Yahoo!’s got a very interesting page on web performance which I think is still crucial in our fast-speed Internet and fast number-crunching CPUs. Here’s a description and some of their “Rules”.

Yahoo!’s Exceptional Performance team evangelizes best practices for improving web performance. They conduct research, build tools, write articles and blogs, and speak at conferences. Their best practices center around the rules for high performance web sites.

Rules for High Performance Web Sites

The Exceptional Performance team has identified 13 rules for making web pages fast. Each rule is discussed in the Developer Network Blog articles listed below.

  1. Make Fewer HTTP Requests
  2. Use a Content Delivery Network
  3. Add an Expires Header
  4. Gzip Components
  5. Put CSS at the Top
  6. Move Scripts to 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
 

Well, if it isn’t Okdevberfest 2007. Here’s the agenda, and the event will be held in University of Waterloo on 29th September. Be sure to register and be there! I’ll be speaking on Acopolis and will hopefully impress you with some cool features of Acropolis. My topic is on Track 2, and will be held at 10.30 AM to 11.45 AM just before lunch.

Register here now.

 

Nothing much going on with Microsoft Downloads. Here’s something of interest to me, since I’ve been doing Team System and Team Foundation System for the past few weeks.

Visual Studio Team System Architecture Edition Power Tools

The Team System Architecture Edition Power Tools are a collection of features that augment and enhance the experience of the Distributed System Designers.

Team Foundation Server Migration Tool for Rational ClearCase

This tool helps automate the migration process from Rational ClearCase to Team Foundation Server.

 

TechNet National Tour

My “Security” TechNet Tour
How do you build a security strategy, what are some of the common attacks and how can you test your network to see if you are vulnerable, and finally how do you “sell” security to management? Join us at the My TechNet tour where we will take a whole up approach to security from what is required to build a security strategy, to how to sell it to management, and finally go deep with demos on configuring security in your environment.

City Date
Winnipeg October-11-07
St. Johns, NFLD October-16-07
Ottawa October-18-07
Quebec City October-23-07
Montreal October-25-07
Vancouver October-30-07
Calgary November-01-07
Edmonton November-06-07
Regina November-08-07
Toronto November-08-07

Here’s the agenda.

Registration – 9:00 AM (30 Minutes)

Session 1 – 9:30 AM (60 Minutes)

Security is still the number one thing on the minds of IT Professionals according to the voting portion of this tour. Therefore, the first session is going to cover some of the common security mistakes many people are making, what are the possible attacks that may occur against those mistakes (yeah we are going to break things) and how to build an in depth approach to defending against these issues and mitigating the risks.

Session 2 – 10:45 AM (90 Minutes)

Security starts with the core tasks an IT Professional performs. In this session we are going to look back at the security mistakes outlined in the first session and look at how we can resolve those issues. This session covers the technologies available, proper education of your users and IT staff, and concludes with best practices from the field. We will be sure to cover the fundamentals of proper security architecture for your environment.

Lunch – 12:15 PM (45 Minutes)

Session 3 – 1:00 PM (90 Minutes)

Security does not end with a good password policy and proper NTFS (New Technology File System) permissions. One of the most common attack points is your web presence. The application platform is one of the most crucial areas to secure and in this session we will continue our deep dive into security and look at the security best practices for SQL Server, Internet Information Services 6.0, and SharePoint. As more and more Lin of Business applications rely of these technologies it is crucial that they are secure to keep your business running.

Questions and Answers – 2:30 (Until All Your Questions are Answered)

 

Well, it seems only in Canada, post-secondary students are getting it cheap for Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. Here’s the deal.

Starting right now Microsoft is offering a promotion where eligible students in Canada can get a copy of Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for $64 CAD or for a one year subscription license of $22 CAD. It’s called The Ultimate Steal and it’s only available through the end of April 2008. Visit www.theultimatesteal.ca for details!

 

This just came in my mail last week, so I thought people who’s into security might be interested. It’s been some time since I’ve touched security stuff, but Uninformed Journal always has some really good articles. Do check them out.

Uninformed is pleased to announce the release of its eighth volume. This volume includes 6 articles on a variety of topics:

- Covert Communications: Real-time Steganography with RTP

Author: I)ruid

- Engineering in Reverse: PatchGuard Reloaded: A Brief Analysis of PatchGuard Version 3

Author: Skywing

- Exploitation Technology: Getting out of Jail: Escaping Internet Explorer Protected Mode

Author: Skywing

- Exploitation Technology: OS X Kernel-mode Exploitation in a Weekend

Author: David Maynor

- Rootkits: A Catalog of Local Windows Kernel-mode Backdoor Techniques

Authors: skape & Skywing

- Static Analysis: Generalizing Data Flow Information

Author: skape

This volume of the journal can be found at:

http://www.uninformed.org/?v=8

About Uninformed:

Uninformed is a non-commercial technical outlet for research in areas pertaining to security technologies, reverse engineering, and low level programming. The goal, as the name implies, is to act as a medium for providing informative information to the uninformed. The research presented in each edition is simply an example of the evolutionary thought that affects all academic and professional disciplines.

- The Uninformed Staff

staff [at] uninformed.org

 

Here are some links to the Windows Live Product Team interaction and participation in the community.

Product Team Public “unmanaged”Newsgroup Url Team Blog Managed Newsgroup (Connect)
Messenger Newsgroup Url Blog N/A
Mail Newsgroup Url Blog microsoft.beta.windowslive.mail
Writer Newsgroup Url Blog N/A
Photo Gallery Newsgroup Url Blog microsoft.beta.windowslive.photogallery
Skydrive N/A Blog microsoft.beta.windowslive.folders
Home N/A Blog microsoft.beta.windowslive.home
Family Safety Stale Newsgroup – FS Team is considering reviving Blog microsoft.beta.windowslive.familysafety
Toolbar N/A Blog microsoft.beta.windowslive.toolbar
 

There seems to *still* be a problem with UrlPathEncode method in HttpUtility class (and others). ‘#’ doesn’t seem to be encoded properly. Here’s a quick way to do it.

string newUrl = HttpUtility.UrlPathEncode(url).Replace(“#”, “%23″);

I hope this gets fixed in the next framework iteration.

© 2009 - 2011 JustinLee.sg Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha
Stop SOPA!

SOPA breaks our internet freedom!
Any site can be shut down whether or not we've done anything wrong.

Stop SOPA!