vsbabu.org : www http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/categories/www/ Gluing passing thoughts to foregone conclusions en-us vsbabu@gmail.com Copyright 2010 2009-11-26T18:17:45+05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Do not use GET for form processing! http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2009/11/26/do_not_use_get_for_form_processing.html DON'T. Double check your form tag for explicit method="POST" 1067@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ I thought everyone knew this. But recently I went to a site -- that is written by really smart Unix guys -- and was shocked to find that every single form is posted via "GET". Not "POST". This includes login form, billing information form (yes, the one with your credit card#) etc. It is absolutely insecure. Yes, the server is under HTTPS, but that is of no use here.

Why is it insecure? When you do a GET all the parameters are in the URL, in plain text. And the URL gets stamped in your browser history, web server access logs (we may be able to assume that the server is reasonably secure) and more scarily, in the logs of any proxy servers that are in the route.

]]> www 2009-11-26T18:17:45+05:00 Google Visualizations quick start http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2009/10/26/google_visualizations_quick_start.html Pretty nice article at Jeez.eu: Google Visualizations From A To Z. Explains how to use Google's json apis, get... 1062@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Pretty nice article at Jeez.eu: Google Visualizations From A To Z. Explains how to use Google's json apis, get data from spreadsheets etc. With HTML5's client database, this should open up thoughts about some interesting small dashboard applications for the iPhone.

]]> www 2009-10-26T10:38:27+05:00 SCM backed blogging - part II http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2009/09/22/scm_backed_blogging_part_ii.html NanoC! 1060@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ H3rald.com has a very comprehensive writeup about what I blogged earlier - SCM backed blogging. Lot more config to do, but you got lot more power. Definitely stuff I want to look into for this site.

]]> www 2009-09-22T20:20:14+05:00 SCM backed Blogging http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2009/08/31/scm_backed_blogging.html Version controlled based static site generators 1051@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Around 2000, I had written a script to quickly generate a changelog that looks like a blog from a version control system. Recently, I was searching around for that and found that people have taken this concept and made Ikiwiki and Webber. Very slick and nice. Ikiwiki seems more mature, but I chose Webber - only because it is written using Python. It was pretty easy to set this up in Cygwin. I am seriously considering using this to keep a journal for my daily stuff. I don't really need people to comment/rate my entries there and a good version control tool (been using Git for last 3 months after using Bazaar for 3 months before that) should satisfy my needs for a database. Further, I am thinking of automated scripts to pull down information from defect tracking tool, system monitors etc. to have an all encompassing view to the past system.

]]> www 2009-08-31T13:51:03+05:00 Got linked in! http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2007/06/09/got_linked_in.html Recently I joined LinkedIn via an invitation. I am already in Orkut. But how useful are these on an ongoing basis? 1023@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Two days back I got an invite from a colleague to join LinkedIn. I promptly went ahead and joined. I was thrilled to see the site listing out my colleagues and ex-colleagues based on my profile. So, I too sent out invites to those whom I know and got several connections back.

However, I am not at all sure if this is useful after some time.

]]> www 2007-06-09T07:50:16+05:00 What is your excuse now? http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2005/09/21/what_is_your_excuse_now.html Switch! 1016@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ The best browser is now free of charge and free of advertisements. Go download it from Opera.com. If you are interested, read the reasons on making it free.

In 2003, I liked Opera so much that I actually paid and bought licenses for Windows and Linux.

]]> www 2005-09-21T20:42:12+05:00 Which is the best DN site? http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2005/09/10/which_is_the_best_dn_site.html Developer Network sites are used a lot by programmers. Here is what I found most usable. 1015@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ There are several sites I frequent (at varying frequency) these days. Most of them have similar functionality. They give you access to articles, discussions, downloads, search, polls etc. Since technology information explodes very quickly, information architecture of these sites better be well thought out so that programmers' brains are not taxed any more than required!

Here's my rating on various sites' home pages.

]]> www 2005-09-10T19:01:19+05:00 Citibank defines advanced browsers http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2005/08/03/citibank_defines_advanced_browsers.html This message, in 2005, is surely a poor excuse for not knowing how to design web sites. 1013@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ I went to do on-line banking at CitiBank India. I am using Opera 8.02 and here's the message that greeted me.

