Alfresco installation: installing pdf2swf

For redhat / rpm based distribution:

yum install zlib-devel libjpeg-devel giflib-devel freetype-devel gcc gcc-c++

For debian / ubuntu / apt based distribution:

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev libjpeg-dev libgif-dev libfreetype6-dev

./configure

make

sudo make install

URL Rewrite for alias with parameter

When we need to redirect certain alias to another url,

we can modify htaccess file to handle redirection with the code below:

Example: redirect blabla to /articles/index

RewriteRule ^blabla(/)? /articles/index$1 [R,L]

The above work if our url goes:

http://www.example.com/blabla or http://www.example.com/blabla/

If we may have sub folders within bla bla or need to pass in additional parameter (as common in zend framework):

RewriteRule ^blabla(/)?(.+)? /articles/index$1$2 [R,L]

The above work if our url goes:

http://www.example.com/blabla/page/2/xyz/aaa

to

http://www.example.com/articles/index/page/2/xyz/aaa

Session fixation Attack

This kind of attack actually set your session to certain id which the server recognise and store the session by that id.

For example:

www.example.com/?PHPSESSID=AEXAMPLEOFHARDCODESESSIONID

So when user click on the link, user will find that he/she need to login.

When user logged in, the session will be active on "AEXAMPLEOFHARDCODESESSIONID".

This way, attacker can access the same url from another machine and have access to the logged in session.

Solution

Everytime the user login, reset the session id to a new id. This way, a new session id is set on every login attempt. Remote attacker will not be able to guess the id being used as its generated randomly by server.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_fixation

PHP on Apache Vs IIS

There are many variables which only available on apache, but not on IIS.

Here are a good list of items available on both apache and IIS.

http://koivi.com/apache-iis-php-server-array.php

Multi-lingual codes with countries

This are reference to some who will find it useful to develop multi-lingual website.

List of Language Codes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes

Here are some flag icons you may use:

http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/

TimeZone list for php and iCal

Sample iCAL:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-TIMEZONE;VALUE=TEXT:US/Pacific METHOD:PUBLISH PRODID:-//Apple Computer\, Inc//iCal 1.0//EN X-WR-CALNAME;VALUE=TEXT:Example VERSION:2.0 BEGIN:VEVENT SEQUENCE:5 DTSTART;TZID=US/Pacific:20021028T140000 DTSTAMP:20021028T011706Z SUMMARY:Coffee with Jason UID:EC9439B1-FF65-11D6-9973-003065F99D04 DTEND;TZID=US/Pacific:20021028T150000 BEGIN:VALARM TRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:-P1D ACTION:DISPLAY DESCRIPTION:Event reminder END:VALARM END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR

List of time zones code:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.america.php

Reference:

http://developer.apple.com/internet/appleapplications/icalendarfiles.html

Model in MVC

There are many peoples misunderstood the concept of model.

Model are suppose to represents the entire system for which that data is useful.

A good MVC system shall have small controller compared to a Fat Model.

More useful reading here:

http://blog.astrumfutura.com/archives/373-The-M-in-MVC-Why-Models-are-Misunderstood-and-Unappreciated.html