Navioo.com

America's Best- and Worst-Paying Jobs

2009-05-11T06:22:00.001-07:00

It's still better to be a doctor than a dicer. Food preparation and serving remains the nation's lowest-paid line of work, while the medical field still offers the nine best-paid jobs in the U.S.

read more | digg story

Posting a file to TwitPic using PHP and cUrl - GET POST

2009-05-07T16:59:00.001-07:00

Posting a file to TwitPic using PHP and cUrl.here are two possible ways to do this with php and curl.

read more | digg story

NY Senate website brings Twitter, Facebook to government

2009-05-07T15:18:00.001-07:00

New NY Senate website debuts today complete with numerous web 2.0 components. My only question is: Can web 2.0 tools really return government to the people.

read more | digg story

Facebook Connect Launches Today!

2009-05-07T04:00:00.001-07:00

Today we’re rolling out the long-awaited release of Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect allows Facebook’s 200+ million members to login and start Digging and commenting right away.-Kevin

read more | digg story

Powerful CSS-Techniques For Effective Coding

2009-05-01T03:59:00.001-07:00

In this post we present 50 new CSS-techniques, ideas and ready-to-use solutions for effective coding. You definitely know some of them, but definitely not all of them. Some technique is missing? L

read more | digg story

Pengertian (Definisi) PHP & Mysql

2009-05-01T03:51:00.001-07:00

Pengertian (Definisi) PHP & Mysql

read more | digg story

PHP -Filter Functions

2009-05-01T03:48:00.001-07:00

The following filters currently exist; be sure to read the Filter Constants section for information that describes the behavior of each constant:

read more | digg story

jQuery Carousel - Ajax image slider - AJAX Script

2009-05-01T03:47:00.001-07:00

The items, which can be static HTML content or loaded with AJAX, can be scrolled back and forth (with or without animation). Several examples illustrate the possibilities of jCarousel. To use the jCarousel component, include the jQuery library, the jCarousel source file, the jCarousel core stylesheet file and a jCarousel skin stylesheet file inside

read more | digg story

Facebook First Big Site To Really Embrace OpenID

2009-04-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

Apparently it’s embrace the developer community day at Facebook. In addition to the news that they are making activity stream data available to third party developers, they’ll also be making an announcement around OpenID, we’ve heard. And importantly, the announcement is that they’ll become what’s called a relying party, meaning anyone with an OpenID (Yahoo, Google, AOL, MySpace are all issuers, and Microsoft is in beta) can create and log into a Facebook account using those credentials.

Let me take a step back. OpenID is a distributed single sign on solution that allows people to sign into different services with the same login credentials. There are two ways companies/websites can participate in the OpenID framework - as “issuing parties” or as “relying parties.” Issuing parties make their user accounts OpenID compatible. Relying parties are websites that allow users to sign into their sites with credentials from Issuing parties. Of course, sites can also be both. In fact, if they aren’t both it can be confusing and isn’t a good user experience.

All the big guys are now Issuing Parties, which allow their users logging in all over the Internet with those credentials. But none of them accept IDs from anywhere else, so anyone that uses their services has to create new credentials with them. It’s all gain, no pain. There are two exceptions - AOL Mapquest and Google’s Blogger - but for the most part the big guys are issuers, not relying parties. And that has led us in the past to accuse them of exploiting OpenID for their own benefit without giving back to the community. See our post Is OpenID Being Exploited By The Big Internet Companies?

Yahoo closing Geocities web hosting service

2009-04-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Yahoo will close Geocities, the free web hosting service it paid $4bn for 10 years ago.

“Sorry, new Geocities accounts are no longer available,” read a message on the homepage on Friday.

In 1999, when Yahoo purchased Geocities, it was the third most visited site on the web behind AOL and Yahoo, with 19 million unique visitors in December 1998, according to a Comscore Media Metrix report. Now Geocities is slightly outdated in the current Web 2.0 era, giving users no way to integrate their sites with third-party applications.

The closure is also evidence that the revenue model for hosting free web sites is difficult to sustain, especially in the current economic climate.

Yahoo has encouraged Geocities members to start upgrading to the company’s subscription-based Web Hosting service, although it assured them in a statement that they will still be able to access their sites and Geocities services until “later this year”.

Subscription to the Web Hosting service - which offers a personalised domain name, email, site building tools and premium customer support – costs around $114 (£78) a year for a 12-month contract.

The announcement follows a similar decision by Google to shut down Page Creator in June 2009 and migrate users to Google Sites.

Competing web hosting sites, such as Jimdo, are vying for both Google and Yahoo customers. Jimdooffers both a free service, as well as a professional version called JimdoPro, which costs £60 a year.

“Come to Jimdo! We're hard at work on an easy way for Geocities users to migrate over to Jimdo accounts,” the company said in a statement today. “Yahoo hasn’t said when the last day is so jump ship while you can!”

Yahoo has promised to release more details about the Geocities date of closure and how users can save their site data soon.

25 Excellent Ajax Techniques and Examples

2009-04-24T10:42:00.001-07:00

If you’re interested in expanding your understanding of Ajax techniques and practices, check out these 25 hand-picked Ajax articles and tutorials that outline various methods and concepts involved in the development of Ajax-based applications.

read more | digg story

Rotating 3D Cube in Javascript

2009-04-24T10:41:00.001-07:00

Very cool 3D effect achieved with only using JavaScript.

read more | digg story

Microsoft Profits Drop 32 Percent In March Quarter

2009-04-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

Microsoft just announced earnings for its third fiscal quarter. Revenues were down 6 percent to $13.65 billion, and net income was down a whopping 32 percent to $2.98 billion or $0.33 EPS. Analysts consensus was closer to $14 billion for revenues and $0.39 for non-GAAP EPS, which Microsoft met thanks to its cost-cutting measures. Still, this counts as a miss for Microsoft.

The company is exposed to the weaknesses in the economy in general, and soft demand for PCs and servers in particular. Revenues in its Client business (Windows) was down 15.6 percent to $3.40 billion. It’s servers and tools business proved the the healthiest with a 7 percent increase in revenues to $3.47 billion, marking the first time I believe that servers and tools brought in more revenues than the client business. The online business saw revenues decline 14.5 percent to $721 million, and its loss doubled to $575 million.

Google Continues To Center On Location. Adds It To Its Toolbar.

2009-04-24T03:25:00.000-07:00

Location-based services haven’t yet caught fire, but location itself is increasingly finding its way to web services as a complimentary feature. The latest to use it is the Google Toolbar. If you have it installed, and open Google Maps, it will now auto-center on your location.

That’s a small, but useful feature, but the ramifications of this move are potentially much large. This adds location capabilities to the millions of people who have Google Toolbar installed. You may be thinking that a lot of those users with the latest version of Firefox already had it — but this feature is for Internet Explorer only right now. That, combined with Mozilla’s use of its Geode location plug-in (which again, is built into the latest version of Firefox), puts location on a good percentage of browsers in the world.

And while it doesn’t mention it, that’s important for Google’s own larger purposes. Its recently launched Latitude location-based network is only useful if it can automatically update your location, or make it really easy to do. Up until now, it has been a pain on a computer.

But there are other big things Google could do with location information — such as serve you location-based ads. There are other companies working in that field, but you can bet Google wants to get out in front of them and lead the charge. And with its own toolbar to get your location, it could potentially do that. It also promises the ability to serve up location-based search results with feature.

Google has been been working on location for a little while in the mobile space, but most users are still experiencing the web first and foremost through regular computer browsers. Google’s toolbar pulls location data from both IP addresses and nearby Wi-Fi access points — since most computers don’t have GPS built-in.

Ubuntu 9.04 Released

2009-04-23T07:27:00.000-07:00

"Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, announced today that Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition is free to download from Thursday 23 April. Also announced were the simultaneous releases of Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition and Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (UNR) Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition delivers a range of feature enhancements to improve the user experience. Shorter boot speeds, some as short as 25 seconds, ensure faster access to a full computing environment on most desktop, laptop and netbook models. Enhanced suspend-and-resume features also give users more time between charges along with immediate access after hibernation. Intelligent switching between Wi-Fi and 3G environments has been broadened to support more wireless devices and 3G cards, resulting in a smoother experience for most users."

Windows Mobile Application Development For Firefox Mobile

2009-02-13T05:42:00.001-08:00

Not milestone is available on Firefoxs mobile browser Fennec downloads for HTC Touch Pro phones, but also most any Windows Mobile Application running at VGA 480x640 resolution.

read more | digg story

jQuery Carousel - Ajax image slider - AJAX Script

2009-02-12T18:12:00.003-08:00

Facebook, Nokia look to bring social network to mobiles

2009-02-12T18:12:00.001-08:00

Facebook is in discussions with Nokia on ways to integrate the wildly popular social network into mobile phones made by the Finnish giant, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

read more | digg story

Intel to invest $7B on factory upgrades

2009-02-11T17:32:00.001-08:00

Intel Corp. plans to spend $7 billion upgrading its U.S. factories over the next two years, a sign that the recession hasn't extinguished chip makers' lust for cutting-edge equipment and engineering talent.

read more | digg story

Data breach incidents are increasing, study shows!

2009-02-11T17:28:00.003-08:00

Armed with data from several years of surveys, I think it is safe to assume that things are getting worse, not better. Sensitive data continues to flow throughout the enterprise, ending up in e-mails and IMs, laptops, and thumb drives, and into the hands of malicious or careless employees--an uphill battle indeed.

read more | digg story

Monster.com Attacked By Hackers Again!

2009-02-11T17:28:00.001-08:00

Monster.com was attacked by hackers again. Monster is recommending that all users change their passwords and be on the watch for phishing emails.

read more | digg story

Hackers broke into FAA computers

2009-02-11T17:27:00.001-08:00

A union leader says hackers broke into the Federal Aviation Administration's computer system last week, accessing the names and Social Security numbers of 45,000 employees and retirees.

read more | digg story

Microsoft: ‘Consistent exploit code likely’ for IE vulnerabilities

2009-02-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

Microsoft today shipped four bulletins with patches for at least 8 documented security vulnerabilities affecting Windows users and warned that “consistent exploit code could be easily crafted” to launch attacks via the Internet Explorer browser.

The Patch Tuesday batch includes fixes for a pair of code execution holes in IE, two bugs in the Microsoft Exchange Server, a remote code execution issue in the Microsoft SQL Server, and three separate flaws haunting users of Microsoft Office Visio.

The Internet Explorer bulletin (MS09-002) should be treated with urgency because the flaws can be exploited to launch drive-by download attacks.

* This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 7 running on supported editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista. For Internet Explorer 7 running on supported editions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, this security update is rated Moderate.

The Microsoft warning that consistent exploit code was likely suggests that it’s very easy for an attacker to host a specially crafted Web site and attack unpatched users who surfed to the rigged Web site.

* The attacker could also take advantage of compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements. These Web sites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability.

Enterprise administrators will also want to pay special attention to the Microsoft Exchange update (MS09-003) which covers two different vulnerabilities that expose users to code execution or denial-of-service attacks.

Microsoft explains:

* The first vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a specially crafted TNEF message is sent to a Microsoft Exchange Server. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of the affected system with Exchange Server service account privileges. The second vulnerability could allow denial of service if a specially crafted MAPI command is sent to a Microsoft Exchange Server. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could cause the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service and other services that use the EMSMDB32 provider to stop responding.

The company says it expects to see “inconsistent exploit code” published for this bulletin. However, nCircle director of security operations Andrew Storms says this is a very serious problem.

“This vulnerability means that any cybercriminal sending a well crafted email attachment to an enterprise could gain complete control over the server and gaining one of the keys to the kingdom,” Storms said.

“All kinds of highly confidential and proprietary information pass through an Exchange server every day. Gaining control over it and its content would be a gold mine to any cyber criminal,” he added.

