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Facebook kills deals after just four months

Tech is going through a late-summer cleanup: Apple's killing rentals, Google's dissolving Slide, and now Facebook will discontinue its deals product, the company said today in a statement released to Reuters and other outlets.

The Facebook Deals product, which offered discounted coupons for local businesses, had launched only four months ago. Its shutdown follows Facebook's discontinuation earlier this week of its location-based check-in feature for mobile users in favor of broader place-tagging tools. Here's Facebook's statement:

After testing Deals for four months, we've decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks. We … Read more

iPad beats smartphones in browsing speed test

Apple's iPad blew away several other mobile devices at loading Web pages, according to a recent speed test conducted by Compuware.

Although the test was geared toward smartphones and the iPad was used only as a reference point, Apple's popular tablet proved speedier at Web browsing than the iPhone, HTC Desire, BlackBerry Torch, and several other mobile devices.

Conducted in July, the test tried to determine the impact of each device on Web site performance. Specifically, the analysis looked at two measurements:

• Page load time, or how long it takes for a Web page to fully load. •&… Read more

Google Sites pages get fine-tuned visibility control

Google has added the ability to control who can see and edit specific Web pages in its Google Sites service.

Google Sites hosts Web pages and is available to personal users or those using the Google Apps service. Previously site permissions were an all-or-nothing affair, but yesterday Google enabled the finer-grained controls.

"Using page-level permissions, you can make some pages private for certain users while keeping other pages public for everyone to see," programmer Eric Zhang said in a blog post. "For instance, let's say you have a Google Site that you've shared with your … Read more

LinkedIn launches HTML5 site, revamps apps

Maybe everyone really is shifting to building mobile sites in HTML5. Adobe Systems recently debuted its Edge tool set in public preview mode for developers interested in creating motion and interactive graphics written natively in the language.

Although this isn't quite the same as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and others being relatively forced into HTML5 by Flash-resistant Apple for selling products on mobile sites, LinkedIn is getting on board with HTML5 with a new "experience" that can be viewed in nearly any mobile Web browser.

The HTML5-optimized version, along with updated iPhone and Android apps, are … Read more

Adobe Muse may give iWeb a run for its money

When designing Web pages you can either directly edit the site's code, or you can use a WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") editor like Dreamweaver or Publisher that provides a graphical approach to developing a Web site. Despite the graphical approach, even these can be relatively complex programs to use and require some editing of code.

Apple tackled this complexity with its iWeb program, which is purely graphical and is built to be intuitive like Apple's Pages and Keynote programs, and has become quite popular as a result; however, with the transition from … Read more

Web apps attacked every two minutes, study finds

The average Web-based application is hit by a cyberattack once every two minutes, says a report out today by security firm Imperva.

Detailing its findings in its "Web Application Attack Report" (PDF) for July, Imperva found that Web applications are attacked around 27 times per hour. Monitoring the Internet from December 2010 through May 2011, the security firm uncovered and categorized more than 10 million individual attacks targeting both business and government sites.

Automated cyberattacks accounted for a huge number of attempted breaches. The report discovered that attack traffic was characterized by quick spikes of high volumes followed … Read more

Study: Facebook at bottom on customer satisfaction

Facebook may be one of the most popular Web sites around, but it doesn't seem to be one of the most loved.

The social network scored dead last in a new study out today that tracked customer satisfaction among a variety of Web sites and companies. Produced in partnership with analytics firm ForeSee Results, the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report analyzed how users feel about news sites, search engines, and social networks.

Although Facebook's reputation actually grew 3 percent from last year to reach 66 out of 100, the site was at the bottom of the … Read more

Report: Lady Gaga U.K. Web site hacked

Hackers have broken into Lady Gaga's Web site and stolen thousands of personal details, according to the Guardian.

The Swagsec hacker group stole Lady Gaga fans' details on June 27, including names and e-mail addresses. Financial details were not stolen, Universal Music told the Guardian in a statement.

"All those affected have been advised," Universal Music said.

Read more of "Lady Gaga U.K. Web site hacked" at ZDNet UK.

How to auto optimize Google Sites for mobile devices

Google Sites now has the ability to automatically optimize sites for viewing on mobile devices (iOS 3.0+ and Android 2.2+). We'll show you how to turn this feature on as well as how to preview the mobile view right from your desktop. Let's get started.

Turn on automatic mobile rendering Step 1: From your Google Sites page, click on the More actions button, then select Manage site.

Step 2: In the left column under Site settings, select General.

Step 3: Check the box next to Automatically adjust site to mobile phones, located near the bottom of … Read more