25 Most Recent Weblog Entries
 Programming: at by Pemba[b]A fast and lightweight IDE[/b] Geany is a small and lightweight integrated development environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. It is using only the GTK2 toolkit and therefore you need only the GTK2 runtime libraries to run Geany. The basic features of Geany are: [list][*]syntax highlighting [*]code completion [*]auto completion of constructs like if, for and while, XML and HTML [*]call tips [*]folding [*]many supported file types like C, Java, PHP, HTML, Python, Perl, Pascal [*]symbol lists [*]embedded terminal emulation[/list] Geany is known to run under Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, MacOS X, AIX v5.3, Solaris Express and Windows. More generally, it should run on every platform, which is supported by the GTK libraries. Only the Windows port of Geany is missing some features. The code is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. More about Geany: [url=http://geany.uvena.de]Homepage[/url]  FAQ: at by JosIf you have a new theme that you want everybody to see, say for example it is Christmas and you have a nice Christmas theme, the easy way to set all users to the new theme is to set that theme to default theme in admin panel -> Admin Assistant settings and then go to General Settings and change the theme cookie name. That will cause all users to lose their theme cookie settings so will automatically load the new default theme in its place. This won't affect the user's theme setting in the profile however. To change that, you would need to uncheck the "Allow User to Change Theme" setting. When that is set to off, the default theme is loaded. Programming: at by JosNot sure if anyone has noticed it or not but we have a few new UBBC tags for forums and articles in the new version. These include [font=Impact]font face[/font], [size=7]font size[/size], and horizontal rule. [hr] We also have new smilies and UBBC/Smilie buttons that are really cool, by maxisvt. [cool]  Announcements: at by JosWebAPP v0.9.9.9, available in the downloads area. More info available [url=http://www.web-app.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=forum&board=Welcome&op=display&num=10813]HERE[/url] . Announcements: at by JosWebAPP has released install packages for full install and upgrades from 0.9.9.8 to the next version of WebAPP, v0.9.9.9. This is for public testing to find any last problems or bugs before making the official release in the downloads. Updates include a lot of new admin options including complete front page management via the admin panel. The front page administration feature began as a blocks management concept being worked on by Ted Cambron and Anton at the ModAPP site some years ago. As many of you know, my2cents added more features and made a mod out of it, released, also at ModAPP, in Sept. 2006, that has become quite popular. We have been working towards finishing it out for core code since then as time has allowed. It's turned out to be a great addition and also fun to use. The new admin options are almost too many to list. All are listed in the readmes/Changes0999.txt file, along with everything else that has been done towards this version. One major improvement code-wise for this version is that WebAPP now runs under strict - something for which we've striving for a long long time. All in all, I feel it's the best WebAPP version yet. Announcements: at by JosWebAPP is now running under the "strict" pragma, which is a mechanism of Perl that checks to see that all code is written using accepted practices. We did not yet upgrade the set of files in the admin folder as those are planned to be better integrated, but all cgi-lib files and other public files for 0.9.9.9 are now headed with "use strict" to activate this pragma. Steps towards this goal have been in progress for a long time, and this achievement is a major landmark in WebAPP development.  News: at by JosThis morning Web-APP was offered a tidy sum (USD $4,123,850) by a party who will remain unnamed, for exclusive use of the WebAPP script as developed at the site web-app.org for several years. The offer was rejected, reason being according to an interview with a main developer at the Web-APP community: "Putting a price tag on it would spoil all the fun." Oh well, to each his or her own. [confused] Programming: at by Yaza"The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance free and open source software, today published a paper that considers the legal implications of Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (OSP) and explains why it should not be relied upon by developers concerned about patent risk." The paper was published in response to the open source community's questions regarding the compatibility of the "OSP" with the GNU General Public License (GPL). "The paper says that the promise should not be relied upon because of Microsoft's ability to revoke the promise for future versions of specifications, the promise's limited scope, and its incompatibility with free software licenses, including the GPL." Karen Sandler, SFLC Counsel, stated: "Based on our review of the OSP, we do not recommend that free software developers rely on it for assurance." Sandler said that because developers of free software are unable to implement OOXML freely, "we urge that it not be approved as an ISO standard." The [url=http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html]paper[/url] is