Archive for 2012

Nokia Lumia 920 not launching in India in November: Rumour

If reports on the Internet are to be
believed, then Nokia’s Windows Phone 8
powered flagship smartphone, the Lumia
920, that was expected to launch in India in
November will now launch at a later date.
No specific launch date has been
mentioned.
In a press release issued on October 29,
Nokia listed the countries that would
receive the Lumia 920 in November. The
countries included in the list were,
“Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong,
India, Italy, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates,
the UK, the US and Vietnam.” Yes, India too
was on that list!
Unfortunately, it seems that this was a
mistake. BGR India claims that a Nokia
spokesperson told them that the placement
of India on the list was a mistake and that
Nokia will announce the availability of the
device as soon as they freeze on a release
date. As of now, the device is under testing
with service providers in India to see that it
functions properly.
The Nokia Lumia 920 boasts of a 4.5-inch
IPS LCD PureMotion HD+ capacitive
touchscreen display with a resolution of
1280x768 pixels. It has 32GB internal
storage with no expandable memory
options. The rear houses a 8.7MP camera
with pulse burst LED flash that can shoot
1080p @ 30fps. The front has a 1.3MP
camera. The phone runs on a 1.5GHz dual-
core processor and 1GB RAM.

Friday 16 November 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani
Tag :

How To Remove The New FaceBook TIMELINE..!!

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want Your OLD PROFILE Back ???

Here's The Link By Which You can Remove TimeLine But For ONLY YOURSELF


You can also download extension below:


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Internet Explorer: https://www.timelineremove.com/download/TimeLineRemove.zip

Tuesday 30 October 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

How Famous Companies Got there name !!

How Famous Companies Got Their Names?
Nike: Named for the greek goddess of
victory. The swoosh symbolises her flight.
Skype: The original concept was ‘Sky-
Peer-to-Peer’, which morphed into
Skyper, then Skype.
Mercedes: This was actually financier's
daughter's name.
Adidas: The company name was taken from
its founder Adolf (ADI) Dassler whose first
name was shortened to the nickname Adi.
Together with first three letters of his
surname it formed ADIDAS.
Adobe: This came from the name of the river
Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of
founder John Warnock.
Apple Computers: It was the favourite fruit
of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months
late for filing a name for the business, and
he threatened to call his company Apple
Computers if the other colleagues didn't
suggest a better name by 5 o'clock.
CISCO: It is not an acronym as popularly
believed. It's short for San Francisco.
Compaq: This name was formed by using
COMP, for computer and PAQ to denote a
small integral object.
Corel: The name was derived from the
founder's name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It
stands for COwpland Research Laboratory.
Google: The name started as a joke boasting
about the amount of information the search-
engine would be able to search. It was
originally named 'Googol', a word for the
number represented by 1 followed by 100
zeros. After founders - Stanford graduate
students Sergey Brin and Larry Page
presented their project to an angel investor;
they received a cheque made out to
'Google'. So, instead of returning the cheque
for correction, they decided to change the
name to Google.
Hotmail: Founder Jack Smith got the idea of
accessing e-mail via the web from a
computer anywhere in the world. When
Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business
plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of
names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for
hotmail as it included the letters "html" - the
programming language used to write web
pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL
with selective uppercasing.
Hewlett Packard: Bill Hewlett and Dave
Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the
company they founded would be called
Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Intel: Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted
to name their new company 'Moore Noyce'
but that was already trademarked by a hotel
chain so they had to settle for an acronym
of INTegrated ELectronics.
Lotus (Notes): Mitch Kapor got the name for
his company from 'The Lotus Position' or
'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of
transcendental Meditation of Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi.
Microsoft: Coined by Bill Gates to represent
the company that was devoted to
MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally
christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed
later on.
Motorola: Founder Paul Galvin came up with
this name when his company started
manufacturing radios for cars. The popular
radio company at the time was called
Victrola.
Sony: It originated from the Latin word
'sonus' meaning sound and 'sonny' as lang
used by Americans to refer to a bright
youngster.
SUN: Founded by 4 Stanford University
buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford
University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim
built a microcomputer; Vinod Khosla
recruited him and Scott McNealy to
manufacture computers based on it, and Bill
Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the
computer.
Apache: It got its name because its founders
got started by applying patches to code
written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result
was 'A PAtCHy' server - thus, the name
Apache Jakarta (project from Apache): A
project constituted by SUN and Apache to
create a web server handling servlets and
JSPs. Jakarta was name of the conference
room at SUN where most of the meetings
between SUN and Apache took place.
Tomcat: The servlet part of the Jakarta
project. Tomcat was the code name for the
JSDK 2.1 project inside SUN.
C: Dennis Ritchie improved on the B
programming language and called it 'New B'.
He later called it C. Earlier B was created by
Ken Thompson as a revision of the Bon
programming language (named after his wife
Bonnie).
C++: Bjarne Stroustrup called his new
language 'C with Classes' and then 'newC'.
Because of which the original C began to be
called 'old C' which was considered insulting
to the C community. At this time Rick Mascitti
suggested the name C++ as a successor to C.
GNU: A species of African antelope. Founder
of the GNU project Richard Stallman liked
the name because of the humour associated
with its pronunciation and was also
influenced by the children's song 'The Gnu
Song' which is a song sung by a gnu. Also it
fitted into the recursive acronym culture
with 'GNU's Not Unix'.
Java: Originally called Oak by creator James
Gosling, from the tree that stood outside his
window, the programming team had to look
for a substitute as there was no other
language with the same name. Java was
selected from a list of suggestions. It came
from the name of the coffee that the
programmers drank.
LG: Combination of two popular Korean
brands Lucky and Goldstar.
Linux: Linus Torvalds originally used the
Minix OS on his system which here placed
by his OS. Hence the working name was
Linux (Linus' Minix). He thought the name to
be too egotistical and planned to name it
Freax (free+freak+x). His friend Ari Lemmke
encouraged Linus to upload it to a network
so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave
Linus a directory called 'Linux' on his FTP
server, as he did not like the name Freax.
(Linus parents named him after two-time
Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling).
Mozilla: When Marc Andreessen, founder of
Netscape, created a browser to replace
Mosaic (also developed by him), it was
named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla). The
marketing guys didn't like the name however
and it was re-christened Netscape Navigator.
Red Hat: Company founder Marc Ewing was
given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red
and white stripes) while at college by his
grandfather. He lost it and had to search for
it desperately. The manual of the beta
version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to
readers to return his Red Hat if found by
anyone!
SAP: "Systems, Applications, Products in
Data Processing", formed by 4 ex-IBM
employees who used to work in the
'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of
IBM.
UNIX: When Bell Labs pulled out of MULTICS
(MULTiplexed Information and Computing
System), which was originally a joint Bell/GE/
MIT project, Ken Thompson and Dennis
Ritchie of Bell Labs wrote a simpler version
of the OS. They needed the OS to run the
game 'Space War' which was compiled under
MULTICS. It was called UNICS - UNIplexed
operating and Computing System by Brian
Kernighan. It was later shortened to UNIX.
SCO (UNIX): From Santa Cruz Operation. The
company's office was in Santa Cruz.
Xerox: The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named
his product trying to say 'dry' (as it was dry
copying, markedly different from the then
prevailing wet copying). The Greek root 'xer'
means dry.
Yahoo: The word was invented by Jonathan
Swift and used in his book 'Gulliver's
Travels'. It represents a person who is
repulsive in appearance and action and is
barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang
and David Filo selected the name because
they considered themselves yahoos.
3M: Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Company started off by mining the material
corundum used to make sandpaper. It was
changed to 3M when the company changed
its focus to Innovative Products.

