CompuSkills Blog

Clickjacking has been a hot topic for the past couple of months. This is an issue that might affect pretty well any browser platform except Lynx.

Wikipedia defines clickjacking as:

a malicious technique of tricking web users into revealing confidential information or taking control of their computer while clicking on seemingly innocuous web pages. A vulnerability across a variety of browsers and platforms, a clickjacking takes the form of embedded code or script that can execute without the user’s knowledge, such as clicking on a button that appears to perform another function.

Robert Hansen and Jeremiah Grossman have released a few items of information about what it is and how to prevent it but the presentation will be deferred until later this month when there should be a solution to the Adobe issue at least.

According to a story in the Register, among the most disturbing reported aspects of clickjacking is the capacity to turn the PC user’s microphone and webcam into snooping devices. This was supposedly achieved by a proof of concept game which used Flash (although it is claimed that javascript and DHTML could achieve the same results)

The proof of concept is a powerful demonstration of the spooky implications behind clickjacking. The vulnerability allows malicious webmasters to control the links visitors click on. Once lured to a booby-trapped page, a user may think he’s clicking on a link that leads to Google - when in fact it takes him to a money transfer page, a banner ad that’s part of a click-fraud scheme, or any other destination the attacker chooses.

If it’s any reassurance, the Register didn’t initially have much success at getting clickjacked in Firefox, although Internet Explorer worked immediately. Disabling your webcam when you aren’t actively using it is a very good start to prevention, although it won’t guarantee you will be protected against other intrusions.

Adobe have published instructions for a Flash Player workaround until they have dealt with the issue..

There has been a quiet period here over the last few months. Hopefully this has come to an end now and we will recommence our development and publishing of WordPress themes.  More news will follow.

Orangetastic Wordpress Theme Available For Free Download.

This is fixed width, two column theme, based on various shades of orange - hence the name “Orangetastic.” It has a right hand (single) sidebar with an “author info” section at the top. The author info has some default text in but can be edited to suit your needs and changes to suit which page or archive is being viewed. The default information describes a bit about the blog (how many comments and posts) and links back to this site.

The Orangetastic theme is released under a creative commons licence, a copy of which is included in the theme file (saved as LICENCE.txt).

This is not a “sponsored” theme, but there are links back to the designers in the footer which we would appreciate you leaving in place, you can remove any or all of the other links on the theme. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that Compuskills Web Design Blog is now ranked as “Number 1″ in the world by Technorati! I am sure there are lots of you who wont believe this, and it may even no longer be the case by the time you check but, to prove the point, we have taken a screenshot:

(Note: We are aware this is almost certainly down to a technorati error — it seems like they regularly break, which is reassuring for people investing in webservices for their office programs… — but it is nice to pretend once in a while!)

These instructions are for Wordpress themes.

Download your chosen theme. You will probably have to unzip it.

Unzip the files to the Wordpress themes folder on your blog’s server.

This will probably be in the htdocs folder, if your server uses Apache, and called something like:
…….\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\themes

Now go into your admin account for Wordpress.

Pick Presentation, as shown.

Then choose Theme editor, as shown here and you should see the name of the unzipped new theme, with a preview.

Click on it to choose the new theme you want.

At the top of the page you should see a message to say that the new theme has been activated. Click on “view site” to see it in operation.

Chains Wordpress Theme Available For Download.

This is a reddish and white, fluid width, two column theme. It has a right hand (single) sidebar with an “author info” section at the top. The author info has some default text in but can be edited to suit your needs and changes to suit which page or archive is being viewed. In addition, when viewed with IE7, Opera 9 and Firefox this theme has a fixed header image, where the text scrolls underneath it. In older browsers this degrades neatly.

This theme is released under a creative commons licence, a copy of which is included in the theme file (saved as LICENCE.txt).

This is not a “sponsored” theme, but there are links back to the designers in the footer which we would appreciate you leaving in place, you can remove any or all of the other links on the theme.

Although currently only at version 0.9.1 this theme is stable and has been tested in the major browsers with no problems. In addition it runs on Wordpress 2.1.3 and 2.2.1 with no problems. It works with a variety of plugins, although none are required. If you run a wordpress blog, we suggest you get Universal Tag Warrior, Share This and Dunstan Like Error Pages if nothing else. Tailored hooks are available for these three plugins, if you require a hook for a specific plug in we will try to accommodate you.

