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Check out this 2 day security brain fest. It happens to be right after Black Hat in Vegas. See you there ?

The LifeCycleSecurity conference was started to provide a venue where professionals in the Application Security industry can learn from each other's experiences.  We will be addressing security from the server to the browser. 

Application Security : We will have topics that address how professionals are creating systems that are resistant to attacks against the web application layer and the systems that support these web applications.

Browser security: With the increase in attacks against browsers such as malware and other attack vectors, protecting your users is more important than ever.  This is increasingly being done with content filtering devices.  The Lifecyclesecurity conference will include several tracks that address techniques that are being used to protect against these browser / content based attacks.

http://www.lifecyclesecurity.com/

From - http://www.vistanews.com/

According to the Broadband Report, as of last March 57% of U.S. households had broadband Internet. These high speed connections make it possible to enjoy multi-media applications, something that doesn't work well - if at all - over slow dialup connections. And Internet users are taking advantage of that capability. By March 2008, more than 78 million videos had been uploaded to YouTube, the popular video sharing web site that was created in 2005 by three former employees of PayPal and was acquired by Google a year later. This means more than 150,000 videos are uploaded every day. http://www.vistanews.com/IB5SB2/080710-YouTube-Statistics

Many of these are relatively short, homemade video clips that people take of themselves, their kids, their pets or whatever else they find interesting. The proliferation of cell phone cameras that can record short videos has made it very easy for just about anyone to become a "roving reporter." Your YouTube account includes a feature that lets you create a mobile profile on the site and then get a special email address to which you can send your videos as MMS messages from your cell phone. You just enter your mobile phone number and provider name. You can also watch videos on your browser-equipped cell phone. Just go to http://m.youtube.com.

In a society where everyone longs for his or her fifteen minutes of fame, YouTube gives us what we want. Aspiring stand-up comedians can get an instant audience, or you can share the video of your wedding with thousands of strangers around the world. Your creative efforts don't exist in a vacuum, either. Those who view the videos can assign ratings to them so you know exactly where you stand (or don't).

Not all the videos that are uploaded to YouTube are originals, though. Looking for that Macbook Air commercial with the "New Soul" song? A quick search on YouTube will bring it up for you in all its glory. Or you might prefer this parody: http://www.vistanews.com/IB5SB2/080710-Parody

Or you can click on the News and Politics category for news clips of everything from President Bush's last State of the Union address to Associated Press footage of the recent Colombia hostage rescue.

You might be wondering whether some of these videos might be copyrighted, and in fact many of them are, and are posted on YouTube without the permission of the copyright owner. And that brings us to our latest controversy. Although some companies don't seem to mind having their material reposted to YouTube - and may even encourage it, for the publicity - others aren't so happy.
In 2007, Viacom (the media conglomerate that owns MTV, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks movie studio, among others) invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against YouTube, demanding that they take down more than 100,000 videos that Viacom claimed had been posted in violation of copyright laws. Viacom also filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google/YouTube.
As part of that lawsuit, Viacom asked for the log-in names and IP addresses of YouTube users and records of who watched what videos. And last week, U.S. District Court judge Louis Stanton granted that request, ordering YouTube to turn over their database logs to Viacom. Despite many protests from organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the judge dismissed concerns about user privacy. http://www.vistanews.com/IB5SB2/080710-YouTube-User-History

Viacom's allegations of copyright infringement seem particularly egregious in light of the accusation from one film maker that Viacom tried to sue him for posting his own video on YouTube, which Viacom had used on their TV commercial without his permission. You can read his blog post about that here: http://www.vistanews.com/IB5SB2/080710-Viacom-Copyright

The lawsuit against YouTube is important because it could set a precedent regarding the responsibility of a web site for content that's posted by others, as well as defining what is and isn't "fair use" when it comes to capturing snippets of a TV program or other copyrighted video. The DMCA includes a "safe harbor" provision that exempts hosting companies from liability for copyright infringement - if the hosting company removes the material when notified that it's in violation of the copyright laws. YouTube contends that they comply with this requirement and also have other measures, such as the 10 minute limit on videos, that discourage copyright infringement.

If Viacom wins this one, it could open up a much bigger can of worms. A new interpretation of the DMCA safe harbor provision could affect more than just video hosting sites. Web sites that host discussion forums might be held liable for what users post there; this would probably cause many of the online forums to simply disappear.

But regardless of the outcome of the suit, YouTube's users have already lost. The twelve terabytes of log data that Google must now turn over to Viacom contains viewers' log-in IDs and IP addresses, the time each viewer began watching and the video that he watched. The judge seems to think this information can't be used to identify individual users, but how many people do you know who use their names or some variation thereof as their log-in names on web sites like YouTube? And even if you don't, an IP address can be tracked back through the ISP to the user account to which it was assigned at a particular time unless that user goes to the effort of using anonymizer services, something that the vast majority of casual users don't do.

