Websites

How to stay focused during a coding marathon

Aug 18, 2010 by Paul White

Any Athlete will tell you that success is just as much about staying mentally focused as it is about being physically strong.  Well my fellow desk jockeys the same applies for you.  So in this blog I will share my thoughts on how you can be a more effective programmer. 

Website Security Tip remove catch all bindings

May 23, 2010 by Paul White

A few months ago I noticed that one of my clients websites seemed to be getting spikes of traffic.  However with spikes in traffic most clients would report an increase in sales or business.  When looking at the stats server, the requests were for pages and files that were not even on the server, and were for technologies ( PHP ) that I do not run on m box.  If you see requests for files like /prx2.php, /phpmyadmin/config/config.inc.php, /roundcubemail/readme, or /webmail/readme.  You might want to read this article.

asp.net Stopwatch is better than DateTime

May 2, 2010 by Paul White

In the continuing pursuit of getting my FLV scrubbing application to work correctly, I came across the need to time part of my code.  If you are used to using the DateTime object you might want to try something else.  Turns out DateTime is meant for Date and Times, and is pretty useless to use as a stopwatch when timing the performance of lines of code within your application.

FLV Scrubbing with throttling

Apr 30, 2010 by Paul White

In the old days of the internet if you wanted to provide videos on your website, you would use embed tags, or play an FLV via a flash SWF.  But the problem with this the huge amount of wasted transfer that results.  So I set out to develop a customized handler using asp.net that would allow FLV scrubbing, and also allow throttling to save on bandwidth.

Should I become sender score verified

Apr 8, 2010 by Paul White

After months of dealing with low open rates with one of my biggest client's email lists, I have finally gotten to the point where I am willing to join return path's sender score verified program which is a paid whitelist to ensure delivery into the inbox. I will be documenting my experiences here for good or bad.  Thus far the program is looking very promising

What sender score and IP reputation is really worth to your mail server

Feb 19, 2010 by Paul White

Most webmasters and server admins are relatively clueless as to what makes email really run.  Recently I was forced to migrate all my websites to new IPs.  I knew I was going to take a hit for this but I didn't realize how much.  This whole experience have given me a new perspective on how to get into yahoo's inbox with your bulk emails and newsletters.

How much is my traffic worth?

Feb 18, 2010 by Paul White

This is often the question many webmasters ask themselves.  The answer is not a straight forward one, but after discussing this with a few of my clients I have come up with a way to help you decide how much your traffic is worth.  However if you count on Google Adsense you may find yourself disappointed.

Adblockers financial impact on your websites traffic

Feb 12, 2010 by Paul White

Adblockers have a place in the world.  That place was back when we all were using dial up internet.  Now that everyone is on high speed broadband connections, adblockers are doing more harm than good.  I will show you some concrete data to prove that adblockers are hurting any website that is dependent on Google Adsense for Revenue.

Hacker Attacks and Invalid character in a Base-64 string

Jan 13, 2010 by Paul White

On my websites I have them setup to email me anytime a server error happens.  If you ever get an error like "Invalid character in a Base-64 string",  This is likely a hacker attack.   In my case it was on the members login on my client's website.  I logged in and shut down the site.  10 minutes later I started it back up and the hacker had left.  Interesting is what the HTTP RAW data reveled.

HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR:84.0.182.175, 84.0.162.91, 84.0.237.176, 84.0.228.6, 84.0.220.100, 84.0.147.233, 84.0.159.1, 84.0.84.37 HTTP_PROXY_CLIENT_IP:84.0.182.175, 84.0.162.91, 84.0.237.176, 84.0.228.6, 84.0.220.100, 84.0.147.233, 84.0.159.1, 84.0.84.37 HTTP_CLIENT_IP:84.0.182.175, 84.0.162.91, 84.0.237.176, 84.0.228.6, 84.0.220.100, 84.0.147.233, 84.0.159.1, 84.0.84.37

Never seen these values before.  According to the logs the IPs were from hundreds of compromised systems. However they all had these values in common.   I am going to add a rule to detect the Class A IP in the 80.x.x.x block in the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR, and block.  Hopefully this helps some other people out

Class C IP RBL blacklist not cool

Dec 5, 2009 by Paul White

Today I went through getting one of my new clients setup on the Feedback Loop with the major ISPs.  Most of the them came back saying I was approved to their feedback loop system, but one of them said I was not approved because I was found on an blacklist.  This is not something you want to see.  Allow me to explain.