A study found that for blocking malicious website which can lure internet users to download virus or trojan, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 is not only leading four other commonly used web browsers: Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, but also the leading margin is growing up.

Research report from Product analysis firm NSS Labs point that: Windows Internet Explorer 8 provides the best protection to help protect against social engineered malicious software. Such malicious software can lure internet users to trust a website, but the website has been embedded with malicious software, and can be directly downloaded to the victim’s computer and execute it.

Reporting statistics is done by testing 562 this kind of website, and IE8 blocked 85% of them, the best performer. Compare with, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 and Apple Safari 4.0.4 each of them can block 29% of them. Google Chrome 4.0.249.78 blocks 17%, while Opera 10.10 can only block less than 1% of the malicious websites.

General speaking, the test of NSS Labs is first collected 12,000 malicious sites, and then confirmed that 562 of them still in operation with definition of social engineering malware sites, and then run the test.

Remember, the browser security has also include other important aspects, such as plug-ins , JavaScript, or implementation of security-oriented plug-in, functions of block drive-by exploits, and security vulnerability response time.

Edited By Henry Lu

Google announced the launch of the new search features: Near Me Now, for Android browser and iPhone users to use Google Mobile Search and enjoy this feature.

However, the phone users must first be able to use Google Mobile Search page link below to access the location data set. After that, Google Mobile Search page will appear the search button “Near me now” link. When user clicks the link, the page will return a list of a variety of topics of local places, including restaurants, cafes and bars, or the bank or ATM and so on. Click the menu “Explore right here” will show users bunch of the nearby shops. And this option is only available when users provide accurate location of mobile phones.

Google Operations Engineer John Eric Hoffman, and Jussi Myllymaki explained in their blog posting, “Near me now” feature is designed to help users find information on where they lived, making certain common search, such as cafes and ATMs easier.

At that time Google has also announced other technologies, including Google Goggles and the iPhone and Android supported Japanese voice search. With the growth of mobile computing devices and the popularity of portable devices, Google will keep developing more mobile applications for users.

Edited By Henry Lu

Google plan to change the way of web search, and fight back its competitors.

Google will provide computer, iPhone and Android devices the real-time search results page. It also added a new search technology called Google Goggles, which allows users to upload a picture to search, rather than enter a keyword to query.

Google is expected mobile devices will become a transit point for network activity next year, announced by Google engineering vice president, Vic Gundotra, and chief engineer. Amit Singhal. Singhal describes real-time search is “the most exciting thing in my career.”

Marissa Mayer, vice president of Google search products said that this technology is the future of search engine. This new search engine will help users to find the best answer instead bunch of links. Mayer said, the four directions of Google search technology in future: model, media, language and personalization. New search functions such as voice or image search will be the top priority for the search engine advertisement.

Gundotra also shows the Google Mobile Search can accurately identify many language queries, such as English, Chinese and Japanese. Google translator also supports 51 languages, Gundotra said during first quarter of 2010, our real-time translation function will be available for the mobile device. “Our goal is to support all major languages around the world,” he said.

Google is also planning the geographic search for text and voice information services. Google Maps service is available in the Android 1.6 or above It includes “What’s Nearby” which lists closest place for users who look for services. This service will also be available for iPhone and other Android devices.

Google Goggles represents the starting point for Google to enter the computer field. This service is currently only in the Google Labs, and can only identify a few kinds of objects.

Google is able to do facial recognition, but for privacy issues, it decided to defer to promote the service.

Google Instant Search is made from numbers of social network partners. Google recently signed a search cooperation contract with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, and Identi.ca, in order to provide public information in real-time search.

Instant Search is currently unavailable, but is expected to be on-line very soon.

Edited By Henry Lu

According to the report from Internet research institutes Net Applications in November, Microsoft (Microsoft Corp.; MSFT-US), Web browser, the IE is gradually losing market share, and Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome is slowly take over market position of IE.