There has been no indication at this time that Viacom or anyone else intends to go after the users who watched copyrighted video clips, but who knows? Who would have thought the RIAA would sue grandmothers and 9 year old kids for illegal sharing of music? And even if that doesn't happen, does it make you a little nervous that someone is going over the records of what you watched and when?

Tell us what you think. Does Viacom, as a copyright owner, have the right to demand not only that YouTube take down the videos that belong to them (a reasonable request) but also that YouTube provide them with information about the viewers who watched those videos? Should YouTube or any other web site hosting content that's uploaded by its visitors bear the responsibility for that content if it violates laws? Would it bother you to have the records of your viewing habits made part of a court proceeding, or do you subscribe to the "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" philosophy? Should video sharing sites such as YouTube be restricted to homemade videos only? Or should the "fair use" provisions of the copyright law allow you to post small portions of a TV show, news program, etc.?

It's finally hitting the street - "Advanced ASP.NET Ajax Server Controls"

I had the pleasure to be a technical reviewer on this book during the writing process and am really excited about it's release.

This book if one of the few that dive deep into the framework, its architecture and extensibility, and address the power-user/developer scenarios and it does it from a controls perspective. It's a big undertaking but Adam and Joel have done a great job.

As Nikhil said "If you're building applications in Ajax today, and want to take that to the next level, you'll want to look into the platform deeper beyond the out-of-the-box features i.e. its extensibility. You'll specifically want to build reusable components and controls, on both the server and on the client. Check out this book on more details like "the client script framework", "the script application object", "localization" and "the control toolkit" amongst many other relevant topics".

[ Get a copy HERE ]

Check out the New features in BlogEngine.NET 1.4

New database provider
BlogEngine.NET now works with most commercial and open source databases such as MySQL, SQL Server, VistaDB and many others. This allow you to use practically any database supported by your hosting provider. You can still use XML files if you don't want to use a database.

Drag 'n drop widgets
Widgets are the pieces of content most often located at the sidebar. It could be a list of recent posts, latest tweets from Twitter or anything else. You can drag and drop the widgets around in your sidebar and modify the content of them directly on the front-page. The widget works independently of the theme you are using as long as it is implemented in the theme. In BlogEngine.NET it is implemented in the Standard and Indigo themes and many more themes with widgets will be available for download very soon at the BlogEngine.NET website.

Extension settings
The new settings model for extensions have been upgraded to give you a much better experience using third-party extensions. For extension developers, it has never been easier to store your settings and let the user change them from the admin section. The same settings model is used by the widgets as well.

Web 3.0 improvements
BlogEngine.NET 1.4 makes full use of many semantic formats and technologies such as FOAF, SIOC and APML. It means that the content stored in your BlogEngine.NET installation will be fully portable and auto-discoverable. It is possible to filter the RSS feeds based on the visitor's interest defined in her APML file or do a site search with it as well. Read more the APML filtering in BlogEngine.NET.

Author profiles
By utilizing the ASP.NET profile provider it is now possible to let all authors maintain their own profile. This is used in the FOAF document and widget/extension developers can take full advantage of the profiles to provide new exciting visualizations and functionality.

Other new features

• Tag selector when adding new posts
• Subcategories
• Password encryption
• Improved live comment preview
• Hierarchical pages in the control panel
• Smarter comment spam protection
• Link collection widget
• Various performance improvements
• and much more...

Check it out at http://dotnetblogengine.net/

Well, Dave Ward tagged me in Michael Eaton’s software development meme that’s been going around.

As far as blog-chain-letters go, this is a great one. It’s interesting to see how many diverse backgrounds lead us in the same direction.

How old were you when you started programming?

13 (33 years ago as of this writing.)

How did you get started in programming?

In 1974, there were no personal computers. My school got a very basic "programmable" calculator. It was about 8 times this size of today's laptop computers, had the equivalent of 8 16Bit registers and a collection of math operations. This was my introduction to programming and I was hooked.

Shortly after a business that my father was involved in purchased a NC programmable lathe that folks were having some trouble figuring out how to "program" and it because my summer job. Programs were stored on punched tape.

Then in 1979 I got my hands on a MITS Altair 8800 CP/M Computer. Then I bought a used Osborne 1, follow by a Televideo TS-802 (a real work horse for it's day) and then a Kaypro II "Portable". 

Just after turning 18 I was off to Grumman Data Systems institute to learn business programming.

What was your first language?

My REAL first programming languages were proprietary machine dialects, but I started programming on the CP/M machines in Basic and Assembly at the same time. (Both of which I hated.)

