If you install your SSL certificate and get a Your connection to this site is not fully secure message, your first step is to inspect the page. In Chrome you can use F12 and click the Console tab. If on inspection you get the message Mixed Content: The page at ‘http://www.thisisafakeurl.ie/‘ was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure image ‘http://www.thisisafakeurl.ie/picture‘. This content should also be served over HTTPS. that is a Mixed Content error. Use this blog post to fix a Mixed Content error.
Testing your URLs
To test if you can load your URLs over HTTPS instead of HTTP, complete the following steps:
Make a note of your problematic URLs.
To test if the URLs work over HTTPS change HTTP to HTTPS in the URL and verify that they load properly.
Perform a search replace using Better Search Replace plugin
To test if you can load your URLs over HTTPS instead of HTTP, complete the following steps:
In your WordPress dashboard click Plugins and click Add New.
In the Search plugins… field type Better Search Replace.
“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
– Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web
Disabilities aren’t always obvious or declared. We should not screen for disabilities and we should not shut out any potential users. We write for the Social Model of Disability and currently follow the https://www.w3.org/WAI/ Web Accessibility Initiative standards.
Audience
The audience for accessible content is everyone. 100% of people will experience disability or impairment at some point in their lives.[1] Types of impairments vary and include visual impairments, neurodiversity, hearing loss, mobility, manual dexterity, and cognitive impairments.
Personas
It would be beneficial to consider four personas here.
Mary
20 year old student, she has weakness in her hands due to MS. She hates complex password requirements that involve special characters and can’t type long passages.
Carlos
Carlos is a 50 year old man who moved to the US two years ago. English is his second language. While he is proficient in English he does need extra time to read and write English phrases. He loves a clear basic sentence without jargon.
Sophie
Sophie is partially sighted and uses a screen reader. She hates that there are gaps in websites (probably when text is embedded in images) meaning that she doesn’t always get the full experience.
Eric
Eric is very techie and dyslexic. He likes a UX that explains itself and concise explanatory labels. He hates how certain fonts take away from his experience online.
Accessibility terms
Use the following accessibility terms as outlined by Microsoft.[2]
Use this
Instead of this
Blind, has low vision
Sight-impaired, vision-impaired
Deaf or hard-of-hearing
Hearing-impaired
Has limited mobility, has a mobility or physical disability
Crippled, lame
Is unable to speak, uses synthetic speech
Dumb, mute
Has multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder, or muscular dystrophy
Affected by, stricken with, suffers from, a victim of, an epileptic
Without disabilities
Normal, able-bodied, healthy
Person with a prosthetic limb, person without a limb
Maimed, missing a limb
People with disabilities
The disabled, disabled people, people with handicaps, the handicapped
Consider the following guidelines for UX copy[3][4]
How does copy sound on a screen reader?
Use your tone but not at the expense of your user.
Use alt descriptions.
Be more descriptive than Read more for links and buttons.
All microcopy should appear as live text – not as an image.
Readability – permanent text in high contrast.
Write simple copy.
Does this language make sense to someone who doesn’t work here or at your customer’s company?
Headings and landmarks
Use headings and landmarks with correct semantics to provide a clear idea of the page structure. Landmarks can help the user navigate the page.
ARIA attributes
ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Application) attributes. This can help explain what a user needs to select or to explain what defaults are already selected.
Example
aria-label=”Choose your language. Your current language is English” role=”button”
Clarity
Each button has to be clear in its action. For example replace nonsensical trendy words like let’s go for confirm.
Choose link text that is clear and helpful. Write copy for links and buttons that can function without context or work with developers to come up with some alt-text for screen readers.
Avoid click here or learn more.
Write short sentences and use familiar words.
Use words with 1-2 syllables when possible.
Use the Hemmingway Editor to measure the readability of your text.
If you need to use an abbreviation or acronym, explain it on the first reference.
Writing for screen readers
When writing for screen readers we need to ask 3 questions:
How can I test this?
Why do I care? – consider that readers don’t perceive a full picture of the screen.
Think top-down and left to right
Placing the microcopy in front of the action is critical. The accessible order of elements is: Label > Instruction\Hint > Field
Here’s how Facebook does it:
And here’s how Walmart does it:
Note for developers: The elements can appear in any order on screen as long as you set the keyboard focus shift in the correct accessible order. Never place microcopy under a confirmation button.
Avoid directional instructions and any language that requires the reader to see the layout or design of the page.[5] We don’t want people to skip the question or abandon the task.
Alt tags
Alt tags describe images and must be included on all images.
If the image is serving a specific function, a screen reading user needs to come away with as much relevant information as someone who has seen the image.
If you’re including graphs or charts, include the data in the alt text.
