IBM Open Source Book, a short summary

Everytime we browse the net or just doing some “Googling” there will always be a time that we came across some terms such as “Free Software”,”Open Source” or “FLOSS” either by direct link from a news or even from banner ads. For those who is not familiar with those terminology then this humble blog post is for you and perhaps recommending a book might shed a little light on the technology around us. I was still completing the book “Google Hacking For Penetration Testers” when one member from Open Source Group in LinkedIN posted a link to the newly released IBM Books which I’ve downloaded right away and since the free ebook contains only 138 pages reading material,might as well finished it first.

I’ll divide the summary into 2; first half contains on what to expect on the first 3 chapters and the other half deals with the remaining chapters.

The first few chapters gives the reader a glimpse on the history, some people behind it and evolution of how “Open Source” software came into existence, considerations on the possible benefits and risk of using such solution, on going trends and how being involve with different projects could benefit you as a possible contributor on your career. There are some “Did you know?” stuff that a user might find informative and check the web for relevant data like one below.

“First web server was developed in December 24,1990 which was CERN httpd, however Apache HTTP server that was developed in 1994 by Robert McCool still powers majority of websites today comprising of almost 100+ millions hosted sites.”

Additional source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd

These section also focuses on how commercial company could use “Open Source” and how existing companies earn money despite releasing software as “Free” in the community at large.Lastly on first half, the authors discusses to the confusing different licensing scheme that a developer or company can adapt to fit their business needs when releasing solution/s that has “Open Source” component or has some GPL,MIT,BSD to name a few Open Source licenses attached to it.

The other half of course deals with community and the participation on “Open Source” project; if you have questions on how a project is delivered by community, the stages/cycles it undergoes and some development tools that developers used; then reading this part is worth a time. This section also give examples on what means or channels available to sync/coordinate people since most developers are doing work in different timezone and some are from different part of the world.The remaining few chapters also sited some case studies done by IBM on how they’ve contributed in the community including their “Express” edition of DB2, one of the leading enterprise database solution today.

Above summary is short but for a 138 pages ebook giving introduction on how “Open source” works, the ecosystem it has and the benefits it can give to a developer or company; the authors indeed delivers to inform and gives the big picture that the reader can easily understand.

Title:
Getting Started with Open Source Development
A book for the community by the community
Publisher: IBM – DB2 On Campus Series
ISBN: ???
Number of Pages: 138
Authors:
Rachna Kapur, Mario Briggs,Tapas Saha,Ulisses Costa,Pedro Carvalho,Raul F. Chong,Peter Kohlmann

Download the Open Source Development Ebook now! (You need an IBM ID which registration is easy)
Disclaimer: Above summary is a personal inputs after reading the ebook…Cheers. c”,)

MIDORI, another javascript framework worth checking out…

Most developers are comfortable working with the leading framework to achieve different functionality that uses javascript whether it’s a web 2.0 or mobile related projects; we have the elegance of Mootools, cool effects of Dojo, standard look/feel using Yahoo User Interface(YUI) library and of course, every programmer/developer sweetheart…jQuery!

Above mentioned are just a few of them and checking Wikipedia alone…we still have several on the list that is worth evaluating and add in our web development arsenal, some are open source others are not. Yesterday, I’ve stumbled upon MIDORI created by Aycan Gulez which checking the examples given; IMHO, it would surely be another framework that any developer can use on their application or project. Based on the introduction from the site, below are some of the things that the framework can offer…

What is midori?
midori is an ultra-lightweight JavaScript framework that gets the job done without getting in your way.

• Use CSS selectors to quickly access matching elements on a page: midori.get(‘div.serious’).apply(‘className += ” fun”‘) anyone?
• Ajax without breaking the back button. People don’t like to go back to the homepage after clicking 30 links (“what do you mean they weren’t actually links?!”), nor do they like broken bookmarks.
• Auto complete. Thanks to social networking, everyone on the planet knows about a million people on average now. So, make it easy for them to find the right “John” in your next-gen address book app.
• And more which checking the site is a must to know more on what MIDORI can offer!

