Blog Archives
-
Syndication
-
April 12, 2010
New Signature Labs Releases “Drupal Most Popular” Contributed Drupal Module
New Signature Labs is pleased to announce the release of the Drupal Most Popular contributed module for the Drupal publish platform. New Signature Labs developed the Drupal Most Popular module to give website administrators and maintainers a turn-key solution for creatively and effectively showcasing the most popular content on their website in a highly customizable block.The module comes packaged with several common analytics services:
- Google Analytics Most Viewed
- Drupal Most Commented Pages
- Drupal Most Viewed
- AddThis.com Most Emailed
The module is built using an extensible framework that allows for fast and granular customization of the look and feel as well as the packages and services it can integrate with. Designed and developed by New Signature Labs, the Most Popular Module is ideal for all types of Drupal websites. (more…)
-
New Signature Labs
New Signature is proud to announce the creation of New Signature Labs. New Signature Labs is the formalization of New Signature’s efforts to push the envelope with new discoveries and innovations in the world of rich Internet application development.New Signature Labs’ goal is to develop a wide range of revolutionary technologies that will showcase some of our cool and innovative ideas. These ideas will be packaged as open source modules that can be used and extended by the community. New Signature will be announcing our first two innovations this afternoon: Drupal Most Popular and jCoverflip.
The inspiration for the choice of the “Labs” name is the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory (later known as Bell Labs)–founded by Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C. While we doubt that our work will have the same impact as Bell Labs, we believe it is good to aspire to greatness!
Your comments and feedback can elevate a project to consideration for integration into Google.com — or cause it to disappear and never be spoken of again. -
February 26, 2010
New Signature Wins Top Honors at 2009 Interactive Media Awards
The New Signature creative division earned an IMA Outstanding Achievement Award under the category “Nonprofit” for the website we designed and produced for the Foreign Policy Initiative. This award demonstrates that the Foreign Policy Initiative website excelled in all areas of IMA’s judging criteria and represents a very high standard of planning, execution and overall professionalism.The Interactive Media Awards recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. This award is further validation that New Signature is a leader in the industry, able to effectively and efficiently develop powerful and appealing websites for our valuable clients.
-
February 10, 2010
New Signature Core Values: Sustainability (a.k.a., Being Green)
New Signature’s core values shape the way we do business. One of these core values is to, “Help create a better community through our actions.” One way that we help create a better community is through our efforts to ensure that we limit our (and our clients’) impact on the environment. New Signature’s goal is to be green like Kermit the Frog. As such, New Signature places a strong emphasis on reducing our impact on the environment. We have take a number of steps to do this, including the following:Transportation. New Signature participates in WMATA’s SmartBenefits program and provides each employee with a corporate ZipCar membership. Participation in WMATA’s SmartBenefits program encourages New Signature employees to use public transportation for commuting as it reduces the cost by making it pre-tax. While New Signature encourages employees to use public transportation, especially the Metro, to visit clients there are some instances that require they drive. In these instances, the ZipCar membership enables our staff not to have to bring cars to work–instead they can simply use a ZipCar on an hourly basis. (more…)
-
January 20, 2010
New York Times Reports “Simple Passwords Remain Popular, Despite Risk of Hacking”
In July of 2009 New Signature published a post on network security (Network Security: Passwords vs. Passphrases) where we pushed for the use of more complex passwords and the use of passphrases to make this easier for the average person to use and remember. This morning (January 20, 2010) the New York Times published an article entitled “If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe“. The article shows that weak passwords continue to be a substantial problem.
