This is mainly a bug-fix release, though I did include two new features:

• Added the imgftw.net image upload service
• The bit.ly URL shortening service can now be used, though it requires a (free) API key from their website

See the ActionFTP page for the download link and the full list of changes and fixes.

[server.mydomain.local] Connecting to remote server failed with the following error message : The client cannot connect to the destination specified in the request. Verify that the service on the destination is running and is accepting requests. Consult the logs and documentation for the WS-Management service running on the destination, most commonly IIS or WinRM. If the destination is the WinRM service, run the following command on the destination to analyze and configure the WinRM service: “winrm quickconfig”. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
+ CategoryInfo : OpenError: (System.Manageme….RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspace) [], PSRemotingTransportException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PSSessionOpenFailed

The error message itself has almost nothing to do with the actual cause of the problem. After a lot of Googling I found a post on the TechNet forums from someone who had the same error message, albeit caused by a different problem.

Eventually I figured out that the Server Manager feature installer wizard hadn’t installed the full selection of .NET 3.5.1 Features. After installing the entire sub-tree, the Exchange 2010 installation proceeded without any further problems.

Microsoft have now been kind enough to add automatic feature installation to the installer for Exchange Server 2010 SP1, which should help alleviate this kind of problem in future

Bachelor of Science with Honours in Computer Science (Network Communications) First Class

And my dissertation was an ‘A’ grade

Some big new features:

• HTTP uploads: you can now chose to upload images to imgdash, localhostr or upload3r
• URL shortening: you can chose to automatically shorten links using is.gd, twurl.nl or cli.gs
• Code copying: Can now chose to copy HTML <img>, HTML hyperlink (<a>), BBcode [img] or BBcode [url] tags to the clipboard, instead of just the direct link

Naturally there are lots of other smaller changes and bug fixes as well; see the ActionFTP page for the download link and the entire list of changes.

Upgrade Note: You need to copy two additional files (included in the download) to the WindowClippings directory (Newtonsoft.Json.dll and Newtonsoft.Json.xml).

As many CS4 products are currently still available from most retailers, this could be your opportunity to save a bit of money on the full CS5 price – I saved about £80 on the full price of Web Premium CS5 (Student edition).

After registering your CS4 serial number, visit the Adobe Customer Support Portal (Adobe login required) and complete the “Post Announce Upgrade” form before July 26th:

Assuming you successfully complete the form, you should receive your CS5 upgrade in the mail after a few days.

Notes:

• You must purchase your CS4 product before July 11th, and complete the PAU request before July 26th.
• This handy page on Amazon UK lays out further information and T&Cs, though the offer is not limited to purchases from Amazon.

However, when you start wanting to search for multiple terms, search for certain terms while excluding others, or searching large tables, ‘LIKE’ will get slow and very inaccurate.

One major cause of this inaccuracy is that the search terms are looked for in the order they are specified. For example, the following query would match “We use PHP and MySQL to power this website.”, but would not match “We use MySQL and PHP to power this website.”:

SELECT * FROM articles WHERE body LIKE '%php%mysql%' AND body NOT LIKE '%wordpress%';

After discovering the above limitation first-hand (while implementing a search box on my QuoteDB system), I came an alternative: Full-Text matching.

This article on MySQL Full-Text Searching on the Zend DevZone was particularly helpful on this topic, so I recommend you give it a read. For those too lazy to read the entire thing, Full-Text matching requires a single step before you can use it: you must first add a  ‘FULLTEXT’ index to the field(s) you wish search:

ALTER TABLE articles ADD FULLTEXT(body);

Once that’s done, you can perform very fast and accurate searches, including (since MySQL 4.0.1) boolean mode operators to dramatically increase the search power. (For an idea of the power of boolean mode, have a look at the operators table.)

SELECT *, MATCH(body) AGAINST ('+php +mysql -wordpress' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS score FROM articles
WHERE MATCH(body) AGAINST ('+php +mysql -wordpress' IN BOOLEAN MODE);

Unlike the ‘LIKE’ search, thanks to Full-Text matching, this query would match both of the “We use…” text strings.

* This included myself, until I discovered Full-Text matching.

This means that all servers are set to have a uniform background colour, but users on regular PCs are still be able to use any custom wallpaper on other computers without having to re-set it after each login.

While it is probably possible to create long-winded batch scripts to do what I wanted, it’s a lot easier to use the Group Policy Preferences (GPP) file options to control which BGinfo script is given to which systems.

One thing worth noting about GPP file control: I found that you have to use the “Replace” action rather than “Update” in Group Policy Preferences, as the targeted systems only update file attributes when using the “Update” action.

Step 1: BGinfo Scripts

• Create the BGinfo scripts, and then put them in a network share that any authenticated user can access.
• The BGinfo.exe file will also need to be in this share.

Step 2: Group Policy Preferences

• Create Group Policy User Preference entries for your .bgi files and BGinfo.exe
• Optionally: apply item-level targeting if you want to limit which systems this preference applies to
  • I organise my systems into OUs (Organisational Units), but it’s easy to target specific Operating Systems if you prefer

Step 3: Logon Script

Finally, create the logon script to create the BGinfo background image every time a user logs in:

Click the “Show Files…” button and create a new batch file in the folder that opened in Explorer (e.g. bginfo.bat). Then open the batch file in your favourite text editor and paste the following line into it. (Modify the paths and filenames as required.)

IF EXIST C:\bginfo\yourfile.bgi c:\bginfo\bginfo.exe c:\bginfo\yourfile.bgi /timer:0 /silent /nolicprompt

Then close the text editor and Explorer window, click the “Add…” button, and select the batch file you just created.

The End Results:

I hadn’t previously come accross extract(), so I looked it up… and was horrified (and slightly amused) that he was recommending it.
It was pretty obvious that  using extract() is almost as bad as having register_globals turned on. (See the notes section on the PHP manual for extract())

Unless you’ve specifically taken measures against it, what’s to stop the user adding something like “&isloggedin=true” onto the GET query string or POST data? Or even worse, “&isadmin=true”!

Instead of using the extract() function, what’s wrong with using an array, a quick foreach and some variable variables?
Here is a very quick example (not perfect by any means, but you should get the idea):

/*
* Example of safe variable assignment from the POST data for some login form
*/
$myVars = array("username","password","rememberMe");
foreach ($myVars as $someVar) {
	$formVar_$someVar = $_POST[$someVar];
	//Will result in: $formVar_username, $formVar_password and  $formVar_rememberMe.
 
	//$$someVar = $_POST[$someVar];
	//This could be used to give you $username, $password and $rememberMe
}

The above example stops a malicious user’s extra GET or POST data from actually doing anything, but the resulting variables come out pretty much the same. Adding all your form or URL variables to the array is almost certainly a lot less work (and less of a headache) than it would be to add security measures to your code.

“I have just discovered that Global Variables has been disabled on the server, which means it will be difficult for you to use session variables to implement your [coursework]. I have requested it be re-enabled [...]“

Cisco ASA series:

enable
config t
config factory-default
reload saveconfig noconfirm

(Source)

Cisco PIX series:

enable
config t
write erase
reload noconfirm