Google software for tracking mobile users coming to iPhone

2009-02-05T04:21:00.001-08:00

Google this morning announced new software that will let mobile phone users share their whereabouts with family or friends, and it's due to turn up on the iPhone shortly.

read more | digg story

Google software for tracking mobile users coming to iPhone

2009-02-04T17:15:00.001-08:00

Google this morning announced new software that will let mobile phone users share their whereabouts with family or friends, and it's due to turn up on the iPhone shortly.

read more | digg story

40 Free Javascript Animation

2009-02-04T04:48:00.001-08:00

Moving an Airplane Across a Web Page ,Framework for creating CSS-based animations ,Snow animation ,Animation based on DIV with color flash , Lotto number draw , Following eyes ..

read more | digg story

PHP and .NET - Image Rotation Example using C# and PHP

2009-02-04T04:25:00.001-08:00

This posting won't be a tutorial on how to write C#, but i'll just go over some of the basics of setting up a simple C#-based COM object that can be used from within PHP.

read more | digg story

C# - A simple HTTP echo server

2008-12-18T06:24:00.000-08:00


using  System;
using  System.Collections.Generic;
using  System.Collections.Specialized;
using  System.IO;
using  System.IO.Compression;
using  System.Net;
using  System.Net.Mail;
using  System.Net.Sockets;
using  System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using  System.Text;
using  System.Threading;
using  System.Xml;

public  class  MainClass
{
        public  static  void  Main()
        {
                using  (HttpListener  listener  =  new  HttpListener())
                {
                        listener.AuthenticationSchemes  =  AuthenticationSchemes.Negotiate;
                        listener.Prefixes.Add("http://localhost:8080/");
                        listener.Prefixes.Add("https://localhost/");
                        listener.Start();

                        HttpListenerContext  ctx  =  listener.GetContext();
                        ctx.Response.StatusCode  =  200;  
                        string  name  =  ctx.Request.QueryString["name"];

                        StreamWriter  writer  =  new  StreamWriter(ctx.Response.OutputStream);
                        writer.WriteLine("Hello,  {0}
",  name);
                        
                        writer.WriteLine("");
                        foreach  (string  header  in  ctx.Request.Headers.Keys)
                        {
                                writer.WriteLine("{0}:  {1}
",header,  ctx.Request.Headers[header]);
                        }
                        writer.WriteLine("
");

                        writer.Close();
                        ctx.Response.Close();
                        listener.Stop();
                }
        }
}

More C# Examples

c# MiniWebCrawler

2008-12-18T06:20:00.000-08:00

   

/*
C#: The Complete Reference 
by Herbert Schildt 

Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill (March 8, 2002)
ISBN: 0072134852
*/


// MiniCrawler: A skeletal Web crawler. 
 
using System; 
using System.Net; 
using System.IO; 
 
public class MiniCrawler {  
 
  // Find a link in a content string. 
  static string FindLink(string htmlstr,  
                         ref int startloc) { 
    int i; 
    int start, end; 
    string uri = null; 
    string lowcasestr = htmlstr.ToLower(); 
 
    i = lowcasestr.IndexOf("href=\"http", startloc); 
    if(i != -1) { 
      start = htmlstr.IndexOf('"', i) + 1; 
      end = htmlstr.IndexOf('"', start); 
      uri = htmlstr.Substring(start, end-start); 
      startloc = end; 
    } 
             
    return uri; 
  } 
 
  public static void Main(string[] args) { 
    string link = null; 
    string str; 
    string answer; 
 
    int curloc; // holds current location in response 
 
    if(args.Length != 1) { 
      Console.WriteLine("Usage: MiniCrawler "); 
      return ; 
    } 
 
    string uristr = args[0]; // holds current URI 
 
    try { 
 
      do { 
        Console.WriteLine("Linking to " + uristr); 
 
        /* Create a WebRequest to the specified URI. */
        HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest) 
               WebRequest.Create(uristr); 
 
        uristr = null; // disallow further use of this URI 
 
        // Send that request and return the response. 
        HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse) 
               req.GetResponse(); 
 
        // From the response, obtain an input stream. 
        Stream istrm = resp.GetResponseStream(); 
 
        // Wrap the input stream in a StreamReader. 
        StreamReader rdr = new StreamReader(istrm); 
 
        // Read in the entire page. 
        str = rdr.ReadToEnd(); 
 
        curloc = 0; 
        
        do { 
          // Find the next URI to link to. 
          link = FindLink(str, ref curloc); 
 
          if(link != null) { 
            Console.WriteLine("Link found: " + link); 
 
            Console.Write("Link, More, Quit?"); 
            answer = Console.ReadLine(); 
 
            if(string.Compare(answer, "L", true) == 0) { 
              uristr = string.Copy(link); 
              break; 
            } else if(string.Compare(answer, "Q", true) == 0) { 
              break; 
            } else if(string.Compare(answer, "M", true) == 0) { 
              Console.WriteLine("Searching for another link."); 
            } 
          } else { 
            Console.WriteLine("No link found."); 
            break; 
          } 
 
        } while(link.Length > 0); 
 
        // Close the Response. 
        resp.Close(); 
      } while(uristr != null); 
 
    } catch(WebException exc) { 
      Console.WriteLine("Network Error: " + exc.Message +  
                        "\nStatus code: " + exc.Status); 
    } catch(ProtocolViolationException exc) { 
      Console.WriteLine("Protocol Error: " + exc.Message); 
    } catch(UriFormatException exc) { 
      Console.WriteLine("URI Format Error: " + exc.Message); 
    } catch(NotSupportedException exc) { 
      Console.WriteLine("Unknown Protocol: " + exc.Message); 
    } catch(IOException exc) { 
      Console.WriteLine("I/O Error: " + exc.Message); 
    } 
 
    Console.WriteLine("Terminating MiniCrawler."); 
  } 
}

More C# Source Code » Network » Web Crawler »

JavaFX 1.0 from Sun Microsystems

2008-12-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

With the launch of JavaFX 1.0, Sun Microsystems is attempting to bridge the functionality necessary for building rich Internet applications (RIAs) with immersive media and content designed to play nice with both browsers and desktops. Claiming that Java already accounts for an installed base of in excess of 800 million computers worldwide, Sun Microsystems is applauding JavaFX 1.0 as one of the most significant aspects of the Java platform's evolution.

"The Internet marketplace has evolved within and well beyond the traditional Web browser, fueled by an explosion of Java-powered smart phones and consumer electronics devices, from RIM's Blackberry to Amazon's Kindle," revealed Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive officer and president of Sun Microsystems. "Sun's newest JavaFX platform unifies Java technology across billions of such devices, with an easy to use, open source platform now enabled with high quality video and audio, targeting consumers and content owners across the world - and across the Internet."

According to Sun Microsystems, JavaFX 1.0 is ultimately designed to simplify building content beyond interactive Rich Internet Applications, also streamlining the integration of high fidelity audio and video, but also rich text, vector graphics, animations and cloud services. Already present on over 90% of the world's computers, the Java technology is now ready to move to the next level with JavaFX 1.0.

The runtime brings three key components: JavaFX Development Environment, the JavaFX Production Suite and the JavaFX Desktop. Via the new implementation of the Java plug-in, as well as the features of the Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) 6 Update 10, JavaFX 1.0 permits end users to install applets from the browser onto the desktop via a simple drag and drop move.

The collection of tools and plug-ins that combine to deliver the JavaFX Production Suite are set up to make it easy for developers to build content. But when it comes down to the development process, the runtime tools, graphics, media, Web services, and rich text libraries are all offered via the JavaFX Development Environment.

NetBeans IDE is available for download here.

JavaFX SDK 1.0 can be downloaded from here.

JavaFX Production Suite 1.0 is available for download here.

Google Friend Connect Beta Officially Released

2008-12-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

Google Friend Connect has become available in a beta version to any webmaster that is looking for additional “dash of social” to his or her site. According to a post that has been recently published on the official Google Blog, the service is meant to allow webmasters to add social features to their sites, by simply copying a few snippets of code, without the hassle of advance coding or the need of technical knowledge.

It's a common fact that people want to socialize on the Internet, so Friend Connect offers them the possibility to simply sign in, create customized profile, then look for other individuals who share the same interests. Moreover, people don't have to go through the trouble of setting up a new account, as the service allows them to sign in using the same username and password they already have on Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID. At the same time, users can either build a new profile or import one they have already established on other social networks such as Plaxo and orkut.

According to the post on the blog, Friend Connect has been initially launched as a preview in May, and the developing team has been working closely with website owners and social networks, as well as with application developers, in an effort to increase the speed of the service and its scalability, in addition to making it easier to use and more customizable. Furthermore, users can now benefit from expanded features, including a wider range of embedded profiles and more ways of sharing content, for instance the inclusion of YouTube movies in their comments.

“Friend Connect's goal is to facilitate an open social web. Using open standards like OpenID and OAuth, Friend Connect makes it simple for people to instantly interact with one another on the sites that they already love to visit. Additionally, websites that use Friend Connect become OpenSocial containers, capable of running applications created by the OpenSocial developer community.”

The developers are expecting to see in the near future that more webmasters have added Friend Connect to their sites, thus encouraging more user interaction around the Web. The video below will help you draw a better picture of what Friend Connect is all about. More information on this service is available here.

Object Oriented JAVASCRIPT TUTORIALS Redefining an Existing Method : prototype

2008-12-01T04:56:00.000-08:00



Function.prototype.toString = function () {
    return "Function code hidden";
};
function sayHi() {
    alert("hi");
}

alert(sayHi.toString());


Function.prototype.originalToString = Function.prototype.toString;

Function.prototype.toString = function () {
    if (this.originalToString().length > 100) {
        return "too long.";
    } else {
        return this.originalToString();
    }
};

Object Oriented JAVASCRIPT TUTORIALS- prototype

Google Joins DRSG The Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition is a smart-grid trade association

2008-11-21T06:32:00.000-08:00

(Thursday, November 13), Google joined the Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition (DRSG), an association that promotes the monitoring of electricity consumption in both the power grid and end users' homes. This step is the latest in a series of environment-friendly actions that Google.org engaged in over the past few years. The DRSG group includes multiple companies, all oriented towards promoting and supporting energy efficiency.

Google also announced that it signed a partnership with General Electric in early September, in a step aimed at supporting clean energy lobbying, as well as the development and implementation of energy monitoring equipment throughout the grid. The main stake of Google's efforts is to create a nation-wide smart power grid that will fuel smart appliances.

These appliances, including dishwashers and washing machines, could detect off-peak periods – via their integrated software – and trigger their programs accordingly, so as to minimize both costs of operations and the strain they place on power plants in the US. This leads directly to less carbon being emitted into the atmosphere by coal- or natural gas-powered production facilities.

DRSG also focuses on the issue of demand response, which means that its companies advocate the creation of pieces of software that will regulate and decrease energy consumption in offices and homes during peak times. Google was expected to enter this field for quite some time, and it would appear people saying this were right.

Besides Google, the DSRG group also includes companies like Cpower, Conservation Services Group (an energy service firm), and Corporate Systems Engineering (a smart-meter provider). Chances are that more companies will soon join the initiative as well, especially now that Google is in on it too. The Mountain View-based firm is also expected to soon launch a line of products, including gadgets and software that will monitor end-users' energy consumption.

Google says its success is tied to AdSense publishers

2008-11-21T06:28:00.000-08:00

The global financial crisis could, at least as far as online advertising is concerned, be in Microsoft's advantage by destabilizing Google. Compared to the Mountain View-search giant, the Redmond company has little to lose in this arena. But Google, which Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer dubbed a “one trick pony” in the past, is intimately connecting with monetizing search, and almost nothing else. Acting as an intermediary between advertisers and websites, Google is bound to be hurt by the world economic crisis, and this is evident in an email sent out by Kim Scott, Director AdSense Online Sales & Operations to all AdSense publishers.

“We understand that the recent economic turmoil has created a lot of uncertainty in the lives of AdSense publishers. During these difficult times, we're continuing to invest in innovations that improve publisher monetization and advertiser value in the content network. We're focusing on further developing our product offerings and boosting ad performance for publishers. We recently announced advancements in AdSense for search and experiments to make ads more effective,” Scott revealed in the email, courtesy of Venture Beat.

Ballmer has repeatedly indicated that it would persistently gun down for Google until it gained a position that placed it on par with the Mountain View giant on the search engine market. At the same time, just as it is the case for Google, Microsoft also monetizes its search business via advertising. “We're absolutely the underdog. We are David to Google's Goliath,” Ballmer stated during a recent trip to Brazil.

“We're bringing DoubleClick technologies to AdSense publishers, and we'll continue to launch new products and features. We're also continuing to improve our offerings for AdWords advertisers, making it easier for them to target the Google content network. Features for advertisers, such as the new display ad builder, are designed to improve ad performance on AdSense publisher sites,” Scott added.

The letter Google sent out to AdSense publishers is a clear try to dispel the uncertainty generated by the financial crisis. In the financial quarter ended September 30, 2008, Google reported revenue of $5.54 billion, 3% more than Q2 2008, and 31% more than Q3 2007. In mid-October, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, also indicated that the company would continue to invest in the evolution of search despite the “poor state of the global economy”.

“We’ll keep driving technological progress, but our best asset will always be our publisher partners. The strength of AdSense lies in the value of the content you bring to users and the quality of the sites you bring to advertisers. Our success is tied to yours. We look forward to partnering with you for the long term, and remain dedicated to helping you succeed,” Scott concluded.

Google CEO Could Be Obama's Tech Advisor

2008-11-21T06:26:00.000-08:00

Rumor has it that Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be occupying the newly-formed tech advisor position to the president of the United States. Barack Obama created this position just shortly before visiting the Google headquarters during his campaign, and some believe that the reason this happened was because the job was promised to Schmidt.

The president-elect announced his support for maintaining the Internet neutral, meaning that he (and Google) opposed the addition of more fees for data transfer to end-users. Under Obama's tech policy, ISPs will be strictly prohibited from hampering data flow around the web. He says that the network is an indispensable tool in today's economy, and that it motivates growth by making trade simpler and easier, so any obstacle will mean a loss of capital.

The head of Google endorsed the Democratic candidate throughout the elections, though the ads the company posted on various sites were mostly Republican. However, Google employees donated far more to Obama's campaign than they did for John McCain – about $487,355, and $20,600 respectively, as estimated by the Wall Street Journal.

