger’s opinion, if nothing is done, “the next version of HTML will do nothing to improve the Web,” and conscientious designers will be “better off sticking to HTML 4.01 Strict.”

So, if you have an interest in improving the accessibility of HTML, want more semantic and less presentational markup, and are good at arguing your case, apply for HTML Working Group membership by following the instructions for joining the HTML Working Group. Do it now.

The New York Web Standards Meetup Group and the New York Semantic Web Meetup Group will be meeting at theMechanism on 17 May 2007 at 6:30 pm to discuss Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA). UIMA is a framework used to create computer applications that can acquire unstructured information in its raw form and/or its analysis and use in software tools such as databases, search engines, and knowledge management systems. William Surowiec to present. RSVP now!

19 April 2007 . 6:30 pm
theMechanism|eEmerge
440 9th Avenue 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001 [map]

Please contact us if you’d like to present at the June or July Meetup.

In this useful article, “Query String Removal Helpful?”, Joe questions the standard wisdom that query string removal aids search engine optimization (SEO). His conclusion—semantic links are best (content is king), but the presence or absence of querystring parameters is cosmetic.

The New York Web Standards Meetup Group and the New York Semantic Web Meetup Group will be meeting at theMechanism on 19 April 2007 at 6:30 pm to discuss webcam motion tracking using Flash and query languages for RDF. Jqln to present.

19 April 2007 . 6:30 pm
theMechanism|eEmerge
440 9th Avenue 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001 [map]

Please contact us if you’d like to present at the May or June Meetup.