I quickly switched. I got my hands on a copy of dBase II and did lots of application programming in that. Also, back in those days the "programming community" was largely underground, and a buddy hooked me up with a bootleg copy of PL/1 for CP/M. Once I was able to get it converted from the 8" floppy that it arrived on to a 5 1/4" inch floppy that my TS-802 could read I was off and running and hooked on PL/1.

I used PL/1 for many years and even did some IBM Mainframe PL/1 after my adult software career progressed.

What was the first real program you wrote?

I suppose it depends on what you call a "real program". The NC algorithms were "real".

The first "application" that I wrote was a Customer Management application written in dBase II for a local Travel Agency. The cool part was that, in addition to keeping a database and including a reporting module, it drove a model and did synchronization with the airlines "Sabre" system by modem (at 300 baud)!

What languages have you used since?

Wow, lets see if I can make a list.

Assembly, Basic, PL/1, Cobol, Fortran, Algol, APL,  JCL, "B""C", Pascal, Gorlan (Gordon's Language) , LISP, ADA, Modula-2, Modula-3, Oberon, Logo, Forth, Rebol, RPG, Smalltalk, Haskel, Snobol, Java, Perl, Prolog, Postscript, JavaScript, TCL,  J++, "C++", Delphi, Objective-C, PHP, Python, C#, Visual Basic, Ruby

Oh my !

My favorites ???  PL/1, Pascal, ADA, Delphi, Visual Basic, C#

What was your first professional programming gig?

I did a bunch of little summer stuff before my first FULL TIME job.

My first full time gig was with Honeywell Information Systems on their international logistics systems. Big GCOS Mainframes, working in many different programming languages but mostly COBOL and huge IDB hierarchical databases (relational databases hadn't caught on yet.)

If you knew then what you know now?

Duh !  I would have gone to Cambridge MA and hung around Harvard until I convinced Bill Gates to drop out and start a company with me :) !!!!!!

What is the one thing you would tell new developers?

Technical details are just technical details. If you want to build a great career, use technology to solve big BUSINESS problems.

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?

I spent a year or two working on investigative systems for federal law enforcement agencies. It's STILL the most interesting stuff I ever saw. (And it was mostly written in Clipper ! - But I was rewriting it in VB and Delphi)

Whew. Is that over yet?

Well, that’s how I got started. Thanks for tagging me, Dave.

Now I gotta go write some code !!

That's there motto anyway.

It's actually a very interesting product from my friends at ArtinSoft.

• Add Alternate Text To Image
• Assign Tab Index
• Convert Text To XHTML List
• Convert Text To XHTML Paragraphs
• Extract And Merge Inline Style
• Fix Deprecated Elements For XHTML Compliance
• Replace CENTER Tag By Inline CSS
• Replace FONT Tag By Inline CSS
• Update Deprecated Attributes
• Update Other Deprecated Tags
• Fix Syntax Errors For XHTML Compliance
• Fixed Malformed Entities
• Replace Characters With Entities
• Make Tags Lowercase
• Make Attributes Values Quoted
• Use Default Attribute Values
• Fix Tag Structure For XHTML Compliance

Aggiorno is an extension to Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. Find out more about Aggiorno here

For my Spanish Speaking Friends !

Anoche recibí un correo electrónico de Eduardo.

Eduardo "Ama VB.NET ", pero está preocupado por las perspectivas de su carrera a largo plazo, porque continua oyendo sobre C#.

El gráfico anterior muestra los resultados de la encuesta Telerik que sugiere que C# ha sobrepasado a VB.NET como el idioma de preferido de .NET. En mi opinión, no pienso que estos datos no reflejan con precisión la división. Me imagino que es como 55% VB.NET y 45% C#.

La gente me pregunta todo el tiempo, por qué elegí VB.NET en lugar de C# para Mis videos. La respuesta veraz es, yo no lo hice. Uso VB porque ScottGu me pidió que utilice VB.NET.

Al principio, me sentía fuera de lugar :) - empecé la programación en "C" en 1978 y sobre C++ en 1988-1989. Así que los idiomas de sabor "C" como Java y C# son, sólo, familiares para mí.

Me tomó alrededor de una semana detenerme a pensar sobre la sintaxis en la que estoy codificando.

Yo sólo pienso que la elección entre C# y VB.NET realmente no importa.

Una estadística que si importa es que más empresas parecen estar pagando mejor a los desarrolladores de C# que a los de VB.NET. Sospecho que esta estadística, como la mayoría, es irrelevante si se toma solamente su valor.

Es posible, hasta probable, que los programadores de C# que están contratando tengan más antecedentes de programación de sistemas en C++ o un antecedente de programación Enterprise en Java, así que la selección de C# es más obvia, pero esa selección es más una consecuencia de sus conocimientos actuales y lo que les permite ganar más dinero.