Friday 26 October 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

Apple iPhone 5 to hit India on November 2, App Store gets Rupee pricing

The much-awaited Apple iPhone 5 will hit
Indian retail shelves on November 2,
according to sources close to Apple. So far,
pricing has not yet been revealed. In the
meanwhile, Apple has introduced local
Rupee currency pricing for the iTunes App
Store.
Redington India and Ingram Micro have
been appointed as the master distributors
of the iPhone 5, and will be responsible for
providing the device to the two Apple
carriers (Aircel and Airtel). Other resellers
will also be able to procure the iPhone 5
from the two distributors, and sell it with
their own markup.
Hence, users can expect pricing to differ
across resellers and carriers – however,
Apple may end up controlling the pricing.
Expected pricing of the iPhone 5 ranges
from Rs. 45,000 for the 16GB model, to Rs.
65,000 for the 64GB model. Apple could
however, price the 16GB model lower, if it
decides on a more aggressive model. U.S
pricing for the unlocked 16GB iPhone 5 is
$649, translating to roughly Rs. 35,000,
excluding duties.
With the new FDI rules, Apple's plans of
opening its own retail store in India have
been thwarted , with the company required
to source 30 percent of its product sales
from local companies.
Apple’s introduction of Rupee pricing in its
App Store is a boon for both users and
developers, with more transparency for
both parties when buying and pricing apps.
Google has had local currency support on
the Google Play store for a while now, but
only recently introduced seller support in
the country – after a long wait.
According to a TOI report, most of the
Indian telecom operators are ready with
the Nano SIM cards required by the iPhone
5, so users can expect to start using the
device from launch date itself.
Already, almost all Indian carriers are ready
with nano SIM cards to support iPhone 5.
The demand for the iPhone 5 in India has
already been vast, with the device selling
well at a massive premium via online
retailers who are importing the device, and
the grey market. The top-end versions of
the device have been famously selling in
India for more than Rs. 1 lakh, a staggering
investment for a mobile phone.
Currently, the iPhone 5 is available for pre-
order on online retail sites such as
Infibeam, who are charging a Rs. 5,000
booking amount – and promise to reveal
the price only after launch.
Source: TOI


Posted by Rohit Motwani

Google accused of spying on Gmail users

Google isn’t exactly a stranger to
allegations that they invade the privacy of
their customers, but now the search engine
is being asked to explain itself in court over
accusations that they snoop through
messages sent through its Gmail service.
Representatives from Google are asking a
federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit waged at
the company’s Gmail platform because the
plaintiffs in the case cannot explicitly prove
that their correspondence is being
unlawfully monitored by the email service.
Brad Scott and Todd Harrington are the
lead plaintiffs in a case that attempts to
call-out the Silicon Valley search engine
company as being in violation of
California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA)
because they believe Gmail conducts
clandestine scans of emails for words and
content, intentionally intercepting private
communiqué as a result without obtaining
the user’s permission. Google, on the other
hand, maintains that only computers
complete all the legwork and that no
humans actually have their eyes on any
emails, also insisting that neither Mr. Scott
nor Mr. Harrington can back up their
claims that any action from Gmail has led
to injury.
Google condemned the case this week,
Courthouse News reports, arguing by way
of a 25-page motion that Gmail scans data
sent over its servers using its "fully
automated processes involve no human
review of any kind" that they insist exists
to screen out viruses and spam "for the
protection of its users." Now they are
asking US District Judge Lucy Koh to dismiss
the complaint with prejudice.
The plaintiffs say that Google’s actions are
enough to land them in court because that
conduct constitutes wiretapping and
eavesdropping in their eyes, a claim which
Google says is “contorting ” state law " in
ways the California Legislature never
intended.”
"In the context of emails, multiple
courts have recognized that no one can
reasonably expect that the emails they
send to others will be free from the
automated processing that is normally
associated with delivering emails,"
Google responds to the case with this
week’s motion.
"Plaintiffs fail to articulate a single
concrete injury stemming from the
automated processing of emails sent to
Gmail users," Google adds. "Plaintiffs
instead rely on conclusory allegations
that their privacy rights were infringed
in the abstract."
Additionally, Google charges that no state
statues being called into question applies
to the plaintiffs’ allegations, writing in their
motion that the terms " electronic
communication," "email," "Internet" and
"computer" are not included.
"Even if the court were to accept
plaintiffs' invitation to judicially rewrite
the statute to reach electronic
communications, choice of law rules
would still preclude applying CIPA to this
case," Google’s motion states.
"CIPA makes clear on its face that it is
intended to protect California residents
and not to regulate California
businesses," Google adds.
Judge Koh is now expected to hear the
motion on March 21, 2013. Meanwhile,
congressional Republicans wrote to the
White House this week to attack a planned
cybersecurity executive order that would
allow third-party companies, such as
Google, to openly share customer-inputted
information with the federal government.
“An executive order exerting influence
over critical infrastructure is not just a
step in the wrong substantive direction, ”
the letter reads. “It will almost certainly
be exploited by other nations to justify
their efforts to regulate the Internet.
This is a most critical time, and we
cannot afford a hasty, unilateral action
that will only serve to bolster the
efforts of less democratic nations to
stifle the very free exchange of ideas
and expression that has allowed the
Internet to flourish across the globe. For
these reasons, we urge you to rethink
the wisdom of an executive order.”
The letter to US President Barack Obama
was signed by 11 GOP members of
Congress, including US Rep. Fred Upton (R-
Michigan), Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-New
Hampshire), Senator Marco Rubio (R-
Florida) and Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah)

