Check Symptoms

Continuously test your Website in different browsers on daily basis and note down each aspect like loading time, scripts being loaded, and Website performance. If you detect any change then inspect your Website with inbuilt Developer Tool of your browser. Currently, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer have this option. We suggest you to use Firebug Add-on in Mozilla Firefox with its extensions like Yahoo! YSlow, Google Page Speed, and Firecookie for this purpose.

Test Website at Online Scanners

If you observe any change in the behavior or performance of your Website then it is the time to test your Website for infection at following security Websites:

Unmask Parasites

Visit the Website and enter the URL of your Website. At the time of writing this article, this service was under beta version and still it worked. We’ve tested our Website, and it displayed the following report:

After testing, you can use the additional test tools provided by the Unmask Parasites. Just click on the link “Reveal hidden spam links” and it will find out hidden links on your Website. It also informs how to search for spammy or possibly infected keyword links on the Website.

McAfee SiteAdvisor

Visit its Website, and enter the URL in the right sidebar widget saying “View a Site Report”. We tried it for our Website and found it safe. The SiteAdvisor Report also informs you whether it has been linked with secured Websites or not.

AVG Threat Labs

Visit the Website, enter URL and click the Check button. This easy service from AVG scans your Website for infection and shows the report.

Sucuri Site Check

Sucuri LLC provides this online testing service to scan the Websites. In fact, it provides a premium Website testing service in free. Not only    it checks for infection but it also provides you the list of links found, list of JavaScripts included, Blacklisted status by Norton Safe Web& Google Safe Browsing, and lists out the malware as well, if any.

Screenshot of scanning at Sucuri Check

Norton Safe Web

The antivirus giant, Norton, provides the online testing service – Norton Safe Web to check your Website for infection. It scans your Website, detects and reports these infections: Viruses, Drive-by Downloads, Malicious Downloads, Worms, Suspicious Applications, Suspicious Browser Changes, Security Risks, Heuristic Viruses, Adware, Trojans, Phishing Attacks, Spyware, Backdoors, Remote Access Software, Information Stealers, Dialers, Downloaders, and Embedded Link to Malicious Site. You can also Sign up for the Norton Safe Web.

Norton Safe Web

Google Safe Browsing

Google Safe Browsing API provide interface to create applications to test your Website, but you do not have to create a tool to do so. Just type following URL and replace “Your Website Name” with the URL of your Website.

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=<Your Website Name

Other tools

Following are the other tools to scan your Website:

• TrendMicro Site Safety
• Amada Malware Database
• URL Void
• VirusTotal
• PhishTank
• Online Link Scan
• Browser Defender

Detect the Culprit

If you found infection in any of the tests listed above then it is the time to trace the culprit code and remove it out from the Website. Following three things can infect the code of your Website:

Malicious Scripts – These are used to redirect the visitors to a phishing Website or load badware from other sources. If your selected test tool list out this script then remove the code as soon as possible. These scripts are often injected inside in any file like XML, JS, Image, PDF, or any other file available on the server. Most of the scripts make use of mystification code and makes it difficult for any antivirus to detect them, whereas others use name of phishing name of popular sites like below

<script src=”http://www.mcaffe.co/sideadvicor.js”></script>

.htacess redirects – If your Website is being redirected to an unknown page or site, then it is the time to check the .htaccess file. Download it and check for any suspicious code in it. Remove the code and then check whether it is still being redirected. Following is a sample suspicious redirected code: -

Rewrite Engine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERRER} .msn.$ [NC,OR]
RewriteRule .* http://73.158.901.80/in.php?s=ips2 [R,L]

Hidden Code - Most of the times hackers or virus inserts the hidden code, which is not shown to visitors but bots and scanners can detect it. You can make use of above online tools and lynx – command line browser to track the hidden code.

Locations Prone to have Infected Code

We request you check for any unknown code in following files:

• index.html or index.php (Index file)
• header.php or header.js (Header file)
• footer.php or footer.js (Footer file)
• main.php or main.html (Main file)

To detect the suspicious code, you should know about the default/safe code of your Website added by you, developer, extension, theme, or Content Management System at the time of launching the Website. We suggest you to download the files of your Website and check for the suspicious code in each file manually. If you have taken a backup of your Website dating before detection of infection, then you can compare the backup files with the new one using WinMerge Tool. This tool will list out the differences in each file one by one. You can either check this code manually or search at Web search engines for it.

You can search for any part of the code in Web search engines to know more about it. You can also take help of Website developers or coders to detect & remove the suspicious code from your Website.

Conclusion

The World Wide Web is full of uncertainty and you do not know what is going to happen next moment. You should take the backup of your Website weekly and test it on above listed tools to know whether your Website is still safe or not. Trace out the culprit code, delete it, and be ready to take necessary actions in order to recover your Website.

Tease the audience with effective Coming Soon Page

Unlike earlier days, where a Coming Soon Page was either simply stated as “The site is under Construction” or “We will be live soon”, the scenario has much changed and webmasters have realized that they can develop the interest of the visitors right from the very beginning by offering them an interesting Coming Soon page. The page can be made to act as a Teaser and drive the users to make a visit time and again to find whether the site has become operational or not.

It is a common observation to find visitors making a quick exit, the moment they land on an under construction page because of its dull and boring appearance. But if it is build in a manner that makes visitors stay and offers  a brief introduction of what the site will be all about, then it in some way assures that they will come back. Therefore, over the time, designing a Coming soon page had undergone many changes and now designers make it a point that it is attractive, effective and contains the right set of information.

In this write up, we are going to mention some of the ways that help build effective Coming Soon pages.

