Site Sections
Posts
293
Comments
27
Trackbacks
206
March 2005 Entries
Stupid Security Measures
I've just tried to sign up to a website which requests a password. So I enter a nice pass phrase and hit the register button, only to be thrown back. The password must be between 8 and 20 characters. Great. So I shorten the pass phrase and try again. Same result, different error - the password can't contain spaces. Dumb, really dumb. Let's restrict the number of characters that can be used for password and restrict what those characters can be. Talk about dumb security. Sigh.
[Listening to: Bob Harris - Oleta Adams - Movin' On]
posted @ Wednesday, March 30, 2005 4:08 PM | Feedback (2)
More great music

Last I went to see Karine Polwart. I'd not heard of her until Thursday, when I received word that the Equation concert was cancelled because Kath has a bad throat and lost her voice. Equation are one of my favourite bands, so I was pretty disappointed, but Jon suggested the Karine gig instead, and boy am I glad we went. She's amazing; a beautiful voice, cleverly worked songs and great guitar work. I can completely understand why she won three gongs at the BBC Folk Awards. A thoroughly good evening.

And this leads onto a little hobby-horse theory of mine, which is that the double bass is the coolest instrument in the world. Over the last year I think I've seen four bands with a double-bass and each time the player is the coolest person. By far. Now the law of statistics dictates that somewhere there is a double bass player who is a complete dweeb, but so far my theory is holding up and I stick to it.

[Listening to: Immigrant - Nitin Sawhney - Beyond Skin [UK]]
posted @ Tuesday, March 22, 2005 11:26 AM | Feedback (3)
Musicians at the mercy of record labels
I have eclectic tastes and listen to a wide range of music. I despair of the industry that promotes talentless no-hopers because they look good and sell millions, when there is so much talent struggling to break through. I know why they do it, but that doesn't mean I have to agree. People who have to pay for their own tours and barely make ends meet, but have real talent; they write, the play instruments, they sing (in tune), but that won't sell a million. Does that mean their music is less valuable, less important? So via the Wired feed I discover that Fiona Apple has recorded a new album, but that Sony have shelved it because "it's not commercial enough". When I say "new album" I mean recorded in 2003, but sitting in a vault somehwere. There's a petition to Sony to try and persuade them that people actually want this album. Over 28,000 people at least, going by the signatures. I encourage you to sign the petition, even if you're not a fan. There's a principle at stake, which is the withholding of an artists work, which morally is a bad thing.
[Listening to: The Worst Thing - Natalie Merchant - Motherland]
posted @ Friday, March 18, 2005 11:30 AM | Feedback (3)
Sheer Genius
The Lego Thriller is genius. Way too much time on their hands obviously, but still excellent, the dance sequence especially. I still have a soft spot for Thriller - never really liked much of his other stuff, but Thriller holds a special place, partly because I remember the video release so vividly. We'd heard there was something special coming, and it had been given a really late slot for its UK premier - around midnight. That night was the last night of our school play (I was crew) and we were having the after show party, so were up late anyway. I remember the a few of us around the TV watching, mouths agape. It was repeated about 20 minutes later and we called in the whole cast to watch it. It was just a really memorable moment, and still ranks as one of the greatest videos ever.
[Listening to: Helen Mayhew - - ]
posted @ Tuesday, March 08, 2005 8:59 AM | Feedback (4)
SiteMap, Roles and Authorization
A while ago I talked about navigation and security trimming in ASP.NET 2.0, and someone asked about this on as ASPAdvice list. Luckily a couple of the team members (thanks Ting-Hao and Stefan) stepped in to correct a few misconceptions. The <authorization> section of web.config controls who has access to the page, and this is the case whether or not security trimming and site maps are being used; it protects against direct url access and controls user and role based access. When using the site maps and a navigation control, then the menus are built using this information too - so if a user isn't authorized for a page then the node isn't displayed (in fact it's not even returned from the provider to the UI). The use of the roles attribute on the siteMapNode elements doesn't affect the authorization, it simply affects whether the item is shown on the menu. The reason for having control here is that it allows menu items to show even if the current user doesn't have access to that page. They can select the menu item, but if not authorized then they'll be redirected to the login page. This is useful for people who wear multiple hats, and have multiple logins; the UI can be the same while they are logged into a low privilege account, and trying to access a priviliged page will prompt them to log in. So unless you need this feature, the only thing you need to do to set the visibility of menu items is to restrict their access via the <authorization> section.
posted @ Wednesday, March 02, 2005 9:44 AM | Feedback (0)
Article Categories
Archives
Post Categories
Image Galleries
blogroll