Friday 12 October 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

Apple shying from 'Samsung didn't copy iPad design' ads

Tech giant Apple has launched a bid to
overturn a court ruling that orders it to run
an embarrassing national newspaper
advertisement admitting that Samsung did
not unlawfully copy its iPad design.
LONDON: Tech giant Apple has launched a
bid to overturn a court ruling that orders it
to run an embarrassing national newspaper
advertisement admitting that Samsung did
not unlawfully copy its iPad design.
A British High Court judge had ordered
Apple "to put advertisements in the
relevant newspapers and to put a
statement on their United Kingdom
website", admitting its Korean rival had not
infringed the iPad design.
Apple, however, argued that, in finding
Samsung had not infringed its design, the
trial judge had place too much emphasis
on differences between the design of the
back of Galaxy Tab range and the back of
the iPad, the Telegraph reports.
Michael Silverleaf, representing Apple, said
that the differences highlighted in the
ruling amounted only to "decoration" that
should not carry significant weight in
judging whether Samsung copied.
Whereas the back of the iPad is almost
featureless, Galaxy Tabs have a separate,
different coloured section along one edge
that contains the camera and flash. T
"I say he was wrong to take these aspects
[of colour] into account at all. This [the
iPad] is a design about shape. You don't
make a non-infringing design by making
the same shape and decorating it," the
paper quoted Silverleaf, as saying.
He said that more weight should have been
given to the similarities between the front
of the iPad and the front of Galaxy Tabs.
Silverleaf pointed out that both designs
have a thick black border around their
rectangular touch screens.
"Too much weight was given to the features
of the back and far too little weight to the
features of the front," Silverleaf said.

Thursday 11 October 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

Google announced free sms service for gmail in India..

Search giant Google has started rolling out
free SMS for its free email service Gmail
and paid email service Google Apps
customers in India.
PUNE: Search giant Google has started
rolling out free SMS for its free email
service Gmail and paid email service Google
Apps customers in India. The service allows
users to send SMSes to mobile phones
from chat windows. Users have to add
mobile numbers of their contacts in the
email address book and they are set.
The service starts with 50 SMS credits for
each user, every sent SMS costing one
credit. Every reply received adds on 5
credits subject to the maximum level being
50 SMS at any given time. There is no
official statement from Google on the
launch of this service, however the service
has gone live this evening in the chat
windows of many users.
Google is rolling out the service in
partnership with cellular operators, which
means they would share revenue with
Google out of SMSes users on their
network send. It specifies a way to buy
more SMS credits.
"You can always send an SMS to your own
phone, and then reply to that message
multiple times. Every time you send a reply
message, your SMS credit is increased by
five. Effectively, you're buying more
messages by paying your phone company
for these outgoing messages," it writes on
its chat help portal.
The service currently supports eight cellular
operators including Aircel, Idea, Loop
Mobile, MTS, Reliance, Tata DoCoMo, Tata
Indicom and some circles of Vodafone.
BSNL, MTNL and Airtel are not supported
yet.
The SMSes sent from Gmail chat are
delivered to mobile phones while replies
from the mobile phone come into the chat
window. For the mobile phone user, the
reply is charged at local SMS rate as per
her/his normal billing plan.
If no replies are received to any of the 50
SMSs sent and the credit balance come
down to zero, Google says, "...it will
increase back up to one 24 hours later. So,
you won't ever be locked out of the
system."

Posted by Rohit Motwani

Review: Apple's Maps app

Although it's not flawless or as good as
Google's maps app on Android phones,
Apple's new offering on the iPhone got me
where I needed to go - for the most part.
FREMONT: Apple's new maps app came out
the day I started a 2,243-mile road trip
through four states. As complaints about it
trickled in and Apple's CEO apologized, I
was left wondering whether people were
using the same app I was.
Although it's not flawless or as good as
Google's maps app on Android phones,
Apple's new offering on the iPhone got me
where I needed to go - for the most part. I
know many people will disagree with me,
but I even find it an improvement over the
old app on iPhones because I now get voice
navigation and automatic re-routing.
I've used Google's Android app since it was
released three years ago. I don't own a car,
but I travel a lot. The app has proven
crucial in getting me to unfamiliar
territories in New England and various
Southern states from Arizona to South
Carolina.
Google brought to the phone the spoken-
aloud, turn-by-turn directions once limited
to GPS navigational devices from Garmin,
TomTom and others. Make a wrong turn,
and the app automatically updates with
new directions. Best of all, it's always been
free.
Until last month, Google was also behind
the free, main maps app on iPhones.
But that one didn't have voice navigation or
automatic re-routing. Driving with it meant
swiping through pages of on-screen
directions. A friend missed a train in May
as we overlooked a step and went the
wrong way on a highway, ending up back
where we came from. A drive from Ann
Arbor to Lansing, Mich., took 17 steps, each
with its own page. After Step 9, I had to
pull into a rest stop to memorize
subsequent steps and avoid an accident.
Apple wanted voice directions, too, and
figured the only way to get it was to build
its own maps app and bump Google from
its perch as the default offering. It
partnered with TomTom and shipped the
iPhone 5 with the new app. A software
update out September 19 made it available
on the iPhone 4S and the cellular versions
of the latest two iPad models.
I updated an iPhone 4S in a hotel room in
Grand Rapids, Mich., that night and was
immediately impressed. It was a nice touch
to have turn-by-turn directions narrated by
Siri, the familiar female voice from Apple's
virtual-assistant feature.
Then I started hearing the complaints.
I agree with many of them. The Apple app
didn't show as many businesses and
landmarks as Google's. Some appeared in
the wrong location or were mislabeled. The
Apple app didn't offer public transit
directions, something crucial for New
Yorkers like me. A friend I was visiting
toward the end of the two-week trip
immediately complained that the app
looked different as she pulled it out for the
first time.
Head to head, the Google app for Android,
which I used on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus
and a Galaxy S III, outperformed Apple's
version in many respects:
- Google's app typically told me about turns
a second or two quicker. Sometimes, I
didn't hear from Siri until I got to the
intersection, two lanes away from where I
needed to be to make a right turn.
- I got better navigation on private roads
with Google. At a shopping mall, Google
guided me along the right driveways to get
to JC Penney, while Apple got me to the
general vicinity. Google also got me to the
front door of my hotel in Ann Arbor, while
Apple got me to the entrance of a complex
that included other hotels, a gas station
and retail stores.
- In Akron, Ohio, Siri had me turn left to get
on a highway, while Google's app properly
instructed me to take a ramp on the left. In
Indianapolis, Google knew about a service
road alongside Michigan Road, while Siri
assumed I was on the main road and would
have had me crash into a Chinese
restaurant. In Charleston, W.Va., Siri told
me to head northeast, as if I had a
compass, while Google just told me to turn
left.
- Besides public transit directions, Google
offered options for avoiding tolls or
highways while driving. It allowed me to
choose continuous satellite images instead
of animated maps, while Apple's app
offered them only for route overviews, not
for live navigation.
- While Siri's voice sounds much more
human than the one Google used in its
early mapping apps, Google now has a
voice that makes Siri sound robotic by
comparison. Google also was more sparing
with words, which was good as long as I
didn't get lost for lack of detail.
That said, Apple's map offers 3-D views.
That may sound like a gimmick, but it
presents the map in a way that mirrors
what you're seeing through the windshield.
On Apple's map, the direction you're going
is on top in the regular view or toward the
back in 3-D. Outside of big cities, Google
often has north on top, which can be
confusing when driving east or south.
Apple's maps are also more pleasant to
view. Instructions such as "turn right onto
Pearl St." are in white against a green
background, similar to the signs you see on
highways. Street names at intersections are
in a green rectangle, similar to actual street
signs at corners. Unlike Google's, Apple's
app showed me the distance and time
remaining and an estimated time of arrival
all at once, though I would have
appreciated larger text.
Apple's app was mostly dead-on in getting
me to my destination. The one big miss was
when it had a winery I was looking for
about a half-mile east of its actual location.
I went to another instead.
But Google has made mistakes, too. It told
me to turn left to get to a lighthouse along
the Straits of Mackinac connecting two
Great Lakes, even as the road sign in front
of me pointed to the right. Then again,
Apple's app didn't even find that
lighthouse in a search.
Both apps gave me other questionable
directions, even though they got me there,
which was what mattered most. At one
point, Google had me on a curvy one-lane
residential street with little visibility, even
though a faster, safer road ran parallel to
it. Apple's directions to a roadside tourist
trap had me take an exit four miles to the
south, only to return four miles north on
smaller roads.
Bottom line is no app is perfect. After all
the complaints about Apple's app, I
downloaded a 99-cent iPhone app called
MotionX GPS Drive. It got good reviews and
offered more features than either Apple or
Google. But it tried to lead me off the
wrong exit in Ohio. Plus, all the extra
features diverted my eyes to the settings
menu when I should've been paying
attention to trucks and, ahem, police cars
around me.
One of my favorite scenes from "The
Office" television show is when clueless
boss Michael Scott drives into Lake
Scranton because he was blindly following
GPS directions.
There will be mistakes, but it beats driving
in a new place with nothing. You just need
to use your common sense.
Apple's app is far better than the one
Google had when it first came out in late
2009. In apologizing for an app he says
"fell short" of Apple's own expectations,
CEO Tim Cook says the company will keep
working to improve it.
It's true Apple's app falls short of what
Google now offers for Android, but if all
you have is an iPhone or an iPad, Apple's
new app will get you there just fine.
Clinging to the old, voiceless app is like
hanging on to your cassette tapes while the
world has moved on to CDs and digital
downloads. I can't imagine driving without
hearing voices.
(Anick Jesdanun, deputy technology and
media editor for The Associated Press)