Your browser must be upgraded!
We are sorry, but in order to provide our customers with the most technologically advanced internet security features,we require Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0+ or Netscape Communicator 4.7+.
Our system has detected that your browser does not match this standard. Here are links to download the upgrade you need. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 download page Netscape Navigator 4.7 download page
Thank you!

At least change the versions to IE 6 and NS 7!

]]> www 2005-08-03T19:01:10+05:00 Freeware for HTML editing on Windows http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2005/06/06/freeware_for_html_editing_on_windows.html I like these 3 tools; so bookmarking those. 1004@http://vsbabu.org/mt/
  • Xenu link checker
  • NVU web editor.
  • BkRep search and replace files.
    • ]]>     www 2005-06-06T16:01:58+05:00     TiddlyWiki and GTD http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2005/05/17/tiddlywiki_and_gtd.html I just had to write about these. I used it for 4 hours and I was hooked. 1002@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ If you like the Wiki way of taking notes (I do) and also like to have a Wiki you wanted to carry around without the need to install any software, make sure you check these out:

    ]]>     www 2005-05-17T17:08:08+05:00     Quick Links http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2003/11/21/quick_links.html Last week's bookmarks about useful Javascript and CSS tricks. 939@http://vsbabu.org/mt/
  • Web Page Analyzer
  • Make HTML tables sortable
  • ActiveUI very nice cross browser spreadsheet component.
  • Embedding images in HTML without having a separate image file.
  • Magazine Styles
  • CSS on lists ]]> www 2003-11-21T07:09:00+05:00 Quick Links http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2003/10/24/quick_links.html Unwanted technologies, great writings and a popular writer who seems to be quite confusing. 928@http://vsbabu.org/mt/
  • 10 technologies that deserve to die - nuclear weapons to DVDs. Excellent article.
  • Humerous articles by Ramesh Mahadevan.
  • The Dammed - a great Wide Angle presentation about Narmada Bachao Andolan. They have the video and transcript of an interview by Mishal Husain of Arundhati Roy. I watched it yesterday. The so utterly confused look on Mishal's face after listening to Ms. Roy was priceless.
    • ]]>     www 2003-10-24T11:00:33+05:00     Quick Links http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2003/10/14/quick_links.html J2EE development setup, OpenEJB, web services and XMLFace. 917@http://vsbabu.org/mt/
  • Build your ideal J2EE development environment - using JDeveloper, but you can ignore JDeveloper if you don't like it.
  • OpenEJB - How did I miss this before? It is the easiest way to try out EJBs. Much more easier than figuring out JBoss or Jonas. I think Oracle's OC4J containers are also very easy to use.
  • Secure, Reliable, Transacted Web Services: Architecture and Composition . Co-produced by Microsoft and IBM. Definitely worth a dead tree - I mean, print it and keep it instead of just bookmarking the link.
  • XML Face Beta. Perfect! Create java based GUI applications for Swing and/or SWT using forms and panels described in XML.
  • My wife's site gets a facelift. Shameless plug - I like her designs and colour-sense quite a bit.
    • ]]>     www 2003-10-14T18:39:58+05:00     Quick links http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2003/09/27/quick_links.html C#, diamond wiki, searching in Perl and Linux e-mail server setup. 905@http://vsbabu.org/mt/
  • C# Builder vs. Visual Studio.NET.
  • What is new in C# 2?.
  • Visual Studio.NET on a central developer server.
  • Diamond Wiki - very nice Python code to make a wiki with new features.
  • Searching Perl data with reverse indexing.
  • Building an Advanced Mail Server.
    • ]]>     www 2003-09-27T11:10:45+05:00     Java is an SUV http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2003/09/21/java_is_an_suv.html Couldn't have said it any better than Philip Greenspun. 896@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Java is the SUV of programming tools: A project done in Java will cost 5 times as much, take twice as long, and be harder to maintain than a project done in a scripting language such as PHP or Perl. People who are serious about getting the job done on time and under budget will use tools such as Visual Basic (controlled all the machines that decoded the human genome). But the programmers and managers using Java will feel good about themselves because they are using a tool that, in theory, has a lot of power for handling problems of tremendous complexity.

    ]]>     java 2003-09-21T08:50:44+05:00