This theme comes with inbuilt styles so you can alter the appearance of sections of your posts. Full details on how to use these styles is included in the README.txt file included in the theme. Basically you can use the classes “leftfloat” “rightfloat” and “center” to indicate the alignment of a block (for example <p> and <div> tags) and the the “alert,” “information” and “news” classes create a coloured box with an appropriate icon.

You can Download Chains from here - at the moment, it has not been possible to upload to the WP-Themes site so no demo is available. We will update this when (if) this changes.

[tags]Theme Design, Themes, Theme Download, White Theme, Two Columns, WordPress, Downloads, Design, Fluid width[/tags]

The “Classical Elegance” wordpress theme is now available for download. [Demo]

This is a blue and white, fluid width, three column theme. There are two sidebars, both pinned to the right hand edge of the page with an “author info” section at the top. The author info has some default text in but can be edited to suit your needs. This theme is released under a creative commons licence, a copy of which is included in the theme file (saved as LICENCE.txt).

This is not a “sponsored” theme, but there are links back to this blog in the footer which we would appreciate you leaving in place, you can remove any or all of the other links on the theme.

Currently at version 1.0.0 this theme is very stable and has been tested in Firefox, Internet Explorer (versions 6 and 7) and Opera with no problems. It has been tested on Wordpress 2.1.3 and 2.2.1 with no problems. It works with a variety of plugins, although none are required. If you run a wordpress blog, we suggest you get Universal Tag Warrior, Share This and Dunstan Like Error Pages if nothing else. Tailored hooks are available for these three plugins, if you require a hook for a specific plug in we will try to accommodate you.

This theme comes with seven inbuilt styles so you can alter the appearance of sections of your posts. Full details on how to use these styles is included in the README.txt file included in the theme. Basically you can use the classes “leftfloat” “rightfloat” and “center” to indicate the alignment of a block (for example <p> and <div> tags), the “tagline” class changes the appearance of the text to an italic, serif font and the the “alert,” “information” and “news” classes create a coloured box with an appropriate icon.

You can Download Classical Elegance or View the Demo.

[tags]Theme Design, Themes, Theme Download, Blue Theme, Three Columns, WordPress, Downloads, Design, Fluid width[/tags]

This is a general post to let people who are using Harmony and WhyDontYou themes that for a variety of reasons we are no suspending further development on these until further notice. This does not mean we will not respond to user requests, but that we are not going to carry on further adjustments without user requests. Normally we would wait until version 1.0 had been released for this, but in this case we feel is appropriate to do it now.

If you are a user of one of these themes and you have any bugs or problems which you would like solved, then please let us know and we will try to fix it as soon as possible and, as always, normally free of charge.

[tags]Web Design, Compuskills, Frequently Asked Questions, FAQ, Themes[/tags]

Bright and Bold theme - free download [ demo or download from wordpress ]

Following on from the previous themes, we have produced a new WordPress theme. This is a two column, largely black, white and golden theme with a fluid width and right hand sidebar. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

This is not a “sponsored” theme, but there are links back here in the footer which we would appreciate you leaving in place, you can remove any or all of the other links on the theme.

This is currently at version 1 and is very stable. The theme has been tested on Firefox, IE 6 and 7 and Opera. It works with a variety of plugins, although none are required. If you run a wordpress blog, we suggest you get Universal Tag Warrior, Share This and Dunstan Like Error Pages if nothing else. Tailored hooks are available for these three plugins, if you require a hook for a specific plug in we will try to accommodate you. Read the rest of this entry »

BlueHeader 1.12 WordPress Theme - available for free download. [ demo | download ]

Following on from the previous themes, we have produced a new WordPress theme. This is a two column, largely black, white and golden theme with a fluid width and right hand sidebar. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

This is not a “sponsored” theme, but there are links back here in the footer which we request you leave in place.

This is currently at version 1.12 and is very stable. The theme has currently been tested on Firefox, IE 6 and 7 and Opera. It works with a variety of plugins, although none are required. If you run a wordpress blog, we suggest you get Universal Tag Warrior, Share This and Dunstan Like Error Pages if nothing else. Tailored hooks are available for these three plugins, if you require a hook for a specific plug in we will try to accommodate you. Read the rest of this entry »