Posted by Rohit Motwani

The code crackers

"We're making a version of Hangman using
images ," says 21-year-old Sumit
Mulchandani. Sumit and his classmates
Akshay Sharma and Akash Giri are from the
Vellore Institute of Technology and were in
the city to participate in a app-a-thon held
last week at KTPO in Whitefield, Bangalore.
The trio was huddled around laptops as
they pounded away on a development
program. "We've already built this app for
the Windows Phone," said a proud Sumit.
"We are trying to tweak it so that it works
as well on the larger canvas provided by
Windows 8."
Microsoft, Blackberry, Yahoo, Facebook and
Samsung are among those trying to tap
into Indian developers . And increasingly,
"Catch them young" is the motto.
Sumit, Akshay and Akash are three of the
beneficiaries of Microsoft's big push
towards getting more and more students to
work with its development tools. Microsoft
is acutely aware that it lags behind tablet
market leader Apple in terms of the sheer
number of applications available for the
platform. Unlike competing tablet operating
systems iOS and Android, Microsoft's
strategy is "PC down" versus "Mobile Up" .
It's logical , considering that the PC
platform has many more applications than
the Windows mobile platform. But it
remains to be seen whether those
applications can be made Windows 8 and
tablet compatible fast enough.
Yahoo has been hosting hackathons in
Bangalore to get developers to use their
technology to develop applications. They
hosted their fifth edition of the event in
Bangalore in August. "Bangalore's hacks
are always looked forward to because of
the amount of innovation they bring,"
Arunav Sinha, head of corporate
communications for Yahoo, had said during
the event. The event saw 730 developers,
who submitted an impressive 157 hacks at
the end of a 24-hour coding session.
"Last year (at Yahoo's hackathon), the
theme was the web, but this year it was
mobile devices. Everyone is trying to come
up with an app that can combine social
and mobile elements," said Sandeep
Bhaskar of Ideaphone, a startup that
developed a carpooling app.
Facebook hosted "World Hack" in
Bangalore earlier this month. The event
saw about 175 developers creating apps for
Facebook. "It's surprising we weren't here
earlier," said Bear Douglas, developer
advocate for Facebook. Bear was
coordinating the event and making sure
that the coders were getting information on
Facebook's technologies, permissions and
APIs "We had some issues with our beta
version when it came to permissions , but
we got it sorted out here at the event,"
says Vishnu Govind, a developer at the
event who was working on an app which
would give a better social stratification of
your friends on Facebook.
Douglas said that the India leg of World
Hack generated a lot of interest in Android
and Web based applications for Facebook.
The US leg saw developments on iOS
platforms.
Microsoft's New England Research and
Development Center (NERD) hosted a paid
12-week internship program between June
to August this year. Selected interns
underwent a boot camp, mentoring and
training, and produced six programs at the
end of their training, including a Fedex
package tracking program, an alarm clock
and a game that involves penguins and
aircraft.
The VIT team is a beneficiary of a Microsoft
program called Dreamspark. Dreamspark is
a program that's open to students,
teachers and educational institutions.
At KPTO, Mayra Dolos was hunched over
her laptop, working on a video streaming
application. Mayra is from Pune. She is the
kind of enthusiast that any software
company would love. "I'm a huge fan of
Microsoft. I was a Microsoft Student
Partner," she says proudly. "I went through
a rigorous selection process - there were
four levels of selection and now I'm
spreading the message of Microsoft
Technologies," she says with evangelical
fervour.
Her partner, Mandar Kulkarni nods. He was
working on a game called Tilt - using
motion sensors. "I gave up a better paying
job with Oracle Financials so that I could
work with Microsoft Technologies," he says.
Mayra nods. She gave up a better paying
job with Sears to work with Microsoft.

