Collaborating with Codassium Image: codassium.com.

WebRTC is a proposed standard — currently being refined by the W3C — with the goal of providing a web-based set of tools that any device can use to share audio, video and data in real time. It’s still in the early stages, but WebRTC has the potential to supplant Skype, Flash and many native apps with web-based alternatives that work on any device.

Codassium uses WebRTC to bring together WebRTC-based video chat and Mozilla’s Ace code editor. The result is what Wreally Studios, creators of Codassium, call “a better way to conduct remote interviews.” Of course Codassium could be used for more than just interviews — think code reviews, remote pair programming or even just discussing code with remote employees.

To use Codassium you’ll need to be using a web browser that supports WebRTC — recent versions of Firefox and Chrome will both work. Head on over to Codassium, click the Start button and allow the site to access your camera and microphone. Once the video chat and Ace editor load, just click the Invite button and send the resulting link to the person you’d like to work with.

Image: CloudFlare

If your WordPress admin pages suddenly become sluggish, unreachable or you’re unable to log in there’s a good chance your site is being attacked.

According to CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince, the attack is using brute force against WordPress’ admin pages using the old default username “admin” and then trying thousands of passwords. There’s nothing new about that approach, but what makes this attack different, and particularly potent, is that the attackers have some 90,000 unique IP addresses at their disposal.

For its part CloudFlare has pushed out an update that “detects the signature of the attack and stops it.”

Popular WordPress Host HostGator reports that it too has “seen over 90,000 IP addresses involved in this attack.”

WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg has also weighed in, pointing out that it’s been over three years since WordPress used the username “admin” as the default for new installations.

However, there are no doubt a great many sites that still have — whether they use it or not — the “admin” user account hanging around in WordPress. It’s also worth noting that, while this attack appears limited to trying the “admin” username, a more sophisticated approach could do the same thing, but with unique usernames — for example, find the most frequently used account name on the public site, assume it’s an admin account and run the same attack against the admin pages. So far that hasn’t happened.

“Here’s what I would recommend,” writes Mullenweg on his blog, “if you still use “admin” as a username on your blog, change it, use a strong password, if you’re on WP.com turn on two-factor authentication, and of course make sure you’re up to date on the latest version of WordPress.”

Unfortunately, given the number of IP addresses that seem to be at the attackers’ disposal, other common security measures — like tools that limit logins by IP address — aren’t going to be terribly effective against this attack. Short of getting rid of the default “admin” account (if it still exists), there isn’t a whole lot you can do to stop the attacks (unless you want to use a web application firewall like CloudFlare or ModSecurity). Be sure to contact your hosting company if you think your site has come under attack.

Unreal 3 engine in Firefox.
Screenshot: Webmonkey.

Mozilla has partnered with Epic Games to bring the Unreal 3 gaming engine to the web. The result is a high-end gaming engine that could change the way you think of web-based games.

The Unreal 3 engine has previously been ported to Flash, but this is the first time a plugin-free (and therefore mobile-friendly) version has been built for the web.

Mozilla is hoping this project will help turn the web into a more serious gaming platform capable of running top-tier console titles.

Combining WebGL, Emscripten, a tool for compiling C++ apps into JavaScript, and the brand new asm.js, Unreal 3 for the web can, according to Mozilla, “rival native performance.”

While the Unreal 3 port is incredibly cool, there are still some stumbling blocks on the path to the web as a top-tier gaming platform, not the least of which is that load times for most games would be massive. Think hours, not minutes, to stream the complex graphics from a server to your mobile device — probably not something anyone particularly wants to sit through.

In other words, while Mozilla and Epic have made some impressive progress bringing Unreal 3 to JavaScript, it’s still going to be a while before you’re playing your favorite console games on the web.

However, Mozilla says it is “working with premium game publishers such as Disney, EA and ZeptoLab who are using the same technology to bring performance optimizations to their top-rated games.” The company is also hoping other browsers will make it possible to run the Unreal engine in their own JavaScript engines. The Chromium project is already discussing just how to do it.

For more on the project and to catch a glimpse of Unreal 3 running in the browser, check out the video below.

Google has graduated three popular Gmail Labs tools to proper Gmail features: reply to all, quote selected text and, the most useful of the bunch, the “Send and Archive” button.

Unlike some new features for Google Apps, these are available right now in Gmail, though all three remain off by default.

To enable the popular “Send and Archive,” which turns the Send button into a dual-function button that sends your reply and then archives the conversation, head to settings and look for the new “Show ‘Send & Archive’ button in reply” option. While you’re in Gmail’s settings you can also change the default reply mode to reply all, though frankly that seems like asking for trouble.

The quote selected text feature is not a setting, it’s just the new behavior for replying to messages. Select a block of text in an e-mail, click reply and only the selected text will be included in your reply.

Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey

Google has renamed its Google Docs applications and made them available as apps in the Chrome Web Store.

To make things a bit clearer — and perhaps to differentiate them from other office suites — the apps formerly known as Google Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations are now called simply Docs, Sheets, and Slides and can be installed as shortcuts in Chrome.

