This is part two in a list of articles in which I'm trying to detail the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities. (see intro)What is Cross Site Scripting? Cross Site Scripting or XSS is an attack on a website in which an attacker sends text based attack scripts which are executed within the browser. Apparently about 80% of all security vulnerabilities were as of the result of XSS. link This means that they are a special form of a code injection atta...
Last month I got an horrendous bill for my Internet usage even though I use it very sparingly when connected via mobile. So, I decided that it was time to get a decent connection while on the road. Looking around, there's a fantastic special from Cell C in South Africa. It works out to be 5c/ MB. which is much cheaper than any of the current offerings. There are currently 2 options - the 7.2 and Mbps and 21.6 Mbps. I went for the 21 Mbps...
Once again for the thousandth time I've heard someone say "Linux is hard... bash, cron, scripts, emacs, python. bla...bla...bla ...". No matter how much I try, I can't seem to get people to believe me that Ubuntu Linux is easier to use than other OS's. In the recent Ubuntu releases, they've worked perfectly on my hardware - takes 10 minutes in install now and drivers are a non-issue. You don't have to install anything - it just works. 10 minutes and you're done....
I took the plunge... After working solely on Ubuntu for over a year, I decided to install the latest Kubuntu on my main laptop. I've never really worked with KDE much apart from trying it out briefly here and there but never ended up sticking with it as it was always installed on a secondary machine. So, why did I decide to swap? I've have had a few difficulties with KDE before and it seemed a little buggy, but I've become pretty comfortable with Linux, so I was confident that I can sort out anything thrown at me. Maybe...
The one complaint that I've often heard about moving to another OS from Windows, is "If my games worked, I may change to xyz".If games are one of the big barriers to change, then I wonder what the effect of many gamers moving to consoles will have on the PC OS market share. And with the netbooks/ iPads and Google Chrome OS, which can't really run the hardcore games, maybe even more users will be moving to consoles.This should surely have some sort of negative effect on the PC OS's that are "locking" users in based on games availability....
Important information on ASP.Net Forms Authentication:http://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2010/09/14/aspnet-security-hack.aspxThis basically allows a user to determine the Machine Key used to encrypt the cookie on any site. This is apparently 100% reliable and can be used for any site within 30 - 50 minutes. This would allow a user to create spoofed authentication cookies to assign administrator privileges. The solution? Use one of the other Encryption mechanisms eg. Triple DES....
Just an interesting observation:Currently there are "normal" phones that can perform about 8 MFLOPS (Million Floating Point Operations per Second)http://briefmobile.com/tag/cpuTo put this into perspective, Up till the time of the first moon landing in 1969, the fastest supercomputer in the world could run at 3 MFLOPS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SupercomputerSo, you probably have more power in your pocket than was used in launching Apollo 11...
The end is nigh! Just kidding... Windows 7 is to be released shortly and apparently it'll be the best release ever - only time will tell whether this release will "save" Windows mobile or whether Linux based phones take over the majority of the market as predicted. Either way - it'll probably be a bit of a shake-up in the mobile market. "Today is the day that the Windows Phone team has been driving towards, and we’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing...
Awesome - Hopefully it'll be launched in other part of the world outside the United States. ...
Google has recently added a function to Gmail to allow a user to make calls to "normal" telephones right from Gmail. All you have to do is click the phone button in the chat window, select your country, enter the telephone number and click "Call". This allows you to call internationally at very reduced rates and apparently it's free to the United States. It seems that each user has a token $0.10 credit by default to give it a try. so... why not? I've tried to call my cellphone and... well, it wor...
YAY! Eventually Google has added video call support for Linux. This allows a user with a web cam to initiate a video call with another user from within their browser. This feature has been around for a while in the Windows though, but can finally be installed from within the browser by clicking on a button in the chat window. So far, apparently, only Ubuntu/Debian based systems are supported with RPM's to follow....
Cloud computing in the extreme - Is this really the "future"? I'm doubting it a bit in spite of this being the big buzz word in IT at the moment. I've come accross eyeOS (http://eyeos.org/) and the excellent OOS (http://oos.cc), which is a complete "OS" running in the could. In the eyeOS case, you can run it in your cloud. WHAT? Basically, it's a complete operating system which runs on a server somewhere on the Internet, or it can be deployed on servers within a company's network and is accessed via a standard web browser....
Hmmmm.... Gave Gnome Shell a try recently to try get a peak at what the new upcoming Gnome 3 may look like.Apparently Gnome shell won't be compatible with Compiz. I.E. you can't run both at the same time - So it's a question of which one? I've used it for a while now and not sure i like it... It's better than the "standard" interface (minus compiz), but all in all, I'd rather use Compiz. Not considering any technical reasons such as speed,...
