Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Another Step
Hello to all!, Whew its been a long time since i’ve post an article, a lot of things has happened, im now on the process of establishing a new Software and Web Development Company, its named, philcoders, and ill be bringing this blog to a new domain at thepointofwork.com. My wife is giving birth to our first baby on January 2009, its been a very good year so far. I’m quite busy now completing my projects and bring philcoders.com and thepointofwork.com online, i can finally have a proper portfolio, that has been my problem since my first post to this blog, lol.
Lesson’s Learned: Regular Updating
I’ve created this blog to share the things i found important, for this post what i want to share is the importance of regularly updating or applying patches to your open source project installations, for example if you are using open-source CMS engines. Most of us who write code, or who developed web sites must have use at least one open source project. Lately, CMS engines, a web application which allow people to quickly create websites has become popular. Two of the most successful CMS applications are Joomla! and Drupal. Unfortunately, the popularity of this two CMS application has attracted some hackers to scrutinize its source code, this lead to the discovery of improperly coded modules, which allow sql injection attacks. Some attacks on Joomla! for example allows an attacker to reset the sites administrative password. I tried the security hole in some of my live site and its true. We don’t have go far for other example’s, Joomla!’s official website has been defaced, a few hours after changing their website’s template. You can read it here. Their mistake according to them:
“This morning, Joomla.org was defaced a few hours after releasing our new design. This is not a new security issue, but only poor system administration practices on our part. When we updated our Web sites with the Joomla 1.5.6 security fix released yesterday, we simply forgot to update one of our small, non-public development sites.“
New patches and updates are regulary released for active open-source projects, that’s also a very important reason when evaluating an open-source project, it must have a very active community so that things which need fixing gets fixed fast. So if you are using this type of application, you better update regularly, a lot of people are getting hacked these days, just look at the official forums of some of the most popular CMS apps. I was browsing the demo section of a template provider’s site last week and their site is being defaced at the very same moment, their site is ok now, so that’s good. Well, lessons learned, always update and apply patches to your system as soon as they become available, always keep a backup though, cause it may break your site, especially if you have third-party components installed, and be responsible, if you have clients who has old installations, tell them to update. You can download Joomla!’s newest update here, its 1.5.6 at the moment and is very critical update, for those who uses 1.5.5 and below.
Well, thats all for now, see you again soon.
PS. i have a good idea for a new section of my site because of this post. I’ll post it soon!
-Arthur Abogadil
Lead Software Developer, philcoders
arthur_abogadil @ philcoders.com
Tel. #: +63 042 795 0238
Mobile #: +63 929 976 3204
Office Address:
#34 Cirila cor Amethyst St
RGR Subd
Lucena City 4301
Philippines
Official Webite: http://www.thepointofwork.com
Blog and Portfolio Site: http://www.philcoders.com
Biggest Announcements for IT In January 2008
This January, Microsoft, Sun and Apple has the biggest news for anyone related in anyway to IT. I think the biggest is Bill Gates retirement, i really don’t think he got tired, anyways here’s the Bill Gate’s Retirement Video shown at CES 2008.
You can read the official transcript of his supposed to be last keynote at CES 2008 here.
The next biggest thing is Sun’s announcement of its acquisition of mysql, whoaaa! Nice move! You can read more about it here. Do note that Google’s Database is running on a modified mysql databse engine, just one of the many popular website running on this database identified as the most popular open source database.
Third, of course is Apple’s announcement of Macbook Air, yes this is their third biggest product to be announced after iPod and iPhone, its the world’s thinnest laptop according to them. Just be careful you don’t sit on it, or place it in a mailing envelope and send it someplace else! Read all about it @ the Macbook Air’s Official Site. Nice use of the script.aculo.us Javascript library. 
Well i’m rethinking my plan of buying Apple’s Macbook Pro now, the laptop PC World says is the fatest Windows Vista Laptop they’ve tested, , maybe Bill Gates will get out of retirement after reading that headline, just like what Solid Snake always do, who would have think of that, the fastest Vista Notebook is a Mac.
Let’s see what will happen on the industry in the next months. Anyways, farewell Bill, you really have done a great contribution on IT.
Coding and Creativity Contests
This is the second day of this blog, and i have put small improvements here and there, i hope to fix everything soon. Anyways, for now i would like to share two of the best sites i know (if you know others, please inform me) that programmers and designers/creative people can use to see how they rank against the best on the world, and earn cash while doing it.
Topcoder
This site contains cash prized contests on algorithm, software design and development, components, etc. Corporations posts projects/coding problems and coders worldwide submit their solutions. Corporations got the chance to have their problems solved by the best minds, and coders get the cash. The current coder on the top of the leader board is a programmer (handle:Petr) from Russia, you can view his profile here. There’s even a high school coding competition. So what are you waiting for, programmers commonly have some feeling inside them telling them that they are the best, you can prove yourselves @ the TOP Coder Website
BootB
This site is still in beta, submissions for the HIGH Prized BRIEFS posted by BIG Companies (Disney, Lego, and others) begins January 1 next year. The goal is to get to best creative ideas and reward the mind behind it with huge amount of cash, sometimes even amounting to $ 100,000.00. You can learn all about it here —> BootB
Well that’s all for now, but of course, before you do anything, you should always know the pointofyourwork, to make your efforts at least have value.
-Arthur Abogadil
