In this lab, we will be working with the versatile open-source editor, ViM. This program, which is available for all major operating systems is one of the most powerful editors around, and is specifically designed to make editing much faster and more efficient. Unfortunately, to achieve this status, ViM has a bit of a learning curve, especially up front. Once you can master the major concepts, however, it should be very easy to edit more productively, and to discover how to become even more proficient over time.
This is a bit of an addendum to my original introduction to Vim and a glimpse into some of its more advanced features. This also serves as a reference for anyone interested in a lightning talk I gave at the July 2010 CDMUG. I tried to spend that entire presentation wowing the crowd rather than teaching them how the Vimpossible can be accomplished.
Programming Languages for Web Developers
I consider myself a programming languages connoisseur; I truly love to pick up new languages, take them for a spin, and pick apart their salient structures. Different languages offer different tools for problem solving, often suggesting more concise and elegant paradigms depending on the situation. Web developers (myself included) need to understand the trade offs used in different languages and systems to chose the cleanest, most efficient solution to the problems we face every day.
I gave a talk at Drupal Camp Chicago 2009 discussing how to connect other applications to your Drupal site by turning it in to a web service. The talk had pretty good attendance, and I thought someone recorded it, but I cannot find that anywhere online. Instead, I‘m in the process of converting the talk into an web accessible format which will hopefully serve as an adequate reference.
What Does PHP 5.3 Mean for Drupal
For Drupal Camp Chicago 2010, I presented on PHP 5.3 for Drupal developers. I focused on the new features of the new version, emphasizing how they could be used within a Drupal module. Overall, I think the topic was a bit too dry, but I think that the audience might have learned a thing or two. As soon as the video is online, I‘ll post that here, but for now, I‘ve embedded the google doc.
Web Application Security Fundamentals
Major websites are losing customer data left and right, and their brands are losing face because of it. Web application security is more important now than ever before, yet very few developers have a solid grasp of the fundamental concepts and theory behind modern security measures.
This interactive presentation will cover many of the building blocks of modern security including encryption, database-level security, server security, session management, input sanitation, and password strength. More complex topics, such as OAuth, cross-site scripting, developer security, cloud hosting, etc. will also be touched on if requested. Ideally, each topic will be a relatively dense 5-minute overview hitting the core theory along with an example or two. Topics will be chosen by audience participation (bring your voices.)
This talk will not be Drupal-specific and while examples will be chosen with Drupal in mind, the topics covered should apply to any web application. Details for the talk will be taken from my experience, Security Now, OWASP, and an assortment of security-focused presentations and papers. The talk will assume little to no prior security knowledge, though we won’t spend much time on anything you already know.
What questions will your session answer?:
Cryptography (and Security) for Coders
This page was written to supplement my Cryptography (and Security) for Coders talk at the Chicago Code Camp ’12. It is a significant improvement on an earlier talk, which had less of a programming focus (and actually contained a few errors.)
I should quickly but emphatically note that, even though we‘ll be discussing several crypto algorithms, which you should definitely use, you should never implement these algorithms. If you do, you‘re very likely to have a perfectly correct system that is susceptible to side-channel attacks (e.g. timing attacks, padding oracles, etc.) Instead, use open source libraries which have been publicly and thoroughly vetted.