The Computer Gal

05/20/2025

03/17/2025

CSS CODE ISN'T THE SAME AS EGGS IN A BASKET

They say you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. OK, that makes sense. But it doesn't make sense for CSS code on websites.

CSS code should all be in one place ... where I can find it when I need to work on the site you built. I'm working on a site now where the CSS is rolling all over the place, and quite frankly, some of it is getting stepped on in the process of collecting it all.

* Thanks to client Steve Weber for the lovely eggs from his chickens, brought to me so many years ago, but still remembered in this photo.

02/06/2025

WHEN YOUR CHRISTMAS PILLOW HAS NO WRAPPER CLASS

What is a Wrapper Class?
In most Object-Oriented programming languages, such as Java and C #, a wrapper class is code that hides or protects something inside, hence a "*wrapper". In programming, this is the principle of encapsulation.

Wrapper Classes in the Rest of the World
It's not only for programming. The stuffing in all pillows should also have a wrapper class to encapsulate the stuffing, separately from the outer layer.

Why does this matter?
My lovely Christmas pillow has gone flat, so I need to upgrade the stuffing. But, instead of pulling out a pillow insert (wrapper class), I have to pull out the stuffing, which will probably make a fluffy white mess similar to cottonwood season, but inside the house. And, pushing more stuffing inside will mean that, as I try to sew it back up, little bits of the stuffing will try to get themselves tangled up in the stitches.

Solution
I will restructure the pillow to have a wrapper class for the stuffing.

11/28/2024

HOW DID THIS BUTTON BECOME NOT-CLICKABLE?

Source: this UX showed up in a newsletter for a major security publication.

The problem is that the words are clickable, but the button isn't. That happens when the code that makes it clickable is attached to words, but not the whole button. Another way to say that is that the scope of the link is the text, not the button element.

I'm going to take a guess that this is a process problem.

POSSIBILITIES
1.Whoever made the text clickable didn't make the button.
2. No one said to make the button clickable ... but duh!
3. There is no place in the development software to attach a link to a button.
4. The developers are overworked and don't really care.
5. The developers told a manager about this problem and were shut up.

6. There is no UX testing.

11/02/2024

WHY MARKETING / SALES AND DEVELOPERS SHOULD ACTUALLY TALK TO EACH OTHER

Today, I looked up a topic related to DMARC reports. Not of general interest, but the results should be of interest to anyone who has a website.

About 1 second after the page loaded, this popped up. Nope, I didn't enjoy the article ... it was covered by a certain popup.

Do website owners have the right to add popups to their site? YES

Should website owners add popups to their site? IT DEPENDS

If website owners have the goal of acquiring viewers, they should consider some use cases and plan those popups very carefully to be user friendly. And, the development team should also be included in that conversation.

10/24/2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtZKCRLILiU

Artificial intelligence has opened new doors for scammers, giving rise to sophisticated cybersecurity threats like deepfakes and voice cloning. Today’s cyber...

09/28/2024

BEARING FAILURE.. a story about the benefits of modularity.

MONDAY: We were almost home - 2 hours left of a 6 hour day of driving. We would arrive home in time for a good night's rest to be ready to facilitate an online course starting at 7:00 am.

Just east of Post Falls, ID, it felt like we were hit by a microburst, but it was actually bearing failure on one of the camper tires.

BUT, BUT BUT, we had a modular camper - truck system. The camper stayed at the camper hospital in Post Falls, and the truck tootled down the road to Missoula. OK, so I only got 4 hours of sleep, but the class went fine.

09/25/2024

WHERE DOES SECURITY FIT INTO YOUR PROCESS?.. not what you say about it - what you do about it!

"When goals are ambitious, and security isn’t a part of company culture and subsequently, people’s performance evaluations, it is not at all surprising that most have good reasons to look for the most efficient, and not the most secure ways of accomplishing their goals."
~

Getting people to help protect their organizations: shortcomings of security awareness, why employees will continue to click on malicious links, and what we need to do about it

07/18/2024

SOMEONE IS SENDING EMAILS USING MY EMAIL ADDRESS

Earlier this year, I set up DMARC on my domain. It tells the email server world what servers are allowed to send emails using my email address for Reply. Now, I can see that there are indeed people spoofing my email address.

PART 1: I set up a policy to reject any emails sent from servers that aren't authorized. Notice the reject setting.


montanawebmaster.com
r
r
reject
reject
100
0


Today, Outlook sent me a report showing that someone tried to send an email that is not from me. Notice that the "disposition" is reject.



185.56.86.128
1

reject
fail
fail



unr.edu
gcam1306.siteground.biz
montanawebmaster.com



gcam1306.siteground.biz
mfrom
pass




The format of this report is XML. There are also tools that make it into a nice report format.

Send a message to learn more

07/17/2024

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SSL AND SSH

https://www.rapidsslonline.com/ssl/difference-between-ssh-and-ssl

"So, long story short: SSL is for securing internet connections between websites and their visitors; SSH is for running commands via remote access."

SSH and SSL. While the two look similiar and they perform some of the same functions, there are differences. Discover the difference between SSH and SSL.