The naming of the Democratic candidate as the new president comes at the same time as the decision of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to open up unused TV broadband frequencies to wireless Internet traffic. They will enter use when the entire television grid moves to the digital format.

No one can be sure that Eric Schmidt will be named as Obama's tech advisor until the event actually happens. But, in light of the relation they had during the campaign, and the earnings that Schmidt's endorsement brought the new president, it stand to reason that he will be, at the very least, considered for the job. In addition, Google's efforts to go "green" are in line with Obama's policy towards climate change and global warming, so this is another common ground for the company and the White House.

PHP Source Code »Using Large Objects in OCI8

2008-11-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

In PHP
, LOBs are manipulated using a descriptor. To show this, in SQL*Plus create a table
that has a BLOB column:
SQL> create table mybtab (blobid number, blobdata blob);
PHP code
to insert data into this table is:
navioo_blobinsert.php

$c = oci_connect('hr', 'hrpwd', '//localhost/XE');
$myblobid = 123;
$myv = 'a very large amount of binary data';
$lob = oci_new_descriptor($c, OCI_B_LOB);
$s = oci_parse($c,
'INSERT INTO mybtab (blobid, blobdata) '
. 'VALUES(:myblobid, EMPTY_BLOB()) '
. 'RETURNING blobdata INTO :blobdata');
oci_bind_by_name($s, ':MYBLOBID', $myblobid);
oci_bind_by_name($s, ':BLOBDATA', $lob, -1, OCI_B_BLOB);
oci_execute($s, OCI_DEFAULT);
$lob->save($myv);
oci_commit($c);
?>

Read all..

C# Source Code » Collections Data Structure » ArrayList

2008-11-04T17:56:00.000-08:00

# using System;
# using System.Collections;
#
# class Album
: IComparable, ICloneable {
# private string _Title;
# private string _Artist;
#
# public Album(string artist, string title) {
# _Artist = artist;
# _Title = title;
# }
#
# public string Title {
# get {
# return _Title;
# }
# set {
# _Title = value;
# }
# }
#
# public string Artist {
# get {
# return _Artist;
# }
# set {
# _Artist = value;
# }
# }
# public override string ToString() {
# return _Artist + ",\t" + _Title;
# }
# public int CompareTo(object o) {
# Album other = o as Album;
# if (other == null)
# throw new ArgumentException();
# if (_Artist != other._Artist)
# return _Artist.CompareTo(other._Artist);
# else
# return _Title.CompareTo(other._Title);
# }
# public object Clone() {
# return new Album(_Artist, _Title);
# }
# }
#
# class TitleComparer : IComparer {
# public int Compare(object l, object r) {
# Album left = l as Album;
# Album right = r as Album;
# if ((left == null) || (right == null))
# throw new ArgumentException();
# if (left.Title != right.Title)
# return left.Title.CompareTo(right.Title);
# else
# return left.Artist.CompareTo(right.Artist);
# }
# }
# class Class1 {
# static void Main(string[] args) {
# ArrayList arr = new ArrayList();
#
# arr.Add(new Album("G", "A"));
# arr.Add(new Album("B", "G"));
# arr.Add(new Album("S", "A"));
#
# arr.Sort();
#
# try {
# foreach (Album a in arr) {
# Console.WriteLine(a);
# }
# } catch (System.InvalidCastException e) {
# }
#
# arr.Sort(new TitleComparer());
# foreach (Album a in arr) {
# Console.WriteLine(a);
# }
#
# Album l = new Album("L", "G");
# arr.Sort();
# int index = arr.BinarySearch(l);
# Console.WriteLine(index.ToString());
# arr.Sort(new TitleComparer());
# index = arr.BinarySearch(l, new TitleComparer());
# Console.WriteLine(index.ToString());
# }
# }
#

More examples C# » Collections Data Structure

C# XML » XML Create » Append Child

2008-11-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

# using System;
# using System.Xml;
#
# class MainClass {
# public static void Main() {
# XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
# XmlNode docNode = doc.CreateXmlDeclaration("1.0", "UTF-8", null);
# doc.AppendChild(docNode);
#
# XmlNode productsNode = doc.CreateElement("products");
# doc.AppendChild(productsNode);
#
# XmlNode productNode = doc.CreateElement("product");
# XmlAttribute productAttribute = doc.CreateAttribute("id");
# productAttribute.Value = "1001";
# productNode.Attributes.Append(productAttribute);
# productsNode.AppendChild(productNode);
#
# XmlNode nameNode = doc.CreateElement("productName");
# nameNode.AppendChild(doc.CreateTextNode("Coffee"));
# productNode.AppendChild(nameNode);
# XmlNode priceNode = doc.CreateElement("productPrice");
# priceNode.AppendChild(doc.CreateTextNode("0.99"));
# productNode.AppendChild(priceNode);
#
# productNode = doc.CreateElement("product");
# productAttribute = doc.CreateAttribute("id");
# productAttribute.Value = "1002";
# productNode.Attributes.Append(productAttribute);
# productsNode.AppendChild(productNode);
# nameNode = doc.CreateElement("productName");
# nameNode.AppendChild(doc.CreateTextNode("Tea Pot"));
# productNode.AppendChild(nameNode);
# priceNode = doc.CreateElement("productPrice");
# priceNode.AppendChild(doc.CreateTextNode("12.99"));
# productNode.AppendChild(priceNode);
#
# doc.Save(Console.Out);
# }
# }
#

More examples C# » XML

If NASA needs money...

2008-11-02T05:57:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Tech support

2008-11-02T05:54:00.000-08:00

Your dirty mind

2008-11-02T05:49:00.000-08:00

One of the main key features of HttpResponse is HTTP caching

2008-10-28T04:29:00.000-07:00

One of the main key features of HttpResponse is HTTP caching. HttpResponse will calculate an ETag based on the http.etag_mode INI setting as well as it will determine the last modification time of the sent entity. It uses those two indicators to decide if the cache entry on the client side is still valid and will emit an "304 Not Modified" response if applicable.



HttpResponse::setCacheControl('public');

HttpResponse::setCache(true);

HttpResponse::capture();



print "This will be cached until content changes!\n";

print "Note that this approach will only save the clients download time.\n";

?>



More Examples PHP class HttpResponse

Hiding PHP as another language

2008-10-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

In general, security by obscurity is one of the weakest forms of security.
But in some cases, every little bit of extra security is desirable.

A few simple techniques can help to hide PHP, possibly slowing
down an attacker who is attempting to discover weaknesses in your
system. By setting expose_php = off in your php.ini file, you
reduce the amount of information available to them.

Another tactic is to configure web servers such as apache to
parse different filetypes through PHP, either with an .htaccess

directive, or in the apache configuration file itself. You can
then use misleading file extensions:

Hiding PHP as another language

# Make PHP code look like other code types

AddType application/x-httpd-php .asp .py .pl

Trimming an image - Imagick

2008-10-23T04:49:00.000-07:00

This is a simple example to demonstrate how to easily trim the areas off the image and only display the parts where the object lies. Imagick::trimImage takes one parameter which is "fuzz". Quoting ImageMagick manual: "By default target must match a particular pixel color exactly. However, in many cases two colors may differ by a small amount.

/* Create the object and read the image in */
$im = new Imagick( "test.png" );
/* The background color. This is what we trim. */
$im->setImageBackgroundColor( new ImagickPixel( "rgb(213,213,213)" ) );
/* Trim the image. */
$im->trimImage( 0 );
/* Ouput the image */
header( "Content-Type: image/" . $im->getImageFormat() );
echo $im;
?>

Read more

Thumbnails by combining a drop-in shadow with round corners

2008-10-20T04:30:00.000-07:00

Imagick::thumbnailImage also strips all the associated profiles to make the image optimal to use in web applications.
The original image:

And the results:

Read more

JAVASCRIPT DHTML TUTORIALS » Event onMethod

2008-10-17T03:30:00.000-07:00

1.	oAbort (1)

2.	oActivate (1)

3.	oAfterPrit (1)

4.	oAfterUpdate (1)

5.	oBeforeActivate (1)

6.	oBeforeCopy (1)

7.	oBeforeCut (1)

8.	oBeforeDeactivate (1)

9.	oBeforeEditFocus (1)

10.	oBeforePaste (1)

11.	oBeforePrit (1)

12.	oBeforeUload (1)

13.	oBeforeUpdate (1)

14.	oBlur (1)

15.	oBouce (1)

16.	oCellChage (1)

17.	oChage (1)

18.	oClick (1)

19.	oCotextMeu (1)

20.	oCotrolSelect (1)

21.	oCopy (1)

22.	oCut (1)

23.	oDataAvailable (1)

24.	oDatasetChage (1)

25.	oDatasetComplete (1)

26.	oDblClick (1)

27.	oDeactivate (1)

28.	oDrag (1)

29.	oDragEd (1)

30.	oDragEter (1)

31.	oDragLeave (1)

32.	oDragOver (1)

33.	oDragStart (1)

34.	oDrop (1)

35.	oError (1)

36.	oErrorUpdate (1)

37.	oFilterChage (1)

38.	oFiish (1)

39.	oFocus (1)

40.	oFocusI (1)

41.	oFocusOut (1)

42.	oHelp (1)

43.	oKeyDow (1)

44.	oKeyPress (1)

45.	oKeyUp (1)

46.	oLayoutComplete (1)

47.	oLoad (1)

48.	oLoseCapture (1)

49.	oMouseDow (1)

50.	oMouseEter (1)

51.	oMouseLeave (1)

52.	oMouseMove (1)

53.	oMouseOut (1)

54.	oMouseOver (1)

55.	oMouseUp (1)

56.	oMouseWheel (1)

57.	oMove (1)

58.	oMoveEd (1)

59.	oMoveStart (1)

60.	oPaste (1)

61.	oPropertyChage (1)

62.	oReadyStateChage (1)

63.	oReset (1)

64.	oResize (1)

65.	oResizeEd (1)

66.	oResizeStart (1)

67.	oRowEter (1)

68.	oRowExit (1)

69.	oRowsDelete (1)

70.	oRowsIserted (1)

71.	oScroll (1)

72.	oSelect (1)

73.	oSelectioChage (1)

74.	oSelectStart (1)

75.	oStart (1)

76.	oSubmit (1)

77.	oTimeError (1)

78.	oUload (1)

79.	Access Key (1)

80.	Alt Key (2)

81.	Evet Properties (21)

82.	Geeral Evet (7)

83.	Hyper Lik Evet (7)

84.	Key Evet (15)

85.	Mouse Evet (22)

86.	Mouse (2)

87.	Page Load (1)

GooOS, the Google Operating System

2008-10-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

GooOS, the Google Operating System

Great post about what Google is up to by Rich Skrenta. He argues that Google is building a huge computer with a custom operating system that everyone on earth can have an account on. His last few paragraphs are so much more perceptive than anything that's been written about Google by anyone; Skrenta nails the company exactly:

Google is a company that has built a single very large, custom computer. It's running their own cluster operating system. They make their big computer even bigger and faster each month, while lowering the cost of CPU cycles. It's looking more like a general purpose platform than a cluster optimized for a single application.
While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.
This computer is running the world's top search engine, a social networking service, a shopping price comparison engine, a new email service, and a local search/yellow pages engine. What will they do next with the world's biggest computer and most advanced operating system?

I was thrilled reading this today because I had been thinking along the same lines as I wondered about Gmail (and the 1GB of storage in particular)...and that Skrenta had made the argument so well. This weekend, as I hacked through a bunch of XHTML and CSS for an upcoming site redesign, I jotted down a few notes for a follow-up on a post I made over a year ago called Google is not a search company. I was going to call it "GooOS, the Google Operating System".

My notes contained two of Skrenta's main points: the importance of the supercomputer and the scores of Ph.Ds being Google's main assets. A third key asset for Google is the data that they're storing on those 100,000 computers. As I said in that post:

Google's money won't be made with search...that's small peanuts compared to selling access to the world's biggest, best, and most cleverly-utilized map of the web.

So. They have this huge map of the Web and are aware of how people move around in the virtual space it represents. They have the perfect place to store this map (one of the world's largest computers that's all but incapable of crashing). And they are clever at reading this map. Google knows what people write about, what they search for, what they shop for, they know who wants to advertise and how effective those advertisements are, and they're about to know how we communicate with friends and loved ones. What can they do with all that? Just about anything that collection of Ph.Ds can dream up.

Tim O'Reilly has talked about various bits from the Web morphing into "the emergent Internet operating system"; the small pieces loosely joining, if you will. Google seems to be heading there already, all by themselves. By building and then joining a bunch of the small pieces by themselves, Google can take full advantage of the economies of scale and avoid the difficulties of interop.

Google isn't worried about Yahoo! or Microsoft's search efforts...although the media's focus on that is probably to their advantage. Their real target is Windows. Who needs Windows when anyone can have free unlimited access to the world's fastest computer running the smartest operating system? Mobile devices don't need big, bloated OSes...they'll be perfect platforms for accessing the GooOS. Using Gnome and Linux as a starting point, Google should design an OS for desktop computers that's modified to use the GooOS and sell it right alongside Windows ($200) at CompUSA for $10/apiece (available free online of course). Google Office (Goffice?) will be built in, with all your data stored locally, backed up remotely, and available to whomever it needs to be (SubEthaEdit-style collaboration on Word/Excel/PowerPoint-esque documents is only the beginning). Email, shopping, games, music, news, personal publishing, etc.; all the stuff that people use their computers for, it's all there.