available on SFLC's Web site Links: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ Source: http://www.pr-inside.com/print487398.htm  Internet: at by YazaAn interesting article from back in July of last year, where the author, Jonathan Bailey, gives some interesting ideas to help stop image and file hotlinking, and how to block RSS scraping for those who might not be familiar with this ability. These ideas are not new to those who have been working with the manipulation of .htaccess files on their server, provided they have access to their own server, but the ideas presented in Bailey's article should be of interest for newcomers to Web-APP. Web-APP users, just like any other site owners, often find their bandwidth rising due to image and file hotlinking through free Online services such as the popular MySpace, Facebook, and other similiar social networking sites. Bailey says, "Though these manipulations won’t do anything to stop human plagiarism it can stop some of the more common types of plagiarism before they happen, all without impacting legitimate users at all. It makes sense, if possible, to use these methods to your advantage." To find out more on how you can fight bandwidth theft, you can [url=http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2007/07/02/using-htaccess-to-stop-content-theft/]access[/url] the article [url=http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2007/07/02/using-htaccess-to-stop-content-theft/]here[/url].  Newsletter: at by QWe're starting a new look for our newsletter and hope you enjoy the new pdf format. Included in the newsletter will be topics such as a "How-To" column that will discuss WebAPP tips on various items such as how to implement a hack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . <object data="http://www.web-app.org/pages/newsletter/web-app_newsletter_v1i1.pdf" width="100%" height="600"></object>  Editorials: at by JosToday I was doing some reading on the net and ran across this very interesting and well put together article about Content Management Systems and what to look for when going about to select one. I thought it had so many good ideas that might be something we could think about working into WebAPP in a future version. We'll be starting with our version 1.0 soon, and we should consider things like this to make WebAPP more professional and to provide more of what people who have used other systems have come to expect. Here is the article: <object data="/pages/KMC_EvaluateCMS.pdf" type="application/pdf" width="100%" height="600"> alt : <a href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_evaluate/pdf/KMC_EvaluateCMS.pdf">test.pdf</a></object> Here is a link to the article on the web (PDF file): [url=http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_evaluate/pdf/KMC_EvaluateCMS.pdf]How to Evaluate a Content Management System[/url]  Security: at by Homer_SimpsonWashington D.C. FBI National Press Office (202) 324-3691 Internet Alert: St. Valentine’s Day E-Card Carries Storm Worm Virus If you unexpectedly receive a Valentine’s Day e-card, be careful. It may not be from a secret admirer, but instead might contain the Storm Worm virus. With the holiday approaching, be on the lookout for spam e-mails spreading the Storm Worm malicious software (malware). The e-mail directs the recipient to click on a link to retrieve the electronic greeting card (e-card). Once the user clicks on the link, malware is downloaded to the Internet-connected device and causes it to become infected and part of the Storm Worm botnet. A botnet is a network of compromised machines under the control of a single user. Botnets are typically set up to facilitate criminal activity such as spam e-mail, identity theft, denial of service attacks, and spreading malware to other machines on the Internet. The Storm Worm virus has capitalized on various holidays in the last year by sending millions of e-mails advertising an e-card link within the text of the spam e-mail. Valentine's Day has been identified as the next target. Be wary of any e-mail received from an unknown sender. Do not open any unsolicited e-mail and do not click on any links provided. To receive the latest information about cyber scams please go to the FBI website and sign up for e-mail alerts by clicking on one of the red envelopes. If you have received a scam e-mail, please notify the IC3 by filing a complaint at www.ic3.gov . For more information on e-scams, please visit the FBI's New E-Scams and Warnings webpage at http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm #### Security: at by Josand succeeding. Someone is running some script off of various servers, trying some exploit in trying to get this site to load some remote script and/or just trying to crash the logs. Here they are folks: 87.255.1.130 195.96.238.2 72.3.240.146 83.138.146.79 217.172.33.83 83.168.217.40 82.165.146.67 208.100.55.68 87.229.14.10 195.205.77.30 213.168.18.162 88.212.205.5 66.11.122.105 203.146.140.58 220.135.250.253 89.248.80.35 205.161.188.15 216.145.9.178 202.71.129.99 200.29.4.54 These were pretty much all either one after another or at the same moment. Announcements: at by Jos2007 out, and in with 2008! [bounce] [img]http://www.web-app.org/images/uploads/wav.gif[/img]  Perl: at by JosSeattle Perl Users Group (SPUG) celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Perl programming language. See the cake and