“According to a new analysis, one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like ‘abc123,’ ‘iloveyou’ or even ‘password’ to protect their data.” (more…)
-
October 30, 2009
New Signature Designed Websites Win Five Awards in 2009 Davey Awards
New Signature has won five Silver Awards in the 2009 Davey Awards. The winners of The 2009 Davey Awards were announced today by the International Academy of the Visual Arts today, and ForeignPolicyI.org, InsideIran.org, and InsideHigherEd.com all won Silver Awards. With over 4,000 entries from across the US and around the world, the Davey Awards honors the finest creative work from the best small firms, agencies and companies worldwide.We are excited that these websites, which we designed and developed for our clients, have been selected to receive this prestigious honor. The Davey Awards is judged and overseen by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA), a 200+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts dedicated to embracing progress and the evolving nature of traditional and interactive media. The Davey Awards is judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only organization consisting of top-tier media, advertising, and marketing professionals from the world’s leading organizations and firms.
-
October 26, 2009
David Geevaratne and Reed Wiedower Become Microsoft Certified Trainers
Two of New Signature’s staff–David Geevaratne and Reed Wiedower–have earned the prestigious Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) credential to become part of the elite community of MCTs.Microsoft Certified Trainers are the premier technical and instructional experts on Microsoft technologies, and are the only individuals authorized to deliver training for Microsoft Certification.
-
October 8, 2009
New Signature Wins Gold and Silver at 2009 W3 Awards
New Signature has earned both a Gold and Silver award at the 2009 W3 Awards. The Winners of The 2009 W3 Awards were announced by the International Academy of the Visual Arts today. Receiving nearly 3,000 entries, The W3 Awards honors outstanding Websites, Web Marketing, and Web Video created by some of the best interactive agencies, designers, and creators worldwide.“We were incredibly impressed by the quality and creativity of this year’s entries. W3 winners continue to set the bar in Web development and design, push the limits of web advertising creativity and advance the use of web video. We are thrilled to have reviewed such a diverse and respected pool of work” said Linda Day, the executive director of the IAVA. “On behalf of the entire Academy, we congratulate this year’s W³ Award winners as they continue to advance Internet creativity and greatly contribute to the robust and ever-changing online community.” (more…)
-
August 25, 2009
Cybercrime Targeting Small to Mid-sized Businesses
Brian Krebs wrote a very relevant article on the Washington Post‘s Security Fix column yesterday titled “Tighter Security Urged for Businesses Banking Online“. According to the article, “An industry group representing some of nation’s largest banks sent a private alert to its members last week warning about a surge in reported cybercrime targeting small to mid-sized business.”
The article goes on to say, “The alert indicates that the sophistication, stealth, and sheer volume of malicious software being distributed these days is testing the limits of traditional anti-malware protections, such as anti-virus software.” New Signature agrees with this assessment. Our experience has shown an increased number of attacks on client networks from any increasingly list of sources. The most alarming uptick we have seen are targeted attacks against specific clients, often using “spear fishing” techniques to try to gain entry into the corporate network.
The cost of not having the appropriate security policies, procedures, and technology in place can be high. For example, the article lists several groups that have lost substantial amounts of money through malware related attacks, including Bullitt County, Ky. which lost $415,000; Slack Auto Parts, which suffered about $75,000 in losses; and JM Test Systems that lost almost $100,000.
The increasing prevalence of malware attacks, including targeted attacks, and the real cost associated with these attacks is one of the reasons that New Signature’s technology management teams work closely with our clients to establish, and continually monitor, security policies, procedures and technologies. Our approach also includes staff education, which is an important element that should not be overlooked.
-
June 25, 2009
New Signature Becomes an Acquia Partner
New Signature’s Drupal development expertise and experience was recognized today through our partnership with Acquia.Acquia is a commercial open source software company providing products, services, and technical support for the open source Drupal social publishing system. Acquia’s partner program connects its clients with qualified partners, such as New Signature, who can provide Drupal development and deployment services.
New Signature was selected as an Acquia partner because of Acquia’s high level of confidence that New Signature consistently delivers a high quality, and reliable, websites based on the Drupal 6.x social publishing solution. By selecting New Signature, Acquia’s clients know that they are working with a team that is committed to the same high standards for ethics, quality, and innovation that they expect from Acquia. (more…)
