A USB Scope For Linux Users

Pico Technology has reportedly restored the numbers of Linux users, by offering a software that will run under their preferred OS. The USB oscilloscopes are famous but its demand supply is majority wise restricted to Windows platforms.

The PicoScope 6 will now convert a Linux PC into an oscilloscope, FFT spectrum analyser and measuring device. The On-device buffering, which uses deep memory on some devices, enables the display to be updated frequently and smoothly, even for long time-bases.

It is to be noted that the most important features from PicoScope, for Windows, are include in PicoScope 6, like the scope, spectrum and persistence modes, interactive zoom, simple, delayed and advanced triggers, automatic measurements, and signal generator control.

The oscilloscope software is available for the Debian 7.0, which is code named as wheezy, Ubuntu 12.xx / 13.xx, as well as other Debian-based distributions with mono-runtime version 2.10.81. or higher. The drivers are available for the current scopes from the PicoScope 2000 to 6000 series.

The PicoScope software involves an USB oscilloscope from the PicoScope range. These oscilloscopes are available with the bandwidths of up to 1 GHz, up to 4 input channels, with hardware vertical resolutions up to 16 bits, sampling rates up to 5 GS/s, buffer sizes up to 2 GS, and built-in signal generators.

Some more features that are available on some models are flexible hardware resolution, switchable bandwidth limiters, switchable high-impedance and 50 ohm inputs, and differential inputs. The company has asserted that more functions will be added soon. For now, the users can save the captures for off-line analysis, share them with the other PicoScope for Windows and also with PicoScope for Linux users. They can export them in text, CSV and Mathworks MATLAB 4 formats.

11 Websites Where You Can Find Code Snippets

Time saving practices are very useful for developers. When you're writing thousands of lines of code, cutting a few corners is nothing to be ashamed about. This is where code snippets come in. In fact, often you can use code snippets to add that one element to your program which was otherwise missing. They usually come from users and other developers themselves, which makes them tried and tested practices. Here are the top 11 places where you can find this resources.

1. CSS Deck

This is one of the best websites for getting code snippets. You can find snippets on HTML and CSS on this website and can also submit your own creations to them.

2. CSS-Tricks

This is a popular source for finding code snippets on JavaScript, CSS, jQuery, HTML, PHP, CSS, HTAccess and WordPress. As with the website above, you can submit your own snippets to this website too.

3. Snipplr

This website allows you to view code snippets with or without registration. You can find snippets on JavaScript, Ruby, HTML, PHP, CSS, Ruby and other languages.

4. DZone Snippets

This is a community website meant for developers, which has a separate section for code snippets. It allows you to add your own snippets and add tags to them if you have an account.

5. Joyent Code Snippets

Add snippets, tag them, view snippets submitted by others and browse through snippets based on tags or users.

6. WpRecipes

This is a website where WordPress developers can find useful code snippets for their projects. You can find snippets for various purposes.

7. Smipple

This is a website for users to share their code snippets with each other. You are allowed to tag snippets for future use and submit your own snippets using just your Google account. You can also browse through popular snippets with or without an account.

8. PHP Snips

As the name suggest, this website focuses on code snippets for PHP developers. You have to create an account if you want to share your own snippets on the website.

9. Codes PHP

This is another website for finding useful code snippets in PHP. In addition, it also contains snippets for MySQL, PHP frameworks and WordPress.

10. Snipt

You can submit your own snippets and add tags to them on this website. In addition, you can also browser through snippets through tags and easily embed them when needed.

11. DevSnippets

You can use this website for finding links to tutorials and other resources that are useful to developers.

10 Awesome Features In Android Developer Options..

The Developer Options on Android are most often skipped by users, but they are of the utmost importance for developers. That said, there are many features on this that may be useful to users too. Moreover, even developers tend to miss these features sometimes. Here they are,

1. Enable And Disabling USB Debugging

When you try to run Android-related tools on your PC, most of them require you to enable USB debugging. This can be done by the following method.

- Open Settings -> Developer Options.
- Put a check mark on the USB debugging option.
- This will prompt you with a message to allow USB debugging, select ‘Ok’.

