Google Cache Reveals UK Cardholders’ Details

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Mar 312009
 

It has been reported that Google’s cache feature has revealed the credit card details of more than 19,000 UK residents. The details are said to have been cached due to clumsy cybercriminals and subsequently spidered by Google’s bots.

The cache feature of Google is something which allows users to view a webpage which is days, sometimes weeks old. This is useful for some internet users if the target web page or web site has been taken offline for what ever reason.

In this instance various sensitive details were found including; 16 digit numbers, expiry dates, names and addresses of the Visa, American Express and Mastercard users. These were found after a web server in Vietnam, used by cyber criminals, was shut in February.

The majority of the cards have been cancelled now to prevent any further illegal activities taking place on those credit cards and Google has stepped in advising us that it has removed the content from its cache and has reiterated the fact that webmasters can use existing Google tools to remove any sensitive information from the search giant’s cache.

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Remote Email Address Validator

 Miscellaneous  2 Responses »
Jan 112009
 

Hello,

Long time no post! I've been concentrating on my other projects lately so I have neglected to post on here :(
However I come back with a nice little email validator :)

Email addresses are changing all the time, and some people use shifty techniques to get around email validators. This means that a website owner has to update the regular expression code on all of their websites. However if the checking was done remotely, then there'd be no need to change it on all. You'd just have to change it at one place.

This is easy to implement into any website and I will provide it free for all :)

<?php
$_emailtocheck = "some@domain.com";
$_emailvalidationresult = file_get_contents("http://www.papaface.com/emailchecker/checker.php?email=".$_emailtocheck); // 0 = invalid 1 = valid
if      (trim($_emailvalidationresult) == "1")
        echo "Valid.";
else
        echo "Invalid email address.";
?>
 

The trim($_emailvalidationresult) will equal either 1 or 0. Zero if the address is invalid, and 1 if the address is correct and can receive emails.

Let me know what you think :)


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Are we killing the internet?

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Sep 212008
 

Over the past couple of years I have been “into” developing unique and interesting websites.
Developing websites in general is not an easy task. Sure, you can download some awful program to quickly produce a web page, but designing and coding an entire site that is both visually pleasing and user friendly is not so easy, contrary to popular belief. But that’s for another blog post ;) .

Anyway, when developing a large scale website one of the most important things you have to consider is “how do I make money with this?”. In the past you basically needed two things, adverts and traffic. Once you had those two things sorted out you were good to cash in cheques.

These days however, people have advert blockers, to which I am hugely against. I have never had an advert blocker installed on my PC, and never will. One of the main reasons for this is because I understand from a web developers point of view how difficult it is to make money online. A lot of people consider the internet “the place to be” to make money, as if its easy, but its not. Web developers spend weeks and months perfecting their websites to make it earn money. Which is why I find someone surfing my websites with an ad blocker installed repulsive.

Advertisements power the internet and they give the people that produce the websites we all love, the incentive to carry on producing new and interesting content.
I can fully understand it when you surf to a website and instantly 10,000 popup’s flood the screen. But should you really rush off and download a advert blocker because of that one site? I don’t think so.
I’d just navigate away from that website or find a piece of software to block the adverts on that particular site.

You probably think I am being a bit of a hypocrite for saying that, but I’m not.
Adverts on sites should blend into the user experience, not drive them crazy. If they do they deserve to be blocked – but just on that site!

Websites usually have very few revenue streams, adverts are one of the most important of those.

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My New SIte – FetchMP3.COM – Search . Convert . Download

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Aug 242008
 

Hello!

Its been a while since my last blog post but I’m at least making it a good one!

I have spent a couple of months developing my latest project which is http://www.fetchmp3.com. It is a unique site that allows you to search for videos on popular video sites, and download the MP3 version of a particular video.

This site is one of a kind. You don’t need to navigate to a million pages, or download some spyware infested programme. The website will do it all seamlessly – you’ll love it!

Have a look at this video of the site in use, it is unbelievably simple.
YouTube Preview Image

Watch out for new features, as there are plenty in the works, believe me!

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PAPAFACE.COM is hiring!

 Miscellaneous  No Responses »
Apr 082008
 

Hello,

Well as you may have noticed the updates around here are very few and far between. That’s why I have come to the decision of employing a blogger to publish interesting and unique posts on here just like MINE :D

If you want to apply just email me at papa.face @ gmail.com (no spaces). Past experience would be beneficial and please state how much you would expect. No time wasters please.

I am looking to hire someone with immediate effect.

Come-hither!

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Programming on Electronic Devices

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Jan 132008
 

Computers cannot interpret human languages. They have their own language which is known as binary language. It is the language of 0’s and 1’s. So to command or program a computer to get the desired results one had to first convert the program from human language to the binary language. This was done by converting each line of the program into binary language and feed it into the memory line by line. This was how the computers in those days were programmed.

Shortly after the invention of John Von Neumann’s models, the first ever programming language to be programmed on an electronic device named Short Code was devised in the year 1949 A.D. In this language human help was needed to convert the program into binary language and feed it into the memory. This job of converting the program line by line into binary language was proving to be a tedious and time consuming work.

This is when the compiler was invented. The first compiler was named A-0 by its inventor, Mr. Grace Hopper in the year 1951 A.D. A compiler is a program which automatically converts the human language into the machine understandable language that is the binary language. The invention of the compiler made programming simple and very efficient. Now a lot of time was saved as the machine could itself translate human language into the machine readable language and the programmer was saved from the tedious job of interpreting.