Si una compañía le paga más a un programador de C# que a uno de VB.NET tan solo por la elección de sintaxis, yo probablemente escogería trabajar en otra compañía ya que prefiero trabajar con gente de verdad inteligente :)

Yo me sorprendería si alguien sugiriera una aplicación de negocios que REQUIRIERA ser escrito en un lenguaje sobre otro (al menos por razones no de negocios).

Para mí, la elección entre VB.NET y C# es mucho menos significativa que la que la industria quiere que sea. Es una elección de estilo. Es una elección filosófica. Hasta una elección artística. Pero no una elección NECESARIA.

Claro, PARA MI, el código de C# “luce mejor”. Y PARA MI, programar en VB.NET es mucho más rápido. Ya que soy feliz de cambiar uno y por otro y viceversa, aprendí a crear pesadas clases de back-end en C# y cosas de front-end en VB.NET (aunque no siempre).

El poder está en el .NET Framework y en la productividad de Visual Studio. ¿Hace esto que sean VB.NET y C# solo la cinta adhesiva que los une? :)

Abajo hay unos enlaces a artículos que discuten el tema de VB.NET versus C#.

Entre tanto, Eduardo, escribe aplicaciones grandiosas en cualquier lenguaje que mejor se te amolde y deja que sean esas aplicaciones las que hablen de ti en tu currículo. No el sabor de sintaxis en la que fueron escritos.

Murray “Flash” Gordon tiene una gran comparación de VB y C# en su blog [ Haga clic aquí]

Wikipedia también tiene alguna buena información. [ Clic AQUÍ ]

Nigel Shaw tiene un buen artículo en “The Code Project” con algunas buenas conclusiones. [Clic AQUÍ]

Jeff Atwood en “Coding Horror” también tiene un buen post. [ click AQUÍ ]

El gráfico anterior proviene de la encuesta de Telerik [ Haga clic aquí]

While in Chicago to speak at PHP | Tek, I got to do a Podcast (in a bar) with on of the The Thirsty Developers

I hope you will [ CLICK HERE ] and listen !

I got an email last night from Eduardo.

Eduardo "Love's VB.NET", but is concerned about his long term career prospects because he keeps hearing about C#.

The Pie Chart from the Telerik Survey suggests that C# has surpassed VB.NET as the .NET language of choice. For the record, I don't think this accurately reflects the division. I would guess that it's more like 55% VB.NET and 45% C#.

People ask me all the time why I choose VB.NET instead of C# for my videos. The truthful answer is, I don't. I use VB because ScottGu asked me to use VB.NET.

At first, I was a bit queased out :) - I first started programming in "C" in 1978 and C++ in abut 1988-1989. So languages of "C" flavor like Java and C# are just familiar to me.

It took me about a week before I was I stopped thinking about the syntax I was coding in.

I just don't think the choice between C# and VB.NET really matters.

The one statistic that does matter is that companies seem to be paying C# developers more than they want to pay VB.NET developers. I suspect that this statistic, like most, is irrelevant if taken on face value alone.

It's possible, even probable that the C# programmers they hire have more of a systems programming background in C++ or an enterprise development background in Java so that C# is the syntax flavor of choice, but that flavor choice is a byproduct of their skill set and it is that skill set that earns them more money.

If a company pays C# developers more than VB.NET developers for no other reason than syntax choice, I'd probably choose to work for another company as I prefer to work for really smart folks :)

I'd be surprised if anyone could suggest a business application to me that REQUIRED it be written in one language over another (at least for non-business reasons.)

To me, the choice between VB.NET and C# seems a much less significant one than the industry seems to want to make it. It's a stylistic choice. A philosophical choice. Even an artistic choice. But not really a NECESSARY choice.

Sure, TO ME, C# code "looks better". And FOR ME, coding in VB.NET is a bit faster. Since I'm happy to switch back and forth, I lean toward building class heavy back ends in C# and front side stuff in VB.NET (though not always).

The power is in the .NET framework and in the productivity of Visual Studio. Does that make VB.NET and C# just the duck tape that ties them together ? :)

Below are some links to articles that discuss the VB.NET versus C# issue.

In the mean time, Eduardo, write great applications in which ever language best suits you and let those applications be the strength in your resume. Not the syntax flavor they are written in.

Murray "Flash" Gordon has a great VB and C# Comparison on his blog [ Click HERE ]

Wikipedia also has some good information. [ Click HERE ]

Nigel Shaw has a good article at The Code Project with some sound conclusions. [ Click HERE ]

Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror also has a good post. [ Click HERE ]

The Pie Chart above is from the Telerik Survey [ Click HERE ]