2. Desktop Backup Password

The Android developer options allows you to create a password for your desktop backup.

- Settings -> Developer Options.
- Select Desktop Backup Password.
- Follow the steps to create the password.

3. Tweak Animation Settings

The animation that appears when you’re moving from one screen to the other can be tweaked using the developer options. You can speed up the animation or completely switch it off.

- Settings -> Developer Options.
- Find Window animation scale, Animator duration scale and Transition animation scale.
- Adjust the scale. Smaller the number you choose, faster the animation.

4. Enable MSAA For OpenGL Games

Force enabling MSAA gives you higher graphics in your games. This drain’s your device’s battery much faster though.

- Settings -> Developer Options.
- Choose ‘Force 4x MSAA’.

5. Allow Mock Location

Faking GPS location requires an app, but using that app required you to enable ‘Mock Location’ from Developer Options.

- Settings - > Developer Options.
- Open ‘Allow Mock Location’.

6. Stay Awake While Charging

It is always better for the screen to turn off while charging, but in case you want it on, here’s how.

- Settings -> Developer Options.
- Click Stay Awake

7. Display CPU Usage Overlay

If you keep this feature on all the time, then it encroaches on the space available on your screen for other activities. This is because the number of processes going on keep increasing over time.

- Settings > Developer Options.
- Choose ‘Show CPU Usage’.
- The overlay appears on the right side of your screen.

8. Don’t Keep App Activities

Your activities on an app are usually saved on your device, but there are some apps perform a lot of activities. This you could avoid.

- Settings -> Developer Options.
- Choose ‘Don’t keep activities’.

9. Switch Dalvik To ART

This is an experimental runtime that has been designed by Google. You need a device that runs Android KitKat in order to test this one though.

- Settings -> Developer options.
- Choose ‘Select Runtime’ and switch to ART.

ART may make the device slower since it is an experimental runtime and not many apps support it at the moment.

10. Enable Wireless Display Certifications

This option is useful for Miracast-enabled devices and other similar technologies. To do this,

- Settings -> Developer options.
- Choose the ‘Wireless Display Certification’ option.

Play a game of snake on youtube while it is loading

YouTube is a video platform that is very popular to watch and upload video. Is noted for its position on the Alexa charts ranked third. Normally when you open the YouTube video, leveraging on a slow internet connection to watch the video cause it had a long and tedious loading. Therefore, you are advised to not become bored with playing simple games before completion of the video buffer. This game is the classic snake game in the video.So, how to give it a try? It is easy when you have a loading video, you only have to press LEFT + UP AERO AERO KEYS together. Press the two key simultaneously rather than one by one. Without the snake game you're supposed to start as shown below ...

p / s: aril respond to the songs tonight jiwang safe .. hehe .. friends .. try peace! =)

Here Are 10 Must Know WhatsApp Tips And Tricks..

There's been a lot of fuss going around the whole 'social networking giant Facebook Inc buying mobile messaging sensation WhatsApp', leaving fans and enthusiasts alike in a state of dizziness regarding the future of the app. Of course, WhatsApp on its part has made it clear that it would continue to remain an independent entity prior to the deal. But, honestly we know Facebook integration might eventually be pushed at some point of time. As of now, WhatsApp undoubtedly remains to be a compelling, dependable and practical messaging experience!

Here are 10 tips, tricks and apps to get more out of your Whatsapp:

1. Hide "Last Seen" Timestamp

-WhatsApp shows a "last seen" timestamp by default. However, you can disable this timestamp on both iOS and Android.

-For iOS users: all you need to do is go into Settings > Chat Settings > Advanced and set Last Seen Timestamp to Off.

-For Android users: third party apps such as Hide WhatsApp Status is there for help. It works by disabling your WiFi and data connection when you open WhatsApp.

2. Backup And Restore WhatsApp Chats

-WhatsApp allows automatic backups of your chats, however there is also a manual option to do it.

-For iOS users: Settings > Chat Settings > Chat Backup, then tap Back Up Now.