Posted by Rohit Motwani
Tag :

Apple iPhone 5 launching on Oct 26 in India

Apple seems set to launch the iPhone 5 in
India on October 26, industry sources say.
However, Apple spokesperson refused to
comment on the matter.
NEW DELHI: After the initial round of global
iPhone 5 launches, Apple seems set to
launch the latest version of its iconic
smartphone in India on October 26,
industry sources say. However, Apple
spokesperson refused to comment on the
matter.
iPhone 5 is eagerly awaited in the country
and is already available in the grey market
at sky-high prices, touching over Rs 1 lac. It
is the fastest selling smartphone of all time,
with 5 million units sold over the first
weekend itself. With this device, Apple
broke its mould of 3.5-inch screens and
ventured into the 4-inch screen size
domain and introduced the all-new
Lightning dock connector and EarPods.
In India, iPhones have commanded top
dollar and are out of reach of the masses,
one of the main reasons for the meager
market share of Apple's phone in India as
compared to Android phones. Last year,
the base variant of iPhone 4S was launched
at Rs 44,500 in the country and currently
costs Rs 41,500 after the recent price
revision. In contrast, no Android
smartphone in India currently costs above
Rs 40,000, though it must be remembered
that Samsung Galaxy S III was priced
around Rs 43,000 at the time of launch.
However, the company soon brought the
official price of the device down to Rs
38,900 and currently the phone costs Rs
35,500 on the company's e-store.
Recently, when Apple slashed prices of its
phones in India, the iPhone 4 was given a
price tag of Rs 28,300, which is quite high
considering that it is two years old.
Apple has been making efforts to penetrate
the Chinese market, but seems to largely
ignore India's potential. On the other hand,
Samsung, the arch rival of Apple in the
smartphone domain,has already made
inroads into India and is perched right at
the top of the smartphone market in the
country. India has become one of the
biggest markets for the South Korean
company's mobile division.
Nevertheless, things seem to be changing
for India, as Apple looks set to bring its
latest offering to the country within a short
span of its worldwide launch, especially
considering that the first iPhone was never
launched here.


Posted by Rohit Motwani

NFL GameRewind App: Free (Subscriptions range from $34.99 to $69.99)

We're in a football mood today at
Discovery, but we aren't always able to
keep up with the game. If life gets in the
way of you watching football, you might
want to check out the NFL's tablet app,
Game Rewind. With a paid subscription,
users can watch full replays of the 2012
season on demand using an iPad or
Android tablet. Replays of past games,
dating back to 2009, are also available.

The recent update has added a few new
features including "Condensed Game." It
shows you an entire game in a span of
about 30 minutes, penalties and all, with
no commercials. While watching an on-
demand game or catching up with instant
replays, scores can also be displayed from
different games. If you don't want to know,
they can be hidden, too. If you're an
analysis kind of guy (or girl), play-by-play
details of the games from coaches shows
you all angles of the game. A telestrator
feature on iOS devices is also on hand to
enhance the experience.
It's a good way to keep up with the game
without necessarily having to have a cable
or dish subscription. The app is free, but
access to features require a subscription.
One-time payments of $34.99 to follow one
team, $39.99 for the entire league and both
of these cover you up to January of 2013.
The Season Plus package, which includes
the telestrator feature, lasts through July
31, 2013 for $69.99. Monthly subscriptions
are also available.
Credit: NFL

Wednesday 12 September 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

Apple iPhone 5

While the others are preparing for
Christmas to introduce their products,
Apple has already made a decision to
introduce a sleeker version of the iPhone;
the iPhone5. Although, that could just as
well mean that one must start saving hard
earned dough for it from September, to
buy it in December.
Anyway, Apple is known for coming up with
some of the best pick-up lines for
journalists, and so was the invite for the
iPhone 5 which will be released today on
the 12th of September. The invite consisted
of the number 12 throwing a shadow of the
number 5.

The Apple iPhone 5 will follow their model
introduced a year before; the iPhone 4S.
Which obviously means that it will be
thinner and better equipped with the latest
technology. According to the information
leaks, the iPhone 5 will have a 4.2 inch
screen but that won’t be bigger than the
screen on the Samsung Galaxy S3 which is
4.8 inches. Another change would be in
replacing the existing thirty pin charge
input with a nine pin. Rumours also reveal
that the headphone jack will be at the
bottom of the phone this time; as for
features everyone is clueless and the ones
who know have been asked to keep shut.
Few are doubtful of this product being a
better comeback after the iPhone 4S
because last year the company gathered
negative vibes from their customers
regarding the marginal improvements made
in the iPhone 4S from its earlier model.
Above all this, the iPhone will come
equipped with 4G LTE but there are two
major complications to this add-on feature.
Firstly, the Samsung Galaxy, introduced
much earlier, already has 4G capabilities;
secondly, HTC is planning to sue Apple for
infringing on an LTE patent owned by them.
Certainly, for a while we thought that the
ongoing rivalry with Samsung should have
infused some discipline in their approach
to android products; however, with HTC
tightening the noose, one can rest assured
that the iPhone 5 will be launched amidst
much controversy. Still, this is a major step
taken by the company after the demise of
Steve Jobs; and they shall go ahead with the
official launch in San Francisco today, with
a promise to introduce the product in the
market in the weeks to follow.


Posted by Rohit Motwani

Bluetooth Incoming Call Vibrate Alert Bracelet


The Bluetooth Incoming Call Vibrate Alert Bracelet is an extremely handy device to have when you’re on the beach or out and about on a sunny day anywhere you happen to be. The bracelet is adjustable and has a soft feel buckle. The bracelet vibrates and has a single light that flashes when a call comes into your Bluetooth enabled phone. Once it is fully charged it can last for several days. It comes with an AC adapter and USB charger, which can be charged from either an electrical outlet or computer.
This bracelet is so great to have if you spend a lot of time outdoors in summertime weather. If you decide to ride your bike along the beachfront, play some beach volleyball or play with the kids in the sand, you won’t miss any important calls because you couldn’t hear your phone ring in your bag or nap-sack.


Saturday 14 July 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani
Tag :

7 most important things HTML beginners must consider


When you start learning coding and web designing in HTML, you basically begin with normal HTML markup. Laying out a page, adding colors, buttons, images etc are just the basic part you never skip to design your page.


But being a beginner you must know that no matter how basic your code is it can still have some uninvited errors. There are certain important things that you must consider to make your coding valid and capable to view in any browser window.

Let’s discuss what those 7 things are.

Make your code human readable

Because you are a HTML beginner, you are never going to use any HTML editing software like Dreamweaver, FrontPage, etc. are you? You literally start with a NOTEPAD or similar text editor and start coding but have you ever thought that you need revise your HTML markup sometime?

In the image below can you easily find the parent tag or its order?


