Mailinglist Archive


[Fwd: Secure, Asynchronous Web Apps for Railsers and Data Crunchers]
From:Joe Klemmer
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 22:22:24 -0400

	O'Reilly hs some very good stuff.  Worth checking out.  -  jjk

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Secure, Asynchronous Web Apps for Railsers and Data Crunchers
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:30:00 -0700
From: O'Reilly Network Linux Newsletter 
Reply-To: O'Reilly Network Linux Newsletter 
To: klemmerj@webtrek.com

                 LINUX NEWS FROM O'REILLY NETWORK
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The Latest from http://www.linuxdevcenter.com and http://ONLamp.com

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Hello, readers of the Linux newsletter.  You're about to read the latest
news and information as presented on ONLamp.com and LinuxDevCenter.com,
the two largest sources of Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
information on the O'Reilly Network.  Here we go!

As you may have heard, an existing technology--asynchronous JavaScript
communication updating loaded web pages--gained new converts and a new
acronym lately.  It's no surprise that projects aimed at making web
development easier have started exploring how to make web usage nicer.
Curt Hibbs, Rubyist, returned this week to explain how to use Ajax with
Ruby on Rails:

	http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html

Security isn't a binary bit, either off or on.  It's a process, a way of
thinking, and subtle layers of overlapping protection.  Sometimes it has
to be a hastily erected fence while you rethink the design of your castle.
  One good fence for web applications is the Apache module mod_security.
Properly deployed, it can help avoid vulnerabilities in your code without
you having to modify your code; this is helpful if you haven't yet
finished a complete security audit.  Shreeraj Shah describes how to secure
web services with mod_security:

	http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/wss_security.html

Whether you're a system administrator, a developer, or a user, it'll
happen to you someday. Someone will ask you to munge some data from one
form to another.  Instead of doing it by hand (or bribing your local Perl,
shell, Ruby, Python, Tcl, Rexx, or Excel guru with beer and pizza),
consider tackling it yourself.  In this week's book-related article, Greg
Wilson, author of "Data Crunching," offers his top ten data crunching tips
and tricks:

	http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/datacrunching.html

In weblogs this week, Giles Turnbull reports from several developers on
Apple's switch to Intel:

	http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7201

Andy Oram celebrates a decade of PHP:

	http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7205

Spencer Critchley analyzes where and why iTunes beats most P2P networks:

	http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7210

Harold Davis whacks some Googlewhacks to see what happens:

	http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7211

Your editor offers an opportunity to help bring more games to Linux and
the free Unixes:

	http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7218

Tony Stubblebine replaces extra camera memory with USB cables and internet
cafes:

	http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7221

This week's Open Source Project of the Week is Ravenous, a full-featured
Java web server intended to simplify the delivery of dynamic pages:

http://osdir.com/Downloads+index-req-viewdownloaddetails-lid-851-ttitle-Ravenous.phtml

Come back next week to learn more about open source VoIP and telephony.

OSCON is coming,
chromatic
chromatic@oreilly.com
Technical Editor
O'Reilly Network


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ONLamp.com and Linux Devcenter Top Five Articles Last Week

1. Ajax on Rails
XMLHttpRequest and Ruby on Rails are two hot topics in web development. As
you ought to expect by now, they work really well together. Curt Hibbs
explains the minimal Ajax you need to know and the minimal Ruby you need
to write to Ajax-ify your Rails applications.

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html

***

2. Rolling with Ruby on Rails
The Ruby community is abuzz about Rails, a web application framework that
makes database-backed apps dead simple. What's the fuss? Is it worth the
hype? Curt Hibbs shows off Rails, building a simple application that even
non-Rubyists can follow.

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/20/rails.html

***

3. Top Ten Data Crunching Tips and Tricks
Every day, programmers perform unglamorous but necessary data crunching:
recycling legacy data, checking configuration files, yanking data out of
web server logs, and more. Knowing how to crunch data with the least
amount of effort can make the difference between meeting a deadline and
making another pot of coffee. Greg Wilson, author of Pragmatic's Data
Crunching, offers ten tips for crunch time.

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/datacrunching.html

***

4. Writing Google Desktop Search Plugins
Google recently released the source code of Kongulo, a plugin for the
Google Desktop Search utility. Kongulo is useful on its own, but it's even
better as an example of how to write your own plugins for GDS. Jeremy
Jones explores the code and explains how it interacts with GDS.

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2005/06/01/kongulo.html

***

5. Rolling with Ruby on Rails, Part 2
Curt Hibbs introduced Ruby on Rails by building a simple but functional
web application in just a few minutes. Does the ease of use continue? He
thinks so. In the second of two parts, Curt completes his example Rails
application in merely 47 lines of code.

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/03/03/rails.html

***
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