Important text
Screen readers do not see the following:
Colour
Bold
Italic
Strikes
Underlines
So do not use these styles as the only way to indicate importance. Red text looks like alert text but users of screen readers won’t know the text is red so you need to give a strong visual clue like an exclamation mark to show it’s an alert or important message.
Pronouns
Use gender neutral language.
“Gender-neutral language is a generic term covering the use of non-sexist language, inclusive language or gender-fair language. The purpose of gender-neutral language is to avoid word choices which may be interpreted as biased, discriminatory or demeaning by implying that one sex or social gender is the norm. Using gender-fair and inclusive language also helps reduce gender stereotyping, promotes social change and contributes to achieving gender equality.”[6]
Recommendations
Consider how to test accessibility and put together an accessibility checklist. Consider hearing how your copy sounds using a screen reader.
You can use NMAP to perform scans on targets. NMAP supports different output formats for saving scan results. You can choose normal, XML, and grepable. This post explains how use Kali Linux to save a report output as an XML file and convert it to readable HTML.
To use the XML output format complete the following steps.
Open the NMAP terminal.
Enter the follow command for your target: nmap [your target] -oX ~/Desktop/nmap.xml
The report is saved on your desktop. You can read it using a text editor.
To convert the XML report into HTML complete the following steps:
Open the NMAP terminal.
Enter the following command: xsltproc Desktop/nmap.xml –o nmap.html
The report is saved on your desktop. You can access it using the browser.
This is the first post in a three part series. I’m moving my Blacknight WordPress sites to Azure to see if it improves speed and if it’s cheaper. I’ll have to retain the Blacknight subscription while I have the domains registered with them. Will consider moving the domains to Azure using App Services Domain. This document will show you how to create a WordPress site on Azure App Services, you will use this site to test the redirect, access your DNS records in Blacknight, and configure and manage custom domains. In part 2 I will be investigating using Powershell to automate the renewal of SSL certificates. Azure might have some out of the box function for this but I haven’t checked yet. Enjoy.
[Note: The Blacknight specific sections for backing up your site have not been tested. So please verify that you back up properly before proceeding and consider special cases like out of date WordPress versions]
Creating a WordPress site on Azure App Services
Navigate to portal.azure.com and log on.
Input WordPress in the Search resources, services, and docs (G+/) search bar.
Click WordPress under the Marketplace results.
Create a name for your site. Note: The end result is your WordPress site URL so bear this in mind if you are not redirecting the site.
Select all the defaults except for the Database Provider. From the Database Provider drop-down menu, select MySQL In App.
Click App Service plan/Location and in the App Service plan/Location window click Create new. Note: The content in the App Service plan/Location window will disappear.
In the WordPress window, click Create. Note: The application will take several minutes to build. To check the build status, click the notification icon.
Click the notification icon and if the build is complete, click Go to resource.
Finding your WordPress site ID in Blacknight
You need your WordPress ID to download your database and backup your WordPress site. To find your WordPress site ID complete the following steps:
Click Websites, and click the website you want to redirect.
Click the DNS tab.
Click DNS records.
Click Add New DNS Record.
In the DNS Record Type drop-down menu select CNAME.
You can leave the Domain field blank or input www.
In the Canonical name field, input the domain you want to redirect it to. For example, [your site].azurewebsites.net. You must include a period at the end of your URL.
Note: “DNS record successfully scheduled for addition.” should appear. If not, contact Blacknight for information on deactivating your other nameservers.
Configuring and managing Azure Custom domains
In Azure navigate to Home > [your WordPress site] App Service.
In the App Service menu click Custom domains.
In the Custom domains page of the app, add the fully qualified custom DNS name www.[yoursite].[your TLD] to the list.
Make sure that Hostname record type is set to CNAME (www.example.com or any subdomain).
Click Add custom domain. It might take some time for the new custom domain to be reflected in the app’s Custom domains page. Try refreshing the browser to update the data.
Note: Depending on your DNS provider it can take up to 48 hours for the DNS entry changes to propagate. To verify that the DNS propagation is working as expected navigate to http://digwebinterface.com
Well, it took my husband, who has no Alexa skills experience, 15 minutes. So if you have 15 minutes, and some development skills (he has 7 years of software engineering and architecture) this is the tutorial for you. If you have zero experience it might take you 30 minutes, it might take an hour, more, who cares, you get to show off a fully fledged Alexa skill! How cool is that?! Please do try it, and if you need any assistance or clarification, just ask.
I created a Github repository that has all you need to get started. The only prerequisite is an AWS account. On my Github tutorial you can find, instructions, an index.js file, and a messageResponses.js file. When you have the whole thing up and running I suggest changing some of the content around, and maybe adding in some more. I’ll be disabling comments because of spam but I would love to hear what you think so send me a message on whatever platform I post this on.
