WebMantras

Recently Windows Live introduced Single-Use code a very simple and effective way to Sign-In to your Live account from a public computer like at the library or school. You can now use a Single-Use Code instead of your password for added security.

Requesting a Single-Use Code:
Each Single-Use Code can be used only one time, but you can request one whenever you need one. When you request a Single-Use Code, you receive it in a text message to a mobile phone number that you’ve added to your Windows Live account.

HP Web Security Research Group in coordination with the Microsoft Security Response Center has created a Free downloadable tool called Scrawlr which is is short for SQL Injector and Crawler.

Scrawlr crawls a website to detect SQL Injection vulnerabilities on pages that hackers can discover using a simple crawler or Google query. It supports many file types.

Limitations:

1. Only tests for SQL Injection vulnerabilities and only tests the query string parameters of  URLs
2. It does not submit forms (no POST parameters) nor audit them
3. It will crawl a max of 1500 URLs
4. It also does not interpret JavaScript or Flash
5. Does not keep state or use Cookies
6. No authentication support

Related Links:

1. The HP Security Laboratory Blog Post
2. Download Scrawlr (Registration Required)
3. Scawlr FAQs

Was looking for a JavaScript table datagrid that worked with Prototype or jQuery libraries and found these worth mentioning:

1. Ext JS – Client-side JavaScript framework for building web applications
2. tablesorter – tablesorter is a jQuery plugin
3. Ingrid – jQuery component that adds datagrid behaviors
4. Reorganizable DataGrid – built on Ajax / Smarty / Prototype / Scriptaculous

Am still looking for a datagrid with search.

Came across this via the Coldfusion Weekly Podcast – Version 2.26 (The “Using YSlow” Edition with Guest Host Kurt Wiersma)

The Exceptional Performance group at Yahoo! has come up with 14 ways you can increase the front-end performance of your web site. The group found that 80+% of the time is spent dealing with what’s in the HTML document, namely, the front-end. That’s why the key to faster web sites is to focus on improving front-end performance.

The 14 techniques discussed in the article are:

1. Make Fewer HTTP Requests
2. Use a Content Delivery Network
3. Add an Expires Header
4. Gzip Components
5. Put Stylesheets at the Top
6. Put Scripts at the Bottom
7. Avoid CSS Expressions
8. Make JavaScript and CSS External
9. Reduce DNS Lookups
10. Minify JavaScript
11. Avoid Redirects
12. Remove Duplicate Scripts
13. Configure ETags
14. Make Ajax Cacheable

Definetly a very informative article and highly recommend it to anyone involved with web site development.

Here are a few posts I found helpful on creating valid XHTML compliant code:

1. 9 most important requirements to make your pages XHTML compliant
2. Including Valid External Javascript in XHTML
3. Creating XHTML Compliant Code
4. Updating a JavaScript to be XHTML compliant
5. XHTML explained