schapendonk.org

Today, I read this post on OraTransplant. It remembered me of another useful tool I regularly use, Paros Proxy. It is basically a proxy running on your local machine. After installing Parsos and setting up the proxy in your browser (IE, FF, whatever) it intercepts all HTTP requests and responses between browser and web server.

This allows you to inspect request headers (that includes form data being submitted and cookies being sent) and response headers (including cookies being set).

What is very nice, is that you can ‘trap’ requests and responses and edit them before they are sent or received. This has given me better insights in how I can improve on the application design and security scheme of any web application I design, build or test. “Security by obscurity” is suddenly put in a whole different perspective when communication between browser and server is 100% transparent.

Technorati: http, headers, cookies, proxy, security, web application, edit, interception, replay

Tags: Tools by martin
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Version control on source code is something we are able to do quite easily nowadays. Supported by a tool like CVS or SVN and surrounded by proper procedures, we can do pretty much anything with branches, tags and versions.

The database is a whole other story. The database is the database. How do I know if the database state matches a particular code branch? How do I release changes to my database? How do I back out changes to the database?

I searched the web and found several interesting articles: Agile Databases, Oracle, PHP and Extreme Programming and Database Versioning System.

I really like the concept of “every developer her own sandbox”, “incredibly simple rollouts” and the difference between destructive and non-destructive changes.

I’m still a little bit stuck on how I could implement version control for the data in mostly static tables (e.g. domain translations).

Furthermore, how do people manage differences between environments? How do I roll out a specific version of an application in a specific environment, which has its own set of parameters (which may be contained in a file or in the database)?

I hope to get some extra info, but will keep searching myself…

Technorati: Oracle, database, version control, agile

Tags: Tools by martin
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Today, I started a diet. I had to. I’m too heavy. My BMI is 31+ and that doesn’t sound very healthy. In fact, it isn’t.

Right now, I weigh about 115kgs. Ideally, I would like to weigh approximately 90kgs, but my first target is any two-digit weight. We’ll see what comes next.

I decided to try the Sonja Bakker-diet. At the moment, she is a very popular Dutch weight loss guru. Fans love her for her successful program, criticizers say her diet does not provide enough nutrition to live on. I know several people who are very happy with the outcome of her diet, although I still have to see that they actually maintain that weight.

Sonja’s philosophy is that I can eat anything, but it all depends on the amount. She gives me a nine week schedule, where every meal and snack is specified in advance. Don’t think about it, just do my groceries and eat what the book says. In nine weeks, my stomach is supposed to be used to smaller amounts of food and my grocery list should only contain healthy stuff.

But… the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so stay tuned for progress!

Technorati: diet, Sonja Bakker, BMI, Body Mass Index, weight loss

Tags: Personal by martin
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