hear the music [url=http://seattleperl.org/happy_20th.html]HERE[/url] . [grin] Announcements: at by my2centsWell, I was going to put up a bunch of old themes in my site downloads, Classics from folks, like Carter, Ditto, SimonJ, John-Gr, Drakken20, and Bill Huff. And even the progressive stages of my own style of WebAPP theme development. Which I still may do, but I wanted some screenshots of the themes so members could see what they are downloading. So I loaded up what I thought was the cleanest old build html wise that most of these layouts would work ok in, 9.9.2. Well, things just never work out as you plan, none of them displayed properly or even close, some were just wacked. So, slowly I started working up some of the classics into complete new builds from the newer files, some went great, until I needed tables. So I surfed over to web-app.org to grab the tabled standard in the downloads there and build myself a template. That was the first set back, the standard tabled theme was not validating, was a brain tease for sure, but problem solved. Next was adding a table to the center block for image corner based themes like "Spun Glass"(Ditto), and "Neo"(C-Central or Drakken20)". That went well as I had already had that done a while back on my "original-custom"{Custom 2) theme, which loaded up perfectly from the last build(9.9.3), into 9.9.8 layout wise. Now I have some validating functioning templates to rebuild all the classic from, but still the work was consuming as each theme with image corners need their own specific layout. I started with Spun Glass, a favorite of mine, just because it's not a normal look. Once again, another bad choice, I gotta chuckle, even after rebuilding the theme with new correct files and good html code for the layout, it failed. Now I can't even remember what it was exactly as I've been though so many updated bits for these tabled themes. Once past that stage, the rest came slow and easy, with each build the templates and the rest of the tabled themes became stronger, some even out doing the originals by far. What I have now is, this list of themes running now on the current build of 9.9.8, in tabled or colorme(current standard) forms. [list][*]1orange[*]1wiz[*]bbu[*]blackvelvet[*]bluestar[*]classic[*]colorific[*]custom1[*]floride[*]goth2[*]graphics[*]grid[*]holiday[*]neo[*]neogreen[*]neosilver[*]orig-custom[*]psi[*]pub[*]redglow[*]rhombus[*]slate[*]snow[*]spunglass[*]stop[*]tomorrow[*]tube[/list] Just about wrapped up and ready for the downloads, all in [url=http://www.webappworld.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi]my[/url] theme changer right now as I check them over for final touches. Then I'm taking a break for the holidays! Announcements: at by JosNote to all when upgrading: Any upgrades these days require a check against modifications in the user-lib, even more so than usual in the past, as we move ahead on upgrading WebAPP's old code. Although we try to minimize it as much as possible, we will need to let go of a certain amount of backwards-compatibility in order to correct and improve upon certain things in the way in which the code is written. And we are just now to the point where we will be moving in to the real nitty gritty of this process, so this will probably be even more so in the near future, that we need to upgrade our user-lib hacks when upgrading the WebAPP version we are using. Security: at by JosIP [url=http://www.ipspotting.com/?IP=66.246.218.218]66.246.218.218[/url] slam hit this site real hard for about 10 minutes tonight. I'm not sure how many hundreds of hits, and I'm not about to count them. The hits were in multiples per second ranging clear up to 7 hits per second. This was the hardest hits I have yet seen with these bots set on dedicated servers, presumably in an effort to crash our database. Not sure what the purpose of that is since even if they do succeed, we keep frequent backups and would not lose much if anything. That's the nice thing about flat file text databases - Although they are easier than some types of data storage systems to crash, they are also very easy to restore which can't be said about some of the more complex systems. Nevertheless, I wish these bot setting fools would go away. [right]<a href="http://www.ipspotting.com" target="_blank" title="IP Spotting - How interesting is your IP Address?"><img alt="Your IP address as a bitmap" src="http://www.ipspotting.com/bitmap/"></a>[/right] Announcements: at by JosJust released today - See our downloads area, [url=http://www.web-app.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=downloads&cat=curstable]Current Stable Version[/url] for the full install or upgrade packages. Lots of work went into this one - mostly on boring technical things, but we did add a few nice new items that people will notice. Perl: at by Jos1999 interview with Larry Wall by Marjorie Richardson. "Discover a bit about Perl's creator and what's happening with Perl." [url=http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3394]Larry Wall, the Guru of Perl[/url] "I wanted a short name with positive connotations. (I would never name a language "Scheme" or "Python", for instance.) I actually looked at every three- and four-letter word in the dictionary and rejected them all." News: at by Jos[url=http://www.wideopensources.com/perl/portal/]WebAPP site as of May 20 2006[/url] Last year, I wanted to use the Archive feature to