                          

The answer to the question is probably no if you are a beginner. Because such type of coding is just easily readable by the browser not the user. You must make it clearly readable by yourself so that you can easily find the section you are looking for in future modification.

Though the HTML tags are enclosed in “<” and “>” our brain cannot easily distinguish it from other character easily in such a huge crowd. Instead you can use CAPITAL LETTERS to rectify the HTML tag out of the web contents.



Look how the tags are distinguishable from the text contents.

Other thing you can do is make a tree order so that you can easily find the parent or child of the tag easily. This can be done by leaving some space from the right. See the example image below for more clarification.



This trick will make you easy to edit and look for the exact tag when necessary.

Using of HTML comments wisely

It is not much necessary to use HTML comments because, HTML comments are for users and browser doesn’t render it in its window. The necessity of HTML comments rises when your HTML markup goes more complex and complex. In such case using of HTML comments is necessary. As we’ve already discussed about human readability of the code in first step.



The HTML comments start with “<!--" and ends in “-->” everything between the start and end code is not rendered in browser screen but you can easily find the it in it’s source.


Always close the tag

I understand you know this fact, but when the codes get complicated with larger contents and lots of inner divisions and blocks you’ll get confused in the middle of the path. Basically, when you view the HTML page that have unknown incomplete tags, the contents will be visible with no errors. But incase if you have added some CSS styling and tables to your web design layout you’ll probably have lots of error and fault in proper rendering in such unknown incomplete tags. Therefore ending a tag is most important thing.

Even though you are aware about it you miss to close the tag because we cannot always remember which tag was opened first and which was at last. But there is a trick (or say tips) that you can apply to have your HTML tags complete one.

Whenever you begin for a new HTML tag, close it immediately after the opening of tag.

For example, look at the sample coding below. The <BODY> tag is closed instantly after it’s opening.



Then you can start filling the contents and other sub tags inside it.



Always provide alternate text for the image

This trick though won’t affect your coding, user readability or browser render-ability, it is recommended that you use alternate tags.

<img src=”image.jpg” />

The above tag renders a image file named image.jpg from the specified source. But incase if you don’t have the image in specified location or mistakenly deleted the image file it will render nothing (in some browser it will show image icon or red cross icon).



Remember how important the image can be to the web page visitor. To understand your contents, S/he must know what the image was about. You must use alternet text what will  show up when browser is unable to locate your image file. This will at least give the imaginative picture of the unknown image.

<img src=”image.jpg” alt=”Image showing a couple kissing each other” />



Proper sequence of Headers

H1 is the first and largest header of your HTML document. If you use header (H1, H2, H3) tags you must use it in sequence. For example, <H1> must be preceeded by <H2> or <H3> or <H4> but they must not be parented under smaller header see the image below.











But this one is not right because, lower header must not parent larger header. Though this won’t show any error it is not considered as good method.

Moreover parenting headers is not recommended even it is acceptable and can be rendered properly.

Use of block and inline HTML elements

You must understand the meaning of block and inline HTML elements. Usually a HTML element can be a block or inline element. The block element is like a box that can contain other contents inside it. The inline elements doesn’t have box wrapped around it and only occupies the space that its contents have. While block element occupies as much space as it is capable of until the size or width is specified.

<DIV> is literally a block element while <SPAN>, <STRONG>, <EM>, <I>, etc are inline elements. <DIV> inside <SPAN> is not recommended but you can use as many <SPAN> as you can inside <DIV>.



Seventh? What can be the seventh one? Comment here.
Sunday 10 June 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

Sign In With Multiple Emails In Google Plus


You might have already joined Google Plus, if not you can get one invitation from us. Google Plus is up with great features which makes the users to use it frequently. As we know Google already announced that we can Sign in to Google accounts with multiple emails. So, we can also use multiple emails to sign in to Google Plus.

Lets see how we can do it.

Step 1

                                    


Log in to Google Plus and click your name containing at the top right side of the page. Click Account settings option.

Step 2
                           
                        
                               

In the Security, you'll see Multiple sign-in. Click 'Edit' link just next to it. In the next screen choose 'On' option and check all the required that will make you sure how to use multiple sign in feature (see below).



Click save button.

Step 3
                                                   

Now again, at the top right side of the page. Click your name and click Switch account > Sign in to another account...

No finally you can enter you username and password of your existing Gmail email. After all, you can switch to multiple accounts. See below.



Finally you are done and enjoy using Google Plus. If you know more tricks about Google plus then kindly share it via comment below.

Posted by Rohit Motwani

The best hacking tools collection


Here, i have collect some best hacking tools for you. That are listed below:

Nessus
The “Nessus” Project aims to provide to the internet community a free, powerful, up-to-date and easy to use remote security scanner for Linux, BSD, Solaris, and other flavors of Unix.

Ethereal
Ethereal is a free network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows. Ethereal has several powerful features, including a rich display filter language and the ability to view the reconstructed stream of a TCP session.



Snort
Snort is an open source network intrusion detection system, capable of performing real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on IP networks.

Netcat
Netcat has been dubbed the network swiss army knife. It is a simple Unix utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using TCP or UDP protocol

TCPdump
TCPdump is the most used network sniffer/analyzer for UNIX. TCPTrace analyzes the dump file format generated by TCPdump and other applications.

Hping
Hping is a command-line oriented TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer, kind of like the “ping” program (but with a lot of extensions).

DNSiff
DNSiff is a collection of tools for network auditing and penetration testing. dsniff, filesnarf, mailsnarf, msgsnarf, urlsnarf, and webspy passively monitor a network for interesting data (passwords, e-mail, files, etc.).

GFI LANguard
GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner (N.S.S.) automatically scans your entire network, IP by IP, and plays the devil’s advocate alerting you to security vulnerabilities.

Ettercap
>Ettercap is a multipurpose sniffer/interceptor/logger for switched LAN. It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols (even ciphered ones)and includes many feature for network and host analysis.

Nikto
Nikto is an Open Source (GPL) web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 2500 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, versions on over 375 servers, and version specific problems on over 230 servers.

John the Ripper
John the Ripper is a fast password cracker, currently available for many flavors of Unix.

OpenSSH
OpenSSH is a FREE version of the SSH protocol suite of network connectivity tools, which encrypts all traffic (including passwords) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other network-level attacks.

TripWire
Tripwire is a tool that can be used for data and program integrity assurance.

Kismet
Kismet is an 802.11 wireless network sniffer – this is different from a normal network sniffer (such as Ethereal or tcpdump) because it separates and identifies different wireless networks in the area.

NetFilter
NetFilter and iptables are the framework inside the Linux 2.4.x kernel which enables packet filtering, network address translation (NAT) and other packetmangling.

