Learn About Software Security With A Directory of Web Articles

It’s been quite sometime since I’ve done a ReviewMe review. Although I haven’t really missed doing them, I guess it’s time to whip up another one just to stay limber. Just in case you aren’t aware, the rules for a ReviewMe review are all built in favour of an honest review despite the fact that I’m being paid for it. If the product or service sucks, you’ll know and I won’t hold back. If it’s great, all the better. The bottom line is that no matter how much the advertiser pleads for a “nice review” I don’t have to be. So from the depths of the Interwebs comes a review that’s about a site that informs you about issues regarding “Software Security“.

Software Security is something that people should be aware of. With all the recent media coverage about people’s systems being hijacked and used to hack small European countries, we have to be ever more vigilant about taking responsibility for our systems. In fact, security is so important that the US Military is creating a cyberwar division to defend against cyber attacks. I guess they’ll be doing an “Extreme Makeover - Pentagon Edition” to put in that sixth wall.

Because this is an important topic, I was eager to see what this site had in store for me on this topic.

First Impressions

Upon first glance, the site looks clean and well laid out. You’ll see three tabs on the right that take you home, allow people to submit articles, and grab free content in the form of the site’s RSS feeds. The article submissions area provides guidelines for what the site is looking for in terms of content, however, the site offers no renumeration and limits your submission to only ONE single link to your own blog or website. However, for the writer looking to gain exposure and establish oneself as an expert, it might be worth it to give it a whirl as a start. The only thing I found a little strange was that the URL provided to me took me to a mere subsection of a larger site. Hmm…

So It Isn’t A Site About Software Security?

Apparently no. The home button takes you to a site called Web Articles where the Software Security category is but one of many categories of articles that are available on the site.  According to the site:

Web articles was founded this year (2007) to publish all written articles, received articles by the visitors of our network. So, we thought that creation, publishing and promoting an online article directory would be a nice idea. We tried to create a simple yet clean design, easy surfing, comprehensive information.

It’s pretty clear that they succeeded in building a very clean design. However, one area where the site gets a failing grade is in the grammar and spelling area. Even in their introduction above, you can see grammatical errors, and you can easily pick out spelling errors throughout the site. It’s almost like someone translated it from a foreign language. With this lack of attention to detail, it makes me wonder what the quality of the content is. However, they do cover their butts by saying that they will pretty much post anything in their mission statement. This turns my attention back to the Software Security area.

A Little Lacking In the Software Security Area…

Clicking back over to Software Security area, I was greeted with a listing of…TWO…articles. There was one on Software protection and Intrusion detection and another one on Open source in the enterprise. Although I did find some interesting nuggets in both of them, the eye bleeding, never ending paragraphs made my eyes water. Even worse, in a subject area where things seem to change every couple of weeks, the information in both articles is almost a year old. I guess learning something new, which I had initially hoped to do, is definitely not going to happen.

The Bottom Line…

After observing the staleness of the articles in the Software Security category and noticing the “Submit Articles” area in my initial pass through, I can only see that they are desperate for new content. However, they don’t really give a whole lot of incentive for people to submit their articles. Without some sort of incentive (besides the ONE single link back to the writers’ site), why would anyone want to write content for you?

The site also needs a good spelling and grammar check. Some of the mistakes are blatant and downright embarrassing. Mispelled words and awkward titles litter the site. As a content site, it really reduces the perceived quality of the content and if you want people to read your stuff, you just can’t be making those types of mistakes. Most disappointing was the fact that I didn’t really learn anything interesting about Software Security. Sigh.

Dine Out Vancouver 2008 - FigMint Restaurant & Lounge

OK, so I lied in my last Dine Out Review. My Port Moody Boathouse Review will not be my only Dine Out Vancouver 2008 review after all ;)

It was kind of funny how this review came about. MONSTER Cable came to town today and invited me to check out some of their new products for 2008. They wanted me down in Vancouver at 8 AM. Hmm…  I only get up at or around 8 AM because I have to…go…like…go to the can (and then I go back to bed)…so I’d need to be up and gone by 7:00 AM just to make sure I would make it in time. Umm…. I think I’ll pass. My “People” promptly called me back to tell me that they really want me there and offered to put me up at the same Hotel that MONSTER was holding the event at. Since I’d be downtown, the day before, for my photography class and my second meeting with the Lab With Leo Crew, I thought…what the heck! Hook me up! Coincidentally, the hotel that they put me up at, The 500 Plaza Hotel on the corner of Cambie and 16th in Vancouver, is attached to FigMint Restaurant & Lounge so I took this golden opportunity to get in one last Dine Out Vancouver experience.

 

I really didn’t leave much time for a dine out experience. It was 5:30′ish by the time I was checked in and my class was at 7:00 PM. Since I wouldn’t be able to eat till 10:00 PM if I didn’t eat now, I took the plunge, hoody, camera bag and all. However, I must say that I was very pleased with the fact that I was treated with great warmth and courtesy despite my scruffy appearance. When I mentioned my time constraint, they said no problem, quickly seated me and told me that as long as I ate fast, they’d have me out of there in 45 minutes. They got me a selection of bread to nibble on right away and explained the menu choices for the Dine Out Menu to me. I was pleased to see that the menu had genuine selections that did not require any cheesy upsells like they tried to pull at C Restaurant last year. After a couple minutes, my waitress returned to take my order and I was off to the races.