Even though everyone's down on Google these days, they remain the most interesting company in the world and I'm optimistic about their potential and success (while also apprehensive about the prospect of using Google for absolutely everything someday...I'll be cursing the Google monopoly in 5 years time). If they stay on target with their plans to leverage their three core assets (which, if Gmail is any indication, they will), I predict Google will be the biggest and most important company in the world in 5-8 years.

Ballmer Just Said He'd Still Buy Yahoo

2008-10-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Microsoft corporate is frantically backtracking:

"Our position hasn't changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo; there are no discussions between the companies."

When we followed up on this, a Microsoft source explained that Steve made the "deal still makes sense" remark while deep in a discussion with Gartner Group analysts ("Response to a question opened up some questions.") Our take, therefore, is that Steve Ballmer just inadvertently revealed HIS OWN attitude toward a Yahoo deal, not Microsoft's official one. But given that Steve is Microsoft's CEO, it's his own attitude that matters.

EARLIER: As soon as Steve Ballmer said a Microsoft-Yahoo "deal might make sense," reporters rushed to the phones and called their sources. Then they breathlessly reported that the market's immediate move to bid up Yahoo (YHOO) was wrong. Why? Because "there are no new Microsoft-Yahoo negotiations."

So?

Steve Ballmer just reopened negotiations. He also even made a vague bid for Yahoo. So it's no wonder that the stock has jumped.

Remember when we last left this story? Yahoo was trying everything it could to resurrect a deal that it had blown through its own intransigence. Yahoo went so far as to say that it would be happy to do a deal at Microsoft's last bid, $33. And the strong impression we got was that a chastised and sobered Yahoo would be happy to do a deal below that.

And that was when Yahoo's stock was in the $20s. Yesterday, it settled around $11.50.

For the past several months, Microsoft has steadfastly refused to reopen any sort of Yahoo discussions. Microsoft, the party line went, had "moved on." Well, now, all that has changed.

What Steve Ballmer just said was:

We'd be glad to buy Yahoo. Of course we're not paying what we would have paid before because Yahoo's stock has collapsed. We also imagine that Yahoo's management is still hallucinating about the value of the company, in which case we have nothing to talk about. In the event that they have come to their senses, however, they should give us a call.

What price does Steve have in mind? $20 would probably do it. We also imagine that Gordy Crawford, Carl Icahn, and many other major shareholders are now demanding to speak with Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock and ordering them to resume negotiations.

Read more

Google Says No to Global Warming

2008-10-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

The company invests in electric vehicles

Global warming and its implications have been hot topics in people's discussions for a couple of years now. "Global warming is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that are emitted primarily by the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests. These gases remain in our atmosphere for decades or even centuries," states a report of the
Union of Concerned Scientists.

As carbon dioxide emission is generally acknowledged as the main factor that leads to the phenomenon, international organizations took the matter into their own hands and put forward a series of solutions. The emergence of electric vehicles was the most famous and many manufacturers engaged into producing them, although the idea didn't bring them any money to burn.

Yet, Google.org, the philanthropic branch of the company, announced today that it invested in two companies that product and sell such vehicles. This comes as a continuation of Google's RechargeIT program that started last summer and consisted of offering eco-friendly cars to Google's employees. The two companies that will benefit from the support of the search giant are Aptera Motors and ActaCell, both U.S. based.

Aptera Motors' two prototypes of ecologic cars allow, after recharge, either a 120 miles ride, for the All Electric Artera, or a 40 to 60 miles drive, for the Plug-in Electric Hybrid of the Aptera. Details about the technologies of the second company supported by Google have not been disclosed yet. ActaCell announced that they would be available in early 2009.

"When we launched RechargeIT we announced a request for investment proposals, hoping to identify top entrepreneurs finding innovative transportation solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming," said Gregory Miller, Google.org's managing director of investments. At the moment, electric vehicles are perceived as interesting, but rather useless toys. With the help of Google, perhaps this outlook will change.

Google Invests $10 Million in Alternative to Petrol Based Energy

2008-10-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

The philanthropic arm of Google announced an investment of over $10 million in unconventional geothermal energy. Google's decision to become involved in yet another environmental project comes a month after it invested another $2.75 million in the development of plug-in electric vehicles. This time, the investment is more substantial, but the total pecuniary requirements of the project are also greater.

While the use of geothermal springs normally implies the exploitation of pockets of hot water or steam, which appear naturally in certain areas, the Enhanced Geothermal Systems project aims to reproduce these natural conditions in a controlled environment. "The EGS process, by comparison, replicates these conditions by fracturing hot rock, circulating water through the system, and using the resulting steam to produce electricity in a conventional turbine." explains Charles Baron from the Climate and Energy Team, on Google's official blog.

While petrol costs are rising, leading to a global fuel crisis, the good thing about geothermal energy is that, with the proper investments, it could become available anywhere around the globe. "The most important economic aspect of geothermal energy use is that it's homegrown - using geothermal energy reduces our dependence on foreign oil, creates jobs here in the United States, and more favorably balances our global trading position." says the U.S. Department of Energy. Of course, any country can decide to stray from the beaten path to embrace the revolutionary technology.

Up until now, hot water and steam have been used solely in certain regions - California, Indonesia and Iceland, which are located at the conjunction of two continental plates. With the boost given by new technologies, which still need investments in order to reach a more extended scale, the eco-friendly energy solution could go national, and then global. And the larger the EGS network, the lower the prices.

EGS is "providing base load continuous power, with high availability. It's essentially emissions free and therefore carbon neutral and it has this distributed indigenous nature so it's not just in the South-Western parts of the U.S, it is extendible and scalable on a national scale. [...] Once you get large and you do this large at a national basis, then the costs will come down naturally." underscores Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, Dr. Jefferson Tester.

Google Applies for Water-Based Data Center Patent

2008-10-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

Google has applied for a new patent, this time for a water-based data center. The company plans to build several systems more or less at a close distance from the shore, as land is continuously being crowded by huge data centers, which use a lot of conventional energy.

Each center, if approved by the US Patent & Trademark Office, will consist of a plurality of computers contained on a floating platform. The machines will be powered by an electrical generator, and cooled by a cooling unit, all of which will be sea-based.

Google explains that, by gathering the individual centers into a honeycomb-shaped grid, the space necessary for the platform will be incredibly small compared with that required by conventional data centers. Also, the company intends to use wave-motion energy to power the system and also to cool it, so that it can be as self-sufficient as possible.

“In general, computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away from computers in the data center. In particular examples, the water-powered devices for generating electricity are depicted as so-called Pelamis machines. The data centers may also be on shore and receive power and/or cooling water from floating systems.” the three inventors explain.

Google assures governmental organization that its data center will interfere as little as possible with other crafts situated in the vicinity of the system. “Motion-powered machines may be used in configurations which accommodate other shipping traffic in the area, such as fishing boats, recreational vessels, shipping vessels, etc. Such traffic may be unduly affected by encounters with the array, such as fishing nets tangled with the tethers. Various signaling mechanisms, such as strobing lights, flags, and horns may be used to alert other ships of the existence and location of a particular field of devices.” says the team applying for the patent.

The entire document is available here.

DHTML GUI Components

2008-10-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Colection of GUI Components

.
Animation (39)
Banner (1)
Calendar International (2)
Calendar (39)
Chart (1)
Clock (10)
Code Formatter (1)
Color Chooser (5)
ComboBox (4)
Cursor (2)
Desktop (2)
Documentation (1)
Drag Drop (22)
Dual List (1)
Editor (9)
Events Calendar (1)
Grid Layout (17)
IFrame (1)
Key Event (1)
Log Panel (1)
Menu (32)
Navigation Bar (3)
Outlook Bar (1)
Popup Menu (2)
RadioButton (2)
Scroll (9)
ScrollBar (4)
Slider (6)
Sortable Listbox (1)
Syntax HighLighter (1)
Tab (13)
Table Grid (45)
TextArea (1)
TextBox (1)
Ticker (7)
Time Picker (2)
Toggle (5)
ToolBar (3)
Tree Table (1)
Tree (26)

Try It online :

http://www.navioo.com/javascript/dhtml/GUI_Components_227.dhtml

A TCP stack design vulnerability could put Internet services everywhere at major DoS risk

2008-10-06T06:33:00.000-07:00

Researchers from the Swedish security company Outpost24 have discovered a major flaw in the design of TCP stacks which could put TCP-enabled devices at risk. According to their findings, which they kept secret for three years, performing DoS attacks through this vulnerability would require little bandwidth and the attacked devices would need rebooting in order for proper functionality to be restored.

The researchers discovered this vulnerability back in 2005 and they claim it affects most, if not all, TCP stack implementations out there. With every TCP-enabled device being at risk, this affects everyone on the Internet, ranging from billions of home users to ISPs, hosting and other companies. Due to the deep implications of this vulnerability, the researchers decided to keep it secret and try to find applicable solutions. Because they did not succeed in coming up with an answer for mitigation, they decided to go public and search for input and feedback from the security community.

They did not disclose full details to the general public, but they teamed up with the Finnish CERT and started providing information to various vendors world-wide, which include major OS developers and router/firewall manufacturers. Along with information regarding several different attack types, the researchers provided the vendors with a stress test kit which they developed and named Sockstress. “They're still trying to do triage and understand the individual attack types that we've identified for them. We're still trying to get them to back up a step. It's a class of attack, not necessarily individual things that the vendors need to be focusing on," said Robert E. Lee, Chief Security Officer at Outpost24.

The researchers tested their attacks on 15 different TCP stacks and all proved vulnerable. "We haven't found anybody who has a TCP stack that runs TCP based services that isn't vulnerable. If they make a TCP stack then it's probably still going to be vulnerable to one or all of these attacks because this is something fundamental in how TCP works," commented Mr. Lee for The Register.

Even if, at this point, there is some skepticism coming from the security community regarding the seriousness of the vulnerability, this is explainable through the lack of detailed technical information or confirmation from other parties. “My immediate reaction is skepticism: things like this tend to be hype. However, after listening to their audio interview, I believe they are probably right. They have been working deep within TCP stacks. If such problems exist, then they would have certainly come across them,” wrote on his blog Robert Graham, the CEO of Errata Security.

A new DoS attack technique

From what little information is available in an interview with Robert E. Lee, Chief Security Officer at Outpost24, the exploitation of this flaw consists of essentially tricking the TCP stack into not closing the TCP connections. By opening numerous such connections that are never dropped, the max limit of simultaneous connections that the stack can handle is eventually reached. This uses up all the available resources and causes a denial of service situation.

This actually works backwards compared to the classic distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks where, by using the combined bandwidth of multiple compromised machines (botnets), the attacker opens numerous connections and sends numerous packets in order to force the device into using up all its resources by attempting to process them. With such classic DoS attacks, there is a direct proportionality between the resources available to the attacked device and the bandwidth required to crash it successfully. However, in one of the new attacks described by the Mr. Lee, the concept is to trick the device into thinking that your connection is getting slower. In fact, the slower, the better.

A TCP stack will attempt to determine the maximum speed of a connection and adjust the speed at which it sends the packets in order to prevent packets from being dropped. So, if successfully tricked into thinking that your speed is getting so slow that it will take, for example years for the transfer to complete, the stack will keep the connection open for a very long period of time. Then, it's just a matter of opening enough such connections up to the point where the stack can't handle any more and becomes unresponsive. But, while a device can recover on its own within minutes from a classic DDoS attack, with this new technique, the only solution is to reboot the device. "It basically self thrashes, and the only recovery after about two to four minutes worth of attack flow, even after the attack stops, is to reboot the machine," explains Mr. Lee.

Another Internet architecture design flaw

This TCP resource leak vulnerability is the second major Internet architecture design flaw made public in 2008. A few months ago, security researcher Dan Kaminsky discovered a critical flaw in the design of DNS (domain name system). That vulnerability allowed for an attacker to poison the cache of DNS servers with fake entries. Just like this flaw is supposed to affect all TCP stack implementations, the DNS one affected all DNS server platforms. That posed a great mitigation problem, but Mr. Kaminsky silently worked with several major affected vendors and companies that offer Internet-based services and eventually a patch was developed.

Facing pressure from the security community, Dan Kaminsky decided to make the technical details public after the patch was deployed on most of the DNS servers world-wide. He revealed at the time that the flaw also affects services like e-mail. Not long after, Russian physicist Evgeniy Polyakov presented a proof of concept exploit demonstrating that the patch only increases the time required to compromise a DNS server and that it doesn't really block attacks.

Miscreants like phishers and malware developers have already adopted the DNS vulnerability and complex attacks have been carried out. While a permanent solution is still being devised, the U.S. government announced plans to implement DNSSEC, an encryption-based DNS service, on their network by December 2009. All this puts into perspective what could happen if the TCP stack flaw issue is not properly addressed.