-For Android users: Settings > Chat settings and tap Backup conversations to create a backup. To backup media you will need to use a file manager to copy the media folders in /sdcard/WhatsApp/Media.

-However, if you want to restore a backup you will have to uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.

3. Lock Your WhatsApp

-For Android users: use WhatsApp Lock.

-For BlackBerry users: use Lock for WhatsApp.

-You can then protect WhatsApp by a PIN (WhatsLock) or a password (Lock for WhatsApp).

4. Create Shortcuts For Important Contacts

-For Android users: simply long press on the group or contact you want to create a shortcut for. Tap on Add conversation shortcut on the menu that pops up and you have shortcut right on your homescreen.

-For iOS users: third-party apps such as 1TapWA are there to help.

5. Stop WhatsApp Images from Appearing In Gallery Or Camera Roll

-For iOS users: go to Settings > Privacy > Photos and then turn the WhatsApp switch off.

-For Android users: create a .nomedia file in WhatsApp’s images or video directories by using a file explorer such as ES File Explorer (Navigate to the images or video folders, tap the 'New' button in the lower left, pick 'File' and create a file named .nomedia)

6. Change Your WhatsApp Phone Number

-You don’t need to uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp everytime you change numbers on the same phone.

-Go to Settings > Account > Change number. Enter your old phone number in the top field and then your new phone number in the bottom field and press Done. Verify your new phone number, and you're good to go!

7. Install WhatsApp On An Android Tablet

-Get the latest version of the WhatsApp .apk. Then download SRT AppGuard. Install both.

-Run AppGuard first. Select WhatsApp from the Dashboard then press Monitor. At completion, scroll down and disable read phone status and identity under Phone calls. WhatsApp will now successfully run on your tablet.

8. WhatsApp Chat Heads On Android

-Using WhatsApp Chat Heads you can add chat heads for your conversations.

-The chat heads are also customisable, and come with specific LED colors, notification sounds and chat head colors for each of your contacts.

-Advisory: The app requires root access. Plus, it’s also still in beta.

9. Get Messaging Statistics On Android

-WhatStat provides information on your 'top' friends, most active times of the day when your friends and groups use WhatsApp as well as message distribution for both one-on-one and group chats.

10. Get WhatsApp notifications On Desktop

-You need to install Desktop Notifications on your Android phone. Install either the Chrome or Firefox extensions depending on your choice of browser. Link the extension to the app using the code provided and you’ll now get WhatsApp notifications on your desktop.

Source: hongkiat

25 Mythical and Humorous Facts About Linux Creator Linus Torvalds..

Most people feel Linus Torvalds is the world's greatest computer programmer/hacker. So it’s not surprising that many of his loyal fans have applauded him and have recited stories about his great accomplishments.

As cited on junauza.com, here are some mythical and rather humorous facts about Linus Torvalds:

1- His initial words were syscalls.

2- His DNA is in binary.

3- His first written program had artificial intelligence.

4- He already has Linux 3.0 and is just keeping it to himself for creating suspense.

5- He can touch MC Hammer.

6- He doesn't worry about Microsoft patent crap, he simply does "sudo mv /tmp/ms /dev/null".

7- He can perform infinite loop in five seconds... in his head.

8- He can install Gentoo in a week.

9- He can halt a BSOD... on Vista 64-bit.

10- He doesn't require anti-virus software. Virii need anti-Linus software.

11- He doesn't wear glasses any longer, not due to the fact that he has had a laser eye surgery, but as he finally got his xorg.conf properly configured in his head.

12- He wrote the whole kernel in binary and reverse engineered it to C code for others benefit.

13- He can play 3D games in his head by interpreting the source code in real-time.

14- He takes a single look at your desktop and knows which porn sites you visited over the past decade.

15- His computer's clock isn't synchronized with the world but the world synchronizes with Linus Torvalds's clock.

16- He surfs the web using nothing but netcat.

17- He has developed warp drive, sun destroying bombs and a ray that can teleport him a new sausage each day before he drinks his morning beer.

18- He doesn't push the flush toilet button, brush his teeth, shower or clean his house; he simply says, "make clean".