After minutes of reading the examples, I’ve open up my Intype and do some basic codes to evaluate the framework. Voila, after a few minutes…got a basic example which basically access DOM element and it’s quite really easy! Just like the leading framework that most developers are already using, MIDORI had several functionality that is ready to use; DOM Manipulation, FX effect, Autocomplete, AJAX..and more.

HTML:

"Use CSS selectors to quickly access matching elements on a page..."

 Trigger:

 

CSS:

body {
 margin:0;
 padding:0;
 font-family:"Lucida Grande", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
 font-size: 12px;
}

a:link,
a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: #cd5500; }
a:hover { color: #147DB6; }

#container {
 margin-top: 50px;
 margin-left: 100px;
 margin-bottom: 50px;
 margin-right: 100px;
}

#el-example {
 padding: 5px;
 border: gray dotted 1px;
 color: white;
 background-color: black;
}

#el-trigger {
 padding-top: 10px;
 padding-left: 0;
 padding-bottom: 10px;
 border-bottom: black solid 3px;
}

#el-output {
 margin-top: 5px;
 padding-top: 20px;
 padding-left: 10px;
 padding-bottom: 20px;
 padding-right: 10px;
 border: orange solid 1px;
}

.el-demo {
 color: white;
 background-color: orange;
}

JS:

midori.addEventListener(window,'ready',function(e) {
midori.addEventListener(midori.get("#el-button"),'click',function(e) {
var oOutput = midori.get("#el-output");
oOutput.innerHTML = "Welcome midorijs!";
oOutput.className = 'el-demo';
});
});

Source code can be downloaded MIDORI Demo. Some JS library achieve things in shorter line of codes with probably better/faster implementation but there’s no harm in trying so checking it out is definitely worth it. The only minus point on my very short evaluation of the framework is that I can’t minify/pack the library and there seems to be no forum or basic support at least within the site.

Using Google to discover “things” that might interest you!

Google, as we know offers lot of feature including; document translation, browsing free and not free images or stock,underground articles, private files and many other things. However, some uses it to discover new things or stuff that might interest them; example I’m using it to find references needed at work by using Google advance syntax/parameter. Anyway, should you happen to administer a server or involve in managing a server exposed in internet(public IP)…make sure that your site,directory or private files not “INDEXED” else people can freely “get” something which is not intended for public.

I’ve remember once at PHPUGPH.COM when we had the discussion on one Philippine manning/agency site which our founding member AJ reported it to site owner because it exposes our fellow “Kababayan” personal identity. Why bother reporting it? because the site itself hosted all scanned documents that they processed that have; passport and VISA information,resume/cover letter,credentials and other personal notes of a specific person. Unfortunately, we had a very unusual and unexpected reply…lol.

Fig. 1 Email to the Agency/Manning Site

Fig. 2 Unusual Reply(Probably an Automated Reply…)

Anyway, what are the things that we can find at Google by using advance syntax of what often referred to by media as “Google Hacking”?
1. Files (index.of? pdf)

Fig. 3 Free Ebooks

2.Default Installation that anybody can make fun of?!! (xampp “inurl:xampp/index)

Fig. 4 XAMPP

3. Informative Stuff and many other things by using other syntax/search query that anybody can try:

inurl:Proxy.txt

intitle:index.of administrators.pwd

Index of phpMyAdmin
Notes:
* To search for a phrase, supply the phrase surrounded by double quotes (” “).
* A period (.) serves as a single-character wildcard.
* The index.of: operator instructs Google to search for a term that Google had indexed.
* The inurl: operator instructs Google to search only within the URL (web address) of a document.

I’d recommend to check the book by Johnny Long or type in “Google Hacking” within Google search and it will tell you more!

Resources:
Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_hacking

Johnny Long

http://www.amazon.com/Google-Hacking-Penetration-Testers-1/dp/1931836361

http://www.hackersforcharity.org