According to ABI research, Linux will be the dominating operating system on Mobile devices by 2015:"The number of recent Linux-oriented initiatives in the mobile industry attests to the fact that Linux will be a key technology in the next-generation of netbooks, media tablets, and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Led by both Google’s Chrome OS and Google’s Android, the growth of Linux-enabled mobile devices will outstrip the growth of total mobile devices, and will comprise 62% of the operating systems shipping in all mobile...
Ok, so I said that I was going to give the latest Ubuntu a go and that I did a while ago. Coming from a MS Windows point of view, I've always been accustomed to the next version being a big "upgrade" on the previous version. (Ok, this is a very controversial view seeing that it's not always true.) But, what I mean is that there were always pretty big changes. When it comes to Ubuntu, 6 months doesn't give a huge amount of time to introduce...
I heard about the Cooliris plugin for Firefox browser which allows you to "fly" through either online or local photos in 3D. It's easiest said in a video, so check it out below. On my first attemp to install it, it looked like it wasn't supported on Linux. After a little looking around, I realised that it was just the latest version which wasn't supported, which is what the Firefox "Add-ons" wizard finds. (Windows works via...
Well... It's almost here - Ubuntu 10.04 aka Lucid Lynx. Tomorrow is the final launch and at a quick glance, it seems that they've changed more than I thought they would. Firstly, there's no more brown theme... it's now purple by default... Hmmmmm... not a fan of purple but we'll see what the community says.But, forget the theme - that can easily be changed. By far the most important things happen under the skin. There's some interesting...
Found a very cool Windows 8 mock-up done in Flash called the "Copenhagen Concept". Hopefully MS can incorporate some of these ideas into the next Windows 8. ...
I was discussing, OK, maybe arguing, with my Windows/MS centric colleague the merits of Ubuntu v.s. Windows the other day. I know... it's an age old debate, but fun nonetheless. He made the statement that Windows is easy to use and that's what users want, they don't want to struggle with Linux. And I don't disagree with him, at least on the point that an OS must be easy to use, but where I don't, is that Ubuntu isn't user friendly. (I won't...
I'm finally beginning to describe myself as being OS agnostic. Some of my colleagues may scoff at that listening to the way I've gone on about Windows vs. Linux, but I really don't "hate" Windows or Microsoft. I've used their products for many years and admit that they have some without an equally good (or better) alternative. I just choose to use Ubuntu instead in most instances.Ok, so now that that has been established, I believe that...
OK... Great. You I've watched a million YouTube videos on how great Ubuntu (or rather Gnome) can look with a million funky effects. But I was always left wondering how they did it. Sometimes you'd read through the comment section on the site and somebody would mention what was used. So, this time around I'm going to explain in as much detail as I can from a new users perspective on how to get all those funky effects. I know not everyone...
Where is Google going?Google started off as a search engine as everyone knows. Over the years, it has branched out into many different avenues including cell phones, advertising, hosting, email etc. If I think of the information that Google has of me... My name, surname, address, telephone number, all my emails, my source code etc, they have a lot of power. Why provide services and products like App Engine, Gmail, Voice, Android, Chrome,...
I discovered last year sometime that Google started support of Java on Google App Engine (GAE). Very excited about this news, I immediately signed up, downloaded the plug-in for Eclipse and started porting my web application that I was busy with to the GAE platform. I had previously started building a web application for a group I run which I was going to be hosted at home. The application was written based on JSP's, servlets and a MySQL...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a great platform which has numerous powerful features, but there seem to be a few shortcomings as well. At first glance it looks very much like a relational database with a powerful form engine. With this in mind, it is often used as a data store in the same way as a relational database would be. One limitation is that transactions are not supported within CRM 4.0 through the Web Service.This has serious implications...
I've realised over the past while that while "freedom" is Linux's biggest advantage, yet it's also it's biggest downside. Everybody hit's an issue at some point (regardless of OS) where we have to turn to the Oracle that is Google to solve. And this is where standardisation comes in very handy. At least when you're running Windows or Mac, there are a few million people out there with pretty much the same hardware/software as you who may...
When I logged into Gmail today, I was greeted by some weird "Welcome to Buzz" screen. Having no clue what it was (and it coming from Google, who's stuff I generally like), I was a little intrigued. Once clicking through the "I agree" nonsense, trying to get to see what it was about, my usual Gmail screen finally loaded. This time, just below my inbox was a link to "Buzz".So, what is it all about? well, basically, it integrates some of Google's...
Wow, only one about percent! That's the total linux market share according to browser stats. It all depends on which stats you refer to, but I'm not going to argue about a fraction of a percent. I've totally moved over to Linux on all my machines - both my laptops and my desktops are running some version of Ubuntu. What really astounds me is that Linux, but more specifically Ubuntu, doesn't have a larger market share. It's free and except...
