Old School Programming Methodologies

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I received my daily email from Computerworld with a link to an article titled “What we miss about MIS: 5 old-school ideas that weren't so bad.”  Their reminiscence of COBOL and structured programming got me to thinking about many of the complaints I have working with software developers.  I don’t mean all software developers.  Some I know have really strong heads on their shoulders – others not so much.

I am not longer a programmer by trade, but I often find myself having to review code to debug or to find issues that need to be resolved.  The language skills may not be current, but the methodologies are still applicable.

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Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Hackerstan

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Some people just don't have a clue.  See if you get the title reference from the blurb below.

Minnesota e-commerce company Digital River is suing a New York man after a database of nearly 200,000 of its customers' sensitive information made its way into his hands.  Eric Porat allegedly tried to sell the information to a Colorado direct marketing company for US $500,000.  The company refused the offer, and when he persisted, the company contacted authorities. Porat claims to have obtained the information from India, but declined to provide details.  Digital River's legal team believes that Porat "hacked the hacker."

http://www.startribune.com/local/95584209.html

Securing your Desktop and Server Systems

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Whether you are using Debian, Windows, Snow Leopard or any other operating system, there are standard practices for securing your environment to limit exposure to your critical systems.  They are not hard to follow.  Especially when someone provides step by step documentation on how to secure every operating system on the planet.  That is exactly what the folks over at the Center for Internet Security have done.

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*Yawn* Another Windows Fan-Boy Tries to Trash OSX

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I just recieved an email from eWeek Channel Insider with the subject line "Snow Leopard Tarnishes Apple Security" where the title of the top story was "Snow Leopard, Patches Take Security Shine Off Apple."  Clever, but the author's assertions are false and not very well thought out.  The multitude of Microsoft ads on the site should give some indication of which direction this publication leans.  After all, they do make their money through advertising and not through the free subscriptions they dole out.  You have to make the advertisers happy if you want to keep that business model rolling.  Let's address the security issues that Larry Walsh raises and address where he is mistaken.

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