19- He can defragment an NTFS partition using hand.

20- He doesn't debug and programs are always perfect.

21- He is real, unless declared Integer.

22- He can delete the universe by typing rm -rf /.

23- He does not sleep; he hacks.

24- His favorite joke is HURD.

25- He didn't design Linux to run on the 386.     

Here Are 6 Things That Cinnamon Can Learn From KDE...

There's no age and time to start learning, you practically learn all your life. The same set of rules are followed by the tech world as well. KDE and Cinnamon are undoubtedly the two leading desktop environments in the Linux world today. The two are 'tough' competitors when it comes to functionality and user share. Cinnamon offers a pretty neat development speed, is widely acknowledged within the user community and provides noticeable chunks of control and simplicity. However, does it outsmart KDE? Well, not really!

Here are 6 things that Cinnamon can learn from KDE:

1. Cross-platform support

-Cinnamon is a Linux only desktop environment, on the other hand KDE is a truly cross-platform solution (its framework available on Solaris, FreeBSD, OSX, and even Windows).

-Now, Cinnamon will keep you happily busy as long as you have some form of Linux under the hood, however, with KDE users can test and explore its various options, tools and programs before thinking about switching fully!

2. Attention to detail

-Being a German idea, KDE is pretty neat (as tidy as 'tidy' could be!) and boasts of a very careful attention to detail. With KDE, everything seems to fit everything else.

-Whatever distribution it might be, if it runs KDE, you know you will have a solid, familiar behavior and an expected level of precision.

3. Full stack

-KDE desktop is a complete stack, no matter how deeply you search through the menus and options, the uniformity persists.

-You can search for additional content and supplemental software without leaving the comfort of your desktop environment.

4. Applications

-KDE comes with the most complete and most uniform set of applications that users could ever imagine, non-Linux operating systems included.

-On the other hand, with Cinnamon the system menu choice reflects the particular distro developers bundling their favorite set. Move from one Cinnamon to another and you will know!

5. Powerful services and social integration

-KDE programs are acclaimed for their highly detailed menus and options. Whatever application it might be, it comes with a set of extras and easy social integration.

6. Professional touch

-A powerful set of applications and a complete stack of tools and options bundled together with an extremely consistent behavior make KDE the most professional of all Linux desktop environments.

-Furthermore, thanks to Qt one day we may see more and more of this framework on non-desktop computing devices.

Source: Netrunner

Hide Last Seen Status, Profile Pic on Whatsapp For Android..

WhatsApp is heading to punch its Android users with a surprise after the famous acquisition by Facebook for a whopping $19 billion. The users can now hide their 'last seen' status on Android as well. The feature already exists in the iOS version, though.

This new feature is currently available on the WhatsApp apk, only, which is available on the website. In a tweet by @NotPriyanka, who apparently discovered the settings on Android, the users will now have time privacy on Google powered platform. Furthermore, the users can also hide their profile pictures and status messages, too.

The added advantage to the app's Android version is that unlike on the iOS, the user can swap freely between visible and invisible status, and not wait for 24-hours. The feature enabling hiding of profile pictures and status messages are nice surprise by WhatsApp, for its users.

This privacy feature is not available on the Google Play Store version of WhatsApp, yet. It needs to be fresh downloaded and installed from the website using an apk file. The new version of WhatsApp enables the new privacy tab in Settings and then listed in Account Settings.

Here Are 15 'Big Data' Facts Every IT Professional Should Know...

Big data is certainly the talk of the town lately! It is one of the fast growing technologies that can help you get jobs with the tech biggies. More and more firms now believe that big data will help businesses make better decisions in the days to come (some believe it's already started). However, there is dearth of right skills in the market.

As such, IT professionals should keep track of big data trends, research and statistics!

1. How Much Data is There?

-According to IBM, a whopping 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created every day!

2. Structured Versus Unstructured Data

-According to Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS): 51 per cent of data is structured, 27 per cent is unstructured while 21 per cent is semi-structured.