IP Filter
IP Filter is a software package that can be used to provide network address translation (NAT) or firewall services.

pf
OpenBSD Packet Filter

fport
fport identifys all open TCP/IP and UDP ports and maps them to the owning application.

SAINT
SAINT network vulnerability assessment scanner detects vulnerabilities in your network’s security before they can be exploited.

OpenPGP
OpenPGP is a non-proprietary protocol for encrypting email using public key cryptography. It is based on PGP as originally developed by Phil Zimmermann.

Update:  
Metasploit
Metasploit provides useful information to people who perform penetration testing, IDS signature development, and exploit research. This project was created to provide information on exploit techniques and to create a useful resource for exploit developers and security professionals. The tools and information on this site are provided for legal security research and testing purposes only.

Fast-track 
Fast-Track is a python based open source security tool aimed at helping penetration testers conduct highly advanced and time consuming attacks in a more methodical and automated way. Fast-Track is now included in Backtrack version 3 onwards under the Backtrack --> Penetration category. In this talk given at Shmoocon 2009, the author of Fast-Track Dave Kennedy runs us through a primer on the tool and demonstrates 7 different scenarios in which he breaks into systems using the Fast-Track tool. These scenarios include automated SQL injection, MSSQL brute forcing, Query string pwnage, Exploit rewrite, Destroying the Client and Autopwnage. 


If you know more, share with me via comment:)


Posted by Rohit Motwani

Google & Facebook launches URL shortner: goo.gl & fb.me



google Google & Facebook launches URL shortner: goo.gl & fb.me


People share a lot of links online. This is particularly true as microblogging services such as Twitter have grown in popularity. If you’re not familiar with them, URL shorteners basically squeeze a long URL into fewer characters to make it easier to share with others. With character limits in tweets, status updates and other modes of short form publishing, a shorter URL leaves more room to say what’s on your mind — and that’s why people use them. They said on their blog announcement.

 However, there is nothing to to be happy, since Google URL shortener is not a stand-alone service i.e., you can’t use it to shorten links directly. Currently, Google URL Shortener is only available from the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner.

With limited space for tweeting, the URL shortener business has boomed, currently Bit.ly was leading.
Side by side with Google’s URL shortner, Fb.me is also showing up in several tweets. However, it’s unclear how long fb.me has been in operation.


Friday 8 June 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

Visit World’s First website


jpt Visit Worlds First websiteYou use Facebook, Google and other web pages everyday. But have you ever visited world’s first website? Let’s recall the history.

The main idea of World Wide Web (WWW) was proposed 2 decades ago in March 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee. It was written to persuade CERN that a global hypertext system was in CERN’s best interest. The term World Wide Web was never thought and mentioned in his proposal, rather it was called Mesh. The term WWW was coined only when he was writing the code in 1990.

Finally he finished is codding for WWW in 1990 based on his proposal, along with the standards for HTML, HTTP, and URLs.

It was 1991 when the first website ever was created with URL http://info.cern.ch. The first content in the first website was to explain the World Wide Web.


img a Visit Worlds First website

World’s First Web Page
The first web page file name was TheProject.html. And it was actually located at following link:
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

However the first web page is not there. But don’t worry you can still browse the world’s first web page here.

If you are interested in reading Tim’s proposal, you can still read it here.
Thursday 7 June 2012
Posted by Rohit Motwani

Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations


Maybe that dastardly style sheet just won’t cascade elegantly on browser X. An incomplete comment chucks out some broken mark-up. Maybe you should have persisted those database connections after all. Hey, we all overlook things in the excitement of getting our first version running – but how many of these oversights can we happily stomach, and how many might just leave a bitter taste in ours, and more painfully our client’s mouths…
This article walks through the brainstorming stage of planning for what is in this instance, a hypothetical user-centric web application. Although you won’t be left with a complete project – nor a market ready framework, my hope is that each of you, when faced with future workloads, may muse on the better practices described. So, without further ado…Are you sitting comfortably?

The Example

We’ve been asked by our client to incorporate into an existing site, a book review system. The site already has user accounts, and allows anonymous commentary.
After a quick chat with the client, we have the following specification to implement, and only twenty four hours to do it:
spec Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
Note: The client’s server is running PHP5, and MySQL – but these details are not critical to understanding the bugbears outlined in this article.

The Processes:

flow%20a Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
Our client has given us a PHP include to gain access to the database:
flow%20a%20 %20php%20db%20connect Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
note%20mysql pconnect Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerationsnote%20php%20include Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
We don’t actually need the source to this file to use it. In fact, had the client merely told us where it lived we could have used it with an include statement and the $db variable.
On to authorisation… within the datatable schema we are concerned with the following column names:
  • username, varchar(128) – stored as plain text.
  • password, varchar(128) – stored as plain text.
Given that we’re working against the clock… let’s write a PHP function as quickly as we can that we can re-use to authenticate our users:
flow%20a%20 %20php%20login Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations

$_REQUEST Variables

In the code above you will notice I’ve highlighted an area amber, and an area red.
Why did I highlight the not-so-dangerous $_REQUEST variables?
Although this doesn’t expose any real danger, what it does allow for is a lax approach when it comes to client side code. PHP has three arrays that most of us use to get our posted data from users, and more often than not we might be tempted to use $_REQUEST. This array conveniently gives our PHP access to the POST and GET variables, but herein lies a potential hang-up…
Consider the following scenario. You write your code client side to use POST requests, but you handover the project while you grab a break – and when you get back, your sidekick has written a couple of GET requests into the project. Everything runs okay – but it shouldn’t.
A little while later, an unsuspecting user types an external link into a comment box, and before you know it, that external site has a dozen username/password combinations in its referrer log.
By referencing the $_POST variables instead of $_REQUEST, we eliminate accidentallypublishing any working code that might reveal a risky GET request.
The same principle applies to session identifiers. If you find you’re writing session variables into URLs, you’re either doing something wrong or you have a very good reason to do so.
who%20spoof Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations

SQL Injection

Referring again to the PHP code: the red highlighted line might have leaped out at some of you? For those who didn’t spot the problem, I’ll give you an example and from there see if something strikes you as risky…
flow%20a%20 %20sql%20inject Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
This image makes clear the flaw in embedding variables directly into SQL statements. Although it can’t be said exactly what control a malicious user could have – it is guaranteed, if you use this method to string together an SQL statement, your server is barely protected. The example above is dangerous enough on a read-only account; the powers a read/write connection have are only limited by your imagination.
To protect against SQL injection is actually quite easy. Let’s first look at the case of quote enclosed string variables:
The quickest protection is to strip the enclosure characters or escape them. Since PHP 4.3.0 the function mysql_real_escape_string has been available to cleanse incoming strings. The function takes the raw string as a single parameter and returns the string with the volatile characters escaped. However mysql_real_escape_string doesn’t escape all the characters that are valid control characters in SQL… the highlighted elements in the image below shows the techniques I use to sanitise String, Number and Boolean values.
flow%20a%20 %20sql%20cleaning Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
The first highlight, the line that sets $string_b uses a PHP function called addcslashes. This function has been part of PHP since version 4 and as is written in the above example, is my preferred method for SQL string health and safety.
A wealth of information is available in the PHP documentation, but I’ll briefly explain whataddcslashes does and how to it differs to mysql_real_escape_string.
flow%20a%20 %20rep%20func Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
From the diagram above you can see that mysql_real_escape_string doesn’t add slashes to the (%) percent character.
The % is used in SQL LIKE clauses, as well as a few others. It behaves as a wildcard and not a literal character. So it should be escaped by a preceding backslash character in any cases where string literals make up an SQL statement.
The second parameter I pass to addcslashes, which in the image is bold; is the character group PHP will add slashes for. In most cases it will split the string you provide into characters, and then operate on each. It is worth noting, that this character group can also be fed a range of characters, although that is beyond the scope of this article – in the scenarios we’re discussing, we can use alphanumeric characters literally e.g. “abcd1234” and all other characters as either their C-style literal “rnt”, or their ASCII index “x0Ax0Dx09”.
note%20literals Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
The next highlight makes our number values safe for SQL statements.
This time we don’t want to escape anything, we just want to have nothing but a valid numerical value – be it an integer or floating point.
You might have noticed line 10, and perhaps wondered as to the purpose. A few years ago I worked on a call centre logging system that was using variable += 0; to ensure numerical values. Why this was done, I cannot honestly say… unless prior to PHP 4 that was how we did it?! Maybe somebody reading can shed some light on the subject. Other than that, if you, like I did, come across a line like that in the wild, you’ll know what it’s trying to do.
Moving forward then; lines 11 and 12 are all we need to prepare our numerical input values for SQL. I should say, had the input string $number_i contained any non-numerical characters in front or to the left of the numerical ones… our values $number_a$number_b and $number_cwould all equals 0.
We’ll use floatval to clean our input numbers; PHP only prints decimal places when they exist in the input value – so printing them into an SQL statement won’t cause any errors if no decimal was in the input. As long as our server code is safe, we can leave the more finicky validating to our client side code.
Before we move on to a final listing for our PHP, we’ll glance at the final code highlight, the Boolean boxing.
Like the C++ equivalent, a Boolean in PHP is really an integer. As in, True + True = Two. There are countless ways to translate an input string to a Boolean type, my personal favourite being:does the lower case string contain the word true?
You each may have you own preferred methods; does the input string explicitly equal “true” or is the input string “1” etcetera… what is important is that the value coming in, whatever it might look like, is represented by a Boolean (or integer) before we use it.
note%20booleans Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
My personal philosophy is simply, if X is true or false, then X is a Boolean. I’ll blissfully write all the code I might need to review later with Booleans and not short, int, tinyint or anything that isn’t Boolean. What happens on the metal isn’t my concern, so what it looks like to a human is far more important.
So, as with numbers and strings, our Booleans are guaranteed safe from the moment we pull them into our script. Moreover our hygienic code doesn’t need additional lines.
who%20sql%20inject Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations

Processing HTML

Now that we have our protected our SQL from injections, and we’ve made certain only a POST login can affably work with our script, we are ready to implement our review submission feature.
Our client wants to allow review enabled users to format their contributions as regular HTML. This would seem straightforward enough, but we also know that emails addresses are ten to the penny, and bookstore accounts are created programmatically – so in the better interests of everyone we’ll make sure only the tags we say pass.
Deciding how we check the incoming review might seem daunting. The HTML specification has a rather wholesome array of tags, many of which we’re happy to allow.
As longwinded the task might seem, I eagerly advise everyone – choose what to allow, and never what to deny. Browser and server mark-up languages all adhere to XML like structuring, so we can base our code on the fundamental fact that executable code must be surrounded by, or be part of, angle bracketed tags.
Granted, there are several ways we can achieve the same result. For this article I will describe one possible regular expression pipeline:
flow%20a%20 %20tagstrip Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
These regular expressions won’t produce a flawless output, but in the majority of cases – they should do a near elegant job.
Let’s take a look at the regular expression we’ll be using in our PHP. You’ll notice two arrays have been declared. $safelist_review and $safelist_comment – this is so we can use the same functions to validate reviews and later, comments:
flow%20a%20 %20regexes Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
…and here is the main function that we will call to sanitise the review and comment data:
flow%20a%20 %20regfunc Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
The input parameters, I have highlighted red and blue. $input is the raw data as submitted by the user and $list is a reference to the expression array; $safelist_review or $safelist_commentdepending of course on which type of submission we wish to validate.
The function returns the reformatted version of the submitted data – any tags that don’t pass any of the regular expressions in our chosen list are converted to HTML encoded equivalents. Which in the simplest terms makes < and > into < and > other characters are modified too, but none of these really pose a security threat to our client or the users.
Note: The functions: cleanWhitespace and getTags are included in the article’s source files.
You’d be correct to assume all we have really done is helped survive the aesthetics of our site’s pages, and not done everything to protect the user’s security. There still remains a rather enormous security hole even with the SQL safe, request spoofing cured and mark-up manipulated. The JavaScript injection;
This particular flaw could be fixed by a few more regular expressions, and/or modification to the ones we are already using. Our anchor regular expression only allows “/…”, “h…” and “#…” values as the href attribute – which is really only an example of a solution. Browsers across the board understand a huge variety of script visible attributes, such as onClick, onLoad and so forth.
We have in essence created a thorny problem for ourselves, we wanted to allow HTML – but now we have a near endless list of keywords to strip. There is of course, a less than perfect – but quite quickly written way to do this:
flow%20a%20 %20find%20replace Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
On reflection you’d be absolutely justified in asking, “Why didn’t we just use BBCode or Textile or…?”
who%20script Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
Myself, if I were dealing with mark-up processing, I might even go for XML walking. After all the incoming data should be valid XML.
However, this article is not meant to teach us how to regex, how to PHP or how to write anything in one particular language. The rationale behind it simply being, don’t leave any doors ajar.
So let’s finish off then; with quick review of what we’ve looked at:
checklist Can You Hack Your Own Site? A Look at Some Essential Security Considerations
Although this article hasn’t equipped you with any off the shelf project. A primary purpose of my writing was not to scare away the designers who code, or nitpick the work of coders anywhere – but to encourage everyone to author robust code from the off. That said, I do plan to revisit certain elements of this article in more detail later.
Until then, safe coding!
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