Earn Money with AdSense for Search Create your custom search engine and earn money with AdSense

2008-10-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

AdSense is one of the most popular services from Google, because it helps people earn money just with a simple ad placed on their websites. Related to AdSense, Custom Search Engine is another innovative product provided by Google that also brings
money after users have placed a search engine on their webpages.

So, what's the relation between these two products? Well, Google said that if you link your Custom Search Engine to your AdSense for Search account, you can boost your earnings with ease.

"We've heard it time and time again: as publishers, you want to give your users a relevant search experience on your websites. You want the power of Google search, and you want to make it your own. And then, of course, you want to make money from this search engine, not spend time and money building it. Well, here's news you can use -- now you can do all this with Google's Custom Search Engine (CSE).

With CSE, you can create a highly customized and (free) tailored search experience for your users that reflects your knowledge and expertise. You place this search engine on your site and, if you've got an AdSense for search account, you can link your CSE to it and make money from the resulting traffic.

In a few simple steps you can create a CSE that looks and feels like your own, prioritizes or restricts content based on what you specify, as well as open your search engine index to trusted members of your community so they can contribute to its comprehensiveness and relevance," Jennifer Hyman - CSE Product Marketing Manager said on the official blog.

AutoComplete Widgets

2008-10-03T03:49:00.000-07:00

JAVASCRIPT DHTML TUTORIALS » Ajax Layer » AutoComplete Widgets »

AutoComplete Widget

Image Cropper Online

2008-10-02T05:29:00.000-07:00

JAVASCRIPT DHTML TUTORIALS » Page Components » Image Cropper
1 . Preview Cropped Image Preview Cropped Image
2 . Minimum (single axis) dimension test Minimum (single axis) dimension test
3 . Minimum (both axes ) dimension test Minimum (both axes ) dimension test
4 . Fixed ratio test Fixed ratio test
5 . Test of dynamically changing images or removing and re-applying the cropper Test of dynamically changing images or removing and re-applying the cropper
6 . Test of applying different dimension restrictions to the cropper Test of applying different dimension restrictions to the cropper
7 . Test page with relatively positioned wrapper Test page with relatively positioned wrapper
8 . Test page with floating wrapper Test page with floating wrapper
9 . CSS - Absolute positioned (and draggable) test CSS - Absolute positioned (and draggable) test
10 . Loading & displaying co-ordinates (with ratio) of crop area on attachment test Loading & displaying co-ordinates (with ratio) of crop area on attachment test
11 . Loading & displaying co-ordinates of crop area on attachment test Loading & displaying co-ordinates of crop area on attachment test
12 . Basic cropper test Basic cropper test
Try online the examples of Javascript Image Cropper

How to animate an element's position using the Motion subclass

2008-10-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

<html>

<head>

<title>Motion Example - Basic</title>

<style type="text/css">

/*

Copyright (c) 2006, Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Code licensed under the BSD License:

http://developer.yahoo.net/yui/license.txt

Version: 0.10.0

*/

body {


margin:0;


font:small arial;

}

h1 {


color:#666;


margin:0;


font:bold 150% palatino, georgia;

}

#hd img {


vertical-align:middle;

}

#hd h1 {


display:inline;


margin:0 0 0 20px;


vertical-align:middle;

}

ul, li {


margin:0;


padding:0;


list-style:none;

}

#doc {


margin:10px;

}

#examples {


margin:60px 40px;

}

#examples li {


margin-bottom:1em;

}

#examples li a {


color:#666;


font:85% verdana;

}

#demo {


background:#ccc;


font:100%/1.2em arial;


width:10px;


height:10px;

}

#animation-demo-scroll #demo p {


width:600px;

}

#animation-demo-motion #demo {


color:yellow;


font-size:0;

}

#animation-demo-size-plus #demo, #animation-demo-fade #demo, #animation-demo-colors #demo {


background:#ccc;


font:100%/1.2em arial;


width:200px;


height:200px;

}

#animation-demo-colors #demo {


border:3px solid #c3c;

}

#animation-demo-scroll #demo {


width:400px;


height:200px;


overflow:auto;

}

#animation-demo-colors #demo {

}

#target {


background:red;


font-size:0;


position:absolute;


left:300px;top:300px;


width:10px;


height:10px;

}

</style>

<script type="text/javascript" src="./build/yahoo/yahoo.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="./build/event/event.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="./build/dom/dom.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="./build/animation/animation.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

YAHOO.example.init = function() {


var anim = new YAHOO.util.Motion('demo', { points: { to: YAHOO.util.Dom.getXY('target') } });


YAHOO.util.Event.on(document, 'click', anim.animate, anim, true);

};

YAHOO.util.Event.onAvailable('demo', YAHOO.example.init);

</script>

</head>

<body id="animation-demo-motion">

<div id="doc">


<h1>Motion Example - Basic</h1>


<p>This example demonstrates how to animate an element's position using the Motion subclass.</p>


<p>Click anywhere to start animation.</p>


<div id="demo"></div>


<div id="target"></div>

</div>

</body>

</html>

Yui required !!!!

Try it online

Accessing the Elements of a Form

2008-10-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>Multiform Document Example</TITLE>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"></SCRIPT>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

<FORM ACTION="nothing" onSubmit="return displayFormData()">

<H2>Form 1</H2>

<P>Text field: <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="f1-1" VALUE="Sample text"></P>

<P>Password field: <INPUT TYPE="PASSWORD" NAME="f1-2"></P>

<P>Text area field: <TEXTAREA ROWS="4" COLS="30" NAME="f1-3">Text</TEXTAREA></P>

<P><INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" NAME="f1-4" VALUE="Submit">

<INPUT TYPE="RESET" NAME="f1-5"></P>

</FORM>

<HR>

<FORM>

<H2>Form 2</H2>

<P><INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="f2-1" VALUE="1" CHECKED>A</P>

<P><INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="f2-1" VALUE="2">B</P>

<P><INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="f2-1" VALUE="3">C</P>

<P><INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="f2-2" VALUE="1">D</P>

<P><INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="f2-2" VALUE="2" CHECKED> E</P>

<P><INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="f2-2" VALUE="3">F</P>

<INPUT TYPE="FILE" NAME="f2-3">

</FORM>

<HR>

<FORM>

<H2>Form 3</H2>

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="f3-1">

<SELECT NAME="f3-2" SIZE="4">

<OPTION VALUE="">Item 1</OPTION>

<OPTION VALUE="">Item 2</OPTION>

<OPTION VALUE="" SELECTED>Item 3</OPTION>

<OPTION VALUE="">Item 4</OPTION>

<OPTION VALUE="">Item 5</OPTION>

</SELECT>

</FORM>

</BODY>

</HTML>




Try Online

Google Toolbar 5 now available in Firefox

2008-09-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

You can download the latest version of Google Toolbar for Firefox, available in 29 languages. It includes all the Toolbar features you know and love, such as Search, Bookmarks and Translate. When you install it, you can try out some of newest features.

READ MORE

Plan Public Transit Trips in and Around New York City with Google Maps

2008-09-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

Users will now be able to access station and schedule data for every service provider overseen by the MTA: New York City Transit (which includes subway and bus service), Long Island Rail Road, Long Island Bus, Metro-North Railroad, and the MTA Bus Company. Other connecting services also provide data via Google Maps, including NJ Transit (commuter rail, light rail and bus), Staten Island Ferry, and The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PATH Rail, AirTrain JFK, and AirTrain Newark). The trip planner can create trips across multiple agencies.

Being able to plan public transit trips in Google Maps makes it easier than ever to take advantage of all that New York has to offer. With this new partnership, users can get detailed itineraries that utilize any MTA services across its 5,000-square mile service area. Itineraries will include three routing options, complete with station locations, schedule times, transfer information, total trip time, and step-by-step walking directions. Icons for MTA train and bus stops will now be visible on Google Maps which heightens awareness of the availability of public transit options for users who are exploring an area; when clicked, the icons will display the routes serving the stop and upcoming departures. Additionally, when a user searches for driving directions within the MTA service area, a public transit itinerary will appear as an alternative. Need directions while on-the-go? Transit routing is also available on many mobile phones via Google Maps for mobile.

The MTA joins more than 75 other transit agencies spanning 12 countries that have joined the Google Transit program. To learn more about this announcement, head to maps.google.com/nyc.

Original article from Google Press Center

Ajax Layer Ajax Library Examples

2008-09-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

Large examples collection of Ajax Library : Ajax Layer JAVASCRIPT DHTML TUTORIALS

See at work :demo online Ajax Library : Ajax Layer

Chromium Memory Usage

2008-09-29T04:41:00.000-07:00

Memory Usage Backgrounder
Chromium Memory Usage

Here is some background information if you are measuring memory in Chromium.

Multi-Process Model Background
To understand Chromium's memory usage, let's understand the multi-process model. Unlike other browsers, Chromium is divided into multiple processes. When Chromium starts up, it will initially have two processes. One process is the browser process which controls the main browser functionality, and the other is the initial renderer process, which runs the WebKit rendering engine and JavaScript (V8). Each time you open a new tab in Chromium, you'll likely get a new renderer process. With typical browsing, it is common to see 5-7 chrome.exe processes active. Further, if the pages you have open contain plugins, those plugins will also execute within independent processes. All of Chromium's processes, whether it is a browser process, a renderer process, or a plugin process, will show under the Task Manager as "chrome.exe".

Here is a screenshot of what you might see from Windows Vista running Chromium:

Read more

Google Chrome Multi-process Architecture

2008-09-29T04:39:00.001-07:00

Unlike most current web browsers, Google Chrome uses many operating system processes to keep web sites separate from each other and from the rest of your computer. In this blog post, I'll explain why using a multi-process architecture can be a big win for browsers on today's web. I'll also talk about which parts of the browser belong in each process and in which situations Google Chrome creates new processes.

1. Why use multiple processes in a browser?

In the days when most current browsers were designed, web pages were simple and had little or no active code in them. It made sense for the browser to render all the pages you visited in the same process, to keep resource usage low.

Today, however, we've seen a major shift towards active web content, ranging from pages with lots of JavaScript and Flash to full-blown "web apps" like Gmail. Large parts of these apps run inside the browser, just like normal applications run on an operating system. Just like an operating system, the browser must keep these apps separate from each other.

On top of this, the parts of the browser that render HTML, JavaScript, and CSS have become extraordinarily complex over time. These rendering engines frequently have bugs as they continue to evolve, and some of these bugs may cause the rendering engine to occasionally crash. Also, rendering engines routinely face untrusted and even malicious code from the web, which may try to exploit these bugs to install malware on your computer.

In this world, browsers that put everything in one process face real challenges for robustness, responsiveness, and security. If one web app causes a crash in the rendering engine, it will take the rest of the browser with it, including any other web apps that are open. Web apps often have to compete with each other for CPU time on a single thread, sometimes causing the entire browser to become unresponsive. Security is also a concern, because a web page that exploits a vulnerability in the rendering engine can often take over your entire computer.

It doesn't have to be this way, though. Web apps are designed to be run independently of each other in your browser, and they could be run in parallel. They don't need much access to your disk or devices, either. The security policy used throughout the web ensures this, so that you can visit most web pages without worrying about your data or your computer's safety. This means that it's possible to more completely isolate web apps from each other in the browser without breaking them. The same is true of browser plug-ins like Flash, which are loosely coupled with the browser and can be separated from it without much trouble.

2. What goes in each process?

Google Chrome creates three different types of processes: browser, renderers, and plug-ins.

Browser. There's only one browser process, which manages the tabs, windows, and "chrome" of the browser. This process also handles all interactions with the disk, network, user input, and display, but it makes no attempt to parse or render any content from the web.

Renderers. The browser process creates many renderer processes, each responsible for rendering web pages. The renderer processes contain all the complex logic for handling HTML, JavaScript, CSS, images, and so on. We achieve this using the open source WebKit rendering engine, which is also used by Apple's Safari web browser. Each renderer process is run in a sandbox, which means it has almost no direct access to your disk, network, or display. All interactions with web apps, including user input events and screen painting, must go through the browser process. This lets the browser process monitor the renderers for suspicious activity, killing them if it suspects an exploit has occurred.
Read more

The Basic Rules of Search Engine Optimization

2008-09-26T05:42:00.000-07:00

Search engine optimization is a process that generates traffic for your website. The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) includes principles and algorithms, mainly related to the website design, capable of generating actions to improve the search engine ranking for your webpages. Increasing the value of your page's rank, the quality and quantity of visitors will be increased too. For example, the main search engines, Google and Yahoo will index your website and will rank pages according to some complex algorithms.

In order to obtain higher page ranks, you should have in mind some basic rules that will assure your SEO success. There are two types of SEO: on page SEO and off page optimization. In both cases, you should check if your site design matches the SEO main conditions:

1. Optimization of URLs - It is recommended to use short URLs titles having static character (for example .html pages), clearly named and if is possible to contain relevant keywords for your page's content. The ideal case is when the relevant keywords are even in the domain name. When choosing the keywords for meta tags you should think what keywords or key phrases you would type to search for a certain page or content on a given search engine.