3. Big Data Generates Jobs

-According to Gartner, as much as 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support big data by 2015. The technology will generate 1.9 million IT jobs in the US alone.

4. The Big Data Talent Shortage

-According to McKinsey Global Institute, the US alone could face a talent shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people by 2018. Further, it could face a shortage of 1.5 million managers and analysts to make effective decisions on big data.

5. Rethinking Job Roles and Titles

-According to TEK Systems, nearly 81 percent of IT leaders and 77 percent of IT professionals believe there is a considerable shortage of talent that could make best use of their organisation's data assets.

6. Disparate Systems

-According to TEK Systems, 66 per cent of IT leaders and 53 per cent of IT professionals believe their organisations need to build new platforms to make use of their mammoth data management needs, thereby getting rid of current disparate systems.

7. Getting Business Value From Big Data

-Tata Consultancy Services Limited has highlighted three prominent challenges for companies: making businesses share information across organisational lines; dealing with the three V's of big data (data volume, velocity and variety). Meanwhile, third on the list is determining which data could be best used under different conditions.

8. Data Quality

-According to TEK Systems, 57 per cent of IT leaders and 52 per cent of IT professionals claim they don't always know who owns the data, meaning quality more or less lies on the back burner. Ensuring the accuracy and quality of the data will be critical in the times to come in an ever expanding universe of big data.

9. Create a Stronger Business

-According to CompTIA nearly eight in 10 data executives believe that harnessing all of their enterprise data would result in a stronger business.

10. Better Manage Data

-According to CompTIA less than 1 in 5 businesses report being currently stable in managing and using data.

11. Top 3 Big Data Business Drivers

-According to EMA and 9sight Consulting, the top three big data business drivers include:

1. Speeding time for operational or analytical workloads (39 per cent)

2. Increasing competitive advantage with flexibility of data used in business solutions (34 per cent)

3. Business requirements for higher levels of advanced analytics (31 per cent)

12. Big Data Implementations

-According to EMA and 9sight Consulting, big data implementations in production rose from 27 per cent in 2012 to 34.3 per cent in 2013.

13. Big Data Tools

-According to Giga Spaces, nearly 80 per cent people in IT are either using or planning to use dedicated big data tools to manage massive amounts of data in their organisation.

14. Big Data Spending

-According to Tata Consultancy Services Limited, nearly 15 per cent of the companies surveyed had spent at least $100 million each on big data in 2012, while 7 per cent had invested at least $500 million.

15. Industries Spending the Most on Big Data

-According to Tata Consultancy Services Limited travel-related, high tech, and banking industries have been the biggest spenders, while industries related to life sciences, retail, and energy have spent the least.

Source: Webopedia    

Here Are 30+ Vi Key Bindings...

Vi holds the distinction of being a very powerful text editor when it comes to Linux systems. The fact that it is applicable even in the case of embedded systems makes it an instant hit. It is indeed lightening quick in comparison to many other text editors out there. Learning its key bindings is therefore a necessity in order to bring out the best of it!

Mode Switching

1. i: Enter insert mode

2. Escape: Leave insert mode. Also ensures if you’re in command mode.

Moving the Cursor

3. h: Move cursor left

4. j: Move cursor down

5. k: Move cursor up

6. l: Move cursor right

7. /: / followed by some text you want to find, then Enter brings the cursor to the location of the text in the file

8. ?: Like /, but searches backwards

9. f: f followed by any character to moves the cursor to the next occurrence of the character on the current line

10. F: Like f, but searches backwards

11. %: Jump between the nearest (), [], or {} characters on the line

12. H: Move cursor to highest line in file

13. M: Move cursor to middle line in file

14. L: Move cursor to lowest line in file

15. #G: go to that line in the file

16. w: Move forward a word

17. #w: Move forward a number of words

18. b: Move back a word

19. #b: Move back a number of words

20. e: Move to end of the current word

Copying and Pasting

21. v: select a section of text

22. y: Copy the selected text

23. p: Paste at cursor

24. x: Cuts the selected text

25. r: Type r and then type another character to replace the character under the cursor