For 3 months, Internet Explorer has loss at least 1% of market share. In November the market share of IE drop to a new historical low of 63.6%. During the 2008 period, Microsoft’s IE has lost 8% total market share.

Microsoft launched the latest version of the IE8 in March this year, and hope to improve safety of IE and offers more modern new products that can keep the pace of Internet users. But even IE8 officially launched, It still didn’t slow down its market decline.

Firefox is expected to reaching 25% market share in the Internet browser market and the present market share in November had reached 24.7%. Google’s Chrome grows rapidly and its market share rose from 0.4 to 3.9%.

Google already pointed out, Chrome is currently only available for Windows computer system, and Apple version will be published in 2010.

Edited By Henry Lu

Google Webmaster Tools has recently released an experimental feature that can help webmasters to find out if there is malware infection on the website.

Google already had added website index search with automatically scan function, if there is suspicious malicious programs, it will add a warning sign on the search results. Google also provide this function for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and other browser users, when browsing infected websites. Google will notify webmasters by email.

However, the information is too sketchy, and cannot provide much detail. And Google plan to add “Malware details” to strengthen this tool.

Webmaster can use this tool from laboratory (Lab) menu located on the left menu of webmaster tool, including “malware details link” which will display all found malicious programs listed on Google, as well as samples of malicious content.

This tool is sometimes really able to find malicious code, even if the JavaScript that is not easily be identified. The greatest significance of the amendment is to make website maintenance easier. However, Google reminded, at present, the information of malicious programs is not complete, so website administrator cannot rely entirely on this Google tool.

Google engineer Lucas Ballard said: “Google scanning function and current database can not cover all the malware samples. And we do not recommend that you only use our webmaster tools to remove malware. If you have not identified and fix the underlying weaknesses of your website, your site is very likely to be infected again.

Edited By Henry Lu

Here is a very practical question: in order not to extend the depth of the directory, and to reduce the searching time, we need to get rid of some directory level.

As we know, the purpose of adding more sub-folders to a directory is for the convenience of looking up a specific document later.

How can we find a file in a short time? Control system can correctly search the file through path, because in every directory, all symbols are the same, we can normally find:

- name of the file
- type of the file
- location of the file
- the last modified time

Path, (even you know the path, you still need to click into each subfolders for the file you need)

But for computer, it does not need to know how readable the file name to be, as long as it matches the criteria of the naming tradition, then only a unique name under the same directory is enough.

As a result, we can use some “prefix” or “suffix” to make it easier for us human to read and faster for computer to interpret.

Common prefix or suffix are: file name, file type, domain name, date and version.

For the word “demo”, you can extend its file name by adding the following:
File name:css_demo |demo_css
File type：png_demo | demo_png
Domain：blog_demo | demo_blog
Date：20090904_demo | demo_20090904
Version：v1_demo | demo_v

Edited By Dan Li

Highlight is an important element to show the texture of an object, including the reflection of a line, a dot and a surface. Correct highlight will firstly deal with the source of light, this is essential, according to the position of the source and the path of diffusion, we can define side that faces the light and the side that is back to the light.

After positioning reflected light, we also need to know its characters. In addition, according to the different outline of different surface, we need to work out different shape of reflection.

For instance, an angle of a smooth surface will look like this, and its reflected surface will look like; At a sharp edge, it looks like, the reflected edge looks like; On a flat surface, it looks like, on a reflected surface, it looks like.

Below is an example to demonstrate the above points.

1. This is how you should position the light if the source of light is on the top left hand corner.

2. The highlights.

3. The combine effects of 1 & 2.

Edited By Dan Li

Well, this model would require more effort, we should:

1.Modify the upper and lower edges of the height (depending on your gradient).
2.Modify the upper and lower edges of the background image positioning (depending on your gradient).
3.Use 1px repeating-x background image to create gradient effect for container div.
4.Define the size for the content, or set a minimum height for the container (again, depends on gradient).

Let’s get started!