2. Optimization of the page title tag - The search engine spider will look also in your page title tag for relevant keywords that describe the content of your webpages. As a consequence, the title tag should contain from one two three keywords or key phrases related or present in the page's content. You should also limit the length of your page title to 50 characters or less. And of course, every page should have a distinctive page title, easy to understand for crawlers. The abusive use of keywords will induce a decrease of page rank.

3. Optimization of the website content - The website content is among other factors that will decide the page rank. You should know that crawlers or spiders (the search engines indexing tools) do not index the content of pictures or a javascript action for example. In case you use extensively images for your page content, you should provide a detailed description for every picture. The main idea you should follow when you add content to your website is to maintain simplicity. In conclusion, the text should be present on your webpages in a higher percent as compared to images, javascripts or others. You must also provide fresh content to your visitors periodically.

4. Optimization of the site navigation system - You should build a site map having links that point to the main parts of your site. For example, Google uses your sitemap to analyze the structure of your website. All links must point to valid webpages. It is recommended to check the validity of your site navigation structure using a link checker. You should pay attention to the internal links that should contain keywords, and the number of internal links must be increased in order to provide a clear site hierarchy and an effective navigation system.

As a suggestion, the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) will determine a simple and yet rapid site structure, easy to understand for search engine spiders. The external links must point only to quality sites (for example, your page rank will be increased when you link to sites having higher search engine ranks themselves). You should not use links to "link farms". There must be also other links from weblogs, forums or other sites that point to your site. You can achieve this goal by performing a link inter-change process.

5. Optimization of the general site structure - In case your site design does not allow the SEO modifications mentioned, you should change the overall site structure. You can simply do this by using a ready-made CMS (a content management system). It is easy to use and in most cases it's created having the SEO principles in mind, so you will have to manage only the content, without being concerned owith the design.

These rules are not enough to obtain the maximal search engine rank, but they should be taken as a good start for a complete strategy of search engine optimization.

Tips to Improve Joomla Performance = Fast page loading and error-free Joomla Website

2008-09-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

When you are using the Joomla content management system, the overall site performance could be affected by various factors. Moreover, if you have many site users, the page loading speed could be influenced by the simultaneous number of MySQL database queries. In order to obtain the best results for the page loading speed (which is a key factor for the search engines rankings) and to maintain the best performance of your Joomla website, there are a few tips that could help you.

The recent studies show that Joomla is twice as fast when used with PHP 5.2.3 in comparison with PHP 4.4, as a consequence the use of the last PHP version (which is definitely improved) will always offer you the optimal Joomla performance.

If you turn on caching on the Cache tab from Joomla Global Configuration in Administration Panel, then static files or a cache of your website will be created. The file caching allows the system to find a certain page directly from hard disk and removes the delay induced by a MySQL query to retrieve the same page in the database. The speed of page loading will also be increased by enabling caching.

On the Cache tab, when enabling caching, you must not modify the default cache folder, but you can set a lower value for the cache time if you update the site contents often and a higher value if the content is changed rarely. There are also many modules from Joomla structure that support caching. It is recommended to enable caching for those modules. There are also components that improve the page caching process, such as Ircmaxell's Page Cache.This component will have visible effects on page load speed in case of website with high traffic.

Another important aspect that could affect Joomla performance is the template structure. For the best performance, you should use CSS templates and remove the unused CSS styles. The images should be optimized for web display in order to decrease the page loading time. The unused modules should be unpublished and flash modules should be avoided if they are not really necessary.

Before installing Joomla on a webserver you should test the site performance using benckmarking tools on the local computer. There are more advanced settings to modify in php.ini and .htaccess files, respectively, to increase Joomla performance, but these are specific to every joomla website, depending on its destination. In case you modify them, you should check the apache server documentation to maintain your website free of errors.

Web Attacks Through SQL Injection - A New Solution to Increase SQL Based Applications Security

2008-09-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

The management of relational databases is performed by using SQL (Structured Query Language) that helps
you to manipulate data inside a collection of tables. Practically, at the web level, SQL language represent the bridge of communication between a web application and a database. In the same manner, the user interacts with the database at a certain point in a given database driven application.

SQL injection represents a hacking method that is based on the security vulnerabilities of web applications having a database backend. It has many implementation forms and basically it consists of malicious SQL code (or non-intended to be used in a given application) that, after execution, could determine the complete destruction of a database, the revealing of secret informations from the database records and more.

The most vulnerable to SQL injection attacks are web forms. For example, if next SQL code is used in a login system, a username could be selected from the usersname table due to the fact that the boolean value of the code 'a'='a' is true in any situation:

CODE
SELECT * FROM usersname WHERE name = 'John' OR 'a'='a';

In the case presented earlier, a hacker could bypass the authentication system or even more, to compromise the database with a DROP TABLE statement. Fortunately, solutions to increase the general security of web applications back-ended with relational databases exist.

Martin Bravenboer presents a new methods to avoid the security leaks in database driven applications in his Ph.D. Thesis entitled "Exercises in Free Syntax-Syntax Definition, Parsing, and Assimilation of Language Conglomerates". The techniques of totally removal of the SQL insecurities is based on the usage of an API (application programming interface) in combination with easy strings manipulation.

The method of embedding the syntax of SQL language into a host language like Java or PHP is generalized for many pairs host-guest type programming languages. The content of the Ph.D thesis is available on-line as PDF document and can help you to better understand the mechanisms of SQL injection and respectively the recommended coding procedures.

Free Acrobat.com Online Service Suite

2008-09-26T05:29:00.000-07:00

The free Acrobat.com online service suite provides web based applications and tools to manage and share documents and files. There are web conferences (communication in real time) and storage solutions available, as well as a word processor and an online PDF converter.

The applications and tools contained in the suite are: Share, Create PDF, Adobe Buzzword, Adobe ConnectNow and My Files. They make the online collaboration with your team a lot easier, at the same time providing flexible access from any Internet connection.

Adobe Buzzword is a web browser based word processor capable of editing and exporting many types of documents like .txt (plain text), .pdf (Adobe PDF), .docx and .doc (Microsoft Word), HTML and more. Images (JPEG, PNG or GIF) can be inserted and easily positioned in documents. Authoring rights can be assigned to users for a certain document. The free online word processor also has many other features besides the ones mentioned in this article, so much so that due its overall capabilities it could compete with commercial desktop software.

Adobe ConnectNow is an online conferencing application that makes work more productive through an efficient web based collaboration system. Among its multiple features Adobe ConnectNow provides: video conferencing opportunity, chat pod, a unique URL for your meeting room and more.

For file sharing and storage there are 5GB of web disk space for any user account. The files can be organized online in a flexible way through a simple to use interface. There are limitations regarding the type of files uploaded and respectively shared: you are not allowed to use various formats of video, audio, executable, fonts, archives or database and raster image files on the Acrobat.com account.

Acrobat.com services are supported on Microsoft Windows XP and Vista as well as on Mac OS X. The online service suite from ADOBE can also be accessed through a Rich Internet Application (the AIR version of Acrobat.com) which provides the possibility to publish, share, edit or browse documents directly from the computer desktop. The AIR version of Acrobat.com can be downloaded from here.

Advertisers Protest Against the Google-Yahoo! Partnership

2008-09-26T05:24:00.000-07:00

The Association of National Advertisers has voiced its concerns related to the implications that a Google-Yahoo! agreement would have on fair competition. The letter sent to the Department of Justice, which is currently reviewing the partnership between the two companies, comprises “a comprehensive, independent analysis, which included input from the Board’s members and face-to-face discussions with Google and Yahoo!” the association claims.

ANA's concerns are related to the fact that, should the partnership be given the green light, the two companies would be responsible for over 90% of the search advertising business. This can lead to the development of an unhealthy market, as both users and advertisers are not provided with the same possibility of choice. According to the association, the Google-Yahoo! alliance “will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising.”

As it already common knowledge, the two companies have reached an agreement that will allow Google to display ads along with the search results provided by Yahoo! Although regulation was not compulsory, the partners have decided to delay the closure of their business agreement for 100 days, so that governmental institutions have their say on whether the affiliation is legitimate or not.

ANA was not the only organization to protest against the deal. From the very beginning, Microsoft too has expressed disapproval with the association. “If search is the gateway to the Internet, and most believe that it is, this deal will put Google in a position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft Corp. senior vice president and general counsel, on July 15. “Never before in the history of advertising has one company been in the position to control prices on up to 90 percent of advertising in a single medium. Not in television, not in radio, not in publishing. It should not happen on the Internet.” he concluded by saying.

Benchmarking AJAX ( JSON vs XML )

2008-09-25T12:17:00.001-07:00

Navioo.com: Is JSON Fast and Reliable?

2008-09-25T04:36:00.000-07:00

Navioo.com: Is JSON Fast and Reliable?

Is JSON Fast and Reliable?

2008-09-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

JSON produces smaller documents, and JSON is certainly easier to use in JavaScript. XMLHttpRequest parses XML documents for you whereas you have to manually parse JSON, but is parsing JSON slower than parsing XML?

When it comes to making AJAX behave like a desktop application, speed is everything, and clearly, , JSON is a winner..

Test in your browser -Benchmarking AJAX - JSON vs XML.

Web Browser Javascript Benchmark

2008-09-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

How does your favorite browser's Javascript engine speed compare to other popular browsers? The speed of your browser's Javascript is becoming more and more important because of Web 2.0's reliance on Ajax and complex Javascript libraries. I have written a benchmark test, which you can run on your machine at home, to compare the newest versions of Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, and Firefox. How does your favorite browser stand up to the competition?

See the results here

The Android era begins

2008-09-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

Google's Android OS is the driving force behind the new $179 T-Mobile G1 phone and a passel of apps designed to go with it

http://www.cnet.com/google-android/

A simple 'sniffer' that determines browser version and vendor

2008-09-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

JAVASCRIPT DHTML TUTORIALS » Development » JavaScript Version »
A simple 'sniffer' that determines browser version and vendor
/*
Examples From
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition

Legal matters: these files were created by David Flanagan, and are
Copyright (c) 2001 by David Flanagan. You may use, study, modify, and
distribute them for any purpose. Please note that these examples are
provided "as-is" and come with no warranty of any kind.

David Flanagan
*/
A simple 'sniffer' that determines browser version and vendor

Javascript bar chart

2008-09-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

Javascript bar chart : Chart : GUI Components JAVASCRIPT DHTML TUTORIALS

http://www.navioo.com/javascript/dhtml/Javascript_bar_chart_1774.html

HOW to - DHTML Menu Tutorials

2008-09-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

249.7 . Vertical layout menu Vertical layout menu
249.8 . Customizable layout Customizable layout
249.9 . Add/delete menu items Add/delete menu items
249.10 . Build a simple fancy menu Build a simple fancy menu
249.11 . Simple drop-down menu example with layer Simple drop-down menu example with layer
249.13 . Slide out menu with i18N Slide out menu with i18N
249.14 . Menu and submenu
249.15 . Dynamic menu
249.16 . Slide out menu
249.17 . Complete Source Code for the Menu
249.18 . popup menu (content sensitive menu)
249.19 . Menu based on Javascript
249.20 . Menu with sound

Source code and demo online

CHM Reader

2008-09-17T09:39:00.001-07:00

CHM Reader is an extension to allow Firefox to read Compiled HTML (.chm) files. After installation, with "File | Open CHM File", you can open a CHM file in Firefox. With "View | Sidebar | CHM Reader" or "Ctrl-E", a sidebar that contains topics and an index of the CHM files will be shown.

Dealing with XForms - PHP

2008-09-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

» XForms defines a variation on traditional webforms which allows them to be used on a wider variety of platforms and browsers or even non-traditional media such as PDF documents.

The first key difference in XForms is how the form is sent to the client. » XForms for HTML Authors contains a detailed description of how to create XForms, for the purpose of this tutorial we'll only be looking at a simple example.
Example - A simple XForms search form

<h:html xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"

       xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms">

<h:head>

<h:title>Search</h:title>

<model>

 <submission action="http://example.com/search"

             method="post" id="s"/>

</model>

</h:head>

<h:body>

<h:p>

 <input ref="q"><label>Find</label></input>

 <submit submission="s"><label>Go</label></submit>

</h:p>

</h:body>

</h:html>

Read more >>

The above form displays a text input box (named q), and a submit button. When the submit button is clicked, the form will be sent to the page referred to by action.

CSS background-position

2008-09-16T04:46:00.000-07:00

HTML CSS TUTORIALS » CSS Attributes and Javascript Style Properties » background position »

Try it
background-position
Related in same category :

The background-position Property (for fixing position of backgrounds)

'background-position' Example

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

Background position

The background is positioned 40 pixels from the left and 3 ems from the top

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

By length and percentage

Background-position specifies a position by keyword.

Background-position specifies a position by length.

