You may not be aware that the mechanism used to fingerprint the SSL certificates that  keep your access to websites encrypted and secure is changing. The old method, known as SHA1 is being deprecated – meaning it will no longer be supported. As per January 2016 various vendors will no longer support creating certificates with SHA1, and browsers show warnings when they encounter an old SHA1 certificate. Per January 2017 browsers will reject old certificates.

The new signing method, known as SHA2, has been available for some time. Users have had a choice of signing methods up until now, but there are still many sites using old certificates out there. You may want to check the security on any SSL websites you own or run!

To ensure your users’ security and privacy, force https across your entire website, not just e-commerce or other sections. You may have noticed this move on major websites over the last …

The social network problem

Social networks like Facebook and Google+ have always been known as huge data mining machines and that they don’t have very strict privacy policies, meaning that:

• you are not informed what happens with your data (what it is used for) when you enter it,
• you don’t have full control over your data (deletion is very hard to impossible, you can’t rely that “deleted” data is really erased etc.),
• data may be given to third parties (like application providers) or wrong people without your (explicit) consent.

“Don’t use social networks” is not a solution in my opinion because social networks are media like any other media, and they have advantages (that’s why they shall – and will – be used) and dangers (that’s what should be minimized).

Diaspora – a solution?

So, I was very happy when I heard the first announcement of …

A busy week at Casa Turner, as the infamous Home Renovations of Doom wrap up, I finish the final chapters of "Developing Enterprise iOS Applications" (buy a copy for all your friends, it's a real page turner!), pack for two weeks of vacation with the family in California (Palm Springs in August, 120 degrees, woohoo!), and celebrate both a birthday and an anniversary.

But never fear, WIR fans, I'll continue to supply the news, even as my MacBook melts in the sun and the buzzards start to circle overhead.

The law of unintended consequences

If you decide to install Lion Server, you may notice something missing from the included software: MySQL. Previous releases of OS X server offered pre-installed MySQL command line and GUI tools, but they are …

Welcome to this week's edition of Developer Week in Review. Sorry we're running a little late. We assure you it has nothing to do with the release of "Portal 2."

The wide world of litigation

Another busy week for the court system, courtesy of the software industry. Software patents are back at the Supreme Court, this time courtesy of Microsoft and i4i. Meanwhile, Apple is suing Samsung over look and feel issues related to the Galaxy Tab, while at the same time ordering $7.8 billion USD of iPad 2 components from Samsung this year. This is …

Series

What are the chances for a free software cloud?

• Resolving the contradictions between web services, clouds, and open source
• Defining clouds, web services, and other remote computing
• Why clouds and web services will continue to take over computing
• Why web services should be released as free …

1. Using MysQL as NoSQL -- 750,000+ qps on a commodity MySQL/InnoDB 5.1 server from remote web clients.
2. Making an SLR Camera from Scratch -- amazing piece of hardware devotion. (via hackaday.com)
3. Mac App Store Guidelines -- Apple announce an app store for the Macintosh, similar to its app store for iPhones and iPads. "Mac App" no longer means generic "program", it has a new and specific meaning, a program that must be installed through the App store and which has limited functionality …

1. Defragging the Stimulus -- each [recovery] site has its own silo of data, and no site is complete. What we need is a unified point of access to all sources of information: firsthand reports from Recovery.gov and state portals, commentary from StimulusWatch and MetaCarta, and more. Suggests that Recovery.gov should be the hub for this presently-decentralised pile of recovery data.
2. Memetracker -- site accompanying the research written up by the New York Times as Researchers at Cornell, using powerful computers and clever algorithms, studied the news cycle by looking for repeated phrases and tracking their appearances on 1.6 million …

Yesterday, I started my sporadic series of blog posts where I share my experiences improving my online manners through social networking websites, many of which are powered by MySQL. My first target was the traveller site Dopplr, and this time, it’s Google’s picture sharing site Picasa Web.

My starting point is the same: “Everyone else” among colleagues and friends was there long before me, and I feel like a latecomer. I want to go in, do what seems to be the right thing, and share the observations I had. And everything within the time constraint of not being able to do a full evaluation, as I obviously have other things to do as well.

Unlike Dopplr, starting with Picasa Web never required invitations. My first exposure to Picasa was through …

I have already blogged about this keynote at http://www.pythian.com/blogs/948/liveblogging-who-is-the-dick-on-my-site.

If you are interested in actually seeing the video, the 286 Mb .wmv file can be downloaded at http://technocation.org/videos/original/mysqlconf2008/2008_04_17_panelDick.wmv and played through your browser by clicking the “play” link at http://tinyurl.com/55c5ps. This is not to be missed!

Identity 2.0: A world that’s simple, safe and secure.

Who is the Dick on My Site? by Dick Hardt (Sxip Identity Corporation)

Quotes:
“Really, data is about people. It’s really identity data.”

“Identity helps you predict behavior.”

“Identity is who you are.”

“Identity is also what you like.”

“Identity enables you to uniquely identify somebody.”

“There are things that other people say about you, too.”

“Modern identity is about photo IDs so you can prove your identity.”

“Identity is a complicated issue….Everyone has a different idea of what it is.”

Identity transactions are:

• party identification (who)
  
• authorization (permission)
  
• profile exchange (info about that person)
  
• NOT record matching
  

Identity transactions can be: …