HTML code (the same as before):

<div class=”roundedBox” id=”type5″>
<strong>My content in roundedBox Type 5</strong>
<div class=”corner topLeft”></div>
<div class=”corner topRight”></div>

<div class=”corner bottomLeft”></div>
<div class=”corner bottomRight”></div>
</div>

CSS code:

My gradients is vertical, so we have to increase the height on the upper corner, and modify the background image positioning of the lower corner.

You will know how it works when you see my new sprite. This is how it looks like in my div.

Define container div:

#type5 {background:#FECBCA url(../images/roundedbox-type5-bg.png) repeat-x 0 0; min-height:110px;}

Add in all corners (I’ve change the format of the picture to .png in order to get better gradient quality)

#type5 {background:#FECBCA url(../images/roundedbox-type5-bg.png) repeat-x 0 0; min-height:110px;}
#type5 .corner {background-image:url(../images/corners-type5.png);}
Now we increase the height of the corner (this depends on the final colour that the top reaches).

#type5 {background:#FECBCA url(../images/roundedbox-type5-bg.png) repeat-x 0 0; min-height:110px;}
#type5 .corner {background-image:url(../images/corners-type5.png);}
#type5 .topLeft,
#type5 .topRight {height:140px;}
At the end, I adjust the positioning of the lower corners.

#type5 {background:#FECBCA url(../images/roundedbox-type5-bg.png) repeat-x 0 0; min-height:110px;}
#type5 .corner {background-image:url(../images/corners-type5.png);}
#type5 .topLeft,
#type5 .topRight {height:140px;}
#type5 .bottomLeft {background-position:-1px -142px;}
#type5 .bottomRight {background-position:-19px -142px;}

IE6 version
You need to define both width and height for (.roundedBox, or #type1, #type2, etc), otherwise they will split out, also don’t forget to check with IE6 conditions.

Edited By Dan Li

In the last article, we learn to create the rounded box, what if I want borders around the rectangle?

HTML code:

<div class=”roundedBox” id=”type4″>
<strong>My content in roundedBox Type 4</strong>
<div class=”corner topLeft”></div>

<div class=”corner topRight”></div>
<div class=”corner bottomLeft”></div>
<div class=”corner bottomRight”></div>
</div>

CSS code (add borders to your rounded corners in sprite, also match the background of .roundedBox class and border with sprite)

#type4 {background-color:#CCACAE; border:1px solid #AD9396;}
#type4 .corner {background-image:url(../images/corners-type4.gif);}

This is what it looks like. However our corners still can not properly cover #type4. Therefore we must correct their position to cover the previous position style.

#type4 {background-color:#CCACAE; border:1px solid #AD9396;}
#type4 .corner {background-image:url(../images/corners-type4.gif);}
#type4 .topLeft {top:-1px;left:-1px;}
#type4 .topRight {top:-1px; right:-1px;}
#type4 .bottomLeft {bottom:-1px; left:-1px;}
#type4 .bottomRight {bottom:-1px; right:-1px;}

Edited By Dan Li

HTML code:

<div class=”roundedBox” id=”type1″>
<strong>My content in roundedBox Type 1</strong>

<div class=”corner topLeft”></div>
<div class=”corner topRight”></div>
<div class=”corner bottomLeft”></div>
<div class=”corner bottomRight”></div>
</div>

we need a container div to implement a special background, we will name its ID #type1.

CSS code:
First, we need to match #type1 with a background colour, so that it can fit into the rounded corners in the sprite.

#type1 {background-color:#CCDEDE;}

Then, load sprite into the rounded box through defining .corner class.

#type1 {background-color:#CCDEDE;}
#type1 .corner {background-image:url(../images/corners-type1.gif);}

Now we have our first rounded rectangle.

Edited By Dan Li

Firstly, we will give container a div class .roundBox

<div class=”roundedBox”></div>

Now, we need to add 4 more div, which will be used when we create the four rounded corners. For each corner, we need to specify a div with their position for each.

Here we need to specify the absolute-positioned element, otherwise it will follow the parent relatively-positioned element. If the parent element can not be defined, then it will take the closest element to define its position until the body tag.