If you’d like to install them, head over to the Chrome Web Store and grab the new Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps. Once they’re installed you’ll see the icon links every time you open a new tab in Chrome.

The change helps bring together the Chrome browser and Chrome OS, making both just another way to connect to Google Drive, the company’s cloud storage service that forms the basis of Google’s take on cloud computing.

Preview your website in Responsivator. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey

Showing off responsive designs to clients can be tricky. Do you arrive with a bag full of devices in tow? Or open dozens of browser tabs running emulators? Resize a browser window and hope that the stuttering, @media-induced reflows don’t make clients question your sanity?

How about using just one browser tab that gives a quick preview of what a site looks like at any screen size you’d like?

That’s exactly what Responsivator does. Plug in a URL and Responsivator will load it up in a series of iframes set to whichever screen dimensions you specify. The default sizes cover common devices like the iPhone, iPad, Nexus 7 and desktop, though it’s easy to add anything you’d like to the list.

Responsivator is the work of developer John Polacek from Draftfcb, which also made the BigVideo jQuery plugin we featured previously. Responsivator builds on some similar, earlier efforts like Matt Kersley’s responsive web design testing tool and Benjamin Keen’s responsive design bookmarklet, but has some nice added features, like the ability to navigate your site within the various iframes.

Like Responsivator, but want to run your own custom instance? No problem, Responsivator is an open source project available on GitHub; just grab the code and fire up your server.

Size matters: Flickr's lightbox view now offers much larger images.

It’s been nearly two years since Flickr last redesigned its photo pages to display larger images. Since then screen resolutions have only improved, and when it comes to viewing photos you don’t have to be a pro photographer to know that bigger is better.

To make your uploaded images look better — especially when you’re browsing in fullscreen mode — Flickr is introducing two new photo sizes, 2048 and 1600 pixels.

Right now you’ll only see the new larger images when you enter Flickr’s “lightbox” view with its darker, photo-friendly interface (just click an image to enter lightbox view). At the moment the regular photo pages remain unchanged. However, the Flickr blog reports that the larger images will soon be available through Flickr’s API and “a few other places over the next couple of weeks.” While the new image sizes are probably too large for the default photo pages, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Flickr refresh the photo page layout with larger images in the near future.

The larger of the two new photo sizes also seems like a future-friendly choice since it works well with very high-res screens like what you’ll find on Apple’s latest iPad. Although Flickr does not appear to be doing so just yet, serving the larger images to the iPad would make for sharper photos on the iPad’s high-resolution screen. [Update: The Flickr team tells Webmonkey that it "just enabled hi-res photo sharing to the new iPad this morning."]

Naturally, to take advantage of the new larger image sizes Flickr is now creating, you’ll need to be uploading photos at least that large. But given that most phone cameras produce images in that pixel range these days, there’s a good chance you already are.

Flickr Pro members can control how large their images are displayed; just head to the new image size settings page. By default Flickr sets this to “best display size,” though if you want to stop people from downloading high-res copies of your images you can limit the display size to 1024 pixels. The new image size setting doesn’t affect who can download your original files, just those created by Flickr. But since the sizes Flickr creates are larger than what most original images would have been back when Flickr first launched, the new setting makes sense.

One thing to note with the new image sizes: they only apply to photos uploaded since Mar. 1, 2012; older images won’t be resized. The other thing to know is that if you upload something with a long edge of less than 2048 pixels, Flickr won’t upsize it so there’s no need to worry about small images being pixelated.

The new image sizes may not win over fans of filter-happy, low-res image sharing websites, but for Flickr aficionados it offers a compelling reason to stick around.

Editing your Flickr photos in Aviary. Image: Aviary

Flickr is swapping out its existing Flash-based photo editor for a new HTML-based app that will work on any device.

Aviary, as the new editor is known, will start appearing as an editing option for your photos today, though some users may have to wait since Yahoo is staggering the rollout over the next few weeks.

Part of the change is out of necessity. Flickr’s previous photo editor was Picnik, which was purchased by Google in 2010. Google has since announced it will shut down the service Apr. 19 and roll its features into Google+.

To use Aviary to edit your Flickr photos, just head to the photo page, click the Actions tab and select the new “Edit photo in Aviary” option. That will open up the image in the Aviary window as an overlay. From there you can crop, rotate, add effects, adjust brightness and contrast and other editing basics.

Obviously Aviary is not aimed at people who takes their photo editing seriously, but for the casual user who just wants to crop an upload or add some punchier contrast, it works well. The learning curve is almost nil and it more than handles the 80 percent use case for casual Flickr users.

In that sense Aviary is a step up from Picnik, which was more of a Photoshop-inspired editor than an amateur-friendly option. However it’s surprising to see Flickr continue to ignore the Instagram-inspired trend of one-click image effects, which are not part of Aviary’s arsenal. Some may decry Instagram’s retro-inspired results, but there’s no denying the simplicity and popularity of its filters.

While Flickr obviously had to replace Picnik since Google is shutting the service down, Aviary offers another huge advantage over Picnik — it doesn’t use Flash. Dropping the Flash requirement means that Flickr users can now edit their photos on iOS devices and upcoming Windows Metro tablets, neither of which run the Flash plugin.