move some of our old threads into an archive. I figured this would speed up the site by not having to load all that old database on every page load (for the latest forum posts), and also to speed up the forum Search feature. So the Web-APP team here all pitched in to help clear off the "Lost and Found" board that we had here at the time, and then I ran the Archiver to archive all threads last posted or replied to earlier than February 2005. Sometimes I miss the old site the way it was before we did the archiving, so I assumed maybe others did too. The "old db" site is for those of you who prefer the forums all-in-one rather than as we have it now with the more recent files being in the main Forums and the old, historical thread in the Archives. I didn't put up the membership files there since there are about 20,000 of them (4 for each active member, 3 for inactive) and most were inactive. There were 5 thousand some odd members before late 2005 - early 2006 when I went through one by one and cleaned out all those who had been members for over a year and either never logged in or never logged in within a year with no profile data or posts. At the time the membership db cleanup was first complete, the membership was brought down to about 17 hundred some odd of members who were ever active at all in any way. The "old db" site is the last known backup (May 20 2006) of the old site before the 3 months down time we experienced here at web-app.org before coming back online on September 7 of last year. Hope some people will find this helpful. I enjoy it for its nostalgic value at very least. FAQ: at by rbarronMacs running OS X have Apache web servers built into them, and since I'm a Mac tech by trade I decided to give it a go and install Web-App on my Mac. So I thought I would share what I did and help any other Mac users who wanted to try doing the same. I'm running OS 10.4.x, so your mileage may vary. 1) Go to the Apple menu and select system Preferences - Sharing. 2) Check "Personal Web Sharing" and "FTP Access" and note the web address link for Personal Web Sharing at the bottom (not the personal site adress with the /~). 3) Go to Hard Drive - Library - WebServer. You will see two folders - one called "CGI-Executables" and the other "Documents". You want to copy all the files from inside the WebApp CGI-BIN folder (that you just downloaded) and put them into the CGI-Executables folder. All the other files/folders get dumpped into Documents. 4) Use TextEdit and make a new index.html file with the following: [code]<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html><head> <title>Your Site Title</title> <myta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <myta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=http://(ENTER YOUR MAC IP ADDRESS HERE)/cgi-bin/index.cgi"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> </body> </html>[/code] 5) Use an FTP program (such as the free CyberDuck) and connect to your own computer using the FTP address at the bottom of the Sharing preference pane. It shows up when you have FTP Access selected. 6) Navigate to the Hard Drive - Library - WebServer - CGI-Executables folder and set permissions as follows: All .cgi .pl and folders get 777 All .txt .log .dat and everything else gets 666 (755, 775, 644, and 664 do not work for me) 7) Open your web browser and type in your IP address like this: http://123.234.345.456/cgi-bin/install.cgi You should see the config/install page and be able to go from there. If you get error messages (Can't find file, can't open file, etc) check your permissions again. And again. One thing I like about CyberDuck is that it has a view where I can see all the folders, click the triangle to see all the contents and subfolders, and keep going until I see every file and folder in WebApp. THEN I start setting permissions by selecting all the CGI PL and Folders and doing a "Get Info" to set them all to 777 in one shot. Then do the same with the other files, but to 666. I had to manually create the redirect index.html files, but it has been working like a champ. I can even get e-mails that web-app sends for user notifications (new user signups - users get their passwords in e-mail). Hope that helps! Security: at by JosSeveral IPs were spamming the form input parsing subroutine with huge amounts of data. This was getting irritating, so I started banning them. Here is a list of all IPs that have been banned as a result, so far. If your IP is on this list and you have not been making these form data spam visits, then probably either your IP has been hijacked or it is serving as an open proxy for anyone to use. Please contact me if you are unable to access this site and feel that you are innocent and should not be banned. 87.118.113.30 201.44.15.21 212.0.126.202 74.104.46.202 88.39.192.99 84.144.242.220 210.212.162.171 200.87.6.19 125.244.82.2 69.145.112.232 75.85.61.179 74.106.4.247 221.124.166.201 200.253.110.252 203.227.46.120 69.226.148.222 58.49.110.86 69.253.179.179 72.193.86.189 151.38.202.97 207.255.34.60 59.94.41.148 216.155.165.233 201.17.190.40 12.218.127.177 12.72.151.190 81.104.183.39 202.103.218.207 165.228.128.11 84.94.7.162 64.230.84.218 24.2.3.90 All 213.198.74.44 200.29.167.10 121.185.49.160 58.237.149.59 24.128.84.42 200.253.110.252 69.62.206.206 212.70.181.215 24.151.244.223 87.50.32.75 207.61.242.110 219.93.178.162 |
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