Background-position specifies a position by percentage.

background-position

background-position

background-position

background-position

'table' tag Example

2008-09-16T04:42:00.000-07:00

See how to use table tag in yours html code

table Example

Yahoo! UI Library - Slider Widget

2008-09-15T05:40:00.000-07:00

JAVASCRIPT DHTML TUTORIALS » GUI Components » Slider »

Try it here :
Yahoo! UI Library - Slider Widget

Learn Javascript quickly from Examples

2008-09-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

String

Global

Math

Form

Array

Date

Event

Screen

Window

Style

XML

Learn Javascript by Examples

2008-09-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

String

Global

Math

Form

Array

Date

Event

Screen

Window

Style

XML

Google Docs Launches New Features

2008-09-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

The Google Docs crew made their first stop on its "Apps to School" tour, on which they stop at colleges across the U.S. and hang out with students, show off how they can use Google Docs for their class assignments, and see how studnets are already using it. They hung with some students at the University of Southern California. They also announced some new features that should help students do just that.

First off , you highlight a word and look up the definition/synonyms with Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. This feature is located under the Tools menu in Google Docs in the same area as word count and spell check.

Also in the "Look up Word" section, you can find a similar feature that will let you look something up in Encyclopedia Britannica. I wouldn't mind seeing a Wikipedia option here as well, despite the question of accuracy on topics at any given time. It is understandable that they would leave such a feature off, when they're gearing these features toward students, but I would find it a useful feature.

Another convenient feature they added was the ability to do a Google Image Search from within Google Docs. Just go to Tools>Search the web for word...

Firefox 3.1 To Add Private Browsing Mode

2008-09-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

Firefox 3.1 is looking like it's going to be more of a major release than most of their .0 releases.

Not for the first time, Mozilla has let it out in the Mozilla Wiki that a feature will be added to the next version of Firefox, to wit: a private browsing mode. This is a mode in which writes to cache, history, and other traces of the user's browsing activity are blocked.

A note in the Wiki in a series of updates from the dev team states: "Private Browsing Mode: Ehsan went and implemented Connor's functional spec bug 248970 - way to go! - now back on track for beta date " Bug 248970 began in 2004 with a feature suggestion, noting that Apple's Safari was going to get such a feature and Firefox ought to have one too.

In recent days we have received betas of both Internet Explorer 8 and Google's Chrome that also implement a private browsing mode. Clearly Firefox needed this mode and the team was working on it. Only Opera is left without one.

Online Job Demand Rising Again

2008-09-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

After Months of Declining

Monster.comThe number of online jobs went up according to the Monster U.S. Online Jobs Index. The increase marked the end of a three-month decline, indicating that employers are preparing for the fall hiring season. In August, online job availability went up in 14 of the Index's 20 industry categories and in 13 of the 23 occupational categories measured. Still, the index is 14% lower than it was a year ago.

Big areas of growth in online job demand were the utilities industry (which registered the largest monthly increase), education, training, and library occupations, and healthcare. The biggest gains on a yearly scale, however, come with the public administration and agricultural industries. Farming, fishing and forestry had the sharpest decline for the month, while information, professional, scientific, and technical services saw the sharpest year-to-year decline.

"On the upside, the Index’s overall annual growth rate remained steady, suggesting no major change in underlying nationwide demand for labor compared to July," stated Jesse Harriott, Vice President of Research at Monster Worldwide.
Jobs Index
The Index over the past year

While online job demand in all nine U.S. Census Bureau regions was down for the year, seven out of those nine saw growth over the month. The biggest growth came from the West North Central region. This is attributed to the aftermath of flooding. Online job demand increased in 40 states and the District of Columbia. At the city level, the Index monitors 28 U.S. metro areas. Eight of those saw an increase in online recruitment activity. Boston showed the biggest increase, and San Diego saw a nice one as well.

The Index has a ways to go before it reaches where it was a year ago, but this might be the beginning of an upward trend.

Alternate Ajax Techniques Part 1 -Using HTML: iframe

2008-09-08T05:03:00.000-07:00

IFRAME

1.Dynamic content loading in iFrame

HTML: iframe

The concept is simple: create a new

<- iframe/>

element and assign a valid url to its src attribute to load html content that isn't initially written into the page.

All you need to do is create a

<- iframe/>

element using the DOM createElement() method and add it to the page:

var oIframe = document.createElement("iframe");
oIframe.src = "/path/to/my.html";
oIframe.id = "myUnicId";
oIframe.name = "myIframeName";
document.body.appendChild(oIframe);

Instead, you'll need to have a trigger ( a callback function ) that is the executed at the end of loading HTML file(my.html).

1.1 Simple Example ( Example 1)

The HTML file my.html contains a single line:

Hello world!

DEMO of Example 1

Other Techniques
- Loading XML
- Dynamic Script Loading
- Images and Cookies

Mozilla releases second Firefox 3.1 alpha

2008-09-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

The Mozilla Corporation has released an advance testing version of its popular Firefox Web browser, just days after Google revealed its competing Chrome software.

The second alpha of Firefox 3.1 was made available overnight. The software, code-named Shiretoko, is at this stage intended for software developers and testers only, with the stable and recommended version of Firefox being 3.0.1.
Firefox logo

In a statement, Mozilla said the testing version of Firefox introduced several new features, including the browser's highly anticipated support for a new video tag element introduced with the HTML 5 standard to provide more functionality around the amount of video that is increasingly being delivered through Web browsers.

In addition, Shiretoko allows users to drag and drop tabs between browser windows, improves performance in some areas and provides better integration with Windows Vista's Aero 'Glass' theme for those wanting to add extra themes on top of Firefox.

The new software also adds some speed enhancements to the browser, particularly in the area of JavaScript handling, which was one area Google highlighted as being a strength of the Chrome browser it launched this week, also in testing form.

Mozilla is planning to integrate a faster JavaScript engine, dubbed TraceMonkey, into Firefox. However the organization noted that technology was not included in the software released overnight, although it could be tested by following a set of instructions posted online.

The alpha release of Firefox 3.1 can be downloaded from Mozilla's Web site.

Yahoo! Stock Value Reaches Lowest Point in 5 Years

2008-09-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

A share is worth only $17.75

The Yahoo! stock value registered, a couple of days ago, the lowest point in five years. The shares dropped to $17.75, while in November 2007, the share price reached the highest point, namely of $34.08. In May 2008, the stock value per unit continuously went up and down, with a minimum rate of $22 and a maximum of $30. Then came the much talked about tender from Microsoft, which expressed its interest to acquire Yahoo!.

At that moment, Yahoo!'s officials, with CEO Jerry Yang at the helm, decided that the $33 per share offer didn't correspond with the actual value of the Sunnyvale based company. The board turned Microsoft down and asked for a bigger bid but the Redmond company considered it to be unreasonable and, after several months of negotiations, decided to drop the offer. "Yahoo!'s existing business plus its recently signed commercial agreement with Google has superior financial value and less complexity and risk than the Microsoft/Icahn proposal," said Yahoo!'s representatives on July 12, referring to the fact that one of the company’s investors was holding separate talks with Microsoft.

Activist investor Carl Icahn started a fervent protest against Yang's decision, claiming that a collaboration with Microsoft (or, better said, an acquisition) would have reinforced the status of Yahoo!'s products on several markets. As his actions had no visible repercussions on the decisions taken by the topside of the company, the investor started a proxy fight and he was determined to replace the largest part of the current board of directors with his right-hand men.

Just before the annual elections, Yahoo!'s executives and Icahn had reached a settlement, according to which, in return for three seats in the executive board, the investor "would forget" about the Microsoft acquisition friction. Now that the shares dropped to such an unprecedented low, the company seems the perfect target for other acquisition proposals, and perhaps Microsoft itself will come back with a bid, but we have to wait a while longer to see the outcome.

Google Blogging Platform Gets More Social Friendly

2008-09-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

Google has announced that all the users of the Blogger platform will soon have greater opportunities to tighten the bonds with the other users of Google's blogging system. “Following,” a new feature that will be implemented in the next couple of weeks in all blogs, allows bloggers to interact more with the other members of the online community.

The feature makes it possible for users to get updates on who follows their blog - which means, for those who are not accustomed to the whole blogging community terminology - who added them to the “favorite blogs” sidebar. Bloggers who have already reached a steady audience can now show their appreciation for the support received so far by also adding some of its members to the public list of “supporters.” This means that, if someone likes your blog and is not shy about making it public, you can return the favor by displaying their pictures, names and weblog addresses on the side of your blog, using the “Followers” feature.

The more solid interconnection between bloggers can create an augmented sense of membership to a dynamic community. Also, it can help people who only read certain blogs easier develop a database of favorite personal webpages to follow in the future. This is because the followers are usually interested in the same subjects as those who are tracked using the new feature.

The same also goes the other way round. Bloggers who decide to follow a colleague's personal page will get automatic updates whenever they publish a new post. The subscription to “Following” can be made both publicly and anonymously, because some may not want, for various reasons, to appear in their favorite bloggers' followers side list.

The team at Google is also preparing a new application for blogs – Google Friend Connect, which promises even more engaging social experiences. Although a good idea, the “Following” feature can cause something that may be easily labeled as discrimination because, although bloggers who use the Google platform can add other bloggers who use different platforms on their friends list, the opposite is impossible. And, if someone doesn't add you to the list, you may want to give them the same treatment, which comes against Google's call for socializing and friendly behavior.

The new TraceMonkey Just-In-Time compiler brings notable improvements

2008-09-06T08:11:00.000-07:00

Firefox 3.1 Gets Major JavaScript Speed Boost
The new TraceMonkey Just-In-Time compiler brings notable improvements
The latest Firefox 3.1 nightly-built comes with a new JIT compiler for SpiderMonkey, Gecko's JavaScript engine. The compiler is part of a project called TraceMonkey, which aims at bringing significant improvements in JavaScript performance. The tests so far show major speed boost in JavaScript functions.

TraceMonkey is based on a technique called Trace Trees which in essence determines and compiles the most often used code. The technique was developed at the Irvine University of California (UCI) and was implemented in collaboration with the Tamarin Virtual Machine project. This is set to bring a new level of JavaScript performance "where instead of competing against other interpreters, we start to compete against native code", notes Mike Shaver, Interim VP of Engineering at Mozilla.

A test performed with Apple's SunSpider JavaScript Benchmarking tool shows a 1.8x performance increase for Firefox 3.1 with TraceMonkey over Firefox 3 and the SunSpider ubench test shows a whooping 22.5x performance increase. In comparison, Firefox 3 brings an overall 0.2x (20%) performance improvement over Firefox 2. Other tests like an image manipulation demo and Sylvester 3D-based matrix multiplications reveal a factor of over 6x performance increase.

Brendan Eich, Mozilla Chief Technology Officer, considers that the overall improvement score of 2x is an appropriate estimation for the current implementation, but he's certain this will further improve. "But this is only a start. With tracing, performance will keep going up. We have easy small linear speedup tasks remaining (better register allocation, spill reduction around built-in calls). We will trace string and regular expression code and break through the '2' barrier. We will even trace into DOM methods," he notes and Mike Shaver shares this opinion: "There are many wins left in each one of those benchmarks, and we'll be working on those through Firefox 3.1 and beyond: better code generation, more efficient guards, improvements to some data structures, parallel compilation, use of specific processor features, new optimization passes, tracing more code patterns, and many more".

Developers should note that TraceMonkey, while present in the latest nightly built of Firefox 3.1, is turned OFF by default. For testing purposes, an image manipulation demo page set up by Mike Schroepfer can be used; the corresponding screencast can be watched instead. More tech savvy users that are interested in the tracing technology can read the original Trace Trees paper or the the Hotpath paper.

Google Reps Unveil Chrome Making-Of Secrets -Video

2008-09-05T04:36:00.000-07:00

Google has presented, during a media event lasting nearly an hour, its latest, highly acclaimed product. Probably anyone on the planet with an Internet connection is already familiar with Google Chrome, the first open source web browser.

During the conference, Google officials presented the capabilities of the product that has already generated a lot of stir, along with some behind-the-scenes development stories. The main “lecturer” was Sundar Pichai, Google product management vice president, who started by saying that the team working on Chrome tried to emulate the technologies and the user experience from behind Google's most successful product, the search engine used by nearly two thirds of the planet.

Pichai underscored that the main aspect that differentiated the browser from its competitors was that it didn’t stand out, and was as unobtrusive as possible. “The motto in the whole team was how do we minimize Chrome. We used to call it “content, not Chrome” [...]. Our view is that the browser is just an application, is just a tool for people to interact with the sites and applications they care about. So browsers should not be self important.”

“In Chrome, we do not interrupt users at all. There are no dialogs which pop-up in front of you and ask you to do something. So our goal is that the user should enjoy surfing the web and the browser should stay out of the way.” added the Google official.

The Google rep highlighted the three significant features that actually distinguished Chrome from anything else on the market – the rendering engine, the multiprocess technology and V8, a JavaScript engine that developers have built from scratch. Rendering is based on the same engine that powers Safari, which enables at least some of the web developers to easily adapt their webpages to fit the browser. Multiprocessing has the main function of increasing the speed of the browser, but also of avoiding the crashing of the entire browser when a tab malfunctions. The V8 JavaScript engine speeds up even more the reactions of Chrome, whenever users employ it to do something in particular.

While Sundar Pichai held a speech focused mostly on technical facts, Larry Page, one of Google's co-founders, joked about the fact that he usually ruled over his team with an iron fist, but that the people who worked on Chrome did a really good job. “I've been using Chrome for quite a while actually and I've really enjoyed using it. I used it on a slow, old computer on purpose to really force them to make it fast without a lot of memory and on slower computer.” said Page.

