May 06, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Wicked Cool PHP
Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems
by William Steinmetz with Brian Ward
February 2008, 216 pp.
ISBN-10 1-59327-173-5
ISBN-13 978-1-59327-173-2
$29.95
$17.95 PDF
$35.95 PDF and Paperback
I just love supporting this publisher since all their new books are available in both paper and PDF formats with discounts if you buy both at the same time. Their publisher and I have had several conversations about ebook support and the PDF version of this book now resides in my Sony eBook reader. (Their PDF's only have a watermark on them, no DRM!)
With programs like Dream Weaver and the ilk all now supporting PHP, there aren't too many excuses left for not making your web pages more active. With even the folks at the UH Botany department using PHP to pull up information from their HUGE flower database, it just gets easier and easier to do. So I'll admit it, my degree is in computer science but I've never been a great coder. I'm always trying to find examples to start from and this book is perfect for cook book coders like myself. With examples like string searches, date formatting, forms handling, session tracking and email; the authors have clearly taken their pain points and put them on paper.
A great book to add to your reference library.
Posted by Brian Chee on May 6, 2008 04:42 PM
December 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The Book of PF (aka BSD Firewalls)
The Book of PF (No Starch Press, December 2007, 184 pp, ISBN 9781593271657
I've been using IPTables under Linux for quite some time now but with the poorly implemented firewall tool under Mac OSx Leopard, this book by NoStarch press has arrived in the proverbial nick to time.
It's my best guess that Apple tore away a goodly number of programmers off Leopard to make sure that Steve Job's promise for the iPhone was fulfilled. The downside is that Leopard had a few missing pieces, one of which was a polished interface for the built in firewall. So while this book isn't precisely for the poor Leopard users, I don't see why quite a bit won't work anyway due to OSx's BSD roots.
With Mr. Hansteen paying close attention to important topics like: state inspection, SPAM, black/grey listing, and many others; this must have reference for BSD users can go a long way to helping you fine tune the who/what/where/when/how of access control on your BSD box.
*NOTE: NoStarch Press is a rare beast in that almost all of their new books are also available in PDF format. Deep discounts are available if you purchase both the paper and electronic version at the same time, but you can always get either paper or PDF off their website. The truly FOSS thing about NoStarch is that they're trusting their readers in that they only really watermark the PDF version with the owner's information. No other DRM is involved....I for one will be voting with my dollars and I sincerely hope you folks out there do the same for your reference collection.
Posted by Brian Chee on December 12, 2007 06:50 PM
November 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Linux Firewalls from No Starch Press
With our great firewalls shootout looming on the horizon (2008Q1) I've begun to wonder just what it would take to build a firewall for a Distributed Enterprise main office out of open source tools. So when the folks from NoStarch Press sent me a copy of Linux Firewalls by Michael Rash I just had to start a sub project with my students to try to build an open source equivalent to the appliances that will be arriving in my lab this coming year.
Linux Firewalls
Attack Detection and Response with iptables, psad, and fwsnort
by Michael Rash
October 2007, 336 pp.
ISBN-10 1-59327-141-7
ISBN-13 978-1-59327-141-1
$49.95
BIG NOTE, the type of Firewall that's proposed for this market segment would be typical of what you might find at a distributed enterprise like some large hardware store chains where one might find a largish UTM (unified threat management) appliance that would be capable of handling gigabit throughput from both their DMZ and from the trusted side of the shop to some pretty big pipes on the WAN side. Minimum buy in for this shootout is quantity 3 gigabit interfaces and if you can't move at least a gig/sec, you probably ought not to be playing. The goal is to handle the huge amount of data being fed at it by hundreds of branch offices through VPN's, in addition to all the crud on the Internet washing up on the shores of our fictional enterprise all combined with the throughput necessary to handle the legitimate traffic from folks e-shopping or just looking things up on the corporate site.
First and foremost a firewall based upon a general purpose operating system is only as secure as the base OS. Michael Rash actually starts off with a discussion on just how you can build a Linux kernel that ONLY has what you need to support the firewall, losing all those extra pieces that can collect vulnerabilities over time. That's chapter one! What really makes this book different from the others I've seen over the years is that the author approaches the subject in a layered method while exposing potential vulnerabilities at each step. (Thank you so VERY much) So for those that are new to the security game, the book also takes a stab at teaching the basics of network security while teaching you the tools to build a modern firewall.
The author goes on with a detailed approach to PSAD (Port Scan Attack Detector), diving into details like attack signature detection, attack finger printing and active responses. Particularly valuable is his detailed discussion on FWSnort (IDS for Linux firewalls) and how it can be used to analyze in depth attacks that IPTables would normally not be able to recognize or act upon. Keep in mind that FWSnort is NOT a full implementation of Snort but rather a PERL implementation that will take Snort rules and translate them to a rough equivelent of IPTables rules that would normally be quite difficult to implement. You can if you want implement a layered approach and setup a full version of the Snort IDS to examine network streams at various locations, but FWSnort gives you a greater level of control over exactly what packet streams you let through your firewall.
Overall, this is not quite a cookbook, but more of a reference for those that want to dig into extending what they're already learned implementing IPTables on their Linux servers and/or workstations. It's also a terrific reference for those trying to fine tune what they already have with new features like FWSnort and/or PSAD. Nothing is going to replace sites like http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwsnort or http://www.netfilter.org for detailed descriptions of how each package works, but Linux Firewalls is a great place for those that either can't or won't spend the thousands of dollars on an appliance enterprise class firewall.
NOTE: The author does assume that you know a bit about where to find things in the Linux world, but has courteously included LOTS of actual command examples.
Posted by Brian Chee on November 19, 2007 12:28 PM
October 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
oreilly.com -- Online Catalog: PHP Cookbook, Second Edition
YES! The second edition is out! With the huge popularity of the LAMP (Linux Apache Mysql PHP) environment dominating the shared web server environment, it's no wonder that PHP reference books have exploded. So while Ruby on Rails/Python/etc are gaining popularity, PHP is still one of the most prevelent scripting languages for web servers today. So even with a Computer Science background, I still learn best from examples, and that is what this refreshed edition is all about. So my fellow web hackers, this is the answer to those nagging questions on how to implement the usability features in your website that have been eluding you. (ie. email without using a mailto: command, killing that second accidental form submit click, pulling environment variables, dealing with time zones, etc)
Brian Chee is a Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld Media Group
PHP Cookbook, Second Edition
By Adam Trachtenberg, David Sklar
Second Edition August 2006
Pages: 810 (More details)Book description
When it comes to creating dynamic web sites, the open source PHP language is red-hot property: used on more than 20 million web sites today, PHP is now more popular than Microsoft's ASP.NET technology. With our Cookbook's unique format, you can learn how to build dynamic web applications that work on any web browser. This revised new edition makes it easy to find specific solutions for programming challenges.
Source: oreilly.com -- Online Catalog: PHP Cookbook, Second Edition
Posted by Brian Chee on October 4, 2006 03:52 PM
October 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
oreilly.com -- Online Catalog: CSS: The Missing Manual
I'm a network geek and my website has never really caught up with what I'm really doing. So when I got a website template built for me, I found a baffling array of HTML code in the artist's template. Out of self defense I've been carving off the learning curve one feature at a time and have gotten more than a bit frustrated at how much I've missed by not paying attention to concepts like inheritance, Doctype, and just the whole concept of separating the style sheet from my content. The O'Reilly Missing Manual series again comes to the rescue with a book on Cascading Style Sheets (aka CSS) and how some up front work can save you an incredible amount of time and help your technical site stay in your organization's overall look and feel.
Brian Chee, Senior Contributing Editor, InfoWorld Media Group
CSS: The Missing Manual
By David Sawyer McFarland
First Edition August 2006
Pages: 494 (More details)Book description
Cascading Style Sheets are now a reliable method for handling all kinds of Web page presentations -- from fonts and colors to page layout. But due to CSS's complexity most designers treat it as a kind of window-dressing to spruce up the appearance of their sites without tapping into the real power of CSS. CSS: The Missing Manual clearly explains this powerful design tool and how you can use it to build sparklingly new Web sites, or refurbish old sites that are ready for an upgrade.
Source: oreilly.com -- Online Catalog: CSS: The Missing Manual
Posted by Brian Chee on October 4, 2006 01:51 PM
October 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Syngress Publishing - Enemy at the Water Cooler:
It has been my experience that security is really 90% policy and while there are some terrific firewalls out there for external threats, the real danger comes from the inside. In the government world you hear the acronym M.I.C.E. (money, idiology, conscience and ego) in just about every conversation about internal dangers to sensitive information. Enemy at the Water Cooler is one of those primers that anyone responsible for security policy should read.
Brian Chee, Senior Contributing Editor, InfoWorld Media Group.
Book Info:
Enemy at the Water Cooler:
Cover Price: $49.95
Syngress.com Price: $24.97Trim Size: 7 x 9
Author: Brian Contos
ISBN: 1597491292Table of Contents | Sample Chapter
Brian Contos has created what few security specialists can claim: a truly readable book about the threats to our businesses from insiders who know how to attack the critical components of modern business, the computers, applications and networks that make it all work. During the last fifteen years we have witnessed incredible strides in network centric business processes that have spawned the productivity of our workforce and the globalization of our supply chains. All of this progress is based on Information Technology advances that connect people and processes together to achieve more than our traditional approaches would have ever allowed… “Enemy at the Water Cooler is a must read for CIOs and security officers everywhere, but it is also part of the literature that CEOs and government leaders should read to understand how their businesses can be threatened by lack of attention to the fundamental IT infrastructure and its vulnerabilities to the insider threat.�—William P. Crowell, former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA)
Source: Syngress Publishing - Enemy at the Water Cooler:
Posted by Brian Chee on October 4, 2006 01:38 PM
TOP STORIES
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
- Virtualization: A Step by Step Approach to Success
- Dialing up Agility with Business Transformation
- 5 Things You Need to Know About Storage Virtualization
- Is your smaller organization ready for High Availability?
- Is system maintenance doing more harm than good?
- Virtual Test Lab Automation: Manage development infrastructure
