Category: Internet Stuff

Internet updates, reviews and technology

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Securing Ajax and Web Services

It is undeniable that Web services and AJAX-ified interfaces are the trend now. Application that utilizes internet to retrieve data (such as mobile application or other thin client) uses web services alongside with its data format. AJAX-ified interface and website gives a modern and edgy look can make websites more attractive and can create great impression to the users.

However the issue of the web application security would still remain the same, if not more challenging, since there are so many ways to exploit the vulnerability of websites that utilizes Web Services and AJAX transfers on the background.

Therefore, it is imperative to use the right technique in order to evaluate the security of these services before deploying them out in the open.

For that matter, now I’m currently reading Ajax Security (Hoffman,B. & Sullivan, B.) and Securing Ajax applications (Wells, C.) which in my opinion is a pretty good start for somebody like me to understand common methods for securing web services and websites which uses AJAX heavily.

Hopefully the situation would improved as there are a lot of campaigns around to raise the state of awareness of web application security.

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lowendbox.com: A place to look for cheap-ish VPS and Dedicated Server – Less than USD7 / month!

lowendbox.com is a website that lists bare minimum VPS or Dedicated Server offerings with the lowest price.

For VPS, the category is divided by the virtualization technology and the operating system, as well as the geographical location of the data centers.

low end box VPS

Additionally lowendbox.com provides discussion forum for optimizing web server and databases for the bare minimum servers!

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Convert Audio files online with OggConvert.com!

OggConvert.com enables users to convert audio files to and from popular audio formats (MP3, OGG Vorbis, Flac, WMA, M4A, Wav) on-the-fly. The website feature a simple interface to accept input file and to provide feedback once the file has been converted.

Ogg Convert Logo

Best of all, it does not require registration!

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Bitcoin spending and transaction can be traceable

It seems that Bitcoin is only designed to eliminate the need for centralized issuer and central authority, but not anonymity, which is a common misconception among internet users as according to one of its developers (Jeff Garzik), transaction is recorded in public log and although the identity of the parties involved can’t be directly identified, the transaction can be easily traced and linked to other accounts through data mining and statistical analysis.

So it is harder to stay anonymous in transactions that involve large currency value.

bitcoinBitcoin is not anonymous

  • The Battle Is On – Silk Road vs Government, and Bitcoin Anonymity
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    How to optimize MySQL tables automatically using cron

    Busy websites which has a lot of insert/delete transactions may introduce fragmentation in MySQL tables. Fortunately, users and optimize mysql tables with ‘OPTIMIZE TABLE’ command, but how to execute it automatically?

    Here’s how:
    The mysql-client package in Ubuntu installation comes with a tool called mysqlcheck which is handy for optimizing table in mysql. This command can be executed from bash and can be executed using cron.

    to do that, just run this command.

    [bash]
    cron -e

    #in the crontab file– add this line
    59 23 * * * /usr/bin/mysqlcheck -o -v -u <mysql username> -h localhost <database_name> -p <password>
    [/bash]

    This will tell cron to execute mysqlcheck and optimize mysql table of the specified database exactly on 11:59pm, every day. You can change the setting to suit your need.

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    Rant: About Starting up an E-commerce Site….

    A bit of advice when starting up an e-commerce (especially storefront) site, please use proper e-commerce software for the job. Do not ‘force’ a general-purpose (CMS) to be an e-commerce site via plugins (or *cough* *cough* ‘component’), it’s gonna be a pain-in-the-ass to secure ’em.

    So do yourself (and the sysadmin guys) a favor, use a proper e-commerce software platform or just turn to blogger.com for selling your stuffs…