Meanwhile, Software Engineer at the company Amanda Walker announced that the Mac and Linux versions were under development, although no one could estimate the exact date of release. Pichai also tackled this topic for the journalists gathered at the official release event, saying that the internal need for the two versions of the browser (since many Googlers - the company staff - also use Linux and Mac OS X platforms) should make development pick up the pace.

Video

Facebook Better than MySpace by 150%

2008-09-05T04:29:00.000-07:00

The social networks market is generally characterized by important gaps in the year-over-year evolution of the most popular hotspots. Although still holding on to the global second place, the annual rate of growth that MySpace managed to achieve was of only 3%. However, some may say that growth is of good omen, no matter the percentage. Given that the most significant increase registered in the top 10 was of 153%, and that the number is attributed to Facebook, the network which now attracts in excess of 132 million unique users, the decline of MySpace becomes obvious.

"Facebook has done an exceptional job of leveraging its brand internationally during the past year," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore, the company that provided the results. "By increasing the site's relevance to local markets through local language interface translation, the site is now competing strongly or even capturing the lead in several markets where it had a relatively minor presence just a year ago."

hi5, the third best website that brings friends together, also had a good year. From June 2007 to the same month of 2008, hi5 doubled its audience, reaching 56 million users. The localization strategy seems to have paid off for the second runner-up, as hi5 too was among the companies to introduce multi-language supported features in the abovementioned particular time span.

However, the development of these social networks cannot be attributed to North American or European users, as it would have been expected. The two markets had already reached a certain maturity, which means that the audience of Facebook, MySpace, Orkut or Friendster could not grow at an accelerated pace anymore. Instead, 1055% more Latin Americans became users of the social networks, while the Asia-Pacific growth was of 458%, topping the Middle East-Africa 403% increase in the number of people to become connected over the web.

"While the social networking trend first took off in North America, it is beginning to reach a point of maturity in the region," added Flanagan. "However, the phenomenon is still growing rapidly in other regions around the world - especially as the established American brands turn their focus to developing markets."

Social Networking, a Mystery for Half the Population

2008-09-05T04:26:00.000-07:00

A survey performed by research company Synovate showed that 58% of the people questioned didn't even know what a social network was. This result is all the more surprising given the fact that, nowadays, social networking is considered, among people with an Internet connection, to be as popular as, say, email.

The survey took place in 17 countries, the inhabitants of the Netherlands being the most social networking savvy. Eighty-nine percent of them answered in the positive to the question of the operator, of whether they knew what social networking was. Japan came in second, with 71% affirmative answers, followed by the US, with a 70% rate of knowledge of social networks among the respondents.

Reading into the statements released by the company after the survey, officials probably expected more Americans to be aware of the technological advancements regarding socializing. Synovate's Senior Vice President of the US-based Consumer Insights group, Bob Michaels, also offered an explanation for the US being topped by the other two countries. “While a majority of Americans have access to computers there are still others, particularly seniors and immigrants, who do not. Online social networking just is not part of their world.”

Twenty-six percent of the 13,000 respondents said they were members of a social network. Here too, the Netherlands took the lead again, with a 49% rate of social networking, being followed by the United Arab Emirates (46%), Canada (44%), and the US (40%). The positioning of the first runner-up is perhaps the most surprising, but it can be easily explained – in a country where traditions sometimes shape personal relationships, the online space is the only one that allows uncensored socializing.

The survey also showed that people have gradually lost their interest in online social networking. 36% of the current members said that their interest level was dropping. The most weary of Facebook, MySpace & co. were the Japanese users, 55% of them saying that social networks had lost the importance they once had. Slovakia came in second, with 48%, followed by Canada, with 47%. Oppositely, Indonesian and French users said that their interest was on the increase (82% and 79% respectively).

“When you're in the world of marketing — reading about it, planning campaigns, researching people — it's sometimes easy to overlook the basics. So we started our study by simply asking 'do you know what online social networking is?' And that's where our first myth was debunked. It turns out social networking is not taking over the world. Well, not yet anyway.” Global Head of Media Research for Synovate, Steve Garton, concluded by saying.

Hackers attack businesses, blogs and Web 2.0 sites, reveals Sophos Security Threat Report

2008-09-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

IT security and control firm Sophos has published new research into the first six months of cybercrime in 2008.

The Sophos Security Threat Report examines existing and emerging security trends and has identified that criminals are increasingly using creative new techniques in their attempt to make money out of internet users.

It is estimated that the total number of unique malware samples in existence now exceeds 11 million, with Sophos currently receiving approximately 20,000 new samples of suspicious software every single day - one every four seconds. The firm’s report reveals that most attacks are now designed to try and out-fox traditional security systems such as email-scanning.

The first half of 2008 has seen an explosion in threats spread via the web, the preferred vector of attack for financially-motivated cybercriminals. On average, Sophos detects 16,173 malicious webpages every day - or one every five seconds. This is three times faster than the rate seen during 2007.

Over 90 per cent of the webpages that are spreading Trojan horses and spyware are legitimate websites (some belonging to household brands and Fortune 500 companies) that have been hacked through SQL injection.

The chart for top malware hosted on the web is dominated by infections related to SQL injection attacks.
SQL injection attacks exploit security vulnerabilities and insert malicious code into the database running a website. Companies whose websites have been struck by such an attack often clean-up their database, only to be infected again a few hours later. Users who visit the affected websites risk having their computer taken over by hackers, and their personal banking information stolen by identity thieves.

Sophos has identified that the number one host for malware on the web is Blogger (Blogspot.com), which allows computer users to make their own websites easily at no charge. Hackers both set up malicious blogs on the service, and inject dangerous web links and content into innocent blogs in the form of comments. Blogspot.com accounts for 2 percent of all of the world’s malware hosted on the web.

Thousand of webpages belonging to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and schools have been infected, putting visiting surfers at risk of infection and identity theft. High profile entertainment websites such as those belonging to Sony PlayStation, Euro 2008 ticket sales companies, and UK broadcaster ITV are amongst the many to have suffered from the problem.

Sophos experts note that with the continuing popularity of Web 2.0 social networking sites, including Facebook and LinkedIn, among business users, cybercriminals who have already gained access to user profiles, may begin to use these as corporate directories, noting new employees and launching spear-phishing attacks specifically aimed at stealing information from new and unsuspecting members of staff.

To guard against this risk, all organizations should ensure employees are fully educated about the dangers of posting too much information on these sites, and of accepting unsolicited friend requests.

“Businesses need to bite the bullet and take better care of securing their computers, networks and websites. They not only risking having their networks broken into, but are also putting their customers in peril by passing on infections,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “But office workers must realise it’s not just the business fat cats who need to worry about this. Visiting an infected website from your work PC, or sharing too much personal or corporate information on sites like Facebook, could lead to you being the criminal’s route into your company.”

Although most attacks are now taking place via infected websites, email continues to present a danger. It is common for cybercriminals to spam out links to compromised websites, often using a subject line and message to tempt computer users into clicking through the promise of a breaking news story or a lewd topic.

Attacks via email file attachments, however, have reduced in 2008. Only one in every 2,500 emails examined in the first six months of 2008 was found to contain a malicious attachment, compared to one in 332 in the same period of 2007.

Malware which disguises itself as naked photos of Angelina Jolie or Nicole Kidman dominates the chart of top malware spreading via email attachment.

The Pushdo Trojan dominated the chart of most widespread malware spreading via email, accounting for 31 percent of all reports. Pushdo has been spammed out during the year with a variety of disguises. Some for example, have claimed to contain nude photographs of Hollywood stars Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie.

Much more information about the latest trends in malware, spyware and spam can be found in the latest Sophos Security Threat Report.

Research on Browser Weaknesses Triggers Attacks

2008-09-04T06:35:00.001-07:00

IBM’s X-Force says cyber-criminals are using public research on Web browser weaknesses to launch attacks before most users are even aware of their vulnerability.

The mid-year report from the security group indicates that organized criminals are adopting new automated techniques and strategies that allow them to exploit vulnerabilities much faster than ever before.

According to the X-Force report, 94 percent of all browser-related online exploits occurred within 24 hours of a vulnerability being officially disclosed. These attacks, known-as “zero-day” exploits, are on the Internet before people even know they have a vulnerability that needs to be patched in their systems.

Many security researchers have routinely posted the code needed to exploit a weakness as part of a security advisory. According to the X-Force report, these disclosed vulnerabilities are twice as likely to trigger zero-day exploits.

“The two major themes in the first half of 2008 were acceleration and proliferation,” said X-Force Operations Manager Kris Lamb. “We see a considerable acceleration in the time a vulnerability is disclosed to when it is exploited, with an accompanying proliferation of vulnerabilities overall. Without a unified process for disclosing vulnerabilities, the research industry runs the risk of actually fueling online criminal activity. There’s a reason why X-Force doesn’t publish exploit code for the vulnerabilities we have found, and perhaps it is time for others in our field to reconsider this practice.”

The latest X-Force report also found that browser plug-ins are the newest target-of-choice. In the first six months of 2008, roughly 78 percent of web browser exploits targeted browser plug-ins.

comScore -July 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

2008-09-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

In July 2008, Americans conducted 11.8 billion core searches (up 2 percent versus June) as Google Sites slightly extended its lead in core search market share by 0.4 percentage points.

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in July with 61.9 percent of the searches conducted, up from 61.5 percent in June, followed by Yahoo! Sites (20.5 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.9 percent), Ask Network (4.5 percent), and AOL LLC (4.2 percent).

Americans conducted 11.8 billion searches at the core search engines, representing a 2-percent gain versus June. Google Sites handled nearly 7.3 billion core searches (up 2 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.4 billion and Microsoft Sites with 1 billion.

In the comScore July 2008 analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led with 9.9 billion searches, a 4-percent increase versus June. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 2.5 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites with 1.1 billion and AOL LLC with 814 million.

Mozilla Not Worried About Google Browser

2008-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Given that Microsoft still controls about 72 percent of the browser market, Google can’t afford to leave that business to chance. Web is its business, and the browser is a necessary weapon for the company. “It is not surprising that they are doing a browser. Google does many things (servers, energy) that touch their business,” he said. “They feel that they can make a better browser by starting from scratch…advances in browsers are good.”

Lilly (John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla Corp., the folks behind the fast-growing Firefox browser) pointed out that most of the other browser vendors — Microsoft, Apple and now Google — have other businesses and thus another agenda. For Mozilla, Firefox was the only agenda. “Our only agenda is to make web better — it is our single mission,” Lilly says. With over 200 million users worldwide and a development team made up mostly of volunteers, Lilly says he isn’t worried about Chrome just yet. “I really don’t know how it will impact us,” he says.

He is right to take a wait-and-see attitude. For one, browser market share doesn’t change overnight. Google, despite its awesome reach, has a history of launching products that tend to lose steam. It has yet to hit home runs that rival its search and contextual advertising businesses.

Not having seen Chrome, I will withhold any final judgement myself, but I would look at the privacy implications of Chrome very, very carefully. I have long since stopped buying into the “do no evil” drivel the company keeps espousing.

This tussle between Mozilla and Google is going to get more gripping in coming years.

This tussle between Mozilla and Google is going to get more gripping in coming years. Mozilla has a services strategy — Project Weave – that could eventually compete with Google’s suite of services. Whatever it is, it seems like Mozilla is ready for the challenge. And just when we thought the world of browsers was getting boring.

Alternate Ajax Techniques Part 1 - Using iframe

2008-09-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

1.Dynamic content loading in iFrame

HTML: iframe

The concept is simple: create a new iframe element and assign a valid url to its src attribute to load html content that isn't initially written into the page.

All you need to do is create a iframe element using the DOM createElement() method and add it to the page.

AJAX PHR RSS Reader Step by Step Tutorial

2008-09-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

Tutorial whith Demo about writing an AJAX RSS Reader. This AJAX reader is written in Javascript only, it just request a backend url on the same server then display the feed resulted as you can see in the screenshots below :

Preparing the XMLHttpRequest Object
In the first step the application prepared an XMLHttpRequest object to use it for loading remote RSS data. I tested the code with firefox only, but I added ActiveXObject in case IE was used.

   var RSSRequestObject = false; // XMLHttpRequest Object

if (window.XMLHttpRequest) // try to create XMLHttpRequest
 RSSRequestObject = new XMLHttpRequest();

if (window.ActiveXObject) // if ActiveXObject use the Microsoft.XMLHTTP
 RSSRequestObject = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");

Writing the HTML code
Just few lines are enough, two divs are used by the application the status will inform about the progress of requesting data, and the ajaxreader will be the container in which the result will be displayed. The first thing then to do onload page is to run the AJAX Reader.

  
AJAX RSS Reader

The AJAX RSS Reader

The AJAX Reader will request the backend URL and run a function ReqChange() when the data will be loaded. I have just added few additional function for usability purpose to display the status and hide it ...

 var
Backend = 'rss.php'; // Backend url .....
Read complete article
You can find the AJAX RSS Reader
script running online