 

My first course was the Prawn Bisque with Crème Fraiche and Crisp Prawn. The most unique aspect of the dish was the way in which it was served. The dish was brought out with the soup seperate from the crisp prawn, crème fraiche, and the garnish. I assume that this was done to preserve the crispness of the prawn. After the dish was placed in front of me, the bisque was poured slowly and evenly into the bowl as my server explained to me the highlights of the dish to get me mentally prepared to dive in. I really enjoyed how the crisp prawn mated nicely with the smooth creamy texture of the bisque and the crème fraiche.

 

For my main course, I chose the Pan Seared Arctic Char with Butternut Squash and Amaretti Ravioli and Almond Smoked Buttered Green Beans. What I loved about this dish was the crispness of the Arctic Char skin. I’m not normally a fish skin lover, but it was really crisp and tasty. The most surprising thing I found out about this dish was how well the amaretti ravioli went with the arctic char. The filling had an almost citrus-like pop that really complimented the flavour and texture of the fish. All the flavours really worked well together and I was quite pleased with this dish.

 

Finally, for dessert, I chose the Sticky Toffee Pudding with Walnut Tuile and Vanilla Ice Cream. This is a truly decadent dish. The sticky toffee pudding mixed with the caramel sauce is so sticky and sweet that it was almost too much to bear. However, the trick to eating this dish is to eat each bite with just a bit of the vanilla ice cream. The ice cream takes that too sticky sweet taste down and really smooths it out. The walnut tuile ads a bit of crunch to each bite. I do recommend eating the mint leaf as it really accents all the flavours and further binds them together.

Despite my truncated timetable, I really enjoyed my meal. The server took the time to explain each course as they were serving it to mentally prepare me for the experience and the service througout the evening was exceptional, even though I was dressed a bit like a bumb. They kept their promise of getting me out of there in 45 minutes, but despite my 45 minute limit, I never felt like I was rushed through the meal. I was also pleased with how my pictures turned out despite the low lighting in the dining room. Exposure compensation is definitely your friend when you want to take better pictures without a flash though I have to admit that having my Nikon D80 and a 35mm f/2.0 lens helped too. Unlike a point and shoot, I was able to really exploit the aperture and the higher ISO’s along with a bit of exposure compensation to get the pictures to turn out more naturally in challenging lighting situations.

Michael Kwan also checked out FigMint during the Dine Out Vancouver 2008 promotion so do check out his review as well.

Dine Out Vancouver 2008 - The Boathouse Port Moody

 

The Boathouse Port Moody opened up just at the end of last year and has quickly become a popular dining destination in the area. Perched at the boat launch near Rocky Point Park, the brand new restaurant overlooks pictureque Burrard Inlet. Although I’ve actually sampled this restaurant before during their soft launch period last year, I wanted to see how they’ve come along. Since other restaurants have used the Dine Out Vancouver Promotion as an excuse for dropping the ball, I was eager to see how The NEWEST Boathouse would take advantage of this highly popular promotional period.

The Dine Out Vancouver menu for The Boathouse was split into a $25 and a second $35 menu. Although they were distinctly different, the only thing similar about them was the dessert selection which was a choice between a key lime pie and cheesecake. What I was most impressed with was the fact that there was more than one genuine choice for each course and there was no cheesy upsell like “C” Restaurant tried to pull last year, who, by the way, got downgraded to “D” grade in 2007 by Vancouver Magazine. However, they did make an effort this year to revamp their offering for 2008 and I wish them luck with it.

 

For the first course, Kelly, fresh off her Olympic Weightlifting Victory, selected the Spring Salad with fresh strawberries and goat cheese while I got the Lobster Bisque. The salad was good, but the bisque was a little too salty for my taste, but I guess you could argue that the saltiness reflected the sea However, it did contain a good chunk of real lobster. Usually you only see a few micro fragments swimming around.

 

For the main course, Kelly chose the Miso Crusted Halibut while I chose the Steak & Dungeness Crab Stuffed Jumbo Prawns. The Halibut was nice and tender on the inside and super crispy on the outside so pretty much perfect. I asked for my steak to be done Chicago Style and medium rare on the inside. Guess what? It was done Chicago Style and medium rare on the inside. The prawns were also surprisingly good.

 

For dessert, Kelly had the Key Lime pie while I pigged out on the Cheesecake. I also finished off the rest of her Key Lime pie and that wasn’t bad either. You could tell that neither dessert was made in house, but they did take the time to finish them off with a little bit of dressing up.

The Bottom Line…

Despite the extra traffic from the Dine Out Vancouver promotion and the fact that they are still a relatively new arm of The Boathouse, the Port Moody staff did exceptionally well in rising to the occasion. The service was very good despite the “full boat load” of customers and no one tried to push coffee on us like they did at Horizon’s Restaurant. Furthermore, my wine was “Cork Free” and my food was definitely the right temperature. Since both Horizon’s and The Boathouse are so close in proximity, Horizon’s better step up their game. Otherwise, they’ll end up lke another local restaurant formerly known as Sultri, that sat just a few blocks away from The Boathouse and went under pretty quickly after their arrival.

This will be my only dine out experience this year because in the next couple weeks I’ll be attending Big Night Vancouver where winning restaurants from Vancouver magazine’s 18th Annual Restaurant Awards prepare dishes to be paired with award-winning wines from the 2008 Vancouver Magazine International Wine Competition. I’ll be tasting, sipping and mingling with local celebrity chefs, media and more. Way to kill a flock of birds with one stone