Must To Do Things To Create a Good Coming Soon Page

Establish the identity for audience to remember

It is highly beneficial to create your identity even before the site goes live, for the users will be able to remember you. Many may doubt the possibility of this but it can be easily accomplished by having a logo designed and placing it on the coming soon page. A logo is an effective element with the potential to create a strong impression.  The biggest advantage of a logo is that users can easily memorize a logo and they often identify a business/service with it. Thus, logo must form a part of the coming soon page.

In addition to this, colors also have their impact and users also associate them with a company. It is thus, important to select a color theme in advance and use it in the page.

Provide Brief introduction

It is a great idea to welcome visitors with a message that introduces you and your business to them. Here, it must be noted that a user should be given just a glimpse so that they become curious to know more. It is an important consideration, for if you divulge all details, they may not come back. But if you leave them with certain questions, they feel bound to come back.

It can be said that curiosity is a major factor that drive users to action and thus, this element should be a part of coming soon page.

Link to social media

The scope of social media cannot be sidelined even while designing a coming soon page as it can play a significant role in popularizing the site even before its launch. There are several social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Delicious, Myspace, StumbleUpon, etc) and social news sites (Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, Fark, etc.) that can be linked to. This can create a social circle and drive visitors to the site.

Make them subscribe

It is mentioned above that it is important to develop the interest of the visitors and once it is achieved, the next thing to do is make them subscribe. This can be done easily by including a sign up form.

The Sign up form should be adequately designed matching the overall design of the page and must ask necessary information from the visitors. It must not take too much of their time so that visitors can eagerly fill to know the updates.

Mention Contact Details

Though it may appear a bit out of place, but adding contact details, to a coming soon page, whether it is address, phone number or an email id, can serve many purpose. It establishes that you really exist, provides a chance to users to verify and in a way helps build credibility even before the official launch of your site.

Contact details also play a significant role in those cases where a business has long presence but is entering the Web world now. In such a case, by providing these details, the business offers its users to make direct enquiries without making them wait for website’s launch.

Examples of Coming Soon Page

SimartPixel

SmartPixel

Hyperlingo

Hyperlingo

Johnny Walker Plumbing

Johny Walker

Birdbox

Birdbox

FiveSecondProjects

Five Second Projects

Accentuate

Accentuate

Upstate Design Collective

Upstate Design Collective

Irava

Irava

ClockMeIn

ClockMeIn

MyNiteLife

MyNiteLife

Statnip

Statnip

BetterBlogger

BetterBlogger

SquidChef

SquidChef

ChkChkBoom

ChkChkBoom

FavMovie

FavMovie

Hosteeo

Hosteeo

Dialed Tone

Dialed Tone

PotatoMice

PotatoMice

Moses Mehraban

Moses Mehraban

Wuit

Wuit

Evert Slagter

Evert Slagter

Bluebird

BlueBird

Sprocket

Sprocket

UniquePayments

UniquePayments

Uooo

Uooo

It can be concluded that an effective Coming Soon page can create a positive impression and give the required boost to a site before it goes live for the users. Thus, it must be made effective enough.

We hope that you find the above ways useful. If you have some other suggestions, kindly do us a favor of dropping a comment. We would be delighted to come across your ideas.

With popularity of Android on the rise and increase in the number of its users, developers and designers have shifted their focus on this platform. There is growing need to make sites compatible with smartphones or mobile devices, which has resulted in the development of numerous related applications.

But here, we are going to present some of the best Android applications that developers and designers would find useful to serve their different purposes.

Android Applications to watch out

For Designers

SilverEdit

The efficiency of SilverEdit can be established from the fact that it allows you to create and edit pages both online as well as offline. It is quite a useful tool for designers as it offers a wide range of features including Syntax highlighting, ability to copy, paste, move and rename files,  Toolbars with easy access buttons, support for almost all type of web documents, etc. It presents customization ability as well.

SilverEdit

Magic Color Picker

Designers can make effective color selection with the help of this application. It supports RGB, HSV, HSL and YUV color models and states colors value in decimal and HEX. The application is useful for artists and programmers too and best of all, it is FREE.

Magic Color Picker

Color Dictionary

Designers often remain in a fix while selecting colors and keep on finding different ones for their web design. This application provides the right help by providing the option to refer 10+ dictionaries and 2300+ colors.

Color Dictionary

Photo Workshop

A simple but potential application that helps in the editing of the photos and offers a wide range of functions including Crop, Rotate, Text Overlay, Effects, Frames & Edges, Resizing, etc.

Photoshop Workshop

Typography Junkies

It is another interesting and useful application for designers which helps to come across the latest fonts and updates on typography. It offers news, images and videos related typography.

For Developers

AndFTP

AndFTP is an excellent application that allows accessing the web servers from an Android device. As the name indicates it is a FTP clients that also supports SFTP, SCP and FTPS. It has a long feature list  and some of the major ones are device menu feature to rename, delete, copy, set permissions and create folders, ability to upload/download with resume support, back button support and best of all , it is FREE.

AndFTP

WordPress for Android

This Free application from WordPress offers a lot of helpful features such as multiple blogs management, ability of creating/ editing Posts and even pages. It also has an inbuilt comment notification.

Image Source: market.android.com

Dropbox

It makes it extremely simple to access documents, files, photos and videos from the Android mobile and allows easy editing.

Dropbox

Google Analytics for Android

Irrespective of where you are, this paid application will help keep track of the Google Analytics data. It offers Date range comparison, Graphs and charts, Geolocation reports, etc and the best thing about this application is that it is fast, ensures security and doesn’t occupy much space.

Google Android

View Web Source

This application can let you view the source code of a web page very easily with the option to download. One can even search the text and copy –paste the HTML. Where does one get such features in a FREE application?

View Source Code

We hope you liked the collection and look forward to your comments and suggestions.