This one is purely for nostalgia purposes. Installing Windows 95 on VirtualBox. There’ll be a second part to this -connecting to the Internet. I am too weary after writing this not-so-concise tutorial to cram it into the one tutorial. FYI there’s no Solitaire on this. That might be the part 3. Don’t forget when you boot up for the first time to have the volume up so you can listen to the infamous startup sound. It’s worth the drama.
Right-click your virtual machine and select Settings.
Navigate to System > Acceleration and deselect Enable VT-x/AMD-V.
Navigate to Storage and click Empty under Controller: Floppy and click on the virtual floppy disk icon under Attributes.
Select Microsoft Windows 95B (4.00.1111.osr2) (3.5)\Boot.img.
Click Empty under Controller: IDE and click on the virtual optical disk icon under Attributes.
Select Microsoft Windows 95B (4.00.1111) (OSR2) [English] (CD)\windows95b.iso.
Click OK.
Turn on your virtual machine.
Choose Start computer without CD-ROM support.
To partition your virtual drive execute the following command fdisk and press ENTER.
In Do you wish to enable large disk support, type Y and press ENTER.
In FDISK Options select 1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive.
In Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive select 1. Create Primary DOS Partition.
Type Y and press ENTER.
Restart your virtual machine by navigating to Input > Keyboard > Insert CTRL+ALT+DEL.
To format your drive execute the following command format c:.
In Proceed with Format select Y.
Press ENTER.
Restart your virtual machine by navigating to Input > Keyboard > Insert CTRL+ALT+DEL.
Note your drive letter, for example Drive E: = Driver MSCD001 unit 0.
Run the following command to copy the files from the Windows 95 disc to your C: drive, replacing R: with whatever drive letter corresponds to your virtual disc drive xcopy R:\ C:\INSTALL\ /S.
Navigate to your install folder by executing the following commands:
c:
cd INSTALL
setup
Press ENTER.
Click EXIT.
To begin setup click Continue.
Accept all of the defaults.
Enter the number found on your Certificate of Authenticity and click Next.
Enter your user information and click Next.
In the Analyzing Your Computer window check Network Adapter and Sound, MIDI, or Video Capture Card and click Next.
In Windows Components select Install the most common components (recommended) and click Next.
In Startup Disk select No, I do not want a startup disk and click Next.
In Finishing Setup click Finish.
Windows will prompt you to restart the machine and remove the floppy disk from your computer. To do this, click Devices > Floppy Drive > Remove Disk From Virtual Drive. Click OK.
My masters in Digital Arts and Humanities at UCC taught me a lot about creative applications for technology. In our History and Theory of Digital Art module we were tasked with creating digital art. Digital Distortion is a commentary on how we represent ourselves on social media. Everything we put up is carefully curated by ourselves with our digital selves ending up much further away from our actual selves. To represent this I chose to put my own image through a number of processes both digital and analogue until almost unrecognisable and use as many of my own digital image processing skills as possible.
Photography Using a geometric patterned background, I took a large amount of “selfies” as an homage to the popular social media technique. The background image used is deliberately unnatural to further show how we are distorted on social media. All of the selfies were then heavily filtered to the same level as my social media pictures. Angles were carefully chosen to display my social self in the best possible light. I included one picture taken through a mirror to analogise self-reflection – when you look at your social media self you see it in black and white and can be aware of the distortion but blinded by the beauty of this carefully curated self.
Digital Process I used three separate means to create the glitch, Notepad++, Audacity, and a bespoke Python glitch program that I wrote myself for this project.
Analogue: The piece Analogue was created using Notepad++, the image was converted into a RAW file and then opened as a .txt file in Notepad++. Data was deleted, copied and pasted, added, until a desired glitch effect was noticed.
Echo: The piece Echo was created using sound engineering software Audacity. The RAW file was imported into the software and an echo filter was applied to the resulting “audio” waves that were generated by the import.
Faces: The piece Faces was also created using Audacity, this time multiple filters were applied to the RAW file before it was then exported and converted back into a JPEG. Algorithm: Algorithm was created by me using Python. I wrote a program imageprocessing.py that takes in an image that contains an algorithm that selects a random array of pixels and places them in another random location creating a glitch effect.
Inversion: Inversion was created using another method in the imageprocessing.py program I wrote. This takes all the RGB values of a pixel and inverts them to create the colour effect. I also applied the same effect used in the piece Algorithm for further distortion
Grey: Grey, a method in imageprocessing.py takes all the RGB values of a pixel and divides them by 3, creating a grayscale effect. I also applied the same effect used in the piece Algorithm for further distortion.
Music I converted my own images into sound, using the RAW files of the images to create a sonic landscape for my art. All sounds are made using clips from my own photos which were further distorted in Audacity using effects.