Don’t worry if you are still confused, it will become clearer soon.

Now let’s define all the rounded corners:
All rounded corners must be absolute positioned, with height and width defined. In this case, my rounded corners’ height is defined as 17px.

.corner {
position:absolute;
width:17px;
height:17px;
}

Then we should start define container div:

.roundedBox {position:relative;}

All classes defined under .roundedBox will be affected by its property, but not the body tag. Also we must set some value to padding, without this setting, rounded corners will cover our body text. Important notice: value of top and bottom padding must equal to the height of the rounded corner. In the same way, the value of left and right padding must equal to the width of the rounded corner. In this case, all values should be all equal to 17px.

.roundedBox {position:relative; padding:17px; margin:10px 0;}

Last, let us define for the box without rounded corners.

We need to have all rounded corners absolute-positioned, as well as the position of the background image (according to our sprite):

.roundedBox {position:relative; padding:17px; margin:10px 0;}

.corner {position:absolute; width:17px; height:17px;}

.topLeft {top:0; left:0; background-position:-1px -1px;}
.topRight {top:0; right:0; background-position:-19px -1px;}
.bottomLeft {bottom:0; left:0; background-position:-1px -19px;}
.bottomRight {bottom:0; right:0; background-position:-19px -19px;}

You may have noticed, our style has not downloaded the spirte yet, because we have another way to do it, which will be introduced in the next blog.

Edited By Dan Li

What makes this techique so cool?

There is no constraint on the width and height when applying rounded-bordered elements. This technique as we have mentioned earlier, cooperates with CSS Sprites. If you have no idea of what CSS Sprites is and how it works, please firstly read this article.

First step: Create our Sprite
1. select a editor for editing rounded-corner image (in this case I chose Firework).

2. cut out the rounded corner to a temporary location, which we will use it later.

3. create a new file, put all the rounded corners to this new file, copy it three times, and turn the other three copies into other three corners.

4. put them together and form one picture, and use 1px red line to divide them.

5. export the edited picture, sprite is now completed.

Edited By Dan Li

Before

How can we draw readers’ eyes to her pink lips only? If we just use cropping to accomplish the focus, it will be a waste for such an attractive picture.

After

Simply use two curves to speak to the readers, ‘look here’. The two subtle thin lines did not destroy the original beauty of the picture, instead it enhances the desire for such effect. Please note that to create contrast on text, applying bold is enough.

Edited By Dan Li

Before

This is a realistic presentation of a jeep with loading equipment on the top. As you can see, the jeep attracts all our attention, so if you want to emphasize only the feature on the top, this is not an ideal way.

After

The above picture reduces the detail of the jeep to only outline, which still can be recognized, but all our attentions now is drawn to the loading equipment on the top. The other two are simpler versions.

Edited By Dan Li

Before

Five kids dress in five different colour T-shirt. By filling the bottom half with Magenta, our eyes will naturally be guided to Kimberly Chan, the little girl whose T-shirt echoes the same colour. If you want a greater contrast, you can try to grayscale the rest of the kids.

After

Five different colour set forms a beautiful series. Please take note that the curve at the bottom echoes the curve that the kids form.

Edited By Dan Li

Before

6 people stand together like a team.

Someone stands out and become the focus all of a sudden, but this technique needs to match the reality, which means her feet need to place lower than the others and her head need to be above the others.

In Photoshop:

1) enlarge the size of the canvas
2) select the figure you want to emphasize
3) enlarge the selected figure

Edited By Dan Li

Now comes to part 2 of this focus design series, in this article I will share a simple method, but very effective in make someone stands out from a large crowd of people.

Edited By Dan Li

1. Blurring the background

Before

The lady at the front seems very tidy and attractive, but her colleagues at the back aren’t that impressive, and also make the photo become ordinary.

After

After blurring the background figures, the lady stands out from her colleagues much more than before, which strengths the depth of the photo and closer to what our eyes actually experience.