In the year 1957 A.D. the first major programming language which appeared due to the inventions and work of earlier scientists was FORTRAN-FORmula TRANslating. This programming language was invented by International Business Machines (IBM). They invented FORTRAN for computing science related queries. The language was a breakthrough in programming. It was a big step towards the start of making high end languages. Today FORTRAN is nothing compared to modern languages because it contained limited commands such as DO, GOTO and IF statements, but these commands were innovative in those days.

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John Von Neumann’s Two Programming Models

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Jan 132008
 

In 1945 a revolutionizing concept was invented which would change the way programming was performed. A scientist named John Von Neumann working at the prestigious Institute for Advanced studies in Princeton, New Jersey created two programming models. John named the models as “Shared Program Technique” and “Conditional Control Transfers”.

John was very concerned about the fact that the ENIAC was a success even though it used a lot of technology that was similar to the previous technologies. The ENIAC was a computer that had a complicated structure and was of undefined physical dimensions. Sometimes the computers were so large that they would occupy an entire floor. John suggested that a computer should have a simple structure and its size should be smaller than usual.

This is what John has tried explaining in the “Shared Program Technique” model. He created awareness among people that a computer need not be as large as they used to be at that time. He also told them that a computer can be a lot faster if they are programmed in a complicated structure instead of the simple mechanism that was used to design them those days. These ideas gave way to the high speed computers of today’s generation.

The main idea behind this kind of programming was to keep the computer busy all the time. As the computers of those days used to perform a single operation at a time and then used to enter wait state till the next instruction is received. So with the help of “Shared Program Technique” subroutines were created which helped in programming the computer so that it will be in busy state most of the time for the optimum utilization of the processor.

In the second model viz, “Conditional Control Transfer”, John informs us that instead of performing the program in a specific sequence i.e. line after line, there should be use of jump statement. He also suggests the use of conditional programming which is popularly known by IF-ELSE loop in today’s world. With the help of these two models the computers became much more efficient and

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The First Programming Language

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Jan 092008
 

The first ever machine which calculated the difference between numbers was developed by Charles Babbage. This machine evolved with time and is called a computer nowadays. The machine which Charles Babbage invented used to perform only one operation i.e. calculating difference between numbers. This instruction which tells the machine that it has to calculate difference between two numbers is called programming.

Earlier programming languages were a lot different than today’s. In those days the programming languages were to be embedded line by line into the processor and then execute. They were able to execute only one program at a time as the memory available was minimal. Programming languages of the previous five decades have arrived in two phases; namely primary major language and secondary major language. The latter one is what we use nowadays.

The machine that was developed by Charles Babbage used gears for executing the calculation i.e. Charles’ difference engine was only useful if the gears were changed physically. The computers of yesteryears used physical motion for the execution of programs. This method changed in 1942 with the invention of ENIAC. ENIAC was developed by the US government who were successful in replacing the physical motion by electrical signals. In the new machine’s working many of the principles were same as Babbage’s. The only way the mechanism could be programmed was by resetting the controls and rewiring the complete structure, which was very tedious.

In 1945, the Institute of Advanced Study developed two significant models in the field which straightforwardly changed the way coding languages worked in those days. The project was headed by John Von Neumann who was working at the institute. The first model was named “The Shared Program Technique” by the Institute. John named the second model as “Conditional Control Transfers”. These two models were about to change the entire system of programming in those days and give way to new age programming concepts.



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The Basic: C Programming will always be popular

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Jan 082008
 

C is a general purpose computer coding language which works closely with hardware. C was invented by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson with the help of their team mates at AT&T Bell Lab’s USA in the year 1969 but major development was made in the language in the year 1973 when it was actually published under the title “The C Programming Language”, the same year.

One would wonder why Dennis and Ken named the language as C. The reason is that in the process of developing the language they had taken a lot of features from the existing language which was called B. So the language which they created was an advanced version of the B language, which is why they named their language C, funnily.

C is a basic language which is the building block of mostly all the languages present today. The language is platform independent. That means C does not need any specific platform for running. It can work on any operating system. There are many compilers which run C. As the language works close to the hardware it uses minimal space. Also the language is easy to understand as it has a user friendly language.

If one wants to become a programmer, this is the first language he should learn. Also nowadays in academics, this language is made compulsory in computer studies. All the new languages like Java, Microsoft .Net and many other languages have used C language as their building mechanism. All these languages are easy to learn if one has knowledge of the C language.

The boundary of C language is vast. It s not limited to just programming of applications. In fact it is also used in graphical applications. There are many games which uses high end graphics built using the language. The C language is so old compared to modern languages but despite that it still it stands apart from all these powerful languages.



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The end of DMR coming soon?

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Jan 042008
 

One of the major labels in the music industry (Sony BMG) has decided to remove the DRM protection on their MP3s.
Sony BMG is the last of the major record labels to cave in to the removal of DRM.

It is predicted that this will put a strain on Apple’s position in the music industry as we all know that iTunes relies heavily on the DRM protection it uses on every song downloaded.

Amazon is now likely to take some of Apple’s market as they’re in the process of releasing DRM-Free music, something that is much more appealing to any music lover.

Apple of course, has the iPod to fall back on. With the iPod being the most popular MP3 player at the moment which is tied to iTunes, maybe they will keep a firm grasp on the music industry after all….

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