Combining Commands

26. dw: Deletes the next word

27. db: Deletes the previous word

28. de: Deletes to the end of the current word

29. dL: Deletes all text below the cursor in the file

30. d/unicorn: After pressing Enter, deletes all text between the cursor and the word “unicorn” in the current file

31. dd: Deletes an entire line

Repeat and Undo

32. u: Undo

33. .: repeats the last full command

Source: How-To Geek


(EFYTIMES News Network)

Now Book Your Bus Tickets Through An Android App

With the growing smartphone market in India, the easy availability of the Android and iOS platforms, has got us hooked on to the operating systems with devices ranging from budget segment to elite. In a new, the online bus ticketing portal, Ticketgoose.com, has reportedly announced to launch its very own Android and iOS mobile app, to make ticket bookings, in Mangalore, Karnataka.

 Karthi Easwaramoorthy, the president and co-founder of Ticketgoose.com, said that the app was developed three months ago. It was introduced among some loyal customers for testing of the portal, as reported by the Hindu Business Line. After the sample testing succeeded, the company formally launched the app.

The Ticketgoose.com app can be download from both, the Google Play store and the Apple iTunes store. Easwaramoorthy also said that the ‘bus tracking’ option in the app allows the passengers / customers to keep track of their buses, with frequent updates on the location of the bus.

The company says that since bus ticketing is Rs 300 billion market, and upcoming technology is steadily gaining pace. Easwaramoorthy said only 5 per cent of bus tickets are sold through online system, in the country, in the same report. The feedback for this app, right now, counts to nearly 300 to 400 tickets per day sales. The Ticketgoose.com's customer support service helps the customers get information on pick-up points, approximate time of arrival and also bus delays.

The company also has an agreement with the United India Insurance, that will provide travel insurance to its passengers, with an optional service. The service is priced at Rs 20 per passenger, exclusive of the ticket charge. As per the policy, it provides personal accident cover for Rs 200,000 to each passenger, and damage or loss of baggage can be claimed at up to a maximum of Rs 15,000.

You think Linux is not for you and only for the tech savvy and those who are trained? Well, think again! The way things stand right now, laptops and PCs are becoming passé and mobile operating systems are gaining popularity. Linux is being adopted like never before! When it comes to choosing your operating system, you must focus on what your usage is. However, if your using Windows, you can still try out the 'goodness' of Linux without having to give up on your first love!

Here are six ways to set up multi-booting with Windows 8 and Linux:

1. Install the Linux GRUB bootloader

-Install the Linux GRUB bootloader as the default boot object.

-The catch here is you need to have a UEFI-compatible Linux distribution (openSuSE, Fedora, Linux Mint and Ubuntu).

-When you install a UEFI-compatible Linux distribution and everything works well, you will get the GRUB boot menu after a reboot. You can then choose either Linux or Windows 8 to boot from it.

2. Use the BIOS Boot Select Key

-There's a possibility that doing everything of the above still gets you nowhere, and you're still getting Windows rather than Linux after reboot.

-In that case you can use the BIOS Boot Selection option (activated by pressing a special key that varies between systems during the power-on or reboot process.)

-Pressing the special key will interrupt the Windows boot process and you will get a list of available operating systems (Windows 8 and Linux).

3. Enable 'Legacy Boot'

-Some systems make it difficult to enable Legacy Boot. The option might be well hidden in the BIOS configuration, or require a BIOS password before they will let you change it.

-Legacy Boot allows you to install more or less any Linux distribution, without worrying about UEFI compatbility.

4. Try a workaround

-There is a "next boot" option available, which specifices a one time boot configuration.

-If it is set the system will try to boot that item first, and will also clear that setting so that on the next boot it goes back to using the default boot sequence list.

-The next boot configuration can be set from Linux using efibootmgr -n XXXX, where XXXX is the item number from the boot list.

-Add the efibootmgr command to the Linux startup scripts. Every time you boot Linux, it would reset the value so that it would boot Linux again the following time.

5. Trick the default boot process

-Put the Linux shim.efi (or grubx64.efi) image where the Windows Boot Manager is normally located. This is a cleaver trick to trick the default boot process.

6. Install a different Boot Manager

-rEFInd has the advantage of being able to boot almost anything - Windows, Linux, MacOS. It automatically finds whatever might be on the disk and then presents you with a boot selection list.

Source: ZDNet    

100 Websites That You Must Know And Use...

What do you do when you are online? Some play games on Facebook, others use it to chat on instant messengers (IMs). Then there are those who use the internet to seek valuable information on various topics. The fact though remains that only an amalgamation of all of these usages will lead to fruitful use of the internet. So, are you really making the best of the web or are you just another fly trapped in it? The websites given as under are some of the best websites on the internet on various subjects. They aren't just websites that you should read through from time to time, you can really put them to use for various purposes.

Business and E-Commerce: E-commerce and running businesses on the internet has become a trend in recent times. You can buy everything, from your daily groceries to month's grocery and flight ticket without having to move from your bedroom.

blogs.hbr.org

fastcompany.com

entrepreneur.com

dealbook.nytimes.com

thebillfold.com

kickstarter.com

indiegogo.com

rockethub.com

etsy.com

kiva.org

marginalrevolution.com

learnvest.com

getrichslowly.org/blog

ritholtz.com/blog

consumerist.com

npr.org/blogs/money

blog.priceonomics.com

freakonomics.com/blog

Audio and Video: When it comes to audio and video content online, the first thing that comes to anyone's mind is torrents and downloads. But there are some amazing websites out there hosting such content from known and unknown artists and sources. These can make for interesting and informative sources that you should use regularly.

thisiscolossal.com

creativetimereports.org

designobserver.com

hyperallergic.com

transom.org

atavist.com

thirdcoastfestival.org

nfb.ca/interactive

woostercollective.com

c-monster.net

artfagcity.com

pitchfork.com

blog.largeheartedboy.com

Literature, Culture and media: These websites often cater to a very niche population, but that doesn't take away from the fact that there is some very interesting content out there. Websites like Goodreads are very popular amongst avid readers. Similarly, there are tons of other websites that host such content.

theparisreview.org/blog

lareviewofbooks.org

themillions.com

therumpus.net

theawl.com

grantland.com

slate.com

vulture.com

themorningnews.org

pw.org

longreads.com

goodreads.com

thefrisky.com

rookiemag.com

mediamatters.org

jimromenesko.com

poynter.org

niemanlab.org

google.com/trends

youtube-trends.blogspot.com

onthemedia.org/blogs

journalism.org

bookslut.com/blog/

brainpickings.org

buzzfeed.com

Politics, News and Global Issues: Newspapers may be approaching a slow death, but that doesn't mean that news isn't what it used to be. The internet is replacing both television and newspapers and it is doing so in a big way. Whether it is apps or websites, whip out your smartphones and check these websites out.

change.org

pewresearch.org

politico.com

thinkprogress.org

brookings.edu

aljazeera.com

fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com

qz.com

www.propublica.org

alternet.org

dish.andrewsullivan.com

good.is

dissentmagazine.org

Education: This is perhaps the best example of how literally everything is available online nowadays. You can become a programmer (broadly speaking) in a matter of months by enrolling for the courses provided on some of these popular websites. Similarly, courses are available in a wide range of subjects.

edsurge.com

khanacademy.org

edx.org

coursera.org

udacity.com

generalassemb.ly

baeo.org

edweek.org

nces.ed.gov

greatschools.org

stand.org

crpe.org

Science and Technology: Keep up with the times, that's all there is to say about this category. Advancements in science and technology are made almost every day and that new smartphone is not so new in a matter of months. If you are connected to the internet then you can keep in touch with what's happening around the world in these two fields.

blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews

blogs.scientificamerican.com

onearth.org

scienceseeker.org

lastwordonnothing.com

scilogs.com

pandasthumb.org

realclimate.org

incubator.rockefeller.edu

blogs.plos.org

doublexscience.org

australianscience.com.au

guardian.co.uk/science

grist.org

scq.ubc.ca

lifeslittlemysteries.com

allthingsd.com

techcrunch.com

mashable.com

The source for this article, Ted.com is itself a gold mine of interesting articles, talks and videos. You could keep a watch on this one too!

Top 8 PHP And OWASP Security Vulnerabilities!

Despite the programmer's best effort, vulnerabilities almost always exist in applications. If not, attackers find a new one all the time. So, it is only right for a programmer to ensure that they avoid vulnerabilities as much as possible. There are flaws that the Open World Application Security Project thought were amongst the top vulnerabilities in applications.

1. Unvalidated Parameters: When you’re using values from superglobal arrays, you should ensure that you have validated them against unexpected input. If you expect a certain kind of value then ensure that you have put in the require conforms in place to ensure that value. So, for a Zip Code, you can put in conforms that ensure that the value entered will be a 5 digit value, a 5-digit value with a hyphen and four more digits or something that fits the format followed for Zip Codes in a particular country.


if (preg_match('/^\d{5}(-\d{4})?$/',$_GET['zip'])) {
$zip = $_GET['zip'];
} else {
die('Invalid ZIP Code format.');
}

For data that has been sent to a client before and will be received in a cookie, ensure that there has been no tampering. You can do this by sending a hash of the data that you expect along with a secret word. So, you rehash the data when you get it and ensure that the new hash and old hash match each other.

// sending cookie
$secret_word = 'gargamel';
$id = 123745323;
$hash = md5($secret_word.$id);
setcookie('id',$id.'-'.$hash);

// receiving and verifying cookie
list($cookie_id,$cookie_hash) = explode('-',$_COOKIE['id']);
if (md5($secret_word.$cookie_id) == $cookie_hash) {
$id = $cookie_id;
} else {
die('Invalid cookie.');
}

2. Access Control Broken: Many people trying to come up with their own access control solution. It is better to use the PEAR modules. You can use Auth and Auth_HTTP, which perform cookie-based and browser-based authentication respectively.

3. Session Management and Broken Account: In order to ensure secure standardised session management, you should use the functions that are built-in to PHP already. In doing so, you have to ensure that the session contents aren’t stored in a vulnerable location on your server.

For example, if you store them in c world-readable format in /tmp, they will be accessible to anyone logging into the server. You need to ensure that the files are stored in a secure location, where only trusted users can enter. Moreover, to protect from network sniffers, you should ensure that all your session IDs and session specific traffic should be sent over SSL.

4. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Flaws: Information that is coming from outside your program should never be displayed. Untrusted data should be filtered and you can use any of PHP’s many tools on this. A few examples are htmlspecialchars(), strtr() and strip_tags().

In order to protect against attackers trying to hide in Unicode encoding, use utf8_decode(). This converts the ISO-8859-1 characters given in a string encoded with Unicode UTF-8 into the ASCII single-bye characters.

5. Buffer Overflows: Allocating memory at runtime is not possible in PHP like it is in C Programming. So, you won’t have buffer overflows because of the same. That said, you do have to worry about buffer overflows within PHP itself and within its extensions. You should take a subscription to the php-announce mailing list in order to keep yourself up to date with all the newst releases and patches that will help you with this.

6. Error Handling: Raw error messages, if visible, can give advanced users an idea of how your system works and what software is being used. These include error message from your databased, PHP and external programs. It gives an attacked a better chance at penetrating your security protocols. So, your error messages shouldn’t contain system information. For this you need to direct PHP to put your error messages into the server’s error log and not to display them to users.

log_errors = On
display_errors = Off

7. Insecure Use of Cryptography: Instead of trying to device your own encryption scheme, use the mcrypt extension. This extension has a lot of popular extension scheme, which you can use. Moreover, if you’re storing your encryption keys, then be careful about where you store them. Not storing the keys would be the best idea, but if you are, store them in as secure a location as you can.

8. Remote Administration Flaws: Remote administration tools should be run over SSL connections whenever possible. This is done to avoid passwords and content from being sniffed. When you’re using such software, make sure that the default administrative username, password and if possible then even the URL has been changed. You could also run the tool from a different web server different from the public web server that it administrates.