In case you don’t know, the upcoming Windows 8 will have a new logo:
Honestly, I am very disappointed with the design of the new logo because it is too simple and too clean, and it looks like a flag of a country: if you replace blue with white, and white with dark blue, it becomes the flag of Finland.
I hope it will be changed when Windows 8 is released.
For more information about the new logo, check Blogging Windows.
I am working on a project allows user to upload files to server and download uploaded files from server. It is simple and straight-forward: the file is save in file system, and the file path is saved in database. When user requests to download a file, the file path is returned from the database and user is prompted with the save file dialog to save the file. Everything has been working well, then suddenly one day the application threw a System.ArgumentException error saying “Illegal characters in path”. I checked the file system but didn’t find any illegal characters in any file names, so the problem is not in the file system. After more investigation, I found out the problem lies in the file path stored in database.
The data type for the file path column in database is varchar and doesn’t support Unicode text, so when a file that containing Unicode text in the file name is uploaded, the Unicode text becomes questions marks (?????), and when this file is requested for download, the question marks will cause the “Illegal characters in path” error. The fix is simple: change the data type from varchar to nvarchar to support Unicode text.
Since I published my latest post titled “SugarSync vs DropBox vs SpiderOak, which should I choose”, several people have tried to post their SugarSync referral link in their comments on my post. I find it very annoying, so I would like to make it clear: please don’t post your SugarSync referral link on my site. If you want to earn bonus space by referring people, then post your referral link on your own site.
Anyone who posts their referral link from SugarSync, DropBox, SpiderOak, or whatever, is not welcome here, and the post will be deleted immediately.
I am a big fan of CSI: Miami show from CBS and will watch the show on-line if I miss an episode. This morning when I opened their web site to see if the latest episode has been uploaded, to my surprise, I found that CSI: Miami show’s web site was messed up with The Good Wife show’s web site. Take a look the screen shot below:
When I clicked Watch Now button, I was taken to The Good Wife show web site.
Maybe the web master of CBS.com had a rough weekend?
All I can say is LOL, especially the "buy one get one free" part. Funny.
I installed MS SQL Server Denali CTP3 (and its management studio) installed parallel to SQL Server 2008 R2, and everything works fine until I decided to uninstall Denali. The uninstallation of Denali was smooth and gave no error, however, after the uninstallation, MS SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Studio could not be launched. It didn’t give any error message and just didn’t launch at all. I had to reinstall MS SQL Server 2008 R2 to fix the error, and I could not just reinstall the Management Studio because it kept giving me installation error.
Bottom line, don’t install MS SQL Server “Denali” along with MS SQL Server 2008 R2.
After I uninstalled MS SQL Server “Denali” CTP3, my Task Manager cannot be launched. Every time I try to launch it, it gives me an error:
Windows cannot find ‘C:\Windows\system32\taskmgr.exe’. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.
How to fix it?
Before I installed SQL Server “Denali”, I used Process Explorer to replace my Task Manager, and it seems that the uninstallation of “Denali” messed up Process Explorer. But since Task Manager has been replaced by Process Explorer, it will not be able to find the correctly file when Task Manager is being launched.
What I did was to rerun Process Explorer, then go to Options –> Replace Task Manager, then close Process Explorer.
TrueCrypt is free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can use it to encrypt your files, disk partitions, and even a whole disk. It is very easy to use and the encryption and the decryption process is transparent to end user, for instance, once a TrueCrypt container (a container is a TrueCrypt encrypted file containing all your data) is decrypted and mounted, the mounted container is the same as a disk drive to the end user. Any file put in the mounted disk drive will be encrypted automatically, and any file pulled outside the disk will be decrypted automatically.
As many open-source projects, it relies mainly on donations from users for their development cost. Recently, TrueCrypt set up a donation goal of $150,000 for their future development. My donation is limited, so I would like to use my blog to give it a shout-out. If you are a happy TrueCrypt, I encourage you to consider a donation to TrueCrypt to help them meet their goal. To see the current donation status and make a donation, you can visit their home page at http://www.truecrypt.org
Happy Encrypting!
If you already use SugarSync, then you know that after you sign up an account (either Free or Paid account), if you finish five tasks under Getting Started tab in your account, then you will get 125 MB bonus storage. If you think 125 MB bonus is not good enough, then here is the good news. Started June 6th, SugarSync lets you earn 125 MB bonus for each task you finish, so the total bonus will be 625 MB when you finish all five tasks.
What about those who already finished the five tasks before the change? The good news is they are eligible too! If you already finished the tasks before, then just log back into your account, and you will be prompted for this bonus. All you need to do is to accept the bonus, and you don’t need to do the tasks again. How nice. For more information for this new bonus, check this post: http://www.sugarsync.com/blog/2011/07/06/free-storage-come-and-get-it/
If you haven’t used SugarSync, or you haven’t heard of SugarSync, SugarSync is a secure online backup and file synchronization service. You can back up your important files on SugarSync cloud storage and also synchronize them with your other devices, such as computer and smart phone. For more information about SugarSync and other similar services, you can read my blog post http://www.codingbeaver.com/myblog/index.php/2011/04/29/drop-dropbox-and-pick-up-sugarsync/
If you decide to use SugarSync, you can use this referral link to sign up. With this link you will get 500 MB bonus storage when you complete the registration. So your total bonus storage will be 500 MB + 625 MB (if you finish the five tasks) = 1125 MB!
Sign up with this referral link to get 500 MB bonus:
https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=e3izqm2hfvy70
And I will get 500 MB bonus if you sign up using the above link. Thank you in advance.
My site was hacked on June 28th, 2011 around 8:00pm. How I found out? Here is the story.
When I tried to access my site after coming back from a vacation, I noticed there is a PHP error at the bottom of the page as this:
PHP Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/{username}/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/aioseop.class.php:221) in /home/{username}/public_html/blog/wp-content/themes/gray-and-square/footer.php(2) : eval()’d code(216) : eval()’d code on line 1
I thought the theme file is somehow corrupted, so I tried to log into my site to fix the theme and I was surprised that my site kept telling me my credentials were wrong. Finally I decided to reset my password, but was shocked when I got the password reset email showing my username is “user”. No wonder I could not log into my site.
After I reset my password, I changed the username back to my previous one directly from the database end because WordPress does not allow anyone to change their username.
The change of username, not by me, makes me believe that my site was hacked, so I did more investigation in the file system. There was no surprise to find out that a suspicious file was uploaded to my public_html folder called us.php. This file gave the hacker full control of my site, and here is a screen shot of the execution of the file:
The timestamp of the folders show that the “imgs” folder was modified, and indeed there is a file that will turn my site into a phishing site. Obviously, there is some security hole(s) that enabled the hacker to upload us.php to my site and then gained the full control of the site. The question is where the security hole(s) came from? I have been keeping up with the latest WordPress all the time, whenever a new version is released, I will update my site to use it. The only possibility, then, is the third-party plugins I have been using.
Here are the plugins I use in my WordPress blog:
To me, the vulnerability most likely came from All in One SEO Pack, though I am not 100% sure. And it seems that someone else has already complained about the security vulnerabilities in this plugin. You can check here.
Now my site is back and running with All in One SEO Pack disabled. I will be more careful in the future when choosing a third-party plugin for my site.