February 2008

26 February 2008

Google don't like goolag scanner

Cult of the Dead Cow is still alive; The group behind the now famous Back Orifice virus released a vulnerability scanner called Goolag Scanner - giving anyone who can download and install a program one-click access to scan sites for vulnerabilities via google !

Doing a search on google for goolag scanner shows lot of goolag news - but no goolag site until around spot #28 as today (your indvidual placement for goolag searchresults may vary due to personalized searchresults).

I guess Google have applied a huge negative factor to their site, or the explanation might simply be there's too little goolag on goolag.org .
I did though note a website with IP numbers instead of the text goolag.org appear as hit #3.

Yahoo have no problems finder the Goolag Scanner!, Yahoo returns goolag.org as #1
It should only be a matter of time before someone make a Yahoo version of Goolag scanner also, value added with yahoo new open search approach were you can get access to yahoo search results directly via an API.

I guess you can look at it positive as it gives easy access for everyone to check their website security - but as with Back Orifice we will probably see a lot of script kiddies trying this software on other sites as well ....

Another reason to step up on your security, you can download Goolag scanner here!

If you like this article you might want to read Pwdhash - one password to rule them all, giving you advice on how to have a unique password for every site you use with a login - without having to remember them all

23 February 2008

Nerdy comics

Nerdy comics with optional learning

I sometimes have to click a friend to fully get the points, aka wikipedia, this one below introduced me to karnaugh maps and race hazards.
Eliminating potential race harzards were an requirement in my latest product requirement specification.

Another good twist on a classical riddle

19 February 2008

wisdom-of-crowds and Rock-Paper-Scissors

Damn, hate loosing - but this little exhibition in my own statical predictability irritates me

Been playing Rock-Paper-Scissors for 5 min and lost significantly - even when trying to counter my own thinking pattern ....

Slightly sidetracked after checking out superchrunchers

17 February 2008

.htaccess tools and 301 redirects - revisited

I've had to explore htaccess quite a bit since my original post about 301 redirect with htaccess - so below all you need to get started with .htaccess tools and 301 redirect.

Apache web servers use a special access control file named .htaccess, which uses a combination of directives to allow or disallow access to files or folders on the server. The normal location for your .htaccess file is in the web root directory.

The .htaccess file can also be used for creating custom redirect rules for files, folders and entire websites that have been moved or deleted, e.g. 301 redirect directives, prevent image hot-linking (direct links from other sites) and more

301 redirect for a single page


<HEAD>
   <META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0;URL=http://edgecrafting.blogspot.com/newpage.htm">
<TITLE>Page has moved</TITLE>
</HEAD>

You only need these 3 .htaccess links

Apache htaccess tutorial
Ultimate default skeleton .htaccess file
Clockwatchers htaccess Tools
Excellent site with generators to create .htaccess files for hotlink protection, password protection, 301 redirects, custom error pages etc.

If your websites intended users are limited to a specific geographic region you might want to use htaccess block list to allow or disallow certain ip-adresses based on geo-ip location.

htaccess geo-ip and blocklist providers

MaxMind GeoIP
IP info for countries
Free selected blocklist maintained by wizcrafts.net
Nigerian Blocklist, Chinese Blocklist, or Russia and Exploited Server Blocklist

Getting things done coming to Gmail and Gcalendar

According to this post on ZDnet by Garett Rogers a task-list-thingy is reported in the wild ...
Hope they been spying on GTDinbox which I used before Gmail upgraded the code

A tasklist might not cover GTD support in Gmail completely - but less will do

Now, I'm glad I only spend time on updating scripts for floating
signature in Gmail V2 and better Gmails icons and not making a switch to RememberTheMilk for GTD ..... I'll wait and see how much tasklist in Gmail will cover.

As for alternative while waiting for google tasklist basecamp works pretty well for real projects.

16 February 2008

Feng Shui for Gmail (better icons for Gmail)

Updating my greasemonkeyscripts I stumbled over Gmail v2 Tango 0.1

This little script updates Gmail standard Icons with icons from the Tango desktop project - which I coincidently found recently looking for real tango sites (the dance editions !)

Anyway, I like this

much more than this

Though room for improvement in the tango iconset; The textcolor icon could be better - the visual hints not too obvious, I think the swatch style type works better as lot of people will be familiar with the visual from picking a colour from a colorpicker.

The link icon also a bit unclear, the globe fills visually so you need to zoom your attention to the upper left part, and then you think - aha links ....

After reflection; a real google iconset - no fancy bell and whistles, but they get the jobs done - easy and simple with a high degree of recognition factors included.
Still, the tango set gives Gmail a more web 2.0 look and feel.

If you liked this article you might want to check out

other articles about Gmail

Floating signature in Gmail V2

Note; back on blogger (been busy with another site)

Google updated the gmail code some time ago and unfortunately that meant a lot of scripts broke, including my favorite GTD-plugin GTDinbox with no upgrade to version 2 of Gmail code yet. (Update: GTDinbox available in Beta for version2 of Gmail)

I did find a replacement for the floating-sig script which moved the Gmail signature from bottom of mail to below your answer - Gmail HTML signatures, works event better than the old floating signature script I used.

Works for Compose Mail, Reply, and Forward
Support for single or multiple email addresses
Create a different signature for each email address you use in your gmail account
Signature automatically inserted into message above quoted text
Signature is automatically replaced when you change the address you are sending from

After been inspired by this blogentry about slick looking signature I'm in sig-heaven with a new fancy floating signature in version 2 of Gmail, soon.

If you liked this article you might want to check out

other articles